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How to Forgive When It’s Hard to Forget

Proverbs 4:23 – “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

“I know I’m supposed to forgive,” a woman to me (Dr. Cloud) at a recent seminar. “But, I just can’t open myself up to that kind of hurt anymore. I know I should forgive him and trust him, but if I let him back in, the same thing will happen, and I can’t go through that again.”

“Who said anything about ‘trusting’ him?” I asked. “I don’t think you should trust him either.”

“But you said I was supposed to forgive him, and if I do that, doesn’t that mean giving him another chance? Don’t I have to open up to him again?”

“No, you don’t,” I replied. “Forgiveness and trust are two totally different things. In fact, that’s part of your problem. Every time he’s done this, he’s come back and apologized, and you have just accepted him right back into your life, and nothing has changed. You trusted him, nothing was different, and he did it again. I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Well,” she asked, “How can I forgive him without opening myself up to being hurt again?”

Good question. We hear this problem over and over again. People have been hurt, and they do one of two things. Either they confront the other person about something that has happened, the other person says he’s sorry, and they forgive, open themselves up again, and blindly trust. Or, in fear of opening themselves up again, they avoid the conversation altogether and hold onto the hurt, fearing that forgiveness will make them vulnerable once again.

How do you resolve this dilemma?

The simplest way to help you to organize your thoughts as you confront this problem is to remember three points:

1. Forgiveness has to do with the past. Forgiveness is not holding something someone has done against her. It is letting it go. It only takes one to offer forgiveness. And just as God has offered forgiveness to everyone, we are expected to do the same (see Matthew 6:12&18:35).

2. Reconciliation has to do with the present. It occurs when the other person apologizes and accepts forgiveness. It takes two to reconcile.

3. Trust has to do with the future. It deals with both what you will risk happening again and what you will open yourself up to. A person must show through his actions that he is trustworthy before you trust him again (see Matthew 3:8; Proverbs 4:23).

You could have a conversation that deals with two of these issues, or all three. In some good boundary conversations, you forgive the other person for the past, reconcile in the present, and then discuss what the limits of trust will be in the future. The main point is this: Keep the future clearly differentiated from the past.

As you discuss the future, you clearly delineate what your expectations are, what limits you will set, what the conditions will be, or what the consequences (good or bad) of various actions will be. As the proverb says, “A righteous man is cautious in friendship” (see Proverbs 12:26). Differentiating between forgiveness and trust does a number of things:

First, you prevent the other person from being able to say that not opening up again means you are “holding it against me.”

Second, you draw a clear line from the past to the possibility of a good future with a new beginning point of today, with a new plan and new expectations. If you have had flimsy boundaries in the past, you are sending a clear message that you are going to do things differently in the future.

Third, you give the relationship a new opportunity to go forward. You can make a new plan, with the other person potentially feeling cleansed and feeling as though the past will not be used to shame or hurt him. As a forgiven person, he can become an enthusiastic partner in the future of the relationship instead of a guilty convict trying to work his way out of relational purgatory. And you can feel free, not burdened by bitterness and punitive feelings, while at the same time being wise about the future.

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

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This Is How You Change The World

Originally posted at: http://thoughtcatalog.com/%tc-coauthor%/2016/08/this-is-how-you-change-the-world/

by: Becca Martin

You change the world by being kind and empathetic. You change the world by being honest and by being compassionate. You change the world by giving without looking for a return. You change the world by doing the right thing and by being yourself. You change the world by finding a passion and pursing it. You change the world by being generous, forgiving and authentic.

You change the world by being kind to everyone you encounter, regardless of their skin color, race, religious beliefs and social or economic status. You treat the homeless man sitting outside your office with the same kindness you treat your coworkers with. You don’t judge people on their stories and their backgrounds. They might have made a few wrong decisions to end up where they are today, but everyone makes wrong decisions, but most of us are lucky enough to have people to help us fix them. You don’t act like you know their stories, but you’d be willing to listen. You’d be willing to ask how they’re doing and wait for a real answer. You wouldn’t make assumptions or belittle anyone, you would wish them the best and let them know you care.

You change the world by being honest and compassionate. You don’t lie your way out of things. You don’t place blame on someone else to save your own ass. You own your mistakes and you try to be as honest as possible because the world doesn’t need anymore liars and people throwing each other under the bus. The world needs more honest people that aren’t afraid to admit when they messed up. The world needs more people who care about how others feel instead of just being concerned with themselves. The world needs your honesty and the world needs your heart.

You change the world by giving without expecting anything in return. You find a organization you’re passionate about and you help them, you volunteer your time and you donate when you can. You don’t do it because you’re looking for a reward out of it, you do it because it’s the right thing to do and because you’ve been so blessed in this life time that it’s only right you give back. You give without expecting because once you start expecting things the reasoning behind the good you’re doing becomes corrupt.

You change the world by doing the right thing and being yourself. You change the world by standing tall in what you believe in and supporting that cause. You do what is right, you don’t act with violence or out of anger, and you act with kindness and with love in your heart. You dedicate time to find who you are and by being yourself you know what you believe in. You know what you’re passionate about and believe in those values. Do what is best for you, don’t be influenced by other’s decisions, find your thing and make your mark.

You change the world by finding your passion and pursing it. You change the world by being yourself and dedicating time into what you love. You change the world by pursing your passion and inspiring one person or a million people to follow their dreams, as well. You show others that it is possible if you put your mind to it. You should other’s how amazing life is when you do what you love everyday and they should never strive for anything less. You change the world by believing in what you do and doing it with all your heart.

You change the world by being generous, forgiving and authentic. You change the world by not being greedy. You help a friend when a friend is in need. You donate to a cause that you know will help those who need it. You give up your seat on the tram to the older woman who is standing. You pack an extra lunch for the homeless man outside your office. You change the world by thinking of other people besides yourself.

You change the world by not holding grudges and forgiving those who might not deserve it. You forgive them not for the sake of them, but the sake of yourself. You forgive them so you can move on and find peace.

You change the world by being authentic and not pretending to live perfectly inside a glass house. You inspire others when you’re honest and when you’re raw. You humanize yourself when you stop posting pictures of perfect beaches and the flawless smoky eye. You become real when you are authentic, when you stop trying to make the world think you’re perfect through the lens of a camera.

You change the world when you become the best version of yourself. It might take time; it might take the earth breaking you in order for you to grow bigger and better. It might take inspiration from someone important to you in order for you to see the bigger picture, but it is possible. It is possible to change the world, but in order to change the world you have to start by being the change.

Change the world one day at a time, one decision at a time. Rome wasn’t built in a day and the world can’t be saved in a day, but you can start changing the world by being the best version of yourself possible.  Be the change, I believe in you.

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To Be a Better Leader, Learn This FBI Hostage Negotiation Tactic

Originally posted at: https://medium.com/the-mission/this-fbi-hostage-negotiation-tactic-makes-you-a-better-leader-a4afe919c18d#.h32qerqg5

by Andy Raskin

Before getting to yes, strive for “that’s it.”

As a strategic messaging and positioning consultant, I preside over lots of contentious meetings. They go with the territory: Sometimes it’s just really hard to get leaders of high-profile startups to agree on a single version of their strategic story.

About six weeks ago, I was trying to do exactly that while facilitating a meeting at a Series B startup backed by A-list investors (Andreessen Horowitz, GV and others) — and things were not going well. In particular, a salesperson named Troy (not his real name) would not buy into the strategic narrative framework that I had led his CEO and co-founders in crafting over the previous four weeks. Troy was an important member of the team, and the CEO wanted him excited about the shared strategic vision.

Just as I was losing hope of ever getting Troy on the same page as the rest of his team, the CEO stepped in and began asking Troy a series of questions. And in a shift that seemed almost magical, Troy came around. By the end of the meeting, Troy agreed to fully support the new messaging, and I could tell that he meant it.

Beyond impressed (more like in awe), I approached the CEO after the meeting.

“What did you just do?” I asked.

“It’s a tactic I read about in a book by an FBI hostage negotiator,” the CEO said.

Needless to say, I asked the CEO to send me a link to the book.

The Role of Emotional Connection in Leading People to Embrace Your Ideas

The book, I learned, was called Never Split the Difference, and had, indeed, been written by a 24-year veteran of the FBI named Chris Voss, along with a co-author named Tahl Raz. (I have no relationship with either, and no stake in sales of their book.)

From 2000 to 2007, Voss served in the FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Unit. During the last four of those years, he was the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator, running high-profile cases in global danger zones like Iraq, the Philippines, and Colombia.

Voss’s game-changing insight was that nearly every successful hostage release happens only after the chief negotiator establishes an emotional connection with the kidnapper. In spite of that truth, the FBI’s traditional negotiations tactics—and most of the ones taught in schools (Getting to Yes, most notably)—were focused on removing emotion from the equation to reach a win-win solution through logic and reason. As Voss writes in Never Split the Difference:

I mean, have you ever tried to devise a mutually beneficial win-win solution with a guy who thinks he’s the messiah?

Thankfully, Troy, the reluctant salesperson in our meeting, didn’t possess a sense of himself that was that grandiose. But he did exhibit a certain messianic zeal (which I share) about the importance of a well-crafted strategic messaging and positioning architecture. A few days earlier, Troy had sent an email to his CEO and leadership team with the subject “Problems with New Messaging”; it contained a detailed accounting of the deficiencies he saw in the version of the story that his leadership team and I had designed.

The Tactic that Moved Us Forward: Getting to ‘That’s Right’

Noting my utter inability to bring Troy into the fold, the CEO stepped in and took charge of the meeting. He said to Troy, “I have a call scheduled with a New York Times reporter tomorrow at noon, to brief her on on our company and strategy. What should I say when she asks, ‘What do you guys do?’”

Troy wasn’t quite prepared for this question, but he did his best to describe a version of the story that he wanted to tell.

What the CEO did next was the key. He said, “Now, I’m going to summarize what you told me, and I’d like you to let me know if anything is missing or incorrect. OK?”

This was the tactic the CEO had learned from Voss. In his book, Voss calls it “Getting to ‘That’s right.’”

When Voss analyzed the transcripts of his most unlikely hostage negotiation victories, he discovered that the turning point frequently occurred right after his team took the time to listen to the captor’s argument, summarized that argument back to the captor, and then got the captor to say, “That’s right.”

Those two words, Voss asserts, may not seem like a big deal when you hear them, but they mark a crucial turning point in any negotiation. That’s because they signal that your negotiating partner feels heard and acknowledged, which opens the door to previously impossible solutions:

It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. When your adversaries say, “That’s right,” they feel they have assessed what you’ve said and pronounced it as correct of their own free will. They embrace it. … Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs.

As his leadership team and I watched, the CEO summarized what Troy had said. Perhaps most importantly, he did it with total openness and lack of judgment and anger, which is impossible unless you truly make yourself open to what the other person has to say. When he finished, Troy added a few points that he felt the CEO had missed. This happened three or four times.

Finally Troy said, “Yeah, that’s right.”

How Everything Changed After Troy’s “That’s Right,” and My 3 Big Takeaways

The really interesting thing was that, when the CEO finally arrived at the version of the story on which Troy signed off, it wasn’t that different from the one the team and I had originally drafted. There was one key addition — some (very good) detail around recent global trends that made the company’s solution more timely (an element of strategic messaging that I call “Why now?”).

Everyone agreed that Troy’s addition strengthened the narrative, so we incorporated it into the final version. That became the one the CEO told to the New York Times reporter. It’s also the story that powered the company’s funding announcement, their new website, and their new sales deck. The company’s VP of Product presented the new strategic story to the entire company and received rave reviews — including one from Troy.

In the end, the project left me with three big takeaways:

#1. Leadership is a negotiation that depends on emotional connection

By starting with the team’s draft version (his adversary’s position) and asking Troy to suggest changes, I left Troy feeling unheard. It didn’t matter that we weren’t that far apart; until Troy felt understood, there would be no forward movement.

Interestingly, I had never thought of leadership as a negotiation before, but in a very real sense, it is: team members want a story they can get excited about, and the leader wants everyone’s “that’s right.”

#2. “Active listening” is the key to establishing that emotional connection (and, therefore, to leadership)

A lot of business storytelling experts talk about the importance of listening as a leadership skill. While I always assumed listening was important, I realize that, until now, I basically considered it the art of sitting there while the other person talks, not saying anything, and doing one’s best to look interested.

Voss’s technique shows that to really reap the rewards of listening, you have to not only take in what the other person says, but also prove that you’ve accurately received the message. As Voss says:

This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person. Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do.

I now make active listening — that is, Voss’s summarizing and repeating back until you hear a “that’s right” — a core part of my business storytelling workshops for leaders, as well as a standard part of my strategic messaging and positioning facilitation.

#3. There’s still more I want to learn from Voss

I’m still wrapping my head around everything Voss has written, and I have a feeling it’s going to continue to affect my work, my approach to leadership, and my personal relationships in profound ways.

About Andy Raskin:
I help leaders craft strategic stories—for better fundraising, sales, marketing, product, and recruiting. My clients include teams backed by Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, GV, and other top venture firms. I’ve also led strategic storytelling workshops for leaders at Uber, General Assembly, HourlyNerd, Neustar, and Stanford. To learn more or get in touch, visit http://andyraskin.com.

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Is My Spouse Really Narcissistic? How People Are Commonly Overpathologized

Originally posted at: https://drlorischade.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/how-spouses-are-commonly-overpathologized/

“How much do you know about Narcissism?” asked yet another female client, on the same day that a male client asked, “How much do you know about Borderline Personality Disorder?” It seems like therapists I supervise or I am asked a version of these questions at least weekly.  I can confidently state that I likely know more about both of them than most of my clients do.  I believe that these labels are used prematurely and inaccurately in short, because they simplify complex problems for people who are desperately trying to make sense out of the seemingly nonsensical.  Here are some reasons why they are incorrectly overused:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BDD) are labels that describe sets of behaviors and internal states identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  This is a tome published by the American Psychiatric Association for the purpose of categorizing and typifying groups of mental health disorders in order to conceptualize diagnoses and treatment options for various clinical presentations.  The book is the best we have for making sense out of mental health disorders.  As a collaborative clinician for the most recent issuance (5th edition), I have respect for the amount of study and diligence that goes into refining the descriptors as an attempt at treatment accuracy.  The problem is that the taxonomy is clumsy, largely subjective, politically influenced, and always controversial among mental health and medical professionals.

For example, one of the identifying specifiers for NPD is “Requires excessive admiration,” (p. 669).  What?  Who decides how much is “excessive?”  Another feature is, “Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes,” (p. 670).  Do you see the problem?  What exactly is “arrogant or haughty?”  What is the context for such behavior?  Many of the remaining identifiers are equally ambiguous.  The lack of precision throughout the DSM is an enormous problem because it is so subjective and can vary tremendously from clinician to clinician.

Let’s look at BPD.  The first listed criterion is, “Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment,” (p. 663).  So, what, exactly, is “Frantic?”  Does that mean if a spouse is threatening to divorce and walks out the door, the panicky reaction of a partner is “BPD?”  The 7th identifier is “chronic feelings of emptiness.”  Huh?  How empty?  Does “emptiness” mean the same thing to different people?  How about “Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger?”  I have seen plenty of that in partners who experienced betrayal, or a number of other emotionally-laden events.  This does not mean the individual has BPD.

Hopefully, most clinicians are very careful in using these labels.  Unfortunately, I see way too many who are not.  Many clinicians use the labels as a way to dismiss clients when they are overwhelmed with the behaviors, particularly in couple cases where the emotion is notoriously high, and the dynamics exceed the therapist’s competence and skill level.  Personality disorders are by nature considered durable and nearly unchangeable.  If a client has a legitimate personality disorder, in a sense, the clinician can just write off the case as untreatable.  Many do.  To be honest, sometimes I think it’s laziness at best and negligence at worst.  This is a particularly egregious practice when a therapist has diagnosed a spouse based on the report of their client, without ever actually meeting that individual (and yes, this happens, not infrequently).  I’m not a DSM expert, but as a licensed clinician with DSM training, I believe the actual prevalence of these cases in a population is far lower than they are diagnosed by mental health professionals, at least informally, behind closed doors.

Among the client population, the overpathologizing might be more pervasive.  Currently, the ability to easily research anything on the internet has provided fertile ground for spouses to gain just enough information to be dangerous.  Most of us are guided by confirmatory bias, meaning that we have a tendency to give more credence to information that supports what we already believe.  If I think I’m married to a narcissist (or an autistic or a bipolar individual or…) then I will find all kinds of information supporting my viewpoint.  Ditto for borderlines.  Then, if I read that it is not very treatable, I might prematurely give up on the relationship.

Much of the highly emotional behavior observed in panicky, anxious pursuing partners (often wives who get labeled “Borderline”), is exacerbated by, if not a direct result of, the withdrawing or stonewalling behavior by spouses who are flooded.  Likewise, the withdrawing husband who numbs himself because he doesn’t ever feel like he can calm down his wife’s emotions, may appear incapable of empathizing (Aha!  Narcissism!), when the apparent lack of empathy is really a conditioned response generated from years of feeling helpless to impact a partner’s emotional reactions.  The pattern becomes cyclical, more pronounced, and anticipatory until partners can and do appear to be Narcisstic and Borderline.  In short, protective behaviors of stonewalling and withdrawal that make sense in an intense situation are incorrectly labeled, and desperate, clingy, panicky emotional behaviors that come as a result of not knowing what else to do to save a relationship are prematurely pathologized.  Various trauma responses based on previous client history can also be prematurely lumped into a personality disorder.

I have no illusions about my self-indulgent blog post changing anything in general.  That would require a readership larger than three people.  However, I want to be on record somewhere articulating and highlighting this problem because it is endemic with therapists who don’t place behavior in a highly emotional couple context, and it is a problem with spouses who are desperately trying to make sense out of painful marriages they feel powerless to change.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have seen clients who I believe meet criteria for both of these disorders.  However, far more often, I see people who are very reactive to each other after years of feeling rejected, and their behaviors look like some of the personality disorder specifiers.  In other words, I see more instances which are treatable than those which aren’t.  If you think your spouse has a personality disorder, you could be right, but it is more likely that you are incorrectly labeling contextual, reactive behavior.  Be very careful in your unofficial diagnosis.

Now it’s time to return to my real life of being mom to 7 children, or, as I like to call it, my “Acute Stress Disorder,” or my “Circadian Rhythm Sleep-Wake Disorder,” for which the recognized treatment is “birth control.”  Oops….too late!  Happy diagnosing!

Reference: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (2013), American Psychiatric Association: Arlington, Virginia.

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Does Forgiveness Mean Instant Trust?

SOURCE:  Leslie Vernick

Can I Trust You?

Sometimes the burden to trust again has been unfairly placed upon the shoulders of the betrayed person and linked with forgiveness. The thinking goes like this: if you forgive me, then what happened between us is in the past. We don’t need to discuss this anymore and trust should be automatically restored.

But that’s not true.

We can genuinely forgive someone and still not trust him (or her).

Forgiveness is something we do because God calls us to do it, not necessarily because someone is sorry, repentant, or is genuinely interested in rebuilding trust. However, reconciliation of the relationship, including trusting again, requires forgiveness but not just forgiveness. It also requires the one who broke trust to show genuine repentance as well as make efforts to rebuild broken trust.

Typically we think of broken trust, especially in marriage, only in the sexual realm. However below are three additional areas where trust can be broken and must be rebuilt if a relationship is to be restored.

1.  Authenticity: People immediately mistrust someone who feels false. When you are married to someone, work with someone, or are close to someone who has one persona in public and another in private, you intuitively do not trust him, even when you have no specific reason not to. You don’t trust his public persona (i.e. great guy), because you also bear witness to his or her hypocrisy elsewhere. This person’s core self is not authentic and therefore he cannot or should not be trusted.

To rebuild trust with someone who has been inauthentic requires him or her to acknowledge his or her false image and learn to be more real. In most instances a person who has a double self will not acknowledge it nor do they typically change. When confronted, they just get more devious.

2. Reliability: When we are in relationship with someone, personal or professional, we want to know whether we can count on that person to do what he says he will do. Or, likewise, can I trust that he will stop doing the things that he says he will stop doing?

In rebuilding broken trust with someone who has a track record of unreliability, we must look at what the person does, not what the person says that he or she will do. For example, does he say he will put filters on his computer but never does? Does she say she will stop drinking, or spending money on the credit card but does nothing? Does he say he wants restoration of the marriage but won’t go to counseling or do any work towards that end? Does she tell you she will make more efforts to call you and reach out to you in order to have a more mutual relationship but her promises don’t turn into real phone calls?

Proverbs 25:19 says, “Putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot.” It’s foolish.

John Mark was someone who was not reliable and as a result, lost the apostle Paul’s trust (See Acts 15). Later on we see that trust was restored, not because Paul gave him trust, but because John Mark proved he was reliable and Paul’s trust was restored (2 Timothy 4). In the same way, building consistent reliability into our character rebuilds broken trust, not empty promises.

3. Care: In our closest relationships we ask ourselves: can I trust that you care for my good? My well-being?  When I share my thoughts and feelings do you hear me? Value me? Protect me? Or is there mocking, contempt, avoidance, or indifference? Proverbs 31:11,12 says, “The heart of her husband trusts in her.” Why?  Because, “He trusts her to do him good not harm all the days of his life.”

One of the foundations of relational trust is that love does not intentionally harm the other (Romans 13:10).  And, if in weakness and sin there is harm, every effort is made to make amends and not repeat that harm.

A destructive person does not want to hear the other person’s grievances against him. It’s true; it does hurt our feelings (and pride) to hear how we have hurt someone. It takes effort to listen and care about the other person’s feelings when you have broken her trust. Yet without consistent compassion, empathy, and care for the other, rebuilding trust is not possible. And if we don’t trust that someone cares for our well being, a close relationship with that person is not possible.

Rebuilding broken trust takes time and specific evidence of change, not merely words or promises of change.