communication – Living, Learning and Letting Go

When I hear someone use the word “promise” the psychotherapist inside of me goes on alert. The images that come to my mind are children who are in trouble saying “I promise I won’t do it again” to their parents, or parents saying “You promised you wouldn’t do that again” to their children. I also think of bickering children saying to each other, or even to their parents, “You promised!” when someone doesn’t follow through on a promise.

It is important that interactions between adults stay equal with the adult part of one interacting with the adult part of the other. Two adults interacting in a way where one is acting like a parent and the other like a child can be very disruptive to adult relationships.

I think when people of any age hear the word “promise” their minds often add the word “forever”. “Forever” doesn’t take into account that we have a right to change our minds. We may have committed to something out of fear or without having taken the time to think the situation through. Also circumstances may change. When circumstances change then our commitments may need to change.

That doesn’t mean we should just say “I will try.” I’ve been told that Alcoholic Anonymous has a saying that “Triers are liars.” Too often when people say “I will try” they are saying it to get someone off their back and have no intention of doing what the other person is asking for. In my group room, I have a Yoda pillow that says “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

I suggest people don’t make promises because to me that word in and of itself evokes a child or a parent-child response. I don’t think there is anything wrong with making commitments or agreements but it is important that those commitments be well thought out, clear and not come from an over-adaptive part of us. They should be made with an understanding that we aren’t going to be perfect and that if we decide at a later time that the commitment is not in our best interests we can look at what changes need to be made and re-negotiate it.

Post written for: Daily Prompt: Promises
Photo: Bickering Children by Bernhard Keil (1624-1687) via Wikimedia

I unplug

This week’s challenge is:

“Today I unplug.”

Don’t panic. I’m not talking about totally unplugging. But think of how much time during the day you spend engaged with emails, texting, instant messages, Facebook, Instagram, Linked-In, Twitter, Snapshot, surfing the Internet, video gaming, online shopping, talking on the phone, etc. Bloggers, how much additional time do you spend reading or writing blog posts, or looking at your stats? What would you think and feel if you no longer had access to a phone, laptop or other electronic device? Does the thought of not having those things bring you a sense of relief, panic or something else?

For 1, 2, 3 days or longer commit to unplugging for some period of time. Pick a time of day when you normally use those devices and then set an amount of time to unplug that would challenge you, but not set you up for failure.

Sometime during the week, write a post about some aspect of this topic or about experiences you had when you unplugged. Feel free to use whatever form you desire: i.e., prose, story, poem, photograph, etc. (If you don’t have a blog, please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below.)

General Prompt Information:

New prompts will be posted at 5 a.m. (PST) every Wednesday.

Since it is easier to make behavioral changes if we focus on them one day at a time, each of the weekly challenges will start with “Today, I focus on…….” It will be up to you to decide how long you want to focus on a particular challenge— one, two, three days or even longer. At some point during the week, publish a post that relates in some way to the subject of the week.

Link your post back to this prompt post. If the pingback doesn’t work, then leave the link to your post in the comment section below. Be sure to include “Challenge for Growth Prompts” as one of your tags.

Throughout the week, I will publish the links for the posts that were created as the result of this prompt. I will also post the links from those who participated the previous week. That way they will be seen by anyone who comes to this page.