Don’t get mad. Set a limit!
He didn’t have the ability to empathize with her because he could not get past himself.
If I can’t allow you to be a person in your own right, then I can’t empathize with you. I’ll always take your experience as meaning something about me. Or I’ll react to your feelings by thinking of myself, not you.
Psychological symptoms are God’s way of letting us know that something is wrong. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, and compulsive behaviors are all symptoms of a deeper problem.
Your feelings are your responsability.
Avoidance always prolongs pain, in the end.
Proactive people show you what they love, what they want, what they purpose, and what they stand for. These people are very different from those who are known by what they hate, what they don’t like, what they stand against, and what they will not do.
The problem comes when someone interrupts the law of sowing and reaping in another’s life.
The big lesson here is this: deal with life as it is. Do not get stuck in protesting reality for what it “ought to be.” If you give up the demand that life and the people in it be something other than what they are, you will find creative solutions to every difficult situation. And you will be a more loving person.
Look for people who are “anchored” over time. Don’t go for flashy, intense, addictive types. A Ford that will be there tomorrow is a lot better than a Maserati that might be gone. There are stable Maseratis. But it’s best to drive them awhile, that is, test out the relationship over time, to make sure.
Our loving heart, like our physical one, needs an inflow as well as an outflow of lifeblood. And like its physical counterpart, our heart is a muscle, a trust muscle. This trust muscle needs to be used and exercised; if it is injured it will slow down or weaken. We need to take responsibility for this loving function of ourselves and use it. Love concealed or love rejected can both kill us.
An adult who does not stand on his own financially is still a child. To be an adult, you must live within your means and pay for your own failures.
This changes our entire existence, encompassing emotions, behavior, relationships, career, and everything else in life. We want people to learn that way for themselves.
The law of sowing and reaping is the most trustworthy law of behavior.
The first is setting limits on others. This is the component that we most often hear about when we talk about boundaries. In reality, setting limits on others is a misnomer. We can’t do that. What we can do is set limits on our own exposure to people who are behaving poorly; we can’t change them or make them behave right.
Something about me scares people away.
And when we fail, we own our failure. With grace, we do not need to be defensive, for we are not condemned. Guilt says, “I should be different and if I’m not, then I’m bad,” so we get defensive. Grace says, “I see the standard and I’m not measuring up. I need help and love to change so that I can live.
This type of boundary problem paralyzes people’s no muscles. Whenever they need to protect themselves by saying no, the word catches in their throats. This happens for a number of different reasons: Fear of hurting the other person’s feelings Fear of abandonment and separateness A wish to be totally dependent on another Fear of someone else’s anger.
The reality is that marriage is only as good as the investment people make in it. God has constructed life so that we are always either going forward into the growth process or backing away from it. We can’t stay the same. And marriage reflects this reality. The connection either deepens, opening both spouses up to the hearts of each, or it starts to deteriorate, closing them off from each other.
Being an open system means, basically, that you are not arrogant enough to think that you have all the answers, or that your organization has all the answers, or even that you should. You know that there is experience and energy outside of what you bring that can add to your personal and organizational infrastructure, and you open yourself up to it.