Be careful with your aspirations for others

What is so wrong with a mother having aspirations for a child?  Or a spouse for a spouse?  Or a boss for an employee?  Or a sibling for a sibling?  Or a child for a grandparent?

A few things:
1.  Aspirations are primarily what we have for ourselves, not others.  I know.  This is hard.  But ultimately my friend’s bright and capable daughter needs to decide for herself who she aspires to become.  
2. When we try to coerce someone into wanting to achieve in particular ways, we run several risks:  we may confuse them from doing their own investigation about what they want to work hard for, we may foster a stubborn resistance to caring or trying anything, we may end up decreasing our relationship access on an intimate level.
3. When we get too focused on what others “should” do, we may not be paying enough attention to our own goals and dreams.

Every relationship does indeed have a component of expectation.  I expect Pete to not cheat on me; if he does, we’re going to have a problem.  I expect my children to treat me decently; if my kids behave in ways that call into question our mutual love for one another, we’re going to have a conversation.  These are not unreasonable expectations.  I am not asking anyone to be different than who they are.  I am not asking Scott to give me hugs 12 times a day or Michael to text me 4 times a day keeping me apprised of his schedule.  I don’t ask my daughter to loan me her shoes.  I don’t ask my  husband to develop a sudden appreciation for mushrooms.  

To say that there are no expectations in relationships is an over-statement.  But I am so concerned that we keep heaping expectations on ourselves and others that I am willing to overstate my case.  Check our expectations and reel ‘em in!

Avoiding senseless disappointment

My friend is in the middle of a difficult transition with a child who is moving past adolescence into adulthood; the ride has been bumpy.  Her daughter is not “progressing” along the adult-ing track on par with her Mom’s expectations.

Convinced that her daughter is brilliant (and she is), and capable (and she is) my friend is disappointed in her daughter’s lack luster academic performance.  This has become a real buzz kill in their relationship because mom is OBSESSED with getting this kid “back on track”.  

After months of listening to this mommy angst it occurred to me that I didn’t really understand what “back on track” meant.  She explained, “She needs a 4.0, more internships, and networking (including joining a sorority).”

“But she just finished her first semester with a 3.4.  That seems like a pretty good start.  And she is working a part time job at a whopping 30 hours per week!  Aren’t sororities expensive and finances a challenge?  And what are you thinking she needs to intern doing - she hasn’t even declared a major yet, has she?”

And honest to goodness her reply was this, “You are just confusing the facts with the mission.  The mission is success and she is not showing the promise I believe she possesses.”

Confusing the facts with the mission?  Seriously?

I fear my friend, who loves her child and desperately desires a close relationship, is sowing seeds of regret and resentment that may just sabotage this relationship in ways that will break my friend’s heart.  But my friend did not ask my opinion and I tried to remember my place.  So I stopped with my Socratic methodology of passive-aggressive questioning and LET.  IT.  GO.

What does intimacy look like?

It is easy to get confused about who is an intimate and who is not.  Is a parent ALWAYS a person who can speak into our lives?  Actually, no, they are not.  How about a spouse?  Nope.  What about a best friend?  Again, no. (Sometimes we are given the gift of answering one or more of these questions yes - but we cannot assume that this is true.)

A decent rule of thumb that helps us maintain safety in relationships, acknowledge boundaries and maintains a respectful distance from the living of life is this:  realize that is it NOT our place to suggest/ask/tell people what to think, feel or do.  That is an inside job - we are each responsible for our own thinking, feeling and doing.  

Why is this important?  Because when we over-step our influence, we create an unsafe relationship dynamic.  Why does that matter?  We don’t do our best listening, accepting and changing when safety is at risk.

Each of us defines relationship safety in different ways.  It requires a lot of hard work to get to know other people’s safety parameters.  But this is part of our work.  We need to be part of a relational dynamic that values and works toward conversational safety.  What helps us feel safe?  Respect.  Dignity.  Humility.  Curiosity.  What hurts?  Judgment.  Condescension.  Fighting dirty. Contempt.

Let’s give our relationships a chance to be as awesome and intimate and life-giving as they were intended to be by working toward mindful restraint when it comes to commenting on the life of others!

Knowing your place

I am not sure how it happened but my friend Linda agrees with me on this so it must be true:  we have often messed up a relationship because we did not know our place in the grand scheme of things.  We have given ourselves way too much permission to talk!

Here’s the deal: if we want to have the privilege of being able to speak into the life of the people we love and also have intimate connection, we pretty much have to build up to that status.  This capacity to give and receive feedback is VITAL to maturity.  It is a treasure to have a few people we can go to and tell everything we’re up against and ask for feedback.  As giver or receiver of feedback, both positions are a gift.

People who develop the capacity to embrace life and experience reasonable peace are those who can tell themselves the truth about their relationships.  They neither demonize nor idealize their family members, friendships and even enemies.

Knowing our place with respect to how others teach us they feel about us is crucial.  People who love us treat us in a loving manner.  People who care about us do not hurt us.  People who are safe and trustworthy are respectful even in disagreement.  People who can help us are those who have taught us that they do not hold us in contempt; they respect our boundaries; they treat us with dignity.

And of course - the reverse is true too.  Others are learning about the value we place on them by the way we treat them.  If we do not know how to love in an appropriately boundaried, respectful and dignified manner, we will not be the best candidate for intimacy.

Do you know your place?

Blessings and Curses

When I was a baby Christian I thought that maturity would look like almost anything other than my daily living experience up to that point.  Am I alone?  I don’t think so.  

Recently I sat with a person who wanted to meet with me (at his therapist’s suggestion) to talk about why he had dropped out of church.  I felt such a connection to his experience and mused at the wildly different conclusions we came to as a result of our early life encounters with God’s people.  He has chosen to reject all things spiritual; I ended up a pastor!

Our shared issue was one of misguided expectations.  I am not sure that anyone told me that the life of believer was supposed to have the same effects as a lobotomy, but I sure thought it.  I believed that faithful people, even me, would learn how to do the right things and much like winning at a slot machine - eureka! - blessings would flow.

What would be the opposite of blessings?  Curses.

What did I think curses looked like?  Conflict.  Broken relationships.  Kids with “issues.”  Marital strife.  Financial struggles.  Disappointments.  Losing.  Betrayal.

In other words - life.  All the things I had on my mostly unconscious but detailed list of things God would protect me and mine from are, in reality, things that happen in life - with or without conscious contact with a power greater than ourselves.

One issue that was a chronic problem for me related to my expectations about life.  Honestly, today they seem more like fantasies.  I expected Pete and I to never disagree.  I believed that if I behaved, God wouldn’t smite me.  The problem is that I categorized unpleasantness as smiting when in truth, it was just life doing what it does.  My expectations had the potential to rob me of the gifts that a spiritual life can provide.

With all those crazy thoughts how in the HECK did I end up a pastor?  That’s a long story, but an essential element of it was that I figured out that I was looking at things all wrong.  I’ll be focusing on issues that have been particular stumbling blocks for me as I tried to figure out how to be a person of faith in the hopes that something might be helpful to someone in the process.  Bottom line:  we must be constantly willing to evaluate our spiritual beliefs and assumptions about how we will experience life as a faithful person.