FROM THE TOP!

Last Sunday, Jane was in Phoenix for a wedding, I was on my way to 8:30 a.m. church, sleepy from a late night and the time change, and doubting myself as a result of some feedback during the week. In the car I flipped on our local classical music station broadcasting “From The Top” which features outstanding young musicians.

I tuned in just in time to hear 13 year old violinist Eric Tsai interviewed prior to being introduced to the audience. Eric teaches violin to his two younger brothers. They asked him if that is difficult. No, he said, it wasn’t because his family believes that music is a gift from God. Eric’s father takes the boys to nursing homes to play for the elderly. “It brings them so much joy! Like Bach put on his music “to the glory of God” I want to play for the glory of God.”

What a perspective for a 13 year old! The interviewer wanted to know if Eric was nervous. “YA” was all he said.

So this is how Jimmy Whales, founder of Wikipedia introduced him to the audience, “Eric, I can understand you are nervous but I have one thing to tell you. Relax a bit, enjoy this. There is no such thing as a performance that ends your career – because you can always get better!”

What are you doing today? Relax. Enjoy it. You can always get better.

And so can I. (I’m working on taking my own advice!)

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IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE !!!

In his book, “Who’s Pushing Your Buttons?” Dr. John Townsend discusses twelve common ways that many of us tend to respond to the ‘impossible’ people in our lives – all of which DON’T WORK! Let me simply highlight four of the most common – and offer some beginning suggestions…
Blasting
In the outback of eastern Washington, back in the ‘20’s, a humble congregation decided to move to a new location. They figured on dismantling their church and rebuilding it at the new sight. Someone got the bright idea of loosening the nails by setting off a charge of T-N-T inside the sanctuary. Today you can buy a white wine called “Blasted Church” that commemorates the event.

Some people set off a bomb inside us. When that happens we say things we wish we’d never said. What’s worse, the one who pushed us to the limit thinks, “See, it wasn’t me. You’re the one with the problem.” When we explode there is something we need from the other person we are not getting. What is it? It might be affirmation help, encouragement, support or love. Or?

Have we acknowledged our need and asked the other person to help meet it?

Spiritualizing
I have a good friend who is continually afflicted by a relative who takes advantage of her graciousness asking for last minute favors, criticizing her cooking or housekeeping. But instead of confronting his bad behavior she says she just needs to pray about it. If she were more devout, humble, faithful, generous – if she were less selfish. She says his behavior shouldn’t bother her. If only she were more spiritual – the problem would go away. It will not. His behavior has become her problem.

There is a time to confront the situation.

Reasoning / Explaining
You hoped you could come to an agreement. An understanding. A meeting of the minds. Sometimes, no matter how patiently or clearly you attempt to explain the problem or lay out your reasons, it does no good. It is not that you need more facts or persuasive arguments. The other party has tuned you out. They may even say you are being defensive.

Reasoning with a difficult person may be a good place to start. But if it is unsuccessful, STOP. Ask yourself, “What am I feeling at this moment?” What happens inside you? Maybe you feel taken advantage of, demeaned, ignored, distant, abandon, or abused. Maybe you want to withdraw or do just the opposite of what you’re being asked to do.

Speaking ‘the truth in love’ is saying what is happening inside us without blame or condemnation. It’s simply a brief statement of our feelings. “When X happens I feel ……”

Waiting
When your best efforts have failed…when you have tried to be loving, kind, thoughtful, caring, and that has blown up in your face you may say, “I just need to wait for the right moment. I can’t talk to him until we have a good relationship or until she’s ready.” But that difficult person may never be “ready.”

“Blowback” is one of the most difficult and confusing results of trying to talk to someone about what bothers you. Even if you were able to confront someone in the most loving gentle understanding way possible that would not guarantee the confrontation would go well.

Absorb the “blowback.”

FOUR RESPONSES:
1. Say what you feel, not what she/he did. “When you do X I feel _____________”
2. Clarify. Don’t assume. Ask what the other person meant, intended, wanted or felt. Use their words not your interpretation, your spin.
3. Acknowledge your need. Ask for help meeting that need.
4. Confront the behavior, absorb the blowback.

Who’s Pushing Your Buttons, and Boundaries Face to Face are highly recommended resources for extended help in this area.)

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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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This Thanksgiving - What will you do with the "Sweet Potatoes?"

What’s your best memory of Thanksgiving as a kid? Got that in your mind? Can you see it? Smell it? Good, ‘cause I want to tell you what I hated about Turkey Day – candied sweet potatoes! That horrible stuff with perfectly good marshmallows burnt on top. Ok, I know some of you love them…they make me … ugh, how can you eat those things?

As a kid I had to eat them – at Grandma’s, or mostly at church Thanksgiving dinners! And if I didn’t take a big enough portion, at least what dad thought was big enough… I got twice as much. That was agonizing.

I’m sure Dad had many important character-building lessons in mind (we’re company - be polite (you’re the preacher’s kid), take some, you’ll like it, or it’s good for you…). But there was something else I picked up quite apart from good habits. I learned, or rather I absorbed the feeling that eating sweet potatoes was something I ‘should’ do so the hostess wouldn’t think I didn’t like her cooking. (which I didn’t)

Should do, Need to, Ought to – it’s not just about sweet potatoes, is it? When we “grow up” we discover that we feel so obligated, so responsible. Maybe we struggle to say ‘No.’ There’s someone who will be displeased, something will be left undone…there’s a nagging sense that we haven’t done what we should have or could have.

What about obligation to God? That’s harder to detect. It doesn’t get much air time from the pulpit. All the stuff we ‘should’ do as good Christians – can you hear it? It’s almost as if some small voice inside us is saying, “Eat your sweet potatoes!” i.e. pray more, read your Bible, teach a Sunday School class, help out at the Food Bank, smile-don’t be angry. All good things – but why are we doing them?

Here’s a startling truth: God doesn’t like ‘shoulds’ either. He says, ‘Come to me all you who are thirsty...’ Come because you want to, not because you have to.

Which demands the question: What do you want? What do you love? What energizes you, restores, satisfies, fills you up? What do you want to say ‘Yes’ to and where would you like to say, ‘No’?

Here’s the zinger… If God has granted us the freedom to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ – even when it makes him sad – how will we offer the same grace to others this Holiday Season?

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Feelings Allowed

What happens when someone close to you - a friend or spouse - has a bad day? When one of your kids is in a funk? How do you respond?

Do you try to relieve the negative feelings? Is your tendency to criticize & minimize or ignore the emotion? Often our response is a reflection our own feelings. We may feel responsible to make things better, calm the waters, relieve the discomfort. Sometimes we experience awkwardness and embarrassment; a sense of being ill at ease, unsettled or uncomfortable. We feel as though we should “do something” when the other is down. Maybe we just don’t like being around someone when they are in a funk. It might bring us down. We don’t want anyone to feel bad. Many times our loved one simply needs a safe place to feel what he or she is feeling.

The more searching question is, “Why amI nervous or uncomfortable when someone else is struggling? What is happening inside of me at that moment? ”

Let me recommend and quote from two excellent resources you may want to add to your library:

In Safe Haven Marriage, Dr. Archibald Hart and Dr. Sharon Hart Morris note: many people fail to realize that there is a basic “wisdom” in all of the emotions. They are neither random nor unpredictable. Whatever you are feeling, you’re feeling for a reason! Emotions are the stuff of which life is made – happiness and sadness, elation and depression. As Ecclesiastes 3:4 tells us, there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Because emotions – which we sometimes call “feelings” – are God-given, they are designed into us to serve a purpose.

Emotions are biologically-based and are a synthesis of all that you experience at any particular time. Your brain processes all the information perceived by your senses and converts that information into emotions. You do not have an experience or a thought without an accompanying emotion. Some of these emotions may be imperceptible, but they are there nevertheless. Emotions are intertwined with your beliefs, expectations, and thoughts.

5 Ways Emotions Affect Us:
1. They tell us we have a need – for significance (worth), purpose, meaning or mastery.
2. They direct our thoughts and can overpower reason
3. They give meaning to our thoughts. (although not necessarily accurate)
4. They prompt us to respond. (positively or negatively)
5. They inspire responses from others. (ditto above)

Milan & Kaye Yerkovich have written extensively on this subject in How We Love:

We need to learn to come into relationship for comfort and relief. Being fully known and understood requires that we say aloud to someone else what is going on within our souls. We need to be safe for the other person so they can come tell us they are hurt, angry, etc. We need to experience love, even in the dark places of our lives.

Comfort is not possible unless a connection is made. Comfort is an art.

We often offer reassurance and miss the opportunity to really listen. Asking Q’s helps to find out more about how the other person feels. It is also a way to validate feelings. We all need validation. Validating another’s emotions simply means letting them know that their feelings make sense to us and that we have viewed the situation from their perspective. The key to validation is an attitude of acceptance. What a person is feeling is what a person is feeling, no matter how I view the situation. To accept the reality that the feelings are there whether I like them or not is to validate that person’s experience. This is a sign of maturity.

When someone listens to us and asks questions, we have an opportunity to reflect and put words to what is going on inside us. The self-awareness that comes from learning to reflect gives us the ability to understand our reactions, behaviors, needs, and inner conflicts. Even if you think you know what the other person is feeling, ask anyway!

Action Step – Next time you encounter negative emotions:
1. Ask yourself what’s happening inside you!
2. Ask the other person, “What are you feeling? (or needing)

The goal is to stop telling them what they are feeling, needing, doing, or need to do and listen – to them, to ourselves.

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