By relating with others we get a fuller picture of ourselves
It is in our relationships that our patterns of relating become apparent. We see more of who we are through others.
For many of us our relationships are our greatest gift, yet they are also areas of our greatest pain. In order for them to be life-giving we need to put our best energy into them.
The first word breathed into our being was God’s, “BE”. Each of us was made with so much love and intentionality. God now looks at each of us with joy and says, “Be fully your unique self”, “Step by step become more yourself” and, “Be not afraid”. We need to take His word in for it to become flesh in us. So when God says, “Be angry, but sin not” He’s aware of the enormous potential we carry. We more often see anger as a slippery slope but God sees that our authentic anger can be transformative. Continue reading Good expressions of anger→
Where do our angry responses originate? Our eruptions are an outflow of what we’re already carrying inside ourselves. We’ve each formed habits of trying to manage our reality when we’re pushed out of shape, and these patterns which we typically used formed around our early experiences. The feelings we had when there was a power imbalance when we were little are still with us, and are part of our identity. So when something comes up that doesn’t sit well with us, we will follow our usual tendency of either withdrawing or moving towards the situation. Continue reading Firming up the marshes, breaking down the rocks, on the road to life-giving anger→
Our experiences under the age of three gave us emotions from which we made assumptions about our world. Around us were others that modelled what permissible behaviour was, but often what they said we must do was idealized and different from what they did themselves. We tested life out for ourselves reinforcing learnt patterns into the foundation of our being. So our practiced behaviour became our way of engaging with reality. Continue reading Our Journey of Anger→
Most of us struggle with anger in one way or another. Anger is a force for enormous change and is meant to be a positive tool to help us live fully. We’re born into a world with conflict. Our well-learned patterns of how we respond when we’re angry are deeply rooted in us. It’s these internalized patterns that are the problem. So often, since we dislike these we try to change our behaviour, but find this very difficult to do. For our automatic, visceral reactions come from a place that is not easy to access. Continue reading Engage with Your Anger→
Things that have caused us distress through our lives have made us more sensitive and compassionate to other circumstances. They’ve made us able to go beyond ourselves to others, which becomes the fruit of our lives and gives our days meaning. Our lives shift from, ‘What do I get out of this?’ to being able to spend ourselves and to be life-giving for others. Continue reading Known by Our Fruit→
In order to become aware of the inner patterns and guiding images we all carry, we need to stop and look. This will need times of being alone with ourselves in order to grow in wholeness. This is essential so that we can also be there for others. This aloneness is a transformative, ‘pregnant’ waiting. It is not the same as loneliness, which carries with it feelings of lack, desperation and incompleteness. We dare not postpone living, waiting for our dream to materialize and for our present life to pass. This invitation to deepen intimacy with God and ourselves is done reverently, but not without fear. Indeed, intimacy implies this as ‘in timor’ means ‘into fear.’ Continue reading Loneliness or Aloneness→
It’s easy to see ourselves as not yet complete while we wait for that special thing or person to appear in our lives. We delay living fully until all the puzzle pieces fit. We so need to open our hearts to see what’s really going on. Have we closed down inside in order to survive? Has our hope of life getting any better died? Are we simply surviving, just daily using our energy only to manage humdrum tasks and solve problems? It’s not that these aren’t necessary, but are they taking first place? Continue reading What are we living for?→
Growing up too compliant and obedient can undermine our need to become a separate person. If we’ve had to ‘be this…’ then it means we haven’t become our true selves. This attraction to sameness in order to be accepted is a trap and each of us has to take the risk of becoming our authentic self, trusting that we will still be liked. Like an acorn that has within it the complete blueprint of a massive tree, so too we carry the amazing design God has put in us. We can trust that this picture in us is good and life-giving. Continue reading Dreams We Carry→
