Archive for ‘Family’

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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 »

March 8, 2011

I have been insensitive and inattentive

by Rod Smith

“My husband is a marriage and family therapist. We have been married almost 18 years. He told me this weekend that he had been miserable for the last 10-12 years of our marriage. I’ve been a nag, and I own that. When he calls home he talks to an angry wife/mother who never asked him about himself. I own that, too. He has always been faithful to our marriage vows, but he hasn’t forgiven me for my past mistakes. He says our marriage is 95% over. I asked him for a second chance to make things right, and he held my hand tenderly and said, ‘it’s not going to be easy. I can’t go through that again.’ Instead of saying, ‘I wouldn’t want to go through that again either,’ I said, ‘you won’t have to.’ Wrong answer! He moved to a new place without us. Emotions have been wrecked. I have been insensitive and inattentive to him and his needs, and I want to make amends. How do I start?”

As always – get your focus off him, off the marriage, and onto retrieving your life. This means building a life worth living as if you were single. You might never get back your marriage, but you will find a future worthy of living.

Posted in Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Family Systems Theory | Leave a Comment »

February 10, 2011

Day 5 of 5: Your family is your crucible for growth….

by Rod Smith

You don't have to agree, but you'll grow from listening

Insight # 5: Your closest relationships are your most accurate barometer of your emotional, spiritual, and psychological health. It is your spouse, children, siblings, your parents, and in-laws, (the persons who are able to push your buttons, get under your skin) who provide you with the greatest opportunity for growth. It is irrelevant if the cashier at the grocery store thinks you are Mr. Sunshine, if at the same time you are Mr. Doom and Gloom with your immediate or extended family. It is the difficult, committed relationships, the persons in your family of origin, those with whom you have “invisible loyalties” who uniquely provide you with a crucible for growth and strength.

Action / Challenge: Determine to remain “connected” in the face of tension and conflict. Face without fleeing. Listen, even if you don’t agree, rather than explain or justify. Attempt to see the world through the eyes of those with whom you have tension. Humbly ask to be enlightened. Request guidance about what you can do more, less, differently. Inquire about what you can modify to facilitate deeper, more meaningful relationships than you are currently enjoying. Become a learner. Allow those whom you love and those with whom you have familial connection to be your teachers.

Posted in Anxiety, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Family Systems Theory, Therapeutic Process | Leave a Comment »

February 6, 2011

Day 1 of 5: Insights and challenges

by Rod Smith

Attraction is only enduringly poss

This is #1 of 5

Insight into your life and relationships is a prerequisite to growth or desired change.

Many people are very insightful yet appear to short-change themselves by refusing to act upon it.

Insight alone can be pleasurable (as if “understanding myself” is enough) or painful (if it leads to feelings of pessimism) but insight without appropriate action is useless if change or growth is desired.

This week I will offer you five core insights (from family systems theory) and challenge you (and challenge myself) to action based upon the insight.

Here’s the first:

When anxiety runs high, persons tend is to fight (become combative), flee (escape, or change the topic), or freeze (become immobile or useless). When faced with increased levels of anxiety, a primal protection mechanism engages and we can become inhumane (reactive, aggressive, diseased).

Thinking takes time.... reacting doesn't

Action / Challenge: Stand up to the primitive urge to fight, flee, or freeze, by deliberately engaging your “human” brain (your thinking, creative, brain) as opposed to obeying your reptilian brain (the reactive, non-thinking part of your brain) or by having a pity-party (allowing your emotions to over-rule).

Identify what’s occurring. Speak about it. Establish necessary distance. Get perspective before you react to the anxious internal or external environment and inflict unnecessary relational damage.

Posted in Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Family Systems Theory | Leave a Comment »

January 30, 2011

Key terms for at least one approach to Family Therapy….

by Rod Smith

Who shows the most health and freedom?

Readers often express interest in the Science of Family Therapy. Here are a few key words to guide any reading to stimulate further interest in at least one of many approaches:

Murray Bowen – is considered one of the pioneers;
Genogram – a diagram of a family usually starting with immediate family or “family of origin”;
Space – the distance between and among people;
Under- and over-functioning – playing more than your own role or doing less than your role deserves or requires; Anxiety and chronic anxiety;
The human need for autonomy;
The human need for intimacy;
Differentiation of self;
Cut-offs, fusion;
Mutuality; respect;
Invisible loyalties – the often irrational and rational loyalty among family members;
Low- and high-functioning individuals; low- and high-functioning families.

Keys to change in a family (if change is indeed possible):

Change in a family often comes from first identifying the most self-differentiated person in the family. This person is challenged by the therapist to move his/her life toward greater levels of health and integrity, despite the cost and the sabotage that will naturally result. Family resistance to change is to be expected. When some seek greater health there will be “push back” from those who benefit from the status quo.

Posted in Anxiety, Blended families, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Leadership, Schnarch, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Voice | Leave a Comment »

January 23, 2011

Living with an Open Hand…..

by Rod Smith

Hospiality, grace, radical freedom

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.

Rod Smith, July 1997 / Copyright

Posted in Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Voice | 2 Comments »

January 23, 2011

A positive attitude towards the stepchildren can go a long way to a blissful existence

by Rod Smith

“I am also a step-mom to teenage boys ages 13 and 15. When I’m parenting my husband’s sons who live with us most of the time, I make sure their father is informed about everything. We usually have our ‘couple time’ at the end of the day when we talk about just about anything under the sun with parenting his sons included. His attitude is that this is our house and the boys have to abide with whatever rules I have made. I think I make sensible rules as my appreciation to him for giving me a free hand at parenting. These rules are usually about maintaining a clean and tidy house, good moral conduct, and maintaining a moral high ground. A positive attitude towards the stepchildren can go a long way to a blissful existence. It is futile to ‘fight’ the children whom I knew were part of the package when I married their father.”

Thank you for your gracious insights. Your capacity to communicate as a couple, your husband’s confidence in himself, in you, and in his children, and your combined ability to be consistent, has made a joy for you what is a nightmare for some.

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Family, Stepmother | Leave a Comment »

January 19, 2011

In our culture a woman is looked down at if she is not married

by Rod Smith

“In 2001 I got a job overseas. I met a special person and now a child together. While pregnant I came home without him. He decided to break up with me when our daughter was two days old. He is now married and has another daughter. I managed to get over him. I met another man and I ended the relationship when I find out that he was married. Since 2008 I’ve had hard time finding a man. It is hard for me because I sometimes wish to be touched and have a companion. I’m a very loving person who has so much love to give. I will be turning 35 and I’m not married. In our culture a woman is looked down at if she is not married. Worse, younger men don’t respect you. My self-esteem has gone down and I’m always depressed.” (Edited)

Attraction is only enduringly poss

Shift your focus

You’ve already demonstrated the ability to resist cultural pressures. It is time to do so again. Try to shift your focus onto finding the strong, woman, and mother within you – rather than another man. I’d suggest your daughter needs you infinitely more than you need a man. A strong, defined, woman of integrity will be attractive to a strong, defined man of integrity.

 

Posted in Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Family, Forgiveness, Listening, Spousal abuse, Victims, Voice, Womanhood, Young Love | Leave a Comment »

January 10, 2011

Parent who enables, empowers…..

by Rod Smith

Pietermaritzburg Educational Psychologist, David Weekes, contacted me. At my request he modified yesterday’s column: Thanks, David:

The parent who ENABLES …

1. Overprotects, makes excuses for or covers up his/her child’s misbehaviour and, thereby, undermines the authority of the other parent and teachers.

2. Feels over-burdened or rewarded by responsibility for his/her child (ensuring rules are followed, doing things for the child he/she is capable of doing for him/herself).

3. Feels like he/she is living more than one life as if the child’s choices and actions are entirely the parent’s responsibility.

4. Endures “borrowed” anxiety – worries needlessly about how his/her child will turn out, perform in school, cope with bullies.

5. Seems unable to distinguish between “self” and “parent” and, in seeking to be a “good” parent, reinforcing an unhealthy co-dependence.

The parent who EMPOWERS …

1. Learns to stop overprotecting (“I will not lie for you and write an excuse note when you are not ill.”)

2. Understands the critical distinction between being responsible for his/her child’s wellbeing and assuming responsibility when it is the child who is accountable.

3. Learns to allow many choices (within limits) made by his/her child to run their course so the child can learn from the consequences of his/her actions.

4. Learns to distinguish between useful anxiety and what is and is not a legitimate cause for worry.

5. Works at promoting a healthy, necessary separation to foster a sense of independence in that child.

David can be contacted at davidsw@telkomsa.net

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family | 1 Comment »

January 7, 2011

Do you ENABLE or EMPOWER?

by Rod Smith

He or she who enables

1. Lies, covers-up, runs interference, for the enabled.
2. Feels over-burdened or rewarded with responsibility for the enabled.
3. Feels like he or she is living more than one life each day; as if the choices (good and bad) of the enabled are his or her responsibility.
4. Endures “borrowed” anxiety – bears anxiety about choices made by the enabled.
5. Seems unable to see the “self” as disconnected to the self of the enabled, and will often see this connection as “oneness” or love, or a soul-tie, or the “oneness of marriage” making the enabling somehow inescapable.

He or she who empowers

1. Learns to allow others to speak for themselves (“I will not lie for you. If you have to call in as sick when you really are hung-over you will have to make that call yourself.”)
2. Understands the critical distinction between being responsible to others and for others.
3. Learns to allow most choices (not all) of those he or she loves and their consequences to run their course.
4. Learns to distinguish between helpful pain, useful anxiety, and what is and is not legitimate cause for concern.
5. Works at healthy, necessary separation, even while being married, in love, or having soul-ties.

Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Responsive people, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust | Leave a Comment »

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