Family Strife

The holidays are nearing and, with them, comes all the advertising depicting happy families gathered around Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas trees.  The looks lovely.  But my family is not like that although I wish it was.

My "family", besides my husband and two kids, basically consists of my Mom and my sister.  My Mom is depressed but won't do anything about it.  She spends her days making lists of things she "should" do and looking through catalogs of things she'd like to buy.  She's negative and manages to make everything a chore, no matter how pleasant it may be.

My sister's greatest talent in life appears to be not taking responsibilty for anything.  Lord help you if you disagree with her, suggest that something may be her fault, or have an idea about how she could do something differently.

If anything happens in our little family, its my fault, according to my Mom and sister.  I'm the demanding, unreasonable, one, being an attorney and all.  (Neither of them graduated from college.)

Once in awhile we manage to have an enjoyable time together, provided we don't really talk about anything besides say  . . . the weather (and even then my sister may argue with me if its raining or not.  "But, dear sister, what then is falling from the sky??")

I'd like us to get along better but, we're just very different.  Sigh.  We make efforts to be a happy family once in awhile but it seems like it never lasts.  We always seem to descend back into bickering and misunderstanding, my Mom and sister on one side and me on the other. 

So, all the happy family advertising is hard to watch.  Anyone else?

Personal Resiliance or "How I Cope"

Life is tough, right?  We're all super busy; too many demands on our time, too many obligations, too many curve balls thrown at us by life.  It can get depressing.  Forward motion on something that's important to you can be super difficult to realize.  Often times, I feel like "me" gets swallowed up by my life.  And then, the feelings of drowning start.  What's a girl to do? 

I've recently started to make time for myself again.  At first, it was hard to even realize that I was worth making time for; that it was o.k. to have my own things that were important to me. 

My dream group, Eight Women Dream, helped a lot.  They got me to start thinking and realize that I do have a lot of tools to pull myself out of the quagmire of "life" and make some space for myself in the sun.  I thought I'd share some of those tools with all of you:

First, what do I mean by "personal resilience"?  I can best describe it as a deep, inner sense that "I can get myself through this"; "I can rely on myself"; "I can trust what my inner self is telling me."  That inner calm comes from truly believing in those personal resilience statements.  Through personal resilience, you can achieve your dreams, whatever they may be.

If you don't think you have that personal resilience, or it needs a little tune-up, here are some steps that work for me.

1.  Think of a time you succeeded at something. I don't care if this is something recent, a year ago, 5 years ago, or if its the fact that you got a gold star in 2nd grade.  We've all got something.  Think up one, then think up some more.  Write them down.  Look at all you've already accomplished!  Remember those.  Allow yourself to be proud.

2.  Remember a time in your life when you were happy, confident, life was going well. Again, it doesn't matter if this is right now, in the recent past, or in the distant past.  Think of the things that surrounded you at that time.  Do the things that surrounded you then, still surround you today?  Maybe its a supportive friend you've lost touch with; maybe its as simple as a song.  Surround yourself with as many reminders of that time as you can.  Tell yourself its o.k. to be happy and confident.

Me?  Nothing puts me in a better, "I can do it" mood than driving around, sun roof open, '80's music blaring, eating from the bag of gumdrops in my car.  I'm 17 again!  And we were all unstoppable as teenagers, right?

3.  Stop worrying about, guessing, and assuming what other people think. O.k., I understand that there's some people you have to worry about.  For example, its probably important that your boss thinks well of you.  But, as for the rest of the people you have brief interactions with - forget them!

4.  Send your fear out for pistachios. A wise woman once told me this.  It sounds funny, but it works.

Whenever I get nervous riding, I say (sometimes aloud): "Fear!!  Go to the grocery store and pick me up some pistachios!  Right now!!"  Just try it.  If nothing else, you'll laugh.

5.  Listen to yourself. I know, its hard.  But you must listen to yourself and trust what you hear.  Its o.k. to believe in yourself.

6.  Stop the negative self-talk. Just stop it!  Now!!  Really listen to yourself.  Make a conscious effort to be aware of negative self-talk.

Me:  I started noticing that I said, "Oh, I should ride today" and then I never did.  I changed that to "I will ride today."  That simple language shift made all the difference.

7.  Surround yourself with reminders of previous successes. This is similar to #2.  Look for tangible things.

Me: I just hung up the ribbons I've won at shows in my tack room.

8.  Inner beauty to outer beauty; outer beauty to inner beauty. People can debate me on this one but I think inner and outer beauty are connected.  I know that when I look good, I feel better and more confident.  I'm not necessarily talking here about being perfectly skinny, having expensive clothes, or perfect accessories.  I'm talking about taking care of yourself.  Believing that you're worth taking care of.  What makes you feel beautiful?  Think about and come up with a list of things you can easily do each day.

Evil Sister-in-Law

I have an evil sister-in-law.  Well, maybe "awful" is a better word.  She's too stupid to be "evil".  I think "evil" implies a certain degree of cunning.

Does anyone else share this problem?  Let me explain mine:

Her sense of "style" is, ummm . . . well, off.  For Mother's Day brunch at my in-laws, she had on this purple, empire waist, toga type dress.  It had some sort of darker puruple and pink pattern on it.  Bad.  Bad as in, when she walked through the door, I looked and said to my sister, "What the hell is she wearing?"  Just plain bad.

Hair:  Think Sheena Easton from the 1980's.  I grew up in the '80's.  I'm a fan of the music.  But not the hair.

Comments:  Oh, I could go on and on here.  I'll give you just a few examples.  This from brunch on Sunday (read it to yourself in a ditzy, laughing, voice):  "Well, I just don't know what to do.  I went to the gym awhile ago and my oldest got a broken arm.  Yesterday I went on a bike ride and when I came back the youngest had a black eye."  Ummm . . . stay home more???

Let me make a bitchy comment of my own here - how a person can supposedly go to the gym and ride a bike as often as she says she does and still look as oddly shaped as my sister-in-law does, is absolutely beyond me. 

More comments by the SIL:  this one was awhile ago to my other sister-in-law who had just had a very, very late term miscarriage:  "Oh my, I'm so, so busy with my three kids; you're so lucky to just have two."  What kind of person says that? 

My SIL is truly lacking in any insight or consideration of others.  My in-laws (who are truly wonderful people) took us all on a family vacation many years ago.  It was the first and last.  My evil/stupid SIL got up every morning at 5:30, went upstairs (all bedrooms were downstairs), turned on music and did aerobics, jumping and bouncing around the floor, pounding on everyone's heads.  I was furious when it woke up my 3 month old.  She didn't understand why I was mad.  That was the end of family vacations.

But, her behavior has not ended family meals, holiday celebrations, etc.  I just growl a "hello" at her and won't speak to her for the rest of the time.  Immature on my part?  Maybe.  But, I just cannot deal with someone who has this response when their 6 year old, wearing a white sundress, asks what to do about her chocolatey hands:  "Oh, just wipe them on your dress."

Go Back To The Trailer Park!!!

(sorry if I've offended anyone with the last comment.)

How do others deal with their evil/awful/inconsiderate/stupid/fill in your own adjective relatives?

More SIL tales to come.