Love, not time, heals all wounds...

I would find it hard to count the number of times when I have shared a story with regards to something hurtful in my life in which the listener's ultimate advice is to allow time to transpire in order for the wound caused by the painful event to heal.  We've all heard it before, "time heals all wounds."  Truth be told, time does seem to make things better but is it because of healing, or is it because other life events start to pile over the previous ones masking our wounds?  Is it not true that if my final work of art is painted over two or three previous attempts it really doesn't erase the originals but merely covers them up?  I believe the same is so for those moments in my life that have in some way or another emotionally scarred me.  Other moments keep piling themselves over the originally painful ones to the point that eventually it takes some digging in order for me to remember what it was that actually caused me to be so hurt in the first place.  Yet there are also wounds that no matter how old they are require very little effort on my part for them to surface and take my mood into a dark or sad place.

I have learned with time that the one true emotion that is able to heal my sorrow is love.  Whether I am the one applying the gooey ointment of love on my own wounds, or somebody else makes the generous effort to alleviate my pain makes a great deal of difference.  Even though I can "talk" myself into feeling better about things that did not go right by digging deep into my emotional bucket and finding all the right reasons to love the culprit of my heart ache, nothing truly works as well as an outside source making an attempt to neutralize my pain with their own source of love.

Everybody makes mistakes and life is full of moments in which we are challenged with choices that aren't really clear enough to get it right the first time around.  If I energize myself and give an outrageous amount of attention to my kids when they make the wrong choices in their lives, I am basically teaching them that making the wrong choices is the best way to get my attention which could inadvertently translate to them as my love.  After all, the reason that I go ballistic when they mess up is because I love them and don't want to see them get hurt by making the same mistake over and over again.  A few years back someone very close to my heart and whom I consider to be an excellent parent told me that when she was having a heart to heart conversation with three of her four kids she asked them what it was that she could do to be a better parent.  Interestingly enough, all three of them unanimously agreed that she should be more strict, which ironically is the same characteristic that they typically would complain about her during challenging moments, the fact that she was too strict.  This to me was a sign that her children correlated how much she loved them with how much attention they would get when they were causing trouble.  Love does come in many flavors, including the parental reprimand that is truly intended to keep our children out of harms way.  However, would it not be smarter to focus our out pour of attention, praise, and love when our children are getting it right?  Would that not be a healthier correlation for them to make about love?

The next time you find yourself hurting because of an old wound, take a little time to uncover the true reason that you are still feeling the pain.  When you discover the real reason for your sorrow find a way to give that emotion a dose of true love so that it can start to heal appropriately.  The next time you are the cause of somebody's sadness, don't expect it to get better on its own with the tic toc of the clock, instead pause and consider taking a humble pill and asking the victim to forgive you from the softest spot in your heart.  Finally, take every opportunity that you find, even if it means creating the opportunities yourself, to teach your children that love is readily and available in abundance from you all the time.  Help them make the connection between their greatness in all the little things that they are capable of doing right, and don't wait to teach them positive lessons only when they mess up instead.  Healing starts when the flow of love washes away any and all of our wounds.

Dad

Tumbleweeds...

As I walked into work early in the morning I noticed that the previous day's strong Santa Ana winds had managed to drag into the walkway and path towards my building several huge tumbleweeds.  When I am driving and see one of these dried out bushes rushing towards my car, I already know from previous experience that it is not worth trying to avoid hitting them since the mass of the vehicle is so out of proportion to that of the tumbleweed that they typically disintegrate on impact.  I'm sure it can't be good for the car's paint job, but neither would it be to run into another vehicle while trying to avoid something so benign.  On closer inspection and while walking past three of these no longer rolling menaces that have found themselves wedged in a corner and blocking half of the outdoor stairs that allow access to the final approach of my nine hour a day place of work, I am suddenly able to appreciate the simplicity on which nature has built such a bizarre plant.  Somehow evolution has managed to ensure that the growth of the plant takes form in a cylindrical shape enhancing the plants ability to roll away from its weak root connection and travel long distances while releasing its seeds during its voyage and later on at its final destination too.

As I continued my quick stepped approach to work because of the cold morning air seeping through my simple wind breaker, I could not help but wonder how the tumbleweeds made it into the highly fenced and secured space of our work compound.  A quick scan of the area revealed that just a couple of hundred feet away, the greener version siblings of the now trapped tumbleweeds grew content and healthy on a vacant area close to the perimeter fence.  Apparently other tumbleweeds had through time and in similar windy circumstances rushed all the way and crashed against the fence most likely releasing their seeds in the wind which traveled and landed on the opposite side of the fence where they eventually germinated and grew into the now visible healthy plants.  In less than 15 seconds as I finally entered the tightly controlled access of my workspace I had already come to the conclusion that whenever nature wants to get its way, there is very little that we can do to stop it.  Life on this beautiful blue marble is full of will and it takes an extraordinary effort on our part to control it.

I know it might sound totally unrelated at first, but believe it or not, the unsightly tumbleweeds quickly brought to mind how hard it is for me to control any of the influences that tumble into the lives of my children.  Many times I have questioned myself where in the world have some of the influences in my kid's lives come from. 
They have been surrounded by a constant stream of love, caring, and parental involvement that has purposely tried to shield them from negative outside influences, yet it almost defies logic how quickly and easily the seeds of trouble manage to sneak in between our parental chain link fence and plant themselves inside their minds causing all sorts of eventual havoc.  The question that I find myself asking is whether or not I could of done something differently to prevent the tumbleweeds from hitting the fence in the first place?  Once the seeds are in, what could I have then done to prevent them from growing?

The advantage of having two kids instead of one is how quickly it allows me to understand that much of what I have done to protect my boys was effective at least fifty percent of the time.  Which leads me to believe that the individuality and personality of each child plays a major role on what parental influences are effective.  In other words, what works for one does not necessarily mean it will work for the other.  I suppose this is the reason so many of the recommendations that have been given to me by friends rarely work with my oldest son even though they were totally effective with their own children.  This can be so frustrating for me as a parent and I can only imagine how incredibly difficult it must be to my son too.  I just try to visualize someone trying to influence my life and me not being able to relate and understand what they are trying to tell me.  I don't have a choice but to put myself in his shoes many times in order to try to find the missing connection, but the success rate of doing this effectively is very low.  How do I as a parent flip off my logical switch in order to let go of my own prejudice and protective instincts?

In my quest to find ways to be a better father I discovered that out of the too many to mention methods and approaches that I have researched and tried, a single one stands alone as being truly effective and useful when dealing with my oldest son.  It is unfortunate that it took me so long to discover this approach, as now my son is already 19 year of age and so much has transpired in his life that the level of influence on my end is quickly becoming negligible.  Howard Glasser is the designer of The Nurtured Heart Approach and author of Transforming the Difficult Child.  There is no way I could do justice to even try to explain in any kind of detail the techniques that Glasser has proven to be effective to transform a difficult child.  I will, however, tell you that I have listened to his almost three hour seminar which I bought on CD over 20 times in the last 12 months and found it to be a masterful and incredibly enlightening.  He has by far earned my respect, admiration, and most of all attention for his amazing contribution to not just finding answers on how to deal with my son, but also bringing hope to a cause that in most cases feels as impossible to improve.  My advice is that any parent, educator, or therapist that wants to truly be effective in transforming a difficult child take the time to learn Howard Glasser's techniques and take them to heart on a daily basis.  Even though I discovered this approach after falling so far down the rabbit hole to actually be able so see the light in my parental influence with my oldest son, I for one have seen noticeable improvement, something that was completely absent until now.  I truly wish I would of found this resource earlier, as I believe that it would of taken a lot less tweaking from my part to be able to make it work in our lives.

I need to find better ways to ensure that what grows inside the minds and hearts of my children is not the result of the improper influence of tumbleweed seeds of adversity.  I also need to foster and not stifle the creativity, intensity, and passion which my kids bring with them to our lives.  I need to learn how to nurture the heart of my kids regardless of their age with the goal of allowing them to be succeed in life.

Dad

You are beautiful...

I sat at my office desk today during my lunch break writing a short note to a dear friend that is currently going through a bit of a rough time.  In the midst of reading her previous message I could easily sense much of her emotional state mostly because we have both been served some exquisite wine out of the same bottle which we have reluctantly sipped during our lives.  Just as love has no boundaries and is able to transcend space and time, sadness also has a way of reaching far and beyond the constraints of our complicated lives into some of the people that bring us meaning.

If you have had an opportunity to read through this blog I am sure you can easily notice that nothing has impacted me more emotionally in the last two years than my relationship with my children.  The common thread that weaves through most of my posts is essentially made of my desire to be able to understand and contribute to the well being of my kids regardless of any of our household circumstances.  I have learned to search for what might seem as the most insignificant details in our interactions in order to make sense of our challenges and find whatever common ground we can in order to overcome our difficulties together.  When faced with some of the behavior of my children I have had to learn to take it all in strides and patiently find a way to stack the odds in our favor so that we can not just survive, but also prevail.

As I sat here writing to my friend I did what I always do when I sense that maybe I was sharing too much...I found hope in some of the images that surround my cubicle office space.  Pictures of my children in all stages of their lives surround me together with many others of family and friends.  Almost without exception each of the moments in time that are captured say something amazing about the individuals that are contained within the minuscule dots of millions of colors of ink and sometimes even billions of silver halides that create their photographs.  The delight of both my children posing inside of a giant Easter Egg without a care in the world of how hard their lives would eventually become as they grew older forces me to dig deep into my brain and find the exact moment in time that we all went to have that picture taken.  A four year old Superman, an effortless gigantic laugh from my son while posing next to a live orangutan at the zoo, and my proud younger brother wearing a tuxedo minutes away from celebrating one of the greatest accomplishments of his life when becoming a doctor, all reveal themselves to me with the same intense grip on my heart as the one caused by the black and white image of my father when he was a child.  I can honestly say that all of these people that at one moment or another have touched my life and now reside on my walls have a heck of a lot in common.  For one, they are all beautiful to me regardless of how much they might of changed during the years that have gone by.  They are beautiful to me because at that very moment that they either stood next to me posing for these images or in front of me waiting for the light to bounce off their essence and record itself in a camera, at that exact moment they allowed their memory to be a part of my life.

I've said it before and I will say it again, I am a very lucky man indeed.  Without all of these people that have touched me in one way or another, there would be no way I would be able to appreciate the extent of my blessings.  Love has surrounded me from the instant my parents knew I was on my way into their lives.  Even in my darkest moments, when my knees have hit the ground to beg my Maker to spare me from some of the incredibly painful events of my life, still I have felt that I am loved.  It is this message that I wish I could teach to my children most of all.  They need to know that love has and will always surround them so that they can live their lives without ever doubting how important and amazing it is to love and to be loved.  They need to know that they are beautiful because of what is inside of them.  After all, it is what makes them different that impresses me the most and not the other way around.

Dad

A place to rest my body, mind, and heart.

Writing to you is a double edge sword which with one side cuts through time and space to bring the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of my life while with the other it opens deep wounds that might of already been closed or healed by time.  It has been over seven months since I have written anything in these pages.  On several occasions I have logged in and written entire posts with the full intent of eventually publishing them, but without exception, every time I've read them a day or two afterwards, I cannot find it in me to make them public.  I guess what I am trying to say is that some things are too hard to share when they are still squeezing my heart so tight.  For this I apologize and the most I can offer is, maybe later?

So much can happen so quickly that in retrospect it becomes almost impossible to make total sense of it all.  I always thought that the longer I would wait, the clearer things would become and the easier it would be for me to put it all into words.  Interestingly enough, this is not always true.  Time moves on and piles on top of the past additional moments that simply complicate the view even more.  However, one view stays clear, being a dad.  It's not like I have much of a choice, right?  It's one of those things that you "are" or your "not" and clearly I "am."  I've seen this many times in the past, including my mom taking care of us kids while my dad was in Vietnam, and while he was mostly at work, or mostly in school, and finally dead at age 44.  It's not like she ever said "Today I'm not going to be a mom, instead I'll be somebody else!"  Nope, once she defined herself as being our mom, she simply aways "was."  In fact, even now that we are all adults, my mom still takes her maternal role in full strength setting and example for all of us of how endless that duty truly is regardless of your children's ages.

This morning on my drive to work I called mom as I usually do to do some catching up and sharing.  I vented a bit about a few things, she quickly allowed me to let it all out and in less than 20 minutes I felt much better knowing that regardless of my eventual decisions, the outcome of my actions, and the consequences of my turbulent life, I still have my mother's unconditional love.  As simple a statement as this last sentence might be, it is to me the root and foundation to keeping your sanity as a parent.  Notice that what I cherished the most is not that my mother would come to the rescue and solve my problems, not at all.  What I value the most is the fact that when I needed to vent she listened, allowed me to vent, gave me her time, and most of all gave me her love.  On her end, if she is able to pick up the phone, listen, encourage, and love, without taking on my burden, then her job can be done without the consequence of unnecessary entanglement.

There are obvious reasons as to why as adults we need to learn not to totally rely on our parents as our physical, mental, and emotional resting place of choice.  For one, at some point in our lives we should find ways to alleviate any emotional stress we might be imposing on our elders that could be affecting the quality of their lives.  Another reason could be if you see signs of unhealthy codependent behavior or abuse.  Change is not always easy, and many times not necessary since in many cases the bond between parent and child is so strong and even if we wanted or tried we would probably not be able to change a thing.  It is typical however that many times children get married or find a life partner or friend that fulfills this role to a certain extent, especially if the parent child relationship was lacking in the first place.

We all need a place to rest our bodies, minds, and hearts in our lives.  Children are no exception, which is why it is so important that as parents we make ourselves available to them and not make it too hard for them to find us when they need us.  When your child is physically tired it is easy to notice and simple to provide them with a  resting place.  What about when their minds and hearts are weary and tired too?  What is it that you and I can do to provide our children with what they need when their minds are exhausted from all the crazy stuff that goes on in their lives?  If I remember one thing clearly enough it was how confused I was always feeling about "love" and "relationships" when I was growing up.  What can I do as a father to provide a parking spot for my child's heart to rest in between the battle of emotions and the surge of hormones that rage within his body?  There is comfort in listening.  Sometimes we just say too much.  Shut up and listen to them give in to their true thoughts and emotions, it really does not take that long if you poke around the few cues that they give when they are emotionally and mentally tired.  Most of the time they can only express themselves by sharing a song, or watching a movie that they've recently watched alone and truly enjoyed.  If you are going to interject, make it something that is not judgmental, and instead provide a real short emotional snippet of your own life.  The only reason to make it long is if it is REALLY funny, which then becomes engraved in their mind as a positive feedback.  Finally, never leave a feel good moment scene without planting a seed of love with the right gesture and word.  A hug, a kiss, and a "You know I love you, right?" goes a really long way to making the moment repeat itself again in the future.