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.

Make it harder and harder

Why do we need to make things harder and harder on ourselves. Sometimes the best solutions are simple. Why so many regulations? Let the people govern themselves kind of thing.

School safety

Kids at our school are going home the wrong way multiple times. And I feel like the school feels that this safety issue is important but that they are making it way to complicated to fix it. They've come up with travel tags, and now they are going to color code them per bus. And the teachers have to read each students travel tag every day after school and sometimes they just don't and the bus drivers just don't always check them either. So the kids have to have a note to ride a different bus unless its for an activity and then they can just have it on their travel tag and then they don't have to have a note even though its a different bus from their regular bus. And if their travel tag isn't updated then they "will most likely be in the office," so I guess that's only if they think they know where you might be going or if your 5 year old "remembers" the right day if the week and where they are supposed to go. And even though the travel tags have a place to write down if it is the standard travel plan (or normal way they get home) for the week or they can put down the week that the travel plan should be for.  Apparently we still can't figure out if its the right travel plan or not because we can't hold parents responsible for updating the plans even thought we should really just say, "if you don't have a note you go home the way you are supposed to." Hey I lived in a much bigger city growing up and if you didn't have a note you road the bus that you were on the list to ride or walked home or got picked up like you were supposed too, simple as that.

The more ways they try to regulate it the more it's going to go wrong.  The more opportunity for them too.

My oppinion is send kids home the way they are supposed to go home even if they are kicking and screaming and then if it's wrong guess what the parent is either going to write a note like they are supposed to or if you are using travel tags they will have them updated simple as that.

Lessons in progress:

1.) I control me and not others I can only change me.

2.) The more we over think things and over do things the worse it gets. I know that so I'm going to stop thinking about this and just control me and my kids and try to relax.

3.)If at first you don't succeed try try again.  I tried voicing my oppinions about this but got the smack down.  As important of an issue as school safety it is not one that I can see myself keeping quite about.


What do you think? How do your kids get home or to daycare or activities safely after school? How many times have your kids or someone you know went to the wrong place after school in your school district? Is this a bigger problem than I imagine?

Respect Yourself.

I think once you start respecting yourself and saying what you feel and knowing that you are important enough to do those things others around you can respect you and they notice that they can't walk on you.

People Pleasing...

Me being a People Pleaser I've had a really hard time saying how I feel or doing what I need to do especially if it conflicts with how someone else feels. It is really a negative thing for my self confidence and my self concept even. I had an experience where I just said how I felt even though a friend of mine was saying something different. Because I'm not always this way she seemed shocked but really afterwords I felt more respect. If we do not respect ourselves other don't either.

This has really turned into a positive thing for me. I feel like I can make this weakness of mine into a positive thing. I still want to please people but instead of giving up myself identity to do I speak my peace in a kind way that would not be intended to hurt someone, and explain myself if necessary. But also because I like to please others it brings many good qualities. Like being a good friend and listener, and being willing to help when others need you. These are positive things that I can embrace about myself and throw out the part where I lose myself in it. The balance needs to be there.

I have really been doing my breathing twice a day and thinking positive thoughts and I have been not only recognizing the times that I do mess up but also making efforts to change them. This is giving me more confidence to say what I think and have more confidence in my choices.

Lessons in Progress...

#1: I need to give myself enough respect to say what I feel and give myself the time that I need so that I'm not always giving so that I can also give to myself.

#2: Embrace myself even the weaknesses because they can only make me stronger.

#3: Constantly worrying about what others think about me and how they might react if I disagree is a waste of time and energy it's also counterproductive and unnecessary, and mostly it causes a lot of anxiety.

#4: The definition of insane is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I have to change what I am thinking and my actions if I expect to recover from anxiety.

#5: Don't forget my breathing and meditation in the morning it grounds me and is helping me change my thinking and behavior and therefore easing the Anxiety.

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

Choose What you Want.

I find it fascinating that I often choose something based on what others think and based on how others feel even when it seems that they would not be hurt in return. I do think that my anxiety plays a big part in this, I am constantly thinking about how others think or even how I just think that they will think and it's hard to make choices because I'm so anxious about all of those things that I make myself think about which may or may not be and ultimately should demand my decisions.

Build a Bear...

So, grandma came for a visit last weekend and it's always a blast when grandma comes but this time it was an especially exciting trip because grandma took the girls to Build a Bear and let them make their own stuffed animal. I honestly didn't quite understand the hype about the place until we went there and got to see the whole process in action, the girls loved and the employee was so good with them, I was impressed with the whole experience. Anyway, the story I'm about to tell doesn't take place this day exactly. So we were at home talking about their cute cuddly toys from build a bear and one of my daughters new lovey for bedtime. And my other daughter said, "I really wanted the white one." (The White one is pictured above picture from the build a bear website.) Well Mom, Dad, and Grandpa didn't care for the white one so we thought we'd ask her if she wanted to Brown one instead. It was a perfectly innocent question on our part which she agreed that she would prefer the brown one. So she got the brown Horse and was and is very happy with it. She tell me however that she was sad that she didn't pick the white one. I decided that this was a perfect moment to teach my child about making our choices no matter what anyone else thought. It's never to early to teach the necessities of life. I also decided that it was a great moment for me to learn to just let her have the funny looking pony because she likes it. It's not going to be my Stuffy it's going to be hers to love. In the end we decided that if she would earn half the money for the white one I would pay for the other half. And she was excited that her brown pony would have a friend.

Lessons in Progress:

#1: Make your choice for you because in the end you are going to be stuck with your choice.

#2: Let your children make their choice and deal with the consequences of them. It is a good idea to give them guidance and direction but when their heart is leaning somewhere let them go, they need to gain confidence in making their choices.

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.

Speak my peace.

I was having a problem with an insurance company I was working with. I just felt the whole time that my agent was witholding information and that I wasn't getting all the information and then I found out that I had two other indemnity policies which I thought I only had one policy and then she finally got me all the paperwork and she had signed my name on papers to sign me up for these policies. And I was really angry and felt like I had been cheated and lied to and very angry. But more than angry about it I was very nervous to talk to the lady and customer service about the situation. I even tried talking myself into that this wasn't a big deal just so that I wouldn't have to talk to someone about such an outrageous contentious topic. I finally got the nerve after three nights of practice and the first time I talked to her she did deny and then I got the papers and knew that I was right and I called canceled my policy and told her why and the truth and it was very freeing to be able to say the truth even if it wasn't flattering and it was very hard to say.

Lessons in Progress:

#1: I'm important and I matter and if someone has done something to wrong me I have the right to do and say something about it.

#2: There is a right way to address conflict and I can do it in a calm professional way and I can have confidence and control of myself when I do it.

#3: People do listen when I speak.