Connection -- Disconnection

I would like to share something that I teach in my Four Styles of Parenting Seminar. This information focuses on our relationships with family members and the root reasons behind our hidden fears, anxieties, and aggressions:

Connection -- Disconnection

The imbalance of connecting with our family, being disconnected and overly-connected, surrounds the basic needs of the human heart:

• The need to be separate (identity, contribution).
• The need to be close (to be accepted, love and be loved).

To be separate in a positive sense is to define self. Self revelation depends upon our knowledge of God. We understand ourselves and our responsibilities as a parent and spouse in terms of our understanding of God and His relationship to His Son. An inability to define oneself pushes one to become dictatorial, detached, enmeshed or indulgent; one’s family then becomes the measurement of their self-worth and identity.

To be close in a positive sense is to understand that we have been commissioned by God to provide a service for those he has entrusted in our care.

*Separateness and Closeness also produce anxiety. The more intense our anxiety becomes, the more extreme our positions will be. Either we become too remote or too entangled. If we are too anxious about being close, we disengage. We exaggerate separateness. “I can only count on myself.” “I’m absolutely right.” In the same manner, if we are overanxious about being separate, we enmesh. We are stuck together in an exaggerated way. “I can’t live without you.” “I’ll give you what you want for my own peace of mind, at the expense of my own soul.

We suspend or sacrifice our own beliefs (if we have beliefs), values, or goals in order to keep life smooth and equal. We exchange integrity for harmony. We believe we can only be close if we are the same or tucked tightly together. Differences must be denied or neglected.

Extreme separateness and closeness are anxiety/fear driven. It comes from a sense of hopelessness rather than helpfulness. The bottom line is that this polarity is an expression of our own low toleration of pain which reveals our lack of relationship with our Father in Heaven—in essence our inability to believe that He is able.

*How Your Church Family Works. Peter Steinke