I really can’t believe that it was on this date back in 1989 that I asked me wife to ‘go with me’ while at a video party in the 7th grade. If anyone would have told me that the question I was asking that Friday night would later result in all that I have now, I would not have believed them. I knew then that Cami was a dream to have and I even had to work to make that first invitation happen. We were in Mrs. Theobald’s reading class that year. Our friends were friends and we spent a lot of time around one another. I don’t remember all the reasons why I didn’t ask her earlier, but April 28th presented itself as the right time. I do remember that it was after a track meet, not that it really adds any significance. I can still remember the house and could probably name most of the people at that party.
Our dating years were like most teenage relationships… a roller coaster. I would like her more than she liked me, then she would like me more than I liked her. I say that, but I really think I always liked her more than she liked me. Back then I would have said that the problem was getting her to settle down and only focusing on me. Now I would say part of our problem was me not showing her how much she meant to me. I probably still have the problem, but I sure hope I’m doing better.

Today we celebrate 21 years since that night. Since then we both moved on from junior high, graduated high school together, went to college and earned 5 degrees, have 5 kids (two sets of twins plus one special Preslie), moved 4 times, and many, many more monumental accomplishments. Above all I would say that what sticks out is that we are still together, still in love, and still working to be connected. Sometimes I love her more than she loves me, and sometimes she loves me more than I love her. Sometimes she struggles settling down (not with other boys, but with tasks of being a mom and running a home) and I still struggle to show her how much she means to me. But it is all fun and worth it.

On Sunday I heard this great story and I’m going to try and share a scaled down version here. My kids will tell you that I’m the wrong kind of doctor, you know, not the kind who can take care of sickness or injuries. I’ll admit that when it comes to health I’m not that educated. But I heard this story that talked about heart transplants and how common they are becoming. One thing that you might not know about a heart transplant is that the body tries to reject the new heart. The doctors have to give just the right amount of medicine to help the body not reject the new organ. Patients have to be closely monitored and they most stay up to date on their medicine balance or at any time the body will win the fight and reject the heart. Well, I guess there are cases when people start feeling better and start thinking they don’t need to take their medicine and they become relaxed in their efforts. In some of these cases all the work they did to get a new heart and then work to help the body accept the heart can be undone in a few days or weeks because of their lack of focus and efforts.
As I heard this story I thought of myself and my own marriage. I also thought of many of my clients. We work so hard to have a ‘change of heart’ and to make a change in our lives and in our relationships. When we find something that works we are very focused on doing it just right and staying very consistent in our efforts. Yet as we find ourselves feeling good over time it can be easy to relax our efforts and to change our focus. If we are not careful we can reject the ‘change of heart’ and return to either our old ways or perhaps new ways of struggling.
I have seen this time and time again where a couple will come in and do tough work to correct things in their marriage. They will feel wonderful and then leave and move on with their lives. Sometimes I get a call a few weeks or months later and it is the couple stating they are struggling again. It isn’t always the case, but quite often they are struggling because they stopped doing what we worked on in counseling. Because they didn’t stay focused on the change, it was as if their relationship rejected the new pattern and returned to the old. Let’s all be aware of what we can do to hold on to change.

Often I am asked about how I would help someone deal with issues around perfectionism. There are a lot of people who fear not being perfect. Instead of seeing the stacks of evidence that are proof they are good, they see the one stack of evidence that proves they are not. They can see the weaknesses and mis-steps in almost everything. They may struggle with projects and relationships because they want everything to be perfect. Recently I was trying to help someone look at this issue from a couple of points of view. The question kept coming up, “how do I deal with my fear of not being perfect?”
This afternoon the answer hit me. The question about one’s fear of not being perfect is like someone asking what they should do if they are afraid of water while they are already in the swimming pool. To me it isn’t so much that you are afraid of water, you have been swimming in it for quite some time, and more than likely you’ll stay swimming in it for the near future. Are you really afraid of water? I think there is a deeper question we are asking…maybe it is “I’m afraid of drowning.”

So when I hear someone ask about their fear of not being perfect, I think…you’re already not perfect. You haven’t been perfect up to this point and most likely you won’t be perfect in the near future. Often we are afraid of something that hasn’t yet happened, and in this case, your lack of perfection has already happened. What we are really afraid of is what it means to not be perfect. For some it might be that they are afraid of failing, of not being good enough, or even not knowing who they are.
The need to be perfect is really a trap. As long as I’m not perfect I can be justified in shutting down or even quitting because I know I can’t reach my ultimate goal of perfectionism. If I can’t be perfect, why try? There are many answers here and I’ll just give three:
* One is learning to like yourself on the road to perfection. We need to learn to like us as we are so that we have the motivation and courage to face the challenges between us and perfectionism.
*If you were my client, I would ask you to find times when you were perfect and then look at how you celebrated those moments. Most likely you didn’t celebrate because you some how discounted that perfect moment because you’re waiting for everything to be perfect. Can we have perfect moments…some of us do everyday.
*Third option, define perfectionism so you know what you are working towards. Most know when they are not perfect, yet struggle to know what perfection looks likes. If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?

On Satuday I will be speaking at a Parentin Seminar and I’ll be discussing the topic of nurturing our children. I really find this topic interesting as it can mean so many different things to so many different people. I’m drawing on the principles from attachment theory that state ‘relationships should be a place where one can take full advantage of another person to offer a safe haven and a secure base.’ I really believe that we all need a safe haven from the storms of life. Children should have parents who nurture them in times of need and support them in times growth. Relationships should serve as the secure or firm foundation from which we venture out into the world. I have such a clear image that I hope you can share of a child (or even an adult) who has the support of their loved one serving as this foundational spot that gives strength to face the challenges in life. This same person, and this same relationship, also serve as a resting place where this child can return to be protected when the storms of life are too much.
I will also focus part of my presentation on the importance of nurturing our relationship with ourselves. If we are beaten down, then we will have nothing to give. I really believe that nurturing children begins with nurturing ourselves and our marriages. When we have strength we can share it with others. To nurture is to support another or to provide a climate for growth. Our homes should be these places and our families should prosper in climate controlled environments.
There are simple things we can do to nurture our children, and here are just a few examples:
**Develop a pattern of looking for the positive. When you enter a room do you see th 9 toys your child put away, or do you see the one they left out?
**Show love - simple enough, yet we must remember to be clear in how we communicate our love to our children. Do they really have any idea how much love we have for them?
**Provide opportunities for your children to be successful. Confidence grows when we experience success and we need to continuously provide these opportunties for our children.
**Listen to your children. Don’t speak at them or give them a lecture. Allow moments when they can teach you and when they can share with you what is important in their lives. Children will talk when they know their parents are listening.

Maci is like me in many, many ways. Take this morning for example. I’m usually the first one up, but if someone beats me, it is her. She helped make breakfast for the crew and then something special for me and mom, which she ate as well. This represents her love for good food - me too. She looks out the window in anticipation of who might be coming (like she did tonight when I came home from work) - I do that too. She can be found holding a baby in any place and at any time - I’m a dreamer too (not about babies).

So we decided we would blog together about what makes us happy. Here we go:
Maci - To be happy, I think sometimes we go out with each other on dates. We like to go shopping, go to lunch, go play, and sometimes we watch sports together. We also love to make food together.
Dad - I think happiness is about having fun in the moment.

Maci - Some of my most fun times are when I am playing with my friends. I love to jump rope, play soccer, and tether ball.
Dad - Having fun is doing something that changes your pace and changes your focus.

Maci - When I am not feeling happy, I tend to get mad. (Yes she does. She is a little feisty like her mother).
Dad - When our reality doesn’t meet our expectations we can get discouraged. For some people and special women I know, this often comes out as being feisty.

Maci - If I could tell people the secret to being happy, I would tell them “be around more people and become friends. Then you will feel happiness in your heart.”
Dad - My secret to happiness is to enjoy the moment, look for the positive, and focus on relationships more than work.

Well, there is just a little bit of a father - daughter perspective. I hope it helps. It was fun to have Maci blog with me, now something else we can add to our list that we do together.

I was approached by two seniors at Gonzaga to offer a presentation on relationships to students on campus. We choose the 5 Love Languages as a focus because it is simple and fun. We had a great interactive night where I polled the audience using Polleverywhere.com which allowed the students to share how they preferred to feel loved and how they preferred to show love. Out of the 5 types (gifts, touch, time, words, or service) can you guess what was the number one way for the guys or for the girls? For this group (a non-scientific study) the number one way men both prefer to feel loved and prefer to show love (according to the women who were polled) was TOUCH. Any surprise? For me, I actually thought it would be time, which was a close second. I made a joke “the men would like to be touched when they are having quality time.” For the women in the group? Words of affirmation followed by quality time. How did the men vote that the women preferred to show love? The two that scored the highest were acts of service and quality time. After the presenation one of the participants wrote an article on the evening and published it in the Gonzaga Bulletin. Check out the article. Professor reveals language of love

Some of you might remember that my wife smiles when she runs.

Just yesterday we were at the Y and there she was smiling away as she ran on the treadmill while I kept shifting from one machine to another hoping she would see that I was done with cardio and ready to lift. Nope, she just kept running and smiling, smiling and running. She has joined up with a group of friends in the neighborhood who are all training for a marathon. Since I would rather do a marathon all day counseling session over any attempt at running a marathon, I thought I would try to see if the two are in any way related. Here is what I’ve learned so far.
*The actual marathon (Cami’s is in May) is really the end of months of running smaller marathons. - I guess it is like fun romantic vacations, they should be prepared for by short and frequent activities building up the endurance and ability to connect on the longer romantic vacations. Okay, I’ll admit that I would never really relate running a marathon to a vacation, but the building up to the final race makes sense.
*Every week since Cami started training I think I’ve heard her say, “Why am I do this.” - I know I have worked with many spouses in marriage counseling who along the way have asked, “Why am I doing this.”
*You know you are getting serious about running when you change your life long sleeping patterns and become a morning person…even if only a few days a week. - You know you are getting serious about your marriage when you change some of your life long communication patterns in an attempt to share how you feel with your wife. (Okay, maybe this was just something I needed to do.)
*Have you ever seen someone when they are experiencing what they call a ‘runner’s high?” Have you ever seen someone when they are experiencing what they call a ‘lover’s high?” Really both situations come down to chemical releases in the brain. Not sure what happens when you run, but I do know that when two people connect, oxytocin (often called the cuddle hormone) is released. This chemical is what keeps us coming back and wanting “more, more, more.”
*Marriage is more like the running of a marathon than a short sprint. I was a sprinter back in the day and know that any short burst of loving or kindness doesn’t seem to last as long as years of jogging together.
*Which leads me to my final attempt to link marathon training to marriage training. They both need music. I know that when I run I need the fastest, loudest, and best song I can find…without it my legs feel like they are stuck in cement. Marriages need music, maybe not the same as one’s running favorites, but we need something that keeps us dancing and keeps us moving together. In a lot of the marriage literature, they say emotion is the music to the attachment dance.