Laura Johnston:: Surrender

Gang, I don't know about you, but when I meet someone as raw and vulnerable as the lovely Laura Johnston, I pay attention. Too often these days, life is filtered and edited on our screens, distancing us from what is true and real. But Laura came with her heart and story on her sleeve, not claiming to have all the answers but believing there's only one answer anyway: Jesus. Her powerful testimony reminds us that through the ups and downs, we can claim grace and trust in Him and He'll get us through to the other side. One way or another. Amen.

*No audio is available for this talk. Please enjoy a written recap below!*

Laura's story began with this: throughout it all, God was there. She can see it now. The thread through everything, especially the low points and when she thought there was nowhere else to go but gone, God's hand was present. 

God, I offer myself to Thee — to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do thy will always. 

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63.

"Be the light."

Little Laura grew up in a family of four and from an early age, sought identity in achievement. In academics and athletics, she excelled for approval. Middle school brought challenges we're all familiar with and some we're not, to the point where she wasn't sure she wanted there to be a tomorrow. But God did and stepped in. Next came youth group, where she started to see God in it all and began to accept God's love as enough. 

His message to her? "Be the light." She found peace in that.

"Stop trying to fix it."

As life went on, Laura fell into familiar patterns, losing herself in her husband, her job, and having the perfect garden. There were also triathlons. Ever the athlete, it was her outlet and a way to achieve. Then life took many, many curve balls. Terminal illness in her family, marital crisis, and a car accident brought Laura to the bottom. 

Again, she heard God's voice. "Stop trying to fix it." Through all the anger and sadness, God gave her tools. From a praying doctor to the 12 step program, God reached for her. The message was clear: "You are separate from everything. Everything and everyone else does not define you." Hard to believe, considering she didn't feel separate from anything when kids were attached 24/7. Value was hard to measure if not in the job, the kids, the husband, the triathlons.

"It wasn't about everything I did, but who I was. I wasn't enough. In any way. But that didn't mean I wasn't loved."

“Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation —some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism [powerlessness], I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”

--found in the AA Big Book, p. 417 (Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth edition)

Turns out it's not about changing/fixing everyone else. 

Changes that worked:

• Responsible for me alone
• My job is to go to God, surrender to God. All of it. Let go of controlling because my happiness isn't dependent on someone else. No more "future catastrophizing," just take in the present for what it is. Breathe. Make space.

•  Pray throughout the day
• Serenity prayer
• Resentment prayer--pray the best for your enemies. Like you would pray for yourself. Watch what happens.

• Stay on your own property
• Focus on your side of the street. There's plenty of your own stuff to worry about without seeing the flaws in your neighbor's life.

• None of my business what other's think about me.
• be free
• listen to what God has for you
• surrender judgements
• focus outward on blessing others

• Engage with others
• Get outside. Move.
• Believe the truth God has for you. 

Ladies, we've heard it before but it bears repeating: just Let Go and Let God. 

You are beautiful, beloved, & enough. 

Just as you are.

Terry McNichols:: Relationships

We've had the pleasure of hearing from our own Super Mentor Mom, Terry McNichols, in year's past. She shares wisdom through her lens as a therapist and mom, wife, daughter, and friend. Rare is it that anyone has the messy job of relationships figured out, especially the side where we maintain who we are in the midst of them. Catch up on Terry's talk with the help of her notes as we navigate each other and those we love.

*No audio is available for this talk. Please enjoy a written recap below!*

Kicking off her talk with a paragraph from her favorite book, Family Ties That Bind:A self-help guide to change through Family of Origin Therapy. The gist is this...

"The more we react to others, the more we lose touch with our own goals and become caught in other people's agendas for us. The ability to be close to others and yet not become enmeshed in their opinions, wants, and evaluations is the sign of an emotionally mature person. Therapists call it being 'differentiated," like a cell that separates itself from another cell, but stays in contact."

So, to be able to identify and pursue what you want for yourself (to be yourself) while maintaining a close relation with others is one of the major goals of Family of Origin work. Most of us are able to do only one of these things at a time. We either conform in order to be close, or cut off in order to be ourselves.

A Differentiated Person
A differentiated person can be themselves--they do not think change is an admission of inadequacy.
Attributes:

• Goal-directed
• Clarify your own values and decide what is important to you.
• Able to choose how you want to be and not be controlled by approval or disapproval of others. 

•  Distinguishing between thinking and feeling
• considers pros and cons and makes rational decisions because they can distinguish between thoughts and feelings.
• Do not insist others live by their beliefs
• Don't become defensive or aggressive with someone who has different beliefs
• Can choose whether or not to act on feelings

A Relationship-Oriented Person
Someone who is less mature and depends exclusively on others to provide them with a sense of worth and self-esteem.
Attributes:

• Obsessed with approval and praise, with loving and being loved.
• Overly sensitive
• See signs of rejection in minor differences between themselves and loved ones. 
•  Distinguishing between thinking and feeling
• Can't make distinction between thoughts and feelings
• "I feel that you reject me" is not a feeling. It's an interpretation. Any time "that" follows "feel," it's a thought not a feeling. Feelings are always about yourself; they cannot be about someone else.
• We create feelings entirely by ourselves.

The opposite of DIFFERENTIATION is FUSION.  This means you're stuck in the tar of a relationship.
Four Reactive Strategies as an Expression of Fusion

1. Compliance: pretending there aren't any differences. Peace at any price. May become physically or emotionally ill to cope with differences.
2. Rebellion: the choice to fight it. The rebel is so involved in rebelling, in not doing and not being the way others want that the rebel never decides what he or she DOES want.
3. Attack: Sees the "other" is the problem and openly tries to change the other using whatever means are possible. Often has low self-esteem and believes the other has to change before he/she can change.
4. Cut off: Believes that by cutting off from the family, they will be free of their power and influence and problems will be over. Unfortunately, those unresolved issues follow us into new relationships. 

 Test of Fusion:
One test of fusion in a family is how easily someone can say, "Hey, this seems to be going on in our family" (identifying a rule) and then talk about it with other family members. The more fused family will refuse to acknowledge that the rule exists and won't talk about it. Many families can continue indefinitely in this state and never change. Some change when one member of the family develops enough self-esteem to be able to risk being different and deal with the reactions that provokes.  

Other families are forced to change when their children become adolescents, as this is the time when both the spoken and unspoken family rules get tested and challenged. In fused families, things start to fall apart.
   --Rebellious behavior does not represent true independence.
   --Often teenagers just establish equally intense fused relationships with their peers. And need for sameness and togetherness takes over.

You Make Me Do It--Being Responsible for Yourself
--stay away from touchy issues
--the more fused the family, the greater the number of issues that will upset families. If you don't want to upset someone, the real motive is self-protection. We don't "upset" them so they won't "upset" us. You play act at sameness to "keep the peace." It also places the blame on them (i.e. "If only you would change, I could be happy!").

Under-Funtioning and Over-Functioning
In unhealthy relationships, the roles become frozen into more or less permanent positions of over and under-functioning. Both have low level of differentiation. One must under-function for another to over-function.There are positive consequences if two people act as a team and the roles constantly change back and forth and never become frozen!

Further Discussion

1. How well are you able to be yourself and also be close to others? Are there aspects of your personality that you hide from some people in your life because you think they would dislike you for them? To what extent are your actions dependent on the reactions of others?
2. Who in your family is very different from you? Can you be yourself with that person?
3. Are you relationship-oriented or goal-directed? What about others in your family?
4. Notice how often you and those around you say things like "that makes me feel awful," "you really upset me," "you make me sick," etc. What is a more accurate way of describing these subjective experiences? Start saying it that way and see if people respond differently.
5. Think of two situations where your family successfully dealt with differences between its members, and two situations where the outcome was not successful. What kind of process did each family member (including you) go through in attempting to deal with these differences?
6. Remember some times in your family when a rule was identified, discussed, and possibly changed. What was the impact of this experience on the family?
7. Can you identify some basic beliefs you have developed in your family of origin that are creating upsetting experiences for you now?
8. What are some topics or issues that were avoided in your family because people became upset when they were raised? What impact has this agreement to ignore a significant issue had on you and your family life?
9. Are there any ways people have traded off their own beliefs in your family of origin for the sake of approval?
10. When you or your partner come home at the end of the day, and the other is in a bad mood, while you are in a good mood, how long does it take for your mood to begin to turn sour? Have you ever been able to delay or change that?
11. Examine what areas of your life you are being the over or under-functioner. As a short-term experiment (perhaps a week) change your functioning level in one area to the opposite of what you are doing now. What happens to the anxiety level in each of you as you do this? What other issues emerge between the two of you (which were previously hidden) as you change your functional level?