Archive for ‘Family Systems Theory’

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April 16, 2011

Don’t chase anyone, ever

by Rod Smith

“I’m a single mother of a one month beautiful boy. His father loved me before I was pregnant. He wanted a baby with so much and I did not. I was busy trying to build a life. I fell pregnant and I love my son. His father was unavailable through out the pregnancy. He wanted to give our son his last name but my family refused because we are not married. I want him back. He says begging him is unattractive and that he will come back when he wants to. It’s hard because my son hasn’t had a chance to have a family. He’s walked into an emotionally broken mother.” (Edited)

Chasing is a waste of energy

Don’t chase anyone – ever. The energy required to woo the father back into your life, even if you are successful, will be insignificant next to the energy it will take to keep him.

Your son may well have “walked into an emotionally broken mother” but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Resume your pre-pregnancy quest to build your life.

Living a full, satisfying life yourself will be the greatest act of mothering you will ever offer your son – go for it. Live the kind of life you hope he will live one day and he will have something to emulate.

Posted in Betrayal, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Family Systems Theory, High maintenance relationships, Triangles, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood | 1 Comment »

April 12, 2011

Pre-school to the presidency – if you are a leader……

by Rod Smith

If you are a leader of anything – Pre-school to Presidency….

Leadership is often lonely

1. The process, understanding and identifying the underlying pressures within your organization, trumps the content, detail, and the day-to-day minutia. You can have all the details in place and be sabotaged because you failed to see, or you ignore, the hidden tensions that exist in every organization.

2. The people and an appreciation of the inestimable value of others, trumps programs, or the implementation of plans and procedures. You can have perfect plans and procedures to implement your perfect programs, only to fail because you failed to appreciate the people around you.

3. Relationships, knowing the people with whom you share life, trumps hierarchy of who is more important than whom. The “lower” down the hierarchy a leader forms authentic relationships – the more credible will be his or her leadership.

4. Openness and transparency, allowing oneself to be known and allowing oneself to get to know others, trumps covert or undisclosed agendas inhabiting all complex organizations. What’s hidden will bring greater damage to your leadership than what is revealed.

5. Negotiation and dialogue, the willingness to enter into discussion and engage in debate, trumps a dictatorial, top-down style of leadership. Top-down styles bring some heartless, temporary obedience – authentic dialogue fosters creative, long-term, relationships.

Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family Systems Theory, Leadership, Listening, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Voice | 1 Comment »

April 7, 2011

Open your hand

by Rod Smith

Open your hand using all your strength. Stretch your fingers. Allow the lines on your palm to feel as though they might tear apart. Study the contours, colors, ridges and valleys, joints, dents and spaces. Push, pull, and rub. Move your fingers through their paces: together, apart, back, forward, curved, strained and relaxed, cooperative yet unique. Feel the texture and every curve. Touch the crevices. Spread your hand further, turn it at the wrist, examine and compare patterns from every angle. Here are pieces of yourself you might never have studied.

Your hands are your constant companions. They have met the needs of others, pioneered romantic moments and worn rings of commitment. They are the way your heart leaves fingerprints, the eyes at the end of your arms. Hands reflect a person’s being and are the front line agents of your life. If eyes are said to be the windows of a soul, hands express the soul.

Hold other people with your hand thoroughly open. Allow them to know the warmth and welcome of your hand, investigate its curves and benefit from its scars. Invite others to follow the lines into the fabric of your life and see the risks you have taken and the adventures that are yours. Allow them to wrestle and rest, search, see and speak. Let them stay; let them go, but let them find your hand always open.

The Open Hand of friendship, at its widest span, is most rewarding, most challenging and most painful, for it enduringly acknowledges the freedom others have while choosing not to close upon, turn on, coerce, or manipulate others. In such friendships, expectations and disappointments become minimal and the reward is freedom. As others determine a unique pace within your open hand, they will see freedom and possibly embrace their own with excitement and pleasure.

Openhanded people do not attempt to “fix” others, change, or control others even for their own good. Rather, each person is given freedom to learn about life in his own way. Openhanded people, instead, express kindly and truthfully what they think and feel, when asked, knowing even in the asking, others might not be interested or willing to learn.

The Open Hand is not naive. It is willing to trust, while understanding and accepting that no person is all good or all bad, and that all behavior has meaning. The Open Hand is convinced it cannot change others; it cannot see or think or feel or believe or love or see for others, but trusts people to know what is good themselves. It will not strong-arm, pursue or even attempt to convince others because it has little investment in being right, winning or competing. Here is offered a core-freedom of the deepest and most profound nature: allowing others to live without guilt, shame and expectation.

Further, the Open Hand offers oneself freedom that extends to one’s memories, ambitions, failures and successes. This allows for growth of enduring intimacy, greater personal responsibility, authentic autonomy, and the possibility of meaningful relationships with others.

In the discovery of a closed hand, even at the end of your own arm, do not try to pry it open. Be gentle. Allow it to test the risky waters of freedom. As it is accustomed to being closed and fist-like, it will not be easily or forcefully opened. So let the closed-handed do their own releasing and trusting, little by little, and in their own time and manner.

When openhanded people meet, lives connect in trust, freedom and communion. Community is set in motion. Creativity is encouraged. Mutual support is freely given. Risks are shared. Lives are wrapped in the safety of shared adventure and individual endeavor all at the same time.

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness | Leave a Comment »

April 7, 2011

Is your family “open” or “closed” handed?

by Rod Smith

Openhanded Families are close and healthy. People feel free, unique and have a sense of community. There is enduring approval. Disapproval’s short-lived. The love does not feel overwhelming. Love is not a trap, trade, or deal. Pressures from outside the family, the opinions of others, societal trends do not significantly modify the family’s direction. The family is internally driven. Relationships are self-sustaining. Each person, to differing degrees, dependent upon level of maturity, understands that every person in the family desires, at one and the same time, both community (togetherness, intimacy), and separateness (autonomy, independence).

It is within the movement, wrestling, imbalance, and the struggle that emerges from healthy families, that each person is empowered to be a unique person.

The freedom enjoyed by healthy people, embraces the family member who, for whatever reason, chooses to be less involved with the family.

Ironically, such families can appear to be less healthy or unhealthy because diversity is welcomed and individuals can be “all over the map.”

In an openhanded family a person can look, believe, feel, and speak very differently than everyone else in the family without having to face negative consequences.

(Interested persons are encouraged to read the work of Virginia Satir).

Closedhanded Families are “close” in a different way. They believe and need uniformity and control to keep people together. Togetherness is all-important. There is often disapproval between members of the family, often discernible when someone in the family will not “stay in line,” live in the family “box” or enjoy the closeness. In such families, people are “overly” close. “Closeness” (uniformity, togetherness) is insisted upon, even demanded. People feel cornered through an intricate play of rejection, judgment, and “love.”

Here, rather than relationships being self-sustaining, they are held together by musts and shoulds and hidden rules arising from an obscure idea of what constitutes a relationship and a family. In such families there are frequent tensions often from an unidentifiable source. A person can easily get the feeling that he or she is walking a tight rope of being “in” or “out.”

These families are reactive or legalistic and bonds are not chosen and togetherness is covertly coerced or overtly forced. In these families, fusion is mistaken for love and expressing the natural and God-given desire for autonomy is regarded as betrayal.

Ironically, these families can appear healthy to outsiders because of the appearance of togetherness, while some of the people within the family might be “dying” from the pressure to conform.

In a Closed-handed family a person can only look, feel, believe and speak differently than everyone else in the family according to the guidelines. Anything else might result in overt expulsion, a subtle shunning, or covert distancing.

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Family, Family Systems Theory | 3 Comments »

March 31, 2011

Couples who are too close…….

by Rod Smith

Edwin Friedman – a pioneer in family therapy, writer, teacher, and rabbi and who was trained by Murray Bowen who is considered the “father” of family therapy and “Bowen Theory” – wrote about helping couples to separate, establish space, maintain individuality and secure room to breathe and room to move in order to help the couple avoid radical separation (divorce) in their future. Friedman suggested sometimes couples were “too close” meaning that everything done one or both persons seemed to unsettle or rock the world of the other or both.

Identifying couples who are “fused” or who are too close:

1. Every thought, move, glance, blink of the eye, every gesture is interpreted to mean something by the other person and the meaning is usually negative.

2. Mind reading is at its most intense. What is damaging is that what is “read” or interpreted is believed as fact. “I know exactly what you are thinking when you look at me like that.”

3. There’s no room for change or growth because there’s no emotional “wiggle room.” If one person is convinced that he or she knows exactly what the other person will do and will think there is no room for anything new to occur.

I have named these writers to facilitate reading beyond this column.

Posted in Affairs, Anxiety, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Schnarch, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Victims, Voice | Leave a Comment »

March 30, 2011

Your comment about suicide is profound…….

by Rod Smith

Good morning/evening, Rod

If you do find time to respond to this message I would be most grateful. If not, I understand. You must be inundated daily.

Your comment ‘Suicide is perhaps the strongest and most powerful form of prayer I have ever encountered’ is profound. It is a belief I share and I would welcome information as to its origin. Is it a personal philosophy or is there reading that would embellish?

It is a very brave thing to do ….juxtapose suicide and prayer and declare them compatible in pursuit of relief. I have been directly and intimately involved with the death of two 15-year-old boys … one my son and the other the son of a close friend who also hung himself five months later. The latter action I cannot for the life of me fathom, but in my search for understanding with my own child, I came to one conclusion that it was an act of bravery in pursuit of that which life could not offer. I do understand that viewed from another vantage point it could equally be regarded as an act of folly ie that something that ‘seems impossible’ need not necessarily be so.

Any available reading you could direct me to in this regard would be sincerely appreciated.

Tony
Durban

Dear Tony:

While it is true that I am inundated with mail I cannot move on without answering you directly. Your letter moved me. I was making my bed when the “ping” came through and I sat on the same bed and wondered at the pain you must endure in the light of your losses.

My own children are downstairs “fighting” over the remote for the TV and your letter made me so very grateful for their boyish squabbles.

I have been in the midst of several suicides and encountered it as a professional, a minister, a school counselor, and as a neighbor (I am – have been – all of the above).

I am sad and distressed when suicide is framed as a sin, a way out, or a cop out — this is not my understanding from many one-on-one encounters with desperate people. As for reading, I can offer none. Some of the bravest men and women I have ever known have been days from taking their own lives.

Your son and the other child to whom you refer, would have been embraced by me (a stranger to each) were they to have arrived at my door asking for absolutely anything. I would have given them each a home with full rights to the house and my life in every way – this I did already with my two children (adopted from birth).

If I, a sinful, lousy, struggling man could do this — how much more would a loving God not do the same.

Your boys are safe and happy and I believe they’d want you to miss them but to also be comforted.

Please let me know you got this – even if it is not what you expected. Keep in touch. I am not “brave” as you say. I am just sick of the BS people spew in the light of the pain others encounter when they, themselves, have only watched it all from a distance.

Keep in touch.

Rod

Posted in Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship | Leave a Comment »

March 29, 2011

How do you explain suicide to a child?

by Rod Smith

“I struggle with what I told the little one’s in my family of the death of their young and vibrant ‘Aunt L.’ She had been really sick and took her own life in the end. I just could not tell these little one’s that she committed suicide – how would they understand, ranging in age from 9 to 2 years old. I just told them she got sick and she died – her body and her spirit were tired. I am so afraid of them finding out the truth one day. We all have continued to grieve our loss. All of the children attended the funeral and memorial services and we all take an active role in remembering her life. But how do you explain suicide of a very close loved one to a child?”

Attraction is only enduringly poss

Your chidren will understand

Relax. You have done well. Of course what you faced was difficult and, once the children are old enough to know the truth, I believe they will understand the reasons you have said what you have said. Suicide is perhaps the strongest and most powerful form of prayer I have ever encountered – giving ultimate relief in dying, what seemed impossible while living. “Aunt L”, I believe, has found in death what she could not find in life.

Posted in Adolescence, Anxiety, Betrayal, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief, Meditation, Parenting/Children, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice | 7 Comments »

March 23, 2011

Achieving MUCH with YOUR life is a profound act of mothering

by Rod Smith

1. Enriched is the woman who does not lose herself to her marriage or motherhood. She has a strong spirit of independence while being a loving wife and mother.

2. Enriched is the woman who does not accommodate poor manners (being taken for granted or being victimized) from anyone (not husband, children, in-laws, siblings, or her parents).

3. Enriched is the woman who lives above manipulation, domination, and intimidation. Her relationships are pure and open; her boundaries are defined, secure, and strong.

4. Enriched is the woman who does not participate in unwanted sexual activity. She honors her body as her private temple and shares it, even in marriage, only by her own deliberate choice.

5. Enriched is the woman who has developed a strong, clear, identity. She regularly articulates who she is, what she wants, and what she will and will not do. She is unafraid of defining herself.

6. Enriched is the woman who knows that pursuing her dreams to be educated, to work, to accomplish much, to expect much from her life, are profound acts of partnership in marriage and profound acts of mothering. She knows that the woman who “takes up her life” does more for herself, her husband, and her children than the one who surrenders it.

Posted in Adolescence, Anxiety, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Leadership, Listening, Living together, Love, Parenting/Children, Re-marriage, Responsive people, Sex matters, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood | 3 Comments »

March 22, 2011

Do I speak up or suffer in silence?

by Rod Smith

“My sister and her husband constantly belittle our lives. We, my husband and I, are not as wealthy, we are not as successful in our careers, but at least we are 100% honest. While they are not blatantly dishonest they do make their living in questionable ways that and it pays them very well. The point is that my husband is now disinclined to spend time with my extended family. Do I speak up or just suffer in silence? Do I insist my husband joins me at family events or do I go alone and make an excuse for him?”

Suffer in silence? Never. Speak up? Of course you speak up. I’d suggest you gently tell both your sister and her husband (together) your truth. Tell them whether they are able to hear you or not. Since their “questionable” pursuits are none of your business, I’d suggest they are not worth mentioning.

Attend any family event you want whether your husband wants to go or not. Don’t push him. Don’t determine his level of involvement with your family or allow him to determine yours. If anyone wants to know where he is or why he is not with you suggest that person ask your husband his or her questions directly.

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Family Systems Theory, High maintenance relationships, In-laws, Triangles, Voice, Womanhood | Leave a Comment »

March 21, 2011

Tug-of-war over daughter…..

by Rod Smith

Two families met in my office with the young girl (12) who was at the center of their conflict. Dad and his new wife, mom and her new husband, with both biological parents insisting they wanted primary custody of the child. In earlier meetings dad and mom had shared (without the other parent or the daughter present) how the other parent was irresponsible, uncaring, and unfit for anything more than visits.

Getting everyone in the same room (new spouses and child included) was no walk in the park but I insisted and the families ultimately agreed.

Having established that neither parent was the demon the other portrayed and that both step parents were invested in the wellbeing of the daughter whom all were now co-parenting, I risked asking the child to stand in the center of the room.

I requested mom and step-dad pull the child by the right arm while dad and stepmother pulled her left so we could see who could pull harder and “win” the daughter in the tug-of war.

“You are a cruel man,” said the dad, as the daughter cried and the illustration hit home.

“Not really,” I replied, “I’m simply showing you what you both do to her every weekend of her life.”

Posted in Blended families, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Family, Family Systems Theory | Leave a Comment »

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