I have spent this entire past week moving out of the house the boys and I have lived in all of their lives. I can’t decide if it has been a freeing or depressing or a large dosage of both. Book by book, box by box, sock by sock, and memory by memory, I moved through our beloved old house (built in 1885). I have found myself lingering over the phases, recalling things I didn’t know were buried within me. Some memories are funny, some are sad, very sad. All of them together form the backdrop of who we are as a family and a spring-broad of who will each will be in the future, both alone and together. Cries of infancy, giggles of toddlerhood, and the preteen tussles over homework and later yelling matches from different rooms about who has the remote and who let the dog out without checking to see if the gates were closed and questions like “am I the only one who knows how to pack the dishwasher?” echo off the walls. Today I unloaded the dryer for the last of thousands of times and found myself a little tearful, not so much that we are moving house, but because all change demands loss, not matter how wonderful the gains.

Are you walking on eggshells at home, at work, or with a particular friend?

It’s very draining to have to watch your every move lest you offend and have to examine what you want to say in the event your words get thrown back at you for analysis.

Living on edge, or “walking on eggshells,” is probably not good for you.

So, what do you do?

Examine the eggshells. Where did they come from? Try to find the source. Is it you, something in your history, or is it other party? When did it begin? When did you start watching your every word and move with this person or in this situation?

If you are the source and you have noticed this before in some of your other relationships, then embrace the challenge to rid yourself of such behavior. Talk about it to a trusted friend. Find your backbone. Embark on your personal journey to eradicate the self-imposed eggshells in your life.

If the other party is the source, plan to address it. Be clear. Be sensitive. Be gentle, but be strong. Avoidance and denial add to the problem. Naming the issue, getting it out in the open, will bring you deserved relief.

I ask a woman how her life is going and she tells me about her children’s lives. She’s very forthcoming. I hear about their failures and successes and their disappointments and their accomplishments in sports.

So, I ask again how she is enjoying her life and she tells me about her children’s teachers and how dedicated they are and how they go the extra mile for her sons and how much she appreciates it and how happy her sons are at school.

I persist. I ask her if she has any close friends and how much time she spends with her peers and she tells me how her sons’ friendships are a little disappointing to her and that sometimes they get left off birthday party lists and how much it hurts her when that happens and how she wishes adults were more sensitive to her children.

I ask the same woman who happens to also be a wife how she is enjoying her husband and she tells me they “work together” as parents and they are almost always on the “same page.”

I press on. I ask the woman if she has a life outside of being a mom and she gives me that blank look as if I have no idea what I am talking about.

The Mercury

Friday Formula

Greet all people with a smile, even if you’re faking it. It’s not insincerity. It’s being polite. It’s refusing to infect others with your inner discontent. Get rid of your discontent in private, when you’re alone.

Be as clear as possible with plans and expectations so possible hurdles and misunderstandings are minimized. Most people like straightforwardness and honesty more than they like complex surprises that could have easily been avoided. Clarity now usually means fewer confusions later. Try it.

Talk less. Listen more. Ask questions that assist others to talk more. Promote other people’s dreams and desires. Move away from shifting every conversation to focus on you and your interests. Other people are very interesting, perhaps even more interesting than you may be.

Do simple things to lessen the load of others. Open doors, stand back, pick up after yourself, and say “please” and “thank you” a lot. Assume a servant attitude no matter how important you or others may think you are.

Work at being the most generous, forgiving, and kind person you’ve ever encountered and you’ll be amazed at how many generous, forgiving, and kind people you will repeatedly encounter.

Grief is a private journey. Don’t mess with it, not in yourself or in others.

You may be like Peter who needs to let it all out and talk things through with anyone who is available. He wants to talk about it, a lot. Peter wants to talk about it so much some of his friends and family try to silence him and avoid him. Talking seems to ward off his pain.

Or, you may be like Paul. He keeps it all in. He seems to needs the inner churning to help him get to grips with what he has lost or is losing. Only Paul knows he is constantly processing his loss because it is internal for Paul.

Mary denies her loss. She may need days, weeks, even years to accommodate the loss and change she has to face and so she has escalated her degree of activity. Observers may interpret her behaviors as denial but the treadmill she has created is helpful to Mary. Perhaps you are like Mary.

Whatever your response to your loss, the important thing is that it is yours and you are free to explore it in any manner you choose.

You’ll hear time and again that “time heals”, a cliché that holds limited truth.

Have a full, meaningful life before you conceive, adopt, or foster a child. Do this so the child is unlikely to become the center of your universe and therefore have to occupy a place in your life, and have power in your life, that no child is designed or equipped to hold.

It’s not too late to develop a life outside of your child. Children who are least important to their parents’ salvation (success, reputation, happiness) are more likely to enjoy healthy adult lives than those who are faced with the unreasonable task of making their parents happy or appear successful. (Ed Friedman, Generation to Generation – liberal paraphrase)

Allow natural, reasonable consequences to occur so that your child may appreciate the power of cause and effect, as imperfect as it sometimes is.

Get out of the way as much as possible so your child learns to show up, speak up, and self-advocate as early in life as possible. Be this way especially with the school.

Try to do fewer things for your child so that your child has to do more and more for him or herself. Self-sufficiency is among the holiest of gifts you can give your child and it is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

Photo by Archie Binamira on Pexels.com

They become more playful and have more humor about their lives and their circumstances. A degree of healthy self-deprecation enters their awareness and they resist taking themselves quite so seriously.

They have more pushback on matters and their degree of compliance lessens in every aspect of their lives. “Doormat no longer” is their motto and they address life’s issues as if they are finally in charge of themselves.

Their concern with being perceived as “nice” or “helpful” or “agreeable” diminishes in exchange for being regarded as strong and kind, deliberate and propelled by a mission. They have a reason to live and it’s not connected only to a spouse or to children or grandchildren.

They become more and more aware of how their compliance in the past has resulted in allowing people to treat them poorly, and, they put a stop to being so compliant and to accepting poor treatment from others. They are even willing to sever relationships where they are disrespected.

They begin to enjoy life more than they did before even if very little actual change has occurred. They have come to terms with the reality that inner-heath, forgiveness, and personal fulfillment are all inside jobs and personal and individual pursuits.

The Mercury / Friday

How is your heart? What, where is the Human Heart? What are you putting your heart in to? Are you loving life and others and yourself and God with all of your heart?

Clearly I am not referring to the physical beating organ in our chests, as powerful, necessary, and as crucial as each of ours is.

The heart, as I’m referring to it here is the seat of our emotions; the inner place where the mind or intellect, and the spirit, and the soul, meet.

It’s our bold essence, the cross section of mind and body and spirit and soul – this is the heart.

The core.

The center.

Where the Self begins.

And, it can be broken. And, it can be shattered. And, it can be healed.

Taking care of your heart is about a lot more than eating well and watching your cholesterol or engaging in regular exercise.

Our hearts can go from bruised or broken to bold and then onto being even more beautiful than they already are.

I know your heart is beautiful.

I have never met a person who did not have a beautiful heart, once you get to know someone.

Your heart may be broken, you may have been betrayed or even brutalised, but you will survive, you will rise up, you will love and be loved again.

Love your heart – it’s worth it.

May you have a bold and beautiful day………

How is your heart? What or where is the Human Heart? Clearly this is not about the physical beating organ in our chest, as powerful and as necessary and as crucial as each of ours is.

I think of it as the seat of emotion, the mind, the intellect, the spirit, the soul, the essence, the cross section of mind and body and spirit and soul – is the heart.

It’s the core or the essence of our individual beings. And, it can be broken. And, it can be shattered. And, it can be healed.

Taking care of your heart is about a lot more than eating well and watching your cholesterol.

Your heart (my heart) can go from bruised or broken to bold and onto being even more beautiful and bold than it already is.

Your heart is beautiful.

I have never met a person who did not have a beautiful heart, once you get to know him or her. Your heart may be broken, you may have been betrayed or even brutalised, but you will survive, you will rise up, you will love and be loved again.

Love your heart – it’s worth it.

Major trauma has hit. You are face the overwhelming challenge of rebuilding your life.

Here are some things to anticipate:

Head-knowledge tells you that you have to carry on living. You can’t consistently find the heart for it. The strength to live on comes and goes like radio stations, years ago, would come in and out on long car trips. The trauma has left you confused on the rare occasions you can think at all. You are cloud-living and your feelings seem anesthetized. Your capacity to plan anything, even simple things, is severely impeded.

People annoy you, even people you love. They annoy you because their presence feels like a tug into the future you’d prefer not to face. You cry a lot when you least expect it.

So what do you do? You rest as much as possible. You drink a lot of water. You go for long walks, alone, even if it is speed walking in the mall and especially if it’s the last thing you feel like doing. You rest, you breathe. You face life a minute or an hour or a day at a time. You give yourself permission to succeed and to fail, and you offer yourself the love you’d offer a treasured friend.

Hope comes in the morning….. Psalm 30:5