Why I Hate The Term "Survival Mode"

This term seems to get thrown around a lot these days.

We're in Survival Mode.

It's usually used to justify doing something that the person would not otherwise do.....eat out 5 times a week, let their kids watch unlimited TV, not clean their house, eat boatloads of chocolate, etc, etc, etc.

Jennifer Fulwiler wrote an entire post on it...21 Tips for Survival Mode. 

Actually, some of her tips are pretty great....but I take issue with the words "survival mode". 

Blame it on my mom. She told me something the other day, that I hate to admit, but I think she may actually be right.  Maybe.

She said.

When I was younger, I used to think that life was mostly good times, with occasional periods of stress and hardship.  Now that I'm older I've come to realize that life is mostly trial and hardship with occasional periods where God gives us a break and things are easy and good. 

I think she's right.  And you know what that means? It means that we are basically ALWAYS in survival mode.  There will ALWAYS be something ...or at least almost always. Something difficult, something stressful, something hard, something we need to survive. 

Which is why I think we need to do away with the term survival mode. It implies that life's hardships are temporary and short...and we just need to survive until things get easier.  And most hardships are temporary and short...until the next hardship comes along..and then the next one and the next one. 

 We need to learn how to THRIVE in whatever our life's situation is.

Yes, of course we make allowances and change our "standards" when life is especially rough, like letting our kids watch more TV when we have the flu, however, I think we each need to really examine ourselves and make sure those relaxed standards are really and truly ONLY when we need them.  

Because life will ALWAYS be rough. 

I'm one of those people who doesn't mollycoddle my kids when sick. Yes, occasionally they spend the day on the couch, but those days are rare.  I once read a study that showed how people who lie in bed when sick (with a cold) FEEL sicker than people who get up and get dressed and still do stuff around the house. Likewise I try not to mollycoddle myself when things are hard.

Because acting as though life is hard and difficult and rough tends to make life harder and more difficult and rougher.

However, working hard to THRIVE in times of stress or difficulty makes things less difficult. At least it does for me. 

You know what term I do love!  My new normal. 

My normal now doesn't look like the same as my normal 5 years ago....and I'm sure it looks different than my normal 5 years from now will look. But, the important thing is, that it's all normal. That I'm finding my normal for my life situation as it is NOW. That I'm trying in my own way, to have a normal life, to thrive, to have fun, to enjoy things and to not dwell on the difficulty or the negative or the scary.   Yes, I do fail at this occasionally, frequently. I have my woe-is-me temper tantrums all too often. but I try to keep them fairly short-lived.

The WORST thing we can do is get stuck in the mindset that we will start thriving/living when x happens...when the baby starts sleeping through the night or we have more money or our kids are older or our husband doesn't work so much or we aren't dealing with a sick family member or sickness ourselves or whatever is troubling us. 

No, no, no, I say.  We can THRIVE NOW, in whatever our situation is. We have to....because that is what people do. 

I think that in times past, people understood in a way we don't now, that life IS hard.  It just IS.  We don't really understand that anymore...because for the most part, we are no longer worried about merely surviving.  We have abundant food and medical carem and don't have to worry about freezing to death.


But life is STILL hard and we can't just sit around and wait for it to get easy.

So, let's stop talking about survival mode. We always have to survivie someething. Let's instead think about how we can THRIVE in whatever situation life throws us.

Would You Rather?

Did you ever play the "Would You Rather" game?

You know...where you ask would you rather have x thing or y thing happen.

We used to play it with my cousins.

Some of the questions were normal enough?

Would you rather be super tall or super short?

Would you rather be super good at art or at school?

Would you rather have a horse or a swimming pool?

But some of the questions were rather tragic.

Would you rather be blind or deaf?

Would you rather you husband died or your child?

Would you rather lose an arm or a leg?

It's a pretty terrible game because life doesn't work that way but it's tempting to think that it does.  It's tempting to think that because we are going through X terrible thing that Y terrible thing can't also happen. Or it's tempting to think that once we are no longer suffering from X than suddenly we will suffer from Y. 

Right now we are dealing with unemployment and financial worries and uncertainty about the future.  And, it is HARD, HARD, HARD. 

But, everywhere I turn, I see friends suffering from various health-related issues.  Both children and adults diagnosed with life-long chronic diseases, severe allergies, behavior issues, mental illness, unexplained illness, cancer, hormonal issues, extreme fatigue, chronic pain, hospitalizations, needed surgeries, asthma.  The list goes on and on. It seems as though almost every family has SOMETHING going on health-wise.

And. so far we don't.  So far, we have been fortunate to only have to deal with minor, acute illness or the occasional accident/broken bone thrown in there just to remind us why we do need health insurance. But nothing serious and nothing chronic..so far. 

And that scares me.  Because I have this irrational fear that once we are no longer suffering from unemployment or financial issues that a health crisis will descent upon us like vultures on a decaying carcass.  I know it's irrational...because life doesn't work that way.

But that's the way my mind works.  I blame it on Would You Rather games as a child. Suffering from X doesn't protect us from Y and suffering from Y doesn't guarantee that we won't also suffer from X, Z and Q. 

Suffering is a strange thing and it's hard not to compare our trials to someone else's trials.  Some people seem to have lots of suffering and others not so much.  And what one person finds a major trial, another person might find to be nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

I will admit that I have this tendency to get irrationally annoyed at moms who complain about things like their husband working late or they have to do bedtime by themselves or that their kids wake up too much.  I forget that their trials are a real trial to them and that I've never walked in their shoes so I don't know what it's like. Everyone has their difficulties and their sufferings and fortunately we don't get to choose. 

Right now, I'm just trying to get through what we are dealing with right now and not worry about what might happen and not compare what I'm going through to what others are going through. Because everyone is going through something and we all just need to support each other as best as possible and not worry about whose suffering is worse or harder or more terrible.  

Princesses Aren't Good at Birth

I was going to title this blog post "Princesses aren't good birthers."  Until I looked up the word birther, which contrary to what one might assume does not mean one who gives birth.    Oh no, it means one who does not believe Barak Obama was born in the United States and therefore he is ineligible to be President.   Okaaaay.   Don't want Inigo saying to me.

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means. 

So, instead I entitled it that catchy title you see above.   Princesses aren't good at birth.  At least not according to a recent article I read.   An absolutely excellent article, that I just had to blog about.  An article that is a breath of fresh air among all the natural childbirth rhetoric about "rushes" and "painfree childbirth."  But, even more refreshing, an article which actually finds value in suffering.   Something so rare in our modern day and age...where the sole purpose of existence seems to be to run far, far away from suffering in pursuit of ever fleeting happiness. 

The gist of the article is that so many women (princesses) have difficulty with birth because they have never before really experienced pain and suffering and hard work and toil.  Now, I disagree with her assessment of "princesses"..she's using it in the Snow White sense and not in the Real Princess sense.   But, irregardless of the word she uses, I think the message is a sound one.

You see, the article isn't just about birth...but about life in general.  It's true..that birth involves suffering.  Birth involves pain and sweat and tears and screams, and blood and sometimes even vomit and poop. 

And, so does life.  

Every day brings a myriad of opportunities for work and discomfort.  Take those opportunities.  But don’t simply hate them, fight them, begrudge them, resent them, and in the end, say you endured them.  Do more:  Embrace them. Welcome them.  Run toward them.   Learn from them.  And in the end, say you mastered them.  You overcame them.  You rose above them, and they made you stronger.

So, much of our modern life is wrapped around making life "easier".  From washing machines to air conditioning to smartphones....people have constantly been inventing things to lighten our workload and make life easier.  And that's not a bad thing.  I'm definitely NOT about to give up  my air conditioning or my washing machine.  But, it can be good to realize that sometimes we need to suffer, sometimes we need to wait in line for 2 hours, or wake up 5 times a night with a baby, or clean what we have just cleaned for the 50th time or deal with people we may not care for or feel too hot, or too cold or too tired.  And, that's okay.  Because, we are strong enough to do that, and this life is not about ease or comfort.

When it comes to pregnancy and childbirth and raising children..suffering is almost a given.  And, the contraceptive mentality of our society shirks from that suffering.  From morning sickness to back aches, to birth to breastfeeding, to sleepless nights and temper tantrums and aching arms and aching hearts..motherhood involves pain.  Lots of joy and lots of pain. 

And, that okay.  Because it is only by embracing our cross that we will be able to embrace our heavenly crown.  After all...

We were not born to be comfortable.  We were born to grow through adversity.  We were born to work.

Greta...shortly after birth.  As you can see, birth probably isn't too fun for the baby either. 

And, just because I love me a good link-up, I'm linking this up with Mama Moments Mondays and Mindful Mothering Mondays.  Yes..on Tuesday.

We don't get to choose our crosses

Life is a vale of tears someone once said. Not sure who...but I know someone once said that.  Heck..I just said that..so that counts, right?

Life became a lot easier once I was able to accept that it's not supposed to be easy..  It took awhile.  It took a lot of suffering.  It took a lot of crying and mental temper tantruming and "why me, God."  But, accepting that life is just plain tough, was the first baby step towards greater spiritual maturity,.  Not that I'm spiritually mature or anything...I think it might have just bumped me up from a spiritual newborn to a  slightly older newborn...like from a 1-day old baby to a 1-week old baby...and even that may be overly generous.

We've had a difficult past couple of years.  Not super hard or terrible or anything..but difficult.  Dealing with unemployment and underemployment and then my husband deciding to move us all 1400 miles south to attend law school has not been easy.  At some of the worst times, I was so tempted to think that other people's crosses were  not as hard.   I was tempted to think, I'd rather be dealing with your X than my Y.   Which was a totally immature, selfish way to think, because no doubt, if I was dealing with Y, I'd think I would prefer X.

This past summer I had a scare..a major scare...the big C scare.  After about a month of worrying and stress (and oh..the stress was awful, totally completely awful) and depression and anxiety, and way, way, way too much time on google...the biopsy came back normal and all was well.  But, it was scary, it was really, really scary and being pregnant made it all the scarier. I was so weak under that stress...I didn't want to talk to anyone, I didn't want to see anyone.  Just going on with daily life was a struggle.

But, I also learned a lot from that month.  I learned to try to rely on God more.  I learned that I can't give in to anxiety and fear and depression.   I learned to rely on my husband just a bit more.  And, I'd like to think that I learned to appreciate the really important things in life more...my children, my husband, my family.  Not to say that I haven't forgotten those lessons at times...I have.  But, I still have the memory of that month, that awful, scary month to remind me of "what almost was" and to try to hold fast to God. To remind me that life will not always be easy, at times it will be downright painful...but all I can do is trust God and forge on.
 
I also learned that we don't get to choose our crosses.  We don't get to say...I'll take this cross, God..but not that one.  I'll suffer through this...but not that.   God knows exactly what we need.   They say God doesn't give us more than we can handle.  But, sometimes I think God wants to stretch us a little bit...to increase our burden just a bit, to make us stronger.   But, the learning curve is painful..oh so painful sometimes.  Sometimes, all we can do is just grit our teeth, throw up our hands and pray.

Jesus, I trust in you.  

 I've heard people talk about choosing a word for 2013...and focusing on that word. .My word is trust.   2013 promises to be another stressful year...what with Ben graduating from law school and job searching and moving and taking the bar and all that jazz.  So.. 

Jesus, I trust in you.