Do we really need to ask why a preoccupation with the big issues eventually leads to failure and unhappiness in careers, in relationships, and in regard to your personal health and well-being? When it comes to your health, what happens when you wait until things get really bad (a crisis) before looking for treatment? Don’t you then find yourself racing to beat the pathology to the finish line? The closer you allow issues to come to the tipping point (that point at which failure is unavoidable), the more important and urgent the need to engage in corrective action becomes, and the lesser your chances of meeting that challenge successfully. At the same time, the more your resources are dedicated to handling any crisis, the greater the chances will be for other issues to approach their tipping points.

Conserving your energies to handle the big issues does little to address or solve them; in fact, the approach that focuses only (or mainly) on the important things risks creating an error cascade. Let me explain. An error cascade begins with just one overlooked detail. When that detail goes wrong, it becomes an attention grabber (Quadrant One again). While your attention is focused on taking care of that one errant detail, you ignore several other details that are needing your attention. As your attention is drawn away in a rapidly-increasing complex of (relatively) minor failures, your capacity for reacting to the situation erodes until you are unable to stop a catastrophic collapse of the system. The disasters at Three Mile Island and, to an even greater degree, at Chernobyl are graphic cases in point.

As early as the 14th Century, we find the following poem:

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

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Must couples in trouble necessarily fail? No, not necessarily: no healthy couple is doomed to failure. In fact, the only ‘doomed’ relationships are those where one or both partners are unapologetically physically or emotionally abusive . Without a doubt, the only realistic option for someone who finds her- or himself in a fundamentally abusive or exploitative relationship is to exit immediately. Apart from that, I believe that many (if not all) relationships “on the rocks” could be healed under the right circumstances. From my perspective, the fact that this healing so often fails to take place could be an indication that one or both of the partners have stopped listening. Additionally, ceasing to listen indicates a spiritual problem. Let me explain.

It would seem that the  person who hears another’s voice, but is no longer committed to listening to what the other has to say has given up on her or his partner, as well as their relationship together. If you look more closely, however, it soon becomes clear that the person has actually given up on him- or herself. Empathetic listening and appreciative inquiry represent a three-fold choice: 1) to accept the other, 2) to trust the other, and 3) to engage with the other. Closing off the lines of communication also represents a choice: to cease accepting, trusting and engaging with one’s partner. Before I relate this to fundamental spiritual principles, let’s look briefly at each choice.

The choice to accept another human being is foundational. True acceptance represents a fundamental option to see in the other person another self, with exactly the same sorts of strengths and weaknesses that we ourselves possess. This choice to acknowledge the other person as another self  has two destructive opposites. The first perversion of acceptance we call ‘exploitation‘. Philosopher Martin Buber contrasts these approaches with the terms I-Thou (for true acceptance of the other), and I-It (for exploitation). To see your partner merely in terms of his or her usefulness (like a tool or a piece of furniture) or her or his capacity to satisfy you represents a fundamental denial of humanity on your part. The second perversion of the choice to accept your partner shows itself as conditional acceptance. In brief, “I’ll accept you if you do such-and-such or so-and-so.” Conditional acceptance of another puts you in the position of being their judge, jury and executioner. In fact, it represents nothing less than your attempt to usurp the position in your partner’s life properly held by God alone.

Next, let’s look at the choice not to trust your partner. Why don’t you trust her or him? Because you’ve been hurt before? The refusal to trust your partner goes way beyond self-preservation. Once again, it is passing a judgment of condemnation on another person — another self — who exhibits the same sorts of faults and failings that you yourself exhibit. In fact, if the truth were known, the faults and failings that you find most easy to condemn and most difficult to forgive in others are the very ones that you exhibit most strongly yourself. In fact, the two keys that are absolutely essential to unlocking both acceptance and trust are these: first, to acknowledge an identical humanity in both yourself and the other, and, second, to commit yourself to the path of unconditional forgiveness. Who cannot look at the plight of even the most desperate of people around us and not be able truthfully to say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I?” The greatest message of Christianity — and also, I’m afraid,  its most forgotten and neglected — is simply this: unconditional, unlimited forgiveness. If you cannot forgive unconditionally, you cannot trust for very long.

The final choice is the choice to engage with your partner. If you refuse to engage with her or him, you thereby give credence to the (Jungian) ego’s false belief that you are vulnerable and need protection. It’s the same force that drives people’s frantic searching for that illusive (and illusory) ‘security’ that they believe will fix everything and protect them from danger. Once again, it would be foolish to put ourselves in harm’s way by engaging with an abusive partner. We owe it to ourselves and to them to take the necessary precautions so as not to allow ourselves to become victims of deliberate abuse. However, if you imagine that refusing to engage with your well-intentioned partner will grant you some sort of immunity from harm and from hurt, you are mistaken. Do you believe that spiritually you are invulnerable and that nothing outside of yourself — not even death — can destroy the essence of you? “Greater love has no one,” we have heard, “than to lay down his life for another.” Oddly, dieing for someone can actually be a whole lot easier than living for them.

Finally, what does the choice not to listen say about that person’s spiritual condition? The testimony it gives is nothing short of damning. Personally, I would liken it to what Christians refer to as the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ or the ‘unforgivable sin.’ Here’s what I mean. Whenever I write, I use the terms ‘acceptance,’  ‘trust’ and ‘engagement’ as  synonyms for what are called the ‘theological virtues’, namely: faith, hope , and love. The ‘sin’ against faith is the decision not to accept the will of God exactly as we encounter it in our world. The ‘sin’ against hope is the choice not to trust that our only Source of genuine security is divine providence. The ‘sin’ against love is the refusal to become meaningfully engaged with those we were sent to serve: our fellow creatures who, along with us, share the “image and likeness of God.” If the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ is a refusal to believe that the love of God is powerful enough to forgive us (and so we refuse to ask for forgiveness, and therefore refuse to accept it), then turning a deaf ear to someone we once claimed to love is a ‘sin against love’, for, as we know, the opposite of love is not hate, but deliberate indifference.

What can you do if you find yourself failing to listen? Remember the futility of protecting yourself. What can you protect yourself from? Even more importantly, what are you protecting yourself for? After all, your mission here in this world is not to try (futilely) to keep yourself safe. It’s to share with your fellows (and especially those in relationship with you) the same kind of acceptance, trust, and engagement that your God has shown to you. God hears his people’s cry . . . can you do any less?

And what about you who find yourself ‘learning to love one another’ and your words keep falling on deaf ears? You, too, have the opportunity to pass on the love of God. Your acceptance of the other can be renewed continually. Your trust of the other need never fail or fade. You may stand ever at the ready to engage. However, engagement (love) requires reciprocity. God does not condemn, so how could you? God does not constrain, either (because love can never be forced), but rather waits for all eternity for the other to emerge from his or her isolation and re-engage. You can have the willingness to re-engage, whether or not the other ever seeks it. You may never re-engage as you once did: time and the world goes on while the other chooses to isolate, stagnate, or (what’s worse) repeat the same self-defeating choices and behaviors with other partners. You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to accept and trust and engage with people at every stage and every condition of your life: people who, like you, have chosen to listen not only with their ears, but with their hearts.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

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Love is a drug

In 1980, singer Grace Jones recorded the hit song, Love Is a Drug. That reference to love as a narcotic can be remarkably accurate, particularly at midlife. I see huge differences in the forces that drive people to ‘hook up’ during adolescence and young adulthood as compared with what happens at midlife. Obviously, youth is made for experimentation, getting involved in new situations, or trying on a variety of relationships to see which ones might be a good ‘fit’ for creating a family of one’s own. By midlife, all this should have become ‘old hat.’  All, that is, but the desire for companionship, and the thrill of the hunt and the excitement of conquest.  There’s enough of the narcotic in relationship-hunting at both stages of life, but at midlife, there’s a lot less of the ‘family-building’ motive going on. For most people, by midlife, that’s a “been there; done that” experience.

Certainly, illicit relationships (going out on your partner) can happen at any time of life.  When they do, I believe that they’re always narcotic relationships. I mean that seeking or permitting a new relationship while you’re already committed to another partner always represents your attempt to medicate something going on inside you that you don’t want to deal with. For someone who’s already in a relationship to allow her- or himself to get involved with someone else, means that you’re letting yourself get ‘hooked’ on love as a drug so you won’t have to feel (or deal with) what’s going on inside and around you. Narcotics always offer the promise of pain relief. But at what ultimate cost? Nobody who’s ‘hooked’ really looks at the facts (they’ve become too numb) and recognizes that, when the drug wears off, the pain will still be there waiting for you. Even worse, when the drug wears off, you’ll have the additional pain of having to deal with the guilt and shame you’ll eventually have to face for having compromised your values. Oh . . . and I almost forgot: narcotics wind up being very, very, expensive.

I have been in a committed relationship now for over fourteen years (it took me a long time to find someone worth committing to). Like all relationships, we’ve had our ups and downs, our laughing and crying, and our shouting matches. As someone who used to have chronic relationship issues, I find myself often amazed that, although I find other people attractive, and thoughts of what ‘hooking up’ would be like sometimes show up, they’re no more attractive to me than a huge serving of [fill in your favorite grossly fattening desert here]. In both cases, I can genuinely say, “Yum!” without actually wanting to indulge. That’s what people do when they’re committed to living life on life’s terms, rather than looking for the next ‘narcotic’ escape.

Virtual Addiction

“But,” you say, “all I ever do is flirt. I’d never actually do anything about it.” I have to tell you: that doesn’t matter. You don’t actually have to consummate a narcotic relationship to have it give you the escapist ‘high’ you’re looking for. If you’re at all wise, you know that going out on your partner can be very dangerous. A messy divorce or breakup with everybody knowing all about your private business can really mess up a good fantasy.  No matter how you look at it, ‘hooking up’ is really risky business. How can you get the thrill of the hunt and the ecstasy of conquest while minimizing the risk? Behold the internet! It’s private: just the two of you can know. There’s no possibility of being observed by a casual onlooker. There’s no risk of disease. Nobody (so you lead yourself to believe) will be the wiser, and nobody will get hurt. You imagine that you can medicate your problems away through this other person (or people) and thus you can have the best of all worlds.

We call this delusional thinking ‘virtual addiction.’ By ‘hooking up’ over the internet, you get your narcotic at a fraction of the price. If this describes you, you’re missing the hidden costs. While you’re busy numbing your pain (and getting high) with your virtual relationship(s), the pain that’s coming from your primary relationship is growing . . . but you’re unaware of it. In a word, a healthy, fulfilling relationship doesn’t need a narcotic to mask what’s really going on. As you experience the midlife transition, it’s normal for you to experience huge changes in yourself: how you look at your life, how you look at all your relationships, how you look at your career, how you look at your future. All these things shift — often dramatically — during the midlife transition. Regardless of the changes that are going on around you (in your spouse, your family, your job, etc.), the biggest changes are happening in you.

All those things that narcotic relationships may be telling you may be correct. Maybe your spouse no longer loves you. Maybe you made a mistake in your choice relationship. Maybe your future will be entirely different from the one you had imaged for yourself. Any or all of these things may be true. It doesn’t matter! Getting yourself involved in a narcotic relationship (physically or virtually) isn’t going to solve anything. You can look at whatever seriously good feelings you may be generating for yourself from stepping out on your relationship as just a down payment on the pain that you’re storing up for yourself. While you’re off chasing feeling good, the problems you’re escaping are busy festering and getting worse. Sooner or later, your house of cards is going to come crashing down and, strangely enough, you already know that’s true. Guilty people subconsciously want to get caught.

Midlife Mastery

If you’re involved in a narcotic relationship, what do you need to do to get ‘clean and sober’? First and foremost: tell yourself the truth. Perhaps the biggest betrayal that you’re experiencing here is your betrayal of yourself. Put aside for a time your fears of not getting your relationship ‘fix.’ Recognize that your perspective has become warped. Get a confidant in whom you can have total trust (for example, hire a therapist). Start talking out loud about what’s going on with you. You’ll be amazed how ridiculous your addictive thoughts sound when you’re speaking them aloud to someone else. Explore with your confidant all those things about your life that you’re trying to avoid dealing with. Be courageous now (in facing your fears), or go down to flaming defeat later (when your relationships blow up in your face). The choice is yours.

I’ve often said that midlife presents each of us with the opportunity to come to terms physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually with the person who we really are. It’s perhaps the greatest challenge to our courage and integrity that we’ll ever face. There are so many and varied ways that we humans can avoid having to deal with these issues; but the only way to resolve them is head-on. Every minute that you continue to use things like narcotic relationships to maintain your avoidance, you also continue to accrue emotional and spiritual interest in terms of the suffering you’re going to have to face eventually. As they tell us in the ad: “Eventually . . . . why not now?”

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

What does this have to do with the midlife transition? I think it
offers us a powerful lesson. If we're going to be successful at
navigating the many life-altering transitions that we have to face at
midlife, we're going to have to be prepared to be fierce
about it. As in all things worth doing, "Half measures avail us
nothing." We are facing . . . and we're going to continue facing . . .
serious changes as we continue to evolve from child through adolescent
through adult and finally to maturity. Changes confront us . . . and
will continue to confront us . . . in each of the three principle
circles of influence: our families, our careers, and our own health and
well-being. Many of these changes are . . . and will continue to be . .
. radical and upsetting. In every case, we're forced to confront these
changes fiercely, or allow them to overwhelm us. How our lives play
themselves out — as success or as failure — will depend to a great
extent on whether we choose to confront these changes as opportunities
for growth or in opposition to our own stubborn wills. Either way, our
battle for survival will be fierce (or none at all). How can we turn
the ferocity of our determination into an evolutionary transformation
that will result in our becoming stronger, more committed and more
powerful people than ever before?

The key to our success lies in embracing fierce transformations. Here's what I mean.

Fierce transformations require that you become fiercely independent.
This attribute is key to the midlife transition. In order to come into
your own and to become the person who you were always meant to be, you
must leave behind you all your reliance on other people's opinions and
expectations. These things are necessary to see you through the
adolescent transition from childhood to adulthood, but they're like
training wheels on a bicycle: when you approach true maturity, it's
time to leave them behind. Embracing fierce independence means that
you've been able to internalize the truth that other people's opinion
of you is none of your business.

Fierce transformations therefore also require that you maintain fierce commitments. You know and can clearly state your
personal core values. The values on which you base your decisions are
the ones that have proven to be tried and true, and
the ones to which you've chosen to give your full commitment. The
fiercely independent person can easily be recognized as someone who is
a person of high principle. You have no trouble looking deeply into
your eyes in the mirror and valuing the person who is looking back.

Fierce transformations furthermore require you to become a person of fierce integrity. You recognize in yourself — and others recognize in you — the unwavering virtues of integrity and honesty. Integrity depends entirely on fierce humility.
Since we define humility as seeing yourself as God sees you and acting
accordingly, being fiercely humble simply means refusing to get caught
up in any kind of pretense and grandiosity. It means being well aware
of your strengths, fearlessly acknowledging of your failures, accepting
of others (whoever they may be and whatever they may do or say), and as
ready to apologize as to forgive.

Fierce transformations also require of you fierce loyalty.
The word 'loyalty' is nothing but a synonym for the word 'love'.
Loyalty, like love, means making a decision and not just feeling an
emotion. This means recognizing that, no matter how fiercely
independent you may be, you cannot succeed alone. The term 'human
family' has to mean more than just a platitude. You recognize that
we're all in this together, and, as Benjamin Franklin once quipped, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Fierce loyalty means that when one of your brothers or sisters is in
need, and you're in a position to be of assistance, they know that
you're the one they can count on.

Fierce transformations in addition require from you fierce trust. Many people wrongly characterize this as the so-called theological virtue of 'faith,' when, in fact, it's really 'hope.' 
As men and women fiercely committed to faith in a Higher Power, we can
fiercely trust that the universe has a direction and, as part of that
universe, our lives cannot be directionless or purposeless. Trusting
that we've been given a purpose and destiny, and that we haven't been
led this only to be dropped on our heads, we gain the courage also to
trust others who demonstrate that they are people of good will. We as
readily rely on their good will as we forgive their well-intentioned
failures.

Finally, fierce transformations always require that you maintain fierce endurance. Regardless of any other character strengths or weaknesses you may possess, this one is, by far, the most critical because obstacles and setbacks are inevitable and your constant companion through life. Far from being obstacles, they serve to provide the footholds that can bring you to your next level of achievement (whatever that may be). Your life experience can be likened to that of a cyclist pedaling uphill. The steeper the incline, the more energy you have to expend and the more pain and exhaustion you're likely to experience. However, should you decide to stop pedaling to rest, you won't just stay where you are on your path: you'll roll backwards. That's why we have to understand the challenges and difficulties that we face as opportunities rather than as obstacles. They provide the resistance that we need in order to grow and develop.

Now, ask yourself, just how fierce are you prepared to be? The success of your transitions and the quality of your life depend on the answer to that question.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC

Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

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Now, back to the REAL Secret to Success. After the life-altering experience that I underwent a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to write about something significant that I had learned . . . something that might be of benefit to others. I thought about the biggest obstacle that people (men especially) have to face at midlife. I know that 'stopper' very well: self-sufficiency. I also remember the one piece of important advice that almost every entrepreneur I interviewed on my former radio program (The Frazzled Entrepreneur) gave as his or her parting comment: "Get yourself a coach, mentor or adviser!" Seeking the counsel of others is of critical importance to anyone who is in pursuit of success. Yet, in itself, this is not the REAL Secret to Success. What is?

Before I answer that question directly, let me first reiterate the one reason I believe that many people delay the midlife transition unnecessarily and thereby cause themselves so much needless pain. I think that trouble with the midlife transition begins with the mistaken idea that we should know how to handle it. So long as we believe that without assistance we should have what it takes and everything we need to transform ourselves from duty-based to destiny-based decision-making, we will remain self-deceived. In fact, if you take just one step back from that statement, you'll see the inner contradiction: the word 'should' is real give-away that we're still dealing with a duty-based core values system. When we're 'should-ing' on ourselves, we're not operating in authenticity. We're not accepting life on life's terms. We're not accepting ourselves just as we are. As a result, and out of fear, we find the need to pretend to be other than the people who we really are. We pretend that we're capable and adequate, all the while dreading that others might find out the truth: that we're frauds and that, if you really knew me, you wouldn't like me at all.

What, then, is the REAL Secret to Success — and the REAL secret to a successful midlife transition as well? Get out your pens and papers (no stone tablets necessary) because here it is: the REAL Secret to Success is humility. Wait! Don't stop reading yet! It's true, and I'll show you why! First, though, I'll repeat here once again my favorite definition of humility (which I have so far been unable to trace back to its source): 'seeing yourself as God sees you and acting accordingly.'

Now, I want to share with you the two greatest gifts of humility, and then I want to discuss how to obtain this elusive Secret to Success. The first gift of humility is honesty. In all the 12-step recovery programs, it is an often-stated (and well-demonstrated) fact that people can recover from addiction but only "if they have the capacity to be honest." The kind of honesty that can lead to healing is only one that is willing to offer the unvarnished truth to one's self, to one's fellows, and to one's God. Humility strips away the need for pretense. When your self-esteem no longer depends on what you think others' opinions of you may be (and when those opinions no longer matter), then there no longer exist any reasons to hide behind dishonesty of any sort. You're free to be the exceptional person whom you really are . . . without excuses.

The second gift of humility is courage. Cowardice consists only of giving in to the fear of facing overwhelming consequences. Yet, humility allows you to see yourself with both your limitations and your strengths. Self-acceptance and the honesty that it provides allows you recognize that you're not a super-hero, you never were a super-hero, and nobody expects you to be a super-hero. You have incredibly valuable gifts that are uniquely yours and the universe stands in need of your courageous generosity. The universe (and the people who inhabit it) are also more than willing to provide you with whatever you need, once you summon the courage to ask. No consequences are truly overwhelming for the humble: they know that life is a gift that's both given and sustained by a Power greater then themselves. Living life on life's terms for them is a matter of acceptance, trust, and engagement.

Gaining humility is at once both an inside and an outside job. On one hand, it takes willingness to confront ourselves exactly as we are, without pretense, and it takes a specific commitment to do the work to make that happen. It takes a commitment to yourself, to your future, and to every person who either depends upon you right now, or ever will depend upon you in the future. It takes a commitment to become the person who you were destined to be without complaints or excuses. It means looking yourself in the eye in the mirror and telling yourself that you'll no longer settle for anything less than everything you deserve.

On the other hand, you can never gain humility by yourself. Notice that, even when you look at yourself in the mirror, the image is distorted. It's backwards. That's why you look so strange when you see yourself in a picture or a video. It's only then that you see yourself as others see you. You need others to reflect back to you the person you cannot see on your own — with all your strengths and your limitations. These people see in you everything that escapes you. They know (and very often play along with) your dishonesties. They silently step in when they see that you're shrinking back out of fear. They know the truth about you even when you're ignorant of it. These mirrors of your soul give you the gift that you desperately need: perspective. And, it's not only those who like you who are your friends; the people who dislike you, who are your fiercest critics, are your best friends. They are the people who'll show you things about yourself that even your 'best friend' won't tell you. Listen to them: all of them.

You're probably very familiar with the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." If you change one word, you'll discover the Humility Prayer: "God, grant me the humility to accept the things I cannot change, the
courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the
difference." What does that tell you? Only that, humility and serenity are interchangeable. If you want serenity, seek humility. Seek it in the eyes, the words and the deeds of those around you. Because, once you've found it and embraced it, you'll discover that you've found integrity and courage as well. If that isn't 'success', I don't know what is. How's that for the REAL Secret to Success?

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC

Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

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