In Session 5, we learnt to:
- Identify character traits and behaviours that reflect unsafe and unhealthy relationships in ourselves and others
- How to manage such relationships.
- Discover and understand what causes our relationships to fail
- Discover the ways we manage conflicts
- Learn effective conflict management styles and skills
- Commit to a covenant of building relationships in biblical ways.
The assessments of my relationships have helped me know what questions to ask myself so that I can have a sober judgement of my own relationships. In addition, I realised my traits in me that cause unhealthy relationships... I'll share some of these:
- Compliants: Saying 'Yes' to the Bad
- "Such persons have fuzzy and indistinct boundaries; they constantly follow the demands and needs of others. They can't say no or confront others of their wrongdoing. This can even prevent them from recognising unhealthy relationships such as dangerous or abusive ones. They are unable to guard their hearts. (Proverbs 4:23)"
- "The following might be the reasons:
- Fear of hurting the other person's feelings (people-pleaser)
- Fear of abandonment and separateness
- Desire to be totally dependent on another
- Fear of someone else's anger
- Fear of punishment
- Fear of being shamed
- Fear of being seen as bad or selfish
- Fear of being unspiritual
- Fear of one's overstrict, critical conscience (guilt)
- Most, if not all, of these points apply to me. To be honest, I saw this attitude last time as being a nice guy, partly because of my insecurity and desire for people's approval.
Think it does make people like me, but that'll be the reward that I'll get - just the approval of men. In introspection, I realise that I myself don't feel very enriched, edified or encouraged by friends who may be very nice, but seem to have bendable characters. On the contrary, some of my dearest friends, and even those who are acquaintances, have won my respect by the strength of their characters and personal convictions for the truth, for moral values. - But thinking about this part... "The Bible speaks about compliance, but of a different nature. (Matthew 9:13)"
- Controllers... realise that, to be honest, I tend to indirectly manipulate circumstances in an attempt to get my own way. E.g. sulking, whining, complaining... but thank God for His graciously showing me my hidden (and not-so-hidden) faults.
- One important note is that these kind of people are undisciplined - seekers of instant gratification.
- Furthermore, they are unable to take responsibility for their own lives, as they try to get others to treat them nicely, to make them feel happy, etc.
- It might work in the short run, but you'll only end up making your friends feel like domestic helpers... which is not a good thing at all.
- Critics: Putting Others Down
- This one... even though I can be very encouraging in speech at times... it is still only at times. Again, I must confess that, especially when I am tired and/or emotional, I quickly tend towards a critical attitude towards others who don't meet my own expectations (which can be very unrealistic at times).
- Taking stock of my life at this point, I think this is one area of my sinful nature that I have not fully put to death yet. Cannot! I must do my part, with God's help, to give people grace... and self-control to look first at the plank in my own eyes. (Matthew 7:1 - "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.")
- (This is something new that I learnt) Emotional Dependency: Excessive Nurturing
- What took me by surprise when Charmaine taught on it, was her comment that she is seeing more and more of this "happening in our church". Our shepherd-sheep style of discipleship is prone to this danger.
- "Emotional dependents are those who believe that the ongoing presence and nurturing of another is necessary for personal security (italics mine). Nurturing happens in many forms. At times, co-dependency where both parties are emotionally dependent on each other can also happen."
- When I heard this teaching, I was reminded of two things to really thank God for:
- For Peter's style of shepherding - he doesn't 'spoon-feed' me, but rather, has challenged me from time to time to take stronger ownership of my own life. For someone like me, I think this is one of the strongest foundations that he's laid in my life - the foundation of Jesus Christ, meaning that my faith lies in Him and Him alone.
So, I think I can say, by God's grace, that if there should comes a time when Peter denies Christ (sounds just like a certain Bible passage leh), I'll be very, very sad, yes, but I know that Jesus Christ is the only One whom I have pledged to love fully with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind and with all my strength. People, well, God simply commands me to just love them as myself (that's a lot already)...
No one can and must ever take the place of Jesus Christ in my heart - not even my dearest loved ones... not even my future darling wife or my children. And I want my future wife (if I marry) to love Jesus Christ more than me. Even if it means death for me, sure, go ahead by all means - for if she loves Jesus more than me, then she and I shall meet again in heaven and we will never be separated again for all eternity! :D How much sweeter can this truth get? Amen!
But yeah, what I say just now... that is all by God's grace... because... the apostle Peter declared vocally he would die for Christ, but when it came to the crunch, he was one of the most vocal denialists. So... I really hope and pray that when the crunch-time comes for me, I won't cabut, but... if it comes to dying for Him, then let it be a quick and fast one.
(Gee, it sounds awfully morbid, but well, it is the truth... millions of Christians in the 20th century alone were killed for their faith, so I'll not be alone. But I really, really, really hope and pray... that we'll continue to have a wise and honest government like ours - one that seeks to promote peace among all races and religions. Don't want to die if I can help it. You too, right? :P) - Anyway! Back to emotional dependency... where was I? The second one... I think it might not be convenient to share here, but I'm thankful that we are holding through well (with God's help)...
- There's one more thanksgiving point too. As I went through the second assessment, which is a checklist for emotional dependency, of course there were many, many items in the list that showed me up clearly to have a strong tendency to have emotional dependencies.
But realised as I thought through again the checklist, that even though there are a lot of these points that apply to me, I realised that over the years as a child of God, a lot of these points were gradually minimised to such a degree that they are no longer a threat.
Not that I have been made perfect - it's more of like a cancer patient being in remission. If I don't guard my heart against these danger points, they'll come back in full blast and cause damage (even irreparably) to my relationships. That tend to happen when I am spiritually dry, by the way.
Still! Thank God so much... this checklist helped me recall how I was like before I became a Christian. So emotional, so possessive, so insecure, so uncontrolled, so unrealistic... hee, very grateful to Jesus for one of my atheist friends (who was from the same sec school as me)'s testimony about how "Christianity transformed my life". :D But that is the transforming power of God's grace and truth indeed.
On a more sober note, I reflected and realised that there's this particular relationship that I have. In this relationship, I tend towards emotional dependency a lot of times... and not just as the 'needy' one, but also would derive a sense of security from being the 'needed' one.
(Thank You so much Lord for teaching me this and pointing this out to me.)
Not that I should end this friendship, but what I learnt from the notes is that "[a] healthy friendship should be free, generous, promotes personal growth and encourages development of new interests and skills."
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