SURVIVING OVERWHELMING DISAPPOINTMENT

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; Who strives valiantly; Who errs and comes short again and again; Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause/who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly."

   When you feel overwhelmed like when your at the bottom of the barrel scraping your way out, adrenalin kicks in and animal instincts override. Those instincts ensure our safety and survival when we are in the wild and encounter dangerous situations. Defiance may  manifest when we are angry at someone and feel squashed by their intrusiveness. Immediately we go into high gear and deflate them with nasty retorts. It does make them back off but we have created probably more problems than we started with. Other times we may be on overload because of our many obligations.

We can decide how to prioritize duties but that doesn't matter. whatever we choose it gnaws at us for not picking another one. Truthfully no matter what we chose it would feel like it was a bad choice because we could not accomplish all of the tasks at once which is what we wanted to do in the first place. We set ourselves up to fail. We don't see it but we do. To add a bit of frosting to the cake we even lash out at others in our vicinity because we are so frustrated with ourselves and our inability to fulfill the workload.
 This is not just true of the  CEO but of anyone with a task to do. Mothers place the most burdens on themselves. They worry they have not spent enough time with their kids, not been gentle enough, read enough books, talked to them enough etc. This annoys them and then they lose their temper with their kids because they are already angry with themselves.  We struggle more with defiance than we do with anger. We become defiant and then angry and then fight with someone within range. How do we stop the buildup of our defiance? I suggest reflecting immediately. Observe the kids or co-workers without any emotional interactions, and make the decision with your clear and logical mind to plan a review later of these mounting responsibilities. It delays anger and anxiety. It keeps the animal instincts from overtaking the thinking mind. It spares others our wrath. Later we may realize it is okay to choose defiance when we are calm. Then we can easily say no to our child even if they hand us a temper tantrum which is their form of defiance. Suggest to the boss rebelliously and in your most subdued voice their is no way to meet the deadline they enforced. They will be surprised and maybe even more respectful of you for stating the  truth which they already knew.

Spouses can be irritating. Choose  to be defiant by simply walking away while suggesting you can save the fight for tomorrow. It works. Your spouse may think you are attempting humor but whatever diffuses the burdens of life is worth the effort of a solid attempt. Defiance and non conformity can work for the best if we understand when best to toss it into action. Human instincts monitored by our thinking brain are a better choice than those animal instincts aiding us in surviving our overpowering burdens.

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CRUSH REGRET; SEEK COURAGE

"Courage is not limited to the battlefield. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like enduring pain when the room is empty or standing alone when you're misunderstood."         Charles Swindoll

So many people were complaining about not having time for this job and that responsibility. It was so bothersome that many were almost immobilized with anxiety. They felt like they just did not have enough energy for anything or anyone. The result was total restraint from accomplishing something.

These individuals believed they did not measure up to others which added more reproach. They believed that if they worked harder or longer or focused more it would make a difference in the outcome.

What actually transpired was they felt defeated. They couldn't keep going and were going to give up any work they had left undone. It was overwhelming and defeating to the point that they couldn't continue. If the truth were told, these individuals placed way too much on their shoulders. They didn't give themselves a break nor did they consider the problems they encountered along their way to success in their endeavors.

It was amazing how on the outside it appeared easy to see that their expectations were high and their considerations to themselves were low. Despite their handicaps they expected more of themselves.

The problem is that we can destroy ourselves in the process because we don't give ourselves any excuses for failure or lateness in achievement. I know it is admirable to take responsibility but expecting the impossible causes destruction of the mind. Even if we can do it physically, at times mentally it can't be done.

On days weeks or months like this we need to step back, see the whole forest and not just the tree. Remind ourselves we can't do the impossible and we do need downtime. Expecting too little of ourselves leads to  boredom and laziness, but expecting too much of ourselves can be physically and mentally crippling. We give excuses to others how about allowing the same kindness to ourselves.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein

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ARE YOU ACQUAINTED WITH THE HAZARDS OF GUILT?

“Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its’ surroundings.” William Jam

I have decided to remove the guilt trapped in my mind. I am not sure how I will do it but after it is removed I will attempt to keep it at bay. I hope I don’t feel guilty if I fail. It appears that most of us on any given day can find numerous things to feel guilty about. Some of us even let others pile on the guilt as if we didn’t give ourselves enough to feel guilty about.

Stop allowing your mind to replay situations that transpired. Once you’re caught in such a situation you begin to admonish yourself about what you should have said or done. I do this all the time. Then one is left open for the onslaught of ideas creeping into your mind regarding better actions or words one could have done or said. I begin to believe that I was totally wrong because I didn’t cover all of my bases or didn’t have more thought for the other person. I immediately buy into the notion that others are correct in their horrible assessment of me.

The next time I try harder and correct my previous mistakes but then find myself making other mistakes. I believe I can make people happy, confident relaxed inspired tolerant and patient. Now I ask myself why I thought I was God. I can’t force someone to recognize their positive gifts and be thankful for what they have. I can’t make anyone be in a happy mood even if they alter other people’s moods for the worst. I can’t change someone’s low self-esteem, or confidence level.  I can’t rip jealousy anger or a vengeful attitude from another’s heart.

Basically I can’t control others but I now know I can control myself and my attitude. I can make a difference to others by being myself that’s it. I can model  demonstrate, lend an ear encourage listen and attempt to say and do the things I think another needs. I know it isn’t easy because every person I meet has varying needs. I can only do my best and accept the outcomes. I discovered that by doing this I can get up the next day clear in my thinking and ready to embrace a new day with its’ new challenges.

When I let poor outcomes in the guise of angry looks, remarks or actions influence and infiltrate my mind I am useless to all including myself. I am down an endless road. It leads nowhere. If I overcome my insatiable running thoughts of guilt I allow another’s mood to enter behind my constructed wall. I remain whole alive and well.  I may continue my interest of others and their heartaches or misfortunes without being swallowed by guilt that I could have should have or failed to do more.

We don’t fail when we mean well. We may have made a difference that even the angry person may not have noticed. I must move forward and know I really did my best for the situation at the time, place mindset ability and my knowledge of the dilemma. Who could ask for more? Many people do but I know I am not God and I know God influences my words and actions and I therefore know I attempted to do my utmost to promote a happy situation or an uplifting moment.

In the end we all create our own reality and we can help others and not feel that we failed because we don’t get a total victory which will bring on the guilt.  I will repeat myself and say that if I feel guilty now I know it is because I am allowing it to have power over me so I resist, close my eyes and say “I won’t go there.”

 After all, I also am in charge of creating my own attitude and reality. It is my life and I am in charge of it. I quote a remarkable speaker, musician and writer “Your life can shrink or expand,” Kent Gustavson

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THE POWER OF PRAYER

"Life's not about waiting for the storms to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain." BJ Gallagher/Mac Anderson

 I have been extremely busy with fear and worry. My daughter whose sons were one and two at the  time, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is doing fantastic now and will finish her infusions in May. She will have her reconstruction soon. She  and I and the rest of the family are embracing a full recovery and we attribute it to God and the power of prayer. As much as we all like to think of prayer as  hocus pocus, I have come to a full circle with God. I now know he is here walking beside me every step of the way. I am enlightened to be aware of his presence and glory and power. I believe in miracles and I thank God for my miracle. It has been a long grind which is hard to explain to anyone. It has been over a year since the nightmare began and it is only recently I have been able to say my daughter's name in the same sentence as the disease without a total meltdown.

All of us have someone we know in a similar situation. some are better and some are worse. It is really hard to put a measurement on love so I won't try. I don't blame those who run away from it or try to hide and ignore  it because after all if it were something contagious we would all be hiding. Nobody wants it to enter their lives in any  way or form. It entered mine a few times along  my life's way with two aunts, my sister, my mother-in-law brother cousins and friends. When it came to my daughter I was devastated to say the least. Somehow our kids are an extension of us and the better part of us. We spend a lifetime protecting them nurturing them even when they don't need it anymore. It is natural that their hurt is ours. At those times I felt like a ticking bomb waiting to explode as my silent tears dribbled down my cheeks hidden by glasses. I prayed to  God for her total recovery.

My daughter and I survived with God's help but the fear remains and I try to keep it at bay but sometimes it creeps in and on those days I pray. For those who don't understand that's  okay it is impossible to understand because your mind doesn't want to go  on that route for fear of jinxing yourself. It is okay, just about all of us would do the same in similar situations. It is good to attempt to be a comfort to those who need it. I know the number of angels who came to my daughter's support and thus to mine were angels in my book. Their efforts of time meals flowers and visits will never be underestimated.

 I know we can't always pay back to those who helped us but we can all pay it forward which my daughter has already started to do. Being a light for each other is what god wants. I know this in my heart. He doesn't want us to live in  fear and I am working on that one as is my daughter. Fear immobilizes and cripples the  present. We worry about things that may never come to pass. I know that I will have a strong faith when I can let go of my fears, give them to God and trust that all is well. If we let go and let God as I heard one person put it, we will be calm enough to do his work. It has been a roller coaster ride with so many turns up and down that it is hard to attempt to recall the explosiveness of the downs. We both came out of it with a deeper connection to God. You get refined when you walk through the fire. I ask for prayers for my daughter that she may raise her children and live a long life. When anyone asks "Can I do anything?" I always reply, "Please pray for my daughter." The power of prayer is a miracle.
"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world."
May God Bless all of you. My Best
pam

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Toss Negative Effort And Save Positive Time

 “A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” Albert Einstein

We have such busy lives and busy schedules that we spend very little time thinking before we speak. This of course causes many problems big and small. Our lack of contemplation before uttering words effectively concludes with what I call clean-up. We wind up fixing an assortment of confusion we have made because of our carelessness.

               It takes less time to listen intently when someone voices ideas, opinions, suggestions, criticisms, hurts, feelings or complaints, than to have to chase after the person and have them restate their issue. This is true in every situation involving a verbal interaction. Most of us have our minds set on other things we must do or want to do. Our intellect is just not focused on what the other person is revealing to us. Then we wonder later why we don’t have a clue about what transpired during our interaction with them.

               When husbands and wives are quarreling, it is essential for them to give their full attention to each other. In the end it saves time rather than diminishing  time. Total involvement with the problem at hand, allows us to give our complete ability and effort to work things out. Actually, dealing with one problem or issue at a time is better than contemplating an array of issues. Our mind is clearer and able to focus much better. Our intellect is not cluttered with an abundance of burdens. By listening, a husband and wife will not miss the positive and inviting words of compromise or praise. When we are surface listening we are keying in on the negative words such as ‘you always’, ‘you never’, ‘your fault’, ‘remember when’ and ‘I’ve had it’.

               Most of us have the attitude that I just don’t have time for this. In reality it is the most important thing we ought to make time for. In the end if our problems get resolved quickly, life flows smoothly in other areas. When problems continue to fester and loom on the horizon, other areas of our lives are full of negativity. In any relationship in crises, find the time to reflect and reason with the other person. By making time for the discussion, we are respecting the relationship we have with this other person. If we don’t make time for another, we are patronizing the person’s self-esteem and degrading their relationship with us. Now we have more to contend with.  The most natural result is we are at the receiving end of some pain the other individual sends back to us in retaliation. Reflecting on this for a moment allows us to understand why our differences would escalate from a battle to a war.

               Sometimes difficulties are easy to deal with when we make the time and focused effort. Even when there are more challenging issues, complete exertion and attention to the immediate problem will solve the difficulty a lot faster. Feelings are less apt to get injured because we are sticking with the issues rather than accusing the individual randomly.

Timing is not always perfect but personal problems should be considered an emergency.  In this way they will be dealt with a lot faster. The result will be less confrontation, shorter fighter, less personal attacks, and more intact people when the disagreement is over. Nobody has lost face, lost their self-respect, or been diminished by the episode. In the future the persons involved will be able to deal with disagreements in a shorter period of time. What we need to remember is to pay attention to the other person and consider them worthy enough for us to listen and argue attentively.

“It requires less character to discover the fault of others than to tolerate them.”  J. Petit Sen

INFURIATING PEOPLE

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding." Albert Einstein

Being  an observer, I noticed how many of us get fired up about things that are aggravating or upsetting. We tend to dwell on those issues that anger us. The more we think about it and ponder it and discuss it, the stronger the fire gets. It makes us want to correct the problem or so we think. So we lash out at the object of our perceived frustration throwing all of our fire at them. Then we watch them burn to ashes as we walk away. On our way back to sanity we convince ourselves or try to convince ourselves that they deserved it, made us do it. we were in our right to retaliate.

Have you ever noticed that after our storm, we have an uneasiness in our system that won't go away? We review all the things the person did to us in order to justify in our minds that we were correct in our angry actions. We even begin to talk about the person and the incident with others so that we can garner up support groups that agree with us. In the end it doesn't work and the uneasiness won't go away so we confront the object of our anger again because now we blame them for the uncomfortable feelings we are experiencing. It's their fault we got so angry. It's all their blame in the first place. Our actions now color our mood which isn't the happiest. We snap a quick retort at other innocent people.We feel tired and drained, and begin to have a cold or illness coming on. Sleep is restless and the anger and resentment towards our person of hatred increases.

 Does this sound familiar? We have all been in that place at one time or another. Viewing it from a far away place, and a far away time makes us realize it gained us nothing, and cost us a lot of damage to our own bodies. We caused misery for the person we retaliated against. One is left with a smoldering fire that simply won't be distinguished. It almost consumes one's thoughts. I had to ask myself if there was a better way I might have handled the whole situation and anger issue. I talked myself through a different scenario. If I had placed even 10% of the blame on myself, sat down and honestly spoke my feelings clearly and concisely, asked for feedback or a response to my efforts, would it have made a difference? Maybe the person that hurt me was having some deep rooted questions themselves, or going through a difficult time in their lives, or fearful of something that wasn't there. I didn't  stop to think their carelessness or thoughtlessness might not have had as much to do with me as it had to do with their own fears.

One moment of stepping back,  reflecting before reacting, compassion before retribution might have saved both of us a multitude of heartache. None  of us in honesty, is  without some blame. We should  never let a small smoldering fire inside of us, increase to the point of no return. In the end it not only consumes our agitator but also us. If I had simply put out the fire with talk, understanding, acceptance and tolerance, I would not have spent so many sleepless nights of anger and  worry. I would not have had an angry attitude towards everyone I met. Instead I could venture to  say my light of happiness would have burned instead and burned brightly without any pain to myself or others. Even when another does not respond to our overtures of reconciliation, we can keep trying and thus keep peace within ourselves. Keep our own light burning instead of turning it into a blaze that in the end destroys us.
"He who angers you conquers you." Elizabeth Kenny Australian Nurse
"There are two  ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up." Booker T. Washington
"The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none." Thomas Carlyle

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The Secret Of Successful Listening

"The degree of one's emotion varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts. The less you know the hotter you get." Anonymous

Hi
The third pitfall to avoid is misconstruing what others say. If one doesn't then it may place us as close to a disaster in a relationship as anyone  could get. Many times we misinterpret what others say and flavor the words with our own ideas. This obviously haunts us and leads our minds down roads that we were never meant to travel. Our feelings take over because we assume it is all about us. Words can hurt us. If we question what is said it allows for discourse and understanding although an other's motives for the dialogue may still appear as secretive. One idea I use to keep from traveling  down the "Do Not Enter" road, is to think about other reasons a person might be moody, sad, angry or out of sorts. The couple may be quarreling. They may have problems at their jobs. They may have issues with their children or spouses family. These problems may have nothing to do with us but they may  not want to discuss these things with others not involved. Most of us think we hide our feelings and moods from others but many times our feelings are shining through for everyone to see. The only thing that is missing is that others don't know why we are angry or sad. They wonder if they caused our ill mood. The challenge for all of us is to refrain from feeling guilt and come to the  knowledge  that many other happenings in a person's life reflect their mood swings. These happenings are too numerous to mention. Most of the time we are not causing an other's emotions. If we are, then we should know what we did.
"Thus each person by his fears, gives wings to the rumor and without any real source of apprehension men fear what they themselves have imagined." Lucan

With that said I would venture to say stop blaming yourself for other people's attitudes.

"The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended, and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended." Robert Frost

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