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Did this ever happen to you? You think the way your family (of origin) does something is normal, and then, suddenly, you find out it isn’t?
Usually, this happens when you form close relationships outside your family of origin. Fireworks can ensue!
How your family dealt with conflicts, problems, shame, secrets, and tragedies shaped you and learning relational and loyalty dynamics from the previous generations in your family can bring relational repair, health, and hope.
That’s what today’s show is about. I’m glad you can listen, today.
Today’s guest is graduate school professor and marriage and family therapist in private clinical practice, Janet Stauffer, Ph.D.
JANET’S BIO:
Dean of Students, Evangelical Seminary
Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy
In addition to her work at the seminary and her clinical practice, Janet is vice president of the Board of Directors at Philhaven Behavioral Healthcare facility. She has led retreats, presented at professional conferences, and published articles in a number of journals. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and approved supervisor and clinical member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. She also holds membership in the Christian Association for Psychological Studies. Her research interests include genuine meeting through dialogical engagement, loyalty dynamics between and across the generations of the family, and the intersection of faith and therapy.
SHOWNOTES:
MIN
1:40
Each person is born with an inherent longing to connect.
2:40
Early childhood experiences shape who we are and how we relate to others.
Our ancestors deliver ways of being to us across generations:
4:00
What can be done if the early years weren’t filled with dysfunction and problems?
5:00
How relationship can alter the wiring and re-patterning of the brain.
5:30
Jim Coen, UVA – The Hand holding experiment.
7:00
In close relationships, we end up feeling–not only are you here with me–but somehow you are me. Somehow we are here together.
8:20
Before we can help others, we have to be open to ourselves and our own healing. Our wounds can remain as vulnerabilities and our greatest resource.
11:00
“I because who I am through my relationships with other people, so that more of me gets called forth as I respond to others in my world around me.”
The still face experiment:
12:15
“Foo-Poo” (FOO = Family of Origin) influences our current relationships.
12:45
The interconnectedness and “loyalty dynamics” between and across the generations and how during all our interactions we are holding something that has been passed down across generations and in the larger cultural dynamics.
14:00
Example from life (Janet, her husband and the Ford Fiesta). Naming the truth in our interactions and being curious about what we hold from generations before us.
16:00
Janet explored what anger was like for her mother and grandmother and discovered not just a family secret and the shame that was carried on, but also a a family norm relating to how pain is dealt with.
18:00
Family secrets and ways of interacting waiting like land mines that can sabotage our other relationships.
20:00
We can also end up carrying or holding visibly or invisibly things that our spouse (or other close relationships) hold as well.
21:30
There are options for growth and healing if we can be open, aware, curious and can find courage to turn and face [the other] and remember where our weakness are and admit them.
22:30
The power of naming what is happening for us emotionally.
23:00
“Honoring my personal truth, personal awareness, my being, and made a claim for myself has a profound impact in my own knowing.”
24:00
“Every one of us experiences terror at the thought of finding the courage to turn and face the other in a painful situation at some point in our life.”
25:30
A defend or fight mode should be superseded by the prevailing message “You and I are on the team team ultimately. We have a reason to connect and I long for you. But it’s been hard between and here’s something of how it’s been for me… and I want to know what it’s like for you.”
26:20
Yet, we cannot think what we say will always help because we cannot guarantee the other person’s response. So there is vulnerability in saying the truth.
26:50
Being calm, curious and compassionate even in the face of wounds and vulnerability.
27:30
Emotionally self-regulating and contending with emotional triggers.
30:00
(In marriage or close relationships) Learning self and other in a whole new way…in a kind of sacred space to grow through the most tender places that we hold.
31:00
Telling the other what would help in what feels like an unsafe place emotionally.
31:20
Learning to soothe one another.
32:00
On core lies we can believe about ourselves.
33:00
Honoring when emotional safety is just as important as physical safety.
34:00
What to do when it’s not safe to have important conversations.
36:00
Martin Buber-We live with an armor around us and bands around our heart and being closed off and unaware and unaddressed.
37:30
Asking questions of ourselves to create more awareness and realizing our thoughts and memories are not us.
38:30
We limit our imagination about the capacity each of us holds to respond the other, the world around us and ourself.
39:00
We can test our assumptions and plant seeds that bring new possibilities for ourself and others.
40:20
When we can’t yet name or isolate our feelings.
41:00
Giving permission and a soft demand to know what is going on with someone else and helping them find their voice.
42:30
The biblical tradition of the garden where God says “Where art thou?” a story about hiding. God’s longing for humankind.
44:00
King David in the psalms is modeling openness and receptivity…asking “What is in my heart?” “Who am I?” “What do I hold?”
46:00
Being open and still safe. Giving yourself warm, regard, and leaving the self-judgment out.
“Judgment limits the knowing.”
47:00
Being present to and growing in recognition of “here’s what I hold” or “here’s what freezes me” etc and asking “how can I be more free?” and then exploring new pathways and practices that go somewhere.
50:10
On the spiritual practices and things can people do to move forward.
51:00
These ways of understanding what it is to connect, grow and be human are universal and offer hope to those with varied religious tradition and no religious affiliation too.
53:00
The spiritual and the Other when it is not defined as “God”.
54:20
“God doesn’t limit God’s self to the church or the synagogue or the mosque and we can never fully describe God because God cannot be contained and is always more than what I can fathom or grasp”
55:00
Asking, “How do I understand the call before me and how do I invite others and find the place where they are experiencing call and longing and where is this work happening within them. What is being invited forth?”
56:10
How we can pass down the best of our generational dynamics and loyalties to our children.
57:20
On the invisible family rule of perfectionism and how it made Janet think she could be the perfect parent and how that idea was shattered.
58:30
How she approached her son after that point to understand what he was experiencing and being surprised by his reply.
59:00
We can never get it all right, but we can be willing to go to our child and ask them about their experience.
60:00
Inviting others to know themselves in whatever capacity to do that they can and hold what they say with care and honor.
61:00
Enacting moments and accumulating themes and transactions and happenings and asking “Is their a burden they carry or an injury of disregard or diminishment that was not theirs to carry?” which deserve address and caring and honor.
62:00
On having a commit to “I will be there for you, and I will be here for me, and I invite you to be here for me,” is a profound act that helps us for the long run.
64:00
Despite our efforts, outcomes are not guaranteed and each person has an opportunity to respond uniquely.
RESOURCES for further discovery:
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Chances are if you are reading this, and if you tend to read a good deal, you are firstly a person of words. Nothing wrong with that. But, your blind spot might be hurting you unawares….more on that soon.
Me? well….
I’m a weird mix.
I’m am– rather evenly–a person of words AND and person of pictures.
However, I am rarely, if ever, both at the same time. I have to switch gears. My dream life even changes when that happens and I go through phases that seemed to be tied to the weather… Sort of strange, I know.
Here, at the website, as you might figure, I’m mainly a person of words….if I wasn’t I would have abandon blogging ages ago. I’ve posted about 2,000 times here and in previous blog efforts.
This “being a person of words” came not so much natively as much as a way to create things.
(I’m an ENTP and I love conceptualizing, innovating, and making things come to life. That’s my sweet spot.)
Sidetone: There are all sort of free Myers’-Briggs personality/temperament sorts of tests online, but they always seem to be short and less than definitive. (They’re “meh”)
I recommend this book for its apt testing process. A 70 question test is inside (and it’s much less expensive than the official Myers-Briggs test with about 100 questions). Plus, there are loads of helpful descriptions to flesh your results out and understand it all better. Learning you spouse’s, friends’, co-workers’ or family’s temperament style is invaluable too.
Before I was a person of words (online, in print, for graduate school, in business, at work)….first, I was a visual artist–a person who thinks and understands more powerfully when images are readily available and utilized. I still am.
Words have only really been powerful when they conjure mental images for me. Maybe it’s the same for you.
How to increase your imagination–because IMAGINATION is power:
(Imagination = literally, bringing up images)
If you are a “word person”, I encourage you check for a blind spot on the visual side. That is, if thinking in visual terms isn’t native to you (and you will already know if it is), then consult with someone who thinks from a visual paradigm. Then, with them– look for ways to richly add that aspect to your message.
If you are a Picture person? Reading more will help.
Some ideas for enhancing the picture side are…
(click examples to see the visual)
• using / creating Infographics: (a graphic way to convey written content).
When you tell someone that you work for a non profit, (or a ministry, or a charity…)
You often get one of three reactions:
1. A strange and muted pity.
Some times this is accompanied by slow nodding and maybe an awkward silence and change of subject, or some refer to some one they know who sort of does the same sort of thing (awkward empathy).
“Oh, yeah, my uncle was a pastor. He died unappreciated and penniless.”
2. A bemused reaction, “Oh, okay. How…nice.”
3. A flummoxed stare.
They think something went wrong.
Or, that you must a be a bleeding heart, or maybe you are just confused about what you really want to do.
“Oh, I thought you were…um… (smart and industrious)…but, you can’t get paid much, right?”
Sadly, I had to leave a non-profit graduate school as the Director of Communications because I needed to pay bills.
I worked with the nicest group of people I’ve ever worked with. We did exciting and transformative things that make the world a better place. In the end though, my family needed, literally, a roof over our heads (lots of leaking in the attic). I had no choice but to look for work to meet that pressing need.
Strangely, I’ve sensed in all the non-profits I’ve worked with, so far, that there is going idea was that you have to give up something to be there. The rules are different and you just have to suck it up and put big girl pants on, and such.
You have to be okay with being very poorly compensated.
Now, it isn’t for lack of will to do it. The funding (really-the lack of funding) just can’t support something otherwise. However, there is something more. A kind of unconscious (maybe?) communal ascension to thinking is cemented way that makes change, improvement, and sometimes even success difficult.
It’s a disabling mindset, really.
We can get stuck is a false conundrum that subtly discredits the fulfilling work being done because it it conversely attached to a conflicting paradigm that claims profit = success. By definition then, non-profit = non-success.
(Any pockets of moralizing that all the hard work is to be for treasures in heaven one day, hardly makes it easier.)
I wonder if there is a better way.
Adam Braun thinks so. He gets to a great point: We shouldn’t start labeling ourselves as failures. We shouldn’t be apologizing for doing awesome things in the world asa 501C status. (Have you ever done the old……”Oh, yeah, we’re a non profit.” …as eyes shift downward in shame…?).
The truth is…
Being centered on a purpose rather than existing for a profit is the most important sort of work on the planet.
The good news is that certain business models can be infused to make the whole system more successful. That’s how Adam set up “Pencils for Promise” (click on Adam’s photo to get to his website…but, wait…just a minute more).
I love what how he describes for-purpose organizations as a places…
“where idealism meets acumen.”
How great to see this important shift happening. I have GREAT hope in Millenials!
I look forward to infusing both purpose and profit into what I’m doing. Who says they have to be in silos!?
For me, it started with a passion project: the book I created with Doug Jackson in August (2013). Some proceeds are earmarked for 2 -for purpose- groups that care for dogs and cats.
The most exciting thing I’m involved with now is the new resource that keeps the underdogs (but not canines) in mind and offers a high Return of Investment (ROI).
The knowledge gained translates quickly into success (be that revenue, exposure, or impact).
The non profit (for PURPOSE) organizations are the ones with such heart. I want them to succeed.
If you are interested, click HERE.
Read what others are saying about it.
Have YOU ever worked for a ministry or other kind of non profit? What was the mindset like?
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It wasn’t a special day or season as I was growing up in my particular Christian faith tradition, but with the new connections and resources I found through graduate school and the kindred spirits I found on the internet over the last ten years, I have been able to tap in and reconnect with this very ancient, rich, and reflective seasonal observance, each year.
This time of year, and especially during this particularly harsh winter, we can feel isolated, burned out, discouraged, troubled, or restless. It’s not just a state of mind, it’s a spiritual thirst.
Lent is a whole season that specifically helps us work through the darker, profound things that reside in the deepest recesses of our hearts, and prepare us for Spring (in every sense of the word).
This year, my husband and I are using a YouVersion Bible App reading plan called Lent for Everyonewhich includes a daily commentary by N.T. (Tom) Wright. Each day, the Lenten scripture reading and commentary brings the season into a richer light.
![6 Students Reflect [SSL105]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sunsetandreeds-e1532901534472.png)
Did this ever happen to you? You think the way your family (of origin) does something is normal, and then, suddenly, you find out it isn’t?
Do you think in Words or Pictures?
