In Glaen we learn the story of a college grad student who sees a strange answer to prayer lead her on a path of discovery about how relationships work (and don’t work). In the midst of her learning she keeps a journal of her observations and insights.
There is one particular insight that she doesn’t discover, instead she has to be told by the last person she could imagine learning it from. Here’s the insight you’ll learn bout when you read Glaen:
Truth is the Lifeblood of Relationships
Actually that may not sound like much, but it is everything. You know, when two people are in a relationship it can only be the REAL THING if both partners are REAL themselves. Robert Fritz, a mentor of mine, shares about the math of relationships— where he means that both people have to say, “Yes,” before anything can happen. If you get asked to dinner and say, “No,” then it is a NO. So take that on to relating with someone.
If you are not acting like yourself (let’s say by being unusually nice, but less than honest), then that person really isn’t getting the real you. So even if the other person is being authentically himself/herself, you aren’t in a real relationship because YOU AREN’T THERE!
This may sound confusing, but it really isn’t. Closeness is about two people really getting to know (and I’d add, “and usually cheer for”) one another. Well, unless the real you is there telling what you really think and feel, there is not a chance for real relating to happen.
“BUT WAIT!” you might say. “What if the other person isn’t being truthful?’
Well, and I mean this in a gracious way, what business is it of yours? You see, a lot of what we all get down to is some ‘well meaning’ behaviors which really are designed to get the other person to behave. If you are like me, you have enough of a problem just getting yourself to behave!
Why not give just telling the truth and being true to yourself the room to be enough. Invite the other person to join you…but then again, it really gets down to there choice. There is one powerful style of communication that Glaen unveils…but we’ll have to learn about it later.
For now, go out there and see if you can find another person you could just simply tell the truth with… apart from demands or expectations concerning how he or she should respond, act, etc.
Grace and truth,
Fred Lybrand
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