Changes that heals - Dr. Henry Cloud

This is a brief of what I gleaned from this book. It helps me to reflect upon my own life and to see myself, others and God in a different light.

Three ingredients of Growth

• Grace and Truth
• Time
  

The Lord accepts us fully, knowing that we will need time and experience to work out our imperfections. Our failures do not surprise him. If they surprise us, it is only because we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We have a standing in grace that gives us freedom to achieve truth over time.

The truth we need to achieve has many aspects. It includes the developmental needs of the real self, the grace of relationship, and the external truth of the precepts of God. And it takes time for all these to work."

Bonding to Others

• What is bonding?
• When we fail to bond
• Learning to bond

Bonding is the ability to establish an emotional attachment to another person. It's the ability to relate to another on the deepest level. When two people have a bond with each other, they share their deepest thoughts, dreams, and feelings with each other with no fear that they will be rejected by the other person.

When we bond with others and God, we have a good basis for morality, an increased ability to handle stress and our accomplishments have meaning.

Separating from Others

• What are boundaries?
• How we develop boundaries
• Crossing over boundaries
• When we fail to develop boundaries
• Learning to set boundaries

Sorting out Good and Bad

• What is the problem?
• When we fail to accept Good and Bad
• Learning to accept Good and Bad

Deep down inside, we all realize the difference between our ideal self, the imagined perfection, and our real self, the one that truly is. If these two battle each other, we will be in contact conflict. What we wish were true and what really is true will war with one another.

The ideal self is the one we can imagine and want to be.

The real self is the one that we truly are, not the one we wish to be. The real self is not ideal, no matter how much we wish it were.

The inherent problem in the relationship between the ideal and real is that the ideal judges the real as unacceptable and brings down condemnation and wrath on the real. This sets up an adversarial relationship between the two, and like all adversaries, they move further and further apart.

Becoming an adult

• What is adulthood?
• When we fail to grow up
• Learning to become mature adults

Work on your ability to attach to others so that you can have your empty heart filled. Work on setting boundaries so that you can own your life. Work on confessing and receiving forgiveness so that you can develop your real personhood. Work on assuming adulthood so you can be an authority. Then go out and give it to others. "The greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).

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