I saw something beautiful today, an expression of true leadership, at a crowded domestic airport restaurant.
The Springbok Rugby Captain, #SiyaKolisi the athlete who led the team to win the recent Rugby World Cup, sat facing away from the crowds, trying to have a peaceful breakfast.
I counted. Twenty five people of all ages — in groups and alone — asked for selfies, autographs, books to be signed, and for photographs with their children. He hugged, laughed, chatted, and gave time to people, especially the young lads wanting to engage. At one point fans began lining up.
The gentleman was a model of grace and kindness, expressing zero frustration or annoyance at the multiple interruptions to his breakfast and the phone calls he was apparently trying to make.
Kolisi was the perfect contrast to the baseball hall-of-fame star I witnessed chase a child away with “I don’t sign autographs” to a young man whose face I saw light up on seeing his hero.
Jennifer Arthur (my sister) – meets the Double back-to-back Springbok winning Rugby World Cup Captain.
Kindly contact Shirley@ShirleyWilliams.co.za in the if you desire to attend one of multiple events I’ll be participating in next week.
I hope you are doing well! I love watching your travels, reading your posts. I am curious if you could touch on one topic for me. It can be a post so others who are struggling can also read it.
Will you please put into perspective why someone my son’s personality and challenges tends to stay to himself and struggle with anxiety. He has lost 5 schoolmates to gun violence since 2020. One was a best friend (since they were 3) who lived across the street from us until his death. Since that death, my son has been more angry, sad, irritated with me and one of his brothers. He is not hateful, just different. He also gave up competitive sport after his friend’s death. He still hugs, loves, smiles, but something is gone from inside him. You know my son and that’s why I am asking you. As a mom, I am so sad.
This is the first time I am sharing this.
Thanks.
Name withheld
Dear Mother
Yes. I know your son. And, I know you.
I grieve reading about the extent of your loss; your family’s loss, and specifically your son’s multiple losses.
I can only imagine the impact this has had on all of your caring, lovely family.
By nature, your now-adult son was/is a very private person, even though his athleticism placed him front and center of large crowds. I could be wrong but I think he was/is naturally shy despite the bravado required of his sport.
I recall his quest for academic successes and sports successes seemed to “push” him into arenas my hunch suggested he’d have rather avoided. You may also recall he was sometimes anxious about belonging and wanting really good grades.
I do.
That your son is not hateful after all he has witnessed and endured and has had to accept does not surprise me.
He very easily, readily, openly often expressed his love for his parents and brothers and extended family and is most unlikely to turn to hate.
There is not a hateful bone in his body.
Yet, I am not at all surprised he is sometimes “angry, sad, irritated” with those who are close to him. Youth funerals leave me the same way even when I read about them, let alone know the victims and he knew the multiple victims of gun violence well.
Loss has robbed all of you but he was/is closer to the young men – I think they are all male – now gone.
I know you embody the ultimate loving and caring mom and so I also know you give him a lot of room for his varying emotions, much privacy, and encouragement to engage about these deep matters on his terms.
Your son is a quiet fighter, one who loves his friends very deeply.
Although he never expressed this to me, or if he did I have forgotten, I think he was one to feel as if he was wanting and loving his friends more than his friends were seeking him.
The boy we all knew (usually loving and warm and full of life and humor and joy) will soon be the fully present grown-man-version of himself.
Nothing is gone or lost.
It is resting. Recovering. Re-juvinating.
Re-routing.
Like Jem, in the book your son read with me word-for-word in the classroom, despite all the trauma, his former and full self will return.
Ask him about that reference. I am sure he will remember.
By the way, I will meet with him at the drop of a hat if he’d find that useful.
Offer him my number.
By the way, thank you for being mom and present for so many, many young people as I know you are as you fulfill your role in your chosen career.
Before you judge others by looks or clothing or demeanor or attitude:
You do not know their story, the hardships faced, the history lived, the moves, the changes and challenges faced. You do not know the heartaches, the heartbreaks, the longings, the broken promises or the losses faced and endured.
Tread carefully.
You do not know what they are hiding in embarrassment and shame with the clothes they choose to wear or what statement they are trying to make. You do not know what violence they may have endured which appear to demand clothing themselves for rejection or protection.
Read the signs with empathy.
People tell their stories – voluntarily and involuntarily – with their every move and every word and every mood and every decision. They do the same with their language, responses, the anger they hide and the anger they display.
Read, see, hear, with compassion, or resist the urge to read at all.
————
Terry Angelos – best selling author of “White Trash” – and I will be in conversation about her work and what we can learn about ourselves and our families from her work and principles of Family Therapy. Please contact Shirley@ShirleyWilliams.co.za if you would like to attend.
While life as we know it is impossible without Divine Grace, Grace extended to all. I am particularly interested in the interpersonal grace we each can generously offer all other people, from intimates to total strangers.
Yes, we can be agents of grace.
I have seen it powerfully at work for many years.
It includes:
• Giving others a very wide berth, room to make mistakes, to be opinionated, to be socially clumsy, without my interference or my thinking, feeling I should offer my guidance, correction, or opinion.
• Extending “grace-in-reverse” by not allowing any person’s past errors, tough, dark, or even sordid history, to hinder my perceptions, my experience of who and what they are in the present. This acknowledges people really can grow and change.
• Allowing others to own their story and to tell it in their way, without interruption, without uninvited interpretation, and certainly without being “one-upped” by something from my own life, something usually bigger, stronger, better, or more dramatic.
• Forgiving from the outset, without necessarily receiving an apology or explanation, and for that forgiveness to be unconditional and complete.
• Exercising radical hospitality. This is embracing fully (not limited to a hug) others who are not like us!
How do I know about such grace?
It’s been offered to me, time and again. The challenge is to give it to others.
On days when I feel like a local adventure I drive for Uber. I have to believe there is something powerful at play when it comes to coincidences.
This week I picked up a passenger from an obscure petrol station in a busy truck stop. The gentleman headed for the front passenger door, which I have noticed, only South Africans and Australians tend to do. The rider revealed he’s from KZN, specifically Isipingo. I immediately practiced my limited Zulu with him and we are both taken aback by the serendipitous nature of our meeting. On the same day, hours later, another passenger informs me that he goes regularly to visit the elephants at Thula Thula Game Park in KZN — and spends a few days in Umhlanga on the way!
KZN’s own best selling author Terry Angelos and I will have a morning together where we talk about her memoir “White Trash.” We will discuss her powerful work and its themes of redemption and reconciliation. You are welcome to attend. Terry will talk about her book and I hope to show how Terry has unintentionally revealed several fundamental principles of Family Therapy, applicable to all families of all cultures. Join us please for this 3 hour morning session on May 11, 2024. Shirley@ShirleyWilliams.co.za has all the details.
When push comes to shove you and I have to decide:
– What kind of people do we want to be?
Our everyday responses to the most casual and humdrum interactions embody our answer to this question. How we treat those we serve and those who serve us is our character the litmus test. No exceptions.
– How will we manage our responses to challenging and tough situations?
Our responses and reactions when things do not go our way reveal much more about us than how we respond and behave when matters move in our favor. How we lose is more revealing of our character than how we win.
How will we allow immediate events and relationships to impact the future?
Who we bond with, and who we sever from, over issues large or small, important or petty, become moments of trajectory shift. Taken lightly, we may end up far removed from our initial goals.
– Will we take responsibility for ourselves or settle for blame and finger-pointing?
It’s easy to blame the government, the economy, changes in society for the way we are. A brief look around will reveal that there are very successful people who have found success in the very same contexts we share. These men and women prove that blame and finger-pointing will get us nowhere worth going.
The desire for AUTONOMY is a powerful instinct within you. It is the craving to be self-directed and separate. It is the “you” who wants to be free of all ties, all responsibilities. It is the “you” that fears absorption; the “you” who wants to let your hair blow in the wind, feel the sun on your back and live a carefree life. This is the lone-ranger and pioneer spirit within you. This desire is a necessary part of your survival and growth – don’t reject it.
The desire for INTIMACY is a powerful instinct within you. It is the craving to be close and connected. It is the “you” that wants to belong, be known and be part of a family, a team. It is the “you” that fears abandonment and desertion; the you who longs for a unified journey with others, the you that wakes up at night and wonders with horror, what it would be like to be totally alone. This is the nest-making part of you, the part who longs for a shared life. This desire is a necessary part of your survival and growth – don’t reject it.
Healthy adults acknowledge these desires in themselves, and then in others – and never feed the one at the ruin of the other. This is wisdom!
[—- To all the powerful and wonderful women in our lives. For me they are: my sister, nieces, my sons’ girlfriends, friends, and colleagues in so many places around the world and the Women who made me a dad —]
Enriched is the woman who does not lose herself in her marriage, to motherhood, to taking care of her family, but is able to develop a strong sense of herself and hold onto herself, even while being a loving wife, mother and friend.
Enriched is the woman who does not tolerate tolerate poor manners — or being taken for granted, being sworn at, being victimized verbally and physically — from anyone: not husband, children, in-laws, siblings, parents, but who appropriately, and sufficiently values herself so that she does not accommodate those who do not treat her very well.
Enriched is the woman who is fully aware that she never has to participate in sexual activity that she herself does not want, who knows that her body is her own and private temple which she shares, even in marriage, only when it is by her own sacred and deliberate and joyful and joyful choice.
Enriched is the woman who lives above manipulation, domination and intimidation, and passive-aggressive behaviors, whose relationships are pure and open, and within which she maintains a strong and valued voice.
Enriched are men who know such women, women who show up, speak up, and, as most women do, make things even more beautiful than they already are, see beauty all around and encourage all whom they know and love.
Finding out your child has NOT been invited to an event that all the other children are attending can be very painful. Do you say something? Do you fight it? Do you let your child know? I’d suggest you talk about this before it occurs or as soon as possible if it does:
• Acknowledge the hurt. Very few things are as painful for a child as finding out about a birthday party that’s already occurred among friends. The pain is real, appropriate, and expected no matter how logical the explanation or innocent the oversight.
• Failure to include your child may have nothing to do with your child (or you). But, examine yourselves. Is there anything your child is doing, or you are doing, that makes it easier for others NOT to include your child? At least face the possibility others may consider you or your child difficult.
• Suggest your child address the omission as politely and kindly as possible with the friend. Of course age is critical here – but a stronger backbone will result!
• Encourage your child to understand the difference between hurt and damage. He or she may be hurt, but it is unlikely the experience has the power to impart damage.
• Encourage and engage in zero payback or retribution.
I wrote yesterday about how we are connected with people in our immediate, extended, and family of choice. These connections, at best, nourish and inspire us. At worst, they drain us and drive us crazy.
The challenge remains for each of us to take responsibility for how we connect (relate, respond, initiate) in order to have relationships that nourish both others and ourselves.
I referred to “over-connected” people. This is when people are fused, joined at the hip (even though there may be oceans between), where day-to-day operation is so entwined it seems impossible to discern where one person ends and the other begins. Any urge for space will be interpreted as rejection. A kind, gentle, assertion toward appropriate separation will do both parties good. This kind of dependence can be of a financial nature.
“Under-connected” people distance themselves to the point of indifference where neither person is nourished and both can be “starved” through lack of contact. This can be the result of some unresolved matter hidden under some forgotten carpet. A gentle approach and request for appropriate connection may result in rewards for both.
“Cut-offs” (I’ll never talk to that person again) can unsettle both parties, often awarding the “victim” the power over he or she who severed the relationship. Mutual humility may be the only hope.
difficultrelationships.com 