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Setting Boundaries on the Fear of Change

Deuteronomy 31:6 – ““Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.””

One of the most important boundaries that people have to establish is against the tendency to put off changes that they know need to be made. If you think about it, much “waiting” and putting off changes has nothing to do with “getting more information,” or “waiting until we get finished with a, b, or c.” Obviously, it’s essential to gather data and do analysis, but many people allow too much lag time between knowing and doing.

I remember once when I had a decision to make regarding a significant investment. I had been reluctant to green light the deal because it was in an area that I was less familiar with than I wanted to be. The truth, however, was that my advisers were experts in this arena, and I really did trust their opinions. Still, I was putting it off. Finally one of them, the lead investor, called me.

“We have to go forward now or it is not going to happen,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

“I want to talk to David first about some more balance sheet issues, and then I will let you know,” I said.

“What specific information do you still need that will help you make the decision?” he asked. “What exactly do you need to know to go ahead? And what are you going to learn that you don’t already know?”

When he put it that way, I realized something. There was no more piece of specific information that I needed. I was just looking for more comfort and there was no information that was ever going to give me that. I had to decide, to trust the smart people, and to eat my discomfort. I had to pull the trigger.

“You are right,” I said. “There is nothing I am going to learn that will materially change anything. I am waiting, but I guess I am not waiting on any ‘thing.’ Let’s do it. I will get the money wired today.”

Look out for this dynamic in yourself by asking: What’s holding me back? Is it lack of information or fear of making a mistake? Put some boundaries around the “need for more information” and the desire for absolute certainty. With most big decisions, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Deal with it and get moving.

Another resistance to change is the desire to “make sure everyone is on board,” or “we reach consensus,” which is sometimes code for “I want to make sure everyone is going to like it.” Just as it’s essential to get good information, it’s also important to align key people around the proposed change. At the same time, getting absolutely everyone on board may take forever, and making everyone happy with your decision is highly unlikely anyhow.

Sometimes, after everyone has been heard and understood and has been able to have their input considered, you might have to make a decision that all are not happy with. You may even have to ask the people around you to “disagree but commit.” But you cannot wait around for everyone to get happy.

Resistance to change is a fact of life. If you want change to take hold, you must have good boundaries to contain the forces that are working against the effort.

This devotional is drawn from Boundaries, by John Townsend and Henry Cloud

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11 Rules on Marriage You Won’t Learn in School

SOURCE:  Dennis and Barbara Rainey/Family Life

Here’s some practical, counter-cultural advice on how to make marriage work.

For many years, e-mails have circulated the country with the outline of a speech attributed to Microsoft founder Bill Gates titled “11 Rules You Won’t Learn in School About Life.”  It turns out that Gates never wrote these words nor did he deliver the speech—it was all taken from an article written by Charles J. Sykes in 1996. And it really doesn’t matter that Gates wasn’t involved, because the piece does a great job of unmasking how feel-good, politically-correct teachings have created a generation of kids with a false concept of reality.

I thought I’d not only pass on these rules, but also make a few of my own—on marriage.

First, here are the 11 rules of life that you won’t learn in school:

Rule 1: Life is not fair—get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will not make $60,000 per year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping—they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault.  So don’t whine about your mistakes; learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you “find yourself.” Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Sage advice.

After reading this piece, I was inspired to take a crack at something I’d been chewing on:  “11 Rules on Marriage You Won’t Learn in School.”

Rule 1: Marriage isn’t about your happiness.  It’s not about you getting all your needs met through another person.  Practicing self-denial and self-sacrifice, patience, understanding, and forgiveness are the fundamentals of a great marriage.  If you want to be the center of the universe, then there’s a much better chance of that happening if you stay single.

Rule 2: Getting married gives a man a chance to step up and finish growing up.  The best preparation for marriage for a single man is to man up now and keep on becoming the man God created him to be.

Rule 3: It’s okay to have one rookie season, but it’s not okay to repeat your rookie season.  You will make rookie mistakes in your first year of marriage; the key is that you don’t continue making those same mistakes in year five, year 10, or year 20 of your marriage.

Rule 4: It takes a real man to be satisfied with and love one woman for a lifetime.  And it takes a real woman to be content with and respect one man for a lifetime.

Rule 5: Love isn’t a feeling.  Love is commitment.  It’s time to replace the “D-word”—divorce—with the “C-word”—commitment.  Divorce may feel like a happy solution, but it results in long-term toxic baggage.  You can’t begin a marriage without commitment.  You can’t sustain one without it either.  A marriage that goes the distance is really hard work.  If you want something that is easy and has immediate gratification, then go shopping or play a video game.

Rule 6: Online relationships with old high school or college flames, emotional affairs, sexual affairs, and cohabiting are shallow and illegitimate substitutes for the real thing.  Emotional and sexual fidelity in marriage are the real thing.

Rule 7: Women spell romance R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P.  Men spell romance S-E-X.  If you want to speak romance to your spouse, become a student of your spouse, enroll in a lifelong “Romantic Language School,” and become fluent in your spouse’s language.

Rule 8: During courtship, opposites attract.  After marriage, opposites can repel each another.  You married your spouse because he/she is different.  Differences are God’s gift to you to create new capacities in your life.  Different isn’t wrong, it’s just different.

Rule 9: Pornography robs men of a real relationship with a real person and it poisons real masculinity, replacing it with the toxic killers of shame, deceit, and isolation.  Pornography siphons off a man’s drive for intimacy with his wife.  Marriage is not for wimps.  Accept no substitutes.

Rule 10: As a home is built, it will reflect the builder.  Most couples fail to consult the Master Architect and His blueprints for building a home.  Instead a man and woman marry with two sets of blueprints (his and hers). As they begin building, they discover that a home can’t be built from two very different sets of blueprints.

Rule 11: How you will be remembered has less to do with how much money you make or how much you accomplish and more with how you have loved and lived.

Pass on the rules to a friend who will enjoy them!

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Adapted from Preparing for Marriage Devotions for Couples, by Dennis and Barbara Rainey, Copyright © 2013. Used with permission from Regal Books

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You’re Going Into Battle Today. Will You Listen to the Father?

Originally posted at: https://manliveup.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/2979/

by LiveUP1

Here are the slides from this morning … who-are-you-listening-to

Here is the short video of the man talking about his new baby girl hearing his voice …

John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal, kill and to destroy.  I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.”  Verse 11 – “I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

If you’re hearing, “You’re not going to make it” or “You’re not good enough” … you’re not hearing that from God.  The good shepherd isn’t saying those things to you.

What is the provision? (He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies)   What is the “table”?  It is Him.  His word.  His will.

And so you sit with him at the table … in the presence of your enemies … and you say, “Thank you Jesus that you’re with me in the midst of this fire, this fight, this pressure, this darkness, this trial, this garbage dump … in the midst of this, you have prepared a table for me.”

When you go into the fire, it should be “Father, what is your will for me?  What is your desire?”  Not – “get me out of the fire” but rather, “What do you want me to do?”  Maybe your enemies are indeed surrounding you but you know what?  God’s angel armies are surrounding them.

God is saying, “I want all of you to watch me sustain and strengthen and lead my son through this valley.  Watch me sustain, strengthen and provide, protect and guide my child.  I want you to watch.  You thought you were going to take him out but I want you to watch me lead him through.”

Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20) – when surrounded by enemies on all sides, he first turned to God to hear what God had to say and then they sang over their enemies, “Give thanks to the LORD, his faithful love endures forever.”

Our nature and instinct is to say, “Lord, get me out of this…”  But He is saying, “No, get me in the furnace with you and then watch me sustain you, guide you and restore you.  Let me protect you, provide for you and make you into everything I wanted you to be not in the absence of a fight, not in the absence of pressure, not in the absence of difficulty – but – right smack in the middle of the valley of the shadow of death, watch me deliver you.”

2 Chronicles 20:15 — “Do not be afraid.  Do not lose hope because of this huge army.  The battle is not yours.  It is God’s.”

Your battle is with an enemy who is constantly bombarding your thought life with deception that makes you think what is fake is real; that makes you think what is bad for you is actually good for you.

So … who are you listening to?  Your enemies are all around you.  The Lord is seated at the table He has prepared for you in the midst of your enemies.  Who are you listening to?

If the thoughts coming into your mind produce the following, they are from the Holy Spirit

 If the thoughts coming into your mind are producing the following, they are from your enemy.

Love

 Sexual immorality

Joy

Impurity

Peace

Idolatry

Patience

Hatred

Kindness

Discord

Goodness

Jealousy
Faithfulness

Selfish Ambition
Gentleness

Fits of Rage

Self-Control

 Drunkenness
 

Factions
 

Envy

Galatians 5:22-23 – The fruit of the spirit.  These things on the left, they produce calm in your life.  The things the Father will speak to you will be goodness, gentleness, patience, love, etc.

Galatians 5:19-21 – The works of the flesh.  These things on the right, they produce chaos in your life.  You battle two enemies – your flesh/sin nature and Satan.  Satan knows where you are weakest (your flesh) and he comes at you in these areas.  If you find yourself full of envy, rage, sexual temptation, jealousy, etc. and if the voices are whispering at you in these areas, you’ve given the enemy a seat at your table.

“He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you?  To live justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.”   Micah 6:8

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You Can’t Always Get What You Want – But You Better Try

Matthew 5:37 – “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Telling other people what you want is key to feeling alive in a relationship and keeping things vibrant for both people. If only one person is getting his or her desires met, the relationship suffers. Unfortunately, many people do not get what they want in a relationship. But, they could if they knew how to communicate their desires.

For example, Peter began dating Marla. At first, he was in absolute heaven. She was so “easy to get along with,” he said. About five months later, though, something happened. “I broke up with Marla,” he said. “It just wasn’t working out.”

”What happened?” I (Dr. Cloud) asked.

“In the beginning, she was like a breath of fresh air,” Peter replied. But as time went on, I noticed a couple of things. First, I could never figure out what she wanted. I would ask her what she wanted to do, or where she wanted to go, or how she felt about something, and she would always defer to me. Even though that felt good in the beginning, over time, I got bored with Marla’s flexibility. There was something missing. I don’t know exactly what it was.

Second, she wouldn’t really pout, but she would be sad, or quiet, or something. I would feel like I had done something wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. So I would ask. At first, she would say, ‘Nothing,’ but I knew that was bull. So I would have to pull it out of her, and then I would find out that she had wanted me to do something I hadn’t done, or that she was bugged about something she hadn’t told me about. I felt like I was letting her down, but I couldn’t read her mind. I was frustrated not knowing when things were okay and when they weren’t. I think I need someone more up front with what they are thinking and what they want.”

Many people think of “boundaries” only as setting limits, saying no, or trying to stop something destructive from happening. But having good boundaries is more than stopping bad things from happening to you. It is also taking responsibility for the good things you want to happen.

When you take responsibility for your desires and communicate them well, a relationship has much more chemistry, connection, and mutual fulfillment. You know about and negotiate any issues; there is give and take. And no one is walking around resentful and depressed.

Think about Peter and Marla for a moment. She had desires she wanted fulfilled in her relationship with Peter. But she thought Peter was responsible for knowing what her desires were and for taking the first step toward fulfilling them. She shifted the responsibility for what she wanted from her to him; she thought her “wants” were his problem, not hers. When he did not solve her problem, when she felt sad or resentful, she saw it as Peter’s responsibility to figure out what she was feeling and do something about it. Ultimately, this proved too much for him to do.

To have a relationship that works well, we should communicate our wants not outwardly, but inwardly. We should have a “responsibility” talk with ourselves before we have a “talk” with another person. Here are some of the things we will need to do:

• Own our “want”—be honest about what we want and be aware that our desire is our responsibility.
• Own the feelings that occur when our desire is not getting met—if we are sad, we needs to tell other people, not wait for them to figure it out.
• Choose to communicate and move toward other people to let our wants be known.
• Communicate desire, not demand.

We always have to look at ourselves first to make sure we are doing our part correctly. This is particularly true with wants and desires; others do not magically know what we want, and they need to be told in ways they can accept. So the first conversation has to take place inside.

Freedom is essential to a good relationship. If we’re not free, we can’t love. If people feel as though they can’t say “no” to us and if they do things for us out of compulsion, guilt, or feelings of obligation, they will resent doing those things. If we ask for things we want in ways that make someone feel as though “no” is not okay with us, the relationship turns into a control battle. Freedom and love suffer, and even fulfilled desires can’t fully satisfy because they are not given in love.

This devotional is drawn from Boundaries, by John Townsend and Henry Cloud.

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Men and the Illusion of Anger

Originally posted at: https://gentlepathmeadows.wordpress.com/2016/09/07/men-and-the-illusion-of-anger/

by Gentle Path at The Meadows

Note: The following is a partial transcript of a Facebook Live Presentation Dan Griffin, MA, Senior Fellow at The Meadows, did on August 26, 2016. You can find the recorded video version on his Facebook page.

First and foremost, let me be very clear about what I mean by “the illusion of men’s anger,” because I can already hear some people saying, “The illusion of men’s anger?! My father’s anger, my mother’s anger, my husband’s, my partner’s anger is not an illusion, Dan! It’s not an illusion when the person is yelling at me, it’s not an illusion when the person is hitting me, it’s not an illusion when the person is acting violently toward me.”

I absolutely agree with you. That is not the intention of this conversation.

The purpose of this conversation is to get at the root of what’s behind men’s anger and to share thoughts on how we can all interact with one another in a more authentic way.

This is a personal topic for me. I’ve been an “angry man.” I’ve had a lot of problems with anger. But, has anger really been the issue for me? That’s the question I really think all men should ask themselves if they want to be able to heal the impact that anger has had on their relationships—their relationship with self, their relationships with others, and their relationships with the community.

Anger Is a Mask

I am far from perfect in this practice, but I hope that what I’m learning about myself and my anger might be helpful for some of the men—and some of the women—out there.

The truth is I’m not angry.

I act angry, but often, what I really am feeling is fear. Or, I’m feeling insecure, or I’m dealing with other feelings and they are coming out as anger because I haven’t allowed myself to feel things or taken the time to process what’s really going on.

This is important because as men we are often backed into a corner with our feelings. We’re told that the only feeling that’s socially acceptable for us, the only one that you’re not going to be shamed for is anger. “Yeah, he’s angry, but at least he’s not crying like a little baby. “

He’s acting angry because there’s no space for him to talk about his fear.

Emotional Authenticity vs. Anger Management

Why does that matter? We talk a lot about anger management, and we talk about the problems men have with anger. I don’t think the solution to men’s problem with anger is teaching them “anger management.” I think the solution is helping them to have a better connection to self, better connections to others, and the space and permission for authentic emotional expression.

I care deeply about my relationships. But, I didn’t have the best model for how a man can be open and vulnerable in relationships so I’m still learning how to do that. What I’m beginning to realize is that anger has never really been the issue for me. The issue is how deeply I experience and feel things—how emotional I am, how quickly I feel sad, how quickly I feel afraid, how quickly I feel insecure. The more that I can stay true to those feeling and experiences, the easier it is for me to navigate.

Although, if I allow myself to feel afraid, and to express that to others, I still have to deal with the shame that comes along with the fear. Like a lot of men, I didn’t really have anybody when I was growing up who told me that it was okay for a man to feel afraid and that it was okay for a man to feel sad. So, I have to work through all of this shame and stuff I have in my head about that.

But, the more I feed my authentic self, the more the anger dissipates. That’s not “anger management;” that’s emotional congruence. It’s emotional authenticity. We don’t “manage” the anger. The anger just dissolves. The anger dissipates when it’s just smoke that hides my true self.

Permission to Be Your Authentic Self

So, for men, the challenge is for us to be able to find permission to be the men we really are.

Who are you? Who are you in each of your relationships, who are you in each of your experiences? Are you aware of how you’re feeling? Can you take a deep breath? Can you look below the surface of what’s beneath the anger?

When you feel the anger rising, can you stop before you say or do anything, and find the space to recognize your true feelings? If you feel afraid, can you say to yourself, “I feel afraid, and when I feel afraid I feel weak, and when I feel weak I feel ashamed?” And can you recognize that deciding what to do with those feelings is nobody’s problem but yours?

When I feel sad, I feel ashamed and I feel embarrassed. I feel like there’s something wrong with me as a man—but that’s not true. That’s the illusion of men’s anger.

Real Change is Possible

When men act out in anger there’s no illusion to it. It can destroy; it can hurt; it can damage. The illusion is us thinking that if we just manage men’s anger, it’s going to get better—that if we just create programs that are about men having to control their behavior, it’s going to get better.

Things will change when…

  • we raise boys to be open and authentic in how they express themselves,
  • we create safe places for men to be open and authentic in how they express themselves, and
  • we coach and support men in all their relationships to be the man that they desperately want to be.

If you struggle with anger, take some time to just take a deep breath and notice what other emotions are coming up. Find someone you trust that you can talk to about those challenges you are feeling on a regular basis. Someone who will understand when you say that you noticed how afraid you were feeling or how shame came up for you and will respond with compassion and understanding.

And then when you do act angry, you can go back and you clean it up because you took the time to reflect on what you were really feeling and to see the illusion of your anger.

It’s not about doing it perfectly, it’s about doing it consciously. That’s the gift.

Learn More with Dan

If you’re a mental health professional or clinician who’d like some tips on how to address the unique needs of men in trauma treatment, be sure to sign up for Dan’s FREE webinar on The Man Rules & The Principles of Recovery. It’s happening on September 14, 2016; 11 a.m. – 12:30 Pacific (2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern).

If you’re a man in recovery, who’s ready to take it up a notch, and transform your experience of recovery register for A Man’s Way Retreat at the Rio Retreat Center at The Meadows. During the five-day intensive, Dan will lead you through activities, group sessions, and mindfulness exercises focused on taking your recovery – and your life – to the next level. The next session is coming up October 3 – 7, 2016. To register call 800-244-4949, and ask about the limited-time 25 percent discount offer!