Episode 42: Fence? What fence?
Have you ever been around someone who just can't take "no" for an answer? It seems that it becomes a challenge for them to talk you out of it. That's what boundaries are all about, and why they are so important in relationships. Listen in to find out more!
Transcript
Imagine for a moment that you are a road weary traveler.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You're tired, you're hungry, and wondering if there will ever be a safe place to rest.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You've been told there's an outpost ahead that provides safety information for the road ahead and people who understand what the journey is like.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You keep scanning the horizon, hoping against hope that it will be there.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Then, as you come over a rise in the terrain, you suddenly catch a glimpse of it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:There it stands, beckoning you to come and find the rest you need.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You're moments away from the outpost.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Well, welcome, everybody, to the outpost.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I am Doctor Ray Mitch, your host.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I'm quite honestly, I'm shocked that I am able to pull this off tonight.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I have packed quite a potpourri of disaster into one week.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I might say part of that is because I am.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I contracted Covid on Saturday of last week, and then Sunday, I was in pretty much misery.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Monday got a little bit better, and so we move on basically from there.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Funny thing about this is that it has attacked my voice.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so when I look back in time, not that this is information anybody really cares that much about, but I'll say it anyway, is that being a teacher, your voice is everything.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Actually, as a counselor, your voice is everything as well.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You really need a functioning voice to be able to be heard and everything else, obviously.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But I look back in time over the years of teaching, which is now 16 years, and it seems like every fall, I would be afflicted with laryngitis, and I would lose my voice for a few days, and I would.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Every year, I would audition for the voice of James Earl Jones and Darth Vader because I was in such a low register, and so that was always there.
Dr. Ray Mitch: that went along with it since: Dr. Ray Mitch:So here we are.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And my voice sounds surprisingly better than I thought it would by this time, and it is strong enough to carry me through the week in the teaching that I have to do and everything else.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So thanks for joining me by way of all of that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Thanks for joining me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You're listening to the Outpost podcast.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I'm Doctor Ray Mitch, your host.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I am delighted that you taken some time out to listen in on the podcast.
Dr. Ray Mitch:What we're looking at and talking about this, this few, I don't know, five or six weeks worth of material here is what.
Dr. Ray Mitch:What do the relationships that exist within the outpost look like?
Dr. Ray Mitch:I mean, what's the, what's the best way to go about doing those things?
Dr. Ray Mitch:And ultimately, rather than making it particular just to the up, let's talk about it in the context of christian community, or any kind of community, or any kind of group, for that matter.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the last couple of weeks, we've been looking at not only how do we handle truth, not only the big t truth of God's truth and things that are applicable to everybody, but how do we handle little t truth that is unique to me?
Dr. Ray Mitch:And I try to communicate that to people in a variety of ways.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the real travesty, at least in my mind, is our tendency to try to apply big t truth principles and thoughts and stuff from scripture and et cetera onto the back of the little t truth of where we actually live.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And usually there is such a massive disconnect between those that the person ends up feeling like, well, I guess what I thought and felt really didn't matter.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The only thing that matters is God's truth.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so I just need to suck it up, buttercup, and just try to live life that way.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's an artificial way to do it because we invite people to split themselves between what they really experience and what they really feel versus how they should feel or what they should believe.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that chasm that exists between those two are really where relationship is forged and where connection is forged.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's, I think, to some degree, what has contributed to a lot of disconnect, ultimately, for a lot of people, even from the church itself.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You know, the church really doesn't have anything to offer me because it doesn't have a way for me to connect with it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I can get beat up, you know, I can get beat about my head and shoulders with big t truth and all the truth of God's word.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And while that may be true, it is true.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But while that may be true, that doesn't connect with the life I'm living right now.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the thing we've got upside down and backwards is somehow we think that engaging people through big teachers, because that's what they should believe, that's what they should think, is the way to helping them embrace and understand the character of God.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And we've got it backwards because ultimately, which might be, might not actually be all that good, is that they understand the character of God by how we relate to them, not so much by what we say to them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's a key point I think we have to contend with when we're talking about the outpost and maybe even in the future, lord willing, we could have outpost groups where people gather, talk about life as they are living it and as it is, not as it should be, and connect on that basis and be able to find where God exists in that, where God, you know, what God's word actually has to say about that, but nothing sooner than we should, because the reality is big t truth that is ill timed, that is done usually for the benefit of the speaker, not the listener, is because I want to be able to feel like I'm doing something helpful.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I'm doing something that somebody should have and believe.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Then I am imposing that on them and saying, this is what you should do and should believe rather than.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I wanna understand what life is like for you first, before I jump in with that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So what I was saying, big t truth, which, like I said, is true when it is ill timed, it is not timed according to the need of the person that's being spoken to, is a weapon and it's experienced as a weapon.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And unfortunately, in a lot of cases, people feel like almost embarrassed that they feel wounded by that, because they shouldn't.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They shouldn't.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so we kind of forget about the fact that we're diminishing somebody's humanity by sidestepping those little t realities that they live with.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And by doing so, we communicate to them that their humanity really doesn't matter.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And you can get all theological about it with me all you want and say, well, their humanity is broken and they're sinful and blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Dr. Ray Mitch:That's true.
Dr. Ray Mitch:That is true.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I'm not going to debate that point.
Dr. Ray Mitch:That is true.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But so what?
Dr. Ray Mitch:How do I move somebody in authentic relationship to God and to Jesus?
Dr. Ray Mitch:And it is by the power of my relationship with them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And if I am not so good with that, then that's the face of God that they will conclude exists rather than the one that is the face of Jesus because he was the face of God.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so what the outpost attempts to do is to build bridges back to faith for a lot of people that have left it behind but long for that kind of connection that I was just talking about or its purpose is to strengthen these bridges, the bridges of faith that people have that ultimately end up being built on us, being fully who we are, otherwise known as authenticity.
Dr. Ray Mitch:For us to understand what grace really means and what it really does to empower us to grow and to learn and to find acceptance and live in the tension between grace and truth, which I've already talked a little bit about, and ultimately, in the context of the outpost and the kind of relationships that we have there, it's being known and knowing other people and being willing to be known.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And we're not so sure we want that, because if people know us the way we know us, they're not going to like us either.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So we better not be known.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the reality is, is that we actually believe that if they knew us the way we know us, they would come to the same conclusion that we do instead of offering us grace.
Dr. Ray Mitch:How many people have you talked to?
Dr. Ray Mitch:Or even you might have said this, I am great at giving grace to other people, but I'm terrible at giving grace to myself.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that should be all, you realize, because if we're terrible at giving grace to ourselves, and we essentially, we essentially assume that other people will do what we do to ourselves.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's fundamentally false.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Even if you would check it out or test it out, you would find that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So we're trying ultimately, in small ways, slow but sure, hopefully, to create a space where the doubters and the wounded and the confused and beat up and beat down and the bent and bruised who feel like their lives are disappointment into God, can feel accepted enough to be known and know others, because ultimately we have to feel accepted to stretch ourselves, to be willing to know other people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And what my hope is is that these outposts could be a place where people actually bump into the biblical Jesus as he is, not as they have grown to assume he is, because those may not be the same.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So that's, that's kind of lead up to where we're going tonight.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so pull up a chair, get comfortable and relax.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And, and hopefully the stuff that I want to talk about tonight will be immediately useful to you.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We, like I said the last time we talked about truth, and then the, the episode last week was on how do we play God and how we try to control other people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the antidote to control and controlling behavior ultimately, is having a commitment to freedom and to grace and to being willing to let people make mistakes, including ourselves.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so the third one that we come to is, the way that I put it, is fence.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Fence?
Dr. Ray Mitch:What?
Dr. Ray Mitch:Fence.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the funny thing about it is that when you look at our world around us, there are boundaries everywhere.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We call them property lines.
Dr. Ray Mitch:In the world of real estate, we call them kind of my personal space.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We call that literally, in a lot of places there are fences.
Dr. Ray Mitch:There are ways that we demarcate what we're responsible for and what we're not with our lawns.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And sometimes hedges.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I actually grew up across the street from somebody that had a hedge.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And I always just saw it as a challenge to figure out a way through it, but it was a way of demarcating what their lawn was or what they were responsible for.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so, in the physical world, we have lots of examples of boundaries, including walls of rooms and doors that let us into those rooms and things like that, but even more so in the physical world, outside of our homes with fences.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And I, when I first was introduced to this, and I actually wrote about it, I have a devotional on the website called setting New Boundaries, and it's about healthy relationships.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And when I first learned about this from the two authors that I am going to be using their material, material from, and that's John Townsend and Henry Cloud.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And I worked with them, they were in the.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The California clinic of the Minersmeyer Clinic, and I was in the Wheaton one.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And when they first released their book, Boundaries, me and two other friends of mine who were therapists in the Chicago clinic were conscripted to put together a 365 day devotional on boundaries.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's essentially what that digital devotional on my website actually is.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It allows you to.
Dr. Ray Mitch:To get a devotion in your email once a week for two years, basically, where you're able to think through the boundaries in your life, in your relationships, how you want to handle it, where you might be going wrong, all of that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So enough of the shameless plug that's there for your enjoyment.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And if you want to get it, you can subscribe.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's less than a cost of a latte today.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It used to be about equal to a latte years ago, but that's long gone.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So that's there, and you're welcome to hit it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And you can go to resources on the website to find it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So in the physical world, we have lots of examples everywhere about boundaries.
Dr. Ray Mitch:What about in the spiritual world, though?
Dr. Ray Mitch:And one way to think about boundaries in the spiritual world is they literally define my soul and our soul, or our heart, depending on what the phrases are that are used within scripture, usually entail the immaterial part of us.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The heart, generally in scripture includes our dreams and our will and our choices and all the things, our emotions.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Because heart isn't just our emotions.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The heart, at least as defined within scripture, is really all of us, ultimately.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But our soul ends up being kind of the immaterial part of us, where the spirit of God resides, if we accept and invite him into our lives.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so in the spiritual world, boundaries define our soul.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Now, let me give you an example.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And it's from proverbs.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's one that a lot of people are relatively familiar with, and it's from proverbs 423, if you're interested and want to look it up, it says, watch over your heart with all diligence.
Dr. Ray Mitch:For from it flows the springs of life.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Now, if you think about that closely and carefully, what you will find is that our heart is likened to a spring, and out of that spring flows everything into our lives and into other people's lives, for that matter.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And Jesus refers to this regularly in a lot of his teaching, that, that it's what is in the.
Dr. Ray Mitch:In man's heart and the overflow of that that contaminates him, not what he puts into his stomach and comes out of his digestive tract.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so when proverbs, the writer of proverbs, says, watch over your heart with all diligence, he's not talking about something that is a outlaw that should be caged or.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Or jailed or imprisoned.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It is something that should be watched over with care and a sense of immense value.
Dr. Ray Mitch:For from it flows the springs of life.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the thing to understand is that oftentimes when we see behaviors and things in us that we don't like, what we're actually looking at is the trash that has accumulated downstream from the spring itself.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And we try to clean out all the trash downstream, hoping that that will clean everything up.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But we don't take the time to look at what's going on in the spring.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And if from another point of view, you could look at the sermon on the mount that way.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Is that sermon on the mount just.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Just by way of commentary?
Dr. Ray Mitch:Not that you asked for it, but you're going to get it anyway.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The sermon on the mount just tells you where it was.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It doesn't tell you anything about the content.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I mean, imagine if you were to go to church and the sermon was entitled message from the name of whatever church you're going to, and that tells you nothing of what it is.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But if you were really to summarize, what the sermon on the mount is about is you will find that it's about the human heart.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's about looking at this very thing of watching over our hearts.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We can notice all the things downstream that come out of it, but that doesn't tell us enough for us to go back upstream and find out what's going on in that spring.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so, boundaries define our soul, and they make it clear that we need to take care of that spring of life.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Because from it flows everything else.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Okay, so that's the first one.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It defines our soul.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The second thing is, is boundaries help us to understand what's me and what's not me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And, you know, kids learn this relatively early, probably around the two year old range ish, from a yemenite developmental point of view.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And we know it because suddenly they have discovered the word mine, or me, for that matter.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So they begin to realize that me is separate from somebody else.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And boundaries are that thing.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Boundaries are me versus not me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You're not me, but I am me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Right?
Dr. Ray Mitch: And so proverbs: Dr. Ray Mitch:In other words, I'm the only one that knows what bitterness is like for me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You may have a hint of it from your own or your own joy, but you don't know it from what.
Dr. Ray Mitch:How I experience it, because you're not me and no other way to really put it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they define our soul.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They define me and not me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And they also define what I'm responsible for versus what I am responsible how I can be responsible to someone.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Now, again, a verse from scripture.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Paul talks about this in Galatians, and he says something most everybody knows.
Dr. Ray Mitch:This first verse.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
Dr. Ray Mitch:That's true.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Everybody knows this verse.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And usually this verse is one that I point to and say, this is the.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The boulders and backpacks verse is the way I put it, because burdens, literally in the Greek, means boulder.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So bear one another's boulders, which means something so big, so crushing, somebody can't possibly carry it alone.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And now I am responsible for somebody else when they are attempting to carry a burden so big that they can't do it alone.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And I come alongside of them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But two verses later, Paul says this.
Dr. Ray Mitch:He says, for each one will bear his own load and load.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Here is, if you look at it, it's really where we get the word knapsack.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so in our world, that would be the equivalent of backpack.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And it would.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It would carry the same connotation.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Because ultimately, in your backpack, whatever you're carrying with you, whatever it might be, messenger bag or whatever you carry, only stuff for you, it is solely yours and yours alone.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And Paul is saying, look, you carry your own backpack.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You need to do that and be responsible for that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But when you see somebody carrying a burden and a boulder so big they can't, then you need to be responsible for them and come alongside and help them with that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:On the other hand, somebody carrying their own backpack, I can be responsible to them and say, well done, keep going.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Don't give up.
Dr. Ray Mitch:This is.
Dr. Ray Mitch:This is something that you're responsible for.
Dr. Ray Mitch:How can I empower you to take that responsibility?
Dr. Ray Mitch:So being responsible to somebody is being an encourager, a supporter, a person to empower the other person.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But being responsible for somebody is.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Is reserved for when they are carrying something so big, so crushing, they can't possibly do it alone.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So there's.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It defines our soul.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It defines who I am and who I'm not.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It defines what I'm responsible for versus how I'm responsible to other people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And then finally, it's also a way of understanding, keeping the good in and the bad out.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's a simplified way of saying it, but ultimately, this is where the fence analogy is very effective, because fences, I don't know that you've probably ever come across a fence.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It doesn't have a gate in it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The question is, who is the keeper of the gate in your life?
Dr. Ray Mitch:Are you or someone else?
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so ultimately, the gate that is part of a fence, not a wall, not a wall, but as part of a fence.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And fence is good because you can come up to the fence and converse with somebody at the fence and they're in their world and you're in yours, and there's separation, and you can have a conversation over the fence and still be separate.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But we need gates that we are responsible for.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I am the keeper of my gate.
Dr. Ray Mitch:No one else is.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And no one else is entitled to come in that gate unless I invite and allow them to do that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We have plenty of people in our lives.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I know a lot of people that say this, that feel entitled to come to that gate because of their position or their relationship or relation and really take offense that we would actually choose to keep the gate shut.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So we.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We have a right to say no.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's where, that's one of the examples of boundaries that we have.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Actually, in a lot of ways, the hardest time doing is to simply use the.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Is to use the simplest word of our vocabulary, which is only two letters, and that's no.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Partly because we're sure that the other person's going to leave us.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And if I say no, then they won't like us or they.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They will get disappointed, or they'll get angry, and we don't like that because now we're responsible for that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And their emotions are not a boulder.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Their emotions are their own thing.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They need to take responsibility for that themselves.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So we need gates.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And gates keep the good in and the bad out.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's how we exercise, having good boundaries and saying no to certain situations or to certain people or whatever that might be.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So, like I said, examples of boundaries in our everyday world would include words like no, speaking the truth rather than a falsehood, or saying something just to keep somebody happy.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And sometimes even distance, I mean, just geographical cures, if you will, is what oftentimes people, how they set boundaries, because they can't set boundaries and the person is close to them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's some other issue that's a lot bigger than I have time to talk about.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But emotional distance or geographical distance is not uncommon, because we feel we have.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The other person has such sway over us, for whatever reason.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I'm not throwing stones.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They have such sway over us for a variety of reasons that we can't seemingly say no.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And when that's the case, we separate ourselves and create emotional or geographical distance with them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The other one, which is very simple in terms of a boundary, is just taking time away.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so time is also a boundary, and what goes into it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Now, what I want to do is walk you through four different, well, actually five different groups of people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And more than likely one of these will probably get your attention or poke you in some way, maybe more.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's okay.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It doesn't mean that you're doomed at all, but it just points out the area that you may need to pay attention to.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And John and Henry, in their book, boundaries separate people by what they call compliance and avoidance and non responsives and controllers.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I call it something a little different.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Same concepts still indebted to them, but I call it something a little different to make it a little bit more understandable.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Because when I say compliant, most people don't immediately understand what I'm talking about.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So I've relabeled these groups of people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:This is not a profile.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Doesn't mean that you do it all the time.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It doesn't mean, as a matter of fact, you probably don't.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It is probably in certain situations with certain relationships, that these things happen.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so there may be pieces and parts of each one of these that you find familiarity with in some way.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Okay, so here's the first group.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The first group is what I call the go along to get along people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And ultimately, they say yes to everything, including the bad.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And these folks oftentimes have very fuzzy or indistinct boundaries with other people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so when somebody else feels bad, they.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They feel bad.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Too, partly because the other person's feeling bad and they feel responsible for that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they, their tendency this go along to get along, folks.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Their tendency is to try to minimize their differences with other people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And unfortunately, we have bought into the lie that I have to minimize the differences in order to have anything that will connect me to the other person.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Instead of seeing differences as a fundamental quality to relationships, people are going to be different.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I think intellectually we can assent to that, but I don't think emotionally we do.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And ultimately, the basic driver of this behavior is fear.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's fear of being abandoned.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's a fear of being left or somebody being mad at me, which is a separation.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so that fear drives us along, and we minimize the differences with the other person.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's fine.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's fine.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's no big deal.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I'm making a big deal, more big deal out of it than it really is, etcetera, etcetera.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Okay?
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's what the go along to get along people are really all about.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The next group is what I call the yeah, but people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so instead of saying yes to the bad, they say no to the good.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So when good is offered them support, encouragement, help in getting something done, they typically will say no to that good that's being offered them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the way that they go about doing that is that they rationalize that their problems are not as big of a deal because they relativize their problems to other people's problems.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so my, you know, my problem, the thing I'm wrestling with, and I'm asking for help, it's not that big of a deal because after all, people have it far worse than I do.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I don't know what I'm complaining about.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Yeah, but thanks, but no thanks.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they, they suffer from an inability to ask for help because they are constantly relativizing their problems compared to somebody who always has a worse than them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Always.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They don't ever compare it to somebody who has a better than them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Why would they do that?
Dr. Ray Mitch:But there's an inability to ask for help.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And in these folks case, boundaries actually are walls, and they, it separates them from people that goes into that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So we've got the goal on to get along the.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Yeah, but, and then finally, this one is a bigger category, and there are two different kinds and flavors of this one.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But the larger category here is, it's all about the outcome.
Dr. Ray Mitch:In other words, all that they, all that matters is that they gain the outcome that they're trying to achieve.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so ultimately, they don't respect other people's boundaries.
Dr. Ray Mitch:In their way of thinking, no is simply a challenge to overcome or to convince or to cajole or to intimidate or whatever to get the person to change their no to yes.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And in a lot of ways, these folks tend to resist taking responsibility for their own lives.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They're always projecting responsibility onto other people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they have different methods.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's what the two different kinds are that I'm, I want to talk about, because the two different kinds, the first one is the intimidator.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Now, this is, this person is easy to pick out.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We can see them coming a mile away.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Oftentimes we refer to them as controllers, and they don't listen.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They run over fences.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Sometimes they escalate and power up on people when they get a no.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they, some, they can get verbally and even physically abusive when somebody resists a request or to help them or whatever that might be.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And in their economy, there is really no place for somebody to say no to them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:There's no place for that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they don't, they really, these are the, probably the most outspoken critics about boundaries are these people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And in a lot of cases, people criticize boundaries partly because they don't want to abide by them, and that's why they criticize them, when, in fact, I would make a pretty unequivocal statement to say that ultimately healthy relationships can't survive with poor boundaries.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Let me put it another way.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The healthiest relationships have the clearest boundaries and a respect for boundaries in them.
Dr. Ray Mitch:In other words, to put it simply, they have a respect for the per other person's no.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so the intimidators are the first group.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The second group are the manipulators.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the manipulators ultimately, ultimately are less honest.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They hide and they try to persuade people into believing that they really wanted what the other person is resisting.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so a no is just a challenge to overcome.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And they try to manipulate or to persuade the other person to give in.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so a no is not acceptable, really.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's the manipulator.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So it's all about outcome can look two different ways.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It can look intimidating in order to get the outcome they want or manipulating in order to get the outcome that they want.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And those are the two kind of flavors, if you will, that are part of that group of people that the.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So there's.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So what do we got?
Dr. Ray Mitch:We got, we got the go along to get along.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We've got the.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Yeah, but.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And we've got, it's all about the outcome people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We've got one more group in that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:One more group is what's your problem?
Dr. Ray Mitch:Ultimately, they don't hear the needs of other people at all.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And their kind of life philosophy is, if you don't like it, how you feel, change your feelings.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Life's tough, get over it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Suck it up, buttercup, you'll be fine.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And they tend to have a very critical spirit.
Dr. Ray Mitch:They tend to evaluate other people's circumstances to minimize it ultimately, and make it so they don't have anything to respond to.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they oftentimes will say, hey, what's the problem here?
Dr. Ray Mitch:This is not that big of a deal.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You're making a bigger deal out of it than it really is.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so they end up being absorbed in their own desires and needs rather than actually hearing other people.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Now, like I said, these are the four profiles.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I even hesitate to use that word because profiles are way more rigid than I'm trying to communicate here, because ultimately we may have features of each one of these in the different relationships of our lives, whether it's at work or personal life or wherever that might be.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So we might have features of all of these in here.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And, and the challenge is, is how committed am I to freeing people and giving them the freedom to say no and accepting their no?
Dr. Ray Mitch:Because we communicate respect, we communicate dignity, we communicate value to the other person when we accept no for an answer.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the funny thing about it is, is that if the person recognizes that I value their freedom to say no, then the potential is pretty great, that they will also understand that they have the power to say yes.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But if we prohibit no, then the yes we get is going to be a false yes.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It is not going to be authentic, it is not going to be sincere.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And ultimately, I think for most of us, we don't want an insincere yes.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We don't want to be manipulate somebody into saying yes because it doesn't mean as much.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's true.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the funny thing about it is even the God of the universe, Jesus Christ, when he was on this earth, he let people choose.
Dr. Ray Mitch:He let them choose.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And even if they choose, chose, choose, even if they chose wrongly.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And a classic example, and this is there, there are other examples.
Dr. Ray Mitch:If you know what you're looking for, you will see it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But the classic example is the story that is told, I'm not sure which gospel it is, of the rich young ruler that comes up to Jesus and tries to justify himself by saying, I've kept all of the law of Moses.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And Jesus looks at him and it says, he looks at him with compassion and points out, but there is one that you have not kept, and that is, give all that you own to the poor and follow me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And the young man gets kind of pulled up and he says, yeah, no, that's okay.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And he walks away.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We don't see Jesus running after him and trying to change the conditions of the agreement or anything like that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:He said he's free to choose, and even choose wrongly.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And obviously, there are a lot of people that chose rightly in following Jesus, but there are lots of people that didn't.
Dr. Ray Mitch:A lot of people that didn't.
Dr. Ray Mitch:As a matter of fact, they were in the group of people that crucified them eventually.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So boundaries are a critical thing to understand in our relationships, whether that be in the outpost like we're talking about here, or even in christian community, because it communicates something by how we relate, not so much by what we say.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's what's important to understand and keep firmly in our minds.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I think once we understand that, because this is a linchpin, I will say this is a linchpin to relationships as boundaries.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And increasingly over the years, as I've been in the counseling field, which is over four decades, I have seen a slow deterioration of boundaries between people, to the point where people are held hostage by other people because they can't bear the other person saying no.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And it leads to all manner of conflict in relationships as a result of that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's.
Dr. Ray Mitch:That's what's key here in terms of the relationships within.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Within the uppost, within our relationships and community.
Dr. Ray Mitch:However, you know, whatever the context is, you can apply it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It will still work and it will still be applicable.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And again, this is not the kind of thing that you have chapter and verse to quote, although there's plenty to point to.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But it is the kind of thing that, in principle, agrees with the value of human life and the dignity of the human, the imago dei in each person, the image of God in each person, and how we communicate that value by respecting their freedom and their ability to say no.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So that is it for tonight.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Thanks so much for joining me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Sgi dash net.org is the home for everything stained glass international in the community.
Dr. Ray Mitch:If you have questions, you can dm me on Instagram, or you can send me a message on the homepage of Sgi dash net.org dot.
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Dr. Ray Mitch:And put your questions there.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You can follow the podcast on any of the platforms that you usually listen to.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Podcasts on.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Subscriptions are always helpful in terms of raising our profile to the people that if I'm talking about stuff that you think might benefit, then subscriptions, subscribing to it and following it and getting the feed is really a way to raise the profile for other people to find us.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so the other thing I'd mentioned, and I already mentioned it in the podcast, was the digital devotional.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It is called setting new boundaries.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It is in the resources section on the website.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And you can sign up.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's $5 a month.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You can try it for a month.
Dr. Ray Mitch:If you like it, great.
Dr. Ray Mitch:If you don't, then just cancel it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:It's just that simple.
Dr. Ray Mitch:But you get to a devotional to be thinking about the stuff that I just finished talking about on this podcast.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And so it's there for your enjoyment and hopefully your encouragement and even challenge.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So there's another podcast I've been doing.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I do this kind of periodically based on how the spirit moves me, and it's called unscripted, the collected wisdom of life, living in sorrow.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And it has a slant toward talking about the process of sorrow and what it looks like and some of the landscape that I think is important to understand.
Dr. Ray Mitch:In scripture we often refer to as lament.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And that's not something we do very much of, at least in our culture, because of our commitment to being happy.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So you can also listen on that one on whatever podcast platform you use.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Follow us on social media, Instagram, SGI International, Facebook, at stained Glass International on Facebook, and then LinkedIn at Drmitch.
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Dr. Ray Mitch:Thank you.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Thank you.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Thank you.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You can do that by using a donate link on the website.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Or if you'd rather send us a physical check, you can certainly do that.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Just make it out to SGI.
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Dr. Ray Mitch:And we just opened a store, SGI store.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And there are window stickers and the books, my two books are available there.
Dr. Ray Mitch:The newest one, the seasons of our grief, is there.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And excuse me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And if you want to take advantage and, and order something up that way, you certainly can, whether it's on Amazon or anywhere else, and subscribe.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Subscribe to our online community.
Dr. Ray Mitch:You'll get hit.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Once you hit the website, you'll get hit with an invitation to join the community.
Dr. Ray Mitch:We're not going to hit you up for money or anything like that, but we send out a newsletter periodically, again, just to give you stuff to think about and to read and hopefully find some encouragement from.
Dr. Ray Mitch:So that is it.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Thanks so much for joining me.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I appreciate your time and your willingness to seek it out and to listen.
Dr. Ray Mitch:I pray that you will find application from some of the stuff that I've been talking about in your relationships this week.
Dr. Ray Mitch:And until next week, love you.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Later.
Dr. Ray Mitch:Bye.
