Friday, June 25, 2010

Anything worth doing...

You know how parents are.... they have these sayings that you hear over, and over, and over and over again, and they don't make any sense. One of the sayings I remember my Dad saying is the following "Anything worth doing, is worth doing...... poorly." "Ok, whatever Dad"...  As I inched closer towards being 18, 19, 20 and 21, I was continually horrified at how many mistakes I could make. Mistakes relationally, spiritually, financially,  professionally and in school. Like when I hit a growth spurt at 12 and 13 and when I went to give someone (whomever) a hug, I stepped on their feet.  I distinctly have about 5 memories from that time period of visiting guests, where I stepped on their feet when hugging them. Embarrassing!!

I fortunately joined a company, when I graduated college,  that for the time I worked for them, upper management had a specific view on mistakes. "ok, you made a mistake. What are you doing to fix it?" I learned a lot in an environment that allowed me to initiate solutions for mistakes I made.

Then I started working with families.... families in crisis.... families that did not have the relational skills to sustain each of those relationships internally much longer. I started talking with the families, learning about them, listening to their stories, and providing opportunities to connect with their partners, children, and siblings. As I watched them, I realized what Dad meant....In order for these families to become healthy and strong, they had to learn new skills, sometimes skills that were completely foreign. In the beginning, these skills were completed poorly or not at all. I learned that a feeling of accomplishment didn't necessarily come with every visit I made. Instead, I had to continue to change the method the families used to complete the skills to fit their personalities, abilities, and time together, and then observe them try again. I have had a couple of particular failures with families - their emotional, relational and support system resources so drained - I provided the person to blame when it fell apart. That stung!! I cared... I wanted them to succeed. It wasn't enough. Other families though, after a year, 18 months even,  of continual investment, and finding ways to support their family, small successes started to manifest. Once a success occurs, it becomes easier to build off of the previous success, and confidence grows. And before you know it a skill, such as "making sure to emotionally re-connect after an argument" is being used proficiently.

So when I start something new.... I have to use as a mantra "Its ok to make mistakes. I have to learn somehow," and "Anything worth doing well, is worth doing poorly."

"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."
John Wooden

What if no one catches you, when you fall?

Perhaps one of my biggest fears in life, is what if I go through a dark, lonely period of time in my life, and there was no one there to support me? I guess I would say, "don't fear it, prepare for it." I got this experience out of the way in my early twenties. A senior in college, I worked two jobs and attended school full time. Due to previous reasons, my parents were themselves struggling, and there were no extra resources to share. I remember sitting in my efficiency apartment (a very icky, scary place), looking at the money in my checkbook, and the bills that needed to be paid, and wondering what I was going to do? I still remember that moment.....utter despair washed over me. I felt sorry for myself, for the change in resources my family had experienced, and if I could have wished away the past 6 years, I think at that moment I would have. This story has a beautiful ending.

At that moment, I needed $30.00 to pay all of my bills for the month. When God answers prayers though, he doesn't just meet the immediate need. If He is allowed, He will also meet the long-term needs. Within 24 hours, I was able to sell a few items I didn't need, and came back with exactly the amount I needed to pay the bill. Within 7 days, I had a full-time job lined up to start after I graduated. From this job experience, I have met caring and thoughtful people, whose friendship and opinions I value to this day.  These last 8 years, I have spent building up my resources, but without a doubt the one thing I recognize has greater value than all the others, is having a support system. Someone(s) to lean on, in times of trouble. I went through another dark time last year, but having a solid support system, helped to lessen the emotional blow immensely. Spiritually, I would not have grown withouth these dark times. Recognizing that sometimes God takes away my heart's desire, without showing me what He will give me instead, has led to increased faith. My church family is incredible as well - allowing me to share my journey on a weekly basis, unsure of where I will end up, but supporting me none the less.

There is a song that I cried through several times as I surrendered my heart's desire to Him. It was profoundly difficult, but in the end I am glad I let it go. Because if I am willing, who catches me when I fall, when no one else will? He does.

Words and Music by Robin Mark.
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.

All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into Your hands.
All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into Your hands.

For it's only in Your will that I am free,
For it's only in Your will that I am free,
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Minding One's Own Business

Why is it important that within your support group, not all of your friends and associates, and family members know each other?

I have a couple of personal reasons...
1. Space - a chance to show my individual preferences in friendships, and work, school or interest related activities.
2. Freedom of expression - I have different roles in different relationships. I don't necessarily want my work and personal lives overlapping ( oh, wait they already do). I do like having some say in the information other people have about me though.

From the previous post there is an activity on identifying individuals in your support system. From that paper you have completed with the number of people identified in the following groups - total the number of people in your support system.

1. Family in the 1st Degree: Parents, Siblings, Children
2. Family in the 2nd Degree and farther: Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins 
3. Friends: Lifelong and current
4. Associates: work, church, clubs, recreation, school


What is your total? The number of people that you are able to share your life with in a meaningful way, both in a instrumental way, and in friendship or familial bonds that you enjoy participating. That number has a significant impact on your ability to maintain emotional stability every day.

"When a (support) system drops below a minimum number of people it tends to fall into one of two degrees of impoverishment:

1. The Neurotic System: People who are supported by as few as 10-12 people begin to show signs of depression and distortions in their world around them. Only about 30% know each other. In this system a person feels fragile and anxious.

2. The Psychotic System: When the support system drops as low as four or five people 100% of them know each other - because they are all focused on this "basket case" of a person who needs constant attention." (Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God. Donald Joy, Ph.D.)

The "neurotic individual" does not have the confidence to share his/her friends and family with others and therefore never feels really connected. It is usually the person who continually carries that wistful attitude about them - "I wish that I had more friends, people who really know me". Getting to know a person is expressed in some manner in the relationships around you. As C.S. Lewis describes in the four loves "in each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity ; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets" (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves).

The "psychotic individual" is where true mental illness plays out. I have actually been involved with a family where the only individuals available to support them, were "formal supports" due to services offered professionally to help maintain the integrity of the family. This is a heart-breaking situation to observe. The level of mental illness involved untreated is just astonishing. This kind of relationship though is ....exhausting, and can only be maintained in the short term, before someone exits the relationship and the hurting self involved will find another to take their place.


I have observed though another response, where personal responsibilities are intertwined with that of another person, or several other persons. This "relational enmeshment" is developed out of sorrow, and a fear of growing through the pain. There is always someone willing to rescue another in pain, and in a moment, the responsibility of managing one's own resources (spiritual, financial, relational, emotional) may transfer from self to other. In an episode of "Friends" Rachel becomes so discouraged with her choices in men, she allows Monica to make all of her choices about whom she will or won't date. This is the beginning of "enmeshment." By the end of the episode Rachel decides that she would rather make her own mistakes, then let someone make decisions for her. This is actually a step of maturity. One of the pitfalls of therapy is becoming more invested in an outcome than a client shows. That is a sign that responsibility for the problem has transferred from the person in crisis, to the Therapist, and enmeshing is occurring, over involvement in finding a solution is occurring on the part of the Therapist. A church is another place that boundaries may blur, out of initial compassion, but once responsibility has transferred from a hurting self to other, it can be an obsession on the part of other to fix the problem, no matter the consequences, or interest of the hurting self to cooperate in "fixing" the problem. One of the signs that toxic attitudes and beliefs exist in a church:
"Unbalanced interrelatedness – either under (neglect) or over (enmeshment) involvement in the lives of others. Everyone is responsible for everyone else, while ironically no one is responsible for himself or herself. The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.


It reminds me again of something C.S. Lewis wrote. Susan completely vexed by the way her younger sister Lucy is acting approaches the Professor (who is providing shelter and care for them until Susan and her three siblings may return safely to the care of their Mother), for help managing her "lies".

"But what are we to do?" said Susan.
"My dear young lady" said the Professor, "there is one plan which no one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying."
"What's that?" said Susan.
"We might all try minding our own business."

What does this mean? To maintain your own integrity, your own expression of who you are as an individual, make sure your own business (i.e: work, family, home, schoolwork) is completed before you worry about other's business.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Who will catch me when I fall?

Activity:

Dr E. Mansell Pattison (quoted in Bonding: Relationships in the image of God by Donald Joy Ph.D) completed research on "psycho-social kinship systems." To make it easier to understand, Dr Pattison is discussing an individual's support systems.  "Here is an amazing way to test the health of your present connections with other people", according to Dr Pattison.

Write in names of individuals that would need to be notified if you were involved in a life threatening accident. Include individuals from these four groups:
Family - 1st degree: parents, siblings, children
Family - 2nd degree or further: Aunts, Uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc
Friends - Lifelong Collection and present confidantes
Associates - work, clubs, recreation and church.


Now that you have written down your current support system - will these individuals help you "sustain your mutual sanity and well being:"


Do both of you have a high investment in the relationship?
Is there frequent face to face contact?
If you aren't able to have face-to-face contact are you in contact via phone, mail (I know 'old school'), text or facebook when you miss seeing each other for a few weeks?
Would you invest time and/or money in order to help them in a time of need?
Is this relational investment mutually reciprocal?
(Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God Donald Joy, Ph.D.)

It is important that your support network is connected to each other, but for various reasons it is healthy that not everyone in a support system know each other. The primary reason, is that your mental health will be much stronger, if at least 40% aren't connected to all the other individuals in your support system. I have also observed individuals who are supporting emotionally, relationally, or financially many other individuals, but don't have anyone to turn to when their own world is falling apart and that is only slightly improved from being all alone. Support systems have a natural rhythm to them, there is give and take, as caring shifts from one person to the next. Thinking that you have to be strong, and that no one else can do things right, will lead to an obsession with control. An obsession with control, will only lead to an emotional, mental, or physical breakdown, and that breakdown will likely damage your support system in the process.  Take some time to reflect on the people in your support system; God has brought them into your life for a reason, and vice versa. Through the process of learning more about creating healthy support systems, I am amazed at how important people are in helping me continue to be resilient, so that I may overcome life's challenges. How often it is, we don't even realize how much we need each other.

Friday, June 11, 2010

An Organic Faith Community

A faith community is often an important part of creating and maintaining a healthy support system. Why? I am glad you asked. The way I see it, by the time I make it to the weekend, I feel bruised and battered by the world (sometimes excited and honored, but not as often), and I want some down-time to release the build up of stress. Just one of the many reasons I enjoy the Sabbath, however, not my main focus today.  By attending church, I am taking the opportunity to release the relational/emotional poisons that build up in my attitudes and actions, and instead am actively seeking the antidote. This does assume that the church body you attend is able to filter out the following poisons:


  • Out loud shaming – What’s wrong with you?
  • Focus on performance – love and acceptance is earned by doing or not doing certain things
  • Manipulation – What people think of us is more important than what is
  • Idolatry – An impossible to please “god” who is obsessed over people’s behaviors from distance.
  • Having to deny thoughts, opinions or feelings different from those in authority.
  • Unbalanced interrelatedness – either under (neglect) or over (enmeshment) involvement in the lives of others. Everyone is responsible for everyone else, while ironically no one is responsible for himself or herself.;David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderon The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse

A focus on performance drives weekday activities. Are duties being completed at work? Are clients satisfied? Are children completing homework and getting good grades?  Is the house clean? Lawn mowed? If certain tasks aren't done it can affect employment, grades and one's own reputation involving the ability to care for home and family. It is often very discouraging to attend a church where the focus is on performance. Some people are able to thrive on it, for a while, but most individuals just wilt under the pressure of having to perform, when instead they need to be renewed for the fight ahead the next week. To show you how evident the expectations of performance are even in a church,  research shows, "new families are welcomed (into a church) according to two basic traits:  Is the couple good-looking? And is the couple outgoing? Failing these, a family too often is left to its own devices to connect with the congregation." (Bill Ehlig and Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D What Every Church Member should Know About Poverty). A faith community, a body of believers, plays an enormous role in a individual and family's future...every weekend hope is offered, that this isn't what life will always be like, that there is a future that is better than this drudgery. What happens when instead of hope, a church experience offers more drudgery, more performance, more of the same? Life becomes about making the right people happy so that they just leave me alone. No hope, few dreams, and profound discouragement. A healthy functioning church body, operates much like the plants and trees around me that take the co2 that I breathe out, a poison to me, and instead releases o2 into the air, an elixir of life. A healthy church body is able to absorb my attempts at making worship about performance, and release grace into my surroundings. The only antidote to obsessions of performance and perfection, is recognizing that I can never earn my own salvation, it is freely given to me by my Savior.

Here is my vision of the role a faith community in a person's life:
I have to perform during the week to meet other people's expectations (Supervisor, Teacher, Neighbors, Family, Friends). This fills me up with stress because I know that I can't perform perfectly all the time. On the weekend, Sabbath (Saturday) or Sunday, I attend a worship service. I bring all of the ugly attitudes, thoughts and actions with me that have bombarded me all week in an attempt to perfectly perform my roles. From the moment I am greeted, with kindness and warmth,  when I arrive to church, I have already begun to exchange my ugly thoughts and attitudes for hope, forgiveness and Grace.Some weeks I may have more ugly thoughts, attitudes, and actions that others. As I grow in Grace, each week there might be fewer ugly thoughts, and a deeper appreciation of the Grace I have been shown, and then I might be able to carry a little bit of that Grace back to my family, my neighbors, my community, and any other part of my support system. This vision recognizes then that a worship experience is based upon the mental, physical, emotional,  relational, spiritual health of the other members of the faith community, and each week my spiritual experience will likely be different. A grace oriented faith community, will focus on showing each other grace, filling each other up with hugs, encouraging words, acts of service, quality time together, and caring gifts (Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages).

This shows how tentative an organic faith community experience can be. Being in an organic faith community means it reflects back the spiritual health of the people attending. Individuals focused on performance, will reduce a worship service to a drudgery, just one more thing to get through. However, individuals focused on Grace, on the One, on our Savior, will fill each other with up love, support each other through the storms, and celebrate the victories, and will draw men, women and children to Him.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

You mean all of them?

Last night I watched part of "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding." Oh, how I had forgotten so much in that movie, and I don't think I have seen it since I married in 2006. The main character "Tula" is from a greek family, and she has 27 1st cousins. She marries "Ian" an only child. I laughed so hard. Mostly from identifying the challenges of being an only child, marrying into a nosy, noisy, and  highly involved in each others lives family. I don't have 27 first cousins, but I think that the family I have make up for it in opinions and personality. :)  At times I wasn't sure if my hubby would "sink" in the craziness of it all, or "swim" along with the flow of all the family around us. This also didn't count the many families that my family has been close with all of my life 25+ years, or just a good portion of my life 8-15+ years, and seem like family. When I thought of my previous post on taking your your spouse's support system as your own,  when you marry them, these are some of the challenges that come along with it.

It isn't comfortable, and can be painful sometimes. Each family has different traditions and weaving them together to create meaning in a new family, may seem more like "trial and error." But use those opportunities to learn more about what the other person prefers. Show your spouse how to interact with each of your family members. Practice and rehearse how to say it, when to say it. Your familiarity with your support system will be important in helping your spouse manage offenses and hurt feelings.

Conflict is often a part of the equation as you decide on how to interact with family and friends.
It can be helpful to observe you partner's coping skills - my hubby and I discovered that he was too forceful and inflexible, and I was too mild and easy-going. It takes a balance of those skills to keep a healthy couple, but also maintain a support system.

I have enjoyed introducing my hubby into my large group of friends and family, who have been very supportive of our marriage and life together (although not always each of our decisions). So when the pastor/priest asks do you take your bride/groom? Just remember they come with all of their support system, the obnoxious, loud, loving, caring, opinionated group and that is what makes them so special.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

The month of weddings...






Oh, the challenge of a wedding. Going into the wedding celebration, with all of the planning, and excitement and dreaming,  its supposed to be about just the bride and groom. Right? I thought myself when I married my hubby, that the wedding was about the two of us, celebrating with our families and friends. I realized quickly, that a wedding based on just the two of us, created a one-dimensional view point of what was actually occurring. A wedding identifies a significant change, in the life of an individual, a couple, many families, communities, perhaps even a workplace, or two. A wedding changes your support system permanently - and through the process the support systems a bride and groom have in place will either grow larger, or shrink, depending on how the bride and groom handle the changes and challenges.From my observations a wedding typically shrinks a couple's support systems because they don't need anybody, they have each other. Then when a couple have a baby it increases their support system again, as a new life seems to offer opportunities to restore previously damaged relationships. 

Its not that I am arguing with anyone over the significance of the day for the bride and groom. Its a special, beautiful day. After I received my wedding pictures from the photographer, I discovered its hard to take a bad picture of a bride and groom, when they are so happy and in-love, it reflects in the photos (that was a relief). I think its important though to recognize, that the changes that have occurred and will occur, did not just impact the couple, and a strong predictor of whether a marriage will last is if the individuals, families, couples, close friends and confidantes in the bride's support systems are supportive of the marriage.

For example: I observed a couple that decided to get married quickly, the time from meeting to marriage was 8 months. Initially the bride's support system saw the couple as a good match. However, during the engagement, it quickly became clear that the groom was increasing his controlling and abusive behavior. When this was mentioned to the bride, she removed herself from her own support system and went through with the marriage. The marriage didn't last.