photo credit: Vitorio Benedetti

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience. -Shauna Niequist

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. -Bertrand Russell

Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience – waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking. — Gary Paulsen

Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made. -Robert H. Schuller

photo credit: A6U571N

Things aren’t always easy, or simple, or black and white; it is that last one that causes me the most grief, personally, because I like black-and-white, as in, easily understood, categorized, and labeled as “good” or “bad.” I think in these absolute terms. This is my filter for the world, for my life, for how I parent, how I wife and friend and write and etc.

‘Cept things ain’t always that simple, Charlie Browns.

So much gray! As in, should it be “gray” or “grey”? Does it matter? No.

But there it is, a choice, an option, with no obvious RIGHT answer. The abundance of gray (grey) has been one of the shocks of adulthood.

The other shocker of my adult life has been realizing this:

not everything you learned growing up is true.

I’m not talking about the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus or whether you rejected your parents’ religious and/or political beliefs in favor of something more enlightened. (For the record, I did not reject my parents’ religious beliefs. Or political ones, much. I like them. I believe them. But that’s another story.)

What I am talking about is much more subtle.

It is the things that are not necessarily taught but are simply passed down, assumptions about how the world works and the best way to, oh, make pie crust, or spend money, or how to parent properly and what to wear after Labor Day.
These things are not (usually) consciously relayed to the next generation: they simply are passed down, passed around the table with the green bean casserole, and you pick them up and put them on your plate and eat them and they become part of you.

Until one day you realize that you don’t even like green bean casserole (we are speaking in metaphorical terms now, follow?) or that green bean casserole is much better when it’s made in an entirely different way than your mother used to make it…
And the world rocks back and forth and you stand on very shaky ground.
Everything is uncertain.

assuming the assumptions are good…

Toooooo many of us are still operating under those passed-down assumptions about “how life works” when, really, the assumptions are not working any more. They are not necessarily WRONG but definitely not necessarily RIGHT either.

Confusing principles and preferences

So many of us are confusing principles (i.e. things that ARE absolute and either RIGHT or WRONG) with preferences. We pick up preferences about life, government, churches, cooking, family life, work, clothing, money, and so on from our parents and we go tra-la-la-ing along as if we are ready for anything.
Only: preferences are not universal, transcending space/time/culture. Preferences are fallible. Preferences have to change. Preferences quit working out of context.

2 simple rules

I have two simple rules which have developed into something kind of stable and specific and definite in my head and in how I look at life and how I make decisions and do things.

And, I think, the whole little point of this blog is to kind of pass those rules or ideas on and to help women apply them and quit feeling so freakin’ guilty about everything, and quit operating on preferences and assumptions that simply don’t work for one reason or another, and quit assuming that one way is RIGHT and another is WRONG when, in truth, both are FINE depending… (or both are NOT FINE, depending…).

rule 1: question everything.
rule 2: assume nothing.

Simple, yes?

Of course I don’t mean that every single time you have to make a decision you question every angle of it. I do almost mean it literally about the assumptions, tho’ of course we need some of those to survive, but overall assumptions are just a lazy woman’s way of not having to think or take responsibility and they tend to lead us to error and unpleasant arguments with our spouses.

Questions are good.

They help us figure out where things come from.

Why am I doing this? What is the point? Where is this coming from? Is this a choice or simply a tradition? Where did the tradition come from? Is it good or bad? Is it helpful? What is it supposed to accomplish? Why do I feel like I need to do things this way? Is my way better? Why? Why not try something different? What’s the risk? What’s the principle? Is there a principle, or is this a preference? What’s my preference? Why? Where did it come from?

Questions lead us to new ideas and discoveries and (gasp) truth, which is not – however you might like it to be – usually found in those assumptions of ours, the ones we like to tote around and pull out whenever feeling uncertain.

Truth is timeless.

I believe in absolute truth, truth which does transcend time and space and culture, truth which does not change or have to be replaced or modernized or adapted to a new context.
But I do not believe that everything we think fits into “truth” indeed does. Most of it, in fact, well: not. Fact, maybe, but truth?
And that’s where we get oh-so-overwhelmed-and-confused and that’s where we have conflict and guilt and terrrrrrible things happen. On a personal level, on a national level, so on: when we mix up truth with a) fact or b) opinion, we get goofy, sometimes tragic, results.

All this tirade to say top-ten-tip lists are great and how-to posts are helpful and advice can be nice but the point

THE POINT

is to help me, you, and any other woman who stumbles on this blog’s real estate to have a better life by getting WISE.

Wisdom.

That’s the key.
Wisdom is the ability to separate truth from mere knowledge.

It is the discernment to know facts and yet not be ruled by a pride in that knowledge.

It is the mind to put principles in one pile and preferences in another and use both as they should be used.

It is the will and the understanding to apply knowledge as it should be applied (not dogmatically) and to search out truth and live by it (graciously).

Wisdom is what I am looking for.

I have many goals on earth; many goals for myself and my children; many hopes, ambitions, dreams; but the greatest the deepest the truest is that I will be a woman who is WISE, that I will somehow manage to raise children who seek WISDOM all their lives, and that, through what I write here and elsewhere, I will manage to pass on a bit of that wisdom, or just the thirst for it, to others.

photo credit: squacco

“If you want to, you can let go of any feelings of resentment, of regret, of anger. You can accept that you are a fabulous human being because of all the bad things that have happened to you, not in spite of them.” -Richard Templar

Get Unstuck

Staying stuck in the past limits you to the boundaries of the past. The labels, personality, influences, abuses, habits, enabling, or hurtful effects of the past will keep extended control into the present as long as you hold on to them.

But I don’t want to hold on to them, you’re thinking. I just can’t get rid of them. They’re part of who I am.

You choose your inheritance:

by which I mean this:

You can’t choose what they give, but you can choose what you take.

Maybe those past events are part of who you are; but they don’t have to be a negative part of who you are. Whatever lesson or legacy you carry away from the past depends on how you choose to reference the past.

Be Bound Only by Choice

The emotional or mental trauma you might have endured isn’t time-bound, it’s choice-bound. You can continue being as much a victim today as you were when the trauma-inducing event happened. Or you can separate yourself.

You can step forward. You can accept, first, that the past happened. It did. You don’t have a perfect past. You can’t change that. It sucks; that’s life.

Set Your Own Frame of Reference

Then you can choose to reference the past as 1) OVER and 2) something you have chosen to derive value from, however impossible that may seem at first glance.

But once I accepted that what was done was done, and that I could choose to forgive and get on with life, things improved enormously. -Templar

What’s in your past that’s hanging on to you? Maybe it’s something so horrible you can’t see how there can be any value.

• Maybe you were raped. Molested. Abused.
• Maybe you were abandoned.
• Maybe you abandoned someone else.
• Maybe you were betrayed, or you chose to betray.
• Maybe you broke a heart. Maybe your heart was broken.
• Maybe you lost everyone you loved.
• Maybe you were a victim of daily degradation, scorn, taunting, ridicule.
• Maybe you committed a crime.
• Maybe you got into financial ruin.
• Maybe you ruined your reputation. Maybe someone else did.
• Maybe you were just mean, or lazy, or careless, and the smallness of your past makes you think it doesn’t matter, but you can’t let go.

Maybe maybe maybe: I’m not saying that what happened in the past isn’t bad.
I am saying that no matter how bad it was (or how small it was), you can still get value from it. That can be your take-away.

Pack Your Own Take-Away Box

Don’t believe me?
Here’s a challenge: No matter what the past was for you, you can learn the lesson of forgiveness from it.

If you were wronged, no matter how deeply, you can learn to forgive.

If you were the one who did the wrong, no matter how heinous, you can learn to seek forgiveness. You can learn to receive forgiveness. And you can learn to forgive yourself. (By the way, no one benefits from your refusal to forgive yourself.)

Recognize Your Own Ability

Moving forward means moving away from the circumstances, identities, and experiences of your past. It means you take what you want with you, but you don’t stagnate. You accept that there is a reality back there behind you, but it doesn’t have to be your reality now or your reality in the future.

One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal. – St. Paul

Recognize the ability you have to limit or extend your past. It’s up to you.

Make Your Own Choices Over the Past

You can choose:

• stay in the same cycles of behavior, or get help and break out
• repeat the same thought patterns, or think new thoughts
• believe what you’ve always heard, or start asking questions and seeking the real answers
• accept the identity you wear from the past, or take it off and define yourself in the present
• repeat the past blindly, or recognize the past when it appears in your present, and limit it as you decide
• frame yourself as a victim, or see both the negative and positive influences in the past and carry the positive with you
• keep looking back over your shoulder, or picture clearly the person you want to be in your future
• believe in what’s over (no one can control the past) or believe in what you can do about the future
• focus on what’s already happened (no one can control the past) or take action to build a life you want to live
• drown in guilt or shame or sorrow (no one can control the past) or forgive and be forgiven (forgiveness is a daily choice)

Your call.

If you accept what’s done is done, you are left with yourself exactly as you are. You can’t go back and change anything, so you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. -Templar

photo credit: piermario

But the “artistic endeavors” are just a single piece of the pie that is creativity.

Creativity is less about what you do and more about how you do it.

1. Limit the information being shoved at your brain in tiny bits and pieces.

start spending less time with those tidbits.

“Creativity is the ability to connect disparate ideas in new and useful ways,” says Sara C. Mednick, PhD, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego in this article.

If your brain is only willing to munch on one tidbit at a time,

2. Find time for bigger stories.

3. Hang out with creative people

4. Expand your idea of what creativity is.

5. Be more silly, unafraid, juvenile, child-like.

6. Reject the first five ideas/solutions/answers you come up with for any given need/problem/question.

7. Give yourself limits:

• a $50/week grocery budget [money limit]
• 15 minutes to cook dinner [time limit]
• use your non-dominant hand to write or draw [ability limit]
• find a decent outfit at the thrift store [resource limit]

8. Get around different cultures, different people, different ways of life.

We get to boxed into our own version of normal, and when that’s all we see, we forget that normal is an arbitrary thing, defined differently by different people in different places and different times. Even in the same place and time, you can find all sorts of differences of normal when you venture into different subcultures. Are you a Christian? Hang out with some atheists. Are you from the city? Spend a weekend with a family of farmers; it’s a whole new normal. From the North? Go down South.

9. Fire your critic.

10. Get into unfamiliar, uncomfortable, strange, new, unnerving situations.

You know, the challenge in front of you. The one you are facing (unavoidably) or considering. The one that is difficult, kind of inspiring, but intimidating, too. Here’s why you should go for it.

And yet, only challenge causes growth. Only challenge will test our skills and make us better. Only challenge and the self-motivation to engage the challenge will transform us. Every challenge we face is an opportunity to create a more skillful self. So it is up to you to constantly look for challenges to motivate yourself with. And it’s up to you to notice when you’re buried alive in a comfort zone. – Steve Chandler

1. Challenges keep your life from becoming an exercise in boredom.

How exciting is it to do the same (normal) thing every day, to walk the same (comfortable) rut every week? Oooh. Goose bumps. Can hardly contain the excitement. Hold your enthusiasm. Wow, it’s those mundane things that really bring the zest into your life, isn’t it? Um, wait. Maybe not. Shake yourself up. Do something new.

Don’t be boring until you’re dead, and before you die make sure you try all sorts of wacky, impossible things that will give people plenty to talk about at your funeral.

Consider it your gift to a world full of boring people.

2. Challenges help you to grow.

As our friend Mr. Chandler pointed out above, “only challenge causes growth.” And have you heard that other one about when you cease to grow, you begin to die?

3. Challenges show you what you’re capable of.

Struggling with confidence? Burdened by a string of failures in your (recent) past? Not sure what you can do, or even why you would try? The longer you sit around with your self-defeating, fatalistic thoughts, the more you become a pseudo-emo-child and world knows we don’t need any more of those.

Get off your emofied bum and go do something challenging.

4. Challenges help you let go of the old dead stuff you didn’t even realize you were carrying around.

S’true. You have baggage. It might be in terms of old dead habits (they are no longer serving you) or old dead relationships (they are not longer vital, viable, or sustainable) or old dead ways of thinking… or just in terms of physical stuff (clutter = old dead stuff stinking up your space). When you commit to and begin pursuing a new challenge, you start reaching forward.

You put a new priority on the new habits and new relationships and new ways of thinking required to achieve the challenge. As a result, you begin, often unconsciously, letting that old stuff fall away.

And it’s good. You feel lighter, you feel better, and you realize that you didn’t need all that old dead ick infringing on your life.

5. Challenges motivate and inspire other people around you.

Want to help a friend who’s stuck? Do something challenging and share the challenge. DON’T tell her to take on a challenge. Take on one yourself, and let her see your struggle and your success. We all need to move out of the small window of our own view and see a bigger world. You take on a challenge, you expand your own view, and you let the people around you share that. It’s good for everybody.

6. Challenges give you a chance to get closer to who you actually want to be.

Even challenges which seem directly unrelated to your long-term goals or life plan or what-have-you still bring you closer to reaching those goals, to becoming that person you (secretly?) want to be. Why? Because challenges help you grow, help you see how capable you are, help you let go of old dead stuff… hey, have you been reading this list?

7. Challenges give you something worthwhile to talk about.

Grace us with interesting Facebook status updates. Please. In the age of endless, constant communication, we’re all dying for something interesting to hear and discuss. Something besides the latest Youtube video or how much people hate Mondays or what we all had for lunch. Verbal refreshment, in the form of challenge updates. Bring it. We’re waiting.

8. Challenges call out the better part of who you are.

You know what part of you is resisting the challenge before you now? The fearful part. The lazy part. The hesitant, indecisive, self-indulgent, self-conscious part. In other words: not the good part. Don’t give the weenie-half any more power than it wields (for a wimpy part-of-self, it’s a power monger; don’t feed that).

Bring forth the best.

9. Challenges give you more sympathy for others who are struggling.

It’s easy to be deconstructively critical and snarky and all-things-culturally-acceptable-but-rude when we feel comfortable in our own lives. It’s easy to look down on others when we feel we have the high ground in our own lives.

But when you yourself are staring at a mountain, when the climb is sapping your energy, when you’re putting your all into something that’s tough but rewarding, then you can see a little more clearly.

You can sympathize with the struggles – and the successes – of other people in your life. Your high horse isn’t so high, after all, when you get it in perspective. Get that perspective for yourself or life will hand it to you, painfully, one way or the other.

10. Challenges equip you to be more useful and helpful to others.

At the end of any challenge, even a challenge which you might technically fail but still put all your heart and soul’s effort into, you will be a better, smarter, more knowledgeable, more helpful, more empathetic, and vastly more interesting person. Which means you have more to offer to other people, to the people closest to you, to the world in general. This is a good thing. Good for your self-esteem, good for your social life. Also, good for humanity.

So go for it.

Image: Me on top of a mountain by Blogging Bookshelf

1. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down everything you can think of that’s stressing you out,

weighing on your brain, waiting for your action, refusing to leave you alone. If you’re overwhelmed and don’t know why, this will help you figure out what’s bothering you most. And the simple act of writing is both cathartic and helps you to see things in perspective.

2. Call someone you trust

- or send an email – and just talk about what’s on your brain. We females do have a tendency to over-analyze, yes. But some situations need to be processed, emotions need to be aired out, and the simple act of talking things through relieves a lot of the mental and emotional pressure that makes us feel like we can barely hold our heads up.

3. Do the next thing,

the one thing you know that’s making you feel the most dread or anxiety. Read this if you’re not sure how to do the next thing.

4. Go outside and take a ten-minute walk.

Or twenty minutes. Or thirty. However long you can manage will help. Let your mind wander. Look around. Breathe. Push yourself to walk a little faster. Listen to some music. Listen to the world around you, and let your brain do its own processing while you occupy yourself with other things.

5. Get out and around people.

If you’re overwhelmed with stuff you can’t do anything about – situations that have no “next action step” next to them – then being by yourself is the worst option for you. Go be where people are.

6. Do something that gives you immediate, tangible results.

The big projects that make us feel like we can never accomplish them are overwhelming because it takes so long to get to completion. Take a break from ongoing projects and tackle a small task that gives you immediate results.

7. Ask yourself what will happen if you don’t accomplish everything you’d like to in this day or week or month or lifetime.

What can you let go of? How can you limit your to-do list? Let go of some things that don’t matter. If you don’t really care about how things might change when you say no, or if it’s obvious that the world will carry on without your 39 item list being completed, then hack that list down to something reasonable and breathe for a while.

8. Get away from negative people.

Even if they don’t know what’s going on in your brain, even if they’re not speaking directly to your situation, their general negativity will make you feel discouraged before you even begin. Move on, get some space, and find some happy, positive, encouraging, upbeat, unrealistically optimistic people to be around. It will help balance things out.

9. Take a break from information consumption: Internet, blogs, (Yep, I said that), Facebook, email, phone calls, television, books, magazines, so on.

The sheer amount of information we take in makes us feel like we are somehow responsible for doing something about it all, in one way or another. Give yourself time to process all that information that you already have floating around in there before you add more.

10. Do one thing at a time.

Set a timer. Don’t multi-task. Force yourself to focus on one item, however small, and focus on it fully.

But overall, regardless of children’s age or marital status, women reported both more guilt and distress over work intrusions into the home. - USAToday

Women in both the adolescent age group and the 25-33 age group reported a higher level of expected guilt than the men. - NY Daily News

There have been studies that show that “problems in interpersonal relationships tend to evoke guilt (interpersonal guilt) and moral dilemmas more often in women.” This is labeled as “interpersonal sensitivity.” -  FYI Living

We know without analyzing further that guilt is counter-productive, a waste of time, an unnecessary burden.

If we really did know that guilt helps no one, wouldn’t we quit allowing it to influence us?

guilt and conviction are not the same thing.

May I pose a suggestion, peoplings of the women variety?

Try it.