Image borrowed from ace94.blogspot.com Sigh. Not sure about you, but I'm feeling rather overwhelmed these days. The best visual description of my life right now is that of the spinning plates circus act. You know the one. A clown starts out spinning one plate on a stick, puts that one into a holder and starts a second, and a third, and a forth ... After a while, he notices that the first couple of plates are starting to wobble, nearly causing them to crash to the floor, so he rushes over to give them a good hard spin to set them right again. He goes back to the task of adding more spinning plates, only to notice that the next couple are now wobbling. He rushes back to give them a good spin. More spinning plates are added. By the time he finishes, there are about a dozen plates spinning on sticks and he is frantically running around spinning the wobbly ones so that they do not fall. Eventually, he cannot keep up and they begin crashing to the floor one by one.
That is MY LIFE.
I've got so many plates spinning that it makes my HEAD SPIN.
Even so, it seems I still manage to feel guilty when someone requests help or volunteers and I have to decline. Why do I feel so obligated to always say "yes" lest I leave feeling guilty?
Walk into my house right now and you'll not find a single room or space that doesn't need some form of my attention. It seems like everything in my life is in some form of neglect, except my kids. Kids demand attention, and I'm glad they do. I can let the dishes pile up in the kitchen, but I cannot forget to feed my children. They get very loud and demanding when they are hungry.
I used to worry about visitors ... what with my house being in a constant state of clutter ... but now, I just welcome them in and apologize for the mess.
I suppose the thing is, I've always prided myself in being a person that could keep all those plates spinning. Now, age 46, three little girls, 13 chickens, a dog, a cockatiel, a big honkin' garden, a house, and homeschooling (which includes about a half dozen "extra curricular" activities), and I've finally got so many plates up there on sticks that I cannot keep up.
Do you ever feel like that? Like there just isn't enough of you ... that you just cannot spread yourself thinly enough to take care of everything that you have to be responsible for?
I cannot stand this feeling inside of me. It feels like failure. I look around and the things I focus on are the things that I have failed at ... the plates that have crashed to the floor. It can really drag a person down. Part of the problem is that I expect myself to be able to fix all of those things at once; I don't give myself permission to address them one at a time. The other part of the problem is demonstrated clearly by the circus act - It is only humanly possible to do so much. There is a definite limit to how many "plates" we can physically keep spinning.
The challenge is in figuring out how to reduce the number of plates without neglecting anything of significance. That's hard. I always feel like everything I do is important, that's WHY I choose to do it.
As I've peeled back the layers of this problem, however, I've discovered something else. I've discovered my own lack of patience with others and my own issues of perfectionism. It is easier for me to try to keep up with everything because training others to do those things to my satisfaction has about the same appeal for me as going for a root canal. I'd rather not hear the whining and protests, so I just do it myself. I recognize this as a larger problem than my shattering plates.
I know exactly what I need to do to fix this problem. I need to STOP. I need to take the time to train my children, and to make them responsible for helping to keep those plates spinning. Where possible, I need to eliminate some unnecessary things. I need to stop making "To-Do" lists that I never get to and use that time to train my children in some good habits, and in how to be a contributor to the workings of this household. It will mean headaches and whining. It will mean that things won't be done exactly how I would do them. It will mean that for a time, things are going to continue to be out-of-whack until I can establish a working foundation.
I actually started this a year ago when I set up a chore rotation and allowance system ... it was another plate to spin. If I didn't keep that one going, it was destined to crash to the floor, and so it did. When that happened, it meant that I had to start doing all those little things that the girls had been doing in addition to all of the things that I need to do everyday. Plates, plates, and more plates. Then, when school started back up, even more plates got added. CRASH, SMASH, CRASH!!! Down they have been coming, one right after another.
I knew getting into this that it was not going to be easy. I guess I just figured I'd handle the challenge a little better than I have been. I love being a mom and a wife. I love homeschooling. I enjoy the homesteading adventure we are experimenting with. Unfortunately, my inability to do EVERYTHING by myself has undermined my joy. I cannot let that continue. One of the hardest things to do in life is to identify one's own shortcomings and begin the process of correcting them. Undoing perfectionism and impatience is not something I can even begin to do without God's help.
I begin today with this prayer ...
My Father,
Your Spirit has revealed to my heart that I am ...
IMPATIENT and ...
PERFECTIONISTIC
These tendencies have caused me to yoke myself to a burden that I cannot carry on my own.
I push and pull, but each day I am faced with the reality that I HAVE FAILED.
I haven't even asked YOU for help.
I can no longer attempt to push ahead on my own. I need the help of others, and YOU.
Help me Father to prioritize. Help me to be patient in teaching others to help.
Help me to be gracious and not critical when things are not done exactly to my liking.
Help me to use wisdom in parsing out my time. Give me eyes that see what is really IMPORTANT, without being derailed by the myriad of things vying for my time and attention.
AMEN.
That is MY LIFE.
I've got so many plates spinning that it makes my HEAD SPIN.
Even so, it seems I still manage to feel guilty when someone requests help or volunteers and I have to decline. Why do I feel so obligated to always say "yes" lest I leave feeling guilty?
Walk into my house right now and you'll not find a single room or space that doesn't need some form of my attention. It seems like everything in my life is in some form of neglect, except my kids. Kids demand attention, and I'm glad they do. I can let the dishes pile up in the kitchen, but I cannot forget to feed my children. They get very loud and demanding when they are hungry.
I used to worry about visitors ... what with my house being in a constant state of clutter ... but now, I just welcome them in and apologize for the mess.
I suppose the thing is, I've always prided myself in being a person that could keep all those plates spinning. Now, age 46, three little girls, 13 chickens, a dog, a cockatiel, a big honkin' garden, a house, and homeschooling (which includes about a half dozen "extra curricular" activities), and I've finally got so many plates up there on sticks that I cannot keep up.
Do you ever feel like that? Like there just isn't enough of you ... that you just cannot spread yourself thinly enough to take care of everything that you have to be responsible for?
I cannot stand this feeling inside of me. It feels like failure. I look around and the things I focus on are the things that I have failed at ... the plates that have crashed to the floor. It can really drag a person down. Part of the problem is that I expect myself to be able to fix all of those things at once; I don't give myself permission to address them one at a time. The other part of the problem is demonstrated clearly by the circus act - It is only humanly possible to do so much. There is a definite limit to how many "plates" we can physically keep spinning.
The challenge is in figuring out how to reduce the number of plates without neglecting anything of significance. That's hard. I always feel like everything I do is important, that's WHY I choose to do it.
As I've peeled back the layers of this problem, however, I've discovered something else. I've discovered my own lack of patience with others and my own issues of perfectionism. It is easier for me to try to keep up with everything because training others to do those things to my satisfaction has about the same appeal for me as going for a root canal. I'd rather not hear the whining and protests, so I just do it myself. I recognize this as a larger problem than my shattering plates.
I know exactly what I need to do to fix this problem. I need to STOP. I need to take the time to train my children, and to make them responsible for helping to keep those plates spinning. Where possible, I need to eliminate some unnecessary things. I need to stop making "To-Do" lists that I never get to and use that time to train my children in some good habits, and in how to be a contributor to the workings of this household. It will mean headaches and whining. It will mean that things won't be done exactly how I would do them. It will mean that for a time, things are going to continue to be out-of-whack until I can establish a working foundation.
I actually started this a year ago when I set up a chore rotation and allowance system ... it was another plate to spin. If I didn't keep that one going, it was destined to crash to the floor, and so it did. When that happened, it meant that I had to start doing all those little things that the girls had been doing in addition to all of the things that I need to do everyday. Plates, plates, and more plates. Then, when school started back up, even more plates got added. CRASH, SMASH, CRASH!!! Down they have been coming, one right after another.
I knew getting into this that it was not going to be easy. I guess I just figured I'd handle the challenge a little better than I have been. I love being a mom and a wife. I love homeschooling. I enjoy the homesteading adventure we are experimenting with. Unfortunately, my inability to do EVERYTHING by myself has undermined my joy. I cannot let that continue. One of the hardest things to do in life is to identify one's own shortcomings and begin the process of correcting them. Undoing perfectionism and impatience is not something I can even begin to do without God's help.
I begin today with this prayer ...
My Father,
Your Spirit has revealed to my heart that I am ...
IMPATIENT and ...
PERFECTIONISTIC
These tendencies have caused me to yoke myself to a burden that I cannot carry on my own.
I push and pull, but each day I am faced with the reality that I HAVE FAILED.
I haven't even asked YOU for help.
I can no longer attempt to push ahead on my own. I need the help of others, and YOU.
Help me Father to prioritize. Help me to be patient in teaching others to help.
Help me to be gracious and not critical when things are not done exactly to my liking.
Help me to use wisdom in parsing out my time. Give me eyes that see what is really IMPORTANT, without being derailed by the myriad of things vying for my time and attention.
AMEN.
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