Positive Faith in Action

The next few days are about finding ways to put positive faith into action. Yesterday we suggested getting started by remembering that every human being is created in the divine image of God. Humanity is precious to God, and inherently reflects his nature (amongst other things of course).

A close corollary of this is to look for the good in others. Yes, this seems simple and trite. But, isn’t it nice when you can tell that someone sees the good in you? I don’t know this for sure, but I’d imagine it helps you relax, feel safe, feel connected, and, perhaps, like you really do belong in this world.

Can we offer that experience to others as part of our call to love our neighbor as ourselves? Can we actively look for, and see, the good in others so that we can affirm them as beloved children of God?

Checking Your Core Values

When we try to use our core values to make decisions, we need to be very, very careful and proceed with caution. Why? Because often we are wrong. Some of you remember when a parent was whipping you with a belt (or switch or lead pipe) hearing your parent say, "I am doing this for your own good and because I love you." Maybe parental units were once taught that spanking a kid was good for them - that's not considered great parenting today.

I am particularly fond of all those meme's on Facebook that say something like, "I walked four miles uphill in the snow both ways to school and look how great I turned out." Or the ever popular, "My parents beat me with a paddle, gave me beer to put hair on my chest, and cured my bronchitis with whiskey and honey and look how great I turned out." And we wonder: why do so many of us struggle with substance abuse, anxiety and depression? Are we all really turning out "so great"?

This fits under the category of potential attribution errors. Attribution errors occur when we attribute behavior to external situational factors outside our control. Typically we tend to overemphasize negative motives to people we do not like and positive motives to those we do like. If we do not want to actually wrestle with the effect certain aspects of our childhood had on us, or if we want to blame our childhood for all our problems, we will "attribute" certain memories according to what suits our bias.

We do this with our own core values too. Sometimes we attribute our behavior to self-care when we are actually being selfish. Or we say we are taking a particular action because we love someone when in fact we are judging them.

Here's a suggestion: we should take responsibility for our lives without excuse. When we make a decision, we do not have to explain it or justify it - we take responsibility for it. We own the decision. We do not excuse it in any way. Some of you may be wondering - what? Wait a minute! I was not responsible for what happened to me!!! What the heck do you mean? Tomorrow, I'll do some explaining of my own.

Final Thoughts on Control…

This month, I (Scott) went through and critiqued a month’s worth of my past posts. There is an awful lot that I hated about my prior posts- mostly the tone that I write with- but also quite a few of the ideas, and perhaps even my approach to life in general. 

I have become softer as I age- but I mean that in a good way (not the way a basketball coach would say it). I more easily recognize the importance of seeking out the good in people, rather than assuming the worst or looking for all the ways they might be self-deceptive or psychologically damaged. 

I no longer feel confident that I know why I do things or that I could figure out why other people do things. However, I do think it’s important to consider how our actions impact each other and to take responsibility for them and to make changes when and where we can. I just don’t necessarily think the “why” helps us do that. 

But mostly- I just see how helpful it is to treat people as if they already are the person they aspire to be. I sincerely think this helps people get closer to being who they want to be. And I think this is how God views us- not as we are- but as the person He will one day make us (or, more precisely, the person he’s in the process of transforming us into…a process which will one day be complete). The following verses speak to this point- and it might be worth spending some time with them today as we wrap up this series:

So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now. So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived! 

2 Corinthians 5:16-17

Evaluation and Communication

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

The difficulty (or one of the difficulties) in honest self-reflection following a fight comes in creating the distance we need between our attempts at discernment and the underlying unpleasant experience.  In other words, our feelings tend to cloud our judgment.  We need to create space between the emotional trigger and the beginning of our process of deciphering the meaning of the event or fight.  

The problem is, we intuitively and instantaneously seek the meaning of our interactions, often before they’re even finished.  What did he (or she) mean by this phrase?  Or by this look?  He (or she) is so angry, and this has never happened before, does that mean this relationship is over?  

In other words, we begin the analysis in the height of the moment when we’re least equipped to draw conclusions about the true meaning of the moment.  What I mean is, we draw plenty of conclusions about what that moment means, but very few of them are true or accurate.  

How do we draw accurate conclusions about what has taken place during a fight?  

More tomorrow.

2021 Scott reflects:

I can’t even being to describe what a big soap box I could get on about “evaluation” and the role it plays in communication. 

One of my counseling professors drove me crazy. Any time I would bring up a scenario where I would ask, “What do you think is going on with this person?” He would completely ignore it- and, instead, begin a conversation about what might a person who is doing that thing I’ve described need.

In other words, the lesson I got out of this was something like: You’re not going to figure people out, people often can’t figure themselves out, but we can often see what people want or need from the world by how they act in the world. For me, that removes the judgment from the situation. I don’t focus on evaluating what the other person is doing- I focus on what their actions might indicate about their needs. 

I believe this is helpful in life in general. I don’t think we’re good at evaluating, though people are often very sure that they know why everyone does everything they’re doing. 

Let’s try to move away from that. We don’t need to understand people- we probably never will. But, instead, ask: are they leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that helps us see what they need from us? 

Safety and Growth

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

Make sure to read the past couple days before reading today.

The trigger in our example is the mother's voicing of something related to the son's cleanliness.  Because of the nature of their relationship, the son explodes on his mother in reaction to his trigger.  The reaction in this circumstance is loud, external, aggressive.  It's also something that, to the son, feels justified.  

But triggers also translate to other relationships and this is where they begin to get tricky.  Let's say the son has a girlfriend, wife, spouse, roommate, partner, etc.  Let's say the the son and his partner have a history of a wonderfully healthy and mutually respectful relationship.  Let's say the partner one day says, "Hey, since we've got company coming in this weekend would you mind picking up the dirty clothes next to your side of the bed and I'll do the same?"  How does the son respond?  

It depends on many factors, including how attentive he is to himself and how much work he has done.  If he's aware that, given his history, requests for cleanliness are always going to sound like harsh critiques then he may be aware that he has to suppress the experience of a trigger in order to choose an appropriate response to his partner.  He may find that his internal reaction is angry, he may feel like his stomach is in a knot, he may feel uncomfortable.  

If he's done some good work with a support system to process and deal with his issues, and has learned to be attentive to himself, he may have the capacity to resist an accidental release of tension.  Instead, he may say, "Sure, I'll get this stuff cleaned up."  

2021 Scott’s thoughts on 2017 Scott:

The son’s response in these examples is not just about the work he’s done- it may also be about the role these other relationships play in his life. Let’s say he has a partner that makes him feel safe, secure, and deeply loved- it may very well be that this is what it takes to lessen the intensity of his reactions. This is because we can have a healing impact on others through being safe, through avoiding criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and more. This helps us all stay calm. 

You can, with your presence alone, help someone feel safe. When they feel safe, they might even grow.