Denise Broadwater, M. Ed.,MA,LPC

As a little girl, water hitting my dry body or being held down by one whose strength was greater than my own evolved my sweet temperament into a flailing, screaming mess.  I knew why brothers were born for adversity, but could never understand how that was supposed to make me better.  I feel for children who don’t have that experience.  If it does what it’s supposed to do, those challenges are to help us grown into productive, socially adjusted adults.  We learn hopefully to let things go when “stuff happens”, to amend with those we have wronged or who have wronged us, and to see ourselves more clearly.  In a household of five, I had little chance.  I was given plenty of practice in all those area.  Of course, sibling rivalry left unchecked can result in damage.  The kind that follows us like a demon waiting for the triggers to bring anger to a head.  Have you ever gotten so mad and wondered, “Where did that come from anyway?”  Our minds are complex things and I think we are a bit like elephants, never quite forgetting.  In those deeper files is record of a hurt or fear that still churns away.

We can go to anger management classes and learn coping skills such as responding in a calmer manner, counting to ten, pausing until we are in our right frame of mind.  All these help so we are not blasting the postman or grocery store check out girl at the drop of a hat, or worse yet, verbally emaciating someone we are suppose to love who graces our lives every day.  In looking a bit deeper, we have to ask God to show us what drives our escapades.  What causes us to lose it when we have had our quiet time, been reading the latest Christian writing, and listening to words that lead us to be better than who we are?  Anger is not really anger at all, it is a mask that hides the face of fear, intense hurt, or shameful feelings.  We are so quick to recover, dismiss, and move on hoping to repair our damage without looking for light to reveal and heal that inner most chamber.

We are complex, mysterious, and made in the image of God.  As the scripture says, “Who can know our hearts?”  If the anger goes beyond productivity and righting wrongs, it is not being used to further God’s kingdom.  If you like I have grown tired of living with yourself, ask Him to shine a light to understand what is happening.  Learning to react, cool down, walk away, and breathe are all awesome techniques, but understanding the drivers can take the wind out of an angry soul.  God says in James 1, “Be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.”  He is there to bring healing, but we have to have courage to let the light shine in the darkness of our own hearts.  Suffering with anger?  We often think those around us carry the brunt of such behavior, but in truth it is we who suffer most.  God doesn’t want us to live in our own stew.  He longs to rub our hearts with a healing balm and to take the bite out of our hurt and shame, but it takes us looking a bit deeper.

There is an epidemic of 25+ year olds, looking for love in seemingly all the wrong places.  It is as though their ability to connect and trust are finding derailment instead of movement ahead into a life of commitment.  I think it is important to say to yourself, “What am I looking for and more importantly, Why?”

Men, generally, have to be experiencing a strong physical attraction, something equivalent to being hit with a MACK truck.  Vince Gil wrote, “I go weak in the knees and I loose my breath,  I try to speak, but the words won’t come, I am so scared to death.”   The ladies see things differently.  They want to know he’s fun ,he’s reasonably good looking, he’s responsible, and he is strong enough to fight for me.

There are many out there who would fit into that formula,  if love were so simple.   So, if you are trying hard to win someone, stop.  Love should come easy like wrapping up in a warm blanket with rain outside and the need to do nothing all day.  It is feeling no need to impress them, to change them, to manipulate them into loving us.  It is realizing they must meet us where we are.  After all, we really don’t move that much from where we started.  If we are unorganized or forgetful, chances are we will be that into our 80′s.  With love, you can learn to be thankful for those messes!

Love is feeling the freedom to say “no” when something is wrong for us or “yes” when a growth opportunity presents itself.    We can agree to disagree, yet we can still challenge each other in our lives.  This type of growing together means closeness, sharing, laughing, as well as striving, fighting, showing up with all of our junk.  If we cannot count on our closest connections to call us on the carpet, who will?  The trick in relating in all of these areas is balance.  Our fighting can be done is such a way that it is wounding instead of stretching.

Who have you dated where the relationship was simply easy?  It showed up like a breezy, summer day and felt like the sunshine in your face.  How did it leave you?  Are you comparing everyone else to this person?  If this person is open to seeing you again and the issues that caused distance are not insurmountable, call.  Otherwise, look at what drove you away.  If you were looking for a “fixer-upper” instead of a place to call “home”, then change your radar.   For you men, realize the surface beauty fades.  Those 8′s will be sinking to a 6 in just a few years, but the ”home” feeling is forever.   Ladies, men walking the road toward personal progress with an ability to still let us shine for who we are is all we can expect.

So, if you have let that home feeling relationship slip away, take heart.  One may be crossing your path shortly.  Don’t be as quick to let this one slip away, because to find love that rests is a God- send.  It transcends beauty, accomplishment, or status.  It hits us where we live and makes it possible to find peace in who God has created us to be.

Barriers are great for protection and security, but they can leave us quite isolated.  When I was traveling the countryside in South Carolina working with rural families, I was amazed at the number of homes totally fenced in on all sides.  I would assume the area was not safe and these fences kept out thieves.  I am sure the fences kept the people inside more secure making it harder to cart off their material things.  I hated that it did not make it easy to walk for a visit to the neighbors or to chat with a local out for a stroll. These fences afforded protection, but left the ones inside alone and distant from those around them. 

Do you have yourself fenced in on all sides.  In our communities, I see people continually who have erected barriers for themselves by living in perfect homes where need, want, and squaller does not affect them.  Out of sight is out of their mind when it comes to others.  It is natural to surround yourself with people who are your equal in education and success.   It makes it easier to pick on the neighbor who struggles to ”keep up with the neighborhood” or whose family is not up to snuff.

I was in a store recently and as the clerk was helping answer questions,, she was candidly honest with me.  She moved to this area several years ago and she said found it to be filled with rude, snobbish people who thought their money included the right to dump on all those about them, including the hired help.  She had lived in a city a few hours north and did not find these same attitudes when serving the public there.  It was the same southern state after all, could culture be so different? 

It is interesting that wealth and social standing could make such a difference in the attitudes of those who live here.  This area was proud of their success, their position…their money to the point that they had lost any credence for civility or kindness for their fellow man.  They had forgotten what it meant to work for pennies.  Oddly enough, it is even evident in organizations that are supposed to be places of refuge and solice to those in great need.  I have called on them and barriers were erected quite quickly.  “We have benevolence money but not for that particular need.  Who again did you say this was?”  If my name was the right family or I was a donating member, perhaps this would have changed the tone.

We have to be willing to throw off this mindset and step out into the being who we are.  My first job out of college was for a large software house.  It had posh offices and everyone then dressed in serious business attire as a matter of protocol.  Soon after my hire, I was looking out of my office window when a man got out of a very used Jeep wearing a worn shirt and everyday kakhis.  I was to find out later, it was the multimillionaire who owned the firm.  He was wealthy enough that he no longer cared to impress…he had allowed himself freedom from the restraints.  “This is who I am…got it?”  I have never forgot how this reality hit me.  He was not there to impress, but to just be.  He liked his Jeep and preferred to be comfortable.  He once plopped into my office and chatted about the day.  He liked who he was and was secure enough to share it with others.

We often run into our own walls of protection because we do not want others to see us for who we are.  The sad part is it is a lonely place to live.  Life is more than the gated communities, the dull parties and discussions of travel and success enjoyed this year.  It is about being known and loved for who we are, to be accepted unconditionally, and forgiven of our vices. 

Take a minute…what are the barriers you have erected that keep you in a fortress of your own making? Stop allowing culture to dictate what is fulfillment and happiness and begin to remove them bit by bit.  Perhaps you can peer out from your walls and dream about what life could become for you.

I have no doubt that God placed me in such an area to help those behind the walls of their own making, who have found life to be lonely and distant, who do not realize that their own success has kept them from true connection.  I, too, had to step out of the barriers and reach for the sunlight God has for my life, and I want others to take that same step of faith. Being seen and understood is worth the risk of jumping the barrier and it can make all the difference.

Several news programs hosted a beautiful young woman who had apparently been disrespected by an NFL team.  She was blonde with a gorgeous figure which could easily be negatively stereotyped.  As she spoke on TV about her accomplishments, what becomes clear is she is brilliant.  Multiple degrees including law school with a job that will help her in her pursuit of prominence with a top media market.  She was not hired for just her appearance, because she has the credentials to go with it.  She used great decorum and finesse as she talked to the press interested in her story.  This woman was for a better word, driven.  She is an example of seeing what she wants and going for it.

Success in our culture requires much from us including timing, hard work, brains, and a whole lot of fortitude.  I liken it to a pit bull who hangs on until the blood runs, literally.  Perhaps you know a workaholic that pushes around the clock or can relate yourself.  After all, hard work never killed anyone?

If you are fighting the daily grind to make your mark in this world be careful you are not missing the point all together.  What is the definition of living?  The flowers of life may be in enjoying your family, staying in your pajamas all weekend, surprising someone you love with a needed night out, making out and not having sex, spending money on something that has no payoff…  You get my drift?  Life is truly lived when you touch others and are able to let the guard down and just be vulnerable.  If you are in that cycle of pushing for success, stop and smell the flowers of your life.

A concept was recently given to me that in America we suffer from the poverty of plenty.  This, of course, on the surface is a contradiction.   Poverty implies that we are in great need and is often associated with the basics essential to life:  food, clothing, shelter.  In most every case in America, those things are available to those who find themselves suffering from the basics.  I would submit that as Americans who have the basic needs covered and often live in homes that anywhere else in the world would be considered affluent, yet  we still remain impoverished in our spirits.  The money pit we crawl into everyday forces us to work for things nearly unattainable.  After all, society dictates we need to drive the right car, live in the right location, and be well traveled if we are to have others believe we are blessed, successful, and worthy of friends. 

The jobless market has been a wake up call to all of us to get back to what matters.  People have had to return to the dinner table  instead of eating out every night at a local eatery or pull out the board games instead of hitting the theatre with the lastest release.  It has forced us into looking for conversations with friends, walks in the park under the cover of a full moon, and along the way to experience a full belly laugh over something unexpected, or maybe even to cry without reserve or shame over life transitions.  Having to do without can be the catalyst to actual freedom from the things that bring us stress.

When I did agency work,  I lacked time and discipline to set salon appointments ahead so I found salons that were open to walk ins.  One afternoon, I was met by the most interesting hairdresser.  She was from Ghana with a beautiful accent and kind face.  We experienced the most immediate connection.  She had a simplicity to her and and openness that was refreshing to me.  You see, she had known want all too well.  She worked many hours because her children were in college and she was a single mother.  She could have been bitter looking for entitlements to get her out of her need to work so hard, yet she was nothing of the sort.  She seemed thankful for her job and used her station in the salon as a place to impact lives, much like I do in my counseling office.  She spoke of Africa and the intense poverty and the lack of medical care.  She longed to return to spread the gospel and bring true peace to hearts who hurt there.  She felt Americans had so much and appreciated it so little.  She was truly content and grateful and I had not encountered that much in my life.   It took me back a bit and made me look at my own attitudes and motives.

I sit each week with those who long to have someone who understands who they are and more importantly, someone they can trust enough to be themselves.  I frequently ask, “Who do you have in your life who is safe and loves you unconditionally?”  “Are you striving for things that in themselves are not bad, but lack meaning and purpose?”  You see in all of our plenty, if we don’t have someone who sees us for who we are and accepts us in that place, we remain in poverty.

If you are launching a child into college perhaps you have begun to feel the pangs of letting go.  After all, we have sacrificed so much to see that they got into a great school.  Now that the day has come for them to become independent, the hurt of loosing them hits.

Some have done better at cutting the cord along the way, but for those of us who have been overly involved in their lives, we are facing real grief.  Know that denying the reality may prolong the pain.  In this interview, I give my own experience with letting go of my son to a state college several hours away.

http://www.expertsinfocus.com/collegepage.html

Vacation is rolling around again and every summer it seems to come at a great time.  Generally, I find we are escaping from the grind at Christmas and around the 4th of July.  This down time tells a story about the kind of things churning inside of us.  It would seem to be paradise to lay on the beach, recline in the boat, read by the pool in hopes of casting aside the busyness of the times.  It is amazing to me how hard it is to truly do this.  Stopping the choice to fill each waking moment with some goal-driven task or role-filling agenda is difficult.  It is amazing to watch anxiety actually build inside of us as we take time to stop.  I have begun to wonder if we truly can relax.

The Bible says, “Be Still and Know that I am God…” and in most faiths contemplative study is revered as a good thing.  Monk-like work can be very scary.  To have to see what bubbles up when the absence of distractions exists is enough to send one completely over the edge.  Some contemplative experiences that are available to the individual actually test a person to be sure they are psychologically ready to deal with it or a break could be the result of no interaction or purposeful activity.  Balance and health is to understand that all of us need this time for restoration and cleansing.  Vacation is truly not productive if it means life is more hectic with more things on the agenda than in everyday life.  So, just relax and let go of the cares of the day.  If things bubble to the surface, it’s OK. It just means we have not arrived and we are a work in progress.

I am sure there are doctors that can explain the growth process in our bodies or a horticulturist that understands how cells divide to produce larger plants, but when it comes to spiritual and emotional growth, that’s harder.  Research has been gathered over our development and developmental psychologists organize us into stages that seem to outline what we can expect.

Even with all the progress, we cannot force growth.  We can provide an environment that provide everything needed to grow using the right nutrients, temperatures, and watering schedules in the case of plant material.   Our parenting skills and research help us with providing the best environments for children to reach their full potential.  Even so, two children can grow up in the same home unders the same influences and reach such different conclusions.

Spiritually, people seek out religion to find something they can do to move in their growth toward God.  Ps. 1 calls God’s people”… trees planted by the rivers of water.”  A tree does not have control his own growth.  He is in the hands of the gardener.  Charles Spurgeon in The Treasury of David” referring to this passage says a planted tree was chosen by the gardener.  He did not even have control over being picked.  The gardener in his kindness placed him in an optimal place, where the river sediment was rich in nutrients and the water would be plentiful making conditions excellent for survival and growth.  The tree can imagine himself an oak or prefer to be a delicate memosa, but he  pretty much is what he is.  Through stretching or bending can he strive tp grow taller, have brighter leaves in the fall, or kick out the squirrel that has found a hole to place nuts?  His job is to be still and yeild to the gardener.  Sure, new opportunities will come him way (he could be on just the right riverbed to give him just what he needs to be the best tree he can be.)  Some are saying if he thinks long and hard, his dream will come to him giving him control over his destiny.

So, spiritually, are you yeilding?  I think in our American culture regardless of how you differ from me in your faith, we are all seeking a formula.  “Just give it to me in points, please, at least I can check those off!”  I would encourage you to long to get to know God.  If He is the gardener who controls your growth, then learning who He is and what He is telling you becomes the optimum growth move.   Romans 6:13″…yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”  The constant fight in life is I can control my own destiny.  We can try to influence our opportunities, reach for our goals, and in some cases see small changes in our lives, but even those are part of a larger plan.

Denise Broadwater

Today, one of my “heros” will be laid to rest in Greenville, SC.  I heard of his passing from a friend this weekend.  I have tried to work it out for me to be there for his wife, but there is no way for me to attend.  He was a very humble man who sold insurance in Maryland.  On the weekends, he led our youth group.  Though in his late 30′s at the time, he still had “fun” written all over him.  What I loved about Mr. Cook was his steadiness and resolve.  Due to divorce and mayhem, my life was the without either and at 16 I was searching to make sense of it.  Mr. and Mrs. Cook were there for me in so many ways.  In a divine appointment, they moved to Greenville when I was raising my young children.  I met with them and listened to wisdom.  He was never up front or recognized for great accomplishments.  He just worked behind the scenes influencing and impacting everyone around him.  He loved his wife who he thought the most beautiful woman he had ever seen until I am sure the day he passed.  He knew how to love others and I needed to see it and understand what it meant.  How grateful I am for this single life.  So, he passed with 85 years on this earth.  Mr. Cook left spiritual impact that remains in the lives of those of us blessed enough to know him.

As I recall, “No” is one of the recommended directives given to children. “No, Billy, don’t touch that!”  “No, Billy, hold Mommy’s hand.”  Progressives may think “no” to be too stiffling to Billy’s natural self expression.  The undeniable truth is that “no” has much larger implications.  It gives Billy the wisdom to  know things that are safe and behaviors that work in the world and ultimately as he learns to set limits with others, to engage in meaningful connection with God and man.

In adulthood, being able to say “no” and to receive “no” from others is critical to our very connectedness to those around us.  I once heard a man say it took him till the age of 40 to tell his mother, “no”.  In his relationship he lacked the understanding where he left off and where his mother began.  I dare say, it affected his sense of closeness with his mother making simple decisions difficult.

In a world so infused with “tolerance” and political correctness, “no” has become that dirty little word.  When things are uncomfortable for us or violate our beliefs, a good hearty “no” opens up our lives for others to “get us” in a way not achieved by going with the flow.  If the cry of every human heart is to be known and understood, then the journey involves the ability to say “no” and hear it from those we love and trust. 

What keeps you from voicing your “no”?  How much is it costing you?  Do you take it personally when someone sets this same limit with you?  Answers to these guestions touch at the very core of us.  In a society where pretty much anything goes, we are on more medications than ever for excessive anxiety and depression.  We self-medicate with alcohol and other indulgences to avoid the hard things in our lives.  It may be some of this could be avoided by a willingness to say “no”.

Simply, that  little word “no” could be the key to unlocking further understanding and knowledge both for ourselves and those we love.

Denise Broadwater, LPC