• Speaking as a Parent

    The In-Between-Place

    August 18, 2010

    As I watch my five week old grandson struggle to breathe, I am reminded of the paradox of love.  To love my grandson (or indeed, any of my grandchildren) is a joyful experience.   Yet, this love I feel for my grandson, right now, today, is terribly painful.  So my grandson is all of each experience, joy and pain.

    There is something infinite / timeless about the kind of love that parents have for their children.  There are no boundaries to this kind of love, it endures, no matter what the challenge is.  It is deeply sweet and profoundly sustaining.  This love also holds the deepest of fears and some of the most difficult moments of pain.

    As I sit here in PI-15 (Pediatric Intensive Care-Isolation room), I am reflecting on love and the price of such love.  My five week old grandson who is loved by his entire family, has stopped our universe from spinning around in lazy, happy orbits.  He is very sick, diagnosed with whooping cough, and he must remain here in this hospital so that machines and alarms and nurses and his parents can guard his life. There is no easy exit from this place and it’s somberness sinks into your muscles like rain on thirsty ground.

    There is an edginess to each person who loves this child.  Each holds a piece of anxiety close to the heart and normal does not return until he is well.  And so my grandson stops his family’s universe, as we wait, as we stand vigil, as we pray and as we wish for his health.

    His mother and father sit on the very worst precipice of fear – and as long as we are here, in this place, they linger on this dark precipice.  Each day so far, my grandson’s breath is a gift that is prayed for, and silent wishes linger in the space between now and then.  Then was the time when we knew that this sweet boy would breathe effortlessly.

    I do not like hospitals as they are the in-between-place, where all is not well and your life and your love can change in a moment.  Here in this place, families are revived and families are destroyed.  As I walk the halls of this place and I am aware of others who travel here, I see that there are so many shades of panic it is hardly imaginable.

    To get back to the beginning, as I reflect on love, this is the price that must be paid:  To love, one must be willing to be hurt and to hurt profoundly.  As I sit with my grandson in this alien and in-between-place, I know that every bit of it all, is worth it.  I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but I know that loving is worth this price of fear and more.  I also know that this fear changes us, traumatizes us and makes us hesitate to love.  I know that once traumatized, we must have a brave heart to love completely once more, to open ourselves by adding another love to our lives.  And still, we will and we do add love over and over again.  Brave Hearts.

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  • It is What it is...,  Love and Relationships

    Betrayal is Not a “Mistake”

    August 12, 2010

    And that is why I say forgiveness is for fools.  Forgiveness is defined as allowing your betrayer to repeat actions that have harmed you.  If you have been betrayed it is because someone has willfully hurt you, abandoned you or tricked you in some way.

    Mistakes are real and they are not betrayals.  Mistakes may be forgiven, because you realize and you do not repeat.

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  • Personal Growth,  Psychology of Life

    The Construct that People Make for Me

    August 7, 2010

    In reference to the rose colored glasses, there are brown colored glasses as well.  People make up their mind about other people and that mind set becomes a filtering system for all information that comes in. What happens is that the construct becomes more real than any other thing, including facts.  The filtering system takes over the information that comes in and assures that the information that comes in fits within the construct or the mind set.

    We make up our mind about someone, let’s say that what we have decided is that the person is a “no good criminal”.  Many facts may come into our processing system about that person, but the only facts that we will grasp are those facts which serve our mind and our construct.  Only facts that confirm our conviction about the “no good criminal” will be saved, any other fact that suggests a redeeming quality will be discarded.

    This is in direct opposition to “be here now”.  If we be here now then we are capable of receiving all information that is available to us in the moment.  If we do not respond to our belief system and instead be available to what is present, then we are capable of “be here now”.  Responding to the belief system is agreeing with “construct”.  Any belief is a decision that you have made in the past and pulls you out of this moment.

    So here is the thing, when you make up a construct about me, good, bad or indifferent, it is not me, because who I am is right here, right now.  I am often constructed, most often it is a good construct, and of course, I like that.  Sometimes it is a not-so-good construct.  When it is a not so good construct, I become hyper-vigilant and I watch the process.  I am interested in how any new information comes in and gets processed.  So in watching the process, if the new information does not fit the negative construct, you will dismiss the new information, it is not relevant because it does not fit the negative construct.  This can occur, even when your construct about me is good.  But again, whatever your construct, it is not me.

    So when I change, you may not be available to feel or see the change because you are in your construct of me rather than with me.  My change is present, but you will feel and see what you felt and saw yesterday and the day before.  You will not feel and see me, who is now changed.

    All dilemmas lead back to the same resolve, “Be here now”.  Only by being here now are we capable of fully experiencing ourselves and each other.  In any relationship it’s crucial stuff.  My kids have done a good job of this.  As I have fluttered through my soul searching life, they absolutely get that there is no social construct that I quite fit into.  They don’t try to tie me down with “All mothers cook Sunday dinner.”  They don’t try to make me be the “gramma from Betty Crocker”.  I appreciate that and I appreciate them for who they really are now.

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  • Love and Relationships,  Speaking as a Parent

    And Love Is… And Relationships Are…

    August 3, 2010

    Carl Rogers said that counselors must develop “unconditional positive regard” for clients.  I think that is a very good definition of love.  I don’t think the dictionary quite does it:  a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

    The dictionary is accurate with the descriptive word profound, but passionate affection is not enough to describe all of love.  There is a feature of love that is unconditional.  What I mean by that is that once our heart feels that emotion, our thinking follows our heart and our thinking will remove any negativity associated with the object of our affection.  This is the process of “unconditional”.  For example, when we fall in love with our infant offspring, the love is not conditioned on how our infant behaves.  If our child is fussy or has unpredictable bowel movements it is of no matter to our love and affection for the child.  We will pace, patiently cradling our child to calm whatever makes them cry.  Our love for our children is the easiest of all to describe because it is resoundingly true for almost all parents and thus is a point in common for discussion.  It is unfortunate that adult to adult relationships are less primal and thus filled with all of the baggage that brings evaluation and judgment into new relationships.  Would that we could pronounce our love and be done with it, unconditionally accepting the object of our affection and all of their faults with one declaration.

    “Positive” is the rose-colored glasses that we view our loved ones from.  We color our loved ones with our wishes and dreams and this is always an appealing way to see someone.  It does not necessarily mean illusion either.  It can also mean that we have acceptance for all of who the other person is.  It can reflect a mature love, either because the participants are mature, or because the love has matured.  What comes to mind, is my relationship with my first-born daughter; our history is intense.  As we fumbled through her teen years, neither of us mature, our acceptance of each other was guarded.  I am not saying that our love for each other was less than it could be, but our regard for each other was seldom positive.  We tumbled into her early twenties barely coherent with each other.  Because our love is unconditional, we were able to keep our relationship intact.  As inadequate as I felt as a mother and as frustrated as she felt as a daughter, we were somehow able to work through that tumultuous time.  Now, we experience a mature love that is grounded in a complete acceptance of all of who the other woman is.  Whatever imaginary dreams I harbored for her lifetime are all gone.  And vice-versa, whatever imaginary mother she had conceived in her mind, is all gone.  What remains for both of us is a positive regard for the real women that we both are.  I honor her choices, her ideas and her life, she honors the me that I am.  We are very different women. She is not the mischief-maker and yet she makes the most mischief.  She is not hard-headed and yet, is a decade of stubborn.  She, who is so child-like is all woman. Acceptance allows that which is different from myself, be what it is.

    And lastly, I come to “regard”: to look upon or think of with a particular feeling.  The last of the equation “unconditional positive regard”.  Because the bottom of the discussion is this, unconditional positive regard is a goal and a guidepost, not so much the reality.  To love is to experience a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person and yet that is not enough if you wish to have a relationship.  Of course I am speaking to a relationship that is deeply satisfying, that continues through hardship, that stands the test of time and keeps you alive.  To have love and a relationship, you need unconditional positive regard, because we are human, because life can be difficult and because acceptance is as good as it gets…

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  • Philosophy

    Forgiveness

    August 2, 2010

    I realize that I am repeating a lesson that I have learned earlier in my life, but here goes:  In my mind forgiveness is attached to an ongoing relationship.  And certainly forgiveness is part and parcel of each and every ongoing relationship.  It is the way that I see it in the relationship that is mistaken.  I thought that if I give forgiveness it is the same as letting the other person back into my vulnerable space to wreak havoc once again.  Though I am mistaken, I would keep my definition as it serves me well…

    Dictionary.com states “to cease to feel resentment against”.  Of course, I already knew this, years ago as I was reading Emmet Fox’s interpretation of Sermon on the Mount I came across the following passage:  It cannot be too often repeated that to entertain feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy, spite, and so forth, is certain to damage your health in some way or other, and quite likely to damage it very severely indeed.  Remember that the question of the justification or otherwise for such feelings does not arise at all.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the results, for the thing is a matter of natural law.  A woman said: ‘I have a right to be angry,’ meaning that she had been the victim of very shabby treatment, and that she consequently possessed a kind of license or special permit to hold angry feelings without their natural consequences upon the body following.  This, of course, is absurd.  There is no one to give such a permit, and if it could be done- if general laws could ever be set aside in special instances – we should have, not a universe, but a chaos.  If you press the button, from no matter what motive, good or bad – to save a man’s life or to murder him – the electric bell will ring; because that is the law of electricity.  If you drank a deadly poison inadvertently, you would die or at least seriously damage your body, because such is the law.  You may have mistakenly supposed it to be a harmless fluid, but that would make no difference because the law takes no account of intentions.”

    While I am not feeling resentment, anger and all of the other stuff, I hold my un-forgiveness like a shield to protect me from further chaos.  Releasing the resentment, the anguish, these things are not my chores, these things I have accomplished.  And so, I say again, forgiveness is for fools. We must, beyond a shadow of a doubt, be capable of releasing all of the hurt and the pain that relationships and life will accrue to us.  We must also be capable and willing to protect ourself from that which intends to harm us.  It is not always easy or clear to tell what will harm us and what will not.  I have no answers for this, the question in the middle…

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  • It is What it is...

    So What Say You?

    July 31, 2010

    About the complicated mess that people make out of relationships?  I’m always fascinated by the fact that some people think that they can treat their loved ones badly because they “feel” angry, upset, hurt, etc.  There are millions of people walking around the planet who actually believe that it is okay to be abusive and mean to other people and they justify their behavior with their feelings.  I don’t understand that and maybe I missed the “mean gene”, but still, I just don’t get it.

    There is this conflict between satisfaction of self and a willingness to treat the relationship and the other person in the relationship well.  Some people believe that it is more satisfying to keep the ego intact than it is to work things out and keep the relationship they are in, healthy.  In case you think I am speaking to love / partner relationships, I am not.  I am speaking to any relationship that struggles with bad boundaries and bad behavior.  Trust me, that includes ANY relationship: sisters, lovers, bosses and brothers, even your own offspring.

    What’s awful about relationships with bad boundaries is that they do not happen over night, they progress through time until one day you wake up and the relationship that you are in, is unrecognizable from the relationship that you began with.  How does this happen?

    I say that it does not matter how it happened.  What I say is that if you find yourself in one of these relationships – no matter who it is with – you must choose.  Because:

    Love is necessary to maintain a relationship, but it is not sufficient. This is the piece that I struggle with.  While I may love you, I must recognize that love is not enough.  In order to have a relationship we must be capable of mutual respect and honor of each other’s differences and similarities.  And here is where I draw the line – abusive behavior is not to be forgiven.

    Regardless of who you are and what you act like, I can maintain my love for you – but I do not need to maintain my relationship with you.  While there is an entire conversation about forgiveness, I say this: Forgiveness is for fools, because an apology is just a request to indulge in bad behavior again.

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  • It is What it is...,  Management

    What About Gossip?

    July 26, 2010

    Okay, so normally I believe it is harmless.  I love gossiping, really, it’s fun to hear all the good stuff about the dumb stuff that people are doing.  The reason that I think it is harmless is because I do not believe any of it, nor do I give any of it any credit in my universe.  Gossiping is just an excuse to hang out by the fencepost and talk.

    Is gossip truth or is it malice?  Is telling someone in authority about an event, gossip?  How do we tell the difference between malice and disclosure?  What is the “intention” of the teller?  Okay – does intention matter?  Because if you do damage with gossip, does it really matter what your intention was?  If intention matters – how do you get to the truth of intention?  “I intended to be helpful, didn’t mean to tell your wife you’re cheating on her.”   Does that sound valid?

    Okay, here it is:  The intention of the disclosure DOES NOT matter, because you can never tell what someone’s true intention is.  So it is the RESULT that matters.  I always move backwards from the result to find out a person’s true intention.

    To the question of, is it disclosure or malice: it’s always malice if the gossip is relevant and it stops without an investigation.  Gossip is ONE-SIDED communication and therefore is not to be credited with truth.  All disclosure deserves an investigation.  Particularly disclosure that has an affect.  So to be clear, gossip should be described as I have above; harmless fun out by the fence post with a neighbor. Anything else, should be described for what it is: malice.

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  • Love and Relationships,  Womens Issues

    It’s Okay to Change You If…

    July 18, 2010

    I was thinking about how young couples are often in a conversation of change.  I’m not sure if it is entirely evident to the couples, but when one is observing it seems clear that is what they are speaking to.  My own interpretation is that there is something inherently wrong with trying to change another.  If you speak with marriage counselors there is this old adage that if you are thinking “this will change after we get married” you are making a mistake.  Folks don’t change or they won’t change.  When I watch my beautiful daughter struggle with dating, there seems to be a similar dynamic in all of her relationships.  It’s almost as if everyone she meets is interested in making her different in some way.  She is so strong and so clear, it is as if her essence challenges the male psyche.  There is so much in relationships that remains unspoken.  The center of power is always an issue that is seldom discussed.  My daughter will not relinquish her power, not with herself and not with her life.  This often seems to be a point of contention in her relationships.  I think that it is a good thing that she maintains her power and I like that she sees herself so clearly.

    Isn’t it inherently wrong to try to change another?  Isn’t there some kind of basic rule that is violated when you say to another “change yourself in order to be with me”?  Isn’t finding a partner equivalent to finding someone who actually accepts who you are?  In a successful relationship, you do not need or want pretense, you are comfortable, you are accepted when you are in the presence of another.

    Yet, for the last fifteen years my profession is changing people.  I work in substance abuse treatment – and I could say – well yes I am just looking to change peoples’ behavior, but I know that is not true.  What I have found to be true in my work is that people do not stop self destructive behavior until something inside of them changes.  It is an internal change and while I cannot name the internal shift that occurs, I do know that it must occur for the behavior to change.

    Why is a profession of change okay and the changes demanded by a relationship not okay?  Why are some behavior traits a bad thing, and some behavior traits a good thing – I mean outside of the obvious?  Well, there are two ways of identifying whether a change you want in another is appropriate:  1) it’s a change that your entire society endorses, such as quitting smoking or drinking or drugging; but the most difficult identification of all is:  2) the change you are requesting is not about your ego and it’s not about making yourself comfortable at the expense of another (the one you wish to change).

    The new research says that people will change.  What kind of changes do you want in your partner?  Do you wish for your partner to think and act like you, thus sacrificing all that makes them who they are and wish to be?  Do you wish for your partner to be better and different, someone that perhaps you have never met, just a vision in your head?

    There is something about my daughter that reminds me of a warrior princess, strong, free and proud.  Because she is intense, loving and beautiful there is no lack of men who wish to be part of her life.  My daughter is the ultimate alpha female.  When she enters a space, she is the center of the universe, all eyes are on her.  She has very little awareness of this dynamic, it doesn’t occur to her that she “centers” her world; it is just who she is.  Yet there is something about all of that – the warrior princess – that men inherently want to change.  Not sure why that dynamic sets up the conflict and I am not even sure if that is the dynamic that does set up the conflict.  I do know this.  My daughter will do as she wishes.  There is no someone who will convince her to be different than who she truly is.  Trust me, I’m her mother and have worked on it for 27 years.  If she decides she will change, then she will.  But, she will always be the warrior princess and she will always be the center of her pack.

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