A few months ago I had the joy of being trained as a Family Wellness instructor. During that class my instructor was the founder of Family Wellness Associates, George Doub. 
Meeting George was a great experience. I feel like in those three days I learned far more than just how to teach parenting classes.
I was incredibly saddened today to learn that a few days after Christmas, George died in an accident at his home. My heart goes out to his family as they mourn the loss of George. Even though George passed, his legacy lives on. In his work, the Family Wellness philosophy has impacted thousands of lives around the world.
While I know that many of my readers didn’t know George or you may have never heard of Family Wellness, but I wanted to share with you some of the timeless philosophies that George shared in my 24 hours in class with him.
What You Water Grows
This one is pretty self explanatory, but George would say it all the time. Say for example you have a three-year-old and she is throwing a tantrum in the store, you start yelling at your kid, and your kid starts yelling louder, all of the sudden you have just thrown fuel on the fire. The idea of, “what you water grows” is that what you give attention to will grow. A lot of times this can be a great thing and a lot of times this can be detrimental.
Probably the best example of this in my life was during seminary. The theology class I was in just went through a brutal midterm and there were some tricky questions. Everyone in the class was upset and complained to our professor. There was a twenty-minute session of complaining about the questions on the test. When the volume started to go down the professor simply said, “is everyone done?” Then she proceeded to start her lecture. Had she argued with us, it may have turned into a full-blown fight. But she knew not to water the situation.
Say what you need
So many times we approach our kids, wife, boss, friends or anyone else by telling them what we want them to do. We tell them what they need to do. George suggested that we simply are honest with each other and say what we need. Imagine the difference between, “hey sweetie you need to stop…., “ and “hey sweetie, I need to feel loved and respected by you and part of the way that happens is…”
This principle is the difference between diagnosing someone and simply stating how you feel. You are really increasing your chances for success by practicing this.
What would you like to see instead?
Many people like to complain about things, but that is all they really know how to do. Next time you are in a fight with your spouse or friends or boss, ask “what would you like to see instead?” That question has a way of getting to the heart of an issue. Many people can’t answer that question, but if you can answer that question then you are ahead of the game
Hearing of George’s death was very sad; I only had the pleasure of knowing him for 24 hours but I hope his work will live on and I hope through this post you get to see a glimpse of his greatness.
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mindlessly at a blank computer screen. This has happened to me a lot. Some have suggested that I should write on a schedule, maybe every day for an hour or three times a week. But what happens when my creativity doesn’t line up with my writing schedule? I’ve been told, “write every day, post it to the blog and you’ll get more readers.” I’m just not creative every day. Some days I am just a methodical machine that gets business done while other days I have so many ideas I can’t spew them out fast enough.
