Manifesting an Attitude of Gratitude

I don’t remember who first introduced me to the gratitude journal.  The concept is simple: record three things for which you are grateful each day.  I’ve started and stopped dozens of gratitude journals over the past twenty years.  Though the habit of writing the gratitude journal may not have stuck with me, the general idea has.

Today was the third day of a long weekend.  My college-age daughter had been home since Thursday, and my high-school age son had no school Monday. In addition, my son had a friend over for the long weekend.  Xbox on the big screen in the living room, late nights of teenagers laughing and eating (and eating and eating, as teenage boys do).  Each morning was a treasure hunt of glasses, plates, and wrappers to figure out what we had run out of, and needed to restock from the grocery store.

Socks on the floor, soda bottles and glasses on the coffee table, and for some reason, a grenade of lollipop sticks and wrappers had exploded throughout the living room.  A recipe for Mom’s crankiness.

I think I drew blood from biting my tongue. It was time to drive my daughter back to college, with a laundry basket full of freshly-washed clothes.  Returning from that 2-hour round trip drive, it was time to take the friend home.  The son remains, prepping for one more teacher-workshop-day-off before beginning finals week and returning to his Dad’s house by going into his own room to play video games.

Quiet.  No chaos.  No “get your feet OFF of me!”  No video game frustration. No “where’s my cell phone” tearing apart the couch.

Peaceful.  Messy, but peaceful.

And it struck me then.  I have a beautiful, intelligent, funny daughter who chooses to come home from college frequently because she still enjoys being at home.  I have a clever, handsome, determined son who is willing to share his interests with me, and is still comfortable having a friend come for several days into our home and family. That my kids bug me because they want me to be involved in their lives.  That my kids have been and are continuing to make very different choices than I made when I was a teenager.  They don’t party.  They don’t break curfew.  They know what their goals are, and they work hard to make them happen. They are willing to share who they are with me.

I am reminded to be grateful.

Stop “Should-ing” on me!

Learning to balance the demands of one’s own daily life is sometimes difficult. Setting priorities, making decisions, and completing tasks can be a daily challenge.  When the deep depression of BiPolar strikes, it is a monumental effort to complete the simplest chore.  When the high of mania or hypomania hits, it is nearly impossible to focus on one task long enough to complete it.  So the best measure of getting through the day is simply doing what one is able to do.

Well-meaning friends, or overly-critical controlling participants in one’s life can truly complicate the ‘getting-through-the day” process.

With the best of intentions, the well-meaning suggest activities, which one does not have the energy for.  They recommend processes that are overwhelming.  They attempt to bring one to recognize or make insights into patterns that are beyond the scope of vision one has at the time.

The less-well-meaning participants in one’s life do the same types of things, but with the intention of controlling, demeaning, isolating, or belittling. They recommend doing more, doing better, and doing things their way.  They may say they intend to help, and at times they may be believable.  But in the long rung, their suggestions are made in order to benefit themselves.

In both scenarios, whether coming from from a well-meaning friend, or an overly-controlling partner, the damning word is “should”.

“You should do….”  “You should try….”  You should do it this way…”  “You should improve…”  “You should do more…”

And the harder ‘should’ trap is the one we set for ourselves.  When we began to “should” on ourselves, most of the time we are actually devaluing what we have done or how we have done it.  “I should do more”, “I should have done it better”, “I should have done that (other task)”. We forget to acknowledge what we have accomplished in the light of what we have not.

But the secret to killing those “shoulds” is this:  remembering who we are, celebrating what we have accomplished, and giving ourselves praise and permission to do things the way we choose to do them.

So, I vow to tell all;  the well-meaning, the controlling, and myself; “Stop should-ing on me!’

“God willing, and the creek don’t rise.”

There’s an old phrase that hes been rattling around in my brain for a few days.  I’ve heard it a dozen times or so, mostly from an older generation.  It’s a response one might get to a request for help, an invitation to be somewhere, or a query about someone’s ability to do something.  “God wiling, and the creek don’t rise” is a way of saying, “I’ll do what I can” or “I’ll do what is in my power to do.”

What I love most about this phrase is how it reminds us that we aren’t always capable of doing what we would like to be able to do.  Whatever one’s stand on religion, it is a catchphrase that acknowledges that we are not all-powerful.  The unknown, the unexpected, even Nature can interrupt our best intentions.

I know that I can get caught up in things I think I should do, or want to do, or even think I need to do.  But, simply enough, sometimes the unexpected gets in the way.  A flat tire, construction on the highway, illness, or even schedule conflicts can derail the best of plans.  When that happened, I used to get angry, frustrated and upset. It was about control.  It was about my agenda being disrupted.

But when I step back and remind myself “God willing and the creek don’t rise”, well, it helps me to see the circumstances that are thwarting me in a larger perspective.  If the creek rises and you can’t get out of the driveway, there’s nothing you can do to change it, until the creek feels like receding. If it feels like the universe if conspiring to prevent you from accomplishing a certain task, well, sometimes the universe is right.  Patience, resilience, and ingenuity are better mental states than rigidity, frustration, and stubborn determination.

Alone, not lonely

Through fifteen years of split parenting and shared residence of the kids, I learned to be alone three days of the week.  The first years were the hardest.  I had to learn to give myself permission to feel more than sadness when they were with their father.  I had to learn that I could enjoy my time while they were gone without feeling guilty.  It was not easy.  When a divorce ended my romantic relationship, and a breakdown ended my ability to work, the prospect of three days completely alone was daunting.

I struggled with loneliness.  I threw myself into four part-time jobs to keep from having to be home alone, and to face the silence in the house.  I leaped into another doomed relationship, sold a house, bought a house, and got to the point of having a second breakdown with a suicide attempt.  It was an ugly time.

With time and help, I finally understood that I was making irrational decisions in my desperation not to be alone with myself.  I was afraid of the racing thoughts, the painful recollections of unhealthy actions in my past, and the utter stillness and silence that I found so suffocating.

I now cherish my time alone.  I can listen to the silence without racing to fill it with TV, or even radio.  I have tried hard to forgive myself for mistakes I have made, and to become a friend to myself.  I actually now get cranky if I don’t get some alone time each day.  Facing myself in the mirror, acknowledging what went wrong in the past, and forgiving myself for certain decisions seemed to be the key for me.

I can enjoy being alone without being lonely.

The ‘Structure’ Trap

All of the therapists, psychologist, psychiatrists that I have worked with since my bipolar diagnosis in 2004 have encouraged me to build a daily routine.  And it’s helpful.  It gives me a sense of stability and predictability, as well as a sense of accomplishment in completing tasks each day.

There is no way you could mistake my house as one of a person with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  The shelves need to be dusted, and with a big hairy dog, a cat, bird, two teenagers, and a woodstove, daily maintenance of sweeping the floor, changing the litterbox and vacuuming the hair off the couch is just about enough to keep it looking decent.  But I sure wouldn’t want to eat off my floor!

The benefit of a structured daily routine, keeping the house neat and organized, helps me monitor and decrease the chaos in my brain.  The racing thoughts, ruminations on past traumas, and harm-avoidance worrying about the future can be significantly more manageable if I keep the environment at home peaceful.  But at different times each year, like mid-winter and early spring, I find myself caught in an increasing spiral of completing my daily routine with just a little bit more rigidity, just a little more exacting standard of completion, just a little more emphasis toward perfection.

It could be “spring fever” from being cooped up due to the winter weather.  It could be the onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder, which challenges me each season.  Whatever the cause, when I recognize the cycle I need to get off of the rollercoaster.  I need to take a day to find different activities, whether cleaning out the garage, moving around the living room furniture, or planning a room renovation.  Creating structure for myself is beneficial.  But when the structure takes on a demanding life of its own, then it is a trap whose power must be diminished so that it returns to being a helpful part of my day.  Structure should not produce anxiety and irritation.

Rolling the boulder uphill

Life sometimes is unmanageable, no matter how simple it may seem to others.  A daughter in college, struggling through first semester with an anxiety disorder as well as developing mononucleosis, doubles the strain on her as well as challenging Mom to keep her healthy, motivated and keeping her scholarships active.  A son in high school, also diagnosed bipolar, whose half-time father tells him to ‘man up’ and outgrow his need for meds so that he can go into the military and not waste money by failing out of college.  A relationship between a man and woman, challenged by a combined total of five divorces and a mutual unwillingness to put the teens through the stress of yet another step-parent. The death of a parent with Alzheimers, and the mutual assurances that it is for the best, yet painful.  The economic challenges of surviving on disability income without making the family feel deprivation and uncertainty.

And yet, somehow, it works.  There is compassion, and mutual understanding, and joy.  There is laughter and love, challenges and successes.  But the existence, the day-to-day struggle, the never-ending appointments with therapists and psychiatrists, the unending medication refills; no matter how well this day has been accomplished, the ongoing burden of bipolar will be there in the morning.  And sometimes, it feels like the battle will never end.