the effect of a man

"When your life gets to the stage of being mindful and concerned with impacting and blessing lives, then you are pursuing wholeness as an individual." 
Sunday Adelaja

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."
Proverbs 4:23 

How does a man measure his life?
This is a question we must all ask and settle in our hearts.

At this point, we know that heroic achievement without integrity is nothing more than tragedy. 

We know some of the most educated men in the world live with a deficit of wisdom and application that causes chaos around them.

We also know that it’s possible to have financial resources but live in relational poverty.

How do you measure your life?

Here is my answer to that nagging question: 

Life is measured by the effect we have on others. 

Psychologists have a term called the emotional field. 
It is the experience others have of us when they enter our presence. It’s the relational radius that flows from our inner self to those around us. Our emotional field determines the effect we have on those who live in proximity to us and those who encounter us in daily interactions.

Your emotional field is the primary way you affect others. 
It tells the story of your heart and teaches others the value you have for them. 
A father can affect his family, for good or bad, in staggering ways with his emotional field.

I have always been moved by this poem on the damage a father’s emotional field can play in a child’s life:

WEATHER
By Linda Pastan

Because of the menace
your father opened
like a black umbrella
and held high
over your childhood
blocking the light,
your life now seems
to you exceptional
in its simplicities.
You speak of this,
throwing the window open
on a plain spring day,
dazzling
after such a winter.

Oh, what haunting lines.

A menace like a black umbrella held over a childhood.

Gut punch.

As fathers, we can block out the light or let the day in.
We have the power to shut out the sun or dispel the darkness. 

Which do you want to do to those around you?
Which of these are you doing to those around you?

One way to assess our impact on others is simply to ask.

"How do you experience me?" 
"How do I affect you?" 

This is like a 360 review from those that matter most to you. 

This kind of feedback can actually be hard to hear, but it is a gift.

I remember my wife sitting me down once, with love and great courage. She said something to this effect:

"I want you to know you are driving us away right now with the emotional energy you are bringing home from work and into the house. You are short with us and a cloud of stress is hanging around you. You may not be able to see it, but we can all sense it. The kids and I don’t deserve the drama you are dealing with out there to hurt us in here. I know you are frustrated and dealing with massive challenges, but we love you for who you are not what you do. At the end of the day, we just want a joyful man to step into this house."

I knew my wife was right. She deserved better than a tired, snappy man bringing the weight of the world to bear on his family. She wanted a man who had something left in the tank. Not a man who spent all he had fighting the world, but only had emotional scraps of ambition and love to give to those who needed him most at home.

She wanted light and joy and love to enter whenever I showed up.

She was right. She was calling the best out of me. 

I received the word. 

I started to create a ritual to give my kids my emotional best and to make my presence in the home a joy.

I would simply pause for 1 minute before I walked in and reframe my mind.

I would take off the stress mentally, smile, and think about the kind of man I wanted to be.

I would say a little liturgy like this while staring at the door:

I will be an emotionally available husband tonight.
I will listen with empathy and show interest with attention.
I will pursue my wife’s heart and resist being defensive.
I will proactively do chores without being asked.

I will be a strong and tender father tonight.
I will be playful and curious and joyful.
I will be patient and present.
At heart, I am a fun man.

I summon Godly energy.
Tonight, will count.
I’m going in. 

Once, my neighbor in the apartment across the hall - a tough man who had AIDS from years of drug addiction - stuck his head out.

"Yo JT, I see you standing in front of the door at night and staring before you go in. Why do you do that man? Everything good?"

"Yeah mate, all good. I am trying to leave the crap from the city out here so I don’t screw my kids up in there." I replied.

A few moments later he answered, in a strained voice, "I wish my Pops had done something like that."  

I didn’t always get it right, and I had to keep working on it, but slowly a different person began showing up. That small space enabled me to shift states and show up as the man I wanted to be. The man they deserved.

This takes real work as a man. 
Be default, the world will beat a man down. It will erode his soul and zap his strength. It will leave him frustrated, exhausted, reactive and cold. 

Robert Bly writes, "What the father brings home today is usually a touchy mood, springing from powerlessness and despair, mingled with longstanding shame and the numbness peculiar to those who hate their jobs."

That’s why the exhortations of scripture address men like this:

Husbands love your wives, and don’t be harsh with them. (Col 3:19)
Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. (Col 3:21)

Guarding your heart so that you have a gracious emotional field is one of the keys to life.

God has put a river of living water at the center of your being, and the world seeks to block the flow. Allow that river of life to spill out and bless all those who come near.

Think about Jesus’ emotional field. It

Emboldened fishermen
Healed women covered in shame
Attracted sinners
Drew children
Restored failures

And he invites men like you and me to do the same. 

I close with another poem - one about a man who guards his heart from the harshness of the world to create an emotional field of love. 

AFTER WORK
By Richard Tones

Coming up from the subway
into the cool Manhattan evening,
I feel rough hands on my heart-
women in the market yelling
over rows of tomatoes and peppers,
old men sitting on a stoop playing cards,
cabbies cursing each other with fists
while the music of church bells
sails over the street,
and the father, angry and tired
after working all day,
embracing his little girl,
kissing her,
mi vida, mi corazón,
brushing the hair out of her eyes
so she can see.

A menacing umbrella that blocks out the light or brushing hair out of the eyes of those you love so they can see.

How should you measure your life?

Measure your life by love.

Cheers.

Jon.