A Blog Post For the Less Emotional

This post is for you if:

1)      When something sad or hurtful happens you may (or may not) feel sad or distressed for a short time, but it doesn't interrupt your life in a big way. (A massive loss may affect you more than this.)

2)      You make decisions based on what seems most logical, not based on how others may feel about your choice.

3)      You find it confusing when other people cry, or feel upset for a long time, over something that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you.

4)      You don’t think about how others feel about you (even the idea of other people feeling things about you may be too confusing and alien for your brain to process).

5)      You don’t know what to do when people are upset.

This post describes me perfectly; at least it describes how I used to be before I learnt about emotions! 

It’s not that I don’t feel anything.  I can feel fear, guilt and shame.  I regularly feel annoyed.  I don't often feel sad though.  And when I do, it's not a deep, pervasive sadness.  It's usually more that I feel a little unsettled.  I can't think of many times when I've felt hurt by people; if I do feel this way, it usually doesn't take much to talk myself out of it.

So, here are my tips to myself, and to anyone like me:

1)      Recognise that you don’t have to suffer the painful emotions that others do.  This is particularly true for overseas workers away from home.  (As much as I love and appreciate my extended family, I’ve never once looked at pictures on Facebook at Christmas time and felt sad that I wasn’t there.)

2)      Realise that statements such as ‘If you don’t cry when you read this book, you aren’t human’ weren’t written with you in mind.

3)     Some authors will have you believe that all women feel emotions strongly, act a certain way or most desire a particular thing.  Books with these claims were apparently written by people who haven’t interacted with a wide enough range of women.

4)      Be grateful for the abilities God has given you.  If you are the only non-emotional person in your group of friends, you can bring a unique perspective to a situation. (Some of my deepest friendships work so well because we are different from each other in the area of emotions, so help each other achieve balance in our thinking and feeling.)

5)      Recognise that other people’s emotions can be a massive force in their lives, even if you can’t understand why they are upset.

6)      You don’t have to understand people’s emotions in order to help them.

7)      Often the best thing you can do is just to listen. (You may later have the chance to help with the practical issues; but first listen.)

8)      Listening is not a waste of time.  It’s often extremely helpful for people to process their emotions by talking. 

9)      Good listening involves acknowledging or clarifying what people have said. Again, the feelings don’t have to make sense to you.  You can still say things like, “It sounds like you felt really sad.” or  “How are you feeling about it all right now?”.

10)  Be gracious when people don’t respond to your own issues in the way you would most like, or when people assume you feel something that you don’t.  For instance, I realised years ago that when someone said, “I’m sorry to hear your relative died”, it would have been better to have responded with “thanks” than with “It’s ok – she was old”. 

11)  If you have children, listen out for their feelings too.  When they come home from school bubbling over with a story of something that’s affected them, or are clearly distressed, take the time to listen to their perspective, letting them share how they feel without immediately jumping in with solutions.   

If you have any tips to add, I'd love to hear from you in the comments section!

Medical Stress

Of all the issues in life, it seems silly that my children's minor medical issues are what so often cause me the most stress. 

We are fortunate to have great doctors and nurses here where we live, and we are grateful to be free from serious medical problems, but I still stress about things like:

- Should I take my child to the clinic? 

- Do I assume it's a virus or might it be an infection that needs treatment?

- Is my child's asthma bad enough right now to need a doctor?

- Can I send them back to school yet?

It seems like all my desires and insecurities are battling together:

* My hatred of making decisions
* My (often hidden) desire for excitement and attention
* My fear of putting people out
* Not wanting to be seen as ridiculous
* Wanting to follow black-and-white rules
* My dislike of staying home with ill children

One thing I know is that I need to get over my fear of getting it wrong.  I have to remind myself regularly that I'm a human and am not all-knowing or all-wise.  It's good to be aware of all my motives, but sometimes I'll think it all through carefully and still get it wrong.  And that's ok.  And if ok with that, I'll spend less energy stressing about the little things.

A Debt of Love

I've finally finished 'When People are Big and God is Small', by Edward T Welch.  Since my last blog post about this book I've come across another concept that really stood out to me:

In regard to loving others, Welch writes: 'we are in debt to our enemies, neighbours, and friends. No matter what they have done, and no matter how lopsided our giving to them is in contrast with theirs to us, we are in their debt.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law. The commandments... are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Rom. 13:8-9)'

I certainly don't normally think in terms of having a Debt of Love to those around me.  My normal thinking goes like this: If someone has done something kind for me, I feel that I owe them a favour in return.  And if I've helped someone else with something, I feel better about asking them for help. 

I think some of our expectations in these areas are cultural.  In Papua New Guinea, reciprocity (a word I can neither spell nor pronounce!) is a vital part of relationships.  Gifts go back and forth, with each gift affecting the balance of the relationship.

Although I know really that God calls me to love everyone, I find myself taking on a new perspective when I consider the idea of a Debt of Love.

It's vital to remember that love does not mean saying "yes" to everyone.  As Welch puts it, 'People-pleasers can mistake “niceness” for love. When they do, they will be prone to being manipulated by others, and burn-out is sure to follow.'

It didn't take long before the opportunity came along to put the above into practice.  I was recently asked to do a small task that I'm not enthusiastic about.  It's not that I don't have the time, or that the request is unreasonable.  It's not something that someone else could do instead either.  I know that instead of carrying out the job resentfully, I need to see this as an opportunity to love people who haven't done anything for me, but who I have an opportunity to bless.
 

Stationery Stress

Believe it or not (and this will be especially hard to believe if you've been inside my house) but I actually enjoy sorting out cupboards. 

I don't get around to doing this sorting as often as I need to.  By the time I've done the more urgent tasks of picking things up off the floor and tidying up surfaces (if these jobs get completed at all), I've usually run out of time for the deeper organising.  I have started to schedule 'organising things' into my weekly schedule; it's one of many activities that I rarely get around to if I don't schedule it in advance.

I recognise that if I had better systems in place for storing items, I'd have to spend a lot less time picking things up from the floor and horizontal surfaces.  Now that the children are at an age where they can be helpful, this is particularly true.  They are getting good at 'pick up 15 items from the floor', but the activity would be even more successful if they knew where to store these items once they'd picked them up.

I don't seem to be a natural at figuring out good storage solutions.  Until yesterday most of my stationery items were stored in zip-up plastic bags in this box:

If a system is to work for me, then I need to be able to find and put away anything in a couple of seconds.  Obviously that wasn't working with the 'pile everything into one big box' method.  In fact, I discovered no fewer than eight rolls of tape hidden between bags in that box as well as numerous pens and pencils of all descriptions, and lids that don't match any of them.

Another difficulty is that there's no Office World around here.  I have been looking out for storage solutions though, and was happy to find a three-drawer storage box for sale second hand this week.

This is what the cupboard looks like now.  It's not beautiful, but I'm very excited that every member of the family should now be able to find and put away stationery items.  Note the 'spare lids' box; I've recently discovered how essential this is to keeping our felt/marker pen collection going!

Of course I won't really know how well this system is working until I take another picture in a month and see what it looks like then.  It surely has to be an improvement on the big-box-pile in any case!

A Success!

We have an Easter tradition of eating lunch with a family who are good friends of ours.  With last month's disaster fresh in my mind, I was keen to plan our part of the meal very carefully.

My plan wasn't written neatly, and by the end it had got too wet to read...but it worked!  We even ended up arriving for lunch 15 minutes early.  What a difference from previous years, when we arrived stressed, grumpy and late.

Pizza-Making for the Organisationally Challenged

"Agh - the play starts in 25 minutes!" I exclaimed last night, between bites of pizzas.

Freeimages.com/mehmetali uslu

mehmetali uslu

mehmetali uslu

mehmetali uslu

It seemed like a simple plan: A kind friend was coming to babysit the girls while the rest of us went to the high school play; I'd planned a simple meal for us all to eat before the play started.

I had been able to buy ready-made bases and sauce (woohoo) so all I had to do was throw on some toppings and cheese, put it in the oven, and then cut up some salad to go with it. 

This is what really happened:

Although I came up with a time that I planned for us to eat, I didn't fully consider how long it would take to find and chop up the toppings and grate the cheese.

I also didn't think that I might not have enough time, while the pizza cooked, to chop up the salad and clear and lay the table. 

I gave no consideration at all to the 'putting everything away' aspect that would ideally have happened between finishing the meal and leaving the house.

I didn't stop to consider the importance of having the meal on the table at the specified time, given that we had to be somewhere by 7pm.

I also didn't think about all the small jobs that needed to be done before we could leave the house, many of which could have been done earlier in the afternoon.

We did make it to the play on time, but not without stress and panic on my part!  The hour before leaving for the play certainly wasn't a relaxing one, or one in which I had time to focus on the friend who had joined us for dinner.

I considered the contrast between this stressful evening and other recent evenings when we've had friends over for dinner.   When we've had families over for dinner in the last few months I've been careful to plan out my time so that things would run smoothly.   I've actually come away from the evening feeling happy and relaxed about how well everything came together. 

The more simple the event I'm working towards, the less likely I am to plan out my time carefully.  And the greater the potential for disaster!

Planning out my time properly is important in so many situations.  I'm slowly learning that.

Last time we were in the UK, I remember how difficult it was to get the children out of the house and into the car.  There were bags to be packed, socks to find, shoes to be put on, nappies to be changed, hair to be brushed.  The list seemed endless.  

Again, I found that I had to plan carefully and be realistic about how long everything would take, even for a trip of an hour or two, or I'd find myself running terribly late. 

The older I get, the more I learn about myself.  It's all useful stuff!

You won't find me on the Great British Bake Off

On two occasions I tried making cookies from scratch.  The first time, I pushed them too far into the oven and watched them burn in the fire at the bottom.  The second time, I think something went wrong when I mixed the butter and sugar together; in any case, they didn't work.
 
I think I may be the only expatriate woman around here who doesn't bake.  Though I certainly appreciate my friends who do :-).  Other than the doughnuts which we eagerly buy at market each week, there is no opportunity to purchase cakes around here.
 
I have a couple of exceptions to my 'no baking' way of life:
 
A) I sometimes make 100% wholemeal bread rolls with the help of my breadmaker (which I think I may have broken last week...).  We can't buy nice-tasting bread here and packed-lunch options are limited, so it's very helpful to have bread rolls that my family will all eat.
 
B) If a member of my family has a birthday and I haven't managed to talk anyone else into making a cake for them, I will somehow get involved in that process.  Usually Andrew makes the cake, using a box mix with some interesting added ingredients, and I do the icing.
 

Yay for our dinosaur cake tin, which so far as been used three times.

This is why I don't bake:  

1) Baking is not fun for me.  I know at least some people enjoy it.  Many people apparently also enjoy other activities which require some degree of co-ordination and artistic interest; for example painting nails, putting on make-up or doing crafts.  Not me.
 
2) It takes me too long to find the ingredients in my cupboards.  This leads me to believe my time would be better spent tidying my cupboards (something I find more enjoyable and satisfying than baking anyway!)
 
3) If I took time to bake, I'd have to give up something else in my life.  I don't want to stop resting or working, and I certainly can't afford to give up tidying!
 
4) In the culture I grew up in, a store-bought biscuit (Americans: think Oreo...or even half an Oreo with no cream) was considered a perfectly adequate snack.  So it's hard for me to find the motivation to produce anything more extravagant for 'snack' purposes, knowing that I could just purchase a packet of Oreos (which thankfully are available here).  I'm finding there are a range of other snacks I can send to events such as school parties that don't involve baking.
 
5) If I attempt to bake, I end up with flour and sugar all over the place, as well as dirty pots and pans that I might not get around to washing very quickly. The number of ants, cockroaches and rats and are roaming in the vicinity, eagerly searching for food, make this particularly dangerous.

6) I already have to cook mostly from scratch, due to the limited availability of ingredients.  I don't feel the need to spend any extra time in the kitchen.

Green omelet anyone?  I don't think I'll be starting a food blog anytime soon!

So, baking can leave me 1) unhappy 2) frustrated  3) unfulfilled  4) unmotivated 5) overwhelmed with mess and 6) kitchened-out.  Rather than feeling that I should bake more, I can see now that the world (and particularly my household) is probably a happier place when I avoid it as much as possible!
 
Please don't think that I have a low opinion of baking overall, or of time spent baking.  I greatly appreciate the efforts of people who make the baked goods that I love to eat.  I know baking can be great way to love and bless other people.  Life would be a lot less exciting for me if I never got to eat homemade baked goods.
 
But that doesn't mean that I personally have to be involved!