The young mother of a two-year-old periodically screeched and shouted at him to come back home. Hearing her reminded me that in the body of a two-year-old resides a full sized, mature adult spirit who hasn't learned to operate, and hasn't grown into, the physical body with all its intricate mechanisms. I imagined myself in the operator's seat of a giant scoop shovel crane. At first try I knew I wouldn't be able to operate the crane up and down or back and forth nor would I be able to scoop up dirt and fill a dump truck with it. This is about as close as I could come to the helplessness of a human infant learning to operate the physical body. Lack of intelligence wouldn't be the problem, merely inability to operate the mechanics. I changed my attitude about children when I recognized their equality with me in all areas except size and ability to operate the mechanics of both mind and body.
People who frequently use screeching and shouting are out of control. Allowing that some handle life situations this way, what changes are needed so that a soft voice could be used?
In trying to identify the need and the behavior pattern used to fill the need, I concluded:
(1) The mother's goal was too high. It is unreasonable to expect an unsupervised two-year-old to remain "in his own yard." Two-year-olds have declared independence and are off to explore.
(2) The mother's method was unsuitable, thus ineffective. Screeching and shouting may be necessary at certain specific times i.e., in case of fire or to stop the child from running in front of a truck, but for a regular daily discipline it loses its effectiveness.
What steps would help to overcome this problem?
(1) Plenty of rest
A mother who has any children under the age of 5 should be aware that she needs to get enough sleep. As I recall my own experience, this was virtually impossible. If you also find this to be true, there are methods to reduce stress to enable you to function with only occasional lapses from your goal.
(a) Take a feet-up "Smiley Break" mid day.
(b) Reduce "extra curricular" activities.
(c) Get down to Rock Bottom Basics.
(1) Decide what items have top priority, i.e., meals, dishes, laundry, trash, clutter, beds. Let everything else go.
(2) Make a yearly Deep Cleaning List to relieve the burden of worry about a "clean house."
(3) K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Sweetie) the children's room and toys. No more than 6 toys out to play with. Store the rest in a plastic trash bag and put it in the garage or attic. Every month or two months, change the toys. An exception to this rule is the child's favorite toy.
Realize your career is that of motherhood, the noblest of all careers, instituted by God from the beginning. Don't allow yourself to fall into the trap of taking "other" jobs, i.e., baby-sitting, errand running for other people, community service, any project that is not on the Rock Bottom Basic list. Young mothers get sucked into the belief that unless they have additional tasks to that of motherhood they are shirking their duty. This is a false premise.
(2) Nutrition
Second only to proper rest is sound nutrition. From personal experience and direct observation, I find two items common to the American diet prominent in causing screeching and shouting. They are sugar and chocolate. I have observed persons who have "purified" their bodies and then taken chocolate. Their reaction, within just a few hours, is temporary insanity. They lose control, screech and shout, shake, and have described the condition as a "bad trip." Observing the behavior of a two-year-old half an hour after he has been given a sugar source is enough to demonstrate a similar reaction.
To overcome even these two causes to the screeching and shouting ("S&S") problem isn't as easy as it sounds, as both sugar and chocolate are addictive. To stop using chocolate and sugar may cause withdrawal symptoms.
(3) Creative Outlet
To have a serene personality one should have a fulfilling creative outlet. This is a personal thing. Stitchery, needlepoint, painting, knitting, cooking, sewing, gardening, photography and music, are some examples of filling your artistic, creative need. The caution is to remember the reason for doing is for self fulfillment--not to bring a fundraiser to the school bazaar. Don't allow yourself to be caught by a manipulative martyr and accept a guilt trip. Your #1 responsibility is yourself and you do not need to defend or explain your reasons for not contributing items, time or extra service to the club or community no matter how worthy the goal. If you allow demands on your time, you deplete your own supply. Zealously guard against invasion by parasites who would suck out your life energy without a thought and leave you "dead." Watch carefully that you do not allow others to expect you to do things for them that they can (and should) do for themselves. Hubby says call the auto supply and see if they have a part...then go get it. Wrong! Hubby and everyone else should make their own phone calls. You shouldn't make anyone else's calls, secretaries excepted, and no one should make yours. Yes, there may be exceptions but they are rare.
Getting back to the original problem and what can be done to speak in a soft voice.
(1) Resolve to speak in a soft voice whatever the provocation...even to call the dog! Exception:
(a) in case of fire
(b) to stop a child from running out in front of a truck or any other equally harmful emergency.
(2) Recognize your own limitations and those of your two-year-old or anyone else at whom you screech and shout.
(3) Eliminate frustrations from your life by items 1-3. K.I.S.S. your life.
(4) Examine your motives. What do you hope to gain by persisting in this course of action? Submission to your will? Is this a violation of the agency of the person at whom you are screeching and shouting? By screeching and shouting, do you intend to control them? Are you expressing power (control) by screeching and shouting? Why do you need to? Are you insecure in your position? If your answer is yes, then work on becoming secure in your position by identifying:
(1) What your position is
(2) What you need to do to maintain your position
(3) What you need to do to prevent others from eroding or taking away your status (security).
A raised voice is a trap or counterfeit. Shouting is a symptom of a person not knowing who he is or isn't. A person who shouts, assumes he has a right or obligation to decide what is best for another, and doesn't allow for the other person's agency. While shouting may intimidate, it doesn't lead to serenity.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Anger and Health
Chemical changes in the body brought about by being angry have a negative influence on body functioning and also on a developing fetus. The Japanese way of keeping the pregnant female serene, calm, looking at peaceful scenery and works of art in pleasant surroundings coupled with soft-spoken talking to the developing fetus by both parents warrants serious consideration but in today's society how is that possible?
Having determined anger isn't good for my health, what can I do to overcome its effects? Let the anger go. That sounds oversimplistic but it really works! Harboring anger is a choice and you don't have to choose it. Think about it. Other steps to take to get rid of the effects of anger are the major thrust of this book:
1) K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, sweetie--see later chapter for definition)
2) UNCLUTTER
3) DECORATE FOR SERENITY
Contention, even in the so-called cause of righteousness, is self-destructive.
"He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty" Proverbs 16:32. Jesus said love every one. Treat them kindly too. When your heart is filled with love...You are part of everyone and it is important that you love yourself and show compassion for yourself and treat yourself kindly, too.
To better tolerate the setbacks of life: Don't take life so seriously. Smile more and try to restructure your life to reduce anxiety by applying the two most important rules of life to the situation:
RULE # 1--don't sweat the small stuff
RULE # 2--it's all small stuff
If you raise your voice, get red in the face, hot under the collar, in other words get angry, rebellious, or negative in spirit, those are signs that you need to take stock and re-evaluate.
Having determined anger isn't good for my health, what can I do to overcome its effects? Let the anger go. That sounds oversimplistic but it really works! Harboring anger is a choice and you don't have to choose it. Think about it. Other steps to take to get rid of the effects of anger are the major thrust of this book:
1) K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, sweetie--see later chapter for definition)
2) UNCLUTTER
3) DECORATE FOR SERENITY
Contention, even in the so-called cause of righteousness, is self-destructive.
"He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty" Proverbs 16:32. Jesus said love every one. Treat them kindly too. When your heart is filled with love...You are part of everyone and it is important that you love yourself and show compassion for yourself and treat yourself kindly, too.
To better tolerate the setbacks of life: Don't take life so seriously. Smile more and try to restructure your life to reduce anxiety by applying the two most important rules of life to the situation:
RULE # 1--don't sweat the small stuff
RULE # 2--it's all small stuff
If you raise your voice, get red in the face, hot under the collar, in other words get angry, rebellious, or negative in spirit, those are signs that you need to take stock and re-evaluate.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Displaced Anger
At age 6 weeks Andrew fell off the changing table and fractured his skull. Vickie's husband and her mother (needing a scapegoat for their own feelings) blamed her for "negligence." Her anxiety, coupled with her non-culpability, resulted in anger which from then on she directed at her son Andrew because he was the cause of her rejection by the two who should have loved her most. Dennis, her oldest son, and her mother's favorite who could do no wrong, got her love and acceptance. When Vickie was directed to realize why she was angry at Andrew, she was able to let the anger go and replace it with compassion and her relationship to Andrew improved.
I remember, as a teenager, being allowed to hold a newborn while the young parents ate their dinner. Every night they would have the same argument over which way to cut the butter--off the end or off the top, creating a dip in the middle. The argument seldom varied, was usually heated, and at the time I thought it was ridiculous. Who cared where the butter was cut? Now, looking back I realize the young parents needed to vent their frustrations with life and each other and the butter was a safe battleground.
Sometimes people use war to relieve physical distress caused by their anger, hostility, or guilt so they pick a fight with the ones they are safest with. Understanding the pattern can help break the cycle. Try for a state of non-war (What if they gave a WAR and nobody came?) by recognizing and internalizing that it's okay to accept yourself just as you are with all your good points and your weaknesses. You can accept others, also, just as they are with all their good points and all their weaknesses. That doesn't mean you can't disagree with others and you don't have to try to change their opinions but you do need to convey the message "I do hear you (and your point of view)." I concede that you have the right to say what you feel. I don't have to defend against what you say, or feel, because if I do I'm accepting responsibility for your feelings and I'm not responsible for your feelings, you are. If I defend, I'm admitting you've made me feel guilty and I'm out of control so I try to put you out of commission by counterattacking and we are at war.
Implied inadequacy is a major attack and a useful manipulating tool almost guaranteeing a desire to please or measure up. Other types of attacks are shown in the following pattern:
ATTACK: Why did you break my bowl?
DEFEND: I didn't mean to, I was in a hurry and I...
COUNTERATTACK: You shouldn't have put it there. It was just a piece of junk anyway!
ACKNOWLEDGE: (Does not ignore, which is a form of attack) I can understand how you feel, I'm sorry I broke your bowl.
MARTYR: (Puts guilt on others) It was my favorite bowl, Aunt Gertrude gave it to me...
GUILT: (Inspires anger, hostility and counterattack) I can't help it if I broke your bowl. Gee, what am I supposed to do? Glue it back together?
The situations change but the patterns fit everywhere. Try to spot the patterns first with others outside your personal situation. I did. Gradually I'm becoming an expert at recognizing patterns whenever I deal with people and it helps me to be at peace with myself.
Can I bring about a desired result, even a seemingly good desire, using manipulative techniques and justify the means? No, because choice is removed. I need to remember to properly govern myself even when I can't change the conduct of others. I choose my behavior. I can maintain proper relationships and avoid the frustrations of strife if I wisely apply my time and energy.
Some people may want to be angry because they think it gives them power, they use that power to intimidate and they don't want to be fixed because they're afraid it might take away that power.
Some people may remain angry all their lives, never figuring out that while most of us have cause for anger, whether we harbor it or not is a choice we make for ourselves. Maybe those same people believe blame for all their ills can be directed to or at another. While it's true that anger is a reactive emotion, I don't have to choose to give it a home. When I harbor "unfriendly regard" for another or for myself, unhealth results. When I'm angry, I don't want to admit I'm at fault, meriting condemnation, so I begin to pass the buck: I'm angry because my spouse is such a jerk; If they weren't so mean I...; If only...; "The debbil made me do it" these are all excuses. The truth is, I choose to believe or do whatever I choose to believe or do (so do you!)
Some use rage turned inward as a self-punishment and this is manifested in denying themselves the things they like, in their "messy" house, and in their low self-esteem. The sequence pattern goes something like this: feelings of rejection guilt anger blame condemnation frustration dump responsibility. Imagined culpability makes me feel guilty. To resolve this feeling of guilt I can give myself compassion, sometimes called charity. If I give compassion to myself and to those who have made me feel rejected, my anger will dissipate. Forbearance is the opposite of anger.
I remember, as a teenager, being allowed to hold a newborn while the young parents ate their dinner. Every night they would have the same argument over which way to cut the butter--off the end or off the top, creating a dip in the middle. The argument seldom varied, was usually heated, and at the time I thought it was ridiculous. Who cared where the butter was cut? Now, looking back I realize the young parents needed to vent their frustrations with life and each other and the butter was a safe battleground.
Sometimes people use war to relieve physical distress caused by their anger, hostility, or guilt so they pick a fight with the ones they are safest with. Understanding the pattern can help break the cycle. Try for a state of non-war (What if they gave a WAR and nobody came?) by recognizing and internalizing that it's okay to accept yourself just as you are with all your good points and your weaknesses. You can accept others, also, just as they are with all their good points and all their weaknesses. That doesn't mean you can't disagree with others and you don't have to try to change their opinions but you do need to convey the message "I do hear you (and your point of view)." I concede that you have the right to say what you feel. I don't have to defend against what you say, or feel, because if I do I'm accepting responsibility for your feelings and I'm not responsible for your feelings, you are. If I defend, I'm admitting you've made me feel guilty and I'm out of control so I try to put you out of commission by counterattacking and we are at war.
Implied inadequacy is a major attack and a useful manipulating tool almost guaranteeing a desire to please or measure up. Other types of attacks are shown in the following pattern:
ATTACK: Why did you break my bowl?
DEFEND: I didn't mean to, I was in a hurry and I...
COUNTERATTACK: You shouldn't have put it there. It was just a piece of junk anyway!
ACKNOWLEDGE: (Does not ignore, which is a form of attack) I can understand how you feel, I'm sorry I broke your bowl.
MARTYR: (Puts guilt on others) It was my favorite bowl, Aunt Gertrude gave it to me...
GUILT: (Inspires anger, hostility and counterattack) I can't help it if I broke your bowl. Gee, what am I supposed to do? Glue it back together?
The situations change but the patterns fit everywhere. Try to spot the patterns first with others outside your personal situation. I did. Gradually I'm becoming an expert at recognizing patterns whenever I deal with people and it helps me to be at peace with myself.
Can I bring about a desired result, even a seemingly good desire, using manipulative techniques and justify the means? No, because choice is removed. I need to remember to properly govern myself even when I can't change the conduct of others. I choose my behavior. I can maintain proper relationships and avoid the frustrations of strife if I wisely apply my time and energy.
Some people may want to be angry because they think it gives them power, they use that power to intimidate and they don't want to be fixed because they're afraid it might take away that power.
Some people may remain angry all their lives, never figuring out that while most of us have cause for anger, whether we harbor it or not is a choice we make for ourselves. Maybe those same people believe blame for all their ills can be directed to or at another. While it's true that anger is a reactive emotion, I don't have to choose to give it a home. When I harbor "unfriendly regard" for another or for myself, unhealth results. When I'm angry, I don't want to admit I'm at fault, meriting condemnation, so I begin to pass the buck: I'm angry because my spouse is such a jerk; If they weren't so mean I...; If only...; "The debbil made me do it" these are all excuses. The truth is, I choose to believe or do whatever I choose to believe or do (so do you!)
Some use rage turned inward as a self-punishment and this is manifested in denying themselves the things they like, in their "messy" house, and in their low self-esteem. The sequence pattern goes something like this: feelings of rejection guilt anger blame condemnation frustration dump responsibility. Imagined culpability makes me feel guilty. To resolve this feeling of guilt I can give myself compassion, sometimes called charity. If I give compassion to myself and to those who have made me feel rejected, my anger will dissipate. Forbearance is the opposite of anger.
Anger
A messy house is a symptom of anger. Anger is a strong feeling of disfavor and is a reaction to the pre-emption of agency. It's often displaced and usually follows rejection, which is implied denial of existence. Its physical effects on the body can last two hours or more and doubles the risk of heart attack. Out-of-control anger can damage not only the physical situation, but can also damage emotional and spiritual health. People tend to excuse their lack of self control by blaming others. "I'm from a bad-tempered family." If my husband weren't so inconsiderate, I wouldn't get angry." The fact is I, alone, am responsible for what I do, say or think (and so are you!) I may not control circumstances or determine what other people do, but I can control how I react to people and events (and so can you!). Instead of blaming events or people for my anger, I need to recognize I make myself angry (and so do you!).
Are You a Controlling Person?
Do you help your children do their homework? Do you wake your spouse up in the morning? Hurry your family so they won't be late? Do you check to see if they have brushed their teeth, etc.?
In the old days I always wanted to drive. I didn't like being a passenger. I took care of the finances and paid the bills. I selected Darling's and the family's clothing. I told everybody what to do and how to run things. I was the boss and I wanted everything my way. I didn't know that people rebel against any form of control. Sometimes so-called weak personalities respond in passive rebellion, which causes even greater frustration for the controlling personality.
Passive means acted upon by an external agency. Anarchy is a state of lawlessness; absence of order. The term passive anarchy as I use it, relates to someone, other than yourself, who refuses to abide by the laws (rules) set up to govern (run) society (the family). Not in frontal defiance or open rebellion but passively--coming home at 12:05 for a midnight curfew, never enough to bring down a cataclysmic eruption but enough to maintain independence.
Darling left a bag of tools two feet from the inside garage door. He had to go in the front door, across the entry hall, through a second door, across the garage/family room where there were 3 patio chair pads, on which reclined a sleeping bag, a red, white and blue striped sheet, 2 king-size foam bed pillows, a set of drums--dismantled, an antique radio on which I listened to Gang Busters as a child, an antique school desk, an antique overstuffed wing back chair with the stuffing coming out, a rake, and a patio broom relocated from the tool room to sweep the rocks from the roof prior to re-roofing but left in the pathway for the same reason. Why, after successfully overcoming this obstacle course, did the culprit leave the bag of tools two feet from its place? Was it the same reason he drops his socks outside instead of inside the laundry basket?
Darling is a basketball legend. He played basketball longer than anyone else in the world but he can't hit the hoop on a drop shot from directly over the basket. Is it the same reason that for years he had a pair of his shoes carefully lined up, neatly side by side, under the sofa, the velvet chair, organ bench, table, desk, bed? Is it the same reason that keeps Darling from closing the drawers, the cupboard doors, the cereal box? Is it the same reason why the hammer can be found on the toilet tank (he made a side trip while he was using it and set it down while he zipped up--or was it down?). Is it the same reason why the ladder is still propped up to the roof two months after he went up to check the cooler? Is it the same reason why the tennis racket is left on the velvet chair in the living room which he passes on the way to the bedroom to turn on the TV to watch basketball? Is it a behavior pattern now become a habit begun as passive anarchy or passive rebellion? Is it his reaction to me trying to clone my world by trying to make his world fit into mine?
I certainly didn't desire power, nor did I have a need to feel like the boss, but I did fear that others couldn't make it on their own without my help. I guess I never really stopped to think about the implications. I hadn't realized I was as good as calling my teenagers stupid every time I reminded them to wash their hands when they came into the house or to shut the door or to go to bed.
I didn't know the takeover of another's consequences is the theft of his freedom of choice or agency because we learn from suffering the consequences of our actions. I didn't know doing a child's homework, even if he cries or fails, is an example of this theft because we also learn from our failures. I didn't know that low self esteem is a direct result of being robbed of our right to choose for ourselves, even in matters as seemingly unimportant as selecting what one should wear. When I did find out, I tried a one-week experiment with my first class to help overcome being a controlling person.
1) We didn't drive the car anywhere for any reason (except a bleeding emergency). We could be a passenger.
2) We didn't spend any money. We didn't carry it on our person, no credit cards, charge accounts, check writing. No money at all. We weren't the one who paid bills, paid for groceries, gas, allowances, nothing! We could shop, but couldn't physically be the one who paid.
3) We didn't become involved with our children's homework in any way.
4) Under no circumstances were we to tell another what to wear.
If you try this experiment for a week you may be surprised at how much controlling you have taken for granted. Being a controlling person infringes on the agency of others, which is against a basic law of the universe and therefore can't lead to happiness.
"When you talk about not waking up anyone in my family, that I'm taking responsibility that doesn't belong to me, you don't understand. My son Joe would be late everywhere he went. He could sleep through a fire alarm."
Joe may be able to sleep through a fire alarm (one of mine did), but I found from personal experience that after having been given their own personal alarm clock to be shared with no one, and informed that they were on their own, people like Joe would, in fact, arise in time to be on time. Of course, proper caring guidance should be used for younger children while they learn how to operate their clocks. If children are too young to set or operate a clock, find one they can at least shut off when they are awakened.
Billie, acting on this principle, announced to her husband and three children that they were "on their own." The children all arose on time. Not so the husband, who shut off the alarm and went back to sleep because Billie hadn't nagged him for the usual fifteen minutes about getting up. He was late for work and they almost came to blows. He later apologized and said, "I didn't think you would let me be late for work...I might've lost my job."
In interpersonal relationships people sometimes resort to "strategic helplessness" as a tool to help them get what they want instead of operating up to full competence level. They find it useful to fall back on, or depend on, someone else's resources. Strategically helpless people know exactly what they are doing and actually have other goals than those which are apparent. He is the Boss at the office, so at home he becomes a little boy whose mother takes care of him. He may not be aware of his own motivation.
A serious side effect of strategic helplessness could be loss of the ability to function in those areas given up. One who has lost in these areas may become depressed and fearful at having to cope. Sometimes we use strategic helplessness when we want nurturing. If this is the case, recognize that it is okay to ask for nurturing. "Give me a hug" is a whole lot easier to say than the complex game of strategic helplessness is to master.
Sometimes, I wonder if males and teenagers "mark their territory" by leaving parts of themselves around i.e. a tie on the chair, because they feel someone is trying to clear (clean) them out of their own home (space).
I was livid when I found the tool bag outside the door. My anger was totally out of proportion to the event (picking up the bag of tools and putting them in the tool cabinet). The friend with me reminded me I should do whatever I do because I want to, out of love. Love? Bah humbug! I have no love left! After venting and being reminded the problem was mine to solve, the answer came. I needed to take control of my own life to the extent that I only did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.
"But mom, that's selfish." No. First I must understand who I am and that I am important.
"I hate housework! If I only did what I want to do I'd never do housework." Maybe. But...why do you hate housework? Is it because housework forces you into the role of second class citizen? Faceless? Taken for granted? Servile? Do you hate it because it is "expected" that you do it? Of course! A woman's role has always been "to do the housework" even if she has a full-time job or career outside the home (or a "passel" of kids!)
In the old days I always wanted to drive. I didn't like being a passenger. I took care of the finances and paid the bills. I selected Darling's and the family's clothing. I told everybody what to do and how to run things. I was the boss and I wanted everything my way. I didn't know that people rebel against any form of control. Sometimes so-called weak personalities respond in passive rebellion, which causes even greater frustration for the controlling personality.
Passive means acted upon by an external agency. Anarchy is a state of lawlessness; absence of order. The term passive anarchy as I use it, relates to someone, other than yourself, who refuses to abide by the laws (rules) set up to govern (run) society (the family). Not in frontal defiance or open rebellion but passively--coming home at 12:05 for a midnight curfew, never enough to bring down a cataclysmic eruption but enough to maintain independence.
Darling left a bag of tools two feet from the inside garage door. He had to go in the front door, across the entry hall, through a second door, across the garage/family room where there were 3 patio chair pads, on which reclined a sleeping bag, a red, white and blue striped sheet, 2 king-size foam bed pillows, a set of drums--dismantled, an antique radio on which I listened to Gang Busters as a child, an antique school desk, an antique overstuffed wing back chair with the stuffing coming out, a rake, and a patio broom relocated from the tool room to sweep the rocks from the roof prior to re-roofing but left in the pathway for the same reason. Why, after successfully overcoming this obstacle course, did the culprit leave the bag of tools two feet from its place? Was it the same reason he drops his socks outside instead of inside the laundry basket?
Darling is a basketball legend. He played basketball longer than anyone else in the world but he can't hit the hoop on a drop shot from directly over the basket. Is it the same reason that for years he had a pair of his shoes carefully lined up, neatly side by side, under the sofa, the velvet chair, organ bench, table, desk, bed? Is it the same reason that keeps Darling from closing the drawers, the cupboard doors, the cereal box? Is it the same reason why the hammer can be found on the toilet tank (he made a side trip while he was using it and set it down while he zipped up--or was it down?). Is it the same reason why the ladder is still propped up to the roof two months after he went up to check the cooler? Is it the same reason why the tennis racket is left on the velvet chair in the living room which he passes on the way to the bedroom to turn on the TV to watch basketball? Is it a behavior pattern now become a habit begun as passive anarchy or passive rebellion? Is it his reaction to me trying to clone my world by trying to make his world fit into mine?
I certainly didn't desire power, nor did I have a need to feel like the boss, but I did fear that others couldn't make it on their own without my help. I guess I never really stopped to think about the implications. I hadn't realized I was as good as calling my teenagers stupid every time I reminded them to wash their hands when they came into the house or to shut the door or to go to bed.
I didn't know the takeover of another's consequences is the theft of his freedom of choice or agency because we learn from suffering the consequences of our actions. I didn't know doing a child's homework, even if he cries or fails, is an example of this theft because we also learn from our failures. I didn't know that low self esteem is a direct result of being robbed of our right to choose for ourselves, even in matters as seemingly unimportant as selecting what one should wear. When I did find out, I tried a one-week experiment with my first class to help overcome being a controlling person.
1) We didn't drive the car anywhere for any reason (except a bleeding emergency). We could be a passenger.
2) We didn't spend any money. We didn't carry it on our person, no credit cards, charge accounts, check writing. No money at all. We weren't the one who paid bills, paid for groceries, gas, allowances, nothing! We could shop, but couldn't physically be the one who paid.
3) We didn't become involved with our children's homework in any way.
4) Under no circumstances were we to tell another what to wear.
If you try this experiment for a week you may be surprised at how much controlling you have taken for granted. Being a controlling person infringes on the agency of others, which is against a basic law of the universe and therefore can't lead to happiness.
"When you talk about not waking up anyone in my family, that I'm taking responsibility that doesn't belong to me, you don't understand. My son Joe would be late everywhere he went. He could sleep through a fire alarm."
Joe may be able to sleep through a fire alarm (one of mine did), but I found from personal experience that after having been given their own personal alarm clock to be shared with no one, and informed that they were on their own, people like Joe would, in fact, arise in time to be on time. Of course, proper caring guidance should be used for younger children while they learn how to operate their clocks. If children are too young to set or operate a clock, find one they can at least shut off when they are awakened.
Billie, acting on this principle, announced to her husband and three children that they were "on their own." The children all arose on time. Not so the husband, who shut off the alarm and went back to sleep because Billie hadn't nagged him for the usual fifteen minutes about getting up. He was late for work and they almost came to blows. He later apologized and said, "I didn't think you would let me be late for work...I might've lost my job."
In interpersonal relationships people sometimes resort to "strategic helplessness" as a tool to help them get what they want instead of operating up to full competence level. They find it useful to fall back on, or depend on, someone else's resources. Strategically helpless people know exactly what they are doing and actually have other goals than those which are apparent. He is the Boss at the office, so at home he becomes a little boy whose mother takes care of him. He may not be aware of his own motivation.
A serious side effect of strategic helplessness could be loss of the ability to function in those areas given up. One who has lost in these areas may become depressed and fearful at having to cope. Sometimes we use strategic helplessness when we want nurturing. If this is the case, recognize that it is okay to ask for nurturing. "Give me a hug" is a whole lot easier to say than the complex game of strategic helplessness is to master.
Sometimes, I wonder if males and teenagers "mark their territory" by leaving parts of themselves around i.e. a tie on the chair, because they feel someone is trying to clear (clean) them out of their own home (space).
I was livid when I found the tool bag outside the door. My anger was totally out of proportion to the event (picking up the bag of tools and putting them in the tool cabinet). The friend with me reminded me I should do whatever I do because I want to, out of love. Love? Bah humbug! I have no love left! After venting and being reminded the problem was mine to solve, the answer came. I needed to take control of my own life to the extent that I only did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.
"But mom, that's selfish." No. First I must understand who I am and that I am important.
"I hate housework! If I only did what I want to do I'd never do housework." Maybe. But...why do you hate housework? Is it because housework forces you into the role of second class citizen? Faceless? Taken for granted? Servile? Do you hate it because it is "expected" that you do it? Of course! A woman's role has always been "to do the housework" even if she has a full-time job or career outside the home (or a "passel" of kids!)
Sunday, October 17, 2010
A Map to a Clean House?
Vicki told me, "I loved my third grade teacher. She made school such fun. That was the year my father had a heart attack, my mother had to go to work full time and then my third grade teacher died. I couldn't handle all that stress. I escaped into a fantasy world of being in love with Elvis Presley. He was just becoming popular and playing his records and seeing his movies allowed me to escape. Later, whenever life got too tough, I went back into that comfort zone of escape (childhood). Now, I recognize that to come out of escape equals progress. I had lots of cans of worms to get through. Sometimes things that happen are out of your control. The unknown is bad enough and just getting out of your comfort zone is hard, then you find a can of worms but you can't go on until you eat them.
"Everybody is telling you you're a pig and maybe sometimes you feel like one, but down deep you know you're not, so how do you deal with it? One day you find somebody who says, `You are not a pig!' and gives you ways how to deal. You've always been in pig mode so you have to learn how to climb out of your comfort zone to deal with the mess. How big are your worms? There's a whole lot more to it than, `Here's what to do.' You have to find the underlying reason because where the cans of worms come from is the underlying reason why you're rebelling.
"Sometimes you want to rebel and need to go through the climbing out process again. Each time you climb out things get better and better. It's fighting back for control of your life. In other words, validation of your own person. A messy house proves I am in control of something, even if someone else controls everything else.
"Finally, I was able to trust and got connected as one person but I got threatened by the happiness--I don't deserve it--I don't know HOW to be happy because I've been miserable all my life. It's like going someplace you've never been before. I get in control, get self-esteem, then I smash it and go back into my comfort zone. It's like having a learning disability. There is a wonderful person in there under the slimy, mucky, mire of the pit. The question is, how do you keep the slime, muck, and mire off? It's a never-ending story, a refiner's fire on a higher level, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Do you know you can be happy? Do you know HOW to be happy? I wondered if part of the map was missing--you can't get from here to there without a map. You have to have it in black and white and green before you know where to go and what to do.
"It's like planning a vacation. The simplest way to Memphis is the way you want to go but you can't get from here to there without a map. So draw a map (make a list) then follow the map. Start where you are. Set a realistic goal. Then put one foot in front of the other, one step at a time the same way the little dog got to Dover. Remember, you don't get to Memphis by hiring someone to go for you. You have to do it yourself."
"Everybody is telling you you're a pig and maybe sometimes you feel like one, but down deep you know you're not, so how do you deal with it? One day you find somebody who says, `You are not a pig!' and gives you ways how to deal. You've always been in pig mode so you have to learn how to climb out of your comfort zone to deal with the mess. How big are your worms? There's a whole lot more to it than, `Here's what to do.' You have to find the underlying reason because where the cans of worms come from is the underlying reason why you're rebelling.
"Sometimes you want to rebel and need to go through the climbing out process again. Each time you climb out things get better and better. It's fighting back for control of your life. In other words, validation of your own person. A messy house proves I am in control of something, even if someone else controls everything else.
"Finally, I was able to trust and got connected as one person but I got threatened by the happiness--I don't deserve it--I don't know HOW to be happy because I've been miserable all my life. It's like going someplace you've never been before. I get in control, get self-esteem, then I smash it and go back into my comfort zone. It's like having a learning disability. There is a wonderful person in there under the slimy, mucky, mire of the pit. The question is, how do you keep the slime, muck, and mire off? It's a never-ending story, a refiner's fire on a higher level, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Do you know you can be happy? Do you know HOW to be happy? I wondered if part of the map was missing--you can't get from here to there without a map. You have to have it in black and white and green before you know where to go and what to do.
"It's like planning a vacation. The simplest way to Memphis is the way you want to go but you can't get from here to there without a map. So draw a map (make a list) then follow the map. Start where you are. Set a realistic goal. Then put one foot in front of the other, one step at a time the same way the little dog got to Dover. Remember, you don't get to Memphis by hiring someone to go for you. You have to do it yourself."
I Only WANT To Want To
When I was a teenager, all the famous movie stars wore full-length mink coats. Some young starlets had a reputation of being willing to do anything to obtain one, and others bought theirs on the installment plan.
In those days before animal rights, having a mink coat represented having "arrived." I envisioned myself decked out in my mink and diamonds going to a fancy party at Hollywood and Vine. One day I took a city bus to Hollywood and Vine. I was crushed! It was virtually a slum--hardly the fantasy place of my diamonds and mink.
Years later, a relative died and left me her full-length fur coat (still before animal rights). Okay, so it wasn't mink. It was a nice coat and very warm. The problem? I lived in the middle of the Mojave Desert and had no use for a full-length fur coat, mink or not. I still had a dream or two about dripping diamonds in my mink at that party at Hollywood and Vine which I KNEW was a fantasy, but that didn't stop me from wanting it to be real. It finally hit me--I didn't want a mink coat (I'd melt in it). I only wanted to want the idea or fantasy of a mink coat and what I imagined it represented.
Darling used to say, "One day I'd like to build a cabin in the woods with my brother (a little more practical than a mink coat on the Mojave Desert, but not much--there are no woods nearby)." For years I listened to him, "When I get rich, when the kids are grown, when I retire..." All those things came to pass and he finally got to build his cabin in the woods with his brother. He complains bitterly about the work..."I'm too old to climb a ladder up to the roof..." In reality, though he does enjoy the fruits of his labor, what he really wanted was the idea or fantasy of building a cabin in the woods with his brother. No aches and pains from having to haul in sheetrock and raise it up to nail on the ceilings and walls--just imagining the fun. No labor, no sweat--just laughs and a magical cabin in the woods. The well wouldn't run dry in a drought year, the plumbing wouldn't back up--not in that fantasy cabin he'd build "someday." The reality is something else.
While dreams and fantasies are nice, sometimes we use them as a substitute for life. I wasted a lot of time wanting that mink coat. I let myself believe I wasn't a success because I didn't have one. The reality was I didn't really want it and I was already successful. If only I had stopped to realize the absurdity in the ridiculous mindset that a mink coat represented success, I wouldn't have spent so much of my life believing I was a failure.
Do you only want to want to? Is that keeping you from thinking of yourself as a successful person?
In those days before animal rights, having a mink coat represented having "arrived." I envisioned myself decked out in my mink and diamonds going to a fancy party at Hollywood and Vine. One day I took a city bus to Hollywood and Vine. I was crushed! It was virtually a slum--hardly the fantasy place of my diamonds and mink.
Years later, a relative died and left me her full-length fur coat (still before animal rights). Okay, so it wasn't mink. It was a nice coat and very warm. The problem? I lived in the middle of the Mojave Desert and had no use for a full-length fur coat, mink or not. I still had a dream or two about dripping diamonds in my mink at that party at Hollywood and Vine which I KNEW was a fantasy, but that didn't stop me from wanting it to be real. It finally hit me--I didn't want a mink coat (I'd melt in it). I only wanted to want the idea or fantasy of a mink coat and what I imagined it represented.
Darling used to say, "One day I'd like to build a cabin in the woods with my brother (a little more practical than a mink coat on the Mojave Desert, but not much--there are no woods nearby)." For years I listened to him, "When I get rich, when the kids are grown, when I retire..." All those things came to pass and he finally got to build his cabin in the woods with his brother. He complains bitterly about the work..."I'm too old to climb a ladder up to the roof..." In reality, though he does enjoy the fruits of his labor, what he really wanted was the idea or fantasy of building a cabin in the woods with his brother. No aches and pains from having to haul in sheetrock and raise it up to nail on the ceilings and walls--just imagining the fun. No labor, no sweat--just laughs and a magical cabin in the woods. The well wouldn't run dry in a drought year, the plumbing wouldn't back up--not in that fantasy cabin he'd build "someday." The reality is something else.
While dreams and fantasies are nice, sometimes we use them as a substitute for life. I wasted a lot of time wanting that mink coat. I let myself believe I wasn't a success because I didn't have one. The reality was I didn't really want it and I was already successful. If only I had stopped to realize the absurdity in the ridiculous mindset that a mink coat represented success, I wouldn't have spent so much of my life believing I was a failure.
Do you only want to want to? Is that keeping you from thinking of yourself as a successful person?
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Attention Deficit Disorder
Brain damage, whether due to injury, illness, or oxygen deprivation may result in ADD. Symptoms can include rage, destructive behavior, or even violence. The cause has been linked to over-stimulation of the brain. For an ADD four-year-old to go to the grocery store can be a nightmare. There are too many colors, people, things and noise all pounding on his overloaded brain. Is it any wonder he can't stand it and throws a tantrum? Crowds, TV, traffic, grocery shopping, all can be stressor triggers. Our four year old's treatment should include keeping things simple to reduce stimulation to his already overloaded neurons which cry out for relief. One mother has her four-year-old spend time alone, on the bed, in her room with one book or one toy to relieve his ADD overload (temper tantrum). If ADD is a problem and you're seeking solutions, try eliminating as many stimulators as you can. Clear away all of the child's toys and store them out of sight. Allow only one toy to be in use at a time. Clear dressers and table-tops (bare). Use only one item as a focal point. Taking away clutter removes the over-stimulation/stressors and allows the overtaxed brain to process information easier and less painfully. Actually, this "cure" is a fix for other kinds of problems as well. It helps relieve stress and allows peace and serenity to be a part of the regular home atmosphere.
Hank grew up before ADD was recognized. In those days children with this problem were called hyperactive and drugged to make them calm. After he and his family moved to the country, Hank seemed to do much better. He would sit on the bank of the creek and fish alone for hours. He found a natural control for his problem and no longer needed drugs.
Hank grew up before ADD was recognized. In those days children with this problem were called hyperactive and drugged to make them calm. After he and his family moved to the country, Hank seemed to do much better. He would sit on the bank of the creek and fish alone for hours. He found a natural control for his problem and no longer needed drugs.
Stress
On the other hand, flight or fight, the stress reaction, causes tremendous body chemistry changes. When used as nature intended, to save us from disaster, however, it can be good, to live under the constant influence of that body chemistry isn't healthy. Stress, fear, anger, fight or flight, tension, frustration all boost metabolism and dump extra sugar, fat, and cholesterol into the bloodstream causing blood pressure to go up to propel nutrients faster and cause the kidneys to clear the blood of wastes (decks cleared for action). If not used as energy for physical action extra sugar has to be taken out of the bloodstream. Overreaction may occur (too much taken out) and a new stimulant is needed in the form of more coffee, cola, etc; cholesterol has no mechanism to remove it from the blood so it causes a traffic jam and may clog the arteries.
We've learned that emotions affect brain chemistry, and thoughts can change brain chemistry and cause illness or promote healing. I saw on a feature spot on TV about rabbits that were fed a toxic diet to close off their arteries so the effects of various countermeasures could be studied. Although all of the rabbits were fed the same diet, one group didn't develop the problems. Checking the cause of this, it was discovered that the person in charge of that group petted them and talked to them!
It helps sometimes to know you aren't alone. Isolation or feeling like you are alone can cause illness. Depression, because you feel alone, can lead to disease and because of this we need to interact with people who care--not necessarily family but with others who understand and empathize. Sharing your feelings with others who understand, as within a support system, has also proven to be effective.
We've learned that emotions affect brain chemistry, and thoughts can change brain chemistry and cause illness or promote healing. I saw on a feature spot on TV about rabbits that were fed a toxic diet to close off their arteries so the effects of various countermeasures could be studied. Although all of the rabbits were fed the same diet, one group didn't develop the problems. Checking the cause of this, it was discovered that the person in charge of that group petted them and talked to them!
It helps sometimes to know you aren't alone. Isolation or feeling like you are alone can cause illness. Depression, because you feel alone, can lead to disease and because of this we need to interact with people who care--not necessarily family but with others who understand and empathize. Sharing your feelings with others who understand, as within a support system, has also proven to be effective.
Smile
Did you know that smiling exercises muscles and raises the temperature of the brain just enough to allow release of positive chemicals into the bloodstream? These positive chemicals make us feel good and produce energy (strength) for us to function more efficiently. Did you also know that humor is effective in healing? Health care professionals are making it a regular part of their therapy strategy these days. Did you know that humor alleviates stress? Or that laughter breaks have been successful in lowering blood pressure in patients with moderate hypertension where drugs alone were unsuccessful? Robust laughter is followed by relaxation so there are some physiological benefits such as the easing of muscular tension and increased oxygen in the blood because of deep breathing. Laughter and humor cultivate the will to live and help mobilize the body's defenses. So you see? Smiling makes us feel good and laughter helps us get well and stay well!
More Slum Clearance
With all the slum clearance and urban renewal around here it was bound to hit the garage sooner or later.
"Darling, it's up to you to run the bulldozer, it's all your treasure."
"Yeah, well I CAN'T now. I've gotta go play tennis."
I admitted to myself it was an ideal day for tennis, so I climbed up on a chair and tackled the top kitchen shelves.
Darling and Baby Daughter came home before I'd had a chance to miss them.
"Here's the key to the bulldozer. Start on the left cupboard of your work bench."
"Can't. I'm watching a basketball game."
Number 2 Son came in and asked, "Mom, can you put a new patch on an old hole?"
"Huh?"
"Will you stitch up the seam in my jeans?"
"Oh. Yeah, but they gotta be clean and you gotta hold my hand."
"Hold her hand?"
"Yeah. She always breaks a needle sewing on my jeans and she needs somebody there to cuss at."
Number 2 Son stood hunched over my shoulder watching the blue thread dancing back and forth as it pulled together the frayed seam. His non-stop flow of humor was par for the course.
"*%$*!"
"Wow! That sure got bent in a hurry. Want me to straighten it?"
"Nope. Just get me a new needle."
We started the same scene, take 2.
"*%$*!"
"Again?"
"I don't suppose I could get you to stitch my other pair...ah, I guess just forget it..."
Darling returned and said, "The game is over. Now what was I supposed to do?"
"Clear your slum!"
"Huh?"
"Sort through the treasures in your work bench and see if you can bear to part with any of them. I'll come out and hold your hand."
"Hi, Grampa! Whatchadoing?"
"Sorting through this stuff to see what I can throw away and what I'm going to keep."
Number 1 Granddaughter, then age 6, with her brilliant powers of observation, watched quietly for several minutes and, with the same humor that runs in the family, casually remarked "The keepers are winning." After her brilliant observation I realized all we'd really done was move stuff from one place to another. We didn't need to get better organized we needed to actually get rid of time robbers. I asked myself, "Is this item indispensable to my welfare and happiness?" I tried to separate need from greed and my decisions had nothing to do with staying in the fast lane. I was really surprised at how much I could let go and I don't remember what most of it was, but I do know I haven't missed anything I let go.
"Darling, it's up to you to run the bulldozer, it's all your treasure."
"Yeah, well I CAN'T now. I've gotta go play tennis."
I admitted to myself it was an ideal day for tennis, so I climbed up on a chair and tackled the top kitchen shelves.
Darling and Baby Daughter came home before I'd had a chance to miss them.
"Here's the key to the bulldozer. Start on the left cupboard of your work bench."
"Can't. I'm watching a basketball game."
Number 2 Son came in and asked, "Mom, can you put a new patch on an old hole?"
"Huh?"
"Will you stitch up the seam in my jeans?"
"Oh. Yeah, but they gotta be clean and you gotta hold my hand."
"Hold her hand?"
"Yeah. She always breaks a needle sewing on my jeans and she needs somebody there to cuss at."
Number 2 Son stood hunched over my shoulder watching the blue thread dancing back and forth as it pulled together the frayed seam. His non-stop flow of humor was par for the course.
"*%$*!"
"Wow! That sure got bent in a hurry. Want me to straighten it?"
"Nope. Just get me a new needle."
We started the same scene, take 2.
"*%$*!"
"Again?"
"I don't suppose I could get you to stitch my other pair...ah, I guess just forget it..."
Darling returned and said, "The game is over. Now what was I supposed to do?"
"Clear your slum!"
"Huh?"
"Sort through the treasures in your work bench and see if you can bear to part with any of them. I'll come out and hold your hand."
"Hi, Grampa! Whatchadoing?"
"Sorting through this stuff to see what I can throw away and what I'm going to keep."
Number 1 Granddaughter, then age 6, with her brilliant powers of observation, watched quietly for several minutes and, with the same humor that runs in the family, casually remarked "The keepers are winning." After her brilliant observation I realized all we'd really done was move stuff from one place to another. We didn't need to get better organized we needed to actually get rid of time robbers. I asked myself, "Is this item indispensable to my welfare and happiness?" I tried to separate need from greed and my decisions had nothing to do with staying in the fast lane. I was really surprised at how much I could let go and I don't remember what most of it was, but I do know I haven't missed anything I let go.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Slum Clearance
With pinch-pleated curtains ceiling to floor, wall to wall at the front window instead of a bed sheet, all kinds of things might happen. They look so spiffy I brought in a bulldozer and did a slum clearance on the living room. I was so pleased with THAT project, I started on urban renewal.
"Wow! You framed your painting."
"Yup, and hung it on the focal wall."
"I like it. The family seen it yet?"
"Nope."
Darling came home and for once he didn't say "Ooooops! Wrong house" and walk out again. He did notice the changes.
"Hmmmmmmmmm. Looks nice."
One change led to another. #2 Son was visiting #3 brother and sister for a few days so the places cleaned stayed that way. When he got home he also noted the changes.
"You get religion or sumpthin'?"
"Yeah, well guess what? You're about to get converted!"
"Nah! You back on that kick again?"
"Yes! You can't breathe in the living room anymore. I want it to stay clean."
A few days later the mail was brought in and left on the couch which attracted the newspaper to the floor which brought the cans of tennis balls to be placed on the bench which caused jackets to be thrown over the chairs which allowed two pairs of tennis shoes neatly placed side by side under the chairs which insisted that eight socks be scattered abroad and one lonely towel tossed in a heap. The water thermos did make it to the kitchen.
I approached the podium, mounted the soap box and began to preach my new religion.
"Get that mess out of here!"
"What mess?"
Darling and #2 Son looked around innocently, eyes never once seeing their leavings.
"What clutter? Two tennis rackets, Two jackets, Two pairs of shoes, Four pairs of socks...four pairs of socks?
"They cushion the feet better."
"Four pairs of socks, one towel...one towel?"
"We share."
"Yeah? Well share the pickup and get this stuff outta here!"
"We won. Don'tcha even care?"
"Oh, no! You mean we have to go through all this again this afternoon? Uh...I mean...congratulations."
"Wow! You framed your painting."
"Yup, and hung it on the focal wall."
"I like it. The family seen it yet?"
"Nope."
Darling came home and for once he didn't say "Ooooops! Wrong house" and walk out again. He did notice the changes.
"Hmmmmmmmmm. Looks nice."
One change led to another. #2 Son was visiting #3 brother and sister for a few days so the places cleaned stayed that way. When he got home he also noted the changes.
"You get religion or sumpthin'?"
"Yeah, well guess what? You're about to get converted!"
"Nah! You back on that kick again?"
"Yes! You can't breathe in the living room anymore. I want it to stay clean."
A few days later the mail was brought in and left on the couch which attracted the newspaper to the floor which brought the cans of tennis balls to be placed on the bench which caused jackets to be thrown over the chairs which allowed two pairs of tennis shoes neatly placed side by side under the chairs which insisted that eight socks be scattered abroad and one lonely towel tossed in a heap. The water thermos did make it to the kitchen.
I approached the podium, mounted the soap box and began to preach my new religion.
"Get that mess out of here!"
"What mess?"
Darling and #2 Son looked around innocently, eyes never once seeing their leavings.
"What clutter? Two tennis rackets, Two jackets, Two pairs of shoes, Four pairs of socks...four pairs of socks?
"They cushion the feet better."
"Four pairs of socks, one towel...one towel?"
"We share."
"Yeah? Well share the pickup and get this stuff outta here!"
"We won. Don'tcha even care?"
"Oh, no! You mean we have to go through all this again this afternoon? Uh...I mean...congratulations."
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Right Brain/Left Brain
I remember the neighborhood going into traumatic culture shock when after three years, two months and four days, in the darkest part of the night, Darling and I took down the bed sheet from the front window of the Retirement Cottage and replaced it with semi-sheer pinch-pleated curtains.
"There's nothing to it, Darling. Measure out three inches from the window wall on the ceiling and hang the rod."
"Hang the rod? On the ceiling?"
"Yes, dear."
"I thought you said you wanted the curtains to go from the ceiling to the floor."
"That's right. Ceiling to the floor, wall to wall."
"If you hang the brackets on the ceiling the curtains will hang down below the rod. You have to mount the brackets on the wall near the ceiling."
"We don't use brackets."
"Don't be ridiculous! The rods won't stay up without brackets--that's what you fasten them to the wall with."
"Yeah, I know. But we're not fastening them to the wall, we're hanging them on the ceiling."
"Look! See this bracket? It attaches to the wall. The drapery hooks fasten to these little sliding things with holes in them. The curtain rod goes behind here and hooks on here and there."
"Yes. I know. But we don't have rod curtains. We have pinch-pleated semi-sheer curtains."
"What does that have to do with the fact that you can't hang this rod from the ceiling? It would look dumb hanging down..."
"Trust me. Do it my way."
"You don't know what you're talking about! What you say doesn't make sense. It just isn't logical."
Knowing full well Darling is logical and left-brain oriented, I prepared for the ensuing battle by beating a hasty retreat for three hours.
When I came back, the curtains were still in the box and the rods were still on the floor. Darling's games were over and he was slightly more receptive.
"See this little dumaflotchie here? It screws into the ceiling and clips around the rod, holding it in place."
"That little thing? It'll never hold all that weight."
The next day Darling observed that the curtains really looked nice.
"Yes. It's all thanks to my dentist."
"Dentist! What's HE got to do with our curtains?"
"He is the one who explained he didn't want to be surrounded by left-brain-oriented types who were logical. He wanted dominantly RIGHT-brain-oriented females on his staff because they are creative, compassionate and haven't a logical thought in their heads."
"So? What's that got to do with our curtains?"
"Nothing. But now I know why we've stayed married for so long."
"Married! Now I really am lost. How did you get from our curtains to ..."
"Simple. I'm right-brain oriented."
"There's nothing to it, Darling. Measure out three inches from the window wall on the ceiling and hang the rod."
"Hang the rod? On the ceiling?"
"Yes, dear."
"I thought you said you wanted the curtains to go from the ceiling to the floor."
"That's right. Ceiling to the floor, wall to wall."
"If you hang the brackets on the ceiling the curtains will hang down below the rod. You have to mount the brackets on the wall near the ceiling."
"We don't use brackets."
"Don't be ridiculous! The rods won't stay up without brackets--that's what you fasten them to the wall with."
"Yeah, I know. But we're not fastening them to the wall, we're hanging them on the ceiling."
"Look! See this bracket? It attaches to the wall. The drapery hooks fasten to these little sliding things with holes in them. The curtain rod goes behind here and hooks on here and there."
"Yes. I know. But we don't have rod curtains. We have pinch-pleated semi-sheer curtains."
"What does that have to do with the fact that you can't hang this rod from the ceiling? It would look dumb hanging down..."
"Trust me. Do it my way."
"You don't know what you're talking about! What you say doesn't make sense. It just isn't logical."
Knowing full well Darling is logical and left-brain oriented, I prepared for the ensuing battle by beating a hasty retreat for three hours.
When I came back, the curtains were still in the box and the rods were still on the floor. Darling's games were over and he was slightly more receptive.
"See this little dumaflotchie here? It screws into the ceiling and clips around the rod, holding it in place."
"That little thing? It'll never hold all that weight."
The next day Darling observed that the curtains really looked nice.
"Yes. It's all thanks to my dentist."
"Dentist! What's HE got to do with our curtains?"
"He is the one who explained he didn't want to be surrounded by left-brain-oriented types who were logical. He wanted dominantly RIGHT-brain-oriented females on his staff because they are creative, compassionate and haven't a logical thought in their heads."
"So? What's that got to do with our curtains?"
"Nothing. But now I know why we've stayed married for so long."
"Married! Now I really am lost. How did you get from our curtains to ..."
"Simple. I'm right-brain oriented."
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Female/Male Brain
Now that we've collected a few pieces of information about the brain, you really should understand that you're never going to be able to communicate easily with your spouse because the female/male brains are so different. Solving the same problems, males and females use different parts of their brains. Women use more energy using their brain than men. We seldom take into consideration that women use more energy doing most things, not just talking, but in any way they solve a problem.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Emotions
What Do They Have To Do with a Clean House?
Emotions such as anger, love, joy and sadness change the biochemistry of the brain. Busy-ness brings an adrenaline high. Maybe that's why those who get too busy keep it up. They need higher and higher doses to get the rush. Brain chemicals like serotonin, a feel-good chemical, are thought-generated. Serotonin is one of the chemicals released into the body when the body gears up to take command. Capacity to elevate serotonin level quickly seems to bring dominance. This is probably why people who want power seek it. It feels much better for them to be in charge than for them to be passive or subordinate. A male monkey leader has twice the blood level of serotonin as the other males in the community. If that leader is taken away from the community, for whatever reason, his serotonin level reverts back to the level of the other males in the group. However, females respond to elevated serotonin level in the male and this causes a mellowing out in the dominant male, keeping the other males away and allowing the dominance. On the other hand some people like the subordinate feeling because it requires less action and has relatively little "high."
Here's an interesting piece of information: Decreased levels of serotonin have been found in women suffering PMS. Add another piece: Tryptophane breaks down into serotonin. Add yet another piece to those: Bananas are high in tryptophane. I'll let you come to your own conclusion.
Emotions such as anger, love, joy and sadness change the biochemistry of the brain. Busy-ness brings an adrenaline high. Maybe that's why those who get too busy keep it up. They need higher and higher doses to get the rush. Brain chemicals like serotonin, a feel-good chemical, are thought-generated. Serotonin is one of the chemicals released into the body when the body gears up to take command. Capacity to elevate serotonin level quickly seems to bring dominance. This is probably why people who want power seek it. It feels much better for them to be in charge than for them to be passive or subordinate. A male monkey leader has twice the blood level of serotonin as the other males in the community. If that leader is taken away from the community, for whatever reason, his serotonin level reverts back to the level of the other males in the group. However, females respond to elevated serotonin level in the male and this causes a mellowing out in the dominant male, keeping the other males away and allowing the dominance. On the other hand some people like the subordinate feeling because it requires less action and has relatively little "high."
Here's an interesting piece of information: Decreased levels of serotonin have been found in women suffering PMS. Add another piece: Tryptophane breaks down into serotonin. Add yet another piece to those: Bananas are high in tryptophane. I'll let you come to your own conclusion.
Monday, October 4, 2010
How I Got Started
It was after the fourth move that I heard a woman lecture on getting organized. I laughed. She had no conception of what it was like around our house! After the end of her lecture she agreed to take me on as a student. She came to my house, looked in all the rooms, closets, drawers, cupboards, said "Hmmmmm," asked me a few questions beginning with "why?" Then she was ready...
She gazed at me like an oracle, and with profound wisdom stated: "You are a person who sees life far down the trail and in great detail. Because of this you are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task that needs to be done."
"You mean I'm NOT lazy?" What a novel idea!
"The solution to your problem is to break down the task at hand into do able pieces, like eating an elephant--one bite at a time!"
After determining the greatest thorn in my side was my desk, she gave me my first weekly assignment.
"Clear the desk."
My week passed quickly--don't they always? Mary Alice came back for my next "lesson."
"You said you did your assignment."
"I did." I was devastated. I thought I had done so well...
"But the desk looks just the same."
"No it doesn't. I removed everything I could do without. Two rubber bands and a paper clip."
Barely hiding her exasperation, she began coldly clearing the desktop. All my important papers were on that desk. How could I ever find anything if she cleared it into a box?
She told me not to worry about it, and that we'd take care of it next week. She didn't even bother to give me another assignment. Realizing by this time I would need a kick start, Mary Alice asked the next week, "Where can we put things out of the family traffic pattern? I didn't even know the family had a traffic pattern!
"The solarium, I guess. Why are you taking the books off the shelf?"
"We are starting to clear. We can't organize anything unless we begin clear." Her idea of clear (bare to the bone) was not my idea of clear (two rubber bands and a paper clip). An hour later she announced, "See you next week."
I wailed, "What am I gonna to do with this pile?" It was literally a pile five feet high and six feet wide.
"Do you have a piece of typing paper and a black felt pen?"
I found both in the pile. She took the pen and marked the paper, "TO BE FILED" and propped it in plain sight on the pile.
My husband hit the ceiling when he saw the mess. I tried to reassure him...
"I'm taking lessons."
"Yeah, sure. But get this mess outta here!"
The kids finked. "Dad, this old bat came and looked in all our drawers and cupboards. Can you believe anyone could be so snoopy?"
I said quietly, "She's not old."
I worked several years learning tricks of the trade. I gradually turned my library into a showplace. I changed my filing system to one that worked, and I learned how to calendar my time.
I began to see that I could be an organized person and my home could live up to its potential. It could become a beautiful showplace, one where I could be proud to invite my friends, even my mother-in-law.
Our house became known as the happenin' place. The local crowd hung out with us. We had dances and parties. There was usually a group of teenagers surrounding my chair gossiping, laughing, crying or whatever they needed to do at the time. A good part of the time mine weren't among them. In later years I was told how much those sessions meant to the various teenagers. "I felt I could come visit you anytime and I would be welcome. You made me feel I was important and what I had to say was of worth to you, even when I was just being a typical teenager."
People were coming to me now and saying, "I wish my house looked like yours." Then they would explain and excuse, saying, "I'm not really lazy, I just can't get organized." My daughter said, "Your house makes my heart sing!" I went from a mountain of laundry on the sofa to "I wish my house looked like yours." How did that happen? The day came when I was asked to give a lecture on how to get organized. I couldn't believe it!
During the intermission of my first lecture, I was surrounded by people who wanted to have more help, which led to the formation of a group we later called Packrats "Anony-mouse".
Working with this group, I discovered that being a packrat is neither good nor bad. Look at the animal kingdom. The ant spends its entire life in the quest for something to "pack" back home. We even say we "squirrel away" things for later. So why should we care if we save things because they "can be used later?"
I can't remember when I didn't save "things" having special meaning to me but not to anyone else. A major trauma of my life came when a well-meaning relative "cleaned out" my treasure drawer and "got rid of all that junk." I was eleven and didn't think life would be worth living without my treasures. Thirty-five years later I had gathered more mountains of personal "memoirs," souvenirs--you name it, I kept it. Fibber McGee's closet couldn't hold a candle to mine. I used to tell the kids, "Here, take this and put it away" until #1 son, then age 6, said, "Sorry. We've run out of away."
Once, when I had more time than money, I took down the apple box marked "DIAPERS." I figured, as the youngest child was now in college, maybe that was one item I could part with. Imagine my surprise when I lifted the cover to discover bundle after bundle of letters tied with blue satin ribbon.
I looked at the dates on the envelopes...1947, 1950, 1953...G'wan! Who are you tryin' to kid? Nobody keeps letters thirty-five years. I wonder where I got them? Who could they possibly belong to? I sat down, put up my feet and began to untie the ribbon.
"My dearest one..."
My WHO?
I sat up and began to read more rapidly, then more slowly. At first I laughed, then I cried...By late afternoon I had a mountain of pages of old letters surrounding me. One of the kids came in, saw my tears and said,
"What's up, Ma?" and picked up a recently discarded page covered with splotches and scrawling.
"And so my dearest one I'm asking you to marry me..."
"What IS this garbage Mom? You writing a Soap Opera? This stuff is so dorky the Soaps wouldn't have it."
"Put that down! That's proof that once I was young and somebody loved me."
"No kiddin'. Who?"
Just before Darling, my beloved husband, arrived I stuffed the mountain into a 30-gallon trash bag, filled it to the brim, and set it outside.
So much for nostalgia.
Darling isn't much of a writer. A post card every other decade or so is about his limit.
At the next meeting the group helped me part with more "nostalgia" by repeating the club creed..."Have you used it in the last two months? Will you use it in the next two months? If in doubt throw it out."
One of my support team picked up an old plastic gallon milk container half full of sand and asked, "What is this?"
"Oh. That's my sand..."
"Sand?"
"Yes. I use it for the weight to keep my table dolls from falling over..."
"Dolls? Shall we throw it out?"
"NO! We really had a hard time finding that sand..."
She looked out the window into the horizon where as far as the eye could see was acres and acres of the Mojave Desert.
"But, you don't understand...we did have a hard time finding that sand..."
Two of my support team held my hand as a third poured out the sand.
"I AM A PACKRAT. I TAKE LIFE ONE STEP AT A TIME. WITH THE HELP OF PACKRATS ANONYMOUS AND MY GOOD FRIENDS I AM ON THE SLOW ROAD TO RECOVERY."
Couldn't I just keep one letter proposing marriage and one container of sand? (You don't cure a packrat, you just retrain them.)
Have you noticed packrats often marry "tossers?" This would probably be a good thing except tossers are not historians and they usually throw out the good stuff and keep the garbage. People who have a difficult time parting with things but an easy time acquiring them just may be historians who haven't learned to discern what makes history, so they keep everything.
I was at the National Archives listening to the archivist lecture. I was in shock! She was one of us! The United States Government paid her to keep things. All kinds of things. At the end of her lecture she said, "If you'd be interested in becoming an archivist..." She went on to list the schooling required. It was a job for the "intelligent." She ended with an emphatic statement of what was NOT wanted. "We DO NOT want you if you have LIBRARY skills! Librarians and archivists are on the opposite ends of the spectrum." She went on to tell about a legal battle once waged over a pocket on jeans. She had gathered a complete display on the history of pockets. It was stored as just that, "A History of Pockets"--and not under the Dewey decimal system, either!"
On visits to museums I've seen artifacts displayed from the everyday lives of generations of people. So my personal museum contains items from several generations of my own family. I have old newspapers of historical interest but leave the everyday collection of same to the library. I threw out all the log cabin syrup cans but kept my wooden spool thread carriers.
Visitors to "nostalgia" shops often comment, "We had one of those when we were kids" and then notice the selling price and wished they had kept one or two.
A PACKRAT MAY BE AN HISTORIAN who hasn't discovered his/her mission and isn't necessarily non-operational.
During one of my first Packrats Anonymous classes, I decided to give assignments every week. I decided to do the assignments along with them. When the lesson on timing chores came up, I did it too. I timed making my bed. I was shocked as I looked at the timer...fifteen seconds to make my bed? I had a hard time believing my eyes! Since that assignment was completed, my bed hasn't remained unmade. I could never again justify not making my bed because I didn't have "time." When I get up for the day, I take the covers in one hand, slide out of bed, turn around and pull the covers up, straighten them out, and there you are! The bed is nearly made for the day. Some straightening of the spread and pillows completes the job, and each time I re-enter the room I breathe a happy sigh. I am in charge of my life. My bed is made!
She gazed at me like an oracle, and with profound wisdom stated: "You are a person who sees life far down the trail and in great detail. Because of this you are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task that needs to be done."
"You mean I'm NOT lazy?" What a novel idea!
"The solution to your problem is to break down the task at hand into do able pieces, like eating an elephant--one bite at a time!"
After determining the greatest thorn in my side was my desk, she gave me my first weekly assignment.
"Clear the desk."
My week passed quickly--don't they always? Mary Alice came back for my next "lesson."
"You said you did your assignment."
"I did." I was devastated. I thought I had done so well...
"But the desk looks just the same."
"No it doesn't. I removed everything I could do without. Two rubber bands and a paper clip."
Barely hiding her exasperation, she began coldly clearing the desktop. All my important papers were on that desk. How could I ever find anything if she cleared it into a box?
She told me not to worry about it, and that we'd take care of it next week. She didn't even bother to give me another assignment. Realizing by this time I would need a kick start, Mary Alice asked the next week, "Where can we put things out of the family traffic pattern? I didn't even know the family had a traffic pattern!
"The solarium, I guess. Why are you taking the books off the shelf?"
"We are starting to clear. We can't organize anything unless we begin clear." Her idea of clear (bare to the bone) was not my idea of clear (two rubber bands and a paper clip). An hour later she announced, "See you next week."
I wailed, "What am I gonna to do with this pile?" It was literally a pile five feet high and six feet wide.
"Do you have a piece of typing paper and a black felt pen?"
I found both in the pile. She took the pen and marked the paper, "TO BE FILED" and propped it in plain sight on the pile.
My husband hit the ceiling when he saw the mess. I tried to reassure him...
"I'm taking lessons."
"Yeah, sure. But get this mess outta here!"
The kids finked. "Dad, this old bat came and looked in all our drawers and cupboards. Can you believe anyone could be so snoopy?"
I said quietly, "She's not old."
I worked several years learning tricks of the trade. I gradually turned my library into a showplace. I changed my filing system to one that worked, and I learned how to calendar my time.
I began to see that I could be an organized person and my home could live up to its potential. It could become a beautiful showplace, one where I could be proud to invite my friends, even my mother-in-law.
Our house became known as the happenin' place. The local crowd hung out with us. We had dances and parties. There was usually a group of teenagers surrounding my chair gossiping, laughing, crying or whatever they needed to do at the time. A good part of the time mine weren't among them. In later years I was told how much those sessions meant to the various teenagers. "I felt I could come visit you anytime and I would be welcome. You made me feel I was important and what I had to say was of worth to you, even when I was just being a typical teenager."
People were coming to me now and saying, "I wish my house looked like yours." Then they would explain and excuse, saying, "I'm not really lazy, I just can't get organized." My daughter said, "Your house makes my heart sing!" I went from a mountain of laundry on the sofa to "I wish my house looked like yours." How did that happen? The day came when I was asked to give a lecture on how to get organized. I couldn't believe it!
During the intermission of my first lecture, I was surrounded by people who wanted to have more help, which led to the formation of a group we later called Packrats "Anony-mouse".
Working with this group, I discovered that being a packrat is neither good nor bad. Look at the animal kingdom. The ant spends its entire life in the quest for something to "pack" back home. We even say we "squirrel away" things for later. So why should we care if we save things because they "can be used later?"
I can't remember when I didn't save "things" having special meaning to me but not to anyone else. A major trauma of my life came when a well-meaning relative "cleaned out" my treasure drawer and "got rid of all that junk." I was eleven and didn't think life would be worth living without my treasures. Thirty-five years later I had gathered more mountains of personal "memoirs," souvenirs--you name it, I kept it. Fibber McGee's closet couldn't hold a candle to mine. I used to tell the kids, "Here, take this and put it away" until #1 son, then age 6, said, "Sorry. We've run out of away."
Once, when I had more time than money, I took down the apple box marked "DIAPERS." I figured, as the youngest child was now in college, maybe that was one item I could part with. Imagine my surprise when I lifted the cover to discover bundle after bundle of letters tied with blue satin ribbon.
I looked at the dates on the envelopes...1947, 1950, 1953...G'wan! Who are you tryin' to kid? Nobody keeps letters thirty-five years. I wonder where I got them? Who could they possibly belong to? I sat down, put up my feet and began to untie the ribbon.
"My dearest one..."
My WHO?
I sat up and began to read more rapidly, then more slowly. At first I laughed, then I cried...By late afternoon I had a mountain of pages of old letters surrounding me. One of the kids came in, saw my tears and said,
"What's up, Ma?" and picked up a recently discarded page covered with splotches and scrawling.
"And so my dearest one I'm asking you to marry me..."
"What IS this garbage Mom? You writing a Soap Opera? This stuff is so dorky the Soaps wouldn't have it."
"Put that down! That's proof that once I was young and somebody loved me."
"No kiddin'. Who?"
Just before Darling, my beloved husband, arrived I stuffed the mountain into a 30-gallon trash bag, filled it to the brim, and set it outside.
So much for nostalgia.
Darling isn't much of a writer. A post card every other decade or so is about his limit.
At the next meeting the group helped me part with more "nostalgia" by repeating the club creed..."Have you used it in the last two months? Will you use it in the next two months? If in doubt throw it out."
One of my support team picked up an old plastic gallon milk container half full of sand and asked, "What is this?"
"Oh. That's my sand..."
"Sand?"
"Yes. I use it for the weight to keep my table dolls from falling over..."
"Dolls? Shall we throw it out?"
"NO! We really had a hard time finding that sand..."
She looked out the window into the horizon where as far as the eye could see was acres and acres of the Mojave Desert.
"But, you don't understand...we did have a hard time finding that sand..."
Two of my support team held my hand as a third poured out the sand.
"I AM A PACKRAT. I TAKE LIFE ONE STEP AT A TIME. WITH THE HELP OF PACKRATS ANONYMOUS AND MY GOOD FRIENDS I AM ON THE SLOW ROAD TO RECOVERY."
Couldn't I just keep one letter proposing marriage and one container of sand? (You don't cure a packrat, you just retrain them.)
Have you noticed packrats often marry "tossers?" This would probably be a good thing except tossers are not historians and they usually throw out the good stuff and keep the garbage. People who have a difficult time parting with things but an easy time acquiring them just may be historians who haven't learned to discern what makes history, so they keep everything.
I was at the National Archives listening to the archivist lecture. I was in shock! She was one of us! The United States Government paid her to keep things. All kinds of things. At the end of her lecture she said, "If you'd be interested in becoming an archivist..." She went on to list the schooling required. It was a job for the "intelligent." She ended with an emphatic statement of what was NOT wanted. "We DO NOT want you if you have LIBRARY skills! Librarians and archivists are on the opposite ends of the spectrum." She went on to tell about a legal battle once waged over a pocket on jeans. She had gathered a complete display on the history of pockets. It was stored as just that, "A History of Pockets"--and not under the Dewey decimal system, either!"
On visits to museums I've seen artifacts displayed from the everyday lives of generations of people. So my personal museum contains items from several generations of my own family. I have old newspapers of historical interest but leave the everyday collection of same to the library. I threw out all the log cabin syrup cans but kept my wooden spool thread carriers.
Visitors to "nostalgia" shops often comment, "We had one of those when we were kids" and then notice the selling price and wished they had kept one or two.
A PACKRAT MAY BE AN HISTORIAN who hasn't discovered his/her mission and isn't necessarily non-operational.
During one of my first Packrats Anonymous classes, I decided to give assignments every week. I decided to do the assignments along with them. When the lesson on timing chores came up, I did it too. I timed making my bed. I was shocked as I looked at the timer...fifteen seconds to make my bed? I had a hard time believing my eyes! Since that assignment was completed, my bed hasn't remained unmade. I could never again justify not making my bed because I didn't have "time." When I get up for the day, I take the covers in one hand, slide out of bed, turn around and pull the covers up, straighten them out, and there you are! The bed is nearly made for the day. Some straightening of the spread and pillows completes the job, and each time I re-enter the room I breathe a happy sigh. I am in charge of my life. My bed is made!
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Laziness Myth
When I was young, relatives called me lazy because I sat and read a book while the other children played, but that same "lazy" child took on the housekeeping for nine people, at age ten, after her mother died. It was war time and a cousin and her two small children, a half-sister, her husband and her two children stayed with my father and me while they worked at the same shipyard as my father. I was old enough to cook, and young enough to want to, so I fixed meals for the tired workers. It was expected of me to clean up, so I did. They didn't see me working, they only saw me reading. They didn't consider fixing meals work when I did it and the cleanup was my job anyway so that didn't count. Does taking care of eight other people sound like lazy? Maybe not trained in the most efficient way to do things, but certainly not lazy. If you believe the myth that you're lazy, non-op could become a habit.
I wanted to believe it was possible to learn a better way, so I started looking to upgrade my job skills (you know--find a better way, build a better mouse trap). Now, having learned a better way, even if I sometimes fall back to the old way because it seems easier, I don't forget the better way and sooner or later, I again choose to live the better way. It surprised me to find out that as I gained more knowledge I could deal more effectively with my problems.
Speaking of problems, it seems I always had them. I married at 18, and had a colicky son at 19. When I say colicky, I mean screaming day and night! I would walk the floor at all hours, bouncing, rubbing, cajoling, singing, dancing, driving, pleading, crying him to comfort. That was the 50's. I didn't have a caring doctor or nurturing relatives to tell me I was doing okay. Just a husband who yelled at me to "keep that baby quiet so I can get some sleep. I have to work, ya know!" My selective memory deleted Darling's exhaustion from working a full day, going to school, coming home, picking up that same colicky baby, walking, pacing, dancing, singing, jiggling, trying to soothe and comfort his beloved new son until, in total frustration, he vented his anger at me. I never once considered his anger as an expression of his helpless frustration at being unable to comfort his obviously hurting new son or that his anger was really aimed at himself because he felt helpless--I took it personally. I believed it was a personal criticism of my ability as a mother. It was August and the only air-conditioning we had was an open window. The neighbors complained. I was condemned for not being a good mother because I couldn't keep my baby quiet. Somehow, his constant crying was my fault. Finally, at about age six months, he slept through the night. By that time I was pregnant with twins.
With the GI Bill, we moved into our dream house. I was expecting "happily ever after," but became the neighborhood joke. I was called lazy because of the mountain of clean laundry in residence constantly recycling on the sofa in the living room. We didn't have all-day-wear disposable diapers. My delicate-skinned babies were allergic to plastic and rubber pants, so I changed them every time they were wet, which seemed all the time! The neighbors knew the washer was in the garage. Why couldn't they see that the quickest place to dump one of the five loads of baby clothes and eight dozen diapers I did every day was the sofa? By the time I got back inside with an armload of wash, one or more of the babies were crying and needed immediate attention. Now that I am a grandmother, I marvel that the clothes were even clean, if not folded and put away. My twins, now mothers themselves, took their toddlers shopping, and after an hour came home exhausted and irritable. When asked why, they replied, "Have you ever tried to take three babies shopping?" I laughed. "Poor dears! And there are two of you!"
Life continued to happen. I had three more children in four more years. I went downhill from there. With more people came more work. The more I tried to teach my children how to take care of themselves, the more they resisted and avoided. Although I was skilled at doing chores, cleaning, and even cooking, no one had taught me the tricks of the trade. Physical disorders, coupled with having six children in nine years, caused me to suffer chronic fatigue. The task of daily upkeep for eight active people was overwhelming. I would drag myself out of bed to take care of babies, do the laundry, muck out the toilets, fix meals. This was all sandwiched between phone calls, taxi service, nursing care, cub scouts, you name it. I would attempt to clean up the mess and tried to remember to feed myself in between all these and other tasks. Somehow, I never got enough time to get back into my room to make my bed. That unmade bed became the symbol of my failure as a wife, mother, housekeeper and homemaker. That failure was reinforced every time I re-entered my room for whatever reason. Without my being aware of it I had introduced a habit of failure into my daily life. I accepted it. After all, everyone said I was lazy and there was the proof in the form of my unmade bed. Every time I looked in the mirror, a frumpy, unhappy failure looked back at me.
I thought life would be easier with teenagers, who would be big enough to share the work load, but I found that teenagers have a natural bent toward resistance and avoidance. You might even say they have a natural tendency to rebel. When I asked my teenagers to make their beds, hang up their clothes, put their bath towels in the laundry, or set the table, they thought I was "invading their space." So their beds remained unmade, their clothes remained unhung, their bath towels remained on the bathroom floor, and I had more work to do. Not knowing how to make better use of my time and energy, or even that I could, didn't help. I felt it was my responsibility to keep my house in order, but my family could mess it up faster than I could clean it. I compared myself to others, who seemed to have their lives in order. That just made it worse, because it seemed the hurrier I went, the behinder I got! (Another hitch came in moving four times, lock, stock and barrel.)
I wanted to believe it was possible to learn a better way, so I started looking to upgrade my job skills (you know--find a better way, build a better mouse trap). Now, having learned a better way, even if I sometimes fall back to the old way because it seems easier, I don't forget the better way and sooner or later, I again choose to live the better way. It surprised me to find out that as I gained more knowledge I could deal more effectively with my problems.
Speaking of problems, it seems I always had them. I married at 18, and had a colicky son at 19. When I say colicky, I mean screaming day and night! I would walk the floor at all hours, bouncing, rubbing, cajoling, singing, dancing, driving, pleading, crying him to comfort. That was the 50's. I didn't have a caring doctor or nurturing relatives to tell me I was doing okay. Just a husband who yelled at me to "keep that baby quiet so I can get some sleep. I have to work, ya know!" My selective memory deleted Darling's exhaustion from working a full day, going to school, coming home, picking up that same colicky baby, walking, pacing, dancing, singing, jiggling, trying to soothe and comfort his beloved new son until, in total frustration, he vented his anger at me. I never once considered his anger as an expression of his helpless frustration at being unable to comfort his obviously hurting new son or that his anger was really aimed at himself because he felt helpless--I took it personally. I believed it was a personal criticism of my ability as a mother. It was August and the only air-conditioning we had was an open window. The neighbors complained. I was condemned for not being a good mother because I couldn't keep my baby quiet. Somehow, his constant crying was my fault. Finally, at about age six months, he slept through the night. By that time I was pregnant with twins.
With the GI Bill, we moved into our dream house. I was expecting "happily ever after," but became the neighborhood joke. I was called lazy because of the mountain of clean laundry in residence constantly recycling on the sofa in the living room. We didn't have all-day-wear disposable diapers. My delicate-skinned babies were allergic to plastic and rubber pants, so I changed them every time they were wet, which seemed all the time! The neighbors knew the washer was in the garage. Why couldn't they see that the quickest place to dump one of the five loads of baby clothes and eight dozen diapers I did every day was the sofa? By the time I got back inside with an armload of wash, one or more of the babies were crying and needed immediate attention. Now that I am a grandmother, I marvel that the clothes were even clean, if not folded and put away. My twins, now mothers themselves, took their toddlers shopping, and after an hour came home exhausted and irritable. When asked why, they replied, "Have you ever tried to take three babies shopping?" I laughed. "Poor dears! And there are two of you!"
Life continued to happen. I had three more children in four more years. I went downhill from there. With more people came more work. The more I tried to teach my children how to take care of themselves, the more they resisted and avoided. Although I was skilled at doing chores, cleaning, and even cooking, no one had taught me the tricks of the trade. Physical disorders, coupled with having six children in nine years, caused me to suffer chronic fatigue. The task of daily upkeep for eight active people was overwhelming. I would drag myself out of bed to take care of babies, do the laundry, muck out the toilets, fix meals. This was all sandwiched between phone calls, taxi service, nursing care, cub scouts, you name it. I would attempt to clean up the mess and tried to remember to feed myself in between all these and other tasks. Somehow, I never got enough time to get back into my room to make my bed. That unmade bed became the symbol of my failure as a wife, mother, housekeeper and homemaker. That failure was reinforced every time I re-entered my room for whatever reason. Without my being aware of it I had introduced a habit of failure into my daily life. I accepted it. After all, everyone said I was lazy and there was the proof in the form of my unmade bed. Every time I looked in the mirror, a frumpy, unhappy failure looked back at me.
I thought life would be easier with teenagers, who would be big enough to share the work load, but I found that teenagers have a natural bent toward resistance and avoidance. You might even say they have a natural tendency to rebel. When I asked my teenagers to make their beds, hang up their clothes, put their bath towels in the laundry, or set the table, they thought I was "invading their space." So their beds remained unmade, their clothes remained unhung, their bath towels remained on the bathroom floor, and I had more work to do. Not knowing how to make better use of my time and energy, or even that I could, didn't help. I felt it was my responsibility to keep my house in order, but my family could mess it up faster than I could clean it. I compared myself to others, who seemed to have their lives in order. That just made it worse, because it seemed the hurrier I went, the behinder I got! (Another hitch came in moving four times, lock, stock and barrel.)
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