LET'S TALK ABOUT . . .
"THE SAFETY INHERENT IN WELCOME"
I have been thinking a lot about safety in community. Safety is an important ingredient in any healthy growing community. Sometimes in our propensity to form homogenous communities which are based on similarity, we fail to realize the limitations of the similarities we impose. They often go beyond the stated parameters of a community's self-definition. As well, they often contradict the very purpose for which the community exists in the first place.
Most people seek community where they can belong, where they can fit. Some communities are, by self-definition, there to serve the needs of a select population group. There is a kind of integrity in such a stated purpose. These communities are selectively inclusive. There are other communities that are open to almost anyone, even those that are radically different; they are heterogeneous in nature. These are very different types of communities with different limitations, vulnerabilities and issues.
One of the phenomena of our times is that some communities are struggling to stay alive and vibrant due to a fallout in attendance, participation and committed membership. This is an example where the solutions we seek to such trends often take us down errant paths. We seek to appeal to outsiders but fail to ask the difficult questions regarding why our organization seems to possess a revolving door of some kind. It is always easier to blame those who have cycled through as if there is nothing of a systemic nature that needs addressing.
One of the primary criteria of safety is genuine welcome. That may be a new thought to many; that safety and welcome are integrally linked. If we think about human development we can recognize the importance of this with infants. Most people are drawn to a new baby; we welcome them to the point it is a competition as to who can hold them at showers, family gatherings, etc. We are so taken with them our entire focus goes into making sure their needs are met and they are comfortable. Our nurture of them is probably one of the best examples of true other-centeredness.
It is also of interest that babies that do not get that kind of welcome after birth often fail to bond and attach. Some of them end up with reactive detachment disorder and fail to attach to anyone across their lifecycles at any significant or intimate level. We know that children read cues in community. They seem to instinctively know who they are comfortable being with and who they are leery of.
Adults are like this as well, even if they cannot put it in words.
We are all conditioned that certain dynamics are safe; it becomes normalized but not necessarily normal. For example, we are seeing horrific examples of children who have been conditioned to trust when they should not and those who do not trust and should. This often lead to disastrous and dangerous situations that end up being traumatizing or life-threatening.
What does it mean to be truly welcoming in community? What does it mean to be truly safe for others entering in? Is welcoming others about us or them; on our terms or theirs'? Is it a mutually agreed upon dynamic? It is a worthy endeavor to ask ourselves not only what or who it is that we experience as "normally safe," but why? Do we know the limits of our other-centeredness; where we cross over into our own vulnerabilities and limitations? Where it becomes too much about us and not enough about the other? Whom do we welcome? For whom are we safe?
Until next time . . . this is Just Janice!
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
LET'S TALK ABOUT . . .
"THE WINDS OF CHANGE"
After seven months of Winter with temperatures below 20 C followed by a cold, damp Spring it is good to finally look out my window and see the promise of Summer by mid-July. Here's hoping! It reminds me that even climate can change, temporarily or permanently. There are lots of "climates" that are changing in our world(s). Applying Webster, it indicates that "the prevailing atmosphere or environment" is undergoing some significant shifts.
I am fascinated by what does and does not change in any given system when change is indicated. I think this is one of the greatest mistakes made. History bears it out! In an attempt to solve a current situation a solution is embraced that may appear to deal with the precipitating issue but fails to address the deeper, underlying source of the problem. To do this well requires a lot of thought from all different angles and at all different levels. Treating symptoms is not always a permanent cure.
It is so easy to buy into the tyranny of the urgent to resolve our anxieties related to a given situation. We need to look at where those situations are generating anxieties within ourselves. The external often points to something deeper that needs addressing within us. Our need to be okay in the moment often sabotages our being okay in the bigger picture. We often find ourselves in repetitive situations or relationships. We fail to learn the lessons of the past and present and need to repeat in the future.
Getting stuck in "patternistic" behaviors or even cycles of the same is often the result of such failures. It is difficult for us to think outside our given paradigms and stretch the parameters of the same. This is where education often comes in; it forces us to challenge and push the parameters of our thinking. This is where therapy can serve a purpose in our lives. It is good for us to grow. All learning indicates change. Change is not necessarily healthy or unhealthy; it can be just change.
Sometimes surrounding ourselves with only or mostly those who affirm and agree with our thinking only entrenches these patterns deeper and the cycles continue. Change and difference are so threatening to us; they generate a lot of anxieties within. We often miss out on what is available to us through our inabilities to tolerate both.
Life is full of conflicts begging our attention and ultimately solutions. We selectively choose which we will participate in to work toward solutions. Often we triage the conflicts in our lives into a hierarchy of priorities. Sometimes we hope they just simply resolve themselves or go away so we never have to face those conflicts both within and outside of ourselves.
I wonder what it would take for us to truly come to terms with conflict as a part of living in this world? What would it take for us to not fear difference and change? What would it mean for us to embrace our own anxieties responsibly and wrestle them down?
Perhaps the task before us is to learn to love non-anxiously. Mature love has learned to deal with the fears and anxieties that cause us to dread even approaching or walking into those arenas. Do we understand that entities like dread, paranoia, even compulsion are replete with guilt; or worse, they may affect our very identities and become shame-driven?
We are not living in simpler times; that is what we long for! We are not going to be able to always make that happen. Perhaps we need to come to terms with ourselves so it is easier to enter into the conflicts of our lives and the world around us. I cannot always change my world but I can think about who I am in relation to my world, what I can change about myself. Sometimes that is the best we have!
Until next time . . . this is, Just Janice!
"THE WINDS OF CHANGE"
After seven months of Winter with temperatures below 20 C followed by a cold, damp Spring it is good to finally look out my window and see the promise of Summer by mid-July. Here's hoping! It reminds me that even climate can change, temporarily or permanently. There are lots of "climates" that are changing in our world(s). Applying Webster, it indicates that "the prevailing atmosphere or environment" is undergoing some significant shifts.
I am fascinated by what does and does not change in any given system when change is indicated. I think this is one of the greatest mistakes made. History bears it out! In an attempt to solve a current situation a solution is embraced that may appear to deal with the precipitating issue but fails to address the deeper, underlying source of the problem. To do this well requires a lot of thought from all different angles and at all different levels. Treating symptoms is not always a permanent cure.
It is so easy to buy into the tyranny of the urgent to resolve our anxieties related to a given situation. We need to look at where those situations are generating anxieties within ourselves. The external often points to something deeper that needs addressing within us. Our need to be okay in the moment often sabotages our being okay in the bigger picture. We often find ourselves in repetitive situations or relationships. We fail to learn the lessons of the past and present and need to repeat in the future.
Getting stuck in "patternistic" behaviors or even cycles of the same is often the result of such failures. It is difficult for us to think outside our given paradigms and stretch the parameters of the same. This is where education often comes in; it forces us to challenge and push the parameters of our thinking. This is where therapy can serve a purpose in our lives. It is good for us to grow. All learning indicates change. Change is not necessarily healthy or unhealthy; it can be just change.
Sometimes surrounding ourselves with only or mostly those who affirm and agree with our thinking only entrenches these patterns deeper and the cycles continue. Change and difference are so threatening to us; they generate a lot of anxieties within. We often miss out on what is available to us through our inabilities to tolerate both.
Life is full of conflicts begging our attention and ultimately solutions. We selectively choose which we will participate in to work toward solutions. Often we triage the conflicts in our lives into a hierarchy of priorities. Sometimes we hope they just simply resolve themselves or go away so we never have to face those conflicts both within and outside of ourselves.
I wonder what it would take for us to truly come to terms with conflict as a part of living in this world? What would it take for us to not fear difference and change? What would it mean for us to embrace our own anxieties responsibly and wrestle them down?
Perhaps the task before us is to learn to love non-anxiously. Mature love has learned to deal with the fears and anxieties that cause us to dread even approaching or walking into those arenas. Do we understand that entities like dread, paranoia, even compulsion are replete with guilt; or worse, they may affect our very identities and become shame-driven?
We are not living in simpler times; that is what we long for! We are not going to be able to always make that happen. Perhaps we need to come to terms with ourselves so it is easier to enter into the conflicts of our lives and the world around us. I cannot always change my world but I can think about who I am in relation to my world, what I can change about myself. Sometimes that is the best we have!
Until next time . . . this is, Just Janice!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
LET'S TALK ABOUT . . .
"I NEED WHAT?"
Everyone has needs. Everyone has desires. They are certainly not the same thing! Living in a society that is increasingly narcissistic it is interesting to watch how many desires have been turned into "legitimate" needs. In contrast, sometimes we turn our needs into desires so it is not so painful or disappointing to not have them met.
We often struggle to know if we have confused needs and desires. An easy way to distinguish is by the effect. Our initial response to a blocked desire is often disappointment. A blocked need may result in some sense of anger. Even in these primary responses, we can quickly power up to a secondary response that confuses distinguishing by solely the effect when either is thwarted.
Another dynamic in our perception of both is early childhood conditioning that becomes our default setting. For example, those who have known some measure of deprivation may have totally lost touch with what might be called "norms." What we grow up with or stay in too long may distort our intuitive sense of what is "normal;" it may simply be what has become "normalized." On the flip side, if children are overindulged that distorts their norms as well. We are vulnerable on both sides.
All of this occurs on both individual and systemic levels. If at a systemic level a legitimate need is not acknowledged, addressed or nurtured, it may become normalized that it is in fact something one does not need. This may lead to a kind of dysthymic or depressive response within individuals they do not even have a paradigm with which to conceptualize what has happened to them. There may just be a nagging but undefined sense that they need something but have no clue what it is.
On the flip side there could be an enraged sense one is entitled to something they cannot fathom that "life" or others are not providing them. Their only paradigm is that they should have whatever it is and often immediately. This may occur if one is overindulged or fails to learn delayed gratification.
Again, this may be the result of converting legitimate desires into perceived needs.
It is a continual life process to sift and sort out what one really needs or simply desires. It is not the same across the life cycle; some are more age appropriate or oriented to a particular season of life. It is part of healthy character development to be able to define, differentiate and live out the reality of our needs and desires with dignity. It is not a simple linear formula toward a successful outcome.
There is very little in life we can constantly and consistently change or control. To make either our goal in relation to having our needs and/or desires met may take us down the road to manipulative strategies. Sometimes we fall into this trap without realizing it until hindsight engages us in a retrospective process.
So we work at it! Hopefully, we offer grace along the way to fellow travellers on this journey we call life. Hopefully, we do not shame others along the way for being different, for desiring or needing something different than we think we would or they should.
Until next time . . . this is, Just Janice!
"I NEED WHAT?"
Everyone has needs. Everyone has desires. They are certainly not the same thing! Living in a society that is increasingly narcissistic it is interesting to watch how many desires have been turned into "legitimate" needs. In contrast, sometimes we turn our needs into desires so it is not so painful or disappointing to not have them met.
We often struggle to know if we have confused needs and desires. An easy way to distinguish is by the effect. Our initial response to a blocked desire is often disappointment. A blocked need may result in some sense of anger. Even in these primary responses, we can quickly power up to a secondary response that confuses distinguishing by solely the effect when either is thwarted.
Another dynamic in our perception of both is early childhood conditioning that becomes our default setting. For example, those who have known some measure of deprivation may have totally lost touch with what might be called "norms." What we grow up with or stay in too long may distort our intuitive sense of what is "normal;" it may simply be what has become "normalized." On the flip side, if children are overindulged that distorts their norms as well. We are vulnerable on both sides.
All of this occurs on both individual and systemic levels. If at a systemic level a legitimate need is not acknowledged, addressed or nurtured, it may become normalized that it is in fact something one does not need. This may lead to a kind of dysthymic or depressive response within individuals they do not even have a paradigm with which to conceptualize what has happened to them. There may just be a nagging but undefined sense that they need something but have no clue what it is.
On the flip side there could be an enraged sense one is entitled to something they cannot fathom that "life" or others are not providing them. Their only paradigm is that they should have whatever it is and often immediately. This may occur if one is overindulged or fails to learn delayed gratification.
Again, this may be the result of converting legitimate desires into perceived needs.
It is a continual life process to sift and sort out what one really needs or simply desires. It is not the same across the life cycle; some are more age appropriate or oriented to a particular season of life. It is part of healthy character development to be able to define, differentiate and live out the reality of our needs and desires with dignity. It is not a simple linear formula toward a successful outcome.
There is very little in life we can constantly and consistently change or control. To make either our goal in relation to having our needs and/or desires met may take us down the road to manipulative strategies. Sometimes we fall into this trap without realizing it until hindsight engages us in a retrospective process.
So we work at it! Hopefully, we offer grace along the way to fellow travellers on this journey we call life. Hopefully, we do not shame others along the way for being different, for desiring or needing something different than we think we would or they should.
Until next time . . . this is, Just Janice!
Thursday, July 3, 2014
LET'S TALK ABOUT . . .
"THE NATURE OF HOPE"
As I sit writing this blog I am able to look out over my front yard. It is a beautiful time of year for many, especially since it looks like our summer has finally arrived in Manitoba. After seven months of hard winter and a cooler, rainier Spring it is nice to enjoy the sunshine TODAY. As I write those words I am keenly aware that there are many who are not feeling the same sentiment, even on the western side of the Province where rains have impacted numerous communities in terms of homes and livelihoods.
I have a keen awareness that one person's hope may be another person's despair. Many believe hope is relative. One must admit there is truth in that; there is a hope that is based on numerous factors in an individual and their personal circumstances. Is there a hope that transcends the uncertainty of transient hope. Is there a hope that is sure? A hope that contains elements of certainty? I would argue for the existence of both. The difference is in the origin of the hope. In what is each "rooted"?
Let me illustrate. One of this earth's constants, even in atypical years like the one we have just experienced, are the four seasons. No matter what the nature of each of the four seasons in any given year, as illustrated in the first paragraph, we can be certain that we will have four seasons on earth each year. There is nothing we do to cause, control or change that. We could call it "the hope of/in nature." Some adhere to existential systems of belief based on both the certainty and uncertainty of the same.
It is no different than putting one's hope in the sun/moon/stars being a constant. The latter was deemed so constant navigation depended on the positioning of the various constellations for directional guidance. What about gravity? While it may be a constant here on earth, we all know that is not true in outer space. There are limitations. spatially, to putting one's hope in the existence of gravity or any of its properties.
We know that even as constant as these "more constant than most" entities appear, there are events that could altar the certainty of even the most certain realities. In the final analysis even the most seasoned scientist knows that as limited finite human beings we cannot control certainty. At the core it is more a matter of what we choose to put our faith in, to trust, as certain or constant. For scientists it is empirical, for the philosopher it is existential, for the religious it is ecclesiastical, for those who embrace a spirituality it is the origin and focus of the same. Perhaps for some it is a combination of more than one.
The question before each of us is where have we decided to seek and find our personal hope? It is okay to embrace transient, temporal "hopes," we all do! We are, however, living out a belief about where ultimate hope is found; even if we are not aware of it. Have you ever thought about what your life communicates about where yours originates? Perhaps what we choose says something about what we believe about ultimate or supreme realities. Food for thought!
Until next time . . . this is , Just Janice!
"THE NATURE OF HOPE"
As I sit writing this blog I am able to look out over my front yard. It is a beautiful time of year for many, especially since it looks like our summer has finally arrived in Manitoba. After seven months of hard winter and a cooler, rainier Spring it is nice to enjoy the sunshine TODAY. As I write those words I am keenly aware that there are many who are not feeling the same sentiment, even on the western side of the Province where rains have impacted numerous communities in terms of homes and livelihoods.
I have a keen awareness that one person's hope may be another person's despair. Many believe hope is relative. One must admit there is truth in that; there is a hope that is based on numerous factors in an individual and their personal circumstances. Is there a hope that transcends the uncertainty of transient hope. Is there a hope that is sure? A hope that contains elements of certainty? I would argue for the existence of both. The difference is in the origin of the hope. In what is each "rooted"?
Let me illustrate. One of this earth's constants, even in atypical years like the one we have just experienced, are the four seasons. No matter what the nature of each of the four seasons in any given year, as illustrated in the first paragraph, we can be certain that we will have four seasons on earth each year. There is nothing we do to cause, control or change that. We could call it "the hope of/in nature." Some adhere to existential systems of belief based on both the certainty and uncertainty of the same.
It is no different than putting one's hope in the sun/moon/stars being a constant. The latter was deemed so constant navigation depended on the positioning of the various constellations for directional guidance. What about gravity? While it may be a constant here on earth, we all know that is not true in outer space. There are limitations. spatially, to putting one's hope in the existence of gravity or any of its properties.
We know that even as constant as these "more constant than most" entities appear, there are events that could altar the certainty of even the most certain realities. In the final analysis even the most seasoned scientist knows that as limited finite human beings we cannot control certainty. At the core it is more a matter of what we choose to put our faith in, to trust, as certain or constant. For scientists it is empirical, for the philosopher it is existential, for the religious it is ecclesiastical, for those who embrace a spirituality it is the origin and focus of the same. Perhaps for some it is a combination of more than one.
The question before each of us is where have we decided to seek and find our personal hope? It is okay to embrace transient, temporal "hopes," we all do! We are, however, living out a belief about where ultimate hope is found; even if we are not aware of it. Have you ever thought about what your life communicates about where yours originates? Perhaps what we choose says something about what we believe about ultimate or supreme realities. Food for thought!
Until next time . . . this is , Just Janice!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)