Taking Care of Myself Physically

The first things I learned about taking care of myself were extremely basic.  The beautiful lady I call my spiritual mother explained to me that to start with, my responsibilities to myself were things like going to the doctor for annual check ups, going to the dentist twice a year, eating nutritious food, getting as much sleep as I needed, keeping myself reasonably clean and pleasantly dressed.  I really don't remember ever having focused my attention on those things before and I was in my early 40s. 

I vaguely knew that those things were supposed to be done, but I had no idea that putting them first was my responsibility.  It took a long time before I was consistent at carrying them out.  I usually waited a long time before going to the doctor when I was sick, for example.  It seemed to me that other things were more important. 

It wasn't until I consistently went to the doctor when I was sick, that he figured out I had such severe allergies that early every winter I got upper respiratory infections which started with fall allergies.  Now it's been years since I have had the upper respiratory problems that used to start in late November and last until February.

I just ate whatever was handy and slept as little as I possibly could.  I was very thin and chronically sleep deprived.  If I sat down, I usually fell asleep.  I lost a few teeth before I learned to get myself to the dentist on a regular basis.

I still track my nutrition, exercise and rest to keep myself conscious of what I'm doing and whether I'm being responsible for myself.  I'm still a little slow about getting to the doctor, but I get myself to the dentist three times a year instead of two to prevent problems.

I still have a ways to go with nutrition and exercise before I can say I'm truly taking care of my physical self.  But I am a very long way from where I was.

Taking Care of Myself

Taking care of myself was not a concept I had ever heard of, let alone practiced when I entered adulthood.  In fact, I am still learning how to do it. 

I think that our parents and teachers believed that the way to bring children up in the right way and teach them what they needed to know, was to constantly point out what we were doing wrong.  Some of us, like me, had our spirits pretty bruised by all the negative input.  The result was that I came to believe that I was a very defective person, unworthy, and basically deserved every bad thing that could happen to me.

That way of thinking led me to never really thinking about what I needed to do to take care of myself.  I was halfway through adulthood before I even came across the idea of self-care.

With the help of a recovery program, some really good therapy, and lots of reading on the subject, I've arrived at a point where I take the idea very seriously.  When I fall back, I usually get bruised, so I work at taking care of myself every day.

As I visit with others who are using me as a sponsor in their recovery programs, I've noticed that we all have something in common when we haven't learned how to take care of ourselves - big fat ugly resentments against other people - sometimes very old ones that we've been carrying around for years.  We have chronic anger.  We're very judgmental of other people (a great way of distracting ourselves from the judgments we have about ourselves).  We complain a lot about everything.  None of this makes for anything like a great life!

Learning how to take care of myself (and I'm still learning), has taken years and years.  I'm hardly ever angry or upset about anything anymore.  That is NOT because I've found a way to make everything go my way, but because I've practiced acceptance of life on life's terms and because I do my best to carry out my responsibilities to myself instead of expecting other people/the world to do it for me.

Sunday School Ideas

I don't watch the news very much because there's so much trouble in the world I can't do anything about.  I do try to catch up on what's going on every few days, though.

There's so much carrying on about the religious ideas regarding sex and sexuality that I am constantly amazed.  How that gets all mixed up with politics I'm not sure.  I read that Texas passed a law outlawing male masturbation (pro-life).  I wonder if that could actually be true.

Anyway, none of this stuff was in my Sunday school lessons.  What I heard was stuff like: love your neighbor as yourself, forgive others 70 times 7, turn the other cheek, feed people who are hungry, take care of the sick, visit people in prison, take care of children, God is love.  I wonder why none of that has snuck into politics.

I Didn't Have Any Trouble Stopping Believing in Santa

In recent years I've realized that I had a lot of beliefs that I acquired as a child that are not true at all.  I doubt that anyone actually taught them to me.  It was just stuff I picked up that my child's mind formed into a belief.  It turns out that none of it is true.  And because it's not true, trying to live by those beliefs made my life very difficult and often painful.

I believed that:

• it was possible to make other people happy.
• I was supposed to do everything "right" and then I would have no problems.
• the way to solve problems was to find out who was to blame and yell at them and complain to other people.
• the way to get people to like me was to always do everything they wanted me to do.
• the way to have prestige was to dress perfectly and look perfect.
• I would be happy as soon as I got everything I wanted.
• Being single meant you were unwanted.
• The purpose of life was to acquire as much money as possible.

There are so many other beliefs that were kind of unconscious but ran my life that I can't possibly list them all.  It has been extraordinarily hard to get rid of them.  Which is kind of odd since they are so clearly wrong.  Just like it's really clear that there's no such thing as Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, and I let go of those beliefs without any trouble as soon as I got old enough to think clearly.

Beginning to Do My Part

It's been a long time since I've written a letter to an elected official.  I live in a state where all the elected officials think entirely differently than I do, so I've told myself there's no use in communicating.

However, a recent news item changed my mind.  The more I think about it, it's my duty as a citizen to speak up even if I think they will disagree.

After the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado one of our senators was interviewed about the possibility of having safe rooms built in schools.  He said safe rooms can collapse.

This worried me.  So I researched it.  It seems there's a project run by the University of Texas that tests safe rooms and checks on safe rooms after tornados.  They checked all the safe rooms in Moore and none of them collapsed.

So I'm going to write my senator and ask him if he will also check the truth of his statement and if he finds he was incorrect, make a public statement to that effect. 

His earlier statement might have stopped people from building safe rooms.  He is seen as an authority and people will believe him.  So I think he owes it to his constituents to be accurate and I'm going to encourage him to do so.

Reading Has Saved My Life

Amazon.com has read my mind.  I get emails every few days, letting me know about books I might want to read based on what I've purchased in the past.  They are almost always right.  I have a stack of books almost as tall as I am that I haven't read yet.  I am excited.

Most of them are very serious stuff - about health and spirituality.  A few of these new ones are novels - humorous science fiction.  I realize I am a bit odd to still be reading everything I can find on how to improve my life, but since I've learned things in the past that have literally saved my life, I probably will never quit.

Making New Memories

It seems so strange to me how my mind wants to be so passive.  Maybe it's the character defect of sloth.  I made no plans for my birthday (I'm 72 today) and in my mind I was just going to act like it was just another day. 

Well, what I really believe is that there's no such thing as just another day.  It's up to me to make every day count and what's a better day than my birthday to do that?

Too bad it was almost noon before I caught on!  But it's never too late.  So, I'm going to go to a meeting in a few minutes (and another one tonight), get a massage and read a little bit in all the new books I've accumulated.  I might also go over to the Woodward Park rose garden and see how the roses are doing!

1964

I think it was 1964.  I had a baby and a two year old.  It was early in the morning and I wasn't all the way awake.  I had just changed the baby's poopy diaper and went into the bathroom to rinse it out (no disposable diapers in that time).  I saw that my two year old and done a nice poop in the potty chair. 

This presented me with a dilemma - the toilet would only flush once and then you had to wait for the tank to fill up.  So, I thought about the best way to go about this and decided to rinse the diaper first, not flush and then dump the potty.  I was thrilled that I had figured out the most efficient way of taking care of this chore.

Then I thought to myself that it was pretty weird that a smart gal like me had no better use for her mind than figuring out the most efficient way to dispose of poop.  I laughed to myself.

Later in the 60s  when I read Betty Friedan's, The Feminine Mystique, about how motherhood and housewifeing might be too little for all women to spend their lives doing - that all humans had a contribution to make and it surely must be possible for women to be good mothers, homemakers, and still contribute other things to the world, I remembered that morning when I was thrilled about efficiently disposing of poop and understood what Betty meant.

Visitors

I love company.  I love solitude.  In the past week I've had both.  First my daughter and her oldest son and his wife were here, and we took a tour of local restaurants.  We also went to the Farmer's Market and Whole Foods.  Since my dear grandson and his dear wife are "foodies," we had fun.  AND as nearly as I can tell, I'm not any larger.

Then my dearest friend, Eric, was here and our first order of business was to eat at our favorite restaurants.

My treasured departed husband introduced me to the concept of food as entertainment.  I guess before that I thought that it was a good thing to like what you ate but it never occurred to me to raise food to the level of entertainment.  Of course, in my case, there's a downside.  I'm larger than I need to be!

How to Never, Ever be Bored

The last time I was bored I was about four years old and in church with my parents.  There was not one single thing for a four year old to do.  Soon after that my mother taught me to read and I've never been bored since.

So my first recommendation for never, ever being bored would be to read.  If you don't like to read, it's probably because you've not read anything you liked.  If you actually have trouble reading, get audio books.  Libraries are full of them!

I suggest you secrete reading materials in your pockets, your car, your briefcase, purse or whatever.  You never know when you'll have an extra minute with nothing to do.  Never let it go to waste just sitting and listening to your thoughts.

Speaking of thoughts - if you're tired of reading and/or didn't bring any reading material with you, organize your thoughts.  Why let boring repetitive thinking go unchecked.  Think up interesting and new things to do on holidays, new and interesting things to do on weekends.  Make mental lists of people you know that could use a blessing of some kind - babysitting, hedge trimming, flowers, a basket of fruit, etc.  Those are just to get started with.  Once you get in the swing of thinking creatively you won't be able to stop.  And you will never, ever be bored.

A Gift of Recovery for Mother's Day

A couple of my friends were disappointed with what their children did for Mother's Day.  It occurred to me that I have never been disappointed on Mother's Day, Christmas or my birthday or any other day since my early days in recovery.

I don't really remember how this happened - probably my dear first sponsor taught me - but I decided to have no expectations of anybody.  The saying is, "Expectations are premeditated resentments (or disappointments)."  For one thing I think our consumer culture puts pressure on us to outdo ourselves for the people in our lives on these holidays.  If you don't conform, they tell you you are communicating a lack of love.  Crap!

So if I have no expectations, anything that happens is wonderful. 

My mother, on the other hand, was fixated on being critical of everybody's efforts to show their love for her on those "special " days.  She griped all the time.  Nothing was ever good enough and she let you know if incessantly.  The result was that I disliked her more and more.  If you want to get people to dislike you, accuse them of not treating you right.

I think holidays should be spent in enjoyment that I create for myself.  If someone else shows up, that's great. 

For whatever reason, somehow the thought came to me this year that Mother's Day would be a good day to find ways to mother mothers and to reach out to all the children in the world that don't have what they need.  Cards, flowers, eating out - that's all fine.  But mothers need support all year round.  Plus we have a world where there are millions of children that don't even have enough to eat.  What better way to celebrate than to contribute to solutions. 

Mixed Feelings on Mother's Day

Anne Lamott wrote an article titled, "Why I Hate Mother's Day" on Salon.com.  I thought about my own mixed feelings about Mother's Day when I read it.  Anne thinks it singles out mothers as some sort of super heroes which some deserve and a lot more don't.  She doesn't like it.  I don't either but I wouldn't say I hate Mother's Day even though I realize it was probably invented to sell greeting cards, flowers and restaurant meals.

I've given birth to three children, only one of which is still on the earth.  The other two died at early ages in confusing, tragic circumstances.  I will always feel guilty and sad that I wasn't able to fulfill the most basic of motherly duties - keeping my children alive.  I really don't know if I had done something differently that they would have lived, so I just live with a certain amount of guilt.  It's always food for thought on mother's day.  I miss them both every day but especially on mother's day.

My two youngest are very disabled.  I had no idea when they came into our family through the foster care system that it would have such a negative impact on our family.  Once they were with us, they had nowhere else to go.  They are adults now and, for the most part, have the care they need.  But I will always be sad for the hardship for us all.

I know there are many, many other mothers with mixed feelings on mother's day.  There are all kinds of reasons - some similar to mine, some different, but the mother's day cards don't address those situations. 

On the bright side, I have two fabulous adult daughters and four beautiful grandchildren who give me great delight on mother's day.  I focus always on them and the joy they are in my life.

Neighborhood Party

I finally made it to a neighborhood party.  They have one about every year but I am shy and stay home.  Today I went for about half an hour and did my best to socialize.  I found out that my neighbor across the street that was married to one of Ron's professors at the University of Tulsa, and whose second husband was killed in an accident in 2004 is getting married next year.  Hot neighborhood gossip. 

Every time they have one of these parties, I sneer at it and think how much better I could do.  This year I said nothing.  They were over the top.  They had a mobile Italian restaurant, music, a drawing for a prize (I don't know what it was), and were handing out a flyer with information about suspicious characters they had seen in the neighborhood since most of the people at the party were part of the neighborhood watch.  There were two giant friendly dogs in attendance.

I met my next door neighbor again who landscaped his yard elaborately when he moved in a couple of years ago.  I hate him and I always tell him.  He claims he gets all the trees and plants from his father-in-law who re-does his yard every year.  I said I was more in need than he was then.  He said his father in law had offered him a Japanese maple.  I've longed for a Japanese maple ever since I saw one but they are so expensive.  So he says he will bring me one.  Hope he really does.

A good day all around.

Habits

Just finished reading a book called, "The Power of Habit."   It's a best seller and goes nicely with my constant reading of the blog called, "Zen Habits."

A very long time ago I realized that I was terrible at making changes in my habits and that it caused me a lot of trouble.  So I'm in the middle of researching what scientific research is learning as well as what Leo of Zen Habits has learned and tried out on himself.

I've been working at this for several weeks.  One of the habit changes is exercise and I've done okay with that.  Not to the extent that I could say I've established a habit, but enough to have experienced some benefits. 

I feel better.  I have a tiny bit more energy.  I'm hoping that my lower back pain will go away like it did when I was in physical therapy.

Of course, the trick is to keep at it.  I have five priorities - things to do every morning.  I'm working at managing to do all of them the majority of the time.  I'm not even half way there yet, but I have achieved an average of three times a week.  Not too bad. 

It's making a big difference in my self-esteem and in my mood as well as creating a higher level of peace. 

I Wish I Had that Piece of My Mind Back Now

I wish I had that
piece of my mind
back now.
They didn't want it
anyway.
And now I just
feel foolish.
No wonder
with such a big
piece of my mind
missing.

Two Ding-a-Lings Don't Make a Bell!

Not only do two Ding-a-Lings not make a bell; a rooster and a hen don't make a farm.  I heard these sayings in a meeting the other night.  They are funny, easy to remember and most of all, TRUE!  I love it.  So here's another thing that it's really, really a bad idea to do in relationships:  go into a relationship with all your issues unresolved. 

In trying to remember what I thought about my problems that I knew I had going into relationships, I am a little stumped because I didn't really think about it at all.  I don't remember that I was ever taught or even heard that it would be a great idea to think about my issues and how they might affect the other person and the relationship as a whole.  I guess I thought it was the other person's job to be understanding and to put up with me.  It most certainly did not occur to me that the other person could have issues and that I would be called on to understand and put up with them.  Needless to say, that mind set did not work well at all.

It's been my observation of myself and others that there are issues that really have a big negative impact on relationships.  For example, I was a very fearful person and as soon as I was in a relationship a lot of my fears got transferred to the person I was with.  I was defensive, irritable, and suspicious.  I've noticed that I was not alone in this - that many people seem to have this problem.  Another example:  I was emotionally immature and thought that the other person was supposed to somehow be my unconditionally loving parent.  Oh boy!  That does not work!

So, what to do?  Well, the only thing I know that will work is to get help to resolve fears and to grow up emotionally so that we can stand on our own two feet and be a contributing, loving member of a relationship.  Help comes in all sorts of ways - a good, professional counselor that will help us see ourselves in new ways, a program of spiritual growth that gives us trust in a power greater than ourselves so that we can stop trying to make other people our parents, and information about how to treat other people.

Becoming More Myself

I just realized today that my studies and my spiritual practices are coalescing into a pattern.  This happens all the time, but I'm always surprised!  I'm not sure how many years I've been "studying" now.  It's probably around 30 years.  I've always been a reader from the time I was a little kid.  Since my parents were big readers, I just accepted massive amounts of reading as the normal pastime. 

In the beginning I just read whatever seemed interesting and entertaining at the time.  After I came into recovery I began to notice that my reading gravitated, without my conscious thought, to whatever I seemed to need at the time.  When I came across something that really spoke to me, I read it several times and took notes - which is why I call it "studying." 

For a long time I read mostly about practical things like money and time management.  I had sooo much trouble with those things and needed education badly.  I probably read hundreds of books on organization, money and time management, how to clean a house, how to be a good, efficient cook, nutrition, etc.  I now feel, and have felt for quite awhile, very well educated in those areas.

In the past few years I've realized that I am drawn to information about the potential for growth we have as human beings.   Recently I've read several books on the mind/brain capability.  Famous ancient people have always said (without, of course, any scientific proof whatsoever) that we (humans) are capable of using our mind/brains to create our bodies, our lives and our experiences.  That we are not at the mercy of forces outside ourselves, that we are all connected so that how we think and behave affects the entire world.  Now there's a lot of scientific evidence to back this up.

I have a lot more studying to do before I can really put this information to work, but I have enough to make a start.  Condensing it into what I would need to do to put it into action, comes out that a very dedicated meditation practice would be the first thing.  It seems that all those scientists agree that meditation brings us into contact with the part of ourselves that can re-create ourselves, our lives and our connection with the world around us.

I've just entered the second month of a morning meditation practice that I've been consistent with.  I don't notice a lot of change but in small ways I feel more myself.  I realize "feeling more myself" is not a very clear description but it's the best I can do right now.  I have been through so many changes in the past 7 1/2 years that I have often not felt like myself.  The meditation seems to be restoring me to who I used to be or maybe just more in touch with who I am now.

How to Make Sure You Follow Through on Making Changes

This is so wild, so funny and so true.  My Zen Habits guy that I've been following for a few years now is all about leading a simpler, less stressful life.  The barrier to getting this done, for him and for me too and apparently for a lot of other people judging by the thousands of followers he has on his blog, is procrastination.  He posts articles every few days as well as links to other bloggers working on similar issues.

He has a Sea Change program that I signed up for to make 12 habit changes (one per month) in 2013.  The first thing we worked on was "unprocrastination" which was about choosing a "Most Important Task" (MIT) and establishing a habit of getting that done first.  The next was adding more nutritious food to your diet and this month it was establishing a meditation practice.  I did okay with the MIT thing (which was writing) although I'm not doing so hot now.  I did okay with the nutrition thing although I'm slacking on going to the store so I have what I need.  I've done really well with the meditation thing. 

A few days ago he posted a guest article on insuring success that knocked my socks off.  This guy hired a gal that he found on Craig's list (for $8.00 an hour) to sit with him while he wrote.  If he stopped writing, she was supposed to slap him.  According to the article, she did have to slap him a few times, but he managed to finish the project he was working on in record time!

This same guy had people take him to a cave in an isolated are where he camped for a month - no cell phone, no computer, etc.  He hand wrote an entire project during that month and was completely finished when the people came back to get him.

A long time ago I read a true story about a guy that was consistently late to work, to the unhappiness of his boss.  So he hired somebody to come into his house, wake him up, take him to the shower and turn it on, make coffee and breakfast and follow him to his office so that he got there 30 minutes early.  Problem solved.

This is all very serious and hysterically funny at the same time.  The funny part is obvious.  The serious message is:  "How serious are we about getting the things done that we've been putting off?"

It's Possible to Never Have Another Argument Again!

It's a fact that you never have to have an argument with another person as long as you live!  I can prove the truth of this because I stopped having arguments with people.  If I can do it, anybody can.

What I'm not promising is that you will never be invited to have an argument.  You'll probably have plenty of invitations.  Not very many people give up arguing like I did, so other people are bound to invite you.  Not that I'm better than anybody else - I just learned that I could quit.  I think that the truth about arguments is not well known among humans.

The thing is, it takes two humans to make an argument.  If one person has decided to stop arguing, there will be no arguments.  Simple.  Very simple.  But...it's not an easy thing.  Those invitations are extremely difficult to decline.

So what is so incredibly attractive about arguments that swearing off is so very, very hard?  In my case, I argued in order to prove I was right (very important since being right was all I had to shore up my low self-esteem).  I also argued to defend myself whether I actually needed to defend myself or not.  I often perceived a threat from other people whether there was one or not.  I defended myself just in case.  The bottom line, though, was that I was trying to get my way about something.

The sad thing is that arguing never, never, ever, ever got me anything but a worse relationship with another person and a feeling in my body that I had been poisoned.  Once in a great while I got my way, but that was so very rare.  Even when I got my way, I didn't enjoy it because of the emotional hangover from being in an argument.

So I eventually got willing to investigate another way.  It turns out that it's tremendously more effective to just ask for what I want instead of fighting for it.  Asking in a friendly way and being willing to accept "no" for an answer, doesn't invite a fight and may encourage the other person to say "yes."  If someone else wants to pick a fight with me, I can do my best to understand what they're really saying to me and resist my impulse to fight back. 

In order to have the capability to resist my impulse to fight back, I have to live each day, with the help of a higher power, as best I can in accordance with my values.  When I make mistakes, I try to correct them.  Cleaning my side of the street keeps me from being so defensive when someone is wanting to fight with me.  This is a very hard, lifetime job.  I'm not great at it, but I have finally practiced enough that I at least remember to try every day. 

Usually when I'm invited to a fight, the other person is telling me that they've interpreted my actions as a threat whether I intended a threat or not.  Maybe their feelings are hurt because they think I meant to hurt them.  Maybe I said "no" when they had a lot of energy bound up in my saying "yes."  There are a ton of reasons why someone might want to fight me.  I often wish I could reassure them that I mean no harm, but that rarely works.  I can just remember what someone told me a long time ago - "You add just as much suffering to the world when you take offense as when you give offense." and refuse to take offense myself. 

Stuff that It's a very Bad Idea to do in Relationships, Part 3

In addition to criticism and being bossed, people really, really, hate being ignored.  I've heard it said that children will disobey, knowing they will be punished, just to keep their parents' attention.  I've noticed that most of us adults retain a lot of childish attitudes and behaviors even though we look like mature human beings.  Examples:  pouting, temper tantrums, competing for attention.  Maybe we also retain the fear that if we're ignored, our needs will not be met.

Looking like we're paying attention is almost as important as actually paying attention.  I happen to be one of those people who hear best when I'm looking away from the person.  Unfortunately, that leaves the impression that I'm actually not listening.  So I have learned to look at the person that's talking even if I'm a little uncomfortable.  It's a gift I can give that lets them know I care.