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i have been on the road more than usual recently....i have been in cleveland this past week and look forward to getting home tomorrow night.
however... in the interim....
any of you that have the time to go and leave an encouraging comment on my husband's blog, please do so...he had a rough experience last night at work.
a man with a gun came into the store where he works and tried to rob the safe. he held the gun to brian's head to ensure his cooperation, shot it into the air multiple times, tried to rob the register by shooting it, and settled for robbing the employees after threatening everyone's life because no one could open the safe.
to his credit, considering he was the one being directly threatened the majority of the time, brian stayed calm, cooperative, and even managed to trigger the store security alarm without the guy noticing.
ultimately, the perpetrator only shot up property, not people, but he managed to evade the police, running out the back door as they were pulling up, and is yet to be apprehended.
after several hours of debriefing by detectives, brian came home this morning exhausted and stressed out. physically he's okay, but he is still upset by what happened.
since i will not be home until midnight tomorrow, and am not present for this critical 48 hour period immediately post-crisis, i would appreciate prayers for him to process his experience with minimal long-term damage.
we know that all things work together for good, and we are both extremely grateful that he just took the $130 that brian had on him from work that night, instead of his life.
after i talked to him on the phone this morning, one thing brian said stood out in my mind particularly...he said that while he was walking around with a lethal weapon pointed at his skull, thinking he was going to die, his primary concern was me showing up at the airport the next night, not knowing what had happened yet, and sitting there with my suitcases waiting for him to come pick me up....
even with a gun to his head, my husband worries about my well being.
wow.
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i can't stand hairspray. at all.
i have double jointed elbows and a double jointed pinky finger.
i am addicted to honey sticks.
i have insanely weird looking cowlicks.
i have a love-hate relationship with formal education.
i have an even more complicated relationship with make up.
i associate people with particular color combinations.
i believe in the emotional maturation process from self-absorbed idiot to reasonably considerate and self-aware individual.
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you filled a brief space
with pink and white joy
overloading mommy’s heart
and lining her dreams with sparkling baby dust
when she looked in daddy’s eyes
and saw you on the way
we all wanted to meet you
and made plans to love the way you grinned at us
but God said gently,
her feet are too fragile to dance on this rough earth
so her visit will be shorter
than you expected
and we were surprised
how heavy it was
to hold nothing
on your way up
you turned and looked back at us
red hair brilliant in the light
and asked God,
what will they do without me?
and God replied,
they will learn to trust me
with their most precious treasure
and I will bless them more than they can imagine in these dark moments
for in this valley of shadow
they are drawn closer to Me
and share My heart
in a way that those who have not grieved for a child
do not know Me
so you placed your hand in His
and went to dance and laugh
and wait a brief space
in the garden
of joy
and peek-a-boo
lined with the dreams full of love
that mommy and daddy dream for you every night
so that when they come home for good
it will be as if they had been there
all along
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"I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”.
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09-13-08 02:28pm EST
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i was discussing my theories on relational hydraulics with a friend and he sent me this picture to illustrate his take on the topic...
it is easy for us to forget that there are a few fundamental differences in how men and women approach a relationship when we are in the midst of attempting to actually navigate said relationship.
when we talk abstractly, it seems very simple to throw around terms and concepts that are applicable to developing healthy interactions, such as "empathy", "patience", "active listening" and "not throwing televisions at each other", but when we are experiencing emotional distress in realtime, it becomes seemingly impossible to even retain these ideas, much less actually implement them.
i would like to suggest something.
an experiment, if you will.
learning theory succinctly stated consists of "repetition, repetition, and reinforce with chocola- i mean, more repetition".
if we want to improve our ability to relate to others, then it will be helpful for us to examine our assumptions that other people process incoming information, prioritize, and attribute meaning to experiences in the same way and for the same reasons that we do.
this is completely unsupported by any sort of logic currently employed by people with actual brains.
every individual is a uniquely developed conglomerate of evolving experiences and ideas that occasionally may closely overlap with your experiences and ideas, but will always retain a separate sense of "selfness" that will individuate them from other people in a manner that is necessary to establish functional identity, while simultaneously being the source of all communication barriers that exist between them and those they are closest to.
these barriers are amplified when gender differences are present. it is pure insanity on our parts to expect someone who is hardwired differently than us to share our software without running into a few bugs. (here is where i studiously avoid drawing parallels between which gender is mac and which gender is microsoft....) if we want to minimize operator errors, we need to be willing to learn other operating systems and the mechanisms that drive them.
it is pure idiocy on our parts to expect this to be easy. which is where learning theory becomes relevant. here is my suggested experiment to help calibrate a relationship with unstable hydraulics for the purpose of measuring the efficacy of various interactive approaches:
(tell yourself these things multiple times a day when you are not frustrated, and every few seconds when you ARE frustrated)
- my wife/husband/family member/friend/random person have reasons for why they say and do what they say and do
- just because these reasons are not clear to me does not mean they do not exist
- the fact that i have different reasons or priorities does not make their reasons or priorities ridiculous, stupid, or illegitimate
- true caring and connection occurs when i am willing to listen to what they are saying even when it doesn't make much sense to me, try to understand their perspective, and attempt to convey to them in a manner that they understand that they are important to me
- when they become very upset with me for what seems to be no reason, or a stupid reason, it is most likely because i have not demonstrated to them in a way that they understand how important they are to me and how much i care about them
- the solution to most relationship difficulties lie in my willingness to put in the necessary work on myself and my attitude and my expectations, and to learn how this other person works and to value our innate differences instead of viewing them as a illness that needs to be cured
- figuring out how i work first will help a LOT
- this isn't impossible or hopeless, just challenging
clearly, that is a lot to repeat to yourself.
so what i really mean is boil these ideas down into a concentrated form in your own relationship dialect and tell them to yourself regularly and often. because the more you hear it, the better you'll remember it under stress.
and one final observation that i believe is relevant and underdiscussed.
while it is unpleasant when someone is very upset with you, it can be a gauge that indicates how much they care about something. usually, to what ever degree we are emotionally invested we are emotionally disturbable. indifference indicates a low level of attachment.
now, this observation is subject to varying levels of maturity regarding coping mechanisms, selfishness, emotional awareness and interpersonal skills. it is certainly possible to be very upset about something without being a total jerk to someone about it.
however, most of us are still learning how to do that. and during this learning process, if we can attempt to interpret someone flipping out about something as an indicator that they care deeply but have not yet learned how to deal with those emotions in a mature manner, instead of "they are completely horrible and crazy and don't love me", then we will discover that it's easier to not take it personally and to think more clearly under pressure.
this will lead to us being able to hear what that other person is really trying to say.
which will deepen our understanding of how they see things and how they operate.
which will give us the opportunity to communicate to them they are loved and important in a way they understand.
and if done repeatedly over a period of time, (remember learning theory?) will reassure them in the ways they need and will construct a basis for their understanding of how we operate.
this will lead to better communication, greater trust, and much less television throwing.
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