April 2, 2023
by Rod Smith
At the start of a new work week may I offer you encouragement?
Stop hiding who you are behind a desire to be accepted or to fit in.
Let people know who you are and what you want.
This does not mean you have to be pushy or overbearing.
In both strong and subtle ways define yourself.
Leave little up to guesswork.
Do this, even if you start in very small and incremental ways, with the people you are close to and to the people whom you love. This may take some people by surprise and even catch them off guard, but the people who love you will be delighted to hear your voice.
You will immediately begin to feel less anxious when you begin to define yourself. As you advocate for yourself, even in the smallest of ways, you will begin to like what you see and what you feel and think, and you will grow even more beautiful than you already are. If you have been a “I just fit in with others” or “I hate conflict” kind of person you will begin to notice you will have lower levels of anxiety as you reverse your “fit in” and “avoid conflict” tendencies and allow your personality and your wishes to emerge and ultimately shine.
Welcome to a great week.
Posted in Anxiety, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, Grace, In-laws, Leadership, Listening, Reactivity, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Voice, Womanhood |
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March 28, 2023
by Rod Smith
“Writing in the sand” is a strong metaphor for me.
My usage is in reference to a New Testament moment.
When confronted by men who desire to trap him, Jesus twice stoops to draw or to write in the sand.
Theologians have postulated much on what it was he wrote or drew.
I believe he was “steel-ing” himself. He was readying himself for a strong, suitable reply to what may have appeared to bystanders to be an impossible dilemma. Jesus was thinking, mulling things over, reminding himself of his calling and the power that was his and and was not his.
He was doing what you and I are called to do when faced with dilemmas, complex or easy.
When we take time to write or draw in the sand we give ourselves the time we need to consider many options when we make decisions.
Taking the time offers time for increased perspectives.
He was no loose cannon and we know how damaging they can be.
I have been writing or drawing in the sand for months, designing and planning suitable responses to tough situations.
It has taken me far more than two stoops and I know I will make many more.
But, I will emerge and act on decisions made while stooping these many times and drawing in the sand.
Posted in Anxiety, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Education, Faith, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Leadership, Reactivity, Responsive people, Sabotage, Triangles, Trust, Voice |
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March 18, 2023
by Rod Smith
Blending families, smoothly and successfully, is not easy.
Each family imports its own set of norms and expectations into the new family configuration and these norms and expectations will inevitably clash. Each person, too, brings expectations into the new family quite apart from what the rest of what his or her original family brings to the party. There will also be remaining scars from the sequence of events that made blending two families possible in the first place.
Blending families calls for super-maturity from the marrying or newly married adults.
They are called to lead in such a manner that all the members of the newly constituted family’s voices are heard and opinions are respected, irrespective of age.
The adults will be wise to avoid blaming others like a former spouse or former in-laws for the inevitable difficulties that will arise.
The adults will be wise to avoid disciplining other people’s children, even if he or she is newly married to the children’s mom or dad.
The adults will be wise to avoid believing the children – no matter what they may say when wanting to please the parent – want this new family as much as the newly married adults do.
The adults will be wise to speak well of the parents who are excluded from this new blended family.
[The Mercury—Monday]
Posted in Adolescence, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Education, Family, Family Systems Theory, In-laws, Leadership, Parenting/Children, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Single parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Teenagers, Triangles, Trust, Voice |
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September 24, 2019
by Rod Smith
• You can “know” some people for years and never have a sense you have really met. They are guarded. There seems to be no gateway, no pass code, to get beyond common pleasantries.
• You can “know” some people for hours and have a sense you have known them forever. They appear open, transparent; common pleasantries are merely a welcome mat to intimate conversations.
• You meet some people and you have the impression that if you give an inch they will take a mile. There appears to be such a hunger for acceptance, for connection, that the slightest indications of welcome will lead to more than you want to handle.
• You meet some people and they have a well-developed shtick, a practiced, often aged routine that everybody gets when they meet someone for the first time. You get the sense that you are just another audience and it’s “here we go again.”
I’d suggest that in the absence of other symptoms you have met “normal.” You have met a cross section of people who can teach you to love and to accept and to understand yourself in new ways.
Listen, learn, take charge of yourself, choose to disclose, choose to remain silent.
You are always in charge of you, no matter how others relate to you.
This is part of what it means to have secure and healthy boundaries.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Responsive people, Triangles, Trust |
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February 15, 2018
by Rod Smith
Each of us brings to every relationships a backdrop of how we view the world, understand commitment, view, and value people, join groups, terminate friendships, love, and leave home, nurture babies, pack the dishwasher, engage in or avoid conflict, and many things too numerous to mention.
Everything about our relationships is influenced by who, where, and how we were reared – among countless other variables, including natural endowment, and deeply held dreams and desires.
From these countless sources, experiences, and codes, both known and unknown, each of us was handed a Tribal Code or our truth about how life ought to work. How life was done, how relationships were conducted, talked or not talked about, became the folklore, the “correct” or the “right” way to live.
Your formative years did what they were supposed to do: they formed (and informed) you.
They taught you what, and how, to see, think and feel. They showed you what “normal” is to your family, and your experience became your measure of how life is supposed to work.
Then, when entering relationships, be it in marriage or if you are talking with your child’s teacher – the person opposite you has his/her own, and different, tribal code. He/she has his/her own lenses through which to see the world.
No wonder we can have a tough time getting along!
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Living together, Love, Parenting/Children, Sex education, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Step parenting, Teenagers, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust |
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January 27, 2018
by Rod Smith
Lies girls are fed and often appear to believe:
- Your body is more important than your brain therefore focus on your body, not your brain. Your body will get you further than your brain. Your body is bait. Use it well for a fine catch (riches, status – things you can’t get alone). Other people are more important than you. You are on Earth to serve, particularly all males.
- Once a husband finds you, your greatest calling is to be a mother. If you have other ambitions you will compromise your mothering. Your only worthwhile ideas pertain to cooking, cleaning, and childcare; leave thinking about sciences, technology, and mathematics to males.
- Once you are in love you will give up yourself for your husband and your children. This is what love is. You are a half. When you meet a man and marry you will become whole. If you suffer in silence and allow others to use you God will reward you.
Having addressed female audiences in the USA, Southern Africa, and in three Asian countries, I perceive these covert and overt messages to girls remain consistent. Perhaps saddest is that when girls find faith, they often expect God to be the ultimate male, issuing similar messages, demands, and expectations.
Posted in Anger, Betrayal, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Shame, Teenagers, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood, YWAM |
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January 24, 2018
by Rod Smith
- A neighborhood team schedules major parties every year. This means your neighbors and their children become people you know and love and they know and love you and your children in return.
- Sometimes it’s so cold and icy that the city asks you to all stay home. A 5am text from the school system can tell you that school is cancelled for thousands of students. After the winter there are hundreds of huge potholes in the streets.
- I inadvertently (of course) left my laptop at the coffee shop and three hours later it was sitting exactly where I’d left it. I also left it, on another occasion, on the top of my car (in its zipper bag) and it sat there for at least two hours in a public parking spot with scores of people passing by. It remained untouched. The computer on the car roof is an even more odd and wondrous tale than I have told but I will leave it at that for now.
- The mail-carrier (the post-man) can deliver mail to your house for 20 years and watch your children grow up and know your name and hold packages for you when he or she knows you won’t be home to sign for them.
- If you order stuff from Amazon it may be delivered to your house and left at the front door and it’s unlikely it will ever be taken – unless a neighbor sees it and takes it in for you until you get home.
- I’ve had 7 burglaries in two houses.
Posted in Communication, Faith, Space, Trust, Voice |
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January 9, 2018
by Rod Smith
I cashed in frequent traveller awards and sent son (19) to Northern Ireland for ten days. This is third solo international trip. He handles it like the seasoned traveller he is. We’ve made it practice not to communicate much when we’re apart. I recall the tension I knew as a younger man knowing my parents were waiting to hear from me and so we shelved that expectation years ago. He knows how to find me if he needs me and I can track him in an instant if necessary.
While he has been away the weather has somewhat dictated that my younger son (15) and I spend quite a lot of time together cooped up in a snow-bound house. With the one so very close and the other so far away, I have enjoyed this brief, concentrated time.
I’ve learned:
Even cool, tall, and tough fifteen-year-old basketball players enjoy being the only young man in the house, sometimes. We haven’t talked that much, but quietness and togetherness has its own rewards. It’s been beautiful.
The boys get what they need no matter where they are – with or without me.
“I love it here, dad, but I can’t wait to get home,” is a message he just sent from Belfast.
The airport run tonight will be a joy.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Education, Trust, Voice |
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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 17, 2017
by Rod Smith
“I’m 28. I will marry a wonderful woman in August. My mother brainwashed me with venom about my father for 24 years. He lives nearby. I hardly know him. I think I want him at my wedding. She is threatening to boycott if he is invited or there.”
It’s your wedding. Except for your mother’s friends whom you want included, the invitation list (under these toxic conditions) is none of her business. Allow your mother hostage power now means you can expect her to try to wield similar threatening power over other matters in your married life.
The good news is you have several months to complete important work with both parents.
Contact dad. Invite him into the slow, deliberate process of deeper, appropriate, father-son intimacy. (Use your own words). Suggest a bi-weekly breakfast and tell him there will be no talk whatsoever about your mother. After a few breakfasts include the “wonderful woman.”
Stand up to your mother. Tell her you want her at the wedding but it is an invitation she may always decline. Include her on other plans – the challenge is to not alienate your mother but to clearly define your response to her controlling ways.
Defining yourself to both your parents will do more for your long-term fulfillment than anything else you do.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Marriage, Sabotage, Trust |
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