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Voice
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Are you defrauding yourself?
08 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
No person can be emotionally healthy– that is well-defined and one who implements useful boundaries, sets clear, achievable goals, and participates in a mutually enriching adult relationships – if he or she persists in showing an outer face (a façade) that is incongruent with his or her inner experience.
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If you want to navel gaze, think on these things….
02 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Therapists often get a bad rap suggesting they lead clients to “navel gaze” or blame their parents. I have heard amusing tales of therapists who apparently sit and passively listen and offer random, affirming utterances.
You’ve probably seen the cartoons.
My own approach is eclectic, which, by the way, in the therapy world, is cool.
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It all comes back even though I have forgiven
31 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I have long since made a decision to forgive my boyfriend, fiancé, and then husband and the women for his very numerous affairs. I even know some of the women personally. I did this to move on. However, of late, if something triggers a memory of any affair, I get angry and the pain and humiliation and betrayal all return with the same reality I first suffered. I sometimes think I should just leave my husband. I have promised I will leave if he does this just one more time. But will I?”
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I want my “happy” back
29 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I feel as if I am drowning in my marriage. My husband is a good guy for someone else perhaps. We have been together since teenagers now we are in our mid thirties and I’m just not so sure anymore. I desire many qualities that my husband does not have! The main one that he lacks is drive, which has been problematic. I am so tired of struggling and making sure everything appears okay instead of stating the obvious. I want our kids to know that this is not the way to pursue their happiness or truth. Again if it were not for fear-based decisions, lack of self worth, and guidance I would probably be more focused and on target. I love my husband, but not enough to continue this way. I just want my ‘happy’ back. It left years ago!”
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I want to go out in the world and travel and have adventures
16 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I’m in my mid-twenties. I dated for three years. Everyone thought we had the ‘perfect’ relationship. I lost a lot of people I thought were friends when we broke up. There were two reasons: things were starting to get more physical, and he wanted to get married. To marry him would mean being someone other than who I wanted to become. He’s a very at-home person. I want to go out in the world and travel and have adventures. It hurt him a lot when I broke up. It hurt me a lot too. He’s started texting and I’ve been ignoring them. I think I need to tell him he must leave me alone. Am I on the right track?”
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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