Oh, Give Me Strength.

Sometimes I'm so chill its like: Come at me, bro....rain, thunder, plagues of locusts  I'll deal.   Other times I'm like,  Universe ! Change one more stoopid thing and imma gonna blow up and melt into a gooey blob of skittles.

Depends on the day.

There have been many days, too many when I start counting, where I seem to handle it all. Whether its my stuff, your stuff, stranger's, friend's, children's stuff.  Just throw that stuff on my pile and whoosh.  Its done. Its dealt with.  Then out of the blue along will come a day where I am beside myself over the most trivial teeny thing.  I have no strength, no stamina, no initiative.

Just the thought of all my responsibility makes me want to take a nap.  I don't nap, but on the days where even looking at my laundry makes me cry out snot bubbles it would most likely do the world a giant favor if I just stayed in bed.

I don't have impossible days very often. I am kind of adept in hiding the worst of my angst when I do.  Chin up, chest out.....as my sister would say.

So I ask myself on those days when life seems totally  undoable what it is that has me dangling over the edge like an untrained cliff climber.  I write down everything that has happened that day....what I've done, what I need to get done , all the glitches and annoyances.   Then I think back to one of the hardest days I've ever had.....just a random hard day where everything went "well" all things considered.  I write down all the deets of that day.  I compare them.

Not really surprisingly, the largest difference is easy to see.  Its all in my head. My life is no more difficult on the days where I just "can't even."  In truth, its usually less hard, less busy, and the issues are smaller and less important than my "I got this" days.

The big diffence? Worry.  Ah, worry.....that creeping ivy that gets in your brain and makes you think spilling your coffee is a major catastrophe. Oh no, now people will think I'm clumsy (ya, i am. Thats not a secret). I'm staining the carpet! (So what? There's a thing called soap!) Now I have less coffee! (Ok, that's a realistic worry. Cannot blame myself for that one)  Mr. Worry.  Sitting there with his feet up on my mind couch eating my chips.  Rotund, covered in crumbs, and spewing out evermore ridiculous scenarios that often start with....wouldn't it just be awful if....?

Wouldn't it just be awful if.....you fail? Wouldn't it just be awful if....you get sick? Like really really sick? Like dying sick? Wouldn't it just be awful if.....everyone realizes you are insignificant?

Oh ya, Mr. Worry Bear Bear.  He's got a poor manners and nothing but time to make me uncomfortable and sometimes even sweaty. Worry is a rather useless little skill that we, as humans, need to unlearn.   It does nothing positive.  Worry will stop any progress you intend to make like forgetting to oil your car stops the engine.

Worry, will grab you, beat you around the brain, mix up up your heart, and leave you marathon tired without accomplishing a thing.

Take any issue you are worried about.  My favorite is "will I have enough time to get everything done?"   The answer to that for me is very simple. No. I won't.  There's too much.    I'll get some done and that's way better than none.

Same question but with worry. Will I get everything done?   Oh, no, there's too much.  I dropped the baking pan, now I have to wash it! Oh no, that is more to do.  I will Never get everything done.  I will fail to get this one thing done!  Then Nothing else will get done!! Oh my gawd, Everyone will be mad, everyone will think I am a bigger idiot!!! Then there will be vitriol from all the people who need me! Oh no!  I will have to deal with that....that's more to do!!

You see where im going with this. Insidious worry can take a simple task and turn it instantly into a life sucking, dramatic, traumatic event.  Even the Bible says: Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life. Guess that means that Luke guy got the concept that worry is useless a couple thousand years ago. I am a slow learner.  Read that dang big book years ago and still let worry rip me up....many many times.

Worrying, doesn't add value.  It takes perfectly good energy and wastes it.  Worry gets me no closer to my goals.  If I take a step, complete one thing, take another step, do one more.....I'm fine. If I mix in a heaping dollop of worry while I try......I just exhaust myself.   Stop sooner and go to bed miserable. Worry more, sleep less, have terrifying dreams.

In the interim Worry does nothing for me. Who makes the cookies, sows the blankets, does the dishes? Was that worry? Nope. Lazy butt Worry doesn't do a dang thing.  Can't remember the last time worry  got me to work on time, fed my kid, or washed my windows. Did worry write for me,water the plants, pay my bills or paint my bathroom? Nope. All me.  Well, except the plant thing- they are all dead. Rest in peace, begonias.

So why do I ever let this loafer have free rent in my head?   Heck  I know there's very little room in there. I do not understand why our bodies and brains are hardwired to worry.  I don't get why worry is even a thing. It is truly miserable, useless and unproductive.  In fact so anti productive you would think that evolution would have fixed this problem by now.  Yet on we go, spending half our lives worrying. Changing nothing, making ourselves panic, filling our bodies with stress hormones and inflammation.

I desire more days where I feel like I can do anything. I need more days where it feels effortless.  I  think that I know how to get them. The next time the Worry Bear becomes a tenant- I'll evict him.  I'm sure he's redecorated my brain space a few times but this time: He can take his baggage and go.

Experiment Awry

Back in the mid90's at my wits end with my kids teacher, I decided to try a small experiment in behavior modification.  I was pretty desperate for a solution.  When you are 25, busy, working, going to school and taking care of two kids and a house there isn't all the much time to be called into the grade 1 class and forced to sit in a mini chair listening to a high strung teacher grumble.  But for three months I was forced to do that daily.

No amount of communication could get Madame to see she was part of the problem. No suggestions from me ever made it past her sardonic smile. I had a bored child on my hands.  My Darling girl whos mind outthought most adults and who had set out to make school fun.  A teacher who had a love affair with conformity. Who found my little beans brilliance serial killer level disturbing.  Somehow, out of that situation I found myself getting served with Grade 1 Detention ad infinitum.

Unable to convince Madame to try anything new I turned to the one person I could influence.  I explained to my baby that her hijinks were rather unwelcome.  "But its soooooo borrrrrrring Mummy".  I know Baby. You only have about 20 more years of oft boring teachers to deal with.  No worries, we are going to try something.

I knew I was going against the permissive grain of the parents around me.  ( Deep breath! Be brave.). Baby, take this little elastic and wear it as a bracelet. Okay. Now every time you want to get out of your seat, feel you need to tell your friends to ask unanswerable questions, shoot spit balls from your drinking box straw or tell your teacher a wild, wild story and prove her gullibility please give your wrist a little snap. Worked charmingly. No more detentions for Mom. Just 8 hours of one bored kid 5 days a week and Madame had no problem with that.

Enter the nosy Mom!  Having seen how my 90's version of the fidget spinner restored classroom peace for me Mom 1, the self appointed Mayor of Grade 1 parents, decided it was just the ticket for her bored child, too.  A day later I hear her shrill complaint.

The school called and gave her a movie of the week level warning about self mutilation. Turns out that instead of a tiny snap to remind oneself to be good her Darling decided to try to use the trick to change her friends behavior.  No matter how much she twisted that elastic....or how blue her fingers turned her friends remained annoying. Odd.

I hadnt forseen that extrapolation of my experiment. For a six year old it was a brilliant thesis. Missed one minor given, that's all. Nothing in this world you do can force another human to change. You can complain whine cry manipulate and even dominate but real change is all the other persons deal. Sorry Bunny. That's just the way it is.

We would like it to be easier to change people. As Mom and Dads, bosses and employees, lovers, friends. Unfortunately, behavior rises from so many competing factors. Personality is a strange mix of biology, experience and current and past social mores.  Behavior takes all that and then adds quality of sleep, nutrition, the environment and available tools and pops out something new at the end. It can be fantastic. It can be dismal.

Still, all we can do as humans is change ourselves.  If we change enough then sometimes people around us must change to adjust. We control how much or how little other's behavior can affect us. Our own level of tolerance determines how easy or hard that will be.  We can choose to be like Jello. Just let the cream poor over us and jiggle- largely unchanged. We can choose to stir and become a yukky mess of gelatin and dairy. Changed largely by our own reactions and behavior.

This is our human truth. Even now in the " new millennium" where we teach our children its their right to be offended by anything. Like that is a healthy notion. Sorry, kids, your rights, your feelings, your discomfort still ends at the tip of the next guys nose. Agree or disagree, be offended or dont- theres only one person we each truly control. The self.