Keep them CLOSE

Keep them CLOSE

I've been reading the works of Dr Gordon Neufeld, his life altering work on Attachment Theory, he is a theorist, and he is culminating his life work.

It's amazing.

his book you can find here: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Hold-Your-Kids-Why-Parents-Gordon-Neufeld-Gabor-Mate/9780676974720-item.html

his web site http://www.gordonneufeld.com/

I will be putting on a class SOON where he does the teaching, and we get to discuss afterwards. We will all be better for it!!!

Oh, and in case you chased your way here from the twitter feed of @justinATthomson this is one more thing you should also know, I am also the CEO of Heritage Family Services

see me here http://www.heritagefamilyservices.com/team.html

:-) ya, and I love building things so I also own a cabinet company - confused yet???

ok, Keep them CLOSE

I want you to think about this relationship stuff with you HEART I want you to think about how you FEEL when your kids cry. I want you to know, that most times our intuition wins and I would like to spell it out to you in a couple of simple ways.

First thing you need to know is that kids are developing - and SLOOOOOWLY maturing their way into adults. That said - they are not adults yet so instead of telling them to GROW UP show them how to grow up (trust me I made this mistake LOTS with my dear 11 year old!)

back to intuition.

As a mom (or a dad who watches a mom) what do moms naturally do when their infant cries?

they pull them close and soothe.

Okay what do you do when your 40 year old friend goes through a tragedy? You go over, you listen, you exist in their presence, you stay close.

Well turns out this same thing is what we have lost our intuition on in the last 30-60 years with older kids and teens. Now we use the "timeout" and we do so in an uninformed way. That is, lets ask the question, where did this idea come from? Who invented it? Does it work?

It does work, but not in what we want - that is, it does end behaviour, but at what cost? (the time out was created to keep abusive parents from their kids in the heat of anger but does that include you? no, so why are you using it?) Sending our kids away, and saying, "When you are good you can come out" is the equivalent of saying, when you behave you can exist in my presence. But, that is not what we say to the 16 month old crying baby, and not what we say to our 40 year old friend.

in fact, the things parents are saying to their 15 year olds, - What other relationship would they say those things in?

Hey I get it - this parenting thing isn't easy - but that doesn't mean we get to do it wrong. it might be easy to tell a 15 year old "I don't care about your problem" but, that is not what you want to communicate. And the slippery slope starts with the way we parent our kids at 2yrs 3yrs 4yrs.....

Where is this going... eventually what we want as parents is to matter to our kids. Dr. Neufeld simply states, "You want to matter more to your kids, than their friends matter to them." why? Well, when it comes to giving your kids advice about ecstasy - who do you want giving advice, you, or a 16 year old "friend" How about alcohol? dating relationships? marriage? driving? etc etc etc.

When kids don't "attach" to parents - because parents have been sending them "away" when they do not behave (and many other things I'm just picking on timeouts tonight), kids "attach" to their peers - because a basic human desire is "to be known" - in essence to attach.

Keep them CLOSE

How do you do that? simple (ok not really simple - but it gets easier - trust me) GO AND BE CLOSE TO THEM!!!! Dad's tell your daughters they are beautiful, moms and dads tell your kids that you love them!!! This does not mean that you don't discipline it means that you discipline in the context of a relationship. Be NICE!!! When kids get older you can tell them how frustrated you are with them (AND, how much you love them).

Deep down, when your kids face the disappointments that this life throws at them - you want to be the one that they go to. When they fail - you want them to go to you. When they make mistakes - you want them to come to you. When they get hurt - you want them to come close to you. the list goes on. So, now, NOW - go, and be close to THEM.

Keep them CLOSE

or

Someone else will.

slv2all

what you see is what you get

What you see is what you get.

What do you see?

Change what you see, change what you get, change what you do, change who you are.

What you see informs what you do.

Proof: you see a cardboard box in the middle of the street, you swerve to avoid it.

Well you do….

A five year old wants to build a fort out of it.

A community minded person wants to see who’s it is and see if they can help get it back to its owner.

An opportunist wants to see if there is anything in it of value.

A homeless man wants to live in it.

This from a cardboard box.

How do you see in your spouse?

How do you see your kids?

How do you see your job?

When you wake up in the morning, how do you see your world?

You can wake up, and tell yourself that life is hard, that you have a ton to overcome, that you have to struggle and fight your way through your day.

And.

That is exactly what you will do.

This morning I woke up, swung my feet over my bed, and took a breath.

I was thankful for warmth. Thankful for food. Thankful for running water. Thankful for my beautiful wife. Thankful for my awesome kids. Thankful for my car. Thankful for the gift of transportation. By the time I got to starbucks I had a huge smile on my face, and as I put a lid on my coffee the barista said to me “have a great day!” I said in return “It already is the best day I've ever had!”

Her response kinda shocked me in a cool fun way as she said:

“That is two days in a row!”

That made me smile even more.

Life is beautiful.

All Humans are born with natural potentials. We each are born with the exact same natural potentials. And our goal as parents must be, to understand and explore these potentials.

Beyond our kids, we should seek to understand what the potentials of ourselves are, of what our friends are, of what our spouse is, AND we should seek to draw out the BEST in each other. By being positive, by being energetic, by believing in each other.

You are amazing. Your potential, is probably beyond what you think it is. Life isn’t hard – it is a GIFT!!

You are beautiful, because you were born with the exact same human potential as any other person that has ever walked this globe before you!

Tomorrow, try and see things differently.

For what they really are. Or perhaps….

For what they could be….

:-)

slv2all

You don’t know what you’ve got until its gone.

You don’t know what you’ve got until its gone.

This blog post is about relationships.

And guys I want you to read it.

I came so close to botching this up completely, sometimes, when it’s quiet, and its just me, it really freaks me out how close I got to giving up.

Don’t throw in the towel.

Ok, here it goes. (that was the guy pep talk)

I watched a video recently (apparently a viral one) in which a dad “responds” to his daughters “inappropriate” rant on Facebook by posting a video (to her wall) . In the video, he “lays down the law” and then gets up from his chair and literally puts 6 bullets into her laptop.

What do you think? Appropriate? Funny? Entertaining?

Or how about my favorite (ya, the response I hate)

Whatever…

(ooooh nothing gets me like apathy)

Its 2012, and in this day and age relationships are different, WAY different than they ever have been. We have instant communication, Facebook, twitter, text messaging. Dad’s used to say good bye in the morning, and that was it until supper. If Dad worked away, that was it, for weeks at a time. Now it is different, and part of that is good, and part of it, well, not so good.

So, you have relationships.

Friends, Spouse, Kids, Siblings, etc.

Life used to demand that we keep relationships in check. Because without them you starved to death, or died alone in the cold.

We used to need relationships to survive.

Now you need them to thrive.

More than likely, you can think of one relationship that pisses you off, gets you angry, and well just isn’t working – it doesn’t bring you joy, or fulfillment, or peace or happiness. And, you can also think of times when the relationships you consider good, they make you feel that way too.

Let me try and put this in perspective.

There are moments – pure ones that are full of everything you want in life! Fun moments, when you are out with your friends, and its just good solid times, things are clicking, and you are happy. I’ve had moments like that with my little kids like 3-year-olds, good times giggling away at nothing. Or even just good times, like having a camp fire and couple of beers. Or Heck, what about sex with my wife, when we both want to be with each other?

Good times.

We have all had them. How come we can’t make them last?

Not so long ago, I spent the majority of my life in agony over my relationships. Mad. Angry. As a matter of fact, I was so angry and frustrated that a cop (after asking me three times if I was ok) pulled his badge on me, and asked me one more time. “Sir, are you ok?” I can’t tell you how close I was to doing something really stupid.

What changed?

What makes the good times last? What makes anger short? Forgiveness quick? What makes Relationships that continually bring you Joy?

Simple. Understanding them, and working on them.

And this is what the dad in the viral video gets so wrong, his stupid senseless reaction isn’t building his relationship with his daughter. It’s killing it.

Killing it.

Don’t you think that dad wants to walk his little girl down the aisle some day? I bet he does, and I bet he is frustrated with his relationship with her. And here is the tricky part, that relationship is HIS responsibility. Kids have been whining about their parents since they walked in the desert with Moses – come on people! Provide a safe kids for your kids to belong. For them to mature. Be more important to them than their friends. Attach to them.

I’m not taking all the time to answer everything here tonight. But let me just say this, if your relationships are frustrating you, it is because you don’t understand them. We have lost our intuition about relationships. Especially with our kids. And I can prove it to you.

2 situations:

A 12 month old crying in her high chair because she didn’t get what she wants – what does the mother do? Takes the child out, and brings her close. Does it help to yell? No. Does it help to hit? No. It helps to draw close and soothe.

2^nd situation Your best friend looses their 14 year old daughter to a car accident. What do you do? You go over, and you may not know what to say, but you stay in their presence. Does it matter if they are swearing and yelling? Or throwing things? No.

So, why is it ok to be different with a 14 year old? Why do we speak harshly? Why do we shame? Why do we tell them to grow up? Why do we tell them we don’t care? Why do we tell them to shut up? Why do we send them away from us, instead of allowing them, in their frustration to share it with us, to be with us?

And then, after pushing our kids away from us for 10 years, why do we wonder that they won’t listen to us, that they would rather listen and impress friends? Why do we then wonder, why they never call, and why they look coldly at us. Why do we wonder when they then turn and push away from us? Why do we wonder why our relationships are shallow?

You just pushed them away during the most important developmental time of their lives, when they needed your influence to help them mature. And now they practically hate you. But the things you said and did, if you did them to any of your friends, how long would they want to be with you?

We have lost our intuition.

Lets get it back.

Deep abiding joy in relationship is possible.

slv2all

Existing or Living

Often, we get bogged down in the daily grind.

A question was asked to @joJDFT by @katrinalandry – she was looking for some writing on it, some perspective. I copied the question, pasted it into note pad, and let it bang around in the grey matter for a couple of weeks.

Yesterday I got my answer.

This is the question: Are you living or just existing?

I’ve done a lot of existing:

A lot of swinging my legs over the bed, taking a breath, (checking twitter….), stretching my shoulders, making my way through the darkness to find my pants, and start my day.

A bowl of cereal.

A step on the scale.

Finish getting dressed.

Start the vehicle. Feed the dog. Share a moment of thankfulness with the creator – looking at the creation around me.

Then:

Meetings, memos, coffee, reading, twitter, training, thinking, coffee, wishing, meeting, hoping, reading twitter, deciding, creating agenda, ideas, responding, questioning, more coffee, responding, processing.

Lunch. Maybe a workout.

Afternoon looks kinda the same. Then drive home, greet my family – try to BE there for them, try to apply what I’m learning about how to connect relationally with those that are important to me. Squeeze in these couple of hours of meaningful time, some teaching for my kids and some love for my wife. Then tasks take over, we do dishes, feed the dog again, etc, etc, fall into bed will hitting – repeat.

5 days a week. All the while asking myself: Are you living or just existing?

Are you LIVING?

What does that even mean?

As near as I can tell, it is the moments when something deep inside me goes POP! It is hard to explain, it isn’t necessarily emotional, but it can be, it’s like a moment when a bunch of stuff gets mysteriously connected. When past dreams and ideas suddenly come to fruition, when passions beget deep abiding joy. The moments when I have felt most alive are the moments when what is currently happening engages a deep sense of purpose mixed with history, and pride, and joy, to the extent that –THIS MOMENT propels me forcibly into the future to want to do more, to be more, to never be satisfied again with status quo.

For a couple of brief moments yesterday, I felt alive.

And it came with the small voice of an awesome man named ‘Jay’ who in his own way, said thank you.

On any given day Berachah Place, is an odd wellspring of help to Red Deer’s hurting and homeless. It is a simple space, located behind Dino’s in downtown, a stones throw from strip clubs, and night clubs. 120 of Red Deer’s homeless get help there.

A shower.

Laundry.

Warmth.

A bite to eat.

Free clothing.

Every once in a while, you wonder if what you have been supporting, what you have been doing makes a difference.

Then you have a crystallizing moment. When a simple yet profound words are spoken.

What does Berachah mean to you?

“It means life.”

These words resonated deep within my soul. And frankly, made me feel for a brief moment, that I was truly living. Somewhere back there, something little that I did, made a difference to a guy named Jay.

To exist, is to plod along, taking from this existence.

To live, is to give life.

I could have never imagined being a part of a story like Jay’s and as we sat there and listened to him recount the tale of addiction, and hurt, and how he was helped, and set free… And as tears welled up, we realized. We are a part of something special.

Because no matter how low, life is special, and giving it the opportunity to grow and flourish is a power each of us have.

This year we are doing our first annual fundraiser. You can help be a part of the story, for a person like Jay. Sign on today by following the links.

Go for a walk.

Help us Help them.

Go to http://www.berachahplace.com/CNOY.html

Blessings

Slv2all

See a video of Jay’s story here: http://tinyurl.com/Berachah-Is-Life

Anything is possible

Anything is possible.

Do you believe that?

I've seen some pretty amazing things. I seen the most amazing athletic feats accomplished. Unbelievable stuff, that most of us can't do.

unimaginable weights lifted, by women - I just sit there thinking I could never do that.

unimaginable shots in basketball (my sport) it just drives my mind wild. How do they do that?

Some time search "pro ping pong" on YouTube. Mind numbing.

I love the highlight real. Watching Soccer player put enough spin on a ball to curve it. Fascinating.

And we are sitting there in our chairs, on our couches, think how amazing it is, and then we turn from our little oasis of relief back to our real lives. Back to the pile of laundry, the kids that won't listen, the spouse who:

"isn't there"

"Doesn't get me"

"Always nags me"

"Won't relax"

"Doesn't know how to have a good time"

"is 'out' again - fourth time this week"

And a thought traces through our mind.

"This is impossible"

Well I'd like to tell you that - this thought is Pure Bull Shit.

It isn't impossible.

But it is hard.

You see, what those people have in the paragraph above is something we have to learn to CrossApply to our everyday existence. Maybe you've never heard it like this before, so here is my attempt and trying to help out the futility that you are feeling. So take that woman weight lifter - world record of 412 lb as of the 2009 World Weightlifting Championships, she is Jang Miran of South Korea. So what does she have that you don't? Well first she has some will and determination - and the tools, most likely she also has a wicked team. Oh and one more thing, she probably practices everyday - she is probably unrelenting. Or how about those basketball players, you know, the amazing ones - what separates them from you - or me (remember my it was my sport). Well I will tell you what it is, reps doing the same thing over and over and over again until you have some type of odd muscle memory - you can do it in your sleep, your brain is wired for it, you are a machine. Take any sport, or any great feet of human kind and break it into its components and me and you can do that, but are we willing to do it 150,000 times a year? How many golf swings does it take to become a pro? And who is talking in your ear, poising you for greatness?

Ok got it? where am I going with this?

Relationships.

Awesome ones.

Husband and wife on the same page.

How could that happen?"

Well, I think the same way as we become great at anything.

This was my tweet today:

Love like this is possible.

for anyone.

Takes a shit load of work and understanding the nature of relationships #attachmentTheory

and if I had the room I would have added two more hashtags

#tribe

#gospel

I'll start with the ending and work my way back. Gospel. a couple of years ago I was convinced I was living a lie (because I was). My basic definition of this is this question "Was I being the same person in all circumstances?" So the thing I say with one person - is it true with that other person? My action in one circumstances is it okay in when those other people are watching? My attitude, is it congruent where ever I am, or am I "Ya having a great day" at the same time I am absolutely about to have a mental break down? So I decided it was time to change. Because I could not live like this anymore. There is a saying for times like this - goes like this:

Shit got real

I think I launched myself into some type of deep depression, if you asked me how I was doing I told you up strait because I was done with bullshit. At the same time I got into a accountability group - 12 step of sorts, in search of changing some bad habits. It wasn't the best of years. But here is the cool thing - that tribe, that group of men started being my corner men. They started being my sparing partners, my coaches, my team mates. Inside a group of men, I heard questions like:

How can I be a better husband?

What things do I need to stop doing?

What new habits do I need to start?

Is this possible?

This group was centred on the teaching of Jesus that we found in our bibles. Funny thing about the group is we found a strange amount of "dislike" for us in the local church. Funny, seems religion and authenticity don't mix so well (more about this some time in some other post). But here is the awesome thing, as we kept coaching each other we found that we got better and better. Jesus said in Matthew 19:26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” What Jesus was talking about in that passage was deep personal change.

Changing who you are.

From the inside.

And ya.

It is possible.

#tribe

Man I love my tribe. And guess what, we all have one. You are in one, you work out with one, you have beers with one, you fight fires with one, you building things with one, you reconcile accounts with one, you make coffee with one, you eat with one. Those people. Who you call, who you tweet to, who you text message, who you are friends with. Who you go out with. The ones you talk with about the deep stuff. - That is your tribe.

I have a few questions for your tribe then.

1. Who is your leader?

2. Where are you going?

and it is inside question #2 that we find all of the grit and the grime and the hard fricken work. Because we just end up telling ourselves 'what? we are not really going anywhere - what do you mean where are you going?'

But I want you to think about it seriously. Where are you going?

I think that unintentionally we end up leading each other to all kinds of dark conclusions. I had one early tribe member (he will remain un-named) who lead me into the darkest years of my life with his shitty advice to lie to my wife - so I kicked him out of my tribe it was easy, I just stopped phoning him. Where are you going? I find we end up talking about what everyone else needs to do in order to make things better for us. So we end up talking with our friends about what our spouse does, or doesn't do, that angers us, or pisses us off and our friends agree, and listen - and don't challenge, and suddenly we find ourselves moving slowly apart in our marriages. And then we wonder why, and we wonder how we got here.

What if you took your relationships as seriously as a world record holding weight lifter.

What if?

Well I know from experience. First thing you would do is do things differently with your tribe. And ya, maybe YOU are the one to lead them, push them, ask them what their favourite thing is about their spouse. Build their marriage UP. Coach, direct, suggest, encourage, move forward, goal set, attain, move more, quit bad habits, create new ones, ask encourage some more, and so on.

I know it is possible. Because it happened to me. Be the change you want to see in your world.

#attachmentTheory

I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, let me just say. We don't know JACK about relationships. You think you do? You don't. If you have ever texted during a conversation, trust me you don't know JACK. If you have ever yelled at your kids - you don't know JACK. If you have ever felt the empty and alone in a room - in a life, in a world FULL of people that you have known your whole life - then ya you don't know JACK.

Tell you what - for all I have learned, and am now TRYING to practice, I don't know JACK about relationships.

Nothing. But I'm trying some new things found in a book "Hold on to your kids" and I'm finding that this stuff works - that it makes sense, and that it applicable to ALL my relationships.

here is the link

http://www.amazon.ca/Hold-Your-Kids-Parents-Matter/dp/0676974724

Like I said, I'm no expert, but I'm learning stuff, and my family, my friends, and my businesses are the better for it.

I'll be posting more about relationships and attachment theory in the coming days and weeks.

thanks for reading.

You can do it. I know you can!

slv2all

Anger, Joy and Pure enjoyment

Anger is easy.

Joy is hard.

Pure Enjoyment impossible.

Anger is easy.

It doesn't take any swallow of your pride. It whelms up, bursts out rages - and then goes away.

From a neurological perspective Anger is a neurological response any one of numerous triggers. It can be past frustrations with self, current frustrations with others. It can be current situations, feelings, things people say, things they do. Injustice. fear. loss of hope. Being attacked. Watching someone else be attacked. Anger is fuel. It can charge the nervous system with a ton of adrenaline and bring our bodies to a hyper sense of awareness. Our muscles tense with explosive power, and everything becomes quicker. Our tongues sharper. Our words more piercing. To those we know most about - to which our relationships return decades upon decades, we can pull a thought from 30 years ago and STRIKE with acute pinpoint force. The attack is quick. Done. and remembered.

Joy is hard.

Joy is often confused with pleasure. Joy is not in its essence pleasure. Joy can bring pleasure. Pleasure can come in the midst of joy. Joy can accompany pleasure. But they are different. Pleasure is fleeting, it is a moment. Pleasure is eating pie. Joy can be found in not eating pie. And. Joy can also be found in the pleasure of eating pie when one has taken the pleasure in not eating pie more than eating pie. Joy is not pie.

Joy is hard, and this is the reason I think it is hard - like anger, joy must be found not only in the doing of things, but also in the killing of things. Find out what you want, and sacrifice other things in the pursuit. There is nothing wrong with eating pie. There is nothing wrong about even over eating. We could even bring ourselves to say there is nothing wrong with weighing 20 or 30 pounds over what we should. Nothing wrong with it. But. If we have an idea, that these things are in the way of our pursuit - say running an ironman, or pleasing a spouse - or if these things bring with them guilt (placed on our spirits by the Holy Spirit) then each time we over partake in them…. we will loose a little Joy. Joy is hard, because what we believe joy IS messes us up. We believe Joy is as much running a perfect race as eating too much and sitting on the couch night after night instead of training. the later is not Joy - it is pleasure. Know the difference.

Pure enjoyment is pleasure commingled with Joy, Anger, Pleasure, Self control while being fully authentic in community with others before God - with no guilt - pretty close to impossible. I don't have much to write on this, because frankly it eludes me. I have so often been derailed from it with pleasure. or with Anger. I believe that Pure Enjoyment comes from decade after decade of self control. I've not experienced it. But I want to.

Put another way:

Anger is a sprint.

Joy is a marathon.

Pure enjoyment an Ironman.

Ironmen don't practice for their race by running sprints.

Run as if to finish the race!!!!!

slv2all

"Cry baby Cry"

“Cry baby cry!”

These words pierce my soul the other day.

I came in from moving the white stuff around to hear that our little one year old had shared the blessed experience of having another fit.

Fun.

Not sure what it is about a crying baby sucking all the life out of frustrated parents that don’t know “What is up?” or “What they want” or “What set them off”. For those of you that have had 1 year olds, you know, they want to tell you what they want, but they don’t know how – so they point and grunt and throw their head back and, … CRY!!!

But these words have another meaning for us.

“Cry baby cry!”

After our daughter Keziah was born still. We started the slow painful process of rebuilding our lives. On one level (marriage and relationship) we had tough slugging to do (more about that in a future post), on another level we had decisions to make.

The biggest question we would tackle together as husband and wife was if we wanted to have one more child. The answer was simply yes, but there was a waiting time for healing – and then…

9 months of pure agony mixed with joy, anticipation, and ultra sounds. Lots of ultrasounds. Weekly appointments, plans, everything about us was focused on this new little bundle of joy. Every movement evoked a memory of Keziah’s movements, every late night in utero baby sleep jolted us awake with cups of ice water, and thankful baby (Sorry can’t use the term fetal – kinda hate that term) movements. Plans were drawn up around how we would move forward with actual delivery – C section? Induction? When? What was best for baby? What was best for us? For the first time Lynn found out the sex of the baby, we were having – you guessed it, another girl.

More tears, More Joy. More wonderment.

And then came that night at the hospital. That familiar wing – unit 25. Seems like everyone knew the story. And we had eager heart wrenching anticipation of the moments before us.

Been here before. But not like this.

And we would leave this place again – down that same hallway – would we leave empty handed, or….

In all my life I don’t think I had felt such nervous anticipation.

My Bride Lynn was amazing – she was every time.

And then that moment, She was born, and a split second of awkward silence was pierced by my wife’s words. Were they a prayer? Or just desperate visceral desire. I can hear them like she spoke them yesterday…

“Cry Baby CRY!”
…

And she did...



I’ve got a picture of that moment.

That moment.

When nearly 2 years of tears had been whipped away by the hand of The almighty himself.

Joy returned to my Bride.

And peace to my soul.


And so we lost ourselves in the bliss, mixed with heartache, and Joy of that moment. A moment that never should have been, but was. We had a mixed uncomfortable troubled thankfulness. And then we put our little bundle into her car seat. And walked down the righthand hallway of Unit 25 holding hands. Joy again meshed with sorrow, we cried more tears for the familiarity of the last time we walked that hallway. The last time we didn’t want to leave empty, this time we left with a discomforting satisfaction.

And today, as three older siblings and 2 adults try to pick up the toys chasing after our 1 year old girl, when she cries (and she sure has a set of lungs now) I am reminded both of the cry that was…

And, the cry that wasn’t

slv2all