October 2011

Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot for it to mean a lot.

I was talking to a friend the other day…a friend who has had it “up to here” with adolescent sons…you know, the normal kind that burp (loud!) without apology, needs rides hither and yon, and just generally think they are the center of the universe. They are good boys, and she loves’em like crazy, but it’s not always easy.

So the other day, she picked up a teen aged boy from a sporting event, and he asked to stop home for a shower before going to watch the other teenaged son at a sporting event. Time was tight, but she agreed (this may have been self serving, she admits, to have a fresh smelling boy in the vehicle with her).

Time was tight, and in addition to the shower, he spent some time fiddling with some electronic device to get it working again. A teenaged boy kinda thing to do…sneak in something important to him, but not necessarily well timed given the whole situation from an adult perspective.

They were about to leave with not time to spare, when he asked if they could stop at the “Apple store” at the mall on the way…because he didn’t have the little thingamajiggy that would open the device as part of restoring its function.

Gritted teeth. A sharp retort and scolding on the tip of her tongue. Deep breath.

Another deep breath…and from a place she couldn’t quite identify inside of herself, she said, “Sure”. Grateful she said this from the other room, so he couldn’t see her face when she said it….and hoping her voice sounded sincere.

They could go to the store and the Apple geniuses would quickly open the device…but they would be late for certain.

As they walked to the car, the boy said, “This is a ‘mom moment’. I know that.”

My friend asked what he meant by that…and he went on to explain…”This is a moment when you’re choosing to do something for my sake, even though it’s not what you want. Like when you took the long way around to Auntie B’s house after I complained that all the good songs only start on the radio when we’re almost there.” He knew he was asking a lot in that moment...and he knew his mom was choosing to be patient and giving in that moment...and it mattered.

Hmmmm…my friend wracked her brains for what he was referring to for several hours in the last part of his comment…and over time, the vague memory gradually emerged of the incident he was referring to. She had long forgotten the silly moment when she had gone several blocks out of her way to ensure that the boy got to listen to the whole tune on his favorite station before they arrived at his cousin’s house.

She had forgotten the tiny indulgence that took a deep breath, but really no more than that.

He hadn’t.

Made her realize how important it is to show love in little ways to her kids, when it would be easy to bark out a mini-lecture. In the big scheme of things, the little extras don’t take much…but somehow “in the moment”…they're not easy...but they can matter.

It reminded me of a parenting adage that said, “Parents have to say, ‘no’ to their children a lot…where possible say, ‘yes’. Say ‘yes’ whenever you can.” I sometimes forget this line, but have been inspired by it.

They were a little late to the game, but the boy got the machine open with the thingamajig, and could put the sim card in.

More importantly, he had another ‘mom moment’ to add to his mental collection.

It put a smile on that mother's face to know that.

The Women Business Owners of Manitoba sent out an email blast letting the community of female entrepreneurs know that Carolyne Braid, the vice president of WBOM, and owner of Pole Fit Canada is going to be on Dragon’s Den on November 2, 2011 .

Carolyne described the extensive process of working towards being on the show…starting in Winnipeg, and then going to Toronto to be filmed…on her own dime, all without a guarantee that it will ever be aired on TV. I’m excited to see a Winnipeg entrepreneur get this sort of exposure. It’s a process that took a lot of gumption to start and see through to the end…I’m admiring Carolyne’s chutzpah. I'm totally impressed.

Something that caught my eye as she writes about preparing her “pitch” for the Dragons:

One of the smartest things I did was to have Ashley [her demonstrator] and I start the pitch by walking down the stairs. On the show, we knew that we would be entering the studio via a set of stairs. This simple act helped to prepare our bodies for the upcoming motions it would be called upon to do.

 

Later on, she says:

…the culmination to a lot of hard work. It was not as stressful as I had anticipated - a lot of which I contribute to walking down the flight of stairs during rehearsal.

I like the attention that Carolyne paid towards getting multiple aspects of herself ready for the pitch…including getting her body ready for the presentation, and attending to what her body might like to get used to as part of the prep—apparently to good effect!

Anxiety is felt in the body…fluttery stomach, nervous tension in your shoulders, a tight chest…and people can think clearer and be more centred and able to think if their body has a chance to become familiar and as relaxed as possible in a situation. Paying attention to preparing more than just one’s mind for a stressful encounter is incredibly astute on Carolyne’s part. One’s body carries anxiety…and then that affects our mind/heart/soul/spirit…it follows, then, that our body can also carry familiarity and a calmness that will then color the rest of us in positive ways.

I can hardly wait until next Wednesday when we get to watch Carolyne in action…you go, girl!!!

The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is, “Do not fear.” It’s in there over two hundred times. That means a couple of things, if you think about it. It means we are going to be afraid, and it means we shouldn’t let fear boss us around. Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion to in our subconscious designed to keep us safe, or more important, keep us from getting humiliated. And I guess it serves that purpose. But fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.

Donald Miller
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Are you aware of the fear in your life? Are you aware of the various ways fear masquerades itself in tricky ways, shaping your decisions and relationships?

• Do you feel humble when asked to give a talk, deferring to someone else more experienced, when actually, you are afraid that you won’t do a good job (even though the person who asks you to do the presentation asked you for a reason)
  
• Are you angry as a cover for the fear underneath…when you get mad at your wife for working too many evenings…perhaps it is actually fear that she is more interested in work than in you?
  
• Do you laugh off, once again, a sarcastic joke from your mother about your weight or your job or _____, when it really quite hurts? And you pretend it’s “ok” even when it’s not…because you’re fearful of the reaction and long term effects of being candid about your feelings?
  
• Do you hold resentment over a long ago slight from your husband…when he went to work the first day after you came home with the new baby?...and feeling resentful is one way to protect yourself from the ongoing fear of wondering how important you are really to him, anyway?
  

Do you let yourself feel the fear…acknowledge it as real and powerful and captivating? Do you let yourself feel how you get hijacked by the anger or resentment or ________ as a way to mask/hide the fear so it doesn’t have to be felt?

Does the fear, and the accompanying protective reactions, run your life and your relationships…keeping you safe in familiar and stagnant and painful ruts?

Lives run by fear may be very safe, but the danger of them is boredom and frustration because of the “same old, same old” features of a fear-run life.

Lives run by fear actually have their own danger…too much safety sucks the life-breath out of a person.

Facing fear is challenge and vulnerability and intimacy that is risky, but incredibly lifegiving.

“…the same elements that make a movie meaningful are the ones that make a life meaningful. I knew a character had to face his greatest fears. "...the same elements that make a movie meaningful are the ones that make a life meaningful.  I knew a character had to face his greatest fears. That's the stuff of good story…

...most of our greatest fears are relational. It’s all that stuff about forgiveness and risking rejection and learning to love. We think stories are about getting money and security, but the truth is, it all comes down to relationship. I tried not to think about that stuff, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I knew a story was calling me. I knew I was going to have to see if my father was alive. And once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don’t have a choice. Not living a better story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it’s not natural to want to die.”

I’ve been continuing to slowly read through Miller’s book…looking at “story”, and it’s role in our lives. The above paragraph hits me square between the eyes…it’s a powerful one. I’m not the only one who thinks so…I’m reading it on Kindle, and 214 other people have highlighted the above section in the book.

Sometimes, when I read something, I feel “understood” by the book…like it’s said something I think or feel, but says it clearer than I’ve ever been able to think it…but when I read it, I feel like it says something that’s powerful and important, and says it better than I could have said it…although even though I haven’t said it exactly like this, it actually is something I’ve been thinking. Have I made any sense at all on this to you? ☺

So, anyways, having been a counsellor for years, and watched people struggle and triumph, argue and reconcile, take risks and feel the rewards…it feels “true”.

For example, a client will come asking for help in a particular area, say for help in not being jealous about a girlfriend’s contact with males…and we work on that area…and as we do so, growth in that area spurs on thoughts and feelings of discouragement and frustrations--and opportunity--in other areas. And a client will find themselves “walking taller” in general, or feeling “like the world is a warmer place”, having greater confidence at the workplace, and being more assertive with store clerks in ways which generate smiles and friendliness. People find themselves invited to a better story, and feel a compulsion to walk into that story, and are the richer for it. It’s risky, because it means facing “relational” fears…but the payoffs from one area make it worthwhile to try in another.

Being a counselor watching people take these risks and enjoy the fruits of entering better stories is one of the unspeakable holy perks of my role here in ways that are awe-inspiring and humbling. They challenge me to be a part of a better story too…and because I then learn, as Miller speaks of, what the better story looks like, and what it is and how it feels, I’m called out of any relational complacency I might be in…being personally numb isn’t so easy when I work with people who are experiencing the joy of living the richer story.

It is an unspeakable privilege to walk with people into their “better story” that they feel called to and thus then search for. And, as a human being witnessing relational risk around “all that stuff about forgiveness and risking rejection and learning to love”, there’s something profoundly compelling about being a witness to it.  It affects me deeply as a human being, beyond providing a professional service as a therapist. There’s something incredibly life about being a therapist,that implicitly places a challenge to call me to my own “better story”.

I've been reading A Million Miles in a Thousand years, by Donald Miller lately...a quirky, funny, thought provoking read.

An excerpt I especially found myself coming back to is begins as the author is chatting with a friend whose daughter is caught up with a “bad news” boyfriend, and is experimenting with drugs:

“I told him about the stuff I’d learned, that the elements of a story involve a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. Even as I said this I wasn’t sure how it applied to his daughter…she’s just not living a very good story. She’s caught up in a bad one.”

A couple of months later I ran into Jason and asked about his daughter. “She’s better,” he said to me, smiling. And when I asked why, he told me his family was living a better story.

The night after we talked, Jason couldn’t sleep. He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn’t provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn’t mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she’d chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence. “She’s not a bad girl,” my friend said. “She was just choosing the best story available to her.”

I pictured his daughter flipping throughout the channels of life, as it were, stopping on a story that seemed most compelling at the moment, a story that offered her something, anything, because people can’t live without a story, without a role to play. “So how did you get her out of it?” I asked. And I couldn’t believe what he told me next. Jason decided to stop yelling at his daughter and instead, created a better story to invite her into. He remembered that a story involves a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.

…So, Jason invites his family to join him in building an orphanage in Mexico, an ambitious project for this average family. After initial horror from his wife, his wife (his distant wife whom he hadn’t gotten along with all that well, for a while) tells him she’s proud of him, allows it was a mistake to spring this on her, and that probably bigger mistakes would be made as they actually took on getting this orphanage built. Their daughter, very much not impressed at first, after a time suggests that they visit the orphanage as it is being built so that she can post pictures on her website.

"And you know what else, man? Jason said, “She broke up with her boyfriend last week. She had his picture on her dresser and took it down and told me he said she was too fat. “…

“…that’s done now,” Jason said, shaking his head. “No girl who plays the role of a hero dates a guy who uses her. She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while.”

Donald Miller (bolded lines mine)

I love this idea of inviting our children to a better story.  It got me thinking about what sort of story I have invited myself to be in.  Do I like the plot...is the plot big enough with dream to outlast my lifetime, ones that challenge and inspire me to be more than who I am? Do I value the other players, and allow them to develop their characters in ways that grow and challenge themselves and me? Do I want to invite myself into a different story...a better story, one with greater richness?

Are you inspired by the story you have created.  Is there a better story you would like to invite yourself into? 

Today is Thanksgiving Monday…the day many gather as families to eat turkey…or maybe lasagna, or a roast.

And tomorrow, if it is as it is other years, the phone at our office will ring.

• Someone will have made 3 or 4 different pies, been too exhausted to enjoy the gathering, and enormously hurt because no one said “thank-you” or noticed the fussing over the variety of pies to please everyone
  
• Another will have witnessed relatives over-imbibing…and witnessing a fight that gets ugly…reminiscent of many previous alcohol induced fights from years previous
  
• Another will have worked all day preparing a big meal, or maybe raking the yard and preparing it for winter…and wishing and hoping and resenting the fact that the request for help was ignored by someone who took a nap or watched the game instead.
  
• Another will be having a “Hungry Man” TV turkey dinner with only TV for company, and the silence when so many others are gathered around family tables will be deafening.
  

And ironically, Thanksgiving Day, will be a day where the bitterness and hurt and loneliness and pain of the moment will have it be a day where gratitude is least likely to be felt. A day where it feels like one is taken for granted, set up for hurt, witnesses family conflict in a way that the possibility of

• Is family worth it?
  
• Are relationships worth it?
  
• Being a hermit seems sooo appealing at this moment.
  

Wish it were that easy. Being that humans are hardwired for relationship…our brains long for connection with others…we continue to long for those very relationships that also hurt us…bend us, sometimes, almost to the breaking point…frustrate us…break one’s heart.

And so...tomorrow, or next week, or maybe next month or next year, with a deep breath, with a wall rising that threatens to rise so high it breaks connection, a person will reach out and try again…hoping that this time, there will be love and acceptance and nurture.

Tomorrow, we will get some calls from people feeling like those walls are so high they can’t be climbed without some help. We will begin work with couples to find ways of making it safe for those walls to come down. We will meet with individuals to figure out how to relate to those who drink too much. We will meet with people who give of themselves until they are empty, and depressed. We will help people work towards healing in themselves, in their relationships—either their marriage, with their family or with friends. And for some…this will change what the Christmas gathering will look like…they will risk talking about the pain…and so the next time of a holiday, it will look and feel different.

Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it... It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more.

I remember being very moved by The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, years ago when he gave it, and bought and devoured the same titled book when it came out a short time later. Randy Pausch, a man dying of pancreatic cancer, chose to spend his last months finding ways to be a good dad in the future…so he used the tool of “The Last Lecture” to give his kids memories of him, and his insights. Some things that I’ve been thinking about twigged me to go back to it recently, and this quote was one that really caught me:

 My daughter is just 18 months, so I can’t tell her this now, but when she’s old enough, I want Chloe to know something a female colleague once told me, which is good advice for young ladies everywhere. In fact, pound for pound, it’s the best advice I’ve ever heard.
My colleague told me: “It took a long time, but I’ve finally figured it out. When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.
That’s it. So here it is, for Chloe.

(page 146)

 So, this quote got me to thinkin’…particularly in light of some conversations I have had with folks lately. While this quote is directed to his daughter to make positive relationship choices…I’m thinking this quote could be gender inclusive and both men and women are wise to think… “When it comes to another who is romantically interested in you…ignore everything she/he says and only pay attention to what they do”.

While that line makes a lot of sense…here’s the rub. I work with a lot of couples where one loves the other deeply, but it’s really hard to tell by their behavior. In fact, a wife can be very surprised that her husband doesn’t know how much she loves and cares. And then he’s surprised that she’s surprised…because it seems so obvious to him that he is just judged and criticized and a focus of anger. How could she possibly love him, given his experience of her.

Let’s call him Joe. Let’s call her Jane.

What happens is this…Joe gets hung up in traffic on the way home, and doesn’t call (it’s illegal to do so, right?). Jane worries about Joe, and wonders why Joe is so disrespectful of her and the special supper she has prepared to surprise him. As Jane waits in the long silence, she begins stewing, wondering why he doesn’t treasure her by coming home as soon as he can after work. When he comes in the door, Jane is rather “worked up” with hoping Joe is OK (“I’m worried…was he in a traffic accident?) and fear (“if he’s this late, I must not really be that important to him. Does he really love me like he used to…when he came home on time or even early?”) and so she lets loose with a tirade about how he’s so unreliable and inconsistent and rude. Joe doesn’t understand “what her problem is”, so he stomps off into the bedroom, his blood pressure still high from battling traffic, the stress of it still having him wound up. Joe feels judged unfairly and it stings…so he “cuts a wide swath” around Jane all evening…which, as you can imagine, further has Jane wondering, “Why is he avoiding me? I prepared this special dinner and he’s ruining it…maybe he doesn’t notice it, doesn’t care about it…maybe doesn’t care about me?” And Jane is hurt and wondering/worried…and so can’t find it in her to walk across the room and snuggle with him after the silent supper…she goes back and retreats to cleaning in the kitchen (banging pots and pans loud enough to see if Joe’ll notice that she’s there, and hoping he’ll get the signal to come in and help her to show her that she matters…it would feel so good if Joe would join her in the kitchen…but she can’t bring herself to tell him so). Joe hears the way the cupboard doors are slamming, and how the pot got put into the sink harder than necessary, and feels like he has a pretty good idea what would happen to him if he showed up there…so he stays really far away. After fussing about in the kitchen for a while, Jane goes to the bedroom to read a book…away from him…too hurt at how he left the whole mess in the kitchen for her. And Jane hopes…maybe he’ll come into the bedroom and snuggle with her. Joe knows she “needs her space”—after all, Jane could have come and joined him on the couch and she didn’t want to--and so stays watching Monday Night Football (who wants to get barked at again?).

Joe wonders why he isn’t loved by her…why Jane keeps her distance, why he can’t do anything right, when it doesn’t even feel like he’s done anything wrong.

Jane doesn’t know why he doesn’t care, why he doesn’t invest in making her feel special like he used to. What does he “do” to show her he loves her? She wonders.

OK…so this looks really obvious, when it’s written in a silly little blog. Trust me..this is only slightly simplified, and is something that happens in marriages all across the country every day. Doesn’t feel so “obvious” or “silly” then…just feels like it hurts. The genuine love that one feels towards the other is contaminated by worry and concern and fear that has one hold back from the other, or lash out in anger…the anger is about wanting to be loved and feel loved in a meaningful way…and when that doesn’t happen, there is a) withdraw or b) attack. Neither of these looks like loving behavior, and so when the other pays attentions to what the other “does”, it seems pretty clear that the one doesn’t love the other.

Let me add to the quote to make it more complete:

My daughter is just 18 months, so I can’t tell her this now, but when she’s old enough, I want Chloe to know something a female colleague once told me, which is good advice for young ladies everywhere. In fact, pound for pound, it’s the best advice I’ve ever heard.
My colleague told me: “It took a long time, but I’ve finally figured it out. When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.”
That’s it. So here it is, for Chloe.
And as I think about it, some day it could come in pretty useful for Dylan and Logan, too.

The bold is what gets me…the challenge. He is challenging his kids to “do” the love/romance so they will be walking the talk. He knows that regardless of what you say, it’s what you “do” that sticks. It’s hard to “walk the talk” in love…to “do” love, and not “do” fear or anxiety, or “do” anger as a reaction to the fear.

Do your loved ones know you love them by what you “do” around them? If I asked your spouse if s/he could tell you love him/her by your actions, what would they say? What would you want him/her to say? What shifts would you like to make to ensure that your spouse has no doubt they s/he is loved by you?