Category Archives: Mind Management

1COMMENTS

The Color of Feelings

I’m feeling kind of purple today.

I know – what? Let me explain. This morning I decided that I was going to wear pink to celebrate the day before Valentine’s Day. We’re doing some special celebrating on Valentine’s Day itself at the spa, so I’m gonna spend most of the day in a robe and not in my own clothes. Otherwise I’d probably be in red like lots of people on Valentine’s Day.

Back to the purple thing… I was standing there in the closet, looking for a pink shirt (cause I hardly ever wear pink), and my eyes kept going to my purple long sleeved tee. When I went to pack a nightgown for our spa night, I picked up my pink and purple lounge pants (but they’re light and it’s just too cold today). I bought purple flowers at the store yesterday. When I sat down to do my makeup, I planned to do a very natural face with a dramatic cat-eye eyeliner and nude mouth and ended up with plum lipstick. I sat down to plan my day and get started with creating my new bullet journal (that’s a whole ‘notha post) and grabbed my tiny purple candle to burn while I work. What’s with all the purple?

It’d be nice if I could tell you what all the purple is about, but I really don’t know. Recently I was listening to this inspirational video my brother sent me and one of the speakers in the video was hammering away at how you can’t “stay in your feelings”, because if you wait to feel like doing what you need to do, you’ll never get it done. I loved the video, but that one part rubbed me the wrong way. We often live in a space of suck-it-up-and-get-it-done. While I agree that you won’t always feel like doing what needs to be done, too much of this attitude disconnects us from actually feeling our feelings. Actually feeling can be hard, uncomfortable work. So we don’t. We stay in our routine, wear the same colors again and again, think a lot about what we should/need to be doing and the catastrophe that is coming if we don’t. Instead of noticing where we are, when those feelings threaten to overwhelm we move into distraction mode. We watch TV, eat mindlessly, or play on social media and fall asleep in utter exhaustion, just to get up and start over again the next day.

We fear our feelings. And that includes the good ones, like joy and excitement. The last time you felt thrilled about something happening, didn’t you have a thought that told you not to get too happy, because it wouldn’t last? If you got too joyful, it would just hurt more when it ended or the next hard thing came. It’s as if our mind wants to keep us in a narrow range of normal and getting too happy or sad is to be avoided at all costs. The hard feelings like grief, sorrow, boredom and pain are certainly to be avoided at all costs, because if we go there we might never come up again. And then what will we do?

Truth time: A hard feeling is the worst thing that can happen to us. Stay with me – I know you just thought of about four things that are worse than a hard feeling. But whatever is happening to me is filtered through the way I see it. My perspective comes from how I think about a situation. And my feelings come from those thoughts.

Purple flowers I bought this week…

Management of my thoughts has been a concept that has come up again and again for me over the past months. When I have a subject that keeps repeating itself like this, I know I’d better pay attention. After all, it’s not my thought, just one that I need to learn from and maybe share. The scripture that keeps coming to mind is 2 Corinthians 10:5b, “and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” For years I thought this was hyperbole, just an unattainable goal. Now I’m realizing that because I decided taking every thought captive was impossible, I wasn’t even going to try. And when I started trying, I realized the depth and complexity of work that needed to be done to undo well worn thought patterns that were not obedient to Christ and did not serve me. Automated thoughts are the reason we eat without being hungry, why we feel stuck or frustrated with a new idea, why we yell at our kids when we promised ourselves we wouldn’t, and why we give up on a desire before we’ve even tried. It’s why we live in a scarcity mentality – never enough food, money, time.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know that you can’t just decide to magically think yourself out of grief or pain. That’s not true, and it’s a bad idea. Pain needs to be felt to heal, and that takes time. I’m talking about avoiding feeling the pain or grief or joy because of the thoughts you have about what will happen if you feel it. The thoughts that say if you feel really sad, you might never get out of bed again and you’ll lose your job, your family will starve and everyone will think you’re a loser. So you better not go there. Instead you live a limited life, letting the thoughts keep you from healing from your hurts and truly experiencing the beauty and joy in this life you are living.

Being conscious about thoughts and feelings takes some work. The good news is that doesn’t actually take more time, just a willingness to keep coming back to the present moment. It’s easier to stay automated and unplugged, but then you miss the moment. The feeling of the warm sunshine on my face while I’m sitting at my desk, the feeling of my ankles crossed under the table, the sweet mint scent of tea in the blue-green flowered mug – all good things that are easy to miss if the mind is too busy anticipating all the possible dangers ahead. I try not to get too annoyed with my mind. After all, it’s just doing what it’s made to do; keep me out of trouble. The mind is always scanning for possible threats – your amygdala (the fear center in your brain) is responsible for that. But years of anticipating possible threats and accepting them as real allows the amygdala to get a little too good at its job. Then you live in a state of high alert, as if an emergency is constantly around the corner. This is learned thinking, and it can be unlearned with practice. Little kids don’t live like this. Think of what kids look like playing in a park. They’re not watching for child predators or worried about falling off the monkey bars. They’re just enjoying the wind in their face on the swing and the sound of the scream in their throat. Yes, we need to live in the real world and children have us to protect them. But we also don’t have to be captive to fears our minds suggest to us.

Thought and feeling work is important. There are volumes written about it, so I know I won’t do it justice in one post. But I am working on my own mind! This time I sat down to feel purple. Purple makes me feel full, rich, plentiful. It seems rare, sumptuous and spectacular. I think of purple as a color for the powerful and gentle. So why was I feeling attracted to purple? Maybe I’m feeling settled where I am, less anxious and agitated about where I’m going. Maybe listening to God is making me feel more connected to him – purple seems royal to me!. It might be that something in me feels cared and provided for, like I have enough. Who knows for sure? I do know that I feel better for having taken the time to examine my thoughts, to pay attention to myself instead of letting the constant background noise of my brain play on like a TV in the other room. I’ve never liked background noise anyway, so even better to let my brain chatter quiet down. So I’ll keep paying attention and trying to catch those thoughts. You know, Socrates said that “An unexamined life is not worth living.” I’m certainly finding it helpful to watch my thought life more carefully!

How about you? Have you ever tried to capture your thoughts? Do you get distracted by the background noise in your brain? Please share in the comments below – I think we might need to take this deeper!

NOCOMMENTS

Inspirations, Mind Management

Learning You

No. Just no.

That’s how I felt this morning when I woke up to my husband’s alarm. For once, I didn’t have to be up early and the last week had been full of early mornings and long days. Let me catch you up…

The evil device…

I worked this past weekend overnight on Saturday. Our overnight shifts are 16 hours, which may seem like a long time, but they used to be 24, so I’m not complaining. When I got to the hospital at 4 pm, I learned about our patients in the hospital and sat down at the computer to work on the May schedule before anything could start up. But as soon as I did that, the phone started ringing. Our acute care center was sending me a patient who was bleeding internally and needed emergency surgery. I got it all set up, met her in the OR, and fixed the bleeding. I spent the rest of the night admitting patients, helping my midwife deliver babies, and all the time answering calls. When I handed off the phone in the morning, I had taken 32 separate phone calls. Needless to say, I was ready to get out of there.

Sunday was The Superbowl, and against my better judgement I agreed to host our family group from church to watch the game, hoping I wouldn’t have a hard night at the hospital before the party. Nope. So I slept a little during the day Sunday and held on until after the halftime show, at which time I shut it down and went to bed.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were either catching up on admin work, early meetings and office days, or running around doing emergent cesareans at the hospital. By the time we got home from midweek service on Wednesday night, I was toast. The original plan was to leave town Thursday afternoon for the weekend, but plans changed and suddenly I had some free time. Free time – what’s that? So I thought I’d catch up on all the different projects and ideas I’d been wanting to work on. I started making my lists.

Usually making lists helps me get a grip on all the thoughts swirling around in my head, to feel less like I’m going to miss getting something crucial done. Unfortunately, this time I just got completely overwhelmed. When did all this stuff come up? How did I get so far behind? So when the alarm went off in the morning, I wanted to go on strike. Instead, I got up, made some hard boiled eggs in the Instant Pot for the kid’s breakfast, and gathered all my stuff.

See those piles?

And then I decided I didn’t want to do any of it. Or maybe I did, but I couldn’t decide what to do first, because I couldn’t do it all in one day. And who decided that it all had to get done today? Did I really just create this whole mess in my mind from the gift of a couple of free days? In the midst of my mental gymnastics, I had one of those quiet, nagging, not-from-my-own-mind thoughts: What would you do right now if you did what you wanted?

I didn’t like that question. I tried to avoid it. Really, who has time to think about what I want to do when I have free time, because I never have free time, right? That was the problem. I actually did have free time and I didn’t know what to do with it except fill it up with lots of things that needed to be done. That’s what I always do. If I’m not working for work, I’m working for home and family, or I’m working on a project or course or training or something. And they’re all good things. But if I don’t know what I really enjoy, what’s fun or exciting or entertaining or interesting to me, then the who-I-am gets lost behind the what-I-do.

Who I am or what I do?

A lot of women feel this way. We spend so much time being producers – the working and teaching and care-taking and giving and serving that we do for others are all ways we produce. We begin to identify ourselves with the roles we play and the service we provide. I think this is why many women feel lost when their children leave home for college or work life. A very important role they’ve played is ending, or at least changing dramatically. Sometimes, we can’t remember who we were before all the responsibilities, and we don’t know what or who we are now. Years of being too busy doing life instead of living life can do that to you.

What’s the alternative? If we’re not producing, then we’re consuming. I can sometimes feel like that’s dirty – that’s taking. Aren’t I supposed to be giving? That has just got to be selfish, right? It’s almost as if I can feel like I’m taking enough by being around and taking up space and breathing. Maybe I’m alone here, but it feels like I’m being self indulgent by doing things that are just for my pleasure. Like reading a novel. Not a book for growth and mind expansion – just a quick and easy crime drama. Or watching a movie. I don’t do that very often, but I really do like the superhero movies. And if Perry didn’t love them too and make me go, I’d probably never see one in the theater. That’s kind of sad. What’s wrong with enjoying my life?

Besides, you’d never starve yourself and think you should run a marathon. You have to put something in to get something out. It can’t all be potato chips and candy – that’s not good fuel! A little here and there is fine just for fun.There’s also plenty of consumption that’s also important and good for me AND that I enjoy – like reading the stacks of books I have on personal growth and leadership and vulnerability and emotional eating and herbal remedies and essential oils (those are just the ones I’m working through now!). I also love how I feel practicing yoga and going for walks outside. I love bubble baths and candles and sitting by a crackling fire. Smart TV with political themes and intelligent dialogue get me involved every time. And I love learning and growing in mindfulness and becoming more present in the moment and less connected to things in my life. All of this together, my productivity AND the wholesome and the “junky” consumption – all of this makes up who I am, the lovely and quirky, the beautiful and unique and strange. It’s me, and there’s not another like me out there. Just like there’s only one of you.

Here’s a thought: what if each of us are created for an particular, extraordinary, individual purpose to fulfill here during our lives? I don’t mean famous or meant to influence lots of other people. I mean that our being, the self we are designed to be is intended to move others who connect with us. But in order for that express purpose to be met, we have to be the unique being we are here to be. We have to know who we are to live out our intended being. Life and busyness and pain and self protection can make us hide and forget. We have to remember.

If we can each let our special original self emerge to share with the world, what might life be like? What wonder might we become?

2COMMENTS

Inspirations, Mind Management

Change And Growth

What a day!

It seems like there have been a lot of ups and downs in my life recently. It feels like I’ve been riding a roller coaster. And while rides in an amusement park can be exhilarating and fun, somehow it doesn’t seem quite as entertaining when it’s happening in real life…

It was just a few weeks ago that I was devastated by realizing some major change in my character that needed to happen to help my marriage (low). Then I went on my solo retreat and experienced some wonderful revelations about my path forward (high). Then I returned home to homeowner disaster after disaster and flood recovery (low). Today I started working with my tech genius guru on an online course for weight loss that I want to create (high).

And just this morning I woke up excited about a possible new opportunity for work (high), only to be devastated when the offer to interview was withdrawn (low). I feel like I can’t keep up!

Life is full of change. When I was younger, I thought that one day when my formal education was over and I had a job and a family of my own, the roller coaster of my life would slow down. Silly me! Adding career and relationship responsibilities only adds to the complexities we face from life. Whether you’re married or single, as we grow and change, so do our relationships and responsibilities. I don’t know why I thought things would get easier – I think I spent so much time wanting to be grown when I was a kid that I romanticized the whole adulthood thing. Why didn’t I listen when people told me to enjoy being a child?

I’m trying to think about it differently. The movie Groundhog Day came to mind today. I mean really, how awful would it be to wake up every day to the exact same day, over and over again? How tedious, how predictable, how boring! On the other hand, sometimes I think boredom is underrated. I chose my very high stakes career in OB GYN because it was more exciting than other specialties. Some days I would welcome a little routine day. But even if work were even-keeled, the four kids and being married brings its own degree of excitement and uncertainty. When I add all that to the ups and down of my own thoughts and the unexpected twists and turns of living life here on earth, my head is spinning. I want to get off the ride now!

I’m not a big fan of change. I don’t think I handle it very well. You’d think that an obstetrician would be well equipped for uncertainty, but interestingly I find that most of us like to be in control and therefore really don’t welcome the unexpected as much as you’d think. I am however, learning to think differently and surrender control (at least more quickly than I have in the past!).

Let me tell you about what I’m doing. First I’m learning to recognize when my thoughts are going off the rails (my husband calls it “catastrophizing”). When I start that cascade of thoughts that lead into a downward spiral, I (usually) stop myself and back up to the original thought. If I can capture it (2 Cor 10:5b), then I can ask myself if the thought is even true. A good example was when the offer for the interview was rescinded. My original thought was, “This is terrible – they don’t want me. This must mean I’m not a good doctor.” See, already spiraling down! But in reality, is it really terrible? Do I really even want this job? Might God have something else better lined up for me that this option needed to be moved out of my way to see? He might…

Second, I’m learning to sit in my discomfort instead of trying to get away from it. When pain comes my way, my first instinct is to work as hard as I can to get away from it. But that’s not the way to work through trouble. The pain festers and grows and doesn’t heal. So I’m learning to lean in to the discomfort. I breathe. I let the pain pass through so I can see it and look at it and let it soften and heal.

Third, I’m leaning on my friends. When I got the news about the interview this afternoon I was in a nail appointment (yes, I love a fresh manicure!). After I worked through the pain of disappointment and the ugly thoughts I was having about it, I called my friend in Austin and shared with her what happened. Sounds like a good idea right? Share your pain with a friend and let them help you through? Sure in theory, but in reality the embarrassment of the situation made me want to keep it to myself. I mean, I had told a few people I was going to interview for this job – what was I going to say now? Despite that, I called her anyway. And just like she always does, she helped me to see the hand of God in it. By the time I hung up, I was resolved and at peace. Nothing had changed except my mind, so everything had changed.

Change is good, and change is hard. Learning to live in the space where change is appreciated in either form is the challenge and the gift. I’m getting lots of practice lately! But I’m grateful, because I’m growing and learning in the process. Right around the corner lies the next call to change, and whether I’m ready or not remains to be seen. But I’ll lean in, work through it, and depend on my friends to get through. And I’ll get better through it all!

What about you? How do you experience change? What do you do to work through the changes that life sends you? Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Inspirations, Mind Management

A Time Such As This

Happy New Year!

It feels strange to me every year to change over to the next year. 2019 – just looks odd written down to me! Now that all the presents are opened and the merry making is over, it’s time to pack up all the decorations and get started with this fresh new year. What? You’ve already taken all your decorations down? Well, I’m behind then. By the time we got done with Christmas and my parents’ time visiting and my oldest girl’s birthday, I was not ready to put away all the stuff. Then Perry got a cold and all those boxes in the garage for the decorations had to wait. I went back to work on the 31st and spent New Year’s Eve laying on the couch watching the ball drop.

New Year is a weird, conflicted time of year for me. On one hand, I love the feeling of a fresh start, a brand new beginning, the hope of something wonderful ahead. But I also feel pressure to catch up, get stuff done, make that amazing thing happen with the new year. I have this nagging sense that I missed the year behind and am starting the new year already playing catch up. Did I accomplish the goals and dreams from last year? Have I grown in any significant way from who I was a year ago? Why is my storage space still so full of junk that I probably should have given away two years ago? What am I supposed to be doing this year and do I have enough time to get it all done? Now that I think about it, January has felt like this before. I hear other people making resolutions (which I don’t do – read last year’s post on this), and I feel like I should have some specific goal I’m working toward too.

That line of thinking is crazy-making. But I think there’s someone other than me feels the same way, right? I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here. So I decided to take some time (that I didn’t feel like I had) and reflect. I’m really bad at that. My tendency is to barrel through life at full speed, packing in as many events and to-dos as I can get done before I fall out in the bed at night. Unfortunately, that means when I look up, I don’t remember much. I missed the moments.

So I got up around sunrise on January 1st and started reading my journal entries from 2018. I don’t write every day, but I try to write the significant stuff down, ’cause I’ll forget it in a New York minute. The hours before the Rose parade were taken up with reading, meditating, and writing down the 2019 scriptures God gave me. I’ve been doing this the last few years, and it’s been wonderful to keep my mind focused on growing where He’s directing me.

The rest of the day after the parade flew by with feeding and watering children. When I looked up, it was time to go to bed. But I knew I wasn’t finished whatever I was preparing, which aggravated me because I wanted to get started on “doing” 2019. But I didn’t know what to do – I still needed to wait. It was hard and I had to fight to stay in the chair, but I sat and patterned in a journal and did some sand therapy in my mini sandbox.

It’d be nice if I could tell you I’m all better now and that I feel peaceful and ready with a plan for 2019. But I can’t. I’m going to have to take more time to let go of my need to plan and control, because the plan I want to live out this year isn’t mine at all. And I’ll get that plan (or at least the next step) when God wants me to have it. That’s hard, because I want to set the schedule, I want to make the timetable. What I really need this year though, is to grow in my faith. Faith that trusts the timing as it unfolds. Faith that allows time to grow. Faith that will wait.

I waited a long time for this to bloom!

So I’ll color and pattern and walk and listen. And when the next step comes, I’ll take it. I’m looking forward to 2019!

What about you? How do you approach the new year? Please share in the comments below!

4COMMENTS

4COMMENTS

Meditating In The Moment

Christmas has come and gone again! Now onto birthday season…

The first of the kids’ birthday is Sunday, and the next three follow in January. I’m done shopping for birthday gifts, the party planning for the twin’s 10th birthday is underway, and everyone is enjoying their Christmas gifts. It was a good Christmas at the Parks home. But that doesn’t mean everything was picture perfect. Let me share it with you…

Remember when I said last week that I was going to watch a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve instead of staying up late wrapping presents? Well, that didn’t happen. I did get all the presents wrapped early and the movie plan was still on, but then we decided to go out to dinner on Christmas Eve. We waited more than an hour for a table and the food took an hour to come, so by the time we got home it was a mad dash to put out the cookies for Santa and shuffle the kids to bed. They were instructed to stay in their rooms until 8 am or later with the stockings they knew were coming from Santa. I went to the basement to do one last thing, and watched a few minutes of stand up comedy. Not quite what I had in mind…

Before dawn on Christmas morning I woke up, still sleepy. I was tempted to turn over and go back to sleep, but I heard that small voice. Didn’t I ask for some quiet time before the busy morning started? So, I crept downstairs to the sunroom and sat in the corner chair with the space heater pointed at my feet. I sat quietly, listening to God and thinking about the gift of Jesus. I waited until the sun rose enough so I could see the words on the pages of my book and read until the kids came down. I put the Christmas breakfast casserole in the oven and we made some coffee for the grownups. The Christmas cookie stars we had left over from Santa were sugar free and low carb, so I let them eat the cookies with their breakfast (they thought they were getting away with a special treat!). We played Christmas music and opened presents. It was a mostly happy morning, with excitement over the gifts and only a little confusion and chaos.

In the sunroom at sunrise…

After the gift opening was done, the kids wandered around playing with their toys and I laced up my sneakers. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I wanted to get some air. As I was getting ready to go, an argument broke out and the little one started crying. She couldn’t do whatever it was that the big kids were doing and she was frustrated. So I gathered her in my arms and whispered that if she didn’t tell the big kids (they’d be sad they couldn’t go), then she could walk with me. She brightened up and ran off for her sneakers.

I didn’t think she would be able to keep up with me (I walk fast!). But I think she could have gotten to the end of the neighborhood and back before me if I’d let her go as fast as she wanted. She mostly ran the whole way and kept circling back to me. We saw our neighbors pushing strollers and walking dogs and greeted each with a smile and “Merry Christmas!”. I love spending that one-on-one time with the kids. It’s one of the few times I get to hear what they think individually. And the little one never stops talking! It was a peaceful walk.

Now, I did what I said I would and ordered most of our dinner from Whole Foods. I made my own gluten free mac and cheese, cornbread stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce, but I’d done that all in advance, so I didn’t have any real cooking to do. I was skeptical about the prepared meal from the store, but I was shocked at how good it was! Not like the Whole Foods buffet at all. And instead of being in the kitchen all afternoon, I spent about an hour warming and putting out the food. Even though everyone enjoyed the food and it was tons easier, my oldest quietly came to me later and said she really liked my cooking best. So I’ll still probably cook most things for our holiday and Sunday dinners, but it’s nice to know that I have options if I need to work a holiday or just don’t want to cook it all. Time to eat!

Then we hit a snag. The kids started fighting about who was first to serve their plate, one got an attitude after being corrected, and Daddy went off to do some more in depth counseling with the frustrated child. I was helping get everyone settled when I realized that they hadn’t come back to the kitchen to eat. Now, I was getting frustrated! Maybe I didn’t cook everything, but I did make sure it was all hot at the same time and now the food was getting cold. If they didn’t get downstairs soon, Christmas dinner would be ruined.

So I walked upstairs to see if I could help with the resolution and save Christmas dinner. I opened the bedroom door and walked into a standoff. And that’s when I made a crucial mistake: I tried to soften the situation and speed up the resolution. Needless to say, my husband did not need my help and was offended that I tried to intervene. With some quick backpedalling and apologies, I left them to find their resolution. With that, I made my plate and went to the table to find the oldest two girls finished and away from the table, one with a stomachache from eating too fast. I gave up on having dinner all together on Christmas.

Every moment isn’t fun and exciting and joyful. Some of the moments are disappointing and hard. I find myself trying to get away from the discomfort of the difficult moments by looking for a solution or a fix. It was interesting to watch the kids during this week with them – they’re doing the same thing. They are looking for one good moment to follow the next, and they have very little tolerance for boredom or frustration. I took away a toy from one of them who wouldn’t help when asked, because the toy was more interesting than helping out. When I asked that irritated little person what they thought they should do, the answer I got was “Go read.” Which is a loved activity in this house. I thought it was very telling that instead of understanding that an apology was next, the thought was to substitute another activity for the one that had just been taken away. We do it too – watch TV, movies, videos, read books, do something distracting instead of figuring out how to live in the discomfort of the hard moment. When I offended my husband, I wanted to figure out how to smooth it over as fast as possible. But instead I went, made my apology, acknowledged my mistake, and stepped back and waited. I had to take a few deep breaths – this was not going the way I wanted it! I needed to wait and meditate through it. Sometimes, that’s what we need, even more than for the discomfort to go away. We need to sit and be uncomfortable for a minute, breathe, and know it will pass. And it will, even without distractions, alcohol, or other escapes.

In the end, it all worked out. Daddy and the errant child worked everything out, and then came to me and we all hugged. Daddy called the big girls back to the table and everyone sat down to Christmas dinner together. We enjoyed my mom’s homemade lemon meringue pie and watched the rest of White Christmas together before bed. Daddy did the dishes (yay!), and there were plenty of leftovers for another day. It was actually a wonderful day!

What do you do when you have difficult moments? Do you self medicate with distractions? Please share in the comments below!

Inspirations, Mind Management

2COMMENTS

Inspirations, Mind Management

Risk and Respect

I think I’m done.

Christmas is 4 days away and I think I’m done with my preparations. I walked out of the last store this morning, and when the realization hit me that I didn’t need to get anything else, I took such a deep breath I almost missed the curb. It’s not that I don’t have anything left to do and I’ll be sitting at home with my feet up watching movies. But the major work is done: the gifts are mailed and delivered, the rest of the gifts are in the house and wrapped, the dinner is ordered, the decorating is done, and I have one more day in the hospital before I stop working for a week. Other than the final grocery shopping and a little bit of cooking, everything major is done. I might actually get to see that Christmas eve movie I’ve planning to watch!

I felt so good when I left the store that I immediately started feeling more relaxed and rested. It helped that it was also my day off. The next thought that came to my mind was very strange: What nice thing can I do for my husband?

For my husband? Seems a little odd, since I’d been feeling like the work of Christmas was mine. But follow me on this one. Yes, it’s true that the Christmas dinner plans and the gift shopping/wrapping/mailing was mostly my doing, but there was a reason that my mind said that he needed something kind done for him. I hadn’t been treating him the way I should have been in all this holiday prep. I’d been complaining about all the work on my shoulders and and fussing about the mess in the house and acting like he wasn’t doing his share. I was tired and overwhelmed and frustrated and disrespectful.

My wrapping station…

Women, hear me on this: If you want to be sure to tear down your relationship with your husband, be disrespectful. We’ve been so socialized to believe that respect is earned that we insist that our husbands prove that they are worthy of our respect before we give it to them. And sometimes they aren’t living up to our standard of what we think they should be as husbands or fathers, so we withhold our respect until they decide to meet our standard. But here’s the problem with that: We expect to be loved unconditionally, but we have a hard time giving respect unconditionally. We all need love and respect, but as women our primary need is for unconditional love. We’d be horrified if our husband said we needed to earn his love! But a man’s primary need is for respect. Ask him which (love or respect) he’d rather have if he had to choose. I’ll bet you he chooses respect. So if unconditional respect is what he needs (not unconditional acceptance of poor behaviors – not the same thing), then that’s what we need to give. And I hadn’t been doing that recently, and my lack of respect was causing lots of conflict.

The hardest thing I did this week was apologize to my husband for my lack of respect. Not the surgery I performed, not managing my office, not giving performance reviews, not handling the kids, not getting up early when I was tired, but making a humble apology. I wanted to know in advance that he’d respond with an understanding that I was feeling alone and overworked, that my attitude hadn’t bothered him, and that he was just looking for ways to get involved and lighten my load. I didn’t know if he’d say any of that. Really, it didn’t matter to me if he said any of that – I just wanted him to do all that. He might just tell me that it was my idea to do all of this and he never signed up for any of it. He could point out that it wasn’t his plans that were making me miserable. But no matter what he said or did, it didn’t change the fact that he deserved my respect, I hadn’t been giving it, and I needed to apologize. So I swallowed my pride, looked up into his eyes, and apologized for being disrespectful.

The truth is that he is doing plenty that deserves my respect. He took time out of his work day to take the kids to do their Christmas shopping. He’s been taking them to Tae Kwan Do two to three times a week all semester without me. He cleared his office to make our extra guest space available again, just in time for the holidays. He made a masterpiece of a 2019 family calendar to go out for Christmas gifts. He’s been consistently addressing unacceptable child behavior whenever he’s observed it. This is the man who taught them to roller skate, ride bikes, and make bacon and waffles for Saturday breakfast. He’s smart too – he recently taught himself to solve a Rubik’s cube, something I’ve never been able to do. He can see insights in the scriptures and make them understandable in a way that is truly gifted. He loves people and is willing to make time for them in a way that is rare. He’s a good man, a good husband, and a good father. He’s not the problem.

Working away at home…

My thinking is the problem. When I am feeling overworked and overwhelmed, I can choose to look for what he’s not doing to help me and be angry with him, or I can look for another way to see the situation. The first option makes me critical, irritated, and quick to blame, which comes across every time as disrespectful. As far as the holidays are concerned, most of what I do for Christmas is what I’ve decided needs to be done. In fifteen years, I don’t think he’s ever asked for a specific dinner, decorating scheme, or for gifts to be done a certain way for the kids. We could probably order pizza on Christmas and he’d be fine with it – I don’t think he really cares! I get upset because I make plans and expect him to jump in and help me. When he doesn’t, I’m disappointed.

But I don’t have to be. I could discuss my plans in advance and ask him to share the load. If he says yes, we can divide and conquer. Or I can eliminate any nonessential or undesirable things that I don’t really want to do. Then whatever is left, I’ve chosen and can be happy to do them. I am in control of my mind, my mind is not in charge of me. I choose to think about this home, this marriage, this family as a gift and not a mess to manage or a list of things to get done. I choose to respect my husband because I love him and God asks me to (Ephesians 5:33). Christmas is the time we remember the promise that came in his son Jesus coming to live among us. If I get to be the receiver of that miraculous gift, I can give my honor and respect and obedience to God, and as I follow his command to respect my husband.

Have you ever struggled to give respect to your husband because you think he should earn it? When you’ve been respectful, has that helped your relationship? How do you show respect to your husband when you are frustrated? I’d love to hear how you do this well!

Here’s to a peaceful, loving, and joyful Christmas to you!

1COMMENTS

Mind Management

Afraid To Be Hungry

This is one of those posts that I’ve dreaded writing.

Seriously. When this topic came up last week and my husband suggested that this was a blog post idea, I immediately resisted. It’s too raw, too emotional, and even embarrassing. How is it that I can be teaching people to eat well, lose weight, take care of themselves, even have lost the weight myself and still have this struggle hanging around? Shouldn’t I have this all together by now?

Apparently not.

Let me explain. Since my fourth (and last!) child was born, I noticed that the weight didn’t come off as easily as after the twins were born. I figured that it was because I was older and getting closer to forty. But most of it came off and I was following the same pattern of eating that I did to lose the weight in the first place – eating when hungry, stopping when full, relying on my God-given signals when when and how much to eat. I wrote about it in my first blog post – you can read about it here.

Eating this way helped me lose the weight the first time, and get if off again after the twins. The struggle came in when I was in maintenance mode. Instead of continuing to focus on those same signals for hunger and fullness, I started to try to work the system. I noticed that if I fasted for most of the day, the scale would be down in the morning, even if I ate a little too much at night. Then I decided that I probably should eat a mid-morning snack and dinner only each day. That seemed like it would work for me to lose a few more pounds. Then I figured out that if I had coffee with cream in the mornings and drank warm drinks, I could skip the snacking and maybe just get to dinner with a small piece of chocolate in the afternoon.

Public service announcement: If you don’t see it just by reading the description, what I’ve written above is a dysfunctional eating pattern. Many of you will have spotted this, but I have some younger readers who might not understand this. I do NOT recommend eating this way.

It didn’t work anyway. Not in the long run. Around this time I also started my integrative nutrition school program and was encouraged to try the different eating styles I was studying to see how my body felt while I fed it these ways. While it was good for me to experience what I might teach others, focusing on eating plans instead of hunger and fullness gave me more dependence on my own intelligence than on the wisdom of hunger and fullness.

So when I watched the scale creep up a few pounds each year for the past couple of years, I thought it was being in my forties that was doing it. I hear it all the time from my patients, so I thought I was experiencing the same thing everyone else does. So I focused on weight lifting to increase my muscle mass. I ate more frequently to boost my metabolism. I cut out sugar. The scale didn’t move.

Archenemy or information gatherer?

So I did what I should have done in the first place: I prayed and meditated. The answer came immediately, just very quietly. You know, God speaks to us in a whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13). He said that I knew what to do. I needed to listen to him for when to eat and when to stop, and not be distracted by all the other noise around food and diets. The busyness of my life could not be an excuse to follow my own prescription and ignore hunger and fullness. I needed to pay attention and focus so I could know when to eat and when to stop.

But I didn’t want to do it. Why? Because I was afraid. I liked making my food plan and having control over what I’d eat that day. I liked thinking that I could cook my healthy food and that eating it was the reason I would keep the weight off (even if I could see that it wasn’t true). I liked carrying snacks in my bag as a safety net in case I got hungry. See, I don’t like the feeling of my stomach gnawing in hunger. And there it was, the entire problem.

I had decided that the feeling of hunger was a bad thing. It was uncomfortable, unpleasant, annoying, and to be avoided at all costs. I could keep it away with eating on schedule (even if I wasn’t hungry), by snacking between meals, by sipping on coffee throughout the morning. By deciding that hunger was something bad, I felt negative emotions about hunger, so I did what I could to keep it away. And the weight stayed on.

There was another choice: I could choose to identify hunger as the signal that God was connecting with me. It could be a really good thing! If I waited to feel true hunger, then God had the chance to direct my eating instead of me taking over control. The start had to be with letting go of my thought that hunger is bad, and waiting for the next true hunger signal. I pulled out my notebooks from when I lost the weight and refocused. I reminded myself how to think: Hunger is a God-given signal, I like to be in control, and taking control of my eating from God causes me to gain weight. I started each morning this way, resetting my mind and listening.

This is how we are. When we want something, it’s hard to wait. My kids are already counting the days to Christmas and if they could manipulate time and the calendar, they would do it. As adults, we can take more control over parts of our lives than we can as children and we like it. We don’t like to get hungry – for anything. We want a new purse, we buy it. A TV that costs thousands? We’ll just put it on the credit card. There’s a show that we want to watch? We’ll stay up all night and binge watch, no matter the fatigue and fog and grumpiness we bring to the next day. We want to be comfortable, and hunger isn’t comfortable. So we grab and we get what we want, when we want it, and we don’t want to wait. When our kids do this, my husband and I discipline them. We teach them to wait, and we put limits on them when they can’t do it for themselves. We set the bedtimes and limit the sugar. But who sets our limits now?

For many of us, we are the only limit to what we want. Our self control is the limit. The problem is that we are human and fallible and weak sometimes. Some of us are very self disciplined, but there’s always something that tempts us to go further than we should. For me, it’s my eating. For someone else it may be recreation or spending or drinking or whatever. Someone greater than us has to be the authority to keep our appetites in check. If we don’t have that to submit to, to obey when we want to go off the rails, then our appetites rule us.

So I’m back to listening for the whisper. And He keeps speaking. That was the most thrilling thing I discovered when I stopped being in control and waited: He still wanted to help me! I’d reach for a cookie or an extra bite when I was getting full and I kid you not, I’d hear the tiniest whisper saying, “Are you sure you want to do that?” I know, sounds a little crazy, but I know God was helping me. I’m so grateful God still wants to talk to me, even though I wandered off trying to control my weight my own way! And slowly, the scale is creeping down. And yes, it’s slower than when I was in my 30’s. I also have less to lose this time, so it’s going to be slower. And I can put it right back on by eating however I want, so I have to remember who I want to be in control and submit. Because in the end, that’s what I really want, more than cookies, more than an extra bite of food. I want to be close to God, so I choose to wait and experience hunger as a reminder of our relationship. I would rather be with Him than the food.

What do you have trouble waiting for? What kind of hunger do you try to avoid? Please share the comments below!

2COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Keeping The Crazy Out of Christmas

It’s officially Christmas season!

I’m a stickler for keeping Christmas after Thanksgiving. It feels like the retail industry wants to push us earlier into Christmas every year. I know some people just love Christmas and decorating and all that so much that they want to get started close to Halloween, but for me Thanksgiving is a special time of gratitude and family. I like Thanksgiving. But I fight being resentful of the commercialism of the holidays, even as I’m tempted to get pulled into all the activities and shopping. For me, that’s just not the point of the celebration of Christmas – but I’m easily distracted by all the noise. So I hold out until the day after Thanksgiving to get started on Christmas decorating. But now it’s here!

Tonight I’m sitting in front of the fire, writing during a rare moment of quiet in my house. The kids are out at Tae Kwan Do and I have an hour before they return and we have a couple of guests over for Taco Tuesday dinner. My focus music is playing on Spotify and I”m all alone. It’s so peaceful!

But a few minutes ago, the kids were running for the car, I was reminding everyone to get their coats, and their father was searching for the car keys. They took off trying to get to class on time, and I got ready to settle in and enjoy the quiet. Then I heard little footsteps on the stairs. They’d left the five year old behind who was upstairs quietly trying to get her uniform on by herself. I quickly called her father, who turned right back around and picked her up. Then they were off again.

On the road again…

What does this have to do with Christmas craziness? Nothing exactly. But you have to take the moments of quiet when you find them. I’ve been waking up early again with my mind racing, thinking about all the things I needs to get done for Christmas and lamenting that I hadn’t gotten organized enough to get all my shopping done between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I worked in the hospital Wednesday before Thanksgiving and in the office the Friday after, so I couldn’t have been out in the stores shopping. Besides, even if I’d have been off, I wouldn’t have gone out anyway. I saw the videos of people fighting over TVs and whatnot – that scene just isn’t for me.

Now, don’t get it twisted: I did lots of online shopping for the sales. The kids needed jeans, my hair products and intention tattoos were on sale, and I got the kids’ Christmas gifts ordered. But for some reason it took me getting into this week to realize that I have two offices of nurses, midwives and doctors to get gifts for, not to mention I need something for my parents and my husband! Thinking about all that means I work myself up with worry, thinking that if I’d have planned better I could have finished all this over the weekend and just enjoyed the season up to Christmas. That’s my type A self talking.

Maybe next year…

You know what though? Things are really good, even if I’m not all done shopping. My brain wants to think it’s only ok if I can hang out and plan to watch Christmas movie marathons or bake cookies all day with the kids. Here’s the real deal: I’m not 12 years old, I work, and I’m not on vacation, yet. The Christmas tree is up, my black Santas are everywhere, and I even have a Christmas candle burning. I have probably 80% of my shopping done and a plan to get almost all of the rest done. It’s gonna be ok!

That’s the first key to keeping the crazy out of Christmas: Gratitude. I have to remember what’s good and keep my focus there. Even though it seems like it should be easy to enjoy life around the holidays, it’s so easy to get swept up in all the to-dos that feeling overwhelmed can suck all the joy from the celebration. This is the time of year I need to actively give my grateful list a workout. I like peace and quiet – the hustle and bustle of the holidays can make me irritable. Focusing in on the beauty and good reminds me how wonderful my life really is. Even people who’ve lost loved ones and experienced tragedy during the holidays can find the good moments and feel some comfort.

My second key to keeping the crazy out of Christmas is easy: Simplify. I’m considering doing something this year I haven’t done before – I may order dinner from Whole Foods. I looked at their offerings for Thanksgiving and was shocked that it may cheaper than I thought. I still might cook, but even the thought that I could make things easier for myself helps me worry less. Also, I say this every year, but I actually am doing it: The kids are getting one gift each from us. That’s it. Seriously! Well ok, they’ll get a stocking full of stuff too, but that’s Santa. The rest of the family sends enough stuff, so there’s no need to get myself nutty with buying gifts for them. All their birthdays are in the 30 days after Christmas, so they’re gonna get more then too. Besides, haven’t you noticed that the more stuff they get, the less happy they are? I think they get focused on the volume of gifts and can’t enjoy the actual gifts themselves, much less the love in each one. So yes, one gift for each kid from Mom and Dad.

One more thing: What will happen if you don’t do it all? Pay careful attention to your answer to this question. Your mind may give you all sorts or interesting reasons, most of which may not even be true. It might just be fine if you do less…

I’ve got more to do, and managing my mind this season is on the top of the list. My focus is going to be on gratitude and keeping it simple – and enjoying the holidays instead of worrying about getting it all done. Here’s to a joyful holiday season!

How do you keep the crazy out of your holidays? Please share in the comments below!

2COMMENTS

Inspirations, Mind Management

A Moment of Thanks

We’re making cookies together!

It’s Thanksgiving week and as you read this, the big Thanksgiving dinner is upon us! I’m getting my last minute preparations done, because before you know it, I’ll be in the office with the crazy that comes after a holiday break, looking forward to having some Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner! But as I write this, I’m making Thanksgiving dinner at my house for twelve. Since I’m in the hospital the day before the holiday, I’m getting as much of the prep done as I can before Thursday morning. I want to watch the parade!

Because my youngest has allergies and sensitivites, she can’t have most of the traditional cakes and pies for dessert after the feast. So I thought I’d do an almond flour based recipe for her dessert so she has a treat like everyone else. I printed up a bunch of recipes and decided on chocolate chip almond flour cookies. I was going to whip them up, stick them in the freezer, and pull them out with the rest of the food on Thursday.

My almond flour cookie options…

Then I changed my mind. About two years ago, while the older kids were out doing a big kid activity, I took the baby to Panera for a Mommy-Anora date. She keeps asking when we’re going to do that again. A year ago, the boys were out of town for the weekend, so we had a girls chili dinner in front of the fireplace. She keeps asking me when we’re going to eat chili on the blanket again. So when I decided to make the almond flour cookies, I thought we’d make them together.

Except I didn’t really want to.

No, really. It’s a little crazy around here with me doing the bulk of the Thanksgiving cooking, getting the house cleaned up, and managing the kids and their issues. For example, yesterday I spent hours helping my son work through the consequences of a doozy of a lie he told his dad. Because my husband wanted to avoid the temptation to knock him into next week, he nicely asked me to step in, and like a good mom I did so. Then when they were supposed to be going to bed (and I was going to eat), I sat with my oldest who had been nursing hurt feelings all day over some issue she had with her sister earlier in the day. But we worked through it, tears and all, and they made up and went to bed friends again. This morning they all came downstairs bickering, and because I had to referee, I didn’t get to read my bible or get in my yoga before I had to leave for the morning. So when it came to the idea of walking a five year old through a cookie recipe, I just didn’t want to.

Reading through the recipe together…

But I did it anyway. The reason why Anora keeps asking to do some of the things we’ve done before is because they were special to her. They’re moments in her heart and mind that mean something to her, even if they didn’t seem like much to me at the time. I realized something: We never really know the impact of our moments in other’s lives. It might seem like something small to you, but it may be a very special memory to someone else. I remember making rum balls around Christmas with my mom every year for gifts. I griped and complained about the work, but I love thinking about all the times I was in the kitchen with my mom, cooking and listening to Home Alone playing in the background.

I don’t know whether she’ll remember this time making cookies with her mom, but at least I do know that every time I spend time with one of these kids, we’re building our lifetime of memories together. They will have what I have – a beautiful collection of memories of time with their mom. We won’t live together forever, so this time we have now is precious. So instead of battling against the situation I’m in (mom with young kids, working mom, busy life), I’m going to do my best to enjoy the times I have. Everything isn’t fun – some things are routine and boring. But each day is a gift. We don’t get to go back and do them over again. So I’m grateful for now!

What are you grateful for today? Please share in the comments below!

Happy Thanksgiving!

7COMMENTS

Mind Management

Off Balance

I was doing so well.

It was just a few weeks ago that I was away on a solo retreat. When I got back, I was rested, focused, relaxed and ready to engage.

I don’t know what happened…

Right after I got back in town, our medical group went through a massive hospital transition. Moving 400+ physicians and associate providers is no small feat, and of course, it didn’t go particularly smoothly. But we’re getting through it. Then the hospital I work at changed electronic medical records and it’s incredibly complex, busy, and not at all user friendly. The weekend after I returned was Hampton’s homecoming, so I was out of town for a second weekend. Then our anniversary weekend came and we went to Asheville for the weekend. The following weekend was a huge 40th birthday celebration for my wonderful husband, which I hosted. Four days later, he and I gave the midweek lesson to our married ministry at church.

So now I’m a wreck.

Why? It was all good stuff – lots of fun and travel and celebrations! But: I spent three weekends in a row out of town, I gave a party for about 50 people (which I’ve never done before), and while Perry and I both speak and teach, we really hadn’t done a lesson like this together before, and we have very different processing styles.

Here’s the good news: one of my friends jumped in and helped me out with the food and the set up. Another friend made the special homemade biscuits Perry requested. My kids helped get the decorations together, and my in-laws ran around picking up food and doing other errands. Thank God I had help!

Perry and I gave the lesson and it went well.

But over these weeks I’ve spent way too many nights up late, either on call or working on one of these projects. I’ve been hit-or-miss with my yoga practice, and my back has been letting me know it. I haven’t been eating well (too many celebratory dinners and desserts), so my weight is frustrating me. My sleep cycle is all off schedule – I’m not ready to go to bed on time, then I don’t want to get up early like I need to in order to get things done before the kids get up. I’m back in that place where I feel like my list is running my life and I’m back on the hamster wheel.

But I’m getting back on track. I know what I have to do. When I get up in my head, caught up in all the things to do and busyness, I have to get my mind and body reconnected.

Step 1: Get sleep.

It’s hard. When I am connected to my normal biorhythms, I predictably get sleepy at 930 pm, go to sleep by 10, and am up without help around 5 am. But if I’m pushing that bedtime off to get things done, I get a second wind and stay up even later. Then the next morning is rough and I’m drinking coffee to get going and the cycle continues. If I don’t get back on schedule, my days stay out of whack. So the first step is to get to bed on time.

Step 2: Practice yoga

Regular exercise is a good thing for many reasons including improved sleep, heart health, stress management and others. But I practice yoga specifically to help reconnect my mind and my body. When I get crazy busy, my mind much more easily spins around in circles, racing around to be sure I don’t forget anything important. I end up in a place I call “up in my head”. Coming back to being grounded and settled take deliberate efforts, and yoga helps me to slow my racing brain and connect back to the body I live in.

Step 3: Do something mindless

My patterning…

This one sounds odd, but stay with me. If I’m busy and have too much to do, how does doing something mindless help me get things done? To clarify, I don’t mean sit in front of the TV and zone out. Actually, TV jazzes up the noise in my brain and makes it harder for me to settle into sleep. I’m talking about doing an activity that connects the mind and the body and slows you down, like coloring or patterning. When you’re involved in one of these types of activities, you need to pay attention and focus on what you’re doing. You need to stay in the lines, or repeat the pattern until you run out of space. It helps my mind to move from one thing to another instead of bouncing around like a monkey. Try it!

I’m getting back on track! I’ve got to do this now, before we get any further into the holiday and birthday season. I need a pretty firm restart, so I’m starting today with a fast. Of course, as soon as I planned that, I remembered that last piece of birthday cake in the kitchen. Nope – not gonna do it! I’ll be sorry later, so it’s not worth it. I want to get back in balance!

What do you do to get back on track? How do you get centered when you get off balance? Please share in the comments below!

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