September 28, 2010
by Rod Smith
Send me your "Something Beautiful"
Write something beautiful – and send it to me.
Keep your contribution to 200 words. Pick a moment from today or from any time in your life and recount it.
I have a few motives:
1. I like to surround myself with beauty. Your writing will assist me toward that end.
2. I believe that each of our lives is a collection of its own set of miracles, its own quarry of joys and delights, even if it is, at the same time, filled with challenges.
3. I’d like to publish a few of your offerings (thus the word limit) and send a prize to the writer of the best piece.
So, have at it. I will be the sole adjudicator of your “something beautiful” submission, and, until it goes to press (if it does) your only reader.
I will send the winner his or her choice of three books: one of the Joan Anderson books I mentioned earlier this week or a copy of a book I have read every June for about 8 years: Failure of Nerve by Ed. Friedman. Please place “Something Beautiful” in the subject line of your Email or your comment. I will close submissions by Friday, October 1, 2010. I look forward to reading something beautiful from you.
Email address: Rod@TakeUpYourLife.com
Rod Smith
9/29/2010
Posted in Anxiety, Attraction, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Faith, Friendship, Leadership, Listening, Love, Therapeutic Process |
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September 14, 2010
by Rod Smith
Resist the sabotage of the "weak"
Leaders! Are you able to challenge the immature among you to greater maturity?
Can you confront those among you who’d refer to remain irresponsible? Can you teach those among you who are fed and reinforced by their demands for empathy, acceptance, and understanding, that it is not more understanding or more empathy that is needed, but rather a gentle and firm, proverbial (not literal) kick in the pants?
If unchallenged, weakness will dominate any organization. The discontent employees, managers, teachers, nurses, will get their way and unhappy people will prevail. The call for sympathy, understanding, and patience will grind down leaders until leaders buckle under their persistent cry. The “victims” (complainers, whiners) will get their way while a leader’s call for integrity, for responsible behavior, for accountability, will be labeled as uncaring and unkind.
Legitimate calls for greater accountability from leaders will “prove” that leadership “out of touch with reality.” When you, the leader, decide to stand up to the discontented you will get reactions you’d rather not endure – but this is part of the price of leadership.
Unhappy people train (disciple, coach) the vulnerable around them to feed their morose perceptions and then fight back when their diet is changed – facing this rather unpleasant music is also part of the cost of leadership.
Posted in Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Listening, Manipulation |
2 Comments »
September 6, 2010
by Rod Smith
Intimacy is an individual pursuit
1. A couple where each person works on his or her individual distinctness, is more likely to find deeper
intimacy with each other than the couple who gives up individuality for each other.
2. Intimacy is found in the connection of differences, and not in the pursuit of sameness or uniformity.
3. A person who cannot be alone will also find difficulty being together.
4. There is no such thing as instant authentic intimacy (as in say a one-night encounter). It can take years to develop and, ironically, it is often, in romantic relationships, distracted in its development by sexual behavior.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation |
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September 1, 2010
by Rod Smith
1. Refusing to lie for you.
2. Allowing the consequences of your actions to hold you accountable.
3. Allowing you to fail.
4. Getting out of your way when you are angry so you may deal with whatever is upsetting you.
5. Refusing to rescue you from your moodiness.
6. Telling you the truth as I see it.
7. Resisting the urge to let your self-made issues pull me down.
8. Keeping my phone, Email, messages private, unless I choose to share.
9. Allowing myself to be happy and fulfilled even if you are not.
10. Supporting, loving you, while allowing my uniqueness (and your uniqueness) to blossom.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Meditation, Responsive people, Sexual compatibility, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Womanhood |
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August 25, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My daughter (24) has started seeing a man no one in the family likes. Surely she should see this as a ‘red flag’? Do you think we should have a big meeting and all tell her what we see and then let her take it from there?”
See your dislikes as a challenge
to announce that you (the members of your family) are all separate people. Each of you is probably perfectly capable of loving and embracing persons who are very different from the persons others of the family may choose. You can do this all without falling apart as a family.
Letting your daughter know what you see, think, and feel individually might prove helpful to those who feel the need to deliver this message, but I think I’d avoid the big meeting at this time.
I’d suggest you challenge yourselves to love whomever your daughter loves and use your differences as a source of growth.
Posted in Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Friendship, Love |
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August 24, 2010
by Rod Smith
Open yourself to growth
about the degree of conflict experienced with their children, who then, during the conversation, will openly confess they have no time for a mother or father-in-law, their own parent, or are out of sorts with an adult sibling. When I gently point out that these conflicts are possibly connected, fueling each other, I am met with disbelief.
“You’re saying that my fights with my son over his homework (or irresponsibility, or drinking) are connected to the fact that my father-in-law is an impossible man to whom I have refused to talk for the past five years?”
Indeed.
“You’re saying that my ridiculously controlling mother who walks in here like a movie director telling us all where to stand and what to say is connected to my 12-year-old daughter mouthing off to me however she likes.”
Indeed.
When the adult takes the challenge of embracing the “impossible” father-in-law, or standing up to the “controlling” mother, the adult is taking personal responsibility for his or her pivotal relationships.
A parent who takes full responsibility for himself or herself when it comes to relating to members of their preceding generation, will see less anxious, less reactive, less rebellious behavior in the generation that follows.
Yes. It is all indeed connected.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Education, Family, In-laws, Leadership |
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August 22, 2010
by Rod Smith
No room to move....
(Minimal edits)
While it takes two to tangle (not tango!) it only takes one of the partners to cheat. I trust you will experience greater love than you’ve ever known.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation |
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August 18, 2010
by Rod Smith
Here are 7 signs you might be too close or over-parenting your child (or children):
Have surrendered your power to your child?
1. Your child is central to all your conversations. Every conversation, no matter how initially unrelated, ultimately includes or returns to the topic of your child.
2. You deeply desire to be your child’s friend and so you avoid difficult issues, necessary conflicts and confrontations.
3. You find yourself in the middle, trapped between your partner and your child, your ex and your child, teachers (coaches, mentors) and your child, your parents and your child. You are a self-appointed shield and therefore attempt to fend off essential opportunities for helpful pain and growth, necessary for all children to become healthy adults.
4. Your child is the stake in the ground to which you are tethered and around which you function. Everything is about your child, all of your social life (if you have one at all), your interests, activities; everything is focused around your child.
5. Your primary adult relationship (with your spouse or partner – you might have forgotten that this is in fact your primary relationship) sometimes gets in the way of your role with your child and almost all of the time you choose your child and feel guilty if you do not.
(Tomorrow: Steps to healthy parent-child separation)
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, High maintenance relationships, Love, Step parenting, Teenagers |
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August 17, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My wife ‘disappears’ about once a month for a day at a time to go shopping with her three best friends. They start early with breakfast and go mall hopping, then they have lunch. After lunch they hit the malls again and then get dinner together. Sometimes they end the day with a movie and it is ten or eleven o’clock before she gets home. This gets to me. My wife gets upset and says I am the only husband who complains. It’s not the money – my wife is very good with money. I think that just because my wife doesn’t have to work it doesn’t mean there are not things that have to be done around the house and I just like her to be home when I get home.” (Edited)
Use your time to show your love....
is your domestic issue, that your wife has a life outside of the home, that she has committed friendships, and that she is part of a community of women who want to spend time together.
On her days out, once you arrive home, get busy with completing the “things that have to be done” while you are home alone. Working around the house will get your mind off her absence and demonstrate the love you feel for her.
Unhook your wagon, sir. It is possible to love your wife without monitoring her. It is possible for you to have similar involvement with a group of friends.
Really, this is such a wonderful problem to have. Support your wife. Suggest she go out more than once a month. Celebrate her life and her community rather than trying to dampen and suppress it. Get more of a life for yourself, one that doesn’t depend so much on her, and find your own freedom.
You can do all this and remain wonderfully married. Repeat after me and commit to memory: No one can BOTH love and control the same person — it’s either one or the other.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Friendship, Grace, Voice |
2 Comments »
August 15, 2010
by Rod Smith
Want wisely.....
– not in you, me, nor in the man in the moon. It has no upside. It produces nothing worth having. It reduces everyone in its environment to a victim. It scares children. There’s nothing redeeming about rage. It causes physiological distress, psychological pain, and accelerates physical exhaustion. It hurts relationships. Rage is always ugly, always destructive.
Rage is never helpful
I’ve witnessed rage erupt in clients during therapy where there’s a sudden burst of rage over a matter that might appear inconsequential to the observer. I’ve seen it while I am engaged in the give and take of life – a woman loses it with her child in public, a man yells uncontrollably in the traffic, a teenager storms off from a parent in the mall.
Regretfully, I’ve felt it in me. Forces collide, my world feels out of control, I resort to blaming others for whatever I perceive as having gone wrong. Something primal snaps. I’m momentarily blind, deaf to reason. Then, I breathe deeply. I hold onto myself. Reason returns. Logic prevails. I get my focus off others. I look at myself. I take responsibility for myself. Do I always catch it? Handle it well? Of course not.
How is a person to handle a moment of rage in a loved one? Keep a level head. Walk away. Try not to react. Don’t personalize it. It’s not about you. You may participate in the precipitating event, but you don’t cause the outburst. In the moment of his or her fury don’t try to reason, negotiate, or restrain.
This too shall pass.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, In-laws, Listening, Sex matters, Space, Spousal abuse, Triangles, Triggers, Victims, Violence |
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