When you’re sure of something, are you really, really sure?

We tend to think our assumptions are correct and our perspective is the right way to see things.

Our brains, in fact, are really good at categorizing things. We need to do this, or the brain’s input would be so overwhelming we could not process it all without our heads exploding!

There’s just too much going on all the time for our brains to handle each thing directly and immediately.

Therefore…we make assumptions about things we believe are obvious…at least to us!

And sometimes…many times, in fact, we are right.

But we are sometimes wrong.

That’s not a bad thing, just something we need to be aware of and something we need to acknowledge as a possibility, at least!

Let me give an example of a time when we may think we know something, when really we don’t have a clue because our assumptions have interfered with our ability to see what is really going on.

My mother went to school at Normal Teacher’s College in Normal, Illinois. She tells me a story of how she and some classmates pulled the wool over the eyes of her Latin professor.

Here’s what they did.

They gave the instructor the text I have provided below, and asked the instructor to translate it for them.

Here it is…

“O sibile si ergo

Fortibus es in aro.

O nobile demis trux

Si vatsin em

Causen dux”

So, do you know Latin? Can you translate it?

Give yourself a minute to study the text.

What do you think?

Now let me give you the translation.

“Oh, see Billy, see her go.

Forty buses in a row.

Oh no, Billy. Them is trucks.

See what’s in them,

Cows and ducks.”

Take another look at the text.

Can you now see what it really says if you pronounce it just as you see it, rather than reading it as Latin text?

Perhaps you were fooled by the look of the text, or by the fact that I said she attempted to fool her LATIN professor…?

You were perhaps already sure of what you saw in front of you…and maybe you already knew you didn’t know Latin, so…?

In our lives, and in our relationships, this happens frequently…right?

When we think we know, we stop looking for alternative explanations.

So the next time you are sure…take another look.

Be willing to see the situation from another perspective.

Be willing to see it with an absolutely open, unencumbered mind…if possible.

Or at least listen to what someone else says is going on, just to provide you with a different angle on the subject.

Why not? You know what they say:

Two heads are better than one!

Coach Char

http://www.nextinlifecoaching.com

There’s a quote from a man named William Shakespeare that I love. Well, actually one of many quotes from William Shakespeare that I love…

“Nothing is good or bad, but our thinking makes it so.”

Ain’t it the truth!

We all tend to believe we have the answers. That we are the one with the true perspective on life. If we say something is good…then it is good. And if we say something is bad…then it is bad, and we absolutely know what is right and wrong.

And we very often are not shy about letting everyone in our lives know our truth, which we believe aught to be their truth as well.

I see it frequently with the folks who hire me to help their lives and relationships feel better. Unless I direct the sessions, many people would spend the entire session time attempting to convince me that they are right, and their partner, children, parents, etc. are clearly wrong!

In fact, that is one of the endearing traits of human beings that keeps me in business as a psychotherapist and as a transition coach! We will argue “to the death” that we are right, and anybody who disagrees with our perspective is wrong.

And the truth is…from each of our perspectives, we each are perhaps right, at least for us!

I recently came across some quotes from previous decades which are a perfect example of perspective. Let me share them with you…

“I’m just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.”

“The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.”

“There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel.”

“No one can afford to be sick any more; $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood.”

“If they think I’ll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it.”

I’m sure each of these folks were serious, and thought they had a pulse on the truth!

What do you think…did they?

The answer is yes and no. From their perspective, out of the historical perspective they were speaking from, they really thought they were right. They were speaking truth, as they saw it.

We still do that, but we each think it’s a different story if we are the one who is saying it, and if it is something in which we strongly believe.

But is it really the truth?

Isn’t it still just our take on something, our opinion, our perspective on what is happening?

The next time you feel strongly about something, and are about to powerfully approach the subject with someone in an attempt to get them to believe you are right and they are wrong, think about it!

Is it possible you are wrong?

Is it possible you are both right?

And most importantly, does it matter enough to allow it to interfere with, and sabotage, your relationships?

Coach Char

I once heard an hilarious quip on Saturday Night Live that said:

“I want to save the world for my children, but not for my children’s children,     because I don’t think children should be having sex!”

Sometimes when I’m working with couples, whether they’re married, in a committed long-term relationship, heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or whatever, I feel like I’m working with children.

Couples often says things like:

Well, he/she started it!

I’m not doing anything different until (my partner) changes!

She/He can’t tell me what to do!

She/He is not making me happy!

They promised to be a certain person when we got married (or got together), but     now they’ve changed! They can’t do that…can they?

I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back till they give me what I want! (paraphrased)

They hurt me, and I’m going to hurt them back!

The fact is, we cannot do a successful long-term adult relationships if we behave like children!

Four vital components need to be present for successful adult relationships, whether those relationships are ones we have with another adult, or are relationships we have with our children.

These essential components include trust, respect, lightness/humor, forgiveness. There are other important components, but these four are the subject of this discourse.

TRUST

If we don’t trust, we can’t develop closeness with others.

I believe that trust is a decision we make about how we respond to others.

It’s not something we do only when we already know the other person will be trustworthy.

When I hear people say they have “a trust issue” because someone treated them poorly, I think back to the scientific process.

If we have a sample size of 1, 2, or even 10, is that a sufficient sample size to provide validity to the results of that experiment?

Of course not!

And yet, if one person shows themselves to be untrustworthy, we often jump to the generalized conclusion that we can’t trust ANYONE!

It makes more sense to BEGIN with the decision to trust someone, on a one by one basis, and wait to see if they will decide  to be trustworthy with us.

And just because someone messes up and is not trustworthy in a specific situation doesn’t mean we can’t give them more chances to get it right!

We are all human and flawed…we all make bad decisions about how we behave sometimes, and can learn to be better only if given opportunities to practice!

Relationships works better if we keep these things in mind and show compassion for the fallibility we all share.

RESPECT

When we’re angry, disappointed, or hurt, we’re often thinking more

about how to get to a place of feeling better than we are about how

we’re treating the person whom we believe caused us to feel bad.

This is one of the ways in which couples fall into the pattern of dis-

respecting each other.

We also may feel, at these times, as if we’ve lost power and

position in the relationship, and in our attempts to regain our sense

of viability and power we may believe that lowering the other per-

son’s position or sense of power will make us feel better.

This strategy, of course, never works well!

Respect is essential in any relationship, and especially important in

close, intimate relationships with significant others.

We need to feel safe and valued by another person in order to allow ourselves the vulnerability to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually close with them.

If we feel psychically and emotionally harmed by them through the process of being disrespected, we will never allow ourselves to be close and intimate with them, for fear of being further harmed.

So let’s talk a minute about integrity.

When we speak of integrity, we refer to our ability to remain who we are,

even in proximity to someone or something that’s very different from us.

It’s about remaining true to our values when faced with difficult choices and situations.

In the same way that a drinking glass has molecular integrity because it doesn’t take on the properties of the water poured into it even though the water molecules are in close proximity to the molecules of the glass, so we, in close relationship with others, need to maintain our sense of who we are, how we choose to behave and respond to others, and need to maintain our own valued principles of behavior, even when our beliefs differ from the other person’s beliefs and their own level of integrity and maturity.

LIGHTNESS/HUMOR

“Life is too important to take so seriously.”

When we lose our perspective and focus, and think everything is serious and intensely personal, we lose sight of how important it is to enjoy life and each other.

We need to have more fun in our relationships!

We often confuse seriousness with an awareness of something being important.

These concepts aren’t necessarily the same thing!

Things are important just because they’re important. We can know that, without having to be really, really serious about things all the time!

Humor is fun, and is very important to help us keep things in perspective in our relationships.

Although of course our lives our important, our lives are also suppose to be enjoyable and fun!

Our relationships are blessed and closer when we enjoy each other rather than competing for a position of being right or better than each other.

Find the humor in situations and in the foibles we’re all guilty of, and you will be reminded each day that, for the most part, all the stuff you thought had to be handled “in no uncertain terms!” often does not need to be handled at all! We often discover, in fact, that “this to shall pass!”

FORGIVENESS

Everybody makes mistakes. Through the course of our lives, we all make lots of mistakes.

If we are not willing to forgive each other, we become so burdened with “stuff” we are holding on to, that it weighs us down and keeps us from having quality relationships.

You’ve heard the quote, “Be sure to remove the log from your own eye, before trying to remove the speck from your neighbor’s eye.”

Refusing to forgive someone is a very superior position to take in our relationships. It implies we’re better than they are, and are in a worthy position to judge them for what they do.

We do not have this right, nor are we really superior to the other people in our lives.

We all need forgiveness…and often!

If we would like to be forgiven for the mistakes we make, we need to be willing to forgive others, and in our close, personal relationships it’s difficult to feel close to someone who is not willing to forgive us!

Take a look at your relationships.

Are they as close, loving, and enjoyable as you would like?

If not, are you practicing the above principles on a daily basis?

Give it a try, and you’ll be blessed with the kind of quality relationships you really want in your life…the kind of relationships we all want more than anything else in our lives!

Coach Char

When we think about our children being grown up and independent, what age are they?

It use to be that once a child reached 18 years, they were considered grown.

I’m not sure that is still the case.

If they have graduated high school and are not planning college or trade school of some sort, we may be more likely to encourage them to get a job and become independent.

But what if, in today’s economy, they can’t find a job? Or if they have trouble finding one that will support their total independence?

Then what?

And if they are enrolled at a university, college or trade school, do we expect them to work to pay for some or all of their schooling? Do we ask that they live somewhere other than the family home?

Do we want them to live elsewhere, even if it means we pay for a dorm room or apartment while they concentrate on their studies…and other activities of learning to be out in the world on their own?

And what if they graduate from college, have a degree, maybe even had a job, but were laid-off and have no money to live?

Can they move back home? What will the rules be for such an arrangement? How will we co-exist with grown children in the home without negatively impacting our relationship with them?

These are all important questions, but there are questions even more vital to the outcome of this developmental stage of the family.

How good a job of parenting did we do in the earlier years of child rearing?

Did we set good limits, clear and simple rules to follow, and did we follow through with positive and negative consequences which taught our children how to make good decisions, and how the adult world might respond to them around the quality of their decisions?

Did we love them as unconditionally as is humanly possible, and yet not confuse love with being popular with our children, or confuse it with the quality of the parenting we implemented?

The quality of our relationships with grown children is usually only as good as the quality of the parenting done when they were children in the home.

If we have done the job well in the early years of parenting, then handling the challenges of grown children, either in the home or out of the home, is much easier.

If we have not destroyed our relationships with our children by the time they leave the home, it puts us in a much better place to work through issues with them as grown children.

This requires good communication & negotiating skills, an ability and willingness to compromise to achieve win/win solutions to issues that arise, and a level of care and concern for each other that creates a desire to find solutions that work for all involved.

In these economic times, and the social climate of increased expectation for children & young adults to grow up quickly, or lesser expectations, in some cases, for children to take responsibility for growing up at all, it is often very challenging for families to maneuver well through it all.

If we have done a reasonably good job of parenting our young children, then hopefully we can continue to talk with our grown children in a way that is respectful and honors their need to balance the fears of growing up with the desire to be on their own.

If we do this well, we can have many years of wonderful relationship with our children as peers and friends when they are grown.

They may also be more willing to remain in good relationship with us, and might even be willing to help their “feeble old folks” when and if we have need of their support and compassion at some point in our future!

Coach Char