Breadcrumbs ….

Published on: Author: bette 15 Comments

It’s easy for me to talk about managing stress. In fact, fifteen years after I conceived of the idea for It’s About Time I’m actually pretty good at it.

In the beginning this was supposed to be a stress management program for teachers. I called it DreamKeepers and enlisted 14 teachers to try it out. At one point, thanks to them, I realized that managing stress is really all about managing time. That realization came to me in a flash as I caught a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror as I was hurrying out the door one day thinking “I don’t have enough time.”

What does that even mean?

I actually stopped … looked at myself in the mirror … and thought “Who do you think you are?  You have 24/7 …. exactly like everyone else. Where do you get the idea that you should get any more time than anyone else?”

At that point I began thinking of DreamKeepers as a way to determine priorities. The “five minutes a day” I suggest in that program will work for anyone – not just teachers. I know. I haven’t taught school since 1998, and when I take those 5 minutes each day to follow my own advice, my life becomes far more manageable.

 

All of that said,  I woke up at 1:30 AM this morning feeling like a fraud.  I couldn’t stop wondering how I could talk about energy management when almost two months ago I walked away from the life I finally felt able to manage.  This time I looked in an imaginary mirror and asked myself who I think I am to tell other people about managing their energy when it only took one phone call for me to give away all of my own.

That’s what has been on my mind for the past six hours.  What occurs to me now is that the reason I was able to function so well through that time of crisis was that I may have finally learned what I’ve only been talking about for the past 15 years:  The way to manage my energy, and in so doing manage my life, is to stay in the moment, focus on the “next right step,” and hold onto what it will feel like when I’m actually living in the reality of what I’m trying to accomplish.

 

As I’m writing this I’m thinking of the overused little maxim:  “Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”  Looking around I see the remnants of the life I left exactly 8 weeks ago.  It’s all here – and it makes me think of the story of Hansel and Gretel.  When they left home to go on their great adventure, they were wise enough to leave a a path of breadcrumbs.  (I’ve always wondered why the birds didn’t eat the breadcrumbs – but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief in order to preserve the metaphor.)

Now I’m looking at the “breadcrumbs” I left and I realize that it’s actually going to be easy to catch up from where I left off.  Some tasks or projects simply don’t need to be done – and I’m asking myself why I expend so much energy on things I feel I “must” or “should” do …  especially over the holidays.  Other things that loomed large in November for some reason look simple now. I’m going to have to give some thought to why that is … but it probably has a lot to do with priorities. And then there are the things that I was planning to do in December and January –  like moving forward on my writing,  remodeling our home, and getting to know our new neighbors.

Everything is still here and no one faults me for falling behind.  So I’m going to resist the temptation to beat myself up about the tasks or projects that were left undone … and enjoy the fact that they are all still here … like breadcrumbs waiting to be followed back home.

 

15 Responses to Breadcrumbs …. Comments (RSS) Comments (RSS)

  1. I wrote that post almost a whole YEAR ago! Reading it now I realize that I have been following my own advice pretty well in 2016. It’s been a particularly difficult year … but I have managed my stress fairly well by staying in the moment and considering the “next right step. As a result I feel like I’ve reclaimed my life and my energy … but have left an enormous pile of BREADCRUMBS!

    On December 23 I posted an unfinished piece that I called “Found Time” … (Money and Space)” Since I’m using this blog for draft material for TRANSITIONS, I’m not going to worry about finishing it for awhile. (It’s just a breadcrumb after all!)

    Right now I feel like I have “FOUND” almost two weeks worth of TIME. I drove from Palm Desert to Quartzsite, AZ on Monday for Richard’s annual “Guys Getaway.” While the “guys” roam around the town looking for toys and treasures … we “girls” have time to do virtually nothing. Yesterday Carol and I spent the afternoon “doing the tent” … where I found a couple of wonderful “As Seen on TV” items that I couldn’t resist. Tomorrow I’ll probably go back and pick up a couple of things that I put on my “Impulse Control” list 😉 .

    But today I have time to go back through a pile of “Breadcrumbs.” These particular breadcrumbs are the offhand ideas that I have started to jot down in small notebooks or Post-It notes and keep in a ziplock bag for times just like this.

    I ran across something on Facebook the other day that made me realize that this concept of leaving a trail of “breadcrumbs” has some scientific merit. The “Zeigarnik Effect” explains that feeling of needing to remember unfinished tasks, or in my case, ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect

    I think it boils down to what Eric Jensen calls “Open Loops.” At the end of each of his workshops … (3-Day, 5-Day, or 6-Day) he would give participants time to walk around the very large meeting hall studying the myriad of posters – each of which illustrate one principle of “Brain-Compatible Learning. (I notice that Eric now calls BCL “Brain-Based Learning” … which is the same thing as Geoffrey and Renate Caine call Natural Learning: http://www.nlri.org.

    Open loops – or the Zeigarnik Effect – both deal with what I call “Breadcrumbs.” These are the unfinished ideas and projects that I don’t want to forget … but don’t have time to fully process.

    So now …. and for the next couple of weeks … I have a lot of “Found Time” and can retrace my own thinking.

    I know that this concept belongs in Session #5 because it involves clearing the mental clutter that hinders clear thinking and moving forward. But it also belongs in Session #3 because it’s one of the best stress relief techniques I’ve ever discovered.

  2. Another friend responded to this on an email, and when I get a chance I’m going to write the sequel to this. Turns out my memory was faulty … and the breadcrumbs did disappear! Perhaps there’s a lesson in there for me…. LOL! For now I’m going to save her thoughts and get back to them later. There’s something in the Gingerbread House that needs some more thought ……

    Here’s what she said:

    I’m pondering on this …. Why didn’t the birds eat the breadcrumbs? I have often wondered that myself. Well, maybe the birds DID eat them. Maybe they weren’t actually needed. Maybe the crumbs are so dang metaphorical they only existed long enough for the birds to scoop them up. And the lesson? Well, for me anyway, I really started to question this, looked it up on Wikipedia and found out, that in the original story, pebbles were first used unsuccessfully, and THEN breadcrumbs, also unsuccessfully, as the birds did eat them!! “After days of wandering,” it says, “they follow a beautiful white bird to a clearing to the gingerbread house. Later, after their smarts and teamwork get them out of the dilemma with the witch, a swan ferries them across water, home, with precious jewels they found inside the witch’s house. They find their father, his wife has died by now, and with the witch’s wealth they found, of course they all live ‘happily ever after’.” lol.

    For me the lesson becomes this: I am going to have to walk through the dark forest, the fire, the scariest of characters in my life, and believe that the beautiful bird, and swan and jewels, will leave back to my Father. Are the jewels His blessings? Is the beautiful white bird one of my faithful friends on my life journey? Is the swan a vehicle, a tool . . . . my spiritual life, lifting me over the waters that can’t be navigated alone? Yes I think so. 🙂

    • I agree, Bette. I re-read your post and found myself seeing the beautiful bird as the Holy Spirit, for me, the jewels are blessings that are most-likely friends along the way, the swan that ferries them must be Jesus, for me, floating (walking for the swan) on the water, leading them, a bridge, to the Father, as you said, or Father/Mother God.

      What this means to me today is that fairy tales turn out to be guides. A scary story, my life, that is, turns out to be a lesson. I keep looking for what’s next. I’m not an orphan in a forest, just for today. I’m not a widow like some of my closest friends. I’m still a mother. But my nest is empty.

      Then I realize that the deepest pain is that my own mother is slipping away day by day. That makes me feel like an orphan of sorts. And there’s not a thing I can do about it. So this thanksgiving, when I felt so powerless, when mom and dad did not show up at the church Thanksgiving potluck, something they never miss, I looked at my recipes for the holiday, written lovingly in my mother’s handwriting, over the years. I allowed myself to cry. Then, I felt a tiny spark of hope. “Maybe,” I thought to myself, sitting clothed in pajamas, like a sloth slowly flipping through recipe cards as I digested my mid-day church meal, “maybe if I make mom’s recipe for croissant dinner rolls, it will feel like I can keep a small part of her alive.” I thought of the mom I once knew, zipping around the kitchen late at night on holidays, preparing everything she could remember her own mother preparing, when her mom was still living.

      I stood up, I started those rolls, and without a bread maker to help, (it had broken last year), I created mom’s dinner croissants. They looked the same. They took the same long hours to knead, and punch down, and knead again, and let rest. They paced themselves with me as I labored to make the other parts of a thanksgiving feast for only four of us in my house this year, family I love dearly; but it is a family that is shrinking.

      When the rolls were done, they smelled like mom’s, and my heart was full. Now, I was diagnosed with celiac disease five years ago. So I wasn’t supposed to taste them, so don’t tell, but I did. And they tasted just like mom’s! Now the only thing missing, was mom. But mom broke her hip this fall and can’t get around very well yet.

      The meal I had been preparing was served and eaten. The sun went down, and the next day came. Those rolls were enjoyed by three of us in my house. About ten were left. What most people don’t know is that I haven’t had the courage to visit my mom since she went home from the hospital after breaking her hip. It has been weeks. I call her. We talk. But I have not hugged her in a long time. And something inside keeps nudging me to go up there. Now I had the rolls. Another day passed, and although my parents have been reluctant for me to visit their “messy” home, I went anyway.

      As I drove the five miles over the river and through the woods, two days after Thanksgiving, I prayed for a peaceful, joyful visit. And it was. Mom opened the large Ziplock bag filled with “her” rolls, rolls she isn’t able to create anymore herself. She smiled, closed her eyes and inhaled the doughy fragrance. She bit one right away. I felt triumphant, as if for a moment I had arrived as that mature “good daughter” I have always longed to be.

      I make a lot of mistakes. As the oldest of their four children, I nag them about their health, their home, firewood, transportation, you name it. I do it because I thought that’s what good oldest daughters do. But it wasn’t so. A distance had happened between me and mom and dad. I had to let them live their life their own way. It wasn’t easy. But on this day, we broke bread. Well, Mom did anyway. Then she tried to offer me some Pillsbury pre-made cookie dough that she likes now. It’s something easy for her to make herself. I politely accepted, knowing I cant have the wheat flour. Then she slowly remembered, “Oh. You can’t have that.” She looked sad. But only for a moment. Then she asked my dad to go and fetch a spare two-pound box of Hershey’s Pot of Gold candy that they happened to have in their pantry. She said for him to give it to me. For a moment my mom was back. Her face lit up as I protested appropriately that this was too much. But she and dad insisted that it was a perfect trade. It felt good.

      You see, I didn’t really do it for mom. I did it for me. I love her. She’s my mom. She may not be the energetic, quick-thinking, humming-all-day-long to Olivia Newton John and John Denver albums mom I remember growing up with. That mom taught me so many things by example. She taught me how to sing, harmonize, knead dough, smell when cake is done, stir her mother’s Old Time fudge so it wouldn’t burn and test it in a cup of cold water to see if it had reached the soft-ball stage. She taught me almost all of the prayers I know and how to make up new ones. She read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to my little brother Darren and I, over and over whether it was summer winter or fall, and of course at Christmas time. She’s still that mom. But she is more difficult to reach.

      Somehow the rolls I made connected us for a moment one more time. That’s what I wanted. We met in a place that was old, sacred, like a forest or a river, a fairy tale, or a flour-dusted kitchen from childhood. We were guided by the memory of baking and the lessons of kneading, and following the recipe, exactly. And our hearts met in her messy, cozy house.

      Though I didn’t get to see her on Thanksgiving this year, and I don’t know what to expect on Christmas, I know one thing for sure. Our hearts met when she tasted the bread that she had passed down to her daughter and they are twisted together like the swirling croissant shape of her soft, buttery dinner rolls made year after year with love. When the yeast first began to swell in a cup of 110 degree warm water on my kitchen counter, creating a dough that would bake into an edible creation, my soul knew that I had not lost my ability to make mom’s rolls. Bread maker or no bread maker, I could carry on the tradition.

      So to compare this to Hansel and Gretel, the bird, the Swan, the ferry, the father/mother, and of course the famous breadcrumbs, I will say this: Every day can be a fairy tale to teach and guide me through whatever dark forest looms, if I am willing to look for the signs along my path. Losing my mom to dementia and aging, is the dark forest. Someone I do not recognize, my aging mother, could be one of the scariest of characters of my life story. But the beautiful bird is my helper, the Holy Spirit, nudging my heart to find a pretense to visit my mom. My recipes, her handwriting and the way it jumped off the cards and brought me to tears, are jewels, blessings from the past, yet still here for me to use as tools to keep writing my own story. My circle of faithful friends, writers, mothers, daughters, are there to listen and help me find my way. My swirling, rising rolls are the swans that brought me back to mom, one more time. And my mother and father ate the rolls. Uh huh. They ate the breadcrumbs. But it’s ok. I wanted them to be eaten. I loved it. It didn’t seem right that those rolls not be consumed by the person who taught me to make them long ago. Now I am at peace.

      A fairy tale is just a tradition. Sometimes the facts, the characters or the scenes may change because it’s personal. I’m glad it’s personal because I want to make the story my own. I need the stories to be flexible so I can use them, because I can’t navigate my life alone.

      • This is beautiful, Paige! I love how the breadcrumbs / dinner rolls brought back so many memories. This story is worth keeping … and what’s nice is that it’s here anytime we want to come back to it. You’re right … stories are so powerful and there are so many layers of meaning!

  3. Bette,
    I like your Breadcrumbs. I have found living in the moment to be very helpful in keeping myself organized. Another tip I picked up along the way of this journey we call life is to understand that life is made up of hills and valleys for all of us. Those who survive acquire a bit of calmness about the changes life throws at us, not becoming smug when on a hill nor losing hope when in a valley. Surviving requires an acceptance of the fact that we do not have the control over life we thought we had, when less experienced.
    May your breadcrumbs bring you safely home to Brookings at journey’s end.

    • You are so right, Georgia! Since I left Brookings last November I have done a very good job of living in the moment. My 97-year-old mother came down to be with me from December 17 through January 10. I found the first couple of days a bit frustrating because I had thought that she would be able to do a lot more than she could. She does very well “in the moment” … but she has virtually no memory of the very recent past. Once I figured that out … I got to spend almost a month living the way she does. She’s totally content in every moment and willingly takes part in anything we suggest. I learned a lot about living in the moment and find that it’s been easy to stay in that mode after she went home.

      Thanks for this reminder from last almost a year ago! I’m once again in the desert and continue to follow the breadcrumbs that lead back to Brookings!

  4. Here’s one way to handle what we call “stress.” If you had just six months to live, would you still feel stressed about the little things that make us feel stress? I think not. And you know what, we may have only six months to live. Maybe less.

    • Hi Pete …. I’m in Quartzsite with a lot of time on my hands and see that you posted this almost a year ago! Well … that’s a lot longer than six months! What occurs to me is that it’s about FOCUS. I really think that I have done a lot better at focusing my energy since I wrote this somewhat rambling piece last year! What about you??? 🙂

    • Now I need to heed my own advice. I replied to Berma this morning that I was going to take care of one little “breadcrumb” before 8 AM. Then a friend called … and I went to coffee … and the the little pile of paper I was going to go through is still sitting here. So … maybe I’ll do it before 4:30 … or not? 🙂

  5. It is funny how time can change our perspective. The importance of everything is on a constantly moving carousel. I find the need to remind myself of what is most important on a daily basis, because it is too easy to get caught up in other peoples lives at the expense of my own priorities. That being said, it seems that everyday my priorities and perspective change.

    We are all following breadcrumbs… Right now I’m working most on remembering to make it all fun.
    All my best,
    CJ

    • You’re so right about FUN. After I retired from classroom teaching (which was always really fun for me) I decided that if something wasn’t “fun” – I wasn’t going to do it. There’s a great little book called “The Enneagram Made Easy:Discover the 9 Types of People. I’m a #3 – The Achiever … and the motto for that one is “Work is more fun than fun.” Story of my life … and one reason why it’s hard for me to stick with one thing for very long. Oh well … :-)!

      I’m going to see if I can figure out how to put up a link to the Amazon listing for that book. (Learning new stuff is the most fun of all!)

    • Now if I can only remember to do it. I wrote this yesterday morning and it’s only taken me 24 hours to completely forget! There’s so much to do around here and once again, I want it all done at once! So now I have another 24 … and I can’t do it all 🙁 ….

      [beat] I just realized that the trick is to take a bit of time to look around and decide which “breadcrumb” needs to be dealt with first! Ummmmm …. I see it … and I’m giving myself until 8:00 to deal with it …. 🙂 !

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