I assume that your email address in this morning’s Mercury is current.
Thank you for taking the time to come to see me. I was sorry not to get to any of your talks. After two years in lockdown and not going out of the building, at 94 I find that I can’t face going out! I had to go to the dentist and for hearing aids. I was really nervous and took a walker to lean on. My balance with even one little step is not good.
Thank you for visiting us at Beth Shalom when you were in Durban. It was also good to see Jen with you. The residents were delighted that you gave us time. Your talk was of value, appreciated and taken to heart. That evening one resident, Marilyn Dinner, told me that she had gone straight to her room and emailed three letters asking for forgiveness, one to her daughter. She received three positive acceptances immediately. And later wrote a few more letters.
Your boys must have been happy to have you home but now you are away again, to benefit others, this time in Switzerland.
Keep well and fit and bringing light into the world.
Within milliseconds the drawbridge – we each have one – may go down with a hearty welcome or remain up and sealed shut.
There may be Immediate comfort or discomfort, or levels of both.
Suspicions may be endorsed or deleted.
Information and misinformation transmission occurs at a speedy rate.
We read and misread and read and misread each other constantly – all within the backdrop of our unique experiences and training, our hurts, pains, goals, and desires – known and unknown.
The accent (if one party is not from “here”) is loaded with meaning. Clothes (anything unusual); laid-back or dominant stance; voice tone, volume, intonations; levels of energy or lack thereof, are cumulatively processed.
Triggers can be triggered. Stereotypes ignited. Warmth flows, or doesn’t.
The wave, the handshake, the hug, smile or frown, degrees of sincerity or insincerity are downloaded by the “who-are-you” antenna and the “can I trust you” antenna issued to all at birth to be processed with the morass of stored history, experience, memories, good and bad.
Every encounter is a miracle.
And, yes, with all that, we — you and I – are called to be neighbors and to love one another.
Introduction to Bowen Theory and to the week ahead.
Exercise: PSALM 23
Genograms.
This is a drawing of any client’s family relationships covering at least three generations. It is always a “drawing in progress and process” as people and families are constantly evolving (chabing, growing).
The genogram is a predictive tool (it is not determinative) revealing what’s likely to occur within a family (where and when there is no intervention) by seeing what’s set in motion by preceding and passed on from generations.
My hope is that each student and staff member will complete his or her Genogram.
All family members are deeply connected to all other family members. The manner in which people are connected either nourishes or drains individuals and the entire network – and, of course – many relationships do both and at the same time.
Size (power, perceived importance, lack of boundaries) matters in all relationships – family or not.
What is desired and the goal for all of our relationships? Respect, Mutuality, Equality.
It is my pleasure and joy to near Geneva in Switzerland this week where I will teach Family Systems theory and practice. Over our five days together I hope to:
Cover the history and the development of The Genogram. This is a drawing of any client’s family relationships covering at least three generations. The genogram is a predictive tool revealing what’s likely to occur within a family by seeing what’s set in motion by preceding generations. Each student will complete his or her Genogram.
Demonstrate how all family members are deeply connected to all other family members and how the connections either nourish or drain individuals and the entire network.
Demonstrate how assuming personal responsibility for one’s life lessens the power of the negative (unwanted) themes driving our lives. Assuming an active healthy and engaged stance about our lives increases the likelihood of a healthier future if the past has offered tough and debilitating challenges.
While every class is unique and the material is designed for each group, my focus is always to encourage deep engagement from every person. As insights are shared the way opens for the group process to be at least as powerful as the content.
If we had a chance to talk and listen to each other, here are a few things I would enjoy talking about:
I’d like to talk about what each of us is really good at and hear and tell a few stories to demonstrate our identified strengths.
I’d like to hear about three or four defining moments in your life – when things shifted or directions changed – and tell you about a few of mine.
I would like each of us to hear about the people who love us or have loved us and for us to tell a few stories about how the love is (or was) expressed.
I would like to hear about how you see your future – no matter what your age – and have an opportunity to tell how I see mine.
I would like to hear of occasions when you have been misunderstood and what others tend to misunderstand about you. I’ll be more than ready to let you in on my experiences of being misunderstood.
I would like to hear about what you want and tell you about what I want. If we get this far in our talking I hope we are both ready for the most spiritual discussion possible which is deciding and declaring what we really want.
The Art of Adulthood demands the practiced skill of knowing when to remain silent, when to speak, and to hold onto the tongue when do speak.
Self-monitoring, self-awareness, an appreciation for the impact we each have on ourselves and others – are crucial gateways to adult emotional health.
I have left a gathering knowing I have talked too much, over-shared, made unnecessary comments, even, and this pains me to write, hurt another, someone present or absent.
Have you done this, too?
You got a little thrill the moment the words came out of your mouth, a brief high of apparent inclusion. The tid-bit shared became a window or door or crack to the “inside” of who knows what. But, given time, which could be seconds or hours, there was regret.
You let yourself down.
Said too much, hogged the floor, or bruised another with an unnecessary comment or story. Yet, at the time and in the context it felt real, important, or playful enough to get a giggle.
Then you were hit with a feeling you’d rather not have had.
I know about this. In a desire for some weird or momentary high or sense of importance I added content to a conversation that was unnecessary, even harmful.
Silence would have been wiser.
Live. Learn. Decide.
Apologize if necessary and possible (it is not always possible).
Do better next time.
I am now finally available for Zoom consultations – email me if you are interested.
A poem I rather love —- by Dennis and Matthew Linn — from their book “Healing Life’s Hurts”
The “outside world” can be a dangerous place for children.
Another exceedingly dangerous environment for children can also be their own homes. While medicine cabinets, cleaning materials and unlocked swimming pool gates are a legitimate threat to the child-safety, the unguarded mouth of an angry adult can inflict grievous harm to a child.
A vigilant parent might install childproof locks yet leave a totally exposed web of anger in every room of the house. Unresolved anger in a parent, expressed through unpredictable displays of frustration and annoyance or rage, can quite effectively sabotage a childhood and even pass a baton of anxiety and rage to unborn generations. It is in their own homes that children might be at most in danger. At home they learn about trust, and exercise the most trust. It is at home they will learn, or fail to learn, by watching and experiencing, almost everything they will ever know about love.
It is at home they will make the most mistakes and receive the most affirmation and correction. It is at home that children will learn about fear and hurt and rejection and empathy and love and acceptance.
Children are constantly seeing, feeling, learning, trying, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, watching, waiting and taking it all in.
Monitoring diets is a crucial aspect of childhood health. Another “diet” is the calm, security, predictability and warmth healthy parents can provide.
If you have the opportunity to see “The King of Broken Things” run at it.
I hear it from you, whoever you are, and, yes, I can detect it in a nanosecond, it usually bores me.
When I hear it from preachers, teachers, public speakers – and I am one of them – it really annoys me. It annoys me because it reveals a lack of preparation and the assumption that you can waste an audience’s time.
But, I try to be patient.
I’m referring to auto-speak.
Auto-speak is the gear people (we) go into where people repeat things they’ve said a hundred times.
Schtick.
It’s preachers as rehearsed comedians who stop at the same laugh-points, rely on the same cliched puns, retell the same decades old “miracle” and “small-world” stories.
I invited a well-known yesteryear sports star and public speaker to address a group of athletes.
“Fresh,” I said, “I want you to speak from your heart, a practiced script. I want the men to meet you, now, not the ‘when we’ person.”
He declined.
When we (you and I) resort to auto-speak we stop communicating, connecting with our audience, be it 1 or 5000 people.
Say it to me.
I am willing to hear it.
‘I am as tired of your schtick as you are. Let’s really talk.”
———-
Unrelated —- it’s my sons birthday today….. I love you, Nate:
22 today….. you have transformed my life and I thank you.
My recent South African trip led to many conversations during which I tripped over some glorious new-to-me one-liners. Perhaps they’re old hat to many South Africans, grafted into common usage, but I found each rather refreshing.
“Keep your head out of that noose,” said a woman to a friend on hearing of a complex domestic issue and an invitation to comment. A rather graphic picture I thought, an ear-catching way to alert others to being trapped in toxic triangles and a rather hard image to forget.
“My mother would always encourage us to be a ‘rainbow in someone’s cloud’,” said an avid Mercury reader I bumped into at the mall.
I chuckled, asked her to repeat it and, when she did, she said, “please use it in a column soon.”
“That’s a wave you don’t want to ride,” said the seasoned surfer who confessed he’d almost forgotten Mothers Day was just around the corner.
While I did enjoy multiple cups of tea in both homes and restaurants and repeatedly heard that tea makes everything feel better — and I affirm it often does — I also heard a man say in passing and in competition with the inherited British belief in a good cup of tea that “there’s nothing like a good bunny* with lots of gravy to make everything feel better.”
*Durban and surrounding areas “bunny chow” — an Indian Curry served in a half-loaf of white bread.
Join me as I continue my journey toward being a low-maintenance person:
Take care of yourself as best as you are able. If possible, pay your own way. Live in your own head, but more important, get out of the heads of others. Others want — or don’t — want to do their own thinking.
Offer information as needed and only to those who need it. Listen to yourself. Filter content. Negative talk about others reveals nothing about others but everything about you.
Delete “you should, – ought, – must,” from your vocabulary even if you do think you know better or are more experienced.
Take others at their word unless you have solid reasons not to. Believe people when they tell you who they are. People constantly communicate who they are but if you are already convinced you already know you will miss what they are telling you and only hear and see what fits with your already-made-up-notions. Observe without prejudice.
Chase no one for anything.
Resist the urge to convince others of what you think, believe, support, and desire to defend and know it is impossible to persuade the already convinced.
People are always communicating. There is no such thing as “no communication.” This is a cop-out catchphrase used when a person prefers to avoid or deny what is being communicated.
difficultrelationships.com 