"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky — the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew—"not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace.Thank God!..."

Readings describing the part of relationships in personal narrative therapy, and the effect these relationships have upon a person's story.

Session 3

John O’Donohue – Eternal Echoes

Parents have power over their child – to confirm and influence their inner life, and thus their identity. They are like a sponge, absorbing everything, because they have not yet learnt how to filter the bad from the good.

Mentally and sexually abused children are targets of their sick parents’ demented psyches; and this violence marks a child for life. It is a substantial spiritual task for someone who has been abused to come to love and reclaim themselves; because abuse turns that child against itself. The child must learn to see itself as lovable by loving itself and in time, others.

A child has good introduction to life in a home where love and space exists; you are encouraged and your gifts are awakened.

Dan B. Allender – To be Told

In the quest to know yourself, you need to know your story, and come to know its Author, and what it means to co-author it with God. The central theological question of knowing the story is “Who am I? And what does it matter that I am ‘me’”. I can’t know my story unless I know the characters that have shaped my character, and this cast are my relationships: family, friends etc. Their stories too shaped their characters, and in turn they shape ours.

Death words: words that wound, harm and humiliate us. They cause us to doubt and even hate ourselves.

• You’re fat, no-one would want to marry you.
• You’re lazy, you’ll never amount to anything.
• You’re dumb, you never get anything right.
• You’re a no-hoper, just like your father.
• “Only a face a mother could love”… a phrase surely meant with good humour gave a young man already struggling with an inability to tell a girl he is attracted to her, cause to doubt that what he has is something a girl could ever want. Reason to think that when I found out a pretty girl actually liked me, that she or her friend was teasing me with cruel, or at least careless, intent.

Life words transmit to us others’ positive sense of our worth, giftedness and loveability. They forecast the future and cause us to visualise who we can become. They affirm our character and achievements.

Lawrence J. Crabb – Encouragement (Ch 2 – The Power of a Well-Timed Word)

Proverbs has many verses describing the power words have over us (18:21, 12:25, 15:4, 16:24, and 25:11). To encourage someone is to speak words to them to provoke and incite them into greater performance despite hindrances.

Many words are spoken with shallow intent – how often do we greet people with things like “How are you?”, “Let’s get together sometime!” without caring how they feel or intending at all to meet them.

Life commandments: sometimes telling your story can expose rigid belief systems, which can represent truths, half-truths or outright lies. Some of these beliefs have been transferred by parents and other significantly influential adults, such as family rules. They each have underlying beliefs implied, eg:

• Boys don’t cry (Being seen to be strong is more important than honest emotional expression)
• Don’t rest until all the work is done (Work is always more important than rest)
• Don’t express opinions (Avoiding conflict is more important than legitimate self-expression)
• Always attend church (Church is a duty, not a joy to be experienced)

Exploring the implied meanings of our life-commandments can be painful but often very helpful.

John S. Savage – Listening and Caring Skills (Ch 10 – Life Commandments)

• The earliest life commandments: those learnt within the earliest years of life. Infants don’t learn from language, but can interpret tonal inflection. The context into which you are born can also affect the beliefs you live by; ie being given up for adoption, born as an unwanted child.
• Verbal life commandments: often received at around 8, 9 and 10 years of age. Language is understood but little discernment is applied. Phrases such as “You’re not as smart as your brothers/sister”, interpreted as “You will never be successful”, can cause emotions of guilt to arise when the child is successful, and because the child does not want to be disobedient, they act in such a way as to not succeed. This pattern of behaviour recurs into adult life and sets the person up for repeated failure. “Those who often give us the life commandments do not believe them their whole lives, but change them to meet their needs at the time. However, we keep believing them as if they were eternal truths”. Life commandments can be useful and true in a given context, but that context changes and so the commandment can become inappropriate or untrue later in life. A teenage girl told by her mother that she is not very sexy and that she should stay that way, might keep her from sexual trouble as a young girl, but as she grows into maturity she might keep believing that she is unattractive.
• Inferred life commandments: those commandments learned by making an assumption about what the other person meant. These are the most difficult to restructure because they are self-imposed.
• Behavioural life commandments: these are content-free. There is no verbalisation, only behaviour of the command giver, and like inferential commands, they are based on assumptions and interpretations by the command receiver. For example after behaving expressing anger at you mother, seeing a look of hurt or similar that is interpreted as “How could you get angry at your mother, who took such good care of you”. The resulting belief could be that it is never okay to express anger towards your mother. These commands can often be generalised to the rest of the world, and thus anger toward others can be suppressed as well.

Life commandments can affect our theology. A young woman with an absent or otherwise problematic earthly father might find great difficulty in the rich and meaningful metaphor of Father God. God can be perceived as punitive and retributive, and the Christian constantly struggling to act in a way as to please God, as a result of believing a life commandment. This is common in people who constantly strive to be the highest achievers, and workaholics.

We can also approach the scripture in such a way as to proof-text our life commandments. Pastors might preach on those scriptures that seem to support their beliefs such as “You can never expect to be happy in this life”, while avoiding scriptures such as “That you may have life, and life abundantly”.

Our religious language can give indicators of what people struggle with internally. When listening to a person’s beliefs, listen for words that are repeated, these are often doorways to the person’s life commandments. A person’s theology can be a reaction to the deeper belief system, and thus religious experiences can perpetuate the dysfunctional life commandment. Attempt to change the underlying belief system will require a new religious understanding.