What if Love really is the answer?

In the midst of another tragedy in our world - this time the killings in Paris, we all search for answers. I am sure that the news networks are speculating and theorizing and talking about it nonstop and will for days or weeks. Some of you will be glued to the coverage because knowing more helps you to cope with insane occurrences like this. I won't watch if I can help it. I will inform myself, and I will continue to listen to NPR where they will no doubt also cover these terrible events. I know that for me, living in the aftermath of something like this - and immersing myself in it doesn't help me to process it faster though. I think for me it turns something like this into more of the "other," something foreign to me, something that is so outside of my world that I can almost comfort myself with the knowledge that it couldn't happen in my immediate world. It also keeps the focus on the "other" and looks for blame and retribution. I understand that every one of us processes things differently though, and for some of you immersing yourself in the coverage is exactly what you need to move on.

I remember September 11, 2001 vividly. I was flying from Minneapolis to San Francisco that day for work. I had an early flight so I could be at a client meeting later that day, it was a pretty typical day in my life at that point when I was working as a sales engineer and traveled almost weekly. Except it turned out to be completely not typical as my plane was diverted to Denver, and I spent the next day in Denver instead of San Francisco. There wasn't much to do in the hotel I managed to find with availability except to watch tv. I, like so many others, stayed pretty glued to the news updates for the many weeks to follow. However, what I most vividly remember about that day is not watching the news coverage, it is the huge outpouring of love that I felt from almost everyone I knew at the time. I think everyone who had my cell phone number then, and even many who didn't have it until that day called me to check on me. Both of my parents called me, I'd of course called my husband as soon as my plane landed in Denver, my boss called, all of my coworkers, and so many friends did too. I've told my 9/11 story many times, but I always end it with a mention of the phone calls. I don't think I'd ever fully processed why that was so important to me until I sat down to write this post. That outflowing of love is what saw me through my eventual drive back home, that love is what helped me to cope with unexplainable tragedy in our world.

The blaming and the "otherizing" that happens after terrible tragedies serves a purpose, but I don't think it actually helps us cope with the events. It deflects our fears and our hurts onto those others so we don't have to feel them. When something like this happens we all have that flash of fear, the flash of it could have been where I live, it could have been my family that was hurt, and we don't like that feeling. In my opinion though the best way for us to make that feeling go away is to feel it - let yourself be afraid, feel it, process it, own it, acknowledge it, and reach out in love to others who are feeling the same way. My coworkers who called me on 9/11 were doing so out of that place - the it could have easily been me on that trip feeling, and wanting to reach out to someone else to let them know they cared. So many of us have that instinct, and if we let ourselves reach out in love to others more often I think we could heal and help so much more than we do today.

I won't pretend to know the motivations behind all of the terrible events in our world, but I do think that love is the answer. I don't mean that we have to reach out in love directly to the people who perpetrate such terrible hatred onto our world - but reaching out in love to those close to you has a bigger effect than we give it credit for. For those of us who are parents we see the result of choosing love over blame in our lives almost daily I'd imagine. Just a couple of days ago my 12 year old opened his school Chromebook and found that the screen had shattered. He was pretty upset, and truth be told, so was I, but in that moment I had a choice to make - to choose love as a response or to choose blame. I chose love that day (and I'm not going to pretend that I didn't have to fight for that response), and we focused together on it being okay to be upset about this but that it was not the end of the world and we talked about how he would bring it to school the next day and face the consequences but he would end up okay at the end of all of it. It was likely going to suck, but he would be okay, and I still loved him regardless of whether his screen was cracked or not.

My greatest desire as a parent is to choose love more often as a response than I choose blame, because just like those small phone calls from those close to me on 9/11, love has the power to do more. We all have the power to love the people close to us, and that love has a ripple effect out into the rest of the world. While we are all trying to make sense of the tragedy in Paris, maybe the best thing we can do is to love more. You might not personally know someone who lives in Paris that had their lives upset yesterday, but your love can reach through those you do know and eventually out into those that need it the most. I don't mean postcard proclamations of love - but real I see you, I feel you, I will walk with you through something hard love, that love changes people and will solve more than any retaliation ever will.

Doing the best that we can

I recently read Brené Brown's newest book Rising Strong. It is good, really good. You should read her Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly first, but even without reading the other two I think Rising Strong is a great book. There are two points from the book that really resonated with me, and since I read the book I keep thinking about them in a variety of contexts.

The first point is that we tell ourselves stories in order to make sense of this world. Often our stories are not based entirely upon reality, but in what we think others' motivation might be in our daily interactions. I'm not going to rehash the entire book, but I will say that starting a conversation with "the story I'm making up here" instead of "you always..." ends with a much better result. When you are able to remove the accusation, and get to the heart of what is bugging you you can find a resolution in a much more positive way. I used this in a conversation with T the other night, and it felt better than my normal accusatory statements that I know deep down aren't true even if the story I've made up includes them. Perhaps the trick with using this approach is that you need to be tired of your own bullshit for it to make sense to you. I haven't used it at work yet, but I've thought it when my brain tries to tell me an us-them story about why we are so right and they are so wrong and clueless.

The next point that blew my mind was that everyone is doing their best always. I enjoyed how this was covered in the book because the author's struggle with whether or not this was true struck me as a battle I could see myself facing. If we accept that people are coping with the situation at hand the best way they can in that particular moment it frees us from all of the should statements we want to lay on others. It doesn't make their behavior okay, but when we let go of our own expectations about how other people act we free ourselves from the burden of being the behavior police. This little shift in how we interpret other people's actions is amazingly powerful. Again I think you need to be ready to be a good bit self critical to see how this is a gift to yourself. How much time and energy have you wasted in your life railing about the way someone else treated you or acted towards you? If you approached all of those situations with an understanding that yes her behavior sucked and I will set better boundaries around that person in the future - but she was doing the best she could in that moment - how would your life change? I've used this a few times with my kids already, more as a reminder to myself and T that when they don't handle difficult situations easily it doesn't mean that they are purposely acting out.

There is an implied forgiveness in every "she was doing the best that she could," you think to yourself. Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves, so shifting our thinking to include quicker paths to forgiving others is very powerful. There is also a good deal of annoying every time you think this way. It is much more comforting to fall into the old blame cycles and self-righteous ranting, then it is to face that other people are just as imperfect as we are. I know deep down that in order to be truly kind to myself I need to be kind to others. I need to accept that everybody is doing the best that they can in that particular moment - even when sometimes their bests are pretty shitty and terrible.

The Summer Trip

We recently returned from our annual summer trip (most definitely a trip and not a vacation). I went into this trip with much lower expectations than I had for our spring break trip to Florida. My goals were to not think about work too much, and to spend some time relaxing and connecting with T and the kids. I think both goals were pretty easily achieved, although I did take a work call one morning before the rest of the family was awake. There was swimming, fishing, jet skiing, and stand up paddle boarding. There was pool playing, a family game night of Apples to Apples, and both adults read a fair amount. And of course there was some tv watching and some serious staring at screens.

There were also more than a few moments of crabby from one or more of us. I think the difference this time around wasn't just my lowered expectations. It was also how I engaged with the kids when they were crabby. Just a few weeks ago I stumbled upon an article that mentioned the acronym HALT as a way to assess what is causing unwanted behavior. The article I read wasn't specifically targeted towards children (although I since found this blog post that is targeted towards kids), but that was my first thought upon reading it. HALT stands for: H - Hungry, A - Angry, L - Lonely, T - Tired. After one of the kids finished being upset about something I brought out the acronym and explained it to the kids. A weird thing happened when I explained it - instead of tuning me out both kids actively listened and one even grabbed a piece of paper to write out what it meant.

I explained that a lot of times when the two of them are bugging each other the first thing I ask them is when they last ate. The question typically annoys them, but a lot of times they are hungry and acting out because of it. I don't find the A all that helpful with my children, because I think they jump to Angry as an answer no matter what the true trigger for their unwanted behavior is - but I kept it in. There are times when one of them is angry about something completely separate from each other and it is causing them to act out towards each other. The L is helpful because sometimes they need to feel connected, and for whatever reason we aren't giving them enough of that. And T - while my children will almost never admit it, when they are tired they do not typically make good decisions. My kids felt that being thirsty was also a trigger for bad behavior so we added an extra T at the end so our acronym is now HALTT.

I do not think that the HALTT acronym is magical. However, applying it with my kids seems to be magical. I asked one or both of them at several points last week where they were on the HALTT scale and after first being annoyed at me they were able to walk through the letters and tell me what the issue was. It also helped me to stop refereeing their fights and punishing them and instead move to helping them work through whatever was causing the angst in the first place.

This parenting thing is always going to be a work in progress. I will continue to learn as I go along, and mess up along the way. However, it feels pretty good to have found a more positive way to deal with the inevitable sibling fights. I think overall it let me be more relaxed on this trip, and it helped me to enjoy the wonder that was all around us.

Finding the right team

Soccer in our state is open for players to move around to different clubs, provided that each player commits to just one club for each season. This freedom is a blessing for many, but a curse for some too. With choice comes the obligation of choosing. All along both of my children have played for the club in our city, and it has been fine more or less even though I get caught up in the politics and get mad about some of the decisions that are made. I haven't been mad enough to leave, even though we have watched some really great families do just that - for valid reasons. The draw of a club that holds practices walking distance from your house is very strong for us.

J at U9

At the end of the summer season last year was the first time I started to entertain the possibility of our kids playing elsewhere. When I picked J up from evaluations (deciding at the end of July which team your child will be placed on for a season starting the following May) he was upset. He said that he didn't know why they bothered with evaluations because they already knew who was on the top team (not him). He said that the top team kids didn't pass to him at all during the evaluation scrimmages, so he never got any opportunity to show what he could do. I didn't watch the evals, so he might have been right, or he might have been exaggerating, but he was visibly deflated. This came after a season in which he hated going to soccer at all. He had some good friends on the team, and I think that was the only reason we got him to finish out the season.

That ride home with J, was the primary reason we enrolled J in a private soccer coaching academy. He very much wanted to improve, and hadn't had any real coaching to do so over his previous few seasons. You could see the disparity pretty clearly between the top team who had just won state at a level higher than J's team played at and the half of J's team who actually showed up at all for evaluations. The kids who knew they would make the top team, and the kids who felt like it was a waste of their time to even be there. That was pretty much how it played out too. One player from J's team made the top team, but the remaining handful were placed on a half roster with the assumption that somehow enough boys would be found to fill out a team by the following spring. I was relieved that J had the soccer academy coaching to look forward to. He finally got good coaching to help him with skills he wasn't proficient at, and he got lots of opportunities to play soccer throughout the year.

I wrote in my last post about this soccer season, so I won't rehash the details here. However, we are nearing the end of the season and it is time to look forward. There is still a top team/bottom team problem in the club, and it is more pronounced because they move to U13 and 11v11 in the fall. Both teams need bigger rosters to cope with a bigger field. For the most part I think that kids from our city leave our club for other clubs, so magically attracting enough boys to fill out two rosters is likely a long shot. I found myself looking up evaluation schedules for neighboring clubs because of this fact. J might make the top team this time around, but I'm not sure I want him to. When the options are make the top team and deal with not really feeling like you are part of the team, or being on the leftover roster that will hopefully fill in with enough boys to play it seems like a simple choice to find a different club to play for.

It isn't a simple choice to leave though. We went to our city's fireworks last night where we sat with 3 different soccer families. At one point I looked up and J was sitting with 5 or 6 of his teammates laughing and having a great time. If we leave nothing really changes for the club, J is just a name taking up a roster spot or not. I don't think they would even ask us why we left. I've asked J what he wants, and ultimately he just wants to play with his friends. He only wants to go to another club if his friends do too. He doesn't want to be on a leftover roster either though. He loves soccer, and he wants to play on a team filled with kids who love to play as much as he does. I'm still not sure what we will do, but I hope that either way J continues to love playing as much as he does right now. I also hope that I can keep it about what J wants, and not what my ego wants for him.

In this moment

The phrase living in the moment seems so happy and free, so why is it so elusive? I won't speak collectively, but for my own life I know that I have spent most of my time either contemplating the past or wondering about the future. To what end? Has it made me better prepared to think through many different what if scenarios? Has it ever helped me to change mistakes I've made in the past? The answer to both is that is hasn't.

I think a healthy dose of reflection to process things we've done in our past is helpful, but only so much as we process them to a place where we can forgive ourselves of any mistakes and move on. Any more lingering in the past I think holds us back from living fully. As a parent I've seen that this is likely universal (small sample size of my own children, so humongous leap to say it is universal I know). I've watched my children make their own mistakes. I've stood by them to help them process what they've done or forgotten to do, and tried my best to help them cope with those feelings. After being a shoulder for them to cry on, talking through everything that happened, and projecting a bit about what might happen next, the best I can come up with is that it will hurt for a while but eventually it will hurt less. I think sometimes we learn our greatest lessons by teaching another. I struggle with perfectionism, but being a parent has helped me to shed that burden better than anything else I've encountered. I've told my kids that they are human, and they will make mistakes because that is part of human nature. I've told them that they are only 9 and only 11, and nobody expects such young children to be right every single time. I remind them of my age and tell them that I'm still making mistakes every single day, but I'm still here learning and growing each day. I've told them that sometimes mistakes are big, and sometimes you can't fix them, but even those unfixable mistakes teach us great lessons. In my case I'd say that the more I try to teach my kids to move on from their past mistakes, the more I'm able to do it for myself.

Projecting about the future is harder for me to tackle. We all want to be prepared for what might come next. At work it absolutely makes sense to do the tasks you need to complete in order to be ready for a big presentation or client meeting, or whatever else it might be. What doesn't work for me is going through what if scenarios to predict how people might respond to that big presentation. It is almost always better to just ask the people you are worrying about what they think. Maybe the key is deciding what you need to focus on now and knowing that the future will remain uncertain until it becomes the present? Or maybe it is always a tricky balance that involves a conscious decision to stop worrying about what might be when I find myself fixating about it.

My last post about expectations touched on this too. This is clearly an area where I have more work to do. I think that my knowledge that this is a trouble area for me is powerful though. I'm more aware of it, and therefore I'm less likely to be drug down in the details of it for long. Like so many other things I've seen, once you see them you can't unsee them. I know that my tendency is to do everything myself rather than to ask for help from anyone. When I'm in the middle of one of those cycles I tend to feel resentful of the bystanders who aren't helping me though. They aren't helping me because I never asked for their help, but yet I want them to just know that I need help without asking for it. I can see how crazy this cycle is, and now whenever I get into one of these cycles and my first urge it to be mad at the bystanders I instead see that I again didn't ask for help. This could lead me to be angry at myself for not asking for help, and it did when I first recognized this pattern. However, now that knowledge has led me to a place where I actually ask for help when I need help. I don't always ask for help, but I do more and more.

I think living in the moment is a great goal. It is likely a goal that most of us won't fully achieve in our lifetimes. There will always be a balance between reflecting on the past and projecting about the future. I guess the alternative is pretty aptly played out in the robin who keeps flying into the windows on the back of our house. He is pretty convinced that the reflections he sees are other birds trying to come into his nesting territory. He doesn't learn from the hundreds of past mistakes because he is living in the moment always, he also doesn't project his past mistakes into the future to stop himself from whacking into another window painfully. Reflection and projection are gifts, and living in the moment is too. I think in order to life in the moment you need to know how to reflect and project effectively. I think that rather than repeatedly flying into windows painfully I'll take this alternative. I'll accept that at times I will reflect too much, and at times I will project too much, but every once in a while I will find myself fully enjoying the present - living in the moment.

The bird is remarkably able to evade photos but he loves this window

Expectations

My family and I went on a spring break trip to Florida. My goal for the trip was for our family to go to a place with a beach, with warm temperatures, and an ocean. I wanted to lay on the beach or by a pool and read a book, dipping myself into the water when I felt too hot, but otherwise relaxing. In my pre-trip planning conversations with T, he pointed out to me that my vision for what the vacation would be did not match up with reality. I ignored him. It is not as if I am new to this. We have taken many vacations with our kids, and each time my vision of the vacation does not match up with the reality. Apparently T had learned from each of those past vacations, and I chose to remain stubborn in accepting the truth. His advice had been to skip the vacation and just stay home with the kids where we are all comfortable in our routines so at least the anxiety that comes from being in a new place, sleeping in a new bed, etc. didn't come into play. As I said, I ignored him. I told T that it was important for me to give our kids new places to visit and explore, new ways to expand their worlds. He relented, and we planned the vacation or maybe more accurately I trampled over him and I planned the vacation.

Fast forward to the actual vacation, we made it to Florida and ultimately made it to our hotel on the beach. Our room was great - a 2 bedroom suite with a full kitchen and 3 televisions, a short walk to the beach, and a nice pool with ample lounge chairs around it. And then the reality of what it means to vacation with 3 other people, two of which are children, who all have their own agendas sunk in. The Girl deals with uncertainty by wanting to numb which usually means watching TV or some other screen - those 3 televisions in our suite were heaven sent for her. One of our struggles during the vacation became a battle with her about not just sitting inside and watching Cartoon Network or Disney Channel, but rather enjoying the warm weather we had traveled to. The Boy internalizes his angst, and then blows up when he can't contain it anymore. T and I have our own struggles that add to the powder keg and make a vacation with our family kind of uncertain and ready to blow at just about any moment for any small reason.

 

I think I finally get now that it is my expectations about what I want the vacation to be, and how I want everyone else to act that cause me (and the rest of the family as a result) the most angst. I know that I was somewhat determined to prove T wrong, to show him that our kids are now old enough for a vacation, and that we would all have a great time. If I had been able to let go of what I wanted to happen, and just enjoyed the what is happening perhaps things could have been a little smoother. Or not. I think the reality is that even though there were hungry whiney children (and adults!) who didn't eat exactly at the right meal time, and ate too much junk food, and watched too much tv, and freaked out over trivial things (me most likely) we still had fun. My kids got to go snorkeling for the first time in their lives. We saw a wild tortoise who was very curious about humans and seemed completely unafraid. We saw some beautiful sunsets - and I saw a beautiful sunrise while the rest of the family slept. We got to walk on a beautiful beach, bask in the sun, and swim in the ocean. We learned how to make perfect hotel Belgian waffles in a crowded hotel breakfast bar. We found some pretty shells. We tried to see manatees unsuccessfully, but even that failed venture has become part of our family story.

In the end, both T and I were right. The vacation was a disaster, and our kids are old enough to enjoy a great family vacation. Our summer vacation will likely be in driving distance for us, and I'm sure it will be terrible and fabulous at the same time. I make no promises about letting go of my expectations, but maybe I can snap myself out of them a little bit faster in the future. The best part of taking a lot of pictures while on vacation is that over time you forget all of the whiney parts of a vacation and you look at the pictures and remember the wonder and the fun, and the fabulous. Here is to lowered expectations, and a lifetime of memories. I wouldn't trade the messy, crabby, terrible, and frustrating moments because if I did, we wouldn't have what is real.

The joy is in the journey

I've posted recently about the spiritual journey I have been on for the past many months. Or maybe I just imagined that I posted about it. Anyway, I have been on a journey, one that has expanded my mind beyond what I knew was possible before. I was meant to find Oprah's Super Soul Sunday shows, and I know I was meant to drink them in and learn all I could from the inspirational guests. Watching those shows has led me to follow interesting thinkers that would never have been in my world before. Some of those guests are deeply religious, and since I am not deeply religious their deep faith has started to make me question my own lack of religion. I saw Rob Bell and his wife Kristen Bell on Super Soul Sunday last weekend, and I thought their message was refreshing. Now I see that he has angered the established Christian community by saying that the church will eventually accept Gay Marriage. I went down a rabbit hole of articles about him, and I guess this is not new hatred for him. It makes me sad though, and somewhat reaffirms my stance on religion in my life.

I have never been religious. I grew up sporadically going to church - a very liberal United Church of Christ community, where honestly I still felt out of place. I went through the confirmation process through the church, and then decided I didn't want to go again, so I didn't. I haven't attended church regularly since I was confirmed. I'm not sure what that says, but it is what it is. Through my childhood I also went to Awana's meetings with some neighbor friends. Awana's and the summer camps we went away to, were probably my only real life encounters with evangelical like communities. I was asked to invite Jesus into my heart, and I did, but only because everyone else seemed to think it was super important and they really wanted me to do it. Looking back at those experiences - and there were others with different youth groups that came into my life through my teen years, it makes me cringe. That was not a path to god for me. It certainly may be the path to god for some people, but it wasn't for me. I have no qualms with people using religion to get closer to god, but I've made peace with the fact that religion is not my avenue to get there.

My journey has led me to a place where I can see god in everything and in everyone. I don't need to go to a church every week, and read scripture to tell me that there is a god. I know in my heart that god doesn't need me to be able to recite scripture, or to live by a certain set of firm rules to love me either. I feel closest to god when I'm in nature, when I look at my kids, and when I feel the love I have for others and that they have for me. Some people might say that I will go to hell because I don't fully abide by a certain religion's rules, but I don't buy that for a minute. It is okay for them to think it though, I don't need to change anyone's mind. I know that the god who created me, and everyone else in the world did not do so out of spite or with a large test looming that I need to pass. I'm enough just as I am, and while I do think there were struggles placed in front of me so that I would finally see what god is - or a glimpse of what god is anyway, there was no test in any of my experiences either. We are all given trials in this life, and we either learn from them or we hide from them. When we learn from the trials, our minds expand, and we do gain a greater clarity of what it means to be human though.

A bad picture of a wall hanging I have

It is great that for many people their paths to god come through religion and scripture, I think that is the whole point. Not all of us will follow that conventional path though. There was never any god in church for me, I only found static words on a page that had very little meaning for me personally. I can look back at my experiences in church with a different view now though. I think that at least in the Christian church where I have some exposure there are lots of great messages in the scriptures. I believe that Jesus was a very enlightened thinker, and he understood that god was in everything. Regardless of whether or not I believe he was the messiah, I do believe he gave the world a gift which was shifting from a view of a vengeful god that we see in the Old Testament to the loving and forgiving god we see in the New Testament. Ultimately scripture cannot give us the only way to find god, but I understand why people want to use it that way. Faith can be scary at times, because really what if we are wrong about all of it? I feel as though many people today want to interpret scriptures literally because they are afraid of what it means for them if they were meant to be fluid. I won't pretend to be a religious scholar, and my goal is not to offend anyone here. It is okay if you read this and you think I'm going to hell, I promise I won't hold it against you.

We are all on a journey in one form or another, and finding god for me has been incredibly joyful. I have no intention of telling others that god can't be found in a church, because I don't think that's true. I just know that church was not the way for me to find god, and maybe it never will be. I don't know what all of the hateful venom about Rob Bell is all about, but I do think that whatever is spewed says a lot more about the person spewing than it does about Rob Bell himself. I am not a follower of his, but from the brief glimpse I've had it appears as though he was a rising Christian star, and then walked away from it and found his own path. Maybe his early followers feel betrayed that he left the comfortable path they know. I do know that I never would have heard of Rob Bell if not for Oprah, and if his message was strictly from quoting scripture I wouldn't be all that interested in what he has to say. He may have deviated from the traditional Christian leadership path, but continuing to recite the same lines from religious texts was never going to get me to suddenly start going to church. I suspect is it the same for many others. Seeing the message that underlies all of the scripture is the ultimate goal isn't it?

Boundaries

My heart broke a little this morning, or it wanted to break just a little this morning. I almost caved to my instinct to stop the heart breaking, but I held firm instead. And you know what happened? My heart grew instead. I work from home these days, and I knew that this morning I had a call that I needed to be on and ready to actively participate on by 8. I didn't want to be on mute and in the background getting The Girl ready to leave the house and then off to daycare where she catches the bus. After my workout I woke her, telling her I was going to get in the shower, that I had an early call, and that she needed to be up and ready if she wanted a ride to daycare (it is 2 blocks away). She said almost nothing in response, so I was not surprised when after my shower she was still in bed showing no signs of waking or moving. I told her again, that I had a call, and that when I was dressed/ready we would be leaving or that she could walk. After I was ready for the day, she was of course, still sleeping. I told her I would make her lunch, but that if she wasn't ready in 10 minutes I wouldn't be able to drive her.

I guess you can all see where this is going...at 8 I got on my call. The Girl was still in bed. I heard her moving around upstairs at a little past 8, and at 8:10 or so she came into the office with her sad face and asked me for a ride. I pointed to the phone, and told her I couldn't (I had to mute). She slammed the door and stormed off. Then she came back again and tried the same thing to no avail. After a couple of minutes she gave up and walked down to daycare. I was able to actively participate on my call without muting (mostly) and I felt strong because of it.

My point in sharing this story is not to embarrass my daughter. It came to me a few days ago - with the help of T showing me that I needed to get this, that we don't have firm enough boundaries with our kids - or maybe just I don't have firm enough boundaries with them. This hasn't always been the case, but it has been recently. I read a few books in the past year that I think set me on a path where I thought we didn't need boundaries and consequences (though to be fair this was absolutely not in either of the books). I'd been devoting a lot of my time and energy towards helping both of my kids in letting themselves feel their emotions when they happen rather than stuff them and hide them and fear them as I learned to do as a child. I know that this has been important work, and it is by no means done, but in addition to that work my kids need to know that I have boundaries. Both kids to some degree have been testing boundaries lately, nothing disastrous really, but in hindsight I can see that my kids were pushing back to see where the actual boundary was. I've had scenes like the one with The Girl this morning many times before, and I have still driven her when she comes down with a sad face, and then muted myself on the call. So why would she respect my time limit for getting a ride to daycare? She didn't think it was a real boundary, and she knew she could negotiate with me and get her ride.

I still don't love the incident this morning, the nurturing mom in me wanted to drive her. I knew that the indulgence of me driving her today wasn't going to do her any good tomorrow though. Ultimately it wouldn't do her any good as she becomes an adult either. I hope that she is able to be strong enough to set boundaries for herself, and stick to them. There are so many times in life when we are asked to trample our own boundaries, and that is where problems arise. The only way she will become an adult who can set and stick to her own boundaries is by having parents who model that skill for her as she is growing up.

Another Brené Brown quote to learn from

The same idea holds true for my son. Just yesterday he confided in me that some kids at school took his pencil, a pen, and a highlighter from his pencil case under the guise of "being funny." It wasn't funny though, and he was too shy, and too afraid to speak up for himself. Instead he went the rest of the day with no pencil because he only had one with him at school that day. I think in his case the issue is trickier than needing firm boundaries, but it is certainly an aspect of what happened. A year ago I would have talked to his teacher about it on his behalf, but he doesn't want his Mom involved now that he is in middle school. He and I will talk about it more. I think he understands that those kids stole from him, and the fact that he doesn't want to say anything to them or a teacher about it because he is afraid one of them will beat him up - well that is bullying. As much as I want to swoop in and rescue him, I can see that what he really needs is for his Mom to be there to coach him through it - and to listen to how he feels about it. He may not decide to stand up for himself in this particular case, but hopefully over time he will realize that he has that power inside himself. I want him to know that he is he worthy of boundaries.

The hardest thing about parenting seems to be that we can't give our kids anything we don't already have for ourselves. If I don't respect my own boundaries my kids won't be able to do that for themselves either - unless they find themselves a good deal of therapy as adults that is. As much as I want my kids to be able to learn from what I say, they will only learn by watching what I do. Recognizing that power - that obligation - forces us to grow up.

Tempted to grow

This week was strange. The kids and I had Monday off so it was a short work week for me. It was made even shorter by a quick work trip to Toronto Tuesday/Wednesday. Obviously the week wasn't actually shorter, but working while traveling doesn't feel quite the same as working from home does. While in Toronto some work news surfaced that at least temporarily rocked my world. The person who recruited me into my current role is no longer there. I won't say more than that, but it was most definitely a shock. My first reaction was to speculate about how this change would affect my work. I think it will affect me, but it is too soon to know exactly how that will be. I've decided that my best plan for the moment is to continue my current efforts until my work is no longer needed there. There are several possibilities for me there, but I don't think my future projections will help me cope with today if I dwell on them. The reality is that there is very little I can do to influence my future there if I don't focus on the job I currently have.

I started reading a new (to me) book this week called "Seat of the Soul," by Gary Zukav. Oprah mentions this book in her Super Soul Sunday shows fairly often, and I watched an older re-aired Master Class on OWN that was about Oprah herself where she mentioned it again. I finally gave in and bought the book to read for myself. My first observation is that I am probably not completely ready to read this book. It is remarkably hard to follow as he circles around the concept of our soul and our personality and how the two work together but also apart. I feel as though there is truth in his words, but I need to read them more slowly to allow myself to fully absorb the meaning. Or perhaps I will finish the book, but then come back and read it again at another time. Either way, there are a few tidbits that I've taken from the book already.

The first tidbit is that temptation is your soul's way of allowing you to test yourself without involving others. Temptation gives us an opportunity to grow stronger. I know that when I resolve daily to eat less junk food, to eat more consciously, and not eat to numb my feelings I am always tempted to throw that away. I had seen temptation as weakness, but the book shifted my perspective about it. If temptation is actually strength what does that mean for me? I should expect temptation, and I should be happy for it. When I resolve that I am going to yell less, my kids do things that make me want to yell even more - and again I felt that I was weak in not being able to respond more constructively. Now I see that every opportunity where I would normally comfort eat, or yell to try to solve a conflict with my kids is an opportunity for me to grow - for my personality to better align with my soul if you will. I recognize that this is out there, so it isn't as though I am suggesting that all of you go read this book or believe the same things I do about the messages. For me though, that may have been the lesson I needed to learn this week.

I think back to the person I was just a couple of years ago, and that person would not have been ready to read that temptation was a good thing. She would not have been willing to move beyond the "why me" aspect of a big job change so quickly either. I know I still have a long journey of growth ahead of me, but it is good to recognize how far I've come. As I go forward into a new week I am choosing to be grateful for any and all temptations that try to take me off of my resolved path. I will know that it is my soul's work (or God's work if you are so inclined) to help me grow and make me stronger against those temptations when they continue to arise.

Lake Ontario Sunrise

The second post

The second post back after a long break from blogging seems to be the hardest for me. I have made a few returns to blogging, but then couldn't come up with a follow-up. It was as if I had said what I wanted to say, and could then step away again. Maybe that is all I need from a blog - an outlet when I occasionally want one, but otherwise a static, boring page. I guess I'll find out as I go along, but it felt good to write 'for me' again, and I want to remind myself of that feeling at least a few more times before I hide back in the corner in silence.

This week I traveled to San Diego for work. I think I have been in San Diego 10 or so times in my life, and for some reason I feel drawn to the city. The first time I was there I was 8 years old and my parents took my brother and me to the San Diego Zoo. I don't remember that trip at all, other than vague images of me wearing my Mickey Mouse Ears I'd just gotten at Disneyland and of it raining in San Diego. I also spent a week in San Diego as a teenager, where a church group I was with stayed at a college campus and I did my best to ignore the prosthelytizing while enjoying the socializing and the ocean. On that trip my distinct memory is of swimming in the ocean and being helped to shore by a lifeguard because I had been caught in a rip current. Most of my trips there have been for work though. I assume conference planners are drawn to San Diego because of the predictable weather - generally not too hot, not too cold, and pretty much predictably gorgeous all year round.

When I've found myself in San Diego for work I have always found a way to make it to the ocean or the bay - whether that be a morning run along the bay from one of the bayfront hotels, a run along the beach, or at a minimum eating at a restaurant with a good view of the ocean. This week I had a chance to walk on the beach 3 different times, twice for morning runs, and once at night after dinner at a beachfront restaurant. The beaches I saw this week were mostly uninhabited, which is my favorite sight to see. I can certainly appreciate a good crowded beach, but the peace from a deserted beach is something that touches my soul. The waves crashing to the sand, the vastness of the ocean, and just little old me standing on the shore taking it all in...there is something magical in that. I think when I have a moment like that I am closest to god. I can feel the way we are all connected when I look out at the never-ending ocean. The beauty, the sounds, the experience, it all comes together to remind me that we are all in this together. I am but one tiny speck in the universe, but we are all part of the same life force. Instead of making me feel small and insignificant the ocean makes me feel powerful and free. I get to be part of the same life force that created all of this beauty, and that means I have the same beauty within me.

Torrey Pines State Beach - San Diego, CA

I would love to live closer to the ocean, to be able to see that beauty whenever I want to. There is certainly beauty in my home town, but sometimes it is harder to connect with it when it is covered with snow. Although even snow, and the cold hard months of winter remind me of the power there is in the universe. When I run past the frozen pond that sits at the entrance to our subdivision I always think about the turtles and frogs who lie buried at the bottom - almost completely frozen and in a state of nearly dead - who will come alive again in the spring. In a way the contrast of the easy living ocean, and the nearly dead turtles at the bottom of the pond are a reminder that sometimes life is smooth and easy and at other times you have to work hard to get what you need. Without one I don't think you can adequately appreciate the other.

Choosing

It has been too long since I've posted here, which clearly goes without saying. I recently decided that I missed having blogging as an outlet. I had to get an SMS to my phone to reset my password to post here - which is somewhat weird considering that meant that I didn't know the password for my primary personal email address that I use every single day (mostly to collect tons of spam and marketing emails - what would I do without a daily email from DSW, White House Black Market, and Zulily?). I think it is somewhat fitting that 2.5 years ago I wrote my last post, and it is all still so true. I think then I was in the fake it until you make it stage of giving myself that message. I think I am closer to living it now - or maybe I will continue to fake it a bit more each day until I can't tell the difference between faking it and living it anymore.

I've been in a new job for just over a year now, and the first year was filled with anguish for a variety of reasons. I had to learn a new (complicated) company culture, and find a way to navigate within it while working remotely from home. When the opportunity for this job first came to me from a certain persistent former manager, I didn't think I was up to the task. I honestly didn't see in myself what he saw in me, and I felt as though I would be found to be a fraud. At some points during the last year I was convinced that I would only stay for a year, that working remotely from home was just too isolating and that I would go find a safer, easier job somewhere local. However at a dinner with a colleague in England, after a few days of both of us complaining about all of the things that were terrible at our workplace, something shifted in me. I can't remember which of us said it, but we came to a mutual understanding that we were not going to complain anymore. We acknowledged that we were sitting there together brainstorming just how awesome our products could be, and we had to double down to put all of our efforts into making them so. We've held each other to it too, it can be cathartic to complain at times, and we do still vent, but we stop each other before we go down that negative path. That dinner changed me.

Just this week I sat in a long painful meeting discussing progress on a project that I have known in my gut was the wrong project for us to invest in from the start. I listened, I answered questions, and I took away some action items. At the end of the meeting instead of fulfilling my action items I just looked at the notebook page I had written them on. I crossed them out, and wrote "cancel the project" underneath them. I asked myself why I was letting myself work on something I knew to be the wrong way forward. I had excuses of course, I had attempted to convince my manager that this was the wrong project from the start and had failed at doing so. I hadn't tried hard enough though. That feeling in the pit of your stomach that tells you that you are on the wrong path should not be ignored - even if you've been told to ignore that feeling on multiple occasions. I ended the work week yesterday by convincing others that we needed to stop the project. There will be fallout from that decision of course, so there is more to do, but I stood up for what I knew was right and that feels amazing.

I watched Brené Brown's TED Talk about vulnerability and shame and courage at some point last year, which led me to her second TED Talk, and then to read two of her books (The Gifts of Imperfection, and Daring Greatly). It also led me to start watching Super Soul Sunday on OWN. I'd been on a spiritual journey already when these messages came into my life which is why I know I was ready to hear them - but I thank my version of god every day now that they did. I feel awake in a way I never had been before. I put a post-it with one of Brené Brown's quotes on the wall (and then the desk because it isn't sticky enough and kept falling down) in my office so I can see it when I'm working. It says: "You can choose courage or you can choose comfort you cannot have both." When I'm working and tempted to take the comfortable path, the quote kicks me a bit and challenges me to be courageous, to be vulnerable, to shake my perfectionist tendencies that stop me from getting my work out there. My counselor, whom I've seen for various reasons for some long stretches at a couple of different points in my life uses the word comfort a lot too. She says something along the lines of just because it is comfortable doesn't mean you like it, or that it feels good, just that it is what you know. So here is to 2015 where I choose to be courageous more than I did in 2014. Here is to a thousand little decisions every day in which I choose to be brave and find the strong way forward, instead of the well worn path of what I know.

Remembering to be Awesome

When I was growing up I wasn’t an athlete.  I tried many different sports including soccer, hockey, baseball, and softball.  I was never the best on any team I played on, but I enjoyed being part of a team and trying to get better.  I didn’t find running until I was an adult.  I can still remember doing my own version of a couch to 5K plan by running between bridges on the 9 Mile Creek Trail and then walking again.  Eventually I was running the whole time, not walking at all, and I was hooked.  I can still remember running 4 miles without stopping and without being winded.  That feeling is something I will probably never replicate, but breaking 2 hours in a half marathon two years ago came pretty close (oddly finishing my 2 marathons did not give me anywhere near the same feeling).  Despite the fact that I have two active kids, work full time, and have lots of other responsibilities I can still make the time to push myself to get better.  In the last few miles of that half marathon 2 years ago, I almost let myself give up.  It was getting harder to maintain my goal pace, and I had stopped to walk through a water stop and didn’t want to run again.  I made the decision that I wasn’t going to come *this  close* again and just let it slip me by, so I didn’t.  I sucked it up, and I let myself be awesome.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t come close to winning any sort of age group award in that race, I had earned a mental victory.

I was out running this weekend, and I started to feel self doubt creep in as I took a walk break, doubt that I could be fast again.  Then I realized what I was doing, a common pattern for me, I was giving myself an excuse not to try.  In my own self-preserving way I was giving myself an easy out, doubting enough so that I wouldn’t really try, and therefore wouldn’t fail.  This year I was supposed to put myself into running again (self imposed goal), but I haven’t.  It is much easier to sit on the sidelines and tell yourself that you can’t, than it is to put in the necessary work and give it a real try.  The reality is that I might not break 2 hours again this year, but I certainly won’t even come close if I don’t try.  I know that the self preserving part of me is there for a reason.  It tries to protect me from failure, even though it often causes me to settle for mediocrity.  I’ve made a promise to myself now, a promise that whenever I feel that self-doubt creep in, and that desire to let myself be mediocre because it is easier, I will remember to be awesome. 

I see myself settling for mediocre in other areas of my life too.  At work it can be easier to complain about the things I can’t control, rather than to put everything I have into the things I can control.  That usually leaves me feeling like something is missing, like I am coasting along and not really challenging myself.  I’m also carrying around about 10 pounds more than I want to, and not because I don’t know how to lose that weight.  I settle for good enough in this aspect of my life too.  Losing these 10 pounds would be easy if I would just get out of my own way.  Excelling in my career should be easy too.  I get lots of professional accolades that I dismiss, or explain away because I don’t feel like I have truly earned them.  In many ways, my self-preservation is harming me, and holding me back.   I’m posting this on my long neglected blog, because I want the reminder of what I can do and what I can be.  Will I allow myself to keep settling for good enough, or will I remember the awesome that is inside me?  I plan to strive for the awesome, and learn from my failures along the way.

A tough return

It isn't news to you that I am not blogging much these days, or well this year. When you start every post in somewhat of a similar vein, it likely unnecessary though isn't it? I'm back primarily because I'm dealing with something that is happening to a friend, and wanted to talk about it here.

However, first of all I wanted to say that some things have changed in my life in the past few months. I got a new job. A new job that doesn't require any travel. My commute shortened, my work flexibility increased, and I moved completely out of the realm of engineering. It is too soon to tell if this is a good thing, but frankly for the sake of my family this is a very good change. I no longer have to live with the fear that I will have to travel next week or the week after, and dread those long trips away from my kids. It is all about them, and spending time with them.

So the thing I'm struggling with is that one of the strong and fabulous women with whom I've been in a buddy group with since The Boy was teeny tiny...she is going to miss out on all of the rest of the years with her kids. It is so completely unfair to lose a friend, but a friend with a 5 year old and a 2 year old is just too much. Every time I look at my kids and make plans for next week I think of her, and her battle to make it through just one more day.

Hug your kids, hold them tight. Cherish every moment you have with them.

An update

I don't think I can make any promises about a return to regular blogging. After a while the novelty wore off, and I lost the drive to post things. I thought I would post a short update for you in any case.

Running
Running is going pretty well for me lately. I made the decision a few months back to take a tiny step back from running so that I could incorporate more cross training. I've been doing The Firm DVDs on my days off from running, and I really enjoy them. Well that isn't entirely true, I mean the DVDSs aren't fun exactly, but I enjoy the results I've seen from doing them consistently. I'm now running 4 days per week, hovering between 20-25 miles per week, but I'm also doing The Firm 2-3 times per week. My leg strength has dramatically increased. I can now run up big hills on my routes without having the slightest (well there might be some) complaint from my legs. It feels great. My arms have muscle tone again. I've been wearing sleeveless shirts on occasion, and have had a few people compliment my arms. Honestly I thought that I had to give up on being buff after I had the kids, but it turns out I didn't.

Weight loss
I watched the Paul McKenna "I Can Make You Thin" series that was on TLC this spring, and it made a huge impact on me. I had gained some weight over the winter, and was feeling pretty depressed about it, and the show started at exactly the right moment to give me an extra kick. For once in my life I've been losing weight without feeling like I'm on a freakish diet that I will instantly stop as soon as I reach my goal weight. Weight Watchers taught me how to control my portions, and how to stay within a POINTS range, but it never taught me how to listen to the cues my own body was sending me to get me to eat and stop eating. I've lost 13 pounds since that first show aired in late March. I didn't use much of his advice apart from the 4 golden rules he drilled in. All of those thoughts I had that perhaps my body just didn't want to get back to its pre The Boy weight, were just excuses. I'm 2-3 pounds from that weight now, and it feels fantastic to have done it without counting a single point or calorie. I eat when I'm hungry, and I stop when I'm full, and I eat what I feel like eating not what I think I should. It sounds so simple, and like it can't possibly work, but it really does.

The Boy
He turns 5 on Saturday. I can't believe how fast this time has gone. In some ways it feels like he has been in my life forever, but in others it feels like he was just born and I was cradling him in my arms struggling to make breastfeeding work. He has a new love of nature, and is obsessed with catching bugs/frogs/toads, or whatever else he can think of at the moment. He is also in love with his bike. He rides as often as he can, and for as long as we will let him. He took to the bike almost immediately, and while he insists that the training wheels will stay on forever we think he is almost ready to ditch them now (he got the bike last month!). He continues to question everything he sees and everything we say, but I guess it shows he has a good thirst for knowledge. We plan to send him to full day Kindergarten in the fall. We worry a bit that he will be the youngest in his class, but in all regards he does seem ready. All we can do is go with what we know now, and be thankful that the neighbor kid who is a few days younger than him is also starting full day Kindergarten in the fall.

The Girl
She turned 3 last month. She is nothing if not full of life. She recovered well from her stitches, although we do think there will be a lasting scar from the experience. She is not a shrinking violet, she lets the entire world know when she is unhappy about something. Just the other day T was driving her home from daycare and she threw up while sitting in her carseat. T tried to comfort her as he rushed her home by saying "oh baby, I'm so sorry." She stopped mid-puke to say "I am NOT a gurgle gurgle Baby!" She has no qualms about letting you know when you are wrong! There have been many days when I just give up on getting her dressed in the morning, and just send her to daycare in her jammies...it is just easier than fighting with her. I'd add that she'll likely be a handful in her teen years, but who really knows. She is a handful now, but she definitely makes our lives interesting. She has been spreading rumors at daycare that we have a new baby at home, but that it is teeny tiny. News to us! Perhaps she knows something that we don't (though really she doesn't!). She is actually sitting on the computer desk as I type this right now, she is asking me to read the invitation for her brother's birthday party that was sitting on the desk. Does this say Happy J Birthday? She is so cute.

The House/Remodel
We finally got new furniture for the house this spring. It feels nice to have real grown up furniture in our new space. Of course the remodel never really ends. We have plans to tackle the worst of the landscaping issues this summer...maybe if we make effort.

What else?
I'm not sure what else I should update my blog readers about. If you have any questions for me post them in the comments and I'll try to respond!

A token January post

There are no excuses, I've just been absent. Work is busier than ever before blah blah blah blah blah. I will spare you the details. My Mom informed me that there was no new content here, which I knew but it served as a reminder that I should try to revive this poor neglected blog. I have thoughts of just completely giving up on it. I get a fair amount of hits when I am active here, but I'm not sure that is enough for me to keep writing here. I had lots of ideas for posts in the beginning, but now nothing comes to me, or rather things come to me but I find that I just don't expend the energy to post them.

I actually had grand ideas of starting a second blog devoted to the working/traveling Mom, but I seriously don't know how I would manage another blog since I can't manage this one. I'm on night number four of this business trip. It has been long. I miss the kids. I miss T. I miss my own home and my routines. The positive thought for tonight is that I get to go home tomorrow. I'll get to see the kids in person rather than through the grainy webcam Skype call. That thought gets me through, makes me smile, and makes me push through the trip. I think I need to travel again this month, but it will be a much shorter trip. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. I think I will find a way off of the traveling road eventually, but I'm not there yet.

Finding the joy again

This is the first year in many when I haven’t felt completely overwhelmed by the idea of Christmas looming in the distance. There have always been elaborate check lists of things that need to be done, gifts that need to be purchased, events that need to be attended, etc. While we still have all of that, for some odd reason this year I am not stressed out about it. I’m not even really done with my Christmas shopping, but yet I haven’t put much energy into what is left outstanding on my lists.

I’m not sure what I did differently this year. I have started listening to Christmas music in the car, and I have been thoroughly enjoying watching the kids react to everything that is Christmas. I’m looking forward to my Mom arriving this Friday and even more so to having her around Christmas morning to watch the kids react to the completely overblown morning of opening presents and playing with new toys. I’m no longer looking at all things Christmas as an obligation, but rather as an exciting opportunity to witness pure joy from my kids.

I am not trying to have a perfect Christmas, but rather I am trying to enjoy Christmas. I will not be spending the entire Christmas day cooking in the kitchen for the house full of company we are expecting, but there will be good food to eat. We will not have a formal sit down dinner, because that is not what we enjoy. In fact the idea of a formal sit down dinner gives me chills and raises my heart rate, but the idea of people grabbing their own food and eating buffet style makes me happy. I think life is too short to suffer through a formal meal simply because it is what you think you should do. I also think it is a shame to miss all of the joy and excitement of Christmas because you need to cook a mountain of side dishes.

It is really nice to be anticipating Christmas rather than begrudging it. I hope this gift I’ve given myself lasts for the rest of my life. It is nice to be able to say that I like Christmas and really mean it.

It could have been me

Yesterday started out as any Wednesday does in my world, nothing out of the ordinary occurred. I went through my day, going to work, picking up the kids from daycare, having dinner, etc, and then I got a phone call from T. He had taken The Girl to the hardware store with him, The Boy and I were home putzing around in the yard when the phone rang. T asked me if I was watching TV, if I had heard the news, what news I said. The bridge on 35W over the river collapsed. What? It collapsed? I instantly forgot about the lawn watering we were attempting and took The Boy inside. Turned on the TV and then sat there horrified by what I was seeing. When T had said the bridge over the river, I had thought immediately of the bridge over the Minnesota River which is much closer to our house, but no it was the bridge over the Mississippi. How could this happen? Just 10-15 miles from our house this huge tragedy took place, and was unfolding before our eyes.

Now I can’t stop myself from watching/reading/listening to any coverage I can find. Seeing Matt Lauer covering the story in Minneapolis live this morning struck a chord with me. This National story feels so personal to me. That bridge hasn’t been part of my daily commute for many years, but as a born and bred Minnesotan, someone who attended the University of Minnesota, and lived so very near to that bridge at one point in my life, it just feels like my world has been violated. I can’t even count how many times I have driven over that bridge, it was part of my daily commute for many years, but in the recent years I’ve only traveled over it a few times per month. I am so thankful that none of my friends or family members were on the bridge yesterday evening, but that isn’t allowing me to move on.

I am angry that there was prior evidence of fatigue stress on the bridge structure that wasn’t addressed. As a mechanical engineer I can’t help but go back to my statics and dynamics courses where I learned exactly what fatigue stress can do. I’m not ready to blame yet though, we don’t know enough. Nobody wanted this to happen, and I have to believe that if the bridge inspectors and engineers really felt it was a safety hazard it would have been fixed immediately regardless of budget constraints.

Mostly I just can’t get this image of me in my car, with my two kids strapped into their car seats behind me, as we plunge into the water out of my head. I know I have to stop thinking this way for my mental health, but there it is right now. What would I have done? Could I have saved both of my children? This immense feeling of dread has taken over my head today, and my thoughts are with everyone who has lost a loved one on the bridge, or is waiting for news about a missing family member or friend. I feel guilty for going about my normal routines today, guilty that my life hasn’t been directly affected, but also happy that it wasn’t us…and some more guilt for being so happy about that.

Edited to add a link to a pretty good editorial on the subject: Nick Coleman: Public anger will follow our Sorrow