…and My Book Cover

That picture there is of the cover of my book. It’s not published (yet) — it’s a work in progress — but it’s a definite goal of mine. More on that in a second.

Most of us are familiar with the song Michael Jackson made famous titled: Man in the Mirror. But have you ever truly paid attention to the words? They struck a chord with me when my journey of self-discovery started rather unexpectedly, and out of necessity, in late 2016. First, read the lyrics. Then, let me explain…

Man in the Mirror

I’m starting with the man in the mirror

I’m asking him to change his ways

And no message could have been any clearer

If you wanna make the world a better place

Take a look at yourself 

And then make a change. 

– Michael Jackson

It was October, 2016. I was struggling with many relationships in my life. I was sitting on the couch, lights dimmed, on a quiet evening after the kids and my husband had gone to bed. I put my iPhone down, laid my head back, and closed my eyes. I thought to myself: ‘How did I get here? Is this the right thing to do? I don’t know what else to do, so maybe….’

I had just submitted an online application to Psychology Specialists seeking a counselor who could hopefully help me. The relationships in my life weren’t working. They were beyond frustrating, and all my efforts to make them better were failing miserably. The same problems with the same people — in my inner-most circles — were persisting much too long. 

I’ll spare you the details (those would likely appear in my book), but my relationship with my mother, daughters, and a handful of coworkers were suffering — big time.

My mother, a widow since 2013, wasn’t handling the transition from married to widowed very well. And understandably so — Mom and Dad had been married 43 years when he lost his battle with cancer. Mom’s loneliness and grief clouded her thinking and changed her in ways that made her almost unrecognizable to me. 

My daughters — Anna (strong willed and argumentative) and Ellie (sweet one moment and sour the next) — were not responding well to my controlling, authoritarian parenting style (go figure). I found myself irritable, angry and yelling at them all the time. Which, of course, left me feeling awful afterwards and overwhelmed with mom guilt. 

A few co-workers, too, had been pushing my buttons. Their lack of effort, while expecting others to pick up the slack to ensure success of the project, made me livid.

These may not seem like earth-shattering problems, but when relationships both at home and work were a problem, I felt I had nowhere to turn. 

About a month later, I sat down with my mother-in-law in our family room when she was visiting. I started opening up to her about my strained and struggling relationships. And the conversation was a game-changer — one in which someone says something that changes your perspective and your life forevermore. 

You see, my mother-in-law’s marriage of 27 years had ended in divorce after her husband fell victim to alcoholism. She tried to save the marriage. She attended Al-Anon classes, sought counseling for herself, read all the self-help, marriage-saving books, and so on. But none of that was enough to change her husband’s behaviors or end his addiction. 

Because she survived that part of her life and lives a very full and content life now, I view her as wise and have always listened to her counsel. On this particular day, I wasn’t expecting any extraordinary advice, but I got it. She listened patiently as I complained about the difficult relationships in my life, and she was empathetic when I finally admitted I had recently started seeing a counselor. I explained that all the difficult relationships in my life were more than I could handle on my own, and I needed someone to help me deal with them. I was finding myself angry all the time, exploding on my mom, irritable and yelling at the kids, and frustrated to tears at work.

That’s when my mother-in-law, Judy, looked at me and said kindly, “When I was in Al-Anon, I learned this phrase: ‘When there’s something wrong with all I see, it’s time to look at me.“‘

She was validating the fact that choosing counseling was a good idea, which I liked. But she was doing something else too — something I didn’t realize at the time, but discovered later. She was telling me the problems I was having in all my relationships may not be the fault of everyone else. All those relationships had one common denominator — me.

“When there’s something wrong with all I see, it’s time to look at me.”

— Al-Anon … and my mother-in-law

She was saying it was time I look at me (the one in the mirror). Time to examine if there were things I was doing that contributed to the problems or made matters worse. Time to discover if there were things I could be doing to make the situations better. (That’s what my book will be all about once published — wink, wink)

I took the intentional step of counseling. I took the deliberate actions to improve myself and my relationships and to draw closer to God. I spent all of 2017 and the early part of 2018 seeing a counselor regularly — approximately every three weeks.

Through this blog, I plan to share lessons I learned along the way and lessons God has taught me and continues to teach me. I will share how I’m now creating the life I want — on purpose (and how you can too). 

Yours intentionally, Amanda