The Power of One…and Personal Responsibility

Thanks to Debbie Stemm for sharing this with me.  I am interested to hear parent’s thoughts on this so leave comments!

Personal Responsibility: The Power of One

by Drs. Gary and Greg Smalley
from the DNA of Parent-Teen Relationships

Your buttons get pushed every day. Yet it’s your reaction to those fears that determines whether you get stuck in the Fear Dance—and you control that reaction, not your external circumstances.

You have a choice about how you react when someone pushes your fear button. No one controls how you react. You alone do that.

What happens if your teenager misses curfew? It probably pushes your button. Why do you react?Missing curfew itself hasn’t created a button; the button was there all along. Missing curfew tapped your fear of being controlled, feeling helpless, disrespected, invalidated, being taken advantage of, ignored, failed, unimportant, disconnection, or whatever. The Fear Dance can’t be about the external; it has to be about the internal. It’s not about the existence of your button, but about the way you choose to react when it gets pushed.Do you see how this empowers you? You control how you react. You can’t control whether anyone pushes your button, but you can control how you react to its getting pushed. If this were not the case, then life would simply be an elaborate system of manipulation. But it isn’t! Personal responsibility
is actually founded upon the greatest commandment in the Bible:

Jesus said that the greatest commandment in the Bible is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor
as yourself.” (Mark 12:29-31)

For years, we thought that these verses contained three commandments: love God, others, and self. But actually, there are only two commandments and one assumption. The two commandments are to love God and others. Loving yourself is not a commandment here; instead, it’s an assumption. In other words, Christ did not need to command us to love ourselves because we are already supposed to be doing that. Loving ourselves is a job that we’ve already been given.The problem is most of us spend all our time and energy talking about what the other person is doing or not doing. We focus all our efforts on complaining or describing the hurtful activities of our teenager. Sue talks
about what she doesn’t like about Anne. Bill fumes about how Steve’s actions drive him crazy. Roberta complains about Jim’s handling of his allowance. But discussions like this go nowhere. They lead only to
frustration and anger and disappointment. Worse yet, they merely keep the music going to the Fear Dance.

There is a better way. A much better and easier way. We want to give you three steps to take control of your emotions and reactions, and tap into the power of one.

1. You Are Responsible for Your Buttons and Reactions.
It doesn’t help a relationship—not in the least—to focus on all the “stuff” you think your son or daughter needs to change. On the other hand, it’s enormously useful, first and foremost, to address what you are doing, to
look at your own reactions, and to ponder your own fears and emotions. It does help when you do your own personal work. It helps a lot. It’s exactly what the Scriptures say, How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matt. 7:2-5).When your teenager and you get into something, you have the ability to go off by yourself and start thinking, “Okay. When I reacted that way, I wonder where that was coming from? What buttons just got pushed?” That’s very productive. It’s a waste of time, however, to focus on the issue or on your teen’s reactions. Actually, we have found four other things that if you focus on during a conflict, you are completely wasting your time:- Who is right and who is wrong.

- Who is to blame or who is at fault.

- What really happened or the facts.

- How to solve the problem or fix-it.

Ask yourself this question: What percent of time during an argument or conflict do you spend focusing on one of these four things, on the issue or on their reactions? Eighty-percent? Ninety-percent? Or one hundred
percent of the time? Norma and I were horrified when we realized that we spent almost all of our time in the midst of the Fear Dance focused on one of these things that are a complete waste of time.

On the other hand, what isn’t a waste of time, but is extremely productive, is to first focus on YOU—your buttons and your reactions. Remember this: when your buttons get pushed, they’re yours, and you are responsible for them. We often see people caught in pseudo-karate mode in which they spend all their time trying to keep the other person from pushing their buttons. They expend a lot of their energy on trying to control the other person’s behavior. In their mind, it’s all about the other person’s not pushing their buttons.

How much more productive it is when they can honestly say, “Wait a moment! These are my buttons. It’s my job to understand where that came from, what that’s about, and to control my reaction when my buttons get
pushed.”

And it doesn’t matter what kind of buttons they are. We’ve all met people with sensitive buttons. You can’t be around them a minute without pushing one of their buttons because they are so touchy and so exposed. It could be that you’re such a person yourself. But if someone pushes your button, he or she pushes a button for which you are responsible and that you control.

I’m talking here not only about actions but also about thoughts. Many people pretty easily understand that they make choices about their behavior. They don’t always grasp so easily that they make choices about thoughts and ideas.

But if we had no ability to choose what thoughts we have, then why would God tell us, “Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about
things that are excellent and worthy of praise”? And how could the apostle Paul claim, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”?

You are emphatically not at the mercy of those who push your buttons—especially when your teenagers do it. They do not have to control how you react. You do not have to give them the power to determine what you think or what you do. You always have the option to take control of yourself and learn to exercise personal responsibility. The Power of One simply means that one person (you) can stop the dance—you can make a difference.

2. Take Control of Your Buttons and Behaviors.
We’ve all probably heard of the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. What we love about this prayer is that it’s the essence of personal responsibility. God give me the wisdom to accept the things I have no control over (others), and change the things I can control (me).Whenever you focus your attention on what the other person is doing, you take away your own power. You make yourself powerless. In focusing on the other, you try to control things you can’t control. For that reason it’s an exercise in total futility, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness.

How much better to have some say in the matter! How much more effective to take control of something you can actually control! When you focus on yourself rather than on the other person, you vastly increase your odds of being able to enjoy some impact and influence over the relationship problem that bothers you.  We have a choice to make—and our choice will largely determine whether we enjoy deep, satisfying relationships, or fragile, disappointing ones. We can’t stress enough how crucial it is that each of us takes personal
responsibility for how we respond when our fear buttons get pushed.

By nature, most of us want to blame those who upset us. We work hard to try to get them to change how they treat us. We attempt in many unhealthy ways to manipulate them, to force them to quit pushing our buttons. But what usually happens when we take this approach? It succeeds only in pushing that person’s own fear button, which in turn continues and accelerates the Fear Dance . We wind up feeling hurt, abused, estranged, and lonely—and yet another relationship takes a tragic turn for the worse.

To take personal responsibility means that you refuse to focus on what the other person has done. Too many of us think, If only my teen would say this or If only my teen would do that, rather than thinking, I can’t change him, but I can change how I react to him.Personal responsibility requires you to take a hard look at your own side of the equation. You might say to yourself, “You know what? This person just pushed my fear button. Normally I would withdraw and run away, even though that solves nothing. But I’m not going to do that this time. This time I’m going to take responsibility for how I act, rather than trying to manipulate this person into acting toward me in a way I prefer.”

That’s the Power of One. You’ll never know real freedom in your relationships if you insist on letting others control how you feel and what you do with those feelings. Freedom and responsibility are merely two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other.

Imagine yourself in a power struggle, a conflict that really makes you upset. What can you do? If you want to remain powerless, you let your teen determine how you feel and how you react. You rant and rave and demand and bully, hoping to get your way. Unfortunately, you’ll probably get the same kind of treatment in return. So what happens? You end up with anger, frustration, and a bleeding, wounded relationship.On the other hand, you could choose to exercise the Power of One and take personal responsibility. You could remind yourself that in a tug-of-war it takes only one person to drop the rope in order to end the power struggle. As soon as one person drops the rope, the game ends.

Most people don’t realize that they have chosen to participate in the Fear Dance. You may be among them. You may be thinking, What? Why would I choose to participate in the Fear Dance?

Why don’t you choose to drop the rope? Why don’t you stop the Fear Dance? Why don’t you take personal responsibility for your reactions? Why don’t you tap into the Power of One?Most people find it very encouraging to realize that they have the power to stop the dance at any point by choosing not to participate. They can choose. And when you choose to tap into the Power of One, you
decisively break the power of the Fear Dance.

The truth is, no one can “make” you happy. Not a spouse. Not a son or daughter. Not a boss or a neighbor or a pastor. Abraham Lincoln spoke wisely when he said, “I reckon that people are about as happy as they
make up their minds to be.” You, and not someone else, choose how you will react to what life throws at you. You, and no one else, decide what you will do when someone pushes your fear button. The practical
equivalent of, “You will be about as happy as you make up your mind to be” is nothing but, “Only by exercising the Power of One—by taking personal responsibility for your actions—will you find the secret to building strong relationships.”

In a passage full of insight about strong relationships, the apostle Paul writes, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Paul knew that no one can “make” someone else act in a
peaceful way. On the other hand, one person can choose to make the road to peace as smooth as possible. Even if your teen has no interest in peace, you can hold out the olive branch. And even if he or she doesn’t
take it, at least your own heart can enjoy a greater measure of peace than it had before. Other verses:
…For each one should carry his own load. (Gal. 6:5)
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation… I can do everything through him who give me strength. (Phil. 4:12-13)For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. (2 Tim. 1:7)

This is the Power of One. And it’s good news! If your entire well-being and delight in life depends on how someone else treats you, then you’re in for a bumpy ride. But if you decide to take control of how you react to the challenges or insults or difficulties or conflicts that inevitably come your way, then a whole new world opens up—a world marked by peace.Regardless of the size of your fear button, the Power of One gives you the ability to break the destructive power of the Fear Dance. This goes not only for trivial things like disrespect but also to big things—even as big as rebellion.

It’s absolutely crucial to remember that when you choose to tap into the Power of One, you empower yourself. You begin to control what you can control rather than trying to manipulate what will always lay outside of
your power.

Some adults remain childishly dependent, unnecessarily needy, and forever at the mercy of anyone willing to take care of them. Do you want great relationships? If so, then you need to learn this new dance step.

Whether you’re about to celebrate your eighteenth or your eightieth birthday, you can choose today to take responsibility for yourself. You can choose the Power of One. It’s the only way to experience the true freedom that all great relationships provide.

© Copyright 2006 Smalley Relationship Center

2008 Medical Release form

Any student who participates in a Sycamore Creek sponsored youth activity will need to complete a 2008 Medical Release Form.  You will only need to complete this form once for the entire year. Below you will find the form to download.  If for some reason, you can not download the form, let scott know at sstem@sycamorecreek.org

2008 SCC Medical Release Form: sccyouthreleaseform2008.pdf

YEC- Youth Evangelism Celebration

On March 21, in Dayton, Ohio, the Annual Youth Evangelism Celebration will be taking place.  And we are going.

Mark you calendars!  This is going to be a special event.  Here is the info. 

The Dates: March 20-21, 2008
The cost $40 per student (plus food money for two meals)
What does that include?
- One night stay at hotel on Thursday, March 20th
- One ticket to YEC
- Transportation to and from the event
- Countless hours of laughing (which burns calories) and fellowship with your fellow students
- Memories that will last a lifetime
- great bible teaching to encourage your faith

The plan- We will meet and leave from Sycamore Creek Church at 6pm on Thursday, March 20th.  We will travel to Dayton, Oh, check in to our hotel, and spend the evening relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.  On Friday, March 21st, we will sleep in (Yay!!!), check out of the hotel by noon, and then hit the local mall for an afternoon of shopping, hanging out, etc. We will grab dinner at the mall and then head over to Wright State University’s Nutter Center for Friday evening’s Youth Evangelism Celebration.  Following YEC, we will return home at 1am Friday Night.

Starting this Sunday Night at Cross Current (and continuing until March 2), you will be able to register and pay for the event.  If you have ever attended this event before, leave a comment and let us know how you liked it.