As I lay here and ponder my morning and trying to figure my plan for the day this hanger over feeling is coming over me in swells! I start kicking myself for not reading the Cherry Coke Zero label sooner and continue beating on myself for finishing off the entire plastic bottle of aspartame ladled Cherry Coke. Bingo! Instant or in this case delayed reaction hangover. Those damn sweet nothings lined with fairness gets me every time. Damn Cherry Cokes, I just can't resist you.
Yesterday in our Saucy Kitchen (literally) we gathered around the stove and canned up peaches. An entire box of big fat juicy peaches turned into Peach Butter, Peach Pie Filling, Peach Jam and of course we dove into the first attempt and making Peach Pit and Peeling Jelly but the important part of the day was the company of a dear friend. Over and over the conversation was a battle. Not a battle of wits - well at times it turned into a battle of who could come up with a better solution to the other persons problems - but more like a constant battle of emotional outbursts. Luckily, this time my emotions and concentration was on the open flame and the gooeyness that was oozing out all over the stove top!! Yummy! The house smelled amazing with its new perfume of ripe-cooked-down-sugary-peachy-ness. We were in heaven. Not only with the smell but with the conversation. Strawberry Shortcake couldn't come close with here fruity smelling friends to how we smelled at the end of the jar happy session.
"Choose Your Battles"
That comment came up more times then not. Relationships of all sorts can be a struggle. You can be friends with someone or be a lover to someone and still not understand what the heck is going on and why the communication just absolutely sucks at some points in life and how three years later things can be spectacular. The mind boggling thing is when the crumbles start crashing to the floor we don't get why nor do we really understand what the hell happened to the good days. Believe me when I say this ... I AM NO RELATIONSHIP EXPERT!! I Repeat: I AM NOT A RELATIONSHIP EXPERT!
BUT I do like to dive into the workings of the human mind. With that said lets move back to choosing your battles.
We have all heard the saying "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" its probably some from famous guy who wrote a famous book that eventually turned into a favorite saying from a famous movie, right? We really don't know where the good sayings come from and we really don't care half the time, we just say them. We use them in the right moments when the the gettin' is good! Yet, then again we are told to "Sweat the Small Stuff". Could they make life more confusing? (they being anyone we really don't know who to place blame on, the universal THEY).
Yesterday we encountered an emotional battle that raged through our tiny kitchen. I will say this, I am so glad that our friend had a space to come so she could unload and I am so glad that she was able to focus on stirring the peach butter. Peach Butter requires endless cooking to thinkin' up perfectly and appearantly plenty of stirring. Amazing how one emotional upheaval, 2 pounds of blended peaches and 3 drops of vanilla could have been the perfect mixing medicine for the battle that was raging. The energy that was put out all over the kitchen yesterday was energy well spent but also energy well wasted. It's energy that will never get back but it is also energy that will bounce back. Plus, was it really an emotional battle that needed to be fought? Not my place to judge or say but you know there were really good points on both sides that came out as truth but then there were points of stubberness that also reigned supreme. So when it comes to the energy of "sweating the small stuff" in this case, the emotional energy that was splashed on the walls and floors of the kitchen, this energy was taking up prime opportunity to be building a stronger relationship between the three of us that were spending a few hours canning. Instead we were bound to solve a problem. Yes, as the wallflower I learned from the conversation as well as everyone else for that matter.
Like I said it was good for her to be monitoring the stir stick so that I could concentrate on the details of "Sweating The Small Stuff" details like the cooking times and the amounts of ingredients for each batch of deliciousness.
Life is really kind of a funny thing when you look at what we let in to our lives. Resistance is a huge factor in building up rants in a combat zone of any relationship. The resistance to cleaning the kitchen after hours of canning. Oh yes, I have a little of that going on currently, while I sit here in bed still resisting the urge to get up and clean them there dishes but instead writing about it. Resistance to washing the dishes on a daily basis is sometimes a huge chore. If you live alone you can suffer the resistance a little easier, you can let things slide for a few days because it boils down to you and your own consequences but when you live with more then one other human being we must somehow be aware that the resistance to doing the dishes will affect the others in the same place. When we don't understand that it affect the others our resistance becomes their resistance to doing the dishes because they, in turn, don't think they need to be cleaning up after the person that left them in the sink in the first place.
Fair argument in my book. Just like no one is going to get in to my canning mess and clean it up - ohhhhhhh, how I wish they would. My resistance will soon have to be put aside and I will have to go and clean it up and I will have to "Sweat the Small Stuff" by making sure every piece of peach skin or peach meat gets cleaned of the pots, pans, stove top and walls! Let me tell you when I am canning there needs to be a swat team of cleaners in with plastic wear to clean up! Feel like a mad scientist at times.
We allow the resistance but it holds us back from learning more then just being the monitor for the stir stick. Instead focusing our energies yesterday on the troubles that she was resisting to we could have focused our energies on the task of peaches and realized that the jelly didn't set because we didn't put the pectin in. Ooops my bad. That detail was missed.
Our resistance can be a one-time-shot-in-the-dark-emotional-roller-coaster kind of decision. Case in point: a moment of anger leading to peeling out of your rock driveway spreading gravel like a giant fishtail out the back of your car while waving goodbye with your middle finger in the air! hummm .... how many times have we all done that!? When really we could have just smiled kissed our loved ones good bye and left with a smile on our faces and all of our fingers waving in the wind! Yes, we could get angry and "fly off the handle" and totally be justified in our own minds that we are right, but will it do any good in the long run? Will it really bring the others closer to us when we show them how great we are by spewing extra energy that makes us really look ugly? This is something that I like to type the word we with simply because ... well ... I have to admit. I could very easily be the woman with the bitch streak a mile wide! Easssily. The daily struggles of picking my battles and letting go of the little things I find are not only daily but they are hourly almost exhaustingly all the freakin' time! (said with an exhaustive drama effect and the back of my hand laid across my forehead for flare) Just want to make this one thing perfectly clear: This is a choice. You are making the choice in that split second to be all irate , irritable or annoyed all on your own. Make no mistake it is all your choice and your choice alone so you do have the ability to choose to react differently. Remember it takes 90 seconds for an emotion to run completely through your body. If that emotion or that energy last longer then 90 seconds then you are allowing it to continue to run until you think you need some closure that will make you satisfied whether its good for you or not.
Keep stirring the Peach Butter isn't quite thick enough.
There was a brief two years of my own life when I went back into the publishing world and work for two outstandingly bad women bosses. Both of them were controlling bullies that treated everyone like they were her footstool. They reminded me of that "Alice in Wonderland" with Johnny Depp. You can see her, right!? The Queen of Hearts when she would yell for her footstool and in would run her pig! Well, that is exactly what working under these two women turned out to be, more or less.
More times then not I would be angry, pissed off at the world and by the time I got home from work every night I would be tied in knots. My stomach would hurt my brain would be fried and not to mention the infections that I endured. Finally, the last publisher (who in my book had no right to her job and only got the job on false pretenses saying she was a motivational speaker) fired me. The greatest moment in my life, one of the most freeing moments so I thought at the time. Little did I know she would continue to make my life hell for the next year after that, I take that back the next 10 years or $100,000. Long story short. My resistance to bad and poorly run management, though it could have been justified, used up so much emotional energy and left in the mind of a few others that I had seriously gone crazy. Thought so my self at times. I became a woman that used that bitch streak on more then one occasion and I can proudly say my loud voice closed the doors to many of the other businesses that were in the same building on the same floor.
Lesson learned.
Huge lesson learned.
Experience has shown time and time again that if I allow the battles to choose for me my energy will come out swinging, my fist will be up and ready to fight, I will cower in a corner for only so long before the wild beast rears my ugly head. I will go into a survival mode like no other and it not only frightens me but others around me. If I don't catch the anger and stop immediately (or after 90 seconds) I can and will obsess on it to the point of ruining relationships then my emotions are wasted and not focused on the betterment of others. I get emotionally hijacked! Damn demons!
So what have I done to make a change? Lesson learned: let go. Lesson one: I don't work well for others. This blog has turned into my rant space so that I can type out issues, think things through and re-read older posts to see if I have grown or helped others through tough situations. Canning peaches or pulling weeds give plenty of times for me to evaluate the battles that lie before me. The quiet gives me a chance to figure out if the battles are worth moving me in the direction of where I want to go vs. being the angry self-righteous bitch that I used to be.
The moments of quiet make things simple, breaks things down to consider my options, to consider the bigger picture and to really take that closer look at the goals I have laid out in front of me and focusing on the better person that I am becoming. From now on the emotional energy that comes out needs to be of building people up, empowering their healthy choices and celebrating the small and huge wins that others can achieve. For me (as I tap in my heart with my right hand) this is my hearts song this is what makes me happy. This is my bliss.
Happiness, joy, contentment these are a few of my favorite things! When the dog bites, when the bee stings ... oh wait. Sorry.
Squirrel!
Happiness, joy and contentment are the good emotions that drive us all towards personal productive and creative moments. Emotion is energy that needs motion get it e-motion. uh oh that's a song to! Come on sing it with me now EEEEEEEEE-MOOOOOOOOOtion! EEEEEEEEEEEE-MOOOOOOOOOOOtion. Emotion will power all kinds of motivation whether its good or not for us. So when choosing your battles which emotion do you want to feel? Happy, productive or Angry, defeating?
In watching my friend yesterday spewing all over my kitchen, ugh which I better get in and clean, it became clear to me that her problem could be simply solved by changing her state of mind. It is not that she had a lack of good ideas. It is not that she has tried everything in her power to make things happen it is the fact that the one last tool that she hadn't tried was the biggest tool in her toolbox. She just needed to switch from being a hammer over to being a silky smooth cloth that could smile and wave good bye to her family as she left the house.
She just needed an emotional attitude adjustment!
She chose anger instead of happiness. So many times we all do this in those nano-seconds that could change the world. Gawd, knows I have done this a few times.
When I find myself in a state of confusion or an emotion that I don't think is good, STOP, for a second, consider what this looks like in the mirror, what does my facial expression look like what is my body doing? Are my teeth clenched are my hands cramping because they are tightly bound in a fist? Are my shoulders slumped over in a motion of ready to kill? Do I look like Wolverine?
Expressions can be everything! If you look in a mirror, I mean really look at yourself when your angry are you damn good looking? Sexy? Ready to meet the world head on with all you happiness? DROP the mood, take a time out, walk away, journal, clear your mind. Fixing a problem with angry thoughts will only breed a get-even kind of solution. Take a nap. This helps me, read a book, pull weeds until you can't cry anymore or jar up every bit of food in your freezer for the sake of clearing out at least one thing you can control.
ROLL out new words. First in you mind, through your prayers and then from your mouth. Words opposite then the feelings you were just experiencing. Time wasted on angry words will never come back. The way you make people feel will never heal. They may forgive but the will remember how you made them feel.
Take the time to be quiet and rethink your moments and really ask yourself if you are just stirring the Peach Butter or are you learning how to make the other recipes that are cooking in the stove top. Nothing will ever stop you from learning and growing quite like a bad mood or a bad attitude.
Are you making Peach Butter in your life right now?
