Move on to the Think Tank (Box 3) where you can get some useful work done.

Box 3 is your Neo-Cortex and it is larger than the stem and the limbic put together. This is the creative, distinctly human dimension of your brain. It governs  – or tries to govern –  the stem and the limbic. It is your “Think Tank.” It’s the Art Studio, the Creative Center. Here you’ll find Einstein posters, wild lists, Far Side cartoons, and drawings reminding you of all the possibilities you have seen for your life plastering the walls. It is from here you engage in creative discussions (“I think therefore I am”) about marvelous possibilities.

This is communication central, the clearinghouse of ideas large and small, this is the funny farm, the place you get your funniest thoughts and ideas. This is where humor, spirituality, appreciation of the finer things in life, and prayer, begin and thrive.

No matter how much you love your pet mammal he just cannot share your spiritual space with you. Like you pet snake, he doesn’t have the brains for it. The developed neo-cortex is reserved for humans only. Visit this, your “seize the day” room as much as possible and try to have all your “thoughts” about your reactions, feelings, and actions walk around this room for examination before you make a move.

Time spent in Box 3 is  – usually –  good for you. It’s your humor center, your envisioning center – it’s a platform of endless possibilities and the place from which you greatness will really emerge.

All three “brain boxes” can be “visited” in an instant. 

Let me illustrate: I enter a shop and search for an item. I cannot find what I need or anyone to help me and I am in a hurry. 

My Stem (the fuse box) wants me to “blow a fuse” and walk out never to return! 

Limbic, which feels abandoned, kicks in. I tell myself, “After all my loyalty. After shopping here for 20 years, you’d think someone would recognize me, and care.” 

Then Cortex pipes up and says: “Ah! You are a bright, resourceful person. As you can see, everyone is busy. You can find anything you need on your own. Seize this great opportunity!”

[I am deeply influenced by Rabbi Friedman, Peter Steinke, and Murray Bowen. All have written profoundly on these matters. Peter’s book “How Your Church Family Works” was my primary influence in revolutionizing how I see and understand my own thinking. I give Peter full credit for any resemblance you may see to his work. While it is neither copied nor “lifted”, one cannot read something and love something so much without it reverberating in one’s work.]

Box 2 is the Limbic Box and it is much larger than the stem (BOX 1) and feels, yes, feels, it is much more important.

It is not.

It is different.

This is the “feelings” or “emotion center.” 

Linger in your limbic and you will hear country music blaring from all sides. You’ll see “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books everywhere. You will be in tears in no time. Linger in the limbic too long and you will feel overwhelmed. Sit around here and you will be paging through memories with joy (on a good day) and singing “Nobody loves me everybody hates me,” on a bad day.

It is an essential place to visit but you don’t want to live here. 

This is a place reserved for mammals and humans. No matter how much you love your pet alligator and how much fun you have with it, it simply doesn’t have fun. It doesn’t have the brains for fun. Your dog does. That is why fun with your dog is really a mutual (but not equal) experience. Throwing a ball in the yard might be fun for you but it is the pinnacle of joy – every time – for your dog.

Have you ever felt really sorry for yourself? Like absolutely no one cares, especially after ALL you’ve done? Do you find yourself singing “I’m-so-lonesome” songs and “I-feel-so left out” songs? You have been spending far too much time in your feeling or I-Need-Empathy Box. 

This is a warm and welcoming place but it is not built for thinking. 

*I remain influenced by Rabbi Friedman, Peter Steinke, and Murray Bowen. All have written profoundly on these matters. Peter’s book “How Your Church Family Works” was my primary influence in revolutionizing how I see and understand my own thinking. I give Peter full credit for any resemblance you may see to his work. While it is neither copied nor “lifted”, one cannot read something and love something so much without it reverberating in one’s work.

 A helpful metaphor* 

Think of your (human) brain as three living boxes, placed one inside the other, residing inside your skull. 

Mammals get the “inside” two boxes. 

Reptiles, poor things, get only one, the very inner one.

The smallest box, the stem, doesn’t think. It works. Protects. It reacts. It’s humorless. 

The Stem is not the “feeler” or “thinker.” It has no room for such nonsense, actually, it never even thinks about it. 

Every time you want to EXPLODE, when you get anxious, feel like hiding, or hitting, your stem is trying to dominate! 

The greater your anxiety, the more your inner-reptile will want to break out.

The stem, your primal, instinctual, reptilian center, serves to protect you and keep your vital organs running. It will throw you under a table if there’s an explosion and put you into attack mode if you (or someone you love) are threatened. Turtles, snakes, polar bears, and dogs have stems. Their stems serve them similarly. Your stem is not creative; it doesn’t have the brains to be. It’s not “reasonable” – it is not supposed to be. 

You might have had to invite a friend, on occasion, to step out of his or her stem. 

But be careful, stem-bound men and women are humorless! 

They bite.

If you want to punch someone who disagrees with you, or run away from all “stupid” people, you are probably, in that moment, stem-bound. You’ve allowed your stem (your Reacting) to dominate. I’d suggest you shift gears (shift boxes) before you hurt someone or lose your job. 

When you find you are overly reactive you have to tell your stem “to get back in your box! Do your job. Stop trying to think.”

I’ll continue this metaphor tomorrow.

*I am deeply influenced by Rabbi Friedman, Peter Steinke, and Murray Bowen. All have written profoundly on these matters. Peter’s book “How Your Church Family Works” was my primary influence in revolutionizing how I see and understand my own thinking. I give Peter full credit for any resemblance you may see to his work. While it is neither copied nor “lifted”, one cannot read something and love something so much without it reverberating in one’s work.

Four scenarios – let me know how you thrive in tough circumstances….

It’s one thing to be single and lonely – there’s at least some expectation that if someone is alone he or she might occasionally feel it. But to be married and be lonely must surely come with unimaginable pain. If this is you, please let me know your coping strategies. 

Place “loneliness” in the email heading.

Feeling caught or trapped in the middle of any relationship triangle can grind a person down. If it’s you, your children, and their other parent, or you, your parents and your spouse, or your boss and the other employees, whatever the trap, let me know how you nonetheless cope. 

Please place “feeling trapped” in the heading.

If you are the sober party in a relationship dominated by addictions, let me know how you cope. What specific strategies do you have to keep yourself functioning in a place of stress and pain? 

Please put “living with addictions” in your heading.

Some people always think they love others more than others love them. They initiate everything and end up feeling that if they did not initiate things there’d be no relationship. If this is you, please let me know how you cope. 

Place “initiator” in the heading.

Email: RodMFT@mac.com

Most people know every action will get an equal and opposite reaction 

This knowledge does not seem to stop the parent of an adult son or daughter from trying to “push” and “pull” an adult son or daughter out of a relationship the parent may think is unfit or unhealthy. Pushing, pulling, coercing, will result in resistance. Accepting, embracing the relationship paves the way for open conversations. Coercing closes dialogue. 

Loyalties are invisible, often confusing

The loyalties which connect people will often make “no sense” to outsiders or even insiders. Thus, if anyone “messes” with a pre-existing relationship, even if invited, he or she will pay the price. This is one reason healthy stepparenting is so extraordinarily difficult. The stepparent will always in some ways be an “outsider.” Attempts at “getting between” parent and child, or child and parent, will carry a price tag, even if intervention is invited. As tough as remaining neutral – staying out of the middle –  maybe it is your best call if you are a stepparent, even if you are recruited, begged, to intervene. 

There are always anecdotes to prove me wrong. I get them a lot. 

These are general family systems observations. 

Stepdad’s interventions may work when Johnny is 3, but it is when Johnny is 13, 23, and 33, that “staying out of it” right from the start will pay rich dividends.  

Incomplete thoughts re Listening, Empathy, and Challenge – as promised 

Listening to another, really listening, is evidence of love. It’s love in action. Being heard is being loved. Listening, and being heard, holds therapeutic power in itself. It stands alone. But, being heard does not necessarily lead a person to desired change. 

Change comes from being heard and being challenged and responding to the challenges. 

Empathy is identifying with another so accurately that both parties know what at least one person is experiencing. Empathy is impossible without Listening. 

It’s as if they  – Listening and Empathy –  go hand-in-hand for a long walk. Listening leads, guides, pulls, until they are strolling side-by-side. 

When I know you empathize with me, or are empathizing with me, I’m aware that you know, as much as is humanly possible, what it is like to be me. When you hear me and empathize with me I know you experience my world almost as I experience it. We are together. I am not alone. My world feels safer because you are safe and you are with me in my world and you understand. 

Empathy, too, stands alone. It, too, in itself, is powerfully therapeutic. 

Empathy in itself, too, does not necessarily lead to desired change. 

Change comes from being heard, understood, and from responding to challenge. 

Challenge – to recall our metaphor – is the third sibling to Listening and Empathy. I think of it as an older brother or sister.

Listening and Empathy are a powerful duo but Challenge can help to seal the deal. Challenge pulls them both along toward new adventures. Listening without Empathy is nothing more than an interview. Empathy without Challenge leaves me understood, accepted, warm, comforted – all good things. Empathy with Challenge gives me hope, helps me to see the possibility of greater health and the joy of seeing and embracing new options. 

There are therapeutic encounters – expensive ones – that go on week-by-week and year-after-year that reek with beautiful empathy and where the client is fully heard. 

Then, the client leaves warmed all over but, unChallenged. 

Empathy without Challenge is (somewhat) useless if it is healthy change you wish to see.

There are some things a person simply cannot do for (or to) another person, no matter how much commitment there is, how deep the love may be, or how noble the goals. This is so even if the helper is overflowing with determination, and the helpee is hungry with need. This is especially true when people are in love, a time when people are most inclined to be convinced in their power to change another person.

It is impossible to make another person:

• Love you, want you, need you, miss you, or trust you.
• Love, want, need, miss, or trust someone else.
• See, feel or think in a certain manner for an enduring period.
• See the light, or get some sense into their lives.
• Lose or gain weight, save money, want, or not want sex.
• Use or stop using drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, or bad language.
• Become healthier.
• Be happy or fulfilled, be angry, want change, succeed or fail at anything. 

The above are “inside” jobs. Until the motivation is self-generated within the one in need, the helper will work harder than the helpee and ultimately drain the helper of all enthusiasm and energy.

Empathy is a lot easier to define than impart. 

“Getting to” empathy is not easy. 

Also, Empathy has two very close siblings: Listening and Challenge. 

The three travel together as a package deal. 

It would be a “therapy joke” to suggest they are codependent but, while they are distinct, they function together, much like fingers on the same hand. 

Empathy is not something a person can use when needed like a spatula. 

Like listening, it’s first a skill, then, a life-style. It’s not a trick or formula, a way to get what you want. Using any interpersonal skill to get what YOU want is called manipulation or domination or intimidation, siblings from a whole other family.

Empathy is the beautiful, artful consequence that grows within a person who has sought to understand him or herself and his or her struggles, failures, successes, and therefore finds it easier to enter the experience of another, than one who has not. 

Self-knowledge, self-acceptance, are the keys that release or withhold you and me from empathy. 

No matter how extensively trained or confident, you and I cannot enter the world of another at greater depth than we have dared to enter your own. I’ve met unschooled “losers” with more empathy than trained professionals. I’m sure you have too.

Empathy and sibling-Listening, are somewhat (not completely) useless, without the third sibling: Challenge. I will try to say more about that in a few days.    

I write often about integrity. It is important to me. 

It was not always so. 

Over the years I have had to do a lot of costly mending. 

Some breaches of my integrity have hurt others, some perhaps beyond repair. I remain hopeful. 

Integrity is often reduced to a matter of keeping your word or paying your debts on time. 

I think it’s about all that and much more. 

It is about being integrated. It’s being unified within. 

Focused. 

It’s about you and me bringing all of who we are to all of what we do and all of what we stand for. 

It’s welding the body (physical), heart (passions), head (thinking), spirit and soul (the core of life and identity) into one focused life. While people are more complicated than dividing them up into neat portions and parts, to do so is an attractive trend.  

Integrity is investing all of our “components” or “parts” into who and what we are and into what we do with our lives. 

Perhaps you have discovered that whatever you do with one “part” of you impacts all the other “parts” of you. That’s why when you get your body “in shape” you feel better all round and even think more clearly! 

Sadly, it also works in the other direction. 

Integrity (holiness) is about living in such a manner that they all work together for our individual and for our communal good. 

“I have been married for 11 years. I have a teenage son born before I met my wife. My wife has not accepted my son. I sent him to boarding school to avoid creating an unbearable environment. Now, she is refusing to have him visit. I am at a loss when he asks me when he is coming to visit his siblings. This is causing a rift in our marriage.” 

Your wife wants a husband, your son wants a dad. The boy wants to come home to his siblings. None of these unique, distinct, overlapping relationships, needs to impinge on or overtake each other. It’s possible to have them all. 

While your wife’s issues dominate you will live on egg-shells, your son will live in growing confusion, and your marriage will deteriorate. Until you provoke a healthy confrontation your son will lack a dad and your wife a husband. 

I will suggest your wife’s resistance to your son has nothing to do with you or son. His presence in your life evokes something within your wife that predates you. Her apparent inability to embrace your son (and now you) is deep, deeper than you and your son. She needs help from “outside” the family.

Tell your wife the boy will visit regularly. If your wife is willing to learn to be a mother-figure to a boy, he will help her find whole new avenues of growth and love. This won’t happen while you help her by hiding him from her.