becoming reasonable
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| hoppie birdie, gma |
my last post i addressed the application of making expectations known in relationships. i had an interesting conversation today about expectations. it was regarding being reasonable in expectations thereby increasing rates of success and reducing stress. we were chatting about how frustrating doing chores with children can be. take a grocery store visit for example. three-quarters of the way into a grocery trip with two 18 month old girls usually turns into a shit show of them trying to run free and then fits of frustration when they cannot run around. as you can imagine, i react with a little embarrassment and some blood pressure rising. why? because i unreasonably expected my little tiny people to sit still and not grab things. that was an expectation that i set up for myself and them to fail. now, i have reevaluated my expectation of my children in that situation. an immediate positive reaction to the reconstruction of rules and expectation occurred today. i set a goal of mailing a thank you card and a birthday greeting and thought we would have to go to the dreaded post office, but i found a couple stamps and we went on an adventure to mail our letters. the girls held my hands as we walked to the mailbox and they dropped in the mail their great gma's birthday card (first time they mailed something, tear). we checked out the tall grass and rocks for a while then walked home. it was fun and not stressful and met and went beyond my expectations of the event.
exercising the most reasonable part of the brain is not always easy. actually quite contrary, the prefrontal cortex is the least developed part of the brain and is easily over powered by the older brain, that relies on emotion and ancient rules of survival. it takes practice and mindfulness to exercise the younger more rational part of the brain and apply the rationale to daily life to relieve stress and create avenues for success.
my current tonal amusement: tUnE-YaRdS' album, BiRd-BrAiNs
First time reader, like the blog & ur totally right on the expectation stuff. That strategy has prevented more blow-ups than a little bit, at least for myself anyways.
ReplyDeleteMust commend the card making skills, looks like some fine craftsmanship, and before I leave I should mention those finds by ur hubby in the nerd city post were absurdly spectacular. Does he have a blog also? Where does he find this stuff? I thought I knew how to find everything!
Anyway, I thought I'd comment because I hate when I lurk a good blog, never comment and then I'd visit 3 mos later and said blog has died & stopped posting/updating. It's ridic but I kinda feel responsible like if someone knew I gave a shit about what they wrote they'd continue doing what they enjoyed. In reality, maybe they never enjoyed it in the first place. I'm babbling now, just wanted to say I enjoy the posts. Thanks.