The Mercury – Wednesday / High-functioning people….

Regular relating to high-functioning people (intimate of casual):

Will give you the lasting impression that life is an exciting adventure, filled with wonderful, endless possibilities

Will give you the impression that questions are more important than answers and that ambiguity is an ally and not a foe

Will leave you feeling empowered and encouraged and that if you apply yourself you can do about anything you can dream of doing and go anywhere on the planet that you’d like

Will leave you with the desire to read and discover more about areas of interest you did not even perhaps know you have

Will inspire you to become engaged in your own life at least as deeply as they are engaged in theirs

Will engage you in skillful humor that has no victims.

Not to differentiate is to fuse or to be enmeshed (the failure to become a fully separate person) and is evidenced by the propensity to place responsibility on others (or on situations, predicaments, and hurdles) for the way in which our lives develop. To differentiate is to provide a platform for maximum growth and personal development for everyone in your circle of influence.

Differentiation is described in many ways in the following points:

• Growing in the ability to see where and how I fit into my family, the position I hold and the power that is, and is not, given to that position.
• Growing in the ability to be fully responsible for my own life, while, at one and the same time, also being actively growing closer to those whom I love.
• Intentionally, and simultaneously, developing increased autonomy and deeper intimacy. Autonomy: I move toward achieving my dreams and ambitions. Intimacy: I authentically and appropriately reveal who I am to those whom I love.
• Clearly defining who I am and who I want to be while understanding the natural tendency that exists for others to try and tell me who I am and who and what I should be.
• Staying in touch with others while, and even though, there is tension and disagreement.
• Being able to declare clearly what I need and being able to request help from others without foisting or imposing my needs upon them.
• Being able to understand what personal needs can and cannot be met both in my own life and in the lives of others.
• Understanding that I am called to be distinct (separate) from others, without being distant or cut off from others.
• Understanding that I am responsible to others but that I am not responsible for others.

Presented by Bob Hunter

▪ Focus on your own functioning: Don’t let the crisis become the axis around which your world revolves.
 
▪ Develop a support system outside of the work system: professional helpers, family, and friends.
 
▪ Stay focused on long-term goals.
 
▪ Deep breathing  - Prayer  -  Meditation: (And CYCLING!!)
 
▪ Listen to your body.
 
▪ Watch the triangles.  

▪ The “molecules of human relationship”

▪ The person in the “responsibility position” ends up with the stress.
 
▪ Work out a balance between being responsible for self and being [labeled] obstreperous.  (“Not a team player”)
 
▪ Keep the system loose through humor.
 
▪ It’s time to make decisions when the same question brings no new information.
 
▪ Accept the possibility that one’s own functioning brought it on, which means that one may be able to influence one’s recuperation.
 
– A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, by Edwin Friedman; p. 302

With the weekend quickly dawning and one which will involve a lot of travel for me (I will be going home having spent the week teaching in Switzerland) I thought I’d invite you to the challenges I will set, in writing, for myself for the following few days. Perhaps you will embrace them, too:
 
·       I will work at being and becoming the most generous person I know.
·       Similarly, I will work at being and becoming the most forgiving person I know.
·       I will consistently reduce the amount of effort, care, and attention I need from others and thus hopefully earn a reputation for being “low-maintenance.” 
·       I will look for adventure in changes, especially those that are neither anticipated nor desired and over those with which I have neither authority nor control.
·       I will be as clear as possible about who I am and what I want so that the need for guessing and anticipation is reduced for those who interact with me.
·       I will look for opportunities to give and receive love, especially where both giving it and receiving it may be least expected.
·       I will govern myself well so that I may be proud of my self-handling and the handing of others as both pertain to my roles and responsibilities.     

A boundary is a line (usually invisible – prison would be an example of a visible boundary) that separates a person from all other people.

Each person is responsible for his or her own boundaries.

Here are indications of poorly defined boundaries:

• Sharing intimately on a first meeting.
• Falling in love with anyone who reaches out.
• Being preoccupied with someone.
• Going against what you know is right to please someone.
• Hoping someone you meet will have poor boundaries.
• Trusting blindly with matters of significance.
• Accepting food, gifts, touch, or sex you do not want.
• Taking as much as you can get for the sake of getting.
• Giving as much as you can give for the sake of giving.
• Letting someone be in charge of your life.
• Allowing someone else to say what you feel and see.
• Believing someone can and should anticipate your needs.
• Being moody and withdrawn because you are not getting enough attention.
• Expecting people to read your mind and know what you want or need.
• Habitually stealing the agenda, taking center stage, occupying the spotlight.
• Falling apart to get care.
• Eating for destructive reasons or with destructive results.
• Sex for pain or to express aggression.

Cloud and Townsend book “Boundaries” is essential reading on this topic.

The above list is collated from a variety of sources and over so many years and from so many places. I’d love to acknowledge all the sources and would if I had them.

• Increase your tolerance for pain (of those whom you love and your own) – this will keep you out of “rescue mode” with those whom you love and decrease your likelihood of engaging in your own unhelpful behaviors.

• Focus on being a step-down transformer (rather than a step-up transformer) for the anxiety that surrounds you. Reduce rather than amplify surrounding anxieties.

• Develop and eagle eye so you may see your life from afar and from “above.” Look beyond today for the larger context of who you are and what you are called to accomplish.

• Listen patiently to others without waiting to speak. You do not have to agree but it is essential that you listen. Perhaps the only tangible evidence of love is that we listen to those whom we say we love.

• Forgive before it is asked of you and especially if it is not. This is, of course, about you and not about those who are in need of your forgiveness.

• Develop a “long-haul” mentality for your family and other intimate relationships. People are allowed to fail, people are allowed to let you down, other people are as fallible as you are. A long-haul mentality encourages you to stay with it even if things don’t go your way.

If you really want some change in your family then here are some counter-intuitive ways to set positive change in motion:
 

• Shift your focus away from those whom you wish to change, or to be different, or to be more “open” or obedient, onto your own responses to these very people.

• Become an expert in your own behavior. While you are caught up in what they are doing or are not doing you will be blinded to your own behavior and your contribution to what’s happening among you.

• Make a radical attempt to unearth your family history – the secrets, unresolved issues, cut-offs, addictions, and the bonds and binds. This can always be done with kindness. Asking questions about your own life and your own family is absolutely appropriate. Such unearthing may initially spike anxiety but it will bring your long-term understanding and relief and make you a stronger and more defined person to live with.

• Do whatever is necessary to reach and connect with your parents – if they are deceased then work with finding out as much as you can about them. No one can be enduringly emotionally well and be a positive influence on their current family while he or she harbors unresolved issues with his or her parents. 

“My son (28) and my live-in boyfriend do not get along. At best there is unspoken tension. At worst they go at each other and insult each other. Neither works nor brings in any money and both accuse the other of living off me. I support both. My son says this is ‘more acceptable’ for him since he is my son. My boyfriend says he at least helps around the house and that’s how he ‘pays’ his share. Please don’t tell me to ‘get out of the middle’ because that’s impossible. I am not going to put my son out in this economy where it is so hard to find a job and my boyfriend has nowhere to go.” (Vast edits)
 
Since you are aware of the necessity to get out of the middle you will do so when you are ready.

Your situation is a fine example of how we treat people how to treat us. You have enabled two fully-grown men to live off you and you all apparently regard it as acceptable.

Of course the men don’t get along. If they had meaningful jobs they’d feel better about life, and you, and have no time to engage in immature games.

Millions of people work – the men in your house can, too.