Bonds that build maturity

What kind of relationships have undergirded, or undermined, your journey toward adulthood? According to Dr. James Wilder, there are two competing types, based primarily on either fear or love. Our maturity depends on the relationships we have experienced. "Becoming mature requires bonds between people - these bonds are the foundation on which maturity is built." 

When I asked my team's former leader, Lynette Cottle, for the most important topic she'd addressed with Cambodian teachers in her seminars, she told me to read Wilder's book The Life Model: Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You. There, Wilder outlines a course of emotional maturity that cannot progress faster than our physical maturity, but may lag behind it or even get stuck in an early stage. Many American adults, he claims, still have the emotional maturity appropriate for an infant or child, far into their physical adulthood. The key to getting unstuck? Love bonds.

Fear bonds are based on "avoiding negative feelings and pain," while love bonds "are formed around desire, joy, and seeking to be with people who are important to us." In the former, people's primary motive in the relationship may be the fear of "rejection, shame, humiliation, abandonment, guilt, or even physical abuse." Why do we want to arrive punctually, save money, speak kindly, or eat healthy? Because we're focused on what could go wrong in our relationship if we don't. These fears can inspire positive short-term changes in our actions. But they promote blame-shifting, anxiety, guilt, and hiding that ultimately clog our minds and block our growth. "We become emotionally paralyzed [and] operate far under our potential."

By contrast, loving relationships involve authentic joy at spending time together. Wilder argues that our brains have a "joy center" in the pre-frontal cortex that helps us be resilient and return to joy from painful emotions and stressful experiences. Love bonds build our "joy strength," which in turn "lays the foundation for all other maturity and growth," empowering us to work through our pain and move on. Loving connections inspire people "to remain faithful under pressure, to help others be all they were created to be, to be willing to endure pain in order to be close to those we love, and to tell the truth even when it hurts." Love surpasses fear and banishes it from our focus. "'Perfect love casts out fear' (1 John 4:18)." While love and fear can mingle in a relationship, one will eventually dominate and overshadow the other. Maturing involves abandoning fear bonds and embracing love bonds so that "we are guided by goals we desire, rather than by avoiding the disasters we fear." 

A chart from Chapter 2 of Wilder's book

How do we change our bonds? We need to examine our emotions, the seat of our motivation. What emotions did our parents or guardians use to motivate us as children? If fear was prominent, we'll pursue self-preservation above all else, focusing on avoiding pain even when the pain is not likely to overwhelm us. By contrast, if adults around us primarily showed us love in childhood, we'll have a big head start in the maturity process. 

How can you spot each kind of bond with children? Wilder doesn't spell it out, so I've been trying to think through my own experiences. In a love bond, it's not that parents are saints with infinite patience and wisdom. But they're trying. They take time to play games with their kids without checking their phones, not because the game is great, but because their kid is. They say "Let's clean it up together" when a cup gets knocked over again. They say "I'm sorry I yelled at you" when needed. They look for chances to praise their children when she works hard on homework, or when he uses self-control, or when they are kind to each other. They try to hug their kid just as tightly at the end of a frustrating day as at the end of an easy one, and to value the aspects of their kids that are the parents' opposites. They're happy to talk when their adult kids call, whether it's been a day or a month since last time. I've never been a parent, so I don't know how hard it is in real life, but I'm convinced that 1) it's very hard indeed, and 2) a lot of parents I know are doing a brilliant job. Thank you to everyone who made this paragraph easy to write.

Of course, that's not the only kind of childhood people have. I've heard parents shame their kids using words like, "Your messy room is a disgrace to our family!" or "You're such an erratic driver, your friends won't want to ride in your car." In Cambodia, I've heard, "Don't play sports or you might get an ugly scar!" and even some empty threats to young children like "If you keep doing that, Mom will stop loving you." A lot of times, I think it's more subtle: parents and teachers who criticize more often than they praise, or who don't show delight in spending time with the child. It's easy to use fear and shame to control the behavior of others, especially kids, but these techniques carry a heavy cost.

As a result of too many fear bonds, some people are afraid to make an impact on others. They may "withdraw, placate, entertain, or please others" to avoid shame, confrontation, or rejection. But Wilder points out that if I stop acting like myself, my goal of self-preservation has already failed because I've lost my "self." Conversely, other people fear losing control of or impact on others. They may try to control others using anger, contempt, rejection, and the "silent treatment." Their main impact on others is to create pain and perhaps cripple others' emotional development... not most people's desired legacy.

Wilder proposes that each level of development has a set of tasks we must master regarding our fears in order to change fear-bonds back to love-bonds. We must work through each stage in order, and it's never too late. I'll list one sample task from each level:

1. Infant maturity - recognize the fear (what am I really afraid of?)
2. Child maturity - recognize my part in the fearful situation
3. Adult maturity - stay in relationship while letting others have fears
4. Parent maturity - take some shared responsibility for the fears of younger minds
5. Elder maturity - help "at risk," isolated, and marginalized people with their fears

Three processes work in tandem: belonging, recovery, and maturity. When we belong to a spiritual community, receive specific help to overcome trauma and addictions, and have guidance and encouragement in the maturing process, we can experience long-term healing and growth. 

I've been reflecting on my own relationships. I told my parents the other day, I'm so thankful for their loving presence from childhood to present. Their love bonds have helped me grow and mature with a lot less baggage than some people around me. That's worth celebrating! That doesn't mean that I never act out of fear in my friendships and connections. Since reading The Life Model, I've been trying to spot and reject fear as a motivator, asking myself, "What would love look like here?" That's especially true with friends who seem controlled by fear, since those two forces can battle each other in relationships. I have hope and peace in the knowledge that true love can overcome fear - both mine and my friends'. 

What about your experiences? It's common for fear bonds to dominate, but change is possible! Our "joy center" is in the only part of the brain that never stops developing. There's no shame in finding ourselves at a lower maturity stage than our age, but we don't need to stay there. Who do you know who seems to love you fearlessly? Could you ask them for help in learning to act out of love like they do? (And don't say nobody does. We're all invited into a loving relationship with God, who knows all our secrets and is still absolutely delighted to spend time with His children.) As we embrace loving relationships, both giving and receiving, we'll be on our way to ever-increasing maturity. We all have a choice and an opportunity to keep growing into the heart Jesus gave us, a new heart that says "no" to fear and "yes" to love. 

Recently, I've loved hearing stories from some people who grew up with major fear bonds and are being set free by the love of God and His children. God hasn't yet brought reconciliation in their biological families, but they've received a lot of healing, maturity, and strength through loving relationships in their spiritual families. As a result, they can love others well, even their difficult family members.

I'm still learning how to teach this topic to Cambodian teachers. Honestly, my last training was a bit of a dud. I think there are a lot of reasons: for example, this group didn't know me well, this topic wasn't a high priority for them, I let the training go too long, and I relied too much on discussions instead of varying the activities. Teacher training is a big learning curve for me, and I'm embrace the learning opportunities and acknowledge that I'm still new at this.

Teachers have such a huge impact on the next generation. I want teachers to get excited about the opportunity they have to show love to students, propelling their students toward increased emotional maturity. I want them to reckon with the long-term cost of using fear to produce short-term compliance from students, which is how most of them were taught. I want them to care about their students, including the slow learners, including the disrupters, and use that care as their main motivator for students to do the right thing. Last time, I'm not sure most of them got there. 

I can make my training more interactive, provide more concrete examples, and find snappier ways of explaining things. But if my alterations are driven by my fear of failure, it's all a waste. The most important thing I can do to help Cambodian teachers embrace love bonds is to model love in all our interactions... especially when the training's not going how I'd hoped.