The Basic Instinct

I looked at my niece this morning & remembered how she would let her grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, & yaya carry her or feed her but not other members of the family who she rarely sees.  There must be something that makes a baby discern when to calm down or when to cry when carried by someone.  I think this is Trust.  And because it is something akin to a basic instinct pre-loaded in us from the minute we are born, it is something that once broken is very hard to get back.

So maybe that is why for any relationship to work, trust should be present.  Trust makes kisses sweet.  And it's trust that makes your niece cling hard to you when she's hurt, scared, or just sleepy.

Psych 209

So ok. It's been 5 years since i studied anything psychology-related but every once in a while i come across psych words that excite me. One of my favorite concepts is "cognitive dissonance". It's a fancy term for something really simple and what many of us do in our lifetime. Simply put, it is when what you do is different from what you are thinking (or something like that). Well yesterday, I learned another concept which is "reversal of self-denial". I'm not sure if there really is a study about it but according to my source, it can be explained this way: "Self-denial is not doing something that you really want to. Reversal of self-denial occurs when a very strong force pushes you to do that thing which you have been denying yourself and you end up doing it." Whether the concept has or has no research to back it up, I think it happens to a lot of us. Some may call it weakness, lack of self-control, or whatever term there is to describe it but it happens even to the best of us...fortunately or unfortunately. I can attest to that and Iam sure you can too. Sometimes, it feels like you've been keeping your emotions in-check to make others happy but when you reach the boiling point, you can't help but let it all out. And sometimes you just want to be happy and to heck with the consequences. Good for you if you don't end up regretting what you did because it marked the start of your happiness. Unfortunately, not all of us has that privilege. And so we live with self-denial and keep hoping that maybe someday we can finally do the reverse.