You're not standing up for something, you're QUITTING!

Another "found" post sitting in my drafts box.  I am curious as to whom I was addressing these thoughts? I don't honestly remember.  But I stand by them!
When somebody offends you, clearly the best way to deal with the offense is to quit, right?  I mean, hey! Instead of doing your best to be everything you know you are and them some, instead of showing the person who offended you that you are stronger than their opinion, instead of embracing the opportunity that always follows opposition, why don't you just quit! That will sure show everybody what a strong person you are! (or not.)


There's something to be said about standing up for something, and letting a person or group of people know that they have wronged you in some way.  There's something to be said for quietly going about disproving a person's idea of you.  There's something to be said for negotiating a stormy situation with grace and dignity and a resolve to fix the problem. Heck, there's something to be said for a screaming match if it results in necessary change from one or both parties.


There's nothing to be said for being a quitter.  That's not strength.


All that said, there's no reason to subject one's self to repeated abuses.  Walking away from abuse is in fact standing up for yourself. DO NOT misread the above to mean that going back for abuse again and again is ok, its not. Some people would rather continue building their house on a foundation of sand than step back, bull-doze the shoddy work, and start again on a foundation of rock.  Its easy to get all mad that somebody saw your sandy foundation you tried to cover up and go all passive-aggressive on their butts and really show them by walking away entirely with no return on investment.

7 habits of happy families - creating a family mission statement

Creating a family mission statement is a process.  It can't be done in one family night, or quite possibly even three.  It requires contemplation on things we may not be accustomed to thinking deeply on as a family unit.  And its my opinion that it requires some personal introspection on the part of the parental units.  (See "Your Sunday school answers aren't working for me"...the result of a moment of personal introspection spurred by the family mission statement activity.
As I've mentioned before, our family is participating in a 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families class offered at our son's school, and the experience is just exactly what we want and need in our lives right now.  Its a wonderful blessing to interact in this way with other families and school administrators/teachers. The information they are sharing with us is so full of positive expectations that we can't help  but feel empowered and energized by what we learn.

I may have already mentioned that the last two weeks we've been giving consideration to developing a family mission statement.  I'm in love with this idea! Its not a new idea, its been around a LONG time.  But now is the right time for our family to do this and live by it.

The first step has been to brainstorm AS A FAMILY (because otherwise it would be mom and dad's mission statement right?  Not that there's anything wrong with mom and dad having mission statements, but then it needs to be called what it is and not represented as a FAMILY mission statement.)

We have been brainstorming on 4 different topics:
 What does a happy family look like?
What do we want people to say about our family in 50 years?
What do we believe?
How do we treat each other?

I think some families participating in our class have had a difficult time answering the "How do we treat each other" question because there is a difference between how they DO treat each other, and how they know they SHOULD treat each other.  Speaking as someone who has worked/is working very hard to eliminate that discrepancy in her home, I can say that I understand the difficulty in answering that question.  So should you find yourself reading this post because you're thinking of writing a family mission statement, let it be known that in my opinion, the appropriate way to answer this question is how do you HOPE to be treated within the walls of your home and what are you willing to COMMIT too in terms of how you will treat your family members.

There are no "right" answers to these questions.  That was something I initially struggled with.  In fact, that is what prompted the "Your Sunday school answers aren't working for me" post.  I started off feeling that there were "right" answers, or at least "better" answers.  I assumed that these answers were the classic Sunday school answers. That's not necessary.  If those are the answers that sit genuinely in your heart, go with them.  But if they don't, this is not a sign of being fundamentally broken.  It just means that your path will be different from what your Sunday school teacher's path will be.  And that's good.  No two paths should be exactly alike! I am absolutely positive that the 12 men Jesus chose for his disciples each had unique talents they brought to the fold, and I am convinced that we are at our most effective in this life when we have recognized and embraced our talents and strengths, even those that might look to be weaknesses at first glance.

As our family has brainstormed, these are some of the things we have come up with so far:

"What does a happy family look like?"--

Learning, exploring, trying new things, cooperation, hard work, respect, love, charity, service, being a family forever, technology, reading, fun-loving, smiling, playing together happily, taking turns, knowing how to handle disappointment, patience, doing our best, never giving up.

"what do we want people to say about our family in 50 years?"

They were GOOD LOOKING! (or at least had a great sense of humor)

Talented, hard working, smart, genuine, trustworthy, honorable, happy, charitable, helpful, friendly, adventurous.  They loved each other, they never gave up. (yes, you do recognize a theme there.)

"What do we believe?"

We believe in God, that we have a purpose as a family, and as individuals.  Our family can be eternal. the golden rule, we each are unique.  We can discover things about ourselves, each other, and our world when we try new things.  There is a time to be a leader, and a time to be a follower.  Its important to know the difference.  Its important to stand firm in our beliefs.  Learning should be a lifelong endeavor. Its important to have fun together and enjoy each other's company.

"How do we treat each other?"

with kindness, respect, patience.  We hope for the best out of each other.

Over the next week or couple of weeks we'll be doing some more brainstorming and ultimately developing our family mission statement from these ideas.  Its coming slowly, and very  much in spurts.  We have found that the kids have only about a 5-10 minute attention span for this.  I'm sure its because this is still a very large concept to them, but they do participate, and they've offered up some great ideas during our brainstorming. 

If you find yourself working towards a family mission statement, or already have one, share away! I'd love to see examples of what other families have come up.

It is what it is

I had my first experience with hypnosis this week. I went in to the experience excited, curious, and a little nervous about what it would be like.  I assumed it would be generally positive, because I wasn't warned to bring a driver to get me home.  Seems like a good enough measure of how a counseling session will go, right?
The word "amazing" is getting way too overused in my life, but it really was kind of an amazing experience. Or rather, the results of the experience were amazing.

As I closed my eyes and grasped lightly two gently pulsating electrodes, my counselor asked me to find a comfortable position and then began to guide me on an audio-journey.  The instructions were simple:  listen, don't feel it necessary to speak or respond verbally, and to do with the information what seems appropriate.  Use it, or toss it aside.

I recall being fully aware of my surroundings.  I was conscious that my nose itched, and my eye felt sticky.  I recall opening my sticky eye a handful of times during the session.  I recall three stories I heard during the time. One was about a rare flower, one about a girl releasing balloons, and a third about me building a home from the foundation up.


I recall that I had difficulty summoning up an image of a tour group tromping through the everglades in search of an evasive and rare orchid.  I recall being absolutely sure that the girl releasing balloons was going to suffer some dire consequence for releasing the balloons before she was told too. Which I think is funny, that even in a quasi conscious state, I was concerned about the "rules" and was freaking out that she wasn't following them! By the way, there was no consequence, the story described the entire experience of releasing the balloons as purely joyful.  It was difficult for me to imagine being joyful about breaking the rules (she was supposed to release them at half-time, but she couldn't contain herself and let most of them go way before half time because they were bringing her so much joy to watch  float away.) I recall being asked to imagine a blue-print for a home I would imagine building.  The blueprint I imagined was for a very average but very respectable ranch style house.  In fact, it was pretty much my friend Nicole's home that she had in Iowa.  Realizing that, I find it kind of odd that my blueprint was somebody else's home (but it wasn't, it was mine, I just recognize that it was identical to my friend's home.) I recall as the story progressed that I was asked to begin lining my basement that I had worked so hard to dig with cement or bricks and that as I did so, an unwelcome guest entered my thoughts with a gigantic sledge hammer.  In fact, the image this guest was represented by was this guy:

Only he wasn't chasing after a mouse, he was knocking down my walls.  I would attempt to wall him in with brick and mortar and he'd knock through in a burst of dirty cement dust.  There was a genuine struggle as I attempted, and ultimately succeeded in walling this big jerk out of my house! But the result was that I had closed off 7/8ths of my basement and had found it necessary to redirect my house building activities into an entirely different direction. The result was a ridiculously thick foundation. In fact the foundation was so thick that the basement was essentially  not a usable space. On top of that foundation was a one room "shack". I say it was a shack, but it wasn't crumbling.  I recall that it had wooden floor boards, a woven carpet, a wood stove and a rocking chair.  One child played inside while I sat by myself on a wonderfully shady and yet sunny front porch.  I recall that the view from this porch was vast fields of wild flowers and grasses.  There were mountains in the distance, but they were a welcome sight, not a threatening presence. A gentle breeze was blowing the flowers and grasses to and fro as I rocked in a chair on that wonderful porch.

I was aware that I was shedding tears.  As I was invited to open my eyes and end our session, I was aware that I did not feel fully present.  I was aware that I was digging around in my brain a little longer.  I was aware that I felt angry at the man with the hammer and that I was disappointed that my house didn't match my original blue prints. But my counselor made a statement that helped me tuck it back in and become more present in the room again.  She said "the experience is what it is.  There is no big lesson in there that you have missed.  Let the positive images come forward and take this time as a gift for yourself."  Knowing that there wasn't any big lesson I needed to decipher out of the experience gave me comfort.  I think I am guilty of needing to find a lesson in just about everything.  I like the idea of allowing some (most?) experiences to just be what they will be and to enjoy them for what they are.

The result of participating in this session was that throughout the day I found myself "seeing" the image of the beautiful flower filled land stretching out before me.  I found that to be energizing and that it engaged in me a sense of peace, calm, and confidence.  I loved that the predominant image that returned to me throughout the day was such a beautiful one.  I loved that the beautiful image trumped the negative image.  I felt energized.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to participate in this healing journey, and I hope my sharing will help somebody in some small way to know that not only is it OK to ask for and receive mental health treatment, but that it doesn't mean you're crazy, broken beyond fixing, or too lazy to fix yourself on your own.  In fact, I think NOT asking for help is just about the craziest thing a person can do.

addendum to Raging Rhino's Growling Grizzlies

Turns out, the name of the center we visited is NOT the Child Crisis Center (although that IS their website name) but rather the "Family Resource Center".  Which is alot more user friendly than a crisis center sounds.  But nonetheless, if I thought the name was the Child Crisis Center, that belief still made it hard to go there initially.

For anyone in the MESA AZ area who is interested in FREE or LOW COST (nothing is more than $15 dollars and that's for materials) parenting workshops, relationship workshops, or behavior workshops like the one we participated in, I can't recommend it highly enough.  Visit the Family Resource Center online for a list of classes and contact information.  The enrollment process is quick and easy, and child care IS provided! (for $1.00 per session.)

Raging Rhinos and Growling Grizzlies

As a mother sometimes things just aren't what I wish they were.  There is one particular cavebear in our little clan that is feistier than the rest.  He is bright, charming, creative, intelligent, kind, and full of energy.  Sometimes that energy gets channeled into wonderful places where happy memories are created.  And sometimes...that energy goes no where good.  At school, especially, extra energy seems to get expelled through all kinds of inappropriate activities that typically end with a trip to the principal's office.

Anger is one form that extra energy sometimes takes.  And its expression has become troublesome.  Not discounting the possibility that we're not getting the whole story, there is still reason for concern as to how this angry energy is being used at school, at home, and well, yes, even at play.

Its difficult to admit that my child has a behavior problem.  It would be alot easier to blame it on everybody else. So and so is picking on him, this teacher doesn't like him, that kid is a teacher's pet, etc, etc, etc.  But none of that would help him get on better at school, it would just keep me from having to admit that there's an area (or 3 or 5 or 10) of parenting that I'm not doing so well at.

I know in my heart its better to admit that I'm falling short and ask for help than to let my kid suffer from bad parenting.  But that doesn't make it any easier to admit.  One big step was making the call to the Child Crisis Center.  Just the name alone put me on edge.  It felt bigger than what I felt we were dealing with.  Calling a place with that kind of name felt ominous, like I was somehow one parenting class away from completely losing it.  But making that call has been a wonderful thing for us.

Here's what I've learned:  The Child Crisis Center is a loving, safe, friendly place for families to learn together.
Their tagline "Strong Families, Safe Kids" says it much better than the title of their organization.  By offering a variety of classes for parents, children, even grandparents acting as caretakers, stronger more functional families can be created, and where there is love and safety, there too is a successful family.  The Child Crisis Center is not a place to be ashamed to visit.  Its not like visiting a welfare office, going to the "wrong side of town" , or otherwise any kind of embarrassing.  Its not full of dirty ne-er-do-wells.  In fact, the center is full of regular, every day, normal families, just like yours and mine who have decided that something is not working, and perhaps another perspective on the problem could be helpful.  Its full of families who love each other and want to experience family life as its meant to be experienced. Walking into a center such as this is not an admission of failure.  It is an admission of not knowing everything there is to know.  Not all the information you will recieve in this kind of setting will apply to your situation.  Take from it what works, and leave behind the rest.

What I love most about participating in these classes is the opportunity to bring things home like the "Bucket Filler" concept, which ironically is helping us more with our youngest child, than the child enrolled in the classes. But also the comraderie of children, and parents who all came together looking for the same kind of help, but showed themselves all to be wonderful, kind, personable, creative, and joyful people.  Each with a similar area of struggle.  I guess that's to say I learned we're "Normal" to need a little help.

And that makes it a little better.  Because really, don't we really just want to feel "normal" inside?
And when we secretly deal with a problem that we have made bigger than it is, our feelings of normalcy are stolen and replaced by feelings of shame and guilt.  Its silly! And I refuse to participate anymore.  So if you think less of me because I enrolled my family in anger management class, that's ok.  I still won't feel guilty about it, because guilt isn't the appropriate emotion here.  And I learned THAT at anger management.