May 1, 2011
by Rod Smith
I want you to speak to my group (church, school, class, retreat, company) how do I do it?
Sometimes I bring the boys, sometimes I don't.
You contact me by email (Rod@DifficultRelationships.com) and we (you and I) begin the process of finding out what you want, if I am available, and what would best serve you and your intended audience.
I do not arrive and “dump” my routine on you or try to sell you or your audience anything. I tailor every event to the perceived needs of the church, group, company, or training event.
I look forward to hearing from you. I have lectured an taught in over 30 countries to groups from 5 people to 5000. I can speak for 40 minutes or for 10 days at 6 hours a day.
My seminars (workshops) are highly interactive and usually result in participants wanting to live more powerful and complete lives.
Write to me. I look forward to hearing from you. Yes – I will travel anywhere in the world, or drive to your event if it is possible.
Rod Smith
Posted in Adolescence, Anxiety, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, Leadership, Parenting/Children, Therapeutic Process, Voice, Womanhood |
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May 1, 2011
by Rod Smith
Is it okay to hate my mother? She is loud, inappropriate, pushy, and demanding. I know I can’t change her but I must be able to change how guilty I feel about not being happy to see her. She barges into our house. She talks crudely to my children. She is mocking of any attempts to talk on any meaningful level. I am a single mother of two teenagers.
Hate is an emotional toxic spill
You may break the law, set your house on fire, and even abandon your children.
As long as you are able and willing to face the consequences, you can do anything you want.
Of course, not everything you are able to do is helpful, wise, or accompanied by helpful outcomes. This is something we are repeatedly told as children and sometimes fail to learn even as adults.
So – yes, you are free to hate your mother. The consequences of doing so are unlikely to be helpful to you. Hating anyone is usually harmful to the one who does the hating, but hating a parent, is especially personally damaging.
Hating a parent erodes essential, vital, invisible connections that help us all to remain somewhat sane.
Hating anyone allows the hate to do a number on our insides. It distorts our responses, reactions, perceptions, and attitudes to ALL other people, and not only our relationship with the person whom we have chosen to hate.
The hate may be targeted; the results are generic. Hate is an emotional toxic spill. It ruins the host more than the victim.
While your mother’s repertoire is jam packed with unattractive themes, hating her will ultimately destroy you, burn your house down (figuratively, of course) and alienate you from your own adult children.
You will move toward greater, and real love for her if you increase your capacity to be rejected by her and stand up to her and refuse to be her victim. Do not give your mother free passage to pollute your family yet, at the same time, offer her some manner in which to remain connected with you on terms that are acceptable to you.
Yes, hate is an option, but it is not an option that will result in the kind of growth (not all “growth” is helpful) within you that will be helpful.
Walking powerfully toward her (initiating, defining, declaring, welcoming, clarifying) will empower you with ALL other people.
You are no longer a child. Use your adult voice and do not allow her to manipulate, dominate, or intimidate you. Strive for an equal, mutual, respectful relationship with your mother so that she will learn how to behave herself when she is with you and your family.
I know this is a tall order, but the results, of even failed attempts on your terms, will result in the kind of empowering and growth you want, rather than lead you ever deeper into the shame you are already feeling.
Rejecting her will diminish you. It will rob you of your voice. It will enlarge her power to dominate and control you.
If you hate your mother she won’t have to barge into your house to upset you, she’ll be living in your head, even if you never see her or have nothing to do with her.
Posted in Adolescence, Anxiety, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Past relationships, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Triggers, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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April 25, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I see my first responsibility, as a parent, is to make my children have a happy childhood so they can have a happy life. Please comment.”
Good luck. While it is a nice ideal you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Your children’s happiness is ultimately their responsibility and not yours. The sooner they assume it the better.
If you, the parent, work hard at your own life and make the very best of your skills and talents it is more likely that you will have children who will do the same.
If you focus all of your attention on your children and on trying to make them happy it is likely you will create insatiable, demanding, and entitled men and women who are more than a challenge to all who know them.
Of course I am not suggesting parents ought to intentionally create tough lives in order to amplify challenge – this would be ridiculous.
I’d suggest you focus on providing a loving and challenging platform for your children to achieve well in all areas of their lives and get out of their way as much as possible.
Success, and reaching for success, is what results in fulfillment. I’d take “fulfillment” or “useful” or “purposeful” over the illusive state called “happiness” anytime.
Posted in Adolescence, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Step parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Teenagers, Voice |
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April 19, 2011
by Rod Smith
Reach for your inner strength
You are probably
stronger and more
resilient than you feel and think you are. I am often amazed at the latent power I have seen come to the salvation of men and women who are under great stress or experiencing great pain.
You are probably more creative, tenacious, and determined, than you have conditioned yourself to believing you are. It’s been a joy to watch men and women dig themselves out of a tight spot once they’ve allowed themselves to escape the prisons of their own thinking.
You are probably better able to negotiate tough situations and speak up for yourself than you consider yourself to be. I’ve seen clients transformed from the proverbial wallflower to a force to be reckoned with, simply because they’d had enough of some people regarding them with less than absolute respect.
You are probably wiser than you give yourself credit. When push comes to shove it’s amazing what wisdom will emerge.
You are probably funnier than you think you are. When the chips are down, it’s refreshing to see how funny people can be. To cap it all, the humor of the wise, the humor of the resilient, requires no victims.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership |
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April 12, 2011
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 |
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April 8, 2011
by Rod Smith
Family meetings!
The following are pointers (two are enough) to suggest you could use therapeutic help with your family, relationships, and your faith:
1. Being part of your family feels mechanical, rigid. You feel locked in – you are an actor in someone’s play and you don’t particularly like your assigned role.
2. No matter how hard you try, things (tensions, roles, anxieties, problems) stay the same. Faces and circumstances modify over the years but the stresses and the issues remain constant.
3. At family holidays (Christmas and Thanksgiving most intensely) you feel pressure about where to be. You are the rope in a tug-of-war.
4. You feel intimidated when speaking with your parents about anything meaningful even though you are an adult. You knees get weak at the thought of engaging your parents about substantial matters.
5. Old arguments often resurface; minor disagreements seem monumental – there’s little sense of proportion and little things are blown up into huge issues.
6. You find it easy to talk about your parents but find it difficult to talk to them. You’re loaded with material about them but feel silenced when it comes to taking with them.
7. Feelings of loyalty and disloyalty can rage within and you feel pressure to compromise your integrity with your family of origin (parents, siblings, grandparents).
8. Your career and family life interfere with each other. It seems as if you can’t have both with any degree of success.
9. New relationships get intense very quickly (becoming sexual, manipulative, or controlling) despite genuine attempts to make things different “this time.”
10. You enthrone (make saints) and dethrone (make sinners) people rather rapidly. Your heroes quickly prove fallible and you are disappointed once again.
Call me / Skype me (RodESmithMSMFT) / Email me – I can probably help you or steer you to someone who can.
Posted in Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Triangles, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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March 31, 2011
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 |
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March 23, 2011
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 |
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February 28, 2011
by Rod Smith
It's not about words, it's about creating a anxiety- free environment
Five, no six, things to remember when you have an important message to deliver
Your anxiety will speak louder than your words (written or spoken) – so do whatever it takes to reduce your anxiety. The message of your perfect speech or letter will be drowned by your anxious emotional presence. Anxiety is contagious – your audience will catch it from you. If your audience is already anxious, it is your task to be a “step-down” transformer and assist your audience to relax, to manage their anxiety, so that you may effectively deliver your message.
If an audience (of 1 or a million) is already closed down to you, your words (written or spoken) will only serve to push your audience further away from you – keep in mind that he or she who is doing the most work (over-functioning) is placing the “other” (of 1 or a million) in a position of power.
What you are heard to say (written or spoken) is much more important than what you intend to say or do say – when the stakes are high, people hear what they want to hear and anxiety makes people selectively deaf, blind, and mute. Filters, on both sides (speaker and the hearer) become erratic when there is much to gain or lose.
Resist saying to many people (the whole congregation, company, hospital staff, faculty) what you really want to say to one specific person.
Others (1 or a million) will resist listening to you if you are condescending, patronizing, or uninterested in their day-to-day lives and concerns. No matter who you are or how powerful is your platform or position, you cannot fake authenticity.
Who and what you are will be communicated to your audience whether you like it or not, if your message is well prepared or not, if your sentences are perfectly rehearsed or not. Your PRESENCE will be ultimately be the real content of your message.
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family Systems Theory, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Schnarch, Therapeutic Process, Voice |
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February 6, 2011
by Rod Smith
Have a plan BEFORE you need it.....
Yes. And, the most important person you lead is yourself. If you run a multinational corporation, a family business, or the kitchen in your own home, your ability to self-lead will spill into, and influence all your relationships and everything over which you have influence, no matter how grand or humble that may be.
Sound, thoughtful, clear, self-leadership is pivotal to improving your level of functioning in all of your relationships and circles of influence.
When anxiety increases (over whatever: the economy, decreasing enrollment, lack of patient or customer care, the kids never put the milk away) lower functioning leaders (anxious leaders) tend to become authoritarian. They blame others, require scapegoats, and become less self-aware, more other-focused. They micro-manage, write new rules, en-FORCE, while believing that doing so will provide relief.
Action / challenge: Create a private, personal plan that is separate (apart) from your prevailing roles, issues, and anxieties. In other words, don’t allow your roles, successes, or failures to determine your identity. Write, draw, make notes, about manner in which you will self-lead, so that blindsiding problems and pressures will be less likely to shape you and dictate your behavior when anxieties inevitably intensify.
Posted in Family Systems Theory, Leadership |
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