Disconnected Connections

With as many communication options as you have now, you’d think connecting with others would be easier than ever. Texting, cell phones, MySpace and more. It’s not like most of the interactions that take place through these portals are brilliant. Sometimes, you just want contact with another human being.

Relationships are complicated. Whether you are talking with your friend, your lover or your sister, things can get messed up. They don’t hear what you mean to say or get huffy because you said what you said. Lovers now have one angry conversation after another, punctuated by hanging up on what the other is saying.

Try something different.

Tell them what you feel. This is harder than it sounds, because you can’t say “I feel that you….” This isn’t a statement of what you feel. It’s telling them what you think they’re doing or what they mean. You need to focus on communicating your own emotions. Try just saying “I feel _____” and filling in the blank with an emotion word. Angry, loved, hurt, unimportant, scared, whatever. There are lots of words to communicate emotions, but you have to talk about your emotions, not their actions. Yes, their actions are important, but not now. When you need to tell them what’s going on with you, go for emotion. “I feel_____.” Then pause, take a breath, a drink of water, something, but stop talking. The other person will get a better sense of what you’ve said, if you don’t run on.

Be clean with your communication. Don’t muddy it up by making accusations (however justified). If you do this, it’ll be easy for them (lover, mother, brother, friend) to react to your accusation and completely disregard the emotions you shared. You need them to hear how you feel.

You also need to hear how they feel. This can be really, really hard, particularly if you don’t feel heard by them. Lots of people want to do the “tit for tat” thing to show them how it feels. While the desire is understandable, this is counter-productive and just doesn’t work.

You’ve probably gone around and around these arguments a dozen times. It may feel like you’re getting no where. The real key is to remember that these people are important to you and you’re important to them, even if you don’t feel that way. You both want to get along better. You both want each other to win in life.

Slow down your interaction. If you’re the fast one and you feel like the other person doesn’t say anything in response, you may need to slow down even more. Some people don’t respond because they think you’ll jump down their throats or just keep arguing. Do your best to listen to these concerns. Hear them.

Resist the urge to defend yourself. This can be very hard, but it’s important. You probably feel attacked by what they say, but you need to hear it and they won’t feel heard if you immediately jump into telling them they’re wrong about you.

Cell phones and MySpace might be easy, but effective communication is complicated. Do your part, though, and you might get somewhere.

Don't Rob Your Child

You’ll never stop loving your kid, no matter what, but it may be time to stop parenting.
This world can be tough. Whether your kid is eighteen and joining the army to fight the bad guys or twenty-eight and unable to find a career, you still love him. Even when you don’t like what he’s doing (or not doing), you love him.

That doesn’t mean that your child needs you to keep bailing him out financially or calling her boss to say she’s sick when she’s hung over. Stop ‘helping.’ Now, this is one huge gray area. The challenges facing your daughter may seem overwhelming and not her fault. In that event, you may find it natural to dip into your savings account and pay for the operation. Help sometimes makes sense, but when you are consistently jumping in to rescue your child, you’re not really helping.

Knowing when to stop offering assistance can be the most difficult decision you’ll face. You want the best for your child. You want him to have all the good things in life, but he’s going to feel better about himself if he earns those perks himself. In order to build a strong self-esteem, he needs to overcome his own obstacles and cope with his own crises. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help. But you need to be very careful what you offer.

Rule #1
Never offer to give your kid something that’ll leave you in a bind. Give only what you can afford to give. Be very, very careful about getting credit for her and committing your home as security against her debts. When you risk yourself to help your child, you may very well be hanging a major guilt-trip over her head.

Rule #2
Never do for him what he can do for himself. Yes, you love him and it gives you joy to do things for him, but he needs to feel strong enough to do things for himself. This is really important. It’s more loving to let him find his way out of difficulties, than to step in and be the hero. Your motives may be the purest, but you need to let him work out his problems.

Rule #3
Don't clean up his messes. He needs to feel the result of his own choices.

The hardest, most loving thing you can do is to let your child face the consequences of her own choices. This is how we learn. It’s the only real way to learn. Getting too much, too easily robs kids of the opportunity to believe in themselves. Facing challenge is like weight living for the character. It builds strength. Your child needs to know he’s strong. He can only realize this when he deals with his own messes and faces his trouble without parental intervention.

Resist the urge to rescue. Refrain from giving too much. You can be helpful, but you need to carefully examine whether your actions would actually benefit her or whether you’ll be helping make her weak.

Don't Dis The In-Laws

You and your significant other had a huge fight and the two of you are hardly talking. Maybe he left and spent the night elsewhere; maybe you’ve been apart for several days or weeks.

It may look like there’s large black cloud over the future and you two have issues you’re not sure how to fix. But breaking up and going your separate ways doesn’t sound good, either, when you cool off a little. You think about the jokes the two of you laughed at and the fun times you share. You might think about tender moments you’ve shared and wonder if you’ll regret ending the relationship.

It’s a very gray situation.

While you’re trying to decide if there’s any possibility for the two of you, you might want to consider your actions carefully. You may have moments when you think you’re totally done and won’t ever see him again…but think carefully before you dis his mother. Don’t say bad things about his best friend and don’t tell your girlfriend about his sexual quirks.

You might stay with this guy, after all.

Until you’re very, very sure that this is over, don’t do or say anything you can’t take back. Even the most smitten of lovers won’t easily forget you saying bad things about his dog. Don’t insult his truck. Don’t make nasty remarks about his sister.

Your best friend might have talked ugly about him when the two of you were split, but you don’t have to tell him what she said. Certain things need to disappear in almost-broke-up land.

There are comments you make and things your family says about him that won’t help in the event of an attempt at reconciliation. While said in the heat of the moment and, generally, under quite a bit of stress, this type of thing isn’t easily forgotten when repeated to your partner.

Relationships are challenging and dark moments occur in even the best. But just because you feel the two of you teetering on the brink of break-up, doesn’t mean you’re going over the edge.

Wait.

Don’t slam any doors, even if you really, really want to. You may feel very differently tomorrow and following your impulses now can lead to long-term problems. The relationship might be difficult now, but you don’t need to make matters worse. You may be able to work through the problems.

Saying angry, impetuous, unforgivable things can seem, well, unforgivable when you really, really want things to work out.

Time to Commit

Delaying a relationship commitment until you’re sure? You might want to rethink this. Rushing into living with the person you’re dating or marrying quickly can be a mistake, but the opposite can be true, too.

Dating the same person for years with no real commitment smacks of unaddressed, unresolved issues or plain, old, knee-knocking fear. You might want to be sure, but there’s no way to guarantee that this person is the one for you. Break-ups are painful and frustrating. You might want to find a way to avoid these, but never making a commitment won’t do it.

Some relationships are deeply flawed and, if you’re paying attention, you’ll probably know this early. You just might not want to admit it to yourself. There are probably things about this person that are great. You’d miss the person if he were totally gone from your life, so you hang on. If you’re honest with yourself, you may be delaying dealing with this relationship because you don’t want to be alone.

A flawed relationship can seem better than no relationship, at all. You might be biding your time until something better comes along.

If this isn’t true and you don’t want another other relationship, other than the one you have, you need to deal with your fear. It’s time to re-evaluate the commitment issue. Whether this means marriage or a statement of “I don’t believe in legal marriage, but I’m completely committed to this relationship” is totally up to you. Either way, commitment in a relationship can function to move you both into a different place.

Once you’re not dealing with the issue of whether or not you’ll be with her next week, other important things can become the focus. Committed relationships have a different flavor than uncommitted ones. When you’re solidly in a relationship, you begin to face conflict differently. It’s no longer a question of “if” you’ll deal with whatever issue, it’s more a question of “how” you’ll come to terms.

Learning to work through conflict with the person most intimately connected to you is tremendously educational and very healthy. You’ll learn a bunch. In order to successfully deal with disagreements, you have to learn to hear her concerns. You also have to express your own. This process is very different than just yelling at one another or breaking up and getting back together when you miss her.

Conflict with a loved one isn’t fun. It feels lousy and most people hate it. Without this, though, individuals don’t learn. You won’t know how to listen(even when you’re mad) and you won’t know how to say what’s really bothering you(without calling names and going off on tangents).

So, either dive in or walk away. Fish or cut bait.

Commitment can be your friend.

You're Not Bad

Yes, you’ve done some stupid things. You’ve even been vindictive and mean-spirited. Sometimes, you get really, really angry, and you may strike out at those who’ve hurt you. None of this makes you a bad person.

It makes you human.

Badness is a choice that becomes ingrained over multiple actions. You have to work at being bad. It takes consistency. Negotiating your way through relationships, job situations and friendships, that sometimes don’t feel friendly, can present you with lots of opportunities to be less than kind. This doesn’t mean you are a terrible individual, though. You’re just dealing with the lessons you need to learn.

You might feel guilty and justified, all at the same time. You probably don’t feel understood or listened to, although the other party may say nastily that he or she understands you alright. Feelings don’t make you bad. Behavior doesn’t make you bad, either, although behavior can land you in a heap of trouble. Acting badly towards others can make life hard for you, but it doesn’t necessarily make you an awful person.

All people get angry sometimes. Anger is an emotion like grief or disappointment. The actions you take are much more important. You choose what you do in various situations. If you’re consciously destructive to yourself and others, you’ll lose relationships and limit your life.

But bad people don’t typically think they’re bad. They do harsh, ugly things to others; they limit themselves in massively dysfunctional ways. They feel justified in their actions, though, even when these are destructive to others. Whether this destructivity is emotional or physical, hurting others automatically hurts you.

Being this kind of individual wears away a person’s humanity.

You struggle, at times, and you probably sometimes make bad choices. You may have patterns that hurt you. You might consistently put yourself in bad situations. None of this makes you an irredeemable person. Defining yourself as “bad” or unworthy can actually hinder you from becoming a better person. It leaves you feeling horrible and saps the energy you need to see improvement you can make in your behavior.

Remember, you get to choose the kind of individual you want to be. Your actions may sometimes feel forced on you, but don’t forget that you’re in charge of your own behavior. People aren’t born bad, but a few make destructive choices over and over. They are in the minority.

The other 90% make stupid decisions and stumble their way toward recovery. Never forget that life involves difficult lessons. Most people are just trying to learn these.

If you feel guilty about your less-than-stellar moments, you’re probably not a bad person.

We're All Heroes

When life is complicated and challenging, it’s natural to want someone to rely on. Someone to believe in. Someone who can make things better.

You want someone to save us from the bad, scary things, but you need to be careful. Focusing on heroes can sometimes keep us on-lookers in life, rather than participants.

During these challenging economic times, many individuals look to leaders for hope. This is happening now. Whether we stand cheering when a pilot lands a crippled airplane—keeping all safe—or a young father raises a child alone after his wife dies or a new president is sworn into office, people desperately want to believe in a knight in shining armor.

Someone to make it better.

In truth, every individual is a hero when he deals with his own fears. This is the hardest thing any person can do in life. To take decisive action and learn from his own choices, makes a person heroic. Being a big media hero isn’t a reality for most people. Facing daily life dilemmas is many times the harder thing.

We’re all capable of true heroism.

It is common to watch and cheer as others with big names are facing and conquering significant challenges. Celebrities with disabled children or crippling diseases are lauded by the media, but many people deal with these kinds of challenges in obscurity every day, and with usually a lot less money. Life has it’s difficult moments and, while money or celebrity status doesn’t make these go away, being wealthy or well-known makes an individual's strength more recognized.

It's important that you realize your own heroic moments.

The desire to celebrate and make heroes of others can sometimes spring from individuals not dealing with their own challenges. Watching famous people and big media moments is just easier than facing your own problems. You may not know what to do with the challenges facing you. You may feel overwhelmed. Relationships are complicated and parenting is sometimes heart-breaking. The hard choices are the ones you face. Your life; your own challenges. Your dilemmas are the important ones. Although you may not be on television and may not receive awards for it, you can be a truly courageous hero by dealing with the challenges in your life.

Having public heroes can give hope in hard times, but never forget you're own capacity. You can choose to handle the difficult times in your life. You have that strength.

You’re the real hero.

Ready to Forgive?

Forgiving an offense or a breach of relationship can be healing to the victim, but rushing into forgiveness doesn’t make the hurt go away. It just goes underground and you still struggle to move forward with your life.

Hatred and rage damage the person harboring those feelings. Going forward from that experience is important, but make sure you’re ready to stop feeling resentment.

It is natural and reasonable to feel ill will when one has suffered a grievance. Being pissed makes sense in these situations. Feeling the emotions that come with an offense actually can help you incorporate your experience into a functional future life. You need to feel this pain in order to eventually feel happiness.

Denial stops the healing.

In order to truly move forward, you need to acknowledge and accept the emotions you have. If you’ve suffered at the hands of another person, you’re naturally going to feel furious. Don’t push this away or think you’re a bad person. Your reaction makes sense, given the circumstances.

Be angry. Be really, really angry.

The emotion of anger is, in itself, not bad or dangerous. Actions can be bad, but feelings are just feelings. Being upset or disappointed or hurt may not be pleasant, but you still need to accept these emotions.

Sometimes, you might feel down deep that you deserve this. That you’ve somehow brought this on yourself, that you’re not a good person yourself. These emotions are natural, but the beliefs about yourself are probably crap. Unless suffering is a direct consequence of your own actions, it’s not deserved.

After anger, you might feel hurt and sadness. Sometimes, you might be aware of all three. At some point, you’ll probably start thinking about the offender. In order to do something bad to another person, he has to feel pretty bad about himself. Whether this involves cheating, lying or murder, human beings don’t hurt others unless they’ve got issues themselves.

Even when you’re suffering from the offense done to you, you can recognize the misery in another person. Even if they’re suffering as a result of their own choices, it’s still sad.

Allow yourself your own feelings. Then, maybe, you’ll be ready to forgive.