Kindness, encouragement, and challenge

John Powell SJ really excites me with his book entitled Unconditional Love. With this book, I learn a new way of loving...

He says that there are important moments in which we can show our love to others. These three moments of love are shown through kindness, encouragement, and challenge. Kindness is a warm assurance that "I am on your side. I care about you." Encouragement is a strong assurance of your own strength and self-sufficiency. Challenge is a loving but firm exhortation to action.

Our main problem is that sometime we do not really know exactly which way should we use at a particular moment.

I know I am good in listening. Even I-who sometimes think I am not good in anything-never doubt it. As a good listener, I can show easily that I am at someone's side and that I care about him/her. So I can say that having kindness is usually my strength.

But to encourage and to challenge? I always have the tendency to jump to help, to give answer, and to solve other people's problem. But in some cases, I regret that I did it. I did not realize that I took away the necessary challenge for some people to grow: to face and to solve their own problems. I even created a kind of "dependency" of some people toward me. John Powell puts it nicely as:
"When we cave in and allow others to be only persons-by-proxy, we train them to need us. They have to come back to us to get their deeds done and their problems solved. We developed clienteles of progressively weaker people in need of a "fix". We train them to be addicts in need of us. It is not at all loving".

(On the other hand, I've been always reluctant to ask for help. I always waited for the last moment and when it is getting out of hand, to ask others to help me. That's why I think some people really labeled me as a "super woman". )

Well, to be honest, I think the victim of this attitude of mine was my brother. He had been a very sick child, so I tended to solve his problem for him in many ways. I looked for his need for his school assignment, while my older brother and I were trained for do-it-yourself approach. To make if even more difficult for me to say "no", is the fact that he was always so gentle and mild. He asked for help in a very soft tone, and he was always so kind-hearted when he was small. Well, well, there you go.....

But I didn't realize that I took away his creativity to solve his problem and I created his dependency toward me and others. He did not learn to face the real world early enough to build his own strength to face it later on. I felt so sorry for all of that now, but then I also thought that it is the way it is. I just look into the future and learn to "let him go and live his own life". I am not created to lead his life.

I'm very happy that now he has learned to live his life, and for me to learn to love truly. Anyway, as John Powell says, love does not just give you roots where you feel safe and comfort, but it also give you wings to fly away....

So now I decided to try to encourage and to challenge more. It is difficult, when I usually think that I should solve other people's problem when they come to me. Furthermore, I am worried about what would they think if I do not help them as the way I usually did. I am afraid that they would get disappointed and then started to dislike the new "me"...

But well, it is better late than never, isn't it? I would try to challenge people, even if they think they need me for answers. Even if they get disappointed. Even if they leave me because of that. Even if at the end it hurts me that I do not meet their expectation. In that way I try to REALLY love....unconditionally....

Groningen, 12:30-10 August '06