I've been pondering about this topic for a long time. I didn't know exactly how I wanted to present it, but I think I've found my way. If it doesn't seem to flow, I give you my apologies. Between children, life, and pain in my hip that won't go away, I can get a little distracted. Aww, butterfly. J/K
Here's my topic: Who deserves your best? I want you to ponder that question for a moment. I bet you came up with a list- God, spouse, children, work, friends, etc. Here's my follow-up topic: What is your best? That question probably made you ask me - best what? As humans, we are pretty great at compartmentalizing. Who gets my best work? My job obviously. Who gets my best hugs? My family, of course. Who gets my best singing voice? God. Who gets my best attitude? Um... Who gets my best outfits? Um... Who gets my best conversation? Oh. Before I start unpacking this, let me state the following. The answer should be God. For everything. God should get our best in all things. From here on out, I will give only natural/human discussion. This topic has been weighing on me for some time. I think once parents have a two year old they figure out that the child will give their best to ANYONE else but you. I've heard it explained in a variety of ways. Typically, it comes back to the fact that we are (hopefully) their safe space and most loving humans. Kids know that they can be a jerk to us, steal our food, throw a fit, be nasty and selfish, and receive snuggles and hugs before bedtime because we love them so unconditionally. But what does that teach us as adults? I'm pretty sure I'm my worst in front of my family. I think you would say the same if you truly looked inside yourself. I can't make a scene in public, what would people think? I can't say that to my friend, they might get mad. I need to hold it together when we're out, but once we get home! Heck, if you're a mom and you haven't done the super low whisper to your child in public, are you even a real mom? I get that we want to save face, but what does that turn our home into? Think about it. Does your spouse go off to work and come home to dump- be it good or bad- to you? You are the dumping ground because you're there safe space, the no-judgment zone, and the manager in their corner. Maybe you're the stay at home parent. Your spouse walks in and you let go of all the junk that has been driving you crazy - car pool cancellation, kids being sick, out of milk at the grocery store, kids being terrors. Either way, we go, we do, we interact with people, and then when we find a safe space, we spew out all the bad. Toxicity. So who gets our best? As we compartmentalize our lives, we let people that aren't high on our chain of importance receive better treatment than those that we care about most. We play nice for strangers, and we release cancerous word vomit to our loved ones. I'm not saying we should just be jerks to everyone. That's the opposite of what I'm getting at. I'm also not saying that we should hold everything in and never deal with the junk. That's a different toxicity. There needs to be a balance. There needs to be a safe space that is safe for all. I think I feel this often. My son is complimented by people all the time. He's respectful, helpful, kind, talented, smart, the "go-to" kid. But as I've typed this, I've had to listen to him whine and cry that he can't figure out how to poke a hole in paper. PAPER. Where's my hand to face emoji?? I could step in and do it for him. I could show him how to do it. But there are so many times of this crying "I can't do this!" that I need to step back. I need to let him do this alone. I need him to learn how to solve problems. Also, he didn't ask for help. That is also something he needs to learn to do appropriately. And as he gives me his worst, I sit back and let it ring through the home. After he accomplishes it, he will have skills to be all those wonderful things for everyone else. You're welcome. That's what we do. We become these recipients of the worst. But I think what's important is our response to the worst. Do we try to fix it? Do we throw our worst back? Do we walk away from it? We need to love through it without becoming a punching bag. That's a hard task to master. As I'm working my way through loving in my best when I receive their worst, it shifts my focus to the times when I've given my worst. So how do we give our best to our loved ones in the capacity that they need it, without bottling up the bad? Now, we look back to God. We give our best to him. We worship him in our words, actions, and thoughts. As we do that, we go into prayer. Continual prayer. I love 1 Thessalonians 5:17 for telling us to "Pray without ceasing." When we are continually talking to God, do you know what happens? We tell him the bad. As we give him our best, he also gets our worst. And the best part? His shoulders can carry the weight of it. Our worst is here. It's a fallen world. Sin is everywhere. We will never leave the worst behind. There will be good, great, better, and best. There will also be bad, worse, worst. Because of our sin, God has to take the worst. He has to bear the brunt. He already did when Christ died on the cross. Every frustration and hurt has been dealt with, and always will be. When we give God our best and our worst, it opens us up to give our loved ones the second best. We can let go of the horrible and have a civil conversation. We can leave our work at work and bring in a smile. Not because we forget or ignore, but because we deal with it with the one who can handle all. I believe that's what it means when we say to give it all to God. Perhaps if we did, we could give our best all. We can work hard at our jobs and in our homes. We can laugh and joke and have meaningful conversations with coworkers, friends, family, maybe even strangers. We can hug those who need it, not just those we want to. Life can be more meaningful. Shouldn't we all be able to give our best?
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Heads up! You're getting personal trainer Jewel in this one.
This was not my original post for today, but since the topic has come across multiple times within twenty four hours, I figure this is a good topic to handle. January is one of my least favorite months. For one, it's cold. Two, it's dreary. Three, everyone wants to become someone they weren't just a few short days ago. That's right, I hate resolutions. Happy New Year! Now what can we changed for you? I get it. A fresh start to the new year sounds invigorating. However, if you can't start and accomplish in June, you most likely won't in January. It's a mindset thing. Hold on. I'm on a tangent. Anyway, with people changing who they are, many choose to change their physique. Some do this by exercise. Some do this by changing their eating habits. Some decide to stop smoking, drinking, etc. Well, in September I changed my diet. Stop. Read again. I changed my diet. I did not "go on a diet." NOOOOOOOOOO. Bad marketers! Bad! Let's explore the world of diet. To explore the world, we must first explore the word. I can remember the days of middle school health. We always talked about exercise and nutrition. One teacher drilled it into our heads, "Diet is just a word meaning what someone eats." This was in the time of Atkins and just after low to no fat. I try to emphasize this with my clients. Diet is just a word meaning what you eat. Unfortunately, it has turned into something else. Diet became a word meaning that we are restricted to or from certain foods. We have the Mediterranean diet, DASH diet, Low/High fodmaps diet. Of course, people don't know those as well as they do keto, low carb, low fat, high protein, Atkins, and more. So why is there a shift? The original purpose of diets came from doctors and nutritionists working with people having particular health issues. The DASH diet is for people with heart issues. For someone needing help managing their blood pressure, this is a great start. The Mediterranean diet is simply eating like people that live in that region. The fish and fresh produce make for healthy balanced eating habits. Even keto claims to have begun in the brain of a doctor. Why? Well, not everyone can process sugars properly. Here's the thing I hope people take away. There is no right answer for all. Just as my husband can eat all day long and gain maybe two pounds if he's lucky, I need to stay within my limits to not gain seven in a weekend. I can stand next to someone who is the same height and weight as I am. However, I can eat bread, rice, pasta, pretzels, basically all the good things, and still be okay. They however, might not be able to process sugars and that could send them into some diabetic shock that would not be good. Think of it this way. Men and beer. Some men can drink six cans, give a belch and go run five miles singing all the way. A second group might drink the same amount in the same time, puke and go to bed. A third group could drink four beers in the same time, get a gut, and pass out. What is beer? Carbs. Sugars. If your body is capable of processing the alcohol, you could end up fine. Alcohol has different effects on people and we don't bat an eye. Sure, we might call McGee a lightweight, but we don't shame him enough to learn to drink better. (I hope not, anyway.) But this is what we do with every other item of food that goes into our bodies. I guarantee that anyone reading this could list at least two people they know that are keto people. Why do I know this? Because if keto worked for that person, they share it with everyone! But keto doesn't work for everyone. We must be careful in what we share, how we share, and why we share. If I give my diet to someone else, it could cause them damage to their organs. I can share my knowledge through the lens of my scope of practice. Anything more is dangerous. So, people have asked about what diet I'm on. None. I'm not on a diet. My diet includes all the food groups. My diet includes proper portions. Due to medical issues, I have been told that a certain diet is the right fit for me. I do not exclude anything (check my Girl Scout cookies on the table. I opened each one for myself.) I have adjusted how I eat throughout the day for my health, but I'm not on a diet. I just eat healthier. Sure, there's a name, but guess what - it doesn't tell me to get rid of something or add something. It's all about being moderate in what I eat so that I can help my body process things properly. Here is one thing that I can promise you: If it is a fad diet (meaning mainstream, we all know about it) I won't be doing it. If my doctor recommends a change up, that's a consideration I will make. I need science. I need my body, not others. Sorry, you aren't me. I won't force you into my box, and I hope you can respect me in the same way. Diet (n): the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats. Looks like America is on the lazy man, fast food, what's the easiest, diet. If there's one thing I cannot stand it is people speaking out of turn. Today's society of keyboard warriors is bringing about a more brazen person. Now, being from the north and living in the south I hear things like, "Northerners are rude." Some people call us blunt or outspoken. A good number of southerners are realizing that they are no better because they just talk behind your back, but I see more and more people from the south gathering their gumption and speaking in ways they might not otherwise if it weren't for their time on social media.
Still, as we ALL have become less sensitive to the person on the other side of the screen, I think it's time we begin to reign it in a smidge. Recently, I decided to stop faking. So often we say the line, "Fake it til you make it." And I often joke about doing that myself. But the truth of the matter is, faking does not help anything. I wanted to run a social science experiment. As someone that has battled with depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and chronic pain, I have discovered that I spend a good portion of my life faking my emotions. I started to dig around in my brain and ask the question, "Why?" It took my little experiment to reveal exactly why our subconscious tells us to fake. I can go ahead and tell you that there are reasons people choose to fake their feelings. Sometimes, we just don't want people to know what is going on. Other times we might be ashamed. There are times we tell ourselves we must "hold it together." Mostly, I believe it to be a lack of trust. Years ago, I was confronted with the idea of how our social greetings should be more, particularly within church walls. When someone asks you, "How are you?" What do you respond? Well, I think for the most part we answer, "Fine," to those we casually know, and then are willing to share more of the, "Not good at all!" with people we trust. Someone once told me that if they ask me how I am doing, they are asking because they want the real answer. That was heavy for me. Why can't we tell someone that asks how we are the truth? I think a big part has to do with social norms. We want to look like we have it all together, yes. But we also don't want to bog people down with our troubles. It isn't polite. We push our emotions down for the sake of society. And that's where my experiment picked up. You see, Sunday, I was in a flare. I didn't start that way, I was only tired - go figure. But the chapel was freezing. Cold makes my legs tremor and begins a flare. The music was poorly mixed and far too loud. Over-sensitivity to sound makes my head begin to get jumbled. It's like the old TV's with their snowy screens. And the combination of the two made my skin crawl. I just wanted to get home. As we were leaving, we were stuck in a line at the door, just me and Caleb. A man ahead of us - acquaintance- turned around. He said hello and I returned the greeting. But I didn't smile my fake smile. I didn't ask about his family or anything. I simply said hi. My demeanor is that of if I were in my home in a flare. Not great. So his brilliant response is, "You're happy." I cannot express to you the words that wanted to spew from my mouth. "What do you care if I'm happy? Do you think that is an okay statement for someone that is visibly unhappy? Why are you such a flipping idiot?" I didn't. I simply answered sarcastically, "Always." He looks to Caleb, who is visibly happy, and says, "He's happy." To which I respond. "Always." After a few more moments of awkward, "Who says that?" playing in my mind I decide to head to a different door and get in the car. After a while I decide I need to pee, and should do so before we leave. I get out and walk towards the back of the building. There I pass (with much distance) another young man. He says "good morning" and I respond the same. Again, I do not fake my emotions. His response? "You seem tired." You can image what went through my head on that one. I answered, "I am," before walking inside to use the restroom. There I let my mind run free. "Really? You mean my diagnosis of chronic fatigue will mean I'm tired? No way!" And then I thought some more. When I fake my emotions, it makes ME uncomfortable. I have to work twice as hard to play nice. I have to work to express a smile when I don't want to or just don't have the capacity to. It gives me more internal pain. I suffer from behind closed doors. When I don't fake my emotions, it makes OTHERS uncomfortable. That first response of "You're happy," is his defense mechanism. His subconscious is saying, "Something is wrong with her." From there, he will have either conditioned responses or his mind will start scrambling. For him, the easiest way to put it back on me was to call out my displeasure. He could have said something like, "Are you feeling okay?" And I could have told him I'm in a flare. It could have led to a great discussion about fibromyalgia, unseen illnesses, or just not knowing about what is happening in other people's lives. But he didn't. Why? Because we aren't friends. He didn't care to know why I was unhappy. So instead of asking, he tried to call me out for him as if I needed to put my smile on because I'm making him uncomfortable. I'm sure he thought I would respond with, "Oh I'm fine, just tired," or something to the likes of it. That man will never care about his abrasiveness. It isn't in his nature. Perhaps I have made him rethink how he speaks to people, but probably won't. The second younger man will not have it register. He won't pick up on it. But I ask this - what would the world look like if we didn't fake our emotions? The initial thought is, it would probably look sadder, more depressed, more angry, more bleh. But what if, hear me out, because we show our true emotions, people begin to see that something is wrong and look to help? What if we now have more communication? What if we find more collectiveness, and therefore hope? I think I'm going to continue my experiment ... Perhaps we'll see. This week has been increasingly difficult to use my laptop. I understand that I put it through a good deal of stress not long ago while typing up another novel, but this is getting ridiculous. Yet, as I sit and wait for the screens to move as I want them to, I can hear the processor continually moving. It's slow to wake up. It's slow to load. It feels like my laptop is working through mud.
I recently read that if a person has to wait more than five seconds for a page to load, they will leave the page and move on. Our patience as a society is dwindling. Not long ago, it was said that children have the attention spand of twenty minutes. If you were to sit down right now and put on Disney Jr. or Nick Jr. you would find that shows last approximately eighteen minutes or less. Why? They know kids don't have the attention spand for more. However, that number has dropped. In a recent study, it showed that kids were only lasting to twelve minutes. I can't say that I'm surprised by these numbers at all. Not long after reading how much time it takes to abandon a site, I was loading a page. I don't know if I lasted a three count before discarding it to the internet. I felt a tinge of guilt about it, but at the same time, I just didn't care about what was waiting for me on the other side of my phone enough to last through the time it needed. If it was important, I would wait. My patience isn't completely gone. Perhaps these numbers are skewed a bit. Still, I used them to focus on my patience levels. This week, the computer has been a continual reminder of my want for things to be done right away. I want my pages to load. I want to do my work. I want to print those pages. I want to be done. Sometimes I feel like that is the driving force of my life. Get it done to be done. I rarely find myself doing something because it was what I wanted to do. It's work. It's all work. The sooner it is done, the sooner I can do what I want. But what is it that I want to do? Thankfully, my computer has reminded me of that too. I want to rest. I want to sit with my kids and not think of the things that need to be done, but of their sweet laughter at the movie, their creative brains in that game, or their continual chatter as a means of showing their love. I want to read a book for my enjoyment. I want to journal for my heart's happiness. I want to walk because I enjoy it. I want to throw on a movie because my brain needs a break. I just want to rest. My computer has been telling me that as well. When I am up and down, open and close, and going from web to Word, it simply wants to rest for a moment. It needs to regather and figure things out in the order we give it. It wants to be put to sleep the way it was manufactured to, not the way that's easiest to me. Lately, I have focused on resting. I have focused on enjoying the time away from work and letting things sit for just a moment longer. My body takes a deep breath and exhales away tension in my back and neck, if only for a moment. Our bodies are made to rest. They are made to take a day away from work and relax under the afternoon sun. I had an epiphany. My diagnosis of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and everything else can really suck. All of the symptoms and pains make life a little miserable. But when I string together days or weeks of flares and pain, I force myself to rest. This is not a fun disease by any means. But if it teaches me patience and rest, then I'm happy to deal. Life continues to move whether I am capable of doing so or not. I'd like to be capable. And that means, rest. So as I post this, please know, I will be putting the computer to sleep the way it was designed to, as I also hope to rest this afternoon, as I am designed to. I'm just gonna say it... I love Jerry Seinfeld. There.
Okay, that isn't exactly a secret to anyone that knows me, but I figure everyone should get an insight. Growing up when the show was on air, we were not allowed to watch it. My parents were very much against it. And for obvious reasons. It has a lot of adult content that was pushing boundaries like the typical 90's shows were doing at the time. Why? Because sex sells. Once the re-runs came on, my parents found out that it was actually quite hilarious. We were older and therefore, my parents enjoyed watching it. I became a fan. Then we found his stand up. Ah, stand up. Recently I had the opportunity to watch one of my DVD's of Jerry Seinfeld stand up. It is classic gold. At one point he discusses the use of a helmet. He admits that we have been engaging in reckless activities as a human race. Rather than stopping our activities, we simply cover our heads in plastic and hope for the best. It does make you think for a moment... Why do we continue with the helmet and risky behavior? We'll get to that. Within a twelve hour time frame, I have opened up the packaging of two allergy nasal sprays (not both for me, just one). The first time I was searching for the perforated lines on the plastic and was able to rip the seal apart with little trouble. The second time, not so much. I first searched and couldn't find those perforated lines. So I began to pull a bit around each part of the top hoping something would give. Nothing. I finally found along the bottom, where I couldn't get to, the actual lines to tear. I followed it up the top and began again. A sliver here. A patch there. And then it hits me. All around the seal reads the words we've grown accustomed to, "Sealed for your protection." We live in a world where people would take medications and steal a few pills, spit in the bottle, and who knows what else. Because of all the mayhem of humans, companies continually seal bottles for our protection. Condiments might be the worst or it, but after the ice cream licking incident of 2019, I think we're all a little happier that it takes longer to pour our maple syrup on our waffles. This morning I got to thinking about those seals, but more so the words that lined them. "Sealed for your protection." Those words are there not to make us feel safe, but the manufacturers. I began to wonder how many people called manufacturers complaining about that seal. "I can't get my medicine." "Why is the ketchup locked up tighter than the prison up the street?" "Are you trying to make things difficult?" I have no doubt in my mind that people are so agitated by that seal that they cause an issue with the company. Why? We are so selfish and entitled that we need to be told by manufacturers that the seal is for OUR protection. We need a reminder that there are ice cream lickers and thieves. We need a few words typed over every square centimeter saying that it is for our own good. We don't often look at inconveniences as for our own good. We don't look at a delay in time as keeping us from an accident. We don't consider when something isn't available in store anymore that it's for our own good, be it financially, socially, physically, or emotionally. God's hand of protection doesn't always look like what we want. But in our lives, we live in entitlement. We want to keep on doing things our way and get the response we want when we want it how we want it. No questions asked. If I were to ask you to think of some time you have been inconvenienced by another's entitlement, I'm sure you could pick five. You might even say something like, "Ugh, Millenials" when you envision those times. Then I would have to ask you, how many times were you the entitled one? Those times may not stick out in our memory as much because we don't like knowing our faults. Over the last few months I have tried to see the times and ways that I have been living in a world of entitlement. It isn't pretty. Traffic sucks, but it sucks for the person next to you just as much as it sucks for you. Waiting in line can be annoying, but are you always swift in a line? We are so upset about fighting plastic in the search for perforated ease that we need a reminder that it is for our protection, like a helmet during a bungee jump. I look forward to the days of heaven when we aren't focused on ourselves anymore. I'd be lying if I told you I walk around putting everyone before myself. Won't it be nice when your needs are above mine? Honestly, I just want to leave this agitation behind when people haven't lived up to my expectations and desires. Being selfish sucks. It sucks the life out of all of us. One day, things will be better. One day. |
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