Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
Wash my hands in warm water always no matter how long it takes. Be a Canuck fan early in the season. Say to Carole “I love you” while holding her for 2 minutes. Ignore the “call” of Groupon emails and craigslist bargains. Get home on time and not bump into a bicyclist. Find 2 minutes every day to mindfully wonder. Respond more — react less. “Meet and greet the human condition” (I borrowed this from a poem by Kathi Wolfe.). Taste my breakfast. Remember what clothes I wore yesterday. Smile surreptisiously. Laugh with my heart-held convictions. Appreciatively wait at red lights. Move impulses from my limbic brain to my cerebral cortex. Wear orange.
Tags: differentiation, insight, wisdom
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Sunday, December 5th, 2010
That is what I ask myself when I screw up. (“Why the heck did I do that?”) And it is what I ask of you, my client friends, when you ruin your best chance to live an effective and gracious life. (“Tell me why you did that again?”) When I ask why you did something, I am probably thinking about a “trinity” of A’s.
A1 – My first “A” is “attention.” All of us need it, our souls would shrivel without it, and we are designed to give attention to others and absorb it for ourselves. Saying, “She just wants attention” is, of course, true. Take the dismissive tone away and you understand one of the great human motivators.
A2 is “affection”, that someone (hopefully, many “someones”) would want us, worry about our well being, look forward to our coming home for the evening, initiate a really great gladness, that kind of thing. It is why we marry and, when it is missing, the reason that many have their spirits broken and consequently break their relationships.
And A3 is “approval.” This is when someone catches you doing something right and commenting on it. It is the basis of self-esteem in children and surely adults as well. It is related to “thankfulness,” that spirited quality that finds the good in someone and notices it out loud. Shouting approval is good and whispering criticism is a good idea, too.
These 3 A’s are motivators for life and some of the reasons for being. It is why we do the things we do.
Imagine your life where you grew up being noticed and wanted and thanked. If you can imagine this, you can imagine health and wellbeing.
Imagine your life where you feel misplaced, where love has to be earned with good grades or perfection of another sort, and where your triumphs get lost in the busyness of stuff. If you can imagine this, you can imagine fatigue, depression, loneliness and giving up.
Tags: emotions, insight, wisdom
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Monday, September 13th, 2010
A client friend talked to me about the power of labels, diagnoses and names. I asked her to write a brief blog as I wanted you to hear the thoughtfulness of her words. I think that this follows up well with my last blog on “Someone Else’s Opinion of Me is None of My Business.” The subject is “differentiation.”
“When we give something a name it acquires a weight of importance that may become too heavy. So, if I cannot sleep at 3 AM, I resist the inclination to say, or even think, “I have insomnia” and instead say, “How curious, it is 3 AM and I am wide awake.” Somehow, being “an awake person” is far less worrisome than being an “insomniac.” This inclination to deny some of life’s realities the right to a title can become a little comical. Announcing one is not going to have a “A Mid-Life Crisis” is a good way to get a laugh from your counsellor.
“Un-naming something is not ignoring it, but rather a deliberate effort to retain a personal identity that is larger than any label or diagnosis. One can seek help without saying, “I am depressed” or “I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” or whatever. The initiative to seek help can be found in naming the result I hope for as much as it is found in naming what I wish to change. If others want to give names to what they see in me, that’s alright as names can help with understanding. However, I am under no obligation to add this name to myself and carry the weight of it.”
Tags: insight, wisdom
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Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
Some of us are natural introverts in an extroverted world. Pastors are often like this. Sometimes extroverts find themselves trapped in an introverted family. The tensions they both experience are palpable.
Introverts get energy from spending time alone, especially if tired, stressed or upset. Socializing is not for renewing their emotional selves. In fact, being with people, especially having to be “social,” tends to drain their energy. “People = pain” for many introverts, especially if they cannot control the social world. They look forward to the enjoyment of the company of a few people, usually not more than 6 or 12, or a newcomer who is intriguing, or people of a like mind. Introverts are people who need to know the rules of engagement in social settings and are anxious without visible structure. Large gatherings, like weddings or receptions, feel awkward and anxious, especially with lots of strangers. In these events, introverts find a company of a few who are like them, where they can connect and coalesce. They are often anxious when they are made the focus of attention. They tend to have depth in their relationships rather than breadth. They usually prefer to work by themselves. Extroverts may see them as antisocial, withdrawn, inhibited, elitist and uninterested.
Extroverts are vibrant people who enjoy the company of lots of others, so they generally shine at parties and rediscover themselves in crowds where there is a bit of chaos. They may be afraid of aloneness and silence – at least that is what their more introverted spouse or friend might say. A silent spiritual retreat can be torture for an extrovert. They thrive on meeting new people and they tend to develop their ideas mainly by talking it out with others. Some extroverts require an audience to have their thoughts make sense. They are inclusive and welcoming and are great at eliminating barriers and boundaries. They tend to have lots of connections (not so many “relationships”) – more breadth than depth. They can feel anxious when they are not with other people and they often find it draining when having to be on their own. While enthusiastic and winsome, to an introvert they can seem overwhelming, intrusive or “a bit much.” Extroverts can become self-pitying, agitated and withdrawn when not engaged in activities and action. Extroverts are stimulus hungry, needing activity and change as well as interaction. They look for events to be experienced and can become stimulus junkies, unsettling their family and friends.
No one is a “pure” introvert or extrovert; think of it as a continuum. Jack, as an example, is a sales associate with a VW dealership where he consistently wins the plaudits and awards of management. He knows how to make friends with shoppers who intuitively trust that he is not trying to sell them a vehicle that they don’t want. As a sales leader, he is less technique-focused than he is people-responsive. In fact, he resists sales courses with lots of hoopla, where he has to be “bigger than he really is.” His boss thinks he must be an extrovert but he is most energized at home playing board games with his teenaged kids and walking with his wife on the seawall, coffee in hand. He has learned to apply his natural introversion in an extroversion market.
John Gottman, the marital researcher, argues that 69% of relational / marriage difficulties are essentially unsolvable, conflicts that we learn to live with and, perhaps, prosper because of. The tension around introversion-extroversion is one of these unsolvables, binaries that are not readily reconciled but can be appreciatively accepted.
Tags: couples, insight, psych assessment
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