Wishes, and more wishes.

I’ve got a serious case of the shoemaker’s children. My day job is to insert content into web sites; straight-up HTML and CSS for 8 hours a day, then a 45 minute drive home. I used to love daydreaming about blog posts for my personal site and I would even keep a journal to write …

View full post

Journal entries from years past

I have kept written personal journals since the fourth grade; that’s roundabouts the past thirty years. It really helps me to vent, and to record my state of mind. I’ve learned I can’t always trust my memory! So it’s fun to pick up a really old journal and find an entry that still resonates today. …

View full post

Keep On Keeping On

I’ve been simplifying my email inbox as part of my new year’s resolution that I never named. So far in January and February, I’ve unsubscribed from ten newsletters. I still have scores pouring into my inbox daily. It’s so hard to decide which to nix! I do know what I like, though. Today I got …

View full post
Wishes, and more wishes.Journal entries from years pastKeep On Keeping On

Is it coincidence or luck?

Categories:

August 16, 2010

by

I have been caught up in a whirlwind of activity that leaves little time for Twitter or Blogging. I’ve been so focused on arranging the details of moving my household and our family business this month and next that I haven’t written down any inspirations I’ve experienced. Last week I secured a new place to live, signed the lease, and started registering my older son in middle school.  The new school promises to be a much, much better experience for him. Our new place of business will have parking for our mini-fleet of trucks and a very large office space all in one location. Our current office is separated from our parking yard by a quarter mile. Things should be better all around.

If I get too swept up in controlling all the details of a major life transition such as this and things don’t turn out as I want them to, I could become susceptible to depression and anger. Indeed, I’ve had my irritable days. Transitions are where my relationship to God and the Universe really gets highlighted.  During times of change, it’s my job to take appropriate action to get where I need to be. It’s not my job to try to force a situation to become exactly as I wish.  Tricky, huh? The details worked out for me not because I orchestrated the entire apartment hunt, but because I gave the details to God to work out. I was the one hitting the road and visiting about 10 different places to live, weighing pros and cons of each. When I felt overwhelmed and nervous, I went home and listened to Holosync and regained composure after an hour. When I didn’t know what to do, I handed the problem to God. This is a technique to release my worry, because worrying does me no good. Trusting in God or the Universe is difficult but it’s the only thing I can do that helps me sail through life calmly.

So it all worked out. I was accepted to the first apartment I applied for, they lowered the price of the unit during my “thinking” time and they made the move in special even less expensive, the unit itself overlooks a public park and tennis courts, I have a pool for the kids on site and best of all I finally have my master bathroom attached to the master bedroom. I think I’ve been wishing for one of those for over a decade.  In regards to the business, my husband was the one to find a new unit that he was wishing he could have for about six months but it was occupied. The landlord promised to call us when the tenants moved out. As it happened, they moved out the very month our current business landlord wanted to give us a month’s notice to leave because another business wanted to take over the entire building where our office space was housed. The entire transition happened smoothly, without incident, though we’re still in the middle of it. Details like these can’t be forced! God takes care of it for us. Call it synchronicity, grace, coincidence, or luck if you like. I’m thanking God.

This post has no tag

Practice vs empathy

Categories:

July 10, 2010

by

I went on an extemporaneous hike in the mountains today.  My friend called me up in the morning to see if I could tag along. It was a sunshine and rain experience, to be sure. Colorado weather can turn on a dime, especially in the mountains. Since I live in the suburbs and spend lots of time in the city, I love to get out to the countryside every once in a while. Doing so helps me remember that the whole world isn’t really one big city. I do recommend changing your scenery every so often so your mind can get a bit of a break from the normal problems it’s working on…then when you return home you have a fresh perspective on the same old problems. And if not, at least you have a new experience under your belt and a little break from the norm!

Later today I wanted to reward my four year old for behaving so well on the trip and then coming home and helping clean fingerprints from walls. Perhaps just a sticker would have sufficed. But I decided to go find him the hula hoop he asked for so nicely. In the store, he tested the hula hoop and became frustrated that he couldn’t do it the first time. He changed his mind and wanted something else. I suggested a jump rope. He’s never tried to jump rope before. Once we got it home he tried it and couldn’t do it. He melted into a quivering heap of tears. The rope came with a jacks set and I taught him how to bounce the ball and pick up one jack at a time. He was also very frustrated with that. Whoops, the packaging said for five years old and up. He had an emotional meltdown because he couldn’t do these two new things right away.  Oh, how the family tried to convince him that practice makes perfect. He would hear none of it and insist rather that we throw away the toys.  We told him the story of how he took many weeks to learn how to arm-fart…you know, that trick where children stick one hand under their armpit and flap their arm to make that ‘froggy’ sound. He’s very proud of this skill; he likes to show it off to anyone who will listen. But, no, he’d rather just instantly grow up or else throw away the toys he can’t use perfectly.

I gave him lots of empathy while he was upset. This is so important for children; to know adults care about their feelings and actually feel for them. In this instance, a rational approach simply wouldn’t work on a four year old. The best thing I could do was to say, “aaaaaw, you look so frustrated. How do you feel?” This opened up a new conversation where he revealed he’d like to simply skip the painful growing up process and turn grown-up right now. Wouldn’t we all like that?

Aaaah, to skip all the painful parts of maturing! Heaven? Not quite. It’s how we respond to adversity that makes our character. Building character takes practice, like all things. These are painful words for a juvenile mind. Deep sigh, we’ll try again tomorrow or the next day.

This post has no tag

Musings from WA

Categories:

June 15, 2010

by

I needed a time out! I’m staying with my parents for a time, letting them get to know their grandchildren. What a blessing for them to know each other, and what a blessing for me to be able to travel out of state to visit my parents. Travel has gotten difficult and expensive. I have not been on a plane for four years, and the last time I checked, you didn’t have to pay extra at the airport to have bags checked. Now on Alaska Airlines it’s $15 per checked bag, each way. I wanted to come home two days early, but changing travel dates is now harder than getting into the dentist on short notice.

I listened to Janet and Chris Attwood give a very long presentation today. They have a new program called the Passionate Life Secrets. To kick it off, they hosted “9 hours straight of passion, purpose and prosperity” streaming live online. I only heard about an hour in bits and pieces over the day. Here is the invitation to their new program, and it is not an affiliate link. The passion test is a way to define what your life purpose could be based on your talents, skills and passions. Once you learn how to bring these three aspects together for the purpose of bringing value to other people, you’ll be able to monetize your passions, they say. Can you imagine saying to yourself giddily, “I would do this for free and they actually pay me to do it!” I’m in no way affiliated with these programs, I’m just bringing this info to you as an fyi.

I did get to rent Alice in Wonderland during my trip. I have a new favorite phrase: “Lost my muchness, have I?” And I have a new favorite day, “Framptious Day.” I have not been paying attention to Alice in Wonderland all these years and had completely forgotten the storyline. So I see the similarity…I think I’m on a quest to find my muchness, too.

I have been contemplating some more on a favorite theme of mine. Now I wonder if a study has already been done to find the correlation between a person’s tendency to treat themselves badly with drugs or overeating or undereating and their sense of self worth. I’d perchance a guess of 98% correlation between having a low sense of self worth and a high rate of self mistreatment. I’m wondering about this because I’m wondering about choosing a new line of study. If, for instance, I study nutrition, I’d only be able to reach the supposed small percentage of people who would be able to listen and change eating habits without being hampered by their inherently low self worth/esteem. If, on the other hand, I study a psychological or therapy line of thinking, I’d only be able to help the people who are actually reaching out to therapists for help. If  I become a performance artist, I could reach random people, whether they knew they were looking for help or not. Hmmm.

This post has no tag

Older posts «

» Newer posts