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When was the last time I felt challenged? I wake up, sip my coffee, trudge through my morning routine. Mouthful of medicine for my chronic illness. I write, I pray, I listen (to a book, podcast, or music). I chew my breakfast while I drive to my same place of employment for 14 years. I continue to listen (to the book, podcast, or music) OR I stare off into space while I drive. I get out of my car, unlock my office door, log into my work computers, and it begins. I get back in my car, return a million missed texts, phone calls, and emails as safely as I can using Apple Car Play / Siri Safe Drive. I pull into the garage and count down the hours until bedtime. I chew my supper while I try to remember my name. I chat with my family and aging parents about mostly-trivial but sometimes-important details. Another mouthful of medicine for my chronic illness. I look at my beautiful children in awe, and I wonder what kind of men they will be. I sit with my husband for an hour (if we are lucky) before he leaves for his night shift job. Bedtime routine for kiddos, occasionally a TV show that makes me think, and then I'm staring at my palm-sized demon looking for answers it does not contain. Is this it? Is this the peak or the valley? The joy or the pain? The calm or the storm? I don't know anymore. It all feels the same. Yes, yes a global pandemic has stripped me of some of my best days. It has calcified my heart and further thickened my skin. My eyes grow both weak and clouded. My soul is but an echo of its youthful GLOW. My mind, once invigorated and eager... my mind sits solemnly in the corner silently daring someone or something to call upon it. Goodnight, my once-lively darling. I have tucked you in every night for almost 2 years now. Your light is weak now, sweet darling. I see a glimmer. A flicker of promise. Can life wake you and shake you before your final flame burns? That is the challenge. No one else will save us or light our fire. We must find the spark, the ignition, the catalyst. Find a mirror, sweet darling - and DIG. DIG DEEP my darling. She is in there. Let us LIGHT HER ON FIRE again. That is the challenge. I wrote this for any person anywhere who feels like they are sleep-walking through life. You are not alone. We are all struggling. I stand with you. Let us find our fire again. Please help support my fellow hope*writers by visiting their work: Writing Consistently is a Challenge by Regina Marcazzo-Skarka https://reginamarcazzoskarka.wordpress.com/2022/02/15/writing-consistently-is-a-challenge/ The Motherhood Penalty Challenge by Ashley Olivine https://www.ashleyolivine.com/the-motherhood-penalty-challenge/ Insomnia With Anxiety and How to Overcome the Challenge by Epigen Wellness Group https://www.epigenwellness.com/insomnia-with-anxiety-how-to-overcome-challenge/ Challenging Times and 3 Ways to Endure the Struggle by Lindsey Gibson https://lindseygibson.com/2021/02/21/challenging-times-3-ways-to-endure-the-struggle/ Jar Full of Manna 31 Day Discipleship Challenge by Kelly Heath https://jarfullofmanna.blog/2021/03/01/31-day-discipleship-challenge-how-to-follow-jesus/
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Okay, this post might get a little confusing so bear with me. I would call it a fable, but fables involve animals or forces of nature according to Wikipedia. I would call it a parable, but I am not Jesus. So it's just a story. A True Story. As I was cooking tonight, I was actually following a recipe - which is something I very rarely do. Wouldn’t you know it? I totally screwed the recipe up. I had scrolled the internet late last night before the midnight cutoff for my click list and somehow combined two different chicken casserole recipes into one in my tired mom brain. Since I do cook on a regular basis, I tried to assemble the casserole from memory. That was where things went wrong. Long story short, the casserole was delicious and my family asked me to write it down so we can have it again. Then my writer brain kicked in, and I started to think of my friends who loathe cooking and would rather swallow nails than be stuck in a kitchen near a stove. I have always wondered if these friends (male or female) grew up in a house where meals were cooked on a regular basis. I have an inside scoop on meals in a wide variety of households because I am the primary care provider for around 2000 patients. I have families who eat out three meals per day seven days per week. How they afford a roof over their head, gas in their car, or clothes on their body is beyond me LOL. The folks in my house like to eat. Since I analyze everything, after this chicken casserole disaster-turned-deliciousness, I started to think about the non-cooks that I know.
Anyway, aside from all that, I started to think about the actual skills I have acquired from cooking on a regular basis. I rarely have to measure things unless it’s a new recipe. I really don’t even look at recipes. I’ve always been able to just make something up and it works. But I do give credit to my parents who always cooked and included me in the cooking. As a latchkey kid in the 1980s and 1990s, mom would leave directions for supper on an index card by the stove.
This helped me learn what side dishes pair with which main courses and how to time meals so that everything was ready at one time. If you hate to cook you’ve probably stopped reading by now, but bear with me- I do have a point. If you like to cook, I’m sure you’re reminiscing about your early cooking endeavors as a teen or early 20s and remembering the disasters and burned meals. We have all had them. Now back to my point. I think cooking is a lot like parenting. Some people have cooks in their homes and learn how to cook because they are included in the cooking and it comes naturally to them. Likewise, some children have really good parents in their homes and learn how to parent because they see good parenting every day. When they become parents, they are able to mirror a lot of what they saw as children. What about all the little girls and little boys that don’t see good parenting? Do they grow up to hate being a parent? Is parenting more difficult for them? Some of my non-cooking friends have told me that cooking is difficult for them. Are there any parallels? I am not saying good parents cook. Being a good parent has absolutely nothing to do with cooking. I am just wondering if my patients that seem to be checked out on parenting had poor examples of parents from which to learn. I know, I know. Deep, random thoughts on a rainy Sunday night. But I think of the little girls and the little boys who are now big girls and big boys. I see them struggling because they come to me. They open up about their struggles. And I feel them. I see their efforts and witness their frustrations. Most of them are really trying, but they feel defeated from the jump. I am not going to get overly cheesy here about a cookbook or a parenting book. Life is much harder than anything you could ever read in either of those books. I just want you to know that some of us got a “recipe” given to us while others did not. Some of us received love, attention, and praise while others did not. Let us be kind to one another and forgo the judgment. “Food” comes from many places. Let us feed each other well. ☀️ Godspeed.
Shame. Such an icky topic and feeling. I am not a licensed therapist. I am still trying to figure all of this out myself, but I am learning and I am working to diligently avoid shaming words being said by any member of my household (including myself). THIS IS HARD WORK. 😩 When I see myself, my spouse, or my children slipping into a shame spiral, I try to acknowledge it and stop it if possible. This is treacherous, however. The danger in stopping a shame spiral is the risk of entering into toxic positivity. Toxic positivity can equally invalidate and minimize a person's feelings. One can go from "I am not good enough" to "I am not good enough to have this emotion right now." One can go from being told "you worry too much, you are such a worry wart" to "don't worry, everything is always going to work out." Neither instance feels good. Has a friend or loved one ever told you what you should have done and how you should have responded? How did that feel? Even better, have YOU ever told a friend or loved one what they should have done or how they should have responded? That mirror comes up quickly. The Shame Spiral can start immediately or hours, days, weeks after the "injury." It can last a lifetime. My therapist just asked me if I had ever heard the story about the father and son and the nails on the fence post. I had not. I tried to find the original author and the original full story, but I could not find it. Please let me know if you do. The quick version is that the father gave the son some nails to nail into the fence post. The boy did and came back to his dad. The dad said "good job son, now go take them all out." The boy wondered what in the world his father was thinking but he did as he was told. Upon his return, the boy asked "okay, I took them all out, but why did you have me do that Dad?". The father replied "Son, those nails are like words. You can say them and you can try to take them back, but the holes will always remain." Credit to MaryAnn Denwood @ The People's Therapist and Richard Bamford Therapy for the above images. Credit to Michigan Health Blog and ThePsychologyGroup.com for the above images. I could not locate the exact source from these SlideShare images, but I found them to be extremely valuable. When I began my own work with my own shame, it felt bad of course. I wondered why I "felt so bad" when "I don't think I really did anything wrong." And I don't mean I've never lied or disappointed someone or made a poor choice. OF COURSE I have done all of those things. I meant that sometimes I feel like I'm doing good things, kind things, making smart choices, and I still feel SHAME. Why in the world am I feeling shame when I "act right" and make kind, intentional choices? I quickly learned that we can be just as shamed for doing GOOD as we can for doing BAD. (Excuse all grammar rules here - just go with me). I can be a good girl and be shamed for it. I can be the best in the room (at a sport, in a class, on a project, or at work) and be shamed for it. Am I crazy and causing myself all this shame or do other children and adults actually shame us when we excel? The truth is BOTH. We receive messaging from infancy to the grave that shape our responses. These messages come from our loved ones and from strangers. Today, they often come from avatars on a screen in the devilish device in our hands. The messages come from television and advertisements. They even come from our beloved children. Are other people TRYING to shame us? Probably not. But they may be full of shame themselves, so it's a language in which they are fluent. OR, they don't know how to handle their own emotions and we are the nearest punching bag. It's all complicated. It is layered. It is old and it is new. None of it feels good. As part of my own shame work, I was asked to draw my own shame creature. I think this is an excellent exercise for anyone. I included the most shaming statements I have received from strangers and well-meaning loved ones. So here I am, undressing on the internet and showing you my boo-boos. It is scary to be this vulnerable, but I want to do and feel better. I don't want to push the shame button of anyone I love, especially the sweet souls fast asleep under my own roof right now as I type this. So here goes.
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