Check with Me Later

Posted on January 30, 2012 by

There are all sorts and types of research. There is qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, exploratory, scientific, constructive, survey, observation, interview………..am I starting to sound like Charlie Brown’s school teacher yet? You know, the “wah wah wah wah” sounds on those classic cartoons! Well before you click all the way off let me tell you about two more types.

The two types of research I am referring to are cross-sectional and longitudinal.  In simplest terms, cross-sectional research is taking a single view of something at a single moment in time whereas longitudinal research is studying something over time. So again you ask why I think you might even be remotely interested in this. Well it’s because I want you to consider using one but not the other of these methods in the most important research you do (yes, you do research). These are the studies you do about you, your marriage, and your family.

In couples who rank highest in marital satisfaction, one of the common elements to that satisfaction is that they don’t too hung up if something doesn’t go well in a particular moment. That is, they have a confidence in TIME. They believe that if they don’t work it out now, they will work it out later. They trust that over the long haul of their lives together they can and will become more and more successful at this important task. This stands in contrast to couples who create what I call “terminal moments” in which they fear that if they don’t get it worked out RIGHT NOW, they are in big trouble.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, what I want you to get is this; life is a longitudinal study. We cannot afford to put too much pressure on all the moments along the way but rather need to believe that as we do our best to be good husbands, wives, parents, children, and just people in general, we can and will do better over time. Keep on working. Keep on trying. Keep on believing in yourself and one another. Keep on challenging yourself. You’ll get it – sooner or later!

Posted in Marriage and Family Life | 1 Comment

You Gotta Believe

Posted on December 29, 2011 by

I was trained in what my professors called a “constructionist” model. By this, they meant that each person kind of constructs or creates their own reality. This is about world views, interpretation of events, and so forth. One of the jobs of the therapist is to try as best as possible to discover how each client has constructed or defined their reality before attempting to help them with it or even change it.

When we look at people through this constructionist lens, one of the things we learn is that what a person believes is true is a very powerful thing. It is powerful for a number of reasons but one of the biggest ones is this. People tend to look for and find evidence of what they believe is true. Then they follow that up with ignoring any evidence to the contrary.  On a large scale this is how bigotry, racism, and stereotyping develop. Someone believes a blanket statement about a particular group of people and then loudly notes any evidence that supports that statement while ignoring any contrary evidence. But this pattern also happens on an individual level.

For example, I’ll bet every person who reads this knows at least one person who kind of spouts the “nobody likes me” or “everything works against me” mantras. If you talk with those persons, they can tell you all the things that have happened to them that support these beliefs. But if you ask them about times when someone showed kindness or things kind of went their way, they either cannot remember such events or they dismiss them as irrelevant. So with this mindset, their belief is less a clear vision of how things are and more a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What if we could get those persons to believe something else is true? What if we could get them to see and take real note of the moments when someone reached out in kindness or something kind of fell into place for them? Could simply challenging a long held negative belief matter? Could getting them to take note of evidence that supports the new belief change a person’s life? Well, I for one believe it can!

Posted in Marriage and Family Life, Stress, Wellness | 4 Comments

A New Take

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

Do you know The Serenity Prayer? It’s the one about being wise enough to know the difference between what you do and do not control and having the courage to work on the stuff you can actually do something about. As you can tell by reading my blogs, this idea is important to me. I had a friend share with me recently a new slant on this prayer that I think is also quite powerful and I want to share it with you. I have labeled it A New Serenity Prayer and it says:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change,

The courage to change the one I can,

And the wisdom to know it’s me.

Please feel free to copy and use this as you like. This wonderful little thought is also at the heart of what I believe as a therapist. The first important implication is that change is possible. I believe at a profound level that many people have within them the ability to make changes. The changes may be small at first but a small change now can translate into a large difference later on. The second and equally important message of this prayer is that you need to focus your efforts to create change onto yourself. In simplest terms, the quickest and most effective way of making a situation different is to change your part in it.

Posted in Marriage and Family Life, Stress, Wellness | 1 Comment

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Posted on October 24, 2011 by

Forgiveness. This is one of the toughest choices we make. In therapy, as in life in general, we struggle with what forgiveness is and how to do it. Almost all of us grew up under a religious view or moral code that promotes forgiving those who have wronged us but where the rubber hits the road many find it a very difficult act to perform.

In my mind the reason we struggle with forgiveness is because we have some wrong ideas about what forgiveness means and what its purpose is. First, the word forgive has long been linked to the word forget and many people believe that to do one you must do the other. Then they go on to tell me that this wrong they have suffered is something they will never forget. What I tell them is of course they will never forget. Our brains store every event and experience of every second of our lives and when something happens that causes this level of distress it will remain even closer to the surface. Forgiveness is not forgetting.

The second misperception about forgiveness is that people tend to believe that when you forgive another person, you are condoning the thing they did; that what they did is somehow now okay. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. If they harmed you, especially intentionally, it is not okay. Forgiveness is not about condoning.

A third misconception about forgiveness is that forgiving someone is for their benefit. That certainly might be true if they take the forgiveness, do some soul searching, learn from the experience, and never repeat the action. Sadly, when you offer forgiveness you cannot know for sure that this is what they will do. Sometimes they even reject or dismiss it. The true beneficiary of the act of forgiveness is the person offering the forgiveness. It is that person who is saying that this thing or event has too much power in  his/her life and it is time to let it go and stop allowing the past to control the present. It is saying that holding on to a grudge over what has happened is draining too much energy from an already limited supply. Forgiveness is not for the other person but is for you who offer it.

Finally, people tell me that they cannot forgive because they have not yet reached that place emotionally. Forgiveness, my friends, is not a state of mind or heart so much as a choice. You offer forgiveness because that is what you need to do. Saying “I forgive you” means I am now ready to start trying to live like someone who has forgiven another. If you wait to say the words until you get there, it may never happen because offering forgiveness is not the end of the process but rather the beginning.

So if there is someone in your life who has hurt or wronged you in some way, consider that it may be time to start trying to forgive them. Think about saying these words. “This thing you did has been too long a burden in my life. I am not saying that what you did is okay or that I will ever easily forget it, but it is time for me to move forward and not allow this to control my feelings or my actions in the here and now. I forgive you completely.” Then start to hard work of living up to those powerful words.

Posted in Marriage and Family Life, Stress, Wellness | 11 Comments

The Right Thing in the Right Way

Posted on September 14, 2011 by

You know, there are those moments in life that really stick to you. Some of these I remember very clearly and I want to share one with you today. It regards a phrase an old teacher of mine said to me (or in my presence) one day back in the early 1980s. I have never forgotten his words and have chewed on their significance for most of my adult life. I also share this phrase in therapy sometimes and sometimes it even seems to make some sense to my clients!

To give credit, the teacher who said this was Mr. Don Neuen. If you ever watch church on TV, you might have seen him as he was for years the choral director for that big church in California called the Crystal Cathedral. He is a college professor and musician hero of mine. I had the good fortune to work with Don on a number of occasions before he became famous and on TV; back when music was my field of study and my profession.

What he said that stuck with me beyond the music years was this. He said, “Don’t do anything right – accidently.”  Read that over a time or two. Don’t do anything right accidently. The more I have thought about this little phrase, the more I see that it applies to all parts of my life. This is about living intentionally. Choosing a path and taking the steps that lead down that path versus just kind of hoping things will work out for the best.

Now I know I have preached a lot about not trying to control what you cannot control but this is about something you do control. Your intentions and the path your intentions take are yours to manage. If you want to have a healthy body, be intentional about taking care of it rather than just hoping the hypertension that got your dad and granddad will somehow miraculously skip you. If you want healthy, loving relationships, behave in a healthy and loving manner rather than waiting to respond to whether or not your loved one gets there.  If you need to express your anger, choose a time and method of expressing it that has some likelihood of success rather than building up and blowing up in a way that does nothing but cause more pain. Be intentional. Don’t do anything right – accidently!

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Not to be Critical but……

Posted on August 11, 2011 by

             John Gottman is one of the foremost researchers in the field of relationship development and enhancement. If you want to read some of the most current and empirically supported work on the subject, check out his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

            Dr. Gottman and his team have learned to identify certain communication patterns that cause problems. His dubious claim to fame is the ability to predict whether or not a relationship will end in divorce with over 90% accuracy. His research has identified a set of four “particularly poisonous patterns of interaction that left unchecked” can lead to divorce. Please make sure you read this correctly including the “left unchecked” part. They CAN be corrected! The four are criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. In his own brand of wry humor Dr. Gottman calls them “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” We’ll talk about each over time but as a follow up to my last blog let’s talk about the first one – criticism.

            As you recall, I last wrote that the first job of the listener is to hear what is actually being said. This is very important. But there is also work to be done by the sender of the message that will make it easier to be heard. One way is to not allow an excess of criticism to be part of the delivery. The quickest way to identify whether one is being excessively critical is to listen for a preponderance of the word “you”.

             When a person is upset and conveying that being upset with a lot of the “you” word, it is likely that the person being talked to is feeling some level of criticism or attack. And when we feel attacked, the animal part of us has two responses – attack back (defensiveness) or retreat (stonewalling). So instead of sending the message with a lot of opinions and judgments of “you”, convey it more in terms of “me” and “I” and how this thing we are talking about makes “me” feel. In my opinion this does two important things. First, conveying how something made “me” feel is not arguable. I know how I feel! Second and perhaps more importantly, it increases the chance that the listener will hear more and be less defensive. There may still be a conflict but the conversation may get a few steps further than if there had been more criticism at the outset.

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Please Listen to Me!

Posted on July 21, 2011 by

             A lot of what people want to talk about when they come to therapy are relationship issues. This includes all sorts of relationships including marital, parental, work, friend, extended family and so forth. And one of the major relationship topics they want to discuss is the topic of communication. I often hear things like “We just don’t communicate anymore” or “Our communication has gotten so bad that we have almost given up trying to talk” or “You can’t say a word to him/her without getting your head bitten off.”  I often say that learning to communicate better may not solve problems but it might give the means of making at least a little headway against problems.

            There are those who don’t communicate for a reason. They steer away from certain topics because they each know deep inside where things would head if they were really honest and they just don’t want to go there. But for today these are not the people I want to address. The people I want to get through to are those who really want/need to learn to communicate better with loved ones but just get derailed by some old patterns. This is a big topic and may need a couple of installments but here is installment number one.

            The first issue that I see in miscommunication is more with the receiver of the message than the sender. In almost all our relationships we assume we know what the others are saying and in many cases start forming our (patterned) replies even before they finish. This is so because we are right a fairly high percentage of the time. The trouble occurs, though, when we are wrong – when what we perceive they are saying/meaning and what they are actually saying/meaning is different. Further this usually occurs in conversations that are emotionally charged. So when you say “X” and I, for whatever reason, hear “XY” and I respond to what I hear, then we have lived the actual definition of miscommunication. That is, the message received and responded to was not the same as the message sent.

            So here is lesson one of Raleigh’s Guide to Better Communication with Those That Matter (catchy title!).  Simply put, when they matter, be sure and the only way to be sure is double check. When a person who is important to you says something especially in an emotionally charged moment, reflect back to them what you heard them say and perhaps even more importantly what you perceive their feelings are on the subject. If they say you are on target then respond. But if they say you are not, listen a little more carefully or ask them to explain more until WHAT YOU ARE HEARING IS WHAT THEY ARE SAYING. They really need you to take the time and put the effort into making sure you hear and understand. This does not guarantee an easy or fun talk but at the very least you will be responding to what your loved one was actually saying. It gives you a chance to actually communicate.

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