Birthday Favorites Part 3

Today I’m sharing my favorite entertainment this past year – it’s on my mind because I’ve been lying around feeling sick and needing some entertainment for the last two days! Bless my in-laws, they’ve taken care of my kids, because I’ve been too sick to do so.

Here’s what I’ve been enjoying this last year:

White Collar

I loved this TV show. I was pretty sad when we finished it, because it might be one of my favorites ever. When I was a kid, I remember listening to Frank Abagnale Jr. share his story on Focus on the Family, and it was super interesting. When the movie inspired by his story, “Catch Me if You Can” came out, I wasn’t really a fan, but this TV show, also inspired by Abagnale Jr., was amazing.

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I’m trying to figure out what I loved most – the characters are fantastic, and the writers did such an incredible job with development throughout the show. And there’s that constant pull between wanting Neal Caffrey reform and be the good guy you know he has to be deep down somewhere, but…really loving how incredibly amazing he is at being a con artist. Ben and I were very divided about how we wanted the show to end – I wanted him to reform, and Ben wanted him to keep conning, but the ending was crazy unexpected, and we were both satisfied, and then sad, because that show was just so great.

Brene Brown

Rising Strong strongly affected the way I think, so I ordered The Gifts of Imperfection next, and Ben gave me Daring Greatly for my birthday. Anything she writes is fantastic. I wrote about Rising Strong here, and The Gifts here. I’m sure Daring Greatly will inspire a blog post or two in the future.

Instagram

I was curious about Instagram for a long time, but since I’m not the hugest social media fan, I held off. I didn’t think I needed anything else to distract me or keep me busy. But oh my goodness, Instagram is wonderful. It’s exactly what I love – combining pretty pictures with words. I just love following people who know how to take good pictures. I’m still trying to learn how to take good pictures with my phone, but it’s fun to play around with, and I love seeing how other people are sharing their images. If you’re not on Instagram, but you want to check out what I’m sharing, just click on the image to the right.

What have you been doing for fun recently? Any good TV shows on Netflix for us to try, now that White Collar is done?

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Weekend Favorites, and Thoughts on Creativity

For awhile now, I’ve found it really hard to make time for blogging, or even just for snapping a few pictures. I think there are a number of things which affect my creative energy – just lack of energy, in general, but also state of mind. When I was blogging regularly, my mom said she always knew how well I was doing by how regularly I posted on my blog! There’s some truth to that – this last year, I’ve found that recovering from postpartum anxiety has made it really hard to create.

I’ve also found creativity to have a snowball effect – the more I do, the more I want to do. When I’m not making time for it, I do less and less.

The good news is that over the last few months, I’ve felt more creative energy returning – I’m writing blog posts in my head again.:) Now I just find myself back in the place of needing to make time for creating.

I’ve been reading The Gifts of Imperfection lately, and last week, I came across this:

“Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.” (Brene Brown)

That rings true with me. I’ve felt “clogged up” lately – everything in my life is better when I’m writing regularly, and searching for beauty in my everyday life. I’ve been neglecting something life-giving to me.

The issue of time in my life still remains, but I’m seeing how necessary it is to make the time, not because my blog is that outrageously important to the world, but because it’s one of my favorite ways to create.

Brene Brown also writes,

“There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t.”

I asked Ben what he does to create, and I liked his answer. He’s not into art, and right now he’s not taking much time for music or writing, although he’s gifted in those areas, but lately, he says he creates by coming up with ideas. I hadn’t thought about ideas being his creative outlet, but it’s so true! Ben comes up with ideas just for the sake of having an idea. Sometimes the ideas have to do with his job and are very useful, but other times, they are completely random – commercials he’ll never make, or plots for books I really hope he writes someday! I love the idea of creating being whatever you want it to be, whatever keeps things fun, new, fresh, and exciting.

So in the effort to keep things fresh and exciting, our family went on a little adventure last night, and I brought my camera. We created.:)

What do you do to bring creativity into your life?

 

When I Need to Assume the Best About People

Last week, I received an email which had my stress level rising before I’d even read it – the subject title alone got me going. I was pretty sure I knew exactly what the email was about, and unfortunately, reading it confirmed my suspicions. I was also fairly confident I knew why the email had been sent, and was having a difficult time keeping my emotions from rising to the occasion.

As I began to mentally form a response, two wise voices started saying things in my head.

The first voice was Ben’s, because he always says, “You can never be too gracious.”

The second voice was Brene Brown, who says:

I had to think these things over for a little while. The ungracious, defensive part of me felt the email was critical, but how could I interpret it in the best way possible? I decided to take it as someone’s well-meaning intention to show care and concern, rather than criticism, even though it was hard for me to actually appreciate their input.

I wrote the most gracious response I could come up with, and then deleted the email so I wouldn’t be tempted to go back to it.

Remember how we make up stories in our heads? It can be easy to take a comment or email the wrong way, and make up all kinds of reasons as to why someone would say or do something annoying or even hurtful. But more and more, I’m seeing how I need to make generous assumptions of other people – when they question my choices, or when I’m mentally questioning theirs! Can I assume everyone is trying their best? That doesn’t mean it’s THE best, or even THEIR best, but could I at least say that in their situation, with their current resources and abilities, they are trying their best?

I remember a friend once saying, “Nobody sets out to make really bad decisions on purpose.” We all have our reasons, our weaknesses, and our moments. I’m trying my hardest, but I fall short, and I need a lot of grace. So does everybody else.

Now, I am completely aware of the fact that sometimes, it does NOT look like people are trying their best. It was hard to make generous assumptions this morning when I went to check on my girls’ bedroom after I asked them to clean it up, and it was still a bit of a disaster. Was it their best? Probably not.

And I’ll never forget the day when my high school gym teacher made some assumptions about my performance on the basketball court. He stopped the game, and came storming over to me with whistle blowing, arms waving, and voice yelling, completely humiliating me in front of the whole class.

He assumed I didn’t care about doing my best, but what he didn’t understand was that I cared too much – I was so worried about making a fool of myself, it was self-protection to not try, because when I was purposely not trying, no one could see how bad I still was if I actually tried.

When I think back to that painful memory, it makes me wonder if people (even children who are asked to clean up their rooms) are held back in some way from doing their best. When Kaylia goes into an overwhelmingly messy room, she shuts down. She uses a variety of tactics to avoid cleaning it up, because her brain just can’t take it in. If I hand her one item at a time, she has no problems taking that item and returning it to the right place. I’m trying to teach her how to do this on her own – don’t look at the pile, just grab one item, figure out where it goes, and keep repeating until it’s all done. But that’s really hard for her. She’s held back from her best.

So let’s say we’re all trying our best, or we have issues holding us back from our best – I’d say either one calls for grace and generous assumptions.

I want to learn to expect the best from people. And when they can’t give it, I want the sensitivity to realize we are all held back with old hurts and emotional baggage, but usually, we’re all trying really hard.

What’s the most generous assumption I can make?

The Story in My Head

I just finished reading Rising Strong this last week. It’s the first book I’ve read by Brene Brown, and I loved it, which is evidenced by how many page corners I folded down to remind me where my favorite passages were…

The whole book is amazing, full of many different ideas which I will be mentally chewing on for some time, but the one which impacted me the most was the idea of “the stories we tell ourselves”. She writes about the tendency we have to fill in missing details in our effort to understand ourselves, as well as other people.

“Storytelling helps us all impose order on chaos—including emotional chaos. When we’re in pain, we create a narrative to help us make sense of it. This story doesn’t have to be based on any real information. One dismissive glance from a coworker can instantly turn into I knew she didn’t like me. Our stories are also about self-protection. I told myself Steve was blaming me so I could be mad instead of admitting that I was vulnerable or afraid of feeling inadequate. I could disengage from the tougher stuff. That’s what human beings tend to do: When we’re under threat, we run. If we feel exposed or hurt, we find someone to blame, or blame ourselves before anyone else can, or pretend we don’t care.”  (source)

I love to analyze, and I spend a lot of time in my own head, trying to figure things out. This can lead to some nasty storytelling, which I’ve been aware of for a long time, but it wasn’t until I read this book that it became clear to me while I was in the process of doing it.

It was one of those long, bumpier than normal kind of days, and I had already helped our sweet children through a long list of complaints, negative attitudes, and many other parenting challenges by the time Ben got home from work. While he was still by the door, yet another behaviour issue exploded, and I reached my limit. Ben could tell I was done for the day, and any parenting after that point could get a bit scary, so he, in an effort to be helpful, said, “Why don’t you go into the other room and let me handle this?”

Because of the frustration of the moment, I misunderstood his intent – Ben was trying to be helpful, but I thought he was telling me to go to the other room because I couldn’t keep calm while dealing with the situation. Instead of getting mad at our kid, I got mad at Ben. I held it in until I got to our bedroom, but I was furious with him, and feeling extremely justified. How dare he suggest that I was not capable of parenting our children in an appropriate manner? How could he make such a comment in front of our kids, criticizing my self-control and ability to handle the situation? “Somehow,” I thought to myself, “I manage to care for all three children every single day, all day long, while he is off relaxing in his office at work without any tantrums, screaming, or bad attitudes exploding in his face repeatedly!” (Like all he does all day is relax, but in the moment, I was not entirely reasonable!)

As these very heated thoughts blazed their way through my mind, Brene Brown’s question popped up: “What story am I making up in my head?” Immediately, I started to get curious. Why was I responding this way? What was making me so mad? What was going on behind all this anger?

The realization struck me – I was taking Ben’s words and interpreting them in a way which fueled insecurities about my parenting, rather than hearing what he was actually saying. He was offering me a break after a long day, but I was taking it as criticism of my parenting, and responding with anger on the surface, when deep down, I was actually feeling hurt and insecure in my parenting. I was ashamed that I couldn’t keep things under control, and disappointed with myself for how the day had gone.

It’s a lot harder to be honest about insecurity than about anger, but it makes for a much calmer, less explosive conversation. Because my issue was not even about anger, we would have gotten nowhere trying to work out what was making me “mad”, until I could recognize what was truly going on underneath. Once our kids were in bed, we had time to talk it over, and I couldn’t believe how much harder it was to tell him I was feeling shame and inadequacy as a parent, as well as hurt because I misunderstood his offer to help as a subtle sign of judgement.

I wanted to be mad, because it was easier, but admitting to the messier stuff underneath brought things to the surface which I needed to work through on my own, and had nothing to do with Ben.

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It is really tempting to deny responsibility, or deny the messy, ugly truth deep down inside us. But that incident with Ben, which really had nothing to do with Ben, made me feel so much better when I could identify what was truly going on, and face the messy stuff. I still have a lot more internal housecleaning to do, but it makes a big difference already to be aware of these feelings of insecurity or inadequacy I have as a parent, and the lies they’re telling me.

All of this makes me curious about what else is lurking down there. I think I have a lot more stories to explore, and some brave new endings to write!