1. Remind yourself daily that there are no “self-made” men or women and liberally thank all who have helped you achieve success.
2. Brush or clean your own shoes – always.
3. Pay people more than they expect.
4. Don’t put anyone on “hold” when you have initiated the phone call or take a call when you are talking face-to-face with anyone.
5. Tip liberally irrespective of the quality of service.
6. Take a hungry stranger, preferably a street person, to lunch several times a year.
7. Send your mother flowers – often.
8. Take your father to breakfast – often.
9. Turn your cell phone off while you are with your family.
10. Renew your wedding vows.
11. Write a letter your offspring will read fifty years from now.
12. Readily forgive those who have hurt you.
13. Be very generous and give away a large sum of money to the charity of your choice, your church, temple or synagogue.
Thirteen challenges for those who think themselves successful…
“Staying the night at 15” column generates lots of response…
Yesterday’s column generated much response. One response (edited for space) appears below. To respond to points of contention: the husband’s role ought not be “less” because he has been inconsistent. His role is not “earned.” He is dad. Suggesting he has less of a “voice” is a cop out for a girl making adult choices. Contrary to what most teens perhaps believe, a teenager’s relationship with his/her parents is more important than any romantic relationship.
“If I were the girl even being as mature as I was at 15, I must say that I would not ‘opt for what my parents preferred’ if they had allowed me to act a certain way for an extended period of time and then tried to implement a new rules. While it’s true that although the dad should still have some authority, it would be stronger if he were consistent with his daughter. Were I his daughter, I would be less willing to listen to him. Although 15 is a young to be sexually active, it’s not abnormally young and it sounds like her choice of partner is not a bad one. It would be a good idea for her parents to discuss positive sexual relationships and birth control — so she should at least be educated in the subject.”
Husband and wife disagree over daughter’s (15) relationship…..
My husband and I have an awful wedge between us over our daughter (15). She has been involved in a relationship with a young man (17) for 18 months. My husband has never truly been in favor of the relationship but because of his inconsistent involvement with our daughter’s upbringing he sometimes accepts it. I am more accepting. We disagree about her staying at his home, which has been happening on a regular basis for 10 months. I have no problem but my husband is totally against it. I know, and like, the boy and his extended family. They have high standards. Both young people have assured me that they are not sexually active. My daughter pleads with me to trust her. (Letter edited)
Response: Your daughter is too young for such an intense relationship but it is unlikely, after permitting it for 10 months, you will be able to stop it. I think, and I am often wrong, it somewhat naive to think there is no sexual activity between these children.
Agree on what both parents would prefer. Inform her. If she is worth trusting, and is sufficiently mature for such an intense relationship, she will opt for what her parents prefer.
Your husband’s inconsistency does not disqualify him from having authority.
Son will have nothing to do with his family in the name of his church
Our loving son (23) got married two years ago and invited only my husband and me from his family. This was very hurtful. He has refused contact with his family whom he believes don’t understand his Christian faith. They live with his in-laws and his wife’s stepfather is the pastor. My husband has just recently undergone serious surgery. Our daughters went to visit him to tell them about his father’s illness. They stayed in the car outside their home to give him the message. Email contact is curt and brief. I emailed my son begging him for support as I miss him so much. The response was that the support I must get is from God. For a year we have respected his wishes but hope he will soon share his life with his family at this is difficult time. (Letter edited)
While your son is an adult and free to disconnect from his family, the disconnection is unlikely to serve him enduringly well. He is demonstrating cult-like behavior, whether he belongs to one or not. Except in rare circumstances, where a member of a family has been a victim of violence or sexually aberrant behavior, there are no helpful reasons to sever family ties. Your son is unlikely to find lasting emotional peace while being cutoff from his family.
Should I ask my aging father to tell me he loves me?
My father is getting older. He has never told me he loves me. Do you think I should ask him to say it once before he dies? I feel child-like asking the question because I am an adult with my own children. I have no problem telling my children I love them – both because I do love them, and because I want my children to hear it from me, their mother.
Rod’s Reply: Yes. Tell him that hearing him use the words “I love you” directed at you would mean a lot. Being an adult, you are fully aware that asking your father to say he loves you does not mean he will. I think it is a risk worth taking. Asking him could prove good for you both.
Sadly, some sons and daughters will never hear loving words from a parent, and, but for the most toxic of families, it is something it seems we desire from a parent, no matter how young or old we may be.
Expressions like, “I love you”, “I am proud of you”, “you please me”, “being your parent has enriched my life”, and, “I brag about you whenever I have the opportunity,” are sentiments that can enrich anyone’s life, even if you have to point-blank ask for them to be said.
What power do you have over people close to you?
Please write, I'm reading...
It is impossible to make another person:
1. Be happy. Be fulfilled. Become angry. Change. Succeed. Fail.
2. Love, want, need, or miss you. Be glad to see you. Love, want, need, miss, or be glad to see someone else.
3. Trust you.
4. See, feel or think in a certain manner for an enduring period. Most people are willing to “sell out” their minds, ideas and dreams for the sake of romance, but this (“selling out” your mind) does not usually last for very long.
5. See the light, or get some sense into their heads.
6. Lose or gain weight, save or spend money, want or not want sex.
7. Use, or stop using drugs, alcohol and cigarettes or bad language.
As far as other people’s relationships are concerned, it’s impossible to keep people apart who want to be together, and keep together, those who want to be apart. Embracing such goals is likely to have the opposite effect. People feel closer when their relationships are threatened and tend to resist relationships when coerced by others.
Living with an Open Hand – love, challenge, and freedom
Open your hand using all your strength. Stretch your fingers. Allow the lines on your palm to feel as though they might tear apart. Study the contours, colors, ridges and valleys, joints, dents and spaces. Push, pull, and rub. Move your fingers through their paces: together, apart, back, forward, curved, strained and relaxed, cooperative yet unique. Feel the texture and every curve. Touch the crevices. Spread your hand further, turn it at the wrist, examine and compare patterns from every angle. Here are pieces of yourself you might never have studied.
Your hands are your constant companions. They have met the needs of others, pioneered romantic moments and worn rings of commitment. They are the way your heart leaves fingerprints, the eyes at the end of your arms. Hands reflect a person’s being and are the front line agents of your life. If eyes are said to be the windows of a soul, hands express the soul.
Hold other people with your hand thoroughly open. Allow them to know the warmth and welcome of your hand, investigate its curves and benefit from its scars. Invite others to follow the lines into the fabric of your life and see the risks you have taken and the adventures that are yours. Allow them to wrestle and rest, search, see and speak. Let them stay; let them go, but let them find your hand always open.
The Open Hand of friendship, at its widest span, is most rewarding, most challenging and most painful for it enduringly acknowledges the freedom of other people while choosing not to close upon, turn on, coerce or manipulate others. In such friendships, expectations and disappointments become minimal and the reward is freedom. As others determine a unique pace within your open hand, they will see freedom and possibly embrace their own with excitement and pleasure.
Openhanded people do not attempt to “fix” others, change or control them even for their own “good.” Rather each person is given freedom to learn about life in his own way. Openhanded people, instead, express kindly and truthfully what they think and feel, when asked, knowing even in the asking, others might not be interested or willing to learn from their mistakes, successes or life stories.
The Open Hand is not naive. It is willing to trust, while understanding and accepting that no person is all good or all bad, and that all behavior has meaning. The Open Hand is convinced it cannot change others; it cannot see or think or feel or believe or love or see for others, but trusts people to know what is good themselves. It will not strong-arm, pursue or even attempt to convince another because it has little investment in being right, winning or competing. Here is offered a core-freedom of the deepest and most profound nature: allowing others to live without guilt, shame and expectation.
Further, the Open Hand offers oneself freedom that extends to one’s memories, ambitions, failures and successes. This allows for growth of enduring intimacy, greater personal responsibility, authentic autonomy and the possibility of meaningful relationships with others.
In the discovery of a closed hand, even at the end of your own arm, do not try to pry it open. Be gentle. Allow it to test the risky waters of freedom. As it is accustomed to being closed and fist-like, it will not be easily or forcefully opened. So let the closed-handed do their own releasing and trusting, little by little, and in their own time and manner. When openhanded people meet, lives connect in trust, freedom and communion. Community is set in motion. Creativity is encouraged. Mutual support is freely given. Risks are shared. Lives are wrapped in the safety of shared adventure and individual endeavor all at the same time.
© Copyright 1998, Rod. E. Smith, MSMFT
Communication – is frequently over-emphasized as the solution…. but here is what good communication looks like…
There is no such thing as “no communication” – it is always happening. Even those who never speak to each other are communicating. Not speaking to each other says a lot!
Here are some signs of helpful (”good”) communication:
1. The presence of conflict is not considered negative.
2. Conflict is regarded as inevitable when sound-minded people share life.
3. Conflicts get resolved (sometimes) or a “solution” is approximated.
4. People can love and enjoy each other and disagree at the same time.
5. Everyone’s ideas are important and considered.
6. Hurt and fear and loneliness can be talked about without recrimination.
7. Being together is mostly enjoyable. When it is not, the family can talk about why it is not.
8. There are no subjects regarded as off limits but not everything has to be talked about immediately.
9. Winning, losing are not nearly as important as honoring, loving and respecting people.
10. Tension felt by anyone can be addressed when it is appropriate.
11. People do not corner each other in order to feel loved.
12. People affirm each other because they see the other person as worthy of affirmation, and not because they desire a particular result or effect.
13. People who love each other expand each other’s options rather than limit each other’s options.
14. Encouragement happens more than correction; correction is appreciated and considered.
15. Differences are encouraged rather than ignored or downplayed.
Differentiation of Self
The Adult Task
Interested readers would do well to read Murray Bowen, Rabbi Ed Friedman and David Schnarch on this topic. The phrase was coined by Murray Bowen. Google their names and their works will be referenced. David Schnarch’s book called PASSIONATE MARRIAGE is perhaps the finest book on relationships available and should have a place on every thinking person’s bookshelf. Be aware that it is very explicit but never pornographic. Occasionally readers have asked if I promote David’s book because I “get a cut.” While I have met Dr. Schnarch, I do not “get” anything from him for promoting his book. I doubt he has any idea at all that I have written about his book several times in my newspaper columns. His book is a best-seller without my help and it is so simply because it is VERY good. Wouldn’t it be fun if he left a comment on this blog sometime!?
Please print the following out and spread it all around….
Print this out, spread it around...
Being an authentic adult is hard work and a never completed task. The pathway is paved with difficulty and challenge.
To become an adult, every person faces the task of the Differentiation of Self. It is to be noted that this is a life-long task which begins in the womb, where we were all, at one point, an undifferentiated embryonic mass! We have been moving (given we are healthy and seeking growth) toward states of greater differentiation ever since. This is an uncompleted, yet continuing and challenging, task for us all. It is very important to note that Differentiation is NOT primarily about BEHAVIOR. It is about an internal process of growing up, taking responsibility for ones life, of taking on the task of fully becoming.
Not to differentiate is to fuse (the failure to become a separate person) with others and to place responsibility on others (or on situations, predicaments, and hurdles) for the way in which our lives develop. To differentiate is to provide a platform for maximum growth and personal development for everyone in your circle of influence.
Differentiation is described in many ways in the following points:
1. Growing in the ability to see where and how I fit into my family, the position I hold and the power that is and is not given to that position.
2. Growing in the ability to be fully responsible for my own life while being committed to growing closer to those I love.
3. Intentionally developing, at the same time, autonomy and intimacy. In developing autonomy I set myself towards achieving my dreams and ambitions. In developing intimacy, I allow those close to me to see and know me as I really am.
4. Being willing to say clearly who I am and who I want to be while others are trying to tell me who I am and who I should be.
5. Staying in touch with others while, and even though, there is tension and/or disagreement.
6. Being able to declare clearly what I need and requesting help from others without imposing my needs upon them.
7. Being able to understand what needs I can and cannot meet in my own life and in the lives of others.
8. Understanding that I am called to be distinct (separate) from others, without being distant from others.
9. Understanding that I am responsible to others but not responsible for others .
10. Growing in the ability to live from the sane, thinking and creative person I am, who can perceive possibilities and chase dreams and ambitions without hurting people in the process.
11. Growing in the ability to detect where controlling emotions and highly reactive behavior have directed my life, then, opting for better and more purposeful growth born of creative thinking.
12. Deciding never to use another person for my own ends and to be honest with myself about this when I see myself falling into such patterns.
13. Seeing my life as a whole, a complete unit, and not as compartmentalized, unrelated segments.
14. Making no heroes, taking no victims. (Fused persons require heroes which can just as quickly, in their eyes, become villains.)
15. Giving up the search for the arrival of a Knight in Shining Armour who will save me from the beautiful struggles and possibilities presented in everyday living.
16. Paying the price for building and living withing community.
17. Moving beyond “instant” to process when it comes to love, miracles, the future, healing and all the important and beautiful things in life.
18. Enjoying the water (rather than praying for it to be wine), learning to swim (rather than trying to walk on water).
Differentiated People
1. Achieve their goals and keep strong relationships.
2. Know when “I” is “I” and “we” is “we” and the difference between the two.
3. Live in their own “space” and “skin” without invading the “space” and “skin” of others.
4. Maintain individuality and embrace others at the same time.
5. Avoid siding with people even if it appears helpful.
6. Resist telling others what they need, think, feel or should do.
7. Say “I” rather than “you” or “we.”
8. Appreciate differences in people, seeing no person as “all good” or “all bad.”
9. Recognize emotional bullying (all kinds of bullying) and refuse to participate in it.
10. Refuse to be manipulated into rescuing others.
11. Hold onto their positions and beliefs without being rigid or defensive.
12. Be clear-headed under pressure.
13. Cope in difficult situations without falling apart.
14. Know how much they need others and how much others need them.
15. Keep their voice under pressure without confusing thinking and feeling.
16. Be free of spending time or energy winning approval, attacking, blaming or maneuvering in relationships.
17. Resist playing games with people in order to feel loved or powerful.
18. Have learned that the voice of “they” is better ignored if “they” will not identify who “they” are – and – if others who know who “they” are, refuse to give “them” a name. (In other words ignore the THEY if THEY won’t, or cannot, say who THEY are).
Differentiation Is not easy
Thinking that ordering ginger ale because everyone else is ordering orange juice, or, going left because everyone is going right, in the name of self-differentiation is to misunderstand and trivialize the concept. Differentiation is much more difficult than going against the grain. Any rebel can do that and rebellion usually requires quite little when it comes to wisdom. Differentiation can, and will often look like total conformity.
Differentiation is not first, about behavior; it is an emotional process, involving an inward transformation that can indeed become new ways of behaving. It is a realization of one’s uniqueness and the seeing one’s role, goals, and calling with an “internal” eye. The inward process proceeds to find outward expression in every aspect of our life and relationships. It is not a set of rules about how to behave a little (or a lot) differently from others.
Differentiation is not:
1. Trying to be different, unusual or controversial for the sake of impact alone.
2. About making a statement, resisting authority, defying or disrespecting cultural norms, challenging the values of others. The process of differentiation might include an appearance of all the above but it is more than “the road less traveled” or some statement of independence, defiance or difference.
3. A completed task but an ongoing internal condition that monitors oneself in relationship with all others.
4. “Lone Ranger” behavior, but self-awareness and self-assuredness that might appear “lone-ranger-ish” to others.
Love is Listening
Love cannot be pretended. Nor can the art and skill of listening. Feeling loved is feeling heard. To listen is to profoundly love. If I say I love you then I am saying I am willing to hear you. I am willing to hear even the things I would rather you would not say. If I am truly loved I will be able to say, appropriately, the things that you would rather not hear.
Anyone willing can be a better listener, and therefore, a better lover.
When someone you love wants to talk, if you have no intention of listening, rather say so as kindly as possible. This, in itself, is an act of love. You will have overcome a hurdle of good listening: honesty. There will be times when you will not be available. In the same way, you too will not expect that others will always be available to hear you.
Listening, like love, has no tricks. It is genuine interest, expressed. It is entering the world of another, modifying nothing. It’s embracing the experience of another simply because of their intrinsic value apart from anything they might (or might not) be able to do for us.
When you listen, the angle at which you sit does not matter very much. If you are not listening, the other person will know. The depth of your stare into another’s eyes or the sincerity of your facial expression will not do it. People thousands of miles apart, connected by telephone or by mail can really hear each other. Others, seated on the same sofa, who are staring into each other’s eyes, can miss everything the other is trying to say.
Listen to your life. What is it saying? The words you use and the things you do, tell about the spiritual condition of your life, reflecting your heart. If you want to know about someone’s spirituality, listen to what the person says and the things he or she finds amusing. All behavior has meaning: the flat spin you are in and the endless hours you might spend at work, keeping you from family, mean something.
Listen to your life’s rhythms. Notice that some days you feel very healthy and things seem in balance: you can be sincerely nice to people. Other days are different! Listening to your life will alert you to when extra care in dealing with others would be helpful. If you cannot hear yourself you can hear no one.
When you feel intense emotions, listen intensely. Feelings are messages about the state of your life. They often bring helpful warnings. Try to understand what your emotions are communicating. A person can only deal with feelings when they are felt. Trying to deal with feelings when they are not felt is like trying to learn to ride a bicycle by looking at one. When you have understood your feelings, express them appropriately to someone you love. This is an act of love.
The effective listener listens to family members. If a person cannot listen to their partner, it is unlikely they will hear their children, or anyone else for that matter. Try to listen without waiting to speak. Leave your agenda for this time. Give your attention as a gift. Try not to argue, persuade or interrupt. If possible, listen by looking into eyes. Listen to body language. Take the focus off yourself. Is there anything a loved one is trying to say that you are not hearing? If what you are hearing is not pleasing to you, remind yourself that this is not your opportunity to speak. It is not your world being presented.
Listening does not mean that you have to be silent but anything you do say is an effort to clarify meaning. What you do say is not an attempt to steer the speaker in a certain direction or to have the speaker tell you what you want to hear. Listening is not interpreting what you hear but hearing what you hear. The goal of listening is to hear, not redirect, not elicit agreement, not moralize, and not teach. It has no other motive except to better understand the world and the experience of another.
Rod Smith, Copyright, 1998
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