Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always,#2

This is the hillside upon which Jesus Christ gave His "Sermon On The Mount" to a large multitude of men, women and children almost two thousand years ago. In the last post, we mentioned a portion of our Lord's words from that sermon.

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:1-3)


Let's look closely at these words of Jesus, for there has never been a psychologist like Him. In His words our Lord states a principle of life. To the multitude He instructs that there are those of the multitude who inappropriately judge and criticize others, looking at the "speck" in their brother's eye, while ignoring the "plank" in their own eye!

Now, are we to suppose that from within this large gathering were the only people who arrogantly judged and criticized this way? Of course not. Jesus told the people, thus tells us today, that this "speck and plank psychology" emanates potentially from the sinful hearts of all we who walk the earth.

In psychoanalytic terms, the phenomena is referred to as "Negative Projection". What Sigmund Freud called an "Ego Defense Mechanism". Something of a natural human psyche "reflex action". Defined more specifically as a projecting and amplifying upon someone innocent, a fault that is in the one projecting, in order to avoid seeing that fault that is in the one projecting. (Like light beaming through movie film, projecting and reflecting upon a theater cinema screen.)

The point is, heartless criticism, cruel judgements, callous blaming, gossip and a sharp tongue in negative thought and speech, are always done, sadly, at someone else's expense. And when so done, it subverts and distracts in order to ignore and draw attention away from that very thing that is wrong in ourselves.

Christ had strong words against this. He didn't only call it some simple "mental-process-of-assimilating-thought" that an accusing negative thinker needs to improve upon when it is convenient. No, Jesus, being God personified, used harsh words for those who persist in such behavior. Why is this? Because people accusing wrongly, accuse falsely the innocent. But even more, they accuse "most falsely" the "most innocent", with use of the very thing for which "they themselves" are guilty.

And this principle surrounds us in the world today on many levels and in many places. In our personal interactions with others, and in a myriad of human institutions.

(Future blogs on "Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always", will develop further how this has personal application in our lives, and what to we can do about it. ... This particular post was more an establishing of a basis further for the thesis written in "Part 1". I decided to do this in response to comments received in "Part 1". ... Your attention and patience is appreciated.)

[Feel free to offer your thoughts or comments by contacting: http://www.catholicpsychology.blogspot.com/ .]

Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always,#1

(***) What I'm referring to began with you when you were little. Already by then God had placed in your little heart, your DNA, strengths and talents. Already the loving Almighty had sculptured the basis to your personality and predestined gifts. But not everyone recognizes what is good about you. Not everyone appreciates your talents, your strengths. Regardless of what you do, or how hard you try, there will always be people who will ignore the good in you, and set out to convince you of what they insist is bad inside you.

(***) Sometimes it is family who does this. Sometimes not. Occasionally it's a friend who "stabs you in the back", then make it look like it's your fault while people race to take sides. Or maybe it's someone you thought was your friend. It can happen in your home, school or church. Anywhere. Painful criticism that is unwarranted and for subverted purposes, can happen when you least expect it, or can always happen and you know it's always present.

(***) Why does this happen? Cruel words. And practically the same stinging judgments that follow you where ever you go for a lifetime! It's like someone can walk into a room of ten people, and out of the ten, it will be "you" and "you alone" who will be criticized for an alleged, specific failing, always!

(***) I remember when I was very young. I actually considered that maybe all of the people in my life had somehow gathered in a room behind my back and held a meeting. There all the children and adults who knew me must have decided how I was bad in one certain way, and they would all at various times of my life make sure I knew it! ... After a while I concluded it could not be. If all those people had ever met to talk about me in that way, some of those people would have had to have driven for great distances, and some how I would have found out about it!

(***) Yet, to accurately understand "why-some-people-dislike-you-the-same-way-always", you must first understand the "reason" people, who are some, say they dislike you. At first you might think these people criticize you because there are legitimate reasons for which you should be criticized. And you might think further that if there are legitimate reasons for some people to dislike you, then perhaps those people accurately select the thing for which you should to be criticized!

(***) If you believe this, you are absolutely incorrect. It turns out that the reason people criticize you, judge you, gossip and blame you unkindly on a particular matter, has nothing to do with you being wrong about anything, but you being right and "they" being wrong about everything.

(***) It's amazing how this works. A wire or battery never reveals the presence of electricity, unless first either conduit supports a positive and a negative. Then instantly, and only in that instant, the positive and the negative electrodes connect and there is powerful sparks that can cause great pain!

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"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." (Jeremiah 17:19-20)

*****

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:1-5)

*****

Several future posts are planned as sequels for this important topic of ..... "Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always". Your responses by e-mail in the form of comments, contributions, challenges or appreciation will be valued. Feel free to contact Jim Hogue at: http://www.catholicpsychology@hotmail.com/ .

New Pill For Sale To Stop Monthly Menstruation

A birth control pill designed to eliminate a woman's monthly period will be available for purchase over the counter in July. The contraceptive, Lybrel, created by the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, is a low-dose birth control pill that if taken daily, can prevent pregnancy and suppress menstuation. Lybrel was approved last week by the United States Federal Food and Drug Administration. It's use is meant for women whose cycles are painful, unpleasant, or for those who just don't want to experience monthly bleeding. "It's yet another option for women," said Six Rivers Planned Parenthood CEO Tina Mackenzie. "Women are, unfortunately, the ones responsible for the birth control methods," said Dr. Kim Ervin, an obstetrician/gynecologist at North Coast Women's Health in Eureka, California. "The more choices we have, the more options, the better women can choose and have control over their lives."

This news came out yesterday in some newspapers. If the article was found at all, it was short comment tucked back on less important pages. The matter was hardly in other media outlets.

Yawn ..., Oh well, not a big deal. Just another "major-step-in-the-direction-of-tampering-with-the-God-created-natural-body-made-in-His-sacred-image-who's-developement-and-functioning-processes-are-that-of-the-increasingly-less-significantly-recognized-being-we-call-"Woman".

The first mistake was made in the year 1930. Before then, Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants stood together in unified condemnation of any attempt to sterilize the marital act with the use of contraceptives. It was first the Anglican Church that broke with more than 1,900 years of uninterrupted Christian teaching. In time, other churches and denominations followed. In 1968, however, Pope Paul VI shocked the world when he reaffirmed the traditional teaching against contraception in his encyclical letter "Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life)". Today, as Christians, almost entirely the Roman Catholic Church stands alone, or certainly the leader, to hold true to this issue of sanctity of woman and marriage before God.

Christopher West writes, "Modern men and women have lost sight of the greatness, dignity, and divine purpose of human life (Humanae Vitae). When that happens, we no longer see the sexual union as a "great mystery" proclaiming God's love for humanity and foreshadowing heaven. We quickly reduce sex to a biological process subject to all sorts of human manipulations. Today, because of this mind-set, most men and women give no more thought to tinkering with their fertility than they do to tinkering with their hair color."

As a final note in this post, recognize that no contraceptive on the market claims 100% success rate. Instead, contraceptives are designed to merely "fool a woman's body" into "believing it is continually pregnant." Allegedly, this is so that sperm does not make it to the egg inside the woman. However, read the small print on the packages at your nearest drug store. Pharmaceuticals never claim that this process occurs a hundred percent of the time. Actually, they state emphatically that the contraceptive process is not always completed. Thus, sometimes sperm and egg "do" unite, conceiving human life. Only after we've "lied" to the woman's body simulating false pregnancy, do we also "lie" to ourselves pretending there are not occasions when human life is conceived inside the child's mother, then is flushed out (but not immediately) through the mother's menstrual system at the time of her monthly cycle. ......... Now, in a matter of weeks, the pill "Lybrel" will be purchased to remove from women the natural experience of menstruation. ... I am not a woman, I'm a man, but I still I cannot help but feel greatly saddened that there is likely something very wrong about this.

Consider the following quotes:

The person who is truly chaste is able to direct erotic desire "towards the true, good, and beautiful - so that what is 'erotic' also becomes true, good, and beautiful" (Nov. 12, 1980) Contracepted intercourse not only attacks the procreative meaning of sex, it "ceases also to be an act of love" (Aug. 22, 1984) Hence, the asceticism required by chastity doesn't impoverish or impede a couple's expressions of love and affection. Rather, it "makes them spiritually more intense and therefore enriches them." (Oct. 24, 1984) [Pope John Paul II]

"Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy." [Catechism Of The Catholic Church, #2339]

(If you wish to comment, ask questions, offer opinions, submit additions or challenge with criticism, please feel free to write to: http://www.catholicpsychology@hotmail.com/ . )

How To Make Husbands Better (For Wives)

(***) No woman can make a man be a man. If a woman ever "did" make a man be a man, the woman would be dissatisfied with the man she made, because the man's love and appreciation of the woman would have been based on the woman having been required to "make" the man do so. Obviously, that is not meaningful to wives.

(***) So women are in a difficult position. Needing to be loved by men, yet feeling helpless in knowing how to get men to translate their love to women in real life events. You know, like, "Take out the trash when it is full without me always having to tell you to do so!" Or, "Can't you just give me ten minutes at the end of your day to listen to my feelings!" ... "Which is more important to you, me or the television!!!" , and so on.

(***) Not knowing what else to do, many wives threaten and control their husbands. Some do so overtly, and some covertly. To these women, having tried all they know to reason and communicate with their husbands, resort finally to "forcing" their husbands to be the kind of men and husbands they are supposed to be.

(***) Essentially, it's women trying to be bigger men than the men they are married to. It could be a good idea, accept there is one problem with this. It doesn't work. It never has, and never will. A man is a man when he decides to be one. For life in general, as well as each moment of each day, if a woman makes a man be a man, he is no longer a man, and this is one thing men can't stand. Simply put.

(***) The fact is, men don't "hear" women when they make demands on them in the activity of severe criticism. This is especially true when verbalized pressure to change a man is attempted in the context of an intimate, couple relationship.

(***) Then, if even screaming, threatening, blackmailing, lying, bringing up the past, and nervous break downs women have had to resort to fail to get through to men, what are women to do???

(***) Good question. My advice to you is this, "manipulate" the guy. ... Yes, you heard me right. Manipulate the man. "Trick" your husband, and do so with all your God given female creative capacity to deceive him.

(***) I'm not joking. I'm serious, very serious. ... You see, it is "women" who "detest" the idea of being manipulated. Men, on the other hand, really don't mind it. But with a man who is good, or Godly, there will be certain conditions you must first know as a woman before you begin confounding him with your trickery. That is that the initiator of the gross manipulatings on this man must be performed by an elogant, charming Godly woman, who will practice her art of deception in a prayerful spirit of love and respect. Also, that this special and powerful woman in this man's life will continue this brilliant plan to manipulate him will cotninue graciously until the conclusion of both his and her lives (i.e.: his wife).

(***) The point is this, the enormous power wifes have over husbands, is their "influence". Over shere "man power", I'd choose what women have to change their husbands, lovingly, any day.

(***) By your mere presence. By the manner you approach and leave. Your pauses, your appreciation. By the sound of your voice, by your intelligence in carefully chosen words you speak and win. Remind your husband who he is. Tell him what he will become, and yes, even before he has become it. Be positive in ways only you can be positive to your husband. ... Oh, and yes, pray for him. I must tell you Satan and his army of lies will be beaten, scattered, and in flight.

(***) (More will be in future blog posts. If you wish to comment, ask questions, offer opinions, submit additions or challenge with criticism, please feel free to write to: http://www.catholicpsychology@hotmail.com/ .

How To Listen To Your Wife (For Husbands)

It is important that we remember men are not women, and women are not men. Forgive me for beginning this way, but the point is important. Literally, both brain constructruction and brain chemistry of men are greatly different than that of women. This contributes generally to men wishing to speak less, and women wishing to speak more. Especially during instances of stress, confusion, conflict and sadness.

You see, almost always, when men talk, the act of speech itself is for a particular purpose, with a precise mission or goal in mind. "Talk" alone among men becomes boring, unless it is one joke to another, or something in common to "figure-out".

With women, however, when women speak, it is most often for the experience of "speaking itself." Remarkably, it is the act of speech alone, with that articulation listened to, that brings meaning and procedure of process to the thoughts and feelings of our wives.

But in way of comparison, notice how that when men are troubled over a situation, they tend to fixate on something insignificant in order for thoughts and feelings to position themselves automatically into "drawers" and "cubbards" so to speak, quietly in the male's mind. This can be done often when a husband reads a newspaper, watches a sporting event, or sharpens his collection of knives just to have something to do. Over time, as if by a magic, the answer the man is looking for to the problem he thinks he's having, arrives to his awareness. It is then that the husband is ready to share his solution to the problem with his wife.

With wives, on the other hand, generally speaking, a woman does not always easily formulate what she wishes to say based on a time table. Verbalizing what is troubling her usually requires freedom of expression of her thoughts and feelings, without restraint, and that, to someone the woman considers meaningful and important to her (husband). [The experience can be described as she saying things that fall to the floor as fragments. The fragments put together at the end make sense both to her and the listener.]

At first, however, this confuses and confounds men. Most of us never had this explained to us, nor did the majority of we husbands grow up in homes where we saw father's show loving patience and grace with their wives. As a result, husbands tend to try to "fix" the problem they think their wives are sharing with them about 30 seconds into the wife's conversation. This "attempt-to-fix-the-problem-by-the-husband" interupts the process of speaking by the wife, which offends and sometimes hurts her deeply. The reason this hurts the wife, is basically because the wife is not sharing with her husband in order that he might "fix" either "her" or "something", but that he might "listen" and be witness to her repairing of herself merely by his listening presence!

But men state their main point in the first sentence of conversation (Like I just did). Whatever a husband mentions after that is either wasted speach, or less important words to support his original statement. With women it is different. The first point a woman makes in the activity of conversation with her husband is "never" her main point. No, the main point that a woman makes with her husband is always her "last" point, and that last point, or statement, will often arrive in the conversation at some unpredictable time in the future!

Or so it seems to men, for husbands generally grow weary of listening to their wives. ... Why is this?

The answer is simple. Actually, so simple that we miss it. ... Men keep trying to think like women, and this is unfortunate. For God made husbands brains male for a reason. First of all, that is not possible for men to think like women, and second, even if men "were" able to think like women, it would "kill" them!!!

No, the reason men become weary of listening to their wives, is because men think in ways that are "linear" and "one dimensinal". What I mean is, it is not meant that a husband "connect-the-dots", so to speak, on everything his wife discloses in her efforts to speak with him. The up's and the down's, the "roller-coaster" a wife goes through in her mind and heart as a course of life would render any man's brain physically exhausted. Instead, a husband is to exercise his one dimentional, linear mind for the single purpose of again falling in love with the mere sound of his wife's voice. The husband is to call to his remeberance what he originally found beautiful in his wife's eyes and detailed expressions. The twinkle as she speaks of things that the husband would normally not find important, but now find important because his wife speaks them and makes them beautiful because she is beautiful. A loving husband that wishes to listen, cannot do this if he mistakenly believes he must keep track with what would leave him tired and fatigued.
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In conclusion, husband. Do yourself a favor, as well as do your wife a favor. Stop thinking you've got to solve everything. Stop believing that you were even meant to ever keep up with every complexity of your wife's words and statements as she discloses with you experiences of thought and feeling only "she" can survive! Thank God that your wife is the woman, and that you remain the husband in your marriage. If she moves from issue-to-issue, let her do so. It simply means that's what she needs to do. Your job, sir, is only to love and cherish her. That's more simple than what your wife goes through being a woman.

In other words, let "your wife" be the "thinker", let "your wife" be the "feeler", let "your wife" be the "speaker", while you watch in confidence as she performs what is necessary for her own normal female emotional processing. Cherish the mere sound of her voice as you once did. Watch her eyes and love them like you once did. ... When finally your wife stops talking, ask her something about what she just said, so that she talks a little longer. Do this just so you can watch how beautiful she is to you as she honors you by sharing the things she wishes you to know and no one else.

In time, every time, a twinkle will come into her eyes. Then in the end when your wife's process of speach is completed, something amazing will happen few men today have witnessed in women around them. What earlier seemed caotic and confusing in your wife's speach, will suddenly become clear and make sense to you. She will sigh a heavy sigh, then finally tell you what is her main point. Her final statement will be a relief to stress, and a blessing of truth for both of you. To me, as a man, frankly, I remain a bit amazed each time I see this process take place in women, both in my marriage with my wife, as well as the marriages of couples I counsel.

One Reason For Feeling Bad

There are times we feel bad, simply put. Someone said something unkind and we are hurt. A friend or loved one is in trouble. The problems in the world seem too big. Or we seem depressed, overwelmed, angry or doubtful about what we can do in a difficult situation. At these times we ask ourselves what are we to do.

But what if each emotional discomfort in the deep privacy of our hearts, are in fact signals, even requests by God for us to pray for the person or situation that currently perplexes us? The truth is, as a Christian, if you immediately pray to completion regarding each discomfort of heart, soon you will find remarkable peace! ... Try it for one day, one week . See for yourself if what I am telling you is true.

Actually, those are the prayers that have the greatest meaning and are listened to tenderly by God. I mean the prayers from people who are made "uncomfortable", but yet pray promptly for those who have done wrong. It is the very core of Christ's message to us.

Do you see what seems to be an impossible situation? Are there people in your life who are cruel and completely unreasonable? Does it seem impossible that God could ever touch the lives of these people and change them? Have the activities of these situations effected you personally in ways that have brought you pain? Then you more than anyone will have great power in prayer. God will send a host of mighty angels to do what man cannot. All this, because you sought in an instant the power and might of God to pray the instant you were wronged or made to feel helpless. This is truly a glorious psychology. Without doubt, your life, and the lives of others, will be changed by it.

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:11, NIV)

"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (James 5:16, NIV)

The Rosary (Part 3)

Often we use the phrase, "Knock on wood" - and proceed to do just that: knock on a table or a door or whatever wood is handy. Most do not know that the origin of the phrase and practice comes from the rosary. Rosaries in the old days were made of oak wood and were fingered in time of distress or trouble. Thus, holding on to or rubbing the wooden rosary or its wooden crucifix when danger was near became a common way for Christians to deal with hardships and difficulties. The practice slipped into common use as "Knock on wood." ... : http://www.rosaryworkshop.com/HistoriesIndex.htm

In the substance abuse/drug addiction recovery field, 12 step recovery programs encourage the keeping of a "chip" in the pocket of the participant wishing to stop using drugs. The chip represents the number of months the recovering addict has abstained from his or her addictive substance. When feeling the desire to use that substance, the person in recovery is to take the chip in hand, feel the chip's solid presence, then instinctively recall all that recovery represents. In some ways the same is done with the Catholic Rosary. Only the exercise in experience began centuries before, and with even greater meaning than touching a metal coin in 12 step recovery programs.

When Saint Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, visiting the Holy Land and seeking the True Cross upon which Jesus was crucified, found the Precious and Life-Giving Cross, the Cross was venerated by all the faithful in many public processions. Many faithful would come to touch the Holy Cross for blesssing and healing. It was customary to touch the Wood of Life three times (as a confession of faith in the Holy Trinity). This act of touching the True Cross became the earliest recorded histories of "knocking on wood." This history, alas, has nothing to do with the Rosary since the Rosary is a much later innovation. Whenever the Holy Cross was put forth for public veneration, touching it, or as English translations render it "knocking," became common liturgical practice. Once the Holy Cross was transferred to Constantinople and placed in the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom (aka Saint Sophia), Christians continued this piety by touching or knocking on any cross or crucifix ..." http://www.rosaryworkshop.com/HistoriesIndex.htm )

The Rosary (Part 2)

A person's mind at a given moment can be swarming with confusing thoughts. This can be due to problems in life, and an inability to know how to respond to such problems. Rapid overcoming thoughts can lead to anxiety, confusion, anger, fear and depression. In this situation we can choose to use thought to solve the problem thought itself keeps producing, or we can find another way. That is, realizing that "thinking harder" is seldom a solution as often as simply pausing to realize and practice the presence of God.

One way to "step-out-of" this defense mechanism of intellectualism that often overcomes us, is to gently hold in our hands the beads and crucifix of a rosary. In the psychological discipline of "Neurolinguistic Progrmming (NLP)", it is understood that we operate communicatively on three levels or channels. Visual, auditory and kinesthetic. In this rapid age of technology, many of us grow weary of the bombardment of what we see and hear all around us (visual and auditory). Sometimes we need to go to the quiet. Using physical touch to kinesthetically feel in our hands something that for centuries has connected people to God can free us for 20 minutes or more from the cares and confusion and "noise" of this world. Then, and sometimes only then, do the answers to life's problems emerge from inside ourselves, words we knew all along, spoken to us by powers of God greater than our own intellects.

(Neurolinguistic Programming are theories of Bandler and Grinder. The approach of study is rooted in psycholinguistics, examining the relationship between unconscious mental processing and language.)

Use Of The Rosary (Part 1)

Many might think the praying of the Rosary is outdated. Actually, the opposite is what is more true. Perhaps there is no other time when use of the Rosary is more needed.

What I mean is, today we "think" too much. As Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit of the "knowledge of evil" as well as the "knowledge of good", so our era believes the solution to everything is that we need only "think" more to find our solutions.

But too often the busy-ness of our minds is what creates our problems, even our mental problems, in the first place! Thus we go to "thinking" to solve the problems which thinking creates.

God means for us to meet Him in quietness. Saying the prayers of the rosary, and that, with careful attention to the words we speak, removes each of us far from the whirlpool and spiraling stress of racing thoughts. The peace and strength we find after thus honoring God with thoughts of Him, is amazing and sometimes difficult to explain. So often the thing we search for in making sense of our lives is well within our grasp all along without our knowing it.