What rate are you paying in your life? Do you choose cheap things that may fill you up but have no real nutrients to sustain your long term needs and goals? Do you have to work harder to maintain what you have and get where you’re going because those bargains you thought you found are costing you more on the back end? I’m not only talking about the foods you choose to eat, by the way. I’m saying we need to stop trusting our greatest treasures to fads, snake oils, get-rich-quick schemes, buy-one-get-one free deals, lose-45-pounds-in-10–days promises, etc. Need I say more?

I’m certain that if you added up what you have really paid for some of your decisions, you might find that the results weren’t worth it. Going forward, may you have the courage to look at your bottom line and be honest with yourself about what you can and cannot afford, no matter how “too good to be true” it looks.

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The men decided to draw straws, and whoever drew the short straw would have to leave the barn and go out into the storm, guaranteeing his death but saving their lives. Once all straws were pulled, the man who drew the short one was exactly who everyone thought would get it — the guy who was always late. He had been a thorn in their side for a long time, and once he was gone, they believed the storm would cease and everything would return to normal.

Well, the farmer put his hat on, took one last look around, and ran out into the storm. The minute he reached his wagon, a large bolt of lightning struck the barn, killing all the farmers who thought they were safe inside.

We often think that someone else is the cause of our problems, when in fact it’s us. Do you find that no matter where you go or who you’re with, the same issues keep arising? It’s time to stop picking out others’ flaws, turn that mirror toward your own face, and address some of your issues.

It turned out that every time the farmer was late, it was because on his way to the meeting, unbeknownst to the others, he had to stop and pull one of their cows out of a ditch.

May you have the courage to address your issues with the same tenacity that you address others people’s problems. In doing so, you’ll find out you need to deal with so many of your own difficulties that you don’t have time for anything else. And may you realize it before your barn gets hit by lightning.

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A tangelo is a fruit that farmers grow when they want to create a taste with certain characteristics. The tangelo is a cross between a grapefruit and a tangerine, and in order for the two separate fruits to make something different, they each must give up something. The grapefruit must give up some of its tartness, while the tangerine must yield some of its sweetness. The grapefruit has to give up some of its bulk, while the tangerine must be willing to grow. The grapefruit must yield the darkness of its red color, while the tangerine must yield its orange hue. The grapefruit—whose insides are tightly encased—must blend with the tangerine, which has a looser structure.

Once the grapefruit and tangerine are spliced and grafted together (the process is not very comfortable) each must give up something in order to become a new fruit: a tangelo. They accept just the right amount of each other to make something that each is satisfied with, something that would never have been possible until the two decided to become one. They become a fruit that has just the right amount of each contributor, so that when looked upon and tasted it gives an enjoyable experience that only those two, joined together, could give.

May you have the courage to give light and air to the wounds that you have kept hidden for so long, so that they may finally heal and you can experience the intimacy and happily ever after of a tangelo.

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When you decide not to deal with negative emotions, simple occurrences can often be truly frightening experiences for you. A raised voice, a fist pounding on the table, or a door or window left unlocked overnight can send you or your significant other into a fit of terror or rage, if the trauma of living in fear has not been addressed. A loved one leaving on a business trip or just going to hang out with friends becomes a nightmare when you have not dealt with issues of abandonment and self-worth. Christmas and Thanksgiving—times that should be filled with love and joy—take on the spooky feeling of Halloween, filled with yelling and screaming, because you have not resolved how family addictions ruined your childhood holidays. So you repeat the chaos of the past, and you don’t know why. Your insecurities have kept those who choose to remain with you in a self-imposed prison, where you subject them to all kinds of tests to prove their love, and no one knows the answers but you. You keep those who refuse to deal with your triggered behavior isolated from your love, which causes all parties nothing but pain.

Watching a dog chase its tail may bring a few moments of laughter initially, but after a while even the dog knows he is getting nowhere. If you are constantly overreacting to things and using a bazooka to kill a fly when a simple swatter would be sufficient, it’s time to start taking responsibility and deal with your past so that you can finally take your finger off that trigger.

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The reason you find relationships exhausting is that when you choose unhealthy ways of dealing with your wounds, your behavior has no benefits—only prices to pay. For instance, addictions bring dependence, sickness, and financial problems. Anger may be useful to keep the people around you in fear, but it raises your blood pressure and predisposes you to heart attacks, strokes, and some cancers. Isolation and emotionally distant behavior may keep others from getting too close, but it also keeps you sad, lonely, and feeling hopeless. You can’t insulate yourself from wounds that come from those you love without paying some kind of price, and while some people choose to exist this way, it is a counterproductive way to live.

While no relationship can offer a guarantee, the best way to ensure that you find a healthy relationship is by getting healthy yourself. If you wish to change the dynamics of the relationship you are already in, first take a long look at yourself. You may find that many of the problems you experience didn’t start with your other half; they started with you. Once you know the truth, no matter how painful it may be, it is the only thing that will set you free.

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Anger is another tool which serves to keep those around fearful and distant. Obsessions and compulsions keep everything under your strict control. Being a workaholic keeps you hiding in your success. Keeping your emotional distance guarantees that no one will get close enough to hurt you again. Perfectionism keeps you self-absorbed with the importance of how things look, as opposed to how things really are. Or perhaps you have become trapped in the sadness of your past, making it difficult for you to enjoy any real happiness that the future may offer.

We all have been wounded. Behind closed doors, many of us have been abused sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally, or in any combination of ways. What some people have endured is incomprehensible; there is no excuse for it. Abuse is wrong and evil, and evil has no boundaries, no biases, no prejudices and no favorites. The sheer randomness of evil is why it doesn’t matter how many times you review it in your mind; it will never make sense.

The only way out is to spend time breaking the powerful hold the wounds of your past have over you. You may seek counseling from a trained professional or address your pain through prayer or forgiveness, but no matter which avenue of healing you choose, you’ll find that the best way to overcome the past is by not allowing it to have any say in your future. You see, if you’re not careful, you can become an unwilling perpetrator in passing on the very wound you hate so much to someone who you say you love, leaving yet another generation to deal with it. To do so would be tragic. May God give you wisdom and courage to make Him the center and not yourself.

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When you were a baby, you didn’t have to hide your selfishness because children are born that way; it’s the only way they can get their needs met. If they didn’t cry or scream, you might not know when they were hungry, needed a diaper change, or were in pain. As adults, however, most of us know that kicking, screaming, and crying are not acceptable behaviors, so we tend to hide how we’re feeling, and it therefore manifests itself in other ways.

While you may behave with the intelligence and maturity of an adult, at your core is a little child, manipulating and controlling your environment in order to ensure that you always get what you believe you need, regardless of how it affects those around you. While that strategy works very nicely for you, your spouse—the other half of your relationship—suffers greatly as a result of your behavior. May God give you the courage to address old wounds.

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When you are in love with your own reflection, you need constant expressions of approval from those around you in order for your world to feel safe. Therefore, a narcissist will go in search of what some like to call “narc fuel.” The fuel they are looking for is a Godlike adoration and reverence. They desire everyone around them to conform to their idolized self-narrative, which allows the narcissist to control everyone and everything in their environment to avoid getting hurt.

Narcissists often feel trapped in the unresolved conflicts of their childhood. Therefore, they seek resolution by recreating conflicts of the past with their present significant other. Their current partner feels to them like a reasonable substitute for the parent or original perpetrator who created the injury. Sadly, this cycle is how injuries are passed from one generation to the next—another set of children must silently endure the madness that comes with living in a narcissist’s household, which is why it is important to understand that before narcissists become perpetrators, they were once in the same situation they are now creating. Years ago, they were the children living in fear and desperately seeking the love and approval of their parents in order to form a stable and healthy foundation of self-worth. Such a foundation is paramount to creating healthy relationships in the future.

May God give you the strength to search out and destroy the lie, so that the truth can set you free.

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Narcissism is a sickness from which it is hard to recover; those who have been forced into this kind of behavior have endured extreme abuse. They have possibly come from households where they experienced domestic violence, drug abuse, abandonment, or mental illness. Having few options to truly express themselves, they can grow into angry adults filled with pathological anger that results in sudden, unprovoked outbursts.

Because they are in love with their own reflections, they are one step removed from reality; thus, they tend to be great liars and even believe their own lies. That’s why it’s so hard for these people to seek help; they feel like they know best, and often only seek treatment after some major crisis in their life robs them of their pride. If they do go into therapy, those sessions are like a duel to the death; for they always believe that they know more than the therapist. Thus, recovery is difficult. But it is possible. May God give you the courage to believe that.

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Being in love with your reflection means that you are smitten with something that isn’t real. Thus narcissists’ love is directed at something that is a secondhand impression of them; they are in love with what they believe other people think and feel toward them. This belief is under their strict control; methods of rage, intimidation, and humiliation guarantee that nothing upsets the reflection.

Thus, those who must live with a narcissist often live in fear. Regardless of the pain that has been projected upon them, in order to not awaken an even more terrifying narcissistic beast, they must adjust their responses in such a way as to not mirror something back that is differs from what the narcissist believes to be true. To do so would be catastrophic, bringing upon them a ruthless barrage of mistreatment until they confirm to the narcissist the accuracy of his or her aggrandized self-image.

Narcissists do not take responsibility for their own behavior; they will offend you and then blame you for having caused them to hurt you, thus furthering their belief that you must be penalized for their mishaps. Living with someone who exhibits this sort of behavior is exhausting, for if you cause this person to doubt their self-made, illusionary sense of worth, you can become subject to their reign of terror.

If you see yourself in this article, may God give you the courage to face the person in the mirror and not the reflection.

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