The DHX: The Doughtie Houses Exchange

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” –Stephen Covey

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“If you cannot transform your suffering, you will transmit it.” –unknown

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“Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.” –Fred Rogers

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“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread [...]

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“Comparisons are odious.” –unknown

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“There’s something unique about being a member of a family that really needs you in order to function well. One of the deepest longings a person can have is to feel needed and essential.” –Fred Rogers

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As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
– Donald Rumsfeld, Department of Defense news briefing. Arranged into a poem by Hart Seely.

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“The only way I can be angry at you is when I have thought, said or done something that is unkind in my own opinion.” — Byron Katie
This sounds pretty backwards, but it resonates with me.

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“When it comes to divorce, may happy extended families one day be the norm!” –Jennifer Newcomb Marine, No One’s the Bitch

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“Why do we focus so intensely on our problems? What draws us to them? Why are they so attractive? They have the magnet power of love: somehow we desire our problems; we are in love with them much as we want to get rid of them… Problems sustain us — maybe that’s why they [...]

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“…It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader…
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the [...]

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“Peacebuilders do not collude with the mindset that dehumanizes and demonizes ‘the other,’ seeking instead to listen, to discuss, to learn, to feel compassion for, and to see themselves in the other, the other in themselves. They realize that violence only begets more violence, that polarization only splits us further apart, and that ‘either/or’ thinking [...]

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“Many families judge people like they are vetting a candidate for the Supreme Court. Every fault is magnified and scrutinized. There’s another way to do it — more like the way people are patted down on the way into a rock concert. As long as you’re not bringing in any handguns, knives, or alcohol, you’re [...]

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“Happiness isn’t for tomorrow. It’s not hypothetical, it starts here and now. Down with violence, egoism and despair, stop pessimism. Let’s pick ourselves up. Nature has given us extraordinary things. It’s not over yet, nothing’s decided.” — Salif Keita

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“It’s often fascinating what happens when one part of a complex system makes genuine change. Often enough, there is a quiet but significant domino effect over time.” — Marie Hartwell-Walker, When Mom and StepMom Disagree

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