Differentiation of Self

(Read: Friedman, Edwin, and Bowen, Murray – for much more on this challenging topic)

Self-Differentiation is a progressive, internal interplay between autonomy (separation) and connection (togetherness) while progressing toward established and evolving goals.

Being an authentic adult is hard work and a never completed task. The pathway is paved with difficulty and challenge.

To become an adult, every person faces the task of the differentiation of self .

Not to differentiate is to fuse (the failure to become a separate person) and is evidenced by the propensity to place responsibility on others (or on situations, predicaments, and hurdles) for the way in which our lives develop. To differentiate is to provide a platform for maximum growth and personal development for everyone in your circle of influence.

Differentiation is described in many ways in the following points:

1. Growing in the ability to see where and how I fit into my family, the position I hold and the power that is, and is not, given to that position.
2. Growing in the ability to be fully responsible for my own life while also being committed to growing closer to those whom I love.
3. Intentionally, and simultaneously, developing increased autonomy and deeper intimacy. Autonomy: I move toward achieving my dreams and ambitions. Intimacy: I authentically and appropriately reveal who I am to those whom I love.
4. Clearly defining who I am and who I want to be while understanding the natural tendency that exists for others to try and tell me who I am and who and what I should be.
5. Staying in touch with others while, and even though, there is tension and disagreement.
6. Being able to declare clearly what I need and being able to request help from others without imposing my needs upon them.
7. Being able to understand what personal needs can and cannot be met in my own life and in the lives of others.
8. Understanding that I am called to be distinct (separate) from others, without being distant or cut off from others.
9. Understanding that I am responsible to others but that I am not responsible for others.
10. Growing in the ability to live from the sane, thinking and creative person I am, who can perceive possibilities and chase dreams and realize ambitions without unnecessarily hurting other people in the process.
11. Growing in the ability to detect where controlling emotions and highly reactive behavior have directed my life, then, opting for better and more purposeful growth born of creative thinking.
12. Deciding never to use another person for my own ends and to be honest with myself about this when I see myself falling into such patterns.
13. Seeing my life as a whole, a complete unit, and not as compartmentalized, unrelated segments.
14. Making no heroes, taking no victims.
15. Giving up the search for the arrival of a knight in shining amour who will save me from the beautiful struggles and possibilities presented in everyday living.
16. Paying the price for building and living within community.
17. Moving beyond “instant” to process when it comes to love, miracles, the future, healing and all the important and beautiful things in life.
18. Enjoying the water (rather than trying to turn it into wine), learning to swim (rather than trying to walk on water).

Differentiated People

1. Achieve their goals and keep strong relationships.
2. Know when “I” is “I” and “we” is “we” and the difference between the two.
3. Live in their own “space” and “skin” without invading the “space” and “skin” of others.
4. Maintain individuality and embrace others at the same time.
5. Avoid siding with people even if it appears helpful.
6. Resist telling others what they need, think, feel or should do.
7. Say “I” rather than “you” or “we.”
8. Appreciate differences in people, seeing no person as “all good” or “all bad.”
9. Recognize emotional bullying (all kinds of bullying) and refuse to participate in it.
10. Refuse to be manipulated into rescuing others.
11. Hold onto their positions and beliefs without being rigid or defensive.
12. Be clear-headed under pressure.
13. Cope in difficult situations without falling apart.
14. Know how much they need others and how much others need them.
15. Keep their voice under pressure without confusing thinking and feeling.
16. Be free of spending time or energy winning approval, attacking, blaming or maneuvering in relationships.
17. Resist playing games with people in order to feel loved or powerful.
18. Have learned that the voice of “they” is better ignored if “they” will not identify who “they” are – and – if others who know who “they” are, refuse to give “them” a name. (In other words ignore the THEY if THEY won’t, or cannot, say who THEY are).

Differentiation Is Difficult

Thinking that ordering ginger ale because everyone else is ordering orange juice, or, going left because everyone is going right, in the name of self-differentiation is to misunderstand and trivialize the concept. Differentiation is much more difficult than going against the grain. Any rebel can do that and rebellion usually requires quite little when it comes to wisdom. Differentiation can, and will often look like total conformity.

Differentiation is not first, about behavior; it is an emotional process, involving an inward transformation that can indeed become new ways of behaving. It is a realization of one’s uniqueness and the seeing one’s role, goals, and calling with an “internal” eye. The inward process proceeds to find outward expression in every aspect of our life and relationships. It is not a set of rules about how to behave a little (or a lot) differently from others.

Differentiation is not:

1. Trying to be different, unusual or controversial for the sake of impact alone.
2. About making a statement, resisting authority, defying or disrespecting cultural norms, challenging the values of others. The process of differentiation might include an appearance of all the above, but it is more than “the road less traveled” or some statement of independence, defiance or difference.
3. A completed task but an ongoing internal condition that monitors oneself in relationship with all others.
4. “Lone Ranger” behavior, but self-awareness and self-assuredness that might appear “lone-ranger-ish” to others.

Go and TRAINGLE no more…..

When Jesus, the teachers of the law, the Pharisees and the “woman caught in adultery,” (this is how she is immortalized) are forced together for the well-known exchange, as recorded in John 8, the interaction illustrates some fundamental concepts, or tools, of Family Therapy, and principles from that discipline. More than this, the interaction shows a healthy leadership response to an evil set-up, the attempts to trap leaders in theological minefields, the pitfalls faced in religious and family hierarchies, and the flawed expressions of human “righteousness.”

Like many events recorded in the Bible, this one illustrates critical building blocks of Family Therapy. Particularly, this scenario shows Triangles, Fusion or Enmeshment, while most profoundly offering a view or a “window” into the concept Murray Bowen, one founder of Family Therapy, named Self- Differentiation.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.” 5”In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

This is the consummate triangle. The ferocious and determined Pharisees are fired up, fused with each other, and on the warpath, propelled by their sureness, the certainty of their righteousness. Their object lesson is a woman (Oooooh, keep your distance!), and she is wrong (Oooooh, she’s unclean!), caught in a sin punishable by death. Jesus is pushed, accosted might be a better word, for an opinion by a herding pack of righteous men coming his way. In response, Jesus demonstrates clear, well-defined boundaries, acute self-awareness and a tenacious understanding of humanity, the very hallmarks of self-differentiation, and the essentials of a healthy personality.

Jesus is taken by surprise with the arrival of the group of men who bring with them the adulterous woman. He has just sat down to teach. He is not expecting to be thrust into a theological or moral trap. The Pharisees are theological and social bullies. They barge in on Jesus and expect a hearing.

The men must have scouted the territory and gone out of their way to find her. They must have bullied and humiliated her into Jesus presence. To the Pharisees she is little more than a trump card, a means of exposing Jesus as theologically flawed. The camaraderie, their blood-sport-togetherness or locker-room-bravado is further fired by their “rightness” which blinds them to any possible surprises from Jesus and of course, blinds them to love.

The Pharisees focus on the woman’s sin, not because they want to bring her to correction. They have no care for her. They use her to win something over on Jesus. The have no interest in her salvation or in her wellbeing. Their interest in her begins and ends with their attempts at trapping Jesus. (Methinks the Pharisees sound much like the man who got her into this predicament in the first place! What is the difference between using a woman for sex or using a woman as bait? Both show no interest in her welfare and neither party respects her as a person.)

This behavior demonstrates their poor boundaries, their fusion, and lack of differentiation. The sin of the woman is the focus of the Pharisees, not because they ache for her redemption, not because they want to fight for righteousness, not because adultery alienates spouses from each other and ruins, wounds and challenges the social order.

People with sound boundaries, self-defined people, do not need the weaknesses or wrongness of others to underscore their goodness. Rather, they are sensitive to the vulnerable, compassionate with the weak, and can love and care without losing themselves, without drowning in empathy or sorrow.

They went looking for her in order to trap her in her immorality. Now, with similar energy, they come looking for Jesus to lay for him a theological trap. Boundary violators have no way to self-govern and they are on a roll to show they are good and that she and Jesus are bad. There is no stopping the tirade at this point by anyone with equally poor boundaries. Confused people cannot “un-confuse” confused people. It takes solid, healthy boundaries to stop the invasive power of righteous confusion. Persons attempting such an intervention, from an equally unhealthy state, will merely escalate the conflict into greater polarity, avoidance or estrangement.

The Pharisees lack self-definition and insight (if they had either this situation would not have arisen). Remember, they travel and attack in packs, hurt the weak and try to fuse with the strong. They need her (they cannot vouch for themselves) to validate who they are, to swing their claims. Ill-defined people cannot vouch for themselves or be their own object lesson because within each there is no healthy “I”. They have to triangle someone or something in order to prove their position or display their worth. One-on-one confrontations are not attractive for ill-defined people, they simply do not have the self (the “I”) for it, thus their tendency to triangle others in order meet their goals.

7But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

Notice that like all well-defined people, Jesus gets to decide how he behaves. He knows he makes the rules for his own behavior. The seriousness of the hour, the gravity of her sin, the rightness of the Pharisees and the pressure of all who are watching to see what he will do and how he will respond, are not adequately motivating forces for him to decide something in the heat of the moment. The pressure of the moment, or even any sense of compassion or feelings of pity for the woman, do not drive him or dictate his behavior. He is sufficiently self-defined, grounded, integrated, to know what he believes and to demonstrate what he believes before he falls prey to their evil trap.

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Jesus agrees with the Pharisees regarding her condition and does not defend her. He is sufficiently self-assured and self-aware, and insightful, not to take sides even at a time it might appear necessary. He suggests that the very people who have found her guilty meter out the lawful punishment. He asks those doing the punishing be morally positioned to do so.

Notice that in his magnificent expression of differentiation he gets them each to “think alone” and not as a group. By suggesting that they respond to her sin according to their degree of individual perfection, each has to begin some degree of reflection or self-contemplation. They arrive together (“unified”) but he talks to them as individuals. They depart as individuals (they become unglued). He strips them of the glue and the group falls apart. His capacity to differentiate (His integrity) un-fuses the fusion.

If he had been anxious and pressured and said, “Do whatever you all think is the right thing to do,” he’d have played into their zealous pack mentality and they might have immediately stoned her. After all, they are right. She is wrong. But being only right does not always resonate with compassion, empathy, acceptance and challenge. Being right, being kind, and being moral are not always the same thing. Some people are so “right” that the zeal, the power, the attitude behind their rightness makes them dead wrong.

8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11″No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Many writers have conjectured about why Jesus stooped down and about what he wrote. I believe such details are irrelevant. The point is that Jesus took the time to steel himself for the moment. He takes the time to be present for himself, to allow himself room to think. He gives Himself room to shift gears, to get perspective not distorted by their invasive zeal.

These are the marks of a non-anxious presence. He is not delaying or avoiding, nor is he confused. He is not “conflict-avoidant” or “conflict-averse.” Remember there’s a cross in his future!

He is enduring and embracing the emotionally charged moment, and, with his own “non-anxious-presence” he is discharging the charge, he is deflating the emotional balloon, bringing it all “down to size” without becoming infected by the surrounding anxieties. Jesus is allowing everyone an opportunity to face each other as humans rather than endorsing the necessary polarity as law-breaker and law-keepers. Notice how easy it is to judge when the criminal is faceless, nameless and how putting a person in the dock can change the attitude of the jury.

Jesus sees her face. Their intent was to embarrass her and to trap him but Jesus gives her a face and an identity. He demands they look at her as a woman, a person, for the first time.

He does what all great leaders do when faced with manipulators, with toxic triangles and evil people parading as righteous: he brings a calm by being calm, he acts as a thermostat to the volcanic emotions surrounding him, but, does not himself become “emotional” or reactive. He does not lash out at them in the manner that they have lashed out at the woman or at Him. He does not return evil for evil or try to combat intensity with equal display of intensity, He doesn’t not try to use reason with unreasonable people. Jesus talks to a woman. He talks with an unclean woman! This would be considered scandalous for a man, a religious man, and even more scandalous for a Rabbi. Jesus knows who he is and therefore is able to engage the woman with the full understanding of what the conversation “looks like” to others. If he were a person with blurred boundaries or one who was lacking in self-awareness, he’d have removed himself from her and either hidden himself among the Pharisees or gotten himself away from the Pharisees and the woman all together. When people are “triangled” (trapped, cornered) they have few options other than to be a victim – or run, attack or rescue. Jesus does none of these and he stays.

He remains non-anxious and present (a non-anxious presence) in the light of the confronting, attacking behavior of the Pharisees. He remains present for the woman in her humiliation. If he were a poorly defined man, an anxious man, he might have wanted to impress the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, or impress the onlookers with his “love” and compassion by running to the rescue of the woman. His behavior comes from within; it is internally processed, not externally dictated.

A less defined Jesus might have said, “You are most certainly correct,” in response to the Pharisees, if he’d wanted to side with them. “Not only do you accurately assess that I am one who knows the law, you know the law well enough to assess that she is breaking it.”

In this manner his response would have blurred the lines between who he was, and who they were. He would have removed any differences between them, fused with them. He’d have given up his beliefs and his behavior for theirs. This would have gotten the Pharisees “off his case” and they would certainly have made him their poster rabbi.

It is important to note that Jesus and the Pharisees agree the woman is a sinner but are polarized in the way they see her. They see Law. He sees a person. The Pharisees dehumanize and use her while Jesus responds to a troubled woman. Ironically, Jesus regards the Pharisees in the same manner the Pharisees regard the woman: as a sinner.

If he had been unsure of himself, seeking his identity in the acceptance of others, then siding with the Pharisees would not only have been right (according to the law) it would have given him “love” and “acceptance” enough to compensate for whatever he felt he was lacking at the time. When people need to use of the “badness” of others to show their goodness, something is usually awry.

On the other hand, if Jesus had expressed a lack of differentiation by siding with the woman, the interaction might have gone something like this:

“Yes. She is in the wrong, but where is your compassion?” he says, standing between the woman and the Pharisees, inviting her to hide behind him.

“Where is the man with whom she has sinned?” (He might have attempted to further triangle the woman by bringing in her fellow adulterer). “She is more sinned against than sinning,” he might have said, “Get lost you evil men who want to trap a woman in her sin.”

If this had been his approach he would not only have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the law, he would have incurred their further wrath. Such a move might have managed to get a lot of sinners on his side and he might even have felt quite messianic in doing so, but still he would have been reacting (giving away his power) to the emotional environment, as opposed to responding and keeping the power.

By taking sides with no one in this unfortunate scenario, by remaining within, yet apart from it, and by not rescuing the woman, she gets to face herself and not hide behind Jesus. Because he does not attack the Pharisees they, unexpectedly, get to examine themselves. He masterfully steps out of the fray, clears the ground between them and “forces” them into self-examination, and, into seeing the woman in ways they had heretofore not had the eyes to see.

His response is good for everyone. It encourages her self-respect and it takes the Pharisees sufficiently by surprise. They have no option but to consider their own moral condition. His response shifts the focus off the woman and onto their own behavior and they take the only option they can, which is to leave the messy scene of their own creation with their self-righteous tails tucked between their legs.

To hide behind Jesus (in our sin) does none of us any good (this is an attempt to “fuse” with Jesus). As each of us must do, she faces herself. She faces Jesus and she faces her accusers. The Pharisees are compelled to see her, not as a thing, as a sinner, as a means to their malevolent ends, but as a woman and an equal. They have to see her for themselves, rather than as men who somehow managed to get God on their side against her. Perhaps you have noticed that when people think they have God on their side it is easy to avoid seeing people as real people?

Jesus lets no one off the hook, including himself. He could legitimately judge her and his judgments would be accurate. He could condemn her. He’d be correct if he did. Instead of these options he speaks the truth without allowing anyone else, or any emotional pressure, to define the truth for him. He is able to offer her grace because it is an expression of who and what he is, and not because the teachers of the law or the Pharisees are pressuring him to do so.

Jesus is, in this exchange and in every encounter, himself. He demonstrates integrity to his very essence and, subsequently, everyone, the Pharisees and the woman, get to self-examine afresh. Potentially everyone is better situated for growth, for greater authenticity, deeper Godliness, and the same is likely to be true when anyone learns the wisdom of growing less Pharisaical (legalistic) and becoming more self-differentiated.

Everyone in this noisy and aggressive encounter has the potential to be freer than they were prior to it, which remains, to this day, a hallmark of encountering Jesus. To the woman, Jesus says, “Go and sin no more.” To the Pharisees and teachers of the law he effectively says, “Go and stone no more.”

Controlling Relationships

When people have to use intimidation, manipulation or domination, the relationship is already spoiled or poisoned. It has become a power play of control. Redeeming such a relationship is possible with the implementation of a wise plan, strongly redefined boundaries, enduring commitment and the possibility of a time of separation in order that perspective might be gained.

Willingness and desire to be together, equality between people and complete mutuality are the hallmarks of healthy relationships. Where any form of strong-arm tactics are used, the relationship has already taken a turn to become something harmful to both the parties.

Each of these relationship-poisons (manipulation, domination and intimidation) can be very subtle, coming in different shapes, sizes and intensities.

Here are some of the evidences of manipulation, intimidation and domination in a relationship:

1. The relationship has been kept on an unequal footing in order that one person might keep power over another. In a severely controlling relationship, both persons might have forgotten there are choices at all.
2. One person tries to get what he or she wants without declaring what is wanted. In attempting to get what the one person wants, both persons are in some way diminished.
3. One person does not see the other as totally free.
4. One person tries to get what he or she wants through threats or withdrawal.
5. It is expected that every move, thought, and feeling will be reported at least from the less-dominant person to the other. If one person is unwilling to tell all, it is assumed there is something to hide.
6. One person is not free to make plans without consulting or getting permission from the other.
7. One person in the relationship continually evaluates and examines the commitment and love of the other.
8. The dominant person tells the other how they should feel and usually re-scripts any division or disagreement into the appearance of unity.
9. One person feels at liberty to speak for both people and then, is offended when the partner wants to express his or her own views.
10. Desire for self-expression or a distinct voice is considered betrayal or a lack of trust.
11. One person expects unilateral support for his or her opinions, choices and desires, declaring somewhat of an attitude which says: If you say you love me then you have to love everything about me, under all conditions, and all of the time.
12. Difference in opinion or having different interests is considered a lack of love, or a lack of respect and commitment.

Useful Relationship Habits

Some of the following suggestions might seem overwhelming. Many people have found them useful in getting relationships into a healthier state:

1. Try to stop “engineering” relationships. Allow a natural flow to develop. Avoid restricting or restraining what has natural development. Try not to push what has no natural development. In other words, allow and trust natural process.
2. If a relationship has life it will grow without pushing. There is a difference between attending to a relationship (all relationships need attention) and forcing a relationship.
3. Allow others the space to move towards, and away from you. Forced closeness is not closeness. Forced space is not space.
4. Cutting off from a person or a relationship is seldom helpful. A cut-off is still reactive behavior and the person from whom you have cut-off is still in a powerful and influential position in your life.
5. Offer forgiveness quickly and freely, before it is asked of you and even if it is not.
6. Tell people about the good feelings you have for them.
7. Thank people who positively impacted you.
8. Try to see the world through the eyes of others. Try to see the world through the eyes of your children.
9. Try to listen more than talk. Define yourself and not others.
10. Try not to do things for people they can do for themselves.
11. Try to develop an early detection mechanism and speak out clearly when you see things going awry in relationships. Remember that “big problems” play hide and seek with us before they arrive.
12. Try not to live from a platform of guilt. Recognize how guilt has found expression in your life and deal with it in more appropriate ways.
13. Try to remove from your vocabulary “you need” and “you should.” Assuming any person knows what someone else needs or should do is usually a fundamental disrespect of their personhood. A hallmark of health is allowing others to be free of the unsolicited advice we want to give. In other words, relinquish your agenda for others, especially those closest to you.

Healthy Communication

There is no such thing as no communication. It is always happening. Even those who never speak to each other are communicating. Not talking says much.

Here are some signs of helpful communication in a family context:

1. The presence of conflict is not considered negative. It is regarded as inevitable among sound-minded people.
2. Conflicts get resolved (sometimes).
3. People can love and enjoy each other and disagree at the same time.
4. Everyone’s ideas are important and considered.
5. Hurt and fear and loneliness can be talked about without recrimination.
6. Being together is mostly enjoyable and, when it is not, the family can talk about why it is not.
7. There are no subjects regarded as off limits but not everything has to be talked about immediately.
8. Winning and losing are not nearly as important as honoring and loving and respecting people.
9. Tension felt by anyone can be addressed when it is appropriate.
10. People do not corner each other in order to feel loved.
11. People affirm each other because they see the other person as worthy of affirmation, and not because they desire a particular result or effect.
12. People who love each other expand each other’s options rather than limit each other’s options.
13. Encouragement happens more than correction; correction is appreciated and considered.
14. Differences are encouraged.

Healthy Relationships

All relationships have the potential to be both healthy and unhealthy.

Here are signs of healthy relationships:

1. People are close because they choose to be. It is not forced, obligated, manufactured or pretended.
2. Sarcasm is never used. Remember sarcasm is the use of words so as to intentionally hurt or wound another.
3. Individuals can be unpredictable and free. Forgiveness is easily given both to others and self.
4. No one ever dominates, manipulates or intimidates anyone.
5. People listen.
6. People do not pretend they are okay when they are not.
7. People do not spend a lot of time analyzing their relationships.
8. People have both individual and shared goals.
9. Each person is permitted and indeed encouraged to speak, plan, choose, think, interpret and feel for him or herself. Others do not usurp these important functions as the individual is given complete freedom (and the joy to encounter it) with all its potential to inform.
10. People understand it is more important to love than it is to be right or to win.
11. People laugh a lot but not at each other.
12. People do not (intentionally, knowingly) use each other.

Boundaries

Indications of Confused Boundaries / Cloud and Townsends book called Boundaries is a MUST read for all who would seek to enhance their understanding of personal boundaries.

A boundary is a line (usually invisible – prison would be an example of a visible boundary) that separates a person from all other people. Each person is responsible for the maintenance and condition of his own boundaries.

Here are some indications that a person’s boundaries have been violated or are poorly defined:

1. Sharing intimately on a first meeting.
2. Falling in love with someone you just met or someone who reaches out.
3. Being preoccupied with someone.
4. Acting on first sexual impulse.
5. Going against what you know is right to please someone.
6. Hoping someone you meet will have poor boundaries.
7. Trusting blindly.
8. Accepting food, gifts, touch or sex you do not want.
9. Taking as much as you can get for the sake of getting.
10. Giving as much as you can give for the sake of giving.
11. Letting someone be in charge of your life and define you.
12. Allowing someone else to say what you feel and see.
13. Believing someone can and should anticipate your needs.
14. Being moody and withdrawn because you are not getting enough attention.
15. Expecting people to read your mind and know what you want or need without your having to say what you want or need.
16. Expecting people to meet your undeclared needs.
17. Habitually stealing the agenda, taking center stage, occupying the spotlight.
18. Falling apart to get care. Wanting someone to fall apart so you can offer care.
19. Eating for destructive reasons or eating with destructive results.
20. Sex for pain or to express aggression.

Synthesized from many lists over many years. I am sure many writers could claim to be the first to write any points on this list and I would most certainly acknowledge the original writers if I could. Once again, please read ANYTHING by Cloud and/or Townsend for more on this crucial topic.

Rod Smith

Dueling Desires – giving others the space they need and getting it for yourself

Dueling, God-given Desires

AUTONOMY: This is a God-given, powerful instinctual longing within you. It is the desire to be self-directed and separate from others. It is the “you” who wants to be free of all ties, all responsibilities. It is the “you” that fears absorption by others; the “you” who wants to let your hair blow in the wind, feel the sun on your back and live a carefree life without things that tie you down. This is the Wild West in you, the lone-ranger and pioneer spirit within you. This desire is God-breathed, God-inspired and a necessary part of your survival and growth.

INTIMACY: This is a God-given, powerful instinctual longing within you. It is the desire to be close and connected with others. It is the “you” that wants to belong, be known and be part of a family, a team. It is the “you” that fears abandonment and desertion; the you who longs for a unified journey with others, the you that wakes up at night and wonders with horror, what it would be like to be totally alone. This is the nest-making part of you, the part who longs for the sounds, symbols and reality of a shared life. This desire is God-breathed, God-inspired and a necessary part of your survival and growth. It is important to understand and acknowledge that these dueling desires are alive and well within you AND they are alive and well within everyone you know.

Think, rather than the urges being fixed, demanding and insatiable, of these core desires as being fluid states, urges that flow at differing strengths and intensities within each of us. “A” is larger than “I” in some people, in some cultures, in some churches and, of course, the opposite is also true. “I” is markedly stronger than “A” in some cultures and subcultures.

One aspect of maturity is an understanding and an acceptance that the desires described live within each of us. Also, maturity is living with the knowledge that these very strong desires do not have to always be filled. They can be “overridden.” They can be overridden in the desire to demonstrate love, to be kind or show patience. Always subjecting these desires to “override,” never acknowledging them, is likely to create emotional havoc within individuals and communities. Always submitting to them, as if they are uncontrollable forces, will sow seeds of similar havoc.

Open and Closed Handed Families…

Openhanded Families are generally close and healthy. People feel free, unique and have a sense of community. There is enduring approval among people. Disapproval does not last. The love does not feel overwhelming, like a trap, a trade or a deal. Pressures from outside the family, the opinions of others and societal trends do not modify the family’s direction. These families are internally driven. Relationships are self-sustaining because each person, to differing degrees, dependent upon level of maturity, understands that every person in the family desires, at one and the same time, both community (togetherness) and separateness (autonomy).

It is within the movement, the wrestling, the imbalance, the struggle that comes from within healthy families, that each person is empowered to be his or her own person. The freedom enjoyed by healthy people embraces the family member who, for whatever reason, chooses to be less involved with the family. Ironically such families can appear to be unhealthy because they welcome diversity. In other words, in an openhanded family a person can look, believe, feel and speak very differently than everyone else in the family without having to face negative consequences like alienation from others.

Closedhanded Families are “close” in a different way. They believe uniformity and control keeps people together. Togetherness is all-important. There is often a sense of disapproval between members of the family, often discernable when someone in the family will not “toe the line,” live in the family “box” or enjoy the closeness. In such families, people are “overly” close. “Closeness” (uniformity, togetherness) is insisted upon, even demanded. People feel cornered through an intricate play of rejection, judgment and “love.”

Here, rather than relationships being self-sustaining, they are kept alive by a multitude of musts and shoulds and hidden rules played from an obscure idea of what constitutes a relationship and a family. In such families there are frequent tensions, often from an unidentifiable source. A person can easily get the feeling that they are walking a tight rope of being “in” or “out.” These families are reactive or legalistic and bonds are not chosen and togetherness is covertly coerced or overtly forced. In these families, fusion is mistaken for love and expressing the natural and God-given desire for autonomy is regarded as betrayal.

Ironically, these families can appear healthy to outsiders because of the appearance of togetherness, while some of the people within the family might be figuratively dying from the pressures of conformity. In other words, in a Closedhanded family a person can only look, feel, believe and speak differently than everyone else in the family according to the guidelines, hidden or obvious, in the family. Anything else might result in overt expulsion, a subtle shunning, or covert distancing like emotional withdrawal.

The levels of self…..

Level 1: At a superficial level, there are aspects that are obvious and not personal about each of us. I am a certain height, and, unless I am somewhat troubled, your recognition of my height is not something I usually find overly personal. The same is true of my ethnicity, the language I speak and the color of my hair. Over the course of a lifetime, thousands of people will see and notice these things about me and, unless we move into something more meaningful, our association will end at this superficial level. While relationships are “surface” and “shallow” (note we even have terms for such a relationship) a person knowing us in this manner may never go beyond being an acquaintance. In Western culture, it is unlikely we’d go to the wedding or the funeral of someone we “know” by sight alone.

Level 2: If I allow you (notice who does the choosing) to enter at the next level of my life it will be into an area of my life that is personal, but not private. At this “depth” you will learn the facts and figures about me; information not necessarily obvious to the eye. But nothing too personal goes on here. I do not feel violated if you care to ask me questions within these parameters of our relationship. All that is required is a little effort, some time, and no great divulgences from me. Healthy people might talk at this level to strangers even on a bus or a train. Unhealthy people on a bus, train, or plane will either avoid others with unnecessary intensity (believing all strangers are dangerous and must be avoided) or “tell all” (believing all strangers are lonely people who are dying to hear about every detail my life) to some unsuspecting stranger. We might go the funeral of a person we knew at this level but, in Western culture, it is unlikely we will be invited to their wedding.

Level 3: Then, after I have known you for a time and some trust has been established, I might allow you to the next level, which is private and personal. Over the course of a lifetime I might allow access to this part of me to only a few selected people. This is few when compared with the two former levels that are quite public. Here reside my ambitions, dreams, and longings. Here you will get a glimpse at my disappointments, unhealed hurts, and you might even touch some of my anger and resentments. This is where you might begin to see how complicated I am and, if you are sufficiently reflective, insightful, and honest, you might see that I am almost as complicated as are you. This relationship gets you a wedding invitation!

Level 4: If we “click” and spend time together I might trust myself enough to allow you into a place within me that is very sacred. This is the huge area that marks the beginning of my intimate territory. Here, you stand at the edge of the forest, no a continent, of discovery. This is where I am intimate without being sexual. This is where best friends are hosted, this is where the connection is mutually beneficial and each of us is enhanced. We are each “fed” by the connection. Here you are treading, at my invitation, on my “holy ground” and you begin to see me as I really am. Here you might see the modifications I have made to the superficial (the upper levels) in my attempts to show the world something about me that is not authentic. At this level I cannot hide what I am really like and you join a handful of people who have seen me in the course of a lifetime. It is at this level that I have really started to trust myself to you (consider carefully my choice of words) and so I might feel exposed or “naked” when you might appear to handle this sacred territory with anything less than total respect. Will you be my best man? This is pallbearer stuff!

Level 5: After close association, lasting some time, the next level of my life is reserved for more than best friends. It is reserved, sometimes for lovers, but uniquely for a spouse. It is the area of intimacy and sex . This is an exceedingly tough place for me to know and understand (about me) as much as it will be for you (to understand about me). Your presence here is probably going to present me with some challenges because, over time, you will see me for who and what I am. Here, hopefully, we will both see and experience that sex is a rather limited experience indeed, when reduced to something people do with bodies. I hope we will both tread very carefully when we reach this level, not because I am necessarily overly sensitive, but because you (we) are entering a profoundly private area of my life and I (and you) might be scared, excited and uncomfortable, all at the same time.

There may be times when you are as afraid to see me, as I am to show you who I am. When I know you in this manner, I might be afraid that you will see me, and then I might be afraid that you will not. At this level of deep and lasting commitment, there are often huge payoffs and benefits for both people. These joys usually come in conjunction with unexpected complications. The truth is very simple: people are complicated and knowing others very well seldom comes without unexpected baggage and without blessing. Note that I have said nothing of the reciprocal nature of sharing this part of our lives. One, of course, would hope that two people entering each other’s lives at this profound level would do so in a completely reciprocal manner.

Level 6: Then, if we are both blessed and patient and ready for the real adventure, I might be able to know my self, my “inner being,” the deepest possible recess of who I am, and even let you in. I might be able to let my best friends, spouse and my children, see the person who I really am. Discovery (self-discovery) at this level takes many years (about 50 years) and is an ongoing process. This is core of who we are and the place where people are often the most hurt. It is in this core place where they will feel their hurt most powerfully, if they still allow themselves to feel.

This is the part of me that God perfectly knows and the part a I might spend a lifetime trying to get “in touch” with. This is the part that people go (to Europe, to Alaska or wherever!) to “find themselves” without realizing that, in reality, they do not really have to go anywhere, because it is not somewhere else. Self-discovery must first occur within, and the self is waiting to be discovered by every courageous person. Here, in this holy place, I am an undiscovered continent, a mystery, even to those who have known me all my life. To use Freudian terminology, this is where my Id, my Ego and the Super-ego do their unique dance. This is the engine room of the “I am” called “me” and it is the place from which all my worship, my talk and humor and passion really come.