Other people's inventories

Criticism is a sure fire way to slow progress. I’m not talking about feedback, or brainstorming, or even making an honesty inventory of our strengths and weaknesses. Criticism is never helpful. Let’s be clear - there may be times when we think we are being helpful. But if there is a hint of criticism, your best efforts at helpfulness are blown before you even start. There are times when our fears or insecurities are handled using the misdirection of criticism. This will not make us less afraid or more secure.

Signs that you might be a critic: People do not respond well to your feedback, you say things like, “I am just being honest,” you might be told you are negative or your standards are unattainable. Sometimes we sneak criticism in sideways. “You may not know this but SOME PEOPLE think/feel that You….” Not EVER helpful. It’s the equivalent of Christian saying “Somebody is going up the stairs.” It’s a LOT cuter on a two year old than an adult.

Are you concerned about an issue or for a person? That’s kind of you. Do other people’s problems make you nervous or freak you out? Beware. You might be moving into codependency territory.

Criticism, at its heart, is a way to distract ourselves or others from our own shortcomings, insecurities, and fears. There’s just no useful place for it. We do not need to criticize ourselves and we certainly do not need to criticize others.

There are very few relationships that rise to the level of accountability that make us the people responsible for criticizing another person.

How do we set aside criticism and learn how to be helpful when there is an issue that needs addressing? We’ll deal with that tomorrow. For today, notice if you are distracted from taking your own moral inventory by finding what you perceive is “missing” in others.

Hope is not warm and fuzzy

I once thought hope was a perky disposition and that I was constitutionally incapable of feeling it. I was, yet again, wrong. Our cynical, sarcastic family is excellent at foreboding joy! But when I heard that research had proven my suspicions about the meaning of hope unfounded, I was comforted to know that I too could be a person of hope.

Here’s what C. R. Snyder, as explained by Brene Brown learned about hope. Snyder says hope is a three part process:

1. The capacity to identify a realistic goal. This aligns nicely with resiliency training, where we have learned that the ability to set and strive for a goal is a skill set resilient people practice and master. Maybe it isn’t realistic to say that you are going to go on a diet and only it sprouts and cauliflower. That’s not realistic (or healthy). Maybe our resolutions have failed because we have not practiced setting a realistic goal! (Good news, we can learn from this!)

2. Set a course to achieve the goal. The path may be winding, which requires flexibility, but it is important to be intentional about walking the path. If the path isn’t working, we get help to adjust our course.

3. Finally, the magic ingredient is this: have enough belief in ourselves that we can stay on the path until we have reached our realistic goal. When I am working out, my trainer believes that I can do things that I would never think were possible for an old lady. But since I am choosing to get it right rather than be right, I acquiesce to her way of seeing me and by dingy - I try. She’s right more than she’s wrong!!

Which part hope do you need some support and encouragement with? Hope may not be warm and fuzzy, but it is an essential element if we are going to stay the course.

Patience and process

When we focus more on “getting it right” than “being right”, it is easier to align ourselves with our core values as people of faith. We can know, for example, that God is a big fan of patience and process.

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

~ 1 John 3:2-3 NIV

Because we expect transformation without requiring it as a prerequisite for God to love us - we can work on “getting it right” without performance anxiety. We are not trying to win God’s approval, we are acknowledging his love and eagerly cooperating with his transformational work.

How can you shift from “being right” to “getting it right”? What would change if this was your perspective?

Change requires practice

Shifting our focus from always having to be right toward a commitment to “get it right” is one of my favorite concepts that Brene Brown hammers home in her book Dare to Lead. This compulsion to know all the answers and be right all the time is a heavy burden. Lay it down!

Getting it right is a whole different ball game. When we work to “get it right” it makes us curious - we can ask, how can I improve? It creates an atmosphere of humility. We can assume that we have more to learn. We can think of ourselves as scientists running our own customized experiments. “Getting it right” implies process. It promises improvement without demanding perfection. It provides direction when we’ve lost our way without the need to blame or defend ourselves for the confusion.

After a terrible six month stretch of sickness I found a trainer to help me get strong because I was feeling so very weak. (The bear in the woods example came to my mind often in those days.) My trainer knows more about how to customize fitness to my particular brand of weakness than I could have ever imagined. Over a year into the process, I see progress. My “get up” form is decent. I can press a 20 pound Kettlebell with each arm for multiple reps. I can hold the plank position for longer than I thought possible. I practice my deadlifts several times a week and am making decent progress with my weight progression. I am getting stronger.

But in each of the above exercises, every single week, my trainer finds something to correct and improve in terms of my form or my degree of weight difficulty. Just today we worked extensively on repositioning my arm just a few little inches during a particular exercise. Without her, I would not be this particular. But without her, I would also not be making progress.

What do you need to change? Who can help you practice changing? Today I receive comfort and joy as I surrender to the process of being a willing student and active participant in my own recovery. I could not do it without a great coach. What kind of coaching might you benefit from?

Rest battles fantasy living

Once a year Pete and I try to get away for a week or two. It’s not a vacation so much as it is a retreat. We go to the same place every year. The environment is beautiful and predictable. We rent a friend’s house and there is little access to our traditional numbing distractions. We cannot work; we cannot eat food for convenience sake (i.e. fast food that is not as healthy as other choices); we cannot get distracted with the news or sporting events or lifetime movies.

We bring nutritious foods and eat in. Exercising on paddle boards and kayaks, hiking up and down the mountain to the lake’s dock and setting up a portable gym in the basement - it’s so much fun AND offers comfort and joy that is pure gold. We read. We rest. We play games. Pete says that watching the clouds float across the sky is as close to pure peace as he ever gets. I agree.

Because of what we learned at the lake, we have begun to institute comfort and joy rituals at home too. We play board games at night after dinner. We go for a walk together. We read. We find pockets of time to rest - something we rarely gave ourselves permission for in the past. Our old way of thinking about change did not include dollops of comfort and joy. Perhaps that is why we were so frustrated by our lack of meaningful change!!

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

~ Psalm 91:1-2 NIV