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| The Institute for Living |
| Love & Romance Series |
| So much of the pain and struggle in our lives revolves around issues of love and romance. Indeed our own self image is often tied to our experiences with love and romance. Needless to say, how the church has dealt with these issues has left us feeling validated or invalidated. We wish to celebrate our love experiences with our faith expressions, and sometimes that is the case. In all too many cases, though, there seems to be a painful tear between our romantic and sexual feelings and behavior and what we believe to be the ideals set forth by the doctrines of our faith. The results are often those of shame, guilt, denial, acting out, repression, suppression and other unhealthy feelings and behaviors. |
| Even for those of us fortunate enough to have a fairly successful love life, there remain an abundance of questions and issues that we like to discuss with others. Because of that, the Internet and other forums are replete with discussions about love, sex and romance. |
Well, our hope here at The Institute for Living is to use some of the actual discussions that have come across our desk as a springboard for discussion. |
We hope you will find the discussions interesting and insightful. Please join in the discussion with your feelings, questions, disagreements and frustrations. Together, we will journey towards wholeness. |
Essay 1: We Create Our Own Chaos One of the overarching themes that I see people talking about is all the “drama” in their love lives. They talk about how people have shown up in their lives, only to be dishonest and disappoint them -- as so many have done before. When one person wrote about that recently, he asked for input on how he could learn to trust again – after having been disappointed so many times. It reminded me of a phrase that a friend of mine used several years ago. He said, “We Create Our Own Chaos.” Now while it doesn’t sound like it, that is a very empowering statement. What we tend to do is to blame other people for all the pain we suffer in relationships. However, if we begin to realize that “We Create Our Own Chaos” then we have the opportunity to exam our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors so as to bring about more desirable results. When we really get good at this, we will see that we get exactly what we ask for. Stated another way: the people that come to us are a direct reflection of the energy that we are sending out. They don’t just sort of represent – they precisely reflect – the energy that we are sending out. They are answering our call. |
| So, this particular person said, “… I don’t trust anybody anymore - and want to change that. Its not a good way to be, and I choose not to be stupid, but allow the trust first then allow folk to hang themselves before they actually hurt me…” |
My response was… You talked about learning to trust other people. That’s an issue that people often talk about. I don’t really believe that’s the issue. Without going into a long discussion here, I believe its more about two things: (1) really finding clarity within our self, and (2) really tuning in to the other person for information about who they really are. Here’s what I mean: CLARITY WITHIN It has taken me years to discover that so much of my relationship chaos comes because I am not truly clear within myself about what I want. Oh, sure I will say that I am, but my actions will show differently. Therefore, I get involved with a lot of people that I never should have gotten involved with in the first place because they really don’t make sense for me – in a healthy way. TUNING IN TO THE OTHER PERSON Someone once said, “When someone tells you who they really are, LISTEN!” Again it’s taken me a lot of years to learn that people will give me very accurate clues about who they really are pretty early on when I meet them. What generally happens though, (remember: love is blind?) I block out this information so I can hold on to my fantasy about this person. I so dearly want this person to be right for me, that I don’t hear the real truth about this person. Even when some of that truth seeps through, I foolishly tell myself that I’ll be able to change them. So I believe that while this issue of trust is very important, it’s really just important for me to learn to trust myself. The rest of it will take care of itself. We’ll discuss more later about healthy aspects of trust in a loving relationship. |
Be sure to read our recently released book: The Making of a Preacher: Naked in the Pulpit |