Category Wise Words

When Trash Talk = Love

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Have you ever loved someone enough to stand in front of a crowd of family, friends, and coworkers and bash that person? Have you shared stories of their failures, personal problems, and, most likely, their greatest insecurities?

Well, I have.

Did it feel good?

It absolutely did.

What is wrong with me?

Nothing.

What’s wrong with my little sister?

Apparently, a lot of things.

To celebrate my sister reaching a monumental age, my brother-in-law planned a Toast and Roast.

He invited guests to gift my sister with sarcasm, trash talk, and general degradation of her character.

It was phenomenal!

Who knew that slander and verbal abuse could bring people together in such a glorious light?!?

After the roasters had laid out their lines of laughable insult, the birthday girl was given a turn to bash them back.

As my sister took the stage, I was slightly fearful that the roasts had burned a little too deep. She walked up and said, “This was the weirdest birthday party I’ve ever had, so, uh, I guess, thanks?”

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Fertile Fields of Clutter

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Do piles seem to produce at an alarmingly fast pace in your workspace? Do you sometimes look at your desk, kitchen, or closet and think, “Where did all this come from?”

Well, you, my friend, are in luck!

Your piles present you with the distinct privilege of being someone who can move mountains. Those mounds of miscellaneous papers, projects, and housework are your key to making things happen. You have fertile fields of clutter.

Albert Einstein is often referenced in discussions about cluttered desks due to his quandary about the relationship between empty desks and empty minds. I have always embraced this sentiment when surveying the insanity of my office; however, Anne Lamott helped me to appreciate my cluttered chaos in a new way when I read her book, Bird by Bird.

“Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground – you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, find things, get a grip.” – Anne Lamott

These words make Lamott an Einstein in my mind.

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The First Person You Cancel On…

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Dependability. Consideration. Support. Trust.

We all strive to bring these characteristics to our relationships. No one wants to be known as the “canceller” or the “flake” in friendship. Even with the universal expectation for accountability, we all know life happens. Sometimes we are forced to detour from plans or take rain checks.

I hate asking for rain checks, and it absolutely kills me to be the one who lets someone else down.

(Seriously, I lie awake at night and stew about failures to follow through on plans, even when there was no way to prevent it.)

Despite my extreme aversion to being a “canceller,” there is one person I let down way too often.

It was not until I started reading Rachel Hollis’ book, Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be, that I recognized my frequent-flake status.

In Girl, Wash Your Face, the chapters are dedicated to the lies we tell ourselves. These lies prevent us from seeking out our most successful selves. Hollis shares in her writing how she debunked her personal lies and her methods for overcoming predicaments she faced with each lie. I hadn’t even gotten through Chapter 2, “The Lie: I’ll Start Tomorrow,” when my personal-lie-realization rammed me right in the heart.

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8,092,034,510* Other Possibilities

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As I’ve ventured through the process of seeking healthy boundaries, there is a situation that has been nagging at my heart. (See my recent post “All Full Up – New Perspectives on Boundaries” )

It took me over a year to realize a former friend was just that. Former.

After 12 months of unreturned cards, calls, texts, and messages without a hint as to why for me to say, “It’s not me.”

After 2 years and 5 months, it shouldn’t hurt that someone severed ties bound by 18 years of friendship, but, dang, it hurts.

Here’s the good news. I am not alone. There are roughly 8,092,034,510* other humans roaming this planet, who could be my friend.

Your odds are just as good (if not better based on your geographic location). This statistic is formulated from the Census.gov projection that on January 1, 2025 there were 8,092,034,511 people on Earth.

So, even if one person has moved on or you have chosen to go a separate way from someone else, the world is full of other possibilities. Possibilities for you to find friendship, support, and love.

If you are in a lonely situation or a place of being put aside, I hope you find solace in the fact that you have options. The odds are favorable that others have felt the same way. Even better there is someone out there to help you heal because, hey, they’ve been there too!

The Intenergy message here is that we are not alone. Ending a relationship or losing a connection with someone hurts. We can’t avoid those kinds of suffering, but we can give ourselves some grace as we move, grow, or heal when a relationship falls apart. We can embrace the potential for new friendships or greater development of old ones. With 8,092,034,510* other folks making their way through this world, we are bound to find someone to build a connection with and fulfill our lives in healthy, loving, and productive ways. You are not alone (verified by Census.gov).

By: Melanie A. Peters

P.S. The * is due to the fact that 8,092,034,511 is an estimate. People are always being born and passing away, and I wasn’t sure I should count you or myself in the estimate because I am the one experiencing a loss and maybe you are the exception because you are looking for a new friend. ANYWAY, the * means there are still lots of possibilities for friendships, love, and bonds out there.

P.P.S. I love ALL my friends, even if we haven’t spoken for a while OR they didn’t choose Kentucky to win on their March Madness bracket.

All Full Up – New Perspective on Boundaries

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Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are by Lysa TerKeurst screamed, “Read me!” from the shelves at the bookstore, library, and in my Amazon “Something you might like” recommendations. I added it to my WTR list and after a particularly disheartening week, I thought I’d give it a listen while Ubering the kids around. Yup, Amazon was right. I do like it.

I’m grateful I chose to listen to the audio version because hearing the words from Lysa TerKeurst’s actual voice made the message much more authentic and relatable, but it’s the words that have my heart aching for healthier ways to set boundaries for those I love and myself.

The crazy thing is that it took nearly to the end of the ninth chapter in a twelve-chapter book for my desperate self to realize my real problem. It’s not the expectations of others that fuel my need to establish boundaries. My issue is that I’m trying to build boundaries from the wrong end of the emotional gas gauge. I am full up on obligations while running on empty when it comes to inspiration, self-worth, and time.

Before listening to Lysa’s narrative, I believed that creating boundaries between myself and others could cause me to fail as a Christian. I thought refusing to give of myself as Christ did resulted in others not needing or appreciating me, and the best way to feel accepted and helpful was to run myself into the ground fulfilling the expectations of others. (If I’m killing myself to help, they will see my efforts and love me more, right?!?)

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Feeling Not-So-Smart???

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A huge portion of the time I feel like my family doesn’t think I’m smart enough to wipe my own butt. (If you have teenagers, you know.) Even more often I believe the people I encounter in daily life think I’m a cheeseburger short of a Happy Meal. Why is that?

Do you ever feel this way?

Even though we have immediate access to infinite information at our fingertips, we all seem to doubt our own ability or the ability of others to have a lick of sense. We have all developed complexes that make us feel either too smart for our own good or too dumb to function.

There’s nothing smart about either of those mindsets and it makes me want to borrow the words of Stewart Smalley from Saturday Night Live, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And, doggone it, people like me.”

I want to get to the point where I can confidently say, “Shut up, insecurity. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I’m just as guilty as the next guy for using knowledge to puff up my self-esteem in certain situations and act like a know-it-all. (I always want to kick myself later for being snotty.) There’s something to be said for admitting we don’t have all the answers and even more to lifting others up for the knowledge and skills they possess.

It’s important to value the intelligence of individuals and recognize that it’s our unique knowledge and skills that make the world go round. If you aren’t feeling like the brightest crayon in the box, it’s okay. Broken crayons still color and can be molded to make a difference that lightens any situation.

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She Was Smarter in the Book

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Thanks to a recent winter storm, our family hunkered down each evening after everything on the farm was too frozen to anything else and had a movie marathon. Our 16-year-old volunteered her collection of The Hunger Games movies.

For three consecutive nights, we fired up the DVD player and watched as Katniss Everdeen took on The Capitol and tried to figure out where her loyalties should lie. In her search for happiness, Katniss took turns kissing Peeta and Gale. This infuriated Hubby and our boys. “That wasn’t just a friendly kiss!” was repeated over and over, while Maggie tried to explain that Katniss and Gale were “just friends.”

As all movies based on books do, these films diverged from the plot and our sweet girl took it upon herself each time to say, “In the book…..,” and then proceeded to retell the novel version. This added to the hysteria of comments from my husband and sons.

As the peanut gallery continued with their heckling of Katniss’ escapades in Mockingjay Part 2, my daughter exclaimed, “She was smarter in the books!”

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Don’t Feed the Fears.

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Last week I heard someone say, “Fear is what you feed it.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, but for some reason this time the adage activated my little, blog-writing mind. I began thinking about all the fears I have been feeding lately. Holiday planning pressures, parenting failures, scheduling screw-ups, physical fitness, and financial flops were just a few of my starving stressors.

To assuage my anxious appetite, I planned to attend a Stretch and Flex class at the gym. It’s a yoga-inspired class that is calming and physically challenging all at once.

I was stoked.

Unfortunately, I was also at the gym at the WRONG time.

When I arrived, I saw the yoga mats being rolled up and stationary bikes being rolled out. What!?! Stretch and Flex was the 5:00 a.m. class. I had just showed up for the 5:50 a.m. spin class.

This did not look relaxing. This looked like I was going to have to get on a bike.
(I have never been much of a bike rider and the idea of a spin class frightened me.)

My friend Kristen, the class instructor, was elated to see me and rushed to adjust MY bike seat to the correct height and help shove my feet in the strap, cage-looking contraptions on the pedals.
(What if I fell off? I was going to be hung up in a stationary bike. This was going to be rough.) Kristen kindly showed me where to put my water bottle and placed a hand weight on my handlebars. Apparently, I was ready for spin class.

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Mustard-Seed Moments

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Daily I complete what feels like a zillion, small tasks in hopes of making a significant difference in the lives of those around me. I put a whole lot of faith in the belief that I am doing the right things as a parent and wife and accomplishing all the roles God calls me to fill. Most of the time, I do not experience the euphoria of success, in particular when it comes to being a parent.

My kids torture one another. My little darlings fight over the MOST RIDICULOUS things. They forget stuff I consider important, like homework or chores. They treat our home as if is their personal dumpster to discard shoes, socks, food wrappers, soda bottles, and empty cups wherever they please. It is enough to make this mama’s heart hurt and ask, “Lord, am I doing anything right?”

In Matthew 17:20, when the disciples weren’t sure if their faith was enough, Jesus reassured them by saying, “…Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (New American Bible).

All too often, I feel like saying, “Lord, I’ve got all kinds of seeds planted. When am I gonna move those mountains?”

I guess we have to consider what a “mountain” looks like because sometimes they aren’t as big as we expected in the beginning.

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The Circus Isn’t Going Anywhere – Wise Words Wednesday

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“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”

― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Recently, I stopped at a gift shop in hopes of finding a special present for my niece. It was a normal errand on a typical day, and I was pretty excited about the task. All of a sudden, a voice from my past called my name (literally). It was not a voice I expected or wanted to hear. The projector of the voice was someone who caused a lot of embarrassment and insecurity for me in the past.

I responded with a smile and answered all the questions thrown at me about my life now. Fortunately, I had to pick up my son from practice, so I said my goodbyes and got the heck out of there. The rest of my evening was filled with monkey mind memories swinging from one hurtful remembrance to another.

You know the type. The memory that pops up at 2:00 a.m. when you can’t shut your brain off or the voice across the room that causes your stomach to drop (not in a good way). Some memory monkeys are rabid and never stop attacking your thoughts, while others are sneaky and shimmy into your day without you realizing and then you, all of a sudden, are in full-on “can’t think about anything else mode.”

Here’s the good news. With time, forgiveness, and grace, we can pry those memory monkeys off our proverbial backs and send them packing.

Here’s the bad news. You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.

Anne Lammot wrote these wise words in her book, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, when I read this I knew Anne was on to something.

When we do find the strength to move forward, it seems like that pesky memory monkey always finds a way to pop up in our day, whether it be in our thoughts or in the checkout line. The “circus” could be the result of living in a small town or the fact that your mind is its own three-ring extravaganza of emotions and you are the head clown.

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