Angus Nelson

They’re a motley bunch, but I call them friends.

10. How do they spend their time?
9. What are their friends like? (you imitate whom you associate)
8. How do they spend their money? (for where your treasure is, there is your heart also)
7. How do they resolve conflict? (vengeance served cold is to be avoided)
6. How do they handle offense?
5. What do they do when embarrassed?
4. How do they treat other people? (especially family)
3. What part does the Bible play in their decision making?
2. How do they handle being wrong?
1. Are they forgiving? (no score keepers)

Ok, seriously, where was this list for me like five years ago? Provided I had ears to hear, this would have saved me a ton of emotional anguish… Better believe I’ve tattooed this into my brain!!! ; )

I’ve been reading an incredible book – squeezed in and amongst my school responsibilities. It’s called “Crucial Conversations – tools for talking when stakes are high”.

For me, personally, I’ve been challenging myself to change how I communicate. Sometimes, I’m a pretty gruff and short with people when I get “excitable”. I can own that, so I’m endeavoring to soften the edges a bit… This book is helping to give me tools to use. It’s another amazing, timely day to change.

Here’s an excerpt:

“We’re designed wrong. When conversations turn from routine to crucial, we’re often in trouble. That’s because emotions don’t exactly prepare us to converse effectively. Countless generations of genetic shaping drive humans to handle crucial conversations with flying fists and fleet feet, not intelligent persuasion and gentle attentiveness.

For instance, consider a typical crucial conversation. Someone says something you disagree with about a topic that matters a great deal to you and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The hairs you can handle. Unfortunately, your body does more. Two tiny organs seated neatly atop your kidneys pump adrenaline into your bloodstream. You don’t CHOOSE to do this. Your adrenaline glands do it, and then you have to live with it.

And that’s not all. Your brain then diverts blood from activities it deems nonessential to high-priority tasks such as hitting and running. Unfortunately, as the large muscles on the arms and legs get MORE blood, the higher-level reasoning sections of your brain get less. As a result, you end up facing challenging conversations with the same equipment available to a rhesus monkey.”

Alright, it’s been too long since I’ve entered anything in here… But thanks to some encouragement/guilt trips, I’m back in the saddle. For those of you that have filed official complaint, your cries have been heard.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!

Sam sent me this quote:
“influencing others is a matter of disposition, not position.”

DISPOSITION:
2 a : prevailing tendency, mood, or inclination b : temperamental makeup c : the tendency of something to act in a certain manner under given circumstances

I’m learning all the more that when we pursue our own selfish desires, we never end up with what we truly want.

My current role at Impact is as a counselor on the phones in the Partner Relations department. Everyday, I hear tragic stories where people sacrifice their entire lives for the quick fix of a high. Be it drugs, sex or bad relationships, people trap themselves from living what Jesus promised as “life more than abundant”.

Throughout the writings of Christ we discover a multitude of paradoxes. “to find life, lay your life down”… “you must give to gain”… “I must decrease that He may increase”… “to be great is to be least”… “the first shall be last, the last shall be first”.

In context of human psychology, the three greatest needs of man are:
1. Unconditional love
2. Knowing I’m not alone
3. A Sense of Value and Worth

Anything we do outside of God to meet these needs is a form of codependancy. Yet, our society, at large, is totally geared towards this kind of behavior… all advertisement exposes our “lack”… politicians spout of our need to have them take care of us… media compares the beautiful over the regular… etc, etc.

We live in a very “emotionally needy” society. So many people looking to take, few actually sacrificing to give.

The obviously “dirty” codependancies are drugs, alcohol, pornography and sex. But then there’s the “clean” codependancies: Relationships, jobs, money, status, titles, education, spouses, afluence, clothing and social strata.

The irony is, the more I seek to fulfill my need through any of these codependancies, the more I find myself empty of this need. So, out of my pain, I follow a cycle of pain like a hamster on a wheel chasing for the ever elusive… all the while, my heart gets harder and harder. Calloused by my denial, perpetual persuits and guilt of failure.

I made a choice, two years ago, to face my “stuff”. It hasn’t been until now that I can actually understand what it was that I was doing… It’s hard to see through chaos – blaming, shaming and gaming just to “protect” what I thought was important, my sense of being right, my ego or my pride. But now, I’ve found an incredible sense of clarity, wholeness.

It’s peaceful, confident and alive. I kind like that feeling. I really like me I’m turning out to be.