“A Letter to Dad”

(The names have been changed to protect my friends’ rights to privacy.  Additionally, I have avoided giving too much detail, which might identify my friends, in case someone they know reads this blog.)

This was an email I sent my dad tonight, who has Multiple Sclerosis.  He’s been bed-ridden for a year or more; and his last email says that the disease has progressed to the point where he is now waiting for a nursing home to open up and take him.  When I was just a boy, he was my best friend.  As I grew older, our relationship grew more and more strained, until we stopped communicating all together for a very long time.  Just recently, after speaking with my close friend about his extremely caustic relationship with his mother – I began giving him advice.  Of course, if you are willing to give advice, you should be willing to take it…if it applies.  It did.  I needed to attempt to heal the relationship between my father and I, somehow.

He is going to pass away at some point, and I didn’t want that to happen before I had a chance to say how I really felt about him and what impact he had on my life.  In the past I had focused so much on my own pain and misery, that I could not really see what was going on.  I spewed hatred and bitterness everywhere I went.  I hated myself.  I hated my father.  I hated my mother.  I hated the world; and I didn’t trust anyone.  The miracle is – how did I ever manage to become removed from all of that and begin my healing?

Something greater than me has stepped in.  I am sure of it.  And so, in the spirit of generosity and appreciation, I say with a very warm heart, Thank you, whoever or whatever has watched over me all of these years.  I know that you were there; even if I couldn’t feel you at times.  You have guided me, protected me and brought me to this place and time of forgiveness for myself and for those who I felt did me harm when I was younger.  If there is a God; then this bit of song which I love to sing applies, here, I think:
~Our God is an Awesome God- He Reins… from the Heavens Above, with Wisdom, Power and Love – Our God is an Awesome God!~

To Dad:
Remember when I was at one of the foster homes; and you recorded two cassette tapes of songs on my birthday?  You would spend a few seconds to introduce the next song coming up.
I really appreciated that.

I think I wore those tapes out, playing them over and over and over again.  Each time I did, I thought about coming home again.  It got me through some really tough times.  Thank you.

My friend Sam went through some very traumatic stuff with his mom when he was just a kid.  She nearly killed him several times, driving drunk.  He literally, had to, as a kid, grab the steering wheel out of her hand, so they wouldn’t drive into a concrete divider on the highway; and shake her awake.

When he tells me this stuff, I let him talk for a bit, because he needs to speak about it.  He needs to acknowledge it.  But after a time, I begin to steer him toward what he wants to get out of his relationship with his mom, now.  Now is all we really have.  And I hate to see him waste his, now, on bitterness, so I have repeatedly asked him to focus on the things that were good between him and his mother.  Over the course of a few weeks, he has increasingly been able to do so; and what started out as hate, and anger and all the why’s of why she did this to him as a little kid; and why can’t she just admit some of it…..he’s starting to feel the love he felt and has wanted to feel for so long, for her.

As a man, I have had to make really tough choices:

One of those choices led me to walk away from a girlfriend/friend who kept drinking and drugging, because it was keeping me from being able to stop, myself.  I still like her and think about her.  I care about her; but I had to do that in order to get my own life straight.

It’s these kinds of choices, I feel, which make the difference between a boy, and a man; or a girl and a woman.  When you told me, that I had the makings of being a leader, I couldn’t see it, all those years ago.  All I could see was that I was unpopular, felt confused and no girl seemed to want to be with me.  I tried to change all the outward stuff, hoping that that would somehow change me and that people would want to be close to me.  In time, I saw that changing my outward appearance, was a very SMALL part of changing the conditions in my life; but where I would need to focus most of my attention, would have to be on my character.

I came to this conclusion very slowly and very painfully, when I started looking for a way to avoid being poor; and instead, studied the ways of the wealthy.  I gave up, for the most part, reading fantasy and science fiction; and began a steady diet of self-help books.  It was a painful process, because the last thing I wanted to really do, was to change myself – that takes courage, conviction, commitment, consistency and discipline – all of which, I was sorely lacking, at the time.

Some of these books would have exercises to do.  I wouldn’t do them.  The most I would do, was imagine doing the exercise.  Yet, I kept coming across these books that told me that if I really wanted to change, then reading the book would not be enough.  I would have to take action.  Because I had created a habit of reading these kinds of books; I kept coming across this message, until one day, I picked up a pen and piece of paper and tentatively began an exercise in the book I was reading.  But as my courage grew and my yearning to change grew stronger, I did more and more of these exercises. – And the course that this has set me upon has been so powerful that it literally changed my life.

So, yes, I am becoming a leader; but I am certain that I could never have done so, had I not been in pain.  It was the pain that forced me to take a look at myself, that caused me to have such a burning desire for change and transformation, that I would become intimately acquainted with fear, and what it takes to overcome it – or pain, and what it takes to push through it.  How could I ever have hoped to lead people, if I had not gone through my own hell?  How could I ever have related?  Even if I tried, what advice or real-life problem-solving action could I have taken?  If I had tried to rely on some text-book knowledge that I had read out of a field guide for leaders – the most I would have accomplished, was regurgitating what someone else wrote – with no thoughts of my own that had been congealed over time and experience.

Facing failure after failure and learning that that is not the end; has given me the ability to not see myself as a FAILURE, but more as a scientist, who will eventually find what he seeks.  I may have gotten people to follow, but as soon as REAL problems arose, my lack of character would have shown through and people would have lost faith in me; and maybe, even, themselves.  If I am in a crisis situation in the future…I cannot afford for this to happen.  Lives might be at stake; or something greater.

So, looking back on my life, even though the lessons have, at times, been very difficult – I am extremely grateful for having had the opportunity to have gone through them.  Most people would never say that – And that is precisely why I will be a leader among leaders.

Most of that has to do with how you brought me up:  Your advice.  Your quotes like, “If man thinks he can; or a man thinks he can’t – he is generally right”; and “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still”.  Your love of knowledge and being more than just average.  Your love of the mind and logic.  Your multiple interests.  Your curiosity and playing with science.  Your anger and passion for life.  Your jokes and lighter side.  Your wanting to teach other people what you had discovered…Your need to think for yourself —- I watched that, and began to incorporate it into my being at an early age.  I didn’t know what was happening, but I was being transformed.  My little body and mind and heart were going through an alchemical transformation; yet, I was unaware.

So, I want to thank you.  I want to thank you for the time when we were watching a football game; and you smelled something burning and grabbed a hot frying pan with your bare hand; had to go to the sliding glass door, slam it open and dump it outside on the deck.  You acted without worrying about your fears; got a second or third degree burn for your bravery and selflessness.

Later, while I was in the Marines.  My corporal had dove into the water and the other corporal froze when she realized that he was in trouble.  I acted without thinking, endangering my own life, getting my glasses knocked off; and having the water pull me down in between the big stones of coral…ripping my my back to shreds and my hands and my feet, after bracing with all my might, so I wouldn’t be sucked under.  Even after all that – after having failed to help him and nearly dying, myself, I still went and crawled back over to him and pulled him out of the water.  I calmed my mind and noticed that if I used the tide, it would buoy up his body weight and would be able to pull him up onto the rocks, safely.

These are things I did not share with you; or if I did – not the whole story.

I just want you to know, that I am the kind of man I am, mostly, because of you.  Words cannot express all that I feel for you, though in this email, I have tried.

Dave

David Lee Madison, Jr.
~Nate – street name
~KnavetheMage on Twitter
~ZenNinja
~Nate Love
~Dreamweaver
Wordpress – Synergy, KnavetheMage, suprememasterjedi
Copied from my WORD documents in Boulder, CO
Monday, December 16, 2013 – 01:27

“Do You Have a ‘Relationship Language’ Solidly In Place?”

What I’ve found, is that we need to learn to speak the same language and use the same definitions when dealing with another person.

What that requires is a Relationship Language.  A what?!  A Relationship Language – a language or a set of definitions that both parties agree on beforehand – before they get into their first argument. 

What I mean by that, is that any single person has their own definitions of words and combinations of words, and gestures, and what that means to them, based on their past experience, culture, family and what they’ve gone on to learn.  But whenever two or more people gather together, issues can arise from the simple fact that each person has their own unique definitions drawn from unique experiences, and often people assume that they know what those definitions are, when they really don’t.

An example of this is when somebody replies defensively, “Hey.  It’s simply logic.  It’s common sense.  Anyone would know that.”; or “What do you mean you don’t understand?! – I’ve been telling you for the past half hour what I mean!  How can you honestly stand there and act like you are this dumb!?”

Ouch….Looks like these people need some “Non-Violent Communication” (NVC); or at least a common way to communicate, so that both parties can be relatively sure that they understand one another.

The thing is, people tend to assume that the other person can read their mind.  That’s too bad, because a lot of heartache could be avoided, if they would just take the time, sit down, and explain what they really mean by the words that they use.

Take, for example, my friend and I having an argument over the issue of the word, “work”.  It’s a simple word, not that long; and when you say, “I’m going to work”, most people know what you mean.  But when you refer to work as something other than your job; then things can take on a different meaning.  I’ve argued that by labeling something you might like to do, as ‘work’, simply because you’re getting paid for it,  it could cause you to have negative feelings associated with what you like to do!

To some, “work” means struggle, effort – ‘blood, sweat and tears’ – ‘by the sweat of your brow shall you toil’, (according to the Genesis, in the Bible).  But work could also simply mean the result after you put energy and action into something.  What if you really like to dance…stripper, hip hop, whatever; but you get paid to do it.  Is it still considered, ‘work’?  For some, it would be.  For others, it would not.  Some people might say it was a hobby that they got paid for.  If you are an escort or a Gigolo and you love to have sex…but you get paid for it – Does that constitute, ‘work’? –  Well, it wouldn’t for me.  But that’s just me.  And that’s just my point…everyone has a different definition and a string of definitions for every single word or symbol.  Figure out what that is; and you’ll be communicating like you never did before.  They’ll say something like, “It’s like you’ve known me my whole life!”, or “I was just going to say that!”, or “Wow, those are some pretty powerful psychic abilities you have there.  You read my mind!”

Let’s take another example. – A rather simple one that we’ve all heard:  A young salesman comes up to a lady, and says, “Can I help you, MAM?” – Boy! – Did he just stick his foot in his mouth?  In her mind, she’s going, “Oh, I look old enough to be called, ‘MAM’, now, do I?” – When this guy may have been raised in the South where it’s well known that boys are taught manners at a very early age; and this is simply a word of respect for him.

One last example here:  Remember high school math?  Maybe you’re still there learning about the ‘Order of Operations’.  Sound familiar?  If not, I’ll jog your memory for a moment:  The ‘Order of Operations’ can be remembered using an acronym of PEMDAS…Parenthesis, Exponets, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract. – And the reason why students are taught this is because there are times when a person is doing a math problem and they might come up with a different answer, having added, before they multiplied, possibly.  There has to be a standard, shared language across the board, so that when people say I did such and such and came up with this result; other people can follow them exactly to get the same result.  Imagine the chaos different car industries might go through if they tried to use the results from someone who didn’t know their ‘system’.

The small amount of time that you spend learning what your potential spouse’s Relationship Language – your friends’ or even someone you just met – will pay you back many times over and save you countless arguments and all that time trying to explain yourself while you are both angry or frustrated and not in your ‘right mind’.

I’ve discovered that the worst time to try and be logical with someone is when you are in the thick of a heated argument.  Rationality seems to go right out the window; and people get incensed over the stupidest things, when they should be trying to make their relationship stronger.  I mean, that’s the whole point, right?  – To remain in the relationship and to grow together; not split up because someone felt butt-hurt over a technicality, right?

So, do the right thing and think about the words you use and what they mean to you; and when things are going all cozy, start this conversation with your friend, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other…whatever. You’ll be glad you did; I promise!

David Lee Madison, Jr.
~Nate – street name
~KnavetheMage on Twitter
~ZenNinja
~Nate Love
~Dreamweaver
WordPress – Synergy, Twitter: KnavetheMage, suprememasterjedi
Copied from my WORD documents in Boulder, CO
Saturday, December 14, 2013 – 16:27