trust yourself

The Longest Relationship You Will Ever Have

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The Longest Relationship You Will Ever Have
By Bernadette A. Moyer

take-care-of-yourself

The longest relationship you will ever have is with yourself, and for me, it also includes God. The way we treat people and our honesty and dishonesty is something that only we can reconcile. So many of us are hugely invested in our parents, our children, our friends and our neighbors and where this is quite noble, the truth is that the sustainable relationship is the one we have with ourselves. Friends come and go, family comes together and drifts apart, parents age and die and children grow up and go on their way.

The biggest investment made should be where it will have staying power and last, and that is within our own self. When we look to others for our value, whether it is an employer, a parent, a child, a friend or any other we have given way to letting everyone else determine our value.

As a child who was born as raised Catholic, I learned many wonderful life lessons. I learned to live by the golden rule and to treat other people the way that I wanted to be treated. I learned the value in living for the greater good and about service above self. I watched both Catholic Priests and Catholic Nuns put everyone else above themselves.

I learned to believe I was going to hell if I didn’t honor the Catholic code for living. It is only recently that I have discovered that if and when you put everyone else above yourself you have basically taught people how to treat you. You have taught them that you deserve to be last.

Life is a journey and not a destination, each one of us is evolving as we age, and as we learn and grow. Just like a flower that comes back year after year, where it may be the same type of flower it never returns looking exactly like it did in its previous bloom.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs     

When we are young we have no way to fully comprehend how our decisions will impact us later in life. Like the teenager who decides to become a teen mom, they can never fully understand that life altering choice until they age.

Parents fret over their teenagers and young adult decisions, because unlike the teenager and the young adult a mature adult has a better understand of poor choices. The choice to walk away and not take advantage opportunities in education and employment among other opportunities means much more to that same adult, now grown, who does not have the advantage of a college degree or work experience.

Decisions made in anger and in haste seldom stand up in the test of time. Whether our parents were great parents, mediocre parents or even terrible parents, they are the parents that God gave to us. Every single adult knows the impact of their childhood both good and bad and the importance of their roots and their home. Even in the most highly dysfunctional families, social workers and mental health care providers work to restore the health of the first family or neonatal family. They get it that the parental relationships will impact a child’s life for the rest of their life. And that is whether they remain in their lives or not. Parents are forever and so are their children.

Life is long

Most people state “life is short” or “life is so short” but it was my husband who first shared the statement, “life is long’ with me. Life is long and it feels even longer when as a young person you make life altering decisions that impact your life in a negative way, for the rest of your life.

One of the fastest growing populations of people is estranged parents and adult children. This week alone I received 6 e-mails from across the country and from both men and women, fathers and mothers who are estranged from their adult children and grandchildren. The pain and heartache is insurmountable and almost every single case has set the same cycle up for the next generation.

Statistically it has been proven that once this pattern of family estrangement begins, it plays itself, over and over again in future generations.

The Support Group for Parents of Estranged Adult Children, if needed you can find it on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Support-Group-for-Parents-of-Estranged-Adult-Children

I have heard from parents, who had social services involve themselves and when it was deemed it was a troubled teenager, the rift between parent and child was broken beyond repair. I heard from a father who was arrested after his teen daughter claimed abuse. It didn’t take long for the investigation to uncover that the teen was angry. She was angry with dad, because he took the car away from her. So she got him back by slamming herself up against the car, getting a bruise, calling police, saying dad did this and when they saw her redness and bruise, he was immediately arrested.

Now dad sees how dangerous and without boundaries, his daughter is and in his anger and hurt he doesn’t want the teen back in the home. The teen daughter is limited in her ability to function without her parents support. The stage is now set for years of estrangement. The social workers once there and involved are long gone as they have moved on helping truly abused children. This family is left with the destruction and the aftermath.

Try Not to Make Mistakes that You Can’t Recover From

It wasn’t until one of my later career jobs that I was applauded for making any mistakes. My supervisor always saw the value in lessoned learned and in the ability to try. According to him, if you made a mistake, at least you were trying. For the effort you were applauded then came the dialogue about what went wrong and how to make it better. Everything was viewed as a learning opportunity and a chance for growth and development.

Some mistakes can’t ever be repaired, nor can you ever come back from them. Murder and rape are not actions that once crossed can be repaired. Where we want to live in a world of second chances and of reform, there are actions that can be taken that you can never take back.

When you put your life in someone else’s hands and when you no longer have the power over your own destiny in life you have all but ended your relationship with yourself. No one is going to know what you like, need or want in life better than you do. Advice is great and often it is free and perhaps in being free that is what it is worth, nothing. People often have their own agenda and their own idea.

Coming from a place of strength and of self-love and acceptance and contributing to our own success and investing in our own self allows us to be fully developed mature adults. We can’t get our value or devalue ourselves by what other people do or don’t do.

As parents, maybe we need to do better and teach our children that the longest relationship you will ever have is the relationship you have with yourself. If you are not full-filled and you are angry, only you can do what is necessary to fix that inside of yourself.

Investing in our own self is not selfish but rather contributes to wellness and to the greater good. We all know that “hurt people, hurt people.” And most often when teens and young adults are lashing out at others, at their parents and at their friends, family and community, it is because they are hurt and troubled.

I can’t say it enough, the longest relationship you will ever have is the relationship that you have with yourself. Invest in you, take care of you and do what is right. A pretty good measure for me has always been that if you wouldn’t want something done to you, you most probably shouldn’t be doing that same thing to someone else.

Peace, love and all good things …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Autumn Shows Us

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Autumn Shows Us
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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The season is changing and so are we! Autumn leaves show us exactly how beautiful it is to let go and let live and let die. What can you let go of? What can you make room for? The seasons change and so do we. We change how we dress and what we eat and we change what we do and where we go.

I remember as a little girl listening to a song that my father liked it was called Autumn of My Life by Bobby Goldsboro. He sings “and I’m content in the Autumn of my life.”

“Autumn the wind blows colder than the summer, Autumn my loves gone with another. Did you ever lose something that you thought you knew, did you ever lose someone that was close to you?” From the song Autumn written by Edgar Winter.

The seasonal changes teach us so much about life and about letting go and living in each and every moment. The seasons pass and eventually so will we.

I want to celebrate this autumn with leaves, and sweaters and hot cider and apples and pies. I want to celebrate it with open windows and with warm beef stew. But more than that I want to celebrate by reminding myself there is a season for everything and a time and a passing.

What is important now? What do we need to do to prepare our homes, our families and ourselves for what is directly in front of us? Seasons change and so do I, and so do you. Time waits for no man.

Every Autumn represents the letting go of and making room for all that is next in the life cycle. In living our lives much like the same way that the leaves change colors and eventually fall away, so it will affirm for us again and again how life changes just like the seasons change.

autumn

In each decision that we make; we must consider our life and how it not only defines us but impacts those that are closest to us.

Each day I pray to God for the wisdom as to what I give my time and attention, and asking for His help for me to be busy with the right things and to give my best to those things. Amen.

Autumn gives us so much to embrace and also so much to let go …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

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Always Trust Your Instincts

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Always Trust Your Instincts
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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The one thing that I do that makes me most-angry with myself is when I don’t trust my gut instincts. Sometimes I think women tend to be polite past the point of trusting in that inner voice. That inner voice that knows when to protect us and that knows when it is time to fight or to flee.

The following is a true story as told by Cindy (not her real name)
On December 1st of last year I was scheduled for a phone interview for a position with a charity that is doing good work, they are housing the homeless.

At this stage of my career I am interesting in using my time and talents for worthy causes. I want to throw my time and talents toward worthy meaningful work.

After the initial hour phone interview with the human resources person I was scheduled for a full in person interview on December 17th. I arrived 10-15 minutes early and was asked to have a seat in the lobby. In the lobby I noticed how sloppy, overstuffed and smelly the area was and I also noticed scotch-taped signs that were hanging on the walls. The one sign that most caught my attention was the one that read “perfume free zone” and went on to say that some people are sensitive to scent. I thought wow I worked in many places and most were run by a really progressive team and they didn’t do that? Neither has any other place that I ever worked, but okay.

My appointment was for 8:30 in the morning and after the clock struck 8:50 I gathered my brief case all my papers and my jacket and I was about to leave. The place was dirty, cluttered and smelly and now they were more than 20 minutes late. Everything inside of me was saying; get out now!

As I had my hand on the door and was ready to leave they called for me to come in for the interview. It was a panel interview with five board members and the current director. She made it clear that she would be staying on for the transition period up to six months. She also moved away from me at the meeting table declaring that she was “sensitive to my cologne.” She was the one that the signs were posted about in the lobby.

Her office was in the trailer in the parking lot and not the dirty, smelly office space that the rest of the staff was using. All I could think about was all the many interviews that I had conducted through the years, how being on time meant something to me and if by chance I was running late my assistant was instructed to make the interviewee comfortable and offer water, or coffee and let them know that I was running late. I would bet that 99% of the time I was on time. I always had respect for the people that came to interview. My standard operating procedure was not only to introduce myself but to hand over my business card, this team didn’t.

I left there with mixed feelings, from the outside property to the inside offices it looked like the housing projects that no one really took any pride in, there were tell-tale signs everywhere. Something inside me said, “stop this isn’t the right fit for you.”

Later I was surprised when I was called back the next week for another panel interview. They had mentioned that someone was expected to be there before but hadn’t shown up.

Once again, don’t ask me why but I agreed to meet with them in the new year on January 7th and it was another panel interview. In my gut it still didn’t feel right to me. My sense was that the director was not going anywhere and that this was some type of smoke screen. I was given little information and then asked how I would proceed and what my vision would be and yet I had no back story except for the word on the street. I also suspected that there was a reason I was not getting the total picture like the director was hiding something, I had nothing concrete but a gut feeling.

Driving away from that second interview I wasn’t sure if I would be a contender for the position. I was really sick with a head cold and not at my best. It was communicated to me the next step would be to meet with the donors before any decision to hire would be made, again this was odd to me but what the director said would happen. She was the one running the show, running the interviews and looking or so she said for her replacement. My gut said otherwise.

Two days later I was surprised to hear from my references that they had been called. So I was sure that an offer of employment would be forth coming and yet nothing … not a word. So after two weeks I e-mailed the initial contact who conducted the phone interview. I e-mailed her asking if anything else was required from my end. No response? Not even a courtesy response.

The entire process my gut said this is not right, something here just does not add up. Now the position is again being advertised and being handled by another human resources professional. Clearly there are problems there. Bottom line for me I should have listened to my gut, something wasn’t right and I knew it yet I stayed engaged. I am only upset with myself.

This story is true and rang true for me and many others, how many times do we ignore our gut feelings and later come to the conclusion why didn’t I just stop myself and listen to my gut feelings? So often we could save ourselves a lot of grief if we just take heart to what our inner core is telling us to do?

“Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can’t tell you how many times I stayed in something whether it was a meeting, or a relationship or a situation and stayed out of politeness when I knew full well my gut was saying, “this is not right for you!” And later felt really bad because I should have been more honest sooner and just excused myself. We live and we learn!

Always trust your instincts …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

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