It’s enjoying face-to-face conversations, really listening to each other, responding, asking relevant, respectful questions. It’s encouraging people to talk about things they find interesting, important.
It’s sharing, refusing to dominate or set the agenda for every conversation.
Meals with friends, unhurried times, occasions when talk leads to laughter and may also lead to tears simply (and profoundly) because shared history is being re-lived.
Pain – revisited.
It’s simple meals that transform into events because hearts are healed even though a shared meal was the only intention.
It’s welcoming others, people known and unknown. It’s genuine openness, radical hospitality. It’s wild generosity. It’s sincere interest expressed.
It’s the simple things.
And, no cell-phones are required or necessary.
————
Two personal matters:
I will be in KZN from May 5 to May 15, 2024. Best selling author Terry Angelos (WHITE TRASH) and I will host a public seminar. During my visit I will, at your invitation, meet with groups, schools, churches, businesses, and individuals. Please contact Shirley@ShirleyWilliams.co.za to find out more about the Angelos/Smith event or schedule events with me.
This column appeared first in The Mercury on March 20, 2001 and has been published every weekday for 23 years. Thank you for your readership.
What kind of week will you have? What kind of person will you be this week? Ask these questions and most will say they don’t know or reveal a Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) attitude.
It is possible to plan.
Here’s my five-point plan for this week:
I will do something every day that is an act of self-care and self-love. It is impossible to love others without also loving myself.
I will occupy the driver’s seat of my life. Abdication of this adult role to others – except under extreme circumstances – is the definition of selfishness.
Within the framework of my predetermined values and boundaries and my callings, I will be a highly cooperative person, a team-player, an encourager.
I will listen without waiting to speak knowing that every person has a voice worth hearing and something to teach me.
I will commit at least one specific act of unexpected generosity, one that costs me time and/or treasure, each day. This is to train my seeing, thinking and responding to others so that generosity becomes an ingrained way of life for me.
I’d love to see what you are planning for your week. Email me your 5 or 3 or 7 point plan.
[—- To all the powerful and wonderful women in our lives. For me they are: my sister, nieces, my sons’ girlfriends, friends, and colleagues in so many places around the world and the Women who made me a dad —]
Enriched is the woman who does not lose herself in her marriage, to motherhood, to taking care of her family, but is able to develop a strong sense of herself and hold onto herself, even while being a loving wife, mother and friend.
Enriched is the woman who does not tolerate tolerate poor manners — or being taken for granted, being sworn at, being victimized verbally and physically — from anyone: not husband, children, in-laws, siblings, parents, but who appropriately, and sufficiently values herself so that she does not accommodate those who do not treat her very well.
Enriched is the woman who is fully aware that she never has to participate in sexual activity that she herself does not want, who knows that her body is her own and private temple which she shares, even in marriage, only when it is by her own sacred and deliberate and joyful and joyful choice.
Enriched is the woman who lives above manipulation, domination and intimidation, and passive-aggressive behaviors, whose relationships are pure and open, and within which she maintains a strong and valued voice.
Enriched are men who know such women, women who show up, speak up, and, as most women do, make things even more beautiful than they already are, see beauty all around and encourage all whom they know and love.
I have thought a lot about how family members are linked – connected: nourished, or drained? – and checked out exactly how it has been for me in the past 24 hours I have talked to my sister (Cape Town, South Africa), to my brother (Christchurch, New Zealand), to my older son (in New York, USA) and to my younger son who lives with me in Indiana, USA.
When my sons call or text and want to talk or tell me something I experience an immediate and involuntary sense of urgency. Duty or protection mode kicks in. Part of me – a small part – wants to drop everything to hear from them. It is a physiological reaction and I feel it. Almost instantly thinking takes over and delivers context and reason and I relax. “Just checking in, Dad,” from New York, and, “Can you pickup curry for dinner,” called from downstairs nourishes me through the invisible connections my sons and I enjoy.
When my brother and sister phone I am always nourished and encouraged. There is no “alert” within. I like to think it is the same for my siblings when I reach out to them.
I wrote yesterday about how we are connected with people in our immediate, extended, and family of choice. These connections, at best, nourish and inspire us. At worst, they drain us and drive us crazy.
The challenge remains for each of us to take responsibility for how we connect (relate, respond, initiate) in order to have relationships that nourish both others and ourselves.
I referred to “over-connected” people. This is when people are fused, joined at the hip (even though there may be oceans between), where day-to-day operation is so entwined it seems impossible to discern where one person ends and the other begins. Any urge for space will be interpreted as rejection. A kind, gentle, assertion toward appropriate separation will do both parties good. This kind of dependence can be of a financial nature.
“Under-connected” people distance themselves to the point of indifference where neither person is nourished and both can be “starved” through lack of contact. This can be the result of some unresolved matter hidden under some forgotten carpet. A gentle approach and request for appropriate connection may result in rewards for both.
“Cut-offs” (I’ll never talk to that person again) can unsettle both parties, often awarding the “victim” the power over he or she who severed the relationship. Mutual humility may be the only hope.
Your family – blood-, marriage, relatives-by-choice, adoption, and any other means people become family – is vastly more than a list of people on your group-chat or birthdays to try and remember or the ready-made crowd for weddings and funerals.
The hundreds of links (a family of 4 has 16 relationships) in your network – your family – and how you are linked (just right, over-connected, under-connected, loosely-affiliated, cut-off in anger, the “I’ll never talk to him/her-again” kind of connection) is of crucial importance.
How you are connected will either sustain and support and nourish you or drain and exhaust you. And, there is no escaping. Severe disconnections can wield a driving power even in a so-called non-relationship.
We are all “linked” and positioned in a variety of ways within the same extended family and so a family can nourish and support while, at the same time, it can rip to shreds and bleed someone dry.
I’d like to avoid this dramatic contrast but simply look around — listen to people’s family stories — you’ll see it is so.
We are each integral to the health (and un-health) of our family.
We are each a cell-within-the-whole.
The healthier we are, the more “just right” our connections, the more we will be nourishers and be nourished within the unique group of people we each call family.
The healthier I am will lead to a healthier “we” even if it results in hardship* along the way.
* attempts at greater health will be met with resistance from those around, especially those who’ve “benefited” from unhealthy habits and patterns.
There is a difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking.
In a troubled emotional environment peacekeeping saps energy and can be a never-ending task.
Peacemaking lays groundwork for authentic peace to prevail.
Peacekeepers work hard to keep the tensions from rising and work at pretending that nothing is amiss.
Peacekeepers avoid conflict. Their reward is the semblance of tranquility, the demise of integrity and escalation of anxiety.
Peacemakers invite necessary conflict knowing there is no other pathway toward understanding between warring people and groups.
Peacekeepers can endure fake “peace” leading to feelings of being called or anointed while they tiptoe through minefields they pretend don’t exist.
Peacekeepers apparently “enjoy” feelings of martyrdom. How else would they rationalize the accompanying stress of trying to hide or tame the proverbial elephant in the room?
Peacekeepers often see their role as “spiritual” and “humble” because they endure without “saying anything.”
Peacemakers value authentic peace more than its distorted parody. The peace that exists between people who possess the courage to endure conflict, for the sake of lasting peace, is like pure gold when compared with its counterfeit cousin.
Move with courage toward lasting peace.
Assume your legitimate role as a peacemaker rather than avoid conflict in order to keep a semblance of peace that is not worth having.
Focusing on strength and in the hope of wild serendipity, I often encourage my beloved therapy clients (and sometimes family members) to break long-established habits and reach for the unusual, the unpredictable.
“What can you plan to take yourself and your family and friends by pleasant and even shocking surprise?” I may ask.
One client, living in Eastern Europe, took a few weeks to unveil his plan.
He took me by delightful surprise and declared he’d planned a solo train journey.
“Prague to London?” I questioned, thinking this would an adventure.
“Jakarta,” he said, “Prague to Indonesia, it will take a few months in trains and a short ferry ride right at the end.”
I suggested my Australian brother break his own rules, be a little edgy, take us by surprise.
Within 24 hours he announced he’d already fulfilled the challenge.
“What?” I enquired, “what unexpected and wild thing have you done in response to my challenge.
He confided: “I woke early this morning and, and walked to the bakery in UN-IRONED shorts.”
May you and I, somewhere between those extremes, break our established patterns, engage in something edgy, exciting. May our actions refresh us and inspire those around us to find their own version of taking themselves and others by surprise.
Backbone — a metaphor for courage. Your literal backbone keeps you upright. It keeps you standing. Your metaphorical backbone symbolizes your courage. I’ve met many people “slump” through life and stand for very little, people have been successfully filleted by themselves, by life’s trials, or by others. Spineless people are “easy meat” for high-maintenance, low functioning relationships. Access your backbone and shimmy up your spine. Love it. Strengthen it. Enjoy it. Deploy it.
2. Creative Brain
This is the part of your brain where you can think about thinking. It’s where you appreciate art and humor. It’s your realm of infinite possibilities. It’s your spiritual mind. It’s NOT your explosive or “fighting” brain or your “loves-me-loves-me-not” feeling brain.
Access your creative brain. Explore it and explore with it. Try to live with this part of your brain “driving” your behavior.
3. Voice
Your Voice and using your Voice embodies your willingness to speak your unique mind, to say what you see, think, and want, express what you think and want. It’s realizing that silence born of lack of courage or lack of confidence is seldom helpful to anyone. Many people have lost their voices in the name of love, submission, or in keeping peace. Access your Voice, deploy your voice, and persist with expressing the things that are important to you.
1+2+3=YOUR FORMIDABLE TRIANGLE
Once you embrace your Formidable Triangle you will be free to love yourself and others in ways that are healthy for all.
Over time, awareness of the three corners of your formidable triangle, and accessing each when necessary, will become “second nature” to you.
The corners will merge and form a firewall to protect you from draining relationships and exchanges. They will also merge and empower you to be your healthiest self under most circumstances.
To enjoy your Formidable Triangle ALL three corners are required.
Treasure and use your BACKBONE. Access your THINKING. Express yourself — your VOICE — loudly and clearly and you will attract healthy, high functioning adventures and relationships.
Call me whatever you like but placing a cell phone or electronic device in front of your child to keep your child quiet or occupied or “entertained” so you can do whatever you’re doing without interruption is probably going to come back to bite you.
The choice you think you’re making will soon be a demand your child will make.
You’re setting into motion a long term test of wills you are unlikely to win.
Your child’s electronic device — and I confess I don’t know you and so I may be very wrong — is probably far more interesting than you are and the day is already here when you cannot compete.
The reward of the seduction and the power of the small screen in your child’s hands will far outweigh the power of your warmth, your touch, your smile, your welcome.
Your human imprint – I’m sure sociologists have a more impressive term for it — is what your child needs far more than he or she needs to be kept quiet and controllable by a device whose creators have absolutely no warmth or care for your child.
Face-to-face time (even in restaurants) and walking hand in hand are the memories you probably really want for you and your child, none of which is available from an app — not yet, anyway.
difficultrelationships.com 