GET OVER IT!

How do you feel when somebody says that to you?

Three years ago and eight weeks before Heather and Ian’s wedding, Jane broke a bone in her right foot. She hobbled around for a week before getting treatment … a large boot to protect the whole foot and lower leg. Fortunately her foot healed in time to wear nice shoes for the wedding. Once in a while, if she bangs it in a certain way, Jane still feels the pain of that old wound.

It happens in relationships, too. Old wounds surface. We get “tweaked” and feel old pain from something that hurt us in the past. Even though we believe we have forgiven that person.

When someone hurts us we hurt. Try as we might, we can’t just say, “OK, I’m not going to let that bother me any more,” and forget about it. (Unless we minimize it, deny it, or stuff it.) Only those with no past have nothing to forgive!

Come Sunday, I find myself repeating the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” but I still hurt, feel angry or want to ‘get even.’

What’s so hard about forgiveness anyway? Maybe we feel that forgiveness means we have to accept or even condone the other person’s actions. Forgive 70 x 7? Sounds like a license to let them keep on hurting me. If I forgive…….they get away with it. Second, even when we try to “forgive” we may be left with negative feelings we just can’t shake.
Let’s get a couple of things straight:
• Forgiveness does not remove the need to confront ‘bad’ behavior. It does not grant immunity. God has covered (forgiven) all our transgressions – but he does not overlook our sin.
• Forgiveness is sacrificial - giving up our right to get even, to level the playing field. It leaves justice in the hands of God.
• Forgiveness is for our benefit though it involves suffering. Just as our Lord is said to be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” When we forgive we grieve our loss. The loss of what might have been. Cloud & Townsend are on target when they write , “The most basic means of choosing our own way and not God’s is to decide not to suffer.”

One more thing. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is…me! “I feel so guilty,” “I know God has forgiven me, but I just can’t forgive myself.” If you have ever felt that way you are not alone. But know this: trying harder does not help. As C&T have pointed out in many places, the opposite of feeling bad is not feeling good, it is feeling loved. As we extend forgiveness we will experience forgiveness – and discover that we are loved.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive

those who trespass against us.

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Level The Playing Field!

Remember teeter-totters? Try. Feel how exhilarating it was to be way up there in the air (you were little then); you could see the whole playground! And then you came flying down, up and down, up and down! Until the other person jumped off while you were on top of the world – and you came crashing down. Bang! It was pretty fun being on top but always painful, even humiliating to land on your backside.

Many relationships function the same way. Somebody is on top, one-up. Somebody is one-down. Being down is never fun. Remember Junior High? Were you one-up or one-down? Truth is, in Jr. Hi. every kid feels one down about something. And tries hard to be one-up.

Then we grow up. We pretend that we aren’t on the teeter-totter any more. That we’ve out grown it. Matured. Mellowed out. Moved on.

Have we? No. We have all learned patterns of living on top – being in charge, in control, dominating. Its forms are legion – anger, tears, yelling, demanding, getting in the last word or sulking, silence, leaving, going away. It may be teasing, joking, putdowns. Some stay in control by making peace – never allowing anything to get out of hand, tense, emotional, difficult, or painful. Then there are the masters of the teeter-totter: the person on the ground has the ‘real’ control to humiliate the one on top! All he has to do is get off. Passive-Aggressive control. Ouch!

At the same time, we have all suffered being one-down. We have learned how to live in that place too. An emotional hiding place that limits risk, vulnerability, openness, creativity, spontaneity – freedom. It’s a place where we feel boxed in, trapped. Things seem out of control. We don’t know how to make it stop. Question: do any of these words resonate: overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, stressed, abandoned, cut off, heavy, listless, despondent, humiliated, exposed? What words express how you feel when you are one-down?

Remember getting on the seesaw? You and your partner’d scooch back and forth till you got it just right. No matter how tall, short, fat or skinny, you two could make it work when you made things equal.

Pay attention to those things that bring equality into you relationships. Step One: Distinguish between Evaluating and Judging in a relationship. Judging another person’s motives is ‘one-upsmanship.’ Evaluating is coming to a situation as an equal; as one who has been wounded, experienced pain, known struggle and difficulty. Step Two: Ask, How is this person like me? What might she be dealing with? Where does he need grace? Step Three: What are you dealing with today? Where do you need grace?

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ARE YOU LISTENING?

How annoying is it to be in a room with someone who talks non-stop and doesn’t take the hint? Or have coffee with a friend who spends the entire time chatting about somebody you don’t even know and doesn’t ask you a thing about you? How do you feel when your spouse reads a magazine while you’re trying to share something important? Decides to text or takes a phone call?

Have you ever been that other person?

Listening well is a learned skill. And much in demand. In spite of all the sermons on “Be Still and Know that I am God!” it’s still tough to do. Being still, that is. The same is true in my relationships with others. To know another person I must learn how to listen.

In Life Coaching we talk about three levels of listening: “To, For & With.” When one is listening to they are taking in the facts. It is utilitarian. Their question is, “What does this mean to me?” The mind may be on other things. Listening for is hearing the words while formulating a response.

A much deeper level of listening occurs when we consciously choose to listen or engage “with” the other person by becoming attentive to their values, their passions, what they care about – asking, “What does this mean to them?”

Listening with requires turning the focus from myself to the other person. It is rare unless it is cultivated. Some things you can do to improve your ‘listening with’ skills are:

• Tune out everything else – it’s the ‘be still’ part of knowing.

• Mirror back what you heard using the other person’s words – not your own. Especially the feelings. No spin.

• Ask “what, when, how” questions out of genuine curiosity, to know more, to understand, for clarification. And then be quiet. Often “why” questions are not helpful because the other person may not know why. Nor do we – however strongly we may think we do. Our assumptions place us in a one-up position which blocks greater openness and trust.

• Project your own autobiography by evaluating, judging, probing, advising, or interpreting.
One more thing….added to this challenge is the fact that individuals process thoughts differently. Milan & Kay Yerkovich point out that for Extroverts things come together as they talk. They need space and time to verbalize. Introverts, on the other hand, process inwardly. They need to think it through, then they can talk about it. The Extrovert is literally thinking it out out-loud. If you are married, chances are pretty high that there’s one of each in your marriage. (note: a recent poll showed that only 20% of Introverts said they felt understood. Why might that be?)

Finally, the one question that is almost certain to gain acceptance in almost any situation is simply this: “What do you want from me right now?”

Are you listening?

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