Compassionate Guidance for Your Life Journey

Happiness

“I’m really frustrated with my marriage.” – “My wife is driving me crazy!” – “I am so sick of my husband!” – “Our marriage just isn’t what it used to be.” – “I just don’t feel satisfied with my marriage.” – “Is this as good as it gets?” – “I’m not happy anymore.”

So many different ways of expressing dissatisfaction with married life – and I’ve heard a lot of them in my office.  The details of the problems can vary greatly, and just when I think I’ve heard it all, I hear a painful new story.  Humans are tremendously complex creatures, being made in the likeness of a fantastic, multi-layered God.  To say that human relationships, particularly marriages, are complex is a huge understatement.  And yet…

While I am always keenly interested in the particular dynamics of the individuals and marriages of the couples with whom I work, I am beginning to see marriage in simpler terms.  Most couples who seek counseling with me do so because one or both spouses are feeling unhappy.  And they are hoping I can offer them the guidance they need to find the path back to happiness.  It is human nature to desire happiness and fulfillment, and we certainly expect to experience it in our marriages, of all places.   We all know we will experience some times of unhappiness in this journey of life, but significant ongoing unhappiness within a marriage is typically a sign of a problem that needs to be addressed and resolved.  And professional marital counseling is often the best approach.  But here is where it gets…tricky. (more…)

By Roger Butner, ago

Weeds

A few months ago, my wife and I invested a good bit of money in having professionals come whip our front landscaping into shape.  They did a great job.  We’ve got all kinds of new flowers (don’t ask me what kind), new greenery, new mulch.  The house has really benefitted from the colorful “facelift.”  It looks pretty snazzy.  We are thankful for our nice home, and enjoy it very much.  We also didn’t want to be the eyesore of the neighborhood.  But we finally admitted we were never going to get the motivation to attack the project ourselves.  So we called in the pros – and are very pleased with our choice.

But now there are weeds.  How did this happen?!  I watched how deeply the husband and wife team dug up the old beds, cleared them out, and filled in fresh beautiful dirt.  The flowers and plants they put in place were weed-free.  So what happened?  Did the weed fairy come visit our house and plant the nasty little green monsters while we slept?  No, the reality of life is – weeds grow wherever there is dirt and water to be found.  This has been a constant on planet earth since, well, the Garden of Eden.  If I want to keep the ground around my home looking fresh and neat and well kept, I’ll have to either keep pulling weeds and trimming edges and cutting grass, or pay someone else to do it for me.  (For what it’s worth, I’m opting to do it myself, because I think it helps reconnect me to the rhythm and order of God’s creation.)

So today I began pulling weeds.  I donned my long sleeve gold Tigers shirt, clasped on the overalls, laced up my old pair of Timberlands, and dug my fingers into the moist, dark earth in front of my home.  I was quickly faced with a very big decision, one I had not anticipated.  What level of weeding was I going to perform?  A quick scan of the sixty feet or so of flower/shrub beds indicated somewhere in the neigborhood of a dozen big, nasty, “devil weeds.”  I don’t know what you call these things, but they are big and ugly and clearly love South Louisiana.  And I was really tempted to just attack them and call the job done.  But they were not alone.  They had less obvious, but more sinister friends.  Mid-level weeds that spread and hunker down.  And don’t get me started on all the clover.  And there was the grass from the yard that refuses to respect my boundaries.  What should I do?!!

I decided I really wanted to get our money’s worth out of the recent landscape job, so I started at one end and began to remove all unwanted greenery (and a little brownery) from my path.  Wow!!!  What a job!  This is a narrow strip of ground, and I really thought the whole project would take a half hour at most.  When I reached the path from our front door (the halfway mark) an hour later, I decided to stop for the night and finish tomorrow.  I may not have finished the weed pulling project yet, but I made some observations in the process that I believe are worth sharing:

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By Roger Butner, ago

Listen. And Learn

Parents of adolescents, how many of you enjoy your children’s favorite music – if you can even understand it?  I realize there are families in which parents and children enjoy the same musical tastes.  However, for many, the choice of music preference can become not only a difference between generations, but even a focal point of major misunderstanding and conflict.  I would urge you, as parents, to give serious consideration to what I am sharing today.  With the right approach, you can take the huge barrier of your teen’s musical identity and turn it into an open doorway into the deep struggles, hopes, fears, beliefs, and desires lying in the heart and mind of your son or daughter.

Music has always been important to people.  It has the power to touch and stir our spirits in a unique and powerful way, giving voice to our inner thoughts and shaping our identities in the process.  In modern America, each generation had their music that defined them and expressed their inner selves outwardly for all to hear – much of it commonly shared by the majority of one’s generational peers.  However, in postmodern adolescent America, music has become a much more personal expression – with scores of styles, genres, and subgenres available for download.  And let’s face it, much of today’s music (but certainly not all!) is distasteful, offensive, or outright disturbing to the parent who can pick out enough words to hear the themes.  So, what do you do when confronted with shocking album covers, myspace pages, cds, and downloads?

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By Roger Butner, ago

Resolution Revolution

So, are you joining the masses of people who make annual “new year’s resolutions?”  If so, you are likely feeling one of two ways about making these so-called “resolutions.”  You may be feeling really motivated and hopeful, telling yourself and maybe others, “I’m gonna do it!  It’s time I made this change, and I can’t wait!”  Others may be feeling cynical and embarrassed, thinking something to the tune of, “I can’t believe I’m actually even making this new year’s resolution.  Those are always such a joke.  Who am I kidding?!  I’m not really going to change.  I’m just making new year’s resolutions to feel better about myself for a while.”  And, some may be feeling a mixture of both – experiencing hope and doubt at the same time.  However you may be feeling about taking this step of proclaiming new year’s resolutions, I’m offering my two cents to you today in hopes that you will truly make the changes your heart is longing for, and that you will sustain those changes as a lasting new way of life.  If that sounds good, and you really would like to see yourself make these changes, I’ve got some useful guidelines that will help you turn your “resolutions” into a revolution this year… (more…)

By Roger Butner, ago

Experts

Self-proclaimed “experts” abound.  They write books and articles, appear on the news, offer conferences and workshops, and set up websites.  Some of these “experts” have a wealth of wisdom to offer, while others are offering up nothing but hot air (at best).  I do my best to be one of the former, but you can be the judge of that.  At any rate, perhaps no issue has attracted more “experts” than the ever-challenging role of parenting.  Now, I’ve got my opinions as to who are authentic parenting experts and who are the quacks.  If you take any time to peruse my website, you will get some idea of the experts I endorse.  However, there is one expert I want to commend to you as a parent that I believe tops the list.  And the winner is:

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By Roger Butner, ago