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Vicious circle – on codependency

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I know a few people who are having a hard time accepting what is happening to them right now. I’m really worried, and I want to help them. If only they could accept the reality of the situation they are in, things will start to get better. If only they could stop hoping and wishing that things were different, they’d start to heal.

Sometimes we are the ones who have to make a change. Sometimes we are in bad situations that are presented to us because we are the ones who are supposed to fix them.

But sometimes things just can’t be changed. Sometimes things are just as they are, and there is no getting around them.

Sometimes the only way is to go through the grief and the pain, and to see it for what it is.

But then I realized I’m doing the very same thing. I’m not accepting the reality of the situation. I’m not accepting that their pain and inability to face it is in fact the reality.

It is all a great big circle of codependency.

Mr/S

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I noticed something on a form recently for the first time. I don’t mean that I’ve never seen this before – I mean that I saw it with new eyes.

The form had a place for you to circle your title. Mr./Mrs./Miss

There are several things going on here. Notice that the male title is first.

Second – notice that there are two different titles for women, indicating whether you are married or not. There is a perfectly acceptable variant, “Ms.” that does not indicate marital status. Notice that men don’t have a different title if they are single or married.

And then I noticed it even more deeply. This is beyond hierarchy and status.

What do we even need these titles for? Why does it matter if someone is male or female?

Look at some of the names that are gender neutral. Robin, Terry, Dana, Tracy.

Do we treat people differently because of their gender, or status? If so, why?

Then I considered all the different names that I come across every day. Nashville is full of people from all around the world, and I don’t know all of their naming practices. I have no way of knowing if a name belongs to a female or a male. Does it matter?

Not really.

Food abuse

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I see obesity as a symptom of food abuse. It is the same as alcoholism and drug abuse. It is a sign of an abuse or mis-use of food.

I used to be obese. I’ve had to work hard on relearning what (and how much) is healthy to eat and how to incorporate more movement and exercise into my life. But I’ve also had to work hard on addressing the root cause of why I wasn’t taking care of my body and my soul.

The problem is, we have to eat. We can’t just stop eating food. We can’t drop it like we can alcohol or cigarettes or any other addictive substance.

So we all need to develop a healthy relationship with food – and to address the issues that are causing us to use food to (not) solve our problems. Food can heal us, but it can also harm us if we use it improperly. It can be too much of a good thing, but it can also be the wrong thing.

Food wasn’t the only substance I had a wrong relationship with. Back when I smoked pot, I would smoke it to feel better. I’d have a bad day at work, or my family was hassling me, or there was some other stress to deal with. I’d smoke pot to numb the pain. It would ease the pain long enough that I’d forget about it, until I’d sober up again and the problems would come back. The thing is, the problems never went away in the first place. I just anesthetized myself to them. Instead of dealing with them, I ran away from them in my head. When I got sober, I’d still have those problems, and I’d still reach for pot to “fix” them.

It was a terrible cycle of stupid.

Plenty of people do the same thing with food. Because food isn’t seen as a drug, and because it is not only socially acceptable but normal to eat, food abuse is an easy addiction to pick up. And it isn’t like our society in general has a healthy relationship with food. Everything is super sized and fried. It is too much of a bad thing.

Is this fat shaming? No. Not any more than pointing out that someone who drinks to solve their problems is an alcoholic. This isn’t “blaming the victim” either. It is pointing out that when we use food to solve our problems, we are creating our own problems.

Victims are people who have things done to them. They are passive agents in the story. A person who gets hit by a car, or lightning, or something falling out of the sky is a victim.

If you hurt yourself, you aren’t a victim. You have done it to yourself. Thinking about why you do it is the wrong direction of thought. Blaming your parents or society or your friends for your action is self-defeating. You choose your life and your actions. You have control of what you do. You can also make a choice to change.

We need to start naming our demons so we can slay them. If we pretend like everything is fine then we will continue to kill ourselves bit by bit and bite by bite.

Food won’t fix our problems. Facing them will. No, it isn’t easy.

We have gotten into the habit of shoving our feelings and anxieties down, ramming them into our mouths with food. We have to learn how to let them out rather than shove them down. We have to learn that it is OK to speak up and be heard.

Praise as behavior modification

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So, I’ve figured out a way to “train” someone without directly training them. There is this lady at work who doesn’t talk to anybody. Generally, she only talks if she has something to complain about. She is kind of intimidating in her silence. But sometimes I need to say something to her because how she is doing her job gets in the way of how I need to do my job.

If I want this non-communicative coworker to do something differently, I wait until she is doing something close to it and praise her for it. This is how you train dogs and preverbal children, after all.

Sounds a bit manipulative and indirect, I know. I still get what I want, and nobody’s feelings are hurt. In fact, she feels better because I just praised her.

She is a little hard to interact with. And when I say a little hard, I mean impossible. There might be some shyness, or curmudgeon, or stubborn, or self-conscious in there. She is very old. She rarely talks. She stutters when she does talk. She has never been married. She does not interact with others unless they too are very old and female. This is difficult, because there is only one other person there who meets that criteria right now. This job is a physically demanding one, and very old people just don’t stay.

Her normal interaction with people is to only speak when she thinks something is wrong. She always leads with “I don’t mean to complain, but…” and then she complains. We never hear from her otherwise. Then when we make whatever modification to make her happy, she still isn’t happy. We can’t win. She doesn’t even talk when greeted in the morning. A “Good Morning!” is met with averted eyes.

This is all a bit off-putting, and doesn’t lead to healthy interactions.

So, when she is doing something that gets in my way, something that I “don’t mean to complain” about, I don’t want to do it like she is doing it. I don’t want to add to the awkwardness. I’d rather do things in a nice way. The trouble was in figuring that out. How do I tell someone in a nice way that how they are doing their job makes my job harder? How do I do it when I can’t even say “Good morning!” to them and get a response?

I found my answer in dog and child training books. Both of these areas “train” by celebrating the positive. In both, you can’t tell the subject what to do, because the dog or the child isn’t able to understand words. But they are able to understand praise. So when they do something that you want them to do, praise them. When they do something you don’t want them to do, ignore them. Not punish, just ignore. Beings tend to seek praise, so they will repeat those behaviors that got them praise.

There is a huge area for making carts, but she doesn’t use it very much. She’ll take what she wants to work on to the bookshelves right behind the circulation desk. That area is where we pre-sort all the AV materials. It isn’t great that she is there because she is in the way. I haven’t figured out how to get her to not be there at all without causing a row. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

But she has started to move her cart further and further into the little alcove where I go into the back room. That is a very narrow area and I need to be there a lot because that is where we sort books to go to other branches. This is a real problem. I want to be able to walk through here easily. I don’t want to have to shimmy or squirm or sidle through here.

I fumed about this for a long time. Then I learned about this technique. So I waited until she had her cart a bit less in my walking area, and I praised her for it. I commented on how it helped me if this area was clear.

And she started doing it all the time. She started taking her cart further back into that area, so she was even further out of my way.

Ideally, she’d not be there at all unless she was working on AV materials, but I’ll count my win.

God provides – drum class

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There is this drum class that I’m planning to attend. I heard about it months ago, and I felt really called towards it. I had no idea how I was going to justify the cost of it, though.

It is $500. This is for a two-day class. I’m kind of gasping at how much money the teacher is making. I wonder if I can get in on that kind of action. It is hard enough to get people to accept the prices I have on my jewelry, and they never approach three digits, much less close to rent-payment amounts.

Plus, I wasn’t sure what I’d do with this class. I’m not very good at drumming. I’ve never hosted a drum circle at all. I only have four drums, and I’m not really hot on lending them out.

But I felt called to this. It kept gnawing at me – sign up for the class. I feel that God is calling me to it. It isn’t something for me, really. It is interesting, sure, and I guess it goes along with some of the other classes I’ve taken recently.

I figured I’d pay for it and then earn the money with jewelry, and that hasn’t quite happened – but something else has.

I’ve earned $100 with my jewelry, and that is nice. But some surprising things, some unplanned things, have happened.

I got a raise at work, that amounts to $600 extra a year.
We got a discount on our YMCA membership that amounts to $72 off.
We changed car and house insurance, and that saves us $300 a year.

So unplanned, unrelated to this, we essentially are up $1000. I only needed $500.

Normally, when I sign up for a class that I feel led to, I earn the money first. That wasn’t possible with this one – they wanted the money right away. I trusted, and God provided.

This really lets me know that I’m on the right path, and that I really am supposed to take this class. God always makes a way.

Now I wonder what God wants me to learn out of it. That will be amazing to see. Perhaps this will be a stepping stone to something else. Perhaps I’ll meet someone who will help me with one of my usual projects.

I’ve got a lot of projects.

I’m not worried about it, just curious. God is always surprising me. That is one of the best parts about trusting that God is in control.

Opening prayer

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(A prayer that can be said at the beginning of a home church service)

Almighty God,
we are gathered together
in the promise of your son
Jesus Christ
who told us
that whenever two or more
are gathered together
in his name
that he is there
among them.

Send him now
to be with us
that we may
lift each other up
and honor You.

Send him now
among us
that we may
fully and better
understand him
and serve You
through him.

Amen.

Falling on my knees.

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My knees have started to fail me. After years of being a little creaky but functional, they are downright obstreperous now. When I get up after sitting cross-legged or from crouching, it takes several questionable seconds before they will hold my weight. It is a little scary.

I could fall, if they fail me. Where is this headed? Am I soon to be crippled? I’m too young for this.

I walk, and do water aerobics and yoga, but it isn’t enough apparently. I have incorporated a special exercise in the water just to strengthen my knees. I have to do it at least weekly or walking up stairs is a bear.

Perhaps I should give up sitting cross-legged or crouching, but my Laotian neighbor, thirty years my senior, can still do this with no problems. Asian women sit like this all the time. So it is possible. It has nothing to do with age, but expectations.

We stop doing it because we think we have to stop doing it – and then we can’t do it. This applies to a lot of things. The whole “self-fulfilling prophecy” thing, you know.

Yesterday I had to work on the ivy by the driveway. It has taken over, and it is difficult to eradicate. I cut it out by hand, using small clippers. It is very labor-intensive. I dislike this chore, but it is best to do it this way. The other choices involve weed eating, which will destroy the monkey grass underneath, or poisonous chemicals. Not happening.

I’d worked on this the day before and not liked the grab and pull method I was using, so yesterday I crouched and shuffled along, cutting the vines at the base of the monkey grass. This seemed to work well, but I was a bit worried about how my knees would react to this abuse. Outside, I didn’t have something to push up from like I do in the living room. How would I support myself when I got up?

So I prayed about it.

I’ve read Louise Hay’s book, “You Can Heal Your Life”, and I remember her saying that emotional issues manifest in physical ways. She has a whole list of each physical symptom and what emotional dysfunction it represents. She believes that if you fix the emotional problem, and you’ve fixed the physical problem. I believe that you can fix the emotional problem by working on the physical problem as well, but that is another post.

I couldn’t remember what knees represent on her list, so I asked God what lesson I needed to learn from my failing knees. I needed the answer then, before I got up. Instead of checking a book or the Internet, I dialed direct for the answer.

The answer was that I was failing to trust that God will provide, that God is in charge. I was trying to rely all on my own power. I was trying to hold myself up, forgetting that God holds me up.

Once I accepted this and relaxed into it, admitting and admiring that God is in charge of everything, I took a breath and stood up, unassisted.

With no failure.
With no problem.
And it has been so ever since.

I try to remember to pray now, every time I stand up, remembering that the Lord is in charge. I don’t have a specific prayer that I use, because I believe that God wants our prayers to be from us, and not empty mutterings.

Here are some Bible verses that harmonize with this.

Psalm 139:1-18
O LORD, thou hast searched me and known me!
2 Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up;
thou discernest my thoughts from afar.
3 Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5 Thou dost beset me behind and before,
and layest thy hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high, I cannot attain it.
7 Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there thy hand shall lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Let only darkness cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to thee,
the night is bright as the day;
for darkness is as light with thee.
13 For thou didst form my inward parts,
thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful.
Wonderful are thy works!
Thou knowest me right well;
15 my frame was not hidden from thee,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.
16 Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance;
in thy book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are thy thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
When I awake, I am still with thee. (RSV)

Philippians 2:9-11
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (RSV)

Fight like a girl

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When women are told that they “run like a girl” or “fight like a girl” or “throw like a girl” they are being shamed. They are being discouraged from using their bodies. All of these are physical actions, and all of these phrases are designed to get them to stop. Girls are actively discouraged from exercising in “boy” ways.

We are allowed to walk, or skip, or do yoga, or water aerobics. These are seen as suitable activities for girls. “Boy” sports are off the radar for us. We are strongly discouraged or even banned from playing football, for instance. It is still unusual for women to play in team sports such as baseball or basketball – and those who do are seen as “butch” – translation, no longer female.

Why do we have to trade femininity for hard exercise? Why are women not allowed to “roughhouse”? A little girl who plays rough is called a “tomboy”. The fact that “boy” is in the term indicates that she isn’t seen as a girl. The fact that there is a special term for it is an indicator that it is seen as something unusual – and thus something to be discouraged.

We are shamed into being dainty when we exercise, if we are allowed to exercise at all.

Then, because we don’t exercise enough, we get overweight and then we get shamed for that too. It is a lose-lose situation.

Of course we run, fight, and throw like girls. We are girls. But what do these terms mean?

It is time to redefine these terms, and take back the playground and the gym. It is time to take “run like a girl” as a complement. We need to start fighting like girls, and start standing up for our right to exercise however we feel we need to.

Sure, we can still run, and do yoga, and play hopscotch. And we can also climb trees and throw rocks and climb mountains. Let each girl and woman exercise however she wants, not limited by society. Let us move however we need to keep our bodies and brains strong.

Dread

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I’ve had a sense of dread for the past few days. Sometimes I know things before they happen. Or rather, sometimes I know that something is going to happen, but not exactly what. It is God’s way of saying “be on guard”. But sometimes it is just a physical thing, because I’ve gotten out of synch.

I’ve not been following my routine, certainly. I’ve not been exercising like I normally do and I’ve been eating more junk food and less vegetables. I know better, but it happens. When things are going well, it is easy to forget that all the stuff I do to get well is what got me there.

So maybe that was it. Or not. It is hard to figure out these feelings sometimes. Sometimes I feel like a big radio receiver, but I don’t know what channel I’m listening to.

As I’ve mentioned previously, things have gotten worse with my parents-in-law. She fell and got a concussion and broke her leg. She was put in the hospital, and then rehab. My father-in-law has early stages of dementia as well as Parkinson’s. He thinks he can take care of himself, and usually he can.

We all thought everything was fine for now. The kids, and by that I mean those of us in our 40s, are aware that things will get worse soon, but we didn’t think it would be this soon. The parents are playing chicken with the idea of the nursing home.

But now, my father-in-law has gone missing.

Yesterday he went to visit his wife in the rehab center and got lost. He wound up about an hour away from his home. He didn’t think to have a map with him, and his GPS needs updating apparantly. He drove around for three hours before he called for help.

We thought that was it. We knew that it was going to get worse, but not this soon.

Today he tried to visit her again, and we don’t know where he is. My husband has notified the police.

He’s very calm about it, which is unlike him. I’m grateful.

And now I know where the sense of dread was coming from.

I’ve been praying about this feeling for the past few days, while also getting back into my diet and exercise routine. I’ve come to a sense of calm about it – to accept that whatever happens is God’s will. To be thankful, even, because I need to remember that God is always in charge.

It isn’t easy.

Normally, when something difficult is going on in my life, I have had at least some small role to play. Even though I’m trusting that God is in charge, I’ve still got my little part that God wants me to do. I know it isn’t everything, or even anywhere near the majority of the work. But it is something, and that something makes me feel better.

I can’t do anything now. Well, I can pray. And trust. And breathe through it. I can’t control any of this. I have to keep reminding myself that whatever happens is whatever is supposed to happen.

UPDATE. He showed back up at home – seven hours after he left. He claims he got confused, and he had bad directions. He’s safe, for now.