1. Be aware of the unique, honored position I have in your life, and regard it with the respect it deserves.
2. Hear you, even if you are telling me things I’d rather you not say.
3. Be willing to disagree with you, when, in my estimation, you are wrong, off target, or unfair in your actions or thinking.
4. Forgive you when you hurt me, even though I will sometimes make it very clear to you how the hurt occurred.
5. Expect the very best of you and applaud your use of all of your skills and talents.
6. Tell you the truth as I see it, as kindly, efficiently, and succinctly as possible.
7. Live my life as purposefully as possible in my daily journey toward fulfilling the deepest, most powerful yearnings of my head and heart.
8. Be generous to you (without giving you money) and be kind to you (without trying to solve your problems).
9. Not inflict my anxiety upon you.
10. Stand on my own two feet without pushing you over.
11. Engage you in necessary conflict that I may love you more powerfully.
12. Speak well of you in every circumstance.
Because I am your friend I will…
Here I stand: help for those estranged in a family…
Are you estranged from a family member? Here, modified according to your needs* and circumstances, and expressed in your own words and style, is the gist of offering a “Here I Stand” challenge:
“Here I stand, my son, despite our painful history, desiring to be a loving parent and grandparent to you and to your children. Given the opportunity of inclusion, I will work hard at correcting my past ills. If you choose to see me I will not:
- Speak ill of anyone, not immediate or distant family, not of people from past relationships, or anyone newly incorporated into your life.
- Be shaming, demanding, or accusatory.
- Make unreasonable requests of you, or want anything from you that you are not willing to offer.
- Be impatient with you, but will rather seek to be affirming, kind, and light-hearted. I will regard a relationship with you and your children as a treasured gift.
“My continued desire to be included in your life and family is not an attempt to manipulate you, but rather to minimize future regret. You, an adult, get to choose the level of my involvement with you, and, while I am powerless over your decisions, I hope you will decide in favor of gradual, and then complete, reconciliation with me.”
* This letter is geared for a parent estranged from an adult son and grandchildren
Single-, or solo-parenting will probably improve if…
1. Your courage, determination and your willingness to fully live; your ability and willingness to employ all of your skills and expedite your wildest ambitions – will go a long way toward compensating for the absence of the other parent.
2. Being debilitated by the absence of a partner and living as if a successful life is impossible to lead without a partner will stand to hinder your child and your relationship with your child almost as significantly the absence of the other parent.
3. Having your own life, pursuing interests and dreams that do not involve your child, is good for you and for your child. The laser focus that often comes with solo parenting is hardly helpful to the parent or child.
4. Try to get the focus off your child and how your child is doing in the wake of finding yourself single. Single parents have reared many very successful persons and, believing your child will be successful, despite the absence of the other parent, will set a healthy tone for your family. Besides, as stated by family expert, Rabbi Edwin Friedman, when studied under a microscope even an ant (a small issue) can look like a monster (a significant problem).
Try (also) liking the people you love….
Sometimes liking (enjoying, being pleased to see) someone is even more powerful than loving someone. I’ve met a few men and women who, in trying to sound magnanimous or even holy who have declared: “I really love my son (or my husband, daughter, in-laws, pastor) but I just don’t like him (her, them) right now.”
Great! Thanks. What does one do when one is on the receiving end of such a “compliment”?
If you do not like a particular person whom you also confess to love, I’d suggest you have some homework to complete.
What is it about you that you cannot reconcile these two distinctly different responses (love and dislike) within you, when it comes to the very same person?
Of course, I understand that people whom we love can and will do some detestable things and sometimes must be censured for their objectionable behavior. But is confessed dislike the helpful response?
My challenge is, and I direct it as much to myself as I do to readers: work on yourself to the place where you like and also love the very same people.
Birthday Gift – or – My First Family Intervention (Part 1)
I think I was eleven. I might have been ten. I waited until Dad returned from the bar and until Mom and Dad were finished with the normal routine of shouting about his drinking and were finished with the attacks and counter attacks I had heard re-run for the full span of my life. I was very tired of it. When it was all said and done, all the topics covered, the room was quiet and she went into another room, I edged close to the wall and down the short hall between our bedrooms. I entered sideways to be less noticeable.
It had to be the two of us; I wanted no interference from anyone else in the family. I looked at him face-to-face.
“You’re a coward.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re a coward. I hate you.” The hate part I did not plan and wished I hadn’t said the moment it left my mouth.
I had his attention even though things were not going to plan. He turned red and sad and nervous. There was no backing down:
“If you’re not a coward, prove it by never drinking ever again.”
“I will.”
“Then sign this.”
From the pajama jacket pocket I took the contract:
“I, the undersigned Mr. E.W.G. Smith, will prove to my son, that from tomorrow (the date), onwards and forever, I will never drink again, ever.” Witness One, and Witness Two, and a line for E.W.G. Smith’s signature were at the bottom.
I could see his surprise as he read.
“I’ll sign it if I can have one drink on Christmas days only.”
I took the contract and I added with the way you add things to contracts that he could drink on Christmas days only. Forever.
I gave it back to him. He moved to sit up in his bed. I called for my mother to be the legal witness one and for my brother to be legal witness two, so when he awoke the next day and I showed him the signed contract, he couldn’t say that he did not sign it or that I had made him sign it or that he did not know what he was doing. I knew how contracts worked and for these reasons, I could not be one of the witnesses.
While there were some cynical comments from my witnesses, I was dead serious. He sat up in his bed. He signed it. I was happy about that. We were all happy. I had a good sleep.
He did not come out of his room for many days except to throw up in the toilet.
Mother took meals into him.
I heard her tell him how important this was to me, and that he could not let me down now.
I was sad when I heard him cry, but I knew I had done the right thing despite the pain he felt. He was “dry” (a word which I knew from books I had read) for a long time.
Everything was peaceful until midnight on the night I turned twelve or eleven cause my birthday is on Christmas Eve. He kept the contract perfectly and began with a bottle of brandy held up to his lips at exactly one minute past my birthday.
The next day, which was Christmas Day, he forgot there ever was a contract.
My whole body got very stiff in my back and my throat and my eyes not only until midnight on Christmas Day but for a very long time. I couldn’t wait any longer and in March of the following year, with the contract now perfectly broken, I threw the useless piece of paper away.
My sister never phones my parents…
“My sister is living in England and she hardly ever writes or Emails the family anymore. Is it appropriate that I let her know how much our parents miss her and wish she would write and phone sometimes? We have neighbors with a son living overseas and he phones almost once a week. It makes my parents heart-sore when they hear news of how he phones all the time. I have suggested my parents tell her (because I knew you’d suggest it) but they do not want to bother her. Please help.” (Letter shortened)
I love it when readers anticipate my answers – and readers are often correct! Informing your sister of your parents’ longings is absolutely appropriate (assuming you will be kind, honest and not use guilt to try and motivate your sister) but hearing directly from your parents will be better for all concerned.
While it is understandable that the phone calls your neighbors get from their son would remind your parents of your sister’s lack of contact, it is also true that the family next door have had their unique ways of communicating that were established long before anyone went to live abroad.
Habits of Highly Annoying Adults (with respect, Mr. Covey)
Dedicated to Younger Readers (From my book: A SHORT COURSE IN GOOD MANNERS for Middle School and All other Humans)
I would love to speak at your event…
I will not apologize for adults who treat you with less than good manners, but I will try to articulate a few things that I know annoy younger people about some adults. When dealing with annoying adults, be patient. It might be your opportunity to better equip the adult concerned to understand people who are younger. Keep in mind it is only a matter of time before you will find yourself committing many of the same atrocities toward young people who are, at this point of course, yet to be born.
1. I know you find it annoying when adults try to sound younger than they are. When adults employ your colloquialisms, they are frequently at least a generation or three off, and almost always get the meaning quite wrong. It jars, I know. If you’ve not met it already, you will meet it somewhere in the next handful of years. When I hear it I can hardly disguise my cringe, and so I can only imagine what it does to you. Please, be patient. When I visited Korea this past summer, even my bumbling attempts at “hello” in Korean were appreciated. In fact they were much appreciated. I’d suggest you do the “Korean thing” and accept that at least the adult is trying (no pun intended) to identify with you in some, albeit odd, manner. I’d suggest you mask your amusement and respond with openness and grace. When an adult says, and it is usually quite loudly I’ve noticed, “WAY KHOOL; NO WAY. YES WAY. Oh Grooooovy! Let’s sit around and hang-out and gas, HUH!” in an attempt to “relate” to you, a little bow and a smile from you will go a long way to bridge the gap, which is clearly wider than three or four football fields.
2. I know you find it annoying when adults change their voices – usually into a higher-pitch with an added singsong lilt – in order to talk to you. This is somewhat the equivalent of a waiter asking a sixteen year old if he or she wants a kid’s menu or “carding” your mother or father – although some parents might enjoy being carded. I do not know the reasons some adults do this but I’d suggest you resist all impulses to kick the offender in the shins and then run in the other direction. Talking to you as if you were a newborn puppy is certainly bad manners. Kicking the offender in the shins, while offering you a brief moment of joy, would not solve the problem. A simple, “It is difficult for me to understand you when you sing to me in a baby voice. Will you please assume your normal voice and vocabulary,” will probably assist both parties.
3. I know you find it annoying when adults don’t take your emotional (your feelings) life very seriously. I have heard adults say things like, “She thinks she’s in love at 14!” and similarly insensitive things. While your love at 14 might not be fully developed (as I hope it will be when you are 40) you are apparently feeling feelings that feel like love to you. These feelings are the feelings of love of which you are capable at this time of your life. Yes. I’d suggest that you are as much in love as you might ever be at 14. Enjoy it. It is sad that some adults do not take your love very seriously. My only hope is that you will not close down when it comes to talking about such matters simply because on occasion your feelings were discounted. Again, do the gracious thing. Teach the adults around you about just how authentic your emotional life really is. Be careful. All the adults closest to you will have little doubt about the volatility and the strength of your emotions. It is this very volatility that helps adults feel that all of your feelings cannot possibly always be completely valid or accurate. Learning to govern your behavior and your emotions is both possible and necessary if you are going to be a successful adult. Learn to do both now while you have a lot of “room” to get it right (and wrong).
4. I know you find it annoying when some adults treat you as if you are much younger than you are. Perhaps it is a direct result of wanting to be much younger than they really are. Be patient. Resist the urge to employ your best baby talk or to dribble or urinate on the spot. Being treated like a baby does not mean you get to act like one. A simple, “Please don’t pat my head or squeeze my cheeks or coo at me – I am not a hamster,” will usually do the trick.
5. I know you find it annoying when some adults talk about you as if you are invisible – or at least as if you cannot hear or understand what they are saying about you, and so every private matter of your life is paraded for all the known world to hear while you are standing right in the midst of the discussion feeling as if you are looking in on yourself. The flip side of this is the adult who is suddenly silent when you enter a room and so it is clear you were the topic of conversation or the conversation was about something you are considered too young or too sensitive to understand. Another strand of this virus is the adult who spells words or suddenly switches to Spanish phrases in the belief you will therefore be shielded from whatever it is you are not supposed to hear. Be polite. Little is ever gained by being as poorly mannered in your response to the ignorance of others.
6. I know you find it annoying when some adults turn everything into a race. “Is your grade the highest in the class, the school, the city, the universe?” asks your favorite uncle about your Math score. Before you hit reply he goes on with, “Did you know I have the fastest, and biggest, and most economical car on the block and I was a full partner with my company before your dad graduated from middle school and I own the fastest and most efficient coffee bean grinder in my apartment building which is by the way the largest and tallest one in the largest city in Texas which is by the way the biggest state in the world.” And when you mention that Alaska cut in half is bigger than Texas he tells you not to be a competitive smarty-pants. Be kind to adults who regard life as one big and endless egg-and-spoon race. You might be the first. Enough said.
7. I know you find it annoying when some adults habitually comment on how much you have grown (or changed) since the last time they saw you. First, it is probably true. You are, as you know, growing at a phenomenal rate and while the day to day changes are not quite so noticeable to you, when Aunt Betty drives in annually from Toledo for Thanksgiving, be patient when she sings the same “My how you have grown,” song because you have grown and it gives her a lot of joy to notice and to say she notices. Being patient with an aunt who loves to point out how you have grown or changed – the benefits will be more helpful to you than resisting her joy.
Stay out of control…
“I want to save my marriage. Our situation has risen to a new level with issues of jealously and trust. He takes my car keys, he checks up on me, I no longer have friends around, and am no longer allowed ‘ladies nights.’ My brother is not allowed to visit. My husband doesn’t want children. He picks on me constantly. He complains that I don’t give him enough sex. He checks on my cash slips so I don’t spend too much money. I have the urge to run and run. I was independent and a professional artist but he took it away. I am constantly walking on eggshells not to upset him. He turns things around so I look bad. Please help. (Minimal edits for space)
Dance on the eggshells, invite your brother, and make a spare set of car keys, invite friends to visit, go out as often as you want. Initiate sex only when YOU want sex. Take back your power or this will never be a marriage. Control is never love so stay out of it. Get your life back: you are a wife, not a prisoner. His jealousy is HIS issue. Don’t make it yours. Until you focus on your behavior and not on his, this marriage will not improve.
The power of human love…. is in you…
It is in us to love. It’s human. We have the capacity for it. Even hurt and rejected people can love. Once a person accepts that love has more than romantic connotations, as powerful and valid as these of course are, he or she will be able to see its broader power.
Love is unleashed through simple, but not easy, human acts of seeking the highest good both for oneself and for others. Acts of offering unearned forgiveness, of reaching out to the estranged, of welcoming a stranger, of letting go of all prejudice, of rejecting dishonesty – all begin within the individual human heart.
When a person intentionally facilitates others toward finding and enjoying and exercising the full range of their humanity, he or she will know and see and experience the powerhouse love is.
Even people with reason to reject others, having themselves been rejected or treated inhumanely, have it in them to love, if they dare to muster the courage for it. It comes quite naturally to the courageous person, and when it is unleashed, the purposes and the meaning of life surge into the heart of all who have the courage to hear and respond to its powerful call.
If you want a bound edition of all 400+ columns GO TO: www.ToughPlace.Blogspot.com and follow the directions on the right of the page…….
Women, and jealous men…
Jealousy serves no useful purpose. Jealous men (It’s men in my experience) try and tell me it comes with love. Nonsense.
Ugliness is never a symptom of love.
Placated? Appeased? Entertained? Jealousy won’t dissipate. It will grow. And grow. Become increasingly demanding.
The sympathetic, those allowing jealousy to do its ugly work, will discover the virus to be insatiable. It will only becomes more restrictive and ridiculous.
“I stopped talking to men at work, I stopped dressing in pink, I stopped calling my sister, I stopped smiling – these behaviors of mine made him jealous,” she says, “now he doesn’t want me talking anyone, or wearing clothes he didn’t pick out for me, or talking to anyone in my entire family!”
Rings of pure love, doesn’t it?
It is common for a woman to believe she causes a man’s jealousy.
“I make him jealous,” she says.
“No you do not. You are not that powerful,” I say, “his jealousy predates you, and now you are the unlucky victim of the virus.”
Don’t mess (negotiate) with it. Stand up to it. Or it will get you every time. It will contaminate your every move, your every thought. (This is the nature of a virus.)
Address him with: “This is your issue, not mine. I love my life too much to allow your jealousy to manipulate or dominate me. If you want me, you have to accept that I will not allow your issues to have any power over me. It’s sad enough that your issues control you, I am certainly not going to let them control me. I’m interested to see what YOU will decide to do with YOUR problem.”
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