The very best marriage material we have discovered lately
has been by Alison Armstrong. She is the founder of the organization
PAX international. For our belated 15th anniversary, we decided to
go to LA to hear her speak. Here's a pic of the 3 of
us!
What do we like about her stuff?
She just gets it!!
Gets WHAT? you might ask.
She gets us!! You and me! Men and
women!
Here's a super simple example of what I'm talking about that
happened just today.
A woman was fairly (ok, really!) rude to me as I
was walking in the library parking lot with one of my girls. I was
shocked by her lack of personal boundaries and I tried to just walk past her
and ignore her. I couldn't. I rose my voice, attempted to
thank her for her concern (not overly nice), and then proceeded to tell her
that I will decide what I need to do for my family and that I didn't need her
input! I wasn't super proud of my actions toward her and innerwardly felt angry
at this lady and myself, for allowing myself to get so upset and lose
control.
As I pulled out of the parking lot, trying to breathe slowly
& trembling with emotions, I called Kurt. I asked him to hold
the bucket for me.
What? Hold the bucket?
Yes! Hold the bucket!
Something I learned from Alison is that, as women, often we
need to simply dump and get it all out, otherwise known as holding the
bucket. I needed to, for lack of better words, "vomit" it
all up and have Kurt just be there holding the bucket for me.
He didn't need to fix anything.
He didn't need to do anything.
Rather, I just simply needed him to listen, empathize and
let me share.
And so I did!
This was sooo helpful! And then I thanked him for
his time, for listening, and for not trying to fix the situation. On
his own, he reminded me that I was a good mom (I really needed to hear that)
and to try and forgive what that woman said.
Again, just what I needed.
I felt much better. The tension in me was
releasing. Him holding the bucked allowed me to let go.
I asked him to pray for me to move on and not
rehearse the situation over and over in my head. It really helped me
get past the situation and keep it from ruining my morning.
Sigh (deep breath!)....
Just a small example, but that's how Alison gets us, as
women. Her 20-plus years of research of understanding men and
women, has been a huge blessing to Kurt and me. If you're looking for
some new material for your marriage, maybe Alison's insight is just what
you need. You can find her at www.understandmen.com
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