The Somero Saga

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

When The Body Says No- Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection, book review

This book was absolutely intriguing, although I must add that with all books I read, I take what's applicable to me and ignore the rest. Doesn't mean I believe or agree with everything in it, just means I'm doing a review to help me remember what I've read.

Dr. Gabor Maté was a hospice M.D. in Vancouver, BC (he's now retired) who has taken a deeper look into his hospice patients. What he noticed after talking to them (actually mostly listening to them!) deeper over the many years, was that they all had something in common. They had never learned to express healthy anger or to say no (described more thoroughly later on), which interestingly is learned when we are yet babies and toddlers (before age 3).

He goes into various diseases such as ALS, MS, and cancer as well as autoimmune diseases too. During a study of women with breast cancer, "our principal finding was a significant association between the diagnosis of breast cancer and a behavior pattern throughout adult life, of abnormal release of emotions. This abnormality was, in most cases, extreme suppression of anger and, in patients over 40, extreme suppression of other feelings." Also "an inability to discharge or deal appropriately with anger, aggressiveness or hostility (which in turn was masked by a façade of pleasantness)". The unresolved conflict was "manifested through denial and unrealistic self-sacrificing behaviors". Hereditary/genetic factors (genes) pale in comparison to these factors recorded. Stress (internal from external) is the biggest factor in developing cancer. He goes through breast, prostate, uterine/ovarian, melanoma, leukemias and lymphomas and lung cancers specifically, but other cancers fall in here too likely. There's an extreme sense of duty, and an unbalanced inability to ask for help or receive help themselves. This often starts as small children who sense their parent's pain and needs because they can see the stress their parents are under and try to ease it by being a "good boy/good girl". (Kids are amazingly perceptive to parent's emotions for good and bad). As they grow older, this repression of their own anger tends to accompany loneliness and a lack of social support because the lack of negative emotion (repressed) is never seen by others (due to lack of vulnerability). These people cannot be true to themselves even on the deepest level.

What may be looked at as a character flaw in ourselves or others, is often actually a coping mechanism that the person acquired young in childhood. This is a response to environment, not inborn genetic weakness. For example, "controlling" people may actually be exhibiting extreme anxiety because of high levels of fear for whatever reason started the process long, long ago. He says that no one who he interviewed for the book could answer yes to the question~ "When you were a child, and you felt sad, upset or angry, was there anyone who you could talk to about it?" Everyone one of them said no, that there was no one, that they learned to deal with it on their own. Sometimes parents were too busy, too stressed themselves, or just didn't know what to do with negative emotion (tried to cheer them up or talk them out of their negative feelings saying things like "cheer up" "suck it up" "brush it off" "quit making a big deal" "be thankful you aren't ..." etc, etc).

Interestingly, in the chapter on autoimmune disease, specifically rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis (the ones he mentions), there were studies done on the emotional state of the patients. There was found a high percentage of people who had an inhibition of anger and a high concern about the social acceptability of behaviors. They also scored high on "compliance, shyness, conscientiousness, religiosity and moralism." These traits combined with stress (internal or external) can lead to autoimmune disorders much more readily than those without.

He then has a chapter on cortisol, and he goes into asthma and eczema. How these are very much mind-body connections to stress. How an impaired HPA axis promotes inflammation, and thus asthma and eczema (and others). He tells of studies done with stressful situations, and the asthmatic children's responses to either their parent's voices or the voices of a stranger, and the children responded contrary to what they thought. The parent's voices increased abnormal breathing, while the stranger's did not. This indicated an emotional response likely due to past interactions and habits already formed. It was concluded that highly sensitive children pick up the emotional cues from their parents, and that these families often have enmeshment/codependency, overprotectiveness (controlling), rigidity and lack of conflict resolution skills in it. (Boundaries!) One word that was new to me here was differentiation. This is defined as "the ability to be in emotional contact with others yet still autonomous in one's own emotional functioning". A poorly differentiated person lacks emotional boundaries between himself and others, that prevents his thinking process from being overwhelmed by his emotional feeling process. He automatically absorbs others' feelings which creates anxiety within himself. A well differentiated person responds to their own emotions which are not tailored to suit other people's expectations. They neither suppress theirs nor act out on their own.

These habits become programmed into our cells at a molecular level, so healing them can be challenging. As in the "It Didn't Start With You" book, these are often generations old. They are the reactions of the stressors on our operating systems. Do we even recognize them? Do we magnify or minimize our potential threats? Do we believe we have to work to be loved? All these questions either keep us in defensive mode, or we can heal and be open to growth and health.

Some commonly held misperceptions are these~

I have to be strong (we don't want to be vulnerable because we fear rejection)
It's not right for me to be angry (we have learned that it isn't acceptable)
If I'm angry, I'm unlovable (people won't like me if I show anger)
I'm responsible for the whole world (it's my job to "make people happy")
I can handle anything (there's always more I can do to improve things)
I'm not wanted, I'm not lovable (unspoken words, but deeply felt for various reasons)
I don't exist unless I do something, I must justify my existence (a sense of emptiness when not busy)
I have to be very ill to deserve being taken care of (we don't deserve what others deserve, or what we will do for others)

Dr. Gabor Maté was born during the Holocaust to Jewish parents. If anyone understands what stress does to the body, his family did. His dad was put in a work camp, his grandparents were killed in Auschwitz when he was 5 months old, and he and his mother were alone living in a Budapest ghetto for the first year of his life. When he was an infant, he wouldn't stop crying and his mother finally took him to a doctor. The doctor just said, "all my Jewish babies are crying right now". The parent's stress becomes the children's. This is not to place blame, but to call it what it is as reality.

One important thing he notes about disease, is that the common terminology is to "fight it". You hear about "being a warrior" with cancer or whatever similar terminology is used. He disagrees with this. Disease is then viewed as a battle, which isn't helpful physiologically nor psychologically. Disease is a push-pull force of input and output, of your body trying to find balance and harmony and flow. Some of these things we can control, some we can't. But what disease isn't is a hostile force that we need to "kill" or "defeat". Instead it is a sign of disharmony inside ourselves, screaming for harmony. This includes our physical, emotional, and spiritual body. What might not be in balance? What is being ignored? Why is my body reacting this way? are better questions to ask. We have to muster up the strength to think negatively (accept reality).

Thinking positively only keeps us in denial (rose colored glasses?) For women with recurrent breast cancer, "Patients who reported little in the way of [psychological] stress...and who were rated by others as 'well-adjusted', were more likely to be dead at the one year follow-up." The more that people tune out their anxiety by "positive thoughts", denial or daydreaming; the longer that stress will act on them and the more damaging it will be. When one doesn't feel the heat, they are more likely to be burned. Many people are blocked from personal growth by the myth that they felt compelled to hold onto, of having "a happy childhood". A little negative thinking would empower them to see themselves stuck in self-harming behavior patterns to cling to the good and ignore the bad. When people start opening up about their childhood emotions, the "happy childhood" rarely stands. We all have had both, the happy and the unhappy parts. Owning them both is essential. The point of this (again!) is not to place blame, but to enable us to discard any beliefs that are dangerous to our health. Taking off the rose colored glasses helps us take responsibility for our own relationships. We actually can't place blame anymore, and we can examine all our relationships in the light of recognizing our emotional needs (to love and be loved, connection, etc) and to act with compassion and assertion in making those known. We must accept that we aren't as impenetrable or independent as we may have portrayed, or that our strong self-image is due to our fragility not our actual strength. We have to let go of the guilt of "not doing enough" and learning to say "no" (no more people pleasing). Allowing negative thinking also allows us to unflinchingly call things what they are. What is working and what is not. What is hurtful, what is helpful. And on and on.

Now on to healing...I'm just going to paste this off his actual website.

1) Acceptance is simply the willingness to recognize and accept how things are. It is the courage to permit “negative thinking” to inform our understanding, without allowing it to define our approach to the future. (this is not "doom and gloom", it's actually hope)

2) Awareness means that we regain our lost capacity to perceive emotional reality and that we are ready to let go of the paralyzing belief that we are not strong enough to face the truth about our lives. Awareness also means learning what the signs of stress are in our own bodies, how our bodies telegraph us when our minds have missed the cues.

3) Anger is a physiological process to be experienced. In addition, it has cognitive value – it provides essential information. Depending on circumstances, we may choose to manifest the anger, let go of it or simply contemplate what may have triggered it. The key is to not suppress the experience of anger. The repression of anger and the unregulated acting-out of it are both examples of the abnormal release of emotions that is at the root of disease. Both repression and rage represent a fear of the genuine experience of anger. When healthy anger is experienced, nothing overly dramatic happens. What does happen is a decrease of all muscle tension. (**What most people think of as anger is actually rage and/or anxiety from lack of expressing anger healthily)

4) Autonomy We experience life through our bodies. If we are not able to articulate our life experience, our bodies speak what our minds and mouths cannot. A personal boundary is an energetic experience of one’s self or the other person. We not only communicate boundaries verbally, but we have an energetic expression that is non-verbal. “Boundaries are invisible, the result of a conscious, internal felt sense defining who I am. Asking yourself, ‘In my life and relationships, what do I desire, want more of, or less of, or what don’t I want, what are my stated limits?’ begins the process…. In this self-definition, we define what we value and what in life at this particular time from a place of internal self-reference; the locus of control is from inside ourselves.” – Dr. Joann Peterson: Anger, Boundaries, and Safety.

Compassionate curiosity about the self, means that we look at ourselves with the same non-judgmental acceptance we would wish to accord anyone else who suffered and who needed help. Boundaries and autonomy are essential for health. Healthy anger leaves the individual (not the unbridled emotion) in charge. Autonomy is the development of that internal center of control.

5) Attachment is our connection with the world. Connection is also vital to healing. We sometimes find it easier to feel bitterness or rage than to allow ourselves to experience that aching desire for contact. Behind all our anger lies a deeply frustrated need for truly intimate contact. Healing both requires and implies regaining the vulnerability that made us shut down emotionally in the first place. We are no longer helpless dependent children; we no longer need to fear emotional vulnerability. We can permit ourselves to honour the universally reciprocal human need for connection and to challenge the ingrained belief that unconsciously burdens so many people with chronic illness: that we are not lovable.

6) Assertion. In our fear we falsely equate reality with tumult, being with activity, meaning with achievement. It is the statement of our being, a positive valuation of ourselves independent of our history, personality, abilities or the world’s perceptions of us. Assertion challenges the core belief that we must somehow justify our existence.

7) Affirmation When we affirm, we make a positive statement; we move toward something of value. Everyone has an urge to create, and we must honour this urge. To do so is healing for ourselves and for others; not to do so deadens our bodies and our spirits. The second great affirmation is of the universe itself – our connection with all that is. Health rests on three pillars: the body, the psyche/mind/emotions and the spiritual connection. To ignore any one of them is to invite imbalance and dis-ease. Seeking connections is a necessity for healing. Assertion is the declaration to ourselves and to the world that we are and that we are who we are.

If you prefer a shorter way of learning this all without reading the book, this YouTube lecture is excellent.

When the Body Says No -- Caring for ourselves while caring for others. Dr. Gabor Maté - YouTube

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Own Your Past, Change Your Future- book review

I'm finding that as I go along, just the right resource comes just as I need it. I feel like God is giving me answers as I'm ready for them. I have to say that as I read this book, the thought kept coming to me, "I wouldn't have been ready for this a year ago". I was still in a pretty deep muddle at this time last year, not really ready to do anything new or even have many new ideas thrown at me. Now I am. I also have a new counselor who is really challenging me, in a good way. Wouldn't have been ready for her last year either.

Just like our appliances or computers get old and outdated, sometimes our thought patterns do too, and need an update. So, here I am...ready to see what's next for changes on some days. Other days I just want everything "safe" (which is only a perception, never a reality!) and comfortable and like it used to be, but it can't be. Time changes things, relationships change, and we all change and grow. And we can't go back, we must move forward.

So, this book is all about that. Dr John Delony starts with "when things fall apart". Most of us come to a point (which is where this all started for me too!) where it felt like the wheels all fell off in life. How everything you thought was true really wasn't, death or loss took away someone you loved and there's no going back, or your health took a nosedive, or you lost your job or whatever. A time when life spiraled out of 'perceived' control and you didn't know what end was up. How the cracks in our armor, were actually a place to let the light shine in to our own darkness (even though we thought we were falling apart...and we were). How it was time to make some changes, whether we wanted to or not. It's all about our stories. The stories we live each day matter. They can either weigh us down, or we can choose to heal and undo the burden that gets so heavy.

He starts by saying that we have to be honest about our stories about our lives. There are several types, and they all matter and we have to sort them out. I feel like I've done some of this work already, but am not finished yet, for sure. Our stories are a tangled web of what could have been, what was in the past, what is now, and what might be yet to come. We meet at the intersection of the pain up until now, and the rest of our lives. Our stories become our identity, and it filters how we see, feel, hear and act to the world around us. They tell us the good from the bad. They can lift us up or bury us down. It's the stories that drag pain from the past into the present, and keep us trapped in toxic patterns and behaviors. We have thoughts in our heads and we believe they are true. We are told our worth by others and we believe it. We have to first own our stories before we can move forward. As a society we tend to spend much of our energy on blaming, casting judgement and hoping everyone else will change. "If only they would stop..." "If they would repent..." "If they would just..." The hardest thing is to look in the mirror and ask ourself, "what do I need to do to heal?"

So there are 4 types of stories we need to pay attention to~

The stories we were born into- cultural, political, church/faith history, family identities and traditions
The stories others tell us- our worth, value, and ability. Told to us by our parents, teachers, friends and enemies, institutions
The stories that actually happen- we got fired, she said yes, someone died, someone else got the job, etc
The stories we tell ourselves- the ones about identity and who we are. The judgements we cast on ourselves

In stories about the world we live in, he goes into a few lies we've been told in our generation.

Technology and innovation will save us (we have a relentless stream of negative news of everywhere in the world on radio, TV, internet; yet we aren't even getting out in our own communities, we can watch a funeral online yet try to grieve totally alone (this is disconnect at it's deepest level, and has never been done before in the history of the world).
Debt will save us (this also is a new idea from the past 100 years; before WW2, debt was a rarity, almost unheard of. Now debt is normal, and the weight is crushing everyone).
I can save myself (we don't need others, we can take care of ourselves)

Yet, we're the loneliest people due to the lack of connections. He says how everyone he runs into is lonely. The rich and the poor, the old and the young, the learned and the unlearned, the extroverts and the introverts, the married people and the singles, the busy people who love their work and the retired people with not enough to keep busy. They are all lonely. We think artificial connections are enough (text, phone, computer), yet we are starving for real connection. For people to hug us, look into our eyes, to laugh so hard together that your drink comes out your nose, for someone to rely on to help you move, or to sit with you in the hospital and be silent with you in your pain. When was the last time you fully relied on someone? Or they relied on you? Or were fully vulnerable with someone, or them with you? That's the kind of loneliness he's talking about. He further explains how communication is not connection. Communication is a transfer of information. Connection is mutual weight-bearing of one another's burdens, and celebrating of one another's joys. We are starving for connection anymore, with hordes of communication, thinking they are one and the same.

He goes into the parts of the problem, which I won't here, but one thing was about how the view of children has changed over time. How now many parents' view of success is how well their children turn out. Parents show their worth to the world with how much we have it together in the parenting game. Our children became our trophies. Instead of children being our means of survival since time immortal, our children have now become our identity. How they do (as a reflection of our parenting) becomes more important than who they are. He explains how children should not have to carry the weight of our hopes and dreams, and they certainly are not strong enough to carry our self-esteem, frustrations and failures. It's also common now to want our children to be our closest peer relationships, and this is unfair too. We have thus given our kids permission to hurt our feelings, break our hearts, and we want so badly for our children to like us because we can't handle rejection. What a sorry state of affairs.

In the chapter on stories we tell ourselves, he goes into how most of us think we are smarter than average. And more honest than average (even prisoners in jail when interviewed each see themselves not quite as bad as the next guy!) So, when we tell ourselves stories, we hear a voice that we trust and that is our own. We sound pretty powerful and compelling. We have our own thoughts and feelings and we assume we are right. We feel like we are telling ourselves the truth. When we don't believe ourselves good at something, we believe those thoughts too. We craft tales about ourselves and our surroundings that helps us keep up the illusion of stability, even when we're not safe and not doing what we should be doing. We attach blame, casuality and power to these stories, and then we repeat them to ourselves over and over. We become the star and the villain in our own show. The key point here is that the stories we tell ourselves are often our way of making sense of someone else's issues by inserting ourselves as the main character. Things we might say are:

I'm not good at tests
I shouldn't have opened myself up to ....
I have [anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD, some other diagnosis]
I'm from a long line of non-sleepers
I'm too fat
I don't have a drinking problem
Etc, ad nauseum

After we've told ourselves these things long enough, we start to believe them and they become facts in our heads instead of just random thoughts. We go about our days silently repeating either how great or horrible we are, what we should or shouldn't be doing and then responding as such. We constantly look for proof in the world and when we find it, we start the cycle all over again. And then we wonder why we're exhausted and overwhelmed. We tend to overexaggerate who we are in ability (I can't do that), belonging (we point out differences as an excuse for not seeking belonging in a group) and time (I'm too old (or too young) to pursue...)), or we underestimate our value in regards to these things. He says how our tendency is always to pull out the negative stories, and downplay the positive ones. We spend much of our time scanning the world for threats, bad news, hurtfulness, failure and this all chains us down with heavy burdens. Negative stories always focus on the worst of the worst. They tell us lies about ourselves, and we believe them. They have power. The power to drag us down, or the power to heal. He encourages us to write these all down. What stories come to our minds each day, and how we know they are true (would this be verified by a witness that was present?), and how they affect our outlook on the world.

The next chapter is how our stories are also the solution. Each of us is responsible for healing our own "bag of bricks". The things that weigh us down. The traumas (big and small), the hard things that happened to you, the cultural things you faced (church, school, community), the grief from it...all the stories. They add up like bricks in a backpack that we carry around each and every day. This process is humbling and heartbreaking, but it's also brave and loving towards yourself. Dealing with your "bricks" is a gift to your children, your church, your community and it spreads from there. Trauma is the big one that most of us don't want to deal with. It's the events that at the time overwhelmed our nervous system. It can be one big event, or many small ones. It's not the event itself, but how we grow to perceive the event(s) that matters. Trauma undealt with is cumulative. It's the main weight of bricks. It explains why stories about the past explains why people are frightened, angry and out of control. Trauma is reexperienced in the present, not as the original story, but as bodily reactions, like pounding heart, nausea, gut-wrenching sensations and body movements such as collapse, rigidity and rage. They change our genes, are in our blood, in our hormones and in our neurochemistry. He goes into more of the science of it, but the basics are the flight (run away), fight (attack), freeze (shut down) or fawn (learn to please to keep the "threat" happy) responses to stress. It's how we automatically respond to what our bodies sense as threat that keeps us vigilant and alert all the time. There's also secondary trauma, which is what EMS workers, military, police, social workers, etc deal with. The aftermath of stress. Debt or financial insecurity actually causes these same kinds of stress also. All of them overwhelm the circuits, and are in the deepest parts of our bodies. These are the bricks we carry. This is what causes us to startle easily, react irritably to small provocations and sleep poorly. Trauma disconnects us from other people and poisons relationships. How can we freely love and be loved with all this stuff lurking in the background? It destroys "our positive sense of self, and the meaningful of order of creation". We can't look to the future because we are so busy putting out fires of today. Our heart is cloaked in guilt, regret and shame that comes along with most traumas. We spend our time preparing for the next attack, whatever that might be. All of this might sound like woo-woo (his words not mine), but when we look back on the last 100-200 years, we can see the amount of changes, death and disaster that our previous generations have faced. It's all dumped down on us, adding to the accumulation that we face ourselves.

After all that doom and gloom, let's look at solutions. We get to choose which bricks we want to carry and which ones we want to let go of. We can try to keep editing the stories of the past so that the bad things didn't happen, or we can choose to (1) own our stories and go forward from where we are. We have to be honest with ourselves first, and this may be the hardest step yet. Most of us don't want to feel our pain. We didn't even realize that our anxiety, depression, ADHD, borderline personality disorder or other diagnoses (his list) are actually our body's responses to the bricks we carry. The energy is instead spent forseeing problems in the future. He says the reason we build up these grandiose mental pictures is to avoid the pain of when it happened. We must be willing to face this pain and grieve it. This is step (2) acknowledge reality. We have to look at life as it is, instead of how we wish it was. Radically admit where the line is between where you wish things were, and where they actually are. From the parent/spouse you want to be, the financial situation you wish you were in, the relationships you want, the health you desire, etc. The difference in between these needs to be grieved. Grief is the difference between what you expected or hoped, and what actually happened. Write them all down in a journal. (Writing them down is the hardest, because then they become real not just imagined, but this makes it easier to own them).

No one likes to talk about grief. Grief is the pain and hollowness when someone dies. It's the inability to breathe when you hear bad news. It's the numbness when you felt abuse, or the feelings of betrayal. Grief is also the denial of losing your job, or another pending reality. Grieving is filling the gap to experience the truth. We can be put there by tragedy, or we can go there willingly on our own. We do have to acknowledge reality, and we can't run away from it. We often try to minimize it by comparing ourselves to others, or by trying to be thankful for what we do have. This doesn't work, by the way. We also try to weaponize other people's grief by making them feel like they deserve it somehow or another. We minimize it by telling people to "get over it" or "suck it up" or whatever it is we try to do to avoid our own pain or someone else's. We've got to stop. Stop it all. Quit comparing grief or hurt, or judging it with our own experiences. It's all subjective and irrelevant. Hard is hard, sadness is sadness, hurt is hurt. Every human being has the right to mourn the gap between what we had hoped for and what is reality. This is the place where we can finally heal. (Often our self is our own worst enemy here). We have to acknowledge the loss is real with our mind, and then our body accepts it. Otherwise it just keeps on building up inside of us. We would like to pretend that grief is optional, but it isn't. Grief is normal, healthy, good and is the beginning of healing our wounds. No one else gets to decide this for us either, by the way.

How to help someone grieve~

He goes into how to grieve, and this is good too. Most of us don't really know.

Grief demands a witness. For better or worse, grieving is social and external. You cannot grieve alone. And yes, when we're hurting people will give us stupid advice, quote pithy sayings or blame us or God. We have to ignore all that and get it out. It's about being known and heard in our pain. We also need them to help us too- mow our lawn, bring meals, clean our kitchens.
Grieving demands clarity. This is most helpful if we can write it down. Writing is cathartic, clarifying and powerful. It could be a journal, letters to the one you've lost (either sent or unsent), a friend, whatever. As we write, our thoughts will clarify. It creates distance and perspective.
Grieving involves honoring your body. Eat well, sleep as well as you can, get some exercise and do a hobby if possible.
Remember that grief won't kill you. It's like big ocean currents washing over you, but as you heal, the waves get smaller. Once in a while a big one comes again, but keep treading water. You'll be able to smile and laugh again as you heal.
Disregard any thoughts of "getting back to normal". There is no more normal, there's only a new normal. Something was lost, so something has to take it's place. We are not in before, we are in after. After means we can't go back.

Grieving ultimately acknowledges owning, learning and practicing remembrance that everything is different now. It's time to start writing new stories in your life. New and different ones.

This below infographic applies to all of us, not just husbands. When you see someone in pain...

The next section is on (3) getting connected. A.k.a. making friends. Friends are people in your life that you see in real time, who are there for you (and you for them) when life gets tough or weird. Friends aren't disposable, and they are human so they make mistakes, and ask for forgiveness (and you forgive them). Friends say "I'm sorry" when they are wrong, and move forward together. Friends aren't returns on investment, or about getting ahead. They don't try to outperform each other, but they love you for your individual-ness and brokenness. If you have to "put it on" to be with someone, they aren't your friends. Friends are authentic to the core. These are not acquaintances, this is your closest circle. They are people who challenge you, hold you accountable and even argue with (in a healthy way) because they are worth engaging with. Friendship also isn't caretaking nor codependency. Those who constantly ask for more are not your friends, and a friend is also not someone who you need to fix or help so that you can have self-esteem. It's equal giving and receiving. It's something you are and something you do. Most importantly, friendship is a skill to be learned. We can always practice it, and we can always get better. We can learn to open up and be more vulnerable, we can learn to listen better, we can also learn when it's time to let an old friendship flame out and seek new ones instead of heading into resentment. Here's a few questions to see if someone is your true friend~

Can you tell them the good things? Do we have to hide our good things because someone else might feel bad? Will they tell you the dark cloud side of whatever you're excited about? Will they one-up you with their story?
Can you tell them bad things? Can you tell them when you've messed up big time? Do they listen to you and challenge you and hold you accountable, or do they degrade you and share your juicy flop as gossip down the line?
Can you tell them about the darkness? Those hard things in your life that are weighing you down? What really happened, not just the surfacy details. Can you talk about the trauma, so that you can heal for good? Can you lovingly call them out when they hurt you? A friend is someone who you can tell your deep hurts to and they will listen and not load you up with dumb advice, but check in with you again so you can talk some more.
Will they show up? Can you call them in the middle of the night? Would you show up for them, whenever and however they needed you to?

He says we hopefully have 1 friend like this, and hopefully 2 or 3 would make us extremely blessed. If not, you know what you need to do! And remember, all relationships are a risk. Friendship is a 2 sided skill. We can all learn and grow, no matter how old we are.

How to make friends?

Decide it's a priority and that you're going to do it.
Look for shared experiences.
Go first and extend hospitality, however you can. Meet for coffee, invite someone over, meet at a park or event. Just start asking people. Yes, it's possible people will say no, but it's also possible that they'll say yes. Go first, don't wait for someone else to do it.
Say yes to invitations and adventures. Say yes as often as your life will allow. Stop hiding at home, stand up and get on with it, whatever it is. Say yes to adventure!
Get out of your house and go where other people are. Sounds simple, much harder to do, oh the excuses we can make up!
Find people to serve. Serve your community, your church, wherever. Use your skills and talents to serve others.

Then keep showing up, invest in people, prioritize people and you'll get connected to people. This infographic can apply to us all too, not just our kids~

Next we have to (4) change our thoughts. First of all, who do we let hurt our feelings? Everyone? Only those whose opinion we value should be allowed to. Start asking what happens if everyone can hurt our feelings. This is a boundary issue. We live for everyone, and we can't please everyone. We need to recognize who can and who can't hurt our feelings. He has you create a list of people who can and who can't. Our children shouldn't be able to, our parents and in-laws shouldn't (because we are living our life not theirs), our extended relationships (acquaintances) shouldn't as they don't carry much weight either. The only people left on our list should be our spouse, and a few close friends who we trust their opinion and we know they love us enough to tell us the truth (lovingly, and because they love us). Doing this unloads a heavy burden of how we spend our thoughts each day. Are we at the mercy of pleasing everyone? Or are we confident in who we are and can live each day in that, trusting that our closest people will tell us the truth and hold us accountable as needed. Or do we live each day predicting the worst-case scenarios, focusing on my pessimistic outlook and having all kinds of imaginary conversations in my mind? Are we in control of our thoughts, or not? (side note: Nat Mur homeopathic remedy is great for expediting this).

We all have dealt with voices in our heads, never stopping the chatter. We constantly approve (or disapprove), justify and judge. If we had to listen to someone else talking like this, we'd end it pretty quickly. But it's in our heads, and it's on repeat all day, every day. We can choose to speak life into our thoughts, or negativity. Most of us have done it so long, we don't know anything else is possible. We don't realize that we decide what we think. When we have a thought do we judge it, or get curious about it? When we judge it, we give it value. When we get curious about it, we can breeze on by it and replace it with something real. Yes, real. Just because we have thoughts, doesn't mean they are real or true. They are real in that they exist, but they aren't necessarily true. They can signal us to relax or to get hyped up. They run on autopilot until we take charge of them. Our stories are also thoughts, and we can rehash them over and over, reexperiencing the pain in an attempt to protect ourselves. But this is false. Rumination is an utter waste of our time.

We also need to be intentional about what's coming into our brains. Is it fearful doom and gloom? Or is it life giving? It's not about ignoring reality, but we should be getting our information in real time with real people. Looking for beauty in all of life is a good way to keep our focus in a good direction. We also need to be intentional about our thoughts. It's going to take effort. It's really hard on the head, when you first start at it, because most of us are changing decades of bad habits. Guarding our thoughts can be exhausting to start with too, but is a good thing over time. This is also hard because our thoughts have become our identity, and changing that means changing our identity, and some of us want to stay the victim, and want to hold back forgiveness and still blame. Owning our thoughts doesn't let those excuses fly anymore. If you think of your mind like a garden, whatever you water, that's what will grow. Writing down our thoughts here is helpful too. Calling them what they are in your mind. This is hard though, because then we have to own them! Once we've done that, we should listen to our body when we have those thoughts and feelings. Are they feelings of calm or feelings of anxiety? Do I want to numb them or be at peace with them? Do I have evidence for them? Are they actually true? When they are down on paper, we can regain control, and sort the truth from the lies. If we want to keep them in our head and not do anything about it, then we are choosing to keep carrying the bricks and choosing to be miserable about them each day. The next step is forgiveness. Forgiving yourself for past wrongs (either done in ignorance or willfully). Forgiveness for those who've wronged you is next. Forgiveness frees us from resentment and bitterness, and keeps us from rehashing painful experiences over and over and over. We "wash it away in the sea of grace, never to be remembered anymore". We have peace instead of pain. This is also intentional. Forgiveness doesn't just happen over time (resentment and bitterness do though). We have to want it, and we have to actively pursue it, sometimes 70x7 times. It's a thought and an action. And especially if we want to hold onto the hurt feelings, we aren't going to feel forgiven or like forgiving, so this means we're still carrying those bricks. Then we live in joy again, after we've done these things.

(5) Change your actions. We first of all have to stop making excuses and take inventory of your actions each day.

How do you treat your body? Do you take care of it?
How do you treat your friends, family, community? Do you make time for friendship, and connection?
How is your work? Is it meaningful? Do you work hard? How are you learning and growing?
How do you treat your faith community? Do you gather regularly with believers? Do you pray, read Scripture or are you in a season of doubt?
How is your home? Is it a wreck or an obsessively clean wreck? (both extremes aren't good!) Do you know where things are when you need them?
How do you treat others? With dignity, respect, care? Do you treat others kindly? Do you owe people money, or they owe you money? Do you have any abusive relationships?

Don't overthink, just jot them down and see how your daily actions might add up to your identity. Is this who you want to be? Your identity is a sum of your actions each day. Do we want to change our identity? Instead of focusing on what we want to achieve, we should focus on who we want to become. If we yell too much, instead of trying to stop yelling, we need to want to become a person who treats everyone kindly and with respect. It's just a small mindset change, but is crucial in our success in changing our identity. If we are routinely anxious, and we want to change, we need to see ourselves as a calm person who people can rely on to be calm when they come to us. Our thoughts will change over time, to be more calm, and then we can take actions to work on whatever is causing our anxiety (which is most often lack of control when we wish we had control in some area). Have people hold you accountable for these things is helpful too. We will meet with resisitance within ourself as we try to learn new patterns. We live in a society of excuses, indecision and whining. One quote he writes is "If you have to talk to more than 3 people about the same problem, then you don't want help you want attention." Stop the excuses, stop the whining, stop the blaming, stop. Get some help and start finding solutions.

To end with, he tells us how we can get stuck between hope and truth. How we want life to be and how it really is. Being whole and well doesn't mean our life will be trouble free. It means we adapt as we go. We grieve as we need to. We put down our bricks when we can, but we also realize that our bricks helped us learn valuable lessons too, that shaped us into who we are today. We can remember all those bricks with peace, and they won't weigh us down anymore.

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Boundaries, Changes that Heal- Book Review

I finally read the Boundaries book as promised, and I wasn't too impressed. I found that it was rather vague, at the end I still didn't have a very good grasp on what they are, the purpose of them, how to know if we have them or not, and how we establish them with ourselves and with others in a loving and healthy way. I did learn these are the effects of poor boundaries though (he explains them better in the book).

-depression (lack of them allows us to be treated poorly resulting in resentment and hurts)

-panic/anxiety (due to lack of perceived control over our lives)

-resentment/martyr syndrome (doing things out of obligation from others)

-passive-aggressiveness (same as last one)

-codependency (taking on responsibility for the behaviors of other adults, this can also sometimes include enabling sin and evil)

-identity confusion (we don't know what is our responsibility and what is someone else's, what a heavy burden)

-difficulties in being alone (they have no identity of their own, so cannot hold love and need constant reassurance and love from others, the cup is never filled though)

-masochism (cannot set limits on abuse of themselves or others, think they don't deserve it)

-over-responsibility and guilt (feel responsible for others safety, well-being and happiness, cannot ever do enough to meet those needs though)

-under-responsibility (those who are keeping track of others so much often neglect the needs in their own lives)

-feelings of obligation (same as last ones) 1 Cor 9:7

-victim mentality (life happens TO them, and they had no choice or responsibility in it)

-blaming (goes along with victimhood. Takes no responsibility for their own feelings, action or behaviors, they all must be blamed on someone else)

-feelings of being let down (since they spend so much time taking care of others, they feel others should do the same for them)

-isolation (due to lack of boundaries, there comes distorted thinking and a lack of freedom, so relationships are eliminated to avoid potential conflict so they never have to feel controlled or invaded, they choose isolation instead of healthy boundaries)

-extreme dependency (they have never felt a feeling of owning their own life so often fuse their life with someone else to avoid ownership. They are very fearful of separateness)

-disorganization and lack of direction (they often cannot choose goals, likes and dislikes, they lack direction and purpose)

-substance abuse and eating disorders (feel out of control in their lives so use substances to dull their pain and make a few of their own choices)

-obsessive-compulsive behaviors (people turn their lack of control about life against themselves, since they can't control others. Learning healthy boundaries helps to fix this)

-procrastination (this is from not being able to say no, the parable of the two sons in Matt 21 explains further)

-impulsivity (lacking internal structure, they are unable to say no to impulses and urges, cannot be honest with themselves)

-generalized anxiety (again, no internal structure to feel safe, so always feel anxious)

Here's a few questions to ask you about your boundaries with others. Do you tend to do the first question in each, or the second? I'm guilty of the first most my life, unfortunately. Slowly learning!

It can also lead to high functioning anxiety, which looks pretty good from the outside~

In that book though, he mentioned another book he has written called Changes that Heal that I already had sitting on my shelf, and so, after reading this one the pieces have started to come together.

He starts out by listing the 4 things we need to learn to grow up to be an adult. Often (for various reasons) we neglect to learn some or all of these things. It sounds pretty simple summed up here, but when you read the book you can see how complex these processes are in light of God's Word and our exposure to the world (our family, our schools, our churches, our friends, etc). He first goes into learning proper distinctions and definitions of the words grace and truth, and how time (to learn and grow) plays into it all.

Bond with others – To connect in a meaningful way with other humans
Separate from others – Learn when and how to be apart from others
Sort out issues of good and bad – Identify what is good for us and bad for us
Take charge as an adult – Be in peer relationships where you have to take responsibility appropriately

Sometimes the biggest challenge to working on an issue is getting past the defenses. Some of the defenses that we have against seeing our own limitations are so powerful that they deny reality. They prevent us from realizing that we’re using defenses. It becomes our greatest challenge to see ourselves with integrated self-images – to recognize ourselves for both our good and our bad qualities. Here’s a list of common defenses that we all use:

Denial – We simply deny that we have any problems. We’re focused completely on the fact that we’re without fault – or at least this fault.
Devaluation – Yes but… The love and connection that is offered to me is devalued so that it doesn’t count. The emotional isolation I’m experiencing isn’t my fault because the connections that are being offered to me aren’t valuable.
Projection – This is the act of taking your feeling and ascribing it to someone else because you don’t want to own it. “I’m not angry; you’re angry – and it’s making me angry.”
Reaction Formation – This is saying that I’m the opposite of what I’m really feeling. Instead of saying I feel sad I say that I feel happy.
Mania – I’m hyperactive but disorganized.
Idealization – I visualize myself as perfect. I believe that it’s impossible to have a fault because I’m perfect. (we'd never admit this of course!)

By contrast, here are the things you do when you’re moving into the wound and the process of healing:

Realize the Need – I accept that I have a need be bonded and attached to others.
Move Towards Others – I recognize that I have to move towards others – not expect they will always move towards me.
Be Vulnerable – I must be vulnerable to get close to others. If I live behind impenetrable walls no one will ever be able to get close.
Challenge Distorted Thinking – I recognize that my perception is distorted and that some thoughts and feelings distort it further.
Allow Dependent Feelings – I have to allow a level of attachment to another person to be connected to them. I must care about them.
Become Comfortable with Anger – Anger is disappointment directed. I can use anger as a tool to better understand my relationship to others.
Be Empathetic – I need to share (or mirror) others’ thoughts, feelings, and emotions to truly connect with them.
Rely on the Holy Spirit – I have insufficient power on my own, but through the Holy Spirit I can.
Say Yes to Life – I must internalize that to be fully alive is to be connected with God and others.

10 Skills for Becoming an Adult

Reevaluate Beliefs – I reevaluate my beliefs based on what I know. Humans are lousy at reprocessing what we know when our awareness and values change.
Respectful Disagreement with Authority Figures – I acknowledge and accept my disagreements with authority figures – and choose healthy ways of dealing with them.
Make Your Own Decisions – I don’t allow others to make decisions for me – I own my own life.
Practice Disagreeing – I need to accept that disagreeing with others is natural and healthy.
Deal with Your Sexuality – “‘Children don’t talk about sex’, but adults can. Stop whispering!”
Recognize and Pursue Talents – I will practice the skills that I’ve been given – with acceptance that failure is a pathway to growth.
Discipline Yourself – I will be responsible for my own discipline.
Gain Authority Over Evil – I have the ability to resist evil and temptation.
Submit to Others out of Freedom – I will submit to others out of love and respect for them.
Appreciate Mystery and the Unknown – I recognize that I’ll never know everything. I’ll accept that there are things that I cannot know.

Here's a review below by someone else that sums it up a bit differently, I'm just going to copy and paste. Lots to ponder!

Source: Summary: Changes That Heal By Henry Cloud (waiyancan.com)

Changing in Him

In the course of Henry Cloud’s own spiritual and professional journey, he has identified four aspects of the personality of God that, if we would cultivate them, would greatly improve our day-to-day functioning. God is able to do four things that we, his children, have difficulty doing:

1. Bond with others.

2. Separate from others.

3. Sort out issues of good and bad.

4. Take charge as an adult.

Without the ability to perform these basic functions, we can literally remain stuck for years, and growth and change can elude our grasp. In this blog I will explain these four developmental tasks, the barriers that get in the way of our achieving them, and the skills we need for completing them.

Pillar #1 Learning to Bond

Having good emotional connections is as natural as a plant taking in water. But we are not plants living in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, we require some serious gardening in order to bear fruit. The fig tree gardener planned to “dig around and fertilize” the tree that wasn’t bearing any fruit for a year to help it bear fruit.

Making human connections when you grew up without them takes a good dose of grace, truth, and time. Here are some skills that will start you on the long road to making changes that heal.

Realize the need

You may not realize that your problems now stem from a lack of bonding and attachment. Perhaps you grew up in a family where closeness was not valued, or were injured to the point where you have forgotten how to bond. Thus, the first thing you need to do is to realize how much you need attachment.

Move toward others

This is wonderful when others move toward you and seek out your heart, for that is what God does. Often, though, others cannot see what you need and how emotionally isolated you really are.

Be vulnerable

Being vulnerable at a social level may be too threatening at first. Maybe you need to start with a pastor, counselor, or support group. But vulnerability is a skill that opens up the heart for love to take root. When you can admit that you need support and help, and can reveal your hurt and isolation, a dynamic is set into motion that can literally transform your personality and life.

Challenge distorted thinking

If you don’t, for example, challenge the belief that “all people will leave me,” you will never form an abiding attachment, and you will re-create the isolation of your past. The Lord has promised to reveal the truth to you. Ask him to show you your particular distortions.

Take risks

To learn new relational skills and the way of attachment, take risks.

Allow dependent feelings

Whenever you begin to allow someone to matter to your isolated heart, uncomfortable needy and dependent feelings will surface. These are the beginnings of a softening heart. Though uncomfortable, these feelings are a key to attachment.

Be empathetic

Empathy is the ability to share in another’s emotions, thoughts, or feelings. Empathizing with others’ needs, identifying with their hurt, softens your own heart.

Pillar #2 Learning to Set Boundaries

Stephen was burned out and on the verge of losing his job because he could never say no to people’s requests for help. Sandy was unhappy and out of control of her life because she couldn’t say no to her mother. Jane suffered panic attacks because she couldn’t say no to her husband’s drinking. Jim was unhappy because he could never say no to his wife’s requests to work around the house.

Let’s look at some of the skills necessary for setting boundaries and learning to say no when someone tries to cross those boundaries.

Gain awareness

Since setting boundaries is merely taking ownership of what is yours, your first step is gaining awareness of who you are. Become aware of your body, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, abilities, choices, wants, and limits. Take inventory of where you have come from, where you are now, and where you are going.

Define who you are

Just as God defines Himself, you need to assert yourself. Begin to say what you feel, what you like, what you want, what you will do, and what you think. Carve out an identity and say, “This is who I am.”

Define who you are not

You must also say who you are not. Say what is “not you,” as well as what is you. Say what you don’t agree with, don’t like, won’t do, and so on. People with boundary problems often do not stand against anything. They take everything in. This is very destructive. In Proverbs 6, God calls us to stand against and hate some things.

Develop the “no” muscle

A child learns to set boundaries by saying no. Many of us have eliminated this word from our vocabulary, and we need to rediscover it. Strengthen your no muscle. Begin with little exercises, such as saying no to dining at a certain restaurant that you don’t want to go to, and work your way up to more demanding ones. Learning to say no is probably the most important and difficult task in creating boundaries, especially saying no to parents.

Stop blaming others

Taking responsibility for your own pain and not blaming others is a major move out of bondage and into health. Stop blaming others for your trouble, and deal with it. This does not mean that others did not cause it; it just means that you have to deal with it. Blaming others is a dead-end street.

Stop playing victim

As an adult, you have choices. Begin to take responsibility for those choices and own them. If you are giving something, you are making a choice to give and you need to stop acting as if someone is making you give. As an adult, you are choosing. If you are working somewhere that you don’t like, take responsibility for finding something else. If you are being criticized over and over by a friend, take responsibility to set up a meeting with him or her. You are responsible for what you choose to do. Taking this responsibility will change your life.

Persevere

God commands us to persevere, or to continue on in spite of difficulty or opposition. "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds". (Heb. 12:1–3).

Be honest

Be honest with others. Many people will not be honest because they fear loss of intimacy and togetherness. In reality, honesty brings people closer together, for it will strengthen their identities. The more you realize your separate identities, the closer you can become. Telling loved ones what is really on your mind, and telling others what you really think, is the foundation of love.

Pillar #3 Learning to Accept Both Good and Bad

Growth does not come without effort. Many skills must be learned and practiced in order to resolve issues of the good and the bad. Here are some.

Pray

Besides confessing your sins, ask God to make you aware of things you may be ignoring. David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:23–24).

Ask God to shine his light into your soul and reveal anything that you are unaware of. Then ask his forgiveness for it and confess it to other trusted Christian(s) as necessary.

Rework the ideal

Much of the content of our ideal self is false; it is not what an ideal person would be. Check out what needs to be eliminated from your picture of what an ideal you would be. You may need to delete some ideals that come from your family or the culture, instead of from God.

Rework distortions

Challenge your distorted views of God, yourself, and others. These strongly held beliefs don’t give way easily, but in new relationships, you can unlearn them. Study the Scriptures to see what they say about our ideal, our reality, and what God and salvation are really like.

Monitor the relationship between the ideal and the real

Listen to the way you respond to the less than ideal. Do you deny it? Do you deny the good? Do you attack and judge? Do you accept and forgive? Many people are stunned to find out how much they attack themselves and others.

Practice loving the less than ideal in others

Learning to accept badness and weakness in others brings healing in the split of the good and bad. Stay connected to others when they are less than ideal, and you will begin to value real relationship and stop demanding idealism. In this way, attachment increases, and your ability to love grows. The less than ideal begins to matter more than the ideal because you have a real relationship.

Do not discard others when they are less than perfect

If you have had trouble with going from friend to friend, spouse to spouse, church to church, because you find some little flaw and make them all bad, work on staying in connection and working out the problem. Actively see the good as well as the bad, and love the whole person. Make reality your friend instead of your enemy.

Process and value negative feelings

When you are committed to reality, to both the good and the bad, you will begin to see negative feelings as a part of life. If you fear them less, you can then process them as they arise and avoid all the problems listed in the last chapter. Most problems with negative feelings come from a fear about them. They really are not as bad as you fear they are. Negative feelings will not kill you, but avoiding them may.

Expect badness and weakness from everyone

I’m not suggesting you turn into a pessimist. I’m saying, “Be a realist.” Everyone you know, including yourself, has good and bad, strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, expect to see them in action. When the faults come, embrace them and love them so that you can overcome your splitting of good and bad as well as feel closer to others.

Pillar #4 Learning to Become Mature Adults

Learning to become an adult is not an easy task. Perhaps becoming an adult while you’re already living in an adult body is even harder. But it is a necessary step to take to get out from under the authority of others.

Here are some of the skills you will need to become your own master under God, to become a mature adult.

Reevaluate beliefs

We need to reevaluate what we believe. The time is past for “inherited beliefs”; it is time for an adult faith. We need to look into why we think what we think and why we believe what we believe. Is it because we really believe it, or because someone told us to believe it? We need to recognize what is a belief of “tradition” versus what is a real heartfelt conviction from God, his Word, and our own experience. This questioning period could last awhile. But, when we are through, we will have developed a mind of our own.

Disagree with authority figures

Be honest about your disagreements with others. Most people have disagreements with authority figures, but they are afraid to admit to themselves how strongly they disagree. And they are afraid to voice their disagreements. If you are in a group where you are not free to have a different opinion on gray issues, be careful. Your group may have cult-like qualities.

See parents and authority figures realistically

Knock parents and other authority figures off the pedestal you’ve put them on. See their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Look at the ways you disagree with what they believe and think. Since no two people agree on everything, search your life for anyone with whom you agree on everything, or who you think has it all together. You may be either unaware of how you disagree, or you may be a flatterer.

Make your own decisions

If people in your life are telling you what to think, believe, do, or buy, start making those decisions yourself. You are an adult; learn to think and act for yourself. Who cares if someone disapproves of the purchase you make? It’s your money, and how you spend it is between you and God.

Deal with your sexuality

If you are prudish or embarrassed by sex, your parents may still be looking down their nose at your sexuality, or at least that’s the way you are perceiving it. Work on reeducating yourself about the beauty of sex; desensitize yourself to the “no-no” attitude you have toward it. If you feel ashamed, you may still be in a preadolescent stage regarding sex.

Recognize and pursue talents

To become an adult requires that you own and recognize the talents and gifts God has given you. You may be aware of some area that you are gifted in, and God has been telling you to develop it in some way, but you have been burying that talent in the ground.

Practice

This is important to develop whatever skill and expertise you are considering. You can’t learn to be an authority and have expertise in an area if you don’t have the freedom to practice and learn. Give yourself permission to fail.

Appreciate mystery and the unknown

One of the hallmarks of people with authority problems is their inability to tolerate mystery and the unknown. They need an answer for everything, and everything has to be wrapped up in neat little packages. Jesus kept trying to shake the Pharisees out of this rigidity.

In many ways God is “unsearchable” (Rom. 11:33–34). He is so awesome that the more we know him, the more we realize we don’t know. This is where worship begins. It is his very transcendence that we worship. Begin to appreciate the things that you cannot figure out about Him, and let them be. This is why we call him “God.” If you can know everything about him, then he is no longer God; you are. This is the most serious authority problem of all.

Worship his mystery. Get out of the black-and-white “we-have-all-the-answers” mentality that keeps God in a box. He is much greater than that.

Symptoms of Failing to Become an Adult

(which are each explained in depth in the book)

Inordinate need for approval
Fear of disapproval
Guilt
Sexual struggles
Fear of failure
Need for permission
"You can't do that" syndrome
Feelings of inferiority
Competitiveness
Loss of power
No equal differences
Black-and-white thinking
Judgementalism
Anxiety attacks
Impulsiveness and Inhibition
Superiority
Parenting other adults
Hate/fear of authority figures
Depression
Dependency
Idealization of authority
Idealization of childhood

A few more thoughts~

Many of us have a problem confessing our sins to others. We think it will show weakness or that people will judge us as less than perfect (above reproach!) We want to be a "good witness" or a "good example", but truthfully the root of all of this is pride and self-righteousness. A good witness would be one who witnesses how forgiving God is, not how perfect we are (this is often by our actions, not necessarily our words would say this). He who is forgiven much, loveth much. (Luke 7:47) We need to seek forgiveness in specifics, not generalities too, as this is easy to do. It's much easier to confess light things like generalized anger, impatience, etc rather than the deepest darkest parts of our souls which become a cancer to our bodies, later coming out in psychological and physical problems instead.
We need to recognize as adults that in Christ there are no step-up or step-down relationships. We are all sinners in need of salvation, we are all level at the foot of the cross. We are all easily led astray by the devil, the world and our own flesh, and we all need admonishment and encouragement from the body of believers (regular fellowship). None of us are exempt from this, and none of us are above anyone else in the kingdom of God. We are all peers, if we have the Holy Spirit. Anytime we put ourselves above someone else, we become Pharisees. Anytime we put ourselves below someone else, we don't recognize our intrinsic value that God made us in His own Image.
Difference of opinion/belief doesn't mean someone is right so the other person must be wrong. We may both be right in different ways, and we can also both easily be wrong. When we look for the wrong in others (to prove we are right), we end up creating barriers to love and forgiveness and grace. If we are only looking for the wrong/badness, we are sure to find it! This is called black-and-white thinking and it is very juvenile. There are many shades of gray on just about every subject.

Whew! That's all folks!