True Vision

Proverbs 29:18: "Without a Vision my people perish."

There is so much information nowadays about Visions and Goals. Everyone seems to be saying that you should have a Vision or you should have Goals. As young people (18-25), this is a very hard concept to grasp. Because most people at that age are just, “Living for the Weekend”. Their concept of future is the next party. I’m not criticizing; I’m just stating the facts and there is nothing wrong with that view. I think everyone should have that time to feel free and unencumbered by life’s responsibilities. But that is not how it goes in most situations. Most ladies in that age group either has a child; are married; in a serious relationship; or dealing with something that is consuming their time and energy in such a way that they are not experiencing the freedom and enjoyment of just being young and alive. In this Country (US) we are thumbing our noses at the freedom that we have by not living a life of freedom and enjoyment because we are so consumed with, “things”, “stuff” and “issues” in our lives. While people in other countries are dying daily just to get to this country to taste just a little bit of freedom and peace. (Sorry, I digressed). Let me get off my soapbox.

Fast forward to the next age group (25-40). Most ladies in this age group are bogged down with raising their family; dealing with their marriage(s); dealing with divorce(s); dealing with abuses (job, marriage, societal, substance, sexual, etc.). You name it we deal with it. But it is about around this age group that we start to think about Goals or Plans. We had planned to be married by a certain age; planned to have a certain job or career by a certain age; planned to have done, “this or that” by a certain age. And if we had not reached those goals, we start to rethink our lives. We start to doubt if we are on the right path. We start to wonder, “what is my purpose in life”, “what am I meant to do?” This is when the True Vision starts to emerge. When those questions start to come to mind, that is a sign that your true inner person is trying to surface. In most cases, ladies will reassess their lives and wonder if they married the right person; wonder if they are in the right career field; or even wonder, “why am I not married”, or “why didn’t I go to college or ever get a job”. These are all questions designed to get us to thinking about ourselves because most of our lives we have always been thinking about others and taking care of others.

What is a Vision? A vision is a mental picture of a Future State. What is True Vision? True Vision is that mental picture of a Future State—But where God wants us to be. And for most of us the burning questions are, “Where do I want to go?” or “Where does God want me to be?” In order for us not to be paralyzed by uncertainty, a good place to start is to understand what God wants us. First of all He wants us to know Him. Then He wants us to be whole, healthy, and have peace of mind. So if anyone one of these areas in our lives needs to be worked on, then that can be a starting point of our True Vision. But where do you start? Once you have gotten a mental picture of where you want to be. Then comes the part of getting there, that is where the Goal part comes in.

What is a Goal? A goal is just the Vision broken down into bite-sized pieces. By breaking them down into a size that can be carried out the vision is not so overwhelming. For instance if you need to learn more about God, do some research, find a group that can help you. But always be mindful of the information you receive. You are in a position where you have to do analysis and research. You are asking questions, lots of questions to get answers—answers that work, that really make sense. Not just listening to someone telling you about Him. Or maybe your vision is to become whole. You will need to seek help from someone that can really help you. This may mean shopping around. Just because someone is in a certain profession, does not necessarily mean that they can help you. I have been to many counselors, therapist, and doctors, but they have not all been able to help me. I have received most of my help from researching, questioning, reading, and praying for myself. This brings us to a very important aspect of getting to our True Vision.

Help-Support Team: We are not on our own individual islands in this world. We all need a group of people that support and help us to achieve the goals in our lives. It is very important that they are a source of support and help, and not tearing us down. Sometimes the problem we run into is that the very people that we think should be supporting us are the very ones that ‘we feel’ are trying to tear us down. If this is the case, do not waste time and energy trying to get those people to see your vision. Find a (proper) healthy team of people that can and will support you. You noticed I put in parentheses the word proper. By that I mean, if your husband is not supporting your vision, do not go find another male (unless is it your brother, uncle, or father) to get your support from. Remember, on this road to our True Vision we do not want to get derailed because we are making unhealthy and unwise choices.

Implement it—Do it: “Just Do It” that is the Nike® slogan, and that is what we have to do to accomplish our goals and to get to our True Vision—our Future State.

Minnie Patmon-McLaurin (6/22/06)

The Best Laid Plans...

Proverbs 16:9: "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps."

This is so hard for some people to understand in this world of ours today. I have had many people ask me how did I know what to do. How do I know if it is my 'will' or God's "Will". I have not always known in the past. But now that I am older, it has become a lot easier. People ask me how do I know when it is, "G_d" speaking? I have learned, if you know His Word, you will know when He is talking to you. I don't mean, just know scriptures and verses. I mean Know Him. Who He is and how He operates. I will tell them for example, if someone said to me, "G_d told me to divorce my husband and marry another man" (it has been said and done). I would tell them that was not G_d, that was their own desires (we have them you know and they are not always good). He does not operate that way. I have had people tell me things that they say G_d had told them I should do. I tell them, "until G_d tells me, it ain't so" (don't get crazy about the grammer). G_d does not keep us in the dark about what he wants for us or wants us to do.
I have always had plans and goals, sometimes things goes according to my plans and sometimes they don't. People don't quite understand that when things don't go according to my plans, that I am not upset. I am not upset because I know G_d knows better than me. If things don't go the way I planned them, I know there is a better plan than mine out there waiting for me.

Minnie Patmon-McLaurin

Stumbling Block or Stepping-Stone: A Matter of Degreesº

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After getting a divorce from a twenty-two year marriage and after having my third heart operation, I could have become dishearten (no pun intended) with the way my life and health was going and became angry, depressed and bitter—but I didn’t. A stumbling block is defined as an obstacle or a hindrance—surely these things could legitimately have been viewed as obstacles or a hindrance.
My life took a major turn at the age of 40—partly do to my mother. My mother was 40-years old when she gave birth to me—a breach baby. I came into this world against the grain—not the norm! The year my mother celebrated her 80th birthday, it struck me. There is a very good possibility that I will live to be 80—another 40 years. I took a real assessment of my life. I had been married 22-years, I had two wonderful and beautiful children, one grown and graduated from college, the other a junior in high school. And I was about to face another possible 40 years struggling in a marriage where I felt my husband did not like or respect me or women in general—my opinion of course. But that’s the opinion that counts.
My husband of 22-years filed for divorce, not because he wanted to, but because he wanted to save face. You see he couldn’t let it be known that his wife wanted to divorce him. When I told my mother I was getting a divorce, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. The news took her breath away and it upset her very much. You see my mother never knew there was any problems between my husband and I. I never told her my problems, or ran to “mommy” when things were not going so well. But after we talked and I explained some things to her, she started telling me things about her marriage. About some of the things she had went through with my father. Mother and dad had 13 children and dad already had 2 before he married mother. My parents were married over 50-years before my dad pass away.

Stepping-stone is defined as a means of advancement. My getting a divorce after 22-years of marriage could have been a stumbling block for me. I could have taken the view of failure, disappointment, blame and bitterness. But I didn’t. Instead I viewed it as a stepping-stone toward the person I was destined to become. I did not know fully beforehand what this person would look like, but I did know that this was one step closer to her. I have never viewed my marriage as a failure. People have asked on many occasions how I viewed or felt after getting a divorce after being married for 22-years, if I felt it was a big waste. And I tell each one that: My marriage was not a failure. That I had accomplished everything from that marriage that was intended. I had two wonderful and beautiful children, that had it not been for my marriage I would not have had. That all the thing that I learned from being in that marriage for 22-years, I will be able to help someone else in life. If I will be able to help one woman not take the same road I took, it is all worth it. If you noticed that I did not say, “mistake”. I also do not view my marriage as a mistake. Grant it, I did make some mistakes in my marriage, but the marriage was not a mistake. To view the marriage as a mistake would be to say I did not learn anything from those 22-years. And trust me, I learned a whole lot! Mainly, I learned what not to do the next time—if there ever were to be a next time.
Degree is defined as any of a series of steps or stages as well as a unit of measurement. I have looked at my life as steps and stages progressing towards a destination that is more wonderful than I could have ever imagined in my limited finite mind. I have to take and embrace the things that happen in my life as steps forward towards my destiny. I don’t know exactly what that destiny is, but I have the faith that it is where I am suppose to be. As I grow and learn, I am confident that I will never fully “arrive” at my destiny until I have left this earth. But in the meantime, I will become as whole of a person as possible—full of “joy”, “contentment”, “peace”, and “life”.
Endnote: I am now remarried, going on 3-years, to a wonderful man. I am one month away from finishing my Master’s degree. I am in the middle of changing my job and starting a career. I have formed and incorporated a non-profit faith-based counseling organization. And next year on my birthday I will be 53. Stumbling block or stepping-stone, it’s a matter of degrees—your perspective determines which one it will be.
[1] Copyright © 2006 by Minnie Patmon-McLaurin

A Healthy Intimate Relationship

The goal in an intimate relationship is to feel calm, centered and focused. The intimacy needs to be safe, supportive, respectful, non-punitive and peaceful. You feel taken care of, wanted, unconditionally (fully) accepted and loved just for existing and being alive in a healthy intimate relationship. You feel part of something and not alone in such a relationship. You experience forgiving and being forgiven with no revenge or reminding of past offenses. You find yourself giving thanks for just being alive in this relationship. A healthy intimate relationship has a sense of directedness with plan and order as well as a sense of purpose. You experience being free to be who you are rather than who you think you need to be for the other person. This relationship makes you free from the "paralyzing of analyzing", the need to analyze every minute detail of what goes on in it. An intimate relationship has its priorities in order, with people's feelings and process of the relationship coming before things and money. A healthy intimate relationship encourages your personal growth and supports your individuality (both male & female). This relationship does not result in you or your relationship partner becoming emotionally, physically or intellectually dependent on one another. An intimate relationship encourages the spiritual growth of both relationship partners and makes room for God in the relationship as a partner and friend.

If you need to improve the intimacy in your relationship, most likely what keeps you from having healthy intimacy with others is your own or your relationship partners' inability to establish and maintain healthy boundaries with one another. Relationship partners who are not able to establish healthy intimate relationship, will run the risk of not being able to establish a healthy sexually intimate relationship with each other. Ask yourself these questions about your intimate relationship:
· Do we have good times together, but fail at being emotionally, spiritually and physically intimate?
· Do we have an openly affectionate relationship with healthy emotionally based communication or do we just do things together, with no communication or affection giving?

Most women mistake having sex for intimacy. Although having sex is an intimate act, it is in most cases lacking intimacy. To be intimate you have to know the other person. To have sex with someone, knowing them is not necessarly a requirement. We as women have "sold our soul" for generations on the mistaken notion that by having sex with a man we are being intimate. That he is being intimate and caring with us, when for the most parts it is just a physical (sex) act.

"Don't Block Me In—I Live Outside The Box"

"Don't Block Me In—I Live Outside The Box": A series of Articles written based on the struggles of Women and their Roles in Society. This 1st article is titled:

"Unaware of Social Construction of Reality—From Birth"

From birth we tend to think that the new baby comes into the world with a clean slate, one that has the capacity to draw upon it any story that can be imagined. But we as human beings are creatures of habit. The fact that these habits are so well ingrained in society that when a child is born—for the most part these ingrained habits are not recognized as habits. They are accepted as reality. Though each person possesses their own unique set of attitudes, beliefs, and opinions, these were formed on the basis of and drawn from a well that had already been filled by our ancestors, history, and media. One of the most powerful influencers in our social construction of reality that may be even more powerful than our family is the media. By media I do not just mean television, movies, music, the Internet, and radio. I am referring mainly to the historical interpretation of the bible and other important literature. The messages that are produced by the media, of all forms, interacts with the humans already existing knowledge and a socially agreed upon reality is formed.

This socialization process goes on in every society and culture. Socialization is important in the process of personality formation. This is done in order for successful socialization to occur. This then results in uniformity within a society. Which develops into what are called norms. These norms are the conceptions of appropriate and expected behavior that are held by most members of the society. These social facts come into existence through human construction. One example of this is, Shiite Muslim men in Iran ritually beating themselves bloody with hands and chains as an act of religious faith commemorating the death of Imam Hussein in 680 a.d. Another is the Iranian law that grants mothers custody of their sons until the age of seven, this age was raised in 2003 from the age of two.

Although we as Americans in the United States are not held to such ritualistic beatings and male child custody issues, we do have our own socialization and human constructions (Roles) that we have to contend with.

Minnie Patmon-McLaurin

"Suspicions Confirmed"

My suspicions were confirmed recently as to why so many churches and people in churches are having the same problems that people not in church have. I was recently talking to a pastor, we were discussing our professions. He was telling me how after years of being a pastor he hit a brick wall, he reached a "burn-out" point. He realized that the reason that this happened was because of some issues that he had not resolved in his past.

In my profession as a faith-based counselor, I understand that unresolved issues carry over into our professional as well as personal lives. While in Seminary classes, I was taught that your unresolved issues will be transferred to your clients. So it is important to first of all recognized that you do have issues and to get them resolved before you begin helping others.

In the case of the pastor, when he hit the brick wall, that is when he started his journey to resolving his issues. His main issue was that when it came right down to it, "He did not believe that God would be there for him." This has always been a suspicion of mine about Christians in general. I reached that conclusion about a year ago, when I started my journey towards my destiny of starting a non-profit and becoming a faith-based or "Christian Counselor". I realized that the reason so many Christians have so many problems, is because they do not believe what they profess to believe. The majority of Christians read the Bible as if it were a mere history book about an ancient civilization. The connection that they have with God is through a pastor or minister. And that is where the problem begins. Because if you have pastors and ministers who do not fully understand God's purpose for them and believe that He is able to do what He says He can do, that "issue" of doubt and unbelief will carry over into the ministry. And that group of people which are under that pastor will be exposed to the same "issue" as the pastor and will not be able to grow and experience God as was intended. Therefore you will have a lot of Christians having all of the same problems that non-Christians or non-faith people are having.

Minnie Patmon-McLaurin

Core Healing

Core Healing is resolving the issues that are at the core of our daily problems. The Core Healing that I am referring to is based partly on my understanding and application of Dr. Ed M. Smith’s Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM) and also on my many (50-plus) years of experience on this earth dealing with life’s issues. A major pivotal point on my journey to healing came on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 in the afternoon while reading an article entitled, “Where to Now? Women as a Mission Field” by Diane Langberg published in the magazine, Christian Counseling Today. [1] 2005 Vol. 13 No. 3 (pgs. 50-54). As I was reading the article the tears started streaming down my face, a sure sign of “healing”. The article started with the statement: “In the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, being born female is still something of a risk.” It goes on to state that 20 centuries ago female babies were considered a liability. Female infanticide was not uncommon. And that baby girls were often considered the equivalent of deformed and were killed by exposure. I t was permitted by law to leave them outside the city on the dung (animal manure) heap to die. If that isn’t considered “worthless” human life, then I don’t know what is. But there were people who went against the mainstream culture and went outside the gates, risking their lives to rescue the abandoned babies. The article asked, “Who were these people?” And then it goes on to answer: They were the Church—the body of Christ. They followed the Lamb who went outside the city gates to make the ultimate sacrifice and give His life in ransom for many who were deemed worthless. By His death, He judged them to be precious. This was the answer I had been looking for! This was the final piece to the puzzle, a puzzle (issue) that had haunted me all of my adult life. So needless to say by now the tears were almost uncontrollable.

My Issue: I had always had an issue with the Bible and Women. And no preacher, teacher, counselor, pastor, or prophet had been able to satisfactorily explain the position of; view of; and in general; women and women’s issues in the Bible to me. That unresolved issue had been the primary source of my emotional baggage throughout my adult life. I could never accept the explanations given to me by preachers, pastors (usually men), counselors, or people in general about women’s positions, purpose, and roles in life. I had discovered that the only person who could answer these questions satisfactorily for me was the Creator—the Ultimate Father. I had always had an issue with how women were sub-classed in the Old Testament. The fact that they had practically no rights and were usually treated as less valuable than men. And throughout history this same sub-classness has continued. I had issue with how a Creator of life who said He loved all of His creation the same but allowed this type of treatment towards his creation (women) to continue. So needless to say, I had issues and questions that needed to be answered in order for me to do the work that I was put here to do.

Since I had already learned that man has a will that the Creator will not violate. The article put things into perspective for me. Man has choices he can make, and most of the time those choices are self-serving and in total disregard to some. Whether it puts women in second or sub-class status or people of different races, beliefs, or cultures in those categories, these were choices and decisions made by men. It was not intended to be this way in the beginning.The article goes on to state that by and large the evangelical community in this country has primarily focused on women surrounding the issues of ‘roles and place.’ Being overly concerned that women not overstep whatever boundaries a particular circle deems right and focusing on keeping females in their “right” place. All the while girls and women of this world are dying on the dung heaps while money is poured into mega-churches and sound systems. But the true principle that was laid down by Christ is: as you leave your world and go out of yourself in order to give yourself to others, you return exponentially richer than before. He is the One who set forth the principle by leaving His world and going out of Himself in order to give Himself to others. He returned home exponentially richer than before. He is richer because He has us—we who were deemed “worthless” and abandoned on the dung heaps to die—our rescue became His glory. (Amen!)

Minnie Hayes Patmon-McLaurin

Our Social Construction of Realities

Our Roads Family Institute, Inc.

We each are born into a social order that has already arrived at a “consensus reality”. We are the products of a social construction of reality (this is like a foundation or our core beliefs). Human beings are creatures of habit. These behaviors become habitual and soon become socially acceptable ways of behaving. They are socially agreed upon. After a while these socially agreed upon habitual ways of behaving become “legitimized”. After being legitimized for a while, they become unconscious. The unconscious legitimization gradually evolves into laws of reality. We no longer question them. We accept them. The laws of reality that emerged from our legitimized habituations are actually a ‘consensus reality’. This consensus reality is what we have all agreed on as constituting reality. A prominent part of every culture’s consensus reality is its notion of what a woman is. At birth it was decided how you and I must behave in order to be a real woman. These stereotyped roles are perfect (for having an unstable foundation one that will not hold up under pressure). [i] This is based on my reading of the book by John Bradshaw (1988), Healing the Shame That Binds You: (p. 84).

Your Foundation:
Your foundational—core beliefs will determine what kind of life you will have. In order for you to have a whole, complete, and honest life you have to do away with the sub-class mentality. The idea that you were destined for the dung heap, that you were created less than human.Traditional Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Counseling Techniques can only take you so far. Emotional pain and compulsive behaviors cannot be overcome by forcing yourself to practice “healthy habits.” Healing must take place from the inside (the core) then it will manifest itself on the outside and in your truly changed behavior and choices.

Minnie Patmon-McLaurin