Want to be a strong person? Apologise.

Humility is strength in a world that likes to pretend to be strong by not being strong.  Those who cannot be strong insist on refusing to be humble.  They stick stubbornly to their guns and they regress all the while justifying their possession of “strength,” as if they need to prove it to everyone else when they’re trying most of all to prove it to themselves.

The humble person wastes no time in apologising where they’re wrong.  They see the truth, they see the harm they may have caused, they quickly hold themselves to account.  And they endear themselves to those they apologise to.  They win friends from would-be enemies.

It’s more important to the humble person to relate well with others and be fair than for them to be right.  Indeed, they prove their commitment to what is right by making right of their wrongs.  Whatever it costs.  They ensure where they’re the reason for unfairness that they quickly restore the scales of justice.  Humble people are instruments of vindication.

Want to be a strong person?  Everyone wants to present themselves as capable and confident, but will we prove mastery over true strength by not being conquered by our shame when we’re wrong?

Those who cannot or will not apologise for anything prove that they have no strength to admire.  They might think they’re strong, but if few others agree, what’s the point?

It’s better by far to think little of ourselves, to reject any desires we have for entitlement, to root out that toxin at every first sign of its presence.

Entitlement poisons relationships.  At a national level, it’s responsible for genocides.  At a personal level, it’s responsible for myriad silent abuses and traumas.

Genuinely apology could fix it.  Genuine apology is cut to the heart for wrongs committed, so much so that it sets plans into action that those wrongs aren’t repeated.

Genuine apology is the salve for healing relational hurts and there is no other way.

It’s too easy to gaslight the other and say, “Oh, there’s too much pain there!”  If you’re part of the cause of the pain, you have a role and a responsibility to reach forth in love to the other you’ve harmed in an attempt to relieve them.

If you don’t think you could have possibly harmed them, have you really empathised?  Be honest with yourself looking through their eyes, feeling with their heart.

Might it be that at the end of our lives we will face a Judge who will rate our lives according to the standard of our apology.  According to the amount of harm we did.  According to the apologies we made.  According to the healing we were part of.

Is it worth living any other way?

Truly strong people are able to be “weak” enough to say they’re sorry and mean it, strong enough to understand what they did, strong enough to be committed to do what they can to right those wrongs, strong enough to move in a different direction attitudinally and behaviourally, and strong enough to seek to be forgiven.  Understanding the depths of hurt caused is central to all this.

9 short lessons after a near-death experience

NOON on Monday October 17, 2022, a moment where life changes in an instant.  Unlike a thousand other times, this is no near miss on the roads, but a full impact from another car travelling at high-speed, punching my car hard in the left side, causing me to swerve, lose control, and run off the road into soft sand at 100kph, colliding with a barrier twice before coming to a standstill.  Amongst the twisted metal, broken plastic, and shattered glass, I reeve open my door, finding it strange that it doesn’t open easily, and as I moved to the front of the car, I notice puddles of oil and water leaking out of it, amid the smell of those hot fluids.  As I run forward to the car 50 metres ahead of me, the car that hit me, I yell out to people behind me to call 000...

As I’ve taken time these past four days to put the fragments of the experience together, I’m putting these into the following list:

1.             BEWILDERMENT – on so many levels I’m still bewildered.  How easily and how quickly it happened, how bizarre it was that someone did something so reckless, how powerful forces like velocity are, how frail us human beings are.  Bewildered, yet thankful, ever so grateful.

2.             SMALL STUFF – the fact is, so much of life, so much of what we waste our energy on, is small stuff.  When small stuff becomes all important, we’ve lost our perspective.  I’m sweating the small stuff less than ever at present.

3.             UPSIDE – I cannot help but see the upside on everything at present, and my hope is that this lesson doesn’t go away.  I really want it to stay, and to become how I operate from now on.  And there’s no better upside than walking away absolutely without injury.  How bizarre when I recall the forces on the car throughout the event.

4.             FAMILY – it’s all that really matters.  Those we consider family, that is; those who we have precious and sacred intimacies with.  Having lost Mum in late August, family is already front and centre, but ever more so now, I’m so thankful for the place my wife, my children, my grandchildren, my father, my wife’s family, my friends and colleagues, and the rest of my family have in the being of me, and just as much I appreciate what I offer those who are close to me.

5.             FUTURE – it’s irrelevant yet at the very same time it’s the entirety of our hope.  I’ve found this week has been the perfect reminder of the tensions we must hold with the future.  It’s crucial to our hope, but it’s also something we need to continually put behind us if the present moment is to take precedence.

6.             MYSTERY – I could use the words irony, paradox, or enigma, but I’ll use mystery.  I can’t master those few seconds that took place from the initial impact to when my car eventually stopped.  There are fragments of my memory missing.  All I can do is accept this.  There’s a lesson in life in this.  Acceptance is the only solution where mysteries confound us.

7.             HUGS & MOMENTS – ever more important than ever are the hugs and moments I can give and receive and have right now.  These are the real possessions that matter, not the things that can be bought and sold and held.  This week has taught me that the only things that endure are the hugs and the moments.

8.             CARE – in receiving many calls, texts, and messages throughout the week, I’ve reminded how important me being alive is.  I’m sure you’re like me; we need to be reminded occasionally of the huge hole we would leave if any of us left the world prematurely.

9.             EVERY DAY’S A BONUS – this is probably the most profound little lesson.  Every single moment I’m conscious is a bonus.  I mean the simplicity of nothing else than being outdoors and breathing, or indoors working, or running an errand, all with a mind empty enough to sense what’s to be sensed.

DON’T WASTE. YOUR LIFE.

FORGIVE THE CAPS.  PLEASE.

I WAS AWOKEN AS I ORDINARILY AM, EARLY, ABOUT EVERY FOURTH MORNING.  FOR A REASON.

YOUR LIFE, MY LIFE, THEY, OUR LIVES I MEAN, THEY’RE IMPORTANT.

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU NOT BY ME.  BUT BY THE ONE WHO SENT ME.  THAT IS, THE ONE WHO SENT YOU ALSO.

WITHOUT NEEDING TO SOUND ETHEREAL, YOU AND I HAVE A REASON WE EXIST — FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS.

WE WASTE OUR LIVES TWO WAYS: 1) BY DOING NOTHING, AND 2) BY DOING HARM.  NOT DOING HARM IS NOT ENOUGH.  WE ARE INSTRUMENTS OF GOODNESS, OF CHANGE.  WE ARE WINDS.  WE EXIST ON PURPOSE.

let me say it quietly, 
to get your attention.  
do not waste your life.

SOMETIMES WE ACHIEVE MORE BY WORKING QUIETLY, PERSISTENTLY, ENDURING, PLUGGING AWAY, RESTING WHEN WE NEED TO, TO RE-FOCUS, TO RE-PURPOSE, TO KEEP GOING.

IN SEEMINGLY NOT DOING MUCH, BUT IN BEING GOOD, WE ARE DOING ENOUGH.  IF WHAT WE ARE DOING IS GOOD, IT IS GOOD ENOUGH.

WHEN SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT HAPPENS, LIKE WHEN YOU GET A SECOND CHANCE, YOU BEGIN TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY.  YOU CHANGE.

GOD WANTS US TO CONTINUALLY TRANSFORM MORE INTO THE PERSPECTIVE OF HIM WHO WAS SENT FROM GOD TWO MILLENNIA AGO.

THERE IS A PURPOSE FOR YOU AND I BEING HERE.

WE HAVE GOODNESS STOWED IN US — EVEN AS WE EXIST OF US CAPABLE OF THE OPPOSITE STUFF — AND THAT GOODNESS IS OUR MISSION, SHOULD WE CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT.

NOW IS THE TIME TO RE-COMMIT — WHILE GOD HAS YOUR ATTENTION, BECAUSE GOD HAVING YOUR ATTENTION WON’T LAST — SO, RECOMMIT.  OR, COMMIT FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND KEEP RE-COMMITTING.

AT THIS POINT, IT’S NOT THE GOODNESS THAT YOU OR I HAVE DONE IN THE PAST THAT COUNTS, OR THE HARM.

GOD’S PREROGATIVE IS ALWAYS THE PRESENT MOMENT AS IT MORPHS INTO THE HISTORY THAT IS WRITTEN FROM THE FUTURE-STATE AS WE SEE IT NOW.

NOW IS WHAT COUNTS.  WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT WE’VE BEEN GIVEN.

DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE BY REFUSING TO USE YOUR RESOURCES — HOWEVER PRECIOUS AND LITTLE THEY ARE.

CONSIDER THAT SOME OF THE THINGS YOU’VE THOUGHT WERE IMPORTANT, AREN’T, AND SOME THAT YOU’VE THOUGHT WEREN’T IMPORTANT, ARE.  BE REFRAMED.  SEE THINGS FROM ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE.

DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE BY HARMING THINGS OR OTHERS OR SITUATIONS WHEN YOUR RESOURCES ARE TO BE DEPLOYED FOR GOOD.

REPAIRING THINGS IS GOODNESS.

CREATING THINGS THAT GIVE LIFE IS GOODNESS.

GOODNESS, BE GOODNESS.

People pleasing never leads to peace

It’s something we’re destined to have plenty of occasions of practice with; when cajoled, influenced, manipulated, intimidated, or forced into a “nice” response, acceding to “keep the peace” and please the person demanding our positive response to something we cannot agree with.

A thousand times it hasn’t worked to redeem peace, 
and a thousand times more it won’t work.

It is, of course, called the fawn response.  One of the four trauma responses.  I don’t think we had such language in the common vernacular years ago.  I’m so glad we have it now because it explains a behaviour that is commonplace for people engaging in empath behaviour.

People pleasing cannot lead to peace because it requires one person to give what they do not in their right heart wish to give.

People pleasing cannot lead to peace because the one demanding our agreement has no concern for our peace.  These are TAKERS of peace.

We give our peace away to “keep the peace” somehow always knowing we’re settling for a counterfeit peace — something that might carry the appearance of peace without conforming to the norms of peace, which all parties are to enjoy.

Sometimes we’re forced to conform for the overall good by falling into line with established, formerly agreed norms of behaviours and standards.  Enter the military or any paramilitary organisation and there are many encounters in situations like this.

There must be a common good attained in these situations, where no individual escapes accountability, and in many ways, there’s a common accountability requirement that helps us know that the system is inherently fair, right, and just.

We respect such systems for their consistent example to us and to everyone.  When those standards are upheld, almost everyone rejoices.  Only the malevolent one doesn’t.  They cry foul, but they don’t have a voice, and this brings the majority great comfort.

With entitled individuals, there’s a calling to align to standards laced with favouritism.

Where the standards are nebulous and shifting and unpredictable, anxiety is high in those on the receiving end.  There is no semblance of safety or integrity.  All they can do to assure their own safety is to fawn and go with the volatile flow blindly.  There is no peace, only fearful preoccupation for what might take place that cannot be anticipated, or the anticipation is for the worst, not least a lack of peace for the compromises we feel forced to make.

For those who find themselves in people pleasing situations, the favour is never returned, so the imposition is to the hard work of resisting the temptation to fawn, knowing that if it’s always you who must concede, the relationship is unfairly tilted in the other person’s favour.

Staying in the disposition of not committing to a response may leave the moment “awkward” but it’s the response of the other person that we may find instructive.  If it riles them, we’ve found we’re in an unsafe relationship.  If they respect our voice, we’ve found someone we can relate with.

Accepting those who don’t understand

There are those in all our lives who don’t understand us, who don’t empathise, and never will.  We can lose a lot of sleep about these situations, we can get angry, anxious, willing to go to all kinds of lengths to persuade or cajole or fight our way toward convincing them.

But all this will mostly be in vain.  There are some who will never understand, just as there are some who wonder why we’ll never understand.  It’s fair to say, we end up on both sides of the fence; we, the misunderstood, and we, the non-understanding, in terms of how others see it.

It’s a core human need to be understood.  We face our biggest challenges in being misunderstood and battling with others who insist on our understanding them.

But the fact of the matter is, there will be misunderstanding, and we will all hold to perceptions that others cannot share.  We will see the truth, and act accordingly, just as others will see the truth and act accordingly, and both of us will shake our heads and say, “that wasn’t the truth!” and “how can they not see it?!”

Into the bargain, we will all be swayed by our unconscious biases.  Wrongs will surely be done, and those who do wrong are sure to justify their behaviour or use our behaviour in reaction as an equal wrong.  And we’re ALL capable of doing wrong.  And justifying wrong behaviour is unfortunately normal.

Accepting those who don’t understand and never will is an important life skill.

Some of these people will hold a lot of sway and control over our destiny.  But we cannot change what they think.  No matter what we do.  Some doors will forever remain firmly shut to us.

Just as it is for others who experience the same things from us.  No matter what they do, what they’ve done sealed the deal long ago; our perceptions don’t shift and there are boundaries in place.

Of course, there are situations where people including ourselves, redeem themselves.  Sometimes life events bring two opposites together, and they become a force for good together.  Suddenly differences in the past are forgiven, especially when it’s a common and important purpose that unites them.  These are dreams come true, but this is rare.

Somehow, we need to wrestle with the concept of forgiving those who cannot see what we see.  This is simply understanding that there are things that others see that we cannot see.

Perceptions are always about a mix of subjective and objective truth, or the truths we hold added to the truths that will always be true.  Yet, others have their truths and their objective truth.  It’s clear that we cannot convince a person that our truth is more compelling than theirs.

We cannot change hearts or minds, but what we can do is come to a peace about this.

It’s helpful to focus on our relationships with people who do understand, whilst simply checking the validity of the thinking in those who hold different views.  If only we can stay open to truth that is uncomfortable, inconvenient, awkward, and challenging, then we stand to learn something — if not about truth we must face, then it’s about bearing an investigation (so long as it’s not traumatising).

The ability to set foot in another’s camp, to try on their truth, to attempt to empathise with their understanding, is the demonstration of humility.  Engaging in this practice is more important than defending the truth itself.

The only way we can stay spiritually healthy is by agreeing to accept what we cannot change, and the most common example of this is accepting people who don’t understand and never will.  The reason why this is healthy is because these people are in all our lives, and indeed we are these people in others’ lives.

Imagine a world where we can cohabit whilst having vastly different views.

Romans 12:18 instructs us that, “As much as it is possible, as far as it depends on us,” we are challenged “to live at peace with everyone” we can.  The spiritually mature focus on this and make this their aim.  They completely understand and accept that this is about bearing loss well — accepting losses that are beyond our control is a big slice of wisdom for living this life well.

Empathy as connector and therefore healer

The kindness in empathy is a gift given to another in the desire to discover what they think and how they feel.  But it’s also a gift given to ourselves, because, as we face another’s pain, as we connect with them, we face our own pain, and we connect with ourselves.

By facing another’s pain with them, we meet our own, but from a safer, less confrontational distance than what we would if we stared down our pain in isolation from the other.

This empathy is the power of service, given that the heart behind serving people is a benevolent art for all — those served and those who serve.  So long as there’s a balance and we don’t burn ourselves out in our serving others.

Empathy is also automatically and wholly beneficent to all and necessary for the functioning of any society — whether that’s two people or 200.  Empathy presents an openness for another’s expression and where it’s given and received, love abounds through connectedness, and this is a therapy all itself.  It’s the way that churches are supposed to work.  It’s how sporting clubs and other institutions operate when they’re at their best.

I constantly repeat the wisdom that says, in Jim Eliot’s words, “Wise is the person who gives up what they cannot keep to gain what they cannot lose.”

Empathy operates on this principle of wisdom.  Empathy gives up an attention we could deploy on ourselves and our own struggles, and it deploys that focus of curious care on another equally deserving person who is need of care.

Empathy is a tool a person uses to connect to another so as to detach a little from themselves, yet, as I’ve mentioned above, this slight detachment from self just so happens to allow a safer approach to oneself.  The more we give away, the more we receive.

There is an ancient and an eternal wisdom in diffusion within community.  The smaller we become, the more grateful we are, and bigger the cause we serve, the easier it is to give ourselves wholly to it.  Empathy is an avenue to this reality.

Empathy is also emblematic to ourselves of our benevolent purpose.  In effect, we see ourselves interested in another and we see ourselves as selfless, as kind, as capable of giving.  Confidence grows and we feel safer in our world because we feel worthy.

The more we see our capability grow in the exercise of empathy, the more we find ourselves compelled that it’s a holy purpose of life designed for everyone to engage in.

Empathy truly is a language, the practice, of love.  It’s an inherent kindness.  It’s generosity personified.  It’s the simplest yet most effective way of being human.

For the uninitiated, empathy is about stepping out of ourselves for a moment so we can step into another person’s world, their interests, their desires, their hopes, their dreams.  It’s an invitation to others to reciprocate but we NEVER engage in empathy motivated to give in order to receive.

As we practise an other-centred interest, something happens within us that wouldn’t occur otherwise.  This “inside job” is the blessing of God for the wise, benevolent choices we make.

Entitlement crushes marriages and relationships

The factor of entitlement in marriage and in other relationships is compelling as to its force for destructiveness, whether it causes relationships to implode or continue in dysfunction.

In the belly of entitlement are the other two Es of operational narcissism, a scarcity of empathy and the affinity for exploitation.  Entitled people demand what they want, often through exploiting others, based in their complete lack of desire to empathise with others.

Where there’s entitlement without accountability, tyranny follows, whether it’s a quiet and seething undercurrent or it’s overt.  Safe people are willing to be held to account, and hold themselves to account, because they realise we all have the capacity to be entitled.

The irony of the entitled is they don’t see their entitled approach to exploiting others or their lack of empathy as either a problem or as even entitlement, but those who are not entitled quite easily see their incursions into entitlement as a problem to be accounted for — through apology and repentance — because they see their situational lack of empathy and exploitative behaviour as abhorrent.

How entitlement operates in marriages:

§     The consistent preferencing of time and resources by the entitled partner for themselves and for those they favour, often (but not always) with justification — however well (or not) their justification is reasoned.

§     In the lack of consideration for the marriage partner, and those the marriage partner love and care about, entitlement shows up in the punishing of the marriage partner and those they love and care about, especially when “dissent” is shown to the entitled partner for their preferencing of time and resources to themselves and those they favour.

§     Even in more passive moments, there is a consistent disposition in the entitled one that leaves everyone other than those they favour feeling uncomfortable and unsafe.  And those who are favoured can sometimes feel confused and conflicted for the position they’ve been placed in.

§     Justifications for the abusive structures, patterns, and behaviours of the entitled partner leaves those who suffer in an untenable place.  They survive outside the marriage and family, or they endure the tyranny of dysfunction.  Both of these scenarios puts the entitled one in a position of control, because those leaving the marriage or family are in the unenviable position of having to make their way — that’s enormously stressful and overwhelmingly hard!

§     The entitled mete out the worst of their abuse in silence.  The worst abuse doesn’t bruise the flesh.  The worst abuse bruises the soul and the spirit.  Internal haematomas are invisible to all other than the bearer of such bruises.  More “silent” abuses leave the abused feeling constantly isolated and alone.

§     Entitlement in marriage suffocates the life that might otherwise be enjoyed in safe intimacy.  It also crushes the hope of the partner who seeks to give and receive such safe intimacy.

How entitlement operates in relationships:

§     Problems turn up in situations where the entitled person reacts in overt unaccounted-for emotions, or they withdraw themselves to punish others.

§     There is a consistent flow of neediness in the entitled person.  They burden the relationship, and there’s no such thing as balance in any part of the relationship.

§     The entitled person will do other people “favours” (that inevitably work for the interests of the entitled person) as a way of manipulating outcomes.

§     Relationships with entitled people are always couched in feeling that “something’s up” without ever truly knowing.  It’s such a constantly disconcerting feeling.

§     An entitled person serves their own ends and those they keep in their inner circle who help protect them.  Those who are not in the inner circle always end up exploited, sidelined, and isolated, and those who are in the inner circle don’t realise they’re there at the convenience of the entitled person — and are perhaps more exploited than anyone.

Entitlement often takes longer to identify in relationships where there is less intimacy than in marriage.  Indeed, it can often be that once it’s noticed, past indiscretions also suddenly come into view, and these are seen as red flags that were there all along.  Naturally, nobody sees these until they’re suddenly visible.

Ultimately, what separates those who are genuinely entitled from those who aren’t is accountability.

The entitled person either never sees their behaviour as entitled or they feel they’re genuinely entitled to behave the way they do — but others are not.  The non-entitled person picks up in their behaviour situations where they’re acting entitled yet they amend their behaviour and make amends to those impacted.