A delightful mix of feminine hormones, crabby {and loud} kids, and the thoughts of (the not fun part of moving) packing -- all the packing I will need to do, plus my intense drive to figure out EVERYTHING about my new house, was yesterday's cocktail.
I was getting overwhelmed to the point where my hands just shook.
I pulled out that MotherStyles book I talked about before. Just hoping she would have some tip for my silly self.
She wrote that: my personality would do good to try to take life less seriously. (INFJs take everything insanely seriously.) To lighten up and take time to look at what life "is" rather than try to make it what it "should be."
Ok so at first I was mad that she said that because I "should be" able to do that, but I don't.
I'm sure other people and other personality types do this kind of "should be" stuff. But I treat figuring out what "should be" like its my job....a job that my life depends on.
I know there are benefits to this. Its the main reason I can decorate like I do for so little cash. But I also know it makes normal circumstances overwhelming for me. Being a mom can just feel like the literal weight of the world on my shoulders, because I ALWAYS know there is room for improvement, usually TONS of improvement. Because in life things can always be better, and my brain is wired to hunt those things out and fix them, I usually cannot accept that I'm doing a good job, or that things are going well.
After I was done being mad at the author, I remembered that she too is an INFJ. So I figured she's not just saying something trite and undoable. So I stopped to consider: what if, moment by moment, I asked myself "What is this moment?"
This is essentially what people have been telling me to do for a long time -- basically the idea of a gratitude journal.
But sometimes I need things worded different to get past a mental road block.
I couldn't handle a gratitude journal because I was still looking for how things "should be."
I felt like "How can I be grateful for my home, when other people need a home."
I'm not gonna list anymore of my thoughts like that because it just gets too dark too fast, but I get them going on every subject.
I couldn't be grateful in this mind frame. I mean, well essentially, I was grateful, but I was feeling like crap about it, because I was constantly looking at what should be in the great context of everyone and everything.
This is a messy, messy world. There are infinite amounts of things that should be different. Its not gonna work for me to stay in this head space.
So after I let it all sit around in my head I wrote this on my chalk board picture frame:
 |
Took the picture without cleaning around it on purpose....I didn't wanna "should be" it. |
So I've had that up for exactly 3/4 of one day, and it has already saved me from like twenty mental pits of doom, and has made me feel happy in the midst of things I was just about to have a dark pity party over. (I'm not saying I avoided every pit, but lots of them.)
Because if I JUST ask myself what the moment IS, I don't have to fix it (or the world.) I have the freedom to just find the good parts. If my job at that moment just to describe the moment, I am allowed to look at it "as is" and it is allowed to be good.
I have to do this in just a single solitary moment.
It doesn't last very long.
BUT the effect of doing it, even just once, sometimes saves me hours of despair.
I don't know if the novelty will wear off, or if this will be a huge life changer for me.
But I thought I'd share it with you because,
twenty mental pits-of-doom avoided is kinda a big deal.
And I thought maybe this specific wording might break someone else's mental road block down right along side mine.
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