What is the state of my relationship with my parents?
THE FORGOTTEN FUNCTIONS OF OUR SPIRIT
How did you feed your spirit this week?
I lay in the sun and prayed.
I went to the spa pool.
I thanked God.
I enjoyed the laughter and banter of a friend
How did you feed another's spirit?
I went shopping with Annabelle.
I helped my son prepare for 5 days in the bush.
I went to the spa pool with Rosy.
I had coffee with Wayne in the sunshine after a hard day
Why does our spirit need nurture?
" Because I am a spiritual being first. This is the eternal part of me.
I am not only a body and mind, but firstly and everlastingly a spiritual being.
When I am my body what I look like and what I wear, how much I age is paramount. Why do we have such paranoia about botox and nip tuck and Atkins diet?
What I am on the inside is a far different and vastly more important place to be investing my life.
What does my spirit look like? If we could unclothe the body, what would your spirit look like?
" Because it is the spiritual part that sustains our life
God breathed into the dust of the ground and man became a living soul.
First God breathes our spirit into us and then we become a soul.
Breath= ruach or spirit.
As our spirit experiences the events of life in our body and reacts our soul is formed.
The soul is the structure of heart, mind and character and personality
through which our spirit continues to encounter life and express responsively
according to the way it has interpreted experience.
Self is an aspect of the soul.
The entire soul becomes a temple through which our spirit worships God
and meets others,
or a captivity.
- 1. The first function of the spirit is to worship God.
- 2. The second is to keep our bodies functioning and alive. The body decays as soon as the spirit leaves a body. There is a psychosomatic interrelation of the two.
- 3. The third is to interrelate, to reach out across space beyond the body and sometimes beyond the 5 senses and to meet and interact with others.
Eg a mother holding her baby.
In sex, the joining of two into one, the meeting of personal spirits in and through human touch, beyond skin.
You can sense an atmosphere.
We can empathize across space, communicate non verbally, notice incongruence, be joined in spirit.
Worship, communing with others and sustaining life in the body, are primal and basic functions of the spirit.
- " The first is our ability to meet, cherish and adore God;
- " the second our ability to commune and communicate with God, others and nature
- " the third our ability to relate to ourselves.
Of love the Lord and others as you love yourself
How does it get nurture?
Our personal spirit must be fed and nurtured, else it cannot sustain and perform as God intended. Sin fractured the ability of the personal spirit to sustain the body.
So where and how do we nurture our personal spirit?
FROM ITS PRIMAL SOURCE GOD.
" Personal devotion, prayer, praying in tongues ( build myself up)
If I go one day without prayer I know it, two and my friends know and three and the world knows it. We have to tank up or we run out of spiritual capacity to function as we ought.
" Devotional music 2 Chron 5:11-14 none could stand Music fuels our spirit. Evil spirit was tamed by David's music.
" Reading God's word
Ehp 3:16 strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man. Reading God's word is like building a river bank for the flow of the Spirit, without which our life's strength ebbs away as a river lost in desert sands. Without it we don't retain strength.
" corporate worship.
" intercession when people pray for us our spirit is nurtured. Laying hands
" Communion: Jesus said often that he was food and drink to our spirits.
John 4:13-14 John 6: 51-6 John 14:4,6 See the Lord's table as feeding your personal spirit.
" Regular worship, inviting Christ in all of life.
OTHER THINGS FEED THE SPIRIT:
" friendships: enjoying a great movie, walks, coffee, creativity
" creativity
" Laughter
" Creation, beauty, but only as we let the Spirit touch ours meaningfully. Some have no awareness of beauty.
" Art, music with great beauty in it not trivia. Eg the Sons of Korah
" Sport, teams and physical exercise
" The gift of listening and making me feel special, worthy of being heard.
FROM OUR PARENTS AND FAMILIES
" Bedtime prayers, grace, blessings.
" we must pray daily and regularly for our children and with them. Otherwise their spirits wither and starve.
" Where lots of prayer and tactile affection occur, children's spirits are less starved or wounded. But where this is lacking, the inner spirit is angry or hurt and hungers though we are unaware of it. As a deer pants for living water, so my soul longs for thee.
" A child needs many, many touches. Copious amounts of affection. Holding hands, playing chase, wrestling, tickles, being silly together
" Eye contact and focused attention
" Family fun, mealtimes, eating together , celebrations, holidays and outings
" In every act of love, hug and affection, the life of God flows through us and nourishes others in our embrace.
"
Little spirits are open and vulnerable.
We drink in the presence of others, good and bad.
" Most fathers don't know their worth to their child. Lost the power of their spirit through human touch.
A mother's tenderness and hugs.
" You boys want your mothers to back off… but what you don't realize is that your mother's love is feeding your spirit and soul.
When affection is given in normal healthy ways, people's spirits stay whole and seek normal healthy ways of expression.
When affection is not given, drives and urges express themselves in wrong ways and the spirit sickens, seeking out wrong answers for right needs.
True affection does not lead to improper sexual touch and embrace, but away from it.
We should fear the absence of touch.
When I haven't had these things for one reason or another I may feel:
Like a lost spirit, disconnected and abandoned
A big hole inside, an emptiness.
Like shit
I may feel insecure around people, like I don't know who I am
I will be struggling to be a whole person.
I will feel emotionally drained and tired, maybe depressed.
I will find it hard to connect with God on anything but an intellectual level.
I may have learnt some bad habits in order to cope without the nurture my spirit needed
Like performance or perfectionism that becomes alcoholism or workaholism
Looking for adrenaline highs or good times, music, surfing, pornography
or something to cover up the feelings
Parent's acceptance leads to integration
So when I leave home or I am too big for tickle fights and hugs in public from Mum, Where do I find nurture for my spirit?
" Put God in the foundation of your life. My identity begins and ends first and foremost with God.
" Reparent yourself
" Self awareness
" Intentionality
" Support, we can be parents to each other, filling in the gaps
" We may have to coach each other to help us. Eg I need you to listen to me. I need a hug.
" Find and do the things with God that makes you strong and a friend of Jesus
" Get mentoring, supervision, spiritual direction, counselling, a small group
" Make sure you develop a variety of friendships.
" Don't expect one person to supply all your needs, it's too big.
I've left home, but did I do it well?
Did I leave in peace or could I hardly wait to get out of there?
Did I leave in anger and I haven't yet found that resolved?
Did I say goodbye and thankyou?
Was the occasion marked in some way?
How do you think your parents felt? Have you thought about that or acknowledged it?
What could make it easier for them?
What's the biggest question they are asking themselves?
What's their biggest worry?
Who am I in this transition?
Is part of my heart still back home?
Have I adjusted to being here? Am I suffering from some cognitive dissonance? Part of me wants to be here, but another part is missing someone or something and I feel torn apart.
What will it take to be fully here, present in my studies?
Is there anything I need to do?
Parents don't always get it right.
One big area is who's in charge of my life.
We should individuate naturally from our parents during adolescence
Ie we learn to make our own decisions, we take responsibility for our lives and their direction, for our stuff and mess
We learn how to cook for ourselves and do our washing and budget our money.
We leave home and become independent and adult.
This is a process and it's alright to want Mum and Dad and need to go home…
You will never want to be shot of your parents but you will however become your own person.
But sometimes there's a problem:
- my parents were not there; eg one parent died or they divorced
- something happened in your early years; in the birth process, or before you were 5 years old when your wee spirit was very vulnerable that has meant in some way you have been separated emotionally from one or both of your parents all or most of your life.
- I don't relate with intimacy to a parent
- I don't trust them with my life and who I am
- I've learnt to survive on my own.
- OR a parent used fear or verdict based parenting and never gave me the chance to put forward my opinion or my desires. I was told what to do. My objections were never listened to.
- I was dominated and I couldn't answer back because that made it worse.
- There was a power struggle
- I concluded on several levels, that I am not understood, or respected , my opinions don't count
- I recall my power for them to have any input in my life. I withdraw from intimacy with a parent. I don't trust them with my stuff. Resentment slowly accumulates.
There are three rebellious reactions to this:
1. PHYSICAL DEPARTURE
As soon as I am old enough I leave. The deep rift cannot be repaired and I need to get out. But it is premature leaving. I take all the problems into future relationships
2. EMOTIONAL DEPARTURE
Outwardly compliant but inwardly hostile. Walls and withholding of intimacy, not a good start for a marriage. Can't trust. Holding something back. Trouble taking initiative, passive aggressive. Not outwardly saying much but you get the feeling they're always angry about something. Aloofness.
3. EMOTIONAL DEPENDENCY
the teenager can never say no to the parent. She crumples to the parents will, never asserts herself and therefore never learns to take responsibility for her own life. Relies on Mum and Dad for the hard parts of life. Smothered. Tries to please.
You don't need a wife you need a mother
Some of this happened way before you were 17.
" For some of you this happened when you felt abandoned by your mother who was sick and hospitalized, or she left you with someone else
" Or as a result of your conception and birth process your tiny spirit was bruised by medical procedures and by things totally out of your control or even your mother's control. They happened but you learned even then that your survival was up to you and this person couldn't be trusted.
" For some of you it was because your father hit you without also comforting you. Or it was any sort of abuse.
" For some of you it's because mother smothered you, controlled you and wouldn't give you any room to be your own person. She didn't like your friends or your music or your interests and she made you conform
" Or it's because they dragged you along to church and it's a miracle you are still here today.
" You've had some major argument with a parent and you've stopped trusting them, shut them out of your life.
Whatever it is, if you recognize yourself in anything here, don't leave it like this.
Why? Because you will take this baggage into your future relationships and it will not be helpful.
What is the remedy?
- self awareness. Understand what went on and why I reacted? It's not all about you, but your response, your future is up to you.
- If you have defensively detached from one or both parents you need some help to fix that.
- Honour your mother and father, so that it may go well with you in the land. You have a responsibility here.
- it is a process: forgiveness, taking down the walls, learning to trust again
It's mother's day next week. What can I do to honour her this year?
Have we marked our leaving at all?
Is there something I can do to help my parents with my having grown up and left home?
Do they need some reassurance that they did ok.
(much of the thinking behind this message I credit to David Riddell's teaching and Schools of Living Wisdom. For more information on his schools see his website)
www.livingwisdom.co.nz