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Monday Morning Moment – You’re Stronger Than You Think – Really? – A Truer Truth

August 23, 2022 admindeb 4 Comments

Photo Credit: Quotir, Winnie the Pooh

OK…who hasn’t heard this encouragement? “You’re stronger than you think.” I have never cared for it. Why? Because it pushes the weary soul, doing all we can to stay afloat already, to “just keep swimming”.

Not that any of us wants to quit whatever we’re about…but…is there a truer truth?

The “stronger than you think” quote has been attributed to A. A. Milne, author of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Written by and published in the 1920s. This was a time post-World War I and prior to The Great Depression and World War II. The expression of “pull yourself up by your boot straps” and the mentality of self-reliance was fueled in those days, in literature and culture. It continues today.

[Now, you should know Milne did NOT write that expression. A writer at Disney must have. It is a quote from the animated film (1997) “Pooh’s Grand Adventure: the Search for Christopher Robin”. Pooh’s dear friend Christopher Robin is going away to boarding school and is trying to give Pooh, and himself, the courage for them to be apart. That message is there but not in so many words as in the Disney film.]

So…after that bubble burst, let’s return to the oft-quoted “stronger than you think” encouragement we find everywhere. It seems to speak to our culture…across generations.

Self-reliance. Work harder. Work smarter. We can do better. Sigh…

When we are told by a friend or family member, or even a social media stranger, that we’re stronger than we think, we are not being encouraged to lean on community…or God. We are given the message that somewhere inside ourselves, alone, without others, we can tap into more strength than we are feeling at the moment.

Is that really encouragement? I know we mean well…but do we really want to offer up Disney verbiage to a real struggle?

When I’ve gone about as far as I can go, can I slog out more, just with my own “main strength and awkwardness”? Maybe. At what cost and to what gain?

I got a phone call earlier today from a mom needing an understanding ear on a hard struggle involving her young son. She’s a terrific mom. Yet…she’d come to the end of her rope on this one. She sounded on Empty. Did it help that we talked? I think so…and definitely it helped to pray afterwards. She will find the way to help her son. She has a way forward even if she doesn’t see it clearly yet. Through her own resolve and experience. Through deep community. Through an enduring faith in a wise and loving God.

Photo Credit: Heartlight

The Apostle Paul speaks so eloquently and practically on this issue of our weakness and God’s strength. In fact, when we come to the end of ourselves, we find God’s strength perfect in our weakness. It’s both a hard truth and great comfort. We don’t like the experience of coming to the end of ourselves. Nor do we like to see our friends and family moving so close to that reality. For this reason, we encourage those we love to dig deeper.

Photo Credit: Heartlight

You know I love words…and I squeeze as much good out of them as I can. The Pooh video clip above and its messages of the richness of relationship do have meaning for us. Part of that meaning is how sustaining relationships can be even with we are apart from each other. However, the best part of relationships and how much stronger they make us comes from the moment-by-moment reach of them in the present. When we are there for each other (and pray for each other) we become stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks.

When we seek to encourage with words like “You’re stronger than you think”, your heart will be heard. Lean in with those words…and pray for that one in the struggle.

Why I Believe ‘You Are Stronger Than You Think’ Is Not Always True – Arlene Pellicane

Monday Morning Moment – That Thing Does Doesn’t Need to Be Said – and If It Does – Deb Mills [Remember the quote from the Disney film Bambi? “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” That is actually part of my family’s lexicon – so Disney does have wisdom sayings in its film library. 🙂

[Mandisa sings about how hard things make us stronger BUT she says that in the face of God being right there with us – holding us through whatever comes. We can rest in Him…and each other.]

11 Reasons Why You’re Stronger Than You Think – Coaching-Online – this is actually a good article on the argument of “you’re stronger than you think”…but, there is a truer truth.

If you can’t get enough of Pooh – this is a sweet film:

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Monday Morning Moment – Rewiring Your Brain Toward Thinking in the Positive

June 3, 2019 admindeb 3 Comments

Photo Credit: Hubspot, Carly Stec

OK…so today started really great. Then it got a bit murky…then downright dark. I was all set to turn today’s blog into the ultimate rant! Fortunately, something else happened along the way.Photo Credit: AZ Quotes

Looking up meanings to words like “disingenuous” and thinking of the ways that people communicate that shut others down. Aarrgghh!

25 Phrases That Kill Workplace Relationships – John Rampton

Which of These Incredibly Annoying Pet Peeves is the Worst? – Analise Dubner

Then…I snapped out of it. Negative thinking is such an unhelpful, unhealthy activity. It is not how I want to be, nor was I ever…routinely negative, that is… until recent years. Getting older seems to bend us toward negativity. My mama sure didn’t raise me to be that way.Photo Credit: Disney Film Bambi, CineLessons, Pinterest

Somewhere in the middle of beefing up my rants on condescension and exclusivity and those most affected by decision-making not having a place at that table (see the downward spiral?)…I took a deep breath and turned around. Dave will sometimes tell me “pull up” when he could see me mentally plunge downward…and so I did…pull up.

You may have read what I wrote previously about identifying negativity and correcting course. It seems to be a bit of a recurrent subject of late. Those pieces are here:

Monday Morning Moment – Grumpy Begets Grumpy – Understanding It, Not Reacting, and Turning It Around – Deb Mills

Monday Morning Moment – Negativity – Its Cost and Cure – Deb Mills

Today, I came across a super-simple prescription for rewiring our thinking toward positivity. The team at Daily Health Post focused on complaining as a culprit that can actually cause our brains to default to anxiety and depression. From experience, I know this is true. Check out the article below:

How Complaining Physically Rewires Your Brain to Be Anxious and Depressed

Photo Credit: Daily Health Post

The prescription for rewiring our thinking is straightforward and easy, with practice. In fact, these four reminders could easily sit on a card at our work station to help us stay on the road and out of the ditch:

Be grateful. – Keep a journal and write down things/persons for which you’re grateful – morning and evening. Turn your thoughts toward gratitude when you’re tempted to go negative/complaining.
Catch yourself. – Shake off the negativity before your friends/coworkers intervene…or pull away. Learn to catch yourself and change course.
Change your mood. – If your emotions start to spiral, shift your environment. Take a walk. Listen to music. Step away from your work station. Grab a few minutes with a friend.
Practice wise effort. – “Wise effort is the practice of letting go of anything that doesn’t serve you. If your worry won’t improve your situation or teach you a lesson, simply let it go and move on.This is much easier said then done, of course, but if you write it out, ask friends for advice, and take some time to think it through constructively, it really can be done.” – Daily Health Post

All this is common sense. Still, in an age of outrage, we must practice thinking positively until it becomes a discipline…a healthy habit.

So…as fascinating as you would have found my rant, I’m sure…better to let it go…and the stress along with it. For now. There are things, destructive hurtful actions (or communications) that might need our intervention along the way. However, we only hurt ourselves and those closest to us when we just go all negative, faithless, and brooding. Thanking God, this is not how this day will end.

The Art of Being a Great Coworker: 13 Ways to Improve Your Work Relationships – Carly Stec

Photo Credit: Frank Sonnenberg Online

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Monday Morning Moment – That Thing That Doesn’t Need to Be Said – and If It Does

May 15, 2017 admindeb Leave a comment

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Being an extrovert is a bit of a curse, isn’t it? Verbally-processing introverts struggle as well. That need…that compulsion…to get words out of our heads and in the open. We who suffer with this understand the wild nature of words. For those who don’t have this same impulse, you may also suffer under the weight of our words.

This is a public confession and redress of this particular conundrum.

[For those of you, like me, who feel sometimes your head might fairly explode if you don’t voice your thoughts so you can find resonance with a hearer, you are free to read the last two paragraphs first.]

I grew up with good teaching from an introverted mom who knew the power of words…and the importance of using them wisely.

This adapted from a past blog posting of mine:

My Mom raised us up with lessons on our speech from Scripture backed up by the cultural message of an old Walt Disney film, Bambi:

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

Good counsel. Only problem is the continuing conversation in our heads that color our attitudes, our tone of voice, our preferences, and our decisions. These we still must wrestle down and be done with.*

First, this is not a guilting of any sort. For myself or anyone else. We who restrain words understand the risk we take in speaking… especially those things we feel almost an obligation to say. Those words we think will somehow right a tilting world. Those words we feel entitled to. The words that state our case or that of another.

Second, we know, often too late, that words not spoken are rarely misunderstood. Of course, silence can be deafening as well, but we have to put our own meaning into someone else’s silence. With spoken words, it’s clear what a person is thinking. So it needs to be worth speaking. The hearer may have a very different take on the matter. Thus the risk and wariness that must accompany speaking boldly.

Third, does what we think need to be said? Will it make a difference in the positive to what’s going on in our heads? Or will what we say only add to a problem, rather than bringing it closer to resolution?

There’s a pithy and true saying floating around the internet about thinking before you speak. Here is a visual of it.

Photo Credit: Flickr, Jo Quinlan

Along with this, these days, is Think Before You Post. How many times have we deleted a Facebook or Twitter post put up in haste, hoping it came down before being read by those significant in our lives who would be hurt or offended by it? Sigh…Photo Credit: Flickr

Is our opinion so valuable as to cause pain to those who matter to us? Not. At. All.

Photo Credit: Hannah W. Potter

All that being said, finally, what do we do with the words building in our heads about massive concerns, witnessed injustices, shifts in worldview or mission drifts? There are words, as I see it, that have to be expressed almost to understand the whole picture of a thing going on. These words, raw and impassioned, we don’t speak randomly or post publicly (except in the rare occasion of stopping harm). These words if expressed may only yield spiritual reprimands, or hurt silences, or long tirades from disagreeing hearers/readers. The words that must be said, words that you know may have disastrous consequence, might need the hearing only of a trusted friend…at least at first. This sort of friend will hopefully help guide you to sort out that which does not need to be said and what does – to whom, in what manner, and on what occasion.

Oh the wisdom in thinking before we speak. How thankful I am for those trusted friends who refuse to think ill of me when words spill over! Friends, and family, who know my heart is not meant to wound, who help me sort out my words and what to do with them. Friends who know I take no joy or satisfaction in anything bordering on gossip or slander. Friends who listen, and may agree and resonate, but counsel with me – about what must be shared and what is best left unsaid. Friends who pray with me and remind me to pray. In my book, that is never spiritualizing…prayer is as real a thing as all those thoughts that can rob me of sleep…but so much better.Photo Credit: Flickr, J. D. Hancock

Anybody out there have the same struggle? Or a different struggle with words? Any helps you want to share? Shoot us some of your words in Comments below.

*Monday Morning Moment – What You Think of Others Matters – Workplace Wisdom – Deb Mills Writer

Speech, Power and Significance of

Babies & Children, Family, Growing up, Language, Memories, Mom and Dad, Remembering, Words

A Family Lexicon – Words That Grow Up With Us

July 14, 2015 admindeb 7 Comments

A lexicon is defined as “the words used in a language or by a person or group of people.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

As a family grows up together, they develop their own language. Sure, it’s usually with words everyone knows but with a context that’s intimate, a context that says we belong. Family can have its prickly stages, but the language of family is deeply embedded. Even as the children grow up and have their own families, the collective memory of these words, just like with favorite songs, take us back to another time. A time that these words had love, place, and situation wrapped snugly around them.In the days our children were little (before our third came home to us), this lexicon began to develop. You can even tell the ages of our children by some of our acquired favorite sayings.

Below are some of our Mills Family Lexicon. I wrote them down over the last several weeks, as they popped into our times together. Some the children have outgrown, and we look forward to adding new ones with the next generation of kiddos.

“Breffix, Comptible, Pannicakes, Whatchoosay?” Words we still use even though we’re all grown up…sort of.

“Turn on the Pancake Music” – Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – Saturday morning pancakes were always accompanied by Vivaldi. I’m thinking the kids still all have a strong urge for pancakes when Vivaldi plays.

Bobwhite whistle – We lived in big cities when the kids were growing up (Cairo, Egypt, the biggest). Lots of airports. I wanted to be able to get their attention without words. This worked then….and did for years later. It might have lost its magic now (or with earbuds, who knows), but for years……they stopped whatever they were doing and looked up.

“Do not feel sad. Many things cannot fly. Rocks. Trees. Sticks. Spike.” – from the film Land Before Time

“Hold on tight, Knuckles!” – a line off the Sonic videogame; first coined in our family, when cousin Jonathan and our guys were tubing on the river behind Uncle Mark’s boat.

“Charlie Brown” – enough said, about our melancholy guys

“You’re killing me, Smalls!” – from the film Sandlot

“Too hot! Too hot!” – from the film 101 Dalmations

“That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” – from Charlie Brown Christmas

“I. Am. O.K.” – [Thou Shalt Laugh; Taylor Mason]

“Every lit-tle thing’s gonna be alright.” – chorus of song by Delirious

“This is a sick world we’re living in! Sick people!” – from the film Jingle All the Way

“Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” – Dad, from the film Rush Hour

“You wubbin’ me the wong way.” – Elmer Fudd, Geico commercial

“Are you dead, Man?” – from the film Cool Runnings

“No, only mostly dead.” – from Princess Bride

“People are idiots!” – from Everybody Loves Raymond‘s dad Frank

“Let’s go shoot buffalo!” – said his buddy Zach Anders at Nathan’s 4th birthday party

“Meskeen” – Arabic word meaning “pitiful” or “to be pitied” – resorted to when one of us is throwing a pity party. Other language words also used without thinking. “Malesh” is also an Arabic word meaning “It’s O.K.” or “Never mind” or “No worries”, Daniel’s French interjections sometimes come out of nowhere- including “Quoi?” (“What?”) and “Mafoix” (although I don’t know what it means).

“Either deal with it or die to it.” – again Dad’s short admonition when we keep ruminating over a conflicted situation or relationship.

“Being young is not an accomplishment. You don’t have to do anything to be young. To be old you have to persevere. That’s an accomplishment.” – Not sure what provoked Dave (the daddy in this family) to orate on this topic, but the kids all know this saying of Dad’s.

“Do not grow weary in well-doing; you will reap a harvest, if you don’t give up.” – Galatians 6:9 – there are the many Bible verses that were there for counsel and encouragement; this is one.