Greg Learns To Write

“Greg, figure out what you need to do to fill your cup.” Filling your cup, meaning, you can’t give to others what you don’t have yourself. If your (emotional/mental/physical) cup is empty, then you can’t take care of your (kids/family/friends/self). “Figure out what you need to do to fill you cup…”

I’m struggling with that.

Tonight, I just wanted to have my kids go to bed. At 6 p.m.. Without dinner. I wanted the subtle negativity that slowly reverberated off each of the kids — and me — building into what felt like that early stage of acoustic feedback where you know it’s about to become a ear-splitting screech, to just stop. I watched my own reactions to their negativity, and listened to my own stern admonishment of them that they “need to be nicer to each other!” and saw the hypocrisy — or insanity — of what I was doing: using irritation and frustration to tell them to be nice.

I just wanted them to obey, be nice to each other, and eat whatever I made them for dinner. I wanted them to fill my cup.

But kids don’t fill cups. I’m responsible for filling my cup.

Taking a deep breath, having made it through dinner, I went in to talk with my son who I had finally sent to bed “early” because he wasn’t being nice to his sister. And instead I just held him. Held him and let out a few big sighs. Finally, we ended up having an incredibly long conversation (perhaps 10 minutes?) about what it means to be able to see the good in people (meaning, his sister), and that everyone has both good and bad within them, and that it’s easy to see that bad, but that people (meaning, him) need to be strong enough to see and acknowledge the good things. That lead to God and prayer, since he wasn’t succeeding at thinking up one nice thing about his sister, and he certainly needed divine help more than I could provide, so I finally left him to pray about it. Amazingly, he came up with “well, she’s pretty smart for her age.” After he told her that (I was filled with pride), and then how he was smarter than she was at her age (I was filled with chagrin), I got to talk with him again about the whole topic and how God could help him if he were honest with himself and God — go ahead and tell God what you don’t like about her — but then asked God for help to see the good in her. I get the feeling that we’re going to be having more of these conversations in the future.

This conversation with him filled my cup a little. Seeing successes in my kids, or… just having conversations that I believe will (someday… perhaps someday, over the rainbow) help them be happier in life, leaves me feeling successful, hopeful, and calmed.

But, I really am struggling with how to “fill my cup.”

It strikes me as strange, when I step back and look at myself as a 3rd person, that I, or anyone, would struggle to know what would make me feel more peaceful, happy, and … peaceful. Feeling lonely, my inclination is to reach out to people; yet the advice I’ve received is that, though reaching out to people is typically good, I need to figure out how to do some self-filling.

sigh

I think I’m going to struggle this week with this topic .