I spent weeks with a group of international students teaching what constitutes healthy relationships and mental health.
Several participatory exercises encouraged assertiveness from participants.
During a break 4 (single) women from the same leading industrial nation asked to speak privately with me. They informed me that if they lived according to the principles I was teaching no man from their culture would love or want them. Haltingly, they declared, their men want weak women, needy women, women who expect her man to be in charge.
Consequently I have routinely, on 5 continents, encouraged women to become the kind of people weak men find terrifying. Similarly I encourage men and boys to become the kind of men who welcome and embrace strong, self-starting, interdependent women.
Interdependent?
People who know how much they need others and how much they don’t.
Weak men will, and do, confuse love and control, even regard control as some form of spiritual gift – and this they do in all areas of their lives.
Such control or “care” parades as love and will seduce a woman looking for a “strong” man, any man.
I assured my students that there are indeed men within their culture who are men enough to love women who are women enough to be strong and assertive women.
Health and strength attract health and strength.
Love and control cannot co-exist in any relationship.
There is great power and pleasure in stopping, being still, getting off the treadmill of activity, halting your mind from scanning and searching and being on duty. There’s great pleasure and power in resting, reading nothing, checking nothing, getting caught up with nothing.
There is great pleasure and power in observing the surroundings, picking up designer themes, details which are easy to miss if seeing is done without concentration, or seeing is done without looking. To look deliberately can be transforming.
There is great power and pleasure and sometimes pain in listening with intensity to what people are saying. It may facilitate hearing what others are not saying which may be the core of a desired, even desperate message. What is skirted and avoided will be heard by the avid and trained listener. Listening is a full body activity.
There is great power and pleasure in choosing to be present, to be near, to be focussed on what another person needs, wants to say, confesses fears, admits to loneliness, is anxious about almost everything. Presence is a gift that it seems few are aware they are able to give. Silence and presence often hold hands.
There is great power in choosing to love even though he or she who seeks to love will seek no power (Msimimngu, in Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country).
Sometimes our father was silent on matters I’d hope he’d respond, defend himself, speak up, correct errors, adjust and align to brings matters a little more in his favor.
But now, I think I understand, or at least I am beginning to understand.
He seemed to sit and watch, observing closely all that was gong on around him, taking it all in, and I’d wait for an assessment but he’d offer none.
I think that now I understand.
Sometimes our father relayed naval stories of such graphic violence with such painful and long-lasting ramifications that I’d wish he’d hold his silence.
But, he could not.
Action at sea and losses of friends to the water, the onboard fires, the sirens and warnings of imminent attack were buried deeply in his memory and left him a gentle man, tolerant, but not naming of fools. He was one who entertained wild and youthful ideas while seeing it all against a backdrop requiring he not respond, speak up, correct the errors, adjust and align or brings matters a little more in his favor.
Perhaps, even though I hsve never faced action at sea or the graphic fears that are the backdrop of war, I can begin to understand why I tend to choose silence when others may prefer me to respond.
I am grateful to Mercury readers who inquire about my health following my bout with salmonella.
As I have written, it knocked me out.
Serendipitously, my sister was already scheduled to come to the USA from South Africa to attend my son’s wedding and Jenny has been more than able to assist me in my recovery.
My doctors inform it will take a while but assure me my “numbers” are “trending” in the right direction.
While it is not where I would like it to be, I am walking 5000 or more steps a day.
I have canceled my travel plans for the rest of 2025. I don’t like canceling arrangements with people who have relied on me for years to bring my academic portion to their family therapy programs.
My immediate goal is to rally all of my physical and emotional strength so I am strong enough to stand for long enough to perform my son’s wedding and hold onto my emotions while I do it. His walk down the aisle with 7 groomsmen (one being his brother) and me, and the entry of the 7 bridesmaids, then the bride, is sure to evoke powerful emotions for us all in the home church of his beautiful fiance in a city three hours from where we live.
It surprises me, now that my sons are adults, what catches my attention abou them and makes me burst with pride. They’re not the things I anticipated when they were young boys. I think I was falsely oriented around things of a more grandiose nature.
I enjoy watching them engage with other adults and how they do so with ease, respect, kindness and humility.
They know how to say “thank you,” and when to say “thank you.” This, in my opinion, is one of the most important skills a human can have. I meet men twice their ages who have apparently not acquired this skill.
They are naturally respectful of the elderly. They hold back at doors and open doors. They’re eager to give a seat to someone who needs it. They’re on the lookout for how they serve, how they can help. This is more impressive to me than a lot of other things I thought I’d find impressive.
They do not hold back if they want me to know something, want to ask me something, or request a favor. I love the fact that they’re open about their needs and their wants, but they’re quite willing to hear yes as they are to hear no. No is tough for me, but I am learning.
My sons live in different cities from each other yet it appears they’re almost daily in contact with each other. That they are friends with each other means the world to me.
Who are you? You don’t matter. I don’t care one way or the other. Your life, your existence means nothing. Get out of my way.
While such sentiments are usually unspoken they drive behavior.
Sometimes, mine.
Headlines? I don’t read them. Who wants bad news? What goes on Gaza and Israel and South Sudan and Ukrain and Russia and wherever else on the planet is too far removed for me to care, too complicated for me to understand. Let’s watch something feel good. What’s on Netflix?
The shooting on the street leaving a young man dead and his body in the street is an inconvenience. I am going to be late for work. The congested traffic gets more attention than the death of a young man and the pain his family must now face.
Indifference. Zero empathy. No room for cross-over human care. What’s that?
Perhaps it has always been this way.
I think not.
This is surely sin at its finest? The acceptance of the idea that I can be indifferent (unaffected, untouched, devoid of empathy) to the suffering of others.
As long as it does not inconvenience me, I don’t care.
Lead yourself, first. Lead yourself, only. Everything else will fall into place and grow.
Regard leadership for what it is. It is a function, something the leader does. Know what it is not: a place of power or status. The “leader” who seeks power or status will take himself/herself and the organization (church, hospital, school, political party, soccer team) nowhere worth going.
Authentic Leaders develop leaders without even trying. The authenticity is so novel and attractive others find it compelling and will naturally want to follow and learn.
Authentic Leaders give away, delegate, spread opportunities so others may grow without fear of being outdone by those to whom they delegate.
Authentic Leaders have a set of pre-decided principles and values that are in place before they are needed.
Authentic Leaders are constantly engaged in doing their homework and self work and family work because they know all sectors and compartments of life spin off and influence and drive each other. A leader can fake it for only so long until the parts of his or her life that are “out of integrity” will come crashing and cashing in.
Authentic Leaders are focussed on strength and freedom, not on anxiety and weaknesses (of self and others).
Authentic Leaders select their emotions, choose their responses, and are in charge of their reactions. Those who are not are a danger to themselves, their families, and to the organizations which they claim to lead.
“I am in my early thirties and my parents’ only child from my biological mom and dad. My dad left my mom and fathered three sons with three women. Those boys are 25, 21, and 18. My mom has three sons, now 24, 22, and 16, by two men. The first two are from the same dad (not my dad). I am a ‘big’ sister to six brothers. I live away but I go ‘home’ to my mom and dad and I know all the boys. They all live near each other but are not as familiar with the brothers from ‘another mother and father.’ I feel responsible for my brothers. How can I be a good sister in such a complicated set-up?”
Your question reveals the beautiful truth of invisible loyalties. Loyalties run deep in families and can escape reason. You can be a great “big” sister by being responsible to your brothers, not for them. They are indeed not your responsibility but you probably can build unique sets of relationships with each of them. A text and a call here and there. Birthday cards. Inexpensive gifts. Reach out to them not as a group but as individuals. Seek friendship at their pace. These efforts they will treasure and remember.
I devised a list of how to participate in the healing of men and women who have been hurt:
Be willing to listen, even if what is being said is what you’d prefer to not hear. Try not to re-engineer (re-frame, recast) what you have heard so it is more fitting with what you’d really like to hear.
Resist understandable attempts to short-circuit growth by trying to ease necessary pain, by offering false affirmations, and by accepting empty excuses for irresponsible behavior. Pain is a very good motivator for change. Resist the urge to remove it when it appears to be helpful.
Offer your presence, not your answers. “I am with you” is more helpful than “let me help you fix it.”
Welcome silence. There are ways to communicate that do not include words. Resist the understandable urge to chase healing and learning away with the incessant use of words and stories.
Avoid minimizing (“it’s not so bad!”) or rationalizing (“What else did you expect?”) or normalizing (“Anyone would have done that!”) the issues that resulted in pain. Do not rob necessary pain of its usefulness.
Promote “future thinking.” Ask questions focused on future wellness and success.
Try to avoid searching for the genesis (the cause) of what has led to pain. Where something comes from is not nearly as important living your way out of it.
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