The Happiness Plan

The past few days I haven't been feeling very good about myself and I've been struggling to figure out what to do about it. So this morning when I woke up, a question popped into my head. "When you've felt good about yourself in the past, what's been going on and how can you replicate it?"

I was surprised and dismayed by my answer to the first part of the question. "I feel good about myself when other people are happy with me or when I'm in love (which usually means someone is in love with me)." The fairly obvious problem with that is that my happiness with myself is entirely dependent on other people. So the only way to replicate that feeling is to "make" other people praise me or fall in love with me. Clearly this is not realistic (especially given my lack of a life time supply of Love Potion #9).

So I dug a little deeper. "What was going on the last time you fell in love or when you had the kind of positive connections that you're looking for?" Because those things don't happen in a vacuum. When we're doing what we love to do - when we're happy - we attract positive connections. I guess that's what all the Law of Attraction proponents say. Maybe they're on to something . . . What I need is a Happiness Plan!

Although I don't want to base my self-worth on my interactions with others, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing things to make myself a little happier which will hopefully help to attract the connection that I want and so clearly need in my life. I have to be careful, though, that I don't start doing things that might make me happy in the short-run (instant gratification) but sacrifice my happiness in the long-run. I've never been much good at delayed gratification it seems. So my Happiness Plan has to incorporate things that will make me happy in the long-run even if they might make me whine in the short-run.

I've talked about my tendency to break promises I make to myself. When I do that, it makes me unhappy. And lately, I've been breaking all kinds of promises. On the one hand, I don't want to be too hard on myself but on the other, I worry that I'm too easy. There has to be a happy medium somewhere. I think the key to that is to make sure that I'm making promises (to myself and others) that are doable, consistent with my goals and values and flexible enough to take changed circumstances into consideration.

With my one week on/one week off custody arrangement, I have to schedule my promises with the understanding that when I have the kids, I have less time for things like writing. I simply can't write 2500 words a day when I have custody of the kids. If I expect to be able to do that, my conflicting goals are going to make me crazy. I want to spend time with the kids. I want to write a lot. But they can't both be my highest priority at the same time. If, by trying to do one I sacrifice the other, I will never be happy. But I'm in control of my promises to myself and I'm in control of determining how to meet my goals. Which means that I can wave my magic Glinda wand and say "When I have custody of the kids, I don't have to write 2500 words a day." And it's done. The pressure is off.

Managing my expectations about my ability to do stuff is only part of the Happiness Plan. The other part is to step up my game in areas that can't be waved away with my magic wand. As much as I'd love to make my bills disappear, every month my mortgage lender expects to be paid. And no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that.

It should come as no surprise that I've been slacking off some in the work department. Mainly because I still, technically, have a "day job" that I don't love but that pays the bills for now. I get paid hourly so I can work more hours and make more money. As much as it pains me to say this - if I had more money, I would be happier. It's not ALL about money but I hate worrying about money. I need just enough so that I don't have to worry about making next month's bills. Not worrying as much = happier.

The other slacking off area is organization. (Organization = bane of my existence). This is where short-term happiness vs. long-term happiness becomes a real issue for me. Short-term, few things make me happier than NOT cleaning and organizing (NOT exercising is close, though). Clearly, this is not a good set up for long-term happiness and effectiveness in life. I'm trying lots of different techniques to trick myself into getting stuff done but what I really need to do is JUST DO IT. Seriously, I need to put on some big girl pants and clean my room. It's sort of scary that I'm 45 years old and still need my Mom to yell at me before I will actually clean up the clutter. Sheesh. I know, deep down, that I'll be much happier and more relaxed if my surroundings are less cluttered. Apparently I somehow need to convince the part of my brain that actually controls my actions. Haven't figured out exactly how to do that consistently, though.

No Happiness Plan is complete without fun stuff. If there was no fun stuff, it would just be another to do list. (And if I've learned one thing in this life it's that to do lists suck.) When I'm not happy with myself, I start to feel like I don't deserve fun things. Somehow I figure that if I deny myself fun stuff, I'll get to work on the not-fun stuff so that when the not-fun stuff is done, THEN I'll deserve fun stuff. Not only is that sentence hard to read, that tactic does not work. Ever. Fun stuff has to be a part of every day in the Happiness Plan.

So here's my current Happiness Plan:

1) Think about the promises I've made to myself (and others) and make sure they're doable, flexible and consistent with my values and goals.

2) Step it up by working a few more hours each week and cleaning my freaking room (preferably with a minimum of whining).

3) Spend time outside every day - even when it's raining. (Because I'm always happier when I get out of the house even if I think I want to stay inside.)

4) Listen to my favorite music every day. (When I work at the office, I always play music but when I work at home I sometimes forget to turn it on. Music = fun.)

5) Talk to at least one friend a day. (It's easy for me to just chat on Twitter or read Facebook or email. But I feel so much more connected if I actually talk to someone. Connection = fun.)

The Happiness Plan will evolve over time (just like the dreaded to do list). But so long as the point is seeking happiness and not just getting things done, hopefully I'll be more likely to keep up with it. Now that I've developed the Plan, I'm going to clean my room with my favorite music playing!

Do you have a Happiness Plan? Share it here - I love sharing!

Shower the people you love with love

This morning I helped serve breakfast at my kids' school to a gathering for the whole middle school to celebrate the graduating eighth graders. I have a seventh grader and I don't know most of the older kids. I wasn't thinking about graduation because I'm just so focused (or not) on the million other things going on in my life right now. One of the other seventh grade moms was talking about how emotional she was feeling even though her daughter wasn't even graduating. I laughed thinking that I'm usually the emotional one and wasn't it funny how I wasn't feeling it.

And then they played a slide show created by two of the eighth graders featuring pictures of themselves and their classmates from the time they were babies until now. I think it was the music that did me in. As soon as the first baby picture came up and they started playing Seasons of Love from Rent, the tears started falling. It wasn't until I started crying that I realized how I was actually feeling. I'm kind of weird that way - the physical reaction comes before I recognize the feeling. Or maybe that's not strange at all. In any case, I was realizing the obvious - it all goes so damn fast. Watching those baby pictures fade into pictures of the young adults they are becoming brought it all home for me. My babies are growing up. And I haven't enjoyed my time with them near as much as I now wish I had. (This would be a whole lot easier to write if the tears didn't keep blurring my vision).

So here's what I wrote on Facebook and Twitter: Cherish the ones you love. Some will be in your life forever and some only for a season. You don't always know whether your time with them will be short or long. So while it lasts enjoy it. Savor it. Make it count.

Then, somehow, following the crumbs of Twitter click-throughs, I ended up at Debbie Ford's site and read this article called "Self-love: The Key to Being an Extraordinary Parent." It made me realize that in order to be the kind of parent I want to be, I need to love myself the way I love my kids. With no reservations or judgment. With a full heart. And if I want them to believe in themselves, I have to believe in myself. If I want them to treat themselves with loving kindness, I have to treat myself that way too. Whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, our kids learn far more from what we do than anything we ever say.

In the article, Ford talks about our two internal maps - our Vision Map and our Default Map. Our Vision Map represents the kind of person and parent that we want to be. The Default Map is, well, what we default to when we're tired and stressed. It's what we learned from our parents and the other adults around us but isn't necessarily what we've chosen for ourselves - or what we want to teach our kids. The Default Map is reactionary - it's how we operate when we're not being proactive about our own behavior and habits.

I'm the Queen of reactionary behavior. It's probably because of my well-documented scatterbrain tendency. I am "focusing" on so many things at one time, it's hard to be proactive about things that are not in front of my face (or tabbed on my browser). Being proactive requires time and space for quiet thinking. It requires contemplation and self-knowledge. At the very least, it requires forethought. I am not the Queen of forethought.

I would do anything for my kids. Most parents will tell you the same thing and we all mean it sincerely. We run around like banshees taking them to activities, we scold and cajole them into finishing their homework, we feed and clothe and hug and kiss them goodnight. We do so much for our kids (some of us, too much). But what we often don't do for them, is take care of ourselves. What they tell you on the airplane (during the speech you've heard so many times you don't even listen any more) is true - put your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else with theirs. Take care of yourself and your kids will learn how to care for themselves. Isn't that what we want to accomplish as parents?

I guess I'm trying to make two points here and they're getting kind of muddled in my mushy emotional state:

First of all, cherish your children (and if you don't have your own kids - cherish the people you love young or old). You will not be around forever. They will not be around forever. Make your time together count.

And second, the greatest gift you can give your children is to teach them to love themselves. The only way to do that is to show them by loving yourself. Give yourself time, space and freedom to be proactive about your life. Show them how to live a life of passion and devotion to the people and activities and causes that they love. Be the kind of person you want your children to grow up to be.

"Father and mother, sister and brother if it feels nice, don't think twice. Just shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. Things are gonna work out fine if you only will." James Taylor - Shower the People

Oh, the drama . . .

There was much drama in my house this morning. I have a 12 year old daughter so drama is par for the course. But today's drama was particularly dramatic with lots of tears and screaming on both our parts. I could just dismiss it as typical mother/pre-teen daughter crap and go on about my business but then I would miss whatever lesson is in this for me. For both of us.

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I have ADD. It's not too severe - I managed to get along pretty well for over 40 years of my life before my diagnosis - but it does affect me. Mainly I'm not very detail-oriented. I tend to be a bit flaky, disorganized and somewhat forgetful. I was taking Adderall but recently stopped as part of my physical "spring cleaning." I didn't think the Adderall helped all that much and I don't love the idea of taking amphetamines regularly. (I also don't love spending thousands of dollars a year on a psychiatrist who does nothing but prescribe said amphetamines. Literally. It's a racket.) This morning's drama has me rethinking that decision.

To fully understand this morning's events, you need a little background on my soon-to-be-ended marriage. As I've written about before, my ex was abusive emotionally and physically. He has very high expectations of those around him (and, to be fair, of himself as well). It is his strongly held belief that when people make mistakes, they should apologize. That is reasonable and I'm all for that - the world would be a better place if people were better able to give a good apology. However, in our house I think it was taken too far. Every little mistake was pointed out - not always nicely - and apologies were demanded. And if the apology wasn't up to snuff, there was much yelling and screaming and then demands for apologies for the mistake of not giving a good apology. I now apologize so much that near strangers tell me to stop it. (Seriously - I was in Vegas for a wedding last weekend and a friend of the groom who had known me for one day gave me a - very nice - lecture about how I need to stop apologizing so much.) Of course my girls grew up in this house so they learned - very early - about the "need" for apologies.

Now that my ex is out of the picture, I guess I hoped that my girls and I could become a kinder, gentler family. But my kids - especially the 12 year old - learned a lot from their dad. The 12 year old thinks that every mistake should be pointed out and accounted for. She gets upset when I let her little sister get away with things she thinks are wrong. She begs me to call her on things she does even though I tell her that I think it's healthier to learn to let certain things go. Pick your battles and all that. Her response is to tell me that I'm coddling her (because I let her "get away" with stuff) or that I'm requiring her to "eat her anger" (because I tell her that it isn't worth it to fight over stupid stuff).

So this all collided this morning when I tried to help her make their school lunches. The oldest usually makes the lunches (because the youngest has a hard time getting out of bed). Every day they bring baggies of snap peas and carrots for lunch. She's told me in the past how many peas and carrots to put in the baggies. But she never gave me specifics, she just showed me the baggies and said "about this much." So this morning I put what I thought was a reasonable amount of peas and carrots in the strainer and rinsed them. When she came into the kitchen, she looked at it and said (in that snotty way that only 12 year old girls can do) "Mom, there's too many carrots and not enough snap peas!" I snapped back at her with some totally immature retort about not being perfect. Somehow - and I really wish I understood how - this exchange turned into a huge blowout that had nothing to do with peas and carrots.

She was angry because I didn't immediately apologize for making the mistake of not rinsing the "right" amount of vegetables. (I use the quotes because it's a subjective thing, there really isn't a right or wrong here.) She felt that it was a mistake because she had told me before how much to use and I still got it wrong. She made it clear that she wasn't angry that I made the mistake, she was angry that I didn't apologize for making the mistake.

I was angry because she was rude to me in the way she pointed out the mistake. I was angry because it's such a small thing that it didn't even need to be pointed out. I was angry because she expected me to be able to remember a detail like that. And I feel guilty that I can't remember stupid details like that. Because if I was a good mom, wouldn't I know exactly how many fucking peas and carrots my kids like to bring to school? Especially if they've told me how many they like? (If I took the Adderall, would I remember? Maybe. Should I take expensive and possibly toxic pharmaceuticals to fix something that I kind of think isn't that big a problem but is apparently a problem for my kids? Maybe. I honestly don't know.)

Part of my anger comes from the fact that she won't even consider the possibility that my view on the issue of apologies is as valid as her father's. She insists that I expect her to "eat" her anger which couldn't be farther from the truth. I am trying to teach her that she doesn't need to be so angry. And that's a really hard lesson to teach. Especially to a child who grew up in an angry home. I see this as an issue of tolerance and inner peace. She sees it as an issue of standing up for yourself and making people accountable for their actions.

I was hoping that by writing this I would come to some sort of conclusion about how to handle the situation. I often have epiphanies by the end of a blog post. But this time, I'm not so lucky. I have no idea what the right answer is. Actually, I do - the right answer is that there is no right answer. We're both right. We're both wrong. Pretty zen, huh? But how the hell am I going to fix an argument with a 12 year old without some sort of bottom line? I guess that's the lesson for us both - we need to learn to live together and be tolerant of our differences. I have to let her be angry when I make mistakes but I don't have to let her be rude. And she'll need to accept that she and I have a different world view here. Maybe if I practice, a little more often, the tolerance and inner peace that I preach, she'll learn by example. And even if she doesn't, at least I'll be a little more peaceful about it.