Valuing Our Needs

Core Value, Relationships, Truth 0

When we don’t ask for what we want and need, we discount ourselves.  We deserve better.

Maybe others taught us it wasn’t polite or appropriate to speak up for ourselves.  The truth is, if we don’t, our unmet wants and needs may ultimately come back to haunt our relationships.  We may end up feeling angry or resentful, or we may begin to punish someone else for not guessing what we need.  We may end the relationship because it doesn’t meet our needs.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 355

Verbal Abuse Defined

Core Value, Healing, Relationships, Truth 0

Verbal abuse defines people in some negative way, and it creates emotional pain and mental anguish when it occurs in a relationship. . . . 

Any statement that tells you what, who, or how you are, or what you think, feel, or want, is defining you and is, therefore, abusive.  Such statements suggest an invasion of your very being, as if to say, “I’ve looked within you and now I’ll tell you what you want, feel, etc.”  Similarly, threats are verbally abusive because, like torture, they attempt to limit your freedom to choose and thus to define yourself.  Of course, if you have defined yourself to someone, “I’m Suzy’s Mom,” and that person says, “That’s Suzy’s Mom,” they are affirming or validating what you have said.  On the other hand, verbal abuse is a lie told to you or told to others about you.  If you believe the lie, it would lead you to think that you are not who you are or that you are less than you are. . . .

Another common way the abuser defines his partner is by walking away when she is asking a question, or mentioning something, or even in the middle of a conversation.  By withholding a response, he defines her as nonexistent. . . .

Defining statements are the opposite of affirmations, which are positive statements that confirm what we know and value about ourselves.  For example, when a man says, “I hear you.  I understand,” even if he does not agree with you, he validates or confirms what you have expressed to him.  If, however, he says, “You’re too sensitive,” or “Where did you get a crazy idea like that,” he invalidates and defines you.

— Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Man: Can He Change?, p. 5-6

Love the Sinner

Core Value, Forgiveness, Love 0

Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction:  how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man?  But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life — namely myself.  However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself.  There had never been the slightest difficulty about it.  In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man.  Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.  Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery.  We ought to hate them.  Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid.  But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves:  being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis, edited by Patricia S. Klein, p. 226

Positive Intention

Core Value, Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Positive intention is shorthand for talking about why you want your relationship to succeed, or what you are going to do to make it work, or how you can grow from a challenging experience.  It is the opposite of complaining.  Positive intention helps you see the big picture of a successful relationship and stops you from focusing on the little picture of disappointment or grievance. . . .  I want you to share stories with yourself, with your loved one, and with your friends and family that reflect a strong and positive commitment to your marriage.  These stories do not have to be long or detailed, but they should anchor your relationship in the idea of goodness and the continued possibility of success.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 204

Making a Point to Ourselves

Core Value, Healing, Truth 0

Trying excessively to make a point with another may mean that we have not yet made that point with ourselves.  Once we make that point with ourselves, once we understand, we will know what to do.

The issue is not about others understanding and taking us seriously.  The issue is not about others believing we’re good and good enough.  The issue is not about others seeing and believing how responsible or loving or competent we are.  The issue is not about whether others realize how deeply we are feeling a particular feeling.  We are the ones that need to see the light….

If I catch myself in the codependent trap of trying to emphasize something about myself to another, I will ask myself if I need to convince myself of that point.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 204

Enough

Core Value, Joy 0

Happy women understand that no matter what they own, they will always feel a bit insecure about having enough and being enough, but they don’t let these feelings rule their lives.

— Dan Baker, PhD, and Cathy Greenberg, PhD, What Happy Women Know, p. 234

Never Abandoned

Core Value, God, Life 0

I don’t know how it matters; I only know that it does, that when we suffer, God suffers, and he will never abandon the smallest fragment of his creation. . . .  He will not give up on me, not now, not after my mortal death.  He will not give up on any of us, until we have become what he meant us to be.

— Madeleine L’Engle, A Severed Wasp, quoted by Carole F. Chase in Glimpses of Grace, p. 158

Positive Intention

Compassion, Core Value, Forgiveness, Healing, Joy, Love, Relationships 0

The good news is that as we connect to our positive intention, we begin to find forgiveness.  Forgiveness is the compassion we experience as we remind ourselves that by driving a car — having a relationship — we run the risk of a breakdown.  Forgiveness is the power we get as we assert that we have a deep well of resilience to draw upon.  Forgiveness is the grace that helps us remember to look around while we’re on the side of the road and appreciate our beautiful surroundings and the people we love.  To help forgiveness emerge, we can learn to see ourselves from the point of view of our positive intention, not primarily as a wounded or rejected lover.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 190