To Accept or Not..That is Your Question...

The concept of acceptance…what is it to accept. Is acceptance submissive? Is it realistic? Is it a cop out? What is it…what is it to accept?

Most of you have heard of and maybe prayed the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

DING DING...........re-read the last line…wisdom to know the difference. Everything does not need to be accepted in our lives. Acceptance can be liberating and it can be freeing but it can also be submissive, fear based, and an excuse. 

So many of us accept things that can be changed. We accept changeable things out of fear, loneliness, obligation, religion, cultural norms, poverty, and because we are tired of fighting the fight.

I am learning to accept the things I cannot change. I cannot change that I am connected to some relationships because of parental responsibilities and family issues. I cannot change the family in which I was born into. I cannot change my childhood trauma. I cannot change the past.

What can I change?  I can change allowing others to treat me with disrespect and disregard. I can change who I have in my life. I can change being involved in unbalanced and mediocre relationships. I can change my perceptions of my past. I can change my perceptions of myself.

What I will accept . I can  and will accept myself where I am today. I can accept that I human and I error. I can accept that I am not alone and that I don't have to fight the fight alone.

I will accept the things of the past and will embrace them as I move forward. I will accept that I deserve to be around healthy, loving and balanced people. I will accept that at this very moment in my life,  things are good, solid and real. I will accept that things change in life. I will accept there will be hurt and sorrow, love and loved lost. I will accept that I will have dark and light days.

What I will not accept anymore is the attitude or the kind of thinking from myself that tells me “this is as good as it gets or this is better than nothing or I should be happy because there are people in a lot worse shape than I”.

I am grateful, I am loving, I am warm and I kind and I will not accept being treated in anyway less than what I deserve in humanity. I will not accept that “it is as good as it gets”…I am worth more than that…

Accept the things you cannot change…do not submit to the things you can change…you are worth more than that…

Keeping it real with Dr. Mary G

Would you Break Up with You?

Would you date yourself? What kind of relationship do you have with you? If I had to date myself the last several years I am sure I would have broken up with me, blocked my number and gotten a restraining order.

It has occurred to me that sometimes I am not a very good dater of me. What I mean by that is that I don’t often put my needs first or take care of my wants. I find myself taking care of everyone but me. I take care of and give to my children, friends, family members, my career  and even the mailman (get your mind out of the gutter) better than I take care of or give to  myself. I give to people until there is nothing left to give. I treat a stranger nicer than I treat myself.

Why is that? Was I socialized to do that?  Is it a nature vs. nurture issue?  Am I overcompensating for something missing in my life? Here is the answer……….I don’t care why…………it has to stop. Taking care of everyone but yourself and leaving nothing for you is not the answer. It does not make you a better person, partner, mother, father, son, daughter, friend or colleague. In fact I think it makes you more ineffective in those relationships. It makes you codependent and it make you a martyr.

When you have given nothing to yourself how can you fully give to others without resentment, sadness, anger and disappointment?

Ask yourself when was the last time you put your needs and wants ahead of everyone else around you? I am not talking about the occasional “girls or guys” night out. I am addressing a balance between caring for yourself emotionally, physically and spiritually as well as caring for those around you.  If you really want healthy happy relationships with others then you need to first develop a healthy and happy relationship with you. After all if you don’t like yourself, want to date yourself, spend time with yourself….who else will?

Keeping it Real with Dr. Mary G.

Hope is NOT an Action Word

I completely believe in the concept of hope. People can survive great life crisis and circumstances on the idea of hope.

The hope that things will get better and change. The hope that pain and suffering will be alleviated.

Hope has gotten me through many difficult periods in my life.

 The problem with just relying on hope though is that hope is not a verb; it is not an action word.

Hope is an idea, somewhat of a fantasy. Hope is like a vase of fresh cut flowers that sit on your table.  Beautiful and inspiring at first but as time goes by they start to wilt and then they eventually die…the same principles apply to hope that is not accompanied by action…

I have spent a lot of time hoping and not acting. I have hoped to feel better physically, emotionally and spiritually at different times in my life.  I hoped with fierce passion. I have screamed out to the universe for change and gotten angry that my hopes didn’t become realities.  

Letting my hopes, like the dying flowers, turn into hopelessness.  This is the point. We need more than hope. We need fire underneath those hopes.

 If I hope to feel better physically then I need to get off of the couch, hit the gym and change my behaviors. If I hope to feel better spiritually then I need to drop to my knees and pray to my god. I need to find people who share similar and different spiritual values and engage them in dialogue. If I hope to feel better emotionally then I need to focus on being around healthy individuals and engaging in healthy emotional behaviors.

I have developed lots of new hopes. I hope to travel the world. I hope to meet someone special to share my life with, someone to love and cherish and to be loved and cherished by. I hope to write a book. I hope to become a Dean someday, maybe a College President. I hope to be fulfilled spiritually and emotionally. I hope to continue to make and maintain healthy and balanced relationships with friends.

The differences about my new hopes are that I realize I have to do something about them. I can’t wait for the universe to dump them in my lap. I have to work for them, set goals, fire myself up about them. I have to put effort into making my hopes a reality. I have to own them. I have to make them happen. What an empowering idea…

What are your hopes…fire yourself up and make them your realities…stop thinking and start doing…let’s turn hope into reality together…

Keeping it Real with Dr. Mary G.

Wanting to be a Cleaver?

I recently journeyed home. A trip that always brings up a lot of stuff for me. Stuff I try to ignore otherwise. Stuff that I will surely deal with as this blog progresses.

Where to begin when digging into family issues….

When I was a kid I always wondered how it would be to grow up in some of my friend’s homes.  To have had their lives? I imagined that my friends who lived in big houses, whose parents were well educated and had lots of money had the “perfect” family.  A family just like the Cleavers; you remember Beaver, Wally, June and Ward?   

I wondered how it would be to go on vacations with your family, sit around by the fireplace reading and playing family games. I wondered how it would be to even have a fireplace. I wondered how it would be to have a stay at home Mom who baked cookies instead of having to work to feed the family and pay bills. I wondered how it would be to have medical and dental insurance. To not worry about having enough money for school supplies and clothes.

Perceptions can burden us. The perception of the perfect family has burdened me throughout my life. Recently, I started to talk to some of my friends who I thought had “perfect” families. Come to find out, they didn’t. Often times people are just skilled at hiding the imperfections from the outside world.  

I have come to realize that my parents did the best they could given the circumstances they had to deal with in their lives. They were not perfect and my childhood was far from perfect. It is a part of me and has made me the person I am today. The good and the bad.

I am far from perfect and I too am doing the best I can given the circumstances I am dealing with when it comes to my own family. I think I have a balance somewhere in between Rosanne Barr’s Family and The Cleavers.  I try to remember that the perception of the perfect family doesn’t exist. I also remind myself not to get stuck wishing and hoping I would have had the “perfect” family or feeling guilty I haven’t created the perfect family for my children. That kind of thinking takes me and you nowhere and wastes our time. When I mess up, I fix it and we all go on as a family. I attempt to amend and not make the same mistakes over and over again.

 I also try to remember that June Cleaver was most likely taking prescription pain medications with alcohol chasers; Ward was staying late at the office sleeping with the secretary; Wally was upstairs attempting to numb his pain through street drugs and Beaver was dealing with issue of sexual identity and orientation with no support from his family or friends.

Let’s not get stuck on wishing we were the Cleavers or anyone else for that matter. We are who we are….we were all raised in some level of dysfunction….the perfect family doesn’t exist….it didn’t exist yesterday, it doesn’t exist today and it won’t exist tomorrow.  What does exist and is real is our desire and attempts to do the best that we can do as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, wives and husbands.

Keeping it Real with Dr. Mary G.

The Boxing Match

Life is not like a box chocolates…not sweet all the time with surprise creamy centers.

Life, to me, seems like a boxing match. Round by round waiting to see if it is a win, lose or draw. I have been knocked out on several occasions.

I took a few punches when I was a kid and felt powerless and didn’t know what kind of fight I had in me. I took one from the school counselor who told me that I wasn’t going to amount to anything. I took one from the other students who had no tolerance of me because I was different, poor, and possessed  no social status.  

During the childhood rounds I climbed up the rope after being knocked down and looked my opponents square in the eye and fought back. That fight has led me to being one of the first of my family members to graduate from high school and go on to pursue a career in higher education.  The first round belongs to me.

Other rounds came when my sweet father died unexpectedly when I was twenty years old; a right hook I never saw coming.  Another TKO happened when my brother was shot and killed by a fourteen year old kid looking for love and acceptance in a gang.

I laid on the floor for a long time in those rounds. Listening to the count..debating….. if I should throw the towel in or get back up. Wondering if I could take anymore of the battering?

I climbed up one rope at a time. I mourned and grieved and learned to accept the losses. I  went on to continue the fight. There was no winner in this round….no winner and no loser…just a draw.

Round four is the relationship round.  This is a round I believe I am still fighting. I am learning what punches to duck and what the body can absorb. This may be a long round.  

I don’t know if it is because I am stubborn, competitive or driven but I refuse to stay down for the count in any round of my life.

Let’s keep up the fight together. Let’s focus on learning strategies we can use from previous rounds to have more wins than loses.

 Sometimes we all have to relinquish control and call a draw.

Keeping it real with Dr. Mary G

Driving the Car

As I was driving my car today I realized that my driving behavior was very similar to aspects in my life.

When you drive a car you look ahead to where you are going, behind to see if there is something sneaking up on you and from side to side to make sure you are in the lines and being safe.

Looking at the road directly in front of me reminds me of my here and now. Looking in the rearview mirror represents my past. Looking out ahead is my future.  

As I was driving down the road I thought about how I have been driving my car through my life.  At some life junctures my eyes have been fixated in the rearview mirror. Other times I have completely disregarded the rearview mirror and looked far down the road into the future.  Some of the times I am completely unfocused on anything; going through the motions of life as if I were looking side to side while driving.

I have been told throughout my life that you should never focus on the past because it is gone. I have been told that the future doesn’t exist so why think about it; stay in the moment- the here and now.

I tried to drive my car by just looking directly down in front of me and staying in the here and now; never looking into the rearview mirror, side mirrors or out ahead.  This type of driving doesn’t work for me.  Maybe I am just not self actualized enough. Either way, the consequences of this type of driving in my life has caused me wreckage.  In theory staying in the moment makes sense and I do recommend it for the most part but I don’t believe it is unreasonable to glance in the review mirror, out ahead and side to side from time to time.

If you only look in the rearview mirror you will absolutely have a wreck. If you only look out ahead something from behind will sneak up on you and you will be unprepared.  To be safe and protect yourself and others you have to be balanced in all areas of driving the car.  

To deny the rearview mirror is to deny who you have been and where you have come from. To refuse to look ahead is to deny the hope of who you could be…

 To refuse to look straight down is to deny the joy of the day.

How do you want to drive your car? I don’t want to fixate on any one area.  I don’t want any one area to own me. I want a balance of all areas in order to protect myself and avoid accidents. I have had such accidents by fixating on one way of driving and I will tell you that my insurance premiums can go no higher.

Thanks for driving with me in my car, with my thoughts, my hopes and dreams…

Keeping  it Real with Dr. Mary G.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

 Have you ever been in a dark room and couldn’t find the light switch? Sometimes we are in familiar rooms and sometimes we are in strange rooms in the dark but usually our response is the same.  When we enter a dark room our first instinct is to find the light switch and turn it on so we can see clearly, avoid accident and find our way. I wonder why sometimes when we are in the dark in our lives we don’t immediately do the same thing.

I have been in dark rooms in my life. Some are distant memories and some are still vivid in my mind. Like a child in a dark room, I have sometimes let the fear take over. Instead of standing up, staying close to the wall and feeling my way toward where I know the light is; I have sat down in fear.  I have reached out for things to comfort me.  Being in the dark room I have often had a hard time seeing what I should be reaching for; what is real and what is helpful.  I have spent lots of time grappling, flailing around, bumping into things, and bruising myself.  Reaching out for help out of the dark room through dysfunctional relationships, dysfunctional friendships, wine, overworking, overeating and pretending I just wasn’t there. Reaching for these things that I thought would help me find the light further cluttered and blocked my path and imprisoned me in fear and regret.

It has taken me a while but I have figured out how to find my way out of the dark when I find myself in that space.  Sometimes I find the light switch quicker than others but I always know it is there.  I have learned not to resist it and not to fight against it. I have learned not to panic but to be patient and let my eyes adjust to my surroundings….

 I now carry a small flashlight in my back pocket.  When the fear of not finding the main light sets in and is overwhelming I remind myself to fall back on that little beam of light to guide my path. I  allow myself permission to stumble and bump into things. I still get bruised a bit but when I shine my flashlight on those things blocking my path I steer away from them.  I always remember to walk toward the main switch. I realize now that when I  reach that switch and turn it on and look around, it isn’t so scary after all.

Sometimes the batteries in my little flashlight die or the nightlight goes dim and in those times I am no longer afraid to yell out of the darkness to people who love me and support me.  They come to me as if I am still a child sitting on the floor in fear, they turn on the light, grab my hand and together we emerge from the room….

If you find yourself in a dark room, be patient with yourself. Take time to let your eyes adjust and seek a clear path. Reach toward people and things that will help you emerge less bruised and battered. Don’t be afraid to ask for help….we all need help finding the lighted path during difficult times in our lives.

One thing that I can guarantee is that night will come into your life but it is nothing to fear. As the sun always sets so it rises…light will follow dark…remember to hold on…the darkness of night will pass…..

Keeping it real with Dr. Mary G.

Unpacking

When I travel it is always easier for me to pack than unpack. When I come home the unpacking is never pleasant. I put it off. It is the same for me when it comes to the dishwasher and the dryer. I have no problems loading the dirty dishes or clothes but when it comes to unloading I am very resistant…..

It is the same with life sometimes…

The issue with unpacking for me is that I seem to forget sometimes where to put things. The space has suddenly been occupied by something else and often it seems easier just to keep it in, push it aside, rearrange it or shove it in the “closet” and ignore it.

I have packed a lot in my life suitcase in the past forty-one years. I realize I haven’t done the unpacking that is needed. The suitcase is heavy, the wheels are broken and I have been dragging it on my back far to long.

The time has come to really unpack for me.  Put things where they belong, throw away things that are useless and donate the rest.  It is time to eliminate the clutter.

This may be shocking to you all but I am not perfect. I need to unpack the need to be perfect, prove myself to everyone. I need to unpack the fact that I grew up with dysfunction and poverty. I need to unpack failed relationships, parental mistakes, poor choices, lost dreams, regret and remorse.  I need to unpack the need to be super human.

Unpacking is the first step. It is difficult and challenging. It requires us to say out loud the things we have stored maybe for day a year or lifetime.  It can be a scary process, but it is guaranteed to be liberating. Imagine unpacking and not having to drag the broken, heavy, overstuffed case on your back any longer. Imagine having a case so light that you don’t have to pay a baggage fee. Over the course of a life time those fees add up to increased life dysfunctions, lack of spiritual and mental health, sorrow and pain.

I challenge you to start unpacking what needs unpacked in your life. It may not be easy.

 Once we unpack we will, together, figure out what to store, what to throw away and what to donate.  

Keeping it real with Dr. Mary G!

The day the light came on...

So how is it that a person wakes up during mid-life and finds they lack a clear sense of purpose?  Lost and confused about what is going on, why it is going on and what to do about it! The realization that they have been a passenger in someone else's car their whole lives. I ask the following questions of myself and of you:
How active have you been in writing your life's story?
Have you been passive and accepted things the way they are for to long?
Are you willing to re-write your story to have the beginning, middle and end that you have always dreamed possible?
Are you willing to face your own personal screw ups and do something about them?
Are you willing to stop blaming other people for your misery?
Are you willing to stop caring about what other people think of you and take control of what you want?
Are you willing to stop practicing the act of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting new results)?
Are you willing to let go of all of the guilt, remorse and shame you have collected and stored your whole life?
Are you willing to go on a journey of real self discovery, no matter how painful it might be?
Are you willing to let go of the past, stay out of the future and focus on today?
I can answer yes personally to all of these questions. I will be writing my own personal narrative addressing all these questions for myself and many more. I will be integrating personal stories, many humorous, some painful and many optimistic. I hope you will consider coming along for the ride, as it will be a wild one! Let's keep it real...real with Dr. Mary G.!