Archive for the ‘thoughts’ Category
Given the India diversion in blog postings, I will need to recap the story of my re-education that I was sharing.
1) I thought people and circumstances outside of myself were the reason for my feelings in a direct cause and effect dynamic. In order for me to feel better, I needed them to change. In other words, I was trying to “fix” my feelings instead of learning from them, and I was doing this by pressuring the other person to change.
2) I divided feelings into good and bad, legitimate and illegitimate. If the person “causing” my feelings were at fault, then my negative feelings were justified, and they should stop doing what they were doing so as to relieve my bad feelings. If the person “causing” my feelings were not at fault, then my feelings were illegitimate (wrong), and I had to talk myself out of those feelings.
NO WORRIES, I'M HERE TO FIX YOU!
3) If I can manage okay with the other person’s irritating behavior, then I should say nothing and just endure. If I could not handle it, I should tell them how their behavior was affecting me and ask them to stop. Again, my feelings were being controlled by the other person, which put me in bondage to them emotionally, and required them to change to maintain a good relationship with me.
4) Kimberly insisted that I had a right to my feelings, all my feelings, and that all my feelings were legitimate and true… not a true reflection of the guilt of others, but a true reflection of my own perspective and experience of life. My “bad” emotions were telling me something valuable about myself, not about the other person. If I listened to this emotional message empathically instead of with shame (accepting rather than rejecting the feeling), I could discover important things about my own woundedness.
5) Kimberly encouraged me not to hide my unhappy feelings from those I love, because sharing them is an avenue into deeper relationship. But if I shared my feelings as a means of getting her to change, it would push us farther apart and ground our relationship more on legalism, encouraging her to believe that my love is conditionally based on how she behaves.
6) I thought genuine care always led to accommodating behavior. If the other person cared about me, they would change what they were doing. If they didn’t change, it proved they didn’t care. Since these two were inextricably connected in my mind, when the person did not change, it proved they didn’t care. I didn’t realize my real need was for her to care about my feelings, not for her to take responsibility for my feelings by changing. As I thought, “My need + your love = your accommodation (and vice versa). How could you possibly say you care if you make no effort to ‘improve’?”
Each step of learning came with a great deal of pain for both Kimberly and me. Kimberly kept insisting that she was not responsible for my feelings, that regardless of how I felt towards her, this was not an indication of her guilt or responsibility. She felt deeply hurt when I blamed and shamed her, even if it were simply a sideways glance, pause, or lifted eyebrow to suggest that she was failing to meet my expectations. I kept believing that if she did not change, she did not care, and that hurt me deeply. This whole perspective of hers blasted my mind with questions. Are all expectations in a relationship unhealthy? Is accommodation or compromise a bad idea? Can a person truly care and still not change something that is hurtful to another? Are my emotions really completely independent of your behavior towards me? It still did not make sense.
THE MORE I THINK, THE MORE CONFUSED I GET.
Like most men, I want a fix. When I am agitated or discouraged, I want help to escape, and I expect this to come not from empathy but from fixing the problem that is causing those feelings. If I am afraid of losing money, help me protect my money, and my fear disappears. If someone is irritating me, get them to stop, and my irritation will fall away. I didn’t wait to ask myself with compassion, “Why am I afraid, what is going on in my heart?” That was obvious… the situation was causing my bad feelings.
When my wife shared her feelings with me, I offered solutions instead of empathy, just like I wanted for myself. But in trying to offer solutions, I was making her feel worse. When I said, “There is no reason to be afraid because_______” I was trying to relieve her fear, but she heard me say that her feelings were illegitimate. It took me forever to change my approach, and I still struggle with it. It seems to me that if I empathize with her feelings, I am giving her more reasons to feel sad or fearful or bad, and I want to rescue her from those feelings. But as I tried to understand her perspective more, I gradually realized that I too needed empathy for my feelings rather than solutions to “fix” them. I needed it as much as she did, because empathy invites me to be compassionate to myself, and with this active self-support, I discover the wound that underlies my feelings. But I didn’t want discovery, I wanted relief.
DIDN'T I SAY I COULD FIX IT?
I am a very good fixer, and when I fix situations so that my unhappy feelings are lifted, I feel better, but I learn nothing about myself through those negative emotions. As a result they came back just as strongly when the situation returns. Instead of emotional renovation, I was constantly working on repairs… the same fixes over and over.
Here was the sticking point for me in receiving Kimberly’s compassion. I could not imagine genuine care that did not result in her help or accommodation. If she truly empathized with my situation, she would surely act–help with the dishes, refill the gas tank, spend more time with me. If she didn’t give tangible assistance as able, she was simply uncaring no matter what her words said. If she did not help meet my needs, it proved she didn’t really care. And her lack of care stoked my fear that I was not worthy of care. My only option was to pressure her into acting to resolve my feelings and renew my sense of worth, and I usually did this by shaming her for not doing more. Kimberly reacted to this, as you might expect.
Over a great deal of time sharing and thinking I slowly realized that what I really wanted and needed was her love and genuine concern, and I was closing her down to that by blaming her and demanding that she change. When folks pushed in front of me or cut me off in traffic or ignored me, I thought I needed them to change, but my real underlying need was simply to have someone care about my feelings. That made all the difference. If my wife bangs the cupboards because she slips or thinks I’m downstairs or finds the door sticking, I feel no agitation. Knowing the whole context makes me realize that her behavior does not result from a lack of consideration for me. I may be irritated at the situation, but not at the person.
But what if the person knowingly kept doing those things that troubled me? I simply refused to believe they cared if they didn’t change. My need + your love = your accommodation (and vice versa). How could you possibly say you care if you make no effort to “improve”? I felt bad and it was their fault, they were responsible for my feelings. But if others control my feelings, I’m in trouble because I am then their emotional slave (or we are mutual slaves, which is the essence of co-dependence). Kimberly finally broke through this block in my thinking, but the process was very painful for both of us.
These reflections are just my thoughts, things that have helped me. Please forgive me if I sound dogmatic. I don’t mean to be. If these thoughts don’t help you, then by all means dismiss them; or if you disagree, argue with me in a comment (though remember my tale is not done).
It seems we all try to control others in various ways, and we are usually blind to what we are doing. We think, and even say, that we only want the best for them, not realizing that if they are pressured or forced to make better choices, those new behaviors will not nourish their heart, but shrivel it, because they are not freely choosing out of a loving relationship with God and others.
Sometimes, especially with children, control is necessary for their own safety and health, so that they can live long enough without significant damage to grow into understanding. But if this is the default teaching method, the greatest life lessons the child will learn are that her feelings don’t matter, that she must live from obligation (another word for bondage or lack of freedom), that what she does is more important than who she is.
Let me give a simple and common illustration from my own upbringing. My mom and dad naturally wanted to keep in close touch with their children when they “left the nest.” I was the youngest and last to leave, so their feelings were especially acute towards me. I was on my own for the first time and enjoying my freedom, and I didn’t keep in touch as much as they would like with letters and phone calls. Not only did they miss me, but I expect it made each wonder subconsciously, “Does he really love me?”
I Need You to Change!
Under the force of these emotions, they believed I was remiss in connecting with them. I was to blame for their bad feelings, feelings which I could so easily allay. It would cost me very little (so they thought) to keep in touch, and they pressured me in this direction. When I phoned them, their first statement was usually, “Well, we haven’t heard from you in a long time,” by which they intended to push me to show my love by calling more often. To the extent I bowed to this expectation, I was reacting from a “should” and not from compassion. In fact, the more pressure I felt, the less I was able to respond from genuine love. To my parents it felt like love when I deferred to their wishes and called more often, but somewhere deep inside they must have known that “loving” acts resulting from pressure do not mainly spring from love.
If they had shared their genuine feelings without making me responsible to fix them, it would have drawn out a natural love… I would have wanted to phone them instead of “having” to phone them. If they said, “We really miss you and miss hearing from you,” and genuinely did not hold me responsible for their feelings, but were only sharing their feelings, it would have made a world of difference. Of course, then they could not trust that the outcome would be to their liking since they granted full and genuine freedom.
Sharing your feelings with me without the assumption that I should fix them is a huge invitation into your heart and opens me up to welcome you and share my heart. But telling me about your feelings in order to get me to conform will make me resistant and closed. I will hear the message that I am bad unless I change and I will react to protect myself. If I do yield because of the pressure, because I believe I am responsible for your feelings, it will damage us both, and hurt the relationship. It may feel good, but it will encourage a legalistic view that love is conditional, dependent on my behavior.
I learned from an attractive friend of mine that insecurity does not only come to the daughter who is shamed for her looks, but also to the daughter who is praised for her looks in a way that makes her think her worth depends on it—she may seem proud, but is really filled with fear. The issue is not whether someone is valued, but why they are valued, and if they are primarily valued for conforming to our expectations (being a “good” child), they will always fear “misbehaving” lest they lose their parent’s love which appears to them very conditional and therefore precarious. The same is true in friendships and marriages.
If I am loving towards my wife when she does as I wish, and withhold love (act cool, snipe, act the martyr) when she does not, she will respond out of fear of losing my love. As long as she conforms, she will feel good about our relationship, but it instills a deeper insecurity. That isn’t to say I should never get frustrated or irritated or discouraged. That isn’t to say I should never express those feelings to her. Feeling all my feelings and expressing my feelings are key to good relationships.
But when I share my feelings as a means of getting her to do what I want or need, she feels unsafe with me, and she closes up her heart to protect herself. From my family’s perspective, why would I share an aggravation or disappointment unless it was to get her to change? If I didn’t need her to change, I would say nothing and just deal with it in my own heart and mind, I would silently accommodate. It is when I felt I needed her to change that I would share my displeasure, in order to get her to change and so free me from my unhappy feelings. It was her turn to accommodate. Let us just say it was a very bumpy ride for several years.
We all know we have some influence over our emotions, and there are various reasons we may find it beneficial in particular situations to manipulate our emotions: if emotions are impairing our functioning on some crucial matter, if we cannot control our expression of emotion and that expression is damaging others, if we don’t have enough space (time, safety, etc.) to process our feelings just now. In such cases we are not ignoring our feelings or pushing them away, but we are asking them to wait for a bit until we can address them.
If as a rule we listen and support our feelings and what they are telling us, then the exceptions I suggested above won’t undermine our spirits. If as a rule we try to control our emotions instead of listening to them empathically, it is as healthy as trying to control your spouse—the more “successful” you are at this effort, the more damage is done. It took me a very long time to begin to deal with my emotions based on the principles of grace instead of the principles of law.
I can manipulate my emotions by suppressing them or by aggravating them and neither approach is healthy. It is one thing to listen graciously and patiently to my anger until it has told me all it needs to say; it is quite another to pump up my anger. When I use various means to exacerbate my feelings, I am being just as untrue to my genuine emotions as when I refuse to hear them.
I find that the best question to ask myself regarding my feelings and my response to them is “why?” Why do I feel so angry? Why do I feel the need to stimulate them further? I used to ask myself these questions in condemnation, just as my irate mother used to ask us: “What is WRONG with you?!” This was not asked in a comforting way to find and relieve our suffering. The natural follow up to such a question was, “Just stop it!” And that really was my attitude towards my own feelings.
OUT!
When I was in India, I kept throwing my unwanted emotions out the back door, only to realize too late that it was not the back door, but the closet door, and the shelves collapsed under the weight of my ignored emotions, driving me into deep depression. Trust me, when you ignore or shame your emotions, it does not fix them or get rid of them, it just forces them to keep working behind the scenes where they sicken and weaken your spirit.
When I was struggling with a deep sense of inadequacy and shame as a pastor in Arlington, a friend recommended a counseling couple. As I sat with them in their living room, they explained that my poor self-worth came from believing lies, especially lies about God. That may have been true, but it only made my sense of humiliation worse. Not only did I feel shame, but I was wrong for feeling shame. It is hard to hear, “You are deceived,” and feel positive about yourself, and “The God you worship is a false god,” is not particularly comforting either.
If this couple had identified with and shown empathy for my struggles, it would have made a huge difference. They could have said, “We have all been tricked into believing lies foisted on us by family, church, and culture. We are the victims of these deceptions.” This may have really been their thought, but I could not get past the shame of living a lie. When I asked Kimberly, “Doesn’t my anger or sadness or fear point to something that should not be in my heart, some skewed perspective for which I am guilty?” the question itself seems to invite a shaming answer.
“Well, did you know these beliefs were false?” she asked. “Did you deliberately avoid the truth? When you were at last shown the way did you run from it?”
“No,” I said, “I set my feet to it, not perfectly, but as best I could in spite of the fear and pain.”
“Yes, something is in your heart that should not be there, just like Somali pirates should not be on oil tankers, but you are no more guilty of it than the ship’s captain. You did not create this darkness, but are rather victimized by it. Don’t shame yourself for these lies which deceived you, but have compassion on yourself for the harm you still suffer because of them.”
Such soothing words of grace! If I keep shaming myself for my struggles, it will push me away from God’s grace. I’m afraid that if I openly admit what a mess I am, God will agree and put me on the bench till I get my act together. Instead he embraces me and says, “I’ve been waiting for you to discover your wounds and show them to me so that I can begin to heal them.”
Emotions often reveal the unhealthiness of my heart. If I rebuke and punish myself for this junk, I become more lost in the mazes of my shame and more afraid of the truth. I’ve discovered that when I show myself compassion, like a child who is sick, the truth loses its monster mask and I am much more able to open my heart to it. The truth comes to me as a companion and help rather than a testy and impatient headmaster.
My wife speaks Chinese to me… at least that’s how it seems when I know the vocabulary she uses but cannot make sense of the message. I love her and so I repeatedly, intently try to follow what she is saying. When someone’s presuppositions are entirely different from mine, they make statements and assert conclusions that are meaningless to me, like: “A subjective cucumber chairs England with pneumonia.” Where do you even begin to ask the questions? And if it is completely coherent to Kimberly, she doesn’t know what needs explaining.
Me: “Do you mean a green cucumber that you eat?”
Kimberly: “Of course, what other kind is there? Now do you understand?”
It has often taken me months and even years through scores or even hundreds of conversations to slowly grasp her meaning about relational things far more complex than cucumbers. Over my head is not a light bulb popping on, but a fluorescent “tube light,” shadowed on both ends from overuse: blink… dark… blink blink-blink… dark… dark. Presuppositions are stubborn things and lie hidden behind blind spots.
The issue I raised at the end of Response #4 actually has several entangled, powerful, and unnoticed assumptions. I mentioned the first—that I felt responsible for others’ feelings. If someone does not like what I am doing, then I should stop doing it unless I have an overriding reason to continue. I am responsible for their feelings. Your irritation is because of my behavior—direct cause and effect—and I am responsible to change my behavior so you can stop being irritated. Your irritation is very reasonable; anyone would be irritated over this; only a saint would not be affected. Your irritation is controlled by my behavior.
This is a society-wide assumption, so that if anyone says, “Stop doing that! You are irritating me!” the only proper response is to say, “Sorry, I didn’t realize it was bothering you,” and to stop. We have no sense of distinction between the statements “I am irritated,” and “you are irritating me” or “you are making me irritated.” When we say the first, we really mean the last two; we are not taking responsibility for our own feelings of irritation, but are putting the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the “misbehaving” person. Of course, we distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable irritation, usually based on our own perception of social norms, but that must wait for another discussion.
I, for one, completely operated by this principle—my behavior caused your irritation. It was so obvious and clear and universal a concept, and I never heard it refuted. When Kimberly said, “I am not causing your irritation,” it made no sense to me at all. “What do you mean you are not causing my irritation?! When you bang the kitchen cupboards, it irritates me. My irritation comes from the banging cupboards… where else would it come from?” Can you understand my confusion?
I may have been more confusing than clarifying in my Response #4. So I want a re-do (wish I could do that in life!).
I had very little understanding of legitimate relational boundaries for most of my life. If two of us had conflicting needs, I thought I was responsible to deny my own and “consider others as more important than myself.” Anything less was selfishness. I also believed I was given more resources by God than others (after all, I came from McQuilkin stock, a line of highly honored preachers, missionaries, and college presidents), so the greater burden should rest on me. This was the scaffolding for serious self-neglect.
If I starved myself to feed the hungry, I would die quickly, but when I starved myself emotionally, there was no such forced resolution… I kept living, breathing, and relating. No matter how much I gave, I felt I was not giving enough. So I pushed myself further and further until I nearly killed myself in India. Self preservation was not in my DNA. After all, I subscribed to the motto, “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
If I had the resources, and another had a need, I was obligated to meet that need. I thought the only morally legitimate way to deny helping Bob was to help Bill instead. To use my resources on myself was simply selfish. It was not a true need of mine. Christ was all I needed, and instead of receiving what he wished to give me, I became simply the channel for his giving to others, a teflon heart towards God’s grace. I didn’t realize what harm I did myself and others by working out of a serious personal deficit. I did not understand how healthy relationships worked.
Of course, the more I expected of myself, the more I expected of others… not as much as I would give, but still a fairly high standard. When they did not give what they were “able” to give (in my estimate), I judged them as unspiritual, uncommitted, and selfish, and I resented having to make up for their slack. Denying myself everything for others only worked if they denied things for me.
I was blind to the distinction between healthy and unhealthy giving. That difference might best be illustrated with actual gifts, the kind with wrapping paper and bows. 
There is quite a long list of unwritten, unspoken guidelines that must be followed in our society if we wish to be an acceptable member. The one with more money may spend more; the amount of money or time spent is a reflection of how much the recipient is valued; gratitude must be expressed (whether or not the gift was a true expression of love), often in writing; and the list goes on. We speak of a ‘gift exchange,’ a social arrangement which prescribes rules and follows social norms to avoid anyone giving too much or too little. But the original meaning of “gift” (Charis in Greek) suggests something freely given out of love without thought of return. Otherwise we are really talking about trading, a legitimate financial arrangement, but one that follows law, not love.
As long as everyone follows group expectations in an exchange, this arrangement works swimmingly, but once we try to move towards a gracious approach, one that does not include payback, the old rules do not apply. If I must give everything to everyone without consideration for reciprocation, then I am in serious trouble if others do not do the same. All my resources (whether time, money, emotional reserves, energy, etc.) will sooner or later be exhausted, and then I have nothing for myself or for others. Without receiving adequate “reimbursement,” the system fails. The path of grace seems unworkable unless everyone else is equally “gracious.” Instead of being responsible for my own upkeep, they become responsible for me, and I for them. I am at the mercy of the goodness of others… if they are not good enough, I cannot survive. This sounds to me suspiciously like co-dependence rather than interdependence. Am I not ultimately responsible for myself?
Elisabeth speaks for many of us when she worries that making room for someone’s quirks could encourage the attitude, “God made me this way so just accept it even though it is inconveniencing or hurting you.” That is one of the guiding principles that shaped the way I related to others most of my life, and it still pulls strongly on my emotions. This will take two posts to discuss even briefly because I want to start with my own experience and perspective and then offer the comparative view of my wife.
I grew up believing very strongly that I was responsible for others’ responses to me. If someone felt hurt or inconvenienced by my actions, I should change my behavior. Either I had done something wrong and should apologize and change myself to prevent this in the future, or they were mistaken and I should explain to them how they had misunderstood my intentions (or a combination of the two). Their negative feelings indicted me, and I was responsible to relieve them and to then live in such a way that I caused them no more inconvenience or hurt.
I think this entanglement of responsibilities is common among children who respond to parental displeasure by being compliant and who determine their own lovability based on the feedback they receive for their behavior. If my mom or dad is angry, it is my fault, and I must fix it. I think our parents’ generation generally believed this, and those of us raised in religious homes believed this was also a true reflection of God’s attitude towards us. One of the downsides of this perspective is that I hold others responsible for my feelings as well. You take care of my feelings and I take care of yours. You take care of my needs and I take care of yours.
Relational Balancing Act
It sounds very considerate, and I suppose it may be, but in my case, instead of a free and loving choice, it was grounded in fear and relational obligation. I could not survive in forgoing my own needs for the sake of others’ needs if they did not reciprocate, so if there was no parity, I had to pressure others to meet my needs. If I were inconveniencing or hurting someone, I was under moral obligation to change, and if I did not like what they were doing, they had to change.
Of course, the entire system broke down if others did not meet my needs. When I eat out with a friend, the payment shuffle at the end is a bit embarrassing. Supposing my friend will reciprocate the next time, I decide to pick up the tab. But he doesn’t return the favor. I decide to do it again as a good example that shows him clearly how he is falling behind in the balance of hospitality. By the third unreciprocated meal, I start feeling resentment and make mild side comments or light jokes to bring his attention to the situation. If he simply does not work by this system of fair trade, then our relationship is in trouble. I will feel that he is selfish and uncaring.
When I decide what to wear, what to say, where to go, how to behave, I automatically assume others’ needs are preeminent. This does not primarily come from a place of health or freedom or generosity, but from a fear that they will justifiably think badly of me or resent me if I do not care about them. I find it very hard to think well of myself if others think badly of me (in this case because I am being “uncaring”). On the other hand, if others seem to ignore my needs, I feel that my needs don’t really count, I am not worthy of receiving their care. So I am trapped in this world of reciprocation based on fear of losing my worth as a person.
My fear of others “taking advantage of me,” requiring me to do more lifting in the relationship than they do, is not simply that I will run out of energy and resources. It is a much more basic fear—that my very worth as a person is seriously at risk. Of course, I never think it out so clearly and objectively as this, but simply react from deep-seated emotions, often jumping right past the fear (which makes me feel vulnerable) into the reactive and manipulative anger of self-defense, “Don’t you care about me?!”
Some say that compromise is at the root of any good marriage, but what if either or both partners feel an arrangement is unfair, unbalanced. Picture the impact on the relationship if this imbalance is not simply an inconvenience, but a threat to the spouse’s very worth as a person. That is a picture of Kimberly and me as we stepped into a committed relationship.
I agree with Elisabeth that “where I am weak is when I get to see God at work,” though I think it might be good to consider what this may or may not mean. How does God work with or in spite of our weaknesses? He can certainly override or bypass or compensate for our inbuilt weaknesses when he chooses, but I expect, like any other miracle, it is the exception rather than the rule for him to work contrary to the traits with which he uniquely designed each of us (and the circumstances by which he shaped us). Not only the abilities, but the limitations he gives us are integral to our design, a key part of who we are. A car is great for driving, but it is pretty bad at sailing. If we make a car to also sail, those adaptations will hinder its ability to drive well, which is its true design. 
Allow me to get personal. I was raised by a mother who was not time conscious and a father who was very time conscious. This was the source of much contention, especially Sunday morning, and both my mom and dad agreed that the “right” way to be was prompt, which of course meant my mom was inadequate and my dad was adequate. Dad was organized and Mom was disorganized; Dad planned out everything well in advance and Mom flew by the seat of the pants; Dad was very analytical and Mom was not. We were taught by both parents that we should emulate our father in all these things, because this was godliness, and thus avoid the weaknesses of our mom.
Most of my life I fully believed this to be true. My dad even taught a college ethics course that included a section on the moral necessity of being good stewards of our time. The good ol’ American values of productivity and efficiency were apparently a fundamental part of God himself, handed down to us in his word. The verses in the Bible about being punctual are fairly meager, so he used arguments such as the injury we did others by being late (“keeping them waiting”), which was both selfish and unthoughtful. It is more the emphasis than the idea which became a real problem for me. One could argue that good stewardship of the body requires daily bathing with soap for good health and so make showers a moral issue, but I don’t think I would go there with it.
It was decades later that I started to question this thinking. I found that examples of godliness in Scripture seemed to have a very different perspective of time, one that did not include minute hands on sundials. Jesus himself seemed to be much more God conscious and people conscious than time conscious, and he regularly chose to live by the former values at the expense of the last.
I don’t mean to suggest that punctuality is of no worth, but I wonder if it does not fall farther down the scale of true values than most white, middle class Americans would like to think. I wonder if it is a constant source of judgment towards other cultures and people who value it much less. Might our insistence on timeliness do more injury to individuals and relationships than our being more flexible with our schedules? In fact, is too much of a need for promptness a weakness of another kind and is flexibility perhaps a strength? Do we unnecessarily devalue the traits of some folks instead of appreciating their uniqueness and important contribution to perspectives, relationships and plans?
I find myself valuing strengths in others that I do not have. But instead of simply being grateful for and blessed by their contribution to my life, I compare myself to them and challenge myself to be like them… and then judge myself for falling short. I tell myself that I must be as organized, as gentle, as confident, as humble as they are. These are all good things to work on, but things that do not come naturally to me as they do to others, and in fact, they usually have their own downside. People who are temperamentally gentle often have a very hard time confronting others; Those who are typically confident tend to be less open to the perspectives of others.*
If I use a lot of energy trying to “fix” these weaknesses I attribute to myself, I not only make no room for others’ contributions to my life, but I end up undermining my own unique gifts. Others become competitors to me instead of partners, and relationships suffer. The differences between us that were meant to teach us, unite us and make us interdependent become the very things that drive wedges between us because I expect others to be like me and shame myself for not being like them.
Let's Work Together!
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*Of course, we usually think of humility and gentleness as virtues (moral attributes which are acquired) and organization and confidence as character traits (nonmoral attributes which are given). So for the purposes of this discussion, let us leave aside the “virtues” and think simply of “traits.”
Elisabeth’s comment raises at least four additional issues in my mind. The most apparent one, I think, is the distinction between enabling (as AA uses the term) and supporting. When people take too little responsibility for themselves, offering blanket assistance may not be the most helpful thing to do for them. We need to take this into consideration so that we do not inadvertently hurt or weaken others by our aid (such as parents do when they over-protect their children).
When folks are in need, love calls us to discern how best to serve them. It seems to me, the better we know someone, the better we can identify his or her true needs (so perhaps the best way to serve them is to get to know them). The difficulty lies in determining whether the crutch I offer will aid or hinder healing, and I have many potential problems in sorting out this quandary.
I tend to expect of others what I expect of myself, but this is a dangerous measure. Each of us has unique struggles and strengths, clarity and confusion, emotional surplus and shortage, speed of growth in different areas. If I don’t even know my own heart well, how can I presume to know another’s? I tend to expect too much of folks (and others’ tend to expect too little of them). Without realizing it, I tend to help or deny help to others for the wrong reasons (because it feels good to be needed, because I am proud of my abilities, because I feel obligated, because I resent the inconvenience, because I am suspicious of their motives). I rarely if ever respond out of pure love.
How can I tell when folks are being negligent, failing to do what they can easily do, or whether they are in genuine need of a hand up? Without even deciding that question, I know of a number of vital ways we can support others. We can accept them for who they are, we can feel and express empathy for their sense of need, we can listen and ask questions, we can offer encouragement and insight from our own similar experiences, we can be honest about our hopes and concerns regarding them and the strengths and weaknesses we bring to the table. I have discovered in relationship to my wife that what I need more than anything else is someone to understand and accept me as I am. It is far more important than the help they do or do not give me.
The Comfort of Caring Hands
Janathan Grace Reflections 