Tag Archive for: self-awareness

Consequences of Breaking My Own Rules

, , ,

One of our house rules* is that we all agree not to do something for someone else that will make us angry. It seems obvious, but it’s amazing how many times I’ve done things as I’m knee-deep in resentment and fury because it feels like there’s no other way or because I simply can’t think straight in the midst of all that strong emotion.

What I know is that when I do things like that, often somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m keeping score. There is a part of me that is saying, “ok, now this person owes me one” or “I get to bring this up the next time they claim I never do anything for them.”

What I also know is that the longer I hold on to that chit, the heavier it gets. And as I’m doing the “selfless” act for someone else, I am enraged, and neither of those things makes me feel good about myself.

It’s tempting to blame the object of my actions for even having the audacity to ask for such a thing, or (as in the incident that occurred this morning) lash out at them for emotionally blackmailing me. And I’m sad to say that I have done both of those things far more often than I wish I had, but ultimately, I made that one of the house rules for a reason: because it is powerfully easy for me to slip in to a space where I do these kinds of things more and more and it becomes easier in the moment to just capitulate than it does to explain myself or assert my reasons for declining. And then I get resentful and feel like a victim and it affects my relationships with the people I love the most.

So here’s to self-awareness and posting house rules in a conspicuous place as a reminder to act in accordance with what I know is good for me and those whom I love.

*These rules are not my creation. I heard about them from a friend a few years ago and adopted them because I think they’re so fabulous.

Random Sunday Thoughts

, , , , ,

On self-awareness and how much I love it when my kids have it:

 – Lola got some sad news yesterday that her beloved mentor is moving to the East Coast. I braced myself for her reaction, given the fast, intense friendship the two of them developed that quickly grew into a foursome with her mentor’s partner and Eve. I knew this was going to be a tough pill to swallow. When she gave me the news, her face was so sad and I had to remind myself around the lump in my throat that the best thing I can do is follow her lead and hold space for her.  I hugged her tightly and offered to hang out with her for a bit, but she declined, saying, “Nah, I’m just going to go upstairs and be sad for a while by myself. Thanks.” It sucked for me because I want so badly to soothe her feelings, but I love the fact that she knows herself well enough to make sure she has space to just sit with them for a bit.

 – After a busy weekend including one sleepover on Friday night and a matinee of Mamma Mia on Saturday followed by a dinner out with a girlfriend, Eve came down to lunch today and announced that she was putting her phone on “airplane mode” for the rest of the day so she isn’t tempted to answer texts or check social media. She has too much she wants to get done. Hallelujah!

On condescension and unsatisfying “conferences” or “town hall events:”

 – A few weeks ago I was invited to be in the room with the Surgeon General and MomsRising constituents to talk about the recent measles outbreak and vaccines.  I was told that I would be one of only a dozen or so folks in the room and spent the weekend doing research and polling friends so that I could go in prepared to advocate and ask the kinds of questions that get past the hype and rhetoric. I was, in fact, one of only a handful of people in the room, but it turns out that this “meeting” included nearly 12,000 other phone-in audience members and, as such, we were relegated to asking questions via index card without any opportunity to follow up or challenge misinformation. I later discovered that the Surgeon General was on a country-wide tour of cities with the lowest vaccination rates in the US and I suspect it was more of a PR stunt than any real opportunity to have dialogue with folks about their actual concerns.  (To wit; when MomsRising did real-time polls of the 12,000 people online, they discovered that only about 35% of them were concerned about the measles outbreaks in the US and that more than 50% of them are concerned about the safety and efficacy of the MMR vaccine.  He did nothing to address either the media hype or the actual concerns people had.)

 – It makes me crazy that my experience was not very unusual. Elizabeth writes here about an epilepsy conference she was invited to as a parent who could share her unique perspectives with medical professionals and other families where she was condescended to as someone who is not a medical professional (duh, that’s the point) and not given the airtime she deserves.  I wonder how much the organizers of these events pat themselves on the back because they think they’re providing opportunities for sharing of diverse perspectives. I wonder whether they realize that what they are really doing falls so far short of that it is laughable (if it didn’t make me want to shout and cry, instead).

On priorities:

 – I had a great phone call with a friend on Thursday that reminded me how important it is to occasionally revisit the things I do on a regular basis with an eye toward whether or not they still “feed” me. On any given day, there are a number of things on my to-do list that I don’t particularly love doing, but I also have a tendency to get sucked in to doing bigger things that fall in my lap one way or the other and become part of my routine. It’s really easy to just keep plugging along, putting them on my list week after week without stopping to ask if I still enjoy them. And if there is an overwhelming number of things on my list that drain me, I have to also remember to populate the list with a few things that replenish me. On those days, a 30 minute power nap or a walk with a friend or sitting down to read a chapter of my book is just as important as everything else.

Holiday Revelations

Time spent with extended family is always a bit fraught with anxiety for me.  For years I assumed it was the chaos, routine disruption, and extra bodies in the house that put me on edge, but over the last few gatherings I have come to realize that those things don’t bother me at all. My discomfort stems from one thing in particular: comparisons.

When we were kids hanging out with our cousins, sleeping all sideways, sprawled throughout my aunt’s bonus room in slippery sleeping bags, we loved the extra stimulation.  The kids we only saw a couple of times a year had new games to play, new pranks to pull, and gave us enough bodies for a true game of hide-and-seek or basketball.  We compared ourselves with respect to relative height or free-throw skill, things we felt sanguine about because we knew they would change soon enough. Someone would sprout up over the winter and by the time we all got together again next summer, the arrangement would be different.  We did a little measuring up, but mostly we spent our time and energy playing.  We grudgingly came to the table for meals, squirming with energy until we could be excused to go set up a new game of War or booby trap Uncle Mike’s bed.

As an adult, I find myself constantly assessing and comparing myself to my siblings and in-laws.  Trying to make sure that I am “good enough” to be part of Bubba’s clan despite the fact that I came from such a vastly different place than they did. Feeling as though my siblings and I ought to find ourselves in similar places because we all started out together and fighting waves of guilt because we aren’t.  The simplest things add to the balance sheet in my head; when my dog misbehaves and someone points out that it took them only a week to train their puppy with some special technique they used, or when a niece or nephew comes up to me and wistfully says how much they wish they had something we have.

I have written about (and thought about) comparisons and their power to bring me down so many times. I know it is a trap I ought not to fall into and yet, the tendency to weigh myself and my life against others’ lives is so strong.  As I stepped out of the shower this morning I remembered how much I used to love those crazy, chaotic family gatherings and decided that as I continue to struggle with learning not to compare myself to others, maybe at least I can stack the deck in my favor for now by harnessing some of that joy.  Perhaps the parameters I use to measure against can include not only my perception of my sister-in-law’s skill in one particular area, but also my own historical lack of skill.  Those can be the bookends and I can find myself in the middle, having progressed beyond where I was before.

Much like we did when we were kids, I can assume that there will continue to be growth in my own life and, when we all get together again things won’t be exactly the same as they are now.  If there are things that I deem important enough to work at, I will have progressed.   When we were young, we didn’t put much stock in differences because we didn’t feel as though we had much control over how things changed.  We certainly couldn’t predict who was going to grow a few inches and who wasn’t.  We knew that Kim and Karen would be better at volleyball because they played it more often than any of us, but we also knew that Chris would learn to drive first, simply by virtue of his age.  There were so many points of comparison, so many strengths and weaknesses and perks and circumstance-driven changes that beyond making the occasional joke about how bad someone was at something, we quickly gave up comparisons in favor of hanging out together having fun.

I don’t know when I will stop looking at my life through the lens of “measuring up,” although I suspect it will be one of those things that will happen without me knowing it.  In the meantime, I will work to acknowledge the things that have changed about all of us and then get back to enjoying time spent playing with my family.

Taking the Toddler Approach

As I listened to the girls snipe at each other on the way home from school the other day, instead of allowing my blood pressure to rise, resisting the urge to insert my words into the cacophony of chaos and swirling anger, I detached. I listened.  I traced the progression of hurt, fear, anger, misunderstanding.  Later, as Lola set the table for dinner, a new argument erupted and I again noted the path from misinterpretation to rage and a thought began to crystallize.  A question:

What if, at any point during the escalating war of words, one of my girls stopped to ask ‘why?’

  • Why would she say/do something like that to me?
  • Why does it bother me so much?
As an observer who knows both of my girls and their developmental stages intimately (Lola – fearful of transitions and just starting a new school, living in a new house and neighborhood and meeting all new friends. Eve – nearly thirteen and experiencing everything as if it were personally aimed at her and her burgeoning identity and having her younger sister encroaching on her school territory for the first time in years), I can instantly spot the moments where perception and interpretation is everything.  I can see where a word was misheard or an intention assumed that wasn’t there.  But by the time I wedge my perspective into the middle, the harsh words have already inflicted pain and harm and the fight is no longer able to be stopped.  
A few months ago I heard someone say, “Most people listen with the intent to respond rather than the intent to understand.”  I felt myself in that realization.  I cringed as I looked back to the numerous times I had barely been able to hold my tongue until the other person took a breath before I inserted my story/wisdom/advice/perspective.  I was embarrassed. Fortunately, that uncomfortable feeling soon gave way to curiosity.  How much information and clarity am I missing by not seeking to understand what someone is telling me? How often am I arresting their narrative by shifting the focus of the conversation to what I have to say?  
All it takes is ‘why.’ 
For those of us who have been around young children and toddlers, whether as aunts and uncles or parents or teachers or grandparents, we recall with enormous sighs the days of “Why.”  The days where every answer or statement is met with the question, “Why?”  Where no amount of information is ever enough.  We have all been pushed to our limits of patience and, often, knowledge, by the rapid-fire inquisition of a curious child.  And while that is exhausting and often annoying, I wondered the other day if it isn’t something we all ought to be doing more of as adults – asking why.  
I think that the power of why lies in its ability to stop the ego-centric notion that most of us walk around with all day long, that everything that happens around us or even to us is about us.  That the checker at the grocery store who appeared to roll her eyes at me might have entirely different reasons for doing so than I originally think.  Why would she do that?  Maybe her contact lens slid off to the side of one eye and that’s how she gets it back on track.  Perhaps she heard something on the radio in the store that I didn’t key into. Or maybe, yes, maybe she thinks I’m annoying for some reason.  Okay. Why does her eye-rolling bother me? Because I feel judged by her? Because I was actually being somewhat annoying by insisting on something extra and I feel a little guilty about it?  Because I got in a fight with my teenager this morning and I’m feeling a little emotionally fragile?  
I haven’t solved my issue here, but I have given myself a moment to breathe by asking the questions, and I have also considered things that give me more information about the way I am feeling.  The important part is that I haven’t assumed anything that might send my mood spiraling out of control or cause me to growl at the checker when she may not deserve it.  
I haven’t broached this subject with Eve and Lola yet because I wanted to test it out on myself for a few days first.  So far, I have learned a few things:
  1. Asking, “Why?” gives me the opportunity to step back from a biting remark uttered by one of my children and acknowledge that there might be a reason she is being snarky right now. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it does allow me to consider whether or not she has had a bad day and refrain from taking her remark as a personal slight.
  2. After this momentary breather, I am often able to ask “Why?” out loud which gives the other person a chance to examine their own behavior and either explain to me something I may have misunderstood or realize how it sounded.  It also gives them the impression that I am willing to stay engaged in the interaction in a positive way, listening and truly trying to understand, and it often has the effect of turning the conversation around.
As a child I was known as a chatterbox and, feeling impotent to change that or battle the label, I embraced it.  At the age of 40, I’m beginning to see just how much I may have missed out on by not staying quiet more often and simply listening.