A mental health professional in South Africa requests an “old” column for his marketing kit……. what a joy to share this:

Therapy is most helpful when….

1. It is self-initiated and no one is “sending” you to therapy.
2. You are motivated to see change in your life and understand that it could mean an increase in your discomfort and some disruption to your relationships.
3. You are willing to recognize your sacred cows even if you are initially unwilling to lead them to the slaughterhouse.
4. You read widely about ordinary people who have done extraordinary things with their lives.
5. You are willing to see the fruitlessness of blaming others (parents, boss, your ex, the economy, and politicians) for what you are facing.
6. You are willing to shift your focus off the behavior of others and be fully responsible for your own behavior.
7. You are willing to understand that others can only entangle (trap, manipulate, bother) you to the degree you allow.
8. You understand your therapist is a person just like you – but for his or her training. Elevating your therapist will prove to be unhelpful to you and it will obstruct the very process you wish to assist you.
9. You understand that all desired and healthy growth requires some loss, pain, and grief.
10. Your goal is to grow up and to fully live your own life – no matter what your age.

“My son is 37. He is not in a life threatening surgery and yet when I got the text this morning that he was in the operating room I wanted to cry.  I didn’t. But for some reason I wanted to.”

Your note illustrates that the umbilical cord is infinitely elastic! He is your son. You have been with him from “the beginning.” You have seen him through every phase of his life. You are going to “feel it” whenever he faces trials and difficulties. 

While you need no permission I’d suggest you go ahead and cry all you want and all you need. 

While I do not know this to be true  – how could I? – I will suggest your emotions and wanting to express them is only partially due to the immediate surgery that he is undergoing. The immediate surgery triggers your memory to hundreds of other times over the years of things you have faced together as he was going through every phase of his life thus far. 

Our challenge as parents of adult sons and daughters is to function as highly and healthily as possible given that our role and work as parents is complete, despite the emotional responses we will have when our “children”  – they are no longer children but fellow adults –  are challenged.

The benefits of knowing and defining what you want — desire, aspire to, what you’re “cut out” for — and setting yourself in the direction of achieving it: 

— You’ll be focused on your strengths and your future and not on your weaknesses and your past failures. 

— You’ll be single-minded as you explore and enjoy your strengths and talents and you’ll be a whole lot nicer to be around than you are likely to be if you’re scrambling around trying to settle your confused and uncertain soul. 

— You’ll get more and more comfortable with the idea that who and what you are will undergo shifts and changes in expression but the core of who you are and what you want will be as set as your finger prints. 

— You will see and understand over time that no one gets everything he or she wants in exactly the way it’s wanted. Life is too kind to give anyone an enduring rose garden. 

— You’ll identify what you don’t want and therefore resist seduction down wasteful and often very expensive rabbit holes. You’ll learn the skill and reap the benefits of being able to say a credible “yes” and “no” and be respected for both. 

— You’ll discover others are less inclined to mess with you as they dectect you’re on a purposeful mission.

******

My sons and me some years back!

It may be the person who….

Initiates meetings and facilitates conversations where there has been an ongoing conflict or a falling out. He or she is the peacemaker (one who understands some conflict may be necessary for long-term healing) and not the peacemaker (one who avoids conflict at all costs). . 

Empowers family members to take a hard and loving stand against cruel or harsh treatment at the hands of another member of the family or even someone outside of it.

Goes first. The one who is first in the family to travel or to go to university or to branch off into an area of interest or study that no one in the family has done before.

Goes back and visits childhood places and engages long-lost relatives and to hear the family stories that may have never been heard.

Demonstrates grace, generosity, and forgiveness in a family that may have traded in selfishness, resentment, and judgment for many years.

Speaks well and kindly of family members who for whatever reasons have been rejected by some members of the same family. It is the person who is willing to reach out to the marginalized in order to draw them back into the fold.

I am I

You and You

We are We

Let Us not ConFuse 

The Three 

*****

If I lose Me loving You

 And You lose You loving Me

Before too long,

You, Me, and We,

Will no longer Be

Rod Smith 4/13/2023

If you are living with children and living and living with an addiction (here’s an inconclusive but  quick way to tell: you have lost a job, an important relationship, or status in a community, because of it – if one of the three is true you are most likely an addict) please get the treatment you need for the disease. Your addiction not only impacts and impairs you and your behaviors but it will do its damage also on your children, no matter how skilled you may think you are at hiding your disease or habit from them.

Your children are “soaking up” the atmosphere in your home. The tensions and the anxieties that come to the family with your addiction, your disease, but it is provoking severe dis-ease (lack of ease) for your children. A sad part of this ramification – and there are many – is that to the children living and growing in this environment, it is their normal. One day they are highly likely to repeat the addictive cycle with their own families. 

Help is near and available to all who seek it. Being clean, finding sobriety, kicking the habit, always involves a series of tough and painful choices but the results can be transforming to say the least, for you and for all who love you, especially your children.

“Are you what you wanted to be when you grew up?” one of my sons asked me once. 

I recall playfully telling him the question was both kind and cruel. 

The question offered me time to reflect with deep gratitude for an incredible life of amazing contrasts and joys and explorations.

And, jaw-dropping regret. 

The truth is I am nothing of what I wanted to be or planned to be as a child, yet I am also far, far more than I had the capacity to imagine. My response was tough to try and explain but I think my son understood since I have repeatedly told both boys that life is simultaneously beautiful and brutal,  

You may have gathered I think a lot and write much about contrasts and paradoxes and I see them everyday. 

Perhaps you feel something rather similar or perhaps life has been a bed of roses for you – but I doubt it. 

Who plans to be divorced? Alone? In debt? Ill?

Adults often ask children what they want to be when they grow up and perhaps we should suggest our children respond with, “I’ll tell you if you tell me if your childhood ambitions have come to fruition.”