Meaning
I want my life to count, make a difference, contribute to the greater good, to have MEANING.
I cannot exist in a vacuum, but in a community with persons of similar desires to create something beautiful with the skills, resources, and years that we have at our disposal.
I want to serve a cause that is greater than my own fulfillment.
I want to plant now, so people I may never meet or know or hear of me, may harvest something rich and rewarding in their futures.
L is for listen
I want to LISTEN as if I am studying fine, complex, beautiful art, a masterpiece, rather than as if I’m engaged in a hard game of competitive verbal tennis.
I want to listen as one who has much to learn rather than hide behind a secretly held belief that I’m the one with much to teach.
I know arrogance neither hears nor listens well, or accurately, but hears what it wants to hear. Arrogance reshapes what’s said into what the listener wants to hear or wishes was said.
I know that if I think I’ve “heard it all before” then I’m not listening.
Listening, really listening, can open new worlds for those who speak and those who listen and lead both down a path of brave discoveries. It’s a risk both parties must take if their communion is to improve.
I know the loving listener listens to what is said, listens to what is unsaid, and does so without rearranging either.
The authentic listener is capable of leaving the world of another admired and untouched – no matter how beautiful or how troubled that world may be.
When I am angry, unsettled, off-kilter, I make KNEE-JERK and reactive “decisions” and they are usually decisions I regret.
It’s fight or flight.
It’s short-fuse, it’s blow-a-fuse behavior and it almost always requires an apology within a day or two, if not more immediately.
I’m far better at responding rather than reacting if I allow myself space and time, room to think things through, form an intelligent strategy, rather than shoot from the hip and create more material for clean up and apologies.
The former (anger and reactivity) is about fear and the need to protect.
Responding is about learning, about gaining objectivity, and guarding all people (not only myself) and trying to do what’s good for all involved.
Another thing I’ve repeatedly found (in retrospect) is that my knee-jerk reactions usually kick in to defend false assumptions, narratives existing in my head alone, and defending what’s not even necessarily threatened.
Reacting to others seldom lands me in a place I want to be and seldom leaves me proud of my behavior or the fallout from my actions.
Reacting rather than responding seldom leads to better, more trusting relationships.
Responding, at least, leaves room for love and goodwill to find a way.
Jealously
When I’m JEALOUS, I know it. Others know it. When you’re jealous I believe you know it.
Shakespeare nicknamed jealousy “the green eyed monster,” and, given the slightest wink or invitation, it sneaks up on people often when least expected – and, a destructive monster it indeed is.
It hurts the jealous, and can hurt the object of jealousy.
It can ruin a relationship.
Since the object of our jealousy is not the source of our jealousy, let’s not point fingers when we feel the monster doing its intrusive and destructive work.
Jealousy is an individual pursuit. Those who host the virus or entertain the monster must address it or be it’s enduring casualty.
Jealousy can be subtle and hidden within — it may be gentle nudges the jealous person may be capable of disguising or hiding. Jealousy can be loud and gross, expressing itself in obvious avoidance or outright rejection or rage at others – those whom a jealous person may deem more skilled or popular or preferred than jealousy’s host.
There are perhaps subtle differences between jealousy and envy but it’s hair-splitting — the goal is to expel the virus and desire the best for others and set others free of our pettiness.
Deep down where soul, spirit, will, heart, mind, meet, I have a magnificent gift – the instinctual, God-given, desire for INTIMACY.
Togetherness.
It comes wrapped into my humanity. I want to be intimate, to belong, to be part of a family, groups, teams, causes.
I don’t want to be alone.
I want to know others and be known by others. This desire usually whispers, but must sometimes yell, for recognition, especially when my equally powerful instinctual desire for autonomy has enjoyed its pleasures.
I want to be heard and treasured as a companion and friend. I want to be an integral part of the lives of close family and friends.
I want to be fearlessly open with a handful of loving friends and for them to be similarly open with me. If I repeatedly ignore this primal desire, I place my emotional well-being and physical health at risk.
I was not designed to be alone. I am designed for connection with others.
Acknowledging this essential part of who I am, respecting it, enjoying it, enhances my capacity to love myself, love others, and become fully, and more beautifully human.
*to be read in tandem with A is for Autonomy
Hope
I am convinced that there are always reasons to HOPE.
No matter how dire, or conflicted the circumstance, no matter how bleak the prognosis, while there is life, and even beyond it, there remain reasons to be hopeful.
I’ve seen hope in action.
I’ve seen painful family scenarios, the most estranged of siblings, the most obstinate of personalities, turn, then find previously unimagined degrees of humility, and move in healthier directions.
But, of course, evil abounds. It tries to rob people of hope. Sadly, we all know men and women who are capable of inflicting much hurt and destruction.
Nonetheless, I will continue to believe that good far outweighs evil.
Goodness, kindness, benevolence, empathy, are latent in every man, woman, and child, and such qualities exercised by individuals, squelch humanity’s sometimes crazed desire to spread hate and destruction.
While I am well aware my ideas will be considered absurd in some circles, heresy in others, I’d suggest that when a lonely woman reaches again for alcohol, or a depraved man engages in illicit behavior, or an adult or teenager self-destructs, these behaviors are desperate acts of prayer, desperate attempts at sanity, desperate attempts to relieve pain and restore hope.
I will be an agent of hope to those who feel hopeless, abandoned, or aimless. Having seen my own life change, and an occasion, my own difficulties diminish, I know others can successfully face fearful, problematic situations, and emerge with increased hope. I will live a hopeful life and spread hope wherever I go.
Grief
The healing work of GRIEF will labor long.
In dozens, no scores, of ways it is never over or complete because some losses escape healing.
After severe loss accommodation is possible, a full life is possible, new relationships can develop, yet, the vacuum of some losses are never filled or covered or fully healed.
Many people, understandably, want to rush grief and want all pain to be gone.
Who cannot want pain to be gone?
I know that rushing grief serves to bury the pain, makes it run deeper into the soul, only to manifest later, often disguised as something unrelated to the initial loss.
No matter how long ago my loss may have occurred, I will welcome the tears I feel welling up. I will let them flow. I know tears are grief’s first agents, first responders in loss and tragedy. No matter how long past my loss may have occurred, I welcome my desire to talk about it. I know that speaking about my loss stimulates my grief to do its unique work. Conversations facilitate healing and recovery, especially conversations with those who have walked a similar path.
No matter how long ago my loss or breakup or violations may be, I will welcome my desire to write about it. I know that words strung together into sentences, then paragraphs, then chapters, can help construct a boardwalk for hurting people, and for me, to deliver our grieving into realms of newfound peace and continued healing.
Forgiveness
The capacity to FORGIVE is a divine gift. It can precipitate healing within people and among groups of people. The person who initiates acts of forgiveness is usually (but not always) the one who reveals greater strength. He or she may be the one carrying the deeper burden. It is the stronger person (usually) who is first to forgive, and both parties – the forgiver and the forgiven – benefit from the act if apologies are expressed and accepted. When I choose to forgive I seldom have anything to lose, and usually much to gain.
I know I harbor resentment when I am uncomfortable being around a particular person and would rather avoid him or her. I know I am holding onto hurt when I have little or nothing positive to say to or about someone and when I find it hard to think positive thoughts about someone. I will forgive as efficiently as I find it possible and can muster the strength from within to do so.
I will forgive when someone’s actions toward me (real or perceived) seem sealed into my consciousness and I can’t let them out of the prison within my head. I know it’s time for me to forgive when I feel haunted by someone whose acts against me will not let me go. Forgiveness links me with the divine, heals fragile families, calms hurting communities and restores hope within broken people – and – sets the forgiver free.
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E is for Empower and Enable
Do I Empower others or Enable?
I EMPOWER others and myself when I get out of their way and anticipate that they will speak for themselves. I am empowered when I understand and apply the critical distinction between being responsible TO others but NOT and responsible FOR other adults. I empower others when I allow choices and consequences of choices to run their course. I am empowered when I learn to distinguish between helpful pain, necessary, useful anxiety, what to embrace and what to ignore. I am empowered when I work at healthy, necessary separation, even when in love, and even when having strong soul-ties.
I ENABLE others if I lie to cover, run interference, or protect others, in hopes of keeping people employed, protected, or “close.” I am an enabler if I feel overburdened with mis-placed responsibility or rewarded with mis-placed responsibility for anyone. I am enabling others when I feel like I am living more than ONE life. I am enabling when someone’s choices – both good and bad – feel like my responsibility. I am enabling when I am unable to see myself as a separate being from another, and regard the connection as “oneness” or love, a soul-tie, making the enabling crucial, necessary, and somehow inescapable.
DIFFERENTIATION of Self – a Murray Bowen family systems principle and term – is a life-long internal journey to be my distinct self, while also honoring, enjoying, recognizing the benefits of togetherness with others. It is the challenge every human must face.
If I avoid growth, I will fuse, I will be enmeshed with others, many of whom will appear to welcome the company of equally growth-avoidant people. They may find it very attractive, even “spiritual.” Little will feel as spiritual as a good fuse-buddy.
Enmeshment, or fusion, will make me more likely to place responsibility on others, even blame others, for the way in which my life develops.
Contrarily, to differentiate is to get into the driver’s seat of my life and provide a platform for maximum growth for myself and everyone in my circle of influence.
Differentiation of Self is being aware of not confusing the “I” the “you,” and the “we,” but giving the best of myself AND getting the best for myself from all three. I can be simultaneously intimate and autonomous, I can and will define myself, knowing that if I do not, others will naturally be inclined to fill the vacuum and define who I am for me.
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