Not My Pig. Not My Farm

You’re probably thinking, “What does a pig have to do with living whole-heartedly?”  Believe it or not, there is something to be learned from this saying. If you practice “not my pig, not my farm” daily, you will have much healthier relationships.  Trust me.  I’ve seen it work and continue to this day. My family and I practice this and it works!

I’ve probably heard this phrase, “Not my pig, not my farm” a million times from my wife, Julia.  Okay, maybe not a million, but I give her full credit for showing me how much I need boundaries in all my relationships. 

We men have a hard time with relationship boundaries mostly because our “go to” reaction to anything negative is to fix it.  When our wives are emoting and it’s coming fast and furious, we don’t know what to do.  We come back at them with our head and defend, explain, tell them they are wrong for feeling that way, and try to solve the issue through logic.  It.  Doesn’t.  Work.  It actually makes things worse.

When was the last time your wife sat there thoughtfully to your logical response to her emotion-packed rant and suddenly stopped and said, “You know what, honey? You’re right! I’m out of line with all this emotional download coming at you.” My hunch? Probably . . . never.

Julia and I have counseled a number of couples who struggle with communication and boundaries.  The number 1 issue is this: Each person points the finger at the other and it starts in 1 of 3 ways: 

“You never . . .”

“You always . . .”

“You should . . .”

How do most of us respond?  We usually go on the defensive and argue it point-by-point. We lead out of our head and it gets us nowhere.  In fact, it usually makes it worse and we end up fracturing the relationship. 

Jesus put it this way:

“Why do you focus on the flaw in someone else’s life

and fail to notice the glaring flaws of your own life?” 

- Luke 6:41 TPT

Translation:  Not my pig.  Not my farm.

We need to stay in our lane, whether it’s your spouse, a child, father, mother, in-laws, sister, brother, co-worker, and even that crazy driver that makes you mad.

Full transparency here? This is so hard.  I am human.  So are you.  I so badly want to correct the person’s flaw that I see because it seems so apparent.  

Here’s what I have learned:   

Stay in your lane.  Take care of YOU.  Surrender, don’t control.

Take the next step and find 10 minutes at the end of your day and jot down 2-3 situations that came up and how you responded to them.  Did you stray out of your lane?  Did you express anger?  Anxiety?  Fear?  That’s okay.  The first step is becoming aware.  Write down what you could have done differently and end in prayer by giving that part of your heart to the Father.  

You’re on the right road to whole-hearted living.

If you want to read more on this subject, check out the many books that best-selling authors, Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend have written here.