We All Need Therapy

Excuse Me Mr.

I'm sure you've all met people who have an "good reason" for why something is the way it is. Whether it is because their house is a mess, they haven't followed through on something they said they would, expectations were not met or just not showing up. We all have them. A reason why we aren't giving our best at work. Why we don't seek to build relationships with others. A cause for our mood. Blaming something or someone for the reason our lives aren't what we want them to be. 

We have been the recipient and deliver of each of these justifications or rationalizations at some point in our lives, usually the low points, the self-pity points. So and so didn't do this. I don't feel like it. I was too busy. Someone hurt me so I don't want to risk it. I don't feel important enough. I can't do it perfect, so I won't do it at all. I'm not good enough. Nobody cares. It doesn't matter to anyone else, so why should it matter to me? I work really hard, but nobody else does so I get discouraged.

I will admit, I fall victim to these as well at times. I'm used to a full-steam-ahead lifestyle. I'm a work/school/church/social life on a full-time level for each, kind of person. If I don't use the energy then I lose it. It's gone and fading fast. I recognize that. I'm also an all-or-nothing kind of person in my mentality which kills my productivity in every aspect. Then it just becomes recursive. I have a day, especially during the holidays, when I don't have any clients, so I don't get anything done, so I get home and feel like a failure so I don't get into gear and do dishes, cook meals, or do anything that I enjoy like thinking, reading, baking, etc.

I think this is the first holiday that I haven't baked in years. No pie. No cookies. Nothing. I bought the stuff, in an optimistic effort, but the optimist left me almost as soon as I looked at the kitchen, or something like that. Maybe it's the infamous burnout that all wide-eyed graduates deny will ever get to them hitting me like a brick wall. I think I have just gotten so occupied with the little things, which are the big things, that I'm not doing the "me" things that fulfill and rejuvenate me. But where does a girl find the time or the resources in a small town? There is no going out. There is no craft store to buy supplies to be creative. Baking just leads to eating and that doesn't help the situation. I've got to come up with something or my own life will become a life of excuses and justifications which pretty much equals emptiness and misery. Good thing I'm catching it early, right?

Happy Children

I get an email about once a week with tips of what to expect from the baby developmentally and parenting tips, etc. This week I got one with an article titled "How to raise a happy baby and child." As I was reading through the tips I found myself a little amused. Not that they are funny, but more that God figured these out a long time ago. You tell me if He doesn't do this for you.

1) Learn to read the signs. Pretty much this means to pay attention. To know what's going on and how to read the expressions of your child.

2) Make room for fun. This not only talks about encouraging your child to have fun, but also for YOU to have time that you spend with the child which is fun. Unstructured play.

3) Help them develop their talents. Help them find things they like and encourage them to develop these.

4) Healthy bodies, happy children. Exercise, healthy food, keeping bad substances away, etc. Caring for your child's physical health.

5) Let them struggle with problems. So often we want to save our kids from pain or difficulty, but this actually harms them. Let them problem solve. This eventually leads to letting them succeed and feel that you are confident in their abilities.

6) Allow them to be sad or mad. They are allowed to feel what they feel and don't overreact to those feelings or make them feel like those are not appropriate.

7) Be a role model. Be the example of feelings, behaviors and attitudes you want your child to have.

8) Teach them to do meaningful things. You can teach your child to serve others and be fulfilled through that service. Allowing your child to serve you will help them feel they are an important contribution to the family.

I know that each of these things are things that I have recognized my Heavenly Father allows me to do on a rather regular basis, whether I notice or not. I think these are still things that we each need as adults as well as do for our children, regardless of age.

Green Eggs and Ham

My mom used to buy cases of oranges. Because there were so many it was almost always free reign when it came to the volume we were allowed to eat. Most often I would eat one and it would be amazing, quickly grab another only to soon realize that all the oranges in the batch were not of the same quality. Since that time I "don't eat oranges". I only had to have this experience a few times before I stopped eating oranges. Poor, innocent oranges. I'll drink orange juice and eat orange flavored foods, but fresh oranges don't get a second chance.

I have received boxes of oranges as gifts and given them away. Even Clementines I've given away. One year my grandmother gave them out and I am pretty sure I gave that away too. My ordeal with fruit did not start with oranges. In thinking about it, I believe I've already talked about how bananas and I get along.

In the past week, I was accused of being "unforgiving". I totally didn't see it. Maybe if you asked fruit...they might agree. A couple weeks ago one of my case managers bought a box of Clementines for group. For some reason, they looked really good so I grabbed one and just couldn't stop! I just had to try them, give them a chance, and realize that they're not so bad.

It's interesting to think that holding a grudge kept me from enjoying something really good for years. Tonight, I bought a bag of Clementines. If someone doesn't stop me, they'll be gone by the end of the night. I guess I'm catching up on lost time. It's a shame so much of it was wasted. Going to go play some more catch up. :)

Conditional Love

I realized yesterday that there really is no such thing as unconditional love when it comes to relationships. I'm not sure why I never really grasped it before, but experience in my professional and personal realms has been very interesting in this aspect. Yesterday, it was as though a lightbulb came on and it was completely an epiphany. I mean, I knew it. All my classes in school regarding marriage and relationships discussed how people have certain needs, etc. and when they aren't being met...dissatisfaction grows.

I should mention that both myself and my husband are as flawed as the next couple. I still have trouble just spitting it out when I'm upset and he has his own flaws. Neither of us are the person we were a year and a half ago. Part of this is for the good. We have grown and learned more about ourselves as individuals and as a couple than we knew a year ago. I think we've both gotten a little too secure and forgotten that this unconditional love thing doesn't exist.

Each part of a relationship could do something that slowly makes it difficult to really be completely open to the other person. It could be a small or serious change, a disappointment, broken promises, annoying habits, etc. Actually, according to Willard Harley they are: selfish demands, annoying habits, angry outbursts, disrespectful judgments, independent behavior and dishonesty. Man, I think we could split those right down the middle and share them in regard to guilty parties.

The part of the realization was mostly for my own benefit. I'm not who my husband married on some days. I work all day, come home stressed, vent about people he's not allowed to know and that is different. Some habits I had last year are habits that are long gone now and other habits that I didn't have are now constant companions. Plus, I was single much longer than I have been married. Being independent is what I do. I have had to be independent to make it as far as I have. I know what's in the bank and in my  head can determine whether we can or cannot afford something...and he just has to trust it. Completely not fair! Hard habit to break.

In reality, a relationship is an agreement to be there for each other in ways that create security and safety in emotional, physical, and even financial ways. If I change my mood every five seconds, it isn't safe. If I decide that I need a new gadget every five minutes to make me "happy" then that affects financial security. If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. If you keep scratching someone's back and nobody's scratching yours then resentment, frustration and even betrayal begin to build and that affects love. Love is not unconditional.

I know I should get back to my old good habits and drop my new bad habits. There's a difference between being comfortable in a relationship and being "comfortable" and just letting yourself go with the illusion that your significant other will love you even if you are a different person. Heck, he should even weigh in on whether or not I get my hair seriously cut because, after all, he's the one who has to look at me every day. If I dyed my hair, got a few tattoos at the local tattoo parlor and started dressing inappropriately...I'm not who he married and why should he still love me?

I suppose I should also think of what the conditions are for me to love him. I think that would make life easier for both of us.