The problem with difficult childhoods in troubled families (pick your conflicts or addictions or stressors or health concerns – or a combination of several) is that children with difficult childhoods have had to dress for self-protection, and, as a lifestyle, have often had to prepare themselves for enduring domestic tensions or wars and regarded it as normal. This is how everyone lives isn’t it?
Once the child becomes an adult its difficult to shed engrained protection measures and essentials and throw off a guarded and conflictual lifestyle even if it’s no longer needed.
Carefree happy children may become carefree happy adults but it’s unlikely a stressed and anxious child will enter realms of stressfree bliss and trusting vulnerability on coming of age.
Adult survivors of difficult childhoods hear things like, “You’re so difficult to get to know,” and “You’re so difficult to get close to,” and “Why does everything have to be a fight?” and proceed with the hard work of adult life that mirrors the hard work of childhood wondering what on earth people are talking about.
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Unrelated to column: got some new art in our home today: Cameroon artist Patrick Yogo Oumar (see Instagram if interested).
An exercise for couples and friends…… choose your paragraphs wisely:
Look me in the eye and……
To look into the eyes of another may reveal a primal urge to dominate and, in some cultures, it may be a no-no pivoting on age and status, but for me, it’s a desire for deep connection, validation, underscoring that we are, at least for this time, fully present for each other.
When I look you in the eyes I see the beauty of your soul. Your strength, fueled and tended by a thousand faced challenges, radiates power and beauty from you in equal measure. Looking into your eyes gives me courage for my own life.
Look me in the eyes and know I’m embracing everything about you and hope you will return the embrace and accept (almost) everything about me. Nothing I see within you will cause me to retract from you or reject you and if I do appear to shudder it’s in sheer trepidation that comes with authentic committed human connection.
Look me in the eyes and tell me you love me, or loved me once and no longer do, but indifference, avoiding me, and ignoring that I exist, treating me as if I’m invisible, is very hard for me to deal with.
If you must say something make it loving and beautiful and accurate, unless you’re making up a story for a child then make it wild, wonderful and full of mystery, myth and energy.
If you say something try to be affirming with the knowledge that everything you say exposes your inner-world given that we love, see and speak to a world not as it is, but as we are.
If you say something try to avoid “you need,” and “you must,” and “you ought” when addressing adults as if you’re more qualified at life and living than they are. Yes, of course it’s ok to recommend things but you know full well when suggestions dress up as manipulations, as coercion, as willing another, arm-wrestling another, into a preferred shape or form.
If you say something, before it leaves your mouth check if it’s good seed and may grow or stone and may wound on reaching your intended audience. While you’re at it, run it through your grandmother’s filter who probably told you you never need to swear or blaspheme.
If you must say something, consider briefly if what you want to say may require an apology in the near or distant future.
I thought I knew what love looked like and then I saw a man’s daughters come home and, with their mother, nurse him back to health after COVID, commuting between their own families and their dad, helping him every step of the way.
I thought I knew what love looked like and then I met a woman whose husband had, knowing he would precede his wife in death, prepared their home, doing all sorts of repairs and updates, so the house would be perfect for her for many years after his death.
I thought I knew what community support looked like and understood it a little better when I found out that an entire town lined the streets to welcome a child back home after heart surgery.
I thought I knew what love looked like and then I met a man who spent up to 12 hours a day nursing and feeding and caring for his wife who hadn’t recognized him for years.
I thought I knew what love looked like and then I met siblings, one who needed a kidney and one who willingly gave so the other might live.
What acts of great love have you seen? I’d love to know.
Combat the often-impulsive urge to impress, save the day, be the hero. Of course there is nothing amiss with living an impressive, heroic life. It’s good to deploy your skills which may result in your “saving the day” for someone. I hope you do. We are all called to do the right, next good favor. We are called to look out for each other. May we all be alert to others and as a result find ourselves in occasional heroic circumstances as a result of going about the business of daily life.
The urge I am encouraging to defeat is the urge to be the good, nice person who wants to save others, to be the hero, in order to be noticed. Fight the driving force or insatiable urge to be the ever-present hero.
If you are going to be a noble it will be an outcrop of your natural and daily living. You will not have to go out seeking it.
Find that urge, go there, and quell it rather than be in constant search for the opportunity to don your cape.
Good, strong, authentic people don’t have to put on their capes or prove anything about their strength.
Cut and paste for your Valentine card or romantic conversation. Please tweak to make it more romantic.
Ten ways to love you. I will:
Not cut you off from your family or friends.
Take care of myself so I am in good shape to love both of us.
Do nothing that can be considered controlling because I know love and control cannot coexist within the same relationship.
Seek acts of intimacy that we both desire and enjoy.
Encourage you to pursue your interests, hobbies, and passions.
Do all I can to listen and hear you and I know the difference between the two.
Fight off any twinges of jealousy I may feel and I will not blame you for any of my feelings – they are mine. I own them.
Support you to get further education.
Not allow forgiven material to resurface between us.
Regularly, for extended periods, several hours at a time, turn off my phone so we can really be together.
I shall be speaking at a Breakfast for Women, 9 am to 10:30 am, on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at the Butcher Boys Restaurant, Hillcrest. Book now at hello@caitlyndebeer.com. R120, continental breakfast. The venue changed in order to increase capacity. I am humbled that the extra space is selling fast.
• You can “know” some people for years and never have a sense you have really met. They are guarded. There seems to be no gateway, no pass code, to get beyond common pleasantries.
• You can “know” some people for hours and have a sense you have known them forever. They appear open, transparent; common pleasantries are merely a welcome mat to intimate conversations.
• You meet some people and you have the impression that if you give an inch they will take a mile. There appears to be such a hunger for acceptance, for connection, that the slightest indications of welcome will lead to more than you want to handle.
• You meet some people and they have a well-developed shtick, a practiced, often aged routine that everybody gets when they meet someone for the first time. You get the sense that you are just another audience and it’s “here we go again.”
I’d suggest that in the absence of other symptoms you have met “normal.” You have met a cross section of people who can teach you to love and to accept and to understand yourself in new ways.
Listen, learn, take charge of yourself, choose to disclose, choose to remain silent.
You are always in charge of you, no matter how others relate to you.
This is part of what it means to have secure and healthy boundaries.
Greet all people with a smile, even if you’re faking it. It’s not insincerity. It’s being polite. It’s refusing to infect others with your inner discontent. Get rid of your discontent in private, when you’re alone.
Be as clear as possible with plans and expectations so possible hurdles and misunderstandings are minimized. Most people like straightforwardness and honesty more than they like complex surprises that could have easily been avoided. Clarity now usually means fewer confusions later. Try it.
Talk less. Listen more. Ask questions that assist others to talk more. Promote other people’s dreams and desires. Move away from shifting every conversation to focus on you and your interests. Other people are very interesting, perhaps even more interesting than you may be.
Do simple things to lessen the load of others. Open doors, stand back, pick up after yourself, and say “please” and “thank you” a lot. Assume a servant attitude no matter how important you or others may think you are.
Work at being the most generous, forgiving, and kind person you’ve ever encountered and you’ll be amazed at how many generous, forgiving, and kind people you will repeatedly encounter.
When asked to officiate a marriage I ask couples to assess their shared experience and to use these points for discussion:
You find it easy, or it seems natural, to include many of your long-lasting friendships in your shared activities and find no feelings of control, jealously, or possessiveness within you.
You are each more yourself than ever; there are no eggshells to tiptoe around, no topics to avoid, no lies to continually conceal, no facades to perpetuate.
You maintain a distinct life of your own while simultaneously becoming closer to each other.
You enjoy working through issues that arise, even if the journey is painful, because the process brings you closer to each other and you have the sense of accomplishing something that is important for the future.
You enjoy sharing hard earned resources with each other without the thought that you are giving up something or wasting anything.
You have talks about faith, finances, career options, and have discussed the hurdles and complexities that accompany such matters.
You have fun together and are not preoccupied with the state of your relationship.
You speak highly and respectfully about each other always and to all – no exceptions; and you readily affirm each other both privately and in public.
You have met each other’s immediate and extended family and are both doing what.you can to embrace and understand how they view life and live life.
You’re getting used to each other and life feels better as you think about a future together.
You can hardly wait for each new day so that you may embrace the possibilities each new day offers.
You are committed to seeking each other’s highest good, no matter what.
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