The Squawky Bird

For the last two weeks when we pulled up into the parking lot at church and there was this bird standing on the river rocks that lined the parking lot.  The bird looked like it was about to attack us.  It was squawking and ruffling up her feathers and I’m going to admit she was pretty scary.  After before and after church both days that bird just had it out for us. When we went to leave one of my daughters threw a rock at the bird because she was scared.  She thought that the bird was going to attack us and she thought the bird was being mean but after looking a little closer we saw that in the rocks there were some eggs that were the exact same color as the rocks and she had her nest right next to the spot where we usually park. After realizing this my daughter felt really bad. My kids have been fighting a lot lately and really just saying, “She's mean...” It made me think of this squawky bird and how she was misunderstood and how she was acting “mean” only to protect something.  What I want my girls to understand is that sometimes people my be acting out only because they are feeling threatened, or they feel that someone they love is being threatened, or they do not feel loved or accepted. One of my daughters was upset and said she was "mean." My kids have been using that word like crazy! Argh it is now a bad word in our home! Anyway I explained to her that she wasn't mean but just a "squawky bird" who was being misunderstood.

 Not only did it make me contemplate my girls relationships but it made me contemplate myself and my reactions as well as others reactions towards me.  When someone is acting out towards me I need to be slow to judge and slow to be offended because it is most likely not personal.  Also, it is most likely no issue on my part but it is usually something the other person struggles with. It is more important to look deeper and smarter than it is to retaliate.  I just read an article about a study saying that peoples addictions are driven by a lack of being loved and having a community and feeling apart of a community and having a healthy and safe environment.  Basically loneliness.  In today’s society there is a lot of loneliness and we need to reach out to one another and lift each other up even if they are being a squawky bird.  The more we love the more changes we can see.  However, the other thing to remember is that even if we choose to love and to understand others they may never change.  They may always "squawk" at us.  The other thing that I love about the squawky bird is that even if I change my behavior towards someone there is no guarantee that they will change their reactions towards me.  I honestly believe that is is possible to repair hurt, to reclaim love, and break down barriers. There simply is just nothing you can do sometimes.  This bird will probably squawk at us next week too.  Realizing this only helps build realistic expectations.  I do not think it is necessary to change sometimes except our expectations.

Lessons in progress:

Don't be too quick to judge.

Recognize our intentions and motives and easily forgive ourselves.

Change anger to love and see if the squawky bird stops squawking.

I won't always change others by changing myself but I will change myself and therefore bring more peace.

Try not to squawk when I'm misunderstood and just realize that unless I've helped someone understand my side they will not automatically be understanding.

Doubt to Confidence

It is a strange realization when you realize that the love that you have for yourself is conditional.  The love that I have for myself is conditioned upon what I am able to accomplish.  If I am able to get a lot done, finish all of my goals, accomplish what I set out to do and when my life is going well and I am living up to my expectations of myself I am confident and making good and decisive choices because I love myself.  When I am not doing the above things I am not confident and I have a hard time making choices and I second guess myself.  Those are the times when I do not love myself.  If I could continue to love myself despite mistakes and setbacks then I would be able to bounce back out of those setbacks much easier.  Rather then having to prove to myself that I am worthy to be loved I could just forgive myself and move on making confident choices again.

I am shamefully a yeller.  I am fully capable of being a sane and level headed mother but when I do not love myself and when I feel guilty and when I do not love myself I also feel like others should not love me either.  I tend to want to be a grouch and distance myself from others.  I was having the worst night and unfortunately for the plate involved because it ended up shattered.  I was just yelling about everything mostly about everything that I had asked the kids to do which they had not done.  Not that my rampage was not shameful enough and of course the guilt was building up I then had the sweetest children in the world, if I do say so myself, tell me, “We love you Mom.”  What sweet spirits full of unconditional love for me.  I am humbled and learning from their sweet example to me.  Despite my rampage and the broken plate they still loved me, could I do the same thing and love myself and others unconditionally just as my kids did for me and the Savior does for us.  Through this experience I can see a glimmer of light as to what the pure love of Christ is,  It is unconditional and perfect.

Lessons in Progress:

1.)  When you feel like you are not good enough, have not done enough, and are not confident in your choices...choose to love, yourself.

2.)  "We’re not sayin' you can change him,

‘Cause people don’t really change.
We’re only saying that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices if they’re mad,
Or scared, or stressed.
Throw a little love their way.

Throw a little love their way.
And you’ll bring out their best...

...Father!
Sister!
Brother!
We need each other to raise

Us up and round us out." (Wilson, Frozen, 2013)

Love can change how we treat ourselves, others, and become vulnerable to others.

3.)  Getting hurt is just apart of life we are going to disappoint ourselves and those we love but love, forgiveness, and trust are what we are learning and unconditional love can help pull this off.

Accept Defeat

When things go wrong and there is nothing more that you can do to fix it then sometimes it is time to accept defeat and keep moving forward.

The Necklaces

My girls got necklaces this year for Easter. They had pendant fairies on them with tiny jars of fairy dust. I knew the girls would love them and they did. They put them on right away and took great care of them. The next day one of my daughters had her jar of glitter in her mouth and was kind of chewing on it. And it breaks and fairy dust, aka glitter, goes everywhere including all over her mouth. I would be upset and could tell that she was but she was hiding it from us very well. I took her upstairs to get away from everyone and to clean the glitter off of her tongue and make sure that she didn't get cut. I asked her if she was sad about her necklace and immediately the wall she had up fell and the tears began to fall. "I'm really sad mom." And even though it was just a thing and maybe doesn't mean much to me I felt for her. I felt bad knowing that she tried to have a strong face because she knew that she really shouldn't have had that necklace in her mouth. It was her fault. So she should pretend like it doesn't bother her? It was okay for her to be upset I understood how she felt and I held her and let her cry and let her be disappointed. I had a friend who told me they were having another baby really close to another baby they had and she said, "I know it was my choice but I still want to be able to have feelings and share feelings when things get hard, because I know they will."

Within minutes of the first incident my other daughter tripped and fell and saved herself from falling into the entertainment stand but as she did her new necklace flung forward and hit the entertainment stand and broke. She didn't notice until later when one if her sisters saw the glitter on the ground and told her. She was sad and felt bad that her new necklace was ruined.

Later that same day the daughter with the only left jar of fairy dust didn't want to give me her necklace because she was afraid I would break or loose it. She promised herself that she wouldn't let hers break, so she put it in her coat pocket when we got ready to go swimming. When I left the house and saw the coats sitting by the front door I thought I better bring them because even though they weren't needed now, on this early spring day, they would need them when it was dark and cold and they were wet leaving the pool. So I grabbed the coats. Later, when my daughter realized I brought the coats she looked for her necklace and couldn't find it she had thoughts of a lost and broken necklace and worried about it until we got home. Luckily, we found the necklace on the porch outside the front door but unluckily the necklace had been stepped on and her glass jar was broken and there was glitter all over the porch. She was devastated. She was sad that her new necklace was broken but more then that she was upset that she had broken her promise to herself. I gave her hugs and understood why she was so upset. I hated breaking promises to myself and others.

I was also upset with myself for giving them such a breakable gift. I thought that they were tough jars but I was mistaken. I also thought they would just love them. Well, they did love them enough that they were so upset that they were broken. I felt like I set them up to fail and that wasn't my intention at all. I could easily find other jars of fairy dust to give them to replace the broken jars but sometimes it is just best to accept my mistake and move on. There were some great lessons we learned from the jars of magic glitter we sprinkled about:

Lessons In Progress:

1.) Even though it may be your fault that something bad has happened it doesn't mean that you are not allowed to have feelings about it.

2.) When something you love gets ruined or broken or lost its okay to be upset about it.

3.) When your kids or others feel upset about something that you wouldn't be upset about. Find a situation in which you felt the same way they are feeling and your heart will melt!

4.) Because I wasn't angry with the kids I was able to help them and see their side.

5.) When you don't end up doing something that you said you would do, despite your best efforts, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person or that you are a failure. It doesn't mean that you should stop trying or that you aren't able to do something that you put your mind to, it doesn't mean that you don't have integrity. It means that sometimes things go the way we want or try but most of the time they don't. There is something better in-store for us and we must trust and accept that we don't always control everything and that things will work out for us.

6.) Trying to go back in time and fix things won't work. Accept that you make bad choices sometimes and just move on. You can't always get back what is lost.

7.) Its good that we don't have to worry about making up for what is lost because the savior makes up what we can't do. He knows those struggles we are going through and even when we mess up he is willing to put his arms around us and let us cry.

Trials Make us Stronger.

At this point I'm not saying this because I'm at the point where the trial has made me stronger but I'm saying it because I hope it does make me stronger after I'm done with this doozy, I guess I'm never done at all anyway but when it gets to the point where it goes a bit easier. Though I suppose it will only be to prepare myself for the next doozy in which case I'm hoping I'll be stronger and a lot more apt to handle it.

I don't have enough time or energy to go into detail about this doozy soooooo...

Lessons in progress...

1.) Believe in Good will, people are usually trying to do what's best and not trying to put you down.

2.) When people mess up you have to forgive or else your stuck with the burden.

3.) Do your best with the situation you are given. Realize what you can control and what you can't and work on those things that you do control.

4.) Time to process and work through things is key don't expect immediate fixes for problems and don't feel pressure in making choices right away when you don't have all the information yet.

People are who they are.

This theme that I've been learning a lot about lately really has two different meanings for me. One is that I am much happier now that I am accepting myself and my feelings and now that I am learning about who I am and more so, accepting myself. The second part of this is that other people are going to be themselves and weather we think we should have a different relationship with them than what we have, we can not change other people it's best to accept them for them.

Being Me...

I noticed myself accepting things about myself that I don't necessarily see as a good thing but now I know that it's apart of self acceptance. I sometimes hate the fact that I love order and in the past as come off like I'm trying to control. When in fact order is a good thing and cleanliness are good things it's just when it gets to the point of control or overdoing it is when it becomes a problem. I have made many changes these past couple weeks in embracing myself that have changed my outlook and made life a lot better for me. Because I like things clean I had this goal that was unattainable and I just recently made it attainable and I am putting it into action. My past goal of cleaning the whole house once a day and then deep cleaning once a week. Which I have now realized in unrealistic in a perfect "Lindsay World" it would be fabulous but I don't live in that world so my new goal is one chore a day and each day of the week is assigned a chore. Monday- Paperwork
Tuesday-Bathrooms
Wednesday-Wash Furniture
Thursday-Dusting/Windows
Friday-Floors
Saturday-Laundry/iron
Sunday-Rest
Everyday-Planner and Clean Kitchen after meals
This system which I have accepted as acceptable works much much better than the other because I can actually do this one and I don't get overloaded and frustrated and give up most of the time. And my housework actually gets done more efficiently.

Another change I have made is accepting the fact that I love my planner I love having my routine and I love my chore charts for the girls and I love our house rules especially the one where we only eat in the kitchen and I have accepted that even if this is not the norm for all families it is what I want and it is what is working for me. I have also accepted that if I what these things to always work there is change in life so there will also need to be a change in the way things are organized but if I keep it organized I will be happy.

Accepting Others...

The most difficult people to accept sometimes are the ones you think should be a certain way which are not. Loved ones for example. There have been some things that I have been hurt by from my father recently and I shared them with him. I expected things to go a lot better and then hopefully get a better relationship with him. But what I realized was that he is content with the current situation and does not wish to change it he was very defensive and blaming. His intentions are good but he feels a victim and picked on so I feel like I will not be able to change that and in turn that means he will continue to feel that way and judge me based on that paradigm. It's best for me to accept him and his view on things so that I do not have false hope and just acceptance of the current situation and if times heals it then that is the only thing that will because my voice which I'm glad I was able to share it gave me more confidence in myself but it did not change things and I can at least know that I have a voice and I have feelings and even though he was not willing to validate them I can validate them for myself.

Lessons in Progress...
#1: Changing myself has been really not about changing me but accepting me. Which has in turn changed me and my disposition and the way I deal with other people because I can confidently and kindly say how I feel.

#2: Even though I was not able to resolve the conflict I was having with my father I was able to resolve it with myself. I know I spoke to him respectfully and kind and I know I validated his feelings and I know I stood up for me and my feelings which in the end is a victory for me.

#3: I can't change others but I control myself and my feelings and I cannot keep allowing my feelings to be hurt so accept how others view the relationship so I don't keep putting myself in a position to be hurt.

#4: Sharing my feelings is a major part of accepting myself and most people will accept them and even in the cases where people do not you cannot risk holding them back for that reason, for risk is the only way to truly stand up for yourself.

"Change the Changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable." -Denis Waitly

Trust and Control.

There are far too many things in this life that I do not control. In fact, there is only one thing that I do control. And that happens to be me. A lot of my energy, worry, and anxiety come from things that I want to change or think I have to change that I cannot change and that I cannot control. If I could just take all that energy that goes into worrying, manipulating, and trying to control things that are really beyond my control and put that energy into changing what I can change, my life would be a lot easier and happier.

Trust...

I have a really hard time trusting people and for a long long time I really believed that I trusted people. When I admitted to myself that I did not trust people I felt sad about it but at the same time I was relieved because I knew I had admitted the truth to myself. In other words I came out of Denial. I know it is cliche to say but it's so true that once you can admit it you can change it. I was talking to my sister about marriage and about how she was nervous about some things with a guy she was dating but she didn't really know for sure if she should worry. And it was then that I realized that once I stopped thinking I could control my husband and realized that he was his own person with his own choices and that I couldn't worry about what could be or what might happen is when I realized that I did Trust him. Control is apart of trusting others. If you feel like you need to control others you cannot trust them because you do not believe they will do what is right on their own. The other thing that is important with control and trust is that you have enough confidence in yourself to know that if something were to happen that is bad ever in your life that you could handle it. I will not die and I will move on and be able to make life good no matter what happens. Bad things will happen in my life a lot of things that are going to be outside of my control and I can accept the reality, feel the feelings, and move past it. I will not ignore things that are going on in my life, I will deal with them, and move on. My sister knew that in order for herself to move past this she had to talk things out and she did or so she said I'm going to have to talk to her and see how it went.

Lessons in Progress:

#1: Once I learn to trust and control myself I can learn to trust others.

#2: Believe that most people are good and have good intentions at heart. My husband truly wants to do what is best for me and that can bring me peace.

#3: Bad things do happen lucky for me God controls them and he doesn't give me anything that I cannot handle.

#4: When I worry about things that I cannot control I rob myself of being the best person I can be.

#5: I don't control my kids, I teach them. (that's a whole other story for another day.)

Is it Good or Bad.

So I tend to think and think and think situations over and over and over in my head and I can't sleep and I can't function properly because I'm stressing about it. One of the things that I tend to run over in my head is conversations that I have had with people. They are usually conversations in which I am feeling like others have percieved me in a negative way.

To Help or not to Help...

So I was getting into my car after leaving a stressfull experience at the park with my kids and someone I knew stopped to ask if I had a nipple shield and if they could have it for their cousin who just had a baby and they were having trouble brestfeeding. Now I am an advocate for breastfeeding but I really didn't know what to say at the moment because I wasn't sure if I still had it and I also didn't know if I really wanted to give it up so I went on rambling all these type of thoughts to her several times and I was also telling her that someone else we knew I thought that she had a couple of them and to try and call her first. Then later I talked to my friend and she said that they had said that I didn't want to give them my nipple sheild and I was feeling really stressed that these people thought that I wasn't willing to help or that I was selfish and that I should have said it differently when I was talking to her and I just couldn't stop thinking about it and I worried the bad impression that I left.

Lessons in Progress:

#1: I could first think about the conversation and think of a better way to aproach the situation and realize that I made a mistake and that I will do better next time. Everyone makes mistakes and has weird conversations sometime.

#2: I have to realize that in every situation everyone will interpret it differently and I can't predict it and I can't control it all I can do is make the best choice I can for me. Then because I know that I made the best choice I could even if someone thinks a negative thought about me it doesn't mean that I am mean it just means that there is another interpretation for it. I have to choose to think of it in a positive way.

#3: The conflict was not with someone else but it was with me.

Make a Game Plan.

Last Sunday I went into church with no game plan at all I was completely ill prepared mentally and it showed the whole day. Not only because I was grouchy but I was frantic. My husband works shifts and so he has to work Sundays and on those Sunday's I dread it. Today however, I prepared for it. I knew last week went so bad and I could feel myself starting to get really anxious about this week as well. So I set myself down and thought well what is stressful about this and what could make it better. So I thought out the morning in my head and decided the best order for things to be done and also came up with a plan B in case plan A didn't pan out because let's face it if you've got young kids Plan A and B don't always go so I also had to be prepared that either of these might not work out and be okay with that to and that I'm not super woman just a woman and things will get done when they get done and eventually how they get done.

I got to church and things did go pretty much as envisioned on my part anyway. Good thing I didn't envision the kids because that really is unpredictable. But really the best part of it was that I slept the night before, I didn't feel stressed getting there because I had a plan and I also knew what else would happen if it didn't get done and I could just enjoy church. I was able to let it go from my stress and thoughts.

Lessons in progress:

#1: Visualize. When you know you are about to face something that is stressful. Create it first in your brain, have a plan and figure the best way to do it.

#2: Realize that things may not go as you envision them but that it is also not going to be the end of the world if it doesn't even get done at all, life goes on, people don't usually judge us as hard as we do and if they do the don't understand you and they do not understand your value and your choice.

#3: Do some breathing, venting (I like to write), and then say to yourself I am a smart person and I am capable of doing this.

Just do it.

Today was one of those days were I was so overwhelmed emotionally that I really just didn't want to do anything. And really that isn't all true either the morning part of the day went pretty well. But then my friend also got involved in this insurance problem and then I wanted to call my Aunt to ask for her advice but I'm nervous because I just feel really stupid about it. But then also my mom called and her breast cancer might be back and then the baby wouldn't sleep and I needed a minute to deal with all my feelings because I was getting my heache nasea and dizzy spell. My body couldn't stand up let alone take care of my babies to the best I could so I kind of lost it and then they went to sleep and I just sat and watched TV. I tried to write and vent and then my sister called and I vented to her about a syrup incident this morning.

I made waffles and Ice cream for my daughters birthday this morning I hope this tradition catches on a bit more. Anyway my Husband was getting the syrup and he combined one syrup with the other one which would have made since if the one bottle was smaller but it was big too and it only had a little bit left in it and all he had to do was to use it and then throw that bottle away that I have been wanting to throw away for a very long time and I didn't want to put all the syrup back because know it's all mixed and germy and gross. Anyway I know silly but it made me very angry because I didn't like any of the options for fixing it. (Things would work out if I just did it though and not worries so much about germs from one syrup to the other but it really bothered me.)

It was really nice just to talke to my sister and then a friend called and invited me to Zumba tonight too and I just did it even though I didn't really feel like it and it ended up being really nice. Plus it was exercise which is also a good release of Anxiety.

Lessons in progress:

#1: Deal and Vent before I just watch TV so I can just relax.

#2: I need people. I need to have somebody to talk to about things and help me put things in more of a perspective. And others are usually going through or can understand what I'm going through so it's nice to share with others. I just need to do it and quit being so guarded.

#3: Exercise and friends are also a good way to help release stress and if I just get myself going it's worth it. Ask myself the question, "which choice is more important and what goes better with my values? Sit at home and watch more TV or do something?" Do something usually seems to make me feel better.