Month: October 2016

Courageous Conversations

Posted on by Niki

I hate conflict. I know that hate is a strong word, and I use that word intentionally here. I HATE conflict. Anger is a scary emotion that I would prefer avoiding at all costs. (the background of where that comes from is a story for another time) Nothing instigates my flight or freeze response more than when people express anger, especially by yelling. I feel like the character Brick from the movie Anchorman “Loud noises!”

How has that been working out for me? I can tell you. Not that great.

The purpose of healthy confrontation (or courageous conversation) is that it leads to healthy connection. If I want the genuine connection that I crave, then at some point I will need to wade into confrontation. Normally when the relationship gets to that point I freak out. Either the relationship stays at one level never going deeper, or the relationship is over. I have preferred to live miserable or let relationships disintegrate. I have burnt many bridges along the way.

I am now at a stage where I am tired of hiding for fear of being incinerated by some fire-breathing dragon (because that is how I often perceive people when they are angry you see). I cannot be free to be who I am if I am in constant hiding.

The scary reality that I need to face is that no community can deepen in connection without the presence of confrontation. There are few relationships in my life that won’t at some point meet head on with the need for those courageous conversations. So that means learning how to have those courageous conversations or brave communication. It means learning how to honour one another when we disagree. If no one in the community disagrees, then that’s a big problem. Because no one agrees on everything, so if everyone is agreeing on everything all the time, then someone is lying. The grown up version of hide and seek.

We need to acknowledge that we are different, and that we will have different opinions and ideas about things – even things that really matter to us. As it turns out, it is usually when what is important to us is insulted, that we feel the most hurt. And that is when the strong emotions we are feeling in that instance threaten to lead to unhealthy reactions. The infamous flight or fight response comes into effect. Some people come out swinging. Others run – either by physically or emotionally withdrawing, or by hiding. There is always playing dead – just pretend you don’t care at all. But that can’t last forever. You can only play dead for so long before all of that pent up emotion resurrects you into some kind of rage-full flesh-eating zombie. And like a volcano, we end up spewing our anger all over the poor innocents around us.

Whether we react by hiding from people or screaming or slamming doors, the result is the same: disconnection from the people around us.

I need to ask myself: How much do I want connection with this person? My desire for connection will hopefully be stronger than my fear of the potentially awkward unpleasantness of the conflict. I am a novice when it comes to confrontation so don’t read this hoping that I have all the answers you’re looking for. This isn’t a teaching session. There are people who have developed tools for doing confrontation well. I am not one of those people. Not yet anyway.

I am not offering a simple solution to deal with your fear of conflict in 500 words. All I can offer is to share with you a snapshot of my journey into embracing confrontation as a forerunner to connection.

Take courage dear heart.

The problem with control

Posted on by Niki

There is a problem with control. Psychotherapist Miriam Greenspan refers to control as the master addiction. Control can be a useful tool. But is is a terrible master.

I am quite good friends with control. The subconscious belief that I have carried for years is this; if I can maintain control, I can minimize the pain of life. Control freaks are some of the biggest pain avoiders.

The problem is that control is an allusion that creates a false sense of safety from pain. The reality is, we are not in control of everything that happens in our lives. People create all kinds of philosophies and theologies in an attempt to justify their iron grip on life. I am the author of my own destiny. You are. Until you are not.

For example, when I get in the car and drive, I have no control over the other drivers keeping to their side of the road. I choose risk every time I get in the car. I could get injured. I could die. Driving a car has become so natural to us that we forget this simple truth. We need cars, so most of us have successfully blocked out the reality of the risk.

Greenspan says that trying to keep control of dark emotions doesn’t heal them. Surrender does a much better job at healing than control. Surrender does not mean that you give up. Surrender means that you let go.

You let go of trying to keep everything under control, including your emotions.

Choosing to let go is a risk because we are choosing to do something when we do not know what the outcome will be. Vulnerability cannot coexist with control. The whole point of vulnerability is that you are not in control of the outcome.Vulnerability is the antithesis of control. If you choose a life of vulnerability, you then cannot also choose to stay a control freak. Sorry to be the one to break it to you… it just doesn’t work.

I hate feeling out of control. I also hate all the clichés that are spoken to placate my fears.

I could try “giving my heart a voice”. I’ve heard that helps. So I talked to my heart about it. You know what it said? “Control! Control! Take back control!” Well that wasn’t exactly the romantic answer I was hoping for.

There are times when there are no simple answers. There is no quick fix. And no amount of formulas, mantras, or mind mapping or heart talking can change that. There are times when you just have to let go.

Life hasn’t worked out the way I had envisioned. I thought if I followed the plan, stayed in control. Life would work out for the best. I could be happy and safe from pain, if I just stuck with the plan. I look at people who have  stuck with the plan and go “Yay for you!” Because I’m a good Christian and that’s the kind of thing good Christians do. We celebrate when life goes according to plan. We like plans.

In all honesty, I think that often times what we refer to as being a “good” Christian is simply the person’s ability to stay in control of their life. (did I really just publicly admit that?) We celebrate control. We don’t call it control of course. For example: Stay in control of your emotions, call it choosing joy. Stay in control of our kids, call it raising them up in the way they should go.

This post does not have some nice tidy conclusion.  Hey guys I figured it out, now go and do likewise!

Letting go is difficult for me. Control seems so safe, so good to me. Even now. I think that it takes time and practice to know what to let go of and when. It takes courage to follow through on letting go. Maybe it never gets completely easy. Maybe it is a process (Ugh there’s that word again!) Maybe I will look back and see where I went right and where I went wrong. One day I’ll be able to look back and know that I let go when I ought to have and yet sometimes I didn’t. And that will be okay.

Letting go image from Thinkstock

Diversity in Community

Posted on by Niki

Often I think about the term “community” and wonder what that really means in the day to day living of our lives. I’m the kind of person who likes to reflect deeply on all angles before I commit to a ride on the bandwagon. What does it look like to be part of a community that truly celebrates diversity? I have been on a journey in the last few years of learning what it looks like to be me within we. I know that the word diversity may be frightening to some, but it need not be the case. Diversity does not mean that you have to lose your identity or your values to become part of some mindless entity. Personally I think it has to do more with learning what it means for you to be “you” and me to be “me” as together we learn to be “we” (thank you Danny Silk for this definition).

Susan Cain states that “we like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual.” I am convinced that having a genuine value for individuality and diversity being expressed in community requires (intentional) hard and courageous work. Hard, because it often involves going against the cultural grain. And courageous, because it usually involves taking a good look within.

I’ve heard it said that if you are insecure in yourself, you will usually seek to distance yourself from those who are different from you. Their strengths are not cause for celebration. Instead they serve to remind you of your weaknesses. So we partition ourselves into the relative safety of sameness, and diversity remains beautiful from a distance.

The mantra of this mindset is you will never be one of us if you are too different. You must be the same to belong. Otherwise you will become … them. And no one wants to become THEM.

Division is one of the offspring of insecurity. False humility isn’t so humble.

May I suggest another approach? Learn to value who you are. Make room for personal development instead of personal condemnation. Make time to do what you love. In the ways and spaces that you love. Find your happy place. And then also make time to be stretched by others. Seek to learn from others.To understand others, in the same way you long to be understood. In doing so, we are more able to create an ebb and flow of giving and receiving.

If you value you, then you will find it mush easier to value others.

As a wise person once said; love your neighbor as yourself. Truthfully to genuinely love another requires first loving yourself.

I love the analogy of community as being likened to the human body. Each part is diverse in look and role and yet each serves in the function of helping the body to be the body. The Apostle Paul described it this way:

Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. (1 Corinthians 12:14-20)

A body that would only consist of one part wouldn’t be considered a body, but simply a body part.  A body part can’t really live on its own, hanging out by itself. That wouldn’t be healthy. And yet there are times when we happily dissect human community into bits and pieces, separating from one other. At times we may even call it good. Thank goodness “they” are there and “we” are here. Now I am not referring to “there” and “here” in terms of nations or continents. Two people could be standing right next to each other and yet have a chasm of distance between them. May I be so bold to suggest that this body called community needs a doctor. Someone who specialises in reconciling the distance. A healer to stitch up the broken wounds and mend the fractured bones.

There are many examples I could use; from gender, to race, to socio-economic status, to political affiliation etc. But I’ll offer just one example or now. I know that there are those who feel that they may be considered “too much”. For years, I was so busy feeling “too little”, I hadn’t realized there were so many struggling this way. In my insecurity, their volume reminded me of my (perceived) lack. That others might perceive me as too quiet. The smaller the voice, the smaller the personality.

I want to say to those that have ever felt too much, that no. You are not too much. You are perfectly imperfectly you. And I am perfectly imperfectly me. And that’s okay. I know that now. I accept that now.

We are different.  We need it to be that way. God made it that way. We need to bring diversity into our collective embrace to fully realize what community can be.