Thursday, May 5, 2011

Kissing a Prince: Perspective

A picture is worth a thousand words!

I absolutely loved this picture and video of the first "official" kiss when I saw them because there is so much going on all in one moment.

Here are a few things that I think I see:

1.) A DREAM COMING TRUE: A "commoner" Princess kissing the Prince that chose HER in front of billions of girls who are dying to be in her shoes (or hating her for it).

2.) HOW PRACTICE MADE PERFECT: There were articles written about how the prince and princess had to practice and practice to get the perfect camera angles for THE kiss that would be seen around the world.

3.) PERSPECTIVES: How two little girls can witness the exact same event, but potentially because of age and attention span, they have a completely different perspective...joy vs. annoyance.

4.) ANXIETY: you have one attempt to be perfect...with millions of people screaming at the prince to kiss his bride in front of Buckingham palace, and every camera capturing their every move, there was no room for error in this moment.

Much of counseling has to do with perspectives, where our focus lies, and how we interpret and apply the truth found in certain events and in the world around us. There are so many factors that play into this interpretation that we have been studying in our counseling classes such as attachment styles, cognitive and physical development, support or lack of support from friends and family, and the strength of our religious faith.

We have been talking in our class about the three aspects of emotional regulation: Cognition, Physiological Response System, Social Context. It would be interesting to know the process of emotional regulation for both the Prince and Princess on their big day, and how it would have differed if it was a private family wedding. The book The Anxiety Cure shares that one thing we need "today more than ever before in history" is rest. In thinking about the new Prince and Princess, and all of their new duties and trips, not to mention trying to work on their new marriage, I also wondered how much rest they have gotten these last few months, and how they plan to get this rest in the future.

This has led me to ask myself how I have done getting rest in my first year of graduate school. I have realized that my perspective of being "so overwhelmed" at work, "so stressed" with school work, and how I view there to be no time to rest, has negatively affected my emotional regulation this year. I need to be more intentional with changing this perspective.

I hope the prince and princess put the same energy into fighting for the perspective that rest is crucial to their marriage and effectiveness, as they did for their first "official" kiss! If so, their chances of living happily ever after will be tremendously enhanced.


1 comment:

  1. Oh Ellen, you and this wedding :) When you showed me this picture I thought the two little girls displayed exactly the evil vs. good cartoons that usually sit on someone's shoulder. I could not help and wonder if the Princess at that moment when I am sure feeling anxious, had to listen to two complete different perspectives from self. In the book Telling Yourself the Truth we are challenged to identify the misbeliefs and replace them with the truth. A perfect picture of this process I think is the cartoon characters that have two different images one evil and the other good on the shoulder and the two little girls in this picture. Did the princess have to encounter feeling or even hearing things such as don't kiss him, you are not worth it, this is too much for you to handle, you are going to trip etc. Maybe she did and she had to choose to close her ears like the little girl and ignore the lies, and choose to believe the truth that she was the princess worthy to marry the prince. As the world wants to believe it, she is the princess that will live happily ever after.

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