I spent weeks with a group of international students teaching what constitutes healthy relationships and mental health.
Several participatory exercises encouraged assertiveness from participants.
During a break 4 (single) women from the same leading industrial nation asked to speak privately with me. They informed me that if they lived according to the principles I was teaching no man from their culture would love or want them. Haltingly, they declared, their men want weak women, needy women, women who expect her man to be in charge.
Consequently I have routinely, on 5 continents, encouraged women to become the kind of people weak men find terrifying. Similarly I encourage men and boys to become the kind of men who welcome and embrace strong, self-starting, interdependent women.
Interdependent?
People who know how much they need others and how much they don’t.
Weak men will, and do, confuse love and control, even regard control as some form of spiritual gift – and this they do in all areas of their lives.
Such control or “care” parades as love and will seduce a woman looking for a “strong” man, any man.
I assured my students that there are indeed men within their culture who are men enough to love women who are women enough to be strong and assertive women.
Health and strength attract health and strength.
Love and control cannot co-exist in any relationship.
There is great power and pleasure in stopping, being still, getting off the treadmill of activity, halting your mind from scanning and searching and being on duty. There’s great pleasure and power in resting, reading nothing, checking nothing, getting caught up with nothing.
There is great pleasure and power in observing the surroundings, picking up designer themes, details which are easy to miss if seeing is done without concentration, or seeing is done without looking. To look deliberately can be transforming.
There is great power and pleasure and sometimes pain in listening with intensity to what people are saying. It may facilitate hearing what others are not saying which may be the core of a desired, even desperate message. What is skirted and avoided will be heard by the avid and trained listener. Listening is a full body activity.
There is great power and pleasure in choosing to be present, to be near, to be focussed on what another person needs, wants to say, confesses fears, admits to loneliness, is anxious about almost everything. Presence is a gift that it seems few are aware they are able to give. Silence and presence often hold hands.
There is great power in choosing to love even though he or she who seeks to love will seek no power (Msimimngu, in Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country).
A week later I can think and write — this one time – more objectively about my son, Thulani’s, wedding to Alaina. The lavish event, his in-laws resisted no expense, included 175 guests, was as perfect as I can imagine.
The saxophonist and pianist played a soothing “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” – Van Morrison’s version was Thulani’s first favorite piece of music, a smidgen ahead of anything Barney –and I was first to walk down the aisle of the historical landmark church to begin and officite my son’s wedding.
On reaching the lectern I turned to face the packed sanctuary.
There were men and women who’d walked with me through every phase of both my sons’ lives and hundreds of members of the bride’s friends, family and extended family.
The groom entered and, after his slow walk down the aisle, he threw his arms around me. Then came his brother, Nathanael, followed by 7 groomsmen. The stunning eight bridesmaids entered one-by-one to the delight of the expressive diverse congregation.
The sanctuary doors closed and we waited.
When the music changed, the congregation stood, and the bride entered arm-in-arm with her dad, and at the end of their walk, the bride’s mother joined her husband for a coordinated kiss and both placed Alaina’s hands into my son’s hands the bride and groom turned to face life-long family and friends, many of whom have loved and supported each from birth.
Sometimes our father was silent on matters I’d hope he’d respond, defend himself, speak up, correct errors, adjust and align to brings matters a little more in his favor.
But now, I think I understand, or at least I am beginning to understand.
He seemed to sit and watch, observing closely all that was gong on around him, taking it all in, and I’d wait for an assessment but he’d offer none.
I think that now I understand.
Sometimes our father relayed naval stories of such graphic violence with such painful and long-lasting ramifications that I’d wish he’d hold his silence.
But, he could not.
Action at sea and losses of friends to the water, the onboard fires, the sirens and warnings of imminent attack were buried deeply in his memory and left him a gentle man, tolerant, but not naming of fools. He was one who entertained wild and youthful ideas while seeing it all against a backdrop requiring he not respond, speak up, correct the errors, adjust and align or brings matters a little more in his favor.
Perhaps, even though I hsve never faced action at sea or the graphic fears that are the backdrop of war, I can begin to understand why I tend to choose silence when others may prefer me to respond.
Learn the ART of living fully in your own head, and only, in your own head. Think for yourself. Try not to interfere when others think for themselves even when they express thoughts you’d never think. It’s allowed. MINDing yourown business, avoiding crossovers, is a crucial and necessary art in the empowering business. Like everything, it begins at home. Your spouse, adult sons and daughters, your parents, all the adults you know have unique brains capable of their own thinking. You may find this harder than it sounds if you are accustomed to living in multiple heads other than your own, and in yourown.
Why is this important? It’s fundamental to trust, growth, respect, equality, mutuality and all those good things. I’d suggest it would be highly disrespectful of me to assume I am better at doing your thinking than you are at doing yourthinking. If I focus my mind on my business and trust you will do the same, the meeting of our minds has the potential to enhance both of us. Conversely, if every time we talk or spend time together you cross over in my head it is likely much of my energy will be spent, not in thinking and exploring with you, but in attempts to safeguard my head-territory.
One of my very favorite pieces of art. It’s from Gorky Park, Moscow. Street artist — 1992.
I am grateful to Mercury readers who inquire about my health following my bout with salmonella.
As I have written, it knocked me out.
Serendipitously, my sister was already scheduled to come to the USA from South Africa to attend my son’s wedding and Jenny has been more than able to assist me in my recovery.
My doctors inform it will take a while but assure me my “numbers” are “trending” in the right direction.
While it is not where I would like it to be, I am walking 5000 or more steps a day.
I have canceled my travel plans for the rest of 2025. I don’t like canceling arrangements with people who have relied on me for years to bring my academic portion to their family therapy programs.
My immediate goal is to rally all of my physical and emotional strength so I am strong enough to stand for long enough to perform my son’s wedding and hold onto my emotions while I do it. His walk down the aisle with 7 groomsmen (one being his brother) and me, and the entry of the 7 bridesmaids, then the bride, is sure to evoke powerful emotions for us all in the home church of his beautiful fiance in a city three hours from where we live.
It surprises me, now that my sons are adults, what catches my attention abou them and makes me burst with pride. They’re not the things I anticipated when they were young boys. I think I was falsely oriented around things of a more grandiose nature.
I enjoy watching them engage with other adults and how they do so with ease, respect, kindness and humility.
They know how to say “thank you,” and when to say “thank you.” This, in my opinion, is one of the most important skills a human can have. I meet men twice their ages who have apparently not acquired this skill.
They are naturally respectful of the elderly. They hold back at doors and open doors. They’re eager to give a seat to someone who needs it. They’re on the lookout for how they serve, how they can help. This is more impressive to me than a lot of other things I thought I’d find impressive.
They do not hold back if they want me to know something, want to ask me something, or request a favor. I love the fact that they’re open about their needs and their wants, but they’re quite willing to hear yes as they are to hear no. No is tough for me, but I am learning.
My sons live in different cities from each other yet it appears they’re almost daily in contact with each other. That they are friends with each other means the world to me.
Cameras can transform not-so-friendly people into Mr and Mrs Charming.
You may have noticed cameras and social media often dictate attitudes and behaviors.
Don’t be fooled.
Little reveals integrity and the lack of it more than how so-called powerful people treat all other people. Position and reach and power mean nothing if they lack authenticity and it’s all for the camera.
If he (no matter who he is) looks down on others, shows his power by withholding legitimate tips or generosity to prove a point, you have met an untrustworthy type. If she expresses that she’s surrounded by incompetent idiots and says things like, “If you want something done properly do it yourself,” beware.
Do not trust the “only for camera” smiles or niceness. If everything shifts in the above scenarios when a camera appears, beware.
A kind and generous person is kind and generous when there are no cameras, when there is no applause. A person who can relax and enjoy himself or herself over a meal with people with whom they have little or nothing in common without racing for the camera to publish their goodness and humility for the world to see, is a person of depth and of trustworthy integrity.
Allow yourself to experience your emotions – even the extremes. Don’t cover or hide from your grief. If you are feeling joy, express it. Avoid constructing a wall or barrier between you and your emotions. The day may come when you cannot see over the barrier, let alone climb the wall.
Take time to hear as many “sides” to every story. Don’t rush to judgment. There are usually 7, 8, even 10 sides to every story. Hear them all. Things are often not as they appear. Listeners take all the time needed to hear things out.
As far as you’re capable, go back and make right where you have failed. Often, this may be impossible. Make a list of your regrets, determine never to move in those directions again. Learn, recover, learn recover.
Even if it’s not in your usual habit, try to talk more to people you care about about the things you care about. Don’t rehash hobby horses. Let people into unexpressed parts of your thinking.
Notice your indifference. This is where you’ve been unmoved, unaffected, by things that ought to move everybody, ought to affect everybody. Allow the world about you, near and afar, to have its impact on you.
One corner of my home office……. you’re welcome here.
I know competition is tough, really tough, but I think I win the International Best Sister Award. My Australian brother would win a parallel brother award but today I’m celebrating my South African sister, Durban’s own Jennifer Arthur.
As I’ve previously written Jen is the original Facebook. She remembers everyone she’s ever met, be it for 7 minutes on a train or plane somewhere in the world, and somehow gets them a birthday message. She keeps contact with people for years despite the brevity of a first encounter. There’s always a way to stay in touch and Jen finds it.
Jen’s adored by her 9 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild and by my adult sons. I’ve heard children, seen their longing, as they request she be their grandmother. My sister is widely known as Granny Goose.
This week, in fact 3 days ago, my sister landed in the USA for my son’s wedding, a journey booked without awareness that I’d be in need of assistance following my joust with salmonella. My kitchen is organized, my house has beautiful new touches, and recuperation feels 100 times easier.
Even Duke my Lab has switched allegiances and is under her feet as much as possible.
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