Songs Can Help in Relationships

This week I am moving away from the topics of reading and books to music. In the past I have based many blogposts about certain songs. Last week I attended the American Counseling Association conference in New Orleans. One of the sessions I attended related to music as a tool in therapy. The session was entitled, “Using Popular Music to Promote Healthy Adolescent Relationships”.

The session shared how music can be utilized in helping adolescents who are dealing with troubled personal relationships where they are being controlled and/or facing violence. For many teens music holds a powerful influence in their lives. Various popular songs can aid in opening up important issues in counseling that teens are facing in relationship difficulties with negative boyfriend or girlfriend relationships. For example negative popular songs such as Issues by Julia Michaels or Jealous by Nick Jonas can aid in discussion of some of the negatives within their relationships. On the other hand positive songs like Congratulations by Ne-Yo or Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran can help in discussing good things they can grow within their relationships. Of course the important thing is to find songs that adolescents will enjoy and be able to relate to in their hearts and minds. It was suggested to first find out what music the teens are interested in. That is often one topic I discuss with teen clients so I know what music will work with them.

In my counseling I often use motivational music with teens and relational music with couple counseling. Music is an effective tool often with most people from children to adults. As my family and I were driving back to Texas we were listening to a CD by Danny Gokey. One song, Better Than Gold made me think of this particular session. It is a song that speaks of a romantic relationship. As in the past if you click on the title of the song I have it hyperlinked to a video of the song. Listen to it now and think over the words.

Better Than Gold by Danny Gokey (click on the title to hear the video)

The day that my whole life changed
Was the moment I laid eyes on her
The way she took my breath away
I fell so hard in fact it hurt
She made me feel just like I discovered
Something precious and rare (so rare)
Made me come alive
Took me from my zero to a millionaire
Chorus-
She's like the woman I need
She makes my world complete
She snuck right out of my dreams
I know she's better than gold
She makes my life so sweet
Special delivery from heaven straight to me
I know she's better than gold

She's mine, all mine, she's better than gold
She's fine, so fine, she's better than gold
She's mine, all mine, she's better than gold
She's better than gold
All my friends are saying, "slow down"
There's so much treasure I have left to see
But she's got me sold out
I'm richer than a man deserves to be
She makes me feel just like
I discovered something precious and rare
Perfectly designed, she's a living work of art without compare
(back to chorus) from https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/dannygokey/betterthangold.html

Gokey’s lyrics speak of a love where he feels blessed by being in relationship with his precious and rare woman, “I'm richer than a man deserves to be, She makes me feel just like I discovered something precious and rare.” That phrasing made me think over how better our relationships with our significant partners could be if we viewed the partner in our lives as a precious commodity such as gold. He feels richer in his life because of his relationship with his “better than gold” partner. If we view the significant person in our life as precious we will honor, respect and love them.

We can see his infatuated love in the lines, “She's like the woman I need, She makes my world complete.” Those are good lines to remind someone in a relationship to temper their thinking, in not to expect the other person to make their lives complete. No other person on this earth can make ourselves complete. That is too much of a burden to place on another person. I encourage people to instead work on building up themselves so they are not relying on the other person with too high of expectations. Of course regular readers, know I come at life from a Christian worldview, so those of us in this tradition seek to find personal completeness in Jesus Christ. When I counsel someone of another religious faith tradition I encourage them to find their completeness in their God or Higher Power. Then those of no particular religious perspective I encourage them to build up their self-esteem so they can give to their partner, rather than attempting to gain their self-esteem from their partner.

Music is a powerful medium that we can use for self-growth but as the two professors shared in their research, music can also be of help in thinking through and growing our relationships.

Reflection: What take-away do you find for yourself from the song, Better Than Gold, for your relationship? Think through the songs that are your favorites. Do any of them speak to relationship issues? Take time to look over the lyrics of your song to see what insights you can gain.

Considering Forgiveness In The Workplace

Photo credit: symphony of love / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

When I think of the word forgive or the idea of forgiveness I think of the hurts and wrongs within personal relationships, family and friends. Forgiveness helps to release the tensions and rebuild the relationships when we have been wronged or have wronged another. The holding on of hurts only increases anger and internal pain. We can be enslaved to past events holding grudges while the other party may move on without a care in the world while the unforgiving person is chained up with internal strife reliving the events. The spirit of forgiveness frees us from the stresses and anger to move to an upward spiral of openness in relationships and clarity of pressing forward into new growth areas.

Forgiveness helps overall health by releasing the pent up anger or stress that negatively affects the body. A body full of tension from lack of forgiveness will yield physical problems. Forgiveness builds up resilience in that we learn the freeing power of forgiveness so are better able to deal with future hurts in a better manner. Also by forgiving we strengthen our relationships.

Forgiveness and Work

Photo credit: Cory M. Grenier / Foter / CC BY-SA


Is there a need to think of forgiveness in the workplace? That question came to my mind as I heard of a book by Dr. Deborah Welch, Forgiveness at Work. She brings out how in our workplaces we are often faced with hurts and offenses. These hurts can come at us from co-workers, our managers above us or customers. Sometimes the difficulties we face at work come from the system or style of management of the company of where we work. I remember one place I worked at in Chicago that was taken over by another company. The difficulties and hardships were not purposely caused by any one person in immediate management. Instead the hurts and stress were caused by the nature of the takeover.

Dr. Welch in her book shows how understanding forgiveness in the workplace helps to build trust, resilience, increase productivity. Just think of how many problems in our home relationships stem from unresolved hurts and stressors from our work settings. I have mentioned before that we spend a large amount of time at our jobs. So the irritations and resentments that build up from work affect our overall work effectiveness and carries over into our out of work relationships. She quotes Michael Stone a consultant concerning forgiveness, “ Forgiveness provides opportunities to use mistakes, failures, flaws and breakdowns of life as opportunities to awaken greater wisdom, compassion, and capability in our coworkers and ourselves.”

From the preceding quote can you see how forgiveness in the workplace can re-energize your efforts in your job? Can you see the possibilities on how to improve service to your customer base? I believe it makes a lot of sense to break away from the blame game or the pointing of fingers and be open to the power of forgiveness at work.

Forgiving Yourself

Photo credit: Iqbal Osman1 / Foter / CC BY


How do we become better at forgiving those at work who wrong us? Much of Dr. Welch’s book is teaching us by looking at various stories from real life in various companies and her personal stories from therapy clinics she has worked at over the years. One point on forgiveness she sheds light on is the importance of forgiving yourself. She states, “ It is essential to forgive myself because I will never be perfect in my efforts. It is only by forgiving myself with all my imperfections that I can get better at forgiving others.” (p134) Often in our work due to perfectionism or not wanting to admit our imperfections we can be our own worst enemy. As Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar often states in his writings we need to give ourselves the right to be human. This accompanies forgiving ourselves.

I like how she admonishes that by first forgiving ourselves we can then be open to accept the humanness of our co-workers. We need to realize they are human as well. Some problems that occur at work where we do not see eye to eye is often not because one person is right and the other person is wrong. Instead one person is looking at the trunk of the elephant and the other the tail. It boils down to differing perspectives and personality differences. But inside, the desire is to quickly point fingers with pent up feelings that my way is the right way. When the true solution may be a synchronizing of both sets of ideas there just needs to be openness from both parties within the team.

There is so much more on forgiveness from Dr. Welch and the stories she brings to light in her book. Do look for her book online or ask for it at your local library. Remember that forgiveness can be a positive factor in your workplace setting not just in your home life or with personal friends.

Reflection: Do you find irritations and hurts in your workplace negatively affecting your home life relationships or personal friendships? Think over ways you can free yourself up forgiving the hurts from your work setting. Do you need to forgive yourself from beating yourself up over your feelings of inadequacy at work or other aspects of yourself?

Going The Extra Degree

As I just finished my first quarter of my PhD in General Psychology with Capella University, I am reflecting on how to balance my family, education and work. I have a couple of years ahead of intense research leading to my dissertation to complete the PhD. In the same time I have family concerns and work that I need to keep up with. My desire is to not be burned-out in these life spheres instead to excel in each area. In moving from good to great in each aspect of life I received some helpful ideas from a Simple Truths book, written by Sam Parker and Mac Anderson.

The book is 212 The Extra Degree. It is based on the power of the one degree change in water from 211 hot to 212 boiling. I make a lot of oatmeal for breakfasts so I boil a lot of water each week. I have seen the one degree change as the water is heating all of a sudden the bubbles form and begin boiling. That is good for cooking but what does that have to do with life?

Before going on click on the title 212 The Extra Degree to watch the Simple Truths video that relates to their book. As you watch the short video think over what the authors are trying to say:


212 The Extra Degree

In our spiritual life, relationships, work, and education the ruts of our existence cause us to just move along in OK mode. We say to ourselves, “I am doing good enough. I am doing OK”. But are we created to live this life just OK? Parker and Anderson are saying we can move from Good to Great by having a mental attitude of putting forth the extra degree of effort. Having a 212 attitude in our life and work keeps us rising up to keep growing in our relationships and work life. The examples of winning the race in the video shows the extra degree of effort is the difference between winning and losing. I have always been amazed with the short time difference between first and second place in Olympic sunning races.

Along with this 212 mindset being an attitude, is the thought that our attitudes our shaped by our beliefs. So if we want 212 success we need the 212 attitude but it begins with a 212 belief. The authors point out the importance of belief in stating, “belief fuels enthusiasm, and enthusiasm explodes into passion. It fires our souls and lifts our spirits.” If we want to be great in our work for instance we need to carry an enthusiastic passion for what we do in our work. We need to ask ourselves how can I better serve the customer, the patient the client? How can I do 212 service in my workplace?

Having a 212 mindset attitude can affect many areas of our lives. Each sphere of life spiritual, relational , educational, and career/work can be improved in phenomenal ways if we are open to put the one extra degree of effort to get us to a boiling excitement for each area of life. It finally boils down to personal choice action to take the belief and attitude and be responsible to choose to make our actions match the desire to move from good to great.

Reflection: What area of your life do you need to make the effort to move your degrees up to 212? Write the area down and list a few commitments to practically move you to 212 living.

Become A Difference Maker

In a recent USA Today issue, they listed a Pew Research poll on how readers got their most recent book. Borrowing from a library was listed as 14%. I would like to see that number grow higher as libraries are a wonderful place to pick out books that interest you. Today I want discuss a book I borrowed from my local library in New Braunfels, Texas. The book is Making a Difference by Being Yourself by Gregory E. Huszczo.

One reason I wanted to read it was that perusing through it, I noticed the author was focusing in on the MBTI, (Myers-Briggs Type Inventory). Although personality inventories have received a bad rap from some I do believe from taking them and studying them, they do offer helpful insights in understanding ourselves better. The author helps in this book to show how the personal insights gleaned by knowing our personality type can help individuals grow in their work relationships and personal relationships.

Think over the phrase “making a difference”. In living a life more than ok, having an attitude of making a difference is a motivator to move us beyond just existing. The author brings out in the text, that starting with the desire to make a difference helps in giving meaning and fulfillment to our lives. As he states in the book, “The More we notice opportunities to make a difference and push ourselves to rise to the occasion, the better we will feel about ourselves as well as life in general” (Page 7). Living this way gives our lives meaning and purpose.

The book discusses how making a difference is based on three parts in our life: our abilities, our motivation, and opportunities that come up in our daily lives. The more we know the unique elements of our personality type we can understand how to use our abilities in our interactions to make a difference. The primary realms we can make a difference is in our work and in our relationships. It is all about how we touch other people’s lives. That is how we make a difference.

Think over how we can help make a difference. In the book the author gives a list of ways we make a difference in work or relationships to help the reader brain storm other ways they have or can make differences in lives around them. Here are some items from the list: solving a problem, being a role model, motivating others, resolving a conflict, team building, caring for others, reducing stress in a situation. As you consider the list of items you can probably think of other ways of making a difference.

As we understand how our unique personality traits work we can be effective in making a difference. Based on our personality type we all attack problems differently, we care for others differently, we team build differently. The key word is different. Personality is not about right or wrong it is about our unique strengths we each bring to the opportunities in dealing with things in life differently from the next person.

We can only imagine how better life in the world would be if each of us took the viewpoint of making a positive difference in our workplaces and relationships. It would create a more giving environment instead of a passive, “I’m sure someone else will do it” or worse yet, the victim mentality we see too often today of “why doesn’t someone help me. It’s not fair!”. Difference makers seek to improve other people and situations around them. The positive paradox is that the more we give and serve the more we will find our lives more fulfilled rather than empty.

I encourage you to explore the author’s book website -- www.makingadifferencetype.com and look for his book at your local library or local bookstore.

Reflection: This is based on one of his reflections in his book. Write down on a piece of paper several examples of when you have made a difference at work. Then Write down on a piece of paper several examples of when you have made a difference in personal relationships. Think over these times. How did they make you feel? How did these experiences affect those around you and yourself in a positive manner?