Increase Your Stewardship

To you, it may seem strange to read about stewardship. It is not a common topic, but it is important to understanding the meaning of increase.

The concept of a steward is that someone who is in the employ of another is assigned important responsibility. Stewardship is a concept that continues to evolve as people look at how to be better stewards.

If you you don’t like responsibility, you probably have little interested in increasing stewardship. However, if you want more joy in life, I recommend adding to your responsibilities. That may seem harsh, but I have found that my greatest growth has come when responsibility is greatest. When you carry weight for the welfare of others, in whatever form it may take, you must get past yourself to succeed.

What Lessons Do They Have?

I think back to my ancestors and the lessons they have for me in regard to increasing their stewardship. The simplest form was in their families. Most had a lot of children. As they aged, their responsibilities increased as more children came. For some, it was too much. They would use harshness with their children. They often ostracized some of them.

Perhaps they were just playing out the examples they had, or maybe they were making choices because it just seemed too hard.

I am not suggesting we judge our ancestors, rather, we ought to seek understanding. That process will bring more compassion into our own lives.

What Do You Feel?

I’m sure that you recognize that American society has, for years, taught children to suppress feelings. “Don’t cry!” “Suck it up.” “Don’t be angry.” These are just a few of the many phrases I experienced in my life from well-intentioned people who though caring also led me away from my truth.

I learn more each day how important it is to feel. The lack of feeling is what led me to despair and depression. Feeling brings me to greater joy and hope. When I feel, I connect to myself, and to others.

Obviously what you feel is import, but what do you avoid feeling? Anger is a feeling of life, but so many people avoid feeling it that in actually, it consumes them. (I can attest to this dichotomy.)

The key is to find the time and place to feel emotions and express them safely. When I say safely, I mean in a way that does no harm to others. For example, combining anger and concern are not a good mix. What if you combine anger with joy or wonder? Hear me out here. When you are full of joy and you think of those who reject joy, doesn’t it make you just a bit angry? Don’t you want others to know how it feels? Doesn’t it compel you to help others to understand how it feels?

Increase Your Intimacy

What is it to be intimate? Our society has lost understanding of that word. It expresses a form of closeness. To me it implies vulnerability. But, to be vulnerable, we want to feel safe first. As you open up, you feel a lot, and this is what creates an intimate relationship.

How often have you shared something that you really felt vulnerable sharing to only have the receiver make light of it or show indifference? It hurts. When you don’t know how to deal with the feeling of being hurt, you will avoid it, and you will see intimacy in relationships recede.

In order to gain more intimate relationships, you need more stewardship over your feelings and how you will or will not share them.

Families tend to start coming apart when deep feeling is lost. Spewing anger, frustration, disgust, and disappointment will start to tear your relationships apart. Learning to express and feel safely will increase the intimacy you really yearn for in your relationships. It helps create the vulnerability that brings greater depths of feeling that create the crucible of compassion. It will bring out that which you don’t want, but it also allows for greater safety in containing it and allowing for its removal.

Find Your Crucible

I love to work with my ancestors as I learn how to manage my own emotions. Only yesterday, I was getting angry, frustrated, and disappointed with some family I was researching. I was filled with emotions. They made a lot of poor choices and it resulted in divorces and shortened lives. As I looked at the facts of their lives, I wondered why I was judging them. I learned that I had some room for improvement.

I chose to change. This resulting in me having more compassion for them, and that helped me with my wife and kids later in the day.

If you want to have more intimate relationships with those you love, or want to love, perhaps I can help you. It is not always an easy path to take, but I assure you that the end results are worth the journey. Please contact me to set up a time to help you on your journey to feeling more connected and joy in your life.