Word Therapy

Failure, Love, & The Crucible of Getting Ready for School

See this little setup?

I’m pretty proud of it.  Very pinterest-y. As someone who struggles to cast a vision and then pull together all of the details necessary to execute it, I’m proud to say that it only took me approximately 3 years to finally get a “family values” placard on our wall. Originally I wanted to have some sort of custom hand-lettered pallet art made, but alas, that would require looking at shops and actually contacting people and making the decisions about what exactly I would want it to say.  I’m still recovering from decision-fatigue from our home add-on and renovation project of 2014, so custom wall decor feels a little like a bit of an overreach for me right now.

 

Thanks to Marshall’s and Hobby Lobby, my scaled back dreams of a values wall for our family were finally achieved.

 

Now, about what that sign says.

 

I’ve been failing at all of it this week.

 

I’ve not been laughing, I’ve been griping.

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I’ve not been trying my best, I’ve been letting the victim voice in my head conjure up excuses.

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I’ve not been patient.  Not even.  Like zero percent.

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Have I told the truth? Well, when your life feels like a walking lie because you yelled your kids right out the door to school and then you plaster a smile on your face to carry on with everyone that you need to interact with that day, yeah that feels like a lie.  So even if I didn’t lie with my lips, I lied with my face.

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While I want to support all my favorite people who live here, I find myself speaking words of discouragement rather than encouragement all too often.  Encouragement takes thoughtfulness and intention, while discouragement can feel like a native language.

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Definitely could have used more hugs this week. I could have given out a lot more. The ones I remember felt really, really good.

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I did make a ton of mistakes, so I’m winning at that one!

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I haven’t given up because I’m clinging to the hope that God can redeem all things and that He is going to somehow work powerfully in all of our lives in a way that makes our failures fade like a vapor.

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Forgiving.  That is something that our family seems to excel at, as we have an abundance of opportunities to practice it because we are so JACKED UP.  Seriously, if there’s one good thing about so much strife around here, it’s that my kids are getting their Masters degrees at Forgiveness University.

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Promising to “do better and try harder” day after day is a cruel way to live.  In theory I always want to keep my promises, but in reality I can’t.

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We definitely don’t always have fun.  There is homework.  There are dishes.  There is bedtime.  There is the crucible of getting all the things ready for school and getting bodies fed and ready to leave for the day and then getting to the car with backpacks and lunches and coats and OHMYGOSH.  “Fun” is not a word I would use to describe getting ready in the morning. In fact, there may have been some slammed doors and a basket of clean laundry dumped and real, actual tears this morning. I’m not naming names but good gracious, today was a doozy. I cried legit tears in the car over my failure and sadness about our perpetual morning fails after I dropped the boys off at school.

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But above all we LOVE.  See, now this is the thing that’s going to rescue us. I just know it will. It has to. All the other stuff is a bonus, a by-product of love being made real in our home.  We are so far from nailing it.  We are falling short over and over, but we ARE making progress.  I know that the speed with which we seek reconciliation and forgiveness is shorter than it used to be.  Hearts go from hard and angry to soft and contrite at a much quicker pace.  I see us preferring one another over ourselves more than before. Not perfectly, not every time (not even close), but we are moving in the right direction.  

 

The love that has been poured into our hearts (isn’t that an amazing picture!?) from God is the only thing that will sustain us.  It’s our only hope.  His love into us and right back out of us onto the people around us.

 

And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:5

So on a week like this, when I’ve not been showing as much love as I’d like to, and I’ve been discouraging, and impatient, and full of mistakes and sin, I have to stop looking at my broken self and the mirror screaming “Do better, try harder!!!” and I’ve got to get quiet.  I’ve got to get back to that place where I remember and even discover anew, the vast reservoir of love that God has for me and each one of us, let that love pour into my heart, and then pour it out with reckless abandon.

 

All the other things will fall into place with that one thing.

 

And until I can get all those things on the sign right every time, I will continue looking at them as a reminder that I’m perpetually inadequate and I need to get back to the source of LOVE.

 

 

If Mama Ain't Happy...

Oops, I got busy and didn’t write for awhile.  Oh well, life happens.

 

Tonight…

I did it again. I inadvertently sabotaged what would have otherwise been a nice time with my family. Have you ever done that? Have you ever let stuff get to you so badly that you wreck the opportunity for connection and enjoyment that is right in front of you?

 

It seems to be a symptom of uptight-ness.  At least for me.  Tonight I was feeling frazzled because I spent the bulk of the day working on paperwork and business related stuff, leaving the house to fend for itself.  And as I’m sure most of you know, if you have any number of your kids in your house, it doesn’t take but a few hours for the wheels to completely come off and have it look like an F-5 tornado blew right out of Helen Hunt’s movie and into your living space.

(I have a hunch that when future generations talk about America in the 20th century, this movie will be hailed as the apex of cinematography. My husband may disagree )

Also, the last 2 days the boys have slept in way later than normal (and I’ve let them because they both seem to be fighting off various illnesses), which has meant that they don’t have time for orderliness in the mornings.  So we leave the house for school and it looks like a bomb went off.  And I’m still head-over-heels in LOVE with the crossfit gym so Leah and I head over there any mornings of the week when we don’t have to be somewhere else. And while I’m getting completely ripped and shredded (in a mom of 3, stretch marked and cellulited kind of way), all that working out is cutting into my home maintenance time.

 

So, as you can imagine, tonight looked like a sink full of dishes, a cluttered dining room table that had toys where we were supposed to be able to eat dinner, a floor with Nerf darts, crayons, shoes, leaves, and a random silver dollar, a living room with pillows thrown off the couch, newspapers on the floor, more toys, and 3 kids running through all of the aforementioned scene shooting Nerf guns at each other, screaming like banshees and causing me to have to don my earmuffs (not joking. They are the kind you wear at the gun range. Because this was obviously one of my life goals: have such unruly children that you have to wear ear protection made to withstand the noise of a chorus of SHOTGUNS).

(Photo by Asa Rodger on Unsplash)

As I sometimes do, I went into panic mode. Mom meltdown special. Freaker-outer of the week award right here.  “Milo, put your football gear IN YOUR ROOM!” “Nick, start walking around picking up all the darts!” “Leah, put these fake mustard and ketchup bottles back in your kitchen!” “I hope no one actually wanted to eat dinner tonight because there is too much clutter on this dining room table and I’m despairing trying to conjure up the organizational bandwidth it will take to put away 23 different kinds of things!” 

(Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash)

Meanwhile, my husband is looking at me lovingly, giving me a wink and saying “You’re nailing it, babe”. Actually he was super irritated with me, and rightfully so. I was acting like a crazy person, and a lesson I’ve learned but sometimes failed to heed is this: “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” (If I would have just LISTENED and believed the wisdom of the country songs of my youth, we wouldn’t be in this mess).

 

I absolutely can set the tone for our whole family with my words and attitude, and tonight I set a terrible tone.

 

I wish there was a do-over button.  Actually God kind of tells us that there is. We can’t have an exact re-do, but he does say that His mercies are new every morning.  We get a continual, reoccurring, no shame required, 2nd chance.

 

So tonight I’ll berate myself for a little while, about how I can lose perspective in about 5 seconds and morph into the mom that I don’t want to be.  And then I’ll let go of it because shame is a terrible bedfellow.  I don’t want to wake up with it shaping my attitude tomorrow.  I want to wake up with a clean slate, remembering that God CAN give me the best perspective if only I will listen.  If I will let go of the control, the desire for orderliness on my terms, and instead prioritize loving the people He has put me here with, then I know that I can possess a sort of happiness that will be contagious, and we can spend our time loving each other instead of yelling at each other.  We can claim the precious minutes and hours that we’ve been given and not waste them on worrying about eternally inconsequential STUFF.  The stuff will all fade, but these people we live with are ETERNAL.  Good grief, I need to get that painted onto a wall in every room of my house.  Maybe THEN I would keep my priorities straight. 

Until then, cheers to toys everywhere and the occasional set of earmuffs when times are tough.

On Learning to Listen

Listening is becoming such a lost art.  Soundbites, rhetoric, 30 second “debates” where no actual information is really exchanged, are the stuff we live and breathe. I mean, look at the National Anthem “to kneel or not to kneel” debate.  Whatever side you’re on, you’ve probably noticed that most people don’t really care to understand the viewpoint of the other side, they pretty much just want to pick a side and stick to it and make sure everyone knows it.

 

I was talking with a friend yesterday about something I’ve thought about often lately.  As I’ve gone from my 20s into my 30s, I’ve undergone several paradigm shifts in the ways I think about different things.  What we were talking about though, was this concept that we, as Americans, like to hold onto a narrative that if a person works hard enough and makes the right choices, that life will typically go well.  Some might call that the American dream, others might call that privilege. I grew up believing to my core, that I commanded my own destiny, and with the right combination of dedication, perseverance and hard work, I would have a life with no ceiling.  And honestly, I’ve circumstantially been given a great hand. But is this true across the board for all people?

 

More and more I’ve come to realize both through real life relationships, and through reading about different cultures and life experiences in books and other media, that my experience is really not as normal as I had hoped.  I’m learning that it’s a lot harder to create stability in your life when you don’t have health insurance. I’ve heard that it’s a lot harder to “just get a job” when you are trying to rebuild your life after you’ve been trapped in an abusive relationship and are now trying to help your children heal from the trauma.  I’m hearing that even though we like to believe that racism is a thing of the past, people of color in our society still experience it on a regular basis in everything from schoolyard slurs to being disqualified for a job.

 

It’s not as black and white as I used to think.

 

This has been one of the major ways I’ve been surprised by adulthood.  I thought we would all get here together and experience collective upward mobility; but instead I keep hearing stories of injustice, abuse, discrimination, and heartache, that cripple people.

(PC: Fransisco Moreno on StockSnap.io)

So this life plan of ‘graduate high school, go to college, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, live the dream’ isn’t exactly an a+b=c scenario.  There are a whole lot of other factors that can rob people from getting to any of those American dream benchmarks, and yet instead of experiencing heartache alongside of them, so often we like to wag our fingers at them and say “See? You just need to ________.” or maybe “It’s because you didn’t __________” 

 

It’s a lot easier for us to feel justified in the life we’ve earned and crafted for ourselves when we are able to look at what everyone else is doing wrong and point the finger.  If we stop pointing the finger and instead look with compassion at circumstances that are bad luck at best and terribly unjust at worst, we might be forced to realize that our whole empire we’ve built for ourselves was not totally our own doing.  You see, if someone else’s American letdown is due to circumstances outside of their control, might also our American dream be due to circumstances outside of our control?  You know, like where you were born.  You didn’t really get to decide that.  Or who your parents were. Or the schools your parents placed you in.  Or the fact that you were protected from abusers in your childhood.  The trouble is, when we stop to consider all of that, we get to take way less credit.  And we LOVE to take the credit.  How we build our lives, how we manage our kingdom, how we achieve, achieve, achieve, is up to us and no one else.  

 

Or is it?

 

I’m not discounting human autonomy and the drive to improve our selves and our situations, or saying those are bad things.  Those are very, very good things.  I’m simply saying that there’s more to the equation than just those things.  So maybe if we could just stop:  Stop to listen, Stop to consider. Stop to empathize. Stop to understand. Stop to give some thanks for how much we’ve been given. 

 

Whole30...I did it!

It’s OVER. My first ever round of the Whole30 is done.

 

I can’t even believe I did it. I really think the game changer was that I announced to the world that I was doing the whole30 through my blog.  I hate public failure, so I could either finish out the 30 days, or fall off the wagon and then lie to people and say I didn’t.  Finishing seemed like the better option.

 

I’ve had lots of people ask how/why/what are the hacks.

 

• The WHY:

• I was waking up with daily pain in my ankle.  Both of my knees were starting to hurt. I started referring to myself as an old lady.  I had begun having problems with eczema again that I initially developed after my 3rd pregnancy.  I was tired, forgetful, grouchy, depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and feeling like I was out of control with my eating habits.  I didn’t know it, but I was hooked on sugar.
• I have learned that I’m somewhat of an extremist. Someone I know says “Oh you just have to eat a little less and exercise a little more, you don’t have to cut out everything you like, just have less of it”. That’s a nice idea in theory, but if you give me an inch I will take a marathon.  I was just past the point of having good self-control, so I needed to do a “hard reset”.  Sometimes I need to do something with all the rules.  I need to do it in order to get me back to a place where I don’t need all the rules again for awhile, and I can self-manage in a way that is slightly above the level of a college student who has just discovered the freedom of ordering in pizza for the first time.
• The Whole30 seemed like the right fit to break my sugar addiction, and hopefully alleviate some of the physical symptoms I was having. Not to mention I hoped my clothes would fit better, because my fat pants were getting tight.

 

• The HOW:

Well, you basically give up everything you like to eat and drink.  I mean really, the first week feels a little scary.  No dairy. No grains of any kind (that includes quinioa, oats, brown rice, you’ll be having none of it).  No corn. No legumes (soy, peanuts, beans other than green beans). No SUGAR or any subsitutes. Not even paleo sugar subs like honey, maple syrup or coconut sugar.  Just…nothing.  No chemical laden coffee-mate creamer…this was actually my biggest concern that I thought would put me at the highest risk of failure. No alcohol, not even for cooking.

What this does is a few things:

• It forces you to go grocery shopping often because you’ll be eating all the food you buy because you aren’t swinging through wendy’s to grab dinner leaving all your groceries to sit in your fridge and go to waste.
• It creates a bit of a conundrum with restaurants.  I went out a few times, and the first time I just ate before I went because ordering something that didn’t have butter secretly cooked in, or canola or soybean oil used in the prep process just seemed like a far-fetched idea that was only accessible to normal people who were actually still enjoying their lives and not planning their every bite round the clock (Okay. I was a little stressed and hangry that first week.)
• It causes you to always have a few tricks up your sleeve.  You’ve gotta have something with you in case you are out and about longer than you planned and you can’t find something Whole30 compliant.  The day that I had to be the most creative was the day my sister had her baby. I was gone from my house from 7:30 am until 9 pm, and I packed lightly because I found out she had gone to the hospital and was in a mad dash to get the kids ready for school and get Leah to a babysitter.  I threw a bottle of Tessemae’s ranch dressing in my lunch bag, along with a couple of bananas, a couple of Lara bars, a Nutpod coffee creamer, and hoped for the best.  I was able to find veggie cups for sale at the hospital, along with hard boiled eggs, so I ate that for lunch and dinner with a hefty dose of the dressing I brought from home.
• It forces you to embrace what Melissa Hartwig (w30 founder) calls NSVs or “Non-scale victories”. Weighing yourself throughout the 30 days is not allowed.  In hind-sight, I’m so glad.  I psych myself out with the scale.  It was such a breath of fresh air to just focus on making good choices, working out hard, and paying attention to how my body felt for 30 days instead of worrying about a number on the scale.  I did lose weight at the end, but I’m glad that wasn’t my focus.  

 

• The HACKS:

• If you love coffee like I do, especially if you like it anything but black, then Whole30 might freak you out. I experimented and found a coffee creamer I really like:

Cinnamon Coconut-Cashew Milk Creamer:

1 can full fat (don’t mess around) Coconut Milk (Thai brand is compliant)

An equal part Silk brand Cashew milk 

1/2 a teaspoon of Frontier Organics Cinnamon flavoring

Shake it all together vigorously in a pourable container and continue enjoying your caffeinated life.

• Another coffee cream option is Nutpods, which I bought a 4 pack of for on-the-go.  If I get a kid free block of time, I love to go write or read at a coffee shop, so I would throw this in my bag and add it to my black coffee.
• Hardboiled Eggs.  Always these.  Top them with some Cholula Hot Sauce, and you are good to go for another 2 hours.
• Lara Bars.  To be used sparingly and as more of an “in a pinch” food because they are packed with dates which are pretty high in sugar, but still they saved the day very often when I was in town grocery shopping or whatever and realized I was running on fumes and had poorly planned.
• Food prep.  One of those things that takes planning and forethought and actual effort, all of which I excel at (not so much), but there’s just no getting around it here. Costco can be your friend with this. I love the container of already diced, ready to roast butternut squash, or the bags of cauliflower or broccoli florets.  They even have riced cauliflower now! But seriously, you have to get your food ready or you’re setting yourself up for failure.
• Read labels.  So many things seem like they would be Whole30 compliant, and then they are not because they have added sugar, or soy products, or canola oil.  You really have to pay attention.  Find a good variety of things that you like and that are compliant, and just stick with those things if you need to.  Don’t overcomplicate it, especially in the first two weeks.
• Get some Whole30 Mayo or make your own. Sounds intimidating but it's really not hard.  You can do so much with that stuff.
• Don't treat this like a "diet". If you try to scrimp on your fats you will fail. You will run out of energy and hate everything.  Eat avocados and mayo and coconut or olive oil with your veggies.  

Overall, I’m so glad I did this. I’m fairly confident that I have NEVER IN MY LIFE managed to stay the course on a healthy eating plan for 30 days without going off the rails at some point. It feels good to have some good boundaries with regard to food. I love that I don’t have heartburn several days a week. My skin is the clearest it’s been in years. It feels good to not be waking up with a sore ankle and sore back every day, and to notice that my knees are not aching from going up and down the stairs or squatting down on the floor to get my 2 year old daughter dressed. I feel great for my workouts, well as good as I can for doing Crossfit for 6 weeks after a good stretch of slothfulness (If you’ve never done Crossfit you should try it; those people don’t play) 

The other major selling point that’s really making me want to be careful about what kinds of foods I reintroduce, is the fact that my moods have been so much more stable.  I’ve had more patience.  I’ve long struggled with being an irritable mom, prone to anger and anxiety. That has dialed WAY down over the past 30 days.  It could also be from the workouts I’m doing, I’m not entirely sure. But if it’s even fractionally related to the fact that I’m not riding the sugar roller-coaster, then I’ve gotta figure out a way to keep going with this because I love my relationships with my kids more than I love sugar. 

If any of this is striking a chord with you, I’d urge you to consider doing it for 30 days! As I’ve just found out, you really can do anything for 30 days.  It’s so worth it.  You might be really surprised at how good you feel.  Or maybe you’ll hate me for recommending it and write me off as a crazy person, that’s fine too. I used to be that person. I thought only crazy people did the Whole30, so now I guess I’m even crazier than I used to be. I’m good with that.

Scary, Honest Friendship

Day 17 of Write31Days

 

Oops, I missed a few days.  I will chock it up to sheer exhaustion from a weekend full of football, church, and hosting a cider press/kid birthday party.  Sometimes you just pass out on the couch at 9:00 pm and all your writing intentions get lost amidst your snores.  It’s okay though. The achiever in me would like to write every single day of the challenge, but the part of me that’s still learning that people are always the priority, is taking solace in the fact that I was tired because I was busy being with and loving my people all weekend.

 

Anyway, something I wanted to talk about during this series about the surprises of adulthood, is the sometimes tender, land-mine filled territory of adult friendships.  I’ve had friendships that just sort of fizzled after mutual connection points changed, or as we changed as people and found that we just didn’t really relate all that much to each others’ stories anymore. There are also the usual culprits of busyness, stress, selfishness, fatigue, and a million other reasons why it can be hard to make and keep friends.  It’s not like in school where you had this habitat that put you together multiple days per week, where you could gravitate toward all the ones that were like you.

 

In adulthood, I’m finding that friendship, like everything good and worthwhile, takes effort.  You actually have to call people, or if you’re my friend, text people.  I’m much better on Voxer and texting that I am talking on the actual phone.  You sometimes have to get a babysitter if you want to get beyond talking about the weather, how crazy your kids are driving you, and what you are making for dinner tonight.  If a babysitter isn’t an option, you might have to find a time when you’re down a kid or two, so that actual conversation might be more of a possibility.  Then you have to find a day and time that works for both of you, which can be difficult, as I’m finding out as the kids get older and more busy.

 

Sometimes it can seem like more effort than you can handle.

 

But, as it turns out, it’s all very worth it.

 

This afternoon I got to sit across the table from a friend who gets me.  I confessed some stuff to her that has been weighing me down.  She knows my chronic struggles, and I can shoot really straight with her, without taking a ton of time to catch her up to speed and plead my case, hoping she will still love me.  She knows my weaknesses and reminds me of grace, every time. Sometimes she gives me a little truth nudge too when I need it. I told her today how thankful I am that we have this relationship where we even confess the ugly thoughts we have, the pride, the selfishness, and all the things no one writes about on their own Twitter account or plasters atop a beautifully curated instagram photo.

 

Freedom, laughter, and a deep sense of joy come from this place of being known AND accepted. I think every human heart really longs for that.  A lot of the time we settle for being accepted, but we can’t really ever let ourselves be known because then the acceptance might be retracted.  There might not be an atmosphere of grace where we can be raw and real and still find a friend who won’t shrink away in terror when we get really honest.

(photo credit: Alex Wong on StockSnap.io)

Our souls get bound up so tightly by our facades, our masks, and our hidden failures that we are afraid to let out into the open.  We weren’t made to live in secret, living superficial lives.  We were made to be first, fully known by God and loved in spite of ALLLL the dirt that covers our souls, and then to turn to each other and allow our friendships and honest spaces to give our stories a safe place to land.  Be brave, go first and you’ll be surprised how disarming honesty can be!

 

Finish Line in Sight!

Day 14 of the Write31Days challenge...

 

27 days.  TWENTY SEVEN DAYS.  I have completed 27 days on the Whole30.  Some of you may be thinking “big deal”, but I am thoroughly shocked that I actually did it, and the end (Tuesday!) is in sight.  I don’t do long term (more than 5 days) eating plan modifications without little cheats. Like, ever.  Especially not when there are so many social opportunities that have food as part of the main appeal! What am I supposed to do, just skip it? Life is too short.  That’s usually my mentality, and there is definitely a time and a place for that.

 

For these past 27 days though, I’ve been intentionally focused on reseting my body.  That’s kind of the point of the Whole30. The point isn’t weight loss, it’s not a flatter stomach (although both of those things have happened, at least I think so but I’m not actually allowed to weigh myself until it’s over), the point is to allow your body to experience 30 days of rest from inflammation causing foods.  The point is also to either develop or refresh a healthy attitude toward eating.  

 

At the start of this journey, I was experiencing joint pain, stomachaches, headaches, fatigue, almost daily. When I would step out of bed in the morning, my right ankle would hurt, and my knees were starting to hurt as well. I could barely make it through the day without my 2 pm 10 minute power nap, or coffee, if the nap wasn’t happening.  While I’m still sort of tired every day (I believe that’s probably due to the busy pace of life right now), I am feeling incredibly better than I did 4 weeks ago.

 

Tonight we went out to dinner with a large group of people, and I experienced a taste of what Melissa Hartwig (Whole30 creator) calls “food freedom”. The chips and guac were spread all over the table, and everyone was going for it.  It was maybe 5 minutes before I realized “wait, everyone around me is eating chips (MY FAVORITE!) and I’m not focusing on it and having to distract myself from wanting to eat some!” This was a marked difference from day 10 of the Whole30 when we went to Red Robin and I felt utterly deprived as the french fry baskets were devoured by the rest of my hungry family.  This is a huge deal for me.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved food.  I still do.  But I don’t like feeling like I can’t say “no” to food.  Tonight I experienced casually skipping something that I really like, while everyone else around me was enjoying it, and at the same time I wasn’t experiencing inner turmoil. I was focused on the conversation, enjoying being with the people I was with, and realizing that although food is amazing, it’s not essential to enjoying a good time.

 

I’m actually a little nervous for the end date. I’m planning to try reintroducing things 1 food group at a time (except dairy because that’s just never a win for me), and I’m hoping that my newfound self-control will remain ultra-engaged.

To further test my mettle, tonight I came home and got my 2nd son’s birthday dirt cake ready, and even sniffed the pitcher of blended mint Oreos because I like to live dangerously. It smelled like heaven. Chocolate and mint are like Prince William and Princess Kate: Delightful, compatible, and exquisitely endearing. I wanted to lick the spatula covered in cool whip, pudding, and cream cheese approximately 97 times, but I didn’t.  I only have to make 1 more batch of cupcakes for his class before I don’t have to bake anymore delicious things for other people on this round of Whole30.

 

Another thing I’ve been LOVING and I’m sure it’s been helping to sustain me through this, is working out at Crossfit.  Those kind of workouts are my favorite ever.  And I think the whole30 is really helping me to perform well, so that may prove to be quite a bit of motivation to keep my eating more clean than not, even after Tuesday rolls around.

 

I guess, as much as I hate to finally admit it, doing hard things is part of being a grown up. That magic time of adulty self-control is probably never going to show up, so I’m going to have to keep challenging myself to choose well and discipline myself as a means of honoring what God has given me in the areas of health, family, finances, time, and priorities.  So often I want to choose the kid option. But I really believe that as I continue to pursue self-control in all areas of life, I’ll discover God-given strength that I didn’t think I had.  If doing the Whole30 helps me to be more effective at loving the people in my life that God created and also loves, then it’s worth it. If it’s just so I look better in my jeans, then that motivation will never sustain me.  If healthier eating habits allow me to be in good enough shape to spontaneously respond to situations that God drops on me, then sign me up.  That’s why I’m so excited about these changes. Not so I look better in my clothes (although I am glad about that), but so that I can be as effective as possible at living and loving during this very brief time I get here on earth.

On Becoming Self-Aware: Volume 1

Day 11 in the Write31Days challenge where I'm exploring all the things that surprised me about adulthood.

If you haven’t talked to me in recent years, you may not know that I’m annoyingly obsessed with personality typing, strength-finding, and now Enneagram-ing.  It’s just so FASCINATING.  

 

I think most of us grew up with notions of what success looks like. We feel like there’s a right and wrong way to do things. An accepted social norm for almost everything.  While I believe there are some things that are absolutely black and white (mostly in regards to certain moral principles), there is sooooooo much in our world that is gray, nuanced, fluid, diverse, and dynamic. 

 

I truly believe that each person, based on their genetic makeup, family of origin, faith background, socioeconomic background, current socioeconomic state, stress level, support system, education, and many other factors, will act upon life and make certain choices and function in a way that is reflective of all the aforementioned things.

 

Even deeper than all of those external factors, is this delightfully exciting world of personality typology.  It’s so intriguing. I’m so nerdy when I talk about it.  My eyes light up and my forehead lines show as my eyebrows shoot skyward when I meet a friend who knows their Myers-Briggs type.

(true story. My kids can attest to this. I really don't mean to tune them out, but there are just so many thoughts happening!)

The new “it” personality type is the Enneagram.  It looks like a pentagram, but rest assured, it’s actually not.  There are several books about it, and I’ve recently picked up one by Richard Rohr, and my very brief glance through a small section has so far proven to be very fun and insightful (how do I even live with this level of nerdiness?  All my friends who put up with me, you know who you are, I love you and I thank you for sticking by my side when I go off on a tangent about this stuff).  I keep hearing about “The Road Back to You”, and I’m putting it on my “to read” list (which will probably mean I listen to it on audible), because everyone is talking about how great it is.

 

Tonight, I took yet another Enneagram test just to see what I got because I’ve had some variable results.  Twice now I’ve scored as a 3, so I think I’m sticking with that. The narrative seems to fit. It explains a lot about why I deep dive into stuff and determine to master it as fast as I can, to the neglect of my adulting responsibilities (oops). It explains why I’m prone to be addicted to other peoples’ approval. It explains why I feel like I have a little motor driving me to “do, do, do!” all day long.

Becoming aware of how you’re wired can be SO helpful when you’re trying to figure out your hangups.  I highly recommend you take a personality test today and find out a little more about yourself! It might just allow you to give yourself more grace as you grow AND it will help you have more grace for others as you start to realize why people act the way they do (because we are wired so differently!) Have fun!

Enneagram

Myers-Briggs

Damaged & Crazy

Day 11 of the Write31Days Challenge

It's okay to realize

you're crazy and very damaged

because all the best people are.

• Anne Lamott

 

Has anyone else shown up to their life year after year, waiting for that elusive time when you’ll finally feel like you’re functioning like you’re supposed to?  Just me?

 

In particular, I’ve been waiting for that day when I don’t bounce back and forth between feeling very sane and functional and then swinging back the other way to feeling totally incapacitated by all my big feelings and hang-ups.  I’ve been surprised over and over again to realize that I’m still aching from the wounds of 3rd grade.  I thought we were supposed to just be resilient and brush it off? After all “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”….right?

 

Wrong.  So very wrong.

 

The damage and craziness so often come from words.  It seems like we as a society are finally starting to realize this in the way we treat and raise our children, with great care put into building positive self-image and speaking kindness.  But in the same breath with which we praise our children, we hop on Twitter or Facebook and use our fingers to sling words at other people that are laced with hate, anger, judgment, and vitriol.

(photo by Brad Stallcup at StockSnap.io)

So these words, they shape us.  And as we go on in our lives, our internal dialogue rambling on out of control, we can begin to believe that we are too dysfunctional to be of much use.

 

And believe it or not, it’s when we discover that we aren’t all that capable that we are most primed to be useful.  When we aren’t blinded by the illusions of our own awesomeness, we can stop showing off for everyone and actually have the humility to care about others.  Of course, since we are all crazy and damaged, we will revert back to pretending to be awesome next week, and then wonder why we ever felt so broken down just a few days prior.  We will assure ourselves that the awesomeness will last this time…until it doesn’t. 

 

Take parenting for example.  If there’s ANYTHING that can make me feel like I need a one-way ticket to the asylum, it’s parenting.  I can go from a sweet, well-intentioned mom to a screaming, fire-breathing Hulk in the span of 2 minutes.  And then I wonder “what in the heck just happened???”  The guilt and shame quickly follow, and my veneer of awesome mom is stripped away and I’m back to being broken and humble and looking for help. I’m looking for wisdom outside of myself, and begging God to PLEASE put a buffer around my kids’ hearts so that they don’t inherit my brand of crazy.

 

But here’s the thing about damaged, crazy people.  They are very often aware that they aren’t quite perfect.  And guess what?  We are all very damaged and somewhat crazy.  In some way, shape, or form, we’ve lived through enough years on this broken, spinning orb to collect scars.  Those scars impact how we live.  Even if you externally hide your crazy, it’s there.  

(Photo by Steve Halama at StockSnap.io)

So since we are all very damaged and crazy, we have 2 options: We can either realize it or suppress it.  We can realize it and, in humility seek wisdom and healing, or we can suppress it until it roars to the surface when we least expect it.  Realizing it and dealing with it takes courage.  Sometimes it takes counseling (I’m a HUGE proponent of counseling!), but every time it takes courage. We’ve been trained to perform, to achieve, and to never stop chasing perfection.  How on earth can we pause to dive into our inner turmoil if we are supposed to be doing all those things? We can’t.  So that’s where the courage comes in. The courage to say “I’m not okay.” “No I can’t take that commitment because I don’t have the bandwidth for it” (the world will survive if we don’t bake all the things for school. Actually scratch that, because of food allergies you can’t actually bake anything for school, but YOU GET MY DRIFT).  There is courage in calling the doctor because you’re battling mental handicaps that no amount of prayer, meditation, or white-space is fixing.  Medication may be needed to get stable enough in order to get after the hard work of healing.  There’s courage in being honest when someone asks how you’re doing. “Yeah I’m actually crumbling right now and I could really use someone to take my 3 year old so I can be alone for a couple of hours” is a brave ask.  

 

I’m trying to be more brave.  I’m trying to let go of that notion of earlier adulthood that I was supposed to get it together.  The together people are as elusive as unicorns, so I’m joining the rest of the world’s good company in admitting that I’m both very damaged and crazy.  It’s not lonely here. The more I confess my struggles, the deeper the relationships go.  I love the idea of a life surrounded by people without pretense. 

 

Boundaries & Selflessness; Can They Coexist?

Day 8 of the Write31Days Challenge, where I'm taking a look at all the ways I've found myself unprepared for adulthood:

...

“Mom, I need you to come look at something”

“Mom, can you get me something to drink?”

“Mom, can you tell us another story?”

“Mom, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you?????”

 

Wow.

 

The requests of kids never end, yes?  Some of their requests are reasonable, some are straight up asinine, but whichever kind they are, it’s not so often the type of request but the mere quantity of them that can leave us feeling like we are nothing more than a handmaiden in our own home.

 

The other day in the car, much to my husband’s exasperation, I did not satisfy the request of our 2 1/2 year old.  She persisted in her line of questioning.  I gently explained to my dear husband who was at the wheel with the shrieks coming from approximately 22 inches behind his ears, that I’ve come to the realization that I’ve so long parented with no boundaries, or at the very best, poorly enforced boundaries.

 

So, in an attempt to play catch up, I decided that this was the line I was going to hold, in the car, with my poor husband suffering the consequences of the shrill verbal assault coming from our little girl.

 

It may have something to do with the fact that I’ve been reading “Boundaries With Kids” by Cloud and Townsend.  Actually it probably has everything to do with that.  Boy, what I wouldn’t give to go back in time and tell 25 year old Kristi that she should read that and actually LISTEN.  But alas, I can’t.  So now we are doing the thing that all parents do, learning as we go, and trying to course correct where we haven’t exactly steered the ship as capably as we wish we had known to do.

(photo by Negative Space from StockSnap.io)

Part of the challenge is that there is this pervasive notion both in parenting, and in Christianity that is often well intentioned but poorly understood (by me for starters!).  There is this false dichotomy that exists between selflessness and boundaries.  We feel that we can’t have one without the other, that we must choose to go this way or that way, when that’s not actually true.  For a long time, I believed that the only way for me to truly lay down my life for another was to put myself in last place every time, fulfilling every whim and request in an effort to love well. I did not deserve personal space or even good self care.  In some twisted way, that seemed like the most loving option.  “Boundaries” seemed like a code word for self-indulgent parenting that required a cold heart.  Recently though, it has come to my attention that boundary-less parenting will set up these little people that we are trying to raise, to be incredibly entitled, selfish adults.  I do not want to send entitled people out into the world to marry a spouse, work a job, be a neighbor, be a friend.  It would be heartbreak after heartbreak for both them and the people they are in relationship with.

 

Ultimately, there has to be a balance of sorts struck between.  The challenge is like with so many things, keeping priorities in perspective.  Time is fleeting, so what do we want to establish in our kids?  Do I want to hold a hard line every time for the sake of training them to be responsible and self-sufficient? Or are there times I will throw all of that to the wind and just be soft on them because I’ve realized freshly, that no day is guaranteed and I care more about the relationship than I do training them in the way I think is “right”?

 

As you can tell, I’m still working out all the details.  I’m horribly inconsistent, but I’m continually praying that God will transform our parenting failures into something magnificent, and I’m really talking positively about the benefits of therapy and have promised to pay their therapist, should the need for counseling arise in adulthood. Not even kidding.  For further reading and a much better explanation of boundaries, you should read this book:

 

Jackets, Differences, and Being a Good Listener

“But Mom! I NEED the jacket that says E.N.U.F. on the back.  It’s got leather sleeves that are a different color than the body of the jacket, you know??” Lordy, I’m embarrassed just typing that.  I vividly remember these elusive, statuesque jackets parading around the playground on the backs of so-much-cooler-than-me 8th graders, and a just a couple of my most elite 6th grade friends.  Bless my mom’s heart for putting up with my “needs”.  As it would go, I got a version of that jacket that was *almost* the same, except it was the Unionbay knockoff (which now looking back was actually a lot more attractive). I do believe I had to wait all the way until Christmas morning to get that jacket because I didn’t live in a home where I declared that I wanted something and had that desire fulfilled immediately (thank you mom and dad. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, as I try not to raise the next generation to be entitled kids).

(It was like this, but I think the sleeves were black.  I was HOT.)

(Another vintage 90s gem)

You see, I wanted more than anything to conform to the social code that I thought was my ticket to inclusivity, meaning, purpose, status. That meant having the same clothes, views, preferences, lifestyle, likes, and dislikes as my peers.

 

My, my, how times have absolutely not changed.

 

Do we not still long to live in the echo chambers of the people we have deemed to be most like us? The ones who will consistently corroborate our political narratives, our social preferences, or even our materialistic pursuits?  Let’s face it: At our core, we are still a bunch of middle-schoolers.

 

But there’s this one friend…one of my best friends has always been the opposite of me when it comes to politics and religion viewpoints and other matters of worldview.  In my earlier years, I thought that I just loved her so much that the other stuff didn’t really matter to me.  That was and is still very true.  But I’m finding more and more, that I long for even more diversity of thought and viewpoints in my friendships.  It’s hard sometimes to even want to go there, because “what if she judges me?!” There is always that risk.  Sometimes people hold very dear, their personal convictions.  But what if we reached a robust level of relationship that thrived on our commonalities, while giving boat-loads of grace and listening to our differences?

 

I’ve grown so weary of the social media soundbite culture. The one where we can regurgitate over and over the hyperbolic memes and snippets that reinforce our own personal opinions.  Do we even stop to think through the counter-points? Do we ever wonder WHY the person on the other side has come to their conviction? Do we consider the story behind the firmly held belief?  Or do we just look at the people that we have decided are the ones who know everything, and copy everything they say? Do we have to have the exact same jacket? Or can we diverge from the herd?

I think we can.  It requires listening. It requires willing to stand-out and not find a cozy home in any of the current herds that are on the move.  It requires grace, so much grace. It requires patience. It requires the old “walk a mile in their shoes” even if only figuratively. Be willing to go there, to push yourself out of your safe emotional and mental space and entertain a different life narrative that would challenge your beliefs.  It doesn’t even mean you will change your mind or compromise, but it does mean that we can treat each other with respect and dignity, and a longing for deep understanding.

 

We can disagree and still be friends.

 

P.S.  I had this post in my head all day, and then tonight I saw that this movie is coming out.  Coincidence? I think not.  I cannot wait to see it…but go read the book first if you haven’t yet!