The Cat versus the Monkey

On a recent vacation with my son to Costa Rica, he formed a close relationship with the ho tel owner’s cat.  While we were staying there the two were inseparable, the cat even sleeping in my son’s bed.

At the same time, the whole reason we were visiting Costa Rica was my son wanted to see monkeys.  We were really excited when we discovered the hotel grounds were full of them, especially the mischievous white face monkeys (the ones known to steal cameras and food out of backpacks). 

Near the end of our trip we talked to the hotel staff about the close relationship my son and their cat had formed.  My son was devastated to find out one reason the cat had attached himself to him was that the monkeys had been trying to eat the cat.  Evidently after several attempts at being carried away, the cat had learned to hide out in the guest rooms.

This new information caused my son a great internal dilemma.  He loved watching the monkeys play but now knowing they were a threat to his new cat friend, he was struggling with his feelings about them.  It reminds me of a lot of some of my clients around the holidays.  They love their family, but some of the things they do or have done drive them crazy.  The struggle between loving someone and not loving what they do can even be conflicting.  This conflict can be created even within ourselves.  How do we love and accept ourselves after we’ve made a mistake or done something that we don’t approve of?

In discussing this situation with my son, we talked about the circle of life, how the monkeys were not malicious but responding the way only they knew how.  I think most people are the same.  They’re not malicious, they don’t mean to be harmful, they’re just responding the only way they know how.  Hungry animals need to eat.  Hurting people do hurtful things.  By building compassion and depersonalizing their behavior, we can maintain our bonds and connections even with those we don’t agree with or have very different belief systems.  Even more importantly, we can love ourselves even when we don’t like ourselves.

In the end, my son and I were able to enjoy the monkeys and at the same time love on the little cat.  (Needless to say the little cat spent a lot of time in our room).  It greatly helped that the monkeys we saw were only eating mangos.  So.…don’t feel like you have to choose between a monkey or a cat.  You can love them both.

Cliffs Notes of Our Life

Anyone else remember Cliffs Notes from high school or college?  Or study guides where all information you really needed to know was condensed into one place.  That way, you really didn’t have to read the whole book or study everything in a particular subject – all you really had to do was to know the condensed version.

I recently had a conversation with my son because he was disappointed in a test score.  His frustration was that there was information on the test that wasn’t on the study guide.   It wasn’t fair he kept saying, because he didn't know all the questions in advance.  We talked about how study guides and Cliffs Notes were great tools but that they didn’t cover everything.  There were no guarantees that the test wouldn’t include material not in the notes.   My poor son who values predictability (and good grades) was not happy with our discussion since I really didn’t give him the sympathy he was hoping for. 

This discussion got me to thinking – life is kind of like that.  We usually have a blueprint for our lives, some idea or maybe some goals in mind, maybe even a strategy to reach them.  Then, something comes up that wasn’t part of the plan.  It’s not that life isn’t fair – it’s just that we just have an abbreviated version of what we think is to be.  We don’t know every factor, every potential outcome, every turn our journey might take.  If we embrace that we don’t have all the information – all we have is the Cliffs Notes - it helps when we make a mistake or have to change paths.  We can acknowledge that our mistakes are not always personal shortcomings but a lack of information.  

I know for me, I’ve had a number of times in my life when I thought I had all the info I needed only later to find out I had made a wrong choice, chosen the wrong direction, invested in the wrong person,  etc.  I think by remembering I made the best choice I could at the time with the info I was provided, has given me the confidence to keeping moving forward.   So remember – we’re just working with the Cliff Notes, the study guide, not the whole picture.  We don’t have all the information so we have to give ourselves some grace when we make a mistake….including my son for not studying as well as he could have J.

You Can Be Happy Regardless Of Who Is Elected

Oh the drama of election season.  I’ve had several friends this week mention how one of the candidates is either going to make their life terrible or great.  People are un-friending friends on social media due to political comments or jokes made.   There was a report of a business that refused service to someone with a t-shirt on for an opposing political party.  People are arguing and loosing sleep over the debates.  There are even those threatening to leave the US if the elections don’t go their way (though famous people have made those threats before and to my knowledge never followed through).

There is one thing I want to say about all this – and it’s not support for a specific candidate.    It’s this – there is NO person who is going to make your life great.  There is NO person that is going to make your life horrible.  (I have to remind myself of this every now and then).  Yes, political leaders have great power and can affect things we really care about.  But haven’t you lived through a term of a politician you didn’t like?  Did you survive? If you’re reading this I’m guessing so.  Did life as you know it stop?  No, it didn’t.  You still were able to enjoy time with friends and loved ones.  You created priceless memories.  You might have even reached important goals or achievements. 

My point is that only you are in charge of your happiness. Isn't that better? Does that mean you just ignore the elections?  No.  I think just the opposite.  You can’t control the outcome but you can control how you contribute to it.  Vote, give money to a candidate,  join groups that support the causes you care about.  I've even been known to participate in marches and protests.  Do whatever you feel you need to do but know that the outcome doesn’t determine your future happiness and our social relationships and connections are more important than our political ones.  If your candidate doesn’t win, life will go on.  You can be happy….you might just have to try a bit harder :-)   

Life Lesson from a Purple Scarf

I’m one of those people that make year’s resolutions every year.  This year I’ve been hard at work de-cluttering.  (I’m even working on a new book on how our environment – home/work space - effects our emotions).  One of the first projects was my closet.  I’m not a big shopper but I do love accessories.  I’m kind of like a crow – attracted to shiny things.  At one point I got frustrated with the number of scarves I had.  They’re a pain to either hang or fold, especially when you have way too many. 

About a week after my big closet clean out, my son and I did our monthly Mobile Loaves &Fishes volunteer activity.  (Mobile Loaves & Fishes has a truck they send out with food and donated clothes for the homeless).  It was an unusually cold night and by coincidence one of the things on the truck to distribute where scarves.  Evidently I wasn’t the only one who cleaned out closets and donated scarves. 

One of our stops was in a parking lot where some of the homeless panhandle.  One of the ladies there was so excited about the scarves.  She was running her hand through the soft fuzzy fabrics and admiring the pastel colors.  You’d think with the cold weather she’d be more concerned with gloves or heavy sweaters but she was totally focused on the scarves.  She reported people often mistake her for a man (short hair, baggy clothes).  With a big smile on her face she chose a purple fluffy scarf and said now everyone would know she was a girl.   See, the very same things that were a nuisance to me meant the world to her.  

I learned a couple of life lessons that night.  One, no matter what our circumstances, our self-identity is important.  We all want to physically express who we are.  For this young lady, creativity and self-identity was as important as her physical needs.   Two, the whole time I was cleaning out my closet, I could have had a spirit of appreciation and gratitude instead of annoyance.  I was frustrated at the chore of having so many things that I didn’t have enough space for them all.  Each of those scarves had served a purpose, kept me warm or dressed up an outfit.  It doesn’t mean I should have kept them, it just means my attitude about discarding them could have been better. 

So for this New Year, I wish you all a spirit of thankfulness and appreciation for the things you have as I continue to work on my attitude of gratitude.  Also, never underestimate the value of a good scarf!

The Lottery Curse or Curse of The Lottery?

As you may have heard, there is a huge Powerball lottery drawing (over a billion dollars) pending for Wednesday night.  (For fun I just bought two tickets, one for myself and one to put in a friend's birthday card).  There has been so much discussion about what people would do with that much money if they won.  Answers ranged from cursing out their boss and quitting their job to traveling the world (hopefully their boss wasn’t watching the interview).  The sad reality is that most lottery winners journeys don’t end that well.

I saw a TV special one-time about lottery winners and how their lives were changed.  Very few were positive.  Most had very sad stories of a life out of control, drug abuse, family estrangement and even suicide.  I have a theory about this.  Most of us at one time or another have thought “If only ____, then I’d be happy”.   I know I’ve fell into that trap.  Usually whatever obstacle the blank represents (paying off debt, getting a house, owning a car, not having to go to a job we don’t like, etc.)  can be fixed with a huge sum of money.  Once that blank is removed, we should be happy.  What happens when we’re not?  

I think that’s the dilemma of a lottery winner.   What do we do when we banked on this one thing making us happy and it doesn’t?  (Or worse, we buy into the idea this is the only thing that will make us happy, and it doesn’t happen).   I think we all need to remind ourselves that happiness can’t come from outside ourselves.  I know it sounds cliché to say “money doesn’t buy happiness” but the lottery is a great example of why this is true.   Mike Rowe (from the TV show Dirty Jobs) does a great Ted talk about how he discovered some of the happiest people he met were ones doing horrible jobs (we’re talking septic workers and jobs most of us would avoid).   He discovered it was the person’s attitude and outlook that made them content.  Their ability to find joy and meaning (even in dire circumstances) was a better indicator of happiness than their income or job status. 

So, if I win Wednesday I’ll have a great time spending it – probably lots of travel and birdwatching.   AustinPetsAlive – where my pups came from - would receive a big bonus.  But if I lose, that’s OK too – because I understand my happiness is not dependent on some outside circumstance I can’t control. Odds of winning are one in 280 million- not odds I want to bet my happiness on!  Good luck to all you lottery players but remember, your happiness is not dependent on the little colorful balls falling into place Wednesday night.  

 

I'm Back!

Happy New Year!  Rarely have I ever wanted a new year more than this year.  I want to apologize for my lack of writing.  I just looked at my blog and realized the last time I wrote was shortly before my health deteriorated.  As most of you know I have had to take some time off to recover from a very unexpected health challenge.  Since this whole purpose of this blog is to share my own struggles, I probably should (I hate the word should) have written during my struggle but instead focused my energy on my family, my clients, and my own recovery.  Writing just had a take a back seat.  BUT…..I’m back!

I’m not a huge terminator fan but I think we can all relate to his character is the movie.  He gets shot, blown up, ran over, amputated limbs, etc. and every time he comes back to life with the famous line “I’m back”.  While thankfully my health issues weren’t anything that extreme, when I started feeling more like myself I did think “okay, I’m back”.   I know a lot of you can relate, whether it’s a health issue like depression or anxiety or a situation that is overwhelming.  There comes a time at some point, sometimes dramatically sometimes subtly, when we realize we’ve overcome it. 

For me, boredom was catalyst to me realizing I was feeling more like myself.  When I was sick, I was never bored.  I could do very little work, sit around watching TV or reading (even napping – I’m not a napper) and never think of it as boring.  For me the transition back to myself was pretty dramatic (and recent).  All of the sudden I realized I was doing massive cleaning projects, changing the furniture around, cooking like I was feeding an army, etc.  At one point I had baked so much that things were going spoiled before we could eat it all….AND I was feeling bored.  That’s when I realized…..I’m back! 

Now, I know some of you are in the bad spot and are worried that you’re never going to feel like yourself again.  I want to encourage you.  Feelings are temporary, circumstances are temporary.  If you know you go through these cycles, remind yourself of the times you’ve come out on the other side.  If this is new to you, get help and get support.  I certainly did.  I often say it’s OK to go through bad times, just don’t park there.  Keep going. 

Lastly, a huge thank you to all of you for your support and encouragement.  I can’t tell you how much it meant to me.  In this new year, let’s all take advantage of having a new beginning.  A new start.   A new way of doing things.  Wishing you a Happy New Year!

More Than Enough

As you probably already know I have two small dogs that rule my world.  One thing I’ve noticed (since this is the first time I’ve had 2 dogs at the same time) is that they’re terribly jealous and competitive.  It seems whatever one has; the other decides they need (even if they’d had access to it before and never wanted it).  Despite the fact that I consistently give them the same treats, attention, etc. they continue to act as if they’re at risk of being “cheated”, constantly monitoring me to ensure things are being distributed equitably. 

What I wish the pups understood is that when I love on one of them, it doesn’t mean I love the other one any less or that because I gave one attention that means I have less to give to the other.   I call this behavior the “attitude of scarcity” – the feeling that whatever it is, there might not be enough of it.  I remember growing up when there were hurricanes; you could witness this in “panic shopping”.  You’d see people buying up groceries with the fear we might not have access to the grocery store but it wasn’t always rational.  People would buy up enough food for a month where the reality was we’d never need to have that much food stored up.  While storing up canned peaches or tuna with the fear of not having enough might be harmless, having this same "attitude of scarcity" about things like joy, love, patience, forgiveness, etc. can have very negative consequences.   We can find ourselves limiting what we’re willing to give with the fear being we have a limited supply or we get jealous when we see someone else receiving these things with the false belief that because they got it, it limits our ability to receive it also.   

I have had people tell me things like “things have been going great so something terrible must be around the corner”.  This implies that the universe has a quota on happiness so that if something good happens that has reduced your quota.  Or I’ve heard, "I’ve met someone who seems great but nothing lasts so I’m sure we’ll break up".  It’s like all the beautiful things in life like love and joy are measured in a cup and anytime we feel it, we lose a little bit out of the cup.  With that thought comes the belief that eventually the cup will be empty.  I challenge that the cup is never ending.  It’s not running out, it’s running over.  We can’t use it up fast enough.  You can’t love too much, laugh too hard, or have too much joy.

So, today smile and give someone a compliment.  Tell the people you love that you love them.  Forgive anyone that has caused you pain.  Not because it will benefit them, but because your cup is overflowing.  Now I’ve got some puppy bellies to rub simultaneously because my two pups don’t understand that I’ll always have more than enough love for both of them.