Our needs and wants drive us too!

Continuing thoughts on conflict resolution:

So…back to needs and wants of the colors.
How can your needs and wants get in the way of creating and sustaining successful relationships?
First of all, do you know your needs and wants? In your comprehensive analysis you will find the needs and wants of your primary and secondary colors. You may find a mixture of these needs and wants that are most important to you. “Humble up”, and honestly “get” your own needs and wants. This is part of First Base in the game of life, “Get Yourself”.
Your driving core motive is just that. It is the innermost impulse to action. The most powerful influence in your personality. Needs and wants come from the core of the motive. They also drive you to a significant degree.
I’ll give you an innocent little example in my own life. Yesterday, I was standing beside a house we are selling that was in need of some repair on the duct work. My friend, and fellow Color Coder, Ken Anderson is a contractor and was doing some of the other work that needed to be done. When it came to the heating and air duct work, HE said to me, “I think you might be better off to call someone who is a professional on that kind of work.” While we stood there...Ken, Tammy, and me…I called my friend Steve, who is a Heat and Air Repairman. I said to him, “Ken and I are standing here trying to figure out what to do on this and I said, why don’t I just call a professional?”
Ken and Tammy looked at each other with puzzled looks and then began to snicker to each other. When I hung up my phone, I said, “What are you laughing about?” Tammy said, “YOU didn’t say, let’s call a professional, KEN did!” “You are so yellow, you just want to look good to Steve!” She was right. (As a side note…my first inclination was to defend myself and explain why I did it, again...to look good. But the truth was she was RIGHT! Someone once said, “as soon as you begin to defend yourself, you cease to seek the truth”.
So, we all had a good laugh, and thanked God that we know Color Code!

POINT: My yellow need to “look good” automatically drove my behavior to misstate the facts. Innocent as it was, that IS what happened. How are your needs and wants driving some of your behavior?

REDS: Do you find yourself arguing with people all the time because of your need to be right and look good intellectually?
BLUES: Do you find yourself lecturing people all the time about how life should be lived because you have a need to be good morally, or your need to be understood?
WHITES: Do you find yourself retreating from discussing your feelings with people because of your need to be independent and have your own space?
YELLOWS: Do you find yourself lacking commitment and follow-through because of your need for freedom?

POINT TO PONDER: How are MY needs and wants blocking me in creating relationships?

More to come…stay tuned.

I was wrong.

Last week, during a Motive Matters/Color Code class on relationships, Tammy and I shared a couple of examples of what, at the time, were serious conflicts from from our marriage relationship. Harsh words had been spoken, feelings were hurt, negative emotions were activated, insecurities showed themselves plainly. We were doing what all couples do…fighting.
During the class, someone asked, “So, how do get over it…how do you resolve it…what do you do when you are both mad, and hurt, wounded and both of you have your feet dug in, aggressively defending your positions?”
GREAT QUESTION!
Over the course of the next several blogs, I will share some of the things Tammy and I have learned to do. Some of these are “processes”, and some are “techniques”.
All of them add up to “skills” or “competencies” of one sort or another. They usually fall into the category of Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills, or Communication skills. The good news is, everyone reading this can learn to develop a skill set of your own. You may be weak and uncomfortable with EI and communicating feelings, like I was…but ALL OF US can improve!
Motive matters, a lot! Let’s start with motive, and needs and wants. (Be sure you know your own needs and wants from your core and secondary colors.)
Needs and wants are different from gifts and strengths. Whether your heart’s motive is clean or dirty, will often cause your needs and wants to create a wall that blocks successful inter-personal relationship.
Dr. Taylor Hartman says, “In my experience there are really only two motives that drive people; fear and love.”
William Young, in his brilliant Best Seller, “The Shack”, writes about the two choices we humans often make that cause us so much pain, hurt, and block us in our relationship with God and each other; selfishness and independence.
In my experience, I have found, when the motive of my heart is fear based…THAT is when I most often make choices that are selfish and independent.
When I open myself to be motivated by the power of love, I am much more secure within my own self. I am more secure in my two brains…my thinking brain, and my emotional brain. I am infinitely more capable of “owning” my own shortcomings and failures and admitting to them.
People who are secure, and motivated by love are empowered to utter those rare but beautiful, healing words, “I was wrong”. In his book, “Sandcastles”, Taylor Hartman writes, “You must be willing to be wrong sometimes. And in order to be wrong, you have to know you are still a legitimate and worthy human being. The person, who doesn’t feel he/she is intrinsically worthy, is always the most insecure party in conflict communication. The weakest link controls the relationship”.
The opposite of humility is insecurity. Always be checking yourself for defensive behavior. Defensiveness is the tip off that insecurity is as work. Fear and insecurity go hand in hand.
Taylor reminds us, “Secure people SEEK feedback from others.” During those times when this feedback is not perceived by you as being positive, remember…secure people genuinely respond by saying, “Thank you.”
Ponder these thoughts. Pray about them. Seek love. It is the highest motive for living a charactered life. More to come....

Make it last for a lifetime.

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING TO LAST FOREVER, YOU TREAT IT DIFFERENTLY. IT IS SPECIAL…BECAUSE YOU HAVE MADE IT SO.
IF YOU WERE GOING OUT TO BUY A CAR TODAY…WHICH CAR WOULD YOU BUY?
If YOU WERE GOING OUT TO BUY A CAR TODAY…AND YOU KNEW IT WOULD BE THE ONLY CAR YOU WOULD EVER BUY, AND IT WOULD NEED TO LAST YOU A LIFE TIME…WHICH CAR WOULD YOU BUY?
AND MORE IMPORTANTLY….HOW WOULD YOU TREAT THAT ONE AND ONLY CAR, IF YOU KNEW IT HAD TO LAST YOU A LIFETIME?
1. YOU WOULD KEEP IT CLEAN.
YOU WOULD WASH IT, INSIDE AND OUT. IF YOU SPILLED SOMETHING ON THE CARPET, YOU WOULD SHAMPOO IT OUT SO IT DIDN’T BEGIN TO STINK, OR WORSE, ROT. IT WOULD BE A PRIORITY.

2. YOU WOULD CHANGE THE OIL, RIGHT ON TIME, KNOWING THAT CLEAN OIL IS THE LIFE OF THE ENGINE. IT WOULD BE A PRIORITY.
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3. YOU WOULD CHECK THE WATER AND ANTI-FREEZE REGULARLY, KNOWING THIS IS WHAT MAINTAINS AND REGULATES THE TEMPERATURE OF THE ENGINE IN THE HEAT OF JULY AND THE BITTER COLD OF JANUARY. IT WOULD BE A PRIORITY.
4. YOU WOULD PUT IT IN THE GARAGE EVERY NIGHT TO KEEP IT PROTECTED FROM THE ELEMENTS. IT WOULD BE A PRIORITY.
5. YOU WOULD PERFORM PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE ON A REGULAR BASIS. YOU WOULDN'T WAIT FOR SOMETHING TO BREAK, LIKE A TIMIMG BELT, WHICH WOULD BNED AND BREAK LOTS OF OTHER STUFF IN THE ENGINE. IT WOULD BE A PRIORITY.

IN SHORT, IF YOU KNEW THIS CAR HAD TO LAST A LIFETIME, YOU WOULD TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT.
SOME OF YOUR FRIENDS MIGHT MAKE FUN OF YOU, OR EVEN CHASTISE YOU FOR BEING SO FINICKY ABOUT IT. THEY WOULD TELL YOU IT IS SILLY TO SPEND SO MUCH TIME ON A CAR. THEY MIGHT SAY, “I JUST DRIVE THE WHEELS OFF MY CAR, THEN I TRADE IT IN FOR ANOTHER ONE”. “YOU ARE CRAZY; NO ONE DRIVES A CAR FOR LIFE!”

NOW, WHAT IF I APPROACHED MY MARRIAGE WITH THE FRAME OF MIND; "THIS IS MY ONE AND ONLY MARRIAGE. IT WILL NEED TO LAST ME FOR A LIFETIME."
HOW WOULD I TREAT IT?
A LOT DIFFERENT, I SUPPOSE.

1. I WOULD KEEP OUR MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP CLEAN, INSIDE AND OUT.
LIFE HAS A WAY OF DEPOSITING IT’S DIRT, GRIME, AND ROAD FILM ON OUR RELATIONSHIPS AND ON US. AND WE ALL STEP IN GREASE ON OCCASION OR SPILL SOMETHING STICKY ON EACH OTHER UNINTENTIONALLY. (A RUDE OR SARCASTIC COMMENT) UNCLEANLINESS IN A MARRIAGE CAN BE ANYTHING FROM AN AFFAIR, OR PORNOGRAPHY, TO UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS, AND SELFISHNESS.
KEEPING MY MARRIAGE CLEAN REQUIRES SOME DETAIL WORK. I NEED TO KEEP MY HUMILTY SOAP AND MY HUMBLE VACUUM CLEANER IN GOOD WORKING ORDER. KEEP IT CLEAN. IT IS A PRIORITY.
2. REMEMBER; MARRIAGE IS A 3 WAY PARTNERSHIP. I NEED TO KEEP THE OIL OF GLADNESS, THE OIL OF HEALING, THE OIL OF ANNOINTING, CLEAN AND FRESH. CLEAN OIL KEEPS DOWN THE FRICTION OF MOVING PARTS, YOU KNOW. IT IS A PRIORITY.
3. I NEED TO CHECK THE WATER AND THE ANTI-FREEZE. I NEED TRUTH TO REIGN IN EMOTIONS AND STAY REGULATED. NOT TO HOT…NOT TOO COLD. A GENTLE WORD OF AFFECTION THAT BUILDS SECURITY AND TRUST WHEN IT GETS HOT…AND A LITTLE ROMANCE WHEN IT STARTS GETTING COLD.
4. I WOULD PLACE MY MARRIAGE IN A SAFE, PROTECTED PLACE AT NIGHT. GOING TO SLEEP ANGRY LEAVES THE RELATIONSHIP EXPOSED TO ALL KINDS OF DAMAGING ELEMENTS. THE WINDS OF RESENTMENT, THE HAIL OF BITTERNESS, THE SLEET OF DISCONTENT. THE SAFEST PLACE FOR MY MARRIAGE IS IN THE GARAGE OF RE-TURNING TOWARD EACH OTHER, FORGIVENESS, AND GRACE. IT IS A PRIORITY.
5. I WOULD MAKE TIME TO GROW MY MARRIAGE BY SPENDING TIME WITH MY WIFE AT A MOVIE, OR DINNER, OR A GOOD COLOR CODE MEETING. RENEW THE BASICS OF COMMITTMENT, SHARING FEELINGS, LISTENING, HOLDING HANDS, PRAYING TOGETHER. KEEP IT IN GOOD SHAPE, NOT WAITING UNTIL SOMETHING BREAKS. IT IS A PRIORITY.

YESTERDAY, I ATTENDED A FUNERAL. I WATCHED AS A WIDOW OF A 52 YEAR MARRIAGE, RAISED HER RIGHT HAND IN WORSHIP OF HER HEAVENLY FATHER WHO HAD BLESSED HER WITH A LIFE LONG RELATIONSHIP WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING, HER HUSBAND. THE VALUE OF LIFETIME MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP WAS RENEWED WITHIN MY MIND AND HEART. I AM SURE THEY HAD THEIR DIFFICULTIES, AND TIMES WHEN IT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ALONG, BUT IN THE LONG RUN, THEY CHOSE TO TAKE GOOD CARE OF EACH OTHER.
AND IN THE END, I AM REMINDED, ONCE AGAIN; WHEN IT IS ALL SAID AND DONE, LIFE IS ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS.