Are You Owning It?

I want to have the kind of life where all sorts of people have keys to my house. Unlike the lady I met on vacation, I do not feel intruded upon when handing over a spare key to someone I trust...and most likely need. In fact, I am lucky to have family and friends who will receive my key and all that it symbolizes.

Our annual lake vacation delights Pete and I; it is predictable and convenient. It is relaxing and fun for us. While others dream of exotic locations and new sights, we are pretty boring but blessedly happy. It's no wonder, what with our anticipation of the arrival day of our departure, that I was more than a little disappointed when, poised to depart for vacation, water landed on my head when I walked under a smoke detector positioned outside my bedroom. Then the alarm began to blare.

It turns out that we had a roof leak and it would take awhile to figure out how to solve the problems we could solve on that rainy Saturday...when we SHOULD have been headed out for our long anticipated retreat. Initially I feared that vacation would be delayed, but quickly realized I had keys and people willing to use them.

Our kids and neighbors all agreed to help us leave. Roofers returned calls, our insurance company was amazing. Vacation was not delayed.

This is why I do not want to move to Delaware even as I admire the moxie of a woman, whose age is certainly north of mine by miles, willing to pull up stakes and set out on a new life...even at an advanced age. But this is not for me. I want "roots that grow deep". My life is not Facebook sexy but it is the one I choose. My responsibility. My way.

What's your way? Are you owning it? Are you willing to take so much responsibility for your life that you can also enjoy all the different ways other people choose to craft their own stories?

Go Solve Some New Problems!

For a variety of reasons, I grew up thinking it was my job to solve and even eliminate problems. My brother Bob was working on a project for scouts that involved staining wood. He was working in his bedroom for some reason that no one's brain can understand and accidentally spilled the stain on his bedspread. His brain knew that to go to mom for help would be disastrous, so he came to me. I solved the problem with my middle school brain.

I quickly sopped up what I could, ran the bedspread down to the utility room, threw in in the washer with extra detergent and then marched up to my parents' bedroom for affirmation for a job well done. I did a job alright - on the washer. Who knew varnish was NOT good for washing machines? My mistake was so BIG that I'm not sure anyone ever got around to asking Bob why he was staining a hunk of wood on his bedspread.

Today, I am happy to go back in time and report back to that little girl that she was doing the best she could with the information she had in her brain at that time. I would remind her that helping her brother is and will forever be her core value and that there is nothing wrong with that - ever. But I would also reassure her that over the course of her life, her experiences and situations will teach her how to "help" better. I would also give her some very key information - problems never go away.

Life is full of problems. Life will always be full of problems. Problems for the curious are not bad, they are opportunities to grow and learn. A rich and wonderful life can be crafted by ending up with better problems as we learn and grow.

I have spent way too much time judging myself and fearing problems. I believed that problems were MY FAULT. But mostly, problems are about responsibility. "Fault" is just a word we use to describe the consequences of a solution that is going to teach us something. It's not pleasant, but it is fully human and we can learn how to take full responsibility for that too.

I wonder what I will take full responsibility for today. I wonder what I will learn from it. I hope if I discover something today that I am at "fault" for from the past that I will be as gentle and kind to myself as I was to my brother all those years ago. It was easy for me to see that this cute kid made an honest mistake and try to protect him from an inappropriately (maybe understandable) harsh parental reaction. Why do we struggle so much to recognize that this is also true for ourselves?

Go solve some new problems!

Certainty is a Drag

When we decide that the pathway to growth is not through certainty, we take the road less traveled - taking responsibility for our lives. This attitude creates a whole new set of problems. Certainty brings with it a sort of script for life. Someone can bring up a topic and all we have to do is hit our own "play" button. We can spout off our certainty. But when we assume we are responsible we preclude certainty as an option. Life will keep presenting us with confusing opportunities to ....change.

For example, if I could be certain of how to advise families with loved ones in need of recovery, I could respond to all their questions (which are usually pretty predictable) by pushing my "play" button. Have a kid smoking cannabis in your basement? Kick him out if you don't like his behavior! That's a "play" button response.

But what if the kid has a traumatic brain injury? What if the kid has developmental delays? What if mom and dad's greatest fear is the kid will not be safe on the streets? These are legitimate questions that deserve respect.

I'm far less certain than I once was about how to support recovery for those we love who are struggling. This requires that I continue to take responsibility for keeping current on the latest research and best recovery practices. None of it is certain - even the newest approaches. But it makes for a better life.

Think of it like this - if we are certain, then we are probably irritated when people do not agree with us. Maybe we feel anxious when our certainty is challenged. But if we are constantly taking responsibility for our limitations, if we are curious, then we are perpetual learners. And maybe, just maybe, we can actually end up better equipped to help those we love.

Certainty is a drag; responsibility is a doorway to more joy and fewer regrets.

The Liberating Power of Taking Responsibility

If we want to grow, then we best learn how to take responsibility for our problems. One of the things that brings me the greatest joy is working with our son Scott on a daily basis. Few parents have this privilege. Sometimes Scott and I have conflict and we get to sit down and figure out what's going on. This is really a great problem and has brought us a lot closer - in my opinion.

Early on, I would sometimes get defensive if he disagreed with me over an issue. Not always, but under the right conditions, I took exception to his feedback. Thanks be to God and our work with the Enneagram, we began to get more clarity around our habitual ways of getting out of sorts with one another. That cleared up a lot of the conflict.

But not all of it. And here's why. Part of the issue was rooted in my own insecurity. This was part Enneagram stuff and part historical context but it was ALL 100% my responsibility to work on - and I have done just that. Failure to take responsibility for every single bit of my life could have had disastrous consequences for our relationship. I might have continued to ask HIM to take responsibility for my own insecurity by changing how he "handled" our conflicts. That was NOT his work to do. This was easier than it could have been because Scott takes responsibility for is stuff too. Separately and together, we work on taking responsibility for our own work and that means we have far fewer instances where we confuse responsibility with fault-finding.

Last week Scott had a power outage right before our Thursday night meeting - which he was leading. He threw his stuff in his computer bag and rushed to our house to get set up in time to run the group. After the group, instead of assuming that there was fault to be called out, I instead took responsibility to follow up with curiosity. "Hey, I thought you were a little grumpy tonight. Is everything ok?"

He replied, "With the group?" Looking chagrined and no small amount of mortified.

"No! That went fine, I thought you were a little short with me." I clarified.

He paused. He thought. He answered, "Man, I was really stressed. I was worried that I would leave everyone hanging on that call. Sorry you got the brunt of that." He took responsibility and I immediately knew that he was also not finding fault with me. He was not saying I was an annoying mother with many faults that he tolerates. No one was at fault, everyone was taking responsibility for speaking about their experience.

I concurred with his assessment and reiterated that the problem at hand got solved, which was a big win. No residual conflict or feelings or issues stand between us and our treasured relationship. When we take responsibility for our lives, it is liberating.