I love this Norman Rockwell painting. Reminds me of the brief moments in time when I stop long enough to look in the mirror and take care of myself instead of other people. I also start to freak out at the new grays or the new wrinkles.......LOL
It's a great feeling to help people get healthy.
It's even better to help people help themselves get healthy.
And then it feels best to help myself get healthier......
but most of the time that is on the backburner and I am the first to admit that trait, not that I think it's a good thing at all. In fact, recognizing burnout is sometimes hard for me. Preventing it, though, is the best if possible.
That's why I'm so thankful we acrue some time to take off now so as one of my good friends say in hopeless cases....... help me help you.....then we laugh. We have to laugh or otherwise we would be nuts by now.....wait a minute......that's it, I'm nuts! LOL
This is just totally my opinion and I'm sure everybody has one (I digress) but I think all woman are really little girls inside for the rest of their life and it's the tweaking of how we nurture that inner girl through life that is critical.
Stitching for me is the best way I nurture myself. It's a spontaneous, Crayola-filled moments, that makes me smile. Looking at fabric colors or thread colors, or cruising in an art museum, listening to music are also good ways to nurture. That's the time I can choose, I can "fix" something if it didn't work out, I can start on something new any or everyday or I can choose not to for a few weeks. I can tell when the thread knots. I know what's on the underside.
In life, I sometimes don't get to choose but get dealt, I don't even realize there are knots and I can't imagine what the underside looks like.
But everybody is different.
I can be the first to vouche for not nurturing that spirit sometimes and being pretty burned out.
That's what staycations are for me. Everybody has their way of nurturing themselves and for me it's not expensive trips or cruises that I replenish my inner soul, it's time away for the taking care of all things/people and doing a self-check on what I need to work on.
The noise is away and I look in the mirror.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it's a woman thing, a Virgo thing, or just a characteristic, not always good to want to take care of everybody's problems or "fix them".
It took me about 45 years to realize I can't fix people but the sweet release it brings to let things go for awhile and take care of me is becoming through the years easier to do and without as much guilt. In looking back I can't say I had the role model for this so it's taken a bit of time. Growing up there were no boundaries at all.
I know this had an imprint on what is "in my fiber" today.
Things I learned I didn't want to do again.
But when dad is sitting as the king rattling the ice in his glass and banging it on the table until you fill it every meal and if it didn't get refilled fast enough I was called a huzzy, or there was white bread missing from a meal, or I didn't get his shirts ironed out straight enough on Saturdays, or I shelled so many beans and peas my fingers were purple and blistered while my friends were at the pool, or I had to cook every Saturday lunch and it had to be on the table exactly at 12 for him or then payback, or when I chose to go to college.....oh my gosh, that was an insult, I got slapped around for saying that and told I was stupid and would never be anybody.
Heck, it's funny now. Just this past year he was calling me up apologizing for all this and other stuff and I just laughed. I told him that's what made my fiber. It helped me grow up fast. It helped me be determined to never be totally reliant on a man. So I thanked him. He didn't know how to take that.
Yeah he even said", "we'll call you next week and be right back on track"........still waiting Dad.......4 months now.....I suspect the truth.got a little too much into his uncomfortable zone. Me? Happy? Making lemons out of lemonade? Yep.....dad, I'll be waiting for that call again.........right.
So, I guess it was natural to be more of a "fixer".
I've seen more women at the brink of extreme stress in the past year than I ever have in 20 years practice. The environment, economy, health, relationship strains, etc. just overflow all into the health of the woman.
I think sometimes women just need someone to listen to them. The world is on fast motion, an instant everything, staring at cell phones and texting while driving or anytime. There is a generation, I would say, the less than 30 age group that is really into instant gratification and if it's impossible to give at that moment, then they completely do not understand it. It's foreign. Having a mood swing premenstrually during puberty now is totally unacceptable to the general public. TV has folks convinced there is a pill for everything. Natural occurences like the ebb and flow of cycles are a part of life.
They know everything already by 18 and have little no respect for professionals. I've been cursed at, told I was the only adult in the room, asked questions you would never, ever have thought of many years ago while mothers are sitting there not a word spoken, allowing their kids to jerk them around emotionally, financially, and the women ask us to "fix them". We smile and try to help them help themselves first, then listen to things that make my little dramas a breeze.
I mean like everything. I've gotten phone calls from mothers in a rage wanting me to fix their daughter for.....throwing a biscuit in their face while they drove to school that morning or staying up all night texting and being a zombie during the day or I could go on and on with "indiscretions" that would pop your eyes out.
Women are burned out by the time they finish raising kids and it really shows when it comes to their own health. Me included. While listening I usually at some point ask what's one thing they can do just for themselves and 80% of the time they give me a blank expression and can't recall one thing.
My husband has learned over the years that I use the phrase "it's just not in my fiber" and just this week I heard him say that about himself.....thought it was funny. I don't know why I say that but it basically is my response to things I can't or won't do. Loving a needle and thread probably intiated the phrase even when sewing on those cardboards with punched holes at the age of 3. LOL Seriously, this is not to mean that I have the perfect constellation of genetics here...not at all, I'm included in the burnout generation and remember the days of guilt when I chose not to cater to the every whim of an adolescent. I'm sure my kids could tell you some words of description even to this day because they didn't get those new cars at 16 or have all they could have and OMG! assume bills gradually after 18...that was a real shocker :o
Bills? What are bills? LOL
I hope they learned a little about respect but.......... I'm not sure on that one.
I hope for them that they are happy and able to be independent and take care of themselves.
We all have our own "fiber" we are made of and different is good. Knowing what's in your fiber or what's not in your fiber is probably something that occurs with age. Thank goodness for wisdom over the years which unfortunately sometimes could only be attained by experiences dealt to us.
Taking a week off every now and again is a way for me to do a fiber check so I can get back on the road to "fixing" in another week.
I started my staycation after work with a pedicure. I was amazed at how I think that is a luxury and get one about 3 times a year and there was a lady with 2 year old twins, holding them down for their pedicures while they were screaming and also was homeschooling their 8 year old son so he was forever asking questions about whales.
For a brief moment I thought....homeschooling....guilt.....then teaching my daughter that a pedicure is a luxury not a regular thing.....guilt......but it didn't hang around long by the time I got home. LOL
I'm pretty happy with my fiber now. It took me about 47 years to get there.
Thank you to all readers and I do enjoy comments. Sometimes I get long-winded and write alot and not the typical show and tell stitchy blog but this is me.
It's what's in my fiber.
