Surviving with Communication

Communication is key to surviving a relationship.  I love when I get couples in my office who begin to imply what the other thinks.   I also love when they begin with "he or she thinks this."  Really?  You really know what someone is thinking?  You really expect that person to read your mind.

99% of my practice is teaching communication skills.  There are very few who can read minds, but a majority of my clients think they can, or their spouse/partner can.  I spend most of my time asking questions that resolve the mind reading process.  I don't think they would like it if I did not let them talk, or ask questions to hear their side of the story.  Why then do we do it to our loved ones?

Saying you will work on communication is easy.  Doing it is not.  Many times couples will talk about how the other just does not get it, but clearly refuses to tell the other what they are not getting.  Who is at fault?  If you are in a relationship tell your significant other what you want.  Don't expect the him/her to know that you don't like a certain genus of flowers, and if they forget, please remember the intended spirit behind the flowers.

When was the last time you sat down and asked if you were doing it right?  Did you get mad when you heard you weren't?  Why did you ask?  If you don't want the other perspective, don't ask and don't Facebook it.  Somehow we have decided that by telling Facebook all of our problems, people will come rushing to our aid and fix the problem.  If you have a problem take it to the most appropriate person and work on it.  If it is your spouse or significant other leave it off Facebook.

If we can all learn to be sensitive to the other person and where they are in life; life experiences or no life experiences, we put ourselves in a better position to help those who need it.  Life is hard enough as it is without us thinking that we know how someone feels.  Please begin to ask, and if you do expect some rough answers sometimes.  Don't get mad because of it, but just love.  Remember, you asked, so step up to listening now.  

Distracted Families

Today is the start of national turn your tv off week, so I thought I would briefly discuss the distracted family.  I began my morning with a phone call stating that school had been called off due to bus vandalism.  Probably some senior prank.  Since I was up, I thought I would work on the blog and other miscellaneous tasks.  As I write this, I am surrounded by my phone, IPad and laptop.  How did this happen?

Today's family has more opportunities to be distracted than ever before.  I have heard it called, living with rectangles.  How many rectangles are in your home.  How often are you on them, checking email, stats, news, stocks and etc....  I have caught myself waiting for a specific email at times.  I grab my smart phone and touch the screen over and over again.

In an era when technology is so readily available, it is easy to get caught up in the "must have it now" mentality.  What happened to the excitement of waiting for a package to come to the door or the mailbox. That has been replaced with "it should have been here yesterday" disappointment.  Life goes by quickly, but the more connected we are, it seems to go by rather slowly.  Unfortunately, this slow feeling is accompanied by anxiety and much greater stress.

As you begin this week think about how much technology you have surrounded yourself with.  Is this really a good thing?  When you go home are you worried about what email didn't come today?  Are you going home and playing with your kids, or are you sitting in front of your rectangle hoping it will fill your needs?  If you have kids or a loved one in the home, let me suggest that you put your rectangle down, turn off the tv and actually connect with a person.  I know, this is much harder to do, than focus on that little machine.  You might actually have to engage with people?  You might actually have to have a real conversation, instead of texting letters.

Go connect with someone today.  Live a fully intended life of being with people not just around them.  

Trust and forgiveness

This is now the third installment of forgiveness   I have said a lot of things about forgiveness, but I think that it is important to mention that part of forgiveness is trust.  Trust is the quiet partner to forgiveness.  It takes trust to forgive.  It definitely makes it easy to forgive when you have trust.  Without trust, forgiveness is almost nonexistent.

Why is trust so important?  Trust gives us a base to work with.  Trust gives us some of the tools to work through anger.  If we have sometime where we can look back and and say "oh I remember this time with you, we had no issues together,"  then you have a reference point.  Trust is really like a compass and a map.  You can use the map all you want, but if you don't have your orientation right, you will just wander.  Same goes for forgiveness.  Are you wandering?

When you begin to forgive someone, you take the first step of saying that you forgive.  The second step is actually letting the act that was against you go.  The third step is to trust that the person who hurt you in the first place will never do such things again.  This is sometimes the hardest part.  This is where trust steps in.

Look back at your relationship with this person.  What did it look like before the pain?  What did it feel like before the betrayal?  Chances are, there are times in which it looked and felt good.  This is your reference point.  This is where you begin to forgive.  Now, I am not saying that you need to brush the issues aside that caused the hurt and pain, but you need to start trusting at this very point.  Using this reference point is also a good point to start working on the issues that caused the relationship to falter.
What really caused the issues in this relationship?  Don't begin to blame your partner or friend, but really look at how both people contributed to this.

Once you have gained a reference point and have started trusting this person, it becomes much easier to see that this person may not have been trying to hurt you, but was lost or rather misguided in their ideas or words.  Sometimes people get wrapped up into their own minutia.  This causes a lack of insight and clouds the future.  We all make mistakes, and many times we don't mean to harm others, we just do.

So, I must ask, "do you really want to forgive, or do you want someone to pay for their transgressions?"  If you want someone to pay, then you are probably unable to forgive yourself for playing a part in what has troubled the relationship.  This is obviously the next step if you are truly forgiving.  Probably even harder than forgiving others, is forgiving yourself, but this will have to come later.

So, as I end this, I ask again.  Do you want to forgive or do you want to have someone pay the price for the rest of their life?





Ttrust to forgive.  without trust we can not forgive.  How to regain trust in someone who has hurt you.  How long do you want them to pay for this?  

Forgiveness part 2

Yesterday I laid out the need to forgive.  Today I thought I would go through some of the steps it takes in order to forgive.  It's easy to tell someone you forgive, but do you really forgive or are you just saying hollow words to pacify the situation?  

So you begin a conversation with "I forgive you."  What do those words mean to you?  Are you forgiving the person or the action taken against you?  Forgiving the person is actually the hardest part.  Every time you see that person you start thinking of the transgression against you.  You can not separate the actions from the person in many cases.  So let's start with the person.  

Is the person you are forgiving a friend, family member, loved one?  Friends are actually easier to forgive because typically we don't carry emotional baggage with friends.  Family are the hardest.  Family is supposed to support and protect you, yet life and selfish motivations get in the way.  Friends on the other hand have less of a duty, so we tend to let them off of the hook in certain situations.  

So if you have a friend that you are forgiving, you tend to go much easier on them.  You have to ask yourself "do I expect less of the person?"  You also must ask what are your motivations for forgiving.  Are you doing this out of duty or friendship?  If you are forgiving out of duty you might as well not forgive at all.  Duty means nothing to friends or family, especially friends.  They can always find another friend.  Besides, if you are doing it out of duty, are you really a friend?  Most likely not.  

Family on the other hand are tricky.  We expect more out of family.  Family should never betray us!!  Guess, what they do.  We are all broken people trying to figure out how to negotiate life.  Many times we do it wrong.  If a family member has betrayed you, likely you have done the same to them.  Perhaps it was not as blatant, but you have done it.  I challenge anyone to say that they have not done something wrong in a relationship.

So you tell someone that you forgive.  What does forgiveness mean.  If we look at it biblically, we would say that we would cast it away and never remember it.  Unfortunately for us, we something happens we create an imprinted memory.  that memory is associated with smells, tastes, and emotions.  A hurt wife can tell the exact place she was, what she was wearing and what was happening that day.  Where a husband is more likely to tuck it away and just remember the actions associated with the hurt.  

So in order to forgive, you need to detach from those emotions associated with it.  You can not necessarily forget, but you can remove the pain from it.  The next step you need to take is figuring out what role you had in the situation.  Many times we want to just place the blame on the person doing the actions, but something led up to what happened.  Sometimes, there a things that are beyond our control, and we have not necessary done anything to deserve the betrayal.  In relationships, this is very rare.  

When you begin the process of forgiving, you use this memory to give you strength.  Many times things happen for a reason.  Perhaps you need to work on communication.  Telling someone that every thing is alright all the time leads to a road of loneliness and betrayal.  If someone does not know how to talk with you, how can you expect that they will know your needs?  They can't.  So if you feel betrayed because someone did not step up when you needed them, you need to look at how you communicate.  People can not read minds!!!!!

Forgiveness does take time.  Don't tell yourself the lie that once you forgive it is over.  You will still feel the pain, but you can learn from this.  We have pain for a reason.  It is telling us that there is something wrong and we need to fix it.  It is the same as putting your hand to a flame.  Your brain screams "remove the hand, remove the hand."  The same goes emotional pain.  It is telling you that you need to be proactive and work on fixing things.  

The real question with forgiving is whether you are forgiving or are you looking for a pound of flesh.  You can require allegiance from someone, or you can realize that they are human and that are prone to making mistakes.  If you are looking for someone to take that pain away, it is not forgiveness.  You are looking for atonement, not forgiveness.  You have the duty of removing the pain, not the person who harmed you.  You are the only one that really change things.    

Perhaps this needs more discussion.  But I think today this should suffice.  Remember, you are in share of how you respond to situations, and only you can change your life, not others.  

Forgiveness?

When I work with couples and families, I run into one major obstacle.  Forgiveness, or lack thereof.....
It is easy to tell someone they are forgiven, but do we really mean it?  Why tell someone that you forgive them when you are going to continue to hold the transgression over their head?

Forgiveness is an art.  A beautifully transforming art in one's life.  True forgiveness allows people to move beyond obstacles that they thought they would have never been able to get past.  True forgiveness is moving, passionate, and sought after.

Have you ever told someone you forgave them, yet every time an issue comes up, you go straight back to the issue you were suppose to forgive?  I know I have.  I personally almost destroyed my marriage, because I did not realize I was punishing my wife for something she had done while we were dating.  It took 5 years of marriage to realize that I was doing this.  I had not truly forgiven her.

Not forgiving leads to insecurity in your life.  You are constantly looking for that issue to pop back up in your life, marriage, job, etc....  You say, I was deeply wounded by someone and it will never happen again.  You are right, it should not happen, but we are all human and we make really bad choices.  Sometimes these choices effect others.  Sometimes they effect us to the point we are unable to function appropriately in life.

Not forgiving people turns into a cancer.  It begins to erode all happiness in your life.  It sours your outlook on life.  You begin to look for people to mistreat you.  You begin expect that bad things will happen.  Why?  Because it has already happened and you have planted the seed of mistrust in people.

Can you live life mistrusting?  Can you live life filled with cancer?  Research shows that emotional trauma stymies our life and life expectancy.  Why choose to live the life of a sickly person?  Life can be abundant and I am guessing that you want that.

Go out today and begin to forgive.  Forgive all those who have harmed you and forgive yourself.  Of course forgiving yourself is a whole other story.  We will talk about that one later.

Go live life.  Forgive....................

Taking yourself with you

Have you ever heard someone talk about moving and leaving it all behind?  They move and the same stuff happens all over again.  What about leaving it all behind?  Where did that go?  Leaving it all behind is a great idea, yet there is one thing we forget.  You take yourself with you.

We unfortunately can not separate from ourselves and move.  If we did, we would be leaving past experiences and memories behind.  These are the very experiences that shape and mold us.  These are what sometimes keep us going when we think that we can not accomplish that task ahead of us.  , , if we always left it behind, what would be the point of living?

So you move away and you think you have left the problems.  What about the memories of the problems?   Did you forgive the people involved in those problems?  Did you release all of the anger and frustration that caused you to run in the first place?  If not, you have just brought the problems with you.  Not only have you hidden from the problems, but now you are in just plain denial that anything has happened.

Don't get me wrong, fresh starts are great, but unless you fix the original problem, you will be right back where you started.  Lets say you had a bad marriage and you and your spouse decide to separate and move on.  The next time you start a relationship do you ask yourself what has changed about me?  What was wrong with me in the last marriage?

Most of the time, we want to place the blame on someone else.  It is so much easier to place blame on someone else rather than face our own challenges and faults.  If I point my finger at you I then take the heat off of me, which is so much easier to do.

Blaming is addictive.  Yes, down right addictive.  It becomes an easy way to escape our fears and our realities.  Just like alcohol or drugs, blaming can take you down a path of destruction.  That path will destroy relationships, because you are always looking for an out.  Just know that finding fault in others is way too easy, yet finding fault in yourself and changing is one of the most challenging things you will ever do.

So remember, the next time you begin to think that moving away is the next greatest answer, start questioning how you believe things will be better?  Don't forget, in addition to your furniture, you are also  packing up you emotional baggage.  Besides, wouldn't it be better to fix yourself than run?

Fear

As of lately, I have been doing a number of couple sessions in my practice.  This gave me pause to think that maybe I need to write a book.  Now you must know that I am no author, so the thought of this is rather daunting.  I thought that instead of writing a book, perhaps I would just start blogging this stuff.

For my first one, I would like to touch on fear.  Fear is a powerful detractor in a marriage.  It can make you do things that you never thought of.  It can stop you from becoming the couple you were meant to be.  It can destroy a person and a family.  In fact, fear actually destroys love.  Did you ever think about it that way?  It does.

Fear destroys love in a number of ways.  First of all, it creates an issue of mistrust between a couple.  It is like water and ice seeping through sandstone.  Eventually it finds a fissure in the rock and breaks it into little pieces.  If you fear something in your marriage it is best to tackle it head on.  One of my own personal obstacles in my marriage was that I feared we would not stay together "forever."  Once I realized this, I was able to tackle this.  By examining why I thought this, I was able to gain insight.

Fear also destroys confidence in yourself and your marriage.  Fear causes you to act in a defensive manner.  When you are playing defense you are looking for things to cause you to react.  You begin to think that everything your spouse or partner does is against you.  Most people do not mean to cause harm.  Most people want the best for others.  You are unable to see this once you go into a defensive posture.  If you don't have confidence that your spouse is looking out for your best, who can you trust?  You are supposed to marry and remain married to your best friend.

All to often we let fear stop us from doing things that are beneficial or even fun.  We tell ourselves that we would be better off staying in our everyday normal pattern.  Unfortunately, we tend to believe this lie, and in the end we end up missing out.  Fear stops us dead in our tracks on a journey.  Our lives were meant to mimic a roller coaster.  There are ups and there are downs.  Sometimes the downs, seem to come out of nowhere and drop us rather quickly.  Herein lies the issue with fear.  We don't want to experience the drop after a time or two.

Why would we want to express love towards another if we have been hurt?  I've done this before you say.  Have you?  Is it the same?  What did you learn from the last time you dropped?  Did you learn anything at all or our you just going with the fear coaster?  Fear, it is a powerful factor in our lives.

What do you fear?  Do you want to control it, or do you want it to control you?