I used to have this strong drive inside and believed that sexuality, casual sex, drinking and such like would lead to the peace I needed. I didn’t know why I felt this way, but the feelings were very strong. It drove me on and on no matter what. I thought there was more to life but couldn't find it. Finally I dropped into a hole so deep I didn't think I would ever come out.
Growing up I also felt I was the good child and that I was better than everyone else. I looked down on everyone else, but inside my imperfections tore at me, and I still wasn't good enough. It was slowly driving me crazy. Finally, I realized I was no different than everyone else. I was alone inside and there was no way I could be who I wanted to be. Even being good wouldn’t do it.
Finally someone explained something important to me from the Bible. I never realized that the Bible said that none of us are as good as we should be, and none of us meets our own personal standards. Somehow there is still a hole deep inside of each of us, a black spot from which it seems we will never be able to escape. Instead, we retreat deep inside, becoming neurotic, worrying, and trying to escape from ourselves.
God has given us the truth about ourselves and about him, but instead, in our retreat from ourselves, we forget the truth that is revealed in nature and lose ourselves in idols of self, things, materialism and hedonism. It’s a circular trap from which we cannot escape on our own.
Since we cannot escape on our own, there is only one way of escape, Jesus Christ, the one way. We must trust him to bring us out of this dilemma and into his light. We must accept that Jesus, through his sacrifice on the cross, can bring the gap between who we are and who we should be. Who we should be is like Jesus, for Jesus is the only prophet who is identical to his message.
Somehow, God gives us the HOPE to reconcile the desires of our "dark side" with the light. Somehow, when we come to Jesus, he enables us to have the desires of our hearts. The things that we had wanted in a dark and twisted way somehow are transformed. JOY comes! Life is no longer a bifurcation between goodness and badness.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Girlfriend's Guide to Marriage - Book Proposal
The girlfriends guide to Marriage
Looking back at this blog entry that I wrote 8 months ago and didn't publish until now, I see how much better my life has gotten in the last 8 months. Things really DO get better! Maybe someday I can change this into a full book proposal...
The dishes need washing and the house needs cleaning. I don’t have enough time for my daughter. My daughter is telling her teacher – in front of the class and all the parents at Meet the Teacher – that her brother died. Instead of being there to comfort her and instead of being there for her first day of 1st grade, I’m on an airplane and a baby cries loudly. While the parents are busy trying to get the baby to quiet down, I wish I had a baby even if it was crying, or even if it had a skull fracture as the baby I met at church on Sunday did. Sometimes it seems I’m doing everything I can to support my family, at the cost of my family’s emotional needs. In the middle of my chaos, I look down below me and see the waves on a river, and instead of the usual chaos of waves breaking, from 10,000 feet I see peace and a beautiful pattern where somehow the pieces fit together.
After a bad pregnancy and a baby who died, my husband doesn’t ever want to get pregnant again. In fact, he wants to get a vasectomy. I know that someday I’ll want another, but since the death was only 6 months ago, someday doesn’t look like anytime soon.
Like most other career women, type A if you will, I make more than my husband and currently he is looking for a job. Add to that the stress of a recent death, my daughter’s surgery, and a bad pregnancy, and anyone would feel overwhelmed.
And how do I deal with the internal pressures I place on myself? How do I persuade myself that I don’t have to be everything to everybody (and myself) all of the time? Why do I make myself feel guilty that I haven’t published my “great American novel” yet?
In addition, somehow my personality says that I must write. For me, writing makes the world seem a much happier place and a page a day truly does take the worry away!
Then there’s graduate school. I’ve got to do one thing that is just for me in this life, and that’s getting that Ph.D. that’s been eluding me for 11 years. That is of course the other thing that is just for me. But how is one to find time with a full time career and a family still recovering from a death? But somehow, the alternative, to keep doing what I am doing, seems almost worse.
While my situation is an extreme example, I’m constantly amazed at the number of women I know, of varying socio-economic levels, who make some or all of the money for their families. It’s a stress that we are not meant to carry, but somehow, we are so busy caring for those we love that we spend all of our time working and not caring. What’s a girlfriend (you) to do and how can your friends help? How to help without crossing boundaries and running someone else’s life?
Yes, right now writing about my life almost makes me exhausted and thinking about my work definitely does, but I do believe there are concrete solutions to the problem. There’s a way to achieve something that at least approaches balance, and for some there might even be a way to live on your spouse’s income. Life’s a journey and somehow we learn to take the curve balls with grace. How do I put this into place? Piece by piece of course!
Here's my chapter by chapter layout of a book on the stress us career women face and about marriage:
Chapter 1 – Curing overwhelmedness
- This is the summary to get you started
- Change your internal track. Do you worry all the time? What internal pressures do you place on yourself?
- Do one thing at a time. We all think we can multi-task, but let’s be honest please!
- Don’t worry, meditate
- Pray for your husband. Let go and let God.
Chapter 2 – What makes you you? What do you have to do to be you: your vision plan.
Okay, what do you really want out of life? What do you want to do with your life? What are all of the balls that you want to balance? Here are what I and many others would consider the essentials:
Kids / family / husband
Career
Friends/ Social / church / social activism (maybe)
The things you love to do
Future aspirations: writing, school
Self care: sleep, showers, relaxing, exercise
Take your time to exercise. Okay, I’m going to go now and exercise...
Chapter 3 – The Constrained plan: how are we going to get there?
What if, after pairing down your vision plan, it seems that everything you have to do is required and none of it is extra? How do you balance it all?
How do I live life intentionally without sacrificing relaxing and myself?
Chapter 4 – What are your personal weaknesses? What lies do you believe?
- I exist and have value
- I exist separately from other people
- I am unique
- I can change my future and present traits. I have the ability to remember, understand and learn from the past and present.
- I can plan my future.
- I can choose what I enjoy over what I do not enjoy.
- I do not have to produce to be loved. Conversely, producing and achieving does not make more loveable, not even to myself.
- I do not have the right to run anyone else’s right. Conversely no other human has the right to run my life.
- If I set my focus in the right place, I am more likely to be happy (more about this later). Setting my focus on heaven may accomplish this. I can monitor and observe my own thoughts, feelings and actions to help myself thrive.
- I can keep myself reasonably free of pain.
- I can balance short-term and long-term goals.
- I love myself and I love others. This love is not dependent on what I or others do, but instead on innate value from God. I do not have to succeed in order to like myself.
- I am not a superhuman, but sometimes I do have to apply principles to life to get what has to be done done.
- I will not let depression or anxiety get in the way of my goals and of problem solving. I must think clearly.
Chapter 5 – The ABC’s of time Management: Delegate, organize, prioritize
While I don’t believe that time management is the be all, end all, a certain degree of time management is absolutely essential. Without time management, it is easy to have multiple lists of things to be done and not accomplish any of them!
Chapter 6 – Don’t worry be happy! (Take time for you, do one thing at a time, don’t sweat the small stuff – and it’s all small stuff) Will it really matter in 5 years?
Chapter 7 - Communicate with your allies, don’t fight them.
Chapter 8 – Marriage - A picture of God through unconditional love of self and others. Acceptance doesn’t always look like we think it does, though.
Keeping your marriage together
Chapter 9 – Divorce
What can I say here? Is there such a thing as the good divorce? I doubt it, but it is something many of us have to strive for.
Rules of child-raising by divorced parents:
Parents do not get the kid on their side
Parents do not fight in front of the child
Parents have a united front when it comes to discipline
Parents do what is best for the children, not for them. In many cases, this means trying to stay together if you are considering separation.
Chapter 10 - Family of Origin: you and your husband
Chapter 11 - Your husband. Building him up and helping him with his vision and constrained plan. Understanding your husband and his masculinity
Chapter 12 - Children. They are not just mini-adults
Chapter 13 - Dealing with Life’s curve balls: death, job losses, surgeries
Chapter 14 - Financial fire drill: cutting back, earning more, and financial catastrophes
Becoming a one wage earner family.
Chapter 15 - Making Good decisions: take your time.
Research shows…
How to make a good decision then? Consider your biases…
Chapter 16 - Good Boundaries: not too elastic or rigid
Chapter 17 - Additional Resources
Delegate, organize and prioritize, take time for you, do only one thing at a time, communicate, build up your husband, don’t be overwhelmed (think about one thing at a time, change your internal track to what you want it to be, not what life hands you, don’t worry, meditate) Where does your anxiety come from (your family of origin), give your husband a chance to be a man, don’t fight your husband, make him your ally. Living on one income and financial fire drills, dealing with life’s emotional curve balls. Make good decisions and not spur of the moment ones.
Looking back at this blog entry that I wrote 8 months ago and didn't publish until now, I see how much better my life has gotten in the last 8 months. Things really DO get better! Maybe someday I can change this into a full book proposal...
The dishes need washing and the house needs cleaning. I don’t have enough time for my daughter. My daughter is telling her teacher – in front of the class and all the parents at Meet the Teacher – that her brother died. Instead of being there to comfort her and instead of being there for her first day of 1st grade, I’m on an airplane and a baby cries loudly. While the parents are busy trying to get the baby to quiet down, I wish I had a baby even if it was crying, or even if it had a skull fracture as the baby I met at church on Sunday did. Sometimes it seems I’m doing everything I can to support my family, at the cost of my family’s emotional needs. In the middle of my chaos, I look down below me and see the waves on a river, and instead of the usual chaos of waves breaking, from 10,000 feet I see peace and a beautiful pattern where somehow the pieces fit together.
After a bad pregnancy and a baby who died, my husband doesn’t ever want to get pregnant again. In fact, he wants to get a vasectomy. I know that someday I’ll want another, but since the death was only 6 months ago, someday doesn’t look like anytime soon.
Like most other career women, type A if you will, I make more than my husband and currently he is looking for a job. Add to that the stress of a recent death, my daughter’s surgery, and a bad pregnancy, and anyone would feel overwhelmed.
And how do I deal with the internal pressures I place on myself? How do I persuade myself that I don’t have to be everything to everybody (and myself) all of the time? Why do I make myself feel guilty that I haven’t published my “great American novel” yet?
In addition, somehow my personality says that I must write. For me, writing makes the world seem a much happier place and a page a day truly does take the worry away!
Then there’s graduate school. I’ve got to do one thing that is just for me in this life, and that’s getting that Ph.D. that’s been eluding me for 11 years. That is of course the other thing that is just for me. But how is one to find time with a full time career and a family still recovering from a death? But somehow, the alternative, to keep doing what I am doing, seems almost worse.
While my situation is an extreme example, I’m constantly amazed at the number of women I know, of varying socio-economic levels, who make some or all of the money for their families. It’s a stress that we are not meant to carry, but somehow, we are so busy caring for those we love that we spend all of our time working and not caring. What’s a girlfriend (you) to do and how can your friends help? How to help without crossing boundaries and running someone else’s life?
Yes, right now writing about my life almost makes me exhausted and thinking about my work definitely does, but I do believe there are concrete solutions to the problem. There’s a way to achieve something that at least approaches balance, and for some there might even be a way to live on your spouse’s income. Life’s a journey and somehow we learn to take the curve balls with grace. How do I put this into place? Piece by piece of course!
Here's my chapter by chapter layout of a book on the stress us career women face and about marriage:
Chapter 1 – Curing overwhelmedness
- This is the summary to get you started
- Change your internal track. Do you worry all the time? What internal pressures do you place on yourself?
- Do one thing at a time. We all think we can multi-task, but let’s be honest please!
- Don’t worry, meditate
- Pray for your husband. Let go and let God.
Chapter 2 – What makes you you? What do you have to do to be you: your vision plan.
Okay, what do you really want out of life? What do you want to do with your life? What are all of the balls that you want to balance? Here are what I and many others would consider the essentials:
Kids / family / husband
Career
Friends/ Social / church / social activism (maybe)
The things you love to do
Future aspirations: writing, school
Self care: sleep, showers, relaxing, exercise
Take your time to exercise. Okay, I’m going to go now and exercise...
Chapter 3 – The Constrained plan: how are we going to get there?
What if, after pairing down your vision plan, it seems that everything you have to do is required and none of it is extra? How do you balance it all?
How do I live life intentionally without sacrificing relaxing and myself?
Chapter 4 – What are your personal weaknesses? What lies do you believe?
- I exist and have value
- I exist separately from other people
- I am unique
- I can change my future and present traits. I have the ability to remember, understand and learn from the past and present.
- I can plan my future.
- I can choose what I enjoy over what I do not enjoy.
- I do not have to produce to be loved. Conversely, producing and achieving does not make more loveable, not even to myself.
- I do not have the right to run anyone else’s right. Conversely no other human has the right to run my life.
- If I set my focus in the right place, I am more likely to be happy (more about this later). Setting my focus on heaven may accomplish this. I can monitor and observe my own thoughts, feelings and actions to help myself thrive.
- I can keep myself reasonably free of pain.
- I can balance short-term and long-term goals.
- I love myself and I love others. This love is not dependent on what I or others do, but instead on innate value from God. I do not have to succeed in order to like myself.
- I am not a superhuman, but sometimes I do have to apply principles to life to get what has to be done done.
- I will not let depression or anxiety get in the way of my goals and of problem solving. I must think clearly.
Chapter 5 – The ABC’s of time Management: Delegate, organize, prioritize
While I don’t believe that time management is the be all, end all, a certain degree of time management is absolutely essential. Without time management, it is easy to have multiple lists of things to be done and not accomplish any of them!
Chapter 6 – Don’t worry be happy! (Take time for you, do one thing at a time, don’t sweat the small stuff – and it’s all small stuff) Will it really matter in 5 years?
Chapter 7 - Communicate with your allies, don’t fight them.
Chapter 8 – Marriage - A picture of God through unconditional love of self and others. Acceptance doesn’t always look like we think it does, though.
Keeping your marriage together
Chapter 9 – Divorce
What can I say here? Is there such a thing as the good divorce? I doubt it, but it is something many of us have to strive for.
Rules of child-raising by divorced parents:
Parents do not get the kid on their side
Parents do not fight in front of the child
Parents have a united front when it comes to discipline
Parents do what is best for the children, not for them. In many cases, this means trying to stay together if you are considering separation.
Chapter 10 - Family of Origin: you and your husband
Chapter 11 - Your husband. Building him up and helping him with his vision and constrained plan. Understanding your husband and his masculinity
Chapter 12 - Children. They are not just mini-adults
Chapter 13 - Dealing with Life’s curve balls: death, job losses, surgeries
Chapter 14 - Financial fire drill: cutting back, earning more, and financial catastrophes
Becoming a one wage earner family.
Chapter 15 - Making Good decisions: take your time.
Research shows…
How to make a good decision then? Consider your biases…
Chapter 16 - Good Boundaries: not too elastic or rigid
Chapter 17 - Additional Resources
Delegate, organize and prioritize, take time for you, do only one thing at a time, communicate, build up your husband, don’t be overwhelmed (think about one thing at a time, change your internal track to what you want it to be, not what life hands you, don’t worry, meditate) Where does your anxiety come from (your family of origin), give your husband a chance to be a man, don’t fight your husband, make him your ally. Living on one income and financial fire drills, dealing with life’s emotional curve balls. Make good decisions and not spur of the moment ones.
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