Try telling someone from my part of the world (Indiana, USA) a bad-weather story.
In seconds you will be interrupted.
No matter how deep the snow, severe the ice storm, or how strong the wind was, your “listener” will trump you.
The “listener” is not listening. He or she is waiting to speak, aching to one-up you, waiting to debate, waiting to win! His bad weather story will dwarf yours, no doubt about it.
It’s not a conversation.
It’s a duel!
I am convinced that in Indiana one cannot have one’s own weather and let it be.
This phenomenon is not restricted to weather-talk or to Indiana. Try telling friends in South Africa about your game reserve experience. In split seconds you will be told a more intense, more dramatic event that occurred in another better, bigger, greater game reserve than the one you enjoyed. Other similar topics: the best curry, the worst flying experience, the worst customer service, lost luggage tales, a recent surgery or illness.
Really listening, being present for each other, takes love and discipline. It takes the ability to hold our tongues if we want to enter the world and the experience of another. The temptation to crowd out that world with our own (bigger, better) material can be very strong.
Being present for each other is a gift.
Hold your tongue, give liberally.
I’m enjoying this memoir very much and commend it to you.
“What parenting advice could you offer my wife and me,” said the delighted dad, “my son is 16 months young.”
Above all, love your wife with joy, freedom and courage. This will reduce and deflect loads of the anxiety that naturally tries to derail all childhoods.
Lavish your baby, then young child, then pre-teen and teenager with affirmation and affection. No matter what you and your wife face, when you come home from work, or he returns after time away, or when he wakes in the morning or in the middle of the night — baby or teenager — be glad to see him, and, say so. Verbally express the joys your son brings you, to each other, and to him.
Teach him to talk Joy.
Regard the ages 5, 8, 12, 14 and 16 as transition ages. At these times discuss with him your parental plans (your mutually agreed upon plans you’ve made as parents) to do less and less for him, while expecting more and more from him. Yes, even at 5 — point out that he can make his own, age-appropriate decisions. Include him in planning and establishing his growing independence. Plan your parenting so that by his eighteenth year your parenting roles are accomplished and he has all it takes to be an interdependent young adult.
Hold in high regard the beautiful idea that you parent (the verb) for his sake and not yours.
Our new painting will go up in my home-office this week….. from Friday this week, both of my adult sons are launched and living independently of me. Oh the joy; oh the niggling pain. #graceupongrace
“Chased,” he said, “I’m being chased, haunted by my past, my past of multiple addictions, — they follow me.”
“Like dogs?” I asked, “I have wild dogs too.”
“No,” he said, “large lions, and a tiger, coming from behind, waiting to pounce, attack. To scorn, belittle me.”
“How do you protect yourself?” I asked.
“I outrun them; get ahead. Do heroic things to prove them wrong. But, they follow, catch up, then I have to do it all again. What about you and the wild dogs?” he asked.
“I tried to ignore them,” I told him, “but they don’t like that. They squeal, bark louder. I tried to get ahead, outrun them as you do with your pursuers, but that’s temporary relief.”
“I know,” he confessed.
“I made a decision that made a big difference,” I said, “when I was at my most desperate when they were chasing me through dark hallways of my mind, barking at my heels, I stopped, slowly turned, faced them. Told them they were right, looked them in the eyes, gave them attention — then, they withdrew, got quiet, behaved as disciplined guide dogs. Now, they do their jobs.”
“Can I train my lion? My tiger?” he asked.
“You’ll never know,” I said, “until you look them in the eyes.”
Deep down where soul, spirit, will, heart, mind, meet, I have a magnificent gift – the instinctual, God-given, desire for INTIMACY.
Togetherness.
It comes wrapped into my humanity. I want to be intimate, to belong, to be part of a family, groups, teams, causes.
I don’t want to be alone.
I want to know others and be known by others. This desire usually whispers, but must sometimes yell, for recognition, especially when my equally powerful instinctual desire for autonomy has enjoyed its pleasures.
I want to be heard and treasured as a companion and friend. I want to be an integral part of the lives of close family and friends.
I want to be fearlessly open with a handful of loving friends and for them to be similarly open with me. If I repeatedly ignore this primal desire, I place my emotional well-being and physical health at risk.
I was not designed to be alone. I am designed for connection with others.
Acknowledging this essential part of who I am, respecting it, enjoying it, enhances my capacity to love myself, love others, and become fully, and more beautifully human.
*to be read in tandem with A is for Autonomy
My 1st born son and I enjoying our beautiful connection which is as meaningful today as it was the day of his birth…. He’s 26 now!
I EMPOWER others and myself when I get out of their way and anticipate that they will speak for themselves. I am empowered when I understand and apply the critical distinction between being responsible TO others but NOT and responsible FOR other adults. I empower others when I allow choices and consequences of choices to run their course. I am empowered when I learn to distinguish between helpful pain, necessary, useful anxiety, what to embrace and what to ignore. I am empowered when I work at healthy, necessary separation, even when in love, and even when having strong soul-ties.
I ENABLE others if I lie to cover, run interference, or protect others, in hopes of keeping people employed, protected, or “close.” I am an enabler if I feel overburdened with mis-placed responsibility or rewarded with mis-placed responsibility for anyone. I am enabling others when I feel like I am living more than ONE life. I am enabling when someone’s choices – both good and bad – feel like my responsibility. I am enabling when I am unable to see myself as a separate being from another, and regard the connection as “oneness” or love, a soul-tie, making the enabling crucial, necessary, and somehow inescapable.
DIFFERENTIATION of Self – a Murray Bowen family systems principle and term – is a life-long internal journey to be my distinct self, while also honoring, enjoying, recognizing the benefits of togetherness with others. It is the challenge every human must face.
If I avoid growth, I will fuse, I will be enmeshed with others, many of whom will appear to welcome the company of equally growth-avoidant people. They may find it very attractive, even “spiritual.” Little will feel as spiritual as a good fuse-buddy.
Enmeshment, or fusion, will make me more likely to place responsibility on others, even blame others, for the way in which my life develops.
Contrarily, to differentiate is to get into the driver’s seat of my life and provide a platform for maximum growth for myself and everyone in my circle of influence.
Differentiation of Self is being aware of not confusing the “I” the “you,” and the “we,” but giving the best of myself AND getting the best for myself from all three. I can be simultaneously intimate and autonomous, I can and will define myself, knowing that if I do not, others will naturally be inclined to fill the vacuum and define who I am for me.
The internal expectations, standards, limitations I set for myself constitute my BOUNDARIES. These are the things I will and won’t do and who I will and will not be.
I will be wisely generous. I will share resources and time with others as wisely as I know how. I will plan my days, pay my debts, and attempt to live a solvent, sober, adventurous life.
I will not steal, cheat, or intentionally hurt others or myself. I will try not to overextend myself or make promises I know I cannot fulfill. There are lines I will cross and lines I won’t cross. I will have my boundaries in place before I need them and respect my boundaries and the boundaries of others. I will try to know where I end and where others begin.
I hope my boundaries will be strong, flexible, and porous, “lines in the sand,” internal partitions which help me to get close to others without invading or overwhelming them, or losing myself.
Boundaries help protect us. They make Integrity possible. I am responsible for my boundaries. I set them, adjust them where necessary, enforce them when they are challenged or crossed. Living my boundaries clears the way for my boundaries to speak for themselves and reduces confusion in relationships.
Within milliseconds the drawbridge – we each have one – may go down with a hearty welcome or remain up and sealed shut.
There may be Immediate comfort or discomfort, or levels of both.
Suspicions may be endorsed or deleted.
Information and misinformation transmission occurs at a speedy rate.
We read and misread and read and misread each other constantly – all within the backdrop of our unique experiences and training, our hurts, pains, goals, and desires – known and unknown.
The accent (if one party is not from “here”) is loaded with meaning. Clothes (anything unusual); laid-back or dominant stance; voice tone, volume, intonations; levels of energy or lack thereof, are cumulatively processed.
Triggers can be triggered. Stereotypes ignited. Warmth flows, or doesn’t.
The wave, the handshake, the hug, smile or frown, degrees of sincerity or insincerity are downloaded by the “who-are-you” antenna and the “can I trust you” antenna issued to all at birth to be processed with the morass of stored history, experience, memories, good and bad.
Every encounter is a miracle.
And, yes, with all that, we — you and I – are called to be neighbors and to love one another.
The Art of Adulthood demands the practiced skill of knowing when to remain silent, when to speak, and to hold onto the tongue when do speak.
Self-monitoring, self-awareness, an appreciation for the impact we each have on ourselves and others – are crucial gateways to adult emotional health.
I have left a gathering knowing I have talked too much, over-shared, made unnecessary comments, even, and this pains me to write, hurt another, someone present or absent.
Have you done this, too?
You got a little thrill the moment the words came out of your mouth, a brief high of apparent inclusion. The tid-bit shared became a window or door or crack to the “inside” of who knows what. But, given time, which could be seconds or hours, there was regret.
You let yourself down.
Said too much, hogged the floor, or bruised another with an unnecessary comment or story. Yet, at the time and in the context it felt real, important, or playful enough to get a giggle.
Then you were hit with a feeling you’d rather not have had.
I know about this. In a desire for some weird or momentary high or sense of importance I added content to a conversation that was unnecessary, even harmful.
Silence would have been wiser.
Live. Learn. Decide.
Apologize if necessary and possible (it is not always possible).
Do better next time.
I am now finally available for Zoom consultations – email me if you are interested.
A poem I rather love —- by Dennis and Matthew Linn — from their book “Healing Life’s Hurts”
The “outside world” can be a dangerous place for children.
Another exceedingly dangerous environment for children can also be their own homes. While medicine cabinets, cleaning materials and unlocked swimming pool gates are a legitimate threat to the child-safety, the unguarded mouth of an angry adult can inflict grievous harm to a child.
A vigilant parent might install childproof locks yet leave a totally exposed web of anger in every room of the house. Unresolved anger in a parent, expressed through unpredictable displays of frustration and annoyance or rage, can quite effectively sabotage a childhood and even pass a baton of anxiety and rage to unborn generations. It is in their own homes that children might be at most in danger. At home they learn about trust, and exercise the most trust. It is at home they will learn, or fail to learn, by watching and experiencing, almost everything they will ever know about love.
It is at home they will make the most mistakes and receive the most affirmation and correction. It is at home that children will learn about fear and hurt and rejection and empathy and love and acceptance.
Children are constantly seeing, feeling, learning, trying, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, watching, waiting and taking it all in.
Monitoring diets is a crucial aspect of childhood health. Another “diet” is the calm, security, predictability and warmth healthy parents can provide.
If you have the opportunity to see “The King of Broken Things” run at it.
difficultrelationships.com 