30 Lessons Continued...

Lesson 24: Every relationship you have, no matter how long or short, is meant to teach you something

This is something I have learned many times over and continue to learn to this day.  I’d like to clarify, too, that the term relationship is extended to any kind of relationship – family, friend, romantic, platonic, acquaintance.  Sometimes these interactions are so brief – weeks, days, even hours – and have such a significant impact.  But the ones I have learned from the most have been the ones I thought would last forever – both platonic and romantic – but ended, sometimes suddenly and sometimes over the course of time.  In the moments of loss of those connections, I felt both relief and devastation.  Relief that I could let go of the tension, stress and anxiety the relationship brought; devastation at the idea that I might never interact or talk with these people again after they were such a huge part of my life.  In the wake of these losses, though, I continue to realize all of the lessons I learned from having known those people at all.  Typically, the lesson circles around an idea of self-realization and all of the things I learned about myself over the course of the relationship – who I am, who I want to be/don’t want to be, and who brings out the best/worst in me.  I’ve come to realize that, although I still hold a lot of sadness about the fact these people aren’t part of my life anymore, I was always meant to know them and experience the time that we shared.  Maybe we are only meant to have certain people in our lives for specific amounts of time.  That’s all we’re allotted.  They, too, go on to shape their own lives with what they learned from our connection.  It doesn’t make it any less hard to let them go, but it does make me think more in the moment about the relationships I currently have.  Am I applying what I learned?  Making better choices?  Living in the positive and giving more than I get?  No one wants to repeat mistakes they’ve made in the past that led to the ruin of a previous relationship – what would have been the point?  But bad habits are the hardest to break, so awareness of the behavior and its link to that person is key.  Every person you share a moment or set of moments with can, and should, have an impact on your life.  Look for those lessons - they are sometimes the most poignant and impactful.

Lesson 23: Know when to let go. 

In connection with Lesson 24, I felt it most appropriate to follow up with this lesson.  It’s definitely an extension of the relationship lesson; however, this idea extends to anything in life that we cling to with white knuckles.  I think, more often than not, it is a person or relationship, but I have experienced it also with a place, an idea, a career, and even an item.  For instance, for many years I wanted to be a particular kind of teacher in a specific kind of setting.  As time has worn on, though, I have loosened my grip on that idea in order to make room for a new dimension of education in a sphere I had never before considered.  Because of the difficulties I have faced finding a job in the current market, I have expanded my scope and now see my options as an educator are so varied and can take so many shapes.  In the moment that we cling helplessly to something, we usually feel like we are making the right decisions and doing right by ourselves and others. It isn’t until we let go that we can truly see the detriment we were committing by hanging on.  In relationships, sometimes this can be as severe as any form of abuse or something so subtle as continuously letting your own desires take second place.  The smallest digs and cuts, especially given over and over again, can be the most fatal.  Even though it is essential to protect your relationships and work hard to make them work, there is something so vital about knowing when to say when.  It doesn’t always have to be all at once, letting go cold turkey - sometimes loosening your grip a little at a time can show you just how far removed you are from what and where you should be.  It’s difficult to recognize in the moment, but the letting go of situations that just don't seem to fit always leads you to what/where/who you are meant to be.  It’s like they say – “you know when you know” and if you don’t know what that means or can’t appreciate what that really feels like…then you don’t yet know and maybe need to loosen your grip on something to be able to see a little more clearly.  Protect what’s real and true, but know when to let go to allow your greatest potential to be uncovered.

Lesson 22: Learn your love language. 

Since I have discovered this genius theory about love languages, I have been preaching it from the rooftops.  In short, Dr. Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor of over 30 years, discovered over the course of his work that, for the most part, when couples experience problems in their marriage, the issues can be traced to a kind of love miscommunication.  Basically, people both give and, subconsciously, expect to receive love/appreciation through 5 different avenues: 1) Acts of Service, 2) Words of Affirmation, 3) Quality Time, 4) Physical Touch, and/or Receiving Gifts.  Each person has one language, more than the other 4, that is most prominent.  More often than not, people you share your life with are not likely to “speak” the exact same language as you – therefore leading to conflicts and disruptions in the lines of communication.  Now, I won’t go into detail, as I blogged about this a short time ago.  What I will say is that Dr. Chapman is on to something here.  Not only does he have years of experience from which to work, but his book has been on the NYT Bestsellers list for 292 weeks, as of this post.  Each year he has sold more copies than the year prior and has never done any advertising or promoting of this book.  People have just been spreading this book around by word of mouth as they discover the ideas inside.  It’s all so simple, too, that it’s hard not to have one of those “Good lord how did I never see it this way before?!” moments.  Ryan and I have both taken the quiz and discovered our languages, which, immediately, illuminated for us some of the missed connections we’ve had in our own relationship.  I think the larger picture here, though, is how important it is to be aware of how you not only give your love, but expect to receive it – from anyone.  Dr. Chapman has now even developed his love language practice to include discussions about learning the languages of your children.  Imagine all of the conflicts that could have been or could still be avoided if parents had a clue where their kids were coming from.  How many parents have said, “I don’t even know who you are!”  Well, that could be because they are actually not even speaking the same “language!”  The ideas behind this theory, as I said, are simple, but so incredibly powerful.  I have a completely different understanding of not only myself and how I interact with people, in general, but of family members, friends and various loved ones who may have missed the mark for me a time or two.  It could be that I was expecting one thing and they were saying that thing in a completely different way.  Take the quiz – it takes all of 5 minutes.  It’s a simple thing to do that could very possibly change the way you see yourself and others around you.  You can spread love all day long, but if people aren't receiving it because they're expecting it to be expressed in a different way, missed connections will abound!

30 Lessons Continued...

**I definitely dropped the ball on posting these - let's try this again...**

Lesson 27: Learn how to take a compliment.


This has been a difficult one for me to do and I am definitely still working on it.  I’m not sure what flaw it is that exists inside me that makes my inner voice question the motives of someone giving me a compliment.  It has always made me uncomfortable, though.  I blush, get shy, turn away and sometimes outright deny, deny, deny.  I’ve been known to take sarcastic ownership, like, I can turn “I love your shirt” into a snarky “Thanks, it’s because I have amazing taste.”  Or worse, instead of just saying thank you, I might create a caveat to the compliment like, when someone compliments my cooking I might say something like, “yeah, it could probably use more/less (fill in the blank), but it’s alright.”  It’s silly really.  It drives Ryan crazy.  I married a man who is fantastic at giving sincere compliments in expression of his love and/or gratitude and I sincerely struggle with accepting them and moving on.  The lesson?  When someone compliments you stop analyzing their motives – just smile and say thank you!  It doesn’t make you look self-aggrandizing or egocentric.  Take ownership of how awesome you are, because everyone deserves to be complimented, especially for their hard work.   When you refuse the compliment you are both displaying a low sense of self-worth and insulting the sincerity and taste of the person complimenting you. 

Lesson 26: Be strong, understand and respect your body 

This is another of the 12 Woodcraft Laws I learned all those years ago - it stuck out to me then and it sticks with me now.  Back then, I saw this as more of a physical strength kind of thing – which, I had.  I played sports, hiked all over the Adirondacks, swam like a fish and rode my bike for miles and miles all over my town.  As I got older though, as is wont to happen, my body changed and, even though I worked out and stayed active, my body required more to be “strong.”  During this shift, I came across this statement and finally the part about “understanding and respecting your body” really set in.  I’ve always felt strong, but it’s more than that.  I started doing Pilates 5 years ago and it gave me a whole new understanding of what it actually meant to be strong.  It gave me more clarity on this whole understanding and respecting my body business.  I got a reality check about this after my c-section.  As I enter my 30’s, I feel really in tune with what makes me feel strong and what detracts from that feeling.  I also know a lot of people, older and younger, who have no recognition of this feeling at all.  Not that they aren’t strong, but they don’t know from where they are strong or how to cultivate that strength.  Your body, aside from your brain, is the only physical thing you have that is truly yours.  No one else can lay claim to it, no one else can understand it the way you can, and no one else can hear what it tells you.  Although I still struggle with losing a few pounds here and there to have the physical aesthetic I’d prefer, I am strong and I take ownership over that feeling.  I have also learned the imperative necessity to be able to hear when my body is trying to tell me something and how to go about addressing the issue.  I’m not someone who hits the gym every day and I can’t commit to a complete clean eating diet, but when I wake up in the morning, I feel in tune with what’s going on within.  We understand each other, which, in my opinion is a big deal if you ask any woman who has ever felt like they don’t recognize the body they live in.  I understand I will never get out what I don’t put in, and although that’s sometimes frustrating, it is what it is.  This body created life, it houses the brain I am still paying for, and it has made it through some pretty demanding requests on my part.  And, although I am not always happy with my body, I definitely respect it.

Lesson 25: Stop apologizing for everything, but know when to say “I’m Sorry.” 

I went through a phase in my late teens and early 20’s when I apologized for everything.  I apologized for things I did, for things I didn’t do, for things other people did, for the weather, for anything and everything.  It was compulsive.  I didn’t even realize I was doing it until one of my friends pointed it out one day and said, “Stop apologizing for everything!  It’s driving me crazy!”  I struggled with the impulse to apologize to her for how often I apologized… In that moment, I started taking stock of how often I said “I’m sorry” and was shocked when I realized how addicted I was to expressing this sentiment.  It was much akin to when someone makes you aware of how often you say “like” or “um.”  Suddenly, once you’re aware of it, it’s the only thing you can think of to say and you struggle with the effort to cut this word from your vocabulary.  It took me a while, but I was finally able to stop.  Someone told me once that by apologizing for everything all day long, it took the weight away from the phrase when I needed to apologize for bigger things.  That really stuck with me.  But that’s the trick, isn’t it?  I have found that saying “I’m sorry” in those moments when it is most important is sometimes the most difficult action – even if I’ve spent all day saying it.  I guess it is the pride swallowing ownership of a really hurtful situation that makes it hard, but knowing when to say “I’m sorry” and really mean it is so crucial.  Saying sorry to someone you bump into is easy, but saying sorry to someone for a hurtful comment or action is such a different story.  Sometimes that verbal recognition of the wrong doing is all a person wants or needs, but it can be easily glossed over or overlooked. I’ve also found that people often have a longer and stronger memory of a time when sorry wasn’t said and needed to be, than of a time someone wronged them and apologized.  It’s only two words, but they sure do pack a punch when used appropriately.  As I begin to teach my daughter about “I’m sorry” and forgiveness, I find myself taking a mental note: forgive the action, don’t forget the apology and always, ALWAYS mean it when you say it.

30 Lessons, for 30 Days, to honor 30 years

In honor of my 30th birthday, I decided to take on a 30 day challenge of my own.  In the 30 days leading up to my birthday, each day I posted to Facebook one lesson that I have learned over the course of my life.  I wanted to share these lessons with everyone I know, love, and maybe haven't even met yet.  I will post them in chunks, but I wanted to get them on my blog so that if people missed one here or there, they can be easily found.  I hope you enjoy them and feel free to leave some of your own lessons for everyone to see! 

Lesson 30: Say thank you…and mean it

My mom taught me to say thank you when I was very little.  She told me that you should always say thank you, any time you can.  As I got older, I realized that not everyone says thank you as often as they should.  As someone who has worked in food service, education, customer service and as a nanny, the number of people who DON’T say thank you is a lot bigger than you might think.  It’s a small phrase that takes milliseconds to say, but makes a huge impact.  I say it whenever I can, when someone says “Bless You,” when a waitress refills my water (every time), when someone lets me merge in in traffic (with a wave, but I say the words in my car just as good practice).  For the number of times I’ve wished I had heard it, I remember to say it.  And it means just as much in these small situations as it does in those big moments when you should definitely be remembering to say it.  But you can’t just say it, you need to mean it, which is the hardest part.  Sometimes, on those tough days when even meeting another person’s eye is difficult, saying thank you is a daunting task.  But, I have learned that looking that cashier in the eye, when they too might be having the worst day, and saying thank you with a smile not only makes their day better as they smile back, but it immediately changes the direction on my day as well. 


Lesson 29: Celebrate the little things 

If there is one thing I have learned from living with a toddler, it is that celebrating the little things can really help boost your own daily morale.  I love seeing her give herself a round of applause for something like putting a stack of blocks together or finishing a book – a feat I seldom get to accomplish.  I don’t want her to ever lose that sense of accomplishment for her own personal triumphs, big or small.  I know, for myself, that getting caught up in the minutiae of day to day life, trying to tackle “to do” lists, putting checks in the boxes, making people happy, keeping it all together, etc., makes the feeling that I have accomplished anything productive at the end of the day seem impossible.  I would just fall into bed, downtrodden and relieved that the day was over, while also sighing about what is on tomorrow’s list instead of reveling in all the things I DID accomplish.  Now, though, if I just remember to stop for a few moments and celebrate, in some small way, anything that I happen to get accomplished, it really does lighten the load a bit and put a little motivated spring in my step.  I don’t feel so bogged down by my “to do” list, as I do feel motivated to see myself accomplish a small goal.  I guess it’s just a way of reframing your mind, but I have come to enjoy my little personal rounds of applause and mini dance parties.  A cocktail at the end of an exceptionally productive day never hurt either…
  

Lesson 28: Be kind. Do at least one act of unbargaining service each day

This is actually one of the 12 Woodcraft Laws that I learned many years ago.  There are a few more on my lessons list, for you TLers out there.  I didn’t fully appreciate this one back when I was 14 – I know, weird, right?  But, as the years wore on and I came back to the Laws, this one crept up on me.  I find myself thinking of it all the time.  It seems like  a no brainer, but how often does it happen that you see someone who needs something and, in that moment, you pass by because you figure “oh, they can get that” or “I just don’t have the time at the moment.”  But the key to this lesson is that the act must be unbargaining – there’s no return on this act, no benefit to you and just may make you go out of your way a bit.  I have found that the most unbargaining acts are for complete strangers – because there is no emotional tie “making” you do whatever it is that needs to be done.  I have one amazing example.  One day I was sitting at a red turn signal and across a 4 lane intersection an older gentleman on a motorized scooter was trying to cross the road on a “walk” light.  I happened to look over at him as he was making his way off the curb, noticing that he was crossing an exit ramp from the highway.  He got stuck on the curb with most of his scooter out in the lane, not able to back up or move forward with the light sure to turn green soon.  I wasn’t sure anyone else was paying attention and, despite the fact I was 4 lanes away, was seriously considering going to help him.  When all of a sudden a guy on the opposite side of the same exit ramp jumped out of his car, ran over and pushed him across the intersection into safety.  I breathed an audible sigh of relief and thanked whoever’s up there that there are still people out there willing to be kind, despite where they need to be or who might need the help.  That was unbargaining service at its best.  What killed me was that the people in the two cars inches/feet away from this, and probably watching through their windshield, didn’t even flinch.  I will be the first to admit, I don’t help every time I’m able, but it’s usually in circumstances a lot less dire.  I suppose it’s a flaw of the human condition, but one that you actively choose to pursue.  I’m working on it for myself, trying to be kind through both my words and my actions.  Some days it’s harder than others, but it’s ultimately an easy way to keep the positive energy circulating. 

Deconstructed Resolutions

Have you ever watched the show The Biggest Loser?  If you know me, you might be aware that I love this show – especially the couple’s edition – and watch it every season.  This is mostly because I believe that, although some of the in-show advertising is ridiculous and the methods are sometimes silly, at the end it really does change a lot of lives in a really positive way.  I know a lot of people talk about how unhealthy it is for the contestants to lose that kind of weight in a matter of months and I get all of that.  However, despite all this, I really like the idea that they are really changing, not only their lifestyles, but really tackling some of the core issues that got them where they are in the first place.  I love to see the emotional and psychological transformation more than anything and, to me, it feels like one of the most honest reality shows out there – for the most part.  Over the years, I have laughed at myself for watching it, because I am usually sitting on the couch and eating while I do – I mean, talk about the peak of hypocrisy.  But, I think that’s the idea – it’s on primetime TV, 60% of people who are into this show are doing the same thing.  (I fully believe that the others are like me, DVRing it and watching it later.  But, I do secretly wish that most of these people are watching it while on their treadmill or something.  I’ve read reviews that people do that.  I, however, still sit down and watch it with food, just with my lunch rather than my night time snack…)

The reason I am telling you this is really in tune with my New Year’s ideas.  The new season of this show is about to begin, probably in an effort to maximize everyone’s newly made resolutions.   Recently, of course, I have been talking with my friends about resolutions and have declared that I no longer make them.  I stopped doing it a few years ago, actually, in a bout of self-reflection when I realized that I have never actually kept any resolutions that I have made.  Not really, anyway.  These days I make only one “resolution:” to continue setting small, achievable goals either daily and/or weekly.  I have found, by doing this, I have taken a lot of the stress out of my life caused by feeling like I’m never getting things on my to-do list done.  I have created a more productive environment for myself where I also celebrate my small victories.  This is actually a lesson I have gleaned from having a 1 year old: small achievable goals and small victories. You learn to really live in the moment and celebrate the little things when you are with a 1 year old all day, because that is the sphere in which they exist.  I put the block on that stack successfully: round of applause!  I put the book back in the basket: round of applause!  I washed the dishes AND showered during her naptime: mini dance party!  Small achievable goals have changed my way of thinking about my life.  I don’t feel bogged down by my to-do list anymore, I often just feel motivated to see what I can accomplish in a one or two hour span of time, depending on how long naptime lasts J

In terms of weight loss, though, I will say that this was a drag for me for a while.  Although I have never been overweight per se, after I had the kiddo, I definitely felt like I would never look the way I used to.  I didn’t show a lot of my weight gain until after I had kiddo and, I guess, everything kind of took its time to settle in. It didn’t help that I had to have a C-Section due to Savannah’s size and breech position, destroying any and all of the core that I had spent so long developing in my Pilates training.  My surgery not only destroyed my core, but between that, the nursing, and my tendency to hunch over due to my large bust, I had developed a lot of pretty detrimental back issues.  It took over 4 months of chiropractic rehabilitation and physical therapy to help me get back to place where I could begin some meaningful physical activity.  After several months, even though I was eating pretty well, I still wasn’t doing enough exercise because I was at home alone with the baby, often for weeks on end, just trying to get a shower and a meal in when I could.  I began looking for a job to break the monotony, then getting very frustrated that I couldn’t find anything over the course of many months.  The quiet I found on the job front really deflated my sails and made the weight gain feel like an even bigger problem.  I hated the way I looked both in and out of clothes, I actually hated it when Ryan told me how sexy he thought I was, and I dreaded the idea of going anywhere where I might see people I knew because I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin.  Even then, I knew that these feelings were fueled more by where my head was and less by what my body actually looked like.  I just could not get out of that negative space that was telling me I didn’t have control over anything and I cursed our social culture for contributing to my sense of physical discord.

Then, one day, cruising the Facebook walls during one of Savannah’s naps, I stumbled upon this blog post that a friend of mine had shared.  It totally changed my perspective and snapped me out of my funk, so to speak.  I don’t always take the time to read the articles or posts that are shared on Facebook – sometimes I put a mental bookmark in the posts that look particularly interesting to me, because I simply don’t have the time to read them at the moment.  But something about this post felt different, so I clicked the link right then and read on.  By the end, I felt so silly and wasteful about the way I had been viewing myself.  The author speaks about how after the birth of her second child, she found herself avoiding pictures with her kids because she didn’t like the way she looked, she hadn’t lost her baby weight yet and it felt more important to document her children’s experiences than to get in the pictures herself.  At another child’s birthday party, her daughter begged her to get into the photo booth and Mom immediately felt uncomfortable.  She realized, that day, that she was being selfish by excluding herself from pictures with her children because she was robbing them of their ability to have keepsakes and visual proofs of their childhood moments with her.  As an adult, I don’t know many people who don’t cling to pictures of themselves from their early childhood, especially with their parents in the picture.  My favorite pictures include my mother, who also was sometimes shy about being in a picture because she has always been self-conscious about her teeth.  I am so grateful for the pictures I have with her in them and always wished there were more of them.  I immediately flashed forward to my own life, where I am continuously avoiding pictures with my kiddo because I can’t stop thinking about looking back at these pictures and loathing the way I look.  What a selfish thought, when compared with the idea that my daughter could have pictures of the two of us together, especially at a time when it is just her and I 100% of the time.  Being a daughter, I know how vitally important it is as the mother of a little girl to create positive and realistic views of ourselves as women.  I have a responsibility as her mom and as an independent, free-thinking, bad ass woman to demonstrate and exemplify healthy images of myself that she can mirror back on her own self.  If you’d have asked me even just a couple of years ago, I would have said this same thing – but somewhere between going into labor and the present day I kind of lost my way. 

In that moment, I felt this release.  It almost felt like a physical reaction.  It’s difficult to describe, but my skin prickled by the end of the article and I felt, all at once, lighter.  Like that figurative weight was lifted – only literally.  That day, I took a series of pictures of me and the kiddo and felt so good about it.  And I really noticed her looking at me like I had never seen before.  I was changing my clothes for the day as she sat on the floor just watching me, with this look of awe and pure love on her face.  It was like I was finally seeing myself in the mirror as she has been looking at me all along.  She doesn’t see love handles, surgery scars or cellulite.  She sees her Mama, a vision of womanhood,  all that is represented by having those X chromosomes.  In that moment, I felt both pride in her and my realization and shame at having missed this all along.  Never again – only positive images and definitely no more thinking out loud about how I don’t like how these jeans fit here or how this shirt doesn’t hang right there.  After a couple weeks passed, I noticed that my pants were starting to get looser and I was now able to finally fit back into my pre-pregnancy pants.  I immediately stepped on the scale and saw that I had lost 6 pounds!  Since reading the article, I have lost a total of 11 pounds.  I have, of course, changed my diet and started doing Pilates more regularly.  Plus, being a single mom, trying to keep the house together, the yard work done and chasing a very busy 15 month old girl who never stops moving doesn’t hurt.  But, really, I have been doing a lot of these things all along.  It really has felt like once I let go of the thoughts and feelings that were weighing me down, I started to drop the weight.  I started focusing on my small, achievable goals, started thinking more realistically about my lifestyle and have really tried to do something active every day, even if it’s just taking 20 minutes to rake the yard.  I feel so much more confident and motivated!

Once I really started thinking about all of this, I realized that I suppose this is sort of my pattern.  Several years ago, I had just gotten out of a really toxic relationship that had gone on for too long and created a lot of deep scars…for both of us, I’m sure.  By the end of it, I had gained about 10 or 15 pounds physically and felt at least 150 pounds overweight emotionally.  We spent a lot of time dragging each other down, degrading one another and just emitting nothing by negative energy.  Once it was over, and it took a while to really be over, I went through several days where I just didn’t feel right.  I kept rethinking my decision, scared about the future because I had spent so many years with this person and didn’t know anything else, but also scared about what might happen to/for him.  Fortunately, I lived with two of my best friends in the world, who really helped drag me through those days.  One day, after a night out and a cathartic reconnection with an old friend, I came home and had an emotional outburst during which I sobbed uncontrollably.  After that, I felt that same skin-tingling, lightening sensation.  It was like I pulled the trigger on the last 6 years.  I felt that weight lift.  Within about a month, I lost all of the weight I had gained – and hadn’t changed a whole lot about my lifestyle.  I was pretty broke back then, so overeating was definitely not an option J  I felt then the way I felt after I read the article – like I had a new lease on life, like I had discovered a confidence I never knew I could inhabit, like I was becoming the best version of myself. 

Discovering all of this over the last several months has really given me insight into why I really get into The Biggest Loser.  Maybe 6 months is too short a time to lose 100 pounds.  Maybe working out 8-10 hours a day in an enclosed environment where a diet is provided for you is an unrealistic way to change your lifestyle.  But what those people learn about themselves, their demons, and the things that are REALLY weighing them down?  That is for real and, I swear, is the real secret to their success.  If you happen upon the show this season, or if you are already a fan, think about past seasons or watch this season’s contestants.  There is always at least a few, if not most of them, that experience that initial big loss because of the simple change in lifestyle and then they plateau.  Notoriously, weeks 2 and 3 are the hardest on the scale because of this huge loss.  It is my belief, though, that these weeks are the hardest because that first week represents their physical weight – their surface level weight.  Because they haven’t started chipping away at their emotional weight, they come to a stand-still.  Once they have that first breakthrough moment with their trainer, though, they miraculously lose a big chunk of weight.  I’m no therapist and, in no way, have the authority to hand out advice or instructions.  Also, in no way do I submit this as a true weight loss plan – you still have to do the physical and dietary work.  But, for what it’s worth, here’s what I have learned for myself.  Until you take hold of, recognize, vocalize, and call out the heavy things you are clinging to with white knuckles, real change can never happen.  Once you are aware of those heavy things, loosening your grip and ultimately letting go is the hardest but most necessary part.  We can’t all have a Bob/Jillian/Dolvett in our corner, telling us to pick up the speed on our literal or figurative treadmill.  Sometimes we can find that in the people around us and sometimes we just have to be that for ourselves.   And sometimes it shows up in the form of a toddling, 15 month old girl with wide eyes and expectations of her Mama.  Either way, set your first small achievable goal today and see how it feels.  And really, start small.  Put the laundry away straight out of the dryer instead of waiting; walk up the two flights instead of taking the elevator; show up early for one appointment or date.  Whatever it is, immediately after, celebrate.  Look in the mirror and smile, give yourself a hug, do a 10 second dance party – whatever rocks your world.  Just take a cue from my daughter and take a second to enjoy the moment.  It’s addictive.  Trust me.   

The Language of Love

**Wrote this post a few weeks ago, but only just polished it up for posting.  Lots of irons in the fire this time of year, so look for more to come soon.  Enjoy!**

So, in an effort to maintain some sort of interesting repartee with my husband while he is gone, I came up with, what I think is, a brilliant idea.  Several months ago, while surfing the Pinterest wave – yes, I am an avid follower – I stumbled upon this “30 Things” list.  The blogger who posted it here did so in an effort to boost her own blogging efforts, sparking in me a similar inspiration.  But, I didn’t want to just outright steal her idea, so I pinned the site, marking it for future considerations.  Fast forward to just before the deployment, a lightbulb *bing!*  I proposed the idea to Ryan that maybe, since we would be mostly sustaining on emails alone, that we challenge ourselves a little bit.  I proposed to send him one question a week for every week of the deployment and we would each have that entire week to formulate and send a response to said question, in the hopes that maybe we would have at least something to write about when the mundane details of everyday life got a little boring to explain.  He was thrilled with the idea, as he too was looking for a little inspiration to boost his writing sensibilities, so we began. 

Well, it has been going great!  We have both found that this has been an incredibly easy and focused way for us to isolate some of the minor little nuances of our life that we might not have otherwise ventured into discussing.  It has brought up lots of questions and sparked conversations that have carried our emailing to a much more interesting place.  We keep marveling at how much we have been learning about each other, after we had gone along thinking we knew so much!  Oh how much the “newly” married have to learn. 

At any rate, this lengthy discussion brings me to the purpose of this post, which has much more to do with the greater good.  Or so I hope.  The most recent question Ryan and I spent time answering was “What is Your Love Language?”  This is actually a question that I had wanted to look into more for quite some time now, as someone had enlightened me to this idea and book a long while ago.  As it turns out, Ryan had also heard about it and had secretly wanted to discuss it as well.  Weird.  The basic premise is that a psychologist who had been seeing clients over the course of 20+ years started to notice a pattern in the couples he had been counseling.  It seemed to him that, in general, people tend to express or “speak” their love in a small variety of ways.  He narrowed these “languages” down to 5:  1) Acts of Service; 2) Receiving of Gifts; 3) Words of Affirmation; 4) Quality Time; 5) Physical Touch.**   According to the good doctor, everyone has one “language” which they speak to other people more than the other 4.  And, maybe not necessarily the same, they also have one that they need spoken to them in order to feel loved.  It is possible to have 2 tie for first, as I did, but generally one outweighs the others.  What is most interesting is that the language you think you speak is sometimes not the one that ends up as your actual first language.  The fascinating part comes when you try to compare your own language with those who you love, to see where there may be some kind of disconnect.  And there typically is.  There is a quiz here that you can take to determine where you stand in the love language realm, but allow me to tell you a little bit about the revelations I discovered for myself.

So, as I have few secrets, here is how I scored on the assessment: 9 Acts of Service; 9 Quality Time; 5 Words of Affirmation; 5 Physical Touch; 2 Receiving Gifts.  As you can see, I had two languages duking it out for first place, but once I saw the results in black and white it was like another lightbulb went off, *Bing!*  Of course!  Why could I never put that together?  I am a total and complete Acts of Service lover!  I mean, so many things clicked in my head in the moment I finished the quiz, namely the fact that I felt like an idiot for never having put this together before.  The reason I sometimes seem like an overachiever to others and why I sometimes feel undervalued, and ultimately at times, underloved, is because I both give and expect to receive love through Acts of Service.  I like to make people things, do for others, cook them meals, bake them treats, etc, etc, etc.  Talk about an epiphany.  Around our house, I am always acting out this language with Ryan and am always disappointed when my efforts are not reciprocated.  As it turns out, Acts of Service fell last on Ryan’s survey with a whopping 2 points – yikes.  Not yikes in an “I’m judging you way,” yikes in a “wow, we are on completely other levels sometimes” way.  So, you can imagine that our conversations revolved around the ways in which we could work on bridging the gaps between our languages. 

In terms of the other results, at first I was really surprised that Quality Time beat out Words of Affirmation.  In terms of my relationship with Ryan, I value our time together so much and I think that is one of the most valuable lessons I have learned from our military life: how to truly value each and every day that we spend together.  I just also know how lucky I am to be married to someone who is so forthcoming with his feelings about me as well as his constant declarations of my beauty and his words of encouragement.  On that scale, he definitely gets a 10 – he knows exactly what to say when I need him to say it and even when I don’t know I need it.  As a matter of fact, in our discussion we figured out that he has a keen ability to know when I am feeling a little less than supported through his lacking Acts of Service and makes up for it by speaking more Words of Affirmation, which ranked higher on his list.  He admitted that he realized through this activity that he does that, but also made the startling realization that I have been speaking my Acts of Service love to him from our very beginning and he, like me, felt like such dope for missing my sometimes very obvious pleas to fulfill that need.  Instead of thinking that I just wanted help with mundane household tasks, he saw that really I was subconsciously pleading to be recognized and acknowledged.   This is starting to sound a little too “shrinky,” I know, but honestly, it has given us both a great deal of insight into our understandings of each other as well as our relationships with those around us.

When I started to think about these results in broader terms, it began making more and more sense to me.  Because, I grew up in a family where words of affirmation and physical touch were not really highly used or regarded, these are languages that I didn't become versed in "speaking" until much later in my life.  I think I am still learning how to feel comfortable expressing them in some ways.  I have never been a person who could always verbalize how I felt very well or even say the right thing at the right moment.  Believe it or not, in a lot of ways I have always been a relatively shy person when it comes to verbally expressing these things - I've always been better in writing J  Spending time together, just hanging out and doing things, that's how my family has always communicated love.  That, and doing for each other.  I mean, when I really go back and think about all of this, which I have - at length - it really brings together a lot of ideas about me, my family and the ways I have viewed our relationships up until this point.  Receiving Gifts was so very low on my list, which was not a shock either, because honestly, I haven’t often been on the receiving end of many gifts and therefore it has never been an important thing in my life.  Growing up with limited means often put the focus either on other things or just made the one or two gifts we did get that much more meaningful.  This was a big lesson for me growing up that I intend to carry on – no 50 present Christmases in our family.  I have a solid understanding of why this is so important for some people out there, who maybe speak the Receiving Gifts languages more than others, but for me it is the thought or the act behind the gift that means the most.  That isn't to say I don't love receiving gifts, it really does always make me feel special and communicates a kind of love I often overlook.  I also definitely love giving gifts, but really, in the grand scheme, that could fall under Acts of Service J  When put up against other things, for me, gifts tend to fall to the wayside in terms of importance because so many other things took a focal point throughout my childhood and adolescence. 

So, is this test foolproof, definite or conclusive?  Probably not.  There is a chance you could take the quiz and find out that it doesn’t factor out for you.  The key is definitely to be completely honest with yourself when you answer and don’t try to give the answer that you think you’d prefer to give – like in those magazine article quizzes.  You know who you are!  At the very least, by just reading over the Love Languages and thinking about them in terms of yourself and your relationships with others, can offer a great deal of insight into why things don’t tend to go your way or work out like you plan.  It offers a crucial insight that could be a good jumpstart to any New Year’s resolutions you might be thinking about.  I have always found that the New Year is a great time, maybe not for overhauling your life, but maybe just taking stock of what’s going on, what you’re feeling and what changes you might need to start making for yourself or those around you.  (An interesting note, too, as I just discovered by returning to the website after not having seen it in a while, he's added some profiles for apologies and appreciation that I intend to explore, as well as information about a child's languages.  Could prove to be an interesting insight into your parent/child dynamics...).  If nothing else, it’s just a fun quiz to take and keep in the back of your mind.  It might also help you understand why your significant other refuses to put their socks in the hamper or keeps forgetting your birthday – it might not be because they don’t love you enough, it could just be that you aren’t speaking the same language.   

 

**From the Website before he changed it - I just like these explanations better.**
#1: Words of Affirmation

Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, "I love you," are important—hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.

#2: Quality Time

For those whose love language is spoken with Quality Time, nothing says, "I love you," like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes your significant other feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed dates, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.

#3: Receiving Gifts

Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous—so would the absence of everyday gestures.

 #4: Acts of Service

Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an "Acts of Service" person will speak volumes. The words he or she most want to hear: "Let me do that for you." Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter.

#5: Physical Touch

This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.

Mission Complete!

Well, here I am – post # 2!  How proud are you?!  I am pretty excited.  Ever since I posted the first one, I have been thinking and planning the next ones.  I have been spending some time working on a couple of other posts, but in the meantime, I didn’t want to leave you hanging thinking I am a) never coming back and b) laying about eating bon bons, drinking margaritas, reading magazines and wasting away the time I have to accomplish things around my house.  Just a sidenote  -but where did that saying even come from.  Do people eat bon bons?  I wouldn’t even know where to get them.  I’m more likely to be laying around eating popcorn or dark chocolate powerberries, but I suppose that doesn’t have the same catchy ring…but I digress.

Anyway, I accomplished a huge project this weekend that I am dying to share with you all!  With the free time I’ve had these days, I have been trying to conquer a lot of household projects that I have been keeping on an ever increasing list.  One of those projects has been the kiddo room.  When we first moved into this house, I put all of her things in one of the 3 bedrooms with a vision in my head of what it could look like if I ever summoned the gumption to make it happen.  I knew the exact color, decorations, and set up.  When she was about 6 months old, I finally decided to tackle it.  Ryan was gone on one of his many 2 week long trainings, I had already finished the living room and now I was ready to move on.  I bought the paint, draped the furniture, and taped the creases to get started.  I finished the painting in 2 days over the course of the kiddo’s nap times and night time sleeping.  Thankfully she was taking nice long naps twice a day.  Once I got the whole room painted with two coats, I put up some of the wall appliques that I found and put the furniture where I wanted it.  I was so excited, but I didn’t want to get too happy yet, I still had things I wanted to do. 

Well, wouldn’t you know, it took me another six months to finally complete the project.  I have been staring at the one large blank wall in her room for months trying to decide what to do with it.  I have been looking for the right set of shelves to put up against it, but nice shelve pieces are stupid expensive and I’m really not interested in putting a lot of money into kiddo furniture; God knows what is in store for it.  Well wouldn’t you know Pinterest saved the day!  A while back I saw a posting ofor using rain gutters as shelving to create a little book nook in a kiddo room.  Brilliant!  I pinned it for a rainy day and have had it in the back of my mind for weeks now.  Well, last week I was so over the kiddo’s books being strewn all over her room, as she is obsessed with reading every single one and then just dropping it and moving on to the next.  It was time to execute the plan!

Taking her books to read under the tree

This past weekend the Munchkin and I set out to Home Depot to gather supplies.  I found the perfect vinyl rain gutter in a beautiful shade of brown to match some of the furniture and some drywall screws.    The rain gutters are sold in ten foot lengths, so I carried one down to the front of the store and asked one of the orange apron wearing men types if a hacksaw would be the best way to cut this gutter down.  I don’t want to say that there was any eyelash batting or sweet smiling happening, but it was a Saturday at Home Depot and without it I was probably just some clueless chick with a kid wandering the aisles.  They were more than obliging to my request and said, well, I guess we could just do it for you miss, right this way.  Bing bang boom, 10 feet of gutter becomes 3 equal length gutter shelves. I walked out of there for approximately $9 with my three pieces and 12 drywall screws.  Sweet!  Munchkin and I headed home for naptime and I planned my attack.  When she woke up, I taped the walls where I wanted to hang the shelves, measured for the screws, drilled the wall and the gutter pieces and screwed them into the wall.  Done and done.  It was so exciting!  I moved a chest into the room next to the shelves for the animals to have a home, put the remaining Eric Carle animal appliques up and marveled at my handiwork.

Ta Da!

The last step in the process was hanging the picture string I made for her first birthday.  At her party I hung a collection of pictures from her first year, hung them from string with ribbon so people could look at them as they meandered around throughout the day.  I really liked how it turned out, so I figured why not get two uses out of it?  I strung the pictures up above the shelves and now that whole space looks purposeful.  The room is complete.  It is the first room in the whole house, in almost a year of us living here, that is finally complete and Savannah is obsessed with it.  She is constantly pointing and laughing at the pictures, which she has been studying as they’ve been lying on various surfaces around our house since September.  She can’t get enough of taking the books down and putting them back up and she is loving the space that has been made available to play by getting everything off the floor and out of corners.  Yay for me!  Check out the pictures for yourself.     Since there is no one here to revel at my creation in person, you all get the joy of seeing it here.  I don’t know about you, but for me there is something about finishing a major project that inspires me to get started on another one.  Seems counterintuitive, but it’s true.  Wait till you see my garage...

She's Baaack...for reals this time.

Wow.  How is it even possible that over a year and a half has passed me by without even one iota of a posting to my own blog.   It’s funny, because I think about this blog at least once a day.  Once a day for probably 21 months – that’s a little more thought and a lot less action.  Disappointing, I know.  Ryan even asked me several months ago why I hadn’t posted in such a long time.  After a long pause and a brief amount of thought, all I could come up with was “I just don’t feel like I have anything to say.” 

I have always prided myself on my ability to transfer thought to written word in somewhat of an eloquent fashion.  It’s always been my source of salvation when the thoughts in my head get too jumbled, unorganized, or riotous.  And it isn’t to say that I haven’t had thoughts, because where would that leave me?  I just have also always prided myself on the notion that “if you don’t have anything useful to say, don’t say anything at all.”  I suppose I just haven’t felt like anything I have thought in these last almost 2 years has been useful.  After some consideration, I’ve come to realize that maybe this is just an extension of my feeling of uselessness which has grown out of my lack of resolution on the job front.  After almost 4 years of searching and waiting, much to my own chagrin, I have yet to step back into the classroom as a full time teacher.  This has definitely taken its toll on my confidence, patience, surefootedness and resolve.  For a brief time, I was teaching jewelry making to elementary students which was, in its own way, educationally fulfilling.  But, as is wont to happen, that opportunity became unavailable as the business owner relocated.  Currently, I am employed by a school in more of an administrative role than anything else, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but still not quite on point.  At least I’m in the building, right?

More space in my brain is taken up with thoughts about “did I do the right thing in pursuing education” and “how am I going to make this work” than anything else, therefore leaving me feeling like, since I have no answers to these questions, maybe I should just keep plugging away at them until I have something useful to say.  Again with that word.  Useful.  All I’m left with is the questions upon questions that multiply out of the one that started it all: “what am I doing?”  I got nothing.  I started out down this path that seemed so clear more than 10 years ago.  Every step along the way has been taken in the direction of a specific goal – one that was clear, visual, and attainable.  But now here I am, looking around at the dirt path ahead of and behind me and I see that it’s all just a wide open desert wasteland of what was once a forest of my flourishing career goals.  Maybe that’s an exaggeration, maybe it’s not all a wasteland as I’ve met some amazing people along the way and was afforded time to have my first baby.  But who would have believed that education would NOT have been a safe career bet?  Surely not me, as one of the things Ryan and I laughed about in terms of having to move every other 6 months/year was “they need teachers everywhere, so we’re all set.”  I am a big believer in the whole “it happens for a reason” mentality, and I do fully believe that every step taken thus far has not been in vain.  However, as I look forward, my vision isn’t as clear as it once was.  30 is walking down the sidewalk to my doorstep and will soon be knocking and asking, “what now?”  So, indeed, what now?

Well, to start, I have a full blown family now with a tiny human and an adoring husband.  That has become my focus, especially as more children may show their beautiful faces in our near future (not yet, don’t get excited, just more near than far).  With that in mind, along with my hiatus from the educational community, I think I am also shifting my teaching beliefs and philosophy.  What was once a hard and fast rule about sticking by the public school system and supporting that which so many people have neglected has become more of a wavering idea that leans toward homeschooling and charter school education.  As I’ve said, every step has meant something and many of those steps have been taken outside the public school system, in other domains that have not only opened my eyes to the flaws of our public education system, but also to the amazing opportunities that have blossomed in the charter school/homeschool sector.  It really isn’t what it used to be – in a good way. The school I currently work in, specifically, has really broadened my scope for what education can really look like and how much was missing from my public school teaching experience.  More on that in a later post…

With all of that said, I am trying to commit myself to my writing again.  I know, I’ve said this before and I am a terrible personal rule breaker.  I don’t mean to do it, it just happens.  Don’t point the finger at me – I’m sure you’ve done it too.  Just not on a public forum where people can look at the date of your last post and say, “aye, what a slacker.”  Believe me, I feel it more than you think it.  But I’m making a comeback!  Refueled by my recent acquisition of free time in my husband’s absence, I am determined to continue my quest toward career/maternal/personal enlightenment.  Bushwhacked as it may become, the path will be forged.  I can’t say that I know what the theme of this blog will be going forward.  Honestly, I don’t know that it had an actual “theme” to begin with.  At the heart, it is still all about a small town girl just trying to figure it all out; but even more, it’s about a once focused yet wandering educator who is redefining herself and her life’s mission.  Stay tuned, it should get interesting…