Archive for ‘Differentiation’

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January 28, 2024

Eavesdrop

by Rod Smith

Listen to your conversations, yes, eavesdrop on yourself.

I try to do this and I am often embarrassed how regularly I’m on auto-play. I hear the same stuff – the same stories and one-liners – coming out of me over and over again. 

It is as if I am bored with myself and those who are part of the “conversation.”

I don’t like this about me and I don’t particularly like it when I’m caught in someone else’s well-worn loop.    

Sometimes I hear traces of contempt and sarcasm in my conversations.

I am very careful about avoiding swearing and blasphemy, yet there are times I am apparently okay with using words as clubs and bullying others with snarky sarcasm. These verbal habits are surely at least as toxic as possessing a foul mouth.

The gift of thoughtful conversations, where people listen without waiting to talk and people hear what is really being said is something to which I deeply aspire despite what sometimes comes out of my mouth. 

By the way, I am heading to Duban during much of February. 

I would be delighted to speak at your school, church, business, or club – and I promise to watch my mouth. 

Drop me an email if you are interested. 

Let’s see what time permits.

Two new pieces in our home — picked up in Lome, Togo and framed locally.

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Family, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Responsive people, Space, Teenagers, Triangles, Trust, Voice, Womanhood | 1 Comment »

January 23, 2024

Over Functioners take note:

by Rod Smith

Indications you tend to over-function:

• You backseat drive (car or no car). No matter where you sit in the vehicle (the office, school, hospital) your attention is on the driver (the leader) and the driving (management, leadership). You probably think you know the best way to any destination (even places new to you).

• You do things for people they can do for themselves (even if you don’t believe it). If challenged, you may name it “serving others” or “acts of humility” or “if you want something done, do it yourself.” Truth is you are trying to manage or ease your anxiety and really cannot stop yourself.

There is a downside of being in a family or organization with people who over function: those who tend to underfunction seldom get to grow and can become lazy or entitled. 

The downsides for those who over function is their self-created indispensability leads to exhaustion with accompanying doses of martyrdom for which there is never enough expressed thanks.

Please, do not use this column to point fingers. Those who have a tendency to over function already know it. Truth is they will be even more beautiful than they already are when they focus only on their unique responsibilities and allow all others to take care of their own responsibilities.

Excellent book…… I highly recommend it.

Posted in Addictions, Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation | Leave a Comment »

January 9, 2024

Message to girls

by Rod Smith

Lies girls are fed and often appear to believe:

  • Your body is more important than your brain therefore focus on your body, not your brain. Your body will get you further than your brain. Your body is bait. Use it well for a fine catch (riches, status – things you can’t get alone). Other people are more important than you. You are on Earth to serve, particularly all males.
  • Once a husband finds you, your greatest calling is to be a mother. If you have other ambitions you will compromise your mothering. Your only worthwhile ideas pertain to cooking, cleaning, and childcare; leave thinking about sciences, technology, and mathematics to males.
  • Once you are in love you will give up yourself for your husband and your children. This is what love is. You are a half. When you meet a man and marry you will become whole. If you suffer in silence and allow others to use you God will reward you.

Having addressed female audiences in the USA, Southern Africa, and in three Asian countries, I perceive these covert and overt messages to girls remain consistent. Perhaps saddest is that when girls find faith, they often expect God to be the ultimate male, issuing similar messages, demands, and expectations.

Hemingway (statue) depicted in his apparently famous spot.

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation | Leave a Comment »

January 3, 2024

Listen up

by Rod Smith

To listen is to love.

Listening, no matter how skilled you are, cannot be faked. 

You may be a skilled multitasker but even you can’t listen and, at the same time, do other things. 

Even if you’re one of those people who can “spin a lot of plates at one time” or whatever the metaphor is, even you can’t do other things and listen and really hear the person talking to you.

Listening takes more than both ears. It takes both ears, both eyes, a closed mouth, and your whole focused body. 

Even thinking about or wanting to check your phone, let alone the shifty reptile-like quick glances you give it and think no one notices, upsets your capacity to hear and it disturbs the speaker’s ease in talking to you.

Another thing that really upsets listening is your own unresolved stuff with other people, living or dead. As soon as any person “goes deep,” the millisecond he or she approaches anything close to something unresolved in your life, even if it’s from years ago, it’ll set you off inside, close your ears, or start you talking. 

That’s how we ward off stuff, manage triggers, fight to keep things buried. 

To listen is to love.

It’s often the only thing someone may want from you.

No distractions

Posted in Boundaries, Business, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Leadership, Listening, Recovery, Responsive people, Space, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Young Love | Leave a Comment »

January 1, 2024

Dig deeper

by Rod Smith

“The doldrum days” (the wait for the New Year) are over. The pace of life will resume. Many new year pledges will be forgotten. I challenge you, as I challenge myself, to dig a little deeper:

Dig deeper when it comes to caring for your health. Determine to do what you know will prolong your life. Look around you. It is obvious when people live against their own longevity, day by day, meal by meal, nap by nap. Everything in my day-to-day experience improves when I dedicate time to exercise and eating well.

DIg deeper into your loving and caring and creative side. In other words, all of your relationships. The adult in you has long recognized our human desire for powerful human connection. Reach out to the important people in your life. Minimize potential for regret. 

Dig a little deeper into your relationship with money. You are either in charge of your money or it is in charge of you. Credit card debt, excessive gambling, binge spending, have ruined many lives and marriages. Repeatedly spending beyond our means is a sure-fire formula for ruin. 

Eating, relating with others, earning and spending, are all deeply spiritual exercises. They reflect the conditions of our souls, our inner-beings. This is exactly the reason upsets in any of these areas of our lives can be fuel for distress.

———-

This graphic illustrates the reach of this column…..

Where it’s green there are readers…..!

Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Family Systems Theory, Friendship | Leave a Comment »

December 31, 2023

What do you mean “happy” new year?

by Rod Smith

The Mercury and to all who may read this….

Of course I want you to have a “happy” new year. What exactly do I mean?

• May you find authentic inclusion with a group of caring friends.

• May you enjoy significant connection and derive mutual satisfaction with members of your immediate and extended family and family of choice.

• May you have meaningful work, work that respectfully uses your talents, strengths and imagination.

• May your capacity for humor enrich those whom you love and bring joy.

• May you discover new and wonderful things about yourself and others despite your years of experience.

• May regret over past failures provide you with healthy awareness rather than weigh you down.

• May you be part of the solution and not part of the problem in matters large and small.

• May you become more skillful in defining your boundaries and therefore more able to love your friends, family, colleagues, strangers and foes.

• May you resist urges, subtle or gross — all of which may be socially acceptable — to exploit others to accomplish your personal or professional goals.

• May you do no harm and may no harm be done to you.

• May we be agents of peace.

—————
The Mercury is one of South Africa’s longest running weekday morning newspapers. It is published in KZN, a province of South Africa.

I have enjoyed the privilege of writing daily for this newspaper since March 21, 2001. This affords me the unusual joy of occasionally being able to surprise friends. Pictured below is a couple whom I married in Prague (earlier this year). A few days before the wedding I discovered they were going South Africa for their honeymoon. Here they are reading a welcome column in The Mercury while in Umhlanga.

Newly weds…..!
Greeted in The Mercury

Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Faith, Family, Friendship, Grace | 1 Comment »

December 25, 2023

Getting ready for new year resolutions?

by Rod Smith

It’s time for New Year’s resolutions. 

The louder and bolder mine are, I’ve learned over the years, the less likely they are to last. 

I do tend to follow through a little better on silent, private resolutions. 

Prior to making hopeful decisions about the coming year I also try to elucidate three or so learnings or observations from the last 12 months. 

Repeated questions gave shape to my 2023:

“What kind of person do you want to be?” I asked myself almost daily. Answering it, trying to live according to my answers, I believe saved me some pain and expense. The joy of the question is that it removes others from the equation. It removes all elements of blame and any potential desire for pay-back. It obliterates all traces of victim thinking and victim living.

“How would you like your sons to behave in any parallel circumstances at a similar age?” Trying to live the answer to this question has, I believe, provided me with safe guidance. 

“Seed or stone; bloom or tomb?” Answering this question, posed in a poem by Dennis and Mathhew Linn, has been life-transforming. Seeds grow, feed — represent life; stones are hard and lifeless, can hurt and wound. It’s far easier to stone others than it is to resist the urge and transform whatever it is into life-giving seeds. This metaphor has guided my responses to many challenging circumstances. I like to think I have chosen seeds and have been determined to throw no stones.

Greetings from my sons, from me, and from Duke

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family | Leave a Comment »

December 24, 2023

Is there a better birthday gift?

by Rod Smith

This arrived on my phone from my younger son’s girlfriend this morning;

Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace | 2 Comments »

December 20, 2023

A note to my sons — shared also with you — about love

by Rod Smith

Love one another is surely among life’s hardest, crucial, most fabulous assignments.

Jesus commanded it. 

He did not suggest it or consider it a good idea. 

If we claim faith in Jesus, His commands leave us no options, no outs, or off ramps.

We are to love those who love us back and those who do not. 

We are to love even those who for whatever reason, have chosen to reject and hate us. Hardest perhaps, we are to love those for whom we are invisible, those who regard us, if they even notice we exist, with indifference. 

We are to love modern day Samaritans (the commonly rejected change from culture to culture, group to group) and Pharisees (today’s know-it-all blowhards who peer down at we lesser mortals) and teachers of the law and hookers and addicts and bankers and Rev. Private Jet pastors and prostitutes. We are to love those who treat us with the contempt shown to New Testament Samaritans. 

Yes. 

Everyone.     

As you, my sons, love others well and as you learn to love even more people – it doesn’t come naturally – from the most distant or platonic of relationships, to the most intimate and sacred love and trust in marriage, you will be guided, sometimes cajoled, driven, even bullied by deep inner impulses. 

Strong tides, forces unseen, forces felt but unknown will rise within you.

These inner pressures are sufficiently powerful that words expressed on any page will not be able to quell the force they will try to exert over you.

Love drills down deep for discovery of the opposite spirit, the counter-intuitive approach, the unexpected, the unanticipated means toward a loving, kind end. 

Love your enemies is not some insurmountable-Jesus-hurdle. 

He did not command it to trick anyone. 

Loving your enemies is the gateway to loving all people, even to love those whom we may consider easy to love.

No one is easy to love. 

Remember, what you can do to anyone you can do to everyone. 

Love is really understanding the parable of the “good” Samaritan and trying to live it out daily.

Love, to imperfectly and briefly quote Paul, the Apostle, doesn’t return evil for evil.

Finally, read Paul’s summary of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and remind yourself over and over again, Paul did not have wedding sermons in mind when he put his heart on paper.

Go into all the world…..

Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Trust, Voice, YWAM | 2 Comments »

December 14, 2023

People will tell you who they are…..

by Rod Smith

….. with reasonable and trustworthy accuracy:

“The thing to remember always is that you’re surrounded by idiots. Once you get that right in your own head things start moving in your favor.”

“Everyone has something to teach me. I try to learn from everyone.”

“I never fly economy. Who’d ever do that? It’s like moving cattle. See you later.” 

“It’s such a privilege to see the world. My company policy is everyone flies economy. Even the top brass.”

“I make all the decisions in our home. He leaves it all up to me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

“I just go straight to the top. I don’t mess with the lower rank employees, the paid by the hour sorts of people.” 

“I try to live without blaming others. Yes, bad things have happened to me but I’m an adult now. I’ve got to live with what I’ve got and make the best of everything.”

“Wait for a table? Not me. I get what I want when I want or I don’t go back. I vote with my feet and they know it.”

(Said to me —- or overheard in a variety of settings)

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation | Leave a Comment »

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