I recent\u00adly respond\u00aded to a stu\u00addent who was try\u00ading to mud\u00addle through an awk\u00adward rela\u00adtion\u00adship with\u00adout becom\u00ading bit\u00adter. She asked for some coun\u00adsel, and here is an anonymized ver\u00adsion of what I told her. The pain she is expe\u00adri\u00adenc\u00ading is com\u00admon enough, and so I post it here in the hopes that it will prove help\u00adful to some\u00adone else as well.<\/p>\n
\nYou have already said that you are pray\u00ading and so I will move on to oth\u00ader con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtions. There are sev\u00ader\u00adal prac\u00adti\u00adcal things you can do. <\/p>\n
The first is to real\u00adize that you can\u00adnot avoid being hurt. You have no more choice in that than you have when falling off a cliff. Phys\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly, if you get in a fight then your jaw will prob\u00ada\u00adbly be sore regard\u00adless of who wins. Emo\u00adtion\u00adal\u00adly, it is unlike\u00adly that you\u2019ll come out of a rela\u00adtion\u00adal melt\u00addown with\u00adout at least the equiv\u00ada\u00adlent of a sore jaw. Just as in box\u00ading, how\u00adev\u00ader, you can choose whether you\u2019ll get hit in the face or the stom\u00adach. Where you are struck is based upon your guard, so block the blows that mat\u00adter and absorb the ones you must. <\/p>\n
Prac\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly, this is a mat\u00adter of where you pin your hopes. If you pin your hopes upon roman\u00adtic recom\u00admit\u00adment, then that is where you are most vul\u00adner\u00ada\u00adble to being hurt. If you pin your hopes to renor\u00admal\u00adiza\u00adtion of friend\u00adship, then that is where you are most vul\u00adner\u00ada\u00adble to being hurt. The pain of dashed romance is gen\u00ader\u00adal\u00adly con\u00adsid\u00adered to be far more intense than the pain of an awk\u00adward friend\u00adship, but you must choose your own course in this.<\/p>\n
As an aside, I\u2019m not so sure that \u201cguard\u00ading your heart\u201d in the Bible is about pre\u00advent\u00ading painful emo\u00adtions (which seems to be the way that it is most often preached\u2013if you can just guard your heart suf\u00adfi\u00adcient\u00adly then you can avoid being hurt). Jesus and Paul both expe\u00adri\u00adenced much pain caused by oth\u00ader peo\u00adple. Jesus was betrayed by Judas and wept when Mary and Martha blamed him for the death of Lazarus, Paul was aban\u00addoned by vir\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly all of his friends when in prison and wept when he left the Eph\u00adesian elders to head towards his fate in Jerusalem. Guard\u00ading their heart did\u00adn\u2019t pre\u00advent them from expe\u00adri\u00adenc\u00ading pain. I think we can fair\u00adly say that it reduced the amount of the pain that they felt, and it cer\u00adtain\u00adly helped them to sur\u00admount pain. But it did not pre\u00advent pain. That\u2019s a very Bud\u00addhist notion which just does\u00adn\u2019t fit into the Chris\u00adt\u00adian faith. Bud\u00addhists detach, Chris\u00adtians love. And love always seems to involve a cer\u00adtain mea\u00adsure of pain.<\/p>\n
The sec\u00adond is to lis\u00adten to your mind more than your heart. Pre\u00adtend this was hap\u00adpen\u00ading to one of your friends and then pre\u00adtend to give them some advice. I\u2019m sure you would have wise coun\u00adsel for them\u2013so be sure to take your own med\u00adi\u00adcine. Your emo\u00adtions are going to be very poor guides up this par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar moun\u00adtain. At the same time you can\u00adnot afford to ignore them completely\u2013your emo\u00adtions are the source of your pain. Ignor\u00ading them com\u00adplete\u00adly is as fool\u00adish as a doc\u00adtor ignor\u00ading your symp\u00adtoms when diag\u00adnos\u00ading you.<\/p>\n
The third is to believe that your friend is not inten\u00adtion\u00adal\u00adly try\u00ading to hurt you. This is a cru\u00adcial defense against bit\u00adter\u00adness. He is mak\u00ading a lot of choic\u00ades that are caus\u00ading you pain, but he is not mak\u00ading them because they cause you pain. He wants you to be hap\u00adpy and is just as con\u00adfused as you are about how to achieve that goal.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And so if that\u2019s help\u00adful to you, take it and be blessed.ghost dog the way of the samu\u00adrai divx<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recent\u00adly respond\u00aded to a stu\u00addent who was try\u00ading to mud\u00addle through an awk\u00adward rela\u00adtion\u00adship with\u00adout becom\u00ading bit\u00adter. She asked for some coun\u00adsel, and here is an anonymized ver\u00adsion of what I told her. The pain she is expe\u00adri\u00adenc\u00ading is com\u00admon enough, and so I post it here in the hopes that it will prove \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cCoun\u00adsel To A Stu\u00addent\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stanfordministry-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-9w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1855,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/1855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}