Why is My Horoscope Always So Darn Accurate?!

Here is the monthly horoscope page from astrostyle.com: http://astrostyle.com/Scopes/Monthly_Scope/index.htm. I'm gemini. Already my January horoscope is describing my January experiences to a "T." What the heck?!

My weekly horscope (weekly horscopes are here: http://astrostyle.com/Scopes/Weekly_Scope/index.htm) is also pretty interesting, and close to my experience so far this week.

How does yours look?

Skills For Life: Responding to Hurt Feelings

Sometimes as a parent, as I try to teach my children important lifeskills, it becomes readily apparent that I am still learning some of these skills.

Take for example, say, hurt feelings. My tendency is to internalize negative stuff. And then I get into a cycle of anxiety where I can't let it go and instead run the tape of whatever happened over and over in my head, worrying and feeling badly. And then, since I can't forever function with that going on, I eventually stuff it. It's something I've periodically worked on with therapists, but never quite mastered...the skill of being open and non-defensive without also internalizing everything negative that happens to me.

What do you do? What are your best skills when your feelings are hurt? (And bonus question: What are the most effective ways you've noticed kids build and practice these skills?)

When Your Vision Is Too Expansive

I have difficulty compartmentalizing information.

This is often a blessing. I am easily able to take a broad view of systems and also transfer information from one system to another. At classes and workshop, I find myself impatient when other attendees have to stop and ask, "What does this have to do with...[fill in the blank with whatever the topic is]?" (Yes, I found college almost painful.) If the teacher or leader of the class or workshop has made the connection, you can be certain that I too have made the connection. When other people are saying things like, "This is nice, but I was really hoping to get some tangible ideas I can take home," I often am sighing inside. My neurons have usually been firing off ideas the whole time as I've connected all types of information in response to what I am learning.

At times, though, my inability to compartmentalize becomes problematic. Today I found that a global perspective I have been taking for granted for some time is not a common world view. I didn't realize until after I pissed someone off (at work, no less) by taking my broad view as a given. Actually, it took me getting upset that I'd pissed someone off. I got upset and called a colleague who listened to me explain my thinking to her, and then she said "I have never thought of it like that before." The subsequent dialogue in my head went something like:

Oh.

Oh! Huh.

Really? I could have sworn that other colleagues have talked about this before.

Is it just me?

I don't get how this can be compartmentalized.

I am so confused. I am so hurt [that the person I pissed off was so offended].

Sometimes it is hard not to feel crazy.

Postscript: A few days later, I am feeling much better. I called another colleague, one from the west coast whose response to the idea that I think much differently than others was, "you do?!" Ah, it is likely another one of those east-west coast adjustments I am making. So then I talked to a colleague out here who is one of the longest-serving and most respected in our field. And though she has worked for 30 years in the northeast, she also is very involved in the national organization of our association and has a good understanding of regional differences. She is a tremendous mentor for me! I wanted her to help me shift my thinking, if necessary, into a more regionally-appropriate form. But she told me I was spot-on in my thinking, and that more than anything I just have to be patient (and try harder not to scare people so much with my wild west ways LOL).

The Horoscope that Has Scared the Living Daylights Out of Me

(And I don't even know if I believe in this stuff)

Here it is...my demons right there in my weekly horoscope:
http://astrostyle.com/Scopes/Weekly_Scope/index.htm#gem

And my monthly horoscope:
http://astrostyle.com/Scopes/Monthly_Scope/monthly_gemini.htm

You Know What?! I Am Good At This!

Every once in a while, it is good for a person in a marriage to be challenged into decision-making without over-consultation with the other party.

Buying a house is, in my opinion, a decision best made jointly. But there was a lot of prep that went into making it possible for me, during G.'s trip, to follow through with what I understand to be our shared desires, without G being here in person. There wouldn't have been time to do it any other way.

I learned yesterday and today as I:

• viewed the house,
• decided on an offer price,
• put down an offer,
• began collecting more information about mortgages and making initial decisions about home loan programs,
• received information about the bidding war and made a decision to change our offer price,
• received more information about the bidding war, and made decisions about addendums to the offer

...that I am more capable than I'd been giving myself credit for lately. I received a lot of little affirmations regarding my ability to be astute, to be sharp and flexible at the same time, to ask the right questions, to study a situation and act on it in the best way I can for my family, to track down the information I need when I need it, and to think quickly.

And here is the other thing. I learned just how much G. trusts me. I learned about her ability to relinquish control when it is a well-informed and necessary action, and to have faith that even if things don't work out perfectly, that I have acted in our best interests to my fullest knowledge.

I am proud of myself. And oh my goodness, do I love G. soooooooo much. She is incredible! She is a strong, thoughtful, sharing, diligent, and trusting person with whom to share my life. Though the nitty gritty work was largely my own today and yesterday, it is the work we have done together, and the search process we have been on together for a new home for about a year now, that resulted in the events of today.

I pray for continued happy endings to each segment of the journey as we make our way to our new home.

Completing Sunday with a faith-related post

I stumbled across this blog entry the other day while searching for blogging samples: http://thehanifblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/problem-with-sociological-identity.html

I am curious what those of you who are fellow Unitarian Universalists think about this. It is definitely food for thought, and I haven't yet really fully developed my thoughts about it, but some of the things that came to mind off hand include:

1. The UUA just redesigned its website and is focusing its online material more on those new to the faith. I have noticed some content changes, and I am curious whether the quoted description of the faith is likely to change as well. A change would be consistent with some of the self-study work the UUA has been up to over the last few years. There certainly has been a movement toward greater assumption of the language of faith.

2. I'm not sure if this is any kind of official description, or if it is more a haphazard description that happened to be a visible one on the UUA website. However, it does seem indicative of the lack of clarity inherent in this stage of Unitarian Universalism's history.

This post led me to another discussion of related interest: http://thehanifblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/inclusiveness.html and http://thehanifblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/ia-umbrella.html and http://chalicechick.blogspot.com/2007/07/organization-by-any-other-name.html

My thought is that these conversations have a core issue in common: our clarity of faith. As a faith made up of 90% "converts," I think collectively we are afraid to be clear because it brings up faith-related baggage. The worry seems to be summed up like this "If we clear about who we are, will we somehow end up leaving people out?" As a lifelong UU, I have witnessed plenty of the UUs I grew up with leaving our faith because of the lack of clarity. I am thankful for the self-study happening now among UUs for this exact reason. I think we lose as many folks from our lack of clarity as we might risk losing from a greater degree of clarity about who we are as a people of faith.

Am I making any sense? It is late, so this may be difficult to follow.