Category Archives: Goals and Dreams

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life

Flashback to November Reflection

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GOODBYE MOUNTAINS, HELLO FRIENDS

I came to the mountains in the first place to be alone. Well, sort of. I like my space. I love being alone during the day to putzy about the house and arrange things and indulge in creativity. I am inherently that quintessential stay at home wife or mother who is nourished by planning great things for her family, anchoring and stabilizing her brood and her man by her presence in the home, and the good things that come from her kitchen, her sewing machine, her garden, her pen and her heart.

Two things conspired against me. 1) All the neighbors also came to the mountains to be alone. There was a huge dearth of friends and an abundance of isolation. 2) One cannot live on mountains alone. One must commute to the city and work full time in order to pay the mortgage on the cabin and provide the components and ingredients for those abundantly nourishing meals.

So commenced the commuting and the stress: One foot in the mountains, one foot in the metro; with the shoe always on the wrong foot. What I really want is to live in the mountains and be alone during the day, write my thousand pages, feather my comfy home and hearth, attend to my music and spiritual nourishment; and then-when the lights go down or the vacations come—escape to beaches and exotic places, symphonies and shows, with family and friends in tow to enjoy all that cities and countries and culture has to offer.

How is it that things always turn out backwards? Now I am living in the high desert, still working full time, but with a short three mile commute; two life long friends and several family members close at hand; numerous opportunities to cultivate new friendships. Still I crave: Alone time during the day-Social time in the evening and on days off. I can still go to the mountains or beaches for vacations-and I do! I have just returned from 48 hours in Gunnison; walking and hiking at 7,000 feet; writing in a luxurious motel room complete with hot tub; but, where was the social life at the end of the day? The kids were off doing college activities.

Townsend and Cloud, in their most enlightening and healing book, Safe People (Zondervan, 1995), note that isolated people, socially anorexic people may have fantasies of vacation and doing something fun ALL BY THEMSELVES. Guess I am not there yet. I love to share fun and vacation with the right people! Now where are they?

Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being, The Rules

Rule Number 1:

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Never, ever, make someone feel bad. Its not nice to make someone feel bad. Nice people never make someone feel bad. So if you are a child, be very careful that you never disobey your parents. If you disobey, even once, it will make your parents feel bad. Your mother will say, “Don’t you love mommy? It makes mommy feel bad when you do not obey.” If you do not obey your father he will say, “What have I done wrong that I have raised a child that does not obey.” He will feel bad. You don’t want to make anyone feel bad.

 

If you are a student at school or a worker in an office, never succeed above your peers. It makes them feel stupid if you get a better grade on a test or if you can naturally do a skill they have not yet mastered. Do not make them feel bad by being better than they are. Everyone knows it is not nice to act better than someone else. Hide your skills. You do not want others to feel bad.

 

If you are an adult in charge of others, don’t correct your underlings when they make an error, encourage them instead. If you correct them, they may feel bad and think you are not a nice person.

 

If you are a spouse, take care that you never make your mate feel bad. Instead, choose words that encourage. If you disagree, never infer that your spouse’s position is wrong. You must put things in the best light, beat around the bush, change your position if you find yourself coming dangerously close to the heart of the matter. Never ask them to do something they don’t want to do. You must not make them feel bad.

 

If you are writing or speaking to any of the general public, be sure you choose a vocabulary that is positive and uplifting whether it gets the point across or not. Otherwise someone will say, “That’s too preachy,” and you will be devastated that you almost went to press with something that would make someone feel bad. You must never, ever, make someone feel bad. Nice people just don’t do that.

 

Congratulations! You have made yourself responsible for the feelings and happiness of everyone else. You are now codependent.

Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, The Petty Pace, Uncategorized

Indispensable

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Originally uploaded by ein feisty Berg

The trouble with “making it happen” for someone you love (particularly if you are doing it for them to draw their attention or love to yourself) is that they fall in love with the thing you made possible in their life-and they ride off into the sunset with IT.

When one makes it happen for another, a thank you is all that is required. It is not a guarantee of lifetime allegiance and service out of gratitude.

With growing kids, this is a natural and right practice. We provide them with education, upbringing, tools for careers and relationship and they ride off into the sunset toward lifetime success.

With others, peers, adults, employers, corporations; making someone’s life or vision or business happen for them (often through heroic measures) is disastrous.

This has happened to me at least twice in major arrangements and numerous times in small, day to day working relationships.
Am I hard-hearted to say, “Never again”?

Character, Family, Goals and Dreams, Uncategorized

Responsibility

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phil-senior-1RESPONSIBILITY OR, He that is faithful in small things will be faithful in much
My children are growing up. Yes, my youngest is a senior and will graduate next May. I love watching children grow. I love the rites of passage; the times when a mother can distinctly see the fine character developing in a child as that one moves first into taking responsibility for him (or her) self and later begins to take leadership or servant responsibility for others.

Last Thursday I forgot to replenish my gum pack in my purse. I realized this about a mile from the school. Too late to turn back home and too late to make a quick stop at a convenience store, I was about to drop Philip off for his early morning college class when I bemoaned the oversight audibly. “Oh, I think I have one,” replied Philip, fully aware of my plight and how I hate the thought of breathing dragon breath at my students. “Just one left,” He commented, fishing the stick out of the package and laying it on the dashboard. I thanked him heartily and then, as he was about to throw the empty package into the trash, “Wait a minute, here’s one more. This one’s for me!” he said, smiling and popping it into his pocket.

Friday night I worked BINGO for Sweet Adelines. It was busy; a full house and a late session. At quarter to midnight I started to check in with Philip, but thought better of it as he might be sleeping. Five minutes later my cell phone rang. “Hi Mom, it’s a bit later than usual, where are you?”

I like to see that my kids are concerned for others. I do not want to be smothered any more than they do. I do not want them to have to build their lives around taking care of me or mutual enabling. But Kindness, Concern, Empathy, healthy Responsibility toward others; those are great character traits. The boy of whom his sister in law once said, “You’re way too nice to be a teenager,” is turning out to be a fine young man.

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being, Uncategorized

The Hundred Acre Park

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There is a hundred acre park near the place I live, where I love to walk. It is hallowed ground. I know it is hallowed because God speaks to me there; plays on my heartstrings with his presence, renews my mind with grand views of magnificent desert canyons; fires my brain to remember lessons long forgot; knowledge embedded in my DNA; senses long dormant. There my logic becomes untangled; hunches long denied are acknowledged, and I become ME again, the ME I am created to be.

I become balanced, centered again in the me that would rather be well than right. The me that has learned to live one day at a time in courage and trust, rather than the me that runs around unsuccessfully trying to control others in order to order my future.

I have walked many places. God is not absent from any of them. A walk is always restorative. But this, this is a place I keenly sense his presence. I like to think of the early valley farmers and ranchers – over 100 years ago, who first settled this land and farmed and later deeded, gave, or sold the land to the city.

What must they have done to this land to make it undulate so with vibes of the sacred? I picture them standing in a field, faces uplifted toward the sun, crying out, “God, thank you for this land! We hallow and dedicate this field-forever as a blessing to others-that they might feel you presence here and seek your wisdom and health through enjoyment of this great outdoors!Author, pic by Kvon

Emotional Health, Family, Goals and Dreams, Home and Hearth, Uncategorized

The Best For My Loved Ones

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My youngest and MeWhat one wants, more than anything else in the world, is to protect one’s loved ones-particularly one’s children; to see that no harm comes to them, that no evil comes near them. One longs and agonizes to keep them from physical injury; to manage the equilibrium of their emotions so they never fell hurt or pain from failed relationships or angry people.

I want to give my children the experience of all the good I have encountered in life AND give them good things instead of the disappointments. Just what could be the danger in that? Consider this: Beyond becoming a hover mother, I can easily degenerate into a control freak; managing and manipulating all the events and circumstances that touch my loved ones.

How much better would it be to provide the tools, information, and encouragement and be available as a reference rather than a manager?

May I handle the joys and disappointments in my life with such truth and aplomb that those nearest me may be EN couraged – Given courage-to face their triumphs and trials with wisdom and strength!

P. S. The picture? that’s my youngest – PS – and Me

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Uncategorized

Flat Fourteeners

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Hike Flat Fourteeners – I love it! I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills, I love the landscape, I love to walk. But….UP? Now that’s not a good thing for me. There was a time I thought I would never have the stamina to make it to the top of a Colorado fourteener even though I camped at the base of many; and later, a time when I successfully climbed Gray’s Peak (14,270). Still later I ascended Mount Bierstadt (14,060) and lived to write about it for a Mountain Writer’s publication – even though I could hardly walk and it hurt to stoop or lift for months afterward. Now I have embarked on Colorado Flat Fourteeners; a program in which I don a pedometer and walk the total number of paces it would take to hike all the Colorado peaks over 14,000 feet. The rest of the Sweet Adelines and I are doing this together. What fun! When I have finished all 53 I get a T-shirt! This week we did Pike’s Peak together (14,110 – now flat) – and I did an additional smaller peak. By the end of next summer I should have all of them in the bag.

Addiction, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Religion, Uncategorized

Carried Shame and the Author

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The author, 2008

Originally uploaded by ein feisty Berg

During the course of the writing of my just completed novel I read a number of books about codependence and addiction; not only the usual alcoholism or chemical dependency treatises; but also writings about clean addictions such as caretaking, affirmation addiction, or the currently popular: workaholism

One reoccurring concept, pinpointed as a factor in addiction, which I at first had a hard time wrapping my mind around, was the idea of carried shame. The concept reoccurs often enough that it is safe to say it is a contributing factor in the development of codependence or addiction in an individual. That is; carried shame causes addiction. Carried shame causes the workaholism of the caretaking codependent.

As near as I understand it, carried shame is when one person does or says something abusive or shameful to another. The victim, or the recipient, sees that the perpetrator should be ashamed and is ashamed or embarrassed for them. Or perhaps the recipient is ashamed for being the one that triggered the shameful thing, revealing the flaw in the perpetrator. The victim / recipient is painfully embarrassed or ashamed for the person perpetrating the incident and carries that shame forward in life; trying to assuage the pain (cope) through a variety of ways; perhaps self-medicating with alcohol, or perhaps merely striving to be perfect.

The carrying forward of Carried Shame is most clearly seen in individuals who have suffered violent physical / sexual abuse and self medicate via chemical abuse; but carried shame can also turn up in the most unusual places.

WWJD? Is a fine thing to ask oneself. Yet, too often I have heard it used by bullies in position of authority. It goes something like this: What would Jesus do? Well I’ll tell you exactly what He would have you do. Listen up. I’ve got it all figured out. Just do exactly what I tell you to do; exactly the way I tell you to do it and you will be doing exactly what Jesus wants you to do. Slip up, do any less than precisely what I tell you and….you know where you are going.

This, this abuses the follower or the sinner shamelessly in order to manipulate them, to control them, to meet the standard of the bully, the church, the family or the organization. And this, I believe, causes pain and fear and carried shame.

co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Uncategorized

Anger

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When does anger go away? When one’s needs are met.

Trouble is; one often spends one’s life expecting someone else to meet one’s need. In actual fact; I am the only one who can meet my needs. So it follows that my anger goes away when I learn to meet my own needs; take responsibility for my own happiness; take care of myself well rather than second guessing the needs of others and then waiting for someone else to notice and meet my needs, reinforce or reassure. I speak of adults, of course. Children have age appropriate needs. I am no longer a child. I am an adult. How about you?

Goals and Dreams, Music and Theatre, Uncategorized

Exponential Music

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When I removed, temporarily, to the high desert last January; I was not quite clear of the duration of my stay here, but it was clear to me that I wanted to spend plenty of time writing, enjoying my grandkids, and doing as much music as possible. I took a job working as a server across the street in order to stave off starvation and feed my car, but, it was not a job as a singing waiter, so I endeavored to connect myself with extracurricular music. I joined the Symphony Guild and went to a couple of concerts; sang with the local Messiah Choral Society, and visited and joined Sweet Adelines; thus committing to long rehearsals and learning a ton of new music. Then miraculously, I was offered a full time job teaching Core Knowledge music. Umm. Do you think I have enough music in my life?

I go to sleep with my brain swimming in baritone harmony to a number of barbershop / swing tunes. I spend my days convincing eighth graders there is no business like show business; and fourth graders that my grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf. Third graders are sure now, that nobody is home, but that they will soon be able to keep on track and sing a tune while Ms. Teacher sings a round. All in due time. Seventh graders are amazed to learn that Ms. Teacher knows a tune – and the words- to the poem about a capital ship named Walloping Window Blind; which they learned last spring in sixth grade. Second grade has already begun the move west by workin’ on the railroad. First grade is primed for this year’s world series by step, clap, clapping, in ¾ time while they beg, “take me out to the ballgame.” Fifth grade exhibits fine reading skills by mastering ALL the vocabulary to FIVE verses of Battle Hymn of the Republic and sixth grade, well, sixth graders have learned to communicate precisely how they feel about the early start of a new school year by singing Hallelujah or humming me a funeral march. School has been in session four days. Do you think I am getting enough music in my life? Do you think we will be a singing school? You bet!