I started the week challenging you to use up to 20 words to write about what you want. Once anyone knows what he or she really wants, he or she sets himself or herself in a direction that will graft purpose into even life’s most mundane challenges and tasks. It is improbable that you will currently know what you want – there are days I still don’t and I am 68 – but this is a good time to allow the thought to steep (what a tea-bag does in hot water) within you. Having goals, even very broad goals, will help you to define yourself. Remember, if you do not define yourself, someone will and you probably won’t like what they come up with.

I talked about size – the kind which has nothing to do with physical size. In some families a mom may be huge and dad is very small. In others, the dad may determine everything (be huge) and mom may have lost her voice (and size) in the name of love. In many families sons or daughters may dominate; wield too much power. It usually serves no one in the family very well. May you find your size, a size appropriate to your role in your family. To do this you will have to get into the driver’s seat of your life. Size is much more than about families: we said together and referring to all your other contexts like school and where you work and within your sports and music lives: Don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you, there is room for all of us.

Power comes with your humanity. You, and all humans everywhere, have the power to love, create, enrich others, and to be a source of encouragement for others. You have the power to be very generous. You have the power to be kind, very kind. The positive use of your God-given human power will enhance your life even as you seek to enrich the lives of others. It is also true that you have the power to be vengeful, angry, resentful – and you may indeed have many reasons to exercise this power. Such power, too, comes with your humanity. I hope you will not use it. If you use your power to hate and hurt and ruin – even if you inflict it on people who you think may really deserve it – hate, hurt, ruin will boomerang and do its horrid work within and upon you. Unchecked, it will destroy you. Love, goodness, generosity expressed within you have the capacity from within you to be monitored. You will be able to manage such power. Hate, hurt, and ruin don’t. They run wild. Don’t give them a foothold. They are invasive viruses to any host’s emotional life. You will not be able to manage them. They will manage you. You may or may not recall that on Day 2 I reported that I regret every moment where I have used my personal power to harm others. The memories I hold of such actions often keep me awake even years later. I speak at events like RYLA in the hopes that you will do better at being human – rather than inhuman (indifferent, uncaring, unmoved) – than I have. It took me a very long time to learn these things – how to be human – and they were learned at great cost to myself and others. May you and I both, use our God-given power to enhance others and to do no harm.

I will remind you that everyone and everything (even trees) needs space if growth is to occur. The Collins Brothers showed this to us on the stage. Too much and too little are unhelpful in a healthy relationship. Healthy relationships make both parties more free, not more restricted. If you meet a potential partner with whom you feel your freedom reducing as you get to know each other and/or your voice getting quieter or the egg-shells around you getting deeper, be kind, be assertive, and move, soon. These are signs the relationship is not for you.

On Thursday I talked about SELF. Think of self as the deepest recess within a person. In an entire life-time you will probably be truly known by as few as five or six people no matter how well known or famous you may become. I have met people who have done horrible, terrible things, but I have never met a self who is not beautiful. I am sure there are some but I have never met anyone whom I can say is an ugly self, once I have gotten to know them. There are complex reasons people are the way they are. Once you get beyond the many facades most people are really practiced at, you will find people are beautiful. I believe there is something beautiful even about the worst of humanity. This is not condoning unkindness or even evil, it is recognizing the Handprint of God that is present upon every human life.   

Loving yourself is not (necessarily) selfish: Self-Awareness, Self-Assuredness are all good and expressions of self-love, until they are not. They can easily transition (devlove) into Self-Absorption and Tiresome Arrogance. Try not to go there although it sometimes feels inevitable – to me – and I have to self-correct. Learn how to love yourself. If you don’t love and accept yourself you can hardly expect others to do so.

Extraordinarily simply (and a metaphor for our purposes) think of your brain and three interlinked parts: your stem (which does not have the brains to think), is limited to fight, flight, or freeze. The Stem is purely reactive and designed only to protect. Your limbic (which only has the brains to feel) will sweep you through highs and lows where you feel good or bad, accepted or rejected. Your Limbic is where self-pity hangs out. Then, there’s (thankfully) your Neocortex. This is your much larger (than the other parts) and developing front part of your brain. This is your brain of Endless Options and Possibilities. Take time to purposefully engage your neo-cortex – let it lead – and you will save yourself a lot of trauma and cash on therapy.

Find and use your Voice. Stand up. Stand on your own two feet but don’t push anyone else over. Speak up. Speak up for yourself and for others. Say what it is you really want to say. The voice I am talking about is usually one of few words. People who have found and use their Voice usually do not have to talk very much. Be careful not to confuse speaking with having a voice. Talking and talking and more talking is not necessarily using your Voice.

Finally, love is NEVER jealous or possessive. A person who loves you won’t even try to dictate how you dress or how much time can or cannot be with your friends. No one can love and control the same person. I will remind you that we see the world around us not as the world is, but as we are. Similarly, we love others as we are, and not as others are.

It all comes down to this: what kind of person do you want to be?

Peace, joy, fulfillment be yours.

07/22/2022

Power comes with your humanity.

You have the power to love, create, enrich others and to be a source of encouragement for those around you. You have the power to be very generous. You have the power to be kind, very kind.

The positive use of your inherent human power – we all have power and no one is excluded – will enhance and enrich your life as you seek to enrich others.

And, you also have the power to be vengeful, angry, resentful, and you may have many justifiable reasons to express vengeance and anger and resentment.

Such power, too, comes with your humanity.

I hope you will not use it.

The deployment of your power to spread negative emotions and damage upon others – even if you think they deserve it – will ultimately return and do its destructive work upon and within you. 

Unchecked, it will ultimately destroy you.

I regret every moment where I have used my personal power to the detriment of others and the seeming benefit of myself – which is the essence of selfishness. The memories I hold of such actions often keep me awake at night. There is nothing I regret more than inflicting my unmet needs and unresolved issues onto others. 

These were people who certainly did not deserve to have to cope with my boundaryless, harmful ways.

May you and I use our God-given power to enhance others and to do no harm.

Do you see a therapist about your family or relationships issues? Here are a few ways to measure your progress. 

• You’re gaining the courage you need to define yourself more and more clearly. You’re learning the futility of trying to define others, especially the people to whom you’re closest. Defining yourself means you’re declaring who you are and what you want in the nicest, kindest, most self-assured manner, and anticipating that those to whom you’re closest will do the same, or not.

• You’re urging your ego to opt for being quieter, less defensive, and more curious. This is with the welcome knowledge that you have a lot to learn from how you got into the circumstances you face. You understand that you are the common denominator in all of your relationships. You blame no one for your choices and take full responsibility for your future choices, as loaded and as difficult as they may be.

• You are able, more than ever before, to get a bird’s eye view of your family and your individual life. You are seeing how all things work together for gains in emotional health or, sadly, declines in emotional health. You know that all relationships and connections impact all relationships and connections and therefore you are being more careful with yours.

Please, dismiss the idea of resilience and toughness as a man with a ball scoring an unforgettable try – although indeed he may be both resilient and tough. 

Some of the toughest people I know are slight women who’d confess to embodying zero athleticism. I’ve met 14-year-old girls with apparently more resilience and grit than adult and professional millionaire athletes.

Grit and toughness and courage and resilience include:

• Holding onto yourself when things around you appear to be falling apart. Self care when others appear not to care (about you). It’s getting an “above” view or objective view of what’s going on around you. 

• Speaking up for yourself and others when the trend would prefer or appeal for your silence. It’s also, of course, knowing when not to speak at all. Remember, most people speak too much and listen far too little. Courage invites the necessary flip.

• Waiting for the optimum moment, the opportunity, the gap, when waiting seems counter to the action required to reduce anxiety. This is another form of “holding onto yourself.” It’s realizing that if you miss the moment it probably will return.

• Embracing the “opposition” or problem without it (the issue) knocking you off kilter or allowing it to shape your predetermined well-considered plan.

Facing tough or difficult decisions? Facing conflict with people whom you love? 

• Do what is possible, be kind, be assertive, act within your budget, and then, let the rest take care of itself.
• Do not explain, try to justify yourself or others, excuse, attack or chase others, and then, let the rest take care of itself.
• Be as playful as possible – some circumstances need a little mirth and humor – without being flippant or dismissive and then, let the rest take care of itself. There are circumstances, of course, where playfulness is inappropriate. Know the difference.
• Make no heroes of others, and take no victims, in all that you decide to do, and then, let the rest take care of itself. Healthy people value their own freedom and the freedom of others.
• Avoid unnecessarily provoking so-called “sleeping dogs” like long-past arguments or long-forgotten scores. Some things are best left undisturbed. Some things must be disturbed. Know the difference.
• Remember that how you treat others is always about you and reflects the kind of person you are. If you are a “changed person” then the change will be demonstrated in all of your relationships and not a select few relationships. Real change impacts all our relationships and not only those where we endured or inflicted pain

“Yes, sadly,” I expressed days ago, “we all carry an edge of  inhumanity.”

It was not written to insult but to inspire a deeper look both for you and for me for none of us escapes the common brush of our inhumanity. For most, it is subtle, for  we have highly developed skills to hide the harshness we usually prefer to think is not lurking within. 

Do you experience any of the following? 

Indifference when others, strangers, even neighbors, suffer. Indifference when you read of wars and calamity in far off places.

A cold shoulder turned to the person who’s in trouble by his or her own doing where “but for grace there go I” is forgotten. 

A determined forward stare at a traffic intersection when a hungry child attempts to gain attention. 

An inner sigh of contempt when a friend recounts her abandonment that occurred decades ago. 

The short tempered reaction with what you or I may assume is another’s stupidity with a task or challenge you and I may find offers you and I no challenge at all. 

If you, as I do, recognize any such responses, then you are not unfamiliar with your inhuman edge, an edge that’s waiting to be shaped and make you into a person even more beautiful and kind and patient than you already are.

Wait and watch before you judge, dismiss, turn your back on the human you want to reject for a behavior, a look, an appearance that you don’t understand or appreciate.

You may have something to learn from this person. 

He or she may hold a key for you to love a little deeper than before. He or she may indeed put you in touch with a more of your humanity, and shave off an edge of your remaining inhumanity. 

Yes, sadly, we all carry an edge of inhumanity.

But, to find the key, unleash the love, you’ve got to be willing to admit you may indeed have something to learn and discover from someone you might readily rather reject. Often, at the core of our impulse to reject is the heart of the lesson life is aching to teach us.

Look “below” the behavior. 

Listen  beyond the cry. 

Hear what is not being said. 

Do this and you will find a desire for connection, a longing for meaning, a desire for appropriate human touch, a longing to belong. 

It’s – whatever the behavior you despise – a search for significance. It’s a longing to be embraced, understood, accepted, included. 

Take a while, perhaps even a very long while, the person upon whom you’d rather turn your back may be the very prophet you’ve been searching for all of your life.

Alcohol abuse stings, stings deeply.

And, it does so for generations.

It poisons. 

It sets children on edge often for a life-time of living on edge.

I know too well.

The memories may be distant but my emotions still react and I often still feel the pain even though it’s been well over 55 years since I was exposed to the incessant drinking of close relatives.

Remembering the energy I spent as a boy trying to maintain order in the family and reliving my futile efforts to steer adults away from drinking and the twisting and turning in bed when people raged with drunkenness refreshes the emotional exhaustion that is ever ready to awaken in my body, despite the years.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

If you are a parent who indulges in alcohol and it shifts your moods and messes with your driving and threatens your employment and demands spending money you cannot afford and makes you want to pick on those whom you say you love and it is destroying all semblance of trust people may have in you, please seek help.

Humble yourself.

Get the help you need.

You, and all whom you love, will be better off for it.

Generations to come will thank you.

The “old” way of “love” 

• Love as a bargain or trade- favors returned or unreturned determine the level of “love” and commitment.  
• Love as a weapon or to establish and maintain power – inclusion if well-behaved, exclusion if not. 
• Love as a face or image – a show of love offered in public contrasting greatly with what is privately experienced. 
• Love as a teaching tool – it’s all about learning, shaping, seldom for enjoyment.
• Love as punishment through withholding – a “I’ll show you who is in charge” distortion of love.  

The “new” way of love 

• Love as service – the giver enhances the lives of others through chosen humility and service.
• Love as a means to learning – the giver seeks to grow, therefore watches, listens with patience and care.
• Love as an expression of spirit and soul expressed to all – the giver has made a decision to grow in love and has therefore recognized that none are on the “outside,” all are insiders.
• Love as belonging – the giver desires to belong, not lead or organize or capitalize.
• Love as an expression of mercy, forgiveness, deserved or not – the giver has acknowledged his or her failings (gross or benign) and has turned his or her back on harmful, selfish ways, while offering to all the grace he or she so badly also needed.

Bring your brokenness and your regrets and your heartbreak and fall apart with rage and anger stocking the fire and I will listen.

I will try not to even attempt to quell your storm, extinguish the fire, quieten your rage and you will not fall apart or burn up or drown in the process. 

You will be on your way to falling together. You will be on your way to finding and making greater sense of who you are and “why” you are. You will be heading towards the center of your soul where you will discover, perhaps afresh, just how beautiful you are.

Then, not immediately but at some time, will you do the same for others? 

Perhaps even for me.

Will you form a wall of acceptance and empathy and challenge with your presence and your listening skills and your experience for others and perhaps even for me?

As “together” as I may appear, truth is I am perched upon my own volcano, climbing my own mountain of regrets, uncovering my own rage and anger and remorse and it is all, all of it, is toward myself and my selfish actions and my lack of foresight or insight and care for the impact of my actions upon others let alone myself.