Education
Cleaning Up A colleague of mine shared an interesting and insightful acronym regarding relationships, particularly regarding responding to the relationships in your life that have become, for lack of a better term, messy.I love people, I love to be with people, but involvement in any relationship means that we must make ourselves more vulnerable, and when that occurs we are at risk of being hurt.Sometimes we get hurt by our own actions and sometimes we get hurt through the actions of others.When that occurs, relationships become messy and they require our attention to make the necessary repairs if we expect the relationship to have a chance to be restored.The acronym that my friend used was CLEAN UP.It’s a good reminder about how to both restore broken relationships and avoid messiness in the relationships that fill our life. C – is for Communication Most relationships: friendships, partnerships, etc. break down because of a lack of communication.True feelings get suppressed or things said in love can unintentionally be harmful but when relationships get off track the worst plan is to stop communicating. L – is for Listening Along with good communication we also need to stop and listen.Scripture tells us to be quick to listen and slow to speak.This is very good advice.If we really listen, many conflicts and misunderstandings can be corrected that were often caused by not listening in the first place.But don’t kid yourself, being a good listener is very hard work. E – is for Equanimity It’s interesting what words we can discover when we are working on an acronym that we like!Equanimity is a call for keeping balance in our relationship.Things like stress can put us out of balance; in that situation, maintain your poise and don’t make a bad situation worse. A – is for Amnesia Choose to forget when someone wrongs you.Don’t try to get even.If forgiveness is modeled by the Master teacher, how can we think it is ever the wrong thing for us to do? N – is for Naps Rest is important in avoiding situations that could harm a relationship.A lot of energy is required to clean up a messy relationship.If you are not ready and rested don’t try to go in and fix things. Also, slow down.People who are too busy are unable to invest the time and energy needed in relationships to keep them positive. U - is for Umbrella You must shelter yourself from a certain amount of conflict.There is a time to let conflict and falsehoods bounce off your protective umbrella.Know what to take on and when not to take something on directly. P – is for Power This refers to the power of prayer.Too frequently our first inclination when things get difficult is demonstrate our rage.This is really the point at which we need the most self control.We need the gifts of the Spirit to keep us from anger, to be the more spiritually mature person and apologize first.But before you can do these things you first need to go to the Lord. When you find yourself dealing with a difficult and messy situation or relationship I would encourage you to just think about you how might want to go about cleaning that mess up.When you do, remember this little guide.I think it might help.