With no wish to “rain on anyone’s parade” – an American phrase I found rather fascinating when I landed in this great country three decades ago – I do want to write a few things about mothers and motherhood in the wake of Mother’s Day weekend which is so correctly and widely celebrated. 

Please join me in acknowledging:

Mothers who try to hold families together “for the children” whether you or I agree with such a necessity or not. Every family and every family issue is unique. When women “stay for the children” the women deserves respect and support for their choices.

Mothers who love with an illogical and irrational love and appear to be supporting or enabling an addiction or the poor choices of a son or daughter – or a spouse. Women have their reasons. Judgement and ridicule from outsiders are painful and unhelpful.

Mothers (and fathers) who have buried a child and for whom the wounds of grief are brutally fresh and, it seems, it will always be as if the death occurred this very morning.

Women who’d give anything to have or have had a fruitful womb but now must observe with dignified reserve those who shower them with platitudes.

Women who chose adoption (and often secrecy) for one – or two or three – babies born to them and now for whom these people are growing, grown, distant and unknown.

Feedback from Monday

Bowen Theory / its origins

Suggested reading: Failure of Nerve by Ed Freidman  

The 8 principles of Family Systems

Triangles

Differentiation of self

Nuclear family emotional process

Family projection process

Transmission process

Cutoff

Sibling position

Societal emotional process.

A flow chart or diagram of a person’s family of origin and extended family — usually three generations although people often invest more time and energy and “go back” another two or three generations.

There are many symbols and distinctive markings people use and each practitioner usually develops his or her own style.

A GENOGRAM is PREDICTIVE but not DETERMINATIVE.

Getting required information from your family may be a challenge and an exercise in healing in itself.

Creating a Genogram is an on-going exercise and it will change as a family changes with births, deaths, marriages, adoptions and divorces.

People can and do “defy” the predictions that reveal themselves (addictions, unwanted patterns, cut-offs, fusions) in a Genogram but are unlikely to do so without a committed plan toward greater individual health.

Calm or chaos in one generation is likely to “flow through” the system.

Monday / Family Systems 

MAY 1, 2023

THINKING 

• A “new” way of thinking – well, not really. There are many ways in which you are already a seasoned and expert in systemic thinking. Do you drive? Ever thought of how complex an International Airport is?
• Linear Thinking or Systemic Thinking 
• Non-Living Systems / Living Systems / The Body of Christ. 1Co 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.

BEING 

• Time to focus on SELF and to get focus off OTHERS – you are a PERSON – become an expert in YOUR behavior, The People you love will probably survive without your intense focus but they might sizzle (or fry) from it.  
• Jesus had a thorough self-knowledge and understood His relationships and was never taken off guard by others. Jesus Perfected the art of DIFFERENTIATION OF SELF – engage the life-long process to do the same.  

FAMILY SYSTEM 

• Family or Origin – size and position matters.
• You are part of a NETWORK of RELATIONSHIPS – it is called a FAMILY and you are part of a GET to know  yourself WITHIN that system.
• Why I love Bowen Theory and Family Systems  – there are at least 5 reasons, maybe more.

Your DAY 1 challenges:

• Name relationships where you could do with more space (freedom, room to move) – be careful now.
• Name relationships where you could do with more intimacy, more feedback, closeness– be careful now. 
• Name the people whose behavior you are an expert in at the expense of focusing on your behavior. 
• Has anything taught today caused you to experience some pain or sadness – are you willing to name those areas to someone important to you?      

I am I

You are You

We are We

Let Us not ConFuse

The Three

Things to practice until they become second nature and are identified with how others expect you to behave:

Show up, stand up, and speak up for yourself. Suggest, when necessary, that it be rare for others (all others) to have to do very much of any of the three for you. When others try (and they will) politely suggest that you can handle things about yourself, for yourself. If you are called rude or selfish – because you want to take care of yourself and you are able to do so –  point out that expecting others to prop up your life or manage you or be your voice for you, is surely the epitome of selfishness.

Refuse to engage in gossip or “dark” talk about others even if it may be true and spicy and hot off the press. Be above demeaning others as attractive as it may be to some. You are too busy achieving your goals and becoming who you want to become to participate in taking another down or wallowing in another’s troubles.

Train your eye to see goodness and your tongue to report it. Make this a daily habit and you will be inundated with beauty and kindness as your eyes lead you to more and more beauty and as you spread goodness in your wake. Way leads to way, and beauty to beauty.

Suggestions for “Never Agains”

Use another or others for undisclosed ends, the seed at the heart of maniputlation and dishonesty. 

Use personal power, minimal or vast, to ends for which it is neither awarded nor intended, the essence of intimidation and arrogance. 

Use guilt, punishment, exclusion, to get or keep another or others in order or under control, the height of domination and darkness. 

Speak ill of absent others anf those who cannot self-defend or offer explaination, especially if the sentiments are not first expressed directly face-to-face to the subject or subjects of negative talk, the mark of cowardice.

Blame another or others for things or outcomes and deflect responsibility, be it through avoidance or complicity, an indication of authentic immaturity.

Fall for, be seduced by a “single story” — a partial truth, accepting incomplete understanding of context, ignoring the idea or possibility there may be more to learn or to understand about a circumstance — and acting upon it. This is to be uneducated and willing to remain so.

Succumb to “othering” and prejudice, to exclude others no matter who they are or what may be said or believed about them. This is the bull’s eye of entitlement and damaging, alienating pride, and even more prideful and damaging if perpetuated in the name of faith or of God.

Mondays are re-set days, days to plan the week (unless that’s a Sunday evening activity for you). Monday’s are days to plan for what’s left of the month, or to make a blueprint for the rest of your life. It’s blue-sky Monday, not “blue-Monday”, a term I’ve thankfully not heard in years. 

Before you get to planning try to take care of some foundational issues. 

Clear your head and heart of lingering resentments or unforgiveness — plans made on top of foundations of bitterness are sure to backfire and be costly to much more your wallet.

Make right with people in your immediate and extended family — plans made while in conflict or dissention are likely to crash into barriers of invisible loyalties and burn you up on the inside. 

Relax and breath deeply before you begin your planning — futures  developed in anxiety and desperation will hardly lead to a peaceful future, be it for the week or forever.

Plan your way out of debt, first — nothing will be a more perfect barrier to achieving your hopes and dreams than trying to pay off maxed out credit cards. 

Be assured that your plans may indeed not come to full and planned fruition but if no plan exists, and you plan nothing, you’re most certainly sure to achieve it.

When you are feeling overwhelmed, crowded out by responsibilities, sad, and yet motivated, and bombarded with “monkey’s weddings” (explanation to come), there are a few things you can do. I make lists of all I have to do. If you see me making pencil columns on paper listing all I have to do you know I am getting close to desperate.

But, let me get a “monkey’s wedding.” 

Perhaps I have taken the metaphor to unintended depth but when a South African uses the term “monkey’s wedding” it means it’s raining and the sun is shining. Something very beautiful is occurring when it is also inextricably linked to something sad. 

A young child read Psalm 23 yesterday to hundreds of people. 

It was perhaps the most beautiful reading I have ever heard of that psalm. 

The boy needed no help or prompting and the child – about 7 or 8 years old – displayed no sign of nervousness as his dad stood behind him at the pulpit. 

The child was reading the psalm at his beloved grandmother’s funeral. 

A perfect “monkey’s wedding.” 

I am driving my son to New York City this weekend where he will settle into his new and wonderful life.

Please use the term in your own life if you are hearing it now for the first time.  

A mental health professional in South Africa requests an “old” column for his marketing kit……. what a joy to share this:

Therapy is most helpful when….

1. It is self-initiated and no one is “sending” you to therapy.
2. You are motivated to see change in your life and understand that it could mean an increase in your discomfort and some disruption to your relationships.
3. You are willing to recognize your sacred cows even if you are initially unwilling to lead them to the slaughterhouse.
4. You read widely about ordinary people who have done extraordinary things with their lives.
5. You are willing to see the fruitlessness of blaming others (parents, boss, your ex, the economy, and politicians) for what you are facing.
6. You are willing to shift your focus off the behavior of others and be fully responsible for your own behavior.
7. You are willing to understand that others can only entangle (trap, manipulate, bother) you to the degree you allow.
8. You understand your therapist is a person just like you – but for his or her training. Elevating your therapist will prove to be unhelpful to you and it will obstruct the very process you wish to assist you.
9. You understand that all desired and healthy growth requires some loss, pain, and grief.
10. Your goal is to grow up and to fully live your own life – no matter what your age.