Sorry this is kind of long. Our snow day turned into a snow week….can you believe it! No school for an entire week. Here is an update on our snow fort and I’ll post a lot more pictures tomorrow.

We’ve all heard the catch phrase and most likely have lived it at different times. In our family we have a Jones family so we can really say we are trying to “keep up with the Jones.” I don’t think I’m taking a bad guess to say that you have struggled like we have when we start comparing ourselves to others. Cami and I recently went through a pretty tough stretch where we found ourselves on the losing end each time we compared ourselves to others around us. Our family wasn’t as good as so and so, we didn’t have the house like so and so, “blank” just seems to be more spiritual than us, etc., etc. It was like the more we looked, the worse we felt.

Rather than share my expertise on how I’ve mastered this principle (because it is still a work in progress), let me share another piece from my research. In my dissertation I asked couples to share with me what they did in their relationships. I tried to identify an underlying process that we might find in our own relationships. One piece that I think applies to most of us is the idea of comparing our relationships to others and reflecting on our relationships. I found three major types of comparing.

1)      Comparing to other past relationships: This is when we compare our current relationship to relationships we knew in the past. Examples couples shared with me were their parents, past relationships they were in, or past relationships of friends or family. They would compare their current relationship to those they knew in the past to gain insight into how they were doing right now.

2)      Comparing to other current relationships: This is when we compare our current relationship to relationships we know right now. Examples couples shared with me were specific relationships like their neighbors, their best friends, or family members. They also described comparing to general relationships like ones seen on TV. One couple said they were watching Oprah and it was on bad relationships and when they compared their current relationship to what they saw on TV, it enhanced their perception that they had a good relationship.

3)      Comparing our current relationship to how it was in the past. This is when we compare how we see our current relationship to how we saw it in the past. Couples described feeling better about their relationship now because they were better able to communicate or they were more open with each other as compared to the past.

I think most people could probably admit to comparing themselves to someone else at least part of the time. The problem is that we are the one’s doing the comparing and unfortunately we often over-rate others and under-rate ourselves. This goes back to our perceptions (must be the theme of the week). How we feel about ourselves influence what we see and how we “rate” ourselves and others. If I’m feeling down…let’s say I feel like my life isn’t as good as the Jones, then when I look around I’m most likely to see others who I perceive have a better life than me. If I feel like I’m fat (do men really think that?) then I’ll focus on how much I’m NOT exercising and see everyone who is.

Someone once told me, “if you think others are perfect, then you don’t know them very well.” This is so true. So if you find yourself comparing and you’re on the losing end, try to stop and realize that what you’re wanting is to feel better about yourself. If you keep comparing you’ll probably not find what you are looking for. So when you compare, what does it do for you?

I thought about just saying “still snowing” as the kids are still out of school, but I thought this was a fun thing to think about. I’ll write more on the subject tomorrow….today is my long day and I’m back to work. 

Who’s faster? Who’s smarter? Who reads better? Which one walked first? Which one is the leader? Who is more aggressive? Which one blew the bigger bubble? Which one likes to listen to music? We’ve had people ask these questions ever since Braunson and Beaudry were born. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone asked Cami who kicked first inside of her. We can be obsessed with comparing people and trying to find out who is better. Really when you look at these pictures, most people have no clue who is who…let alone which one is better. The real question Braunson is asking in his football stance is, “can Beaudry and I have screen time after the game?” 

It has been 12 years since school was cancelled here in Spokane and now we are in our second day of no school. Church was cancelled on Sunday so our kids are saying we are on snow day #3. So much fun for the kids!

Here is my second lesson about perceptions. Perceptions are a mixture of fact and feeling. When I was working with couples, I often had people say things like, “I know my husband is a 15 minute Dad.” They would say it like it was a fact and that it was a proven truth, when in reality it wasn’t exacty true but the image did have some evidence to back it up. As I was outside with the kids yesterday adding a room to our snow fort I thought about how many of us say, “when I was a kid we always had so much snow.” Did we? Or did we have a few years like my kids are having this year where it really dumped and we seem to use that one year as evidence to shape our perceptions of what happened every year? Perceptions are fact with feeling and become a filter for how we see life and how we remember events. Because they are a filter, they filter out what doesn’t fit and remember or focus on events that confirm the perception.
Let me explain by sharing more about the person who stated her husband was a 15 minute Dad. I asked her for one week to track how many minutes each day her husband fulfilled the role of Dad. The following week she couldn’t keep her embarrassed smile away as she said…”I think you called him and told him I would be keeping track. I think this week was an exception…life isn’t really like this.” I pushed on, how many minutes was he a Dad? The answer: the shortest amount of time in one day was 30 minutes and there were a few days where it was several hours. The lesson: we see what we want to see so it will confirm our perception. Then we remember events or people based largely on our perception.
When it comes to snow is it a bad thing if my kids end up telling their kids that in Spokane we got dumped on and school was always cancelled? Having a more positive memory or perception than the real reality isn’t such a bad thing. On the flip side, seeing other people as less than they really are can hurt our relationships. From my research, our perceptions influence what we expect from others and how we interact with them. If we have poor perceptions, how might that influence what we expect from others and from ourself? How might that change the way you interact with them? Once again, enjoy the snow!

I had a nice quick trip to Boise for the Idaho Counseling Association conference. It was great to connect with friends and meet some amazing people who hold the same passion for counseling as I do. While I was there I was buzzing with excitement knowing that I have the chance to work with individuals and couples. It really is a privilege even though the general public probably wouldn’t say it feels like a privilege to go to counseling. 

So do this little experiment with me. We’ve had almost 15 inches of snow from yesterday to today. These pictures were taken this morning to show our new snow. When you look at these pictures what do you see?

I spoke with one person yesterday and when I asked him what he thought about all this snow he responded, “It looks like I’ll be spending all day shoveling.” I asked my kids and they yelled, “SNOW DAY!”….. “maybe we can add another room to our snow fort,” …. “Can we have a fire and hot chocolate?” What about you, what do you see? As you look at the pictures, what thoughts do you have and what reaction (emotions) do you feel? Our perception or lens on how we see things is shaped by prior experiences and this lens shapes what we expect. If you’ve had some bad experiences with snow then when you look at the pictures your mind might quickly go to “work…shoveling,” and your emotions or reaction might be “cold….tired….annoyed.” If you’ve had good experiences then you might instantly see something more positive like my kids. I love to see the look on their faces in the morning after a good snow fall. There is nothing negative…only pure delight! Whether it is snow, our job, our home, our wife…our reactions and our expectations come from us. Our prior experiences and interactions with our wife shape what we expect and what we see. 

I have a few questions I get asked often… the first one is “what’s it like to have two sets of twins,” and the other is “what’s it like to be married to a “marriage counselor.”  The best part is that these questions seem to go together…. because it’s a good thing I AM married to Mark so that I can stay sane and happy through the young years of our kids.  People ask if he “counsels” me all the time… and he does but only if I ask.  The frustrating part for me, is that he makes me do the work just like a regular client.  You would think that I would get some perk for being his wife….the mother of his children, but no luck here.  He doesn’t spoon feed me all the “right” answers because he knows that I have to do the work and figure things out for myself, he’s just there to guide me.  Sometimes I think our relationship is odd, just because Mark isn’t a “stereotypical, non-emotional” male.  He does feel things, and is able to share them with me…. which makes us have a connection in anything we do.  I remember the first time I saw a true emotion in Mark.  Now remember we have been together since we were 12, and this happened when we were 23.  Braunson and Beaudry were just born and they were struggling in the hospital to become healthy.  It was traumatic and I was a mess to say the least and my rock solid husband became vulnerable with me and it changed our relationship. He wasn’t his “calm, easy going self” that he typically had been.  It seems you have to feel the bad in order to truly feel the good emotions. Mark and I talk about the emotions we feel behind most events in our life and it makes us get to the real issues.  Now if I get upset because I feel no one is helping out around the house Mark and I can really see the emotions behind the behaviors.  I am not feeling appreciated, unloved and overwhelmed. This usually leads to a much needed break and I head to my scrapbook room for some “alone” time…  where I create things like this book “Things not to feel guilty about.” here’s a few pages from it.

• Wanting to spend Mother’s Day alone
• Considering PB&J to be an acceptable grown up dinner

• Keeping your pajamas on all day as well as the kids staying in theirs
• Sitting in the bathroom with the door locked just to get two minutes of alone time

From time to time Cami is going to take over the writing duties and add her thoughts about being emotionally married. I’m off to Boise for a conference so we thought we would add her latest scrapbook page for today. Below is her journaling for the page. Enjoy!

There are some days when you think, “Man I am a good Mom”, and this day happened to be one of them…. This is the reason why:  A new blanket of snow came during the night and of course all the kids wanted to go and play in it. Usually I am a little annoyed when the snow comes because that means I have to go searching for all the winter gear, but today I embraced my role as the “find my gloves, where’s my boot, help me zip up my coat gal”.  It is a serious process to get all five of them bundled, it’s those gloves that test my patience. That’s 10 gloves I put on and 50 fingers I have to find the right holes for, talk about patience…but today I did it!  I got them all outside and even went sledding with them… it was a small hill at the Elementary school but perfect for my crew.  As I documented with the camera, I thought of Mark and said a little prayer of thanks for him.  He loves winter from watching the snow fall to seeing the beautifully lined branches of trees, he even likes shoveling… and this love is starting to rub off on me (love is a strong word, more like accept and enjoy is better use of words for my like of winter), but never the less I am enjoying this season of winter.  Nothing else mattered at this moment, not cleaning the house or doing the laundry, nothing but watching the kids body slide down the hill, make snowballs and laugh like children should….……lovely day…………

Isn’t it amazing what a hair cut can do to influence how you feel about yourself! I’m sure we have all had our share of bad hair cuts from what we call my “short hair cut” that meant I didn’t need another one for over a month to Cami’s orange hair the day before our wedding. A standard statement in our house is “how you feel about yourself influences every interaction.” Something as simple as a good or bad hair cut can do wonders for how you feel about yourself. Tonight was hair cut night for all the boys in the house and lucky for us they all turned out just fine. So much so, that we decided to have a little fun with them. We also captured Preslie’s wonderful mop as she headed into the bath.

Last week I wrote about the importance of having a safe haven, a place or person where we can escape the storms in our life. Here are a few key points about having a safe haven: Proximity to the person who represents our safe haven is the natural antidote to feelings of anxiety and vulnerability. Positive connection with key others (spouse) provide a safe haven that offers a buffer against effects of stress and uncertainty. When we see our spouse as a safe haven, then just thinking about her being there can offer us some of the same benefits of her physically being there.
The other key principle is that our relationship needs to be a secure base. Our spouse needs to be a base from which we can explore our world and most adaptively respond to our environment. A secure base encourages exploration and an openness to new information.
When we have this secure base or foundation, it strengthens our ability to stand back and reflect on who we are, what we are doing, and how we feel. Just as our safe haven gives us that retreat or refuge from the storm, our secure base helps us launch into our world and have the confidence that we are not facing these storms alone. 
This all sounds a little too clinical for me, so how about this example: We can see the safe haven and secure base play out in our children. When Preslie gets hurt or scared she calls for Mom. Mom can offer a quick “refuge” by simply saying “you’re okay” or giving a hug. With the security of knowing she can get help and comfort, she is off to conquer the world again….launching into a new dance, song or game.
How about you, what does your safe haven and secure base do for you?

If you’ve ever heard me share any of my dreams, then you know that I dream of being part of a retreat some day. I place where people can get a way from everything. A place to relax, refocus, and recharge yourself and your relationship. Well Cami and I experienced our own mini-retreat this weekend at Quinn’s Resort (http://quinnshotsprings.com/site/index.php). It is a fun place with a lodge, cabins, hot pools, and a great restaurant. We soaked three different times while we were there. It was so great to reconnect and just realize how much we love each other.

People who could have heard our conversations might have thought we were a bit odd. Really we are. As we talked about everything from high school memories, kid stories, and everything in between, we also talked a lot about our relationship. One thing that we like to do is try to apply the many different principles from the relationship world and see how we are doing. Again, someone hearing our conversation would think we were speaking a foreign language. It works for us. 

The highlight of the trip was just being with Cami. As I wrote last week, just being with her is so fun because she offers me a safe haven and retreat from my busy world. Over the next few weeks, Cami and I will share our “deep thoughts” from the weekend and try to share the principles that we think are key to making relationships work. As we re-visited these principles we realized that we do a lot of great things and yet there are plenty of areas where we can do better.

Since I’m not quite at a place to offer my relationship retreats, I hope to share through emotionally married the experience that you might find at one of my retreats. Consider it the beginning of an online relationship retreat!

Quinn’s Resort

Cami and I had a great time on our little retreat this weekend and I’ll write about it soon, but I have to first tell you this story. As Cami and I were leaving town, we were catching up with each other’s lives because getting ready for any type of trip is consuming. Cami told me about the dinner the night before and here is how it went:

We started a few new rules in our house when it comes to meals. 1)NO COMPLAINING. The kids were getting to the point that as soon as they walked into the kitchen they were complaining that they didn’t like the food, asking whether they had to eat it or even try it. So we decided that if you complain you immediately leave the table and go clean for a few minutes before returning. 2)You must try everything. We realized that the kids have a limited idea of what “good” is and that good really meant having something that was a regular. So we are working on trying to expand their tastes and have them try everything.

So Thursday night Cami made dinner and the kids were trying their best not to complain. She said they kept saying things like, “I’m not complaining, I just want to ask if we have to try the rice.” (Rice was in the main dish and there was no way to avoid it if they were going to follow our new rules). Finally one by one they would leave the table and go clean and then come back. Cami was doing good keeping the focus and the kids kept trying new ways of getting out of the meal without breaking any rules. After everyone had cleaned a time or two, Cami was done and said dinner was finished. On the side, we’ve also been teaching them about money and how much things cost and how to try to be more aware of our spending, etc. Cami picked up the dinner and started unloading it into the garbage. As she did all the kids stood there with their eyes wide open in amazement. Mom has never done this before! She asked them, “so how much money do you think we just tossed into the garbage?” Braunson replied, “maybe around $5.00″  He then quickly left and then returned with his wallet. “Mom, I’m sorry. Here are two dollars for my part of the wasted meal.” Cami said it was nice of him but he really didn’t have to pay. His response, “No, if I don’t pay I’ll feel guilty all night.” (Remember he is 8). Beaudry then followed and said, “me too.” Soon Maci and Cooper were looking through their room for any coins that they might have. Even Preslie managed to find a penny or two somewhere and offer it up to Cami.

As Cami told me this I just had to laugh as I could picture each kid coming back with their tail between their legs and offering up their sacrifice. Kids say and do the funniest things!