Am I Assertive?

For today's post I am linking to another module from the Australian mental health website. This one takes a look at the differences between passive, aggressive, and assertive communication styles. Even though I have learned about this stuff already, I still learned more from this article. Plus it is always good to have reminders because it's easy to slip into passive or aggressive modes. Being assertive takes more effort and courage.

Here's the link: How to Recognize Assertive Behavior 

Assertiveness Training

I discovered a free website that teaches all about assertiveness. I've been searching for something like this because I think assertiveness is an important aspect of healthy living and because I think it is a skill most people need to work on.

The website I found is sponsored by the government of Australia. The assertiveness training they teach uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques to address faulty beliefs about being assertive and also goes into a lot of detail about what assertiveness is and how to be assertive in a variety of situations. I like a lot of what is in here. I am passing it on to my clients and decided to post a link here as well.

I will only post the link to one module so that it doesn't get overwhelming. There are something like nine modules and each one has about nine to thirteen pages. The one I am posting teaches foundational cognitive behavioral therapy skills to become more assertive. From there you are free to go back to the main site and explore the other modules. They are all pretty good.

How to Think More Assertively

Nurturing a Relationship in Crisis

During the early part of addiction recovery the focus is on healing from the trauma, stopping the addictive behavior, and rebuilding trust and hope. 

However, for a couple who are working to save the relationship, there must also be some emphasis on that relationship. 

Weekly date night, when both partners are ready for it, can be a great way to nurture and strengthen the relationship and rekindle the reasons you chose to be together in the first place and the reasons you are still together now. It can also aid in healing from the addiction for both partners.  

If you are in a stable place in your relationship, give yourself permission to take a once a week break from talking or thinking about the addiction or any other loaded issue and simply enjoy doing something together with your partner for a few hours. 

Here are some basic guidelines. 

• Have a specific night of the week designated as date night and do not skip it for anything.
• Take turns planning the dates. 
• When it is your turn to plan, try to think of something that will be enjoyable for your partner, not necessarily what you want to do. When it is your partner's turn to plan, he or she will have the goal of planning a date you will enjoy. Your focus when planning the date should be on your partner's interests and vice versa. 
• If you have children, the person in charge of planning also arranges the babysitter. If budget is an issue join or start a babysitting coop with friends. If you absolutely can not arrange for a babysitter, make other arrangements for the children, such as a movie in another room, so that you can spend some time with your partner as distraction free as possible. 
• If possible date night should be without children. 
• Talking about children, finances, problems, addiction, or any other heavy topic while on the date is not allowed. Date night should be stress-free recreational time together. 
• Have fun, be creative, and enjoy yourselves.

20 pocket change date ideas

Remember that it doesn't have to cost money. If you plan creatively there are lots of free or very inexpensive things you can do. 

Below are some great resources for planning and committing to weekly date nights.

Date Night Pledge from simplymodernmom.com

romance and date planning ideas:

http://www.thedatingdivas.com/

more date ideas for a variety of situations:

http://loveactually-blog.blogspot.com/p/ideas.html

Marriage Tip: The Jar Method

42 Date Night Ideas for the Date Night Challenged

Budget Date Night Ideas  - I love that these ideas are written by a man for men, but these are great ideas for women too.

There are tons more ideas online if you do a google search.

I've also included a link to a google document for creating your own date night ideas list. Click on this link and then rename it to create your own google document. Share it with your partner so they can add their ideas. The link below will take you to the spreadsheet where you can easily view all your responses or do any editing, but be sure to view the live form first. The live form is where you will be inputting your ideas. You can edit the form as well if you want to personalize it. Make sure you edit the address responses are sent to so that they go to your document and not the original. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apc6_BIXNVf7dDFmVmhWcWdMaXhMQ1FYYVZ6cjExbkE#gid=0

Today I am Battling for My Heart

My sweet hubby just went to bed and as I sat here alone in the silence, I thought about my life. I spend a lot of my day absorbed in non-interactive work. I am writing stuff on my computer, I am cleaning, I am cooking, I am searching the internet, I am reading my emails. All of these activities give me an illusion of connection with other people, but in reality, they keep me away from the people I most want to connect with.

I was also thinking about what my life used to be like. It could be that I am only recalling the good, but I think I was more connected with other people. I remember when I got divorced, the hardest and most painful thing was how the divorce hurt my relationship with my children. Where we had a great, close relationship before, I now had these little tiny children saying to me, "Dad says the divorce is all your fault and that you are a liar and you are ruining all of our lives. I hate you," and other similarly poisonous daggers. I numbed a lot of that pain.

That must have been when I stopped connecting with people so much. The most intimate relationships of my life, the ones that should never be threatened in such a way, were crumbling before my eyes. Life, relationships and love felt too dangerous, vulnerable, and risky.

Well, it wasn't nearly as risky as isolating myself. With being vulnerable there is at least the possibility of connection. With isolation there is a guarantee of loneliness.

So today, starting right now, I am battling for my heart. I am going to face all the painful feelings with courage and honesty. I am going to fight hard to let myself be vulnerable. I am going to trust my own wisdom and my own judgment. I am going to be aware of when I am numbing out with illusions of connection. I am going to be compassionate. I am going to love with my whole heart.

Like this song: Brandon Heath - Don't Get Comfortable

The Rest of Your Life

Today's post is from http://www.spiritualriver.com/an-addiction-program-guide-for-rehabs-and-treatment-centers. Because it is written for addicts, some partners of addicts may dismiss this article. However, this applies to you too! I would love to come up with a list of ideas for how partners of addicts as well as addicts can strive for personal growth. If you have any ideas besides those listed please send them to me! 

"Recovery basically comes in two stages. Early recovery, and “the rest of your life.” Early recovery is a tough ride and you need lots of help and support to get through it. You have a ton of learning to do. Many people don’t ever make it to “long term sobriety.”

"But of those who do make it past the early stage of recovery, they still have to live clean and sober, day in and day out, for the rest of their lives. Traditional wisdom says that we should take this “a day at a time,” and I would not argue with that. It will always be a day at a time thing for those in recovery. But even so, many people in long term recovery end up relapsing eventually. But why?

"The answer is complacency. Just because you make it to one year clean and sober does not insure sobriety for the rest of your life. The statistics are actually quite frightening. Simply accumulating clean time does not insure that you will continue to stay sober forever.

"So what is the answer? The answer is personal growth. The answer is that you must overcome complacency in recovery by pushing yourself to grow as a person.

"In my opinion this is the main key point of any recovery program. This is the central pillar. If you are not growing as a person, then you are on dangerous ground. If you are not committed to personal growth, then you are slowly headed for relapse. If you are stagnant and not pushing yourself to grow in any way, then eventually complacency will set in and you will revert to what you know best: self medicating. . .

"Therefore, personal growth is 90 percent of recovery (the other part being made up of networking [or connecting] with other people).

"Now the question will inevitably arise: how should I pursue personal growth?

"The answer is in two parts:

"1) Pursue personal growth by pushing yourself to pursue better 
health, and to take better care of yourself (in mind, body, and spirit).

"And

"2) Pursue personal growth by using your unique strengths and talents to help others.

"We have already talked about how caring for yourself and pursing better health is important. Let’s take a look at the second point:

"Using your unique strengths and talents to help others

"In long term recovery, the “networking” part of recovery is replaced. Instead of asking for help and seeking guidance and direction from others in early recovery, now you are reaching out and extending your helping hand to others so that you can help them. This may be help in terms of addiction. . .  or it may be another form of help entirely. The point is that you find a way to do this that is unique to you.

"What is your gift to offer the world? What is it about you that makes you uniquely qualified to help others in some way? Find that lever and push it. Figure out how to leverage your talents to help others in a way that is meaningful to you.

"Note that this will not happen overnight. You will not be doing this during your first week of sobriety. This is something that should happen over time as you progress in long term recovery. This is an ideal that you want to be moving closer to in your life. Give it time in order to see how you can best serve the world. Try different things and experiment. Chair a [12 step] meeting. Sponsor someone in recovery. Take meetings into jails or rehab centers. Find a way to connect with others and see what works best for you. See what you are good at. Then, do it.

"Once you start using your unique talents to help others then you are really experiencing an awesome life in recovery. This is what you should strive for and how you should live your life. It is personal growth with a real purpose–you are not just trying to “be a better person,” you are essentially trying to become better so that you can help others. From a religious perspective, this is the height of trying to “do God’s will.” It is using power to help the world rather than just for personal gain. The awesome thing is that the world will pay you back a hundred-fold if you do this right, and you will grow stronger and stronger in your recovery."

Don't forget to send me your ideas!

Free from Righteousness?

I have a 13 year-old daughter who (on occasion) resists me like crazy about going to church. Over the years I have used different tactics to deal with this. When she was little I just said, "Sorry, going to church is what we do on Sundays and you can't stay home alone." As she got older I have tried other things like bribery, consequences, guilt and shame. You know, all those things your parents did to you that you swore you were never going to do to your own children. Sometimes I've said, "Well, you are old enough to make your own choices. Just make sure it's okay with God first and I will support whatever He says." That's a risky one if my underlying motive is to guilt her into going. But, if I let go of the outcome and trust her to make good decisions (eventually), that one can be pretty healthy. Last week she said one of her favorite comebacks, "Don't you believe in freedom of religion? You can't make me go to church! We are free in this country." My response was, "Freedom is never about being able to do what you want without suffering any consequences for it. If you make bad choices, there will be consequences for them, and I can't prevent that no matter how much I want to. I know that the best chance you have for happiness is by learning and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything else will leave you unsatisfied at best and possibly miserable." That was the end of that discussion. Something I said must have sank in because she had an attitude change. She went to church on her own accord and seemed to enjoy being there. Today I was reading in Romans and I found apostolic support for what I said. I love it when that happens! Here it is.

Romans 6:20-23
20 ¶ For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Just a little before this in verse 16 it says

16	Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

So to me this is saying that the choice isn't really whether we are going to be our own master or let someone else rule over us. That isn't even in the list of options from anything I have read. The choice is really whether we are going to serve Christ or serve the devil. That's it. Interesting.

Searching for Heaven

How much time do we spend searching for Heaven in an unheavenly world?

For example, there have been so many times when I thought "if only I didn't have to deal with this, then my life would be great." My current thought is, "If I lived in a place where there wasn't cold weather, icy roads, and depressing winter darkness I could probably be a lot happier and less stressed." Silly me. Dealing with this, the weather, lack of sunlight, scary roads, whatever problem I think is my enemy, is what will make me stronger, more resilient, happier. Then, and only then, will I be in a place to live a heavenly life.

Some of the most powerful things I have ever learned and the growth I have experienced has come on the heels of something unpleasant. Usually something traumatic and extremely distressing. Even some of my worst choices and mistakes have also brought some of my greatest blessings and wisdom.  This life isn't heaven and it wasn't meant to be. Our purpose here isn't to discover heaven, as nice as that would be. Nor is our purpose to be miserable.

Men and women have searched for heaven since the beginning of time. The people who built the tower of Babel, Coronado, and other explorers throughout the ages have tried in vain to find it. So far, to my knowledge, no one has succeeded. Heaven, or even the gateway to heaven, has never been discovered.

As long as we keep searching for something outside of ourselves we are doomed to failure and disappointment. We are chasing after nothing more than a mirage. It looks perfectly enticing from a distance but as soon as you get close to it, it vanishes and reappears somewhere else, farther off on the horizon. The goal in this kind of a search is always out of reach, like the belief that you will be happy when you get a promotion, when your children have all graduated from college, when you can retire. This kind of thinking simply lures you farther and farther away from where you really need to be. Because when you reach the goal you thought would bring happiness, you realize that it didn't bring what you thought it would. You are still as happy or unhappy as you were before.

That's because true heaven, true happiness, can not be found in anything outside of ourselves. There is no shortcut to get there because even the idea of a "there" is leading us in the wrong direction. Our goal here is to learn to create heaven in our own hearts, not to discover heaven. It is all about what is inside of us. And we get to work on this goal, we get to work on ourselves, in an unheavenly world.

How easy would it be to be heavenly in a heavenly world under ideal conditions? That would pose no challenge and it would foster no growth. But to be heavenly, to be happy, in an unheavenly world, now that is an accomplishment. Heaven can only be found inside of our very own hearts. And many have succeeded in discovering that.



Here is a video that has been a source for today's pondering. I highly recommend watching it. Both segments are from the same talk. Total time is 18 minutes.