Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

Henri Nouwen

What Is Love?

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Nothing like a pop song to get to the heart of the matter. “What Is Love? (Baby Don’t Hurt Me!)” may not have been the top of the charts, but it had a good beat and you could dance to it.

Is that what love is, though? Love is just not getting hurt? Certainly that’s an implicit understanding in relationships — but don’t we also sing along with the equally catchy pop song with the chorus: “You only hurt the one you love”?

Many of you know that I am a big fan of the work of theologian Henri Nouwen. Recently I was reading his book Reaching Out. In it, Nouwen defines love as creating a safe place for another person to be fully themselves. What a thought! In this context, love is a gift you give with no promise of anything in return. And, no expectation of how a person must change to “win” your love. You remain an individual in a relationship, merely giving space to another individual in the same relationship.

Nouwen’s idea becomes very clear to me when I think about the love between a parent and a child. If my job as a loving parent is to make a safe place for my child to be fully herself, then I have to hear her opinions, tolerate both her purple hair and her messy room if that’s how my child expresses herself. This week.

In terms of romantic relationships, too, Nouwen’s definition has heft. To truly love someone, it’s imperative to let them be themselves. Not to ask them to change to meet your particular needs or your etched-in-stone expectations. If you have banked on marrying a guy with a fat wallet, are you really loving when you try to turn a poet into a corporate attorney? Or when you try to make a quiet, shy child into class president? Is that love?

If someone is destructive, reckless, negative or otherwise hurtful, the safest place for you might be to give the person an awful lot of room to be fully himself. Remember, our life’s mission is not to change or save someone — if their choices are destructive to us, we can lovingly step back and give them space.

In the seminal book The Art of Loving, psychologist Erich Fromm suggests that we are motivated by the anxiety caused by our inherent separateness as individualized human beings. Of course, this relates to our relationships with our mothers, as do most psychological theories. But don’t get me started on that. And how mothers are systematically eliminated from nearly all Disney films. That’s a whole other topic…

Back to the point. If our quest, as Fromm puts it, is to achieve union as a remedy to our anxious feelings of separateness, how do we find love as meaningful as in Nouwen’s definition? How do we manage the twin drives toward individuality and separateness?

Sometimes, frankly, we don’t manage them too well. For people who have unresolved issues around abandonment, or control, or separation from their parents, or personality disorders, or other blocks, the idea of being separate in an intimate relationship is scary and confusing. They may lack the tools to go within to resolve these problems, so they crave merger to salve their inner wounds. Aided by the popular culture which says, “Two Become One” (wasn’t that a Spice Girls song?), some people find it truly difficult to remain an individual in an intimate relationship. Experts say that it’s precisely this merger which threatens the health of our most intimate relationships.

So let’s reframe what relationships are supposed to be, shall we? Dr. Michael Gurian, who wrote What Could He Be Thinking?: How a Man’s Mind Really Works, is an expert on brain biology. Bottom line: men’s brains and women’s brains are constructed differently so we act differently. It may not be that the man hogs the remote because he’s a self-centered jerk — he may just be wired to be territorial. Women aren’t weak and silly just because they like talking about stuff — it may be just that she feels bonded when she does so.

If I make a safe place for you to be a guy, and you make a safe place for me to be a gal, what have we got? Dr. Gurian’s theory of “Intimate Separateness” holds that there is a natural ebb and flow between the male brain’s need for independence and the female brain’s need for closeness. Merely understanding this nature-based fact can allow couples the freedom to be individuals and to move naturally between the two states — distance and closeness — without either being “right” or “wrong”. This helps couples move away from destructive expectations of merger which can’t be met anywhere except on the silver screen.

To love is to give. To love is to give a safe place for another person to be fully themselves. With no thought to what you’re getting in return. It’s a gift. It’s so much more than romance. It’s bigger than a crush. Yet, it’s simply a gift. A gift that enlarges the lives of both the lover and the loved.

Life’s Little Aggravations

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A lovely man of my acquaintance rang me up this week and told me he enjoys what I write. I demurely blushed. Then, being the genial problem-solver extraordinaire that he is, he added: “Could you write something about living with day-to-day problems? Not everyone, you know, has problems in the workplace.”

No, it’s true that not everyone has problems in the workplace. Plenty of my gazillion-and-twelve readers don’t even have a workplace! But nearly everyone is vexed by daily frustrations that add up to make them feel stressed and overwhelmed.

You know what I mean: The fellow at the baseball game who’s drunk, spills everything and screams obscenities in front of your kindergartner. Your upstairs neighbor who seems to walk the floor in golf spikes every morning at 2am. The gal yakking on her cell phone while the traffic behind her piles up because she’s not taking the right turn on red. The woman in the express checkout with a full basket, who, at the last minute, can’t locate her checkbook or pen.

How, indeed, can one deal with those issues in a positive and purposeful way?

Ah, now we’re getting to Michele’s Big Vision Of Life. Prepare yourself — there are several tenets we’ll have to cover.

First, you can never know what’s going on in another person’s head unless they tell you. The woman in front of you in the checkout line may live alone with 56 cats, and that trip to the store may be her only interaction with another human being in the whole week. Her momentary connection with the clerk, and you, may mean more to her than you can ever know. The gal on the cell phone? She might be a doctor racing to the hospital, making sure the emergency orders she’s issuing are absolutely understood by the oncology nurse on the other end of the line.

Since you can’t know what’s in another person’s mind, you have two choices: decide they’re purposefully making your life difficult, or, they’re doing the best they can.

Guess which choice helps you feel more peaceful.

Second, people don’t have to be exactly like you to be right. You may go to the store to get milk and eggs, but other people go there to get connection and affirmation. A little tolerance and acceptance of different motivations and expectations can go a long way toward reducing your frustration.

Folks are frustrated that other people aren’t exactly like themselves in plenty of situations. I know churches where people are frustrated because not everyone in the congregation approaches worship the same way. I know offices where people are angry because not everyone is a driven Type-A who’s wedded to his job. I know marriages in which both partners futilely endeavor to mold each other into their own shape. Each of these situations overlooks the big point — we’re all different, and vive la difference! Different outlooks, experiences and expectations bring richness and fullness to life. It certainly feels like I’m powerful and in control when I think “it would be better if everyone were just like me!”, but what that really is… is fear. It’s the fear of that which challenges my comfort zone.

Third, you can operate out of fear or you can operate out of love. When you operate out of fear, you limit your world view to that which cannot hurt you. Fear doesn’t allow you to question your own beliefs, or analyze your own mistakes, or even consider that someone else might have a valid point. Fear is a closed, keep-myself-safe approach. Fear is “if he really knew what I was like inside, he’d leave me, so I’m going to keep my true Self hidden and hope for the best.” That particular fear leads to a horrible death — the death of the sense of who you really are and of what’s important to you. It’s the death of true authenticity.

Love, on the other hand, is transparent, authentic and open. Love is all those things we’ve read — patient and kind, understanding and tolerant, hopes all things and endures all things. Love truly covers all transgressions. Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite writers, said that love exists when I create a safe place for another person to be fully himself. Even if when they’re being fully themselves they tick me off. Between you and me, that’s when I lovingly give them a whole lotta space to be fully themselves.

Because coming from love does not mean you abandon your boundaries or forget your limits. No, keeping those intact help keep you intact. Coming from love doesn’t mean you’re a doormat, either. Coming from love simply means living life with freedom from fear.

When daily life vexes you, you have a choice. You can come from a place of fear, with the expectation that you’re going to be hurt, or you can come from a place of love, and the expectation that, although you can’t know what motivates another person, you can be charitable, kind and open to learning something new from them. And about yourself.

If we could all shift away from fear and toward love, our collective vexation would diminish. Wouldn’t that be something? It would be as if the entire world stepped back, took a giant exhale and relaxed.

And that would be Michele’s Big Vision Of Life.

(How’s that, Jack?)

The Company You Keep

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My first job after college was working for a beer company. Yep, I was hired to take on the onerous duty of selling beer to college students. Such hard work! For undertaking this major, heavy-lifting responsibility, I got a company car, an expense account, tickets to major sporting events all over the Pacific Northwest and all the gimme t-shirts a girl could want.

Nice work if you can get it, believe me.

At the time, and probably even today, the beer industry was dominated by men. I can’t tell you how many times I was the only woman in the room. It was a guy business, run by guys, governed by guy rules – and I sure learned to play by guy rules.

Which meant I swore like a sailor.

Everywhere I went – every warehouse, every meeting, every bar, every grocery store – people were using swear words. They were used as adjectives. As nouns. As verbs. Even as dangling participles.

I swam in an ocean of obscenity. And I took to it like a fish to water.

Imagine my surprise when, in my next job, I let go a stream of what I considered normal, creative invective and the room fell deadly quiet. Guess what? My new colleagues didn’t swear. I felt like a fish out of water. A fish with a potty mouth.

Group dynamics certainly govern our behavior. What’s acceptable to one crowd may be completely unacceptable to another. The trick is to find a group which supports that which is best in us – rather than a group that appeals to, how shall I say it? Our baser instincts.

There’s a public service announcement on TV now which shows a stick figure lounging in a window, smoking a joint. He offers a hit to the dog. The dog declines the opportunity. The stick figure says, “I feel bad about what I’m doing. If you did it with me, I’d feel less bad.” Maybe the dog’s name is B-I-N-G-O, because that’s what I felt like saying when I saw the ad. Bingo! People who feel bad about what they are doing need me to do it, too, so they can feel less bad.

In her book Not Just Friends, Dr. Shirley Glass suggests that one of the ways to affair-proof your marriage is to associate with people who are not only friends of marriage in general, but friends of your marriage in particular. In fact, Dr. Glass’ research shows that associating with people who are in affairs, or who condone, support or encourage affairs, increases the likelihood that your marriage will end in divorce.

It’s like a new norm is invented by the company you keep. If everyone swears, then it’s normal to swear. If everyone takes office supplies home, then it’s not stealing – it’s actually OK to put that Xerox copier in your pocketbook and haul it home. If people are rewarded for swindling clients, then clients get swindled. If everyone is cheating on their spouse, then it’s not cheating, really – it’s fun, it’s cool, it’s how the game is played. It may be unethical, but it’s the norm. And when you live unethically, day in and day out, your self-esteem erodes.

That’s why finding your “tribe” of like-minded friends is vitally important to your marriage, to your workplace, to your happiness — to your sense of self.

Friends help you be your best self. They support your personal growth, are objective and appropriately affirming. I say “appropriately” because it would be perfectly fine with me if a friend were less than affirming – especially if I had wandered off on some weird track that was not really that good for me. Like if I were spending day after day in my jammies eating junk food, not bathing, muttering to myself and watching back-to-back Rachel Ray shows. Some people call that “bad”. Other people call it “March, 2004.”

Moving on.

Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite spiritual writers,defined love as making a safe place for another person to be fully themselves. My kids’ pediatrician has a framed print on his wall, “Let him be left-handed if that’s how he’s made.” Love, then, is letting someone be left-handed. Or gassy. Or opinionated. Or a Rachel Ray fan.

But being a friend also means you have the obligation to raise the impact of their negative or destructive behaviors with them.

The moment to evaluate a friendship is when, in the process of your friend fully being themselves, you find that you cannot be fully yourself. If their full expression is hurtful, dangerous or negative to you, you have every right to say something and to lovingly detach – to give them a ton of safe space to be themselves.

Alcoholics often find that they need new friends after sobriety, because many of their old friends consciously or sub-consciously promote drinking. That’s one reason why recovering alcoholics get sponsors – the sponsor is the beginning of a new social network, one which supports healthy, affirming activities, yet is lovingly supportive when the person in recovery slips back into hurtful habits. The sponsor creates a positive space for the alcoholic to be fully himself.

Toxic friendships are often based on being in a negative space together. How do you know if you’re in one? If you feel used, you’re probably being used. If you feel demeaned and belittled, then you’re not in a situation which helps you grow. If you feel you can’t be fully yourself with your friends, then you definitely haven’t found your tribe. Relationships like this are not about growth or overcoming or affirmation. Rather, these friendships serve to keep all participants down, so nothing and no one has to change. They exist so other people won’t feel so bad.

When eyes open and one person begins to grow, however, these friendships end because what they’re built on is not solid. And that’s OK. Because when you’re out of a bad situation, you have the chance to find a good one.

Look at your friendships. Do they support you? Do they affirm you? Do they reflect your values, your ethics, your best self? If they do, then congratulations.

You’ve found your tribe.

Clarity of Purpose

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I’ve been running into a lot of stressed out, tense people recently. They all seem to be singing that old refrain from The Guess Who, “I got, got, got, got no time.” And these are women who are at home with their kids! Add in office politics for those attempting to do both career and parenting, and you’ve got stratospheric stress levels.

Thank goodness you’re reading this today. Because this is for you stressed out souls – especially all you people who think asking for help is a sign of weakness. Ahem.

OK, I’ll tell you how to live life with no tension, no stress. Lean into your computer screen and pretend I’m whispering this next part, just like Connie Chung.

Know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Simple, huh?

Let’s look at it in action. In a typical week, Cheryl wakes up two mornings at 3:45am to get two of her kids to swim practice. She’s in a carpool so she only drives the kids to the pool one of those mornings. The other morning, she tries to go back to sleep but usually ends up oversleeping and wakes up just as the kids return from the pool. She wakes her third child, scrambles to get everyone fed, lunches made, homework in backpacks, then tears out of the house to make the early tutoring sessions scheduled for her kids. She has not showered nor has she had anything to eat.

While the kids are at school, she does laundry, walks the dog, goes to the grocery store, returns library books, shops for her elderly mother, volunteers at the kids’ schools (the three of them are in two different schools), and makes phone calls for a fundraiser. At 3pm, she races to school – late, again. One child goes to tennis, one to dance, the other to piano lessons. On Wednesdays, it’s karate, basketball and art. At 7pm Cheryl pulls out chicken nuggets and pasta for her kids and they begin two hours of homework. She checks all their work and corrects their mistakes. On Tuesday and Thursday nights the schedule changes when her oldest child has hockey practice. Dinner those nights is from a drive-thru, eaten in the back of the car. Cheryl’s husband comes home from work around 8:30pm, except for the nights he’s traveling or at his son’s hockey games.

At 10 pm, Cheryl gets her kids into bed and falls, half dead, into her own bed. Her husband, a night owl, stays up watching TV or surfing the Internet until 1am. At dawn the next day, it starts all over again.

Sound at all familiar? Should be. Because most of Cheryl’s friends are just like her.

Here’s something I know to be true: where you put your attention will grow more important in your life. So where is Cheryl’s attention? On her kids. And we will all say, “Yep, your kids should be your Number One priority.” But friends, there’s priority and there’s over-focus.

That’s why having clarity of purpose is vital to living a happy life. When you read Cheryl’s story, what would you say is her priority? To be self-sacrificing, have no life of her own, and do everything for her children? ‘Cuz that’s what’s she’s doing. She’s not eating, not bathing, not really in much of a relationship with her husband. She’s got no time with friends, no hobbies, no passions.

Why would Cheryl do this?

Henri Nouwen, noted spiritual writer, suggested that busyness is our way to quiet the yearnings of our heart. It’s often difficult for women to articulate their own needs or passions — society sends a strong message that doing so is selfish and not womanly. Cheryl would tell you, after her second glass of wine, that she knows that she keeps busy so she won’t have to think about it. “If I look at why I do things, I might have to change something,” she’d acknowledge.

And we all know change is scary.

So, Cheryl stays purposefully busy – so she doesn’t have to think about what she wants, and nothing has to change. “Most people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty” wrote therapist Virginia Satir. And Cheryl would agree.

When Cheryl coasts, she takes the path of least resistance. She doesn’t have to ask her husband to be a partner (he might say no, he might think I’m not capable, he might leave, we might get divorced, what would people think?). She doesn’t have to give her children boundaries and limits (they might miss an opportunity to find something they’re good at, they might hate me, they might ridicule me, what would people think?). She doesn’t allow her children to be independent (it’s faster to do it myself, they won’t need me, I’ll have to get a job, I haven’t had a job for 12 years, I have no skills).

Cheryl’s decision tree goes something like this:

If I acknowledge what I feel, people will be mad –> they will leave me –> I will be all by myself –> I will die all alone –> I am not good enough for anyone to love –> I do not matter.

At the core of many of our actions is this thought: “I am so flawed that no one can possibly love me (I can’t even love myself).” So we attempt to cover our “flaws” thinking that if we move fast enough, and produce enough, our flaws are not going to be noticeable. Even to ourselves.

This is where coaching can really help. A good coaching relationship allows all you Cheryls (and Toms and Susans and Harolds) out there to take some time to look at who you are and why you do what you do. Unlike therapy (which I am a huge fan of, having logged plenty of my own couch time), coaching will help you take specific steps to move forward toward a new way of living. A therapist diagnoses and treats psychological problems, often looking at the past as a guide. It’s very important and life changing work. As a matter of fact, I often work with clients who are simultaneously seeing a therapist – and it’s great! These people are usually very open to change and make terrific progress.

And, guess what? People have successfully changed their lives without alienating their children or divorcing their spouse! People get balance in their lives without losing anything important – just by focusing on what’s really important.

Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing sounds so simple. But it requires honesty, openness and a willingness to change. You have to understand yourself so you can say no to that which keeps you stuck in a rut, and yes to that which brings you joy and allows you to grow.

What does it take to get out of your hectic and purposefully busy life? Again, it’s simple.

It’ll start when you say to yourself, “I can’t go on like this anymore. This is not a fun, happy life” – that’s when you know it’s time to start making changes.

That, friends, is when you ask for help. That’s when you call me.