Tag: stress

Breathe

Sometimes I am shockingly disconnected to my body and what it’s going through. And then my body responds to a situation in a very normal physical way, and I’m like, What’s going on?? What is wrong with you?? 

The past two days I have been so tired, any time I sit down, I start falling asleep.

Crazy.

Am I sick? Vitamin deficient? Coming down with something? 

And then I stop and try to assess the situation.

Ok. I had to surrender my dog to a shelter on Monday. On Monday I also started a new diet/exercise program that I am sure is a shock to my system. On Tuesday I had an important meeting at the kid’s school, had to put myself forward and stand in the gap for a child that needs some special help. Everyone was nice, but any time I have to speak my mind in front of strangers, I get stressed. Last week my teenager was walking home from school and shooting broke out, half a block behind her. Now I am feeling hyper-vigilant as I listen to all the sirens throughout the day. It’s not been a tranquil month for relationships. In short, while I have decided to pump up on vitamins, stay hydrated, etc. I am also just trying to be kind to myself and acknowledge that maybe my body is trying to tell me something. 

Like,

You are Tired. 

The following are the words to the final chorus in the song  Breathe put out by Jonny Diaz.

When it starts to fall apart in my heart I hear you say just

Breathe, just breathe

Come and rest at my feet

And be, just be

Chaos calls but all you really need

Is to take it in, fill your lungs

The peace of God that overcomes

Just breathe (just breathe)

let your weary spirit rest

Lay down what’s good and find what’s best

Just breathe (just breathe)

Just breathe, just breathe

Come and rest at my feet

And be, just be

Chaos calls but all you really need

Is to just breathe

Just breathe

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Jonathan Smith / Jonny Diaz / Tony Wood

Breathe lyrics © Songtrust Ave

And that’s where I’m at right now. Needing to acknowledge my body’s efforts to slow me down. Needing to rest. I’m not up for solving any of life’s mysteries or thinking really deeply, or being anything amazing. I just need to rest at Jesus’ feet and breathe for a while. 

Life Feels Fragile

This afternoon I was at the park with the kids. A beautiful winter afternoon, blue skies. Warm enough that the kids could run around, cold enough that I was still wrapped up in a jacket. My phone started ringing. I looked down and the caller ID said it was one of the kid’s schools. My heart rate immediately went up. Are they calling to say, don’t come to school tomorrow, we’re doing virtual instead? 

Fortunately, it was just routine announcements, except sports are now only allowed to have immediate family members in attendance. 

I have been getting the same elevated heart rate every time I see an email from our Superintendant, or any school official ID pops up on my phone. 

It’s not a fun way to live. 

Our schools seem determined to stay open, for which I am thankful, but it is a shaky, fragile thing. We’ll stay open, as long as we have teachers, staff, enough students, we don’t hear otherwise from local or state officials…

We did one week of virtual school before school let out for Christmas break. My two kids, whom I have been homeschooling, got a significantly less amount of school done that week. My high schoolers were fine. My 5th and 4th graders were fine. The second grader was often baffled by technology and time schedules. She took it personally when she wasn’t able to get into a planned meeting. “They won’t let me in!! Nobody likes me! They don’t want me in the class!” 

I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to give the second grader the amount of help she needed because I was busy dragging the first grader out from under tables, or chasing her down, or trying to get hold of her teacher because she had purposefully hit the Send button on unfinished assignments because she simply didn’t want to do them. 

We are diligently working with all the professionals necessary to see if this particular child has some learning differences that make school more difficult for her. But whether these exist or not, I do know, without a doubt, that virtual school is not the right answer for her education. If, for some reason, our schools needed to switch to virtual, I have a feeling that we would all be better off if I simply enrolled her in straight-up homeschooling. And so I feel this sense of limbo, what is this year going to look like? 

I’m feeling that way about a lot of things. Our government has some important stuff happening tomorrow, and right now, I don’t think anyone knows how it’s all going to turn out. 

The spread of the virus is constantly in the news. I have now had several people I know personally affected. A vaccine is being touted as the cure to end the pandemic, but I am not convinced. On many counts. 

We are all so happy to be out of 2020, but nobody knows how this new year is going to turn out either. Life feels fragile. 

And so, I put one foot in front of the other. I do what I know to do. Take care of my family. Take care of our home. Try to keep my focus on God and his power and wisdom, instead of the chaos that surrounds us. Take deep breaths. Let them out slowly. Read my Bible. Turn on the worship music. Try to be kind. Gentle. Keeping in mind that everyone else is operating in this same fragility. 

Seeking Emmanuel in the Crazy

We had an amazing Christmas service with our church today. The story of Jesus, starting with creation, told throughout the earth’s history, ending with his resurrection, accompanied by beautiful music. During the service my shoulders lifted from stress that had been weighing them down. My anxious thoughts calmed and focused on this story that never grows old. 

I needed that church service to hit the reset button. 

I wish that I could tell you that I have risen above the stress of 2020 and the Christmas season,, and I am peacefully gliding through the crazy, prioritizing, putting people first over TO DO lists, remembering that Jesus is the Reason for the Season etc etc…But I’m actually not doing a very great job, in my own estimation. I have been snappy, irritable, not handling things well. My family is getting irritated at me. I’m getting irritated at me. The church service this morning was good. It restored some peace. But I am shocked at how quickly I step back into my irritable mode. Once a week doses of God’s presence aren’t enough. Once a day isn’t enough. I am needing a constant turning. A constant reminder that God is good. That Christmas is about celebrating Emmanuel, God with us, not about doing all the fun activities and getting all the best presents. 

I am obviously not writing this from a place of achievement or even a place of rest and peace. I am writing this from the perspective of a mom who is frazzled, worn out, wanting to make Christmas great for her kids, but is instead rushing and stressing. And I need Jesus. I need peace. I need a constant reminder that I am not alone, that loving my family is more important than making Christmas cookies just-so, or having the house clean at all times. I need a heavy dose of patience and perspective. 

I am writing some reminders on my hands. Emmanuel. Jesus is here with us, I am saved, never alone. Peace. Christmas traditions are not as important as loving your family. Everyone would prefer a calm mom rather than a mom who has done all the stuff. 

I am hoping that over the next week I will see the words on my hands often. I will stop yelling. I’ll take a deep breath. Walk away for a minute. Reset. Start again. 

We’ll see how it goes as I seek Emmanuel and his peace.

Panic Attack

I found myself having a panic attack and decided to write my way through it. Here’s a snapshot of what is going on in my brain during a panic attack..

I’m having a rough day. I had to take my nine year old to the hospital for surgery early this morning to get rods put into her broken arm. My other daughter is sick and I will be heading off to another doctor’s appointment this afternoon to help her. I’ve been fighting a cold for ten days and in this era where Covid fear rages, having a cold is not a small thing. 

Today my mind is stewing on silly things. An online conversation with a blogger that turned into a veiled interrogation of me and my life choices. A scary notion that I am failing in this game called life. An overwhelming feeling of impending doom. 

And suddenly, I stop and realize that I’ve got things flipped upside down in my mind. In my mind, all these crazy things are happening, and as a result, I am responding with anxiety. 

I think the actual truth is I am struggling with anxiety and so everything that happens is being filtered through that anxiety and blown way out of proportion. My life isn’t causing me anxiety and stress. My anxiety is causing my life to feel anxious, stressful. 

Next question, why am I feeling so much anxiety? 

Typical culprits: lack of sleep, social media and the news, having to forego church due to sickness in our house, being physically sick myself.

When you can sit back and analyze things, it helps take off that big load of self-condemnation. Cause when I’m feeling anxiety, I feel like a personal failure. I have failed. I am not at peace. I must be feeling anxious because I’ve done something wrong. Not just that I’ve done something wrong, but that there is something inherently wrong with me. 

So, it’s time to hit the Refresh button. Speak some truth. 

I am Esther, daughter of the King. I have been saved. God no longer looks at my sin, but instead looks at me and sees Jesus’ goodness. My future lies with spending eternity with God. I am loved. God has blessed me with parents and parents-inlaw and a brother and brothers and sisters in law who love me. I have been blessed with a husband who loves me and children who are amazing. I belong to a church body that is there for me, that regularly supports me in all ways. Our world is crazy right now with political upheaval and covid, but God is still on his throne, none of this is a surprise to him. I am not perfect, but when I make mistakes, it’s not the end of the world. I can apologize. I can make restitution. I can go back and try again. 

My life is in God’s hands. 

So, I say Thank you Lord for this beautiful day. Thank you that my daughter made it safely through surgery. Thank you that my other daughter has a doctor she can visit and that medicine is available. Thank you for freedom of speech in that, so far, we are still able to hold opposing opinions with others and live in a diverse world. Thank you that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that you thought creating me, in all my quirkiness, was a good idea. 

These verses come to mind..

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

Plans Change, Thank God

This weekend did not go as planned. 

The plan was to have a ton of different activities happening all weekend. Different people going in different directions. Every minute crammed with busyness. 

I was not looking forward to it. I don’t do well with really busy schedules. They stress me. But it seemed unavoidable. 

Then Saturday morning, in the middle of the morning, I got a humongous headache. The kind where you just have to lay down. I had been dragging for a couple days and suddenly felt horrible, achy, nauseous. I got on the phone and started cancelling things. A lot of things. The headache and fatigue fit with the chart of covid symptoms, and a friend of mine, who actually is positive for covid, had told me those were her main symptoms. I decided I better get tested and cancel everything else till I was certain. (Which makes me feel weird. Like, in normal times, I would just be sick and get over it, now I’m freaked out about being contagious, especially since this family has so many moving parts.) 

Andy got home from his morning activity, found me sick, heard all the news, and agreed to shut things down. He took the kids out for an afternoon of socially-distanced, outside, bike riding. I slept. And then sat around in a stupor, trying to find a book to read, but too zoned out to focus on anything. I also tried to deal with an online grocery order that went completely haywire. That was fun. 

This morning I got up early still feeling sick, left at 7:30am and went to get tested. It took a long time, I didn’t get home till 12:30pm, but the good part was I got the results immediately, and I tested negative! Yay! But, I still felt bad, so I came home and went back to bed for several hours while Andy took the kids to his shop for an afternoon of Dad time. 

So, this weekend did not go as planned. 

And it was great. It was exactly what I needed. An entire weekend of rest and no expectations. 

And once again I’m reminded that it often works that way. We make plans, something bad happens, plans get ruined, but it all turns out for the best. 

I think that is part of living a life of faith. We can get rid of a lot of stress if we cling to the promise in Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Not that God makes bad things happen, but that he can turn each bad thing into something good. 

So, I’m thanking God for being sick this weekend, and thanking him for a negative Covid test, and thanking him that I can head into this next week a little more rested and peaceful. 

(I’m feeling better, not perfect, but hopefully by tomorrow whatever this is should be gone.)

My Sin was Great, Your Love was Greater

I want to start by letting you know that my mammogram went fine, no problems. All is well. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. 

This past week has been pretty crazy. My days were a lot more busy than I like. This month seems to be the month of Doctor Appointments. I just looked at my calendar, we have sixteen appointments scheduled for this month. Which is horrible. They are all check ups, dentist appointments, eye appointments etc. Which means that after this month, I shouldn’t have to take anyone anywhere for a long time. Getting it all done in one fell swoop. 

Except that it makes this month a lot more stressful. 

I had the whole having-to-get-a-mammogram thing which was also stressful, though it ended well. We’ve had some changes in our home life with our foster daughter slowly transitioning back to her birth parent. Which is great, but our schedule has gotten a lot more complicated. Even when she goes home completely, I will still be her full-time babysitter, which is a part-time job all by itself. Also a bit stressful.

So, here’s the crazy thing. All this stuff has been going on, and I have been stressed, but it’s not really these things that has been stressing me out. 

I have been mostly stressed about my inability to conquer and be victorious over my weight problems. Sins. Gluttony. Emotional Eating. Using food as the source of my peace and comfort. 

I have been feeling weighed down with condemnation. Surely God is sick and tired of me still struggling in this area. I am a disappointment. A failure. Weak. Not worthy. I’m pretty sure God really doesn’t want to have anything to do with me until I stop being this way. 

Yesterday I kind of hit rock bottom. I wrote a letter to God. 

It was helpful. Helpful for me to be very, very honest. Helpful for me to lay it all down. And then stand back and get some perspective. 

The perspective I got (I believe with the help of the Holy Spirit) was this. Perhaps my bigger sin is thinking that my own works is what saves me. Perhaps my bigger problem is not overcoming in this area, but truly trusting God at his word, that he has truly saved me and given me His Righteousness, and His Righteousness is enough. Maybe Pride is more the issue. Having to realize that Esther, in her own strength, has no power to overcome. She is completely dependent on God and his power to free her from her strongholds. And trying to remember that I am loved. As I am. I don’t have to get perfect first before God decides that he can love me. 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

I think I have reached the place where I fully see my helplessness to free myself from sin. And I then also fully see my dependence on God to do the work necessary in my life. And so I cling to his goodness. His mercy. And once again I put my trust in Him. 

I have set aside today to be a day of rest. A day of staying home, not having to run a bunch of errands. A day of minimal housework. 

And I pray that it also is a day of spiritual rest. Sinking into the truth that I am forgiven. That he who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6).

And this line runs through my head:

My Sin Was Great, Your Love was Greater. (from the song, “What a Beautiful Name”)

“The Peace of Wild Things”

I am sitting by the lake, I’ve been watching my kids swim, but they have now moved on to playing prince and princess and are concocting some elaborate make-believe game. I only have the three youngest with me. My husband and five of our kids left at 4am this morning to go hike a mountain. I don’t expect them home till late tonight. My other two daughters are at their grandparent’s house, in town, a short distance away. It has now been twelve days since we left Knoxville on our vacation, and it has taken about ten of those days for me to finally be able to just relax. We still have a couple more days before we head home and I am thoroughly enjoying the wonderful feeling of doing nothing except some light household chores and watching my children swim in the lake. 

 

It’s been a different kind of vacation. State mandates mean that we can’t go shopping or go out and be around a lot of people. We have seen basically just a few family members and had them do our grocery shopping for us. Aside from a day trip to the beach, we have just stayed in our little cabin and enjoyed the lake and the woods. And it has been wonderful. 

 

My restless husband has been able to help his Uncle and Aunt with a remodel project, my teen girls have hung out with their grandparents and the little ones have practiced their swimming. 

 

My brain has had time to process. Relive, rethink, reassess. And finally, it has just quieted down. I’ve read some good books, done “adult” coloring where there is an inspiring scripture and then a ton of elaborate details to color in. Not something I do often, but I find when I am coloring, the analyzing part of my brain shuts off, and I’m just thinking about staying in the lines, and what color should I use next? It has the same effect for me as playing scales on the piano, or re-reading a favorite book. Occasionally, I will stop coloring and just think about the verse. Meditate. 

 

We don’t get to do this every year. More like every two or three years. But I am glad for these times. 

 

As my brain has quieted and I have rested, I find myself getting ideas again. Getting excited about projects. I am even starting to feel excited about homeschooling some of my kids. I am plotting out schedules, and thinking about books to read and papers we will write and discussions we will have. Spelling charts for the second grader. Homemade calendars.

 

And this is the difference between stressed-out me and healthy me. The ability to dream and be excited about the future. 

 

I remember in the flurry of having lots of babies, I went for years without having any dreams. I was too exhausted. Too overwhelmed. The future was too far away. I was just surviving today. This moment. This minute. This second. 

 

The past months have been that for me. Survival. 

 

And it’s good to feel that quieting down. To feel like the ability to dream is coming back. 

I even told my husband that one day, when all the kids are grown, I want to get a giant fluffy dog. Like a St. Bernard. Or something like that. He immediately pointed out that big dogs are expensive. And I pointed back that all the kids will be gone and I will have money to spend on a dog. 🙂 He’s not over-excited about that dream….yet. I’ve got some time to talk him around. 🙂 

 

Here is a poem I found.

 

“The Peace of Wild Things”

Wendell Berry

Listen

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 

Today, I am thankful for nature. For God’s creation. For the beauty he created that provides rest to all people, believer or not. It is one of his gifts to humankind. 

 

And I’m thankful for the time he has given me to just rest. 

Peace is a Verb

It has been days since I’ve last written and I almost feel a craving to get back to my keyboard. Our family is on vacation at the moment. Staying in a family-owned, small, rustic cabin on a beautiful lake that has entertained generations of my husband’s family. Tucked away in rural America, far from home, it is a wonderful escape from daily life. I have been weathering the shock to my system that comes from suddenly disconnecting from everyday life. No agenda. No plans. No schedules. The kids have been living in the lake. They have turned into little minnows. My only job is to keep an eye on them, join them occasionally, when the whim hits, and prepare three meals a day. 

 

I’ll tell you what I have been thinking about the last couple days. 

 

Peace is not a place. It’s also not a lack of movement or busyness. It’s also not being in nature. Or having complete freedom in your schedule. 

 

Cause, if it was all those things? I’d be floating on a cloud of peace right now. 

 

Instead, I am finding that I am having to fight for peace just as hard as I was when I was home, surrounded by schedules and appointments and work and busyness. 

 

I am having to take my thoughts captive, train them to go in a better direction. I am having to be purposeful about being thankful and looking for the good all around me. I am having to mentally box up all the things that I can’t fix (world pandemic, crazy politics, the coming school year) and again say, Ok, God, I am leaving these things in your hands, my worry is not going to change or fix any of these problems. I am having to seek out scriptures, to remind myself of the goodness of God and strengthen my faith again. 

 

I am hoping that the fact that I am on vacation will mean that I can actually be more purposeful about seeking peace. I am hoping that simply sitting in nature will eventually help my tense muscles to relax. I am hoping that the change of pace will be a time of bonding for our family and a time to simply have fun together. I am hopeful that by the end of this time, I will be recharged, ready to tackle the coming school year. These are my hopes. But, these things are not going to happen automatically. I am going to have to seek them, chase after them, pursue them. If I don’t, I will just spend this entire time fretting and worrying and stressing. 

 

Peace is a verb. A state of being. Sometimes, it’s a gift that is simply handed to me, but usually, it is a purposeful pursuing. A conscious choice. And in my experience, what I’m pursuing is Jesus. More of him, less of me, that is how I get peace. It is an acknowledgment of his sovereignty, his goodness, his love. A moving of my thoughts so that they line up with what the Bible says about my life. 

 

The good news is that you don’t have to be on vacation to have peace. While I’m going to treat this time off as the lovely treasure that it is, I know that the peace I look for during this time is something I can take home with me. It is always close at hand, whenever I’m willing to seek it. 

 

You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. 

Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)

Jesus and the Spaghetti Dinner

This past week I started watching the show THE CHOSEN put out by VidAngel. I’ve seen three episodes so far. It’s about Jesus’ time of ministry and the people he called. I think what has been most impactful has been seeing Jesus as a person, living and interacting.  My kids watched with us, though I think the different plots swirling around were a bit too confusing for them. In the first episode, Jesus didn’t show up till the very end. The kids were asking all kinds of questions, the biggest one, WHO IS THAT? That’s Jesus. WHAT?? Is he a ghost? Can those other people see him? Is he flesh and blood? (Yes, those were all genuine questions I fielded.) And it occured to me that my kids did not have a good grasp on the fact that Jesus was a living person who walked this earth. So, it’s been good for all of us. 

 

That first night after I watched the first episode, I found myself wide awake in the middle of the night. I have struggled with insomnia my whole life and find that it always gets worse when I’m really stressed. As I lay there, my mind went back to the show and I had the thought, What  would it be like if Jesus came over to our house for supper? I lay there thinking about it. I could picture him sitting at the end of the table, watching all the kids, grinning at their antics and excited conversation. I imagined how gratifying it would be for him to casually put his hand on my husband’s shoulder, tell him he’s doing a good job caring for his family. I imagined how the kids would be tumbling over themselves trying to get his attention first and tell him all about their favorite toy or the game they had just played. 

 

The next day,  I mentioned it to my husband, What if Jesus came over to our house for supper? The first thing out of his mouth was, You would be so stressed out! 

 

What?

 

What was he talking about? Me? Stressed out? I was bewildered. He stared at me. I stared at him. 

 

I suddenly remembered how crazy I get when new people are coming to my house for dinner. Everything has to be completely cleaned and organized. I even start scrubbing walls. I agonize over what to cook for dinner and I start barking orders at everybody. 

 

This is for new people. If you’ve been amy house a couple times then I’m going to relax. We’ll tidy up the house and I’ll still try to cook something nice, but I’m not going to be nearly as uptight about it. 

 

Ok. I can see where my husband was coming from. 

 

Funny though, in all my imaginations, I never thought about being stressed out.

 

Maybe, though, because Jesus isn’t NEW to my house. He’s here. He’s seen us at our very worst and at our very best. He knows how much junk I have collected under the furniture and how unorganized that closed drawer is. No secrets. 

I’ve been talking to him on a regular basis since I was five years old. 

 

So, maybe I wouldn’t be SUPER stressed, but I guess I would also want to be showing proper respect and honor. Yeah, I think I would want the house clean. I’d want my kids to be wearing nice clothes, not the hole-filled, stain covered play clothes. I’d probably want to pull out my real plates instead of using paper plates. (Jesus and paper plates? That seems weird.) 

 

I think the real problem I would have is What to cook? I am not a gourmet chef. I’m fast and efficient, but not overly creative. With that in mind, I’m thinking, Spaghetti. It’s pretty hard to mess up spaghetti, especially if you are using sauce from a jar, get some garlic bread and salad to make it fancy, and there you go. Anyone can make it, and it pretty much always tastes good. 

 

I admit, I am prone to flights of fancy, but this particular flight is making me happy. 🙂 

 

As my life gets crazier and crazier, I need to be more tuned in to Jesus’ presence in my life. Cause, even though imagining Jesus coming over for a spaghetti dinner is just that, imagination…Jesus actually being in my house is not. His spirit is here, within us. 

 

So, even if I can’t see him physically sitting at my table. He is here. And I think he enjoys watching my kids’ antics, and I think he’s proud of my husband, and I know he loves me.

We are having spaghetti for supper tonight (total coincidence!). I’m thinking I’ll glance up at least once, hoping to see a glimpse of him sitting there, grinning at all of us.

Self Care not Self Indulgence

I’ve been thinking a lot about Self-Care lately. I have been on a journey as I try to get to the root of my over-eating problems, food addictions, bad habits and life-style choices that have left me in a state of being overweight and unhealthy. I’ve been trying to figure out why I keep self-sabotaging all my attempts to be healthier, lose weight etc. What is wrong with me? 

 

Through this process, a couple stories from my childhood have come to mind. I wrote them down. I thought about them a lot. And slowly, a pattern revealed itself. I use food as a form of Being Kind to myself. In my mind, allowing myself to have that: extra helping, piece of chocolate, bakery delight, ice cream etc. is a way that I try to be kind to myself. I’m feeling depressed. I go eat something yummy. I’m stressed out. I buy myself a chocolate bar. I’m overwhelmed. I go eat fast food.  In all these situations I am feeling the need to be kind to myself and food has become the way that I do that. 

 

Obviously, this actually not being kind to myself. It has caused me to be overweight and unhealthy. That is not kindness. 

 

During these past weeks, I had a friend who was doing an “88 Days of Self-Care” where she described every day what she was doing to take care of herself. But I didn’t really grasp what she was doing until I read a post someone had shared about Self-Care by SORT THIS. It was exactly what I needed to hear. The main point that I carried away is that Self-Care is basically Self-Parenting. It’s not Self-Indulgence. I have definitely been completely into the self-indulgence thing. As a Parent of Many Children, hearing the term Self-Parent starts all kinds of bells ringing. I understand this concept. I know how to parent. I do this all day. No, you can’t have that candy. You don’t need to be eating sugar. Get your butts outside and play, you’ve been sitting around the house all day. Go get some sunshine, you’ve been cooped up in a dark room all day. Eat your vegetables! You need the nutrients! Take your vitamins, it will help you stay healthier. Have you had enough water today? Don’t forget you need to drink water all day! No, we’re not having dessert tonight, you don’t need to have dessert every day. 

 

I know all about parenting. 

 

This has been a paradigm shift for me. How to be Kind to Esther? Parent Esther. Don’t Indulge Esther. Stressed out? Go for a walk, get on the elliptical. Journal. Play the piano. Feeling Depressed? Repeat the above. Unhealthy? Talk to your doctor, find out what changes you need to make. Make the changes. 

 

In the past, my biggest hang up was that self-denial felt like being mean to myself. And after a while I would just get over it. Life is hard and I want someone to be kind to me. And not getting to eat dessert during the holidays while everyone else is, felt mean. Not getting that special treat when I was stressed did not feel kind at all. 

 

But now, I’m trying to see it through the lense of parenting. When I see a child walking around with an armful of junk food, stuffing their faces, I don’t think, “Oh what a lucky child! Someone was so nice to give them that!” I think, “Why is this kid’s parents letting him eat all that? It’s going to make them sick!” Parenting. Saying no because you’re looking at the Big Picture instead of the in-the-moment desires. I know you want to stay up all night watching tv, but you have school in the morning, so you need to get in bed on time. Saying No because you love this person and you want the best for them. And the best involves discipline. 

 

So, for the upcoming year, that is my goal. Start parenting myself.