2016-07-27
 
 

 

Radio Transcript

Susan:
Hello, I'm Susan Diamond, they call me Chief of Pray and I am one of the women of Prayables.com, an online prayer community for women of all faiths. This is the Girlfriends show and I'm here with my girlfriend Debbie Winton.

Debbie:
Hey Susan.

Susan:
Hey Debbie, we're going to be talking today about family fighting. I've got advice from experts, a prayer reading about reconcilliation and I'd like us to offer up our own experiences. So to start us off, what do you think of when family and fighting wind up in the same sentence?

Debbie:
Well, you know, I have to tell you Susan, it was a bit of a foreign subject to me. I'm unfortunately a bit too familiar with it right now so I'm very curious to talk about this with you more and to hear your point of view on it because I certainly have a few things to say.

Susan:
Look at us, a couple of things to say! And I'd like to say to our audience get in on the conversation. When you're listening on the Prayables.com website, please comment and we will respond. To read the blog that I'm talking about today, to read the prayer and transcript from the show, you can do all of these on Prayables.com. Just type in family fighting in the search box on the upper right hand side of the website page and you'll be able to find the radio show and be able to find the blog. So Debbie, I'm going to share some selections from my blog about family fighting. The name of the blog is actually "3 ways to end family fighting," so not just one, not just two...three ways.

We're going to tell everybody how they can end it and then we'll finish up with a highly motivating prayer called forgive, forget, move on. That's not a spoiler, we still even have 3 ways to end family fighting. And our prayer today is by Lori Strawn, and Lori is my prayables girlfriend and her and her girlfriend have a show called Open Book, which goes on right after us. That's one plug and two plugs that I'm going to throw in here is for Personal Peace; Lori is the editor of the new Prayables book, it's based on our popular website, and it's called "Personal Peace: Prayers for Women of all Faiths." We'll talk about that a little bit later in the show but let's get to it.

Debbie:
Okay well I also can't wait to hear you talk about your book because I was lucky enough to be visiting you this weekend and see the first copies of it and honestly Susan, it's amazing. So let's hear you go about your blog and then we'll chat about it.

Susan:
All right, well what I'm going to do is I'm just going to read some selections, it's a little different than what we've done before. But the first thing, the way that I opened up this subject, is I'm saying that to me it seems like everybody around me is talking about it. They're talking about how very intense fighting is in families. When you love someone, you have a long history and you're stuck with them, that's when your fights escalate beyond mild disagreements. I heard this on NPR recently and I was wondering if you think that that's true.


Debbie:
Well it does seem like that way to me. I really do wonder why we would want to hurt those that are closest to us. It's really something that boggles me, you know, we look our whole lives for a spouse, for friends, for people that will become a part of our family and it really does amaze me that you can love so deeply and then fight so furiously. It's very different than the culture that I was brought up with and have lived most of my life, which is a very loving loving culture So I struggle with why we would hurt those closest to us and I think it resonates out from there, you know, problems with countries and the world.

Susan:
I think what you said was reallly interesting because I am not drawing from personal experience, but I'm drawing from observation, but it's not only that we get to choose who is in our family, but what about in-laws? How about when someone from a different culture or who has a different background or has a different family dynamic comes in? I'm from a very peaceful, peace-loving family. I mean, our moto is "never hold grudges." But there is someone in my extended family, not that close, but somebody who we spend holidays with and, oh my gosh, their moto must be "hold grudges." All they do is they're mad at eachother all the time. I mean, nobody chose that, I didn't choose that.

Debbie:
And I do think that there are families where that is the model. Where people are mad at each other all the time. Instead of peaceful conflict resolution, fighting seems to be the norm and it seems to be acceptable. I do like your example of saying "never hold a grudge" because, again going bac to my original premise - why would we hurt those closest to us? So I'm curious to hear more about your three steps to ending family fighting, because again the family fighting resonates further into the greater universe.

Susan:
Well one of the things that this guy on NPR said in response to the question you just posed, you know, why would we want to hurt someone we love? And I think that's because when we have somebody in our family there's so much passion and so much emotion and we sometimes think that we can drop all manners and common courtesy and we can fight with them, we can stand up for our position. And sometimes it's just stupid. My husband, David and I were guests at a memorial day BBQ. It was about 20 years ago and this was from that whole extended family I was talking about how you know sometimes you get invited because the cousins of your cousins of your cousins are all getting together and just as delightful company, they include you on the guest list. So this Connie and Lidia, they get into a fight because Connie accused Lidia's husband of not offering to close and stack the folding chairs. I was there, I'm serious, this is what the argument was about: "Your husband never offered to stack the folding chairs!"

Debbie:
Oh my God, that's crazy.

Susan:
Wait, and 20 years later they still haven't spoken a word.

Debbie:
No.

Susan:
Yep, so I guess I could have figured it out. I mean, the fight was obviously not about clean up duty, but Connie and Lidia are sisters and they've always had this explosive relationship. They love eachother deeply and they hold these very stubbor beliefs on what is proper behavior and this just divides them. I mean it's the perfect scenario for unresolved conflict. They're stubborn, they hold these beliefs very strongly and they love each other. I know that the love some how sparks that culture, that conflict also.

Debbie:
Well the sad thing is that I'm sure that they do really love each other and then the sad part is that they'll end up going to the funerals of each other, and life is just too short. And I always say, it's not an uncommon quote, but it's not a dress rehearsal and we really need to be more loving in our family relationships and you know I often think how can countries get along if we can't get along with those in our own immediate family or our neighbors? How can we expect there to be peace in the world?

Susan:
Well but actually countries are families. I mean, look what was going on in Ireland. That is a country like a family, in the country siblings were fighting, they were killing each other, and it's all because one side is saying what I believe is truer than what you believe. Okay, so I've got my set of beliefs and mine is true and they say, you know, 'mine is true.' And that's what we're fighting over and you see it in religion. You've got conservative Christians who feel that they have the only acceptable position on political issues. You've got reformed Jews and Orthodox Jews fighting over prayer at the wall in Jerusalem and many different other issues and each side is holding onto their viewpoint and they're criticizing each other for doing so. There's no live and let live here.

Debbie:
You know I always go back to the thought that we're really all cousins, brothers, sisters if you go back and look at generations and check our DNA, you know, we're related to everybody. And I think if we went back to that simple premise, we could all learn to love each other and there could be a lot of healing going on between families, between countries. I am curious, before we run out of time, I am curious for you to talk about those three steps because they're very helpful to me.

Susan:
Well the first step is to listen and not react. So if somebody is telling you something and you really listen and you don't get all excited and jump in with what you have to say, then you've taken the first step. The second step would be if I resolve that I'm not going to try to convince you, convert you or condemn you, I'm going to change the subject and move onto something we both agree on, now we're rediscovering what we have in common.

Debbie:
I love that one.

Susan:
That's key. So key. And the third thing is if we honor God in our families, by defending the peace in the family above all conflicting principals, we will have ended family fighting and that's as simple as that. I just solved it right?

Debbie:
Thank you! The world is at peace now, thanks to Susan Diamond, chief of pray.

Susan:
Yeah, I had a little help from experts but yeah basically this is my solution. Let's finish up with a prayer from Prayables.com called, Forgive, Forget, Move On.



Amen.

Debbie:
Thank you again for sharing the thoughts on this vlog. I really thought it was so interesting and the beautiful prayer-poetry, and as always my dear friend, I love spending this time on air with you.

Susan:
Well I thank you too, I enjoyed it. Always fast and fun on Prayables Radio, and for our listeners who want to find more faith-filled women's conversation, blogs, prayers, features and now a new book (yay!), perfect for gift giving, discover Prayables, www.Prayables.com.

Debbie:
So tell us quickly about the nw book and how we can get it

Susan:
It's called  Personal Peace: Prayers for Women of all Faiths and it was based on the popularity of the website. It's a collection of the prayer poetry from prayables. You can find it on , and you can also get a downloadable version an Prayables website. It's the perfect gift to give yourself and other special women in your life, and I know you've got some special women in your life.

Debbie:
I've already given it out. So join us next week for our show, we'll be back at our regular time, 12:00 central and we'll be blogging about Jane Goodall, you're not getting older, you're getting better.

Thanks!

more from beliefnet and our partners
Close Ad