A Thoughtful Look at Life

Didja ever meet a couple who never fought and then their relationship ended and everyone is surprised because they never argued?

I've met some of those couples before they actually separate, but after they recognize that things aren't working and they better do something to avoid divorce court. They get a little bug-eyed when they sit with a marriage counsellor (me!) who provokes them into discussing their disagreements.  They fear voices being raised, they dread the thought of not appearing to be "on the same page", they fear what might happen if they actually aknowledge that they don't see eye to eye on something.

(With a bit of a fantasy that if it's not aknowledge it doesn't exist.  If they don't argue about something, then they are on the same page.  If we don't disagree about it with each other, then it it isn't a problem.  Yeah, right.)

As uncomfortable as arguing is, there is merit to aknowledging the differences that exist, and processing those differences.  It is best done in a respectful manner (abiding by mutually established "rules of engagement", as my colleague Rod Minaker would say), but facing what is helps it not sneak up on you in an ambush.

It is not disagreements or the discussion of them that make for marital strife.  When destructive methods are used to express the distress, marital fracture occurs.  It is important to find ways to stay connected when disagreeing, but pretending that disagreements don't occur does not for a healthy marriage make.

I was reading the blog recently recommended by the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.  The blog gave "Five Reasons to Stop Avoiding Tough Issues".  In short form:

1. The tension of avoiding the issue will undermine your happiness
2. The relationship will be better if you address the issue
3. Your value [as a spouse] will increase if you address the issue
4. You cannot get what you want in the relationship unless you learn to negotiate with your partner.
5. As a couple whom have been married for many years and are close what has been the major factors in building closeness and they won't tell you about their enjoyable vacations...instead, they will tell you about the rough times they survived by pulling together.

Thanx, Lee for the input!

For more on finding relationship building ways to disagree, read The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John M. Gottman.  It's a helpful read, filled with hard research and evidence, and practical strategies and exercises to have a couple learn how to disagree in ways which strengthen the relationship.

I posted a quote yesterday, and the process of typing it in got me to thinking...

Melanie and I interviewed a wonderful woman this week for a part time administrative position at our office.  We asked her to describe an experience at her current position where she needed to respond to a person who was upset.  Without missing a beat, she began to describe that this is common in her current position of being a coordinator position at a manufacturing plant. She coordinates the dispatching of product as it is being freshly manufactured, fork lift operators who are bringing in supplies and carting out product, and truck drivers who will haul it all over the country. Oh, and there are bosses at the upper level who will let her know what the priorities are, and various other people who also tell her what to consider in doing her job. She spoke of how irate the truck drivers can be, saying something like: “I hear how upset they are, and I respond to them, but I don’t react to them. I try to understand their position. They’re hot and tired, and they have families they are eager to go home to. It’s upsetting when you have to wait for hours because production is behind. However, I don’t react, I just do the best I can with what I’ve got. However, sometimes there are productions issues and there just isn’t any product ready for them to haul away.”

She found a balance between having empathy for a painful situation for another and understanding their position and their reactions, without becoming reactive to it. 

Yesterday’s quote that I posted connected me to this conversation. It reminded me of the difficult balance of being present in this world, hearing what others are saying, noticing how others are reacting, and having all of that matter, without it hijacking the feelings you have, the thoughts you are thinking, and that other’s problems and issues become yours without you deciding how you really feel and want to respond to something. 

• It’s a challenge to listen to the deepest part of ourselves and live out lives in this world out of that inner guidance, rather than being pulled this way and that by people who want a certain reaction from us. 
• It’s a challenge for a person to be yelled at to not become automatically defensive or retort angrily back.
• It’s not easy to not automatically shrivel with anxiety under the glare of a judgemental loved one.
  

When people come at us with strong emotion, it pokes at parts of us that feel accused or inadequate or hurt. And there can be almost a “knee jerk” reaction to being poked like that. Faster than a blink of an eye, there is an inner reaction to protect the poked part:

• Nostrils flare, eyebrows furrow, and the blast of anger shoots out…nobody treats me that way!
• All hands on deck! Talk fast to help the other person feel better. Spring into action to find ways to “get out of the dog house”…to get back into the other’s “good books”.

OR

• RUN! Get out of the firing range, put the other person’s disappointed look far away from your field of vision. Run away from the relationship, run to alcohol, or the computer or…

 

You see where I’m going. Without even realizing it, you have been hijacked by a part of you that seeks to stop you from being hurt by that which feels wounding or shaming or anxiety-creating words and actions. Strings have been pulled and you’ve been yanked this way or that.

It feels pretty yucky. 

And that's putting it politely.

On the other hand, the effects of listening for "the genuine" in yourself is incredible. I use a model called “Internal Family Systems” (IFS), which Dr. Richard Schwartz and his colleagues have developed, which allows people to find “the genuine” in themselves. It facilitates people to gain cooperation from the different parts of themselves with “the genuine” being captain, so to speak, working collaboratively with all of who you are. Then external pulls become tugs to which one can then choose how to respond, rather than strings on a marionette’s hand which are automatic. “The genuine” can speak for the parts, rather than a person speaking out of those reactionary parts.

So, rather than yelling in response to an accusation in a reflexive reaction, a person can say, “There’s a part of me that is feeling quite accused, and it’s feeling angry that you would think and say that about me.” 

Can you see how that changes a conversation? Can you say how that could change a relationship? 

When a person can notice how they are reacting and speak on behalf of that reaction, rather than speak out of the reaction, they begin working on behalf of themselves in ways that collaborate respectfully with others. One can maintain credibility, can keep the other person listening, can advocate for oneself. The need to run, explode, or madly fix in a way that ultimately doesn’t work diminishes, and you stay in charge of your life.

Think about it.

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.  It is the only true guide you will ever have.  And if you cannot hear it, you will, all of your life, spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls."

Howard Thurman (1900-1981)

I was on vacation with my crew this month.  We went through Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, Athabasca Falls, ice fields, Sunwapta Rapids, and more.  The beauty was simply staggering, the sights were awesome.  Took my breath away.  We stopped the vehicle often, just to get out and gaze at the magnificence of the beauty of the peaks and valleys, the brooks and waterfalls, the wildlife and the wildflowers.  We hiked up mountains and rafted on white water.  We went past the tree line, up into the clouds on foot and by gondola to look down at the icy blue glacier lakes and the green grandeur of endless trees. WOW.  Wow doesn't do it justice, but sometimes words for such beauty don't exist.  Wow.

Then we went to Edmonton. Had a riot in the water park, slid down one slide after the other, played tricks on each other in the wave pool, had contests zipping down slides that seemed as though they were straight down (felt that way looking down, anyway). Shopped till we dropped…which is fun to do at West Edmonton Mall.

In short, we saw sights and sounds that are incredible and eye popping for these prairie eyes. Fields of wheat are beautiful and awe, but the mountains take the breath away for these prairie people.

Un –buh-live-able.

But, you know what I think I will remember always and forever about this trip?

The work it took these city slickers (and the incredible number of pages of the Alberta Accomodation and Camping Guide—a thick book which is no more) to get a fire going so we could make our tin foil casseroles. We tried this and that, added paper, bark, kindling. We blew on it until we were faint, stung our eyes with smoke till we were blind and still it only smoldered. We laughed and giggled at our ineptness. After it was dark, we roasted marshmallows, occasionally saying something, but mostly gazing at the flames silently…together.

Eating packaged pasta and plain cooked chicken thighs on plastic plates sitting on mattresses in a tiny tent. We were somewhat relieved that our supper was finally cooked, and the tent set up in the rain. We were proud that we had accomplished setting up camp. The youngest of the crew declare that this was the most delicious supper he had ever tasted—and he meant it.

Spending all day in the vehicle together, getting out at various stops, listening to a story on CD from the public library, stopping it to answer questions or discuss our thoughts on a part of the plot…just being together, and realizing at the end of it, that, rather than being relieved that the day of driving was over, we were reveling in how good it was to spend the day together as we had.

A moment in the wave pool, when one of the crew was misbehaving and I ordered a time out. With disbelief that he would be sentenced to a time out at his age, he tried to cajole me out of it. I was persistent, and to his (and my) surprise, I began to count as I haven’t done for years. Holding up fingers to match my words, I began, “One…Two…” and before I could get to three, he left over with a sparkle in his eye, and the most charming and impish grin on his face, and held my third finger in my palm, stopping it before it could be raised…and gently and in a friendly way made his point for what his behavior actually meant and why he shouldn’t have to go sit “time out”. It was a delightful moment, where boy becomes man. In a mature way, he didn’t turn sour or bitter, but took the critque in stride, and advocated for himself. It was wonderful. He was effective, but he wasn’t successful. :) He still had to have time out and leave the pool—the site of his transgression…but this time out, after a few minutes I sat with him and we talked about this and that, and “timeout” did not fracture relationship, even for a moment.

I will remember this vacation for the conversations, hearing the insights, reveling in the joys of being together. Knowing the crew won’t be this age forever, and that these moments need to be captured and squeezed for all they are worth. I'm realizing now, when I look back over the years, it has been the little moments in between the big moments that are the ones that are coming back.  I'm remembering the little things that went wrong, the laughter we shared more than the "big money" events. So I'm treasuring the simple and mundane as something holy and significant.

I had already thought all of this through when I saw this video, which says it even better, inspiring us to hold onto the moments, and allows us to mourn with bittersweetness those that will never return.

Elephants have a gestation of 22 months.  That's a long time to be pregnant...can you imagine the swollen ankles and trips up at night to pee for months and months on end for the average pachyderm?  But the result is so worth the wait:

Today my sister in law’s “pregnancy” ended—gestation of 64 months…over 5 years. Beat the elephant by a mile. I’m a new auntie, as her arms were at last filled with the little one who has been waited and longed for. It’s a beautiful picture that I’ve looked at dozens of times today when it was emailed from halfway across the world.  There she is, with the biggest grin on her face, the faces of the rest of the family just glowing...even after 2 1/2 days of travel immediately before.

B, like many adoptive moms, has not had the pain (and privilege) of a sore back and stretch marks for this child, but has the very different pain of unexpected delays, repeated form completion, “just one more step” more times that can be counted, more unexpected delays, multiple layers of beaureaucracy to adopt her little girl. It was an ordeal to wait much longer than had been originally anticipated, and she and my brother have anxiously checked websites and talked with others to gain what information they could as they waited and waited and waited….and waited some more.

I’ve learned much about the experience of waiting for a chosen child over the last months. Indeed over the last years, I’ve watched my brother, his wife, and their children as they wait. I’ve had other friends wait for children from Ethiopia, or China, or Haiti and the US. I’ve worked with families experiencing infertility and adoption anguish. But these last months, there are times when I myself have felt such longing for my niece that I’ve found myself spending hours at a time floating around the blog world of the adoption experience, reading and soaking up much information about the topic. It was a little way I could feel a little less lonely and a little more connected to the little one.  I realize my situation is not nearly the same as a parent's, but I've been waiting for her too.  It’s been alternately heartwarming and gutwrenching to read of the experiences

Highlights of what I’ve learned:

1. The adoption triad: The birth parent(s), the adoptive parent(s), the child. Each member of the adoption triad has different joys, challenges, and pain.

• For many birth parents, giving up a child to be raised by another set of parents involves insight, wisdom, and an ability to see beyond the immediate pull to know what is realistic and optimal. It is an act of selflessness to release the child into the arms of another. The loss of a birth parent continues for life. I was moved by adoptive parents recognizing and acknowledging the joy they receive is as a result of extremely painful life situation of the birth parents (death, illness, poverty, limited resources). 
  
• The adoptive parents have longed for and desired a child. Many, though not all, have also undergone the challenges and pain of infertility for years before the arduous decision and process of adoption. Adoptive parents undergo a rigourous examination of their fitness to be parents that many birth parents would be horrified by. They are forced to be vulnerable in exposing many facets of their lives to social workers, and to make difficult choices about what sort of child they would accept. It seems the only consistent thing about adoption is the inconsistency of paperwork and process. Misunderstanding abound as there is multiple languages, cultures, and political systems involved in layers of beaureacracy in multiple countries. Waiting is a skill that all adoptive parents get plenty of practice at.
  
• Children: At the center of it all are the children…deeply loved. Some have been in orphanages for varying amounts of time, with varying levels of funding and, therefore, child care support. These children, while having great opportunities for health care, education, quality of life, and incredibly loving parents, are pulled from the familiar environments and must adjust to living with people who are initially strangers, often speaking another language, serving different foods and so on. No matter how loving the adoptive parents are, many still feel a gaping hole in their souls where the connection to the mother who carried them for 9 months and then perhaps more was severed. That longing for the place and people from which they came can be present for a lifetime in an unutterable fashion.

2. Adoption blogs abound. Each member of the adoption triad has something to write about, and many, many blogs are well written, poignant stories of waiting and wanting by adoptive parents, longing and regret from birth parents, and confusion and sorting out by adopted children, now adults. People like to write about adoption, to tell their stories. There seems to be healing in sharing the ups and downs…there are higher highs and lower lows during this process than can be imagined. There seems to be significant clusters of people that spontaneously and organically form that support each other as they share similar experiences, the same adoption agency, adopt children from the same country and so on. The support they give each other is incredible to virtually witness. People can be incredibly kind to one another.

3. Adoption is something that continues to make many people uncomfortable. My little niece is utterly beautiful. She’s also clearly of a different ethnic background than my brother and his wife. From what I’ve read, well meaning but uninformed comments will be spoken to them that will emphasize her differentness, set her apart, or ask question which will be naïve and potentially hurtful. Many adoptive parents work hard to be gracious, but imagine the punch in the gut a woman feels when she proudly enters the store with her child in her arms after waiting for years and someone asks: “Where do her REAL parents live?” Ouch. Imagine the confusion of a child who is very much a part of a family and a culture, yet at various times is reminded that s/he is not like the others.  Many bloggers would "blow off steam" with some of the outrageous things they heard.

4. Attachment is huge. At Bergen and Associates Counselling, we operate very much out of “attachment theory” which suggests that we as human beings are wired to connect very closely to our primary caregivers, and that that close connection is key to helping us feel safe in a world which can be scary. That primary caregiver works with the child to help discover their world by being a secure base from which to explore the world. These attachments are critical in setting us up for healthy friendships and marriages in life. Many in the adoption world understand the complexities of attachment, the way in which our brains are wired for and by healthy attachment, and are incredibly aware that adoptions need to occur with secure attachment/secure base needs of a child in mind. The willingness to explore and understand brain science, child development, and healthy faciitation of that in creative ways is incredible. I so admired the lengths adoptive parents go through to help their child bond with them, providing incredible levels of support and security to children who struggle with the terror of so much change in their young lives.

I could go on and on about the profoundness and complexity. But I’ll stop. Not only do I have to go look at the beautiful photo of my niece surrounded by the members of her immediate family (one more time, or maybe 2 or 3), I have to check the blog of a friend for updates, who you’ll note in my August 22, 2010 blog entry, wrote a comment that she has just received her referral. This is after 10 years of waiting…five and a half times as long as an elephant’s gestation! I don’t believe ecstatic is a word that accurately describes her level of jubilation. Congrats, big time, R!

 

Our Smith Street location once again has openings available for new clients.

Nadia Sawaya has begun seeing clients at both of our locations, on Pembina Highway as well as the downtown location at Smith and York Streets.  Nadia is warm and engaging, and has an enthusiasm for her craft that makes her great to work with.  As we've been orienting Nadia to our processes and paper streams, we've noticed how she is always on top of what she needs to know, asks questions to close the information gaps, and generally is great at paying close attention to detail.  We're really going to enjoy having her around.

I've never met a bitter person who was thankful,
Or a thankful person who was bitter

Nick Vujicic

From www.StayHitched.com:

Is Premarital Counselling for you?

The short answer is a resounding YES. Getting married without pre-marriage prep is like starting a business or any important venture without preparing. Half of all marriages end in divorce and only half of those that endure are truly happy in the long run. Many happy engaged couples assume that they won't be contributing to these statistics. Some mistakenly believe that having lived together or known each other for a long time will prepare them for marriage. Surprisingly, research shows that cohabiting couples have no better chance at marriage success than others.
 
If you just wing it and count on your luck and romantic attachment to make your marriage a success, your odds are only one in four. There is another way.

I'm in the relationship preservation and restoration business.  I love what I do...there's nothing better than helping a person discover that s/he really enjoys being the person that s/he is (relationship to self), or helping a couple reconnect after a time of disconnect (interpersonal relationships), or helping someone discover their relationship to their Maker (relationship to God).  But my dream (and it is a dream, I know) is to work myself out of a job...to have people maintain and enhance their connections so that repair becomes unnecessary.

That's where premarital counselling comes in.  My tech team (ok, there's just one of him, but he's good and "team" sounds fun) just finished a video on premarital counselling.  I love the idea that couples give themselves the opportunity to build skills in areas that are helpful for them as they prepare for a lifetime together.  Premarital counselling is a great gift to give the happy couple as a gift, or to gift yourselves.

Ironically, couples will often not want to spend several hundred dollars on premarital counselling because of the number of expenses associated with getting married.  Question:  What percentage of the budget is going towards the single day of celebration?  What percentage of the budget is going towards preparing you as a couple for the rest of your lives?  Where will you invest?

I went white water rafting the other day down the Sunwapta River near Jasper, Alberta.  Level 3 rafting...not for the faint of heart, helmets required.  It was a blast...a little terrifying to anticipate, but a blast to remember.


As part of making it a great experience, Jeff, our guide, spent a lot of time teaching us how to do it, and how to do it safely.


As he spent time teaching us, I found that his lessons aren't just good for white water rafting, but for life. 

Lessons learned:

Sometimes life is what it is, and that can be OK. 
If you worked for a white water rafting company and you had a choice between driving a van and careening down the river on a white water raft, which, do you imagine, you would prefer?  Jeff, our boat guide, and his partner both wanted the fun job.
It's not the first or the last time that a decision is made by "rock paper scissors".  Sometimes there is no obvious way for 2 people to decide who should get their way.  Sometimes in life there isn't a "win/win" possibility. It can be OK.  Jeff's partner had an extra few minutes to work on his tan, even though he didn't get his first choice. He had a sense of humor and chose to enjoy the day even though he didn't get his choice.

When facing a challenge, having the proper tools makes all the difference.
Early morning weather in the mountains is chilly.  Water that was part of a glacier just hours before is chillier.  They gave us wet suits, fleecey sweaters, rain jackets, gloves, and water boots.  Helmets.  Life jackets.  I felt safe going down the river with all of that stuff.  I felt comfortable and able to enjoy the experience.  Being armed with the right equipment to handle our adventure prepared us to handle what was ahead.
Do you have a budget to handle your finances?  Does a financial planner help you figure out what you can afford?  Do you have a plan for the next time a discussion gets heated, and one of you wants to leave? Get the tools.  'Nuff said.

Safety is #1. 
Learn more than you expect you will need to ensure you will be safe.  You need to know what to do when you're scared before you are scared.  Knowing what to do will keep you calm.  Staying calm in the crisis is critical to safely making it through.
Jeff taught us what to do if we fall out of the boat.  He taught us an offensive swim and a defensive swim.  He taught us what to do around tree branches that are in the water or just above the water.  He taught us what to do if the boat capsizes.  He taught us how to catch a safety line.  I could go on.  They are rarely needed, but when you need them, you REALLY need them. We ended up needing none of these skills, but we had them if we needed them.  The over-preparation made the whole thing a lot more fun--we were prepared for what could happen.  If there is one thing I've learned in counselling, its how much people avoid situations that are frightening and they don't know how to handle. (And then how much they lose out!)  Learning strategies for situations which frighten can be invaluable in moving forward.  Often a person doesn't need all those strategies because life turns out to be a lot less scary than anticipated, but having those skills makes approaching the feared task possible. (whether it be asking a girl out, or applying for a first job, or having a conversation about money with your spouse)

Learning happens best when calm. 
Doing something for the first time when stressed doesn't work so good.
Jeff taught us the instructions he was going to use, and modeled them at the side of the river.  Then he let the boat in at a place that had quiet waters, and we practiced what we needed to learn on still seas.  When we got to the rough stuff, we were competent in our ability to listen to his instructions. We could quickly follow his instructions because they were a solid part of our repertoire of skills. Practice is important.  Don't expect to effectively use your newly found conflict resolution skills when using them for the first time "in the heat of the moment".  Practicing when calm may seem silly, but if it works for white water rafting, why not for conflict, too?

Working together as a team takes practice.  Working together as a team is fun.  Working as a team is effective.
There were five of us in the boat...we were taught to follow the rowers at the front of the boat.  The two rowers at the front of the boat learned to use eye contact and head signals to row in tandem...and the rest of us followed behind.  We needed to work together to make it down the road safely. We weren't perfect, but we worked at it and got better. 

Smile but keep paddling.
Jeff let us know that the driver would be taking photo of us half way down the rapids.  He wanted us to smile for the camera...he also wanted us to keep paddling.  Wise words. Sometime in the middle of doing great, we stop to admire ourselves, and the ball gets dropped.

When you achieve something big, celebrate with the team. 
Our junior member christened us "Team Fearless" and at various points after passing some challenging rapids, Jeff had us bring our oars together in a "toast" in the center of the boat, and at the end of his "3-2-1" count, we all cheered with our team name.

"Feel the looooove". 
Jeff reminded us that the fun part of white water rafting is getting wet...while that seems obvious, keep in mind that this is glacier water--temperature 3 degrees Celsius.  Getting wet suddenly seemed intimidating.  He encouraged us to embrace and enjoy getting wet.  We took turns leaning out over the front of the boat like hood ornaments during the roughest parts...had a chance to "feel the love".  His encouragement was instrumental in me deciding that I would give myself this opportunity to experience it.  This was a "bucket list experience" for me--it isn't something I'm likely to repeat again in the near future or at all--I could play it safe or I could grab the experience and squeeze it. Too often we label experiences as "good" or "bad" and lose the opportunity to see it differently, and enjoy what the experience has to offer. Sometimes entering a tough discussion about a difficult topic with full frontal energy can lead to exhilirating success.

Even when working hard in adverse conditions, don't forget to look around and enjoy the beauty that surrounds you.
It would have been a shame to miss the mountains, the sunshine, the trees.  Focusing only on the challenge meant we would have missed a huge part of the experience.  Life is more than the immediate stressor, and it's beautiful.  Wow, was it beautiful.

Thanx for the lessons, Jeff.

Apparently, using the laws of aerodynamics, bumblebees can't create sufficient lift with their wings to lift their bodies.

But, bumblebees can fly.

Clearly they can fly.

Apparently, the approach was all wrong.  If you look at them like helicopters, rather than airplanes, science can prove that they can, in fact, fly.

Funny how science had to catch up with reality. 

A friend came home today from overseas.  She had the controversial procedure done that people with Multiple Sclerosis have been asking the government to consider funding.  It's called the "Liberation Procedure" for obvious reasons.  I went to her fundraiser a few weeks ago...it's a huge investment to go.  It was a venture of faith.

It doesn't make sense that it would work, given what modern medicine knows about MS.

But today, as they arrived home, she was the one pushing her husband in the wheelchair as they greeted their friends and family at the airport.  Hilarious.  Great sense of humor, that woman has.  The image is priceless. C has been noticing improvement in her body since the procedure was done over a week. ago.
It might not make sense.  But she's noticeing improvement.  Science doesn't have to support it to be true.

Changes the possibilities for her.  Big time

Hey, maybe the possibilities can change for any one of us as we face the situation head on, consider the options, do the research, get informed, and "got for it". It may not be conventional or easily explainable.  But who can tell you it won't work?

Think about it.