Monthly Archives: April 2014

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Follow Your Arrow

Who among us doesn’t want to be liked, to live conflict free, to please those around us? Problem is, as Lincoln said, “You can never please all of the people all of the time.”

FDr. Susan Biali in How to Stop People-Pleasing says most people-pleasers are women who attract mean, controlling bullies. People-pleasing is draining and futile as an attempt to getting your needs met.

An eggshell walker myself, my life improved drastically when I pulled the plug on people-pleasing. When I feel the need to please creeping back up, I sing Follow Your Arrow with Kacey Musgraves to remind myself people-pleasing isn’t profitable.

Is there someone to whom you should say “no” today?

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Everything Is Broken

EThings break, in our homes, our cars, relationally, even our bodies. As a child I broke a collar bone and an arm twice. I’ve fractured a vertebra. With these, after application of a bandage, a cast, or a brace and I could function reasonably well.

When my right ankle was severely broken in 2004, it was as if, like Bob Dylan sings, Everything Is Broken. Dylan may be speaking to brokenness felt when a significant other is absent. But what is more significant than a foundational part of yourself? When something foundational is missing from functionality, even basics – food, bodily elimination and cleansing, mobility – are broken.

Have you ever felt broken?

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(Don’t Fear) The Reaper

DJune 16, 1973, I saw Blue Oyster Cult at Tampa Stadium with Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Family, and Savoy Brown. It was before the release of BOC’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper built around an awesome riff.

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper also features a cowbell as percussion as immortalized by the hysterically funny “More Cowbell” SNL sketch of April 8, 2000, featuring Christopher Walken as music producer Bruce Dickenson and SNL regulars Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Horation Sanz, Chris Parnell with Will Ferrell on cowbell. Regarded as one of the funniest sketches of SNL history, the sketch calls the me, the true story teller to find one thing that could be exaggerated for comedic purposes.

What’s your “cowbell?”

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Compass

CA media psychology professor in grad school recommended a life-saving, beach read for me titled Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Written by linguist George Lakoff, Moral Politics opened my eyes to worldviews, and more critical, how they were impacting me, my life, and my relationships.

Worldview, how we think or what’s in our hearts is, as Lady Antebellum sings, our Compass. It directs the choices we make. While it’s true that often “we’re not that far apart” from others, I realizing I was battling drastically different worldviews. Thanks to Lakoff, I knew my own worldview and it was life saving.

Do you know your worldview? How is it impacting your life?