In January, I noticed people choosing one word for the year. It’s their personal word to focus on all year long. I don’t know when this trend publicly started, but I’ve been doing it for years. Interestingly, this has evolved into many “one words” that I’ve personally focused on in my life. What’s interesting to me today is as I look at my wall just above my desk, I notice half a dozen one-words individually written on post-it notes. These are constant reminders to me on what God wants me to personally focus more intently on right now in my life.
Some of these have been on my wall for more than a year. I guess I’m a slow learner in some areas. 🙂 Or I just really like words! 🙂 Or it’s a both/and.
And that leads me to what’s on my heart this morning.
Both/And
I have these words written on a post-it note too.
I’ve written about both/and before. But this morning something really is tugging at me and it has to do with focusing on both/and’s in relationships.
During the last year, I’ve been learning about the Enneagram, a personality type system. It’s fascinating!
Here’s what popped out at me this morning because of an interaction I experienced right before bed last night. We experience both/and’s in relationships too.
Stress and Security
One of the biggest helps to learning more about the Enneagram personality types is that we learn about both stress and security for each personality type. What stresses me out may not stress the other person out and vice versa. Likewise, when I feel secure, that doesn’t mean the other person feels secure.
On the other hand, in our relational interactions we can both be experiencing stress, but it’s manifested differently. Likewise with security.
The point is two people can experience in one single interaction both stress and security. They can be on completely different levels and have completely different needs.
Here’s what God challenged me with this morning: Learn about both the deeper things that stress people out and the things that bring security to them. Learn this about yourself too.
Wow! If we each did that, can you imagine how much healthier our relationships may become?
Practical Application
So my challenge to us today, let’s ask at least one person in our life today who’s really close to us, both what stresses them out and what helps them feel secure. Then share with that person both one thing that stresses you out and one thing that helps you feel secure.
If you don’t know what stresses you out or helps you feel secure, that would be a good place to start today: with just yourself. Think about what lies under your stress. Then think about how you behave when you’re under stress. Next think about what helps you feel secure. Then think about how you behave when you feel secure. If you need some help, I highly recommend Ian Cron’s book, The Road Back To You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery.
I hope we can each discover things we can nurture and develop in our own lives as well as in our relationships.
This could be an amazing day of discovery for each one of us.
May we each accept God’s challenge today.
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