We have all heard anger talked about as if it were people stuffing into a phone booth. It gets more and more uncomfortable and the only way to make it better is to let some out. Get it off your chest. Don’t stuff it down. Let off some steam. Many think of anger management within a pressure-release model. I would like to convince you otherwise.

The pressure-release model has been helpful if it has gotten us to monitor how much anger we are feeling and realize that feeling a lot of intense anger can lead us to act badly, just like we should pay attention to how many people are already in the phone booth before we decide to enter. It sounds obvious when it comes to phone booths but some of us have been slow to catch on when it comes to anger. People are real things and getting too many of them piled on top of each other hurts. Angry emotions are real things and getting too many of them piled on top of each other hurts. So far I’m in complete agreement.

But from there, the pressure-release model starts to lead us astray. People don’t just disappear over time from a phone booth. The only solution is letting them out. We would never think that letting people out would actually make the phone booth smaller and less comfortable. Out is good. In is bad. The pressure-release model would encourage us to express our anger to relieve the pressure. As the anger goes out the anger inside is reduced.

Anger doesn’t work that way. Very often engaging in angry behaviors, letting it out, makes us feel the anger more intensely. The behavior might tire us out so that our body has no alternative but to relax. Then as our mind notices our body relax, it concludes that we are no longer as angry. Letting it out is not what reduced the anger.

Our emotions tell us something, prepare us for something, and then dissipate if we no longer need them. (Not always as fast as counting to 10) It’s a fantastic design that only God could come up with.

Here’s an anger management experiment.

Part 1: Next time you are driving alone and you start to get angry at another driver, make an angry face, clench your fist, and yell. (Of course, keep your eyes on the road, hand on the wheel and obey all posted speed limit signs, and don’t distract the other driver by letting them hear you yell.) Notice your level of anger. Did it go up or down as you let it out? For how many minutes afterward were you feeling angry?

Part 2: Another time you are driving alone and you start to get angry at another driver, don’t let any of the anger out. Try to look the same on the outside as you did before the other driver cut you off – same posture, facial expression, vocalizations. Notice your level of anger. Did it go up or down as you kept it in? For how many minutes afterward were you feeling angry?

What did you find out about anger management? Comment on it if you like.

God made people to go in and out of things like phone booths, not to disappear when we no longer need them. Emotions don’t get to be people. And if they were, we certainly would not allow them to congregate with each other in a phone booth.

http://psychcentral.com/depquiz.htm – The simplest one I’ve seen online. No sign up required but you’ll have to write down your results somewhere. It gives you an idea of how your responses compare to others who have taken it online. It’s a very rough screening instrument for depression.

http://iratemyday.com/ – Very simple 5 level scale with matching faces and a map of ratings across the world. This requires creating an account. Probably the least useful but most fun.

http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/mood-tracker/ – A little more involved but may be worth it. You need to create an account and then it keeps track of your results over time.  You get a nice graph of your ups and downs.

“It” can be almost anything,

• getting out of bed,
• doing that household chore,
• going somewhere,
• seeing someone,
• talking,
• listening,
• making a decision,
• going to bed.

There are many ways the story can play out from there. There are lots of possible responses that may be okay, including just not doing “it.”  Let’s assume you have come to the conclusion that you want to change your outlook on things.  It’s like admitting that you’ve been taking pictures of your life with your thumb over the camera lens. You know you don’t like the pictures you’re getting. They’re depressing or irritating and I’ll bet that your response to the pictures is starting to get on the nerves of someone around you.

Ask yourself what is going on around you in life and what it means. Before you say that you don’t know, or you don’t think that deeply about things, I want to assure you that you ALWAYS have some working theory about what EVERYTHING around you means. The footsteps in the hall mean your friend is walking to the kitchen. The remark your coworker made means he doesn’t like his job and feels trapped. Meaning making is a standard feature on brains and none leave the factory without it. The vast majority of this meaning making is outside of our awareness, thankfully. Only the really puzzling events get passed on to our conscious consideration. And even then, they are offered in the form of, “Here’s what I think it means. Can you rule this out?” You only really think about the footsteps in the hall if they seem unsteady, or too fast, or too heavy. Then your mind offers, “Hey, there might be something wrong. Can you go check that out so we know what it really means?”

So, before you start trying to take an inventory of what EVERYTHING means, let me narrow it down a little for you. Think about events that seem to mean something depressing about 1. yourself, 2. the future, and 3. the way the world works. Yes, those things. Depressing, aren’t they? Unless… they don’t really mean what you think they mean.

You know that part about how the vast majority of meaning making takes place outside of our awareness? Well, there is a downside. The meaning manufacturing department in your brain might need an outside consultant from time to time. Yes, it has always been a very productive department, but the quality control has been very poor. It’s always been a balancing act between efficiency and accuracy. The department went a little overboard when they made up those rubber stamps that said, “My life is ruined.” and “Things will never change.” and “Just my luck!” and “Today doesn’t matter.” It seems like they’ve been stamping those meanings on almost every disappointing event that came through the door.

Your employee training program of leaving Bibles in the break room really hasn’t worked. Sure, the truth about you, and the future, and how the world works, is in there. Maybe you’ll have to unpack it a little for them and remind them how much damage it does to be careless with meaning making.

Start tracking down the mistakes and plan on spending some energy keeping an eye on the whole process for a while. It will take some time to turn the department around. It won’t do you any good to get angry and fire them. This is a family business and you’ll only be hurting people you love and need.

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Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

Yes, there are things to be done, things that might help. But first we need to be willing to just hear about it and be sad. We can’t skip that step.

From the Facebook of a High School student, re-posted here with her permission:

Dear Reader,

As much as I probably shouldn’t say a lot of the following, I’m not hesitating to do so anyway.
I attend a high school like any other high school, really. And just as any other “normal” teenager, I’m surrounded by an environment where the people and teachers are so used to judgment and criticism in the past that they don’t even bother to correct these flaws now. It saddens me to see that my peers think it’s considered weird or stupid to be intelligent. Or do they?

It’s disappointing when you work hard on your school work in classes and at home and end up getting a deathly grade with no encouragement for the next try, nothing at all. Maybe you’ll hear, “Study next time,” or “Pay more attention in class”. Some people are really trying hard in school, but the need their life too. It never made sense to me why most students always seemed to be a little cocky. Now I know why. I’ve noticed I’m slowly starting to become one of those students. That’s not what I want at all.

The two things I’m constantly stressing about is either,

1. Having to go to school for six hours everyday

or,

2. Having to finish homework for school the next day

Isn’t learning supposed to be fun? Sure, high school is supposed to be hard. But I think we’ve gotten that idea stuck in the back of our head so much that it’s hard to take it out and really think about what we’re doing.

When I was home schooled I made really wonderful and true friends who I don’t doubt will always stay my life-long friends. I left that after having some of those relationships for over 6 years. They’re still my friends of course, but it really got to me when I came into a high school full of wonderful people with great potential who don’t even understand how much of an impact they have on people. We are supposed to be setting a good example for people, aren’t we?

According to my school we’re supposed to think that everything is about us.

My classes during my K-8 years were the most exciting yet challenging. We had fun, we socialized, we had relationships with our teachers like we were one huge family. And who says that we can’t carry that on to high school? Just because we are getting older, learning how to cope with different experiences and people, getting into serious relationships, taking new classes and adapting to a new environment, that does not mean the school system shouldn’t try and stop the students who don’t care from vandalizing the lives of other people with even their small actions.

• Every day someone cuts me in the lunch line.
• Every day someone says the F word.
• Every day someone is crying.
• Every day a teacher yells at their students.
• Every day a student insults a teacher.
• Every day there is a new rumor.
• And every day, little by little, we are taking pieces of our intelligence and turning them into pieces of hurt and hate.

And all these things may seem so small right now, but looking back and at now and then imagining way further into the future, how is the school system going to function then?

I can’t do this on my own. It’s stressful for me to see other people ruin their life and knock other people down every day. I don’t know why its so hard to be a nice person, to respect others.

I’m sorry to say that I’m not enjoying my high school experience as much as I would like to.

I would hope that I’m not the only one to notice that this goes on each day because that would just prove my whole point.
Nobody cares.

Clara Ann

You may be expecting me to go on to talk about parenting or marriage or coaching or employee management, since all of us have seen yelling involved in those contexts. But I’m thinking about a quiet form of yelling. It’s so quiet that no one can hear it but you. I’m talking about that little dialogue each of us have inside our head, where we keep a running commentary on our performance. We can even yell from time to time, right? Silently, of course. There may be a facial expression that goes along with it. Someone may see that if they happen to be watching us closely. They can’t hear the yelling. But, we can.

Every time you yell at yourself, you hear it. I suspect that if we hooked up equipment to measure our physiological response, we would see a response similar to what we have when someone else yells at us.

But, hey! We deserve it, right? We need to get in gear and get going. Do better! Work faster! Be smarter! Stop making mistakes! Sure we need to do those things. But we might be able to do them without being yelled at. In fact, we may have a better chance at doing them if we aren’t yelled at.

Yes, we do things wrong. We should even cry out to God for forgiveness for the things we do or the things we leave undone. But, let’s not confuse yelling with reminding, encouraging, promising, repenting… motivating. We really can do all of those things without yelling at ourselves.

Sometimes we need to be able to work without the noise of the crowd, or coach, or ref, or judge. It’s okay if our head is a nice quiet neighborhood to be in. It doesn’t mean that we will just fall asleep on the couch with a bag of potato chips. We actually do that potato chip thing to avoid the yelling.

If you don’t believe me, try it.

Quiet that critical voice inside your head for a while and see if you end up more productive or asleep with the bag of potato chips.

If it doesn’t work you can always go back to yelling.

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Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

We all know certain people who are easy to be around. We  know others whom we would rather not run into. I think most of us would rather be in the first group. So how does that work? Does it have anything to do with monsters under the bed?

I can remember scaring myself as a child. At night I would imagine all the things that could be hiding in that dark corner of the closet or under the bed. There were a few things the room just was not telling me. It was being vague or even stingy with information. When something is dark and unknown, we just start filling in the blanks. Since all of us have fears, we have plenty of ready material to draw from.

When the light goes on in the room, our fears lose their grip. The room hasn’t really changed. I mean, the shoes and papers and toys that were under the bed are still under the bed. The corner of the closet is still there. But it’s light now. We can stop guessing and imagining. The room really wasn’t out to get us. It didn’t mean anything by it. How could it be blamed for what my imagination did?

I want to be more like a well-lit room than a dark room. I don’t want people who are close to me to have to wonder and use imagination and guess. That’s what we do in a dark room and we end up scaring ourselves.

If people have to guess what you feel, what you think, what you know, there are a certain percentage who will scare themselves. When you hoard information,  people feel uncomfortable. You may not mean to make them feel that way. Neither did my childhood bedroom.  But it still scared me.

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Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

There is one foundational strategy that is not optional. You must hand over control of your emotions to the other person. That way, when you get so mad that you yell, or behave in some other offensive manner,  it is only because they have made you so mad. They had better try to keep you calm. If emotions cause you to shut down or get overwhelmed, it is also because they made you feel so bad. Either way, they better be more careful. This is known as the Eggshell strategy.

With that foundational strategy in mind, you are ready to pick freely from the 10 listed below.

1. Never let the other side revise their position or back away from the words they said. If they said it, they have to live with it.
2. Ask questions that lead them to admit where they were wrong. If they resist answering your questions, shame them by pointing out the obvious: They must not really want to talk it out.
3. Once the argument gets going, do not stop until it’s settled. If your partner thinks they have to get some sleep or get to work, they had better reevaluate what is important to them. If you have to get some sleep or take care of an obligation, you are only being responsible.
4. If you have to end the argument before it’s settled, make sure you get the last word in. Try doing this over your shoulder as you leave, for greatest effect.
5. Don’t hesitate to quote supporting sources, such as friends and family whom you have briefed on the issues. Make it clear that the briefing has been extensive.
6. Let it be known that you care less about the relationship than winning the argument. This way your partner can freely choose between losing the argument or losing the relationship. It’s really up to them.
7. Make as many points as you can at once. The points don’t even have to be related as long as they all connect to the same emotion. The slightest break in your partner’s speech is an invitation for you to launch into another set of points. If the other person is just rambling, you don’t have to wait for a pause, of course. Just jump in. (As an alternative, if this hyper-verbal strategy does not suit your personality, develop the silent treatment into an art form.)
8. Tell the other person what they are doing and why, what they mean, what they want, and what they feel. You can’t trust them to get it right.  They would be lost without you. Wouldn’t they?
9. In between fights, make the most of your time by taking note of anything done by your partner that can be used to your advantage. Be sure your partner has no idea at the time that you are unhappy with what they are doing or you will lose the element of surprise. When you bring it up later to support your point, they may want to clarify their actions or intent. Don’t fall for it. Tell them you are not going to let them dig up the past. What’s done is done.
10. Review your strategy often with a trusted friend of the opposite sex because, after all, you need someone who understands you and accepts you for who you are.

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

As children we may first suspect our disappointment is our parents’ fault when we can’t have that sleepover at Jimmy’s. Or, it’s our sister’s fault that we felt such disappointment when “she ate all the Captain Crunch. ” Maybe there was a time when we felt like Santa was the source of our biggest disappointment. To many children, of course, for these to be their only disappointments would be a dream come true.

As we move out of childhood, we are faced with proms, interviews, tryouts, auditions. We have little, everyday hopes about green traffic lights, details working out in our favor, work and school assignments, weather.  We have secret hopes about relationships, acceptance, recognition. We have private hopes about marriage, pregnancy, finances, job changes. We have public hopes about recovery, healing, success in ministry or business, college admission. We even have some hopes that are so large and close to the heart that we have never had the courage to say them to ourselves.

We hear of overwhelmingly tragic events like the earthquake in Haiti and we recalibrate our disappointments somewhat, for a while.

We are not little children. We know life has disappointments.

But, the really big ones still take us by surprise, even when, or especially when, we have had one or two already. We can accept that God is at work in the smaller ones, or even the medium ones, teaching us patience and faith. But what about the ones that are life changing, the really important ones that we have been praying about for so long? God knows how important those are, right? We’ve talked about how that hope fits into the whole picture of our lives. We’ve talked with God about that picture. This is the death of an entire path. He knows, right?

But it still hits us, sometimes slowly sinking in, sometimes slapping us in the face.

Disappointment is a close cousin to grief. We grieve the loss of something not just because it is gone but because of its value. Disappointment, like grief, tells us what we value, what we love, what is good, what we want. The message of the emotion is not, “Now you know that what was lost is not important!” The message of the emotion is, “There is something of great value there! The good, beautiful, and valuable exists. You cannot deny it. I won’t let you deny it!” I do not believe, as some do, that the only reason we get disappointed is because we are mistaken in our desires.

We are created with an ability to recognize the good, beautiful and valuable, even the possible good, the possible beautiful, the possible valuable. I believe it is one part of an array of systems wired into us to help us recognize God, the ultimate good, beautiful, and valuable.

It would be a mistake to think in these times that God does not know. It would also be a mistake to say, “There was nothing good here after all. I was wrong. My desire was for something worthless.”

There are some who would tell us that the drive down the road of life is where we discover the ugly truth about what is wrong with the world. That does happen, but it is far from the central purpose. What if the purpose is to discover and recognize more and more, the good, beautiful, and valuable… and that this ability, this recognition, has been inherited from the One who is Good and Beautiful, and Valuable? That sounds like a much better reason to get behind the wheel.

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

As a way of saying thanks for subscribing and getting your friends to subscribe, I want to send 2 free copies of the pocket-size book, The Other 167 Hours, to the person who becomes the 167th subscriber. That way you can keep one and give one to the person who told you about the blog. For privacy reasons, I won’t announce the names, but I will let you know when we hit number 167.  I’ll contact the winner by the email address you provide when you subscribe.

167hours.net is just completing its first year and we are approaching 20,000 page views. Thanks again for reading and telling your friends.

This question is different from asking what you like about me, or what initially built an attachment between us. It’s okay to have specific answers to those questions.

Spouses should be able to say what they like about each other and, with time, we may even be able to understand what originally helped us form an attachment to each other. But that is not the reason or justification for loving someone. Parents should be able to say what they like about their children, and a great deal of the attachment initially comes out of the child literally being a part of them. But, even attachment can spring up for very arbitrary reasons, and then dissipate.  (Understanding this allowed Gary Dahl to make a million dollars on pet rocks over a few months in the mid 70’s.)

Think about what happens when we are told the reason we are loved. If it’s because of something we do or how we act, what happens when we don’t act that way or aren’t able to do those things? If it is because of “who we are”, what if we change, or we don’t know who we are, or what if we know things about ourselves that others don’t know?

Consider what John was getting at when he wrote “We love him because he first loved us.” Very interesting verse that seems to be identifying a reason to love…  But, I believe it is saying more than, “He was so nice to us that it made us want to be nice back.” I believe that verse speaks mostly about what gives us the ability or capacity to love God.  God’s loving of us opened up in us the ability to love him back. It turned us into potential God-lovers.

What do struggling marriages need? Not just more reasons to love each other, but the ability to love. What if being loved is one of the best ways to increase that ability?

Now, who goes first?

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

You supply your email address and you’ll get a link sent to you announcing each new post. That’s all you’ll get from it, no SPAM or strange emails.

Or, just stop by often.

The performance of medical staff, for example, seems to improve as the staff are able to address a few basic emotional questions. I want to discuss those questions here. Maybe I can focus on other occupations in future posts.

I want to point out that when I call them “basic” questions, I mean that they are important, universal, and foundational, not necessarily easy or trivial.

What right do I have to be here?

The “impostor syndrome” is that feeling  that if other people only knew my faults like I did, I would be “found out” and have to leave. What do I do about the fact that I have faults and short-comings, even bad habits? When taken together as a whole picture, warts and all, am I still acceptable, even valuable here? Or am I  just lucky no one has noticed yet? If I have settled this question, I can be properly assertive and focus on the task at hand instead of being anxious.

Do I have an impact on the future?

Does life just come at me ? Am I helpless in the face of oncoming obstacles, just hoping they don’t hit me? Are there things I can do today that can change something about tomorrow or next year? If I settle this question, I don’t have to be cynical or hopeless.

What information do I trust?

I see things, hear things. People talk. There are rumors and accusations and interactions to be interpreted. What is the reality here? How can I verify it? If I settle this question, I will be more stable in the chaos around me.

Am I doing what I’m put on earth to do?

Do I have something unique to offer? Am I able to offer it here? Am I getting any traction, or spinning my wheels? Is what I am doing satisfying to me because it feels like it has a purpose that fits me? If I settle this question, I can find satisfaction even when my hospital or employer is floundering.

Can I make good decisions?

What about those times when I am the one who has to make the decision? Can I do it? What will others think?  What if other people think I am wrong? What if I am wrong? Is this particular decision one that I should make on my own or should I find someone to ask? What if I disagree with their answer? If I can settle this question, I will not feel resentful as if I am at the mercy of others.

There is work to do in settling these questions. But it starts with knowing these questions and realizing how important they are. How are you answering them on the job? Your well-being at work could depend on it.

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

In college, I had the good fortune of being coached by a former member of the Brazilian national soccer team. English was clearly not his first language. He had some key phrases he would repeat, at varying intensities, trying to wring out the last possible bit of meaning from the words. Hand gestures were added liberally to the phrases to provide additional nuances.  But the things he could do with that soccer ball!

One of the phrases he would say was, “Don’t go crazy!” This would usually be accompanied by the back of one of his hands slapping against the palm of his other hand.  By that, he meant to keep the right amount of distance between us and the opposing player. If we got too close, too quickly, and stabbed at the ball, the other player was likely to turn aside and our momentum would carry us out of the play. He would tell us that in his country another player would never guard that closely. They would keep their distance out of respect. He told us of players who did not respect the boundary and got a leg broken intentionally from an adversary. If the referee wasn’t going to enforce the boundary, the player would. That got our attention!

At other times our coach would use the same slapping gesture with the single word, “You!” This meant that we were to go after the ball and be more aggressive. Guard more closely. (We were confused at first too.) It took some trial and error to find where the boundary was, so we could respect it. Since soccer is a competitive event  and, as Sun Tzu says, all warfare is based on deception, we couldn’t expect the other team to identify their boundaries openly and directly. We made a few mistakes.

Luckily, deception doesn’t have to be so central in marriage. It’s okay to identify boundaries in marriage openly and directly. (Was Sun Tzu married?)

Two Ways to Disrespect Boundaries

Ignoring No: It seems there are at least two ways to show disrespect for an adversary in soccer. One way is to guard too closely, in which case, the player or the referee enforce a boundary. We show disrespect when we intentionally trample boundaries. We can do the same in marriage when we do not take notice of, or believe the “No” signals from our spouse. The message is, “You don’t have the right to set your own boundaries. So I’ll set them for you.” Example: You don’t want to talk about this right now? Well, I do. So we will.

Ignoring Yes: I watched an indoor soccer game a few days ago where a girls team played a boys team. After the game, I heard one of the female players say that she didn’t like it when the referee would incorrectly call fouls in the girls’ favor,  to over-protect them from the boys. It was embarrassing to the girls and seemed disrespectful. We can do the same in marriage when we do not take notice of, or believe the “Yes” signals. We send the message, “You don’t have the ability to set your own boundaries. So, I’ll set them for you.” Example: I won’t even ask you to do that favor for me, because even if you say, “Yes”, I know you really don’t want to.

Jesus said, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’”

I think that also means it’s okay to let others’ ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and their ‘No’, ‘No’.

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

But what if there is another? An equal, a peer, a spouse? What if we each have strong opinions and emotions that we need to understand and communicate (not necessarily in that order.) Let’s add into the mix a fear I have that I will never get a turn if you go first. What if what you say only makes what I have to say more urgent? What if it has to be solved now? What if there is no time to waste, because these emotions are so uncomfortable that I can’t imagine just containing them for another day or so.

Or, (here’s a twist), what if I already know better than you what you are experiencing and what you need to say? It would just be silly for me to just sit there and see you get it wrong, right?

Or, what if I know how hard it is for you to communicate? I’m not so sure it would be good for you to have all this time to try to express things. I mean, I see you feeling this pain as you talk, a frustration as you search for the right words. I could help, right? I could finish your sentences and fill in a word or two. I could just go ahead with my turn, since that would let you off the hook. It would be the only kind thing to do.

It seems there are a lot of impulses that would complicate the whole turn-taking thing, even though I’m sure they must have covered it back when I was in kindergarten. When it comes to talking, it’s just too easy to get the turns all jumbled up.

What I need are some simple rules for those intense conversations where taking turns is REALLY important but REALLY hard.

1. It doesn’t matter who goes first, because we will have enough time. When one day ends, God usually makes another. If he doesn’t… We’re still okay.
2. While someone else is talking, it’s okay to distrust that little voice of urgency inside my head. If it’s still so important when it’s my turn, it’ll come back up.
3. In times like these, when I’m sure I understand what the other person is saying, before they’ve said it, I don’t. Or, at best, it doesn’t matter right now. Because sometimes they are talking not just so I can understand but so that they can understand themselves.
4. I don’t need to rescue the other person if they are having a hard time communicating. If I do, I rob them of the chance to find the right word and I confirm any feeling of inadequacy they may have about expressing themselves. Besides that, I may be wrong. They may not be as uncomfortable as I think they are.

Again and again, I see huge chunks of communication problems in marriage orbiting around these rules being broken.

For now I have to admit that we never really learn to take turns, the way we learn to ride a bike. I’m just shooting for remembering to take turns.

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

See a complete description of the event  here.

See a complete description of the event  here.

See a complete description of the event here.

It’s a good time to think about the blessings of the past year and identify hopes and goals for the future. I would recommend you do that.

But that’s not all that happens, is it?

(By the way, those of you who have had no pain or disappointment in your life can skip to the end now. Thanks.)

We also realize that it’s one more year since that loss, or one more year of dealing with some pain or hurt. We say to ourselves, “Wow, it’s been 3 years, (or 5, or 20) and it still hurts! How can that be? I didn’t know it would last this long.”

What if it still hurts? Is that okay? Is it normal?

I used to believe that life was a series of events and experiences and each one has its own time and emotions, then you move on to the next, kind of like flipping through a picture book. But I believe now that life happens in interwoven experiences and emotions, layers stacked on top of one another. It’s more like a sandwich you bite into. All of those experiences add to the taste and texture. Yes, sometimes I do wish that we could just have one at a time, preferably just the sweet ones.

We grieve over someone dying at the same time we learn of a new birth. A friend lands their dream job while our neighbor’s company closes. A friend tells you that she just met the man of her dreams while you are aching inside from the email you just got from your brother saying that his marriage is over. Your child says you are the best parent in the world while your other child hasn’t talked to you in months.

All of these layers happen. They are all there. They are all real. They all move us. We remember them. We become them.

This new year will come with all of its own texture. Allow your life to have the texture it needs this year. Know that the layers are all there. You get to have all of them. You have to have all of them. That’s the deal. The only life you get is the real one.

It’s okay if the hurt is still there somewhere. But, it’s not the only layer, is it? God made life very thick. He knew what he was doing.

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan

Yeah, that thing. You better make sure it’s handy because Christmas is just a few days away and you would hate to be caught without it! Things might not be fair. You might be asked to do something for someone who hasn’t really carried their fair share. I mean, fair is fair! Right? Come to think of it, Christmas seems to be the time when many of us got our first get-o-meter as a child. (Ooh, that means mine is getting pretty old.) Yours is still working fine, just like when you where a child? Isn’t it? Exactly like when you were a child?

I’m finding out that my get-o-meter is heavy and bulky and it tires me out to lug it everywhere I go. I’m not even sure mine is calibrated accurately. I do know for sure that some people’s get-o-meter is WAY off. Don’t make me name names. And where do you take those things to get them fixed?

To tell you the truth, I’d like to get rid of mine. Can I do that? It’s so much work running everything in my life through that machine! It never comes out EXACTLY even anyway. Either I get more than someone else or someone else gets more than me. If I get more, I feel like I owe them something and then the relationship is never the same. If someone gets more than me… well, then I know it’s just not a healthy relationship anyway, and the relationship is never the same. Hey, it seems like either way, relationships are taking a hit whenever that machine is powered up.

Yes, I do want to get rid of it. But, I’m scared. No, I didn’t really mean scared. It’s just that it’s been my companion for years. I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have it. Maybe I’ll just keep it for one more Christmas. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Just one more Christmas… and maybe my birthday, and anniversary, and I’ll use it for my annual review at work, of course. It’s not like I need it. I could get rid of it any time.

Dr. David Hamilton is a clinical psychologist at the Christian Counseling Center of West Michigan