Strength of Family

Other than God, of all the help’s that I’ve found for the woes of my life, family is by far the most helpful. There is nothing as real to us than a family relationship.  The influence of our family can be either for good or for evil.  I grew up in a loving family and it served as a great template for me as I helped to raise my own family.  I learned a lot as a sibling.

Many of the lessons, that I learned as a youth, have been more helpful as I have grown older.  Some of those lessons I was able to figure out at the time, however, many of those lessons, I didn’t even realize that I had learned, until much later.  It is amazing how many times my parents would try to teach me something that I was not receptive to at the time.  It wasn’t until I had my own family, until I understood and finally put those lessons into practice.  It helps me realize that Mom and Dad might not have been super wise, but they might have made the same mistakes when they were young.

Of course, some of my children have been as hard headed as I was.  They too have had to learn those same lessons the hard way.  As flawed as we all are as family members, we can be good for each other.  It is one of the most important things that I have learned.  Everyone needs support.  A family can play a major roll in the support that we need, when things are not going well.  Having someone to talk to, or to ask advice, can help to keep us sane.

It is a good idea, if your family is somewhat functional, to keep or renew that relationship.  Whether that is the family you grew up in, or the family that you helped to create.  Family can be the greatest help to us. They provide a way to give and receive service and sacrifice.  These are ingredients that can give the greatest relief to our daily problems.


I hope your family is a help to you.
Until next time, Jene

The Power of Projects

 

I’ve learned that there is power in having a project.  A project can keep us active.  It gives us a specific goal to work toward.  We gain satisfaction once the thing is done and we can do something different all the time.  

My little project was one of those, “build it in a day,” kind of project.  The problem is, the designer of the project is probably one of those 20 something characters.   Of course I knew I wasn’t going to build it in a day.  I figured two. 

 

Being a young man of mind and an old man of body, it took me two weeks to accomplish.  Still, after two weeks of doing a little each day, I finally got it done.

 

 As I think about it now, it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t accomplish it any faster, I figure I only have so many projects in these bones, and I wouldn’t want to run out of projects too quickly.  So here is sort of a step by step of the process.

Now that it’s done, I am already looking forward to the next project. 

No, not that one.  That is more project than I have in me for now.  For that project, first I would have to build a house, then I would need to build a guest house, then I would need to build a bunk house behind the guest house to put it in.  So, that particular project is much further down the road.

This is more like what I had in mind next.

So I hope you are all figuring out your next project, whether that is building the bunk in the bunk house behind the guest house behind the house, or whether that is putting a vacancy sign over the homemade bird's nest, keep those projects going.  After all, projects keep us alive and kicking, cutting, scratching and cussing.

Find a project!

Jene

 

Passion Therapy

One important lesson I learned quite early in life, and was soundly reinforced while learning to cope with the loss of a spouse, was finding a new passion for life.  LeAnne was a good teacher of this principle.  I’ve learned that life has no meaning at all, unless I also have a passion to give me purpose for that life.  It becomes even more important to me when my passion benefits someone else.  A passion is something that drives us.  It has to be something strong enough to get us out of bed in the morning, no matter what the weather or our state of mind at the moment.  LeAnne’s passion was her family, friends and people in need.  Her passion for others kept her going, no matter what the obstacle.

I’ve always admired that in her and I’ve always strived to be better at that myself.  Finding something worth being passionate about is not terribly hard.  We all have an inkling of what drives us.  I think that is something that is innate in all of us.  We all have that something special about us.  Some people call this part of us, “talents.”  Others might call it something else.  Though I am re-learning this kind of thing later in life than I would have liked, I am glad that I finally get it once more.

Perhaps we don’t recognize this special thing about ourselves.  Others have probably noticed it.  I noticed special things about my children as they grew and became adults, even though they didn’t seem to notice them.  These things are only part of what gives us joy to see our children mature.  Still, like our children, we do not know ourselves enough to say that we have discovered all of our passions yet.  I believe we will still be discovering these passions after we leave this life.  Perhaps one day, I will learn to play the piano and find a passion for it too.  It seems to me, we find purpose in these passions.  We will find purpose in life by sharing that special part of us.  Purpose will aid us to find happiness.

Since pondering these thoughts over the past few years, I’ve been more mindful of others around me.  I’ve seen that my wife Deb has also learned to have new or renewed passions for things in her life.  It is fascinating to watch her always trying new things.  I have been inspired by her tenacity.  When she gets it in her head to do some thing she has never done before, she will find a way to do it.  There are things she has done that haven’t been as successful as she had wanted, but the most important and the most influential part to me, was that she had the courage to do it in the first place.  She does it no matter the consequence.  Many of us lack the courage to get that far.

This adage that says “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is completely false.  I know, because I have more than 40 years of bad habits in writing that I am breaking.  I am learning a new way.  From these realizations, I am learning to be a kid again.  I am rekindling a desire to learn and explore.  I am learning all over again that it is okay to fail, as long as I learn from it and I keep going.  I am learning to have new dreams of the future and to create new maps to take me there.  I’m not trying to be a kid again, but I am trying to improve and have a stronger purpose in life.  With every new purpose, I find that there are a lot of road blocks and obstacles to cross.  Everything meaningful always comes with opposition.  It is the nature of good and evil.  It is also the nature of learning.

I’m reminded of something that my grandfather once said.  We were working on his farm.  We were hauling hay and it was starting to rain.  I think we all knew that if we didn’t get the hay hauled, Grandpa might have to haul it himself.  We wanted to run for the house.  Grandpa shouted out “It looks like we’re going to get wet before we get done.”  The statement was true, but only if we stayed and finished the job.  It occurred to me that I had been wet before.  I had been muddy before.  It wasn’t so bad.  It made things harder by times, but I had survived it.  We stayed and finished our load, but that was all we did.  By the time we finally got the load on, the field got too wet to drive through.  We were lucky to get the truck and our load out.  To me the important lesson in the field, was that we didn’t just give up because we had a little opposition. 

For Grandpa, at the time, the hay was important.  To me, at the time, my grandfather was important.  For others it might have been something different.  Whatever keeps us going, keeps our attention and inspires us to action, is what we need to find.  I write.  Someone else plays the organ.  Someone else sews.  Others are passionately trying to keep up with their children.  As long as our passions give us purpose for life, then they will help us through difficult times.

I hope these thoughts help.

Until my next post,

 Jene

Music Medicine

During the hard seasons of mourning, as well as times of fog and this time of new growth that I am presently in, I have found that music has played a big part in much of my progress.  Music has been useful to help lift me up, calm my heart, build me up and spur me forward. 

Many studies have been made about music and the influence it has upon us.  Hollywood has utilized it to manipulate our emotions, to help with the impact of the scene on the screen.  Others have found music to have a direct relationship between the way people will react within their everyday lives.  Music has inspired our feelings in ways to put us in particular ways of thinking.  There is a reason for so called “elevator music” in the elevator and in department stores.  They want us to be calm and indifferent to the passage of time.  Marching music and tunes with a stirring beat at athletic events are meant to get our blood pumping and put us in the mood for action. 

I’ve learned to use that to help me.  I listen to music that will help to put me into the mood for the results that I want.  When I have moments of melancholy, and I want to get an instant lift, I find some rousing uplifting music to help me get there.  When I need inspiration for a love story, I find that kind of music.  When I want action, if find action music.  It doesn’t always work for me, but most times it does. 

Music isn’t very time consuming, because we can listen to it, while we do other things.  With today’s technology, it is easy to get the kind of music, even the very song we want within a few seconds. 

Whatever your tastes are, or the kinds of music that will keep you going, I hope you can find some that will keep you smiling.

I hope some of these thoughts help.

Until next time,

Jene

New Skills

Before

In the past few years, I have learned that coping is more than just enduring.  Coping also means to actively do something about the situation.  During this time of “coping,” I have that found there are a number of ways to do something about my situation.  I’ve learned that some methods of “coping,” have been detrimental to my healing process. 

I have found that activities that kept me from doing positive things, which I could feel good about, were activities that would be better for me to leave alone.  Not only would it not help, but it would actually create new trouble for me to deal with.

I found that the most effective and most helpful activities were learning new skills, or improving upon current skills.  Skills are the ability to use knowledge to do a task.  The key word in that sentence is “do.”  Doing requires the use of mind and body.

Learning a new skill, was not only engaging my mind, but also forcing me to be doing something.  Reading, watching movies, or other such activities alone seemed to wear me out.  My motivation to do anything new was completely flattened when I was finished with those activities, I still had all my other problems to deal with.  But learning a new skill not only got something done that I couldn’t do before, but it also seemed to make me a better more complete person.  It was fun to learn and it was satisfying to know that I was more than I had been.  It also seemed to motivate me to do the other things that I knew I should be doing.  This also reduced a lot of stress.  It has also been something that has brought Deb and I closer.  The photos speak for themselves.

After

One of the skills that I have been working on, is screen writing.  Though I am using a lot of the same skills as I had before, it has many new elements to it that are completely different from writing novels.  When I am writing on a screenplay, I still have to use the skills learned to write a book, but I have to do it in a way that is completely different.  Still, I have found that the skills I have learned screen writing has made me a much better novelist.  Those new skills give me a new excitement for any kind of writing.  I look forward to finishing the book I’m on, so I can get started on my next one.  Those feelings of accomplishment, also continues to motivate me to go after other projects.

There are other skills I am learning and I’ve found that the same lessons apply.  Each new skill has given me confidence and a new appreciation for the new person I am becoming.  They also motivate me to do more.

I hope these thoughts are helpful to you.

Until next time,

Jene

Half of Me

I’ve already mentioned this earlier, but I thought I would go into more detail.  When I lost my wife, I seemed to lose my own identity.  I no longer knew who I was.  It seems that when we become one with another person, we become a new person.  It is not an instant change.  We grow into these new personas over time. 

We don’t realize just how connected our identity is with our spouse, until suddenly they are not there.  It is like, in the instant we realize that our other half is gone, we are almost completely lost.  It isn’t just the mourning process.  It is the fact that quite literally, part of us is missing.  When we no longer have that oneness with us, we are simply no longer the same person we had been.  Without that connection, part of the personality that we developed in order to be with that person is gone.

I cannot describe well enough how dramatic this feeling is.  It is like suddenly being a bunch of paint in a pile on the canvas, instead of a clearly defined picture.  The ingredients may all still be there, but the application of those ingredients is completely different. 

When I found myself in this mess, it took a while to figure out why I was feeling so lost.  After figuring it out, it took more time to figure out who I was when I was not with her.  I had to redefine myself.  I had to figure out where I wanted to take my life and what I wanted to get out of it.

It was like starting life from scratch.  I felt the same as I did when I was a kid about to start college, while trying to decide what I should study and what kind of profession I should pursue.

Figuring out who I was and where I wanted to take my life, took a few months to do.  Once that was tentatively decided upon, I had to set goals.  Through the process of setting goals, (the things I truly wanted to do) I began to realize that I would become a better person, but not solely because I had set goals.  I would be different from who I was as a kid, and different from when I was with LeAnne. 

Moreover, I am married to another wonderful woman.  Debbie is helping to shape me, just as LeAnne did.  No doubt we will merge and become more than we have each been before.  She will affect me in ways that will improve me, as I reach for the goals that I have set for myself and she will also change.  She has many great qualities that I know will help inspire and influence many of my decisions.  Her excellent qualities will influence my life to be better in those areas.

Life is made up of a long chain of choice and consequences.  Normally when we make wise decisions, the consequences are good.  Since she has strong values and different approach to life, I can hardly help but enrich my life as I begin to meld my life with hers.

I guess the lesson here is, alone we are only so much.  When we are with someone for a long period of time, I am who I am, she is who she is, and together we are each much more.  There is an idiom that says “two heads are better than one.”  Steven Covey calls this Cinergy.  The sum of the individuals, become more than when they are separate.  One, plus one, equals three.

It is the same as the example of my friends that I spoke of before, (however, friends will never make as much difference as a spouse).

It seems to be a fact of life, when we alone, we are sad, lonely and only who we are when we are single.  When we are with someone, (friends or a spouse), we both find more purpose, happiness, and we are more than we have been.  We are us, plus so much more.

I hope these thoughts make sense and are helpful.

Until next time,

Jene

Friends

I have always been a shy person.  When I was young, I was so shy that unless people spoke to me, I didn’t talk to anyone.  It would usually take several months for me to warm up enough to speak at all.  As I got older, it became a problem.  I was too shy to ask questions in class, and I would avoid any new situation, which often limited me in every aspect of life.

Later in high school, I started palling around with a group of other guys with similar values.  A couple of these guys invited me to go to a movie with them.  I gave them a number of reasons why I couldn’t, but one of them would not take no for an answer.  They showed up at my house to get me, just as I was coming in from milking the cow.  It was during the winter, and if you know anything about cows, they will find the muckiest places to ly down.  Things get pretty mucky in the winter.  Washing the cows clean enough to milk them is hard work.

Needless to say, when I came in from milking, I was pretty messy.  I was pretty embarrassed.  Again I told them that I couldn’t go.  They stayed and waited while I rushed to shower and got ready to go anyway.  I don’t remember what movie it was, but I remember how I felt when they were so intent on including me.

After that, we did most everything together.  We (this whole group) became true friends.  In later years, we have each voiced how we each had worked hard to improve ourselves and do greater things, because we did not want to disappoint the others.  To me, these men saved my life in many different ways.  I have always been grateful for their efforts.  On the other hand, they have voiced the same to me.  I had no idea that I had influenced their lives as much as they had mine.

During these last 7 years, I have used that lesson to try to lift others.  I have not been disappointed at the outcome of any of the efforts I have made.  In lifting others, I find I cannot help but be lifted myself.  Just as I benefitted from the association with my friends, they too benefitted from associating with me.  It seems an eternal truth, we cannot serve someone else, without benefitting from it also.

I hope this thought will help to lift you.

Until my next post,

Jene