April 17, 2017
by Rod Smith
Talk about what you would like to do more as a family and what would we prefer to do less as a family. The list may include monumental challenges that take years to address. The list may include things that can be changed in an instant.
Talk about what you would each like to do more, and less, as individuals in the family. As above, some may be really easy and some may take seemingly forever.
Plan something meaningful and unusual (“off the charts”) that the family agrees to work toward. This may be a trip, a building project, or entering as a family into a race.
Discuss (according to age, ability, and appropriateness) topics that are usually taboo like death, sex, finances, and family secrets. Discuss why they are taboo in the first place. When and why and how did the secret become a secret. Who decides what is and what is not a secret?
Consult a professional who is able to construct a Genogram with your family. Request that it span three generations. This will (potentially) alert family members to troublesome trends and urges that pre-exist within the family system and therefore (potentially) equip members to face them if and when they emerge again. Nothing in families is new!
Posted in Addictions, Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Leadership, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Re-marriage, Responsive people, Space |
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April 13, 2017
by Rod Smith
Unhindered attention: you have my ears, my eyes, my brain and my heart for this time, this hour, this meal, or this weekend.
Unilateral forgiveness: you have a fresh, completely new start with me even though we have a rich history. This means that, as much as it is possible, at least from my side, our pasts will not disrupt the present or impede the future.
Absolute freedom: you have God-given freedom that mine to honor, and so I will allow nothing in my behavior or attitudes to get in the way of your full enjoyment of the freedom that is divinely yours.
Room to discover: limited only by how much courage you have within you, you have the freedom to explore your talents, develop your skills, and pursue your dreams, and I will applaud you as you do so at every turn.
A safe zone: you may rest with me, be off duty with me, decompress with me. You may succeed. You may fail. You may talk about your worries or be as carefree as you need. I want to be a safe person for you and to learn how to be when I am not.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Responsive people |
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April 12, 2017
by Rod Smith
There is a woman I know who dates very widely. She seems to be in constant search of a man. Her online searches are almost always successful and result in a relationship that involves moving homes, changing her daughter’s school, and sometimes changing cities.
Three times, at least, I have heard “this is the one” and she has been fully invested in the new relationship. Her zeal is faultless. Her research is extensive. She is very aware of the impact that her relationships have on her young child and waits months before introducing a new man into her life.
The child is happy; she loves his mother. She is a trooper when it comes to moving and re-settling.
Four to five months into the relationship the woman’s control mechanisms kick in. She begins faultfinding and she begins to want to re-arrange the man into someone he is not. As each of the men has stood up to her, she reads resistance as rejection – and from there things plummet.
She knows she visits her unresolved family issues on the men who are close to her.
She is aware that in every case the men were honorable.
The outward search continues when solutions are only to be found is within.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Listening, Love |
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April 10, 2017
by Rod Smith
Finding the delicate balance between knowing, being aware, and invading or conquering.
My teenage sons deserve private lives that are quite separate from me. Yet, they need me to be knowledgeable about their difficulties, their confusions, and some of their discomforts. I’ve noticed that when I am comfortable with my own life, my relationships, with setting and achieving my goals, I am quite relaxed about theirs. When I am discontent with my own life I tend to want to meddle with, or invade, or fix their lives.
Finding the balance between serving my sons and letting them do necessary tasks without my help.
I usually do the laundry – but both boys are fully capable of doing their own. When I do it for them I am happily serving them and they are grateful and we are all happy with what is mostly an unspoken arrangement. When my sons are annoyed or picky about the way I do the laundry (and this is quite rare) then they have lost their grateful edge and have moved into entitlement and expectations. At this point my help is not very helpful.
May our struggles in our home, as different as they may be from yours, inspire and encourage you.
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, Grace |
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April 9, 2017
by Rod Smith
- Embrace people who believe in you. Seek out the men and women who are in your unofficial support group and spend your effort in their direction. It is necessary and acceptable that you define your boundaries with men and women who pull you down and who try to minimize or ridicule your contribution to your family, your work-place, or your broader community. Be cordial, be kind, to such people but limit the power you give to people who denigrate you.
- Embrace people who have a vision for their own lives. The more you can rub shoulders with people who are “going places” and are invested in building their futures, the greater the likelihood that you will get caught up in similar healthy habits. Drainers and downers and doubters are easy to spot but often harder to avoid. Disillusioned people love a target and are especially attracted to bringing happy and motivated people into their fold.
- Invest or reinvest in a cause bigger and more meaningful than simply enhancing your family and yourself. There is so much need and suffering everywhere and you are fully capable of reducing some of both for people in your immediate environment.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Love, Recovery, Responsive people, Space, Triangles, Voice, Womanhood |
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April 6, 2017
by Rod Smith
- Do I know what I am doing as I protest and do I know why I am doing it?
- Will I be a conduit of peace, kindness, honesty, humility, mercy, and justice?
- Will I be demanding a level of justice that is incongruent with the measure I use with those who in my own immediate family and with my neighbors?
- Am I aware that rallying for justice, if I myself, treat others with unfairness and disrespect, makes a mockery of my efforts and my efforts will be wasted?
- Am I being authentic, knowing that I am not protesting to maintain ill-gained wealth or ill-gained privilege but rather seeking justice and peace for all, despite our many differences?
- Am I willing to stay at home rather than take to the streets if I am angry, bitter, or wanting to settle a score or seek revenge?
- Am I will be stay at home and avoid protesting if I want to join a protest to trivialize the efforts of others.
- Am I willing to stay home if I seek to divide rather than to unite?
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Grace, Leadership, Listening |
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April 6, 2017
by Rod Smith
It is helpful to think of every other driver as drunk, unpredictable, and crazy. This approach kept my father accident-free for more than 50 years (although it is unsure how many he caused). This attitude will keep you alert and will go a long way to securing your safety and the safety of others.
Never ride in a car with anyone who is under the influence of alcohol or any legal or illegal substance or substances even if this person is not the operator – and I don’t care if it is your favorite aunt. While I am on that subject, it’s not your job to transport drunk or drugged people.
Don’t drive any vehicle, not even a golf cart or ride a skateboard or bounce on a pogo stick, for goodness sake, if you have consumed anything that distorts, or potentially distorts, your judgment. If you have been drinking or even if you feel you have been out too late, call me, use a taxi or Uber.
I will NEVER refuse your call for help.
Don’t compromise your safety – even if it a very short ride in a very safe car in a very safe suburb. Cars are dangerous missile in the hands of sane, experienced drivers, and the danger quotient radically spikes in the shaky hands of anyone under the influence of anything – even anger.
Treat cars and the privilege of driving (it’s not a right) with great respect. If, from the minute you may legally drive and for at least the first five years, you never enter a car without humbly bowing for three to five minutes at the hood (bonnet), and then for three to five minutes at the trunk (boot) in quiet, humble reverence, with your hands folded in a typical stance of a person at prayer, you might develop the necessary awe cars and driving deserve.
Cars are like pulpits. They should be entered into in a spirit of humility and avoided by the proud, the angry, and blowhards. Driving is for getting from A to B. That is it. It’s not for the music, or texting, or eating, or watching movies. The journey is not the party Don’t make car ride into a party – there’s no quicker access to an ambulance.
Posted in Addictions, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Education, Leadership, Reactivity, Triggers, Victims, Violence |
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April 2, 2017
by Rod Smith
Mondays – celebrating the first workday of the week:
I love Mondays although I have not always done so. I especially enjoy the first Monday of the month.
Mondays are a reset button. They are an opportunity to set new goals and to reset goals that have lapsed. They are a new beginning, a fresh start and an internal blank slate, a new baseline. Whatever metaphor you employ, I’d suggest we reject the term “blue-Monday” from here on out and switch it for “Magnificent Monday.”
Mondays are an opportunity to love life and to love the lives of those around you and I don’t only mean family and loved ones. Mondays are an opportunity to see the miracle within all people and to affirm human resilience.
Mondays are an opportunity to affirm the spiritual nature of all things, from the most mundane, like getting up and getting ready for the commute to work to the most glorious, like the opportunity to pay debts, thank coworkers, and be part of a vibrant, even conflicted community.
Mondays are a wonderful opportunity to be generous, to be forgiving, and to encourage. They are an opportunity to set the stage for the change you’d like to see in your own life and to measure and assess progress 50-plus times a year.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Responsive people, Trust, Voice |
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March 29, 2017
by Rod Smith
- Lower functioning people require more and more control.
- Higher functioning people want greater levels of freedom for all.
- Lower functioning people place obstacles (hurdles, doubts, misgivings) in the way of those who are higher functioning often without even knowing it.
- Higher functioning people know that self-definition and acts of strong leadership will face resistance in the form of doubts and misgivings from those who are less inclined to grow.
- High functioning people want mercy and justice and equity for all even if it means great personal cost.
- Lower functioning people operate out of a desire for revenge or to “teach them a lesson.”
- High functioning people do not regard themselves as victims while lower functioning people arrange their lives and often their livelihood around victimhood.
- The person who wants a relationship the most (any relationship) shifts the balance of power into the hands of he or she who wants it least.
- Every time a person wants to do something great or adventurous or thrilling someone will try to put a stop to it.
- Grace and forgiveness and generosity are among the most powerful forces of change in any family or community and the one who embraces them immediately increases his or her level of functioning.
Posted in Addictions, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, High maintenance relationships |
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March 15, 2017
by Rod Smith
- The children are seldom the issue – it’s earning a living, running a household, and keeping it all going that is the constant challenge. When the children are very young it’s quite acceptable to let the household chores remain undone if the trade off is time to be with the children.
- Trying to be both dad and mom is a fruitless and impossible pursuit – many a successful person has emerged from a solo parent family and trying to do the impossible will ensure failure. This said, there’s a mother and a father in us all and children get what they need despite our failings.
- Getting beyond the “guilt” or the remorse attached to children who have one parent is best done as early as possible. It’s amazing just how resilient children are and how, what others consider unusual, is absolutely normal for my sons.
- Staying out of the middle of as much as possible has been a real boon – letting my children deal with their teachers, their conflicts, without my interference has compelled them to advocate for themselves and to see just how capable and powerful they (and all people) really are.
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Family |
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