I stared at the paper blankly trying to think. The question should not have been a hard one. \u201cName three positive attributes.\u201d I was at a psychiatrist office with my teenage son filling out paperwork to get services started. I had no trouble listing negative behaviors. Why did it take me so long to list something positive? After a few minutes of hard thinking, I was able to come up with something to fill in the blanks, but that did not diminish the anguish in my heart. I knew something had to change. I needed to change my thinking. I started a journal, everyday writing something positive my children did that day. Some days it was as simple as \u201cDrew got out of bed,\u201d or \u201cEvelyn made it to school on time.\u201d They point was to try and stem the tide of negative thoughts in my mind, to change my thinking.<\/p>\n
As I think back to that moment, I believe that it was part of what led to the dissolution of my relationship with my parents. The rift was about negativity, and my desire to lessen the negativity in my life. I asked my mother if she could be positive towards me occasionally instead of only telling me what I was doing wrong. As painful as it was for my parents to step out of my life, it has been such a positive change for me. I have not lived under that cloud of negativity for the past eight years.<\/p>\n
Why this story? This is what came to mind when reading Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are by Daniel Nettle. After discussing the Big Five Personality Dimensions in this book, in his last chapter, he writes, \u201cWe have, then, very considerable wiggle room if we find ourselves wanting to be different from how we have been heretofore. We also have considerable responsibility.\u201d I found this quote encouraging. Rather than being locked into a set of traits, I can change, I can choose to be different. I do not want to remain static. I want to learn, to grow, to change.<\/p>\n
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, but I know that it was worthwhile to change my thinking about my children, to change the thought patterns of negativity. I found it helpful to take the Newcastle Personality Assessor in the appendix of Nettle\u2019s book to see where I fall. My highest scores were in Extraversion and Agreeableness. I am not surprised to see Conscientiousness as my lowest score. Knowing where my strengths and weaknesses lie, choosing to not allow myself to remain stagnant, this is what Jesus calls us to do. Paul reminds us to work out our salvation:<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, my loved ones, just as you have always obeyed\u2014not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence\u2014work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For the One working in you is God\u2014both to will and to work for His good pleasure.\u201d Philippians 2:12-13<\/p>\n
James reminds us we are to be doers of the Word:<\/p>\n
\u201cBut don\u2019t just listen to God\u2019s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don\u2019t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don\u2019t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.\u201d James 1:22-25<\/p>\n
I want to be a follower of Jesus, to grow more like Him day by day. Nettle reminds us change is not easy:<\/p>\n
\u201cChanging the way you are by changing behavior patterns is not easy. It requires using the brain\u2019s conscious, executive functions to override or even countermand very powerful, deep, often subconscious mechanisms and urges. It is deliberate, effortful, and has no guarantee of success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reading, learning, studying, pursuing this Doctor of Leadership, that is all part of my process of growth and change. I am grateful to learn more each day about myself and about who I want to become. And I am grateful to tell you that my journal helped me to retrain my thinking about my children. I am so very proud of both of them and the lives they have chosen to lead.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[1] Daniel Nettle, Personality: What Makes you the Way You Are<\/em>. (New York, Public Affairs, 2014), pg. 15<\/p>\n [1]<\/span> Nettle, pg. 241.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I stared at the paper blankly trying to think. The question should not have been a hard one. \u201cName three positive attributes.\u201d I was at a psychiatrist office with my teenage son filling out paperwork to get services started. I had no trouble listing negative behaviors. Why did it take me so long to list […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2723],"class_list":["post-32527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-nettle-dlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32528,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32527\/revisions\/32528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}