My Self Examination

Recently I have been analyzing myself, as I sometimes do, and in the process my relationships. The ones that are not good, the ones that have gone bad and are not on speaking terms, the good ones, the great ones. Specifically, in looking at self examining myself, I have had to take a look at those relationships that are bad or not on speaking terms. I ask myself, where did I go wrong? What part did I play in that separation of relationship? Because, let’s face it, no matter how bad someone hurt us, we all had a part in the relationships death.

Maybe it was lack of communication, maybe we tried to control the relationship too much, maybe we let them control us until we exploded. Somewhere we allowed the relationship to come into a unhealthy balance and bring separation. Separation is not always a bad thing. If it is an abusive relationship, for example, there needs to be separation. One friend that I have had since I was six has experienced many phases in our lives where we did not talk. Looking back on them we can see clearly that during those times we grew and changed only to find it beneficial to our relationship later. Changes that would not have been made otherwise. It came to a point where we would have “falling outs” and our friends would try to fix the problem. We both would simply tell them that it would be o.k.; we were both confident that when the time was right we would “kiss and make up”. (Love ya Mel. 😉 )

John Ortberg compares us to porcupines:

As a general rule, porcupines have two methods for handling relationships: withdrawal and attack. They either head for a tree or stick out their quills…They travel alone…Porcupine’s don’t always want to be alone. In the late autumn, a young porcupine’s thoughts turn to love. But love turns out to be risky business when you’re a porcupine. Females are only open to dinner and a movie about once a year; the window of opportunity closes quickly. And a girl porcupine’s “no” is the most widely respected turndown in the animal kingdom. This is the porcupine’s dilemma: how do you get close without getting hurt?

This is our dilemma, too. Everyone of us carries our own little arsenal. Our barbs have names like rejection, condemnation, resentment, arrogance, selfishness, envy, contempt….And of course, we can usually think of a number of particularly prickly porcupines in our lives. But the problem is not just them. I’m somebody’s porcupine, and so are you.

So who’s porcupine are you, do you know? Can you name them? Here is a thought: You very well may be a porcupine for the one that seems to have stuck their quills in you the most. Maybe it is someone you love the most: Have you “stuck it” to your husband lately? If we can identify the porcupine in ourselves, it makes judging your sister porcupine, husband porcupine, a little more difficult, doesn’t it? Identifying the porcupine in myself has allowed me to dull the quills, and save some of my relationships.

Yeah, I know what you are thinking, probably the same thing I thought…OUCH!