Valentine Validation: The Love Designs

Posted on by Brook Thornley

I remember Valentine’s season in elementary school. I would always look forward to decorating my Valentine’s box. You know, the one that started with the leftover shoe box.

When you were in kindergarten it seemed to be a contest of the kindergarten moms more than the kids to see who had the cutest one (I seriously think that very thing started the evolution that ended in what we now refer to as Pinterest). By the time we got to the fourth grade it was half the moms’ competition and half “Oh just throw something together!” By fifth grade the teacher is doing them in class just to get us to participate and by sixth grade it was a required assignment—some of them even showing up with tin foil around a box with a heart on it; frantically put together in kitchen the night before or even the morning of. For me though, it was a fun thing regardless of the year.

The real magic of the box, though, was bringing it home and running to your room as fast as you could to open it up and see what romantic surprises were inside (Ok, mostly we just wanted to see which ones had candy in them). I, however, was a little different. I would run in, dump them on the floor, and excitedly search to see if there was that one thing I thought would be the measurement of whether it was going to be a good Valentine’s Day or just another day: the conversation hearts.

Every year, there they seemed to be. It wasn’t the taste I craved, it was what was on it. If I related to the messages I read, somehow I felt like I would be validated in some way. Phrases like, “cutie pie,” or “hug me,” “kiss me,” “be mine”…It seemed like whatever was on those hearts that someone had carefully dropped in my valentine envelope (the ones you can lick all day long and they still won’t seal!) was somehow a message from the universe to me as an indicator of how my Valentine’s Day was going to be defined. Sometimes I would even think that they would even be able to describe how much I was loved that day or even on rare occasions my youth made me think that that one heart had the power to validate my day and the kind of person I was.

Well, they didn’t of course, but I do think the people who created those Conversation Hearts were on to something. It wasn’t the heart or the message as much as it was that the messages that I got in my envelope really appealed to the way I like receiving expressions of love. In other words, those messages or gifts are said or done in a way that speaks to my authentic self and are in line with the way I truly need to love myself. At Human Art we call it your “Love Design.”

When we talk about our “Love Design,” it is not so much the way others give it, but in the way you receive it. Here is an example: My husband, Rod, is Blackened. He is a “get ‘r done” kind of guy. He knows part of my love design is being surprised. He has a habit of sending flowers on special occasions (which I can’t even tell you how much I love that), but he also tries to incorporate that surprise element (and does it so well) because he knows I love that also. He hits the mark so much because he tries to get outside of himself to make it an experience that I would love.

It’s perfect, but even after all these years that “get ‘r done” guy shows up. He just can’t stop himself from buying me something practical like a hammer. When this happens, I might be a little disappointed by the “romance” part of it, while at the same time greatly appreciating the gesture part of it.

 The gesture part of it. If we are emotionally healthy and understand intimacy we will get it. In this situation, I would extract any evidence of my “Love Design” being present in the gesture and be grateful for it. I could have latched on to the disappointment in the lack of romance, but instead I found my “Love Design” in how I received it; such as being “surprised” at how much he paid attention to what was broken or needed in the house. What was “broken” is that every time I designed something and wanted to hang it I couldn’t find a hammer and would get so frustrated. This would happen day after day that particular year (you would think after a few times I would remember to get a hammer, but for whatever reason I wouldn’t). I was able to feel genuine surprise in the gesture that he paid attention to me day after day; and that was romantic. Not in a flowers and new pretty shoes way, but in a “someone is observant and watching after me” way. So just like I was looking for in the conversation hearts, the message in that hammer gift could validate me and make me feel loved, because I was able to extract my “love design” from his gesture to feel loved in the way I feel it best.

It is what I was searching for in the candy hearts all over again, but this time I know it is not the universe validating me it is myself accepting intimacy and romance from someone who is truly trying to show me. How I feel about it is determined by what evidence I am seeking when I receive it. It is also true that though I found romance in the gesture, I love the flower and pretty new shoe years better! It’s like getting the coveted “I Love You” conversation heart and it’s pink!!!

So this year on Valentine’s Day, recognize it as a two way street. First we try our best to give our valentine (whether it be husband, wife, mother, friend, children, etc.) a gift that is truly in their “Love Design”, and second we make sure we are accepting our valentine expressions from others by finding our “Love Design” in the gesture.

The Love Designs

Saturated: “Wine and Dine”
Hit the mark. The mark is determined by what they deem quality. Whether it be a diamond or time spent with them, that is their quality. Let them deem it, then you quietly provide it without drawing a lot of attention to them. Hit that mark. Let them sneak away and quietly enjoy it. They love when you simply leave it somewhere for them to discover it alone and to take it in with no one watching.

Whitened: “Surprise Party”
Watch them all year and anticipate their needs. Listen to what they say they love, then surprise them with it. They will love it. They are social, so the more friends and loved ones you involve the better. Also the more polka dots the better!

Grayed: “Romancing the Details”
Think thoroughly before you decide what to do for them. Listen to the details of what makes them truly feel heard. Then don’t rush the process. Point out every detail— the more details the better. Then deliver your Valentine expression to them through a process. Explain the story of how you arrived at that expression. Bring them along in the process, it will be more fulfilling to them. Abrupt starts and stops to the experience make it less fulfilling and romantic. They love when you lean into the process with them. 

Blackened: “Check it Off”
Just take their to do list, their responsibilities, or whatever needs to get done and do as task for them. It is the best for them. Seriously, take out the garbage or paint a wall. Lift their load by doing a project they need to get done. It is the most romantic thing that you could do for them. The important part is to tell them which task you did and why you did it for them. If you don’t say anything, waiting for them to notice, it just becomes one more thing on their list that they have to do when they have to tell you that they noticed what you did.

 

Think of it as if we have moved into a grown up version of conversation hearts. When we get the one that resonates with our authentic self it just feels more romantic. Isn’t that the point of Valentine’s Day in the first place? We all want to feel accepted for who we are. We have an innate desire to be loved for who we really are. We have a need to be celebrated for the person we are. We all need a Valentine. It can be a partner, it can be a parent, it can be a friend, it can even be a coworker. It can even come from inside and be from yourself. It is important who it comes from but it is most important to love yourself enough to accept the validation when it comes. Remember, everyone is a masterpiece.

New Year: Being Responsible for Our Own Worth

Posted on by Brook Thornley

Here we are a few weeks into January 2016 and I was just assessing how I was doing on all my New Year’s goals and asking myself, “What is it that I really want to become?” What is the end game? Where are these goals and endeavors to become something better really leading me? I know I want to be authentic. I know I want to be kind. These are worthy goals but do I really know where to stop and be content with who I am.

I was sitting in the parking lot of the grocery store really pondering these things when Kat, our Projects Manager, sent the following to me, saying it reminded her of Human Art:

Maybe the journey
isn’t so much about
becoming anything
Maybe it’s about
un-becoming everything
that isn’t really you
so you can be who you
were meant to be
in the first place.
(author unknown)

As usual, her timing was impeccable. It really got me thinking that day, and even when I think of it now it rings so true. Goals are amazing and they help us on our journey, but maybe it is just as important to use them to undo the things that are not true about us. All of the things we have picked up along the way that are not who we are. Maybe it is a journey to come back instead of move away from who we are.

After working on myself to be authentic as well as working to help others be authentic, this is what I do know:

We are responsible for our own:

  1. Love
  2. Acceptance
  3. Security

We are the only ones who can truly provide that for ourselves. Others can support us on the journey, but we have to be responsible for those things in our lives. Other than divinity, there is no one (Human anyway) that can provide this for us. We cannot outsource it. If we wait for someone to provide love, acceptance, or security for us, we will be waiting a long time. I also know if we do try to outsource our worth in any way it will usually leave us feeling profoundly insecure.

We don’t need a Prince Charming to provide our worth for us

This is how it works. If we have been hurt or traumatized in any way we run the risk of giving up our power. We feel hopeless and we can find ourselves waiting for a fantasy rescue; a Prince Charming (male or female version) to come save the day and restore the worth or power we’ve lost. The problem is there are always conditions to our rescue. These are conditions or expectations that only we know and have rules for. So we desperately need our Prince Charming to be perfect in that rescue by meeting those conditions, in order to alleviate our pain. It turns into a big reenactment and we are now looking for that perfect ending so we can feel better and fix the original pain. This can be played out in a number of ways with a whole cast. The flaw in this system is when Prince Perfect Charming shows up, he tends to show up as human—not perfect—and we are left disappointed; feeling an even greater amount of hopelessness and insecurity.

When we provide acceptance, love and security for ourselves, then it doesn’t matter what happens externally because we are operating from a secure and solid base: our authentic self. In short, we are all like water; humans rise to love and accept us to the same level we love and accept ourselves.

So as we move through the rest of the year, striving to complete our goals, think first of where you started. What is your authentic nature? What is your central focus? What things might you need to “un-become” in order to be who you were meant to be? These things are dictated by you. You are the only one who truly knows the real you. The rescue has always been right in front of you because IT HAS BEEN YOU THE WHOLE TIME THAT CAN SAVE YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF! Run back to who you are, run fast and run hard. Don’t stop until you find yourself. Use your goals and the support around you to aid in that marathon. Don’t look externally for your worth, it has been there all along. It is your spirit, it is your soul, it is your diving nature. You know it best. Love yourself like you want others to love you. Then forget yourself for a moment and love others because everyone is a masterpiece.

Navigating the Holidays: What we can Learn from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Posted on by Brook Thornley

One year around Christmas when I was pretty little a teacher read the story, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” I remember because it was right around this time of year; just before Thanksgiving and then Christmas was the next holiday. I fell in love with all of the characters but it was when I got to experience the show on TV that, for some reason, I really fell in love with the Grinch. He just warmed my heart from the beginning.

In order to understand why I fell in love with him you have to freeze the beginning of the story and look at it and name what was real or what it looked like. For me, even as a little girl, I remember watching the very beginning of the show and thinking, as they scanned his life and his circumstances, there was a feeling of desperation. Although I couldn’t define it as a young girl I certainly felt what, as an adult, I have learned to be a feeling that he was totally overwhelmed. I remember vividly when they introduced his living conditions—how he was a bit isolated, how limited his resources were and how he put antlers on his dog to make a reindeer—feeling overwhelmed for him. That is the exact reason that I loved this story and the exact reason I fell in love with the Grinch. He was just moving forward the best way he could.

The challenge the Grinch faced is that he was in what is called his emotional personality in a big way. Our emotional personality is the part of us that splits off when we get overwhelmed. It is designed to help us survive tough things and it has its own skills and even its own set of likes and dislikes that are completely opposite from our authentic self.

I remember being so happy at the end of the show when he returns to his authentic self and is seen for who he really was all because compassion and kindness were present.The key word or feeling in this example of the Grinch who stole Christmas was OVERWHELMED. When we hit overwhelmed it puts us immediately into our emotional personality. If we don’t learn how to navigate that part of ourselves well, it has potential to go destructive quickly.

I think around the holidays we have high potential to become overwhelmed. My fear for myself and others is that we have potential to be drawn to things that could overwhelm us. Like how things look or projections. Fear of feeling isolated or not having enough. Feelings of inadequacy of any kind. These feelings or circumstances can lead to feeling overwhelmed when we focus on them.

In the story of the Grinch, if only he could have marched down to Whoville and shown his authentic self from the very beginning and just defined what was real (all of his flaws but also that great big heart when it grew two sizes) I have no doubt they would have loved him from the beginning and not had to navigate the emotional self and all the destruction it brought with it. In the end they finally did get to enjoy the real Grinch and, here is the best part, so did he. He got to enjoy himself and interact and form relationships with those around him by simply being who he really was. He was able to integrate the challenges with all that good to tell a complete story. The real one that tells who he really is and celebrates all aspects of his life: the wins, the losses, the pain and the triumphs. And he can be grateful for all of it because it defines him and at the same time others can have compassion for how hard his challenges were to navigate.

Come Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and even New Years, just get out there and be who you are, in whatever shape and form it is right now: a work in progress, but an amazing work at that. Be more authentic, work harder to understand yourself. Don’t become a Grinch and hide it, twist it, or project something that it is not. When you begin to feel overwhelmed, recognize it and don’t let your emotional personality take over. Understand yourself, celebrate your authentic design, and then celebrate others. Work hard to understand them and their journey as well. This will most certainly lead to more happiness, more peace, better interactions, and a true sense of what really leads to a happy holiday season. And keep in mind as you navigate the events of the season….Everyone is a masterpiece!

 

Self Esteem: Falling in Love With Our Authentic Self

Posted on by Brook Thornley

To me, self esteem is the product of a process more than it is a trait that you just obtain in one simple attempt.  Quite often people come to Human Art with the request to help them restore their self esteem and we are always excited to start that process. It makes me reflect on how much this request comes up and how often certain skills are needed and have to be learned to start that process. To be honest I think we all need a little bump in our self esteem here and there. So it would prove us wise if we would take a little time to evaluate how we are actually measuring our self esteem and who we are enlisting to evaluate our progress and our worth.

How are we measuring? We will never find self worth if we constantly look externally for our worth. When we look externally for our worth it usually comes in the form of comparing. Comparing ourselves to others or comparing our situation to others’ situations. I promise you that looking externally for your worth will fail you because you are comparing yourself to someone who is totally different from you. Someone with their own design and own version of authenticity that has nothing to do with your design and looks nothing like yours.  Yours is truly unique, like no one else’s.  So we need to look internally and start the process of finding the good in ourselves.

When we enlist ourselves to measure our growth, and base it on our authentic self, we succeed.  We are the master of our own design. We know it better than anyone else (besides God) so the trick is falling in love with ourselves and who we really are. Self esteem grows out of a sense of self and our sense of self grows out of a healthy autonomy. I emphasize GROWS. Day by day. Situation by situation. It doesn’t happen immediately or just once. It is largely defined by our efficacy—our ability to have a good result and, more importantly, a safe outcome in each situation or small interaction. The ability to engage more fully in interactions leads to our ability to affect our emotional stability.

So let’s take a Whitened client for example. Their ability to affect a situation comes from their spontaneity. It is creativity and enrolling at its best. That kind of thinking is out of the box which can lead to solutions we may not have ever considered. The thought process looks an awful lot like brilliant bubbles popping up with ideas to consider.

The other three designs think differently, so they might not understand the process and label it as careless.  They say it’s too many bubbles (ideas) and would take to many resources to carry out. “It’s unrealistic,” they might say. Because they think differently they might miss the fact that each bubble is a consideration that leads to other considerations and other ideas, which leads to a solution that was never entertained before. The point is, it still ends up being one or two solutions they just dance through a lot of bubbles to get there. Then comes the criticism. Sometimes delivered by the other person, but all too often by themselves. The Whitened person now feels like their ability to effect a good result is gone, their ability to produce a good outcome diminishes, and they are left feeling unsafe and with lowered self esteem.

Each design has their way they need to be effective and really feel efficacy.  If they cannot obtain those results it leads to self doubt and then low self esteem.  So make sure you are aware of the results that you need:

Saturated: Clarity and the ability to produce quality outcomes (whatever you might deem quality).

Whitened: Enrolling and change that is important to all the social circles in their life.

Grayed: Minding the details and the importance of them. They need the space and time to be thorough.

Blackened: To be effective you need to just get it done.  Finish what you started, get the result based on the expectation.

So don’t fall into the trap of minimizing the need to be effective in your design. Your ability get results is yours and it defines your brilliances. No one else has it in the way you do. Don’t expect them to totally understand it, just support yourself and start negotiating in a healthy way. Also understand and honor others around you by honoring their process and need to be effective.

Everyone needs self respect
Everybody needs to effect good results
Everybody deserves emotional safety
And most importantly…
Everyone is a masterpiece.

Relationship Dynamics: How to Get Rid of Hopelessness

Posted on by Brook Thornley

It feels so good to be blogging again. Sometimes Human Art requires our attention elsewhere, but being this is one of my favorite things to do, I am glad to be blogging today.

With that said, one of the tasks that we spend a considerable amount of time with is with families; giving them information that helps with family dynamics (or any relationship for that matter). In every case we find one thing that is all too familiar: It takes time to build new skills when it comes to relationships, but it takes no time at all for a destructive dynamic to rip progress apart and sometimes we feel like we are right back where we started from. That can be a hopeless feeling.

Hopelessness looks different for each design. If a specific dynamic in each design falls apart, that can bring a feeling of hopelessness to the relationship from that person’s perspective. The Saturated design needs clarity in dynamics, Whitened needs enrolling availability, Grayed needs deep connections, and Blackened needs their expectations to be met. You can see that each person’s need in the dynamic is different, so it has a different version of hopelessness and therefore is often misunderstood because it is not the same version of the other person’s hopelessness. It has potential to get complicated. But it doesn’t have to. Just remember in building a relationship don’t destroy the progress you’ve already made.  Honor the other’s needs in a dynamic. After all most of the time when we are upset we are reacting to a dynamic, not the person themselves. We love the people we choose to be in relationships with. We sometimes get frustrated with the dynamic.

 

Three Things to Clear out of Dynamics in a Relationship

  1. Hijacking and Overriding. Hijacking is an external punishment designed to take control or stop dynamics but is destructive. Examples would be temper tantrums, intimidation, aggression, or drama. Overriding is avoiding or withholding. Minimizing a dynamic and pretending it isn’t there or just stepping right over it. It is designed to avoid and excuse oneself from taking responsibility.
  2. Emotional personality. We have an authentic personality that includes our autonomy, our development, and our skills in a relationship. An emotional personality is developed when we feel overwhelmed and our authentic needs in a dynamic are not being met. It has its own set of skills and talents that are usually nothing like our authentic personality and are very destructive, like anger or harshness to name a few. The trick is to minimize our emotional and destructive personality (it is not who we are) and maximize our authentic personality in relationship dynamics.
  3. Get rid of Harshness and Add Compassion. We have equal compassion for ourselves and the person we are in a relationship with. No one gets more or less. We can have compassion for the other person and see why a dynamic is hard for them and have equal compassion for oneself and understand why they might be struggling also.

So take a little inventory. What are the dynamics in your family? What are the authentic needs? What can we clean out to avoid hopelessness? Remember, if someone you love is overwhelming you it is possible it is a dynamic. Make it easier by using your authentic strengths and a little compassion and you can tackle the dynamic. If you do, you will know you have done your best. That provides an opportunity for others to do the same. It will strengthen your confidence in relationships. And always, always remember: everyone is a masterpiece!