Primary Decision

Aug 22, 2008

The Primary Decision is to choose to place our spouse and marriage first in our list of priorities.

Some things I've learned in the process of making the "Primary Decision."

Make Rick the most important person over any other, and our relationship 1st over any other.

My fear with this was that if I put his needs over any other, including my own, then who will take care of my needs? (I know...it's a selfish thought)

Greg Baer answered this and said, " Your needs aren't being met right now either, are they?" That is correct! By putting him 1st I win because I am being more loving. He wins because he can feel more loved by me.

I don't loose by making this decision.

If I don't make this decision, our marriage will be dead. It will be torn apart by all of the million other secondary decisions and we will be miserable. (I can testify of that!)

There will be moments where someone, outside of our marriage, won't have their needs met. That will be tiny compared to loosing my marriage.

I should be concerned about the happiness of my spouse before I focus on my own interests in "being right" or "protecting" myself.

By making it, I will become a more loving human being.

Protecting Myself

I've been learning a lot this week about why I protect myself, but I was stuck on the "how not to" part. I searched on the website (www.reallove.com) for something to help me move past this. I also asked several wise people. ( A Wise person is someone that has sufficent unconditional love in that moment, and one who can see and accept me right where I am at....warts and all!) I agreed with them that protecting myself in my relationships was making me miserable, but I didn't know to stop....I was stuck!

A friend called me for some help and it was during that conversation that I was reminded of something I heard Greg Baer say; "Protecting ourselves never works - EVER - ZERO % of the time! It doesn't make us feel safe and it actually makes us miserable. It also never allows for our needs to be met."

As I shared this with my friend on the phone, I realized that even though I haven't learned how to stop the protection, I knew that what I was told and learning about was correct. As were were discovering and learning together, we remembered that the more unconditionally loved we feel, the less we will be affected by the UN-loving things that others do to us.

REAL LOVE ACTUALLY PROTECTS US!!!

That was it!!! The missing key to this struggle that I had. I shared the story that Greg tells about the 2 wolves (Bible workbook pg 187). I've been protecting myself from something I've been feeding....the "Fear" wolf! We see in movies, where we are either afraid of wolves & protect ourselves from them or we befriend them and then they protect US! When the "good" wolf (Unconditional Love) is fed......(by telling the truth about ourselves, and seeing and accepting others).....the stronger it becomes and the more I will naturally be "protected" by that Unconditional love from the un-loving things that others do.

**When I am protecting myself, my primary concern is for myself - At that point the only thing the other person hears is "I don't love you."
**Then, they act to protect themselves....
**Then, there is no peace - No Happiness!

I love feeding the Good wolf!!

.

Changing the CD

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a friend about her concern with seeing others who have been told untrue, negative things about her. I shared with her my experience, since I have struggled with that over the last 8 years. My mistake was defending myself and not allowing those people to see who I really was inside. The moment I began to defend & protect myself all they saw was someone that sounded guilty of whatever they had been told. The majority of my marriage I have felt the need to protect myself from the attacks from his ex-wife. I defended myself a lot and wanted it to stop! Through this process of learning how to Unconditionally Love, I can see the negative effects that my behavior has had on my family, my marriage and personally.

I have since learned that when I was defending myself I was being insecure and un-loving (my evil twin). I rarely ever let the "good" twin out!

The comments that were made about me were just added to the CD of negative information about myself that I have heard and believed throughout my life. Like a CD on continuous play in my mind

I was completely miserable!!!

As I shared these thoughts with this friend I discovered something exciting in the process. Just as the negative things have been added to the CD, positive ones can replace them! I'm creating a new CD!!

When people in my life that said negative things about me, I believed them. However, they didn't really know ME! The didn't know my fears, mistakes, and "warts" because I didn't share them with them...I didn't know how. I also thought that sharing those things would certainly not make them want to be my friend!

NOW, at this point in my life, I have so many people who are getting to know the REAl D'Ann...Uncut! They are also able to love me inspite of my mistakes. Since they are seeing and hearing the TRUTH about me, it is their words that need to replace the negative ones on my CD.

Sometimes it's hard to listen to a compliment from them, or to really believe that I am making a difference in their lives....simply because I'm still playing the old CD.

From today, may I begin to replace the negative words with the positive ones, so that I can believe in the spitit that God gave me, and that I can bring Joy to others as I love them unconditionally!