Before you can love others you must first . . .

love yourself, right? Well, that's that mantra I've been chanting to myself for years. In fact, after pretending to love myself for so long and then being told flat out yesterday at church that this thought is WRONG I spent a day back in that old familiar place of self-loathing. It wasn't a fun place. It never is, and yet I visit it on occasion still - for whatever reason.

In fact, yesterday's message at church did not set well with me at ALL. I think I may have even left the church pissed off. I brought a girlfriend with me who cried during the message because of some things that hit home for her, and honestly, after that introduction all I could do is pick the message apart.

But what really fired me up was Pastor MacDonald's report on self esteem in kids. He reported that kids' self esteem has never been better, and yet look how poorly kids are doing in school. I just about got up and walked out, I was so enraged. As a public educator in the middle school for eighteen years, his claim couldn't be further from the truth. It was an overgeneralized statement meant to make a point, but I had to wipe the anger off my face before I could spend the rest of the day stewing over all that he had said. I was hurt by the fact that yet one more person measured success of schools with test scores. It was just so frustrating to hear.

Twenty-one hours later I have finally been able to process and understand and even appreciate the message so much that I felt it was blog-worthy. I talked to my boyfriend, my mom, a former spiritual mentor, and my small group from my Bible study. I journaled twice and I prayed. I prayed that God would use this as a learning tool for me because otherwise - what was the point of this experience?

And he did.

Self-love is a mis-represented topic. To love oneself, in my opinion, is to respect oneself and be happy with one's circumstances without having to cope or pacify. Thing is, we don't even realize we are doing it. One example is my compulsive eating or my addiction to food. When things start to put me in a mood other than joyful I reach for a jar of peanut butter or a bag of chocolate chips or cold pizza and eat my way through it. I used to grab my phone and splatter my thoughts and feelings all over social media and then watch as the likes came through or wait for comments to validate my feelings in the experience. Thankfully, through the strength that Christ has given me, I have beaten the social media addiction, but the food? Well, let's just say God's still dealing with me on that one.

My boyfriend and I have talked so much about Satan's biggest tool to cut through us - fear. Fear of change, fear of not having enough, fear of committing, fear of not being accepted/loved, fear of abandonment. Fear, fear, fear. One of my favorite pieces of scripture is 1 John 4:18. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."

Now go back to the idea of kids' self esteem. I worked in a public middle school for eighteen long years. I learned a lot about how adolescents see themselves, and it ain't pretty. Overall, one of the fears I encountered with many of them is not being accepted. The boys dealt with it by being snarky and sarcastic, swearing, and bullying each other. The girls dealt with it by wearing clothing that just crossed the line in terms of appropriateness and by hugging everything that crossed their paths. And they were all attached to their devices. Almost one hundred percent of them had them; many carried them with them during the day (even though it was against the rules) like toddlers with security blankets, teddy bears, or a binkies.

Now, I'm overgeneralizing obviously. But hopefully you're seeing the point. We have a lot of kids out there who are not comfortable in their own skins. Many hate themselves - the way they look or how they are perceived or their abilities. Most don't know that hard work usually helps because they've been taught to pacify to feel good. Like Pastor MacDonald said in yesterday's message - they get trophies for not winning and they are praised for doing what they're supposed to do. Without those "stamps of approval" we have stolen their ability to feel good about themselves when the rewards stop.

We have stolen their ability to be independent and given them coping mechanisms in the forms of food, social  media, video games, drugs, personal intimacy. Now they can make themselves feel good without us, but at what cost?

They, just like us, need God's perfect love to make them whole and take away that need to fill their lives with idols and addictions. Their brains are starved for the connections that God's love fills them with, and so they turn elsewhere because, honestly, the Christian walk is not a piece of cake, and society has created a stigma about Christianity. It's hard, and we've stolen the lessons of hard work away from them also. To work hard at something it so uncommon nowadays because most things are instantaneous and at our disposal. I used to work for a company that sold term papers to students under the guise of selling them to teachers as "examples". I know how easy it is to get what you need without working for it. How many times have my kids said, "Can't you just order it on Amazon?" They have no idea that the $130 that it costs to purchase that thing they want me to order is equivalent to five piano students for me. What am I doing to my children?

My current study in the Boundaries book (this is my third time through this book) has led to me to Boundaries for Kids, and boy oh boy, do we need that here! My job now, though, seems to be a little more than just drawing boundaries and open communication. It's to hit my kids in a place where they are going to need to stop relying on those pacifiers, addictions, and coping skills and be open to receiving the perfect love of God. His mercy and grace can eventually dissolve the fears my kiddos have.

What an amazing almost-twenty-four-hours of learning! I'm so blessed by His teaching, the people in my life willing to listen as I process, and the means to write this blog post. So instead of saying Before you can love others, you must first love yourself, perhaps we should be saying Before you can love others, you must first accept God's perfect love.

Much love.

On leadership and boundaries

So there's a story in the book of Exodus about Moses. Moses was a pretty important guy, as we all probably know. He was given lots of responsibility by God to lead his people out of Egypt to a promised land, but he was so busy leading that he didn't have time to contemplate what good leaders should do.

I've had a lot of experience with different leaders - bosses per se. Some of these people gained my wholehearted respect, but most of them fell short of what I would expect a leader to be. Part of this, mind you, was my total lack of boundaries and backwards thinking on what my responsibilities are, but part of this was just a lack of knowledge of what it means to lead.

Leadership is not equivalent to micromanaging and/or taking responsibility for everything. In this respect, I even screwed up when I was working as a reading specialist. I felt like I had to have my hands in everything when it came to reading - partly because I was actually being evaluated on how well it went, but partly because I didn't trust anybody to do it the way I wanted it done. This is how a lot of leaders view things - in fact, this is the reason why many people go into leadership roles. They're unhappy with the way things are being run, and they think they can do a better job. OR they hate where they are so they look to supervise those roles, which makes NO sense, in my opinion. You don't like you're job because the leaders make you miserable so you're going to become a leader so you can make others miserable . . . ?

In Exodus, Jethro (Moses's father-in-law) noticed Moses growing weary because he was directing and helping so many of the Israelites. Jethro approached Moses with wisdom, telling Moses that he needed to choose leaders under him to be responsible for some of the lesser serious cases where direction was needed.  Moses would then be free to judge in only the most serious and severe cases, allowing him time to do other things or to rest when he needed it. Moses immediately organized and chose a hierarchy of men to provide this leadership. He trusted God to help him choose able men. And guess what... It worked!

 This can be applied to so many facets of my life. Yesterday a small group of my own little tribe and I started talking about ways to empower women. Sorry, men, you're important, but my calling has been to do things that will impact women in such a way that they no longer feel dependent on any one person. As I started talking to this small group, one woman who is an expert in the field of couponing said that her ultimate goal is to teach others how to use coupons to such an extent that others would notice and ask to learn. She wanted to spread the wealth, but she didn't necessarily want to be the one and only teacher. She wanted to teach us so that we could teach others and the skill would spread. This is her mission. Her ministry is to help others make the most of their money using coupons, and to do it for free. She didn't write a book or blog about it asking for a membership. She is trusting Jesus to provide her with time and money so that she would have time to help others.

I love this. It reminds me of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. These are leaders. Those who spread the word through others. Those who trust that the Lord will provide them with followers who will do their teaching justice.

I want to be this way. I want to trust in God so much that I can spend my time helping others but to teach others to help each other. This is my dream. To empower people to be good people. People that God would be proud to say This is my child. I'm absolutely positive that God was proud of Moses, but I'm sure that God didn't want Moses to work his fingers to the bone. And so he sent Jethro to speak to Moses about boundaries. Thankfully Moses had the sense to listen to his father-in-law. Because of this, his people grew stronger. Namaste.

Values vs. Goals

When I first started counseling in October of 2015, I was a hot, angry mess. I'm not an angry, hot mess anymore, but I am still in counseling - still working on me because I know there's work to be done. Frankly, I'm not sure if I'll ever stop going.

This week Krysten and I started processing core values. She said something this week that kind of made me stop and really think. I think I must have been using the words goals and values interchangeably because she addressed that exact topic with a flat-out definition of each that made me pause and think.

She basically said that our goals are what we strive for - like there's an end point to most of them. Our values are what we hold dearest - they are what drives our goals sometimes, but often in our crazy, fast-paced society, our goals overshadow our values and sometimes even contradict them. We will sometimes allow society to dictate what our goals should be and sometimes our values bend to accommodate those goals. A clear boundary violation.

And that is where unhappiness sets in. When you don't live up to your own core values, you are not aligned with yourself, with God, with the Universe. You're out of line.

And  . . .

You are unhappy. Unable to express the unhappiness because you created this grand life for yourself and EVERYBODY thinks you have a fantastic life. On the outside you have a wonderful husband and marriage, two fantastic children, a fancy car, home, a dog, hobbies, a successful career where you are building prestige and respect in the field you've chosen, and Disney vacations every year. You've got it made.

You also have two upside-down mortgages, $60,000 in student loans, $30,000 in credit card debt and $30,000 in other loans taken off retirement funds. You have stuff. Lots of stuff. You have stress. Medical bills. You have hidden addictions and unhealthy behaviors because nobody can handle it, and nobody can address it. You have anger and resentment. You have control issues. You  have miscommunication. You have non-communication. You have a hot mess.

You have divorce.

I'm not even sure what I wanted out of life. I thought I did, but I never, ever stopped to evaluate where my drive came from or what I truly valued at my core.

And now its time for me to get in touch with those core values because I refuse to have my life fall apart like this again. Even during the divorce process I stop to evaluate WHY I do what I do. Recently there was a disagreement to which I had to really ask myself WHY I wanted to stand my ground on an issue. What was my true motivation behind what I was asking? Through prayer and processing of this blog, I'm still asking God for wisdom in how to handle the situation. I refuse to fall back into the trap of allowing my ego to drive my decisions. If my reasons for doing ANYTHING are based on anything but love, I know I'm out of line and need to figure out a different course of action.

As I've read multiple times, there are two basic emotions: love and fear. My entire life has been run on fear-based decisions. No more. I choose love. And I choose love for not just me - but for my children and for my future as well.

Namaste.

The word "No"

No, this is not a blog on discipline. Quite the opposite, actually. This isn't about you drawing good and healthy boundaries with your kids. It's not about punishments, and it is certainly not about rules. This blog is about observing, honoring, and making healthy changes in our interactions with our children.

As many of you know, I've gone through a transformation in my life that has changed my outlook and interaction with just about every person I know. What was mainly an unhealthy, attention-seeking, people-pleasing woman wandering around seeking external satisfaction is now a woman who is healthier and strong and allowing God to work in her to dissolve her constant need for human attention and interaction. This addiction gets easier and easier to deal with every day, and maybe one day I'll stop struggling with it. It took me forty-two years to perfect this insanity, and I can't seem to move past step six in the twelve step program. Step six asks me to be ready to allow God to take it over. I want him to, but I'm not allowing it to be taken completely. 

This got me thinking about why I seem to hold on to bad habits. 

So this morning I was working through the Boundaries workbook (I do a few pages every morning) and I got to the chapter about boundaries and your children. Townsend and McCloud are specific in their examples and anecdotes, and I love this because it gives the reader a chance to apply the ideas to real life from beginning to end.  In this particular section, the authors discuss two boys. One of the boys - Jimmy - clearly has high sense of self and stands up for what he believes with little concern for what the reaction of others will be. The second boy gives in easily to peer pressure.  

As we dig into the situations of the two boys, we find that the first boy's upbringing was very different than the second. Both boys were tempted by friends to do something they didn't want to do because they knew it was wrong. Yet one said No thanks while the other gave in and then got defensive immediately after he'd been caught. 

In studying the upbringing of both boys, I guess you could see that there is some merit to past experiences having a major impact on us. Paul, the second boy, struggled to say no to friends. After studying what his childhood was like, we discover that chastisement and guilty messages followed if he told his parents No for some reason. He even had physical boundaries violated when he declined a hug from his mother. She immediately engaged in projecting guilt messages. After some time, Paul's greatest defense against it all was to agree and smile on the outside while building walls of resentment and anger inside. And his is how he practiced living from then on out.

Wow.

This was me. I can recall in high school being advised by somebody I respected (I can't remember if it was my youth pastor or the social worker at school or what) to just agree with whatever my mom would say and let her win. That I was entitled to my own feelings, but that she was ultimately in charge, so therefore I should just stop arguing. My mom and I, like many a teenage daughter and mom, did not have the best relationship when I was in high school. 

Whoever gave me that advice should have been fired. Except that I think this was the normal response back then because we were just transitioning out if that "children should be seen and not heard" mentality and into a newer way of thinking about our small human offspring. I was basically told that my boundaries and limits didn't matter because I was sixteen. My feelings were not validated, and - too bad. But you know what? It worked. Once I started agreeing with what my mom said, things got better. And that's the advice I gave my little sister also. I hate myself for that also. 

In a discussion with a group of women I had this morning, we discussed the legacies where parents will just pass on the attitudes and behaviors of the family rather than learning something healthier for the " new families". I truly believe that my inability to express emotion and my ability to resort to manipulation through gilt messages is something that had been passed down through generations. It was a way of life, not an immediate choice. I saw nothing wrong in my drama queen ways because nothing was wrong. This is just how my life was.

Or was there? Why is it that during my marriage we had years of bliss and happiness, and then I would crash. Then a few years of bliss and happiness (never argued - first MAJOR LEAGUE mess-up) followed by a crash. I just couldn't seem to stabilize. It was so frustrating! And my husband saw it too.

It was like God was giving me situations that would jump out and say, "HEY! You need Me! Over here!" and I looked the other way. Every. Time. I can pinpoint crash moments in my relationship with my husband every 3-5 years. And they got worse and worse and worse.

Until it broke. Boundaries.

And then I looked at my children. How often had I expressed concern that my daughter never cried about anything? She would get to a point where she'd explode and then have a physical and mental breakdown to the point of physical violence. It was so bad that her therapist finally suggested involving a 911 call because she was now as big as me and could physically hurt me if she got aggressive. Something was very wrong. She was so uncomfortable in her own skin. What was it?

Then I noticed interactions between me and my son. Where we would get down and wrestle and I would tickle him - and he'd eventually say, "MOM! Stop!" Where I would once ignore him and tickle away, I now became more aware of his No. In the Boundaries book it talks about training our children from the get go that their No means NO. That we need to validate our babies' feelings by acknowledging that the emotions actually exist. That feelings are theirs, and nobody should be able to tell them how to feel. Nobody. Maybe this is why so many rape victims go for years or sometimes for ever without reporting rape. Because their No was never validated. They never felt like it mattered.

I think that was a typical way of raising children back when I was a kid. Children should be seen and not heard. Who cares about what you think or how you feel? You are a child. We have work to do. Get it done.

Am I saying we should bow to each and every No from our children? Ha! Absolutely not! Should we acknowledge it? Yes! A simple, "I hear you telling me you don't want to clean your room, and I understand why you don't want to, but you are a part of our family, and we are all taking responsibility for our part here. Your room is your responsibility, and keeping it clean is your part." But sometimes hearing a No and allowing it to change the interaction is okay also.

The key here is to listen, observe, and be present. Saying tiny prayers that God will lead you through this crazy time of parenting won't hurt either. We cannot be dictators. The Bible calls us to discipline where learning takes place, not to punish where shame is used. To love, not to dictate. To parent, not to govern. Parents, if you want your children to be more independent, self-confident, and able to stand up for what they believe - it is your responsibility to allow your kiddos the opportunity to practice their No at home before they are challenged to put it to the test out in the world.

Namaste.