Sticky Tar
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” -Brene Brown
As the we continue forward into this strenuous season of our country, you can see the evidence of emotionally charged situations nearly daily. I see it at work, the ball field, the store and even in my own home with my self or my children.
There are many twisters of currents spinning around or within us. We have stresses of the election, a country which is heavily laden with economical burdens, mistrust of governmental structures and a society which is falling apart. We, as a whole, I do not feel have recovered from the pandemic chaos and we are bleeding out so to speak.
Resources have dried up in many capacities and there are tensions rising both externally and internally. We’re one disaster away from detrimental consequences to our country and our world as we know it. What’s sad is generations that follow will pay the price for decisions made now but people are too caught up in other things to realize it.
A dear friend has been reminding me lately, “Sometimes you’ll find you’re not mad at the person, you’re just upset with the situation with that person in it.” Very wise words, and she’s correct. We need to stop being mad with each other, it’s the situations we’re in that’s the issue at hand.
To continue to my point, when we act out of our emotions and react in certain ways, it is like throwing sticky tar onto the ones that we love unnecessarily. Tar is hot, sticky, hard to clean off, it stains, it hurts and it stinks! Then that tar is on our spouse, loved ones, children, coworkers etc. It does not come off easily or at all in some cases.
For example, when we have a hard busy day at work, pick up our children and continue our evening with them. We are coming home from an emotionally charged work day. I’ll admit that I have sometimes put the sticky tar of my day onto my children but then I reap the consequences of that. They’re feisty, get upset in different ways, or react out of their emotions because I gave them the weight of the sticky tar I was covered in. It was unfair. In their young mindedness of their ages, they don’t know what to do with those emotions or emotional burdens. Thus, in turn it’s up to us as adults to teach how to handle this, teach forgiveness and model the humbleness that comes with saying, “I messed up. I’m sorry.”
The healthy clean up happens when we, I, us, can apologize to the other party and they can forgive us for our shortcomings. It doesn’t always happen right away but eventually we can hope that it does. Some situations are bigger than others with more sticky tar involved. Loving patience is key here. In this way, it washes away the sticky tar of electrically charged emotions we carried and washes it off of the other party involved too.
To close today’s blog post, remember what love is in regard to your partner, children, family and everyone around you.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Within the remembrance of these things, may the sticky tar wash away.
