Anxiety will render you partially deaf to what others are saying to you and you will tend to hear what you want to hear. It will make you partially blind to what is going on around you and will see what you want to see.Anxiety will make you hyper-sensitive to what others are doing and not doing and you will become less and less aware of your own behavior.

You will reduce your levels of anxiety if you….

“De-triangle” yourself. This means getting out of the middle of relationships that do not directly involve you. For instance, stop trying to get your son to like his stepfather, or your mother to like your wife, or your boss to spend more time with his children. You are powerless over relationships that involve others and not you. 

Re-connect appropriately with people to whom you are related, especially when it is by blood. It is virtually impossible to be enduringly emotionally well if you have severed blood relationships. We are designed for connection and healthy family connections can nurture like none other. 

Step out of the role of being a peacekeeper  – being the one who avoids and helps others to avoid necessary and helpful conflict. Be a peacemaker, the one who steps into the role of one who welcomes and facilitates necessary and helpful conflict.

I have taken some flack for writing that our thoughts (our thinking) are more important than our feelings.

I have never said our feelings are unimportant or ought to be dismissed or downplayed.

You might have noticed constant reminders in self-help-type writings that we have no control over what others think of us.

This is so.

I want to go a smidgeon further.

How, what, and when we think of others is of pivotal importance and it is (largely) within our control.

How (positive, negative, with anger, joy, or judgement) we think of others (individuals, groups, near and far) shapes who we are (character).

What (positive, negative, truth, rumour) we think of others shapes our behavior.

When (rarely, on occasion, routinely, obsessively) we think of others shapes attitudes, productivity and content.

The “how,” “what” and “when” occurring within us is vastly more important than what others think, or we believe others think, about us.

Take kindness and thinking kind thoughts and planning kind actions.

It is good for us.

It’s a day-changer.

Really, it’s a life-changer.

Unkindness from any source reveals (usually) nothing about the target and everything about the source.

“Love your enemies?” said Jesus.

Why?

I of course don’t know all the reasons He said this.

I have a hunch that it’s at least partly because love is good for all of us.

Learning to love our enemies is the ultimate test of character and shapes us into the kinds of people we really want to be.

I recall noticing, even as a young child, that the unkind boys and girls in primary school were the ones who appeared to have endured little or no suffering.

They lived in palatial homes, had servants (whom they often mistreated) and parents who were at their beck and call. 

Empathy, although I had no name for it, was missing. 

I reasoned it was not something they felt they needed and therefore was not part of what they could offer.

A series of vivid enduring events underscored my observations.

As a chronic stutterer I could tell exactly who would and who would not make fun of my speaking. I could smell the lack of empathy from a distance. They would go so far as to challenge teachers to call on me to read to the class in hopes of enjoying my humiliation.  

One of my peers was severely disfigured from an accident he endured as a very young child.

Those who pointed, laughed, circled him and tried to get him to smile or cry with their taunting were those who also derived pleasure from humiliating me. 

Boys (my highschool was and is an all boys school) who appeared to have it all found it easy to victimize those who did not.

Empathy was not part of their emotional vocabulary.

It may be more subtle now (or not) but a cursory glance at the headlines reveals little has changed.   

What will you do with your loneliness?

Will you permit it to take you down, halt your activities, zoom your mind back to a time when you were surrounded by people, a time when your children were young and you had no time for loneliness? 

If you permit it will take up increased room in your thinking until there is not much room for anything else but the accentuated heaviness of your aloneness. 

Like you (I concede there are always exceptions) people crave connection, recognition. People want to be seen, heard, play roles in the lives of others. 

We are living pieces of a vibrant, multidimensional puzzle seeking our unique places – we have several – where we fit, where we give and receive and make our unique marks and contributions. 

Something vital happens within us when we are part of a family, a team, a group, a gathering of friends, a community of worship, and combine our skills and resources for a unified effort.      

So? 

What will you do with your loneliness?

Will you allow it the upper hand to push you further into despair? 

Let loneliness have its way and before long your mind will fill with victim thinking and you may begin to believe the world is against you.

I am neither superior nor inferior to anyone anywhere. 

We are equals. 

While it is true that we all have different roles, different responsibilities, vastly different experiences, we remain equals. 

We are not the same, but we are equal. 

My life is not more or less important than yours. No matter how educated or uneducated or wealthy or so-called poor, or “powerful” or “powerless” you or I may be or may not be – we are equals. 

While the world around you and me may not, and does not, affirm this truth, I will embrace it and live it to the best of my ability and hope you will too. 

Why?

Because it is good for us – you and me.

And, it is the truth.

I aspire to live this way so that I may be at peace and fully enjoy those around me without having to combat the inevitable taint and contamination that will result when people believe in their own superiority or inferiority, or in the superiority or inferiority of others.

Your (my) race, religion, ethnic background, culture, language, qualifications, bank-balance, list of assets, “reach,” influence, or being married, single, divorced, straight, gay, none of it, none of it qualifies you (or me) be claim superiority (to judge), or inferiority (to be judged).     

May you….

– find authentic inclusion with a group of caring friends. 

– enjoy significant connection and derive mutual satisfaction with members of your immediate and extended family and family of choice. 

– have meaningful work, work that respectfully uses your talents, strengths your imagination, and where your responsibilities and your authority are in sync.  

– have the capacity for humor that enriches – not diminishes or demeans – others. 

– discover new and wonderful and creative things about yourself despite your years of experience. 

– learn from past failures and have an increased and healthy awareness of your propensities and vulnerabilities rather than be weighed down by your failures.

– strive to be part of the solutions and not part of the problems in matters large and small. (Credit Dean Sherman)

– become even more skillful in knowing your limits, defining your boundaries, and therefore better able to love your enemies, friends, family, colleagues and strangers. 

– resist urges,  subtle or gross — all of which may be socially acceptable — to exploit others to accomplish your personal or professional goals. 

– do no harm and may none come to you. 

– truly understand you are superior to none, inferior to none and, if and while you think you are either, you are surely missing the joy of appreciating your own beautiful humanity.  

– be an agent of love, healing, learning, empowering, and peace. 

The “heart” of a person speaks. 

I am not referring to the fist size organ in your chest but to the enigmatic “place” within, the interlocking core of soul, spirit, mind, will, memory, aspirations, longings, regrets. The place where grief grieved, ignored, or overridden, lives. I refer to that complex “engine” within you and me that motivates and drives us.

Or doesn’t. 

It speaks, declares who we are, what we are made of, reveals itself hundreds and more times a day. 

We leave heartprints, handprints, footprints and cannot help but to do so. 

It comes with the power of our humanity.

What’s going on deep inside you and me is revealed in our words, affirmations or tongue lashings, blessing or bullying, and everything in between. Our hearts speak through the works of our hands and through the multiple tracks we leave as we move about the world. 

The angry, disappointed, abandoned, betrayed heart, will, if not guarded, lash out, take the pain out on others, usually those most loved or even those nearest, even strangers. Ever wondered why people yell at total strangers like the check out assistant in the supermarket? Pain, anger, will go somewhere.  

The peaceful, resolved, mature heart – nothing to do with age – the healed, understanding heart, the open heart, even unguarded, will spread peace, goodness, kindness and be quite unable but to do otherwise with loved ones and strangers. 

Alcohol abuse stings deeply.

And, it does so for generations.

It poisons. 

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

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 5 decades 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.

Our no-strings-attached superpowers

I’m convinced that you and I have superpowers and the capacity to radically transform our immediate circle of influence.

Our capacity for hospitality is a superpower and, as powerful as it is, it goes beyond opening our homes to guests and strangers. It’s opening our hearts to everyone we encounter. It’s simple friendliness. It’s a no-strings-attached welcome to all. 

Our capacity for generosity is a superpower. We have it in us to share, to give, to alleviate burdens for others. It’s extending this natural gift to those who least expect it from us that elevates natural generosity into a superpower. It’s a planned no-strings-attached sharing of time and resources. 

Our capacity to both hear and listen to people is a superpower. When we offer people undistracted attention and hang onto every word they say, we are validating their story, their very existence. It’s a no-strings-attached gift proclaiming “I see and hear and value you” in an often indifferent world. 

Our capacity to treat all other people as equals (which they are) and with respect (which all people deserve) is a superpower. We can learn powerful and important lessons from anyone and everyone. This no-strings-attached acknowledgment of the treasures within all people, like all our human superpowers, cannot be faked. 

I am fascinated by process, time, growth; how life itself gets us ready for life itself. 

When my sons were very young neither they nor I could imagine them leaving, going off on their own. None of the three of us was ready for that. 

It is different now. 

It’s not that I want them gone. I do not. But I do want them to forge ahead with their own lives. I want them to find adventures in far off countries and to make friends with people I will never meet. 

Life prepared me for that transition. I find no resistance within me for it to continue. I thought I would hold onto the boys in some way but I cannot find it in me to do so. I am ready, we are ready for things none of the three of us could have foreseen us being ready for.

Life did it. The process did it. This is what I am celebrating. 

In the meantime I shall Value obscurity. Enjoy doubt. Celebrate ambiguity. Embrace mystery. Love complexity. I’ll stop searching for certainty, sureness, and seek simplicity. 

Not only can I not have all the answers, I  cannot even have most of the questions! 

Life itself, does it’s part in preparating us for life.