…and the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you…

-Coldplay, “Fix You”, from their new album, X&Y

“So when does it get easier?” is a question I receive quite often. A courageous parent has started their journey toward creating calm within, toward becoming ScreamFree, and in the midst of his/her struggles begins to wonder, “When does it get easier?”

My answer to such a question is usually the same every time: it will and it won't. It will get easier as you begin to learn more about yourself. As your focus shifts off your kids and onto yourself, you begin to learn your reactive tendencies, you begin to learn what thoughts help you remain cool. You begin to learn what it takes for you to become both calm and connected at the same time. In this regard, the ScreamFree journey becomes easier.

It also becomes easier as you stop trying to direct your kids' thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and start to direct your own. A parent came up to me after a seminar recently, saying that he was “steaming mad” at me. He had read the book and was frustrated that I had inspired him to focus on self-control. He was angry because he had always found that task incredibly hard. “Is it easier than trying to control your son?” I asked. “Well,” he responded, “I guess not since that's why I started reading your book in the first place.” Exactly.

This journey of self-focus and calming our own anxiety is not always going to get easier, however. There seems to be a paradoxical process at work-as soon as it gets easier, a new challenge presents itself that seems harder than ever.

My usual explanation for this is that for some reason, God likes us. God likes us enough to continually challenge our newfound growth-that way we continue to grow. After all, if you want to build your muscles, you have to keep adding more and more resistance. This might be good news for those of you feeling tested in new ways by your kids lately. Yep, anytime you feel you're being tested, you can be sure that you are. That's your kid's job-to add more weight to your parental barbell. God designed it that way because again, for some reason, he likes you.

So, that's my usual explanation to the “when does it get easier?” question. And that explanation remains true on many levels. But the difficulty with such truths comes when the initial challenge hits. And sometimes that challenge comes like a punch to the chest, leaving you gasping for any available, hanging “oxygen mask.”
In the last month my wife, Jenny, started having chest pains and breathing troubles. For a 32-year-old woman as beautiful, strong, and otherwise-healthy as Jenny, this was not that big of a concern. That is, until she heard back from the doctor, not an hour after her “routine” chest x-ray, asking her to come back in for more tests. Not knowing she was carrying a tumor the size of a cantaloupe inside her chest, my wife has been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.

Well, here we are now, just a few weeks later. Jenny has started chemo and I'm playing pharmacist. I've got 12 drugs to administer at the proper times and the proper levels to combat all the side effects. My business partners are amazed at my spreadsheet that tracks all these meds; it seems I can no longer claim my “innate lack of organizational skills” as an excuse to get them to do the detail work around the office.

But while my pharmaceutical skills may impress, I have to admit I'm experiencing a tougher “test” than I ever expected. Trying to support Jenny as she experiences physical pains and procedures I wouldn't wish on anyone, trying to walk alongside my kids as they tearfully ask, “Does Mommy's cancer hurt today?”, trying to navigate and manage the outpouring of support from family and friends-I'm trembling under the weight of this barbell.

And it leaves me not wanting to preach the gospel of ScreamFree. It leaves me not wanting to encourage parents to accept the truth that “Growing Up is Hard To Do, Especially for Grownups,” because right now, I don't wanna grow up. I just want to fix my wife. I just want to touch her once and magically return it all back to normal. Like Chris Martin of the amazing band Coldplay sings, I just want to encourage her that it's going to be all right, that “lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you.”

I just want to fix you, Jenny. I'm watching the “tears streaming down your face” (and mine), and I want to “promise you I will learn from my mistakes,” and I just want to try and fix you.

But I can't.

I often tell the story in my seminars about my son, Brandon, breaking his arm. I use the story to make the point that as I stared down at my son's forearm in a 90-degree angle, I realized that it is not my job to fix my children. My efforts to do so would only make things worse. And that's a primary point of ScreamFree Parenting, that taking responsibility for our kids, attempting to fix them, will actually create the very outcomes we were hoping to avoid. That's the power of emotional reactivity.

But that doesn't eliminate the desire to fix. There's no such thing as “Anxiety-Free Parenting.” And there's no getting rid of our desire to wave a hand and make things better, particularly our own worry. And that's what's behind our desire to fix. That's even what's behind my desire to fix Jenny. I hate this worry, and I want it to go away as much as the cancer.
But just as all the platitudes we've heard in the last couple of weeks often ring hollow (“everything happens for a reason,” or “God knows what you're going through”), so my own ScreamFree principles start to grate. I've quoted a Coldplay song before, the one from “The Scientist” (off their previous album, A Rush of Blood to the Head) that sings:

I like saying these quotes to others, though! I don't like having to breathe them in myself, incorporating them into my very bones! I guess I much prefer asking God to remove this burden so that I don't have to grow stronger underneath it.

But here I am, trembling underneath the burden of it all, realizing that there is growth happening. And like usual, the growth isn't what I thought it would be. I'd be lying if I were to say that I'm growing stronger, I'm growing more able to bring peace into my home; I'm growing to be the calm presence my wife so desperately needs.

No, I believe what's happening is nearly the opposite. Any growth that's happening is coming from my own admission of weakness. Any growth that's happening is coming through God's peace that not only “surpasses all understanding,” but rather bypasses my understanding because I just cannot think it into existence. And most amazingly (but not surprisingly), any growth that's happening is coming through the grace and beauty flowing from and through my wife.

Jenny has long been “one of my favorite people” to almost anyone who knows her. And as this strongest of tests has befallen her, the high school teacher known for her difficult tests, she has illuminated into a light worth bathing in. As her website blog, www.jennyrunkel.com, evidences with bright clarity, Jenny shines as an inspiration without ever intending to do so. And as the site seems to surpass google in popularity, more and more get to benefit from the growth happening to and through her.

And I am grateful that she's not completely dependent on me. In my weakness, I am grateful that she is able to hold to the truth that this ScreamFree stuff really is truthful and helpful, encouraging her to search for inner peace above all, even above getting miraculously (or medically) healed. Only the inner peace gained through this test can give meaning to the test. Only the quiet confidence of faith can last long after the test is completed. Only the calm strength one can find in the midst of the storm can leave you ready for the next one.

Jenny seems to know this is true, and without saying a word to me, she is teaching me to believe it as well. And I'm trying to search for the peace that I often preach about.

But I still wish I could just fix her.

NOTE: Jenny Runkel is currently in remission and doing just fine!