Self Counseling

For decades I casually tracked the popular media counselors.  They varied in their approaches, but a common oversight reduced their effectiveness.  They tended to give too much favor to the seekers who wrote to them, although they handed off, sometimes with a bit of sarcasm, to those who were terribly shallow, crude, for piling it on too heavily against their adversaries.  The old general approach worked rather well for interest, entertainment, with some solutions, and celebrity counselors became household friends to millions of readers.  At this writing there is something of a turn that significantly improves mass media communication for the agony columns and electronic systems dealing with personal orientations.  Instead of focusing on the persons complained against, the counsel includes the complainer.  This does not deny the reality and truth of a complaint, but how the correspondent is managing the issue at hand.  The counselor is not in touch with the person or situation context written about, but is in exchange with the person troubling about a troubling matter.  The writer may or may not be the negative person in the piece, but is the person with whom the counselor is communicating.  The troubled person(s) may be yonder somewhere.  We are here with a problem not simply related to the circumstances of the complaint, but with the way the present person is managing issues for self and relationships with others in the circumstances.  It is common that the person with the complaint is exacerbating the problem by poor communication, excessive reaction, misunderstanding, and other factors – so to worsen a difficult situation.  We are faulty persons often relating to faulty persons dealing with omissions, faults, illnesses, immaturity, and the like with different contexts of right and wrong – that which is to be accepted and that rejected.

When dealing with a problem my first concern is to check out my own thought and conduct pattern.  What do I think or do that leads to reduction or expansion of a similar problem?   I assume that persons do not really mean to offend, or fault (although they may), but what can I do to lighten the load, even lift it?  They may be so troubled they are lashing out, are making excuses that hurt because they don’t know what to do, or sensing solutions do not have the will to put them into effect.  We have seen a child wronged by another fighting back in fierce physical combat.  Now the problem becomes larger, and both children need some education about how to manage conflict.  The wise parents on both sides will address the matter on what their own child might do to reduce anger responses, and see if there is any way to find friendship with the offender.  The situation may be so difficult that the only peaceful solution is evasion.  Troubled family members sometimes solve their problems by moving away from each other, and recover respect in periodic contact, that may find healing in humorous ways in verbal exchanges in which they confess their follies that robbed them of family solidarity.  The secret in all this is not to focus on any fault in others, but what may I do to solve the problem or lighten the load of the other person – even when I see no reason for the other person’s problem.  We ought to be opponents of undue suffering even in guilty persons.  What may not be a problem for me may be a problem for someone else.  Problems are made real for us whether real or conjured.  That is part of the human situation.  If managed with empathy, patience, prayer, responsibility, learning, and some energy the matter will be worked through with a sense of personal victorious life as consequence.  This is, and has always been, the open secret for the inevitable problems found in the human condition.  It is a way to put stop to guilt, fault-finding, and broken lives and relationships.  It is a way to problem solving, to the sense of winning (win-win) – where there are no losers.  It is the way God would have us manage in society and personal conduct.  Try it, you’ll like it.  And, you will need it for a number of times in the course of a lifetime.  When a situation is so recalcitrant that some will not participate, we follow the counsel of the Lord to shake off the dust of our sandals and go on with life in continuing good will toward those who want and return good will.  We are in the world together, a situation that is magnificent when there are supportive relationships, not torn by common human fault, conditions of human depravity, and human contexts that may overcome us.