Calm, Healthy Relationships

Although we certainly like excitement at times, we also crave calm within our relationships. Of course, how to keep gentleness, respect, and positivity in our daily experiences with our loved ones is a huge topic, not easily covered in a short blog post. However, we can revisit some basics.

FEELING COMFORTABLE ALONE

In Resisting Happiness, Matthew Kelly writes, “The fear of being alone is the father of many relationships that never should have been. When we choose to be with someone because we are afraid of being alone, we dishonor ourselves and the other person.” He goes on to say that the cure for loneliness is solitude. “Solitude teaches profound lessons, especially about ourselves. Feeling lonely has value. Sometimes we need to turn inward to discover what we need to hold on to and what we need to let go of. […] Until we learn to be comfortable alone—and more than that, to enjoy our own company— […] we are unconditionally unprepared to be in any kind of significant relationship with another person.”

So, once we learn to be comfortably alone and are ready for a lasting, healthy relationship, how do we choose a healthy beloved? We must search for partners who value our happiness as much as their own and are willing to sacrifice for us, as we would for them. There is no love without sacrifice.

DATING DEAL-BREAKER RED FLAGS:

• ADDICTIONS – These include substance abuse, such as alcohol or drugs, as well as gambling. You may love the person deeply, but until (s)he’s in recovery and has been for a long time, (s)he cannot love you enough to give you a happy, healthy relationship. (S)he hasn’t the free will required to commit fully to you.
• DISHONESTY – A person who does not respect the truth will lie to you as easily as you observe him or her lie to someone else. A healthy relationship relies on trust and this person cannot be trusted.
• UNFAITHFULNESS – As much as he or she declares love for you, if there is a history of cheating, you are naive to think you won’t be hurt the same way. Be grateful you learned about this character flaw before you married.
• UNCONTROLLED ANGER – If this person cannot control anger and strikes out in a way that hurts himself or someone else, run, don’t walk, away. Even though you have never seen the anger focused on you, you will. If people hurt others intentionally, even with words alone, they are not going to be part of a healthy relationship.
• DISRESPECT FOR YOUR FAITH – Our spirituality is an integral part of us. If it’s ridiculed, an important side of you is not respected. To be healthy, all relationships require mutual respect. Think ahead to how his or her opinion would influence your children and their faith life.
• CONTROLLING BEHAVIOR – A person who wants to make all decisions and who doesn’t respect your independence and opinion is not a partner. The need to be in charge will intensify with time, possibly to the point of becoming abusive.

(If you’re afraid for your immediate safety, call 911. For help and advice on escaping an abusive relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224.)

In any relationship, some conflict is inevitable. According to The Exceptional 7 Percent by Gregory K. Popcak, we can strive to—

FIGHT LIKE THE WORLD’S HAPPIEST COUPLES:

• The argument must move things along to a mutually satisfying solution.
• There are certain lines the couple simply doesn’t cross no matter how heated their discussion gets. Disallow anything that causes defensiveness or quickly escalates the argument.
• Maintain your own dignity. No matter how crazy you think your spouse is acting, you must be able to be proud of your own conduct at the end of the day.
• Is this an argument worth having? Is the fight about something that will stop you fulfilling your values, ideals, or goals?
• Begin with the end in mind. What changes will I have to make to solve this problem? What do I need to know from my spouse to feel better about this problem? What do I think needs to happen so we can avoid this in the future?
• Take time-outs to cool down if necessary. If you start to think your spouse is the problem, take a break to think more lovingly.
• Look for the positive intention behind your spouse’s negative behavior and work with your spouse to find more respectful alternatives to meet needs.
• Never show contempt whether through gestures or words. This always escalates the disagreement. One of the worst acts of contempt is threatening divorce. It undermines your spouse’s ability to trust you, damages the security of your relationship, and offends the dignity of your marriage.
• Don’t nag. Solve! Set a deadline for something to get done and if it doesn’t, call for help to get it done or do it yourself as an act of love. Your spouse’s help is a gift that should be freely given but, like any gift, you have no right to demand it.
• Don’t parent each other. Never deny what your spouse wants to do, but freely negotiate the how and when.
• L.O.V.E. Look for the positive intention. Omit contempt. Verify what was meant. Encourage each other throughout the conflict.

Unhealthy fighting can erode a relationship to the point of bitterness. Never let the “4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse” enter your marriage or they will work to end it. John Gottman and Nan Silver’s Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: and How You Can Make Yours Last, identifies these 4 destructive habits:

1. Criticism attacks the person. Complaints, on the other hand, are specific and about one behavior. They can enhance a relationship if spouses are open to growth.
2. Contempt attacks the person with an intent to hurt.
3. Defensiveness, or the poor-me stance, relinquishes our ability to accept the challenge of self-improvement for the sake of the ones we love.
4. When we want to turn our backs (stonewalling), we must keep turning back toward each other.

De-escalate a disagreement by reaffirming your admiration for your spouse, interjecting healthy humor, touching affectionately, stepping back to make a comment about your current feelings, or trying to look at things from your spouse’s point of view.

Wouldn’t we all enjoy calm relationships with our loved ones? The type that comes with easy interactions, interesting conversations, and mutual respect? Of course, disagreements are part of life, and no couple always relates with perfect love, but we can make improvements. Resolving to always behave with respect, no matter our feelings, can bring peace to a conflict.

Calm at Home and Work

For overwhelmed readers, I’ll make this easy to skim – mostly lists. Read down and mark which ideas strike home for you. Work on the one that seems most important. (How to break habits is a bonus for those who read all the way through.)

We can calm our home and work life through organization and limit-setting:

HOME/KIDS :

Organization

• Keep a family calendar that all can see and check it nightly.
• Every member can work together to share the responsibilities of family life. Delegate, especially to kids so they learn responsibility and grow in self-confidence.
• Declutter. A cluttered environment makes it hard to relax. Put away. Give away. Throw away. Simplify. Start with one room that you then maintain each time you leave it. You’ll be amazed how much more time you’ll want to spend in the tidy room. (Admission– I only manage to keep one room always tidy, but I love stepping into or walking past that room. I have hope the enjoyment will help me expand the pleasure.)
• Clear your desk and the dining and kitchen tables daily.
• Handle repetitive tasks right away rather than postpone them. Fold the clothes when they come out of the dryer. Put the dirty dish right into the dishwasher. Make the bed as you get out of it.

Boundaries

• No screens allowed at meals. Phones down at other agreed upon occasions, like during family time.
• Homework must be done before television or other entertainment screen time.
• Don’t automatically turn on the TV or radio. Choose consciously what you will watch and hear.
• Limit children’s activities (and your chauffeuring.) No one wants to be overextended, especially children.
• Limit your own commitments so you have a reasonable balance of work, play, and rest.
• Don’t allow shouting. And don’t shout. Let your home be a place of calm sounds.
• Enforce healthy bedtimes, study times, and family time. Structure is calming.
• Limit caffeine and stimulants, such as chocolate, coffee, tea, ice cream, some pain relievers, some cold medicines, and intense TV programs and video games.

WORK :

Organization

• Plan tomorrow’s tasks today. Prioritize by A, B, and C.
  • A – tasks are urgent. Do them first, but re-evaluate if you spend all day on urgency. Ignoring tasks can make them become urgent when they should have been dealt with earlier.
  • B – tasks are important. Do them next.
  • C – tasks are appealing. Use them as rewards after A and B are done.
• Delegate. Share your knowledge and train others to do what you do.
• See if you can find ways to work smarter, rather than harder.
• If you aren’t an organized person, take a class or ask for advice. Learn how to become organized.
• Get up earlier so that you don’t start your day rushing. (Which means go to bed earlier, too.)
• Self-discipline is critical. Do things ahead of time. Finish what you start. Don’t ignore the unpleasant tasks. If you are procrastinating, do the unpleasant first, then you don’t dread it all day.
• Clear your workspace before you leave. Even if it is to an “in process” drawer. You can start fresh tomorrow.

Boundaries

• Set goals. Don’t automatically put other’s goals ahead of your own. Be a team player, but be assertive about your own needs, too.
• If work is a source of stress that is unbearable, look for other options: talk to superiors or peers about managing and reducing stress, consider changing employers, or even the type of work you do, if necessary. Tackle the problem, don’t just accept it.
• If you cannot change your situation, you can change your attitude. Work hard all day but leave the worry behind when you leave work. Learn to not take others’ unkindness personally. Consciously start each day fresh, without brooding on yesterday or borrowing trouble from tomorrow.

POLITICAL CALM:

• Trust in God who is in charge. Pray for our city, state, country, and world.
• Listen to the other side. Strive to understand what got them to this point. What are their fears and struggles? Is there a way you can help them?
• Don’t respond from fear but from strength and with respect.
• Take action when you feel called to it, but use positive measures, not rebellion or belittling.

What if these changes don’t come naturally?

Aids to break/change/add a habit:

• Become more aware of what you want to change. When does it happen? What are the triggers? When is temptation the worst?
• Work at one change, intently, for at least 30 days and until you are successful before you redirect your attention.
• Remind yourself several times a day of the change you want. Use post-it notes, repeat your goal before each meal, or hang visuals of the change you’d like to see.
• Replace an old habit with something that can’t coexist with the old, like chewing gum rather than biting nails, or taking the dog for a walk rather than flopping into the recliner.
• Don’t try to change too much at once. Focus. Take baby steps.
• Remove temptation and triggers.
• Recall frequently the benefits of the change.
• Set a goal that is measurable and a time that is reasonable. I will (what), (when), (how often.)
• Break large changes down into small, doable steps.
• Join forces with someone. Be accountable to each other.
• Socialize with people who have the good habit you want.
• When you slip, get right back on track. Don’t condemn yourself and don’t give up.

Philippians 4: 6-8

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

The Top Twelve Things about Life that I’ve Learned from Writing Fiction

Last Saturday, Beta Sigma Phi, the international women’s social, cultural and service organization, invited me to speak at their regional meeting. We had a great time together and I met very impressive women. Here is part of the talk I gave:

1. People need to connect emotionally. A writer, to be successful, needs to connect with her readers through the emotions she creates on the page. We, as women, are usually much more aware of the need to interact emotionally with people, than many men who sadly have been taught to focus on productivity rather than relationships.

2. Everyone needs some creativity in their lives. For me writing is therapeutic. For others it might be painting or singing, drama or woodwork. We adults need to play! By trying our hand at creativity, we discover that we can keep learning and improving as we go. Without play we can become dull and mechanical. And we won’t have the imagination to see what we could be, if we try something new.

 3. You can’t make someone like you, or what you write, or even make them read what you write. My oldest daughter can’t bring herself to read my novels because she’s afraid there will be sex in them. No one wants to connect their mother and sex in the same thought. I may have been a little devious lately when my husband drove our daughter and me to Seattle. I read novel # 3 aloud and she was forced to listen the whole way. I have to admit, she could have put on her headphones and listened to music, but she didn’t. She says she tried the door but the child safety locks were on.

4. We all hate to leave our comfort zones. Novels often open with a glimpse of the ordinary life and its challenges. Then some event or person disrupts that life or causes the hero or heroine to have to leave it behind. Our current life starts looking pretty good to us when it is proposed to us we need to change it in order to accomplish some good.

In my first novel, Hope and a Future, poor Colm, who is terrified of flying, must leave Ireland for a temporary teaching position in Portland. Otherwise he would never meet Marjorie!

We all hate to leave our comfort zones. But if no one did, even when it becomes very uncomfortable, we wouldn’t make this world a better place.

5. We are all on a quest. Our life story is written day-by-day as we work toward becoming the best version of ourselves. So is everyone else’s, so it makes sense to sometimes be the subplot friend who helps accomplish someone else’s goal. You never know, you might even be making progress on your goal at the same time. But despite setbacks and detours, we need to keep making progress toward our goal.

6. We need friends to help us along the way. Think of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter. Or any 70s sitcom, for that matter. Think of your friends. Without friends, the mission would be doomed.

7. We all have flaws that keep us from being the hero we’d like to be, or doing the deeds that we’d like to accomplish. I struggle with introversion and so I don’t reach out to others as much as I wish I did. Some main characters are proud, or distrustful, or lack self-confidence, or courage. They must overcome their flaws to achieve their goals.

In Hope and a Future, my heroine Marjorie lost her husband of 25 years in a car accident. Her guilt over the failings in her marriage keep her from being open to any new love in her life. Her Irish hero-to-be, Colm, has so many phobias that he lives a very limited life, at least until he starts facing his fears one at a time.

Our weaknesses often are what bring us to growth, when we face them and steadily overcome them, or … at least beat them into submission for a time.

Our flaws, on their flip sides, can be also our gifts. One stubborn daughter is also tenacious and has persevered her way into being a successful engineer. One overly quiet, watchful child grew up and turned her deep thoughts into great academic success, and avoided many common pitfalls by observing and avoiding her friends’ mistakes. One daughter as a teen declared she wasn’t going to work too hard for A’s anymore because she was tired of being a Goody Two Shoes. Now as a school counselor, she has a special connection with the type of students who tend to fall through the cracks.

8. Sometimes going home is extremely challenging. Remember fearful Colm from book 1? He is terrified of horses, and grew up on a horse ranch. In the sequel book 2, Where Hope Leads, his father wants him to come home and take over the business. The poor guy must fly back to Ireland but suffers a panic attack, missing his plane. Going home can be an ordeal.

In book 3, When the Vow Breaks, Kay left an abusive father behind when she fled Montana and moved to Spokane. Now her mother and father need her to return to take care of them. She really doesn’t want to go.

But going home can teach us a lot about ourselves. We all need to look back on our childhood with the eyes of an adult, with the advantage of some time and distance between us and what happened in our families. Sometimes, we can mend hearts that were broken and reconnect to people we truly love deep down.

9. Conflict is good. Our struggles help us to grow so we can overcome that main character flaw that keeps us from succeeding. We fight, we fail, we learn from our mistakes and the next time we get closer before we fail again. But each struggle brings us more information and calls out a better self than we were before. Each attempt, whether a success or failure, leads us closer to our goal.

You might say, “That’s fine for a character in fiction. A good story has to have conflict. In fact, one of the most common errors of new writers is being too easy on their characters. As a mom, I spent 25 years of my life trying to limit, solve, resolve or forbid conflict. I’m not sure I’m done yet. My poor characters, on the other hand, are subject to me increasing, enhancing, and in general bringing all sorts of unpleasant conflict into their lives.

Looking back as a mom, I see how the struggles my children had in their young lives taught them lessons that continue to serve them well in life. One daughter has Tourette Syndrome and had to learn interdependence to make it through. She is just as willing to help as to ask for help and, after working as a special education teacher for several years, is now a mother of two and is back at school working toward a Physical Therapy doctorate. Her personal experience with special needs has made her tender heart want to reach out to help those who struggle to meet goals that are easy for others. Conflict is good.

10. We are often drawn to our opposites. In romance writing, the hero and heroine can be so different that they are at first repelled by each other like opposing magnets. In fact, you can predict the end of a romantic comedy by seeing which man and woman dislike each other the most at the beginning. Consider Mary and Matthew in Downton Abbey. Or Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Somewhere along the way in most romances, the magnetic field flips and the attraction becomes powerful.

Like good romance heroes and heroines, in real life, we are often drawn to our opposites. I think this is because we are meant to learn from our “soul mates” so that their strengths teach us to overcome our weaknesses. We are meant to learn from each other, but we tend instead to polarize and become more extreme in our strengths and weaknesses. The emotional spouse takes over all feeling while the rational spouse takes care of business. Or the introvert becomes overwhelmed by the extrovert, and rather than learn to enjoy a little more socializing, becomes even more protective of privacy. Perhaps the responsible person watches the fun-loving date become an irresponsible spouse and resents him, rather than learning to lighten up a bit and helping the other grow.

In When the Vow Breaks, independent Kay eloped with compliant Wade on graduation night. When they returned home, peace loving Wade agreed to an annulment to appease his mother, thinking it was only temporary. Heart-broken and angry, Kay fled home planning to never return … but then later found out she was pregnant… with twins. (That’s the cruel writer heaping conflict on her poor characters.) But if Wade had learned some independence from Kay, or Kay some peace keeping from Wade, well… it would have been a much shorter, duller novel. As it is, the novel actually starts 18 years later when their twins have just left home.

11. We need to use what we’ve gained to help others. At the end of any great quest, the heroine should bring back what she learned, or accomplished, or attained, in order to improve the lives of the people she left behind. In The Lord of the Rings the quest brings peace back to the Hobbit’s Shire. Harry Potter, in every book of the series, makes the world a safer place for wizards and muggles alike. In my sequel to the first novel, Where Hope Leads, Marjorie and Colm both want the other to relocate to their homeland. Marjorie hopes Colm will stay in Portland, and he hopes she will fall in love with Ireland. I won’t tell you who wins, but I can assure you that by the end of the book they’ve grown enough to consider the needs of others as important as their own. When they are willing to be open to God’s leading, they find a way to help their version of the Shire.

And finally…

12. We want satisfying endings, and usually in books, though not always, that means happy ones. Daughter 3 once was so upset when a favorite character died, she threw her book in the freezer to punish it. I think we’ve all gotten to the end of a book or a movie and thought, “No, that’s not the right ending!” We feel like we’ve been cheated. We invested hours in reading or $15 at the theater, and we aren’t satisfied. Sometimes I wonder what God thinks as we move away from the direction he wanted us to head. I imagine he might like to throw us into the freezer for a while. Which might explain me growing up through Montana winters!

I suspect that when our time on this earth is over, we will look back and be satisfied with our lives if we’ve done something meaningful, if we’ve improved this world, either by making it more beautiful, or helping others, or by the wonderful children we’ve raised.

So, to sum up, the truths I’ve learned while writing fiction:

• Relationships are deepened through sharing emotion. Don’t be afraid to love, laugh, enjoy, but also to cry, grieve, and let anger inspire you to positive action.
• Expressing creativity sets us apart as human and is necessary for happiness.
• We can’t make people like us. That’s ok. It’s more important to like ourselves.
• No one wants to leave their comfort zone, but wombs get tight, and we can’t grow unless we do.
• Friends make the road seem easier and help us make it through our journey.
• We will all have challenges. They make life interesting, and as difficult and even devastating as they can be, they help us grow.
• We are meant to learn from our loved ones how to grow stronger in our weak spots, not how to avoid growing. If both people continue to grow throughout their journey, the travel is sweet indeed.
• We each have a quest that only we can achieve. To succeed we need to face our flaws and fears and grow through them.
• Then we need to bring back what we learned for the good of others—
• So that we can have a satisfying ending.

Wishing you all successful quests and meaningful lives.