Rules for Dealing with the Unruly and Don't Go Swamping Without Hip Waders

I am pretty open-minded when it comes to an other's thoughts and opinions but I have a couple of rules I follow.  The primary one that I have learned to never waver from is responding to open aggression.  The reason why I ignore an aggressor, verbal, or otherwise is this, they don't really want to know what you have to say.  They never do.  The only purpose an angry person has to confront you with insults is to make you feel inferior and tear you down. 

Why they want to do this in the first place is irrelevant although I will say they will have lots of excuses for their bad behavior AKA reasons for confronting you.  Regardless of the litany of reasons they have for deeming you the worst person in America, Europe or wherever you live , the actual intended outcome is only an argument.  It is a purposeless, useless, no-win war of an argument designed to see who caves first.  The loser, and they hope it's you, gets to be ragged on by them and their spineless cohorts behind your back.  You see, even if you win, you aren't going to be honored anyway. No one will be tipping their hat, bowing down and thanking you for a fine, gentlemanly (or womanly) debate.  You lose no matter what because the goal was not to see if you could rise to the challenge in the first place (see intended purpose above). 

Should you be accosted with an onslaught of angry words for no real reason there is an important rule of engagement, don't engage at all. I know, it's hard.  You want to ask them what in the world possessed them to take such exception to your point of view, don't do it. They'll be happy to tell you, but don't probably won't be able to make heads or tails out of it and if you ask for more clarification, well that brings me the next rule.

Rule number two is for those of you who find yourself involved in a feckless exchange because you failed to follow rule number one.  This rule is simple. Stop communication. I mean, stop.  Don't say, "I'm stopping now", just stop. If you announce your departure they'll keep going and then, of course, paint you as the coward. Go, run if you have to, smash your laptop, but don't continue.  Continuing will only cause two things to happen, hours of your life will be spent without any return on investment and you'll have a king-sized headache trying to figure out what the heck happened in the first place. 

If you ignore all of this well-used advice based on years of research, you will yourself in the middle of nowhere in the Emotional Swamp.  These beings, disguised as regular people just like you and me are really alligators who are trying to stalk you and drag you into their swamp and wrestle the life out of you until you have no fight left. That is what alligators do before they eat their prey and that is what an alligator of this magnitude will do to you.  Unless you like being alligator lunch and dragged into the murky waters of a lair you can't get out of, the trick is to know how to spot an alligator in the first place. 

How to spot an alligator from the Emotional Swamp:

1) They are easily offended
2) They typically do not compliment anything
3) They are more interested in voicing their opinion than listening to others
4) They like to point out the negative
5) They talk about other people
6) When they confront, they love an audience

Know what you are getting yourself into.  Most of all, put on your hip waders.  Alligators love to twist the truth and turn things around, just like an alligator does when it latches on to its victim.   The trick is not to get caught in the first place.  A little ego check on your part in the beginning will leave your alligator hungry and swimming off to find its next victim.  If you don't want an alligator attacking you, don't give it anything to sink its teeth into. 

"Hurting people hurt people and are easily hurt by them." -John Maxwell

The Thorn War

I'm restoring a house.  I have been doing this for one and a half years.  With the inside repairs winding down and the summer weather heating up, it was time to turn my attention to the landscaping.  You could refer to the flower bed that lines the front of my property as a jungle.  What was once a prestine adornment  of irises and tiger lilies has now become a mass of bulb plants with vines and prickers intertwined in a heaping green hedge that looks something like razor wire. 

From a distance it didn't look that daunting.  I showed up at my mother's door this morning in search of her hand trimmers.  I figured that a little snip here and there and I could take care of my thorn problem.  She pulled them off the wall of her garage amidst an array of gardening tools and handed them over. They looked easy enough to operate.  I pulled them open and snapped them shut, nodded and said, "thank you."

After lunch I donned my yard work clothes and headed for the lawn tools with a bouncing, smiling 5 year-old closing in behind me.  She loves the prospect of irritating me while I work outside. 

"Can I try, Mama?", she squealed as I marched toward the front of the house with the trimmers in my hands. 

"No, Honey. They are too sharp. Dangerous."

I furrowed my brow at her show she would see the seriousness of not misusing hand trimmers.  I surveyed the mess, picked a spot and snipped.  I was amazed at how little damage it did.  I pulled out a branch and looked at what I had accomplished in the pruning. This was going to be more involved than I thought.

As I trimmed I thought of bad decisions in my life.  My mind created an analogy between consequences for actions and how they are like the thorns.  At first my snipping was more on the surface of the mass. It seemed like the more I tried the less I did.  I likened that to denial about the choices we make.  Seems when I would make a choice I knew was wrong I always wanted to reason that it was just mine.  No one would be affected.  When it would start to crowd me, I'd try to brush it aside and pretend it wasn't there.  A little lie here, a slight omission there.  Just ignore it and hope it will go away.

Like the thorns, they don't just evaporate.  If not properly treated they grow.  When the short snips were of little avail, I started moving limbs out of the way to see how far I could cut, looking for a main branch.  A heftier snip, a bit more pressure and a clump of thorns slumped to the ground after being separated from the thick stem.  It looked better but there was so much more to do.  My eyes scanned over the intricate weaving that the branches had become because they were left alone to do so.  This was more than I had counted on.  I connected the intricacy of the thorns to things in my life left to fester when I couldn't deny them any longer.  The complexity of something once so seemingly innocuous can be overwhelming.  How do I fix it? 

I changed my stance and started to dig in.  My moving had become purposeful and I was looking to take out this thorny menace.  I dug my trimmers deep, until I could find the bottom.  Take it out at the source.  I found where the earth met the plant and chomped the blades down on the stem.  "Snap!", the branches gave way and fell but taking a swipe at the skin on my arms on the way down.  I quickly pulled myself out of the way with an "Ouch!"  Sometimes while trying to rectify something ugly in my life, I've had to suffer a few wounds.  When things start to get hairy, it is not easy to clean up. 

As I looked down at the final blow to my thorn-laden enemy, I noticed that it had been cut at the source before, probably by the former owner of my house.  Sometimes that happens in life. Usually  the bad choices I have encountered again was because I failed to learn the lessons from the last time.  It is wise for me to understand what in my life should not be repeated.  If it grew wild before, likely will again.  I have to be careful to trim away any ideas that I can somehow control the outcomes of things I know are not the right things to do.  Like the the thorny brush, it will grow back to a overgrown mess in no time if I am not habitually looking over the stump to be sure that there isn't something growing again. 

The Tea Cup Minister

I have inadvertently started a ministry at my house.  I have lots of other ministry projects going simultaneously so taking on any new endeavors was not what I was looking for.  All that being said and the fact that my plans seem to be upended by God pretty regularly these days, I have found myself running a healthy ministry with people routinely taking advantage of what I have to offer, a cup of tea and a listening ear.

It all started with two relatives who were at a discourse.  They decided after years of a cold war of sorts that it was time to sit down at the negotiation table and diplomatically mend fences.  Every Wednesday at about the same time, I'd start the kettle.  Sometimes one would show, sometimes neither but I remained faithful to my being available with a ready cup of hot tea for whomever sat down.  Over time, the routine and the mediation has started heading things in the right direction.  To God, for that one I am grateful.

Angels must have gotten the word out about my success because more people started happening by.  They'd shrug off their coats and drop their handbags and I'd ask, "care for a spot?" as I held up the cold kettle over the stove.  Most nodded in agreement, some asked for coffee but everyone took a seat at my dining room table and I'd follow suit after I set up cups and bags next to the stove to await hot water.  The anticipation of tea and my staring blankly at the person in front of me seemed to start the conversation rolling.  People would tell me that they just stopped in to say "hi" but they end up saying a whole lot more by the time the tea bag was cold on the spoon in front of them.  I was happy to listen and share my views when the need called for.  Sometimes it was a lively conversation of the bible, those are the ones I love the most.  God is always a splendid and timely topic at my table.  A good God chat can go on for hours around here.

I must have been doing something right because the ones who happened by came back again.  They'd come and I'd fire up the stove, no need to ask.  I knew what we'd be doing.  I'd make small talk while I got out my supplies and we settle in again for a spell.  Somehow my daughter always seemed to be perfectly enthralled in her own thing as soon as someone came in.  You'd hardly know she was there.  Must be those angels again.  They keep my otherwise rambunctious pre-schooler occupied during my ministering time.

I love the tea times with friends and family. I get ministering too.  Just caring enough to come by and entrust me with their thoughts and trials says a lot about how much they value our relationship.  Now, when I got to the store, I stock up on tea supplies.  I have a bunch of different kinds now.   I think I'll spring for some nicer cups.  I have been using plain old coffee mugs.  I think the new tea cups with spark a fun start to the conversations and let my friends know that I find our tea time special too.  In a world that is ever revolving around the Internet and social networking, it is nice to have people who treasure the art of the in-person conversation like I do.

As Sick As Your Secrets

Secrets, secrets, dirty little secrets.  Some are big, some are small, all are toxic.  The secrets I am talking about are the ones about you, not the ones you heard about someone else. That's a monologue for another time.  This is the stuff about you that you would rather no one know.  I've had those.  It started off as self-preservation under the disguise of "it's nobody's business".  It wasn't anyone's business. It was mine.  I had a certain image to maintain.  Doesn't everyone? 

My thoughts then moved to "no one would be better off knowing".  Who would it help anyway if people knew this about me?  So they'd know something I wasn't proud of, or they'd know something about my past, would it serve the relationship?   I was sure it wouldn't.

The final ring of Hell was in "no one can know this about me".  They'd lose respect for me. Maybe they wouldn't be my friend any more.  Maybe this was a professional secret and I'd lose my job or some clients.  People would form opinions about me that weren't true.  I couldn't stand to think about that.  I would daydream about having to constantly defend who I really was if people would know this "thing" about me.  No, everyone would be better if they just didn't know, including me.

Keeping secrets taught me to hide in shame about who I was and what was true about me.  Keeping secrets means I need to lie or to omit things about me so others can maintain the impression I want to give them. One that usually isn't true.

When I want to keep secrets I have downgraded my personal value in favor of another person.  I tell myself that I am not good enough the way that I am. I tell myself that the person in my life that I am hiding things from wouldn't find me worthwhile or better still, they are not trustworthy.  Is that really what I want to show my friends and family, that they can't be trusted with loving me? 

In the times where I have shared deep secrets, aside from one, I was given nothing but acceptance in return and lamenting that I hadn't allowed them to share in my burden.  Friends want to feel needed and useful. I know I do. By not sharing what was going on with me or the things I have experienced, I demonstrated that our friendship couldn't be useful in times of trouble. That hurts to hear. 

When we are in hiding from the truth, it corrodes like battery acid on our well-being.  Secrets never heal, only the truth does.  To come out in the open is to unlock a cell in solitary confinement.  Most of all, we get to be free of  the shackles of shame. 

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another" Proverbs 27:17.

Everyone needs an honest friend. One good one who isn't afraid to tell you like it is. Gratefully, I have a few. One of them is my dear friend, Courtney. Interestingly enough, she used to be one of my clients when I was in Technology Sales. She worked for my largest account. Somehow she and I unwittingly got into a conversation about her husband being a pastor at a well known church in the area one day. I revealed that I was a Christian. We formed a bond based on our faith that no one would understand unless you are one of us.

We grew to spend equal time discussing business and matters spiritual during our phone conversations when I'd call on her. I left my company and she left hers. We traded information and pledged to stay connected, we both made good on that promise. Everyone should have someone in their life they know will follow through. It is such a blessing when you realize who those people are in your life. Cherish them.

When my husband died, she came to visit me. It was a long drive for her and she left a husband and two small boys at home to come be with me during an overwhelmingly difficult time in my life. She recognized a need to show up as my friend when I was too weak to articulate my desire to see her. I never forgot that. Everyone should have someone in their life that anticipates your needs when you are too weary to know what they are yourself. Return the favor.

Since then I have, as no one should be surprised, had several ups and downs in my recovery process from this ordeal. She has dutifully listened to me during our times on the phone and in person, trying to understand me and respond with the most thoughtful and earnest assessments and advice that she can derive from my sharing. I hope I have done that for her at least more than once. Everyone should have someone in their life who listens to you. Don't over do it.

Recently she came to see my new house. I was very excited to show her the modest, cottage style home I had been renovating since the winter. It is finally at a place in the finishing where I am willing to let people come see it. Walls are painted, furniture is in and window dressings hung. Just a few things needed to complete its makeover. She is my friend so I knew she'd be happy to overlook the few minor details. We wandered into rooms and up the stairs to the top floor where my daughter's room, a tiny bathroom and my office are. I gushed over my daughter's room. It is my favorite. The walls are sky blue, at the request of my four year old, with white furniture and curtains. The accent colors are bright pink, green and yellow. I know it sounds garish but it works beautifully. We turned tail and walked into my office. I picked a spa palette pastel aqua color the paint sample referred to as 'Sea Glass' with my dark walnut futon for extra sleeping space, and a few white lamps and candles.

I was in the middle of winding down my tour when her head dropped to the floor. She pointed to my iMac and printer sitting on the floor and papers strewn around in a semi-circle. "Why don't you have a desk?" she asked in a matter-of-fact tone. I wanted to make light of it but she continued, "You need a desk". Her insistence gave pause to what I wasn't able to bring myself to consider. I was deliberately, yet subconsciously not making the purchase. Courtney is a career consultant. Her job is to identify road blocks in someone's career and assist in transitioning from one to the next. In short, she has heard all the excuses people will give to tell her how and why they can't succeed. I knew I would not be glossing over this conversation with her. "Mental block." I uttered. "Why?" "Because if I buy a desk and set up my office then I really am working for myself and writing actually is what I do now." she had helped me break through. "Buy a desk.", she ended the conversation and we went downstairs. There was nothing else to discuss. If I wanted to make the commitment to my new career then I had to follow through on making it happen. One of those things is getting all the right tools to do the job well.

Courtney was not afraid to tackle the subject and she loves me enough to not let me go when she knows I need to talk about something. As I write, I am sitting at my brand new, dark walnut, simple writing desk, in a funky fabric covered dining room chair I thought would be perfect for my writing space. The finishing touch is my brushed nickel desk lamp to highlight my keyboard so I can type at night. I feel like a big girl now.

Everyone needs someone in their life who is not afraid to love you enough to be honest. Find out who that person is for you and never let them go.