7 Ways to Help a Friend through a Bad Time

Recently a friend had a huge fight with her grown daughter -- and any woman knows that mother-daughter issues can seem insurmountable. I barely know the daughter, as I got to be friends with the mother after she'd gone off to college, so I really have no dog in this fight -- and I can only see the daughter's side clairvoyantly. But as a friend, it's my job to help my friend as best I can. So I thought about what I could do to help, and here's what I came up with (for simplicity, female pronouns/adjectives are understood to include both male and female):

• Listen neutrally - Sometimes people just need to vent, that is, they need a shoulder to cry on. You can be that 'shoulder' really well by staying neutral yourself, and by doing Rogerian therapy. This is a fancy term for mirroring someone's body position and repeating their words back to them. For example, if your friend says, "I'm upset", you say, "I hear you're upset", or "I get that you're upset", or "You're upset about...?" or "What exactly is upsetting you?" The main point here is that you repeat their word, in this case, "upset". Do NOT substitute "angry" or "sad" or any other word -- this will change their experience, either to something inauthentic, or it will pop them out of any feeling at all.
• Brainstorm actions she can take - After the emotion has been released, it's time for your friend to figure out what to do about the situation. You can take notes, or perhaps even offer ideas. Remember, you're just throwing ideas out there. It's important to be unattached to whether or not any of them (especially yours!) are ever put into action.
• Do chores or run errands - Sometimes, in a crisis, especially one where someone is ill or physically harmed, the most help you can provide is with your hands and feet: picking up a prescription, watching the kids, cooking dinner, cleaning house, etc. All of those can be sanity savers.
• Teach her ho'oponopono - This is a very simple exercise of holding someone's image in your mind, and then repeating, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you." For the background on ho'oponopono, as well as some amazing examples of its efficacy, listen to this interview with Marci Shimoff and this story from a listener who heard my interview with Marci.
• Teach her to cut cords (or do it for her with her permission) - People send streamers of energy, called cords, to others. They can send positive energy (e.g., love) or negative energy (e.g., negative judgements). Sometimes they even use cords like vacuum cleaners, to suck energy out of others (the original energy vampires). You can ask to be shown where these cords are, and then cut them, attaching the free ends to white light.
• Teach her to ground - It always helps to connect to Mother Earth. This is just a simple visualization, like growing roots from your feet into the center of the Earth, and then pulling up healing energy from Her.
• Remind her of the power of prayer - If she believes in nonphysical beings (angels, guides, ancestors, fairies, God/Goddess, whatever) that can be of help, these should be enlisted. They might help -- and there's no harm in asking. At least your friend might feel comforted by the reminder that help is out there. 

The Sins of the Father (& Mother) Really ARE Visited on the Children

Last night, I got a call from an old friend, "Terence", who needed some help for his 16 year old daughter. "Stephani", and said he 'just knew' that I was the person to call. He knew this so strongly that he called a mutual friend to get my phone number, since he'd lost mine a while back.

He told me that his daughter says she is dealing with a demon, a man's voice that tells her to do things like cut herself, and maybe even kill herself. When he said his daughter's name, I realized that I knew exactly where it came from -- and it was only partly psychic. (I've seen these things psychically for others -- what's new for me is the evidence, as you'll see.)

I've known Terence for 20 years. He's an architect, and a really good guy -- smart, sensitive, responsible, athletic, spiritual and a great dad to 4 kids, of whom Stephani is the youngest. We were part of a spiritual group for about 10 of those years. The group met weekly to do yoga and meditation, as well as interactive exercises designed to help us develop our manifestation powers, our emotional health and psychic abilities. We had coffee on Saturday mornings, and partied together occasionally (birthdays, Christmas, etc.). We had monthly evening program of spiritual teachers and an annual retreat, as well. There was definitely a group resonance, so that we knew each other at a very deep level, even if we weren't deeply involved with the details of each others' day to day lives.

About 16 years ago, on the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, I was on my way home when someone cut me off on a small side street. I was pissed, but when I looked closely -- it was Terence! He apologized through our open car windows, saying he was having a rough time and I invited him back to my place for coffee.  I noticed his hand was bandaged.

Though he was married, with 2 kids at home, he said he was taking the day for himself, and we decided to hike through the hills to the Sausalito Art Festival. We had a great time, taking in the art, and dancing to Jefferson Starship live. Then we walked back to my house.

At that point, he said he needed to soak and rebandage his hand, so I got him a pan of water. We sat and talked some more, and he opened up about how this injury had been inflicted by his wife. As we talked, he decided to name his soon-to-be-born baby girl Stephani, after a late friend, Roger Stephens.

Eventually, he steeled himself for the trip home and left.

Over the next couple of months, I heard stories from a mutual friend about how his wife, a beautiful woman who apparently lived on vitamins and supplements (there was no food in the refrigerator, just supplements), would verbally and physically abuse him. She even hit him and then herself once -- and then called the cops. He spent the night in jail, but all charges were dropped.

After Stephani was born, the wife checked in to a psychiatric hospital. Terence and his wife divorced, and Terence raised their 3 kids as a single dad.

Eventually, I married and moved 45 minutes away, and the group evolved so the old gang wasn't part of it any more. We did meet monthly for meditations, though, and occasionally for speakers. So while I did see Terence, it was a quick 'hi' and a hug, maybe a chat about the speaker, nothing personal. Until last night.

Seeming change of subject: About a week ago, in a meditation, I asked 'the folks' to help me remove some patterns that didn't seem to be mine. As I watched, all these images from the 1950s seemed to fly off me -- print ads, TV commercials, photos of what would have been fashion forward design at the time. I realized that this is what was around my mother when she was pregnant with me, and then got her emotions around raising this child to be, her first.

There is also evidence that a fetus can hear and remember voices and music that were around during its gestation after it is born.

So when Terence wanted to know how to help his daughter, I knew immediately that he had to explain to her what was going on while she was in utero, and that that would immediately decrease the severity of what was going on, and improve her ability to deal with it.

How much of what we think makes us crazy has a real cause that no one is telling us about -- even though they could? 

Half-Generation Friends

A couple of weeks ago, I had my first real conversation with Perry Garfinkel on my radio show, "Your Life, Your Relationships". [You can hear the conversation online here, or here in iTunes.] It was delightful! I felt like I'd made a new friend, or maybe found an older brother I hadn't yet met. Names of several well-known people, whom I'd heard lecture, or whose works I'd read, fell off his tongue -- they were his teacher, his friends, his personal acquaintances. Wow!

It turned out that he's 11 years older than I am. While he was in India, I was in high school (and if I hadn't been intellectually precocious, I'd still have been in grade school)! That meant he was enough older than me to have been in the vanguard of the American consciousness revolution, while I was following distantly in their footsteps.

And that got me to thinking about friends who are a half-generation ahead of or behind me. [A generation is variously described as 20 - 30 years, so a half-generation would be 10 - 15 years.] These are very important friendships!

When I was a kid, my Dad had 2 good friends, men he'd play tennis with each week. One had his own family, with kids around the ages of my sister and me; our two families became friendly. The other, though only a couple of years younger than my Dad, was still single, and actively dating. The women he dated all seemed to be about the same age, 23 - 26, even as he got older. As I entered my teen years, my (temporary) friendships with these young women became very important to me. Why? Well, they were enough older than me to have 'been there, done that', and thereby give good advice (and I had no older sisters or cousins). They were also young enough to understand my world, and therefore not to judge me in the way someone of my parents' age would have.

Today, as an adult, I still have half-generation friends. The older ones point the way into the second half of life. The younger ones change my perspective on the world, because it looks a bit different to them than it does to me.

Who are the half-generation friends in your life? What do they bring to your life?

Dealing with a Drunk

Do you have, or have you ever had, an alcoholic in your life? I'm pretty lucky -- I have never had a very close friend or family member have addiction problems. Until now.

Serena is a friend of several decades. We were roommates briefly, way back when, when I was changing cities, and a lease ended, and I couldn't move for a couple of weeks. She was kind enough to take me in. At the time, I noticed that if we opened a bottle of wine, she drank the majority of it. If we went to a party, she had one too many, but she was a funny, sweet drunk, so I mostly just enjoyed her company. We were young; everyone partied; I excused it.

Then I moved. Though we kept in touch through job changes and moves and marriages and kids and separations and divorces, we really didn't see each other much. When she got pregnant with her daughter, she told me she'd stopped drinking. I guess her husband insisted, and insisted she stay sober for her daughter's entire childhood, which she did. But her daughter went off to college last fall, and her drinking resumed. To make matters worse, her husband left her.

Serena's living in California now, has been for a few years, and so we're spending time together. I've noticed that she's drinking a lot. If I see her in the evening, I have to drive, because I don't trust her to. Sometimes she slurs her words. I've seen her pass out, very genteelly, of course, but pass out nonetheless.

I'm horrified. I'm sad. I'm scared for my friend. I don't really know what to do. I tried the Al-Anon website, which was not all that helpful, because I'm not family, or even close enough for Serena's drinking to affect me, except for friendly concern. Then I found this article, by a recovering alcoholic, who is also a family member of other alcoholics, which is quite helpful.

So here's what I'm going to do:

• Take Serena out for coffee, early in the day on a weekend. (She only drinks in the evening, so she'll be sober. We'll be in a neutral location, in public, which is the safest place to have any difficult discussion, something I learned at Harvard Business School. Because it's the weekend, we'll have time to talk.)
• Tell her specifically what I have noticed. (In NLP, I learned that people can't deal with generalities, so it's best to be specific.)
• Tell her neutrally about my concern for her. (The article says that judging, labeling or shaming just make the problem worse. They give the alcoholic more reasons to drink. What the alcoholic needs is more resources, more ways to deal with the pain underneath the drinking.)
• Bring information about the nearest AA meetings, both locations and times.
• Listen neutrally and openly, using all the skills I've learned in NLP. (NLP has a whole model of linguistic rules which, when used by a listener,  help the speaker become more clear about what is going on.)
• Be non-attached to the outcome. Perhaps Serena will take some positive step. Perhaps not. Perhaps, despite my best efforts, she'll make me wrong for even bringing this up. I am prepared to lose the friendship, if that is what happens. 

Wish me luck! (And I truly welcome any additional ideas you'd like to post as comments here.)