Me. We.

A woman eloquently said to me this past weekend that in order to make a relationship work, "you have to know who you are." Her words struck me as common sense; something I have heard a million times before. So I thought, if the answers are so simple, why do so many relationships fail?

What I have found is that it is not for a lack of solutions that our relationships fail. It is not for a lack of answers that we find disharmony in interpersonal interactions. It is not from a lack of know-how, but rather a lack of faith, commitment, and inner peace that our human relationships plummet, disintegrate, and fail to go on.

But everything I mentioned also sounds mundane, ordinary, and commonsensical. Nothing I can say with words will open anyone's eyes to gain new insights that will save their relationships. So since it is not due to a lack of knowledge, perhaps it is due to having flawed knowledge.

"In order to make a relationship work you have to know who you are," she said. Well, who are we? Muhammad Ali wrote a poem that answers that question. His poem earned him inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records for the shortest poem. His poem was simply as follows: "Me. We."

The premise that I am you and you are me has also been stated by many and seems to be supported by many. It is supported every time a mother feels her child's hunger as her own. It is supported every time a man sits beside a hospital bed and discovers that the pain in the room is also in him. We know this premise is true. We simply refuse to live by what we know. That is the flawed knowledge.

We study the other person like a stranger we must manage, instead of a self we must honor. We keep score against the very person we promised to keep. Then we call the wreckage a mystery, as if we do not know why relationships fail.

They fail because we know who we are wrongly. We think we are only "Me." But Ali's whole poem is two words, and the second word corrects the first. You are not complete at "Me." You were made for "We."

Faith believes the "We" is real before the feelings prove it. Commitment stays with the "We" when "Me" would rather run. Inner peace makes a man quiet enough inside to hear another person at all. Without these, no technique will save you, because technique in the hands of a stranger is only strategy, and strategy is what enemies use.

So who are you? Answer carefully. If you are only you, then every relationship you enter is a negotiation between opponents. But if there is truth in "Me. We," then the person across from you is not your opponent. They are your evidence.

When your relationship is failing, do not first ask what you do not know. Ask what you have forgotten. Have you forgotten who you are?

J.

References

Buber, M. (1970). I and thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Charles Scribner's Sons. (Original work published 1923)

Hauser, T. (1991). Muhammad Ali: His life and times. Simon & Schuster.

Lost in Love

It is a common complaint made by people in relationships that they lose their identity.

Hear the complaint carefully. Nobody loses an identity in love. What is lost is an attachment — and we grieve the attachment and call it ourselves.

The first love is the temporal love. It runs on a linear scale: mine and yours, before and after, what I had and what I might lose. It loves what can be seen, held, dated, and possessed — a face, a name, a role, a body, a future planned in straight lines. When the line breaks, we say, "I have lost myself." But a self that can be lost with a circumstance was only ever a circumstance wearing our name.

There is another discovery, and it does not travel in a straight line.

Seek yourself honestly and the search crosses dimensions of this universe. You find the self embodied in all others: the stranger's sorrow registers in your own chest before your mind can explain it; the child's joy rises in you as if it were yours — because it is. And just as surely, you find all others embodied in the self. We are not sealed units trading pieces of identity back and forth. We are one life, meeting itself in many forms.

This is the positive ID.

A positive identification is not made by the temporal evidence — not by the role, the record, or the reflection. It is made by the knowledge of the Most High God inside of self, and the recognition of that same God inside of others. When you know Him in you, you cannot un-know Him in them. Every face becomes a confirmation. Every encounter becomes a recognition.

So be lost in love — but be lost in the right love. Lose the attachments that time can take. Lose the small identity that had to be defended. And find the identity that cannot be lost, because it was never yours alone: it is His, in you, in me, in all of us.

Have you ever truly lost yourself — or did you only lose what you were holding?

J.

Free Agent Society

Loyalty, commitment, and devotion are nearly dead concepts in our free agent society. In our fast food, red box movie, drive through, E-Z pass, attention deficit, consumer society it is a wonder that anything lasts.

Athletes don't stay with one team for their whole careers anymore. Neither do most ordinary citizens stay with one job for that matter. If you buy something and you don't like it, you can take it back.

Marriage has also followed that model. People so look forward to finding someone to share their lives with for better or worse, then when the worse part happens as it inevitably will, they simply choose to take it back.

A friend and I recently debated whether the word committment can be used to describe a temporary pledge. He used the words, "I am committed for now" to describe his stance on his romantic relationship and those words rang hollow in my ears.

Have we become a civilization of fads and trends? What is an important issue today becomes old hack tomorrow. Are our commitments now dictated to us by the number of rotations a story gets on the news cycle?

A young boy gets murdered in a racially motivated shooting and everyone wears T-shirts and hoodies in support and solidarity until CNN stops reporting on the case. National support for new gun control laws reaches 60 plus percent in the wake of an atrocious school shooting, but falls 10 percent with the passage of just one month.

Truth is now temporary. Faith is flexible. We have alternative life principles and morals. We are all becoming fair-weather fans and fashionistas in a world where even the climate is changing.

Blog Primero, Again

On April 2, 2010, I wrote my first post on this blog. I called it "Blog primero." First blog. I didn't know then that I was starting something I would need sixteen years later.

I wrote near every day that spring. I wrote about freedom and oppression. I wrote about love like it was a science, because to a young psychologist, it was. I wrote about loss, faith, fear, and what it costs a man to comply — and what it costs him to resist. I ended my posts with questions, because I wanted to hear from you, not just talk at you.

Then life did what life does. I built a practice and lost it. I built a family — a son, three daughters — and I am fighting now, in a courtroom, for my place in my children's lives. I have driven other people where they needed to go just to keep the lights on. I have been lied about by people who never had to look me in the eye.

I say all that to say this: I never stopped being a writer. I stopped publishing. There's a difference.

I am late blooming, but it's never too late for a great idea to manifest. This is the manifestation.

Daily Life Line is back. Every day, a lifeline: psychology without the jargon, fatherhood without the varnish, faith, freedom, and the truth as I have lived it. Some of it will make you love me. Some of it might make you hate me. I'd rather be hated for the truth than loved for a performance.

The old posts are still below this one — all of them, going back to 2010. Read the old me. Then watch the new me work.

So let me end the way I used to end, with questions for you:

1) What did you stop doing that you were born to do?

2) What would it cost you to start again — and what is it costing you not to?

3) If you could go back and change your decision, would you? If you can change it from now on, will you?

The line is open again. Daily.

— J

Deciding What Really Matters

Imagine you have been informed that you have only a short while to live. Unpleasant I am sure as it is to imagine, what comes to mind? What would you do with the rest of your life. What would you want to do? Who would you spend that time with? Asking yourself the big questions, and imagining yourself in the most pressure-filled situations is the best way that I know to come into an awareness of Self. Knowledge of Self is the prerequisite for knowing what you'd do in any given situation and what matters most to you.

 It has been my privilege to provide mental health services to people of ages ranging from 3 years to 105 years. Regardless of age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, and/or religion, what I have learned of humanity is that above all other things only a few things really matter to us: Love; Family; Achievement; Happiness; and Kindness. We seek and find these vital elements through our pursuit of virtues. Among the Loyalty, Generosity, Trust, Faith, Courage, Honor, and Honesty.

Unfortunately, the trappings of modern society and the observance of the passing of time too often distract us from tending to that which matters most. Master Bruce Lee impressed upon his student that knowing what you feel "is like a finger pointing to the moon. Don't focus on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory." 

There are things that quicken your soul, brighten the world around you, and cause you to radiate positive energy out into the universe. If you haven't found those things, keep seeking. If you know what they are but have neglected them, stop stalling. And if you are living a life of passion, share it with those who matter to you.

Don't Waste Your Time Reading This

If you're reading this already, you are one of the hopefully few people that needs to read this. Internet articles and blog posts are a newer way for people prone to procrastinate to excel at wasting their time. I recently read an "article" about 40 things men over 40 should no longer say, and I quickly realized it was a complete waste of time. While it did stimulate thoughts and contribute commentary to a few pseudointellectual discussions and help pass the time spent on the toilet, it did little to actually improve my life. That is the case with 90% of the things you can read on the internet.

Before writing this blog post, I saw an article on how to stop procrastinating. Instead of clicking on the link, I simply answered the question for myself and found my answer just as helpful as anything I might find in the article. The answer was, in part, not read the damn article.

In the time I could be reading someone's possibly well expressed thoughts on how to stop procrastinating, I can write my own quick article and at least feel like I was productive. Similarly, rather than reading this blog post you could be getting a workout in, cleaning the house, planting a garden, reading a book to your child, or doing work for your job.

Life is a series of precious moments that don't deserve to be wasted. You can't get the time back. If you get into the habit of clicking and reading every catchy headline, you could be wasting a lot of your life consuming information that does next to nothing to enrich your life.

Defending a Curse

I am always in awe of the ways and lengths people will go to to defend a curse. Most of us have something or someone in our lives that brings us down, holds us back, and dims our light. And oh so often, we have people who care enough to tell us about our curses; our problems. Even better still, there are times when we make ourselves aware of the issues that are barriers to the full unfolding of our higher selves. But anyone who watched G.I. Joe as a kid knows that "knowing is only half the battle."

Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) knows that women should be protected from violence with the full weight of the law, but he currently is leading his colleagues in an effort to defeat the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). This Act has been passed for 13 years without problem because everyone knows that women (like all life) should be protected from violence. Congress has acted on this Act consistently and affirmatively until three new provisions became Republican deal breakers. The three provisions were for the protection of women in the LGBT community, undocumented immigrants, and Native American women.

Sounds overtly homophobic, nationalistic, and racist you might think. Perhaps Eric Cantor and John Boehner (Speaker of the House and R-OH) have a reasonable explanation for their resistance to passing the VAWA. Up until now their talking point has been that they know women ought to be protected from violence, but these new provisions are political in nature and foster big government. Cantor spokespeople have said that it is a mistake for Tribal Courts to have jurisdiction over prosecuting domestic violence cases and that jurisdiction should remain with the State and Federal Courts. Under one new provision this would change so that the domestic violence cases committed on Tribal territory could be handled by the Tribal Court. Seems to me the House Majority leader acknowledges there is a problem but chooses not to act. The problem here is that the majority of domestic violence cases involving Native women also involve non-Native men. Because of the inaction of State and Federal officials, the majority of these non-Native men go unpunished by law. It's a no brainer! That's why 17 of their Republican colleagues have sent a letter to Mr. Cantor and Mr. Boehner urging them to "pass the VAWA right away" (as POTUS Barack Hussein Obama would say). The failure to pass the Act with these new provisions is an embarrasment for our country; our humanity.

My favorite proverb says, "It is better to light a candle than to sit and complain about the darkness." Just as Faith without Works is dead (James 2:14-26 Holy Bible), knowing that a problem exists and doing nothing to fix it displays no desire for growth. If you are not growing, you are dying. And if you are dying, you are not really living. 

Daily Meditation
Imagine you are a tree. What is at your root? How is your trunk, your branches, and leaves? How is the air that you breathe? Attend to any problems therein. Be an inspiration to those around you, and as you grow tall and strong the entire forest around you shall become a more harmonious biosphere. Your world.

The take home message is live and grow!

This message is inspired by Latipha Cross (pictured above). After watching her interview on ESPN, I feel like a tiny slug. This young woman has overcome odds I have never imagined and she sublimates like a champion. If you missed this interview and have never heard Latipha's story, and you read this and don't check for her on youtube, you may want to avoid salt. Girls rock!

J