GEMEINSCHAFTSGEFUHL - GESUNDHEIT! Adler had found his empirical and clearly definable solution in gemeinschaftsgefuhl - people drove towards healthy social interaction. He defined gemeinschaftsgefuhl in german alone - so English translations are difficult. However, we can recognize this concept as: a profound caring about others
a positive feeling towards others
the desire to improve the world
healthy social interaction

http://www.candleinthedark.com/adler.html 

“The minute particulars” have always been, and always will be my children.  I hadn’t planned on my assignment to be spent with one of them, especially since my son lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and my daughter is in St. Paul, Minnesota.  However, my daughter called this evening asking for help with a friend of hers and wondering what she could do for her?  Her friend, female, was thought to be a “Polyanna” like my daughter, Naomi.  Naomi is an optimist for the most part and I have taught her to ‘buck up’ and face challenges head on and not let them get her down, to not stay down if she happens to find herself in the dirt.

She lived with a roommate down in Louisiana for 7 months, a tiny FEMA trailer to be exact, helping with the rebuilding work.  Naomi and her friend did everything together and became the best of friends.  When this friend asked her to move to Minnesota to spend more time together, Naomi thought it was a fun idea.  She went to Minnesota, found a nice place to live, a good job, came home, got her stuff and left me waving in the driveway. 

It turns out now, that her friend is NOT the Pollyanna that she appeared to be in Louisiana.  She is quite the opposite.  She is closer to a “chicken little”.  Naomi’s story reminded me of the Stanford Prison Experiment with ‘John Wayne’.  ‘John’ was the very nicest of young men away from the ‘prison’.  But once he put on the uniform and sunglasses that were required for the prison experiment, he became ‘John Wayne’, the meanest guard of the entire staff.  Naomi’s friend is in a totally different environment now.  She became what she needed to become in Louisiana.  But now, on her home turf, she will return to who she really is.  She’s not mean of course, just not happy, helpful, and having a great time.  She’s ‘home’.

I spent two hours listening to Naomi and helping her to understand what I have learned in psychology, and my new study of positive psychology.  Naomi found it all clearly entertaining, informative, and challenging.  She wants her good friend to be a Pollyanna.  Naomi shared all her other concerns with me too and it felt good just to hear her and listen and try and help her.  She has just finished growing into her brain (age 26) and hasn’t had this many questions for me since she was five years old.

The pleasure I had just listening to her problems, to hear her reasoning, and helping to explain if her findings were correct or not, gave me deep satisfaction.  She needed someone to listen to her and she chose her mum.  That is a feeling of warmth that I have not felt so serenely before.  I forgot to eat dinner.  I felt no thirst, no need to move, no need to end this internal pleasure that I was experiencing.  It was not until we were done chatting and I had hung up the phone that I realized my back was screaming from the odd way I was sitting, my left shoulder has a horrible cramp in it from holding the phone, and my neck has a very painful kink in it!  Why didn’t I feel this before?  Was it ‘flow’?

Helping someone, listening to their concerns, allowing my self to be leaned upon for strength is greater than any sensory perception that I could enjoy.  This inner warmth stays with me for days longer than the taste of chocolate does.  This experience with my daughter will last for years until my memory fades.  What physical, pleasurable experience could ever surpass this feeling of making cognitive and emotional contact with my only daughter?  There is no match.