Stop It You Two!

Stop it you two! Stop it, now! Brenda was screaming at her two oldest children; her lovely blond eighteen-year-old daughter Susan, and her twenty-nine-year-old son John. They were at it again.

“You never listen to me.” Susan yelled. “

“And you’re a loser. Why should I listen to you,” John, red-faced, but still handsome hollered back. The brother and sister were toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball shouting and throwing memories of old hurts at one another. As they blamed, criticized, and judged one another, never once did John or Susan look at themselves and question what they might be doing wrong.

Brenda felt as is she were suffocating. Without realizing it, she had covered her ears with her hands and was slowly shaking her head feeling helpless and hopeless. “I give up.” she whispered to herself. As Brenda left the room breathing a sad little sigh, the two children were still arguing at the top of their voices. This familiar screaming match had been going on for years and Brenda felt helpless to change the situation or help her kids.  Forty minutes later, and it wasn’t over.

At that moment, the only thing Brenda knew to do was pray. Slowly, she made her way to her bedroom and fell to her knees. “Father God,” she pleaded, “Please help John and Susan find a way out of this mess. It breaks my heart and dishonors you. Please show me what to do.”

Brenda wasn’t crying. She had been through this too many times before. She was cried out. She just waited there, kneeling beside her bed, how long she wasn’t sure. Maybe she had even dozed off. But suddenly, she wide awake and it all seemed simple.

Brenda was a committed Christian and so were her three grown children. Here’s the answer she heard herself say, “We simply have to do what God says. He says. ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments.’ Well, here they are and with his help, we can keep them.

James 1:22-23 - Be a doer of the Word, not a hearer only, deceiving yourself. 

Matthew: 23:25 - You hypocrite! First clean the inside of your cup and dish that the outside of them may be clean also.

Ephesians 4:25-27 - Take the log out of your eye before you try to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Ephesians: 4:26-28 - Be angry but do not sin: do not let the sun set on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.

If you have tried and failed to keep these commandments, you may be hurting pretty bad, too. But getting stuck in anger or guilt doesn’t fix the problem. Why not try something different? I suggest that you stand back as an objective observer of your feelings, label them, and use the Choice-Cube tools to let go of them safely and appropriately (without hurting yourself or others).

You see, your negative emotions, and related stress, lock in distortions and limitations in your thinking, hiding the whole truth from you. They separate you from God. (He never leaves you, but you can’t really hear him.) Getting rid of those emotions (letting go of them, not denying or stuffing them) liberates your mind to see all sides of reality—the big picture--and choose which side you want to focus on.

NOTE: Whatever you focus on will get you more of it!

If you want more information about how to do this, check out my book, Become the Person You Were Meant to Be – The Choice-Cube® Method. It’s on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.