FREE Download - Jan Johnson

After my sisters and I took Dad home, my sisters seemed at peace, but I felt keyed
up inside. I went to the gym and played basketball extra hard. The sweat rolled down
my back and my socks were soaked. I ran to the shower room.
Alone in the shower, my feelings overcame me. What if my father had died? I felt
so afraid and so alone. I cried uncontrollably as I had never done before in my life. The
noise of the shower barely covered up my sobbing. I felt like the way I felt as a little boy
knowing my father was killing himself with alcohol. There was nothing I could do then;
there was nothing I could do now.
I was crying for myself too. Where were my sisters when I needed them? As usual,
they didn't know I was hurting because I couldn't share my sorrow with them. I wanted
to talk to them and tell them how afraid I was, but I couldn't. That wasn't my role -- I was
the placater. I had to grieve by myself. That's when I realized that the placater role was
becoming too lonely a road to follow.
Our roles hamper us in our relationships too. We can't stop playing our role with our
spouse and friends. Responsible children often don't let their spouses carry their part of the load.
Acting out children want their spouses to carry it all. Adjuster children won't talk about
problems with their friends and placaters attempt to solve their friends' problems with simplistic
solutions.
Question your role-like tendencies in every situation. Instead of acting on automatic pilot in
our roles, we can establish ongoing conversations with God asking if we're behaving in certain
ways because God is leading this way, or because that's what our role demands of us.
o The responsible child asks God, Am I helping this person because You, God, are leading me
to do this? Because it gives me the kudos I need to feel loved?
o The acting out child asks God, Am I creating a problem in my office because You have led
me to see that someone needs to bring up this problem? Because I know it will get people's
attention?
o The adjuster asks God, Am I backing off from this friendship because You have shown me
how this person is blocking my relationship with You? Because I'm scared to death to be
close to her?
o The placater needs to ask God, Am I listening sympathetically to this person because You
have brought me into his life to be his friend? Because "fixing" people makes me feel
important?
Understanding our childhood role is a life-long process of seeking God's will for our lives
and making different behavior choices. We may even "test the waters" by responding to others
outside our roles and then waiting to see if God shows us that is more appropriate. As soon as
we recognize our role-like behavior, we may want to go back and correct it. As difficult as it
was for Dan, he called his oldest sister when he got home and told her how broken he felt about
his dad. He knew that she was the responsible child of the family and would understand better
than his other sisters how he tried to take care of people. He knew that she didn't understand
everything he was saying, but it was important that he step out of his placater role by sharing his
grief with someone else.