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This is one of over 150 articles focused on building
family relationships and
preventing divorce. This
introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use
its resources. Each article is part of a
mosaic of ideas, so the
more you read, the more sense they'll all make.
These articles augment, vs. replace, other
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
+ + +
This
article outlines the last of five post-wedding
family
which - with
- can help co-parent couples
gain short and long-term satisfactions from evolving a high-nurturance marriage and family.
|
Project
12:
Co-parents (a) stay balanced personally + maritally
+ domestically + with other co-parents, and relatives; and (b) help each
other enjoy patiently growing your family together!
|
Perspective - The American
Busy-ness Syndrome
The Ed Sullivan Show was popular variety entertainment in the early days of television. A
featured act involved a man alone on stage with a set of tall, slender wands and a stack
of fine china plates. With dramatic background music, the man would theatrically balance a
plate on top of an upright wand resting on the stage.
He spun the plate and flexed the
wand so that the plate balanced horizontally while the wand wobbled. Then he started a
second plate whirling on its wand, and then a third. As the first plate began to slow
and tip, he would spin and flex until it regained it’s balance.
Each new plate took longer to set up and stabilize, because he had to constantly tend each
of the other spinning plates so they wouldn’t lose momentum and fall. Finally, the
showman would have a line of perhaps eight or 10 spinning plates atop their wobbling
wands, as the music crescendoed and the studio audience applauded his dexterity and
concentration.
I wonder if this act was mesmerizing partly because we viewers saw the whirling plates as
representing our daily lives – rushing from one role to another to keep each one
"moving" and avoid "crashes." I’m constantly impressed at how
busy typical co-parents are.
Usually each of them...
-
has a job and career to tend; and...
-
a dwelling, vehicles, and appliances to
maintain; and they...
-
work hard to be responsible caregivers for custodial
or visiting kids, while...
-
occasionally socializing,
and perhaps doing some...
-
community or church volunteering, and...
-
talking to and spending time with relatives, and...
-
buying and preparing food, eating, and cleaning up;
And typical co-parents (like you?) also
periodically...
|
|
-
read
periodicals
-
manage their money
-
Watch TV
-
worship and meditate
-
go to plays or concerts
|
-
do
the laundry
-
exercise and bathe
-
sleep
6-8 hours
-
plan and go on trips
-
exercise
|
And
occasionally, married
partners "find" (vs. make) time for sharing and intimacy...
Sound familiar?
Restated: typical co-parents in warp-speed America (like you?) constantly
try to balance
concurrent dynamic roles as mate + co-parent + citizen + employee + homeowner
+
relative + student + friend + worshipper + patient + consumer + tourist + citizen
+ body-owner + evolving "person."
Communications expert Robert Bolton estimates that
typical American middle-class married couples
average seven minutes of
undistracted talk
together every day. How about you? I suspect that the pace and demands of rural family life
is similar to this composite urban sketch. Kids’ lives seem to be
equally jammed. Spin, wobble, spin…;
Now add to this frenetic
role-kaleidoscope the need for stepfamily co-parents to learn and do 10 or 11 concurrent,
complex, alien stepfamily
while keeping
all their other plates spinning well enough. Finally, add the elusive
goal - co-parents striving to enjoy this
ceaseless daily mix welter of activities, choices, and responsibilities, while keeping their
minor kids healthy, happy, safe, entertained, and growing.
I
vividly remember a woman's comment in a seminar on single parenting. Heads nodded all over
the room as she said "As a single mom, most days I have too much to do, for too
many people, with too little time and money, and too little help." That’s
what many divorced custodial parents and their kids are used to.
Non-custodial
parents try to cram "fun" and quality parenting into too few, too short
visitation times, often dictated by (harried) judges and/or resentful (busy) ex
mates. That’s normal middle-class life in 21st-century America.
Does this sound right to
you?
Premise: kids and adults make the
best short and long-term decisions when they're undistracted, calm, and
secure - "centered" - alone and together. Is this your experience? Building
a complex, alien, dynamic multi-home stepfamily amidst other life activities
requires co-parents to make many daily decisions.
|
A compelling
primary reason for
co-parents to consciously stay personally + re/maritally +
co-parentally balanced is the long-term welfare of their dependent
kids and their descendents.
|
Burdened with up to three overlapping sets of needs, typical stepfamily kids
steadily need centered,
informed, wise co-parental decisions and guidance. Without that, they're at
significant risk of developmental slowdown and
developing a dominant
Typical custodial and visiting kids can't ask for co-parental balance or
protect themselves from the
of false self wounding.
The
second major reason for this overarching project is about co-parents' and kids' quality of life.
Co-parents
consciously working to stay balanced personally and together have the greatest
chance of often enjoying their complex stepfamily enterprise. That
raises the odds that their kids will too - daily and over the years.
One alternative is
grimly enduring stepfamily life for months or years, and harvesting accumulating
bitterness, sadness, disappointment, and frustration in middle and old age. The other option is
psychological or legal re/divorce
and the inevitable burdens of anxiety, grief, guilt, shame, and regret that it generates.
Bottom
line: To maximize co-parents' odds of...
-
enjoying their steadily challenging
stepfamily-building experience,
-
staying sturdily re/married, and...
-
contentedly
savoring their stepfamily achievements together in
old age as they do these
together,
...they need to pay regular conscious
attention to staying balanced,
and to helping their kids and kin
do the same. Project 12 focuses on filling this
ongoing need.
Meditate on what you just read. Would you say
honestly that most recent days
you've felt consistently centered, calm, serene, energized, and balanced? Has your partner
(if any) felt those? What do your answers mean to you and your dependents, short
and long-term?
Project 12 Goals:
All
related co-parents...
Evolve the awareness, motivation,
and ability to stay balanced in four domains, most days, and...
encourage their minor and
grown kids to do the same, and...
enjoy their
unfolding stepfamily-building process and larger lives often enough, vs. enduring it or
experiencing it (and life) as a ceaseless treadmill of tasks to do and obstacles to
overcome toward some undefined life goal.
|
Why Don't Typical Co-parents
Stay Balanced?
Because of the pace and complexity of their inner and outer lives,
the ~1,000 co-parents I've met appear to often have frequent trouble
staying
centered (balanced). Therefore, key personal and stepfamily decisions are often impulsive,
unrealistic, and thoughtless. This promotes accumulating innerpersonal
and interpersonal stress, and ultimately, legal or psychological re/divorce.
The primary reason is that typical divorced people and re/married adults appear
to be significantly
and have rarely
experienced prolonged inner and social balance and the
peace that it brings.
We
(GWCs) find it hard to imagine balance, or believe we could get and
keep it, without some massive pain and sacrifices.
Our frenetic
often cause ceaseless mental chatter. This blocks vital personal
- the foundation of all four levels of balance. Typical Americans
aren't aware of their unawareness and its high costs...
Secondly, our
wounded, unaware society and media relentlessly focus us on speed, gratification, excitement, acquisition, and
doing;
not awareness,
and
inner peace. One cost of our privileged
American lifestyle is that most middle and upper-class people have too many
choices available on how to spend their money and time. Less fortunate
people must hustle just to survive.
A related cost is the accelerating pace
of environmental change that the current
population and technology explosions force on us. Relatively few of us
intentionally choose a simple, well-paced life with few belongings and
selected mindful activities. Can you name anyone who does this among the
people you know?
A
third reason for Project 12 is that typical
(and many busy females)
are programmed to value action and achievement over inner awareness, reflection, and
serenity. To survive and support their kids, many blue-collar
parents and divorced women are forced by their situations to be
frantically busy every day. Do you know such people any who want to take the time to
find their daily balance?
A
fourth reason to commit to Project 12 is that typical co-parents have significantly more conflicting, alien,
concurrent tasks,
and
responsibilities than adults in other
types of family. They have to "run faster" just to keep up!
How
many people do you know who had parents who values and modeled
self-aware personal and marital balance? Did yours?
Your grandparents? Do your kids' schools offer classes in personal meditation and "living
mindfully" (i.e. with present-moment
How Can Co-parents
Achieve Their Project-12 Goals?
By patiently helping each other work at the
following steps as partners, not adversaries...
Prepare
|
Study the
vital skill of
Are
you developing and using it often? Are your caregiving partners? It's essential for
discerning and keeping your daily and situational priorities and balances. As part of awareness, notice the
difference between false-self
and
balances.
|
Take stock -
each co-parent honestly evaluate whether
they've thoroughly
themselves for false-self wounds. If they (you) did and concluded that you're
probably or surely wounded, then honestly confront what you've done
about that. If you and others who know you well agree that you're in meaningful true personal
then go ahead with this
balancing project.
If not,
stop.
Without
your
(capital "S") to
harmonize and lead your
(personality), my experience is that
finding and keeping personal + marital + home + family balances is unlikely. This
applies to each of your
co-parents.
Each co-parent learn...
Build a clear wide-angle,
long-range vision of the many family-building goals and subtasks you all are trying to achieve together
over many years. Ideally, you'll have begun refining that in a thoughtful
multi-home
together
Balancing requires
noticing and keeping discomforts (needs) within tolerable levels. Communication
aims to fill
here invites your co-parents to learn,
model, and teach your kids communication basics and seven powerful
over time.
Doing this together is probably the second most powerful tool you can
acquire to keep your balances.
Reducing false-self wounds is the first, and learning and teaching others
your stepfamily
and what it
is third.
Each of
you adults sharpen your awareness of what's possible here by reading about and discussing
the four levels of balance:
personal + re/marital + household + stepfamily.
Get undistracted, and meditate
on your childhood years. Think of typical mornings, dinnertimes, and weekends.
Form a non-blaming opinion of the frequency and steadiness of personal,
marital, and household balances
that your caregivers modeled and promoted for you. Assess how that affected you and any siblings, long-term.
Can
you think of friends' caregivers who seemed more balanced, or less
so? Have you ever been
in a group who's leaders were often
centered
and grounded? If not,
you may not know what a balanced leader in a balanced group
feels like!
Get quiet, and
form as vivid a picture as you can of your (step)kids when they're middle aged, as a group.
They'll probably have kids of their own. Imagine asking the group what would have been
most valuable to them across their earlier years - you co-parents being
busy and productive,
or being often tranquil, calm, clear, and centered.
Try
not to focus on why that is or was difficult. If your real kids are old enough, ask their
honest opinions now. Have they ever experienced you co-parents as staying
balanced
on all four levels? If not, they can't really answer your question yet.
Review your recent
personal and re/marital
as judged by your actions, not
your words. How important - really - is "keeping my
personal and other balances each day? If this doesn't rank in - say -
your top five priorities, the rest of these Project-12 articles may be of
little use to you. Discounting or paying only lip-service to daily
personal balance is usually one symptom of significant false-self
wounds.
Review your
and co-parental
Is staying balanced on the four levels a part of those
guides? If so, are you partners acting on that? If not, are you
truly
motivated to add balance to these family-building tools?
Evaluate:
Periodically, each of you co-parents assess your recent
personal,
marital,
and stepfamily balance levels.
This is not about blame or perfectionism. It's about refreshing your awareness, clarity,
and dedication. Discuss your results with each other as
and
see if you want to
(a) do something different, and/or (b) affirm something you're already doing!
Consider including feedback from kids and others who know you...
Maintain
Put these
where you all can
see them, and help each other
use them to promote your balances, and nurture your
growth and lives as
you go.
Stay
aware of your option to use qualified
to help
you get and stay more balanced on any of the four levels.
Contribute
If you
belong to a stepfamily support group, consider
periodically devoting
a meeting to this key project.
Periodically
review together what you're teaching your minor and grown kids about the four
balances. What will give you the most satisfaction
when you're old?
Enjoy!
The second half of this
overarching family Project is to consciously help each other appreciate small
and major satisfactions from evolving a harmonious,
stepfamily
despite many challenges. Working patiently together to gain the
real benefits being a balanced
stepfamily is one of the most (potentially) satisfying and
rewarding activities you can choose.
The closeness, companionship,
sharing, stimulation, warmth, and support you all can patiently co-create
are truly priceless. Balanced co-parents and mates will want to make (vs. find) time to do this often enough, and
to encourage their children and kin to do the same.
Co-parents who enjoy being who they are as unique gifted, persons with
limitations are probably most apt to enjoy their stepfamily experience. Do
you usually enjoy being you, most days? Does your partner
enjoy who s/he is?
If so, your
are
probably guiding your
and you're serenely
trusting in and connected to your
Option:
periodically use this strengths inventory together to help you all appreciate the
good things you're co-creating together...
Easy Does It: Help each other to stay aware of the wisdom in this
motto: "Progress, not
Perfection!" If your three or more co-parents are personally
and collectively balanced, you'll not need any conscious
attention to Project 12 as you patiently progress on your version of these
Before we finish this overview, try a...
Reality Check:
Take a few undistracted minutes to sense where you stand with staying
balanced, and enjoying your stepfamily-building challenges. T = True;
F = False, and ? = "I'm torn or unsure now," or "It depends
on..."
My
true Self is
my personality
now (T F ?)
I generally agree
that each of our co-parents valuing our
four levels of balance
is good for us and
our kids short and long-term. (T F ?)
I feel personally
balanced more than 70% of the time these days (T F ?)
I feel
that recently, my partner and
I (if any) are well-balanced relative to our
more than 70% of
the time (T F ?)
I feel comfortable
and motivated to discuss the four levels of balance with
each of our
co-parents now.
(T F ?)
Staying balanced is
among my top five life daily priorities now. (T F ?)
I like what we
co-parents are teaching the kids in our lives about the four levels of
balance; or if not, I'm steadily motivated to improve that now.
(T F ?)
I
enjoy the challenge
and process of building our complex multi-home stepfamily often enough
now; or if not, I'm motivated to improve that now. (T F
?)
Each of our other
co-parents would answer these items as "True" now. (T F ?)
Something I just learned
from this reality check is... (what?)
+ + +
Option: refresh your
wide-angle perspective by reviewing your
Option: print and
use this Project-12 summary at anniversaries or troubled times to help you
all (a) keep your wide-angle, long-range perspective, and/or (b) identify things that are unbalancing one or more of you.
Pause, breathe, and recall why you read this article. Did you get
what you needed? If so, what do you need now? If not - what
you need? Is there anyone you want to
discuss these ideas with?
Who's answering these
questions - your wise resident
or
Continue
Project 12 by exploring the four levels of balance.
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