The Power of Words

If you spent any time over the last two weeks watching or listening to the Republican and Democratic conventions, there is one fact that probably goes without saying: there is great power in words.  The prime time focus of both conventions has been on the series of speeches that have been given each evening.  Tens of thousands, or perhaps it's closer to hundreds of thousands, of words have been spoken in hopes of inspiring, educating, and motivating all who have been watching and listening.  Words are that important.  They have the power to both inspire and bring out the best in ourselves and others, as well as the power to break down and bring out the worst in ourselves and others. I know very little about giving a political speech and so I’ll leave it to the experts in that arena to comment on the words that have been shared at the conventions these last two weeks.  I do know something however about the kinds of words that build up and inspire people and families, as well as the kinds of words that have the opposite effect.

Many of us are familiar with the advice to, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”  A few years ago I learned a third phrase to add to this already great piece of advice,  “Don’t say it mean.”

     Say what you mean. 

     Mean what you say. 

     Don’t say it mean.

There is much wisdom in just these three short sentences.  Like a lot of advice, it takes a moment to learn, but a lifetime to master.

The first phrase, “Say what you mean,” captures the importance of communicating clearly with one another what we think, feel, and believe.  It is in everyone’s best interest to confidently and consistently say what we mean when speaking with others.  Other people cannot read our minds and hearts, and so the best way for others to know what we think and feel is to simply say what we mean.

The second line of this saying, “Mean what you say,” speaks to another key aspect of effective communication.  Meaning what we say is the foundation of integrity and it is how we build and sustain trust in relationships. For example, when I apologize to someone I have hurt and say, "I'm sorry,” I need to truly mean what I say and not say it simply because I think it's what the other person wants to hear.

The third line, “Don’t say it mean” is sometimes the most difficult.  We live in a culture that celebrates the put down and the mocking and demonizing of the other.   The epidemic of violence in our culture not only includes the physical assaults of others, but the verbal assaults of others as well.  Somewhere along the line, it seems that people decided that they could increase their power by raising their voice in anger and by attacking. If we can avoid saying things in a mean way, we will actually have a better chance of  getting our point across and being heard.    The words we use and the way we use them clearly have great power.  The way we speak to one another has the power to strengthen relationships (even in the midst of profound differences) and it has the power to break down and destroy relationships.  The choice is ours.  We get to choose what words we will use and how we will speak them to one another.

I, for one, am casting my vote for, “Say what you mean.  Mean what you say.  Don’t say it mean."

Divining the Secret Self of the Other

Our nephew is getting married this weekend in the Smoky Mountains and we  couldn't be more excited to be a part of the celebration.  As summer is the most popular time of the year to get married, I’m guessing that some of you have or will be attending a wedding this summer as well.  I  love going to weddings as they always remind me of what is most sacred in life, love. The traditions around weddings have changed tremendously over the last several decades.  Wedding ceremonies themselves have become as different as the locations where the ceremonies take place.  While many things have changed about weddings, some things have remained the same.  Most importantly, the central focus of all wedding ceremonies continues to be the exchange of vows by the couple. Each person gives their word, pledges their fidelity to honor, love, and cherish their partner through times of abundance and through times of challenge.

As couples prepare for their wedding day they often search for historical readings and wisdom texts that they might wish to include in their ceremony.  A new resource used by many brides and grooms is a book published last year, The Marriage Book: Centuries of Advice, Inspiration, and Cautionary Tales from Adam and Eve to Zoloft.  This 557 page book, written by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen Adler, contains a vast amount of wisdom, readings, and advice on every aspect of marital life.

Grunwald was interviewed after the publication of her book and was asked to share her favorite piece of wisdom from the book, no small task given its length.  What she chose to share was a quote from the poet William Butler Yeats, written in his journal in 1904, when he was 44.

“In wise love, each divines the high secret self of the other and, refusing to believe in the mere daily self, creates a mirror where the lover or the beloved sees an image to copy in daily life.”

This reading by Yeats contains two connected pieces of wisdom.  First, that all people, our spouses and our selves,  have a daily self and a higher self, meaning that we are all a mixture of selfishness and selflessness, of self-centered pettiness and self-giving love.  The second piece of wisdom is his advice then, is to vow to reflect back to one's partner the image of their higher best self, to help them see that higher version of themselves, even when they are having trouble seeing it themselves.  To put it more simply, Yeats is advising spouses to look past the sometimes challenging daily behaviors of one’s partner and instead focus on  the transcendent worth of their higher self.  What greater gift could we give each other  than to reflect back to each other our transcendent goodness?

While wedding ceremonies have changed a great deal over the years, they continue to be celebrations of the higher, transcendent aspects of love and life, not just for the couple getting married, but for all who are honored to be in attendance.  They serve as a reminder to us that in the midst of the daily routines and challenges of life and love there is a higher love, a higher spiritual self that we are called to both reflect and express to one another.

We all have more than enough reminders of the pettiness of what Yeats refers to as our daily selves.  We are grateful for the opportunity to be attending our nephew's wedding this weekend, where we all will once again be inspired to celebrate the transcendent nature of our higher selves, and of the people we love most in our lives.

I'm Bored!

My wife and I are both licensed marriage and family therapists and so we are privileged  to have meaningful conversations with parents on a regular basis.  One concern that parents commonly voice this time of year is how tired they are of hearing their kids say, "I'm bored.  There is nothing to do around here!"  Parents easily become exasperated by their children's complaints of boredom because they often have worked to get their children involved in  fun summer activities.  It seems that the moment there is not a structured activity, their children complain of boredom. When we talk with parents they often wonder if the very fact that they structure so many activities for their children actually has an unintended side effect of creating the, "I'm bored" response by their children.  They wonder if their children struggle to come up with their own ideas because they seldom have to do so.  What we tell parents is that this is not an "either, or," but a "both, and" choice.  Structured activities are important for children, and unstructured free time where children need to create their own fun and activities are both essential for a child's growth and development.  Structured activities help children to learn how to socialize and collaborate with others, while unstructured time, especially if it is alone time, helps a child to become comfortable with solitude and with their inner thoughts and feelings.

Children are not the only ones I hear saying, "I'm bored."  I talk with adults who often share, "I'm bored in my work," or "I'm bored in my marriage," or "Overall I'm just bored with my life."  The parallel between expressions of boredom by both children and adults, is the perceived helplessness to do anything about their boredom.  "I'm bored and I don't  have any idea of what I can do to change this feeling," is what they seem to be complaining about.

An important dynamic that keeps a person stuck in a state of boredom is that they often just try to find an external solution to their boredom.  They want someone or something else to interrupt their boredom, distract them from their boredom, or fill up the emptiness that often accompanies such a feeling.  What is essential to teach our children, and to remind ourselves as adults, is that boredom is best resolved by a two step process.

The first step is to be patient and accept it.  Boredom is a natural state of mind and not something we need to frantically avoid feeling.  The second step is to  turn inward and look deeper within ourselves for creative ways to revitalize our time, our work, our marriages, and our lives.  A deeper resolution of boredom is an "inside, out" job, not an "outside, in" job.

When a child says, "I'm bored" the  parent is wise to resist the urge to find a solution for the child.  A good response would be something like, "I understand, that's a natural feeling that we all feel sometimes.  I guess it means you haven't yet figured out something fun that you want to do or create.  Be patient and I'm sure something will come to you, and I'd be happy to talk with you to help you figure something out."  Providing children with opportunities to grow a  sense of agency in their lives, a clear sense that they can create and recreate meaning and purpose in their lives is one of the most important skills to develop in our children.  Come to think of it, it's a pretty important skill to develop in ourselves as well.

Healing Takes Time

I have spent thousands of hours fishing in my life and a month ago I hooked something I have never hooked before-myself.  With the help of a large Northern Pike that I was trying to get off of a multi-hooked lure I buried one of the free hooks deep into my left thumb.  It was a barbed hook which greatly increased the pain as well as the challenge of extricating it from my thumb.   Since the barbed hook was already half way through my thumb I debated for a moment whether to try and push it all the way through, or to try and pull it back out.  After a few minutes of debate as to what to do next I made what turned out to clearly be the right decision. I had my wife drive me to the local emergency room, which thankfully was only thirty minutes away. The doctor was able to see me quickly and assured me that he knew exactly what to do, as the hospital was located in an area in Northern Wisconsin known for its great fishing. He explained that he had extracted hundreds of hooks from many hands and feet over his many years of practice.  Once my thumb had been numbed he went to work and ended up pulling the hook out the way it had gone in, which unfortunately allowed the barb to do more internal damage as it was being extracted.  Soon the ordeal was over and after expressions of deep gratitude to the medical staff I was on my way with a well-bandaged left thumb.

It's been a month since this happened and I have learned an important lesson from the healing process.  What has been remarkable is how quickly the surface level of my injury has healed.  The hole in my skin where the hook entered (and exited with the help of the doctor) has completely healed.  If you were to look at it you would hardly be able to notice that there had been an injury.  The internal healing, however, has been much slower.  I still have a great deal of pain deep within my thumb, and any careless bumping of it continues to cause me great discomfort.

The lesson in this for me is perhaps obvious.  Just because a person's wound may look healed and totally fine on the outside, it doesn't mean that the deeper, internal healing process matches that outside appearance.  A person who has experienced a traumatic loss of any kind may appear "fine" shortly after their painful experience.  They may even report that they are "fine" when asked.  But we need to be aware that the healing of the deeper wound from their loss will take much longer.  It is also wise to know that  any experience that bumps up against this loss will continue to cause discomfort for a long time, perhaps for years, to come. This lesson applies not only to individuals, but to couples, families, organizations, and society as a whole.  The deep wounds of racism in our culture are just one example of how long, and how painful the process of a deeper, internal healing can be.

Perhaps you know someone who looks they are doing "fine" on the outside, but is still experiencing a deeper, internal pain on the inside.   Perhaps that person is you in some way.  I hope my painfully learned lesson with a fish hook can serve as a reminder that deeper healing always takes longer than we expect and we are wise to be careful and gentle with ourselves and/or others during the healing process.

Two Kinds of Freedom

As our nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day this Monday, I find myself thinking about what it means to be free. There are many different understandings of what it means to be free, the most common of which has to do with being free from external control. This of course is the understanding the founders of our nation had in mind when they signed the Declaration of Independence, declaring our new country's freedom in 1776. There is another meaning of freedom though that I am quite familiar with as a pastor and a therapist. This meaning of freedom is more of an internal experience. This kind of freedom is what a person is feeling when they announce to me, "When I first came in here and talked about my guilt for what I had done, it was really hard. I feel like talking has really helped, I feel that it has freed something up in me." Another example of this kind of freedom is when I hear, "I used to feel so 'stuck' in my grief and sadness, but now that I've been facing it, I feel this renewed energy has been freed up in me."

Whenever we feel trapped or stuck in life, it is most important that we take some time to reflect on whether the cause of this trapped or stuck feeling is external or internal. Most of us have had the experience of thinking we were trapped by a job, a relationship, or the place where we were living, only to realize later after we left the job, relationship or place, that we still felt the same way. There is a wonderful book entitled, Wherever You Go, There You Are that explains quite well that whatever external changes we may make, we take our internal selves with us.

We are all undoubtedly familiar with the ways a person can be held captive externally, but what are some of the ways a person can be held captive internally? I referred to two examples earlier--a person can be held captive by unresolved guilt or by grief. A person can also be held captive by a bad habit or an addiction. Shame holds many people captive, especially people who have experienced abuse or neglect. Worry, anxiety and fear have probably held most of us captive at one time or another in our lives.

In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples have a discussion about the external and internal meanings of freedom. Jesus says to his disciples, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free." His followers do not understand that he is talking about an internal sense of freedom and they respond to Jesus by letting him know that he is not making sense to them. They have never been held captive by anyone they declare. In their minds they are already free because they are talking about freedom from an external captor. Jesus is inviting them into another meaning of freedom, an internal freedom that is both spiritual and emotional, and is one that they have not yet experienced.

So in honor of the 4th of July, let's all take this same invitation, an invitation to greater freedom by declaring our independence from whatever may be controlling us internally. The first step is to acknowledge where we feel stuck or trapped--to identify in what way we long to feel more free. After we have done this, we will need to discern what is that truth that will set us free--what must we learn, say or do to get unstuck? Do we need to face a secret in our lives that we have been hiding from ourselves and others? Do we need to have a difficult conversation with someone we love? Do we need to deepen our spiritual life? Do we need to change a bad habit? As we do this, we will soon learn that we may need the support of others in our efforts. We will mist likely need the support of friends, family, a spiritual leader/and or community, a coach, or a counselor. Do not overlook the fact that creating and living out the Declaration of Independence was a group effort too!

As we remember and celebrate those who worked so hard to found our nation, may we be inspired to persevere in discovering and living the truth that will set us free as well. Happy Independence Day everyone!