To be human — like it or not — is to be endowed with power and influence.
What will you do with yours?
Will you use it to enhance the lives of others or feather your own nest?
May we all choose a path that empowers those who could do with respectful assistance and, for ourselves, know when enough is enough.
Will you over-power others or seek equality and mutuality in all your relationships and all your dealings?
May you and I seek only to love knowing that authentic love seeks to exercise power over no one.
Will you reduce your size and influence and consider yourself a victim so as not to feel responsible for the power that comes with your humanity?
May we develop our skills and giftings and take responsibility for the talents with which we have been endowed.
Will you relate to all as fellow humans on a journey toward fulfillment and meaningfulness, all of whom deserve respect and recognition?
May you and I develop willingness and the capacity to offer our highest regard for all, especially those who for whatever reason are unable to return anything to us at all,
Will you and I accumulate more and more assets and more and more symbols of wealth and success?
Rather, may we have the discernment to know when enough is enough.
There are a few ways I can tell when an unwell client is gathering strength and becoming well……
He begins to speak up. He resists “falling into line” and acquiescing to others when he’d previously kept his mouth shut and conformed to the expectations of others.
She starts to think things through. She turns consequences and ramifications over in her mind before agreeing with or accepting my suggestions. She trusts her own insights more than she trusts her therapist’s insights about her.
He develops a growing “bird’s eye view” of his life. He begins to see with greater and greater clarity how seemingly “small” decisions of repeated healthy choices rapidly usher in larger positive outcomes than can be anticipated.
She begins to enjoy the rewards of making difficult but healthy choices. She wakes up most days with growing anticipation despite her substantial challenges.
He sees and feels more and more courageous and confident about his own life even while appreciating the humility required of those who desire to live meaningful lives.
She expresses thanks and appreciation for her life despite its struggles and anticipates being an agent of hope to others with similar challenges.
Your dad may try to give the impression that Father’s Day doesn’t mean much. I’d suggest you ignore his resistance. Make a big deal out of it. It’s not the gift or the card that he receives from you that’s important to him, it’s that you phoned and chatted, you wrote, you remembered and recalled your lives together and recognized his commitment to you.
Your dad may try to brush off your attention at Father’s Day and tell you that he doesn’t need the focus and the attention but lavish him with it anyway. Neither of you will be around forever so make this one a good one, one to remember. Another shaving set or pair of socks will never be as treasured as a carefully composed letter recalling your best memories with your dad.
Fathering is a fragile journey for many men, many whose frames of reference were often lacking. Many of our dads fought unseen demons of ravished childhoods. Let the adult within you find grace for him —- if this be you — and celebrate your dad despite the struggles you too may have known.
I noticed some years ago that on landing in Johannesburg or Cape Town from an overseas flight after a long absence from South Africa, unanticipated memories — not always helpful or wanted, often unusual — would begin to surface. For instance, telephone numbers I’d not accessed or needed for years would be readily available.
I had not unbuckled my 46G seat and faced customs and immigration yet on this trip and for some reason I remembered the newspaper seller who stood on the corner of Field and Smith Streets at 1am on a Sunday morning after I’d left the Oyster Box Hotel. Danny would save me “all three” papers for a healthy tip and remind me that he’d kept “all three” last week and I’d not arrived.
I can never go too far down my Duran memory lane before Gordon Michael at the Mitchell Gardens Blue Zoo restaurant, a beloved afternoon tea spot, fills me with delight. On visiting, Gordon would open his menu and show me my columns he’d cut from the paper and stuffed into his menu to show his customers how long we’d been friends. Gordon has no idea how often I’ve told audiences of his stories of Durban and of his 46 years of faithful service to a city and people whom he has so deeply loved.
I enjoy moments when life places me with people of diverse cultures. I love it when individuals are sufficiently comfortable to discuss the power that culture has in shaping our lives and our perceptions.
Mary is amazed that Anvi met her husband for the first time at their wedding. Mary is further surprised that Anvi says she is happily married. Anvi tells Mary she could never have been brave enough to pursue a “love marriage.” Anvi says her parents, whom she does trust, know her better than she knows herself and therefore knew what kind of man she would want to marry.
John is amazed to hear that I’m willing to respect women leaders. John is even more surprised to hear I raised two babies without women to change their nappies (diapers). He tells me I insulted the men of his culture by doing “women’s work.”
Sunmi is confused at hearing June is unwilling to give up her career to take care of her aging mother-in-law. She expresses that such a choice in her culture would be considered unusual.
A child, to the annoyance of some of the adults, interrupte his mother while his mother is talking. The mother considers it perfectly “normal” for a child to exhibit such behavior and is unaware that a child interrupting an adult in many cultures is considered gross disrespect.
Pivotal moments; defining people, unexpected challenges, undiluted courage — identifying the moments of highest positive return in your life.
What experiences shaped your life in powerful, beneficial ways? Who are the people who turned you around, pointed you in a new and helpful direction? Who was the teacher or coach who restored your confidence when it was shaken?
Please, let me know.
Taking stock on your history and the people who shaped you and the moments that shifted your trajectory is usually a healthy and rewarding exercise.
Richard Morey (RIP) was my English teacher in high school. He took an essay I had written and put red lines through most of it with comments like, “you’re wasting my time” in the margins.
Near the end of my essay he circled a portion and in the margin he wrote: “Do more of this: this will make you a writer!” and so I did.
Frank Graham taught me Afrikaans and knew of my debilitating stutter which I tried most unsuccessfully to hide. While caring and kind, Mr. Graham never backed off, he offered me opportunities to speak like every other student and imparted the idea that I really had something to say.
Fifty countries later traveling as a writer and speaker I have much for which to thank these two fine men.
Things to try for a few days in the hopes will soon see they are life-style habits worthy of developing:
Plan your day.
Plan who you will seek to empower and encourage.
Write (using a pencil and paper) a few ideas as to how you will empower others no matter what your station in life.
Oddly, the more you plan, the more you will allow for a serendipitous life.
Besides, getting yourself ready for a great day will sharpen your eyes to recognize when great days come your way.
Plan your day as if planning a great day is in your power to do so.
Write a few notes to yourself about how much money you will spend, how much you will try to save.
Plan what and whom you will avoid because some things suck the life out of you.
As you plan your day, remind yourself that you are not all-powerful and that things happen to derail the best made plans. This does not mean a plan is not worth making.
Plan your responses to tough or challenging circumstances and situations so that you are unlikely to spend the day in a reactive mode with fight or flight as your defaults. Write a few notes to yourself about what you will or will not say and whom you will and will not engage.
Recap on anything the group would like to look at again or to reconsider.
The Humble Samaritan – why it this such a radical parable?
Fables and other resources
Post-traumatic Growth
Helpers’ Lives
POWER Balloon
Every person has been given a Power Balloon that represents an allotment of power. This is the power to have a voice, to decide, to be, to have opinions, have fun, learn, experience, to be autonomous, to be intimate, to be fulfilled and to love.
Within every person’s capacity (power) is the ability to do research and to decide things for oneself, to worship, pray, accept, reject, remain free of abusive relationships and to create and enjoy safe relationships.
Every act of manipulation, of cruelty, of “over-functioning ” and of “under functioning ” is the denial of the power of another or of others.
People, for various reasons, will try to burst your balloon, boost your balloon, take your balloon, give you their balloon or render your balloon insignificant.
Resist such acts from others and resist doing such acts to others. Care for your balloon only; leave others to the divine task of caring for and nurturing their own balloons. This is not selfish.
Think of how selfish it is to say to someone, “Here, let me take away your power from you,” or, “Here, I do not want to take care of my own life but you have to do it.” Not even God will take your balloon from you. Your balloon is God-given to you for your care and nurture. (God has God’s own balloon to care for).
The power for you to be fully human is yours and that power should be offered to no one under any circumstances and the position of exercising power over our own lives should never be abdicated except in extreme situations of medical emergencies.
Every baby and child has his own balloon to be respected as much as the balloon of every adult. This, of course, does not mean that babies should be caring for themselves or that children must be given their every whim. Reaching such a conclusion is to misunderstand the concept of what it means to have personal power. The art of parenting a baby, of nurturing children involves respecting and nurturing their sense of personal power. Parenting is exercising the kinds of discipline and care that do not diminish a child’s self-worth or distort their capacity to discern and appreciate the power that is their birthright. Anything less is to “spoil and child.” It is to “spoil” their capacity to see and know themselves with accurate personal assessment.
I hope you are learning a lot and seeing a lot and enjoying what we are doing together.
My goals are very simple.
I will consider myself as having done a good job if:
You live more powerfully from today than you did before by making very simple decisions to speak up more than you did before and to clarify yourself more than you did before. Self-advocacy comes with immediate feedback and rewards. Keep in mind that not everyone you know will applaud your renewed or “discovered” voice, especially those who have benefitted from your choice (known or unknown) to function at lower levels. If you are stronger on some days than you are on others do not despair, you are human. No one is highly functional everyday although we can by practice and newly formed habits improve our averages.
I have given you an overview of a subject I love and around which I have built my life. There is far more to Family Therapy and to most topics of mental health and counseling that can be covered in a week. Those of you who enjoy this particular approach to mental health and counseling will find yourselves motivated to go deeper. You’ll immerse yourselves into the readily available vast array of books and reading on this and many related topics. Try to read as much Roberta Gilbert as you can. Robeta has several books available and two that come to mind are Extraordinary Relationships and Extraordinary Leadership.
Today we will finish the 8 principles and then look at some disguised but real client family stories.
We will close the day of teaching with an overview of The Formidable Triangle.
Your DAY 3 challenges:
How is your Backbone? If it were a tank of courage is it running on empty or full?
You were a creative child – what have you done with that God-given capacity?
How is your Voice and are you using it for its intended purpose?
What will it take for you to calm down and be less anxious?
Your answer will almost certainly include another person or something from outside of yourself if you are given to anxiety.
“I’ll calm down when he gets a job.”
“I’ll calm down when his ex-wife is out of our lives.”
“I will calm down when the house repairs are complete.”
The minute we loop others in and believe their behaviors are the reason we are anxious, our anxious state will be at their mercy.
I’d suggest you can calm yourself down even if he never gets a job or his ex wife never stops interfering and if the house repairs take another five years..
The keys to calmness, to reducing anxiety, are within our grasp and not in the hands of others.
Rise above yourself.
Get a “bird’s eye” view of your life.
Become an expert in your behaviors.
Look at how and why you choose to do the things you do and make necessary changes even if they displease others.
These are vital steps in modifying your behavior and in reducing your anxiety and therefore calming down.
Calming down is a life-long process, a life-style of self-management, of assuming personal responsibility for who and what we are.
You will wait forever if you wait for others to do what you alone can only do for yourself.
difficultrelationships.com 