• Stand up for the underdog
• Stand up to each other without escalating whatever the issue is into a conflict
• Stand up for each other if I am being irrational or unfair
• Stand up to me my low-level or tanglible anxiety distorts my thinking
• Stand up to me and to other adults without being rude or obnoxious
• Volunteer to assist people in need without being nudged to do so
• Be thoroughly honest when anything less might have gone unnoticed
• Open doors for others, stand back for others, offer their seats to others (even to peers) just because it’s the right, good, and possible
• Ask me how my day is going and whether I am getting things done as planned
• Reflect on something they admire about someone we may know
• Have some awareness of how their individual needs and wants impact our family

Before you have the impression that my sons have sprouted angel wings be assured they have not. At the same time, I have seen them do all of the above in one context or another. What’s very reassuring is that I know that they know what is good and right even when they may not always do it.

“I read your column today on moving on (quickly) after death. Whilst I sympathise with this family who are still grieving they need to remember that they started mourning the loss of their loved one when she recently died. The husband, on the other hand, started his mourning when they got the diagnosis of his wife’s ‘long illness.’ So he is much further along the path of healing. No one knows what intimate conversations took place whilst he and his wife, side by side, endured her long illness. After 40 years of marriage he has proved his love and loyalty. I have told my husband that should I die before him my dearest wish is that he will move on as soon as he can and find happiness and companionship with someone else. I can’t bear the thought of him all alone and sad.”

You are a very healthy woman and I thank you for your insights. You affirm an idea or an insight that I have frequently had when faced with this reasonably common scenario. A good marriage can become a platform of empowerment after the loss of a partner. Your selflessness shows, you want your husband’s happiness even if you are not the one enjoying it with him.

Self-Differentiation (a term coined by family therapy pioneer, Murray Bowen) is a progressive, internal interplay between autonomy (separation) and connection (togetherness) while progressing toward developing and known goals.

Being an authentic adult is hard work and a never completed task. The pathway is paved with difficulty and challenge.

To become an adult, every person faces the task of the differentiation of self.

Not to differentiate is to fuse (the failure to become a separate person) with others and to place responsibility on others (or on situations, predicaments, and hurdles) for the way in which our lives develop. To differentiate is to provide a platform for maximum growth and personal development for everyone in your circle of influence.

Differentiation is described in many ways in the following points:

1. Growing in the ability to see where and how I fit into my family, the position I hold and the power that is and is not given to that position.
2. Growing in the ability to be fully responsible for my own life while being committed to growing closer to those I love.
3. Intentionally developing, at the same time, autonomy and intimacy. In developing autonomy I set myself towards achieving my dreams and ambitions. In developing intimacy, I allow those close to me to see and know me as I really am.
4. Being willing to say clearly who I am and who I want to be while others are trying to tell me who I am and who I should be.
5. Staying in touch with others (co-workers, family members, neighbors) while, and even though, there is tension and disagreement. (This does not include a former spouse or former in-laws or any situation regarding a romance gone sour.)
6. Being able to declare clearly what I need and requesting help from others without imposing my needs upon them.
7. Being able to understand what needs I can and cannot meet in my own life and in the lives of others.
8. Understanding that I am called to be distinct (separate) from others, without being distant from others.
9. Understanding that I am responsible to others but not responsible for others
10. Growing in the ability to live from the sane, thinking and creative person I am, who can perceive possibilities and chase dreams and ambitions without hurting people in the process.
11. Growing in the ability to detect where controlling emotions and highly reactive behavior have directed my life, then, opting for better and more purposeful growth born of creative thinking.
12. Deciding never to use another person for my own ends and to be honest with myself about this when I see myself falling into such patterns.
13. Seeing my life as a whole, a complete unit, and not as compartmentalized, unrelated segments.
14. Making no heroes; taking no victims.
15. Giving up the search for the arrival of a Knight in Shining Armour who will save me from the beautiful struggles and possibilities presented in everyday living.
16. Paying the price for building, and living within community. I am not suggesting some form of communal or shared living. I am suggesting the differentiated person finds a place with others while also being separate from others.
17. Moving beyond “instant” to process when it comes to love, miracles, the future, healing and all the important and beautiful things in life.
18. Enjoying the water (rather than praying for it to be wine), learning to swim (rather than trying to walk on water).

(Please PRINT this page and STUDY it. Spread it around your office and among your friends. Read more writers about this concept. The ONLY thing I ask in return is that you let me know you printed it – by leaving a comment – and you SPREAD the word to others.)

Emotional process (your “inner-brewing” or the “subterranean-working” – usually invisible – beneath the surface of any person group) is on a broad continuum.

My writing and my thinking about emotional process is deeply influenced by the likes of Murray Bowen, Edwin Friedman, David Schnarch, and many others. They have articulated these thoughts with much greater clarity and thoroughness – and I’d suggest the interested reader research their many books.

Grief labors long over its healing work. In so many ways it is often never over, never complete. Some losses seem beyond healing. Accommodation is possible, a full life is possible, new relationships can develop, but the vacuum of some losses is never filled. Many want to rush grief and they want pain to be gone. Who cannot want pain to be gone? But in rushing grief along, the pain gets buried, runs deeper into the soul only to manifest itself later, often disguised as something unrelated to the initial loss.

• No matter how long past your loss may have occurred welcome the tears you feel welling up. Let them flow. Tears are grief’s first agents, first responders in a tragedy.
• No matter how long past your loss may have occurred welcome your desire to talk about it. Speaking about your loss stimulates grief in its unique work. Conversations facilitate healing and recovery, especially conversations with those who have waked a similar path.
• No matter how long past your loss or breakup or violation may be, welcome your desire to write about it. Words strung together into sentences and then paragraphs and then chapters can help deliver the hurting person into realms of peace and healing.

An affair doesn’t just happen. There are thoughts, behaviors, and shifts in habits that are indicators one is brewing. Here are a few precursors. Take heed. There’s no affair powerful enough to make it good and right to hurt your spouse or your children. If you really don’t want your marriage there are more civilized ways to go about exiting a marriage. An affair is the ultimate insult both to your spouse and to the person you use, surely unwittingly, as your exit strategy:

• You are covering your tracks and not truthful about where you are and who you are with. • You are spending more and more time with a specific person under the guise of having to complete work or secure a deal. • Time with this co-worker or new friend seems to fly by and you feel rejuvenated having had the time together – your shared experience is reminiscent of how you felt when you first spent time with your spouse. • Although the friendship is open and honest you cannot include your spouse in the friendship and there are times you feel guilty about the fact that it exists. • You really want to be with this person and your family feels like a hindrance to your happiness.

Forgiveness is always available and ways to find it are known and discussed. Then, once it is granted, the forgiven person is free to go on his or her way and live as if the transgression had never existed.

There are bizarre circumstances when forgiveness cannot be immediately available, when reconciliation is impossible, but these circumstances are so extreme I will not address here.

People go out of their way for each other; they pool resources to empower each other; they put family and the needs of family ahead of the needs and the demands of those outside the family. There are exceptions and there are friends who become family.

Then, there are family members and friends who will milk others dry. They should not be enabled.

Safety and protection can be found and trusted in a family. Secrets, weaknesses, vulnerabilities are safe in the sacred circle of the family. People can be strong and weak and brave and afraid without fear of exposure.

Of course there are secrets that should not be safe and expressions of weakness that should be exposed but again, these situations are so extreme I will not address then here.

• Regular phone calls and frequent visits. Everyone likes to be in the loop with the people we love. If you’re too busy as an adult to make regular contact with your parents, you are too busy. Something about your life probably needs re-assessment.

• Room for your parent to think and to speak and to tell stories, you, the adult son or daughter, may well have heard a thousand times. Stories are obviously a powerful link to past and serve to re-ignite the soul. Your parents’ repeated telling of the same stories are providing a valuable service.

• Opportunities to be with your children. While a grandchild is not a commodity to be passed around, he or she is the promise of hope to a grandparent. As much contact as possible should be encouraged. Of course there are exceptions. If your parents are relatively sane and sober (when your child is present) then there is much to be gained from encouraging contact.

• Hearty celebrations of milestones. Ignoring or forgetting a parent’s birthday is the same for some as ignoring the parent. If your parents’ birthdays are something you regularly forget there’s something deeper going on with you that may need your attention.