Care More About What You Are Giving Than What You Are Receiving

If you are going to create a successful marriage you will have to mature to the place where you focus more on what you are giving than what you are receiving. I know this opposite of what society promotes, however it is key to not getting trapped in pride.

Pride is the opposite of Love. Love is not about you, it is about the person you are loving. However, Pride is all about "your needs, your wants, your hurts, your desires," etc. You cannot walk in Love and pride at the same time. And pride is at the root of 100% of divorces.

This is not an invitation for abuse. When you Love appropriately then your boundaries will guide you away from abuse. Hopefully you are not in an abusive or toxic relationship. If you are, why??

Remember, Love is not a boomerang that you throw out expecting it to return. That is what we call pride. Love, on the other hand, has no expectation of a return. So when you give it, give it because you want to and not to get something back from your partner.

"Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other." - Romans 12:10

Marriage Is Not For The Weak

One of the reasons that the divorce rate is so high is because people do not truly understand what it takes to have a successful marriage. The reality is that Marriage Is Not For The Weak. When I say "weak" I am not talking about physical strength. The strength needed for marriage is emotional and spiritual strength along with better skills.

Trying to do marriage "casually" or with the skills you showed up to adulthood with might get you knocked out like Nate Robinson. For those that don't know, Nate Robinson is a former basketball player who decided to get into a boxing ring with a professional boxer. When Nate got knocked out it was all over social media. Snoop said, "You play basketball, you can't "play" boxing." Nate was unprepared.

In the same way, most people are unprepared for what they sign up for when they say, "I do." Being 'in love' is not enough to make marriage work. What you learned in childhood about how relationships work was probably wrong. Keith Sweat was right when he said, "There's a right and a wrong way to love somebody." If you learn it wrong you will live it wrong.

If you are married, make sure you get the skills and tools you need in order to have a successful marriage. Remember that marriage always works...it is either working FOR you or it is working ON you, but it is working. And if you are not married yet, please understand that having a "made up mind" to be successful will not overcome your lack of understanding of how marriage works.

The reason marriage is hard is because no one ever taught you that it would take this much. Marriage is not for the weak. Do the work to become stronger.

You Don't Have to Settle For a Lesser Life

I was thinking not long ago about why I am the way I am vs. the way I grew up. Many days I am frustrated with myself for not doing something "productive" that I was supposed to do. Several times I told myself I was going to quit trying to be "better" and just live on the level I'm on. The thing is, when I think about NOT reading about inner child work, or think about NOT having a podcast or thriving you tube channel, I actually cannot imagine just working a 9-5, going to work and back home every day and watch TV all night til bed time. I've seen a few friends online and said "why can't I be like them? They are not worried about a pod nor cast!"

The crazy thing about this unshakeable desire to be "great" was not given to me in childhood. Some people are raised and some just grew up. I grew up. Yep, I grew up groomed for an average job paying around $45k or a blue collar job like truck driver or postal worker making a little more. I'm laughing right now because I remember my mother asking me if I was gonna to job corp after I graduate. She had a lot of confidence in my future lol. Anyway, the point is, where did I get this crazy, unrelenting fire inside of me? I truly have no idea of how I got here. My conclusion is that this was God's plan all along. Which speaks to what God can and will do no matter what your parents did to you.

(And it also means that you parents raising children with all of these special techniques, robbing children of their childhood because you parent in fear can STOP doing that because they will become who they are to become. Your number one goal is to prepare them for relationships. If you do that then your child wins!! We do relationships from the cradle to the grave. The reason I have such a thriving business, unfortunately, is because of childhood issues showing up in adulthood.)

There are days when I feel like the goals I have are too high, especially for my age. I will be 50 in less than 30 days and I’m not even close to my goals. This is another reason why I sometimes wish I could just quit trying to be better and just live an average life. Tonight happens to be one of those nights where I’m looking at my closet where I keep the cake and ice cream and a party hats for the pity parties I be having. And man let me tell you, my pity parties be LIT! But to be honest, I am too old to be partying like that, and I never feel good when the party is over, which then sometimes triggers another party. I digress. So tonight I was supposed to be working on podcast ideas but I found myself on YouTube trying to distract myself. I came across a video about Master P. If you don’t know who Master P is, look him up. Master P is close to a billionaire, if not one already. But Percy Miller (Master P) grew up in the projects in New Orleans. He said that he told his lil son, “one day we gone make it out these bricks (the projects) and we gone own our own business too.” If I was on video I would just pause right now so that could sink in. A poor black young man who is used to the street life decided to dream.

So as I am thinking about the human mind and how Master P literally went from the bottom to the top. I have no aspirations for that kind of fame, but I began to ask myself if I had anything as marketable as P did? But then I thought about the fact that Master P did NOT make great music. Master P is not wealthy because of his music. The best artist on his label was Mystikal and he left after 2 albums. Percy Miller became Master P because of his dream, his desire, and his hustle (because faith without works is dead). That actually encouraged me! It reminded me that we are ALL just regular humans. There are NO super humans. So every human who does super human things is doing it as a regular human. And goes what you are? That’s right, a regular human. That means that you don’t have to settle for a life less than your dream. But first, it means you should be dreaming! Let’s start there. What are you dreaming up? I heard Steve Harvey say that your dream is a preview of what it possible for you. I don’t know if that is true but it does make sense. I don’t dream about being a fire fighter or a doctor or a pilot. I have no dreams about things that are not for me.

If you can dream it you can have it. Whether or not you SHOULD have it is a different conversation. But I want to encourage you to push past your limits and become great! You deserve it.

Do I need a coach or a therapist? What is the difference?

You may not have know that there is actually a difference between coaching and therapy. When I tell people that I provide individual counseling and marriage coaching they are usually confused. So I thought I would explain it here for you. You can also watch a video that I did on the topic about a year ago on YouTube.

I like to explain the difference between coaching and therapy by highlighting the difference between being hurt and being injured. Since my favorite sport is basketball, I’ll use it as an example. One time when in college, I went up for a layup but someone undercut my legs and I ended up falling on my head. Well, part of my head…my hands and arms broke the fall mostly, but I was still I great pain. After about 5 minutes I was ready to play again, and I did. Although I was hurt I was still able to play. Contrast that with Kevin Durant’s ruptured achilles tendon. I was hurt but I was still able to play. Kevin Durant was injured so he was not able to continue to play. Because I could still play, I needed a coach. Durant did not need a coach because he needed to heal…he needed a doctor / physical therapist.

When you are hurt you need a coach. When you are injured you need a therapist. As far as marriage goes, you need a coach. However, when one or both people in the marriage are injured, they will not benefit much from coaching because they have things they need to heal before they can receive coaching. Coaching is more about guidance and skills, whereas therapy is about healing and restoring normalcy. We humans are created to function a certain way in order to thrive. Sometimes, life happens and causes injuries that impede us from thriving. Therapy helps restore what was broken in childhood, like healing Durant’s tendon. It is normal for humans to be emotionally whole. It is normal to not carry shame. It is normal to have boundaries. So going through therapy should help you be restored to normalcy. Once you get a reset, you are ready for coaching. Thriving can only happen after healing, period.

This means that therapy is not really for marriage. Marriages need coaches, individuals need therapy. The same is true in your individual life if you are single. If you have injuries that you need to heal, you have to do that before you can thrive. Unfortunately because this is not a well known explanation, most people come to marriage counseling (coaching) but actually need individual therapy. Couple’s who need individual work but do not get it before we do marriage counseling end up being repeat clients more often.

So which one do you believe you need? Coaching or therapy? Currently with us, there is no price difference, but soon there will be.

Preparing for Worst

Most of the people that come to therapy are on the “worst” side of “for better or for worst.” I often ask, “what did you think ‘worst’ looked like?” The reality is that ‘worst’ is coming to visit every marriage and every relationship. It is not a matter of IF but WHEN will it come. Although everyone would agree that things will get hard at times in your relationship, most people are unprepared for what they say is inevitable.

Preparation is crucial to success in almost every area of life. It is alarming to me how often people are unprepared for marriage and yet they are sure it is what they want to do. No one makes the decision to get married because they love the difficult part. People get married for the potential benefit, ignoring the reality of how difficult it can possibly get, as if ignoring it will make it less likely to show up. Trust me, worst is coming. And the truth is that it will come more than once throughout a relationship and marriage, but surprisingly, people still fail to prepare for the next “worst” arrival.

Two years ago when hurricane Harvey hit Houston, most of us were unprepared for it. The following year, with even the hint of a hurricane, people ran to the stores to buy water, bread and other things to prepare for a possible hurricane. They did this because they remembered what happened the last time they were unprepared. I was watching a documentary on WWII. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor we were not prepared. That kind of attack can never happen again because we remember the last time we were unprepared.

Last week I was about to head to work but when I went outside I saw that it was cloudy and dark so I went back inside and got my umbrella. Why? Because based on the signs outside it looked like it was going to rain and I wanted to be prepared for it. In the same way, if you want to be successful at marriage, you must prepare for worst. Every time worst shows up, you should be a little more prepared and learn something new to help you be more prepared next time. Even if you do not go to therapy, we live in an age where information is everywhere. You don’t know how to communicate? Learn. You don’t know how to show empathy? Learn. You can’t tell when your mate is in need? Learn. You do not know how to express your feelings in a healthy way? Learn.

Many of us (me included) grew up with faulty ideas and beliefs about relationships. We cannot choose the family we grow up in. However, as an adult it is 100% your responsibility to grow and learn in a way that helps you live your best life. Your best life is not always pain free, but it will ALWAYS include healthy relationships, starting with your relationship with yourself. You want to be a husband/wife but have you prepared yourself to be great at that role? Even if you are already married, if you never learned to do what you have signed up to do then you cannot blame anyone but you.

Some of the things you have to overcome needs to be worked out in therapy because the issue is deeper than the surface behavior you see. For example, you may think you have a communication issue when really it is a deeper issue of inappropriate self-worth that affects how you show up in the world all together, not just communication. Sometimes trying to change your behavior instead of dealing with where the behavior comes from is like like cutting off all the apples on an apple tree because they are bad instead of treating the roots of the tree. After all that work, maybe no more bad apples will grow, but more than likely they will. Dealing with the tree at its roots will address the core issue. In the same way, you have to address your core issues that affect your relationship. That is marriage preparation.

If you feel you could use more preparation for the difficult times ahead, call or email us today so that we can help you live the life you were created to live.

Missed Opportunities

Most relationships are not destroyed by major events. Instead, most of them deteriorate over time because of small missed opportunities for connection. John Gottman calls these opportunities “bids for connection.” Here is an excerpt from his book, “What Makes Love Last”: In a committed relationship, partners constantly ask each other in words and deeds for support and understanding. These are called “bids.” They can be as simple as “could you get me a beer” or as profound as “I need you,” after a scary medical diagnosis. Not all bids are obvious. Many of them get missed, ignored or misinterpreted. One partner may say, “I love you,” expecting the other to turn around and initiate a hug. But the partner, distracted and half-listening, says “I know you do.” Every bid made in a relationship initiates a “sliding door moment.” When one partner expresses a need for connection, the other’s response is either to slide open a door and walk through or keep it shut and turn away.

More times than not, these bids are not obvious. Also, more times than not, the ignoring of bids is not intentional or a conscious act. The fact that missing the bid for connection from your partner may not be intentional does not alleviate the damage it can cause. Over time, after so many missed bids for connection, a partner may simply stop trying to connect in those small ways. Here is an example of how these small bids for connection can be missed. Jim looks out the window and says, “Wow it is a beautiful day outside.” Jill is sitting in the room with Jim but does not acknowledge what he said. Opportunity missed. That one moment will not destroy the relationship, but over time, many of those missed moments will eat away at the trust and intimacy of the relationship.

There are two major things that cause you to miss these opportunities for connection with your partner.

Not Tuned In

When you have not made it a habit in your relationship to be tuned into your partner you are like to miss most of the bids for connection they will make because most of them are not obvious. But while they may not be obvious, they are discernible if you are tuned in. “Tuned in” is another way of saying pay attention to your partner. When you notice a shift in their behavior they may be making a bid or you may have just missed a bid for connection. It is easy to take those small moments of connection for granted. You may not get a big flashing sign that says, “Hey, I need you!” You have to take care of your partner emotionally…it is the most vulnerable place of your relationship. When the emotional epicenter of the marriage is not well, gifts, trips and favors will not matter much.

Distracted By Technology

There are many ways that you can be distracted in your relationship, but in this day and age, nothing seems to be more destructive to relationships than cell phones, the internet, and social media. I believe the reason it is so destructive is because the distraction may not seem obvious to the person that is distracted. You can be sitting with your partner for hours and never connect because you are distracted by your phone. We have lost the sense of being present with our partner. The cell phone is supposed to aid in connection but it actually is the thing that is slowly deteriorating relationships by the thousands. You have to make it your business to maximize the moments of connection with your partner when you are together.

It does not take many missed bids for your partner to start to feel like they are not that important to you or that they do not matter. Unfortunately, this often opens the door for someone or something else to come in and take your partner’s attention. Do not depend on, “They should just do right,” as the means to protect your relationship from outsiders. Great relationships do not just happen…you have to work at it. If you are not willing to truly work at it then you are more than likely only delaying the inevitable failure of your relationship.

Injury Timeout - Come See About Me

Last night I was watching the Texans game. We finally beat the Patriots!! It was a really good game. We even threw in a trick play. At one point during the game, one of our players got hurt. I can’t remember who it was but he was laying on the field injured. When the “people who respond to injuries” saw him, they ran out on the field to help. When they came over I noticed that he let them help him. He did not push them away. This got me to thinking about how we should respond to injuries in our marriages.

When we are injured in our relationship the normal tendency is to put a wall up, withdraw and isolate from our mate. I want to encourage you to welcome your mate’s comfort when you are injured. This is especially true when they are the one who injured you. You have to let them tend to you.

When your partner is injured, you should run to them (come close to them) and find out what is hurting and how you can help. Now, this does not mean start asking a lot of questions. But it does mean that your number one objective is to comfort. When I say, “run to them,” the idea is that you come quickly as if they are a priority to you because they should be. When your mate is injured, nothing else is more important than you comforting them.

You may be thinking that this is extreme and wondering why does it take all of that? The truth is, it is not extreme when you have the mindset that your marriage is the most important thing in your life and having an injured partner hurts the marriage. Too often we treat our mates as if they are an option until the threat of losing them arises. Make it a habit of being attentive to their needs and always be ready to run on the field of life and see about your injured partner.

Patience through the Process #keepgoing

Currently I am facing a difficult time in my personal life. I am in a place where I have to be patient through the process of growing. As I was coming back to the office I thought about how hard it is to work for something when you do not see any results. We want to see the “fruit of our labor” and we want to see it fairly quickly.

In your marriage it is easier to “work the process” when you can see the process working. But what about when you do not see any results? The truth is, while it’s not easy working when the payoff is delayed, it is even more difficult when you work at something and you believe the payoff is coming but you have no idea when. If you had a job where you had to work 6 months at a time with no income but then at the end of the 6 months you got a check for $200k then you could probably work hard for 6 months. In this case the payoff is delayed but you are certain it’s coming. However, what about when you do not know how long you have to work before you get the payoff?

I am used to doing a certain thing and getting a certain result. But now that the result is not coming and I am unsure of when it will, or even IF it will, the willingness to do the work has decreased. And in that moment when I realized this for myself, I thought of my clients who are working on their marriage but may not be seeing the results they had hoped. I want to encourage you as I encourage myself to keep doing the right thing. Keep investing in your marriage, keep being kind, keep being patient, keep forgiving, keep loving…keep going. It’s not easy but you have no idea how close to “payoff” you are.

You’ve probably heard the story of the Chinese Bamboo Tree. Like any plant, growth of the Chinese Bamboo Tree requires nurturing – water, fertile soil, sunshine. In its first year, we see no visible signs of activity. In the second year, again, no growth above the soil. The third, the fourth, still nothing. Patience is tested and we begin to wonder if our efforts (caring, water, etc.) will ever be rewarded.

And finally in the fifth year – behold, a miracle! We experience growth. The Chinese Bamboo Tree grows 80 feet in just six weeks!

Does the Chinese Bamboo Tree really grow 80 feet in six weeks? No, it actually took 5 years. The tree did not lie dormant for four years only to grow exponentially in the fifth. The tree was actually growing underground, developing a root system strong enough to support its potential for outward growth in the fifth year and beyond. Had the tree not developed a strong unseen foundation it could not have sustained its life as it grew.

This story is often told to inspire people to keep pursuing their dreams. People, who patiently work towards worthwhile dreams and goals, building strong character while overcoming adversity and challenge, grow the strong internal foundation to handle success, while get-rich-quickers and lottery winners usually are unable to sustain unearned sudden wealth. In the same way, as you nurture and water your marriage, do not become discourage by the slow or lack of growth you see. Do not be weary in doing well because in due season you will reap a harvest if you do not give up. You may not know when “due season” is and that’s the hard part, but keep going!

Therapy Works If You Do

Week after week I find myself looking at my schedule and dreading certain days because I know it is going to be like pulling teeth working with certain clients. It’s not because I do not enjoy therapy. I LOVE the work I do. I love changing lives and helping people come out of the dark places they find themselves in. The thing that makes my work difficult is the client who has paid for my help, comes to therapy faithfully, but does NO work outside of the therapy room. I’m sure they are getting SOME benefit from coming, but they are not maximizing their healing potential.

Therapy works if you work. Therapy is not like the magic beans in Jack and the Beanstalk. You can’t go to therapy, listen to the therapist and then all of a sudden your life is radically changed. You have to put in the work for your change. Your therapist is more like your emotional coach than your teammate. He instructs you on what to work on, how to address weaknesses and ways to improve, but it is up to you to implement what the coach tells you.

There are some clients who, session after session, come and talk about being on the same merry-go-round week after week. When I ask, “did you do the reading assignment, did you do the homework, did you practice what we talked about,” the answer is “no, I was too busy, I was tired, I hadn’t had a chance, blah blah blah.” The reality is that your life won’t get better until YOU get better and your therapist is not the person responsible for making your life great. There was a time in my career where I took that burden upon myself and if people were not getting better then I would beat myself up thinking it is my fault. I thought if their life is not getting better, if they are still stuck, then I must not be doing my job good enough. I’ve grown to know that is not true.

The unfortunate reality of having a therapist as skilled as me and not doing the work is you waste a great opportunity to drastically change your life. It’s not because of me, I’m just the coach…but I am, like many of my colleagues, a good coach. But we cannot play the game of life for you. I strongly encourage you to NOT pay your money to do therapy if you are not truly ready to do the work to change. Wait until you are ready. Otherwise, you will not get the most for your investment.

Matters of the Heart

Have you ever tried to change a behavior that is negatively affecting your marriage or relationship but over and over you fail? The reason for this is because your outward behavior, regardless of what it is, is only a sign of what is in your heart. Trying to have behavior change without having a heart change is a clear road to frustration and disappointment.

Proverbs 4:23 says to guard your heart above all else because it determines the course of your life. Before I continue, let me explain what I (and Proverbs) mean by the “heart.” The heart we are referring to is not the muscle in your chest that pumps blood. We are actually talking about the intersection of the will and the emotions…where we choose and feel. Some may understand the heart to be the mind, which is different from the brain. The brain is a physical part of the body just as the heart is, however the Mind is the complexity of the human soul, which is different from the spirit. Are you confused yet? I’m not trying to confuse you. The basic message I want to convey as it relates to understanding what the Heart (or mind) is is this: What is seen in world (your behavior) is a result of what is going on in an unseen world (your heart).

When Solomon says guard your heart above all else, in essence what he is saying is “be careful about what you allow your senses (taste, touch, see, smell, hear) to experience because it will affect your mind and then your mind will determine how you live life on this planet.”

In Luke 6:45 Jesus expounds on the heart when he says ‘A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and bad person produces bad things from the treasury of a bad heart.’ What He is saying is that the fruit you get from a tree is because of the kind of tree it is. If you have an apple tree that produces brown inedible apples season after season then it means that something is wrong with the tree at the root level. In this example, the apple represents your words and behavior and the roots of the tree represent your heart. So, what comes out of you is what is in you.

Now (that was just the introduction), as you try to do marriage or relationships, you find that you may have certain unpleasant behaviors that you cannot simply discipline yourself to stop. These are usually the result of a damaged heart. To be more specific, I’m talking about anger, people pleasing and revenge (you hurt me so I’m going to hurt you). There are many fruit that hurt relationships but these are probably the most harmful. in order to address these issues you must address your heart, not your behavior. If you try to address your behavior only it would be like cutting off all of the apples of that tree that is always producing brown inedible apples in hopes that when the branches grow back it will produce delicious red apples without addressing the real problem…the roots. It’s a bad tree.

A good tree

bears good fruit, while a bad tree bears bad fruit.

Unlike trees, we humans can change our roots. We can change (‘heal’ is a better word) our hearts. You may not even know how your heart got damaged. Most often our hearts are damaged in childhood. So much of what you learned as a child about how to do life on this planet was flat out wrong. Some of it you learned indirectly by the way you were treated. Some of it you learned from a parent who was giving your their interpretation of life through the lens of fear (i.e. don’t ever depend on no one, real men don’t cry, shut and sit down so you won’t bother people.) These things damaged your heart. If you were abused then your heart was definitely damaged. Some of the things your learned were ‘the world is not safe, I can’t trust anyone, love hurts, I’m not good enough, I don’t deserve to be happy, I have to be perfect to be loved, and it’s my fault.

Without dealing with your heart issues, you are sure to wreak havoc on your relationship with your damaged heart. In another post I will talk about how to address your heart issues but in this post I want to give you some tell-tell signs that you have critical heart issues:

• You get angry over what your mate calls “small things”

• You hold on to anger long after the offense has passed

• You think of ways of getting even with them, even if you never actually do it

• You cannot accept a genuine apology

• You shut down most of the time instead of trying to resolve conflict

• You blame your mate or someone else for the way you feel

• You are not happy with yourself

• You can’t receive the love your mate has for you

• You are critical of yourself

• You feel trapped in your relationship

• You need others to like you to feel valued

• You are depressed or deal with debilitating anxiety

• You struggle with guilt and shame

Don’t ever forget that your life is YOUR responsibility. God gave it to you to make great, not your mate. You have to work on your own heart issues, whether they decide to change or not. I hope this was informative. Again, I will share more on how to address your heart issues in my next post.