How Am I Loved?

 I recently discovered that I may be an Enneagram 3w4. The self-preserving achiever is the countertype and presents a bit differently than a stereotypical 4. Anyways, the achiever. I think ever since I was born, I felt that my worth has been measured by my accomplishments. My parents aspired for me to become a doctor. I worked hard to be first chair flute in band, just to name a few examples. Even when I was a cashier, I worked to get the top scans per minute. I am a hard worker, I am faithful, and committed. 

Recently, I've been studying the book of Matthew and the first half of Chapter 6 basically pulled my sense of self-worth out from the bottom of my feet. The bible teaches that I am loved not for my works, but simply because I am being. And in fact, the chapter teaches us how what we do all comes down to intention. Am I doing things for my own glory, or God's glory? 

So the next steps for now, I'm going to set aside intentional quiet times in the morning for me to re-learn who I am in God. If I am not a human doing, what is it about my human being that is so lovable? 

When you are a fun, dopamine-inducing mom, but need to be a more oxytocin-inducing mom

Family Jack-Box Game Time

 I recently downloaded this app "In Love While Parenting" which is an app that is supposed to help build better relationships within the family. It's a free app, created by a non-profit to give parents the tools they need to build better connections. Within the first few mini-lessons, I already had an aha moment. I'll share that below. 

So, the lesson talks about the chemicals that regulate happiness in people. First, you have dopamine, the instant gratification chemical that will bring about happiness for a little while, but then the feeling goes away. Buying new things or eating something delicious are 2 examples of how we can increase the dopamine secreted into our system. Then you have cortisol, which is a stress chemical and causes people to be anxious. And lastly, the lesson talked about oxytocin, (not oxycontin) which is a chemical that is slowly secreted over time when bonds are deepened. Spending quality time with people is a great way to get more oxytocin in your system. 

As I am writing this, I am in Taiwan. I don't know if we could've have timed the trip any worse than we have because during the whole COVID pandemic, Taiwan had it under control and cases were rare until we stepped off the plane. Instantly, it shot up from 0-3 imported cases a day to 700+ community spread cases. We basically went into quarantine with the rest of Taiwan. I had big plans for the kids. They were signed up for 2, week-long camps, Hailey was enrolled in preschool, we had sites to visit, restaurants to eat at and family to see. Steve is working remotely, so we could stay for 3 months. My grandfather's neighborhood had been turned into a museum since we last visited and I wanted to see that as well. After a year of sheltering in place, it was going to be an epic summer. 

Taiwan's sheltering in place periods were set for 2 weeks at a time and as one extension came after another, I tried to keep my spirits high and focus on spending time with family and letting the kids enjoy as much Taiwanese food as possible. We ate lots of junk food and bought lots of toys to keep them happy. After a month, I made peace with the fact that the kids were not going to be able to go to camp or school and continued to look forward to the day that restrictions would be lifted. So last week, positive cases got down to the 20's and we had so much hope for things opening up for the last week we will be here. They made the announcement that restrictions still stand, but they would be loosened. I was relieved that we would be able to go out and experience more of the cool things. But then the news reported that while restrictions have been loosened, the mayors of each city have decided to keep certain restrictions in place. Zoos, natural preserves, beaches, and pools are to remain closed and restaurants are still take-out only. My heart sunk. 

I was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt about bringing the kids into this situation, being restricted to eating at our home base (with horrible eating arrangements), and sad that  family time and walking through local parks would be the highlight of our trip. (They can't even play on the playground equipment!) I tried to make the experience more positive by letting them indulge in more sweets than I usually do, we bought them toys that we normally wouldn't have spent money on. I now realized that I was trying to make them happy and to do that, I was engaging in actions that would raise their dopamine levels.

And then it hit me. 

That is what I do best. Raising dopamine levels is my go to parenting strategy. I'm a fun mom, we go on adventures, but I actually suck at connecting. Thankfully, Steve is really good at that.   I've always felt that even though I spend so much time with the kids, I lacked quality time with them. (Up until today I  always blamed the chores and the endless checklist items that I need to do each day) I don't think I'm engaging in enough oxytocin producing behaviors and activities with the kids. I don't think it comes naturally to me because I don't think I've ever had a chance to develop that skill for myself. Moving around as a kid, never living in the same house for more than 2 years at a time is a buzzkill for developing skills needed for deep bonding. In fact I can see this area lacking in other areas of my life as well. Must do better. 

So, as I enter into the last 10 days of our trip, I'm not going to focus on the stuff that we do, but focus on experiencing things WITH the kids better. I think with this new lens, our trip will have a new outlook.  

Unconditional Love

 If I were to name 1 thing that I learned from COVID, it would be that we are worthy to loved unconditionally.  

The aha moment happened when I was having a text conversation with a recently formed friendship. She had just gotten out of a messy relationship and we were talking about how we can so easily lose our true selves in relationships. And then she says something along the lines of, "I don't know why, but I always make excuses for being treated badly and think of what I can do to make them love me more." 

[insert record scratch] Hold up. At this moment, this truth popped into my head and I frantically typed it back. 

"You shouldn't have to earn anyone's love. Love is unconditional. If you feel like you have to earn it, it's borderline abusive." 

Further reflecting about this statement I feel like God has been trying to teach us this lesson from the very beginning. As a kid we learned about God's "unconditional" love in the sense that He will love us even if we mess up. But what if unconditional also means just being yourself and not having to earn or please someone else to feel loved? 

If COVID didn't happen, I don't think I would've realized this. I've spent the past year digging into the enneagram to find out who I am inside. I feel like I've always just gone with the flow and agreed with what others say. But during this time, I've learned a lot about myself: my preferences; causes that I'm passionate about; habits of thought and so much more. I feel like I finally can describe who I am...and it also has helped validate these because I see so much of myself in Hannah. In fact, sometimes I will take an interesting characteristic of Hannah and see if I've somehow repressed that over the years. 

 Racism, transphobia, homelessness, and the pro-life vs pro-choice debate have been flooding the headlines recently. I have friends on both sides of the spectrum for all of these issues. I've been examining my values to figure out where I fall in the debate and over and over again, it always boils down to love. We are all flawed in some way, shape or form, but if we live our life giving love unconditionally, and convince ourselves that we are unconditionally enough, enough to deserve to be loved, just as we are, we will be living as God taught us to live.