Boundaries

(Chris Devlin) #1

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  1. Move on. The last step in grieving has to do with finding
    what you want. “Seek and you will find.” God has a real life out
    there for you if you are willing to let go of the old one. He can
    only steer a moving ship, though. You have got to get active and
    begin to seek his good for you.
    You will be amazed how much can change in your life when
    you finally begin to let go of what you can never have. All of your
    attempts to preserve the old life were taking a lot of energy and
    opening you up to a lot of abuse and control. Letting go is the
    way to serenity. Grief is the path.


Internal Fears of Anger


Three partners of a management team of one company were
working on a big project with another company. In the course
of negotiations, the president of the other company got very
angry with the trio because they wouldn’t do something he
wanted them to do.
Two of the three partners lost sleep, worried, and fretted about
the breakdown of negotiations; they wondered what they would do
if the president of the other company no longer liked them. They
finally called a meeting with the third partner to talk about a strat-
egy. They were prepared to change all of their plans to appease the
angry man. When the two told their third partner of their plans to
“give away the store,” he just looked at them and said, “What’s the
big deal? So he’s angry. What else is on the agenda?”
They all began to laugh as they saw how silly they were being.
They were acting like children with an angry parent, as if their
psychological survival depended on this president’s being happy.
Each of the two partners who had feared the anger of the
other man came from homes where anger was used to control;
the third partner had never been exposed to that tactic. As a
result, the latter had good boundaries. They elected him to meet
with the president of the other company. He confronted the man,
saying that if he was able to get over his anger and wanted to work
with them, fine. But if not, they would go somewhere else.
It was a good lesson. The first two looked at the man from a
dependent child’s perspective. They acted like he was the only


Boundaries
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