Reaching Out

I feel that for the past year or two, that I have not reached out enough to people.  I remember when I first became a Christian, I had a fear at the time of dying alone, and this motivated me to reach out to people I didn't know and to try and get to know them.  Now however, I am married to an awesome woman, worship an awesome God, and have emotional stability that I haven't had in my life before.

However, I feel an urge to reach out.  Like many of us I have found myself distancing myself from or judging other people that I see as "different."  IE different socio-economic group, different denomination, different political or ideological views etc.  But I was reminded of something yesterday.  I have been allowing myself to let what I don't have in common with a person as a reason not to reach out.  Or I have looked at someone and thought "what could I possible have in common with that person?"  Well, as it turns out probably quite a bit.

We are both created by God.  Odds are pretty good that she knows what it is like to feel lonely and afraid, or pure joy, or being hungry etc.  Even though people have different views and way of dealing with things, we all have a soul.  The greatest commandment found in the New Testament "love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."  I feel that I have done a better job of the latter then the former.

No where in the Bible does Jesus say that Christians should divide themselves into different sects and denominations.  This is what the Jews did.  They became so concerned with the specifics of God's law that they forgot about the greatest commandment.  I feel that in many ways we Christians to get caught up in these clashes of doctrine.  But in the end does it really matter whose Holy Water is more blessed?  Or if we should have traditional or contemporary music at worship?  This takes attention away from the essential truth.  We were made by God to serve Him, and glorify His name.

I look around me and see people reaching out to help the less fortunate.  I think in my mind, "I'd like to do that, but I don't have the time."  We often hear about giving more of our resources to the Church.  When I think of this, I think of money.  However, our time is also a resource.  To take that extra 10-15 minutes to stop and talk to a neighbor and say more than "hi." One of my main goals in life is to become a person who lifts people up, and does not tear them down.  I think I do a decent job of that with those close to me.  But I find myself internally critiquing a person who has what I consider a funky hair style or way out there clothes.  that doesn't change who they are.

We are all God's children and every Christian is part of the body of Christ.  It is time that we start acting more like it.  Not dividing our selves off into different denominations and thinking that our way of worship is "the best."  Every week our pastors end the service with the phrase "let's go out and change the world."  I often find myself asking am I changing the world?  Or am I stuck behind my comfort zone.

I yearn to become a better person then I am now.  I think that right now I am being called to grow as a disciple of Jesus.  I feel that I have not done the best job of modeling His life.  Would Jesus dis a woman who "smelled bad" or had "greasy hair"?  No, he would wash her feet and serve her.  That is the most powerful image I see in the Bible.  Here is Jesus, the Son of Man washing the feet of his disciples.  Yes we are to serve Him, but he chose to come among us as a human and to serve us as well.

Therefore, in the coming year I pledge to do a better job of reaching out to people and finding common ground with them, not a reason to shun them.  As an introvert it can be hard for me to reach out to total strangers, but I have gone out of my comfort zone to do this before, and again I will push myself more. My goal is not to reach out to people and convert them, but just to be there, because life is all about relationships, and like when I met my wife, you can't go looking for it specifically but you can have yourself in the right place, because the time will come.  Life is all about timing.  Be in the right place at the right time, and I vow to put myself in the right place more often.

The Rebellious Teenager

It has been over two months since I have written on a serious topic, but this is the calm before the storm so to speak.  In the last month of the semester I will have two 10-15 page papers due and a final exam. Therefore, tonight I want to write about something that has been on my mind quite a bit.

When I was growing up, I lived in a house where I was told what to do, and if I complained or even asked "why", I was told to go with the flow.  I grew up feeling that my wants and needs were minimized.  I felt irrelevant.  I felt that I had no control over my life or what I could do.  This was from the time I was old enough to test my boundaries till I was about 17.  This lack of control that I felt, and the feeling that I was irrelevant and unimportant came from one source in our family, my father.  We always did what he wanted to do.  At that point, he was a very controlling person.  I felt that I never got the chance to establish my own independence and identity as an individual that so many emotionally healthy kids and teenagers did.  I am sure that I acted out and rebelled against my dad in quiet and passive aggressive ways, but not openly. I associated doing something that I did not want to do with a feeling of not being cared about.

When my parents separated and my dad moved out, I allowed this behavior to be more in the open.  Whenever someone would ask me to do something that I did not want to do, I would either not do it, or do a half-a$$ed job of it.  In my mind the message was "this person does not care about me, if they did they would not be asking me to do something that I don't want to do." This would trigger anger or hurt and I would "rebel" by either not doing it, or rushing through it.

As I got older and moved out on my own, my subconscious thought "a ha we are on our own now, and we can do what we want, when we want." So I developed my "shell" of comfort and routine, I grew stubborn and did things the way I wanted to do them, when I wanted to do them, that was how I established my independence.  When someone wanted me to do something a different or better way, I would dig in my heels because I felt like they were trying to boss me around or tell me what to do.  My inner child would act up and say "this person doesn't care about what you want, they are just out for themselves, so screw them, do what you want because after all of these years of his shit, you've earned the right to do it your way." I went on through my late teens, twenties and early to mid thirty's not even being conscious of why I behaved this way.  Internally, I was trying to build my identity as an adult, and assert my independence.  I thought, if a person respects me and loves me, they will let me do what I want, the way I want to do it.  Any attempt to suggest a better way to do something, or ask for help was taken by me as either criticism or an attempt to control me.  I associated openness to change as weakness, and just an excuse people used to try and interfere with my existence as an autonomous being.  If they care about me, they will respect me and leave me be.

So, how does this manifest itself in my life today?  As an example, let's say Charlie asks me to clean out the litter box and to better organize the file we keep our bills in.  Internally, I feel annoyed and a bit hurt the rebellious teenager is thinking "she is asking you to do stuff that you do not want to do, does she really care about you?"  So instead of saying no, I think "this is stupid I don't want to do this so I will just rush through it and do a half ass job of it, that will show her for asking me to do something I don't want to do."  I am acting like a bratty, rebellious teenager.  On a rational level I know that we are a team and partnership and that she has every right to ask me to do these things.  She is also someone who knows that I can do things well even if I don't like doing them.  So instead of doing what my mom would do which is to throw her hands up in the air and say "okay you did a crappy job of that I guess I will have to do it next time", Charlie who wants me to be the best person I can be doesn't let me get away with that. It may irritate the crap out of me sometime but God bless her for that.

I can sit back now and reflect more on this behavior being more aware of it.  Every time I do something "my way" my emotionally rebellious teenager feels like he is sticking it to my dad saying " hey buddy you think my wants and needs are irrelevant or not important? Screw you I will do this my way."  Internally I am acting out against my father.  That anger and hurt that I feel isn't directed at whoever is asking me to do a task I find distasteful but is misdirected hurt and anger that I never confronted my dad about. So instead of hurting him when I act out, I am just hurting myself and annoying those that love me.  My two defense mechanisms from my childhood, the rebellious teenager, and my cocoon and emotional wall that I built up around myself, I used sarcasm, and negativity to keep people away from me, because I was hurting so much inside.  It was not until I took Jesus as my savior and let Charlene Grommesh into my heart that I was able to start breaking these walls down.

So happy belated birthday Charlie I love you with all my heart, and as we get close to Easter I am thankful to you Lord for saving my life and words cannot express how much I love your Son because you died on the Cross so that my sins can be washed away and I can be with You forever.  I feel so blessed, and I hope as time goes on, I can let go of some of the pain and self criticism that I have in my heart. I know I am on my way.

Staying Present versus Checking Out

Staying Present

In the last two or three weeks I have undergone some significant changes to my daily routine.  I have started school again, and have started my internship at the Wisconsin State Fair.  I work at the Fair two nights a week from 3:30-6:30 pm.  I am also again taking two classes this semester. I have also been using my light box to help fight off the Seasonal Affectional Disorder.

I have felt my mood improve in the past week plus since I started using the light therapy again, however I still encounter the feeling of what I will call emotional claustrophobia.  It is not constant, but when I start to feel overstimulated or overwhelmed I feel like the world is closing in on me, and everyone wants a piece of me and I can’t breathe.  When this happens my defense mechanism is to emotionally “check out”.  I liken it to old TV sets.  When you would turn them off the picture would cut out and gradually recede until all you saw was a little pinprick of light at the center of the screen.  That is how I feel when I allow myself to be in this mood.  I just want to go inside of myself and totally zone out.  When I do make a conscious effort to stay in the present there is a large amount of ruminating occurring in my brain.

I am making a conscious effort to stay in the moment, because if I don’t then I will be giving those that love and care about me short shrift.  When I start to feel like this in the spring summer or fall, I can sit outside and breathe in the air, or lie in the grass and look at the sky.  True I can be outside in the winter, and I have been making myself get outside for walks and this helps, but I still feel pinned in.  Add to this feeling my new responsibilities and my anxiety has been at a level higher than at any time since we were planning for our wedding.  I have been listening to the Bible every morning while I do my light therapy; I have been trying to draw closer to Him because without His strength and love this would be a lot harder to get through.

Now amidst all of this gloom that I am writing let me not forget the positives in my life.  My lovely wife has been very patient with me, and she is endeavoring in her new art class and has already made a couple of frame worthy pieces.  I recognize the talent that she has, and I find myself encouraging her to stick with it.  She is such a loving, creative person.  Painting fits her temperament well. 

I also think that I am continuing to grow in my relationship with Jesus all though I do wonder if I have been pulling back from Him as well.  I can’t control the weather I know this, and the anger that I was feeling the last time I wrote has mostly subsided.  (This winter has taught me that I would probably not do well in the Arctic Circle where they don’t see the sun for weeks.)  I am hoping that my mom and Gordon get the house they put in an offer for in Arizona because it would give us an excuse to get out of the icebox for a week or two in future winters.  I am not sure what God is trying to teach me about right now, maybe patience, or endurance while suffering, but I do trust that it will make me stronger in the long run.

Staying Thankful

Staying Thankful

When I first became a Christian in 2011, I was very conscious of thanking God every day for everything that He has blessed me with and trying to always have that attitude of staying thankful.  I have read many profiles of people who are able to keep a humble and thankful attitude about the smaller things in life and seem not to grumble or complain about things.  I admire people like this who can find reasons to be thankful and grateful even in the most mundane aspects of life.

By now most of you who are regular or semi-regular readers of my blog know that I come from a background that was very negative.  People in my family did not often pause and reflect on what they had and how that they should be grateful for it.  We complained about things we didn’t like.  As I have said before, I was exposed to a lot of negativity growing up.  I had 30 + years to establish negative thought patterns.  Instead of focusing on what I had and being thankful for it, I focused on what I did not have.  I have read enough Scripture, listened to enough sermons, and talked to enough people to know that this is far from uncommon.  But, when I read those stories about those people who are so focused on the positive I cannot help but want to be more like them.

The impetus for writing this piece is that these past few months I have found myself complaining about the winter weather, and other things.  Instead of focusing on the thought that I am fortunate and blessed to be in a position where I have shelter, food, and people who love me I allow myself to feel “gipped” because I don’t live in a place that has nice weather in winter.  I am focusing on the negative side of this instead of seeing the positive.  I feel a mix of emotions, happy because I am now in a position to be able to see that I can control my thoughts, and disappointed because I vowed to myself that I would not allow myself to slip back into these thought patterns (and I have).  I find it somewhat distasteful how much negativity I have felt emanating from myself lately.  I “feel” more like the old Bryan and less like the man that I know God is making me into.

I have said more than once that I want to be a person who radiates and reflects warmth and love.  I want to be someone who builds other people up, and encourages them.  (All things that I did not have growing up).  I know what it feels like to live in a negative environment and how awesome and energizing it feels to be around people who radiate a positive energy.  I want to be one of these people. I look at Charlie and I see how happy she is and how in love we are, and I know that for at least one person in this world that I am encouraging and building them up.  However, when I am at work I can feel the negative energy inside me and around me and there are times it just eats me up.  This is one reason that I am glad to be leaving this place in a few months.

So I am going to make a request to all my family and friends who might read this.  If you see me being too negative or pessimistic, call me out on it.  If you see me as someone who is encouraging and building other people up, let me know.  Like anyone else who is trying to change and become the best person that I can be, I need encouragement and support to grow.  Charlie has been a great support network to me, as has my church and family.  I will be honest here, when I catch myself being negative and pessimistic, I feel guilty.  I feel that I am letting down my family, friends, Savior and others.  That is a big burden to carry around.  Intellectually I know this is not true, but none the less that thought and feeling is there.  In order to move forward and become the best person that I can be, I am going to renew my focus on surrounding myself with people, ideas and things that radiate positive energy.  Because, once and for all I want to leave the negative energy and my old self in the past where they belong.

The Need to Be Organized

The Need to Be Organized

This week is my first full week of classes.  At the beginning of last semester, I felt a sense of overwhelm and panic.  I did not know how to organize my time.  Like many people when I can plan out a schedule and establish a routine for a continuing endeavor like school work, I can then focus and concentrate on one thing at a time.  My lovely wife suggested that I organize things with a student planner, God bless her she was right (as she normally is).  Once I started writing down everything that I needed to do in a week, I was able to establish a daily and weekly work flow and rhythm.

So, I enter a new semester and I find myself having some of the same worries.  I have been through a semester in the MLIS program now, so I now have the experience and I know how to function and organize my work.  Being in an online program the daily and weekly work flow is different than being an onsite student.  The major difference is in class participation.  Online students are required to respond to discussion questions that professor’s post on message boards.  Each message board generally is “open” for discussion and responses for one week.  It is not just a matter of responding to a question and being done with it.  We are responsible for participating in the ongoing board discussion.  This can take up an hour or two a day.

I am once again feeling that anxiety that comes at the beginning of a new semester.  I am not yet in a rhythm, and have not established a weekly work flow and this is an unsettling feeling.  Each online class has a “week”.  For my 571 class Information Retrieval the class runs Monday-Sunday, for my 650 Introduction to Archives class it runs Wednesday-Tuesday.  Last semester I divided my week into two three day sections and would do all the course work for one, before I moved on to the other.  As the semester wore on and the larger assignments where do I had to change my routine to ensure I had enough time to complete term papers. 

Last semester I did very well in my classes and got A’s in both.  I look at the classes that I have this semester, and there seems to be less “busy work” each week.  One of my classes last semester in addition to the readings had 2-4 in class assignments each week plus the online discussion questions.  So even though I will probably have a lower volume of work, I still feel scared.  I don’t feel like I am in the groove yet and hope I get back in it soon. Organization and detailed planning is a great antidote to school related anxiety.

Seasonal Anger, an Opprtunity to Grow?

Normally, in the winter, I experience some symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Two years ago, I experienced some symptoms but the fairly mild weather and the opportunity to get outside negated a lot of the feeling.  Last winter, I experienced more of the symptoms more intensely. This winter however, because I was busy school I didn’t notice the symptoms that much.

This week, I got some great news that I had been selected for an internship that I applied for.  I was and still am overjoyed.  However, as this week has gone on, I have felt an increasing amount of anger and frustration.  I was confused I would be feeling these emotions after receiving this news and realizing that I would be able to quit my job in May.  (I have been looking at getting into a different career for at least the past 4-5 years).  I thought that I had been dealing well with the Seasonal Affective Disorder.  It turns out that increased anger and irritability can be symptoms of SAD as well.  In the past I had experienced the lack of energy and eating more “comfort “food.  But I had not experienced the anger and irritability. The anger comes from a feeling that I am being cheated out of better weather or as we would say growing up “gipped” or “screwed” in today’s parlance.

So what am I angry about, or what thoughts run through my mind before I feel this way?  I feel trapped.  Trapped indoors, or trapped in a wall of snow and ice.  I know that I have no control over the weather so why get so “worked up” about it, right?  This whole process of deep Arctic cold and numerous snowfalls seems endless to me.  At least another two months.  I think of being able to step out onto my porch, on a warm sun splashed afternoon with a warm light breeze, close my eyes and enjoy the feel of the suns warmth on my face.  The fact that we are so far from that right now, I just feel discouraged. 

Now in a sense of disclosure last year I used a light therapy box a lot, and this winter I have not.  This morning I started to use one again.  This is irrational to me.  Why waste this kind of emotional energy on something I have no control over.  This leads to an increase in my anxiety level.  I have so many awesome things happening in my life right now.  I am falling more in love with my wife every day, I just got the internship and school is starting again (which is a good thing as far as I am concerned).  Yet I am focused a lot of time on this anger and frustration.  For short periods of time I can overcome these feelings by exercising vigorously, or spend time with my wife and family but I have not been able to turn this feeling off.

 Maybe as school gets ramped up and I have to focus more mental energy on that I won’t be noticing this as much.  I want to be able to hold onto the joy and happiness around me and let go of this anger and frustration I feel over something I can’t control.  This thought pattern is classic “old Bryan.”  Get worked up about something I have no control over and complain about it.  Man, I am really trying to not repeat this pattern, but I have been unsuccessful thus far.  Well, I guess the thing to do is keep praying for God to change my heart, and take it one day at a time.  The snow will eventually melt, right?

Trusting in Love

There is another area of my life where I am struggling with trust, my personal life. I grew up in a family where we followed along with what my dad wanted to do.  There were times where I wanted to do something else, but I was told not to “rock the boat”.  Growing up in this kind of an environment where family life revolved around the wants and desires of one parent left me feeling minimized and insignificant, that what I wanted was not important.

            As I got older, I decided that I would not let other people make me feel this way, if other people would not validate me, I would find a way to do it myself.  Therefore, I developed an inflexible and defensive side to my personality. I decided that I would do what I wanted to do, and to hell with what others thought or wanted. I ended up going very far in this direction and developed a my way or the highway mentality.  I allowed myself to have tunnel vision and became so inflexible and defensive that I did not let people in, and lived in a “bubble.”

            At this point in my life, I was an independent person and could do what I wanted, when I wanted to. However, I also had built up an emotional wall around myself and was cut off from the world around me.  I equated subjugating my own wants and needs for others as a weakness that meant I did not matter.  In the past when I had been told to sacrifice what I wanted to do for another, it was out of the selfishness of that person.  Therefore, in my mind, I equated sacrifice and doing for others as being equal to not mattering to the person I was making the sacrifice for.  On the outside, I felt like I was in control of my life and fought hard for it, but on the inside, I was lonely, and miserable.

           

In the summer of 2011, I found Christ and met the woman who would become my wife.  They both changed my life for the better.  I vowed to trust more, and to put myself out there, and to put other people’s needs before my own.  The past few months have really put this plan to the test.  I have been questioning the motives of people around me.  Do they care about me?  Do they have my best interests at heart?  I have allowed the demons of my past to affect me in the present.  I am reliving thought patterns and behaviors that I have engaged in since my mid teens and I want to throw these off like an old garment.

I want to be able to break out of these patterns of negative thinking, insecurity and lack of trust.  I want to view sacrificial living and loving not as a weakness, but as strength.  I can still be my own person and live my life but also give of myself to my loved ones and those that are less fortunate then I am.  I want to be able to trust in the love that Christ has for me, the love that my wife and I have for each other, and leave the ruminating thoughts in the past with my memories.