A new day. A new opportunity to create, communicate, be empowered and to empower others. “There’s no knowing,” said some wise person, “what greatness you may achieve if you have no interest in who gets the credit.”
January 4, 2011
My wife does our son’s homework……
“My wife does our son’s homework. Our son (14) gives her his few ideas and she takes them and puts them into complete answers. Since everything is typed I don’t think the schoolteachers are aware. Our daughters also did this until they themselves saw that it was not helpful and weaned their mother off their homework. Our son is less motivated and is unlikely to follow his older siblings. He chastises his mother if he doesn’t get a perfect score. If I try to intervene I am told I do not understand. She says she is ‘modeling’ something and that he is learning by watching her. I say she is enabling his laziness. Please help.”
They will ultimately untangle
January 3, 2011
Listen up, Helping Professionals!
I try to remind myself of these things everyday
1. Manage you own anxiety only and resist attempts to manage the anxiety of all in your sphere of influence. This is the consummate triangle and it will suck you in and drain you of all creative energy.
2. Increase your capacity to embrace the pain of those in your sphere of influence. Your ability to “allow” it to play its course, rather than succumb to the pressure to alleviate it in any manner, will facilitate growth in all parties. Some pain is very helpful. Can you tell the difference between helpful and unhelpful pain? There are no easy formulas.
3. Keep in mind that those who seek your guidance (counsel, assistance) cannot out-grow you while they stay within your assistance and influence. Herein lies the reason it is paramount for you to consciously seek opportunities to fully develop your personal life.
4. You cannot save the world – and while you think you can or should, and while you behave as if it is your responsibility, you will place your family and your health at great risk.
January 2, 2011
At the outset of a New Year let’s recognize the impossible…
There are some things a person simply cannot do for or to another person, no matter how much commitment there is, how noble are the goals, how much effort or determination is involved, or how significant the need.
This is especially true when people are in love, a condition where people are most inclined to believe in their power to change another person.
It is impossible to make another person:
1. Be happy or fulfilled, angry, change, succeed or fail.
2. Become healthier. (This does not mean that two people cannot work toward their individual health together. It means that one person cannot make another person grow in any manner.)
3. Love you, want you, need you, miss you, or trust you.
4. Love, want, need, miss or be glad to see someone else.
5. See, feel or think in a certain manner for an enduring period.
6. See the light, or get some sense into their lives.
7. Lose or gain weight, save money, want or not want sex.
8. Use or stop using drugs, alcohol and cigarettes or bad language.
January 2, 2011
2010 in review – From WordPress, not from Rod
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health. The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 190,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 8 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 243 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1167 posts. There were 110 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 40mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
The busiest day ever (all years) was July 17, 2008 with 1732 views. The most popular post that day was Best things you can do if your husband says he doesn’t love you…. a woman (Ann) writes…!.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were networkedblogs.com, difficultrelationships.com, facebook.com, google.com, and en.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for difficult relationships, manipulation in relationships, rodney smith , what to do when your husband doesn’t love you anymore, and when your husband doesn’t love you.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1
Best things you can do if your husband says he doesn’t love you…. a woman (Ann) writes…! January 2008
92 comments
2
When your husband says he doesn’t love you anymore or want to be married anymore…… November 2006
341 comments
3
My husband told me last night that he did not love me anymore… May 2007
80 comments
4
My wife and best friend had an affair….. November 2007
18 comments
5
Three poisons for love: Manipulation, Intimidation, and Domination March 2006
37 comments
January 1, 2011
He was once a toddler…..
I watch my two-year-old son bending at the hip, one foot raised and turning until he falls gloriously to the floor in convulsive laughter. A momentary pain lights somewhere so deep inside me I can hardly tell in which of my internal galaxies it sits. It is swift and pointed, like the touch of a darting and determined fly set loose in my emotional innards.
Then the pain is forgotten, swamped in the exceeding happiness of watching him attack life’s toddler challenges. He’s hungrily learning a language now, having conquered walking and running, and expressing his brand new heart sweetly in partial, ill-formed words and sentences which tumble, jumbled and joyed up all over the house.
Sometimes he runs, singing at the top of his voice like an emergency vehicle out of control. With siren blaring, he sprawls across the floor and careens into a heap of toddler chaos. Recovering, he mounts the coffee table against my flagging will and “hee haas” astride his horse, a precocious knowing smile flashing from his distant meadow.
In all of this activity and fun he eases his way further into my being, a steel pylon thrust securely into waiting, willing ground.
Rod’s road-post from DROID.
December 30, 2010
Final column for 2010 – Thanks, thanks very much…..
Thanks, thank you very much
Highlights for the year I think have been the “Write Something Beautiful” and the “Give Something Away Every Day” challenges. Reader response to both was nothing short of phenomenal – and in the case of the latter, men and women gave handsomely of their wealth and possessions and participated in encouraging a spirit of goodwill in contexts where it is often least expected.
I’ll close this final column of 2010 not only with wishing you a very happy New Year but also with reminding us all of what have become persistent themes: show up for yourself (it is wise, not selfish); speak up for yourself (this is helpful, not selfish); show up for the underdog; resist all controlling behaviors (manipulation, intimidation, domination); define yourself while resisting the natural urge to define others; and, finally, remember that anxiety is more contagious even than the common cold.
December 29, 2010
She makes my heart sing – but she’s not my wife….
“I am married to this wonderful wife for three years we have a daughter. Two months ago I met a beautiful woman and it took a week for us to establish a relationship. The problem is I have fallen in love with her. My wife found out about this. I can’t get her out of my mind. She is what I need. We were recently hi-jacked together and shot with bullets by thugs and we survived together. She makes me happy. My heart skips when I think about her. My wife has been a friend for more than ten years. I respect her but my new love makes my heart sing. I am afraid of the shame of divorcing. I don’t want my children raised by a stepfather. My wife is 7 months pregnant this makes it worse. It’s my happiness or my family’s happiness.” (Edited)
This is dangerous - don't do it!
December 28, 2010
Keeping women “down” must be consistently challenged….
Fully live (women, too!)
Keeping women “down” must be consistently challenged. Thus my suggestion the woman in yesterday’s column (12-28-2010) define herself to her husband. Of course it flies in the face of many cultures – but if she is to give of her best to herself, her husband, to anyone, speaking up to all in her context is the place to start.
What can be so threatening for some men that some are terrified if women (whom they love) makes their full contribution?
Yes. It will more than ruffle the marriage. Rather a ruffled marriage than a life-time of control, submission, manipulation, leading to intimidation, then domination – not that all men in said cultures are this way at all.
If he really “treats her like a queen” he will also grow. If not, he will reject her; even leave her. At least she’d have expressed herself as a woman and be able to achieve, albeit at great cost, her selfhood as a woman and will have discovered she requires permission from no one to BE.
PS: I have delivered lectures in several Asian countries where it seems women are strongly discouraged from expressing their voices. While trying to be as culturally sensitive as possible, I did not water down my message at all and called on all men and all women to encourage all men and all women to find, express, and use their voices. While I have had some strong kick-backs (some rejection and exclusion) I have always been invited back. I’ve even asked leaders and organizers the reasons I am invited back despite my contrary message. I am told, “Yes. Your message is dangerous for us but we still need to hear it.”
December 28, 2010
Sometimes my boys are like the Church
My boys, now 12 and 8, seem to tangle with each other about everything – non-stop. It’s over who sits where in the car, and who gets the remote while watching a movie and much else. The tension, the competitive spirit sometimes sours our potentially exciting times together.
On a hike through a forest I have known them fight over a single stick. On a mile-long and deserted beach I have seen them fight over wanting to dig precisely the same hole. While riding bicycles in a very large, vacant parking lot they have repeatedly crashed into each other.
You have guessed it! Of course – and this has not happened in the recent past – they both need the same toilet at precisely the same time when, for hours before, there was no mention of any need for either to use a toilet!
So, sometimes out of sheer exhaustion, I announce the boys need some “alone time” or some “space.” I suggest each goes to his room for an hour or two. It is then that I am met with looks of complete disbelief and pleas to reverse my declaration! Why? What have we done? We’re having so much fun.
Apart from the part about fun, my boys behavior frequently mirror what I’ve seen in the Body of Christ: those are OUR people, that’s MY ministry, WE started that, what are YOU doing here. Warring ministries seldom involve too much fun – at least my kids still get a kick out of each other.
difficultrelationships.com 