When I decided to start writing this blog, this isn’t what I thought I’d write about. I’ve done a lot of work figuring out how to run a house of 8 (because I had to figure things out or I would have gone insane), and I envisioned sharing some of those ideas. Things like… How do I handle all the laundry? How do I handle money with my kids? How do I teach them to work? How do we encourage an open line of communication? How do I do meals for all these people and keep my house reasonably clean without losing my mind? All those practical parenting/household management type things. Because those are the ideas I’m always stealing from other moms and dads who are killing it. I want the practical-change-my-life-daily-habits instead of the theories and fluff. But…..apparently the real work-in-progress that is happening right now for me is all intangible. All in my mind. Week after week, something comes up about how I need to work on changing a specific thought, feeling, or belief. Now that I’ve stated my disclaimer, let’s get into today’s post.
I got into listening to audiobooks through the Overdrive app a couple years ago. I always hated audiobooks before. I couldn’t pay attention because the readers were all so incredibly slow. Hallelujah for an app that allows you to change the speed of what you’re listening to. Seriously life changing. Because let’s be real, there isn’t a whole lot of time in my life right now to lay leisurely on the couch and read a book. I’ve got laundry, cooking, shopping, driving, cleaning, etc. All things that are needful but definitely not stimulating or enriching. Boring, mindless, and mundane are the more appropriate adjectives that come to mind. But now….. I can get all those things done while I’m listening and learning about all kinds of interesting subjects. Listening to audiobooks has made running a household so much more enjoyable. Although I should caution anyone who is going to start–if you listen at high speeds it will completely ruin your ability to listen to anyone who talks slow in real life. I can’t tell you how frequently I think, “They’d be slow even on double speed.” Which leads me to my other complaint about speeding up audio. Can the app makers please give us an option faster than double speed? Because some people talk really, really slow.
Enough about that Overdrive tangent, let’s get back to the point. While I love Overdrive and all the audiobooks I’ve listened to the last few years, I’ve currently been listening to a lot of podcasts. And I mean A LOT. Remember those 6 kids? They add up to a lot of laundry, cooking, shopping, driving, and cleaning. As I’ve been listening to these podcasts (which I hope you all know that you can also speed up podcasts), there have been several times where I hear something that just really resonates as a truth that applies to me. My friend was saying the other day that she didn’t like binge listening to certain podcasts because it just felt overwhelming, like there were so many things she should do differently that she wouldn’t even know where to start. I get that. But for me, binge listening means that the truths, the things I need to specifically hear and address in my life, stand out more. I will listen to a lot of things that make me nod my head and think, “yeah, that’s good,” but then something will come along that just hits me right to the core. And I know that is the thing God wants me to address. Because we can’t tackle all our weaknesses and challenges all at once. I’m a big believer in one thing at a time.
I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago and something hit me. The woman was talking about the different love languages, which everyone is familiar with. Words of affirmation is definitely my dominant love language; notes, cards, texts, compliments fill me up more than any of the others. I’m married to what I believe is one of the greatest men out there. He is kind, patient, funny, hard working, fearless, steady, great dad, great husband, all the things. But words of affirmation….not something that comes naturally to him. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t try, but we’ve had plenty of conversations about how I would feel more loved and secure if he could just give me more words (and in fairness, plenty of conversations about how I could try harder to speak his love language).
Anyway….I was listening to this podcast and the woman challenged that whole idea. Is our partner speaking more of our love language really going to change how we feel? And then she gave an example about someone whose love language was words of affirmation. Let’s say a woman asks their spouse to say more lovely things to her, and he does. Does that really change how she feels? Or is she left thinking he only said it because she told him to, or he didn’t say it quite the way she wanted it, or she’s not sure he really even means it. I don’t know that I even heard the point that she was trying to make, but as I was listening, God made His point with me, and I thought, “Why am I looking to my husband to feel loved and good about myself? Why don’t I feel those things completely independent of his behavior?”
When I asked myself that question, the answer followed right after.
Because I don’t love and value myself the way I should.
It was surprising. I didn’t think that I thought poorly of myself. At least not anymore. As a teenager, I really struggled with the way I thought about myself. I said horrible, debasing, destructive, negative things to myself all day every day. I’m not sure anyone knew the extent of it. I was a high-functioning young lady who had it all from the outside looking in. But I was really, really unhappy. My mind was a dark place I couldn’t escape.
When I went to college, I decided enough was enough. I didn’t want to live like that anymore. So I prayed, received some direction about things I could do, and fought incredibly hard every second of every day for months until I found myself relatively free from that negativity I had lived with and listened to for so many years.
So that’s why I was so surprised when I listened to that podcast and realized the truth-I didn’t value and love myself like I should. I felt like I had come so far. And yet God was telling me it wasn’t far enough. I guess I climbed out of that negative space and stopped when I hit neutral ground. Because neutral ground felt like heaven after climbing out of that dark pit. I felt like I’d done it and freed myself.
But what I’ve been realizing these past few weeks is that neutral ground isn’t as good as it gets.
So the question I’m grappling with now is, “What does positive ground look like?”
I know that it isn’t just the absence of negative thoughts like I thought before. I think I need to give myself some gold stars too. Like today when I really didn’t feel like working out, but I did it anyway. I totally took it easy and didn’t run as fast as I normally do, but afterword I literally thought to myself, “Gold star for you. You worked out today even though you didn’t want to.” Or when people tell me that I did a great job teaching a lesson, rather than brushing it off and only recognizing the flaws in my delivery, maybe I can say to myself, “Gold Star. You worked with God and did some good today.”
What else does positive ground look like? I know that it means my feelings and thoughts should have equal weight with my partner’s. The way I want to do things isn’t wrong just because it is different than his way. My wants and desires are as important as his, even if they conflict. Now I’m not saying I want to become more selfish and less considerate. Here’s an example of a situation we found ourselves in after I’d been thinking about this. My son has been having early morning soccer workouts at 5 am, you know because some people are crazy and disregard all data that supports teenagers (and all human beings) benefitting from sleep. Anyway, I like to get up and make sure that he gets off okay (he usually has a ride). My husband thinks I should just let him set an alarm and I should sleep longer. When we started having this conversation I found myself getting upset, and it took me a good 20 minutes to figure out why. It was because I was feeling like his way was the right way and I should do it that way even though I didn’t want to. The lightbulb moment for me was realizing that neither way was right. They were just two different approaches. Both valid with pros and cons. When I recognized that (which is kind of crazy that it is even something I had to recognize) then I felt so much better. I knew that I could chose to get up with my son like I wanted to and not feel bad about it. Not feel like I was doing something wrong or that I was disappointing my husband. I’m doing things differently than my husband, but that doesn’t make it wrong. It is just as valid of a way to do things as his. And it is how I want to do it. So I can honor and value that about myself instead of feeling like I should be doing it his way. Does that even make sense? I don’t know. But it is changing me the more I pay attention to it. Because there are situations like that on a daily basis that I wasn’t mindful of before. And those situations always left me feeling like I needed more confirmation that he loved me. I felt like I was disappointing him even when he didn’t feel that way, so I was constantly looking for validation that he still loved me. My husband is awesome; he treats me as an equal in all areas. He is respectful and kind and patient. He has never been the one that put me beneath him. I put myself there. And I’m the only one that can get myself out.
Work In Progress 