December 26, 2017
by Rod Smith
I call these few days between Christmas and New Year the doldrums. They’re a breather: a time to drift between calendar high points. I get nostalgic. I experience strong elements of necessary regret as I wait for the promise of the new calendar year to kick in.
I am always reminded:
- Integrity, honesty, kindness, forgiveness, and reconciliation – all captured by the word holiness, is local. By “local” I mean immediate and with the people with whom I share every day life.
- If it (idea, principle, program) doesn’t work right here, now and with this family member, neighbor, colleague, it’s worthless.
- All worthwhile positive change is first internal – the outward follows the inward. It may be convenient to switch this – thinking the inward follows the outward – but doing so is a waste of time.
- It is possible for people to regard each other with deep, authentic respect but it is impossible without commitment to profound listening. All love begins and is demonstrated with listening and listening takes commitment and time.
- Things are not fair or reasonable or kind while one party is gaining or advancing at the expense of another.
Please, let me know the things you think about as you prepare for your year ahead. I know we can learn from each other – it just takes a commitment to listening.
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Meditation, Recovery, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Victims, Womanhood |
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December 13, 2017
by Rod Smith
When my first born was a few days old a woman whom I had known for a few years, and was really well-meaning, arrived at my house and suggested I give the baby to a real family.
Her understanding of the context and reason my son’s birth mother choose me to be his (solo) parent was very limited. While the immediate (minimal) shock and pain of that encounter has long worn off (and healed), the exchange – which happened to be the first of many strange or unexpected encounters – did give me what I believe to be a greater acuteness or awareness of what it is that makes a group of people family.
I’d really like to hear your views. Here are a few of mine. A family:
- Is a place where people are most often related by marriage or blood but often they are not.
- Is a place where people, who usually share space (but not always), are enduringly committed to each others highest good even if and when the highest good is painful and costly.
- Is a platform where people can express their differences without being alienated or made to feel bad or wrong for expressing or embodying differences.
- Is a place where members feel safe (mostly) and when they don’t (feel safe) they can say so and someone in the family will listen and hear and try to understand.
- It’s a place where, if someone doesn’t feel safe and says so, the person who listens and hears will be able to help discern if feeling unsafe or unsure is appropriate. The process of growing and learning can be very unsettling and feeling unsettled can lead to increasing feelings of vulnerability.
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace |
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December 6, 2017
by Rod Smith
Enabling is rampant in many families.
It can involve:
- Covering for someone so outsiders do not notice or find out about his or her undesirable behavior (drinking, gambling, addictive habits).
- Relaying lies to a workplace – calling in to say he or she is ill when he or she is unable to work because of the addiction.
- Permitting, turning a blind-eye, cooperating, letting things go unnoticed to keep the peace or because it feel easier.
Enabling behaviors are often subtle way of disguising who it is in a family who is in need of help. The enabler often appears to be the strong or the healthy one. Control is the name of the game – and family life can feel like one.
Empowering is common in healthy families.
It can involve:
- Getting out of each other’s way so people can learn from errors and get credit for their successes.
- Allowing natural consequences to follow choices so people can learn just how powerful really are.
- Trusting and believing in each other even when things do not go to plan or appear to be falling apart.
Empowered people require the company of other empowered people and all require a strong sense of self. Freedom to discover and to learn are the hallmark of the empowered.
Posted in Addictions, Anxiety, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Manipulation, Pornography, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Sex education, Sex matters, Shame, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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December 3, 2017
by Rod Smith
You’ve heard about an adrenalin rush. I’ve seen ego rush. I see it in in groups, teams, and in classrooms. I detect it rumbling in me. Perhaps it’s natural and part of survival.
Symptoms of an ego rush occurring:
- Authentic conversation – the give and take and the sharing and building on ideas of others – seems impossible. It’s verbal arm-wrestling or nothing.
- Perceived insults, rebuffs, refusals, or dismissals are stored. They lurk in awareness, crouched for attack when the timing is right.
- What a person knows must be known and he or she will nudge and provoke until you share his or her belief in his or her superiority.
- The ego will win by winning or it will win by losing but humility and backing down are not options.
- Actual loss, perceived as humiliation, is temporary – a matter of perception. The “loser” will circle around and get even.
- Everything spins around hierarchy and real engagement, the wrangling, is delayed until the hierarchy is figured out.
- Conversations are calculated and are a means to advance an undisclosed agenda.
- The presence of authentic humility escapes or confuses those caught up in the ego rush as much as witnessing or trying to engage in a conversation using a totally foreign language.
Posted in Anxiety, Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Long distance relationships, Manipulation, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Shame, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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November 22, 2017
by Rod Smith
I’ve never been impressed with personalized car license plates unless they were particularly clever or humorous.
Until now.
The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles accepted my request for “BROGFT” to declare my brother’s gift.
The brand new Mazda 6 in our family is a no-strings-attached gift from my Australian brother.
May every Mazda you see remind you that such brothers and sisters exist. The beauty in the car is more than its sophisticated engineering and sleek lines – I hope your knowledge about my gift provokes the generosity that also exists in your family line. My car is not just a top-of-the-line Mazda. It’s the fruit of years and years of my brother’s part-time, self-funded education and then years and years of very hard work – shared. It’s more than a car with a leather finish. It’s a symbol of love and generosity. It’s more than a replacement for the ailing and beloved diesel, manual, 2003 Beetle – it’s a symbol of the “opposite spirit.”
In a world where it seems everyone is holding on to everything a stashing for personal gain, I have a brother who is not.
Go, and do likewise.
#Mazda #Gift
Posted in Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Love, Mazda, Responsive people, Voice |
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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 7, 2017
by Rod Smith
If you find yourself identifying with the chronic list I would strongly urge professional help. Please, if you use my list at all, use it for yourself, and not to identify others.
Two kinds of anxiety: chronic and situational
Chronic:
- You worry and you don’t know why – it’s generic and floating; it’s not connected to anything specific.
- You worry even when things are going well – there are times when you worry about having nothing to worry about.
- You worry as a way of life – when people tell you they are not in a state of constant concern you think they are surely in denial.
- You worry about everyone you love and regard the amount of worry as proportional to the depth of your love.
- The rumbling feeling of anxiety feels like it is deep inside you and has lived in you for as long as you can remember – it’s as if you were born with it or it came from another life.
Situational:
- You are facing an examination, a tough conversation, or an important interview. You know the tension will ease once you get started or once the trial is over. Your worry is attached to something real and when that is dealt with the worry will ease and then be gone.
Posted in Addictions, Anger, Anxiety, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Family Systems Theory, Shame, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Triggers, Victims |
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November 6, 2017
by Rod Smith
Every extended family (usually) has the need for a leader or leaders. He or she may vary as needs and issues change. The role may be offered through covert means – a sort of passive pressure – or readily announced and openly assumed.
That person may be required to:
- Initiate meetings and facilitate conversations where there has been a falling out.
- Empower family members to take a hard and loving stand against cruel or harsh treatment at the hands of another member of the family or even someone outside of it.
- Go first – and be the first person in the family to travel or to go to university or to branch off into an area of interest or study that no one in the family has done before.
- Go back, and visit childhood places and long-lost relatives and to hear the family stories that may have never be heard.
- Demonstrate grace, generosity, and forgiveness in a family that may have for many years traded in selfishness, resentment, and judgment.
- Speak well and kindly of those family members who for whatever reason have been rejected by some members of the same family and be willing to reach out to them in order to draw them back into the fold.
If it is you, may you have the courage and the wisdom to exercise your calling.
Posted in Addictions, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships |
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October 25, 2017
by Rod Smith
The Mercury – Wednesday
Over the almost-30 years I have lived in the USA I still miss KwaZulu-Natal.
When the snow is deep at my front door I miss your weather. I miss watching rugby but only when Glenwood is playing College. When I am in some Midwest Indian restaurant I crave a bunny on the beachfront.
I always want to be there when there’s a significant family event.
This week I’m facing a double whammy.
My Australian brother is visiting Durban for the first time in many years and he’s there to celebrate my sister’s 70th birthday.
As a child I could never have predicated or imagined the gift that my siblings are to me. Individually and together, they are among the most generous, kind, entertaining, and friendly people I have ever met. I am frequently stopped in my tracks when I witness and experience their enormous love and commitment to character, honesty, and generosity.
Sometime I will write about their generous ways, but for today, I will leave it at welcoming dear brother to Durban and hoping that Jennifer Joy Arthur has a splendid 70th birthday.
Just so you are all fully aware, we’re expecting our first snow this weekend.
Posted in Boundaries, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship |
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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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