You may remember last Memorial Day we had our first Paint Fight Club with family and friends. (I’m not going to say anymore as the first rule of Paint Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Paint Fight Club!) I saved the large piece of brown paper we used as a back drop and have created pieces unique for each of the people who participated. It was a fun way to reuse and repurpose those paint flecked pages.
I ended up making five different pieces, each one tailored to the recipient. One likes pink, so theirs is pink. A couple like purple so I featured purple. One loves shades of blue, so shades of blue it was. I then dug through my quote books to find a quote to encourage each person. As I worked I thought about each person, prayed for their happiness and success and hoped that my work could encourage them and make them think for days to come.
With our energy and efforts we have the ability to build people up or tear them down. We can choose to help them grow, make them think, or leave they flattened like a pancake with our words and actions. I have recently had conversations with people who were laid flat, it is can be tough to recover from that experience. In all the cases the situation focused round one person wanting control over the other, and the one wanting control doing whatever it took to make the other person comply. That NEVER really works out very well. In all cases the relationships were broken and may never be repaired.
To love and encourage people we have to be willing to give up control. We have to give up what we think is right and let them find with is right for themselves. It may not be what we want, or what we would choose, yet in the end THEY are happier, more fulfilled, and we still have a relationship with us. Try to hold on too tight and you usually lose it all…just sayin’!
Choose to encourage and build, not control to gain compliance. People feel valued and safe when they can be themselves no matter what that looks like. Sure there are boundaries, and yes it is okay to expect people to change and grow up, the key is to communicate love, hope and support before criticism and control. It’s kind of like handing a teenage a squirt gun filled with paint and saying have at it…you NEVER know what you’re going to get, but it will be fun and filled with laughter! And they will want to come back and do it again! Don’t you want to be that person they seek out for fun, even if they squirted pink paint into your ear? I know I do!
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