Top 3 Pics

1. TIMING – pick the right time to make a complaint or to raise a controversial issue. Wait until they are extremely busy or frustrated. Right when they have walked in the door is a good option. As a general rule, look for the time when they least expect it or are least able to respond.

2. ESCALATION – Move quickly from the issue to questioning their personality and wondering whether it’s worth the effort to stay in this relationship at all. Interpret the difficulties of the relationship as evidence of bad faith or lack of integrity on their part.

3. BROWN BAGGING – Try to list as many problems as possible in as much detail as possible. Don’t stick to the original issue, but rather throw in all the problems you can think of. Don’t limit yourself to the immediate present. If they can’t recall the offense, so much the better.

Some years ago, my oldest son, Matthew came to me an asked me to write “I love you” on a piece of paper. I saw on that already written on that paper were a few other lines of the same phrase, “I love you,” and I asked him what that was all about. He told me that he had got his brothers and his mother to all write that phrase, and he was going to engrave it permanently on his arm as a tattoo. If you look on his right forearm, you will see that tattoo today and it will be there for the rest of his life. He’s never going to regret getting that tattoo. He had some pretty intense emotional struggles as a child and teen, and he’s worked really hard to become a remarkable, strong and loving human being.

Some incredibly important and valid human needs are love, affection and relationship. The strongest cultural story for fulfilling these needs is falling in love with the “one”. The knight rescues the princess and they live happily ever after. While falling in love is an incredibly important part of life, it often fails to meet our expectations. When we realize the person we fell in love with is just as human as the rest of us and not capable of meeting all of our needs, relationships often fall back on codependent and manipulative behavior. The truth is that one person can not be a substitute for a meaningful career, supportive community or self acceptance.

I’ve been struggling for a long time with grieving the state of the world. I now have a lot more awareness of how it has shown up in my life, but for a long time it was simply an unnamed numbness or despair. Grief for the state of our planet is a lot more common than people would think, however until recently we culturally have not recognized it as valid. When not expressed in community, grief becomes anxiety and depression.