Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power: Loving the Unlovable

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Loving the Unlovable-Step 2

Welcome back to what I hope and pray will be a life-changing series for you as you learn to extend grace, especially to those unlovable/difficult people. Remember, we don’t earn or deserve grace! Grab your coffee and come on in.

So, how did you do with the first step? Like I said, if you don’t have anyone unlovable at this point in your life, kudos to you! That is such a blessing. But please don’t skip these precious coffee hours because you never know when or if someone loving is going to turn unlovable or someone new and challenging is brought into your life!

So now that you’ve made your list, beside each of their names, write down three adjectives (descriptive words) about them that describe what makes them unlovable, in your opinion. As you do this, you need to own that these descriptive words are from your perspective and experience and not based on anyone else’s opinion or experience.

For example, at the time I was working these steps, my biological mother was at the top of my list and the three adjectives that best describe what made her so unlovable and difficult for me to love were: loud, prideful and bossy.

Then when you’ve written the adjectives, go back and write a sentence using that adjective explaining why you used that adjective. I’ll share a couple of mine. “I feel that because my mom is loud in her anger, she is unlovable.”

I have to stop before going on to the next one because I have learned so much about relationships since writing this series the first time years ago. I didn’t know then what I do now and what I’ve learned in the meantime makes this series all the more necessary and powerful. But let this profound statement, which I learned from Milan and Kay Yerkovitch in their book, “How We Love” serve as a reminder that our unlovable people in our life don’t set out to be any of the words we use to describe them! There is always a reason for their behavior, a root to trace it to. I pray that helps you in this step as you are writing these adjectives.

Let’s move to the second adjective. “Her prideful attitude is like a wall between us.” Mom would rarely apologize for her anger or when she was incorrect on something.

And the final adjective on my list was bossy so my sentence reads: “I don’t enjoy most of my conversations with her because she tends to be bossy most of the time.” Maybe it was her way of feeling like she was a mother-figure in my life because she hadn’t been in my life for most of my life.
Things are never as they seem but it’s important to acknowledge our feelings. They are neither right nor wrong; they just are. What’s important to remember is we should never let them drive our emotional car!

If you have more than one unlovable and/or difficult person in your life, may I encourage you to do this exercise separately for each one. In other words, don’t sit there and do this for each and every person on your list, one right after the other, lest you fill up with self-righteousness and negativity, defeating the purpose of this step. So, for example, if there are three people on your list, do this in three sittings. Remember, this is a process and we are not in any hurry!

Rooting for you in your unpacking process,

Evinda