How We Respond to Stress

Difficult days are not unknown for the members of my household.  Chronic health conditions, adolescence, upcoming weddings and moves, jobs and bills and school and insurance and taxes and just plain LIFE can be overwhelming. 

Three fifths of the members of my household (the extroverted contingent) have been known to generate a powerful and pervasive grouchiness field when they are experiencing difficult days.  The other two fifths of the household, of the introverted persuasion, tend rather to hole up behind closed doors or books or computer screens or get out of the house when we are having difficult days.  Getting out of the house is okay, but when the two-fifths remain in the house, they tend to radiate grouchiness fields on a slightly different frequency.

The grouchiness field is an issue.

One of the household rules says, in effect, that when you're having a bad day, don't take it out on everyone else.  This rule tends to get violated every so often.

ANOTHER household rule says that, when someone is having a bad day, do something nice for them to make them feel cared about and loved.  This rule, happily enough, tends to get followed rather more frequently, although still not consistently.

So, ideally, infractions of the first rule will be met with food, hugs, listening ears, and compassion.  It doesn't always work that way, but it's a good day when it does.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Living a Full Life

When you deal with chronic health issues, there are simply things you are never going to get to do.

That's okay.  I heard a motivational speaker years ago, and I wish I remembered his name, who'd been in a devastating and crippling auto accident.  He said something to the effect of, "before my accident I could do a thousand different things.  Afterwards I could do five hundred things.  I chose to focus on the five hundred things I could still do than to worry about the things I'd lost."

I love that attitude, and I'd like to salute Adored Wife who largely exemplifies it.  She can't do any real lifting, she can't be on her feet or in a chair for long periods of time, she has to build any kind of activity around "will I be able to lie down for fifteen minutes every hour or so."  She also has memory issues and has to structure her whole life around copious note-taking.  She also has anomic aphasia and prosopagnosia (the inability to find the right word, and face-blindness) which give her some troubles interacting with people.  Plus occasional tics and twitches.  Plus anxiety and panic attacks.  Few other odds and ends here and there.

As you might imagine, there are any number of activities that are simply not options for AW.  There are things that, purely and simply, she's never going to be able to do.

And yet, she has a very full life.  Photographer, highly involved mother, active on social media, great at planning and organizing events and activities, excellent cook, involved in church activities, directs, produces, and manages facilities at the local community theater, keeps up with family, interested and informed about politics, history, and world events, and participates in a few online communities.

She chooses to focus on the things she CAN do, and finds her life pretty full as a result of it.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adored Wife Toughs It Out

I'm swiping this directly from Adored Wife's Facebook post of a few days back:

Yesterday I had my annual physical. I see quite a few doctors regularly, so this was mainly an overview of everything.

We went over all the things that are wrong with me. The list is huge, as many of you know.

Then, we went over all the things I am doing to combat them, circumvent them to function, or just bull my way through them.

At the end she looked at me and said. "Well. You are fine."

And you know what. I really am.


And she really is.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Dealing With My Attitude

Do you every have one of those times in your life when your attitude just leaves something to be desired?

It's not the circumstances.  There are ALWAYS things that you could wish were otherwise, but I know people with much worse problems than I have who are in a better mood than I've found myself the past few days.  It may be the neurochemical roller coaster I've been on the past few weeks and I just need to cut myself some slack while it settles down.

But sheesh, I've been grouchy.  And I don't like it.

My Christian faith informs much of my life (and it ought to inform everything but I'm a stubborn and rebellious sort) and the "fruit of the Holy Spirit" is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  If those things aren't present in my life (and they've been sorely lacking the past little while) then something is clearly amiss with my relationship with God.

Unconfessed or harbored sin?  Worry?  Failure to abide in Christ?  Taking my eyes off God and focusing too much on the problems?  Dunno.

But clearly there's something I'm missing and I don't know what it is.

It'd be easy to self-medicate, to turn to various distractions to make me feel temporarily better (food is a frequent go-to, which is one of the main reasons I'm twenty pounds overweight).  I don't want to do that.  I want to spend intensive time in prayer and meditation and entreaty and thought and seeking wisdom and guidance, to get this figured out.

I'd appreciate your prayers, friends.  Thanks much and God bless.