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Gardening and Life

Several years ago I attempted to grow a vegetable garden in our backyard. It was mostly an utter failure. We may have gotten 3 tomatoes and a couple of green beans. But let me tell you what, those were the best tomatoes and beans I’ve ever had! Though the production failed, what didn’t fail was the process of illuminating areas in my life that needed attention.

The following year, we changed a lot in how we prepared, planted, and cared for the garden. Every day I would visit the garden after work, pull weeds, prune, and take care of the plants. Gardening is a lot of tedious work, and I grew to enjoy it. There are a few life lessons that I learned and from my daily 5-10 minute ‘garden walks.’

Gardening is about patience.

I noticed one bed that didn’t appear to have anything growing in it besides a couple of patches of clover-like weeds. Thinking that we did not plant the seeds right, I replanted the entire bed. After telling my wife what’d I’d done, she lovingly smiled and told me I’d mistakenly pulled the clover-like sprouts. They were actually the lettuce we’d planted.

I’d gotten impatient and pulled up something I needed to have given more time to grow. In my haste to see plants grow, and reap the harvest of my hard work, I sabotaged what was steadily and slowly growing. I fell victim to what many of us do on a daily basis: instant gratification. Gardens are not microwaves, nor is life or relationships. Often I will want something from my marriage or in life that hasn’t had time to grow.

Tending to what’s seen.

I sometimes looked too hard for what’s going to be the next problem, weed issue, or area that will require my time. In doing so, I miss out on enjoying what’s in front of me. Yes, prevention is part of the problem, but if I only ever focus on the problems, I’ll miss out on the fruit.

Those of us who struggle with anxiety tend to be on the lookout for what’s “next” on the to do list. In relationships, this can take the shape of trying too hard to work on something that’s not really an issue (or yet to be an issue).

I remind myself to take note of what I’m aware of today, and not go digging around looking for the roots of other problems that might pop up tomorrow. Today has enough worries of it’s own. Let tomorrow happen tomorrow.

Take a break, an intentional rest.

Working in my garden every single day had a way of blinding me to the growth that was happening. Hyper focus is good in spurts, but not sustainable long term. We all need space and time to let things that are planted, grow. We need a rest from work, from screens, from the monotony of life.

Rest one hour per day, one day per week, one week per year. Turn off the screens and other stimulants that crowd out life. Listen to the silence.

Life is a process, not a finish line.

Even if my garden doesn’t produce edible fruit, it’s already been a raving success. The process of planning, building, and planting it has already accomplished growth in me. I’m seeing things about me that are making me smile, and causing me to pause and reflect. If I were to view this project as only a means to an end, you wouldn’t be hearing about it and I wouldn’t be growing from it.

Cicero once said if a man has a library and a garden, he has everything. I’d add human relationships into that. Gardening is a great metaphor for life. It’s a process filled with seasons, beginnings and endings, digging things up, replanting, and ultimately, growth. It takes time, patience, and space to see and experience the growth.
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Laundry List of Adult Children of Alcoholics

You don’t have to have parents who were alcoholics to develop any (or a lot) of these characteristics. All of us grow up in homes with imperfect parents. We develop coping mechanisms from growing up in these sometimes “crazy” family systems. Many of these coping mechanisms are listed below.

If you identify with these, consider attending a 12-step meet (ACOA or ACA are both good ones) to begin working through these.

The Laundry List – 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

  1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
  2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
  3. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
  4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
  5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
  6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
  7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
  8. We became addicted to excitement.
  9. We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”
  10. We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
  11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
  12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
  13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
  14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

(more on this here: https://adultchildren.org/literature/laundry-list/)

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Kids Need to be Needed

One of the worst things we can do to our kids is to raise them without ever asking anything of them. My kids love to remind me that none of their friends have to clean the kitchen, or do their laundry. What they don’t realize is that most of their friends’ don’t really know what their value is to the family, because their parents don’t ask anything of them.

Kids who are never needed at home never develop a sense of place and belonging in the world. They grow up thinking one of two things: Everything should be easy and done for me (entitlement); or I am not needed in the world and therefore I don’t know what makes me unique.

Most parents who don’t ask anything of their children are doing so because they don’t want to deal with the mess that comes with asking a kid to do something.

Kids whine and complain. They are like pigs. Put a pig in a stall, and it’ll find a way to get out. They constantly testing the limits of the boundaries: What is a legit boundary, what is a threat, what is a lie. When they find a weak spot, they’ll hit it over and over and over again until they get what they want. Kids want freedom (don’t we all!), but they don’t know what to do with freedom unless they’ve been taught.

Setting your kids up for success depends on how much responsibility you teach them. Parents teach responsibility by giving them responsibilities. By telling them that they are a valuable member of the family. By telling them that their actions impact more than just themselves.

The best thing we can do for our kids is give them a constructive space to fail.

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A Wealthy Marriage

Most of us spend so much time thinking about the wealth of our bank account, or retirement plan. What about the wealth of your marriage? There is not a more important investment in life than that of your marriage and family. Governments and economies can all disappear rendering our financial investments worthless. There is nothing that will disrupt the healthy investment of a marriage, and the dividends paid to future generations.

How to be wealthy in Marriage:

  • Find ways to surprise your spouse. Most surprises are negative. Make them say “you did what” with joyful expectance.
  • Lather them with compliments. What do you like/love about them? Lather them in these compliments two, three, four times over.
  • Follow the golden rule in woodworking: Measure twice, cut once / Listen twice, speak once. Ask questions to make sure you’ve heard them. Don’t worry about being heard, do the hard work of listening.
  • Daily look at them in the eyes long enough to feel. It’s amazing how intimate this is. Share that feeling you just had when you looked into their eyes.
  • Date. Play. Hobby together.
  • Deposit positive experiences into their relational bank account, and difficult times will never bankrupt you.
  • Don’t wait to get help until you have to. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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The Parent Trap

To put it bluntly: Parenting is impossible.

There is no way a flawed human can raise a non-flawed child. The goal of parenting has to be something attainable, but unfortunately most of us parent primarily out of opposition.

“I don’t want ‘xyz’ for my kids…”
“I hope they don’t …”
“I wish they wouldn’t …”

Oppositional living has far more to do with what we are afraid of happening in life, than what it is that we actually desire to have happen. And as is typically the case, what we focus on is typically what we end up accomplishing.

Some common pitfalls of parenting:
  • Spending too much time and energy on what or who we *don’t* want our kids to become.
  • Focusing more on behavioral issues over character development.
  • Expecting more from kids than what is developmentally appropriate. The parent needs to be the adult, not the kid.
  • Mature parents raise mature kids. Immature parents raise immature kids. Truth is we are all both mature and immature parents.
  • Trying to accomplish too much too quickly.
  • Saying more than doing. Kids don’t listen as much to words as they do to actions.
  • Not letting kids fail and/or succeed … which confronts that mom/dad are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong.
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Gaps

The great philosopher, Rocky Balboa, is talking to his manager Paulie. They are in the meat locker, Rocky is punching some cows, and Paulie asks him about his sister:
“You really like her? I don’t get it, what’s the attraction?”
“I don’t know, fills gaps I guess.”
“What’s gap’s”
“I dunno. I’ve got gaps, she’s got gaps. Together we fill gaps.”
(this whole blog post is so much better if read in Rocky’s voice)
Gaps are why we love (and hate) relationships. We have gaps, we need others to fill our gaps, and we need to fill others gaps. How many of us are comfortable with our gaps, as much (or little) as they are filled?
So often we are begging for our gaps to be filled, instead of being the one who fills gaps.
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How to Fight

How to Fight:

Strike when the iron is COLD! 
The heat of the moment is usually too hot. Wait for things to cool down.
Smile. Use hopeful, positive language
Smiling takes less facial muscles, is linked to an increased production of dopamine (the “feel good” chemical in our body), and makes it harder to stay in resentment/anger for both you and your sparring partner.
Offer a compliment
Want to disarm yourself and your partner? Tell them what you like/love about them.
Tell a story 
Eugene Peterson says it well, “Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.” Welcome someone with a story.
Designate a safe room, and safe time of the day
What room in your house can you designate as the place to have adult discussions around conflict? Is there a time of day that works best for you and your partner?
Take off your shoes
This grounds you, helps you to feel and get in touch with being human. The goal is to repair the relationship, not to win the fight.
Open your body (arms, legs, clothing)
Open postures invite open dialogue. Closed postures create closed dialogue.
Admit wrong, take responsibility
“I’m sorry. I was wrong. How can I make it right?”
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Healthy Cultures

We are all a part of a multiple organizational cultures in our lives. Family, work, church, school systems, volunteer organizations, and hobby clubs. No doubt all of us have experienced the problems that come from unhealthy cultures. They are marked by things such as secret keeping, refusal to set or adhere to boundaries, triangulation (gossip), and a clear hierarchy of power/control.

In working with lots of people in many different organizations (as well as starting several of my own organizations), I’ve found that there are three things that healthy cultures do really well.

1. They identify the real issues with help from someone from the outside.

2. They confront and discuss with honesty the real issues, not shying away from the difficult truths. They tell the truth, usually involving conflict.

3. They develop solutions and process that are inclusive, not exclusive. The quickest way to poison a culture is to make it exclusionary.

It’s easy for a culture to become a cult when none of the three things above take place.

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Selfishness

I’m usually only concerned about three people in my life: Me, myself, and I. That’s the definition of selfishness, and the root question selfish people are always asking is something like: “What are you going to do that is going to make my life better, easier?”

Self-lessness (the opposite of selfishness) is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. The irony of it all is the more I try to think of myself less, the more I’m actually thinking about myself. It’s pretty much an impossible reality to escape. We’re all more concerned with ourselves than we are of others.

Those that say they’re more concerned about others than themselves usually aren’t aware of how they’re using others to feel better about themselves. No one is altruistic, and no one is fully evil either (though some are close).

We can be in recovery for our selfishness (a very similar process to recovery for addictions), or we can be in some form of denial for how much our selfishness affects those around us.