I was at home spending another day with my 2 year old. In the terrible two phase, he is getting into everything, moving things, making messes, breaking things, and losing things.
I have a safe where I keep valuables and cash locked up. I noticed that the key knob was taken off for the 2nd time no where to be found. My emotions weren’t good. I will say it though to illustrate an important point.
I had a lot of anger inside, where I wanted to take it out on my son. If I wasn’t muslim or didn’t have control over my emotions, I might have ended up hurting him, probably like a lot of other people with emotional issues would. But thank God I have control over myself and my emotions.
The question is why do I feel enraged with so much anger and upsetness to this little action? I mean he’s an innocent 2 year old boy, and it’s known that that’s what they do. It’s their nature.
Yes, shaitan does influence us into making us more angry, but for those with self esteem issues, the emotions can be extremely vicious and extremely severe.
So why then was I so upset? It has to do with my past. it has to do with an area of my self esteem that was being treaded on by my son’s action. By him taking and losing the keyknob, it is screwing up my organization system. It is screwing up my sense of organizing. And to my surprise, I then realized that being organzied is something that gives me self esteem and self worth. This became apparent through the severe negativity and anger that resulted in what my son did.
Underneath that anger is a lot of depth. Underneath it is severe sadness, and despair, it is a heart that has been forced to resort to finding value in something insignificant as being organized. It goes back to my relationship with my mom.
Mommy dearest. She was a hyper neat nick. She always kept the house spick and span. Most of her efforts would be keeping the house clean. She finds value and worth in being able to clean.
She is the one that caused me to conclude that “if I am organized, I will be good.”
Does it make sense that such a little action such as small child taking a knob off a safe would cause and stir up such animosity? I argue, yes. My evidence? From experience, and from Revelation:
???? ???????? ????????? ????????? ??????? ??????? ???????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ????? ???????? ????? ????????? ???????? (?) ?????????? ??????? ???? ?????????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????????? ???????????? ???? ????????? ???????? ??????????? (?)
When they said, “That Yusuf and his brother are more beloved to our father than us, and we are a group of tough guys. For sure, our father is clearly mistaken. Kill Yusuf, or expel him to some land, so the attention of your father will be free. And then, after that, you will be good.
The source of their self worth was their father. The object of their self worth was the fact that they were a posse, a group of tough young guys. That’s where they found their value. And that’s what they believed would make their father see them as something special.
When the attention of their father was focused on Yusuf, and he had more love for him, it was a major blow to their self worth. Because it was taken from their father. And there was something that was getting in the way of affirming their self worth from their father; their brother Yusuf. And the emotional reaction to their self worth being jeopardized is extreme anger. They want to kill him. They want him gone. They don’t want to see his face around them. He is the cause of themselves being invalidated and under appreciated. It hurts them. Big time. That hurt translates to more severe emotions, like violence or an urge to hurt and harm.
Notice how after getting rid of Yusuf, they say to themselves, that they will be “good afterwards.” Note that they would be only good and acceptable after doing it. Because only after getting rid of Yusuf would there be an opportunity for their self esteem to be affirmed by their father and attention on them. That’s the whole essence of lacking self esteem. It is a never ending quest to be good and acceptable. But the irony is, you never do achieve that feeling of truly being acceptable when seeking the self worth from people or objects.
Again, this is the exact emotional state that happened to me with my son today.
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