Relationship Wisdom pt 2

All right, number three. All relationships have distinct energies and energies outlast proximity and intimacy. All relationships come with energies. I was speaking yesterday about energies in the event we had yesterday because I think we generally in the church again we've been so ignorant about energies. We have majored on words and vocabulary and oration and preaching and we've minored on what energies are going on between us, what energies are going on in our relationships, what energies are we allowing to be in us that we are hosting and generating. All relationships come with distinct energies. What is your energy saying to people in your life? Do you know? Some of you are struggling with relationships not because you don't love the person. You love the person, especially if they're in your life long term. They're not going to be replaced anytime soon. They're in your life. They may be your family, people that are close. They're not people for a reason or a season. They're in your life long term. What you're struggling with is the energies that they bring into your life make them hard to be around. You're adjusting their space in your life. You're trying to put them further away even though you know they're always going to be in your life. You still put them further away because you can't do with the drama they bring or the stress that they generate and so the energy of them is not calming, is not peaceful and you're a version of you right now where that really matters to you. You're a version of you where you've been through a lot of stuff and you really value calm and peace and these people always come and bring drama. It's an energy and they don't know they have it. So even if you talk to them about it, they're going to be like what? Me? Moi? Drama? Are you kidding me? Here's what they said to you. No one's ever, ever said that to me. Once they say that to you, you know it's going to go bad from here on. No one's ever said that to me. Every dog, by the way it came into my mind, every dog that's ever bitten me, I used to have a job delivering stuff to people's homes. Every dog ever bitten me, the owners always said that dog's never bitten anybody before. I'm like how the hell does that help? How does that help me to know that it bit me? That's all that matters. That I'm the first one isn't some kind of privilege. So when they say no one's ever, no one's ever said that to me, well it's time someone did because all energies linger beyond proximity. When you leave them and they're not in your proximity anymore, their energy is. It's kind of like playing a sport or doing a marathon or I've heard professional dancers talk about this. When they're laying down, they feel like the legs are still moving. So you're not doing that anymore. You're not in the proximity of it anymore physically, but it lingers. Energies linger. So even though you're not around them, which alleviates it a little bit, the energy that deposits itself in you continues. So it took me a long time to learn this. I think what is it about that person? What is it? Because they're good people. They're lovely people. I love them, but there's just, I'm always left with this discomfort and this edginess. It takes me a while to kind of detox from them. What is that? How do I even broach that with them? Because they're so oblivious to it. As we most of us are about our energies. What energy are you bringing into your relationships? You have to be intentional about energies. And that's why let me say this to you. This is again something we haven't been open enough about in the church. When I talked earlier in the six rooms missing, I talked about an x-ray room where we say things like they should be said. The MRI scan level conversations. One of them should say something like with the relationships, it's okay to cut off toxic family members out of your life. Don't care how born again and spirit filled or how much they glow in the dark when the anointing is on them. They can still be toxic. Blood is not thicker than mental health. Did you hear me? Some people in your life are damaging your mental health. It's that bad. And you let it happen because they're family. Blood is not thicker than your mental health. That's why if you keep allowing your mental health to be damaged by having them in your world, it's self abandonment. You're abandoning you for them. They go away feeling great. We had a great time. You go away feeling that was a nightmare. I can't keep doing that. And while you're saying I can't keep doing it, you plan to see them in a couple of days time again, because that's how your relationship goes. So I want you to be sensitive, aware much more than maybe you've been of energies. Your family know. Your family know how to push your buttons because they installed them, right? They know where they all are. They know the combination that triggers this or that. They installed the keypad and the combination. All right, number four. You can't control other people's behavior, but you can limit the impact of their behavior with boundaries. You can't control other people's behavior, but you can limit the impact of their behavior with boundaries. Everybody say boundaries. We have been terrible at boundaries in the church world. I never once heard a teaching on it in all my life anywhere in the world. Nobody taught on boundaries because, you know, boundaries sound like it's not very covenantal. Boundaries don't sound vulnerable and open. It sounds too guarded and too new agey. You can't control their behavior. So stop trying to Jedi mind trick people into being who you want them to be. Stop trying to Jedi mind trick people with your love and your goodness and your performance and you're trying, hoping that they will stop being such an irritant in your life. Stop it. Stop trying to love the red flags out of people and just get some freaking boundaries. A boundary will do it. They won't like it. You won't like it, but it will protect you and if the relationship doesn't survive the boundary, what did you have anyway? How good was that relationship? If it won't survive you saying, no, I don't want this. No, I'm not doing that anymore. No, I don't want to be then involved in that and go there. I don't want to be around that conversation or whatever your boundary is and it doesn't survive that, then what did you really have between you? Well, we were in covenant. Exactly. All that covenant stuff is cheap and worthless if it won't stand a boundary conversation. That's what I mean. We pride ourselves on being deeply connected because we're in covenant and then one simple confrontational conversation. Whoa, what? So many cry babies in the church in this area. Seriously. Some people I used to teach in the church, some of you are like, like a canoe. Some people are like a canoe. You know, when you try and get into a canoe and you're trying to get into it and the moment you touch it with your toe, it starts flopping around. Just the canoe. Some people like that. The moment you even touch the issue with your toe, they start flipping around. You think, my God, this is just a touch. I'm going to try and get in it in a minute. This is a disaster. So you think, well, I'm not going to touch that again. Other people emotionally are like a battleship. When you step on them, not a ripple because they've done the work internally to become so stable, so evenly keeled. They'd be in like battleships do. You know, battleships deliberately, they build in reinforced armor plated walls in the ship to take what's called recoil. So that when that battleship fires a gun and the gun recoils, it doesn't affect the ship. It's built to absorb the vibrational power of the recoil or the firing of the shell. Those are the best humans in the world. To know, to know that you'll die alone was Jesus. To know you'll die alone while one of your guys is saying to you, you can count on me. You know he's going to deny you three times in a couple hours. To know that somebody's pledging on dying love and to know that you'll die alone and to take that recoil and carry on with what your destiny is. So some of you are exhausted in relationships because you're trying to control Jedi mind trick people into loving you. Just experiment this week with a few boundaries. You can't control the uncontrollable. It's just exhausting. Boundaries won't make someone spontaneously combust into who you prefer them to be, but they'll limit the impact of who they are in your life. Some people are only in your life. And their foolishness and their drama is only in your life to teach you to create boundaries. That's the reason they came. Some people came into your life and they are so drive you nuts. They're gift to you. The reason they came is to teach you, I need some freaking boundaries in my life. Seriously. And once they've come and you take that lesson and you create boundaries, they go. Boundaries are like, boundaries are like daylight and garlic to vampires. They don't scare everyone off, but they do filter out the wrong people from your life. Daylight and garlic don't matter to you if you're not a vampire, but if you are, they're going to instantly hit you and resist you and frighten you and forbid you entrance. That's why you need boundaries. Because the people who respect your boundaries, love the fact that you have them, admire you for them. But people who hate your boundaries, they're the vampires. They're the VDPs of life. Very draining people who want to sink their fangs into the jugular of your emotional resources and bleed you dry and then say, you know what? You just weren't there for me. I loved some people. I mean, loved them for years and served and loved and loved. Then when they left the church, they'd leave often saying, there's no love in this church. Boundaries. Do you have any? Do you need to find some this week? Some of the people you need boundaries for the most are the ones you keep telling yourself are well-meaning people. Well, you know, they're well-meaning. They're nice people. You know, they're good people. They're well-meaning. Stop it. You keep justifying their rudeness, justifying their violation of your boundary because, you know, she's well-meaning. She's got a good heart. A good heart can still kill you. So don't do that. The people in your life, you know, I love her. I love my mom. She's well-meaning. Some of you, your mom's killing you because she's toxic or your dad or whatever it may be. That's why I said earlier, blood is not thicker than your mental health. When we decide someone's nice or well-meaning, we choose to suffer it out. We suffer it out. Stop suffering it out because you've said this person's well-meaning when what the truth is, they are a boundary violating human in your life and you need to stop suffering it out. Draw a line and cut that energy out of your life because the longer you don't do it, the sicker you will get, the more emotionally toxic you will get by tolerating it. Lovely, lovely and nice doesn't cancel out incompatibility and unmet needs. So stop making that equation be something it's not. Number five and finally, never make your emotional home in another human being. I've done this so many times in my life, especially because of the covenant stuff which makes you feel you're safe to do that and you're not. Never make your emotional home in another human being. If I make you my emotional home, I give you the power to make me homeless because on the day you decide to abandon me, betray me, hurt me and I've put my emotional eggs in your basket, I throw my emotional dependence in your bank, I put my emotional well-being in your hands and you abandon me, reject me, betray me, I am rendered instantly homeless in that moment. It's like I was kicked onto the streets. I have no address because you were my address. You were my home. That's why Jesus was able to die alone because he didn't put his emotional home in any of them. He didn't put his emotional home in Peter's over-promising what he couldn't deliver. So some of you are struggling because you have done that. I have done that too. I put my emotional home in the leaders over me. I got confused between them and God and then when they treated me in a way that I perceived as rejection and abandonment, I went into a crisis and a meltdown for months on end wondering how do I get back in to that home. They were never my home. You are your home. You are your home and you have to come back home to you and never ever again contract out your emotional health to another human being. All right, top five. There you go.