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Attraction
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The persistent challenge we all face in all relationships…..
24 May 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
Getting “lost” in a relationship, or over investing or over-functioning to the detriment of one’s well being, is very easy to do. The challenge of intimate relationships, including being a sibling, a son or daughter and a parent, having in-laws, growing and developing a career, is not only found in the desire for closeness, but also in the persistent challenge to maintain essential uniqueness. Unless you have both (togetherness and separateness – both at the same time and from the outset) the wheels will certainly ultimately fall off.
Becoming consumed happens between husbands and wives, parents and children, professionals and their jobs all the time. Such “losing” of oneself to another or to a job is often applauded as a mark of true commitment, dedication, the mark of a dedicated parent, spouse, or employee. In truth, distinctness, uniqueness, self-awareness, maintaining integrity, while also being deeply coupled or committed, is the mark or challenge of maturity.
If you do not define yourself in any relationship the relationship will define you. If you do not tell the world who you are and what you want, the world around you will impose its anxious shape upon you.
If you err on the side of deep connection, work on your uniqueness. If you tend toward independence, increase your capacity for deeper connection.
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How to fight with those you love….
23 May 2010 by Rod Smith / 5 Comments
“Rules of engagement” for conflict between friends and lovers and members of the family:
1. We fight to love each other more powerfully while understanding that conflict is sometimes necessary to remove or negotiate our way around natural restrictions that come in the way of all love.
2. We fight to better understand each other and because some deeply seated beliefs and positions are only clarified through benign conflict.
3. We do not fight to hurt, damage, or destroy but rather to clarify thinking, to define ourselves more clearly, and therefore, to see each other more fully.
4. When we fight we do not bring old issues into the fray, triangle others onto our side, or hide behind Scripture or other sacred writing.
5. When we fight we do not use stereotypes about men or women, race, creed, culture, or nationality.
6. We put a time limit on our conflicts, agreeing that the necessary conflict will not pervade every part of our relationship. Troubles in parts of our relationship do not need to contaminate the whole.
7. When we fight we will always give each other the benefit of the doubt, the offer of complete forgiveness, and an open dialogue free of cynicism, sarcasms, and retribution.
8. We will agree to disagree, respect our differences, and embrace our similarities. (From Gail S. Gibbons)
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Seeing like a bird
20 May 2010 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Gaining a bird’s eye view of all of your relationships can be very helpful. You might notice:
There’s interdependence among all the people to whom you are related and all whom you know. We need each other.
While there is a give and take in all healthy relationships, absolute dependence, on the one hand, and complete independence, on the other, is seldom helpful. Both, though, are occasionally necessary. An ill person might be dependent for a week or two. If there has been violence within a family a complete cut off could be necessary. Other than in extreme circumstances, extreme positions of dependence or cut-off are seldom helpful.
Interdependence is the better option. Interdependence (mutual give and take) is fostered by the ongoing refusal to over or under-function.
In every relationship one person will drift toward one position or another – often with the benign cooperation of the other. A lazy wife sees her husband’s compensation for her laziness as an act of love! A disengaged dad expects his wife to over-parent on his behalf. A teenager might know that there is no limit to how many times mom or dad or grandma will bail him out! A colleague might expect you to cover for her just as you might have done a hundred times already and therefore secured her irresponsible behavior.
Creating a flow-chart, a diagram, some form of visual of all your relationships will assist you to see how, where, and when to change your expected behaviors that you may secure a healthier, more interdependent future.
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How do I learn to love myself?
17 May 2010 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
“Please tell me how to love myself more than I love others. I just don’t know how. I don’t want to become selfish and rude.”
Avoiding self-love (abdication) IS selfish and rude. Loving yourself, part of which entails taking full responsibility for yourself, is not. I am not attempting to persuade my readers to become pushy, self-centered, or demanding. I am simply suggesting that readers do not put their own lives on hold while loving or caring for another.
Take full responsibility for your own life.....
Self-care, self-love, self-awareness is a prerequisite for loving anyone, or anything.
Three simple starters:
1. Stop silencing your own voice. If you do or don’t like something – say so. If you do or do not want something – say so. If your voice has been silenced for a long time expressing it might take others by surprise and you might even be made fun of by those who are accustomed to your silence.
2. Write down, in a private journal, what you want from life using twenty or fewer words. What you want may not include anyone else like “I want my husband to be kind to me”. This is wanting for him, not for you. Kindness is something he has to want!
3. Speak up (cautiously at first) about anything that causes you discomfort where your involvement runs contrary with your values.
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Every time he switched on his phone he had messages from her……
12 May 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My husband had an ‘emotional affair’ with a girl from work. I was suffering post-natal depression and the affair started when he leant on her for support. I was the one who could have done with his support. Nothing physical happened but it almost ended our marriage. Every time he switched his phone on he had messages from her and she would ring him on his way home from work even though they had been on lunch together and seen each other all day. I eventually found him at her house – when he was supposed to be out on business. I told him it had to stop. He said they had become really close. It nearly destroyed me. My husband and I had always been extremely close. This girl knew exactly what she was doing. In the end I told him he had to choose. He chose me and we are still together. He still works with her and it still haunts me now. It caused me an unbearable amount of pain especially given we had such a young child.”
Greater depths of intimacy with someone other than the spouse spells trouble. Taking a stand on your part paid off. It almost always does. Congratulations.
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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