First, I want to welcome all new members to this community. My intention is that every newsletter I send out makes you laugh, makes you think, and invites you to take action.
If you are having trouble finding your best in any situation in your life, reply to this e-mail for a free consultation. Any feedback you give me is a great gift, truly. Is there any issue you would like me to address? Write a song about?
Post Valentine’s Day Massacre
Yikes! Valentine’s Day can really set us up for failure. My husband and I give each other the gift of celebrating Valentine’s Day every day, this takes off the pressure.
The Featured Article this month is a story of how I shifted from wanting to smack my beloved husband into wanting to smooch him instead. If you wish to print this story out, download this pdf. Otherwise… I hope you enjoy it.
Murray and the Ketchup Or When Attention Deficit Disorder Collides with Blindness
Excerpt from Woman with a voice: Daring to Live Authentically Ever After by Vicki Hannah Lein
Because of my vision problems, Murray and I decided to organize the refrigerator in a way that would help me find things. The leftovers would go on the top shelf, milk and other large items on the second shelf, and so on.Murray readily agreed to this plan. He is an occupational therapist,after all, and he knows about making accommodations to help people perform necessary tasks, such as feeding yourself from the refrigerator. So why did the ketchup, among other things, keep getting moved?
“How thoughtless he is,” I said to myself. “How incredible, especially since he is a professional!” I fumed. “Does he hate me?” I wondered. “Does he have any idea how difficult it is to live with low vision? This is such a simple thing for him to do, and it makes a big difference to me. If he really loved me, the ketchup would stay put.”
We reviewed our plan. Murray again agreed that keeping things in the same place in the refrigerator was a reasonable request, and he should honor it. Yet the ketchup moved again, and I thought, “I hate him!” Well, I did not exactly hate him, but I was confused and hurt,and no matter how many times I confronted him, the ketchup still wandered the shelves of the refrigerator.
And then I thought of a new story: “Murray doesn’t hate me. I know he doesn’t hate me. He has attention deficit, is easily bored, and I’ll bet he is just projecting his boredom onto the ketchup. He thinks the ketchup bottle gets restless, so he moves it.”
Now this version is probably more true than the “He hates me” story I told myself, but that isn’t important. What is important is that changing my story changed how I felt about this continual problem. Instead of being angry and hurt, I laughed. It became a joke, and (here is the interesting part) the ketchup has stayed put ever since I shared my new story about why the ketchup was roving the refrigerator with the “culprit.” Maybe Murray’s memory works better when it is bathed in love rather than irritation.
Your Turn
What little things could you do to love your sweetie better: bring her coffee in the morning? Hang up his clothes? Thank him for taking out the garbage? Tell him you are committed to being a better listener, not interrupt with solutions? Just come up to her and start rubbing her neck? Rub her feet every single day? (I promise, you will never hear, “Not tonight,honey. I have a headache.”)
There’s a lot more where that came from in my book Woman with a Voice: Daring to live Authentically Ever After.
It’s available on Kindle from Amazon, and, great news, you do not need a Kindle to read it!