Sharing Time

What about you?

Without fail the following makes me laugh:

children's laughter

fart sounds
Lily Tomlin
unexpected belching
tickling others
a good scare

Without fail the following makes me cry:
The movie A Trip To Bountiful
seeing someone I love in pain
watching someone succeed in something tremendous
singing the Start Spangled Banner

Without fail the following makes me angry:
giving up when you don't have to
willful ignorance

seeing someone take advantage of another 

inflatable lawn decor

nylons

Without fail the following makes me excited:

a challenge

a plan

perfect temperatures

good music

opportunity

achieving a goal

impactful conversations

Last 3min

I've no idea why I've been so reflective lately. Maybe it's because I feel so thankful in many areas of my life that it's almost overwhelming.

I was listening to a random talk while driving in my car, I don't recall who the speaker was. The take home message I got was this:

If I only had three minutes left to live, 

what would my parting words be?

I was relieved to have the answer instantly come to me, there was no real deliberation. In fact, I was so relieved I had no doubts in my response that I want to say those things now. Why wait?

Minute 1: God lives. Jesus Christ is the way. No relationship or devoted effort is more important than this one.

Minute 2: I love my husband and I am so thankful for the courage his presence brings to my life, his caring heart and companionship are priceless. I'm thrilled beyond to have my son; he is an absolute treasure. Dad and Mom, thank you for the amazing examples of true love and charity that you have been - always.

Minute 3: Everyone else, dig deep and LIVE this life with all that you have. Give, love, serve, do the hard things, be honest, and inspire goodness.

From Birth to Death

Watching my little eight-month old son grow, develop, and learn has been an amazing process to watch. There are so many parallels that can be drawn from this time of life.

From birth to death we continually struggle to grow, develop, and learn. 

Although there may be frustration in learning: how to turn from our back to our stomach, incorporating hand-eye coordination, potty training, reading, writing, math... it all fits together. Each thing we learn builds on itself, to improve our turn on earth.

Each experience builds on the next. Each repeated and applied movement or thought develops a skill. If a baby didn't strive to do new things, it simply wouldn't thrive.

How are we, as adults, any different?

It would be nice if things were easier all the time, but where would be the growth? Where would be the knowledge? If we weren't challenged, things would stay the same all the time. Then there's boredom, stasis - a true lacking.

There are times that I can't help but feel that I am being watched, just like I'm watching my son. Sometimes the watcher is a mentor, parental figure, family that have passed on and that are watching from the other side, and God.

All of these figures at some point watch, sometimes with baited breath and excitement, wondering... "Is this the moment we see her do it?"

It may have taken days, months, years or a lifetime. To see all of the critical developmental stages; the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, etc.

We are excited to see certain growth unfold and then there are times we cringe at less desirable, less effective application of skill or dormancy of it as well. But this is also part of the process, isn't it?

The concept still stands though. We must strive to face challenges, and overcome them in order to thrive (to triumph, succeed, learn, grow).

I'm convinced that as long as we continually strive from birth to death to grow, develop, and learn to the best of our ability, we are destined to live a good life - no matter the environment or the circumstance.

I don't want to "go gentle into that good night"* with people watching in ambivalence, relief, or lack of emotion. No, that is definitely a moment that I hope I am surround by people with baited breath and excitement, wondering... "Is this the moment we see her do it?" 

                                              

*Dylan Thomas

Stimulating Freedom

I've recently memorized a quote that provides serious empowerment. Who doesn't need to be empowered and to feel the energy from it? So here's the quote and my thoughts. If you have anything to share about it, please do.

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. 

In that space is our power to choose our response. 

In our response lies our growth and our freedom." 

~ Viktor E. Frankl 

It's that darn "space" mentioned in the quote that gets me.

That space feels so small, but it is actually quite large, yet we oftentimes respond in a quick second. The following are questions I ask myself about the space:

Is the stimulus good, bad, desired, undesirable? If the stimulus is a good thing, then I am going to go out on a limb and assume that my response will be good too.

If the stimulus is bad, then the following thoughts come to my mind when questioning this space.

• Do you willingly ignore that you actually have decision making power when the stimulus appears?
• Do you ponder the stimulus and then relent? 
• Do you talk to yourself to try to understand why the stimulus is  actually a stimulus?
• Do you try to talk yourself out of the stimulus as being tantalizing?
• Do you try to rationalize stimulus so that you can continue with the preferred response?
• Do you ignore the stimulus and let it subconsciously fester?

The list could really go on, but I'll stop there. I don't know about anyone else, but I've found that the largest portion of that "space" is occupied by choices that generally follow the path of least resistance. In other words, giving in. 

If we don't just give in, then within the space there's a sub-space that we use. That sub-space determines so few of our decisions. It's the sub-space we really want to be in as often as we can.

It's not until I persistently rest in that hard to reach sub-space of "the space" that I am able to respond the way that is really the best for me. Those choices are the ones I rarely ever regret.

I've been using the recitation of this quote to change some of my unwanted habitual behaviors. I'm using this quote to help me reach the sub-space more frequently; to make me more aware.

I believe this is a healthy way to retrain my brain to view certain stimuli differently. The effort is to reassign the stimulus to be no longer tantalizing and recognize it for what it actually is, damaging. 

It's efforts like this that have helped me train my brain time and time again with many different habits. I take comfort in the part of the quote where it says that in this effort we can find freedom in our responses. 

Freedom from unwanted stimulus would be awesome. Yea for continually discarding guilt!

It's like Jim Rohn says, "Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated everyday."

Poetry Corner: Alter Me

I've been thinking a bit about a period of time in my life that I simply didn't enjoy. 

I suppose that I have been thinking about it because I'm extremely thankful that I'm not forcing myself to be there any longer.

Here's a work of mine from that time. I've thought some of writing a companion piece that has a more positive spin from the "alterations" - we'll see. 

Alter Me

a looming haze hovers
slowly descending,
years in the making,
and I sit here
unsettled
waiting powerless
not knowing how or 
in what way
I should prepare...

I can't, I won't
live
this way.

By Diana M. Bateman
2008 ©

It's a struggle to not slide backwards at times. The reality though, is that we are all individual authors and we truly do get to decide our destiny; it's not haphazard. 

Death by Gas Station

In blogs past I've addressed my emotional binge eating history. I've also described the great strides I have made to reverse the ingrained habitual behavior of open mouth insert breaded pastry. 

Most all my woes, through denial, have been chased down with the said breaded pastries and over ninety-six ounces of carbonated beverages. What you may or may not have picked up on is that the battle isn't over... mentally.

So far I have been winning - in pieces. I struggle frequently. Sometimes the struggle is all day, every day, other times it's every few days, but sometimes - it's every second. 

When the triggers are set right, I salivate. When the pressure becomes suffocating enough, I swallow without tasting. Then I need more. Sometimes the hum of the refrigerator can sound like the echo of a gunshot.

If I have just one soda or sweet, it snowballs. The last time I had "just one", it turned into three. That many pastries and soda far exceed the caloric intake of a pretty darn good sized nutritious meal; without any nutritional value whatsoever.

As I write this, I feel vulnerable enough to want food or drink to wash the emotions away - even if for a little bit. I know the moment will never last long enough. I can even tell you that I'm honestly not quite sure what is really bothering me, yet.

I wonder what the subconscious is struggling with so the conscious part of me can cope better. Dr. Phil McGraw would say that something about this all "works" for me and provides a payoff of some kind. 

It's hard to understand why or how a pastry and soda can even come close to satiating, comforting, or loving some unmet need. Especially when in reality the simple truth just might be that I'm a sleep deprived mom.

On a second, but related note, my skin is very elastic from the weight-loss I've gone through over the years. When I lean forward it hangs down from my stomach, raise my arms and the triceps area jiggles, I run and I feel all my excess. 

I look at my lose skin like it's just some foreign part of me. In reality though... the leftover skin is a mass of scars, "leftovers" from the ongoing battle.

There is no finish line. This is why endurance is a good thing to build and develop.

And to think, this blog entry came from simply driving by a gas station, rather than stopping in for a sweet and a soda. It has gotten better though. 

There are times I drive by a gas station and I don't even think about it.  I seldom dream of a gas station when there isn't one in sight. This is improvement indeed.

Poetry Corner: Harsh Reality

I think it's so interesting that we sometimes set our own darn selves up and then act surprised about how we got there. I am human and I face this repeatedly; such as my poem below would suggest.


Harsh Reality

muddied by self-deception, 
I sip the realization carefully, 
hoping to circumvent
the absolute inevitability that 
I've sabotaged myself 
again

indeed,
I am facing yet another 
self-made
brick-wall.

By Diana M. Bateman
2005 ©


I used to punish myself when I discovered that I would or could sabotage myself. The only thing that has changed, is that I try to embrace the opportunity to further my knowledge about the messages I missed the first time around. If I can't let go of the error, now that I'm aware, then I punish myself. So human!

What I like about the situation this time around is that the wall isn't brick any longer, its more pliable. I'm okay. Life requires work in order to evolve into who I have always been "becoming."

The reality isn't so "harsh" any longer either. It's simply a reality that most likely can be rewritten. Now I understand that the only crappy thing about any situation is if I am not willing to make any personal changes that got me there in the first place.