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.
Deep down where soul, spirit, will, heart, mind, join forces within me, I have a magnificent gift.
It is the God-given desire for AUTONOMY.
It comes packaged with my humanity.
Yes. I want to be autonomous, occupy the driver’s seat of my life. I want and need ALONE time; an hour or two here and there, a day or two, even a week or two. I want the freedom to plan, enter my sacred, private space, engage in uninterrupted thinking, do my own seeing, feel my own feelings, forge my own pathways.
This desire habitually whispers, and sometimes unfortunately, it has to yell for recognition. This is especially within my deepest, loving, closest and committed relationships. If I repeatedly ignore this primal beautiful part of me, I place my emotional well-being and physical health at risk. This beautiful gift, inextricably integrated with who I am, will demand attention if repeatedly ignored, denied, or overridden.
Acknowledging, respecting , enjoying, my desire for autonomy, enhances my capacity to love myself, love others, and become, even more beautifully, fully human.
(* to be read in conjunction with “I is for Intimacy” — Day 9!)
I assume that your email address in this morning’s Mercury is current.
Thank you for taking the time to come to see me. I was sorry not to get to any of your talks. After two years in lockdown and not going out of the building, at 94 I find that I can’t face going out! I had to go to the dentist and for hearing aids. I was really nervous and took a walker to lean on. My balance with even one little step is not good.
Thank you for visiting us at Beth Shalom when you were in Durban. It was also good to see Jen with you. The residents were delighted that you gave us time. Your talk was of value, appreciated and taken to heart. That evening one resident, Marilyn Dinner, told me that she had gone straight to her room and emailed three letters asking for forgiveness, one to her daughter. She received three positive acceptances immediately. And later wrote a few more letters.
Your boys must have been happy to have you home but now you are away again, to benefit others, this time in Switzerland.
Keep well and fit and bringing light into the world.
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.
Introduction to Bowen Theory and to the week ahead.
Exercise: PSALM 23
Genograms.
This is a drawing of any client’s family relationships covering at least three generations. It is always a “drawing in progress and process” as people and families are constantly evolving (chabing, growing).
The genogram is a predictive tool (it is not determinative) revealing what’s likely to occur within a family (where and when there is no intervention) by seeing what’s set in motion by preceding and passed on from generations.
My hope is that each student and staff member will complete his or her Genogram.
All family members are deeply connected to all other family members. The manner in which people are connected either nourishes or drains individuals and the entire network – and, of course – many relationships do both and at the same time.
Size (power, perceived importance, lack of boundaries) matters in all relationships – family or not.
What is desired and the goal for all of our relationships? Respect, Mutuality, Equality.
If we had a chance to talk and listen to each other, here are a few things I would enjoy talking about:
I’d like to talk about what each of us is really good at and hear and tell a few stories to demonstrate our identified strengths.
I’d like to hear about three or four defining moments in your life – when things shifted or directions changed – and tell you about a few of mine.
I would like each of us to hear about the people who love us or have loved us and for us to tell a few stories about how the love is (or was) expressed.
I would like to hear about how you see your future – no matter what your age – and have an opportunity to tell how I see mine.
I would like to hear of occasions when you have been misunderstood and what others tend to misunderstand about you. I’ll be more than ready to let you in on my experiences of being misunderstood.
I would like to hear about what you want and tell you about what I want. If we get this far in our talking I hope we are both ready for the most spiritual discussion possible which is deciding and declaring what we really want.
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”
I hear it from you, whoever you are, and, yes, I can detect it in a nanosecond, it usually bores me.
When I hear it from preachers, teachers, public speakers – and I am one of them – it really annoys me. It annoys me because it reveals a lack of preparation and the assumption that you can waste an audience’s time.
But, I try to be patient.
I’m referring to auto-speak.
Auto-speak is the gear people (we) go into where people repeat things they’ve said a hundred times.
Schtick.
It’s preachers as rehearsed comedians who stop at the same laugh-points, rely on the same cliched puns, retell the same decades old “miracle” and “small-world” stories.
I invited a well-known yesteryear sports star and public speaker to address a group of athletes.
“Fresh,” I said, “I want you to speak from your heart, a practiced script. I want the men to meet you, now, not the ‘when we’ person.”
He declined.
When we (you and I) resort to auto-speak we stop communicating, connecting with our audience, be it 1 or 5000 people.
Say it to me.
I am willing to hear it.
‘I am as tired of your schtick as you are. Let’s really talk.”
———-
Unrelated —- it’s my sons birthday today….. I love you, Nate:
22 today….. you have transformed my life and I thank you.
difficultrelationships.com 