Boundaries Decrease Anger.

Healing, Relationships 0

As you develop better boundaries, you have less need for anger.  This is because in many cases, anger was the only boundary you had.  Once you have your no intact, you no longer need the “rage signal.”  You can see evil coming your way and prevent it from harming you by your boundaries.

Don’t fear the rage you discover when you first begin your boundary development.  It is the protest of earlier parts of your soul.  Those parts need to be unveiled, understood, and loved by God and people.  And then you need to take responsibility for healing them and developing better boundaries.

This brings us to an important point about anger:  The more biblical our boundaries are, the less anger we experience!  Individuals with mature boundaries are the least angry people in the world.  While those who are just beginning boundary work see their anger increase, this passes as boundaries grow and develop.

Why is this?  Remember the “early warning system” function of anger.  We feel it when we are violated.  If you can prevent boundary violation in the first place, you don’t need the anger.  You are more in control of your life and values.

— Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 114-115

Secret Boundaries

Relationships 0

The Law of Exposure says that your boundaries need to be made visible to others and communicated to them in relationship.  We have many boundary problems because of relational fears.  We are beset by fears of guilt, not being liked, loss of love, loss of connection, loss of approval, receiving anger, being known, and so on.  These are all failures in love, and God’s plan is that we learn how to love….

Because of these fears, we try to have secret boundaries.  We withdraw passively and quietly, instead of communicating an honest no to someone we love.  We secretly resent instead of telling someone that we are angry about how they have hurt us.  Often, we will privately endure the pain of someone’s irresponsibility instead of telling them how their behavior affects us and other loved ones, information that would be helpful to their soul….

An important thing to remember about boundaries is that they exist, and they will affect us, whether or not we communicate them….  If our boundaries are not communicated and exposed directly, they will be communicated indirectly or through manipulation.

— Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 100-101

Choose To Be Happy.

Healing, Joy, Letting Go, Relationships 0

When a relationship is over, it stings, and it’s frightening because you don’t know what lies ahead.  The good news is that what happens from there on is up to you.  If you want to be happy, let go of the belief that you are nothing without him and take on the attitude that you are and can be what you choose to be without him.  In fact, let’s just leave him out of the sentence altogether.  Now it reads:  You are and can be what you choose to be.  So choose to be independent.  Choose to be strong.  Choose to be happy.

— Dan Baker, PhD, and Cathy Greenberg, PhD, What Happy Women Know, p. 127

Influence

Letting Go, Relationships 0

You cannot change others.  More people suffer from trying to change others than from any other sickness.  And it is impossible.

What you can do is influence others.  But there is a trick.  Since you cannot get them to change, you must change yourself so that their destructive patterns no longer work on you.  Change your way of dealing with them; they may be motivated to change if their old ways no longer work.

Another dynamic that happens when you let go of others is that you begin to get healthy, and they may notice and envy your health.  They may want some of what you have.

One more thing.  You need the wisdom to know what is you and what is not you.  Pray for the wisdom to know the difference between what you have the power to change and what you do not.

— Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 89

Love Your Neighbor

God, Love, Relationships 0

Has the man no hand that you might grasp, no eyes into which yours might gaze far deeper than your vaunted intellect can follow?  Is there not, I ask, anything in him to love?  Who said you were to be of one opinion?  It is the Lord who asks you to be of one heart.  Does the Lord love the man?  Can the Lord love where there is nothing to love?  Are you wiser than he, inasmuch as you perceive impossibility where he has failed to discover it?

— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ, p. 206

Stay Curious

Marriage, Relationships 0

The key here is going slowly and staying curious.  Again and again, we have seen couples turn things around simply by asking a lot of questions in the spirit of inquiry, rather than by jumping in to explain themselves.

The rule to remember is this:  Understanding comes before explaining.  Most people reverse this and try their hardest to get their partner to see things their way.  It’s truly uncanny how it shifts when you can really hear your partner, when you can say “tell me more” and mean it.  This, of course, is difficult when what your mate is telling you is hard to hear.  But when you can hold on to it, this approach creates absolutely the right atmosphere for intimate disclosure.

— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 121

You Are Enough.

Joy, Letting Go, Life, Relationships 0

Throughout this book, I’ve been carrying on about men and finding them and getting them and keeping them and deciding whether or not to kill them, and if so, how, and so on.  And that’s all funny and mostly true and all that, but the real truth is you are enough — just the way you are, just who you are.  You are a complete entity, a whole person, right there in the skin you’re in.  You don’t need to have a guy to be happy.  Admit it:  You have more fun with a gang of girlfriends than you’ve had on the absolute best date of your entire life.  If somebody comes along who treats you right and makes you happy and you can do the same for him, well, that’s just dandy.  But I’m telling you, the only way that I know to get and keep a happy, healthy relationship is first to create a happy and healthy life for yourself without one.  This is your life to live.

— Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens’ Field Guide to Men, p. 206

Forgive

Forgiveness, Relationships 0

Forgive.  This is the critical antidote to break the toxic cycle of rejection, resentment, and revenge.  People who feel hurt end up hurting others.  Somewhere along the line, someone has to stand up and say “the hurting stops with me.”  Forgiveness is the essential first step.

— Tim Murphy, PhD, and Loriann Hoff Oberlin, Overcoming Passive-Aggression:  How to Stop Hidden Anger from Spoiling your Relationships, Career and Happiness, p. 101

Your Own Wonderful Life

Joy, Life, Relationships 0

Frankly, I think it’s time we take a page out of their book.  The next time a guy you have a remote interest in fails to call you when he says he will, do not ponder the potential whys and wherefores of the situation.  If at all possible, be so busy with your own wonderful life that you simply don’t even notice he hasn’t called.  It would be great if you could just be so involved having a Big Time with all the people in your life who do right that if in fact he does call at some point, it takes you a minute to remember who he is.

— Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens’ Field Guide to Men, p. 195