Insight into who will respond better in a crisis

A person’s capacity for healthy outcomes during difficulties is tied to their ability to define their life’s goals and values apart from the surrounding pressure to conform to a particular viewpoint.

In his book Generation to Generation, Edwin Friedman offers a way to test resistance to togetherness pressures, that is, possessing the power to say “I” when others are demanding “you” and “we.”

When presented with an issue that does not include “should” and “musts” some listeners will respond in a way that better defines themselves (such as “I agree” or “I disagree”). This person is likely to function well (emotionally) during a crisis. Other people may respond by attempting to define the speaker (comments like “How can you say that when…” or “After saying that I wonder if you are really one of us”). This indicates the person will likely resist progress toward healthy outcomes during crises and difficulties. People who more clearly define themselves are also more likely to take personal responsibility, whereas those who focus on the speaker are more likely to blame outside forces for their situations.  

One of the founding fathers of family therapy, Murray Bowen, suggested the capacity to define one’s own life’s goals and values apart from surrounding pressure, that is, to be a “relatively nonanxious presence in the midst of anxious systems” is an indication of taking “maximum responsibility for one’s own destiny and emotional being.” It shows up in “the breadth of one’s repertoire of responses when confronted with crisis.” The concept shouldn’t be confused with narcissism. For Bowen, differentiation means the capacity to be an “I” while remaining connected.

Stephen Goforth

Diminishing our Pain

People say to me, "Things in my life are pretty hard right now, but I have no right to complain—it’s not Auschwitz." This kind of comparison can lead us to minimize or diminish our own suffering. If we discount our pain, or punish ourselves for feeling lost or isolated or scared about the challenges in our lives, however insignificant these challenges may seem to someone else, then we’re still choosing to be victims. We’re judging ourselves. I don’t want you to hear my story and say, "My own suffering is less significant. " I want you to hear my story and say, "If she can do it, then so can I."

 Auschwitz survivor Edith Eva Eger in her book The Choice

Bless you Prison

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: ‘Bless you, prison!’ I…have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: ‘Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!’”

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (Born Dec. 11, 1918), The Gulag Archipelago

This is Love

"This is love: Not that we loved God. It is that he loved us and sent his Son to give his life to pay for our sins." 1 John 4:10

“In this is love..” or another translation could be “In this way is seen the true love."

God didn’t look down and say, “Boy, I see you love me. I think I’ll love you.” Or “You’re a nice guy, I really like that.”

Instead:

You were rebellious, arrogant, self-centered. God said, “I love you.”

You ignored him, fought him, were bored with him. God said, “I love you.”

You spit in his face, yelled at him, shook your fist. God said, “I love you.”

That’s what John means here.

We see what real love is by looking at what God did. He loved us with a desire to restore us, to make us whole.

Stephen Goforth