November 21, 2017
by Rod Smith
What’s your inner-voice saying about your diet, spending, gambling, or your role in your family conflicts? I bet you hear or feel the nudge of your inner-voice when you speak harshly to others or are hard or cruel. I thoroughly believe that many of our interpersonal troubles come from the unwillingness or the inability to hear or trust our inner sane voice.
There’s a sane and beautiful person living within you and he or she is trying to get through to you.
If you think things through you will agree that you know what’s good and right, and what is not. I believe we know when we are using others for our own purposes and when we sacrifice their best interests for our own.
We know what to eat and what to avoid.
I know if I am lying or twisting truth in my favor.
Even the most hardened of liars is aware of it – even if the “skill” seems “second nature.”
Of course there are men and women who do indeed have schizoid conditions and to whom this column would not apply – but the vast majority of us have a sane inner-voice that’s aching for a hearing.
Listening in, acting accordingly, would save us an awful lot of pain, trouble, and therapy.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Voice |
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November 14, 2017
by Rod Smith
There’s a cartoon I glimpsed that has stuck with me. The simple sketch and caption found an indelible place in my heart, mind, soul, spirit, brain, memory, or some combination of all these internal “places.” I list them all –I am sure there are more – because none of us know where within our complex human hard-drive these life-shaping things are stored.
“If you’re ugly on the inside eventually it will show on the outside,” the caption read. I thought of how the caption echoed Jesus who said, “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
Our lives are driven and guided by this inner-place.
In his new book, “Barking to the Choir,” Father George Boyle talks about the deep and hurtful matters in our lives that will be “transmitted” if they are not “transformed.”
He talks about the “language” of our lives – and how they can be lived from a heart of hurt and rejection or from peace and healing. He writes about burying over 200 victims of gang violence in his Los Angeles parish and about being treasured by his homeboys – the men and boys who have left their lives of violence and found lives of grace – as he continues his own battle with cancer.
If you are beautiful on the inside it will show on the outside.
Posted in Addictions, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Victims, Violence |
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October 17, 2017
by Rod Smith
I am very aware that people don’t analyze their connections in the manner I’ve described below. We’d have healthier communities and families if we did!
- Will you search with me when I am searching, stand with me when I am standing, and drop to your knees with me in prayer if and when I need it? I will try to do the same for you.
- Will you stand up to me with firmness and kindness when my many blind spots are blocking my thinking? I will try to do the same for you.
- Will you join me and examine our connection (as casual acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, partners, or spouses) so that we remain mutual and equal and respectful no matter the degree or significance of our connection?
- Will you take time to listen to me? I will try to take time to listen to you?
- Will you allow me my quirks and eccentricities and try to regard them as interesting rather than regard them as things you wish were different about me?
- Will you seek my highest good as far as you are able given the knowledge we have about each other? I will try to do the same for you.
- Will you try to be as unafraid of me as I try to be unafraid of you?
Posted in Addictions, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Schnarch, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Triangles, Voice, Womanhood, Young Love |
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October 9, 2017
by Rod Smith
Nine things I learned from my father – and some of them not too well:
- “There, but for the Grace of God, go I.” This he said when seeing anyone in a tight spot, self imposed or not.
- “What if it was us, Mavis?” This was his appeal to my mother who tended to want to watch expenses more than he did.
- Radical hospitality. Stories of our father opening our home to strangers were legendary.
- “Make your words soft and sweet in case you have to eat them.” He used this when I was judgmental or harsh.
- “Don’t carry your fish in a violin case.” My father despised all pretension.
- “Build bridges; don’t burn them.” My father feared cut-offs.
- “A man who is going the wrong way down a one-way street already knows it – he needs help turning around.” Forever benevolent, my father championed the underdog.
- “Rather be fooled because you trusted too much than because you trusted too little.” And, sadly, he was frequently duped.
- “If the child needs milk the child needs milk – milk is more important to that child than the money is to me.” He’d open his grocery shop at all hours of the night and give milk to the mother of a hungry baby.
What did you learn from yours. Let me know.
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Living together, Love, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Trust |
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October 5, 2017
by Rod Smith
The world is disturbed by threats of nuclear war. There have been horrific mass shootings, race riots, and re-emergences of violent extremes.
Entire regions of the world have been destroyed by hurricanes and earthquakes. Millions are homeless because of severe weather and millions more live as refugees fleeing oppressive political circumstances.
May we (you and I) deploy our most powerful individual forces. As limited as we each may be, the world needs a few superheroes and we can each in our own way be one:
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Design and commit specific, routine acts of kindness and generosity. Make them pointed, uniquely tailored for someone in need. If possible, make your target an enemy and make your act anonymous. The “routine” will help us form healing habits. The “enemy” element will transform us into fine-tuned agents of grace
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Extend your immediate community by embracing the stranger, the sojourner, the person on the fringe. Resist the urge to create him or her into your own image by expecting your guest to conform to your ways or to convert to your ways. Superhero hospitality accepts people exactly as they are.
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In the spirit of St. Francis, indeed a superhero, may we seek to console and to serve rather than to be consoled and to be served. I know, I know – it wasn’t supposed to be a direct quotation.
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Past relationships, Recovery, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Voice, Womanhood, YWAM |
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September 24, 2017
by Rod Smith
The Mercury / Monday 9/25/2017 / I have witnessed many fine acts of parenting:
- The mother who sends her adult sons and daughters Mother’s Day cards with handwritten lists of joyous memories about what it has been like to be their mother. She has done this for so long that it was some years before the children (when they were children) even knew they were the ones who were supposed to send her cards.
- The dad who traded in his own car and settled for a used car so he could give his son the sports car his son wanted.
- The parents who each worked two jobs so the two sons did not have to assume significant debt to attend university.
- The single mother who has the wherewithal to leave her daughter’s academic struggles up to her and who encourages her daughter to speak up about what she needs to her teachers.
- The dad who packs his son’s lunch each day for school and who adds an extra pack for his son’s friend who once expressed to the boy that he wished that he too had a dad.
- The dad who taught his son to share without ever saying it but by showing it at every turn.
- The parents who never let drinking distort or shape the way they reared their children.
Posted in Addictions, Adolescence, Anger, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Responsive people, Single parenting, Step parenting, Teenagers, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Voice |
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September 17, 2017
by Rod Smith
The Mercury / Monday
Thank you for reading my work. Really. I appreciate it.
Allow me to let you in a little.
I live in the USA, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to be precise. If you are reading this in a real newspaper you are probably somewhere in KwaZulu-Natal. I was born and reared in Red Hill, Durban.
If you are reading online you could be in any one of the 180-plus nations where people read this column.
Before you are overly impressed, in several of the 180-plus nations my readership totals 2 or 5 or even 8 people.
I am writing this particular column on the Saturday before you will read it on Monday. I am in a busy coffee shop on the very affluent side of our city. I drive here. We don’t live in this neighborhood. But, where we live is hardly poor. By American standards my sons and I are well off.
There are many days I want to be where you are. I miss the beaches, the weather, your naturally hospitable ways. I miss extended family.
I am sure there are times you’d like to be in the USA.
I’ve had this consistent thought since moving to the USA: It’s not where, but how you live that makes the difference.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Responsive people, Voice |
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August 13, 2017
by Rod Smith
Telling someone to “mind your own business” may come off as rude or uncaring. Neither is my intention. As always, whatever I write I know doubly applies to me.
Getting immersed in other people’s business, while it may offer feelings of comfort and provide and sense of importance, it is a fail-proof track to burnout.
It’s a seemingly acceptably way, as it can appear caring, to avoid your own business. Minding the business of others can offer protection from facing your own responsibilities.
So what is your (my) business (the listed order here is unimportant)?
- The state of your immediate relationships
- The condition of faith and your place in a community or faith
- Your finances, your daily work, everything pertaining to house and home
- Your children’s welfare, safety, and education while they are children
- Your health, physical, emotional, and psychological – with the understanding that they are all inextricably connected
- The greater good of your immediate and broad community.
So what is none of our (my) business?
- Adult relationships where you are not one of the parties
- The manner in which other families parent – until there is neglect or laws are broken
- Organizational complexities (schools, churches, businesses) where you do not hold an official role or responsibility.
Posted in Adolescence, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Manipulation, Parenting/Children |
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July 30, 2017
by Rod Smith
Five (very lofty) goals for the week
Teach, facilitate group so students and staff are empowered to find, enjoy, and use their backbones, most creative brains, and voices, each to maximum of his or her current level of helpful, “growthful” discomfort. (Yes, I occasionally make up my own words).
Facilitate each student’s possibility for growth (to get bigger or smaller) into his or her appropriate size (a) as a distinct individual, (b) as a distinct individual in within a variety of contexts (like current or immediate family, family of origin, a class of students, a sub-culture and a broad culture of national heritage), and (c) finally, as a member of the Church, immediate and universal. This means examining contexts, roles, boundaries, skills, talents, gifts, and resources.
Jesus, Herds, Traingles and a Woman
Teach, model (if it possible) Differentiation of Self by “watching” it in Scripture. We will use three Gospel encounters to illustrate this delicious way of life.
Give practical insights into healthy or unhealthy TRIANGLES, GENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION, HERDING, and other usually INVISIBLE pressures that can undermine or sabotage healthy individual, family, and organizational functioning. We will use two, perhaps three, Gospel encounters in order to illustrate.
Give practical tools to minimize individual and group anxiety, to grow and support healthy invisible individual and group loyalties, and to develop the awareness of necessary sifts from REACTIVITY to RESPONSIVENESS, from STEMMING and EMOTING to THINKING, and from AMPLIFYING or IGNORING to EMBRACING and EMPOWERING.
Further reading: Bowen, Murray; Friedman, Edwin; Schnarch, David; Gilbert, Roberta; Satir, Virginia; Framo, James; Minuchen, Salvador
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Parenting/Children, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Schnarch, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Voice, Womanhood, YWAM |
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April 22, 2017
by Rod Smith
Nine simple truths –
May they be your first thoughts every morning and may they infiltrate your every move and every relationship:
I am….
- To be respected and treasured and able to respect and treasure all other people.
- Capable of expressing my opinions and will do so with growing and greater confidence.
- Uniquely gifted and my gifts are useful to my immediate and broader community.
- As unique as the proverbial snowflake and yet part of the human family, tainted with its vulnerabilities, failures, and frailties.
- Capable of forgiving the worst of offenses I have endured, and capable of seeking forgiveness for the worst offenses I have committed.
- Able to encourage the discouraged and offer hope to the hopeless.
- Unafraid of the talents of others and able and willing to help others find their greatness.
- Capable of becoming the most generous person I know.
- My own best friend so that I may be a friend to others.
Posted in Addictions, Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Love, Responsive people, Voice, Womanhood, Young Love |
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