Like a number of families in the 70’s, my parents divorced and, for the briefest of periods, I experienced dual households until my mothers work for the military took her oversees. Then it was just living in my fathers home with my brother and father.
I learned something then that I’ve only recently started to realize has shaped my parenting and work outside of that and that was, and sometimes still feels like is, work is more important than being with your family.
This understanding was further enforced by the absence of my father (because of his work) while growing up and while it’s clearer to me now that work is merely a part of life and not exactly life itself, this area of loving may be more challenging than some of the other areas in this book, especially if you experienced similar feelings of isolation from your family growing up due to work.
So let’s go slowwwww with this one and start with a simple session of reflection for a few minutes, either written or just thought of, on what the feelings are, not thoughts, that arise when we say the word “work” out loud.
After you’ve done this take note of what the ratio of positive to negative feelings were that you experienced and we’ll revisit this in the next entry.
TimeSpaceOne 