Monthly Archives: July 2011

In the middle

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My middle daughter and I have a ritual that we do every time we leave each other, whether leaving each other is for bed, school, work, church…  She developed it so let’s see if I can get this right:

Kiss.

Hug.

Eskimo kiss.

Another hug.

She says: See you later alligator.

I say: After while crocodile.  See you later alligator.

She says: After while crocodile

(If it is bedtime) She says: Good night

I say: Sleep tight

She says: Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

I say: if they do.

She says: hit them with a shoe.

I say: beat them black and blue.

She says: and they won’t bother you.

She says: I love you.  I love you very much.

I say: I love you.  I love you very much.

She says: I bless my heart on you.

I say: I bless my heart on you.

Together we blink the right eye, then the left eye, then both eyes together.

Together we wave the right hand, then the left hand, then both hands together.

Together we wave both hands and blink both eyes at the same time.

(If it is Friday night) we shake hands.

Blow a kiss.

She says: ”Did we do everything, Mommy?”

Yes.

“Did we do everything, Mommy?”

Yes.

“DID WE DO EVERYTHING, MOMMY?”

YES!

Ok, GOODNIGHT (or goodbye!)!!!!

This ritual has been a requirement before all partings for several months now.  I cannot remember exactly when it started or how it began.  I do know that if I get home after she is in bed and I do not go in and do this ritual with her, she will get out of bed in the middle of the night, come find me, and let me know…maybe more than once.

As you can imagine, this ritual is fairly exhausting, not to mention time consuming.  If you think I am making it up you can ask her father, any grandparent, babysitter, or church worker who has watched us say goodbye or goodnight in the last several months.  There is no way I could make up a goodbye ritual this detailed.

For a while Jon and I did not know how to approach it.  It seemed a little ridiculous.  Do we put boundaries on it?  Do we be patient?  What is this all about?

We got clues here and there.  She seemed anxious about going to kindergarten.  Ok.  That makes sense.  I can be patient with that.  Then, one night it seemed we hit something deeper.

It was a typical night.  I told each girl goodnight, prayed, and went through the whole routine with Lillian.  I love you. I love you very much.  I bless my heart on you.  Then, as I was going out the door, Eloise, Lillian’s older sister, stopped me.  She wanted to tell me about books she was reading, how she wanted to start a club.  Oh, that sounds great, sweetie.  Those are good ideas.

Lillian started to cry.  “Mommy, when you talk to Eloise like that it hurts my feelings.  I feel like you don’t like to hang around me and talk to me about stuff like that.”

Oh.

I climbed back up to her top bunk, gave her a hug, reassured her, and left.

I don’t pretend to understand everything about my children.  However, I left Lillian’s room that night with a very clear picture.  Lillian is trying to find her place.  She is the second daughter with the firstborn son coming right after her.  Emmett is mommy’s boy because he is the ONLY boy.  Eloise is…the oldest.  Whose girl is Lillian?  Where does she fit?  And somewhere in there, Lillian has felt a need to grapple and grasp for position, finding it in one small way…with a special goodbye ritual.

Lillian is going to be fine.  She knows that she is Mommy’s special girl.  I love her dearly.  She is my all out, hug you til it hurts, big hearted, wide eyed and smiled, sensitive, fun-loving, loud laughing, fashionista sweetie.  She loves to cook with me, sit with me, ride with me, dress like me.  She is doing just fine securing her place.

Rather than more insecurity over Lillian’s psychological state, what I was left with were thoughts about how we as adults do this, too…this grapple and grasp for position, this need to find our place in some small way.

Lillian is “in the middle”.  In birth order she will always be “in the middle”.  Even if I wanted to, I cannot humanly change that fact of life for her.  Part of her struggle, part of her God given burden, will be learning to live “in the middle”.

Likewise, the fact of life for all of us is that we must live life mostly in the middle.

I love the last couple of weeks of summer.  I just realized this about myself and am starting to understand why.  When school gets out for summer, there is almost this craziness, this buzzy bee busy-ness.  You’ve probably heard the questions: “What are you doing this summer?”  “Which camps are your children doing this summer?”  “What do you want to get done on the house before summer is over?”  There is an intense amount of insecurity about what will be done, what will get done…all with such a relatively short amount of time.

But, by the end of the summer, there is a sense of resignation.  Something shifts.  What’s done is done.  We can just…be.  We can just live summer for what how it could have been lived all along…by the moment.  This past week, with school on the horizon, we haven’t had plans.  I’ve had work and Jon has been in Honduras, but other than that, there have been no expectations.  Friends over to play, swimming at a grandparents’ house, watching cartoons in bed with mommy in the morning, donuts for breakfast.  As a friend of mine said recently…experiencing a perfect chill.

When we are starting out, when we are in the middle of figuring out our space and our place, we can get so anxious.  We do this with friendships and other relationships, too.  We develop our own little rituals just like Lillian.  We send a text message, or make a phone call, and if the friend doesn’t respond back in the right way or in the right amount of time we get anxious, insecure, maybe even angry…we might even develop complex rituals and put more rules on the relationship…all in an attempt to grapple and grasp…for space, for place, for security…in some small way.

It is all about finding our place.  Making plans to get things done, wondering what will get done…in relationships, in life, in dreams, in plans, in jobs…all with such a relatively short amount of time.

I wonder what would happen if we became more aware of this tendency…more aware of the need to find our place, to get things done, to be someone…to someone, in something, somewhere…more aware of the frenzy and busy-ness we go to when we find ourselves “in the middle”.

I wonder what would happen if we said to ourselves: You know you tend to do this.  You tend to get a little crazy when you aren’t sure about how things are going to end up.  That’s ok because that is pretty normal AND…just be aware that you do this…this frenzy place finding…just take a deep breath.  See what happens.  Let it come.  Ride the middle.  Ride the adventure.  It is a relatively short amount of time after all.

I am being patient with Lillian, just like I imagine God is patient with me when I get a little crazy in the middle, start trying to put rituals and rules on Him, which really end up being exhausting rituals and rules on me.  Don’t get me wrong.  I get frustrated and I am sure it shows all over my face sometimes.  Ok, Lillian, YES we have done EVERYTHING!  Goodnight!  But, for now, I am still going to go ahead and do the ritual.  I think I can understand her.  Even as an oldest child, I think I understand this living in the middle, this grapple and grasp for space, time, place…all in a relatively short amount of time.  I understand what it is like to go a little crazy about the unknown, the not sure’s, the what if’s.

The most wonderful gift I can give to Lillian and to me right now…and that you can give to yourself for that matter…is some patience and understanding…about the middle, about any crazy, ridiculous response to being in the middle.  Making room for a little craziness, for a little frenzy does remarkable things for growth and moving forward.

Just that patience and understanding will take some steam out of the frenzy.  Just that acknowledgement that yes, this is a hard place, will bring some resignation, some peace, some submission to the adventure and story worth telling that the middle really is.

And, sure enough, last Wednesday Lillian went to the “big kids” church for the first time. She is about to start kindergarten, after all.  She was with her sister and a friend and she hurried excitedly to the door, turned around, and said… “bye, mommy!”  No hug.  No kiss.  No “I love you. I love you very much.”  I smiled a brave smile and watched her run in, so proud of my sweet girl.

She’s left one middle to go on to the next.  Yes, she’s going to be just fine.  And, I will be, too.

Seen and Heard

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One of my students wrote me an ugly email the other day.  This happens rarely, but it has happened.  They get on their class website (for online classes) and find out that something isn’t what they expected for a grade, due date, etc.  Then, because it is easy to do, they write an email where they vomit their frustrations into cyberspace.  They say words with attitudes I imagine they would never say in person.  Many people have not figured out yet that there is such a thing as Internet social skills.

At this point there is a part of me that wants to blast them.  I would love to be sarcastic and difficult.  I am the one with some power after all.  However, that desire represents just part of me.  I also know that if I am rude back I will likely get another email from a dean.  That email would require a conversation, possibly multiple conversations, and in the end just take too much of my time.  I don’t have time to be rude.  I don’t have time to make it difficult on myself.

Here is something I have learned.  We all have running conversations in our heads.  We talk to ourselves…hopefully not out loud.  These conversations are held in the dark crevices of our mind.  They are written against the backdrop of a landscape of past relational experiences.  Listen to your own voice closely enough and it might resemble voices you knew long ago.  The teacher who was unreasonably hard on you.  The friends who picked on you.  The dad who abused you.  The mother who slapped you with her words as much as with her hands.

If you are lucky, your inner dialogue is constructive…challenging when needed and condoning when appropriate.  It is a wonderful mix of cheerleading, accountability, and grace.  The ideal inner parent.

If you are like many people, some days you don’t talk very nicely to yourself.  The voice sounds more like the impatient grandmother who compared you to your older sister.

This is the truth.  We may not hear the actual conversation going on in a person’s head (unless it is our own), but we can get a pretty good idea of what it sounds like…by how the person talks to others.

Show me a person who is hard on others and I will show you a person who is ten times harder on themselves.  Show me a person who seems to have a big head and looks down on others.  I will show you a person whose head is empty.  Air.  Nothing of consequence.  And, terribly, ironically insecure.

My mom’s greatest wisdom to me may very well have been revealed in the hard middle school years.  And, if you are a human being who grew up in the United States and attended what was then junior high then you likely know what I mean by H-A-R-D.  Also known as challenging (euphemism).  Or, of the “I want to die” variety.  Take your pick on where your experience likely fell on the junior high pain spectrum.  Talking to adolescents on a weekly basis, I hear that not much has changed.

Whenever I cried or was frustrated about a friend or classmate being what I experienced as “mean”, “spiteful” or just a plain “bully” my mother’s famous one liner was: “Emily, they are just incredibly insecure.”  Like a broken record she would tell me that when a person is being mean they are often putting a person down to make themselves feel more powerful.  Now, this proverb is a family joke and whenever anyone in the family has a story about a person being rude to us out in public we look at each other knowingly, smile, and say, almost in unison: “They are just insecure.”

I had a hard time believing her words of wisdom as a twelve year old.  These other growing people certainly did not seem insecure to me.  They seemed quite cool, confident, and powerful.  I was tall, skinny, and easy to blow over.  Awkward.  Painfully self-aware.  I thought they were so self-absorbed.  I didn’t notice that in my insecurity, I was, too.

Have you ever been around a child who is completely self-absorbed in his or her temper tantrum?  One way to address this kind of behavior is to ignore it.  That can work…sometimes.  But, one thing I have noticed with my children and with other children is that if you ignore the behavior first without any recognition of where they are in their anger, they tend to get…louder.  My little boy constantly asks for treats right before supper.  He isn’t going to get one.  He is learning this boundary, but it hasn’t been long since he has thrown a knock down, feet kicking, face to the floor tantrum to try to get a popsicle minutes before supper hits the table.

Here is what I have learned.  If I ignore his tirade completely, he just gets louder.  If I stop and say: “Emmett, I hear you.  I hear that you want a treat.  I can see that you are really angry right now.  And, you are not going to get a treat.  You may have something after supper, which will be ready soon.”  Does that stop his fit?  No, but I’ll tell you what…it sure does seem to take some of the steam out of it.  I know every child is different, but I am always amazed and a little tickled to watch as he goes off to his room to cry and calm down.  The next thing I know, I hear his door open and close, hear his little footsteps pad across the study, into our kitchen, feel his hug around my legs, and hear him ask to sit with me while I finish making our food.

What he needed from me in that moment of rage…more than to give him what he thought he wanted…what he needed was to be seen and heard.

My own daughter did this with me the other day.  I was throwing my own little fit, fretting from room to room, trying to find something while also trying to understand if she wanted to compete in a swim meet that evening.  She had changed her mind at least three times already.  I stopped to see her sitting on my bed watching me. “Mommy, you seem upset.  Are you upset with me?”  Oh, my goodness, sweet girl.  I felt the steam of my tirade cool down, soothed by simple recognition and the stating of the obvious.  I stopped my fit as well as my futile hunt and I sat down with her.  I apologized.  I explained that I was frustrated because I could not find X,Y, or Z and that it was a little frustrating that she kept changing her mind about the swim meet, but that no, I was not upset or angry with her.  My own daughter gave me the gift of being seen and heard.  I thanked God that she was able to stop and ask me, that she felt freedom to state the obvious.  She chose not to swim that night.  About a month later I found what I was looking for.

And, I know that is what my hateful student needs now, too…to be seen and heard.  So, I will open up a reply.  I will start with something like: “Wow, I can tell that you are really angry.  I am sure you are very frustrated.  I cannot change your grade at this point, but I’ll tell you what I think you can do to help your situation…Let me know what your thoughts are.”

I can’t change the inner dialogue of a person, but I can recognize that when a person goes off on me for any reason that their words to me are truly the proverbial look into their soul, into the landscape of their mind, and that what they are throwing at me has way more to do with their past relational experiences than the one we are having right this minute.  That hurt little boy or little girl just needs to be seen and heard and somewhere in that seeing and hearing the air out of the empty headed balloon is let out, and the decompressed soul makes room for a little more grace, a little more peace, a little more love.

And, sure enough, I get a reply within a few hours: “I am sorry to go off on you like that, Professor Stone.  I am just having a really bad week…Thank you for being patient with me.”

You’re welcome, I think to myself.  I have had more than my fair share of people who have been patient with me.

Emails, Apologies, and Corrective Experiences

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I attended graduate school at an enchanting little place called Fresno Pacific University in California.  The school’s Mennonite roots reach their ideology of peace throughout their curriculum.  I’m not talking about “stick-your-head-in-the-sand” kind of peace.  I’m talking about the “let’s-face-one-another, wrestle, and-learn-to-live-together-in-spite-of-our differences”, hard, honest, and sometimes messy kind of peace.  I became a wife and then a mother in this environment, navigating two of the more challenging albeit joyful transitions of life in the arms of this tiny community.

My professors were strong, smart, and gentle men and women.  Their commitment to training good therapists who were also Christians was expressed in how the form of the education matched the content.  They lead by example, asking us hard questions about ethics, practice, and theology.  As long as we were seeing clients in our practicum, we were required to be in our own therapy with a well-trained therapist.  They gently and firmly stretched us and sometimes I fought it.

One professor, Dr. Rose, was more gruff than gentle and made our knees tremble a little as we approached his class, the capstone of our graduate experience. He was a clinical psychologist who taught our practicum class, that class that oversaw our first workings with clients.  Each week a student’s name was drawn out of a hat to be the one who presented a case from their client load.  Afterwards, Dr. Rose would drill the poor student on what could have been done differently…the whole time with a straight face and deep sighs.  It was a nerve-racking experience.

I started these classes with Dr. Rose when I was 8 months pregnant.  I was heading into a semester with a full load of classes, seeing clients for the first time, on the verge of becoming a mother.

You are absolutely right.  I had no idea what I was doing.

In one of the first classes, I took the plunge and decided to answer a question Dr. Rose posed for us eager beaver, wet behind the ears, clinicians.  My answer got a stinging response from him.  Apparently, I was an idiot.

I was tired and overwhelmed in every possible way.  I was thousands of miles away from home and confused about what my life was about to look like as a new mother and here this, this, this BARBARIAN dared to embarrass me publically.  What I experienced as condemnation in front of my classmates was just a little too much for me.  My blood froze and I didn’t hear anything else in class that day.

When I got home the ice in my blood had thawed, heated, boiled, and then turned to electricity running through my veins. I had to do something.  I was hurt and angry and embarrassed.  I could not believe he had ridiculed me like that in front of the entire class.  He was a bully.  I had to stand up to him.  I couldn’t let him get away with this.  Something had to be done.  For the sake of future students, of course.

So I wrote him a letter.  Well, an email.

I can’t remember what I said to Dr. Rose in that email and I am glad I cannot.  I spewed all over that computer screen, all of the exhaustion, hurt, and confusion hurling out like the screams of a woman giving birth.  Then I hit “send”.

Immediately, I was stricken with fear.  What had I done?  Good God, what would happen now?  How would I go back to class?  What would he say?  And, what’s worse, what if he said nothing?

I stepped into class the next week with a woozy stomach that had nothing to do with expecting a baby.  I was afraid to glance towards Dr. Rose.  I thought I would pass out with shame.  Why had I not just let the whole thing go?

As Dr. Rose opened up class, my heart was beating hard.  He said he needed to say something before we did anything else.  He looked at me.  Oh, God.

He said, simply: “I was wrong to talk to Emily like I did last week.  I owe her an apology.”

I was stunned and felt incredibly vulnerable.  I wanted the moment to be over.  I thought it would feel good to get an apology, but accepting the apology was as painful as experiencing the offense.  I had expected a stony silent treatment and weeks of walking on eggshells with him.  I had not expected a simple, honest, straight forward apology.

He never mentioned the email.  He never brought it up again.  We both put it behind us.  He didn’t treat me differently.  He was still gruff and serious and firm about us being clinically sound therapists.

But, when I broke down in tears 8 weeks after having my first child in the middle of my program and wanted to quit, he and another professor was there with me.  He made room for the messy birthing of a new mother and a new therapist.  He gave me room to quit and then room to try again, never telling me what to do…he was just there.

Dr. Rose introduced me to some of my all time favorite books and authors, including Anne Lamott with her book Operating Instructions, which helped me realize I was, in fact, NOT the craziest mother on the planet.  And, when I had my “discernment” meeting, which was a requirement before a student graduated, I invited him as one of my professors.  He accepted.  In the sacred space of that meeting, he expressed concern about me finding room to be myself while also being a minister’s spouse and a therapist, two difficult identities in their own right.

And, then I sat down in the midst of peers and professors with my husband at my side and this barbarian, this bully, prayed over me as I finished my journey at that school.

This is what I think. I think that Dr. Rose is not a barbarian.  I think he isn’t a bully either.  Maybe he was rude to me that night and maybe I did deserve the apology.  But, I think Dr. Rose knew that the email I hurled at him had way more to do with me than with him.

Something shifted in me that day when he apologized and didn’t punish me for my anger.  It was what some therapists call a “corrective emotional experience”.

As a professor and as a therapist I am often in complicated, hard discussions with hurting, even angry, people.  When students write me angry emails about a grade or if a client gets hurt in a session over something we have discussed, I take a deep breath, and model Dr. Rose (the barbarian).  I don’t react to their anger or hurt.  I let them feel that way.  I acknowledge it.  I try to help them determine the cause or problem.  If I had a role in the situation I apologize sincerely and directly. I remember that this anger, this hurt has way more to do with them than with me.

I am better at applying this technique with students and clients because I am not in a long term, day to day relationship with them.  But, I wonder…what would happen if we all tried to do this…offered people corrective emotional experiences.  I wonder what would happen if we all took time to acknowledge hurt and anger, help to determine the cause, apologize if we have a part in it.  Sincerely.  Directly.  No laughing.  No qualification.  No jokes.  No sarcasm.  I apologize for doing that.  I was wrong.  I am sorry.

Then we move on.  We can love and be loved and not have to dance around issues and pain.

It reminds me of John 3:30.  John said of himself and Jesus: “He must increase.  I must decrease.”

I, and my own tendency to react and lash out because of my own defensive, self-righteous indignation and need to defend, must decrease and He, with all of His love, patience, healing must increase in this person’s life right now in this moment, in this anger, in this hurt.  I can be part of that.  If I choose to let go of my own need to be right or in control or whatever else causes us to react in anger or turn to stone and silent treatments when someone expresses anger towards us.

This is not easy, mind you.  It takes a willingness to be aware of our own wounds because often the reason we react to a person’s anger, hurt, or snubbing is because the other person’s anger, hurt, or snubbing has grazed over a tender spot of our own.  You know what happens when a person’s wound is touched.  You react.  You jump.  You pull back.  You cry out.

So, the next time a person in my life gets angry or hurt or snubs me, instead of defending myself, I want to listen.  I want to make room.  I want to decrease.  I want His love to increase.  Which is patient.  Kind.  Not easily angered.  Not self-seeking.  Keeps no record of wrongs.  Never gives up.  On him.  On her.  Or on me.

Pedestals and Honor

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Choosing gifts for my parents for birthdays, father’s/mother’s day and Christmases is never easy.  Sometimes I find a gift that I think will show that I notice who they are and what they like.  I think my mom looks lovely in red and for years now I often get her something red…anything red…for Christmas.  Sometimes the gift is completely and totally a token, a symbol that I remembered the day.  No matter what, no matter how tight the money, no matter the circumstances of life, I try to get them something.

A “no matter what” time was in college.  For a few years gifts for my dad were clothing items I thought he needed.  One year I bought him a cool pair of jeans for Christmas.  He still wears those jeans.  My dad had been into running for a few years and one year I found a name brand running outfit at a discount store.  I was so proud of that gift.

Not much time had passed when I came home from classes to a message on my answering machine…back when they had answering machines.  There was my father’s voice.  He had just gotten back from running and was calling to tell me that he had fallen and torn the running pants I had bought him.  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard a crack in his voice.

I find parenting to be a constant balancing act.  A tightrope.  Walking on egg shells.  Encourager one moment, enforcer the next.  An example of strength.  An example of vulnerability.

Growing up, I played tennis.  In fact, that pretty much sums up a great deal of my existence and identity from elementary school to college.  I spent hours and hours playing tennis.  I loved it.  I got to be pretty good, too…good enough to pay for college and that was great.  As a young girl I loved getting trophies when I won a place in the small tournaments I competed in.  I collected them and had them placed all over my bookshelves.  Eventually, these trophies, these pedestals, were moved to our family game room.  We laugh now when we see them because it is like a shrine to this person I was and no longer am.  Who was that girl?

Not long ago, my father called to let me know that he was cleaning out the game room.  Could I come look through my things to see what I wanted to keep?  Some of the items included these trophies.

Most trophies look EXACTLY the same.  They have a girl/boy (sometimes you can tell, sometimes you can’t) on the top getting ready to serve.  The only defining element of almost all trophies is a teeny piece at the bottom that gives details of the event.  Runner up: 16 State Qualifying.  Finalist: Athens Friendly City Classic.  Something like that.  So, if you strain your eyes and peer closely enough you might get a detail that will evoke a memory.  That is, if you take the time to strain and peer.

I looked through this box of trophies my dad had been keeping for what had become decades.  Some were as old as 25 years.  As I pick through them, it occurs to me how flimsy they are.  The boy/girl at the top could easily be ripped off.  Some already had.  Although they represent an incredibly meaningful season in my life, I realize it isn’t the moment I was handed the trophy that I remember.  I don’t remember those moments at all.

I remember my tennis friends.  I remember my dad being out on the court with a stubborn, passionate ten year old who wanted to be good at something and loved to smack a tennis ball.  I remember how much I loved the heat of the summer and the sweat.  I absolutely loved to sweat.  I remember tasting the sweat as it rolled down over my lips and jumping in the pool with all of my clothes on…one time even my shoes.  I remember refusing to leave one time and my dad, to play along, actually drove off down the street.  I spent the next brief moments thinking about spending the night on the courts. Then my dad drove back up.

I remember the heartaches, too.  The losses that motivated me to get back out there and try again.  I remember my dad believing in me more than I believed in myself.   I remember my parents getting divorced and finding comfort in the courts that had always been there, always would be, and had not disintegrated into something I didn’t recognize.  I remember boarding school and my tennis team and a tennis coach who kept me grounded in sanity.  I remember very important friends at church who kept me balanced and let me have fun off the courts, friends who had never played tennis in their lives, friends who thought that the fact I did was so cool.

With the exception of my very first tournament, I don’t remember anyone handing me a trophy with a boy/girl on a pedestal that looked nothing like me.  Those moments of being handed a pedestal are not in my memory

Trophies and their pedestals are meant to be on shelves, not handled.  They are flimsy and break easily.

Pedestals are high and are probably scary places.  Lonely.  And a fall from them is probably painful.  If, the boy/girl on the pedestals could feel, that is.  But they can’t.  Because they aren’t real.

I heard “real” in my dad’s voice that day when it cracked on my answering machine.  I heard pain….pain because he had fallen.

We don’t have to put our parents on pedestals to honor them.  Pretending that they are perfect, ignoring their humanity, choosing not to be aware of their struggles…that isn’t honoring them.  That is encasing them on a pedestal that is dangerous, lonely, flimsy, and easily broken, easily reproduced and replaced.

I think Christians struggle with this idea.  We quote the admonition “honor your mother and father”, but cover our parents with fear rather than with reverence, because I think when it comes down to it, we know that if we admit that our parents are not perfect, we might have to admit we aren’t either.

I don’t have to be on a pedestal to be honorable to my kids.  I am real…still a lot of that stubborn, passionate ten-year old inside who wants to be good at something.