On this day Brigham Young looked over a barren desert valley declared that “This Is The Place,” the pioneers would settle and build a home. No matter where we find ourselves or how long we stay there, making a commitment to nest and make it home matters.
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Uncertainty keeps us stuck replaying what ifs. One way to move through it is to decide the now is certain and decide who you want to be and what you want to do now.
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Where someone criticizes us, we often have a negative and defensive reaction. But these feelings are unnecessary. There are two questions we can ask ourselves when we are criticized that can help us leave the situation feeling good and can improve our relationships as well.
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Fun isn’t indulgent, it’s productive. Science tells us four reasons why fun improves our lives and relationships. Turns out adding fun can BE a lot of fun. There are several simple ways to add fun without much time or effort.
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I used to believe if I could just find the
right “recipe,” I could find the perfect balance in life. But that was the wrong goal. It doesn’t really matter if we keep things perfectly in balance. It matters who we become in the process.
Humans are terrible at predicting what will bring them pleasure. What we THINK will bring us joy or fulfillment often doesn’t. And, the things we don’t expect to bring us fulfillment sometimes do. The ability to predict what will actually make us happy can help us be more motivated to do tasks we don’t think we want to, find pleasure in places we weren’t expecting to, and to avoid disappointment.
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The word “should” seems innocent–even motivating but a closer look reveals that it leaves a trail of damage. It highlights inadequacies, robs us of motivation, and leaves us stuck in anxiety, disappointment and frustration. Removing the word “should” from your lexicon can make a big impact in how you feel about yourself and others.
I used to say the word “should” all the time. “I should have gotten up earlier this morning.” “I should have been more patient with my kids.” “I should have started dinner earlier.”
I even used “should” when I thought about others. “My kids should listen the first time!” “People shouldn’t cut me off in traffic.” “They should make this website easier to navigate.”
Sometimes I used it to describe situation around me. “This shouldn’t be so hard.” “This meeting should be shorter.”
I also used to feel discouraged, overwhelmed and anxious a lot of the day.
At first glance, the word “should” seems like a benign or even a helpful word. It seems like it’s helping us notice how things need to be different. By recognizing how things should be, it’s almost as if we feel we’ve compensated for the fact that they aren’t that way. It makes us feel more decent and more responsible.
However, as I’ve become more aware of my internal dialogue. I’ve realized that the word “should” is quite insidious. It leaves a trail of devastating damage behind. Should doesn’t help me do or become more. It has the opposite effect.
The word “should” causes me to notice all that I am NOT doing and all that I have NOT become. It accentuates others’ faults and weaknesses, and highlights the less than ideal in circumstances around me. Because we feel that we and things around us are inadequate, it can decrease our motivation and leave us feeling anxious and frustrated. You can’t beat yourself up into being better. You can’t beat others into being better either–“shoulding” others strains relationships because it feels like criticism. It doesn’t mean we stop making requests of others or ourselves, it just means we don’t keep flogging ourselves with the expectation that it “should” be different.
Here are some alternatives to the word “should” when you notice it creeping into your own internal dialogue.
I feel _____________ when I ___________.
Instead of saying “I should have changed out of my yoga pants before I picked my kids up at the bus stop.” Say, “I feel so much more confident when I take the time to get ready before my kids get home from school.” This helps you focus on the end result which motivating instead of on the action you didn’t do, which is discouraging.
It’s important to me to ________________.
It’s easy to say “I should be on time to church.” Instead say, “It’s important to me to be on time for church.” It’s much more motivating to be on time when it’s couched in terms of what you value instead of what you “should” do.
I could _______________.
Just substituting “would” or “could” instead of “should” can make a big difference. It makes our requests much more pleasant and loving.
“It would make our home so much more pleasant if you could hang your backpack up when you get home.” Consider the difference between that and this. “You should hang your backpack up when you get home so our house doesn’t look trashed.”
I wonder why I am/they are ________________.
Using should takes us out of the present—it makes us think of something that didn’t happen in the past, or something that needs to happen in the future. Most of these thoughts come with stress and other negative emotions. Bringing our attention back to the present can help us abate some of this negativity.
Instead of thinking, “I shouldn’t have yelled at my kids.” Think, “I’m feeling really irritated right now. I wonder why I’m feeling irritated?”
Getting curious about what you’re thinking and feeling has a powerful impact on helping us become more of who we want to be instead of just reacting to things around us.
Getting rid of “should” can be so freeing. I’ve been working on this for a long time and I’m still working on it. My shoulds everyday are a lot fewer than they used to be. As a result I feel a lot more confidence, and I feel a lot less frustration with others.
Shoulds are a fixture in our lexicon. It takes some practice, and some patience but the payout in personal peace and motivation is big. Saying less shoulds to ourselves allows us to focus on what we ARE doing, and what we WANT to be doing instead of what we’re not doing. Removing “should” for others can give space in relationships allows people to feel loved as they are; this enables deeper connections. Eliminating “should” thoughts about circumstances lets us accept the things we cannot change and move forward instead of staying stuck in wishing things were different.
Try observing when you use “should” and how it affects you.
Try substituting a different thought when you notice yourself saying “should.”
Trust is the magic that connects us to people–it allows us to share vulnerable things and to feel close to others. Without trust we become separate entities that only interact on the surface. Trust opens us to deeper and more loving connection. Developing trust may be more simple than you think.
“I will never trust anyone again!” she announced as she slammed the door and slumped down on the floor. Not sure exactly what had prompted the outburst by her third-grade daughter, Brene Brown, a well-known author and researcher probed her daughter a bit more.
The story came tumbling out; she had told an embarrassing moment to a friend during recess. That friend had told other friends and soon everyone was giggling and whispering about her when the teacher came into the classroom. To make matters worse, because of all the talking and giggling, the teacher took marbles out of the class marble jar used to help promote good behavior.
Brene took a big breath and wiped her daughter’s tears. She set aside her desires to beat up her daughter’s friends, and tried to think how to explain trust to her daughter. With the marble jar image fresh in her mind, Brene explained that we share precious things with people who have earned the right to know them. Our trust of others is like a marble jar. Over time people gradually add marbles to the jar with little acts of trust–or lose marbles with small acts of betrayal. Marble jar friends are people who we have learned we can trust and depend on.
Then she asked her daughter, “Do you have any marble jar friends?” “Yes.” Her daughter replied. “How do you know they are marble jar friends?” Brene asked. “Because Laura gives me half a hiney-seat at lunch when there isn’t anywhere else to sit. And, Hannah because she remembered Opa and Oma’s name at the soccer game.” Brene was surprised at the simplicity of things that earned theoretical marbles of trust. Frankly, they weren’t heroic, they were small.
Inspired by this exchange, Brene Brown spent the next several years researching what creates trust. Interestingly, she confirmed exactly what her daughter had first identified; trust is built in small moments. Moments such as; remembering a birthday, smiling and saying hello in the hall, listening and empathizing instead of fixing, showing up at a funeral, remembering a family member’s name, asking follow up questions, following through on what you say you’ll do. Truly trust is built through small acts…putting marbles in the jar consistently over time.
What have the people you trust done to earn your trust?
Trust is precious. I want the people closest to me to trust me. I love the image of the marble jar as a metaphor of how to build trust. The following are things that research shows build trust and how they have played out in my life.
Humans are astute judges of other’s motives. Most of us have more than one motive for doing things. Our motives don’t have to be 100% altruistic all the time, but they need to have others’ interests at heart.
My husband prefers to do his haircuts at home to save money. Over the years I learned how he liked his hair and every few weeks I would cut it. During a period of time when I was up with my baby at night a lot and I felt in high demand during the day, cutting his hair sometimes felt like one more duty I had to perform. Of course, I loved him, and wanted to help him, but often I felt some resentment that this task meant less sleep or less time I could do something other than helping people all day. I never verbalized this to my husband, but he could tell that I was a bit put out. He knew that I was cutting his hair out of obligation and not love.
One day I came in and he was cutting his own hair. I was surprised. When I asked him why he was cutting his own hair, he explained he felt bad asking me to do his hair when it seemed like it was so stressful for me. He could tell that my motives weren’t pure. Although he was very gracious, I lost some of his trust in that exchange.
It may seem intuitive that reliability builds trust–however being reliable can be challenging. It certainly requires deliberate effort.
My kids are often slow at getting out of the house. I often have to remind them multiple times to put their shoes on, go to the bathroom, and get out in the car. I realized one day that I’m not very reliable; when I say it’s time to go, I’m still running around grabbing a diaper for my diaper bag, getting my own shoes, or running back in the house to get something I forgot. My children have learned not to trust me when I say it’s time now. I am trying to be more reliable. I have been making an effort to get myself ready first and really be ready to go when I ask them to come. Things have improved—we’re still not smooth as silk but it has improved things. When my kids know I’ll be ready when I call them, they are better at coming right away.
Sometimes the tiniest sacrifices build the most trust. Small sacrifices can add up over time to be more meaningful than big ones offered once.
My mom made small sacrifices for me growing up. I remember the budget was often tight when I was in my teen years. Like most girls I was anxious to look attractive and feel like I had stylish clothes. I remember multiple times my mom would say, “You can have the clothing budget this month.” I knew she needed new clothes as well, and was giving me the budget knowing how important it was to me. These moments added marbles to my jar.
Most people aren’t brave enough to ask for help when they really need it unless things get pretty dire. Interestingly, research shows that asking for help is one of the most powerful ways to build trust.
I will always be grateful to an amazing friend, Melinda Call, who knew how to be a marble jar friend. Shortly after my fourth baby she must have noticed the dark bags under my eyes from being up late with my newborn. She casually mentioned she’d be happy to watch my baby one morning a week so that I could have a time I could count on to nap or have time to do whatever I’d like. I was so taken back. I never would have asked someone to do that, and yet I so desperately needed it. She didn’t know that I had struggled with post-partum depression after each of my last 3 children, partially due to lack of sleep and feeling constantly needed without much of a break. My friend just observed and acted.
If you say something, own it. It’s easy to say something, and mean something else. We diminish trust when we expect others to know from our tone of voice or from our facial expression what we really mean.
One time a friend asked if I could watch her children. Normally I don’t mind watching kids owever, it was a stressful day, and I was feeling overwhelmed and worn down. Her children were lively and busy and I knew it would drain me if I took them that day. Although I wanted to help, I should have probably said no. Instead I agreed to watch her kids not wanting to disappoint my friend.
The kids were particularly difficult–drawing with permanent marker all over my daughter’s new bedspread, breaking some items in the house, and dumping every basket of toys out. I found myself resenting my friend and feeling frustrated that she would ask me to watch her children at the last minute. When she arrived to pick up the kids she asked how it went. “It was fine.” I said. But my tone of voice and face said otherwise.
As I look back, I wasn’t adding many marbles to her jar. I agreed to watch her kids and yet I blamed her for bringing difficult kids over on an inconvenient day. I didn’t own my words when I accepted the responsibility or when I gave the report on the day. My friend, I’m sure, felt mixed signals from me. It must have been confusing and frustrating for her!
Most of us know when we’ve let someone else down; we feel less lovable. One of the most powerful ways to build trust with others is to love them even when they don’t deserve it.
When stress gets to me and I feel overwhelmed, sometimes I am snappy and critical of my family. Really this isn’t fair and certainly isn’t pleasant. My husband’s response has taught me a lot about trust. Sometimes he will hug me and ask how I’m doing. Occasionally he will ask if he can take the kids while I have some personal time, or make a joke that diffuses the tension. Sometimes he simply ignores it. Loving me through my yucky times and not being critical back to me really melts my heart. It fills my jar of trust. Interestingly it makes me WANT to be more loving and kind.
It’s the little things that build trust–the way we respond when our children spill something, choosing to do something inconvenient because it’s important to someone else, forgiving small or big injustices, smiling just because, deliberately noticing ways we can help, doing what we say we’ll do, owning what we say, and really doing things out of love and not obligation that slowly add up to relationships of trust.
Begin adding marbles to their jars by doing small and simple things consistly over time.
Brene Brown tells her story about the marble jar in one of her books, Daring Greatly. She also gives an audio rendition of the story in this video called, “The Anatomy of Trust.”
https://brenebrown.com/videos/anatomy-trust-video/
Hard is normal. It’s what each of us experience it many times in life;overwhelm, discouragement, losing a job, divorce, financial trouble, stress, moving, loss, depression, anxiety, disappointment, children with struggles, health challenges, and so many more. How we deal with hard determines our experience. I was bequeathed a legacy of bravery from my mother and grandmothers. I always pictured bravery like I saw it in super heroes or in movies. But through their legacy, I’ve discovered that bravery is something much different. It is the ability to find peace in difficulty and grace under pressure.
Some of my great-grandmothers helped to settle the American West. They took their families to the unknown and made a beautiful life over and over again as they moved.
One of my grandmothers writes of moving over 7 times within a short period. When she finally settled in her new home in Salt Lake City, she set to work creating beauty. She planted tulips and writes of her delight at being on one place long enough to watch them bloom. Before they had fully flowered, she received news that she would be moving again. At first, she threw herself on the bed, and sobbed. With tremendous grace, a few days later she left her tulips behind and set her nose to her new home.
That new home was a dug-out in the desert of St. George. Not only were there no tulips, there wasn’t much of anything at all besides dust storms and floods. If it was anything like most dugouts, when it rained the ceiling dripped and the floor was a mud bath. Early settlers of the same place wrote that St. George seemed void of any civilization.
She was cooking dinner one night when a Native American of the area came to try to evict her from her dug- out. After 7 moves, she wasn’t about to give up another home without a struggle! She took her frying pan and knocked him out cold. She stayed in her dug-out home. She created beauty where she was and helped to make that desert area bloom.
Like my grandmother, I am blessed with a life of frequent moving though admittedly there is no covered wagon and I’m not taming of the wild west. My husband and I felt brave starting out in the Foreign Service where we knew we would live in many countries around the world. Our eyes were big with the idealism of traveling, raising broad-minded children who were citizens of the world and serving others.
As we started out, we enjoyed many wonderful parts of our lifestyle; my husband loved his job and felt he was able to contribute in a meaningful way, and it allowed me to be home with our children. We were able to offer a wonderful education for our children, meet amazing people, learn new languages, discover history and culture and serve others.
However, our children struggled with the constant moving.
At first, the signs seemed minimal and we didn’t worry too much. But over time their issues became more pronounced and began to affect their functioning. A couple of my daughters developed significant anxiety.
They didn’t adjust like I saw other children do. It seemed like once we finally got them settled in a new place, it was time to move and their anxiety flared again. It was painful to watch and exhausting to manage.
We sought medical care, counseling, and read a lot on the topic. However, our lifestyle made getting them the care they needed more challenging. Moving frequently made it hard to find continuity of care with one provider. Often, I found myself trying to use complicated medical terms in other languages to communicate with doctors in whatever country we were in. Despite a long list of interventions, my girls continued to struggle.
Eventually my sense of adventure began to wane and stress and exhaustion began to wax. I was getting worn down trying to manage everything; I began to feel resentful about moving frequently and the stress it caused our children. I didn’t want them to suffer. And, I didn’t want to have to keep trying to manage their issues with so few resources. I felt slighted without access to the medical resources I was accustomed to. I was easily frustrated with people around me who didn’t seem to understand how hard it was.
The harder things got, the more resentful I became and the more I blamed our frequent moves and living abroad for my children’s suffering, and making my life miserable. Theoretically, I threw myself on the bed and sobbed over my tulips many times. This was not the life we had dreamed of. This was not fun. This was hard. We thought we would be educating our children’s minds in foreign lands and instead we were wracking our own brains to try to figure out how to help them function. My husband and I often blamed ourselves when our girls had issues. Guilt is not an emotion that brings forth the best in us. It certainly didn’t for me. I became negative and discouraged.
We began looking for alternative careers or grasping for any solutions we could find. We moved state-side to Hawaii for a while, hoping we would find some stability and better medical care. We used to joke, “Everything will be better in Hawaii.” It WAS an amazing place to live, but I was surprised to discover that my girls continued to struggle even there—in the midst of American medical care, stability, familiar culture and language. It became evident that their issues were bigger than just our lifestyle. Frankly I was surprised. I had spent a lot of time blaming our moves and foreign living for their problems.
After three years, my husband received a new assignment to work in Taiwan. One of my daughters in particular was really suffering at that time—even with an amazing team of doctors behind her. I was stewing a bit about another change for our children and how they would respond. I was gearing up for the worst possible scenario for her in our new place. I was also praying that God would help guide me in how to help my children.
Around this time, I discovered some amazing tools that began to completely change the way I thought and saw things. I felt like my brain was being turned literally inside out. I had always known that thoughts were powerful in how we feel, but these tools of how to actually change my thoughts were transformational.
I realized that for years, I had created a story about our life. It went something like this, “This lifestyle is causing my children and me suffering.” That thought caused me tremendous resentment and frustration. Those feelings caused me to stay stuck and to feel sorry for my children and myself. The result was miserable for all of us.
One day as I was listening to Jody Moore, a life coach, talk to someone with a similar situation to mine. This idea distilled on my mind. “What if there is a different title to my story? What if this is the PERFECT lifestyle for your children? What could be more beneficial to children with anxiety than the opportunity to frequently face hard and new situations? They get to practice under the watchful guidance of loving parents. This is the perfect chance for them to gain confidence to overcome anxiety.”
Suddenly my whole perspective shifted. It was an idea I had never even considered. The idea brought excitement and relief. And, I felt God confirming that this was a better way to think about our life.
I decided to experiment and try this new thought with our move to Taiwan. I embraced the idea that “hard is good” for my kids. Essentially, I “set my nose” to our new home and tried to leave behind my tulips—my idea that some other situation would be my ideal life. I tried to envision our new life as the PERFECT life for my children.
Indeed, as we moved, my children encountered challenges and anxiety as I had anticipated. For example, I remember one day my daughter came home and told me she was being bullied because she was one of the only white girls in her class. My heart hurt for her. My brain’s first reaction was to doubt our decision and blame myself. I thought, “This lifestyle is causing them so much suffering.” But I stopped myself and tried to re-direct my brain to a healthier thought. “This lifestyle is exactly what my children need to become confident and brave.” I noticed that when I armed myself with this thought, I started to feel thankful and creative instead of guilty and resentful. This allowed me to be so much more loving, compassionate and creative in helping her. I was able to say, “That sounds really hard. What do you think we could do about it?”
As she began to feel my confidence in her—not just my compassion, she began to rise to the challenge of dealing with the issue. It didn’t resolve immediately. But small exchange by exchange she did deal with it. She was able to make good friends as well as stand up for herself. By the end of the year, she was a thriving student beloved by her peers. I was fascinated at the difference in her response when empowered.
Just when I thought we were on an up-swing, they would struggle again. One of my daughters felt so anxious she wasn’t able to go to school. We tried a number of things with the school and eventually we had to withdraw her. At times, I worried I was just trying to convince myself this was a good idea and that I might be really hurting my children further. But I theoretically got out my frying pan and crushed the thoughts that continued to bubble up. “Even if this lifestyle is causing them suffering,” I reminded myself “there is suffering anywhere. The best thing I can offer my children is love and a healthy mom. I can’t be healthy if I’m trapped in misery myself.”
My daughter began a homeschool program and really thrived with it! She had a wonderful year and learned more about American History than I ever did! She was able to enjoy learning instruments she wouldn’t have otherwise and she and I developed an amazing bond last year. I had to remind myself—she has her own path. This is the perfect life for her. And, with a healthier brain, I’ve been able to set up better care for her. We found counseling that she can do from home through skype. It’s been a huge blessing—better than any of the counseling we did face to face. Sometimes our ways through things look different than we expect.
As our girls sensed our confidence in them, our daughters began to slowly rise to their challenges in a new way. Of course, their problems didn’t disappear, but I was delighted at how brave were and continue to be. As they confront their challenges, they have gained confidence and they are thriving. Life has become fun, and our lives are happy a lot of the time.
This experience has meant learning bravery in a whole new way. It’s not the bravery of doing something painful or fighting through misery as I had previously thought—instead it is the bravery of letting go of old ways of thinking and embracing new ones. In letting go of my anguish, there has been more space for compassion and creativity.
I certainly still have my throw-myself-on-the-bed-and-cry moments. I think feeling the spectrum of emotions is essential to happiness. There are times that living a more stable lifestyle sounds very attractive. But I’ve also come to see that there are pros and cons wherever you live. There is suffering and happiness everywhere.
I have learned that letting go—leaving behind the tulips or the ideal I thought I wanted, and committing to what I have now has been transformative. It requires a lot of courage to let the old go and it requires continually knocking out self-doubt with the frying pan to embrace the new, but it has brought peace and beauty to our lives. This is the kind of bravery my grandmothers have written on my bones. This kind of bravery is written on yours too…it is the inheritance we receive as humans.
What is something difficult you face?
1. Allow yourself a cry-on-the-bed moment to mourn the loss of what you had hoped for.
2. Accept that the difficulty probably won’t go away. So decide, who do I want to be despite this difficult thing? Set your nose to it.
3. Knock out the negative self-talk with the frying pan.
In modern life, most of us move at least once, if not several times during the course of our lives. In previous generations it was more common to stay in the place we grew up and retire at the same company we started with. Current studies show that the average time at a job in modern society is around 5 years. Often job changes mean moving. Learning to handle moving with grace can be a tremendous benefit to your happiness and your family’s well-being.
During college, I spent some time living in Kenya. I lived in a small slum outside of Nairobi and traveled each day by matatu (old VW buses repurposed as public transport for 15 people) to a rural school. We spent our days teaching children hygiene. They used frayed branches as toothbrushes and had to wipe themselves with their hands after using the toilet if they didn’t bring their own toilet paper. I’ll never forget the day I asked the children, “Where to germs come from?” They said, “Satan!” My eyes got big, and I realized we had some basics to cover! One of my favorite days was teaching the children how to dance the Virginia reel and kicking up red dirt as we twirled and laughed through it. Their natural exuberance was contagious as was their curiosity.
Part way through my time there, there were some government misunderstandings, and skepticism about our work. We were told we had to “shift.” I had never heard of this before. Our neighbors explained it meant, we had to move. We had to stop working, and change apartments. I was heartbroken—I had come to love the children and I felt I had made some in-roads with teaching. Regardless, it was time to “shift.”
As I have moved many times since then—I have come to love the idea of “shifting.” When we move, we literally do more than simply transport ourselves and our possessions from one place to another. We change. Just as a shift key on the keyboard changes a letter from lower-case to upper case, moving allows us to change who we are—to up level ourselves to something even better.
We can all expect change. We will have to move, people pass away, our health deteriorates, we lose jobs. Even changes we want and choose can be hard; when we graduate from college and enter the work force, when we get married, when we have a baby, when we leave the work force, when our last child enters kindergarten, when we retire and the list goes on. Change is a constant.
I find I often resist change because it is an ending—it means losing something I had, was, or wanted to be. Even if it’s something I don’t like, knowing something is at the end brings with it some mourning. Part of letting something go, is acknowledging how much something or someone meant to you. It’s recognizing how it’s been part of your life and imagining what life will be without it.
When we resist the emotions of disappointment, discouragement and sadness, they turn into resentment and anger. It’s such a tremendous relief to accept a sadness. Resistance requires a lot of mental and emotional space. Letting it go, frees our brains and hearts to be open to how to adapt to the change and how to solve the problem.
One way to give voice to our loss and sadness is to create rituals. Rituals can help us acknowledge endings. Our family has a little ritual at the end of each of our international postings. Each child gets to list a few places that are most important to them—a favorite restaurant, school, church, a beach, a park etc. We take a family drive and video all of our favorite and frequented places that have become part of our daily pattern in a place. We enjoy talking about them as we drive and it’s a way of saying good-bye. We try to do the same with people we love—plan a chance to say good-bye and acknowledge their presence in our lives.
Another way acknowledge pieces of our old lives in an on-going way is to hold “country nights.” We include a holiday for each country we’ve lived in on our family calendar. We celebrate our time in a particular place on the holiday for that country—we wear traditional clothing, eat local foods from that place and watch pictures from our time there. Recently we celebrated “May Day” or “Lei Day” for Hawaii. We wore leis, ate Dole Whip and watched pictures from our time there. It helps us continually bridge back to the past and commemorate our significant connections.
Grief is a clean emotion—it’s cathartic and healing. Self-pity is an indulgent emotion. There isn’t much positive that comes from it. There is a fine line between mourning and becoming a victim. I love the way CS Lewis describes this tricky space. In “A Grief Observed,” a book he wrote after his wife died he says, “I almost prefer the moments of agony. These are at least clean and honest. But the bath of self-pity, the wallow, the loathsome sticky-sweet pleasure of indulging it–that disgusts me.” We need the catharsis of processing our emotions and acknowledging them. However, once that has been accomplished, continuing to “indulge” in the “sticky-sweet pleasure” of our self-pity becomes harmful. It is when we cross this line that it’s time to channel our inner Elsa and “Let it go.”
I find the time I most want to indulge in the sticky-sweet pleasure of self-pity is a few week to a few months after we move. It’s takes tremendous energy to start fresh somewhere, particularly when it is in an unfamiliar place, culture and in an unknown language. Making friends takes time. At first everything is new and fresh, and then the newness wears off and the difficulty sets in. It’s when everything seems “hard” in our new home that my brain wants to whine and indulge in what we’ve left behind. It’s beyond the feeling of loss of our last home—it’s all the drama my brain is offering me about creating the new life and how hard it is. This is when it’s time to let go. Staying in the self-pity keeps us spinning our wheels. We just dig deep ruts instead of moving forward.
One of the things I find has helped me keep from spinning my wheels, is to create a vision of what I want our life to look like in our new place. I try to fill the void of the old with something new. One of our favorite things to do is to make a bucket list for each place we live—places we want to go and things we want to do while we live there. Often we even map out trips to nearby locations and when we will take them.
I love working out the details of the flow of our new home…who will share a room, which door will we come into, what will each child’s chores and family contributions will be. I love to research opportunities for our family to contribute in our new community. I feel like it’s easier to start new family patterns in a new place. There aren’t the old patterns in place. Everyone is shifting mindsets and starting new family plans pairs well with a move.
I love to dream big—I love to think about who I want to be in our new place. Some of the thoughts I have had include “I want to be an on-time person in this new place.” “I want to be more balanced with self-care in my new home.” “I want to be deliberate with spending.” Shifting is a bonus new beginning.
It’s hard to create amazing things without have dreamt them up first. Knowing what we are going helps us leave things behind more easily. It also gives us a template and momentum to begin creating a new life.
Even if we have mourned and visualized a new future, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with moving. It’s a lot of work logistically and emotionally to start over. Just the boxes and re-organization alone are overwhelming, not to mention meeting new friends, finding new places of worship, and stores to obtain what we need. Often when we feel overwhelmed our natural inclination is to consume. We eat more, we watch more Netflix, we indulge in anger or irritation. We look at others and expect them to reach out to us—we want to consume their friendship. These things cause us to feel a temporary relief, but don’t address what we really crave which is happiness in our new life. When we feel the urge to consume, we can create instead. We can begin creating organization in our home, we can begin reaching out to others to invite them over to create new relationships, we can begin creating the person we want to be in our new home. It is creating that will fulfill our deepest cravings for peace.
Often our biggest enemies and intruders in creation are our own thoughts. It’s common to say things to ourselves that we would never tell someone else. “This will never work.” “It will never be as good.” “What was I thinking?” “Why did we do this?” “I’ll never make friends as good as I had before.” “I hate it here.” Ironically, these thoughts sabotage our ability to make our move a good experience.
Changing our thoughts can provide the momentum to create the new life we want. We can replace negative thoughts, with thoughts like “I got this.” “I don’t know how this will all work out, but I know it will.” “I have faith.” “I’m excited to see how this all works out.” “Hard is good.” These types of thoughts give me so much more confidence and energy to do the work of creating something new. Sometimes that sticky sweetness of self-pity seems so tempting, but being willing to set it aside and to do something new is so much sweeter.
It means introducing myself over and over again our first few months. I try not to wait for others to reach out to me, I take the responsibility of seeking people out and getting to know them. We have people over to dinner. We invite friends over for playdates. I plan the first few times I go anywhere that I will probably get lost and it will take a long time to figure out the navigation, parking etc. It usually DOES take a long time, but I expected it so I’m not frustrated. On particularly difficult days, I try to find humor in our situation and tell the events in the most dramatic way possible at family dinner or to a friend. Laughing about it is almost like an escape valve that lets of the pressure. There are always setbacks. I try to plan on them—lots of them! But the more I get out and begin creating the positive momentum the more courage I gain to keep creating.
The process of change is messy and frustrating. The process of mourning, letting go and creating new is not a neat step ladder process–it’s all mixed up at times. Sometimes I experience all of them in the same day or the same hour! No matter where I find myself in the process, when I view it all in the context of shifting to something new, something better it gives me hope and courage to keep trying.
What is a change in your life right now?
1. Think of change as a chance to up-level yourself like the shift key on the keyboard.
2. Envision the new, but make space for the old (rituals).
3. Don’t get stuck in the sticky sweetness of self-pity.
4. Start creating.