Families

 

I just witnessed the outpouring of love on my Fiance matt by his family this past weekend. I sat most of the time and just absorbed those small snipits of kindness that people probably don’t even think are important, but had an impact on me. It made me wonder about my own expression of kindness and care…

 

A family friend who is a lawyer, whispered into Matt’s ear to never hire a lawyer because he’s got it covered. I try and think if I would offer my services that way to friends if I were a lawyer. I don’t think so. I think I would be so worried about being taken advantage of that I would hold my knowledge close to my chest and not spread it around.

 

Matt’s mom Mary mentioned how she opened up her home years back to her daughter’s ski friends who were coming out of town to practice. Putting myself in Mary’s shoes I probably would have done it once and then said I had had enough!

 

Matt’s family planned a huge surprise party for him with a giant banner saying congratulations on it. There was a lot of effort and preparation put into the party and it was carried out perfectly. Would I have thrown someone important to me a similar party? It sounds like it would have been a lot of work… I probably would have shaved it down to a dinner, lol.

 

My parents taught me good morals and values; don’t lie, be a hard worker, help those who need it. But I am learning how to be a good person from the people in Matt’s life; how to be a good friend, how to show someone you love them, how to be generous without expecting anything in return. I see these qualities in his parents the most, and I see the qualities and am floored at how beautiful and special they are, and how special the people around them feel.

 

I am going to need more practice but I am going to work at showing his family the love and respect I have for them. It’s there, I just didn’t know how to show it before now!

Angry Man Voice

I am divorcing myself. Well, I am divorcing part of myself. I have realized there is part of myself that just isn’t healthy anymore, and it doesn’t make me feel good, so its over. 

I have been angry lately. Probably because I have been stressed, and stress makes me angry. It’s the kind of anger that is in my head and if I had to paint a picture of what was going on in there it would be some big angry guy yelling at me and banging my head against a wall. Its not very nice, this angry part of me. 

But I am divorcing that angry part of me because I don’t like how it’s effecting the people around me. This angry guy in me (interesting that i visualize a man… more psychoanalysis of that to come in the future) also makes me feel pretty much worthless. And while I feel worthless, I also start thinking I am not good enough to be in a relationship with my lovely Fiance. Does anyone else go there when they get stressed? By there I mean constantly questioning if your partner is going to leave you? Its not fun. And the result of feeling that way is that I try to convince my Fiance not to leave me by desperately doing nice things for him. Yuck. I mean, yuck that I am desperate, not that I do nice things. 

Anyhow, this last angry episode got me really feeling inadequate, and it took me to a place where I was almost resentful of my Fiance for having such a wonderful family. I resented this because my family could be considered by some as dysfunctional; the anger I still have towards my parents turns me into a zombie-like mute sometimes when I am at their house. I am too nice to get angry, but too angry to say anything nice, lol. 

Anyhow, another piece of all this is that I have been relying on my guy to reassure me more and more lately. So, when I feel angry I turn to him subconsciously to make me feel better. As lovely, and as kind, and as caring as he is, he fails. Only because anyone would fail to make another person happy, because it isn’t their job and they don’t know what the other person needs. So more anger has been mounting and I have been directing my problems at lovely Fiance. 

So, I am walking around like a time bomb, raging and fuming inside and very much ready to give up on anything, but part of me feels a bit like a sissy for wanting to give up (thanks angry man voice for that lovely sissy insult). 

The advice someone gave me for when I get raging inside is to ask myself why I am angry and to just look at the anger without judging. This is the last thing I want to do because for some reason the anger feels good. But today I sat and asked myself why I am angry, where this angry man voice is coming from. And I start tracing it back. First I come up with a laundry list of why I am angry; I let myself down, I let Matt see that I was insecure, I was antisocial at work today, I didn’t keep in-touch recently with a good friend. I quickly concluded that these weren’t necessarily valid excuses for being angry because I had good reasons for each of the grievances. I was antisocial at work because of mister angry voice, I let Matt see that I was insecure because he is important to me (and partly because I wanted him to make it feel better) and I have been crazy stressed with school and hadn’t kept in touch with a friend. 

So, the next question was, why am I beating myself up so much for all this? And I thought back. And I realized angry man in my head was very similar to all the people in my life growing up. Critical, judging my actions, seeing me as something bad; that was what I felt the adults in my life were doing as I grew up. And I assumed they were right, and I continued feeling that way. 

But, I have had the goal of learning who I really am and didn’t realize until today that angry voice man was getting in the way of that. I took over the negative judging that I experienced growing up and started doing it for myself. But what I was doing was not seeing the good side of me. I was judging myself as bad without all the facts. I was ignoring and marginalizing myself!

I was floored when I realized I was stopping the process of learning about myself. I can’t believe I let the angry and critical voices continue for so long. I just thought they were normal!

So, now I decided to divorce the angry voices. They aren’t welcome anymore. They are the ones that make me feel insecure and worthless, and when I feel that way, I turn to the people I love to make me feel better, when really I need to take care of that myself. 

I am so relieved I discovered that i can separate judgement from my actions. I know it will still take some time but already I just feel like I can breathe a bit better, without some angry dude in my head breathing down my throat. He isn’t welcome anymore. 

Lovely.

P.S. I love you forever Matt (you probably are reading this since you follow the blog)

 

 

Comic Relief

me in early high school

I stumbled upon this little gem of a photo recently. The third girl from the left is me, in maybe grade 9 or 10. Wow, what an outfit. I bet those External button-fly beige corduroy pants were quite the find back in the day.

Girls today have it pretty good with straightening irons and youtube for beauty tips. We just kind of learned from the people around us. And I guess we all gave eachother thumbs up that day.

Oh high-school. I remember I wasn’t allowed to go to parties but my parents let me go once, right around graduation. Since I hadn’t gone to any parties previous to this one I didn’t really know the standard protocol. But I came as best prepared as I could. I brought my own mix CD for the host that was gonna rock the socks off everyone. It had a little bit of KC and the sunshine band, a little bit of buddy holly and a bunch of other songs that weren’t from my generation. Funky stuff! I danced to it at home all the time! When I played the CD no one started dancing right away so I think I might have even gotten up and started grooving, just to show the people that they don’t have to be shy about busting out some moves…

….Interruption… As I re-read this short paragraph I just wrote I think I need to shift the direction of this post. I intended to write about some of my early years in a comical way  because I usually feel very embarrassed by the naïve person I used to be when I was younger and I figured that taking a comical angle to my teenaged experiences would make me less ashamed. But you know what I see as I re-read my little paragraph? I see a girl who is considerate and brings a host gift to a party (the CD). I see a girl who has a unique and cool taste in music. I see a girl who loves to dance and isn’t afraid to get up and set an example. I basically see the same person that I am today! And to be honest I am shocked. It wasn’t what I was expecting. But the end result is the same. I feel better 🙂

me today

 

 

Gravity is not a good movie

The movie Gravity was not a good movie. Despite all the cutting edge special effects and ground breaking filming styles, what set my opinion on the movie was Sandra Bullock’s Hallucination moment. And from that point forward the movie wasn’t good… it was Great! Amazing! Bone shaking! And freaking awesome!

Not to give the movie away for those who haven’t seen it, but I realized as I sat through the movie last night and cried my eyes out and felt inspired and moved and touched, that this movie is amazing because of Sandra Bullock’s character’s strength. And the same theme that made the movie Gravity a great movie applies to any movie or book or story you tell your friends. What moves people, and connects them to you is not that they can relate to your hard times, which indeed is part of it, but it’s that they can be inspired by your ability to do something despite the hard times.

I am also reading a book right now entitled “I’m Awesome” by Jason Ellis who is a famous pro-skateboarder and internationally successful radio host. The book paints a picture Jason’s rough and tough childhood surrounded by drugs, violence and negligent adults. What makes the story awesome is that you already know somehow Jason found enough strength of character to become an amazing skateboarder and celebrity despite a messed-up childhood.

I have been thinking for the past month about what to do with my blog. Although my original purpose was to practice being honest about what goes on inside my head, I found that just writing what I think does not serve any purpose. Its what I do with what I’ve experienced that matters (my experience is spending the first 26 years of my life in a sheltered/controlling conservative christian community). Because the truth of the matter is, everyone has had some crap to deal with. Everyone can relate to some less-than-perfect experience you have had. But so what? What’s important is that people can see you living life and moving on, and inspiring them to do the same.

There are lots of bloggers out there who are already inspiring people left and right. The girl in the cat frame glasses has been public about her attempted suicide and has found a way to laugh about it. Book of Moh’s writes about his experiences with depression, and how he’s creating a beautiful family. And Thoughts of a Lunatic writes how she is creating a life for herself despite mental illness

So, I’m re-inspired, everyone. Both to write my blog and to just do something amazing with my life. Not sure what that means exactly but keep reading and find out!

Hiatus

Hey all. I had a very thankful weekend despite not keeping up with my thankfulness resolution. 

But I’ve decided I am going to take a small hiatus from blogging to hone my writing skills and let more ideas percolate. Stay tuned in a few weeks for even better blog posts!

Thankfulness challenge – day 2

Today I am thankful for friends that are faster than me. 

My friend Sai and I have been trying to snag the last few days of warm weather before hanging up our bikes (boo) and get out riding, so today we did just that. In the sunny fall weather we did hill training near work. Say is usually faster than me so when she told me she was feeling crummy, I told her maybe we’d actually ride at the same pace today! Nope. Sai is a champ on the bike all day every day and she powered up the hills like usual.

She even made me sit up all the hills when it is easier to stand and pump up. So despite her whining every few minutes about wanting to throw up, she didn’t back down and didn’t ease up. Even when I told her she could dial it back a bit, she asked what the point in that would be? I still think one of my goals in riding is to always end the ride on a good note so that I actually want to go out riding again. But Sai goes whether she wants to or not. Tough. 

So I am thankful for friends like Sai because I wouldn’t have pushed myself as hard if I were riding alone and she gives me someone to chase up the hills. Thanks Sai!

Thankfulness challenge!

Its October, thanksgiving is days away, and I thought it would be appropriate to try a 30 day thankfulness challenge. So, until November 8th I’ll be blogging about things I’m thankful for. Feel free to take the challenge too or share in the comment stream about what you’re thankful for!

Day 1 – 

I am thankful for clean laundry. The first thing I run out of whenever laundry is piling up is clean underwear, and without a “too much information” moment, I face the challenge of no clean underwear by going commando. Some might feel free and invigorated by the sensation of having no undergarments on but for me a day of no underwear is a risky day. I worry about being pants’ed (yes, I am 31 and I still worry about being pants’ed) or about leaving my fly down (I actually do this a lot) or bending over and my pants riding way too low with no underwear to protect a plumbers crack. I walk around feeling like I have a big secret, and wondering if my facial expression is giving away that I’m really not wearing any “ladies-wear”.

It is not a relaxed day. Its a day where I’d prefer to be wearing leggings, and a skirt, and a long scarf down to my crotch and possibly wearing shorts under there too. So needless to say, every time I open my drawer and find a clean pair of underwear, I am thankful… and relieved. Today, day one is a day of thankfulness for clean laundry!

… and thankful for the person who usually does the laundry… Matt 🙂

Stoicism

Stoic (sto-ik); a person who accepts what happens without complaining or showing emotion

I was reading the book Orange is The New Black by Piper Kerman. If you’ve heard of the book or the new tv show on netflix, its a true story about a middle-upper class woman who is sent to prison for a year. A great show and a great read too!

The most recent chapter is about how Piper is commended for her stoicism. How its giving her respect in prison and how its showing the other inmates that she has street-smarts. It makes sense because, if being stoic is basically the act of holding your chin up and grinning and bearing it, then in prison this would be hard to do.

Hollywood definitely loves to capture the stoic woman on film. I think of the character Ruth in one of my favourite movies Fried Green Tomatoes when she gets kicked down the stairs by her husband and calmly gets up and walks out the door. Any character from The Help is stoic in their handling of being second class citizens. The character Evey from V for Vendetta learns to be stoic and  to not show fear anymore.

Even just googling definitions on Stoicism, articles and writers came up that said how much they admire people with a stoic quality. I have to ask why it’s such a respected trait, since in most situations I take the sappy, sad, sorry for myself angle. And what I can think of its because it’s not easy to do. Being stoic doesn’t mean having a lack of emotions. It means feeling the emotions and choosing to be strong or resilient. And its likely because of its effect on people around you. Someone who is brave and keeps their chin up inspires people around them to do the same. It allows them to be the rock that other people lean on, and it makes them not burden anyone with their issues. It is a hard but selfless stand.

Damn. Stoicism is pretty awesome. I’ve for a long time thought it was more honourable to talk about your feelings. But maybe there is a time and place for spilling your guts, and a lot of contexts where strength and resilience is more appropriate. I’ll mull this over for a bit.

Distracted

I need to apologize. 

I have been distracted the past few days and I’ve really neglected my friends and co-workers. Sorry guys. Don’t think the lack of chatting and contact means I don’t care.

I just have let an issue with my relationship kind of take over all my head space. Its the oldest issue in the book of men and women; communication. So I’ve been thinking and talking with my boyfriend about where our communication is lacking and where it can improve. And that’s all I’ve been thinking about.

But I’ve been so microscopic about what’s going on in my life, I haven’t had time to think about anyone else. And I feel bad about that. I called my sister the other day to vent to her about my issues and when she picked up the phone she burst into tears because she was so stressed with her new baby. I listened and immediately gave her all my attention. I felt bad that I hadn’t originally called to talk to her but it was also funny how immediately I could stop dwelling on my issues and think about someone else. After talking to my sister, I actually felt like my mood had improved! That’s odd. Just the act of distracting me from what I was thinking about had made me feel better. That was a big indication that maybe I focused a bit too much on myself. 

I tried today to patch up some of the holes. I called friends and sent some emails to people I hadn’t talked to in a bit. I realize I need to find some more balance in my life. I want to be a good friend, and although that means leaning on people when I’m down, it also means not disappearing from people’s lives for days on end. Sorry everyone.

step to happiness #26… foster good relationships

 

 

Changing habits

So I may be thinking about shifting careers away from massage therapy (shhhhh). I’d stay within the health care field but move into an administrative setting. I’ve been excited and hopeful about a change, until yesterday when I didn’t respond to an email from a friend who I’m writing an article for (let me explain the correlation…). I forgot to get back to her for a few days and her new magazine will be coming out soon and she was worried I didn’t get her email. As soon as my friend texted me I responded back that I had got her email and everything is on track. But I felt bad for leaving her hanging and not getting back to her. 

Whoa, that was a flash forward into a future administrative job. Office jobs are all about communicating with people and getting back to them and corresponding. The expectations are WAY more involved than those of a massage therapist. Honestly, In my current job I don’t need to multi-task, or juggle a schedule. I massage one person at a time in a calm dark room. 

So I was stressing about forgetting things and not keeping track of my schedule very well all day. I was trying to keep my head above water about it, but it turned into an ugly “you’re a bad person because you can’t keep a schedule” mantra in my head pretty quickly. When I went to sleep last night I was still feeling crummy until I realized, why don’t I just buy an agenda and keep track of my schedule? My iphone calendar does not jive with the way my brain functions; I need to see a full month laid out at once and I need to be able to pencil in changes in a second. I need a paper calendar book! 

EUREKA! I could handle this! I could make a change and no longer be “a bad person who can’t keep a schedule”! I could navigate the administrative world and not let my friends down! phew! But why didn’t a possible solution come to mind in the first place?! I felt like I was getting angry at some old piece of technology that was in serious need of an upgrade. Amy’s thinking needs an upgrade!

Seriously, it needs an upgrade. I can remember back to when I was a kid and I saw one of those deals “4 books for 1$” and somehow (I can’t remember if you needed a credit card) I signed up for it and got a bunch of Dr. Seuss books!.. But then they kept sending me more books. And they’d send me a bill for the books… It was more than a dollar. And I felt so bad and ashamed. I didn’t have any money, and I felt gullible for being suckered into the deal. I hid the books from my parents but they noticed after about the 3rd shipment of books. I got in trouble, of course. I remember back then feeling what happened was an example of how foolish and silly I was. There was no space for telling myself that I was a kid and I didn’t know there was small print in those one-dollar deals. I could have gone and showed my parents right from the beginning and we could have laughed about the situation and wisely skipped the whole HMV buy 6 CD’s for 1$ era that came right afterwards. But instead I created a habit in myself of guilt and shame. 

I can’t change the past, but I can change my habit now. I am now going to realize every time I feel shameful that there is a solution somewhere. I might not be able to go back in time and respond to my friend’s email sooner, but I can prevent late emails in the future by buying an agenda. I might not be able to return those Dr. Seuss books I bought way back when, but I can learn to call and cancel an order earlier before it becomes a bigger issue. I think I’ll be ok in the administrative world. Fingers crossed.

Step to happiness #25… habits can be changed.