Why Jennifer Grey Should Have Kept Her Nose

I needed buttons. I had just finished the handwork of a little girl’s dress for my Etsy site…you know, the one I will probably never launch? Anyway, all I needed was four simple ¾” buttons that would “go” with the rest of my little masterpiece. I thought about traveling into Muskegon. But Meijer would have something here in town, right?

Wrong. The button selection was pitiful. But they did have cones of both black and white serging thread, at 50% off.  I also picked up some Fray Check and a pair of easy-action Fiskars scissors. (I know, I know – go in for one thing and come out with a bunch of other stuff – but can you relate?)

I was walking to the self-check line when the overhead speaker caught my attention: “You broke my heart ‘cause I couldn't dance. You didn't even want me around. And now I'm back, to let you know I can really shake 'em down.”

Oh, yeah. The Contours’ Do You Love Me? put a spring in my step and took me back 20+ years. Though the song became a hit 20 years before that, my mind went to Dirty Dancing.

Oh, yes. I was a Patrick Swayze fan. Not because I thought he was cute but because I thought he wasn’t.
I have always been partial to the underdog – the short guy, the guy that isn’t pretty, the guy who doesn’t care what other people think.

The first glimpse I remember of Jennifer Grey was in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off the year before Dirty Dancing debuted. I liked her from the moment I saw her, probably for the same reasons I liked Swayze. She had this big nose, she was kind of dopey, and she didn’t seem to care whether people liked her or not.
She liked herself, and that was all that mattered.

Yep, the 80’s were Grey’s decade. She was running full-throttle, amassing 14 movie credits to her young name. The run slowed, almost crawling to a stop, when she underwent rhinoplasty surgery to correct what she saw as a flawed feature. Okay, she had a couple of movies after that (none of which I saw), but even Grey will tell you the surgery was the worst thing she could have done for her career.

“I went in the operating room a celebrity and came out anonymous,” Grey said.

Do we blame Grey for wanting to improve herself? Not at all. But think about why we identified with her.
It wasn’t her beauty. It was her flaws.

We liked her because we either identified with her or could see ourselves hanging out with her. We liked that she didn’t care what other people thought.

Or so we thought.

I think there’s a lesson here for all of us. We waste so much effort trying to be “on,” trying to impress colleagues or neighbors or people in the next pew. The reality is, the more we show our vulnerabilities, the more people align with us.

How might you show your vulnerability this week?

Enjoy your day. Enjoy this blog.

Settling

I was struck by a poignant quote that I had to share with you: We accept the love we think we deserve.

Let that sink in a minute.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

I learned that Stephen Chbosky penned this quote. Name meant nothing to me either. But further research told me that he is the screenwriter for the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower and that the quote was used in the script of the movie.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

It’s so easy for me to see it in others yet so difficult to identify in myself.

We accept less than what we deserve because we convince ourselves that we deserve no more.

I guess it could go the other way, too. We could reject love that’s not safe, not sound, not edifying because we know we deserve more. Deserve better. But that’s not really the problem, is it?

What has life thrown at us? Who has convinced us that this is as good as it gets? Why do we settle in life or in love? And how does this affect our quest toward a well-balanced life? There may be others, but I have narrowed it down to three reasons:

1)      Self-esteem – whether high or low, our self-esteem is the voice that tells us what type of life or love we deserve as well as how much we should put up with.

2)      Comfort – sound like a good thing, right? But what happens if we get so comfortable in our relationships that we don’t work at them? Even good relationships…will they be around tomorrow if we neglect them today? When we’re comfortable, we stop growing. When we stop growing, we start dying.

3)      Fear – Are we afraid of failure? Are we afraid of success? Are we afraid of what would happen if we challenged the life or love we have accepted up until now?

So what’s the antidote? Is there a way out of this hole? How do we overcome this unhealthy settling?
Here’s my four-pronged approach. One by itself is not enough. One taken out of order will make no sense. Step by step, though, and we can rejoice instead of sigh.

Okay, here goes:

1)      Awareness – first we have to be aware there is a problem. Are we happy? Do we feel fulfilled? Content? Challenged? Motivated? Inspired? If not, something needs to change.

2)      Knowledge – in the past, we may have ducked out at this point. We may have lamented over our problems and trudged on. Now it’s different. Now we’ll wrap ourselves in knowledge. We’ll learn how a healthy relationship looks. We’ll consider what we really want out of life. We’ll research the steps to both attaining and sustaining the vitality we’ve missed up until now.

3)      Implementation – Seems so obvious, doesn’t it? But it must happen often enough that scripture references our unwillingness to implement. James 1:22-24 (NIV) reads:

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

4)      Evaluation – how did it go? Did you achieve what you had hoped? If not, what went wrong? The answer is not that you just didn’t deserve better. Keep looking. Keep trying. Keep asking. Keep surrounding yourself with healthy people and a healthy lifestyle until you strike the success you’re longing for.

You deserve no less.

Enjoy your day. Enjoy this blog.

The Forgetfulness Treatment -- Five Steps

Though I barely got through Biology in high school, I have surrounded myself with nurse types long enough to at least fake an understanding of what they're talking about.

You may know that I write fiction every chance I get. You may not know that I also work as the Sanctuary Educator for one of the largest Catholic health organizations in the country. I get to write for them, too, but it's more in the way of developing learning modules surrounding elder topics. It is not uncommon for me to research various medical ailments, like memory loss, as I seek to inspire our care partners toward excellence in resident-centered care.

My research tells me that the brain is like a muscle. We have these synaptic connections that kind of spark new information into the brain. We "spark" the connections by challenging them -- living an active lifestyle, eating right, reading, communicating and building relationships in meaningful ways, enjoying the fine arts, and overall living a well-balanced life.

The more we engage these synaptic connections, the more dendritic branches we create. These dendritic branches interconnect brain cells, which make our brains function better. Meanwhile, we're strengthening our hippocampus -- the area responsible for memory and learning -- with all of this effort.

So why would I even think about posting information about forgetfulness? Maybe it's because not everything is worth remembering.

You know what I'm talking about: the pain of a relationship gone bad; the repeated failure in an area of particular challenge; the voices in your head that keep insisting that, "You can't," or "You're no good," or "You're not worth it." Hanging on to these things actually holds us back from strengthening our brains, our outlooks, our lives.

It's easier to say, "Just forget it," than to actually carry that through, though, right? Try these five steps in incorporating The Forgetfulness Treatment into your life:

1. Come to terms with the origins of the memories. You can try to stuff them down, drink yourself numb, or overcompensate with any number of good deeds. But you can't let go of these bitter memories until you examine the source of your pain. Ouch. I know. But suppression is nothing but a jerry rig. You might need help by way of counseling or a trusted friend. You might be able to look it head-on through journaling. But one way or another, you must give yourself permission to feel the effects of this pain.
2. Acknowledge any part you played. Any experience you have had, good or bad, is not entirely your doing. Sometimes it's not your fault at all. Sometimes there's at least a smidgen of something you could have changed. Sometimes you bear the biggest brunt. Point is, there is always someone else carrying part of the responsibility. Acknowledge your part, but don't take more on than is justified.
3. Look for the lesson. If you consider every person in history who ever created anything worthwhile, you will soon see a similarity: before they embarked on their next attempt at success, they learned the lesson from their last failure. They didn't carry all of the failures around like a burden on their backs. They looked, they learned, they made modifications, and they let go so they could try again. You were meant to learn something from this pain. Don't waste it.
4. Create a mantra. This mantra should include the experience itself, as well as what you have learned from it. For example, if you have a painful memory of abuse, your mantra might read: "Through the memory of being emotionally abused, I am learning to be a stronger person. I'll watch for and recognize the signs so that no one takes advantage of me like that in the future."
5. Pray it through. I maybe should have started with this one! But I wanted to end with it because, well, we're talking about God here. He can help you conquer the pain better than any drug. I believe with all my heart that He is the source of your peace and of your forgiveness. He will be the One who will remind you of the importance of forgiveness toward both the pain and the perpetrator. It will be He who leads you down that path of forgiveness. If you give Him permission, it will be He who reminds you, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33, NIV)

It is only in the application of The Forgiveness Treatment that we can be restored to the life balance we crave.

What painful memory in your life could use the Forgetfulness Treatment?

Enjoy your day. Enjoy this blog.

Mom's Mints

I had the stomach flu this weekend. Ugh! It has been so long.

I don’t remember the last time I had to battle that virus.

I had forgotten how it just wrings me of all my strength. I had forgotten how afraid I am to move, fearful of making the nausea worse. I had forgotten how I always begin to wonder if I’m just over-reacting, over-exaggerating…do I always feel like this but am just making a big deal about it right now? Will this roiling feeling ever end?

I find myself praying incessantly during this time. I always wonder if God’s giggling at me since I pray so passionately and fervently, as if my life is coming to an end.

I find myself thinking of my mom a lot, too.

I don’t know about you, but I always feel like I need my mommy at times like these. If for no other reason, I just need to hear the empathy in her voice. I just need a word or two of advice from her. But she’s not here, having passed on nearly three years ago.

I would have to rely on my memories.

Ahhh! What about those pink mints she always carried around? They always made me feel better.

I happened to have a whole bag of them in my nightstand. They’re part of our routine.

Every night after we’re washed up and ready for bed, I’ll have one, and I’ll give one to each dog in Mom’s honor. The poochers love this little nightly ritual and will stop whatever they’re doing to sit politely before me as soon as they hear the crinkle of the bag. (For some reason my husband gets two. I’m not sure why. That’s just how we’ve always done it—or, at least that’s how we’ve done it since I rediscovered the Wintergreen Lozenges in WalMart about six months ago.)

The mints. It would entail my sitting up, reaching over, pulling the nightstand’s drawer open, and rifling into the sealable bag, all while my stomach was flip-flopping, but it would be worth it. Having one would make me feel better. And it did.

By late afternoon, I felt strong enough to call my daughter, who was struggling with the same virus. When she picked up, she said, “Hi, Mommy,” in her cutest little-girl voice. I knew in an instant that she needed me as much as I needed my own mom.

I started reflecting with my daughter on how my mom used to have me sleep on the couch rather than in my room during my flu bouts. She used to cover the cushions with crisp, cool sheets that soothed me as I crawled between them. She used to drape a towel over the edge of the couch and toward the pail, in case I couldn’t make it to the bathroom.

She was always so gentle with me during those times, I remember, despite having five other kids and a husband and who knows which dog we had at the time to care for.

She took her time. She spoke softly. She called me Sweetie Britches. She brushed my hair from my face and held it back for me during the roughest parts, no matter what time of day or night. Her fingers always felt like angels’ wings during those times. And those mints, they worked wonders at taming my tummy.

In the middle of all this reflection, my daughter said, “I know. I remember when you used to do those things for me when I was little, too.”

It hit me. My mother’s legacy would carry on, even after I was gone, even after my daughter was gone because she would do these things for her kids, too. It’s what she knows. It’s what comforted her, too, back then. And she wouldn’t forget it.

What legacies will you leave behind for your children? For your grandchildren?

Enjoy your day. Enjoy this blog.

I Corinthians 9:26-27 (NIV)

²⁶ Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. ²⁷ No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

This week I'm reflecting on the importance of taking care of my body in living a balanced life. See Monday's post for the full account.

Proverbs 3:7-8 (NIV)

⁷ Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
⁸ This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.

This week I'm reflecting on the importance of taking care of my body in living a balanced life. See Monday's post for the full account.

Psalm 139:15-17 (NIV)

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!

This week I'm reflecting on the importance of taking care of my body in living a balanced life. See Monday's post for the full account.