The First Task of Life? Survival and Our Quest to Be Loved

The First Task of Life? Survival and Our Quest to Be Loved.  This article ties in with another one I have published today by Patricia Reed, titled: Why We Are Miserable When We Don’t Get What We Want.  Crying seems to be the definitive approach to getting attention.  Read more from  Dr. Athena Staik on the First Task of Life? below.


"No wonder we cry at birth! From the get go, it seems, Mother Nature gives us a series of challenging tasks to overcome, and doesn’t just wait to do so in later periods of our lives.  It starts from the very first breath.  And, each task seems customized to teach us how magnificently we are endowed, equipped with everything we need to reach our developmental milestones, for example. We also appear to have inborn miracle-making resources, such as for imagination and possibility thinking, that seemingly invite us to transcend the physical limits of our nature.

Born with a burning curiosity, not unlike scientists, we yearn to know everything there is to know about ourselves and our world. That is one of our key attributes as human beings, by the way. A healthy brain is most always in “learning mode” and only in “protective mode” in situations that pose real threats or danger.

How could we have known then, however, what we hopefully learn later in life, that: the purpose of certain life tasks, as painful as they may be, is to grow, strengthen and enrich us to live and love authentically with our whole heart?"


http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2011/07/the-first-task-of-life-survival-and-the-early-childhood-quest-to-be-loved/

"We are wired to struggle, learn, and engage in processes that make us feel vulnerable yet expand our reach, as the work of researcher Brene Brown reveals. In any case, it is safe to say, we have abilities far greater than we think or could have imagined as children."

The First Task of Life?

"As infants and small children, our first task is to win our parents’ love. Babies do not survive without love. Food, shelter, sustenance do not suffice.

As studies of attachment show, small children actively seek a love bonding with their caregivers. To live, newborns must form some type of bond, whether secure or not, with their mother or a “mothering” person, at least one."

"Love, and not survival, is the most compelling force for our species.

There is perhaps nothing more frightening to us as children than the possibility that we would not be loved or accepted by key persons in our lives. We have inborn yearnings for belonging and acceptance, for example, and these can activate associated core fears, such as rejection or abandonment.

Since our bodies come pre-wired with knowledge of what we need to survive, it’s safe to say that we were born with a felt “knowing” that our physical survival completely depended on these early emotional bonds."

 http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2011/07/the-first-task-of-life-survival-and-the-early-childhood-quest-to-be-loved/

The First Task of Life? Survival and Our Quest to Be Loved invites one to consider behavior, attitudes and one's innermost reactions when love or other desires are frustrated by faulty thinking.