On Avoiding The Resentment

News Flash:  There aren’t any news flashes in this post, but there are some things we all tend to do over and over again that get us in trouble.  I decided maybe that means we (I) need to keep talking about it.

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There is just something about the life overseas that creates a lot of pressure to do all the things.

Perhaps it is not true across the board, but in general it seems that the life of an expatriate, whether a missionary or a humanitarian or a business owner, can be one of balancing several  (sometimes opposing) demands.

In our line of work we might have the best interest of a patient or client or employee at heart while also needing to consider the needs of the donor or visitor who helps us care for our patient or client and helps us to pay our employees. Sometimes protecting both interests feels impossible.

 

In a short time period we might deal with several very intense or stressful situations that require many extra hours of our time, while also fielding dozens of requests to visit, to tour, to ask questions about the work, to observe the work,  or to have the work explained in order to be funded further or in order for the model to be copied.

For many of us, saying yes to all the things is just what we do.  We do it because we want to keep the donor happy, we do it because we want to keep the work funded, we do it because we love the people we have come to work with and serve, we do it because we are people pleasers and we want to make everyone happy. We do it because we want to be viewed as kind and giving.

This works for us  – until it does not work for us.  If you are anything like me, and perhaps you have said yes more times than you should have, there comes a time when you realize that you resent even being asked to do something.

The other day I got an email. It said, “Hi my name is so and so and I live in such a place and I am so  touched by the work you do. We are going to start a similar work in our place and I am wondering if you can tell me how you started, what you did, what it costs, how you go about funding it, what the hardest part is, when you knew you wanted to do it, and can I come see it next month?”

Now.  Hear me.  That person is likely very kind and passionate and is simply asking great questions that will prepare them for the future.

I, however, just finished of hard couple of days and want to sit and stare at a wall (instead of pay attention to my children).  When the messaged popped into my box I immediately felt mad.  “What in the world?” “How do they think I have time to do that after my 18 hour day? I just got home. I have not seen my kids.” “Ugh. I just did this for someone last week – do I have to do it again?”

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This  is what we call “THE RESENTMENT”.

Nobody wants to live in The Resentment.

A healthy person knows that it is my choice to answer or not answer depending on what is best for my own mental health.

I would venture to guess that many of us struggle with saying no. I am thinking living in resentment might be an expatriate problem. (When we get “home”for a break, everyone wants us to be at all the things and we start showing up to make them happy, even when what we might really need is a quiet place to take an actual rest from life.)   I am wondering if for some of us, it isn’t some twisted view of service and faith that says, “Loving and serving Jesus joyfully includes always saying yes to all the things!”

Saying yes to everything sets us up to fail, to become angry, to become bitter and to live in resentment.

In Brene Brown’s new book, Rising Strong, she says when we feel angry and notice that we are easily annoyed, we need to WANT to learn more about what is causing those feelings. She suggests asking the questions:

-Why am I being so hard on everyone around me today?

-What’s setting me off?

-How did I get to the point that I want to punch this wall?

-I want to dig into why I am so overwhelmed.

-I cannot stop thinking about what that person said or did, why not?

In chapter six Brene asks, “How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don’t value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?”

There is a lot to be said for setting and holding boundaries.  It can be terribly uncomfortable. It might mean you make fewer people happy, but it will also probably mean you are happier yourself and more able to live a life free of resentment.

On page 119 of Rising Strong

  • The trick to staying out of resentment is maintaining better boundaries–blaming others less and holding myself more accountable for asking for what I need and want.
  • There is no integrity in blaming and turning to “it’s not fair” and “I deserve.” I need to take responsibility for my own well-being. If I believed I was not being treated fairly or not getting something I deserved, was I actually asking for it, or was I just looking for an excuse to assign blame and feel self-righteous.

Brene calls the solution to this issue- Living BIG: Boundaries, Integrity, and Generosity.

She asks, “What boundaries do I need to put in place so I can work from a place of integrity and extend the most generous interpretations of the intentions, words, and actions of others?”

“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”

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For all of us, there is a balance to be found.  Living in integrity means doing what we can to say yes when we can say yes – and realizing that sometimes we really need to say no.

Saying “no” and having boundaries improves our family life. It allows for rest, for reflection, for fun.  Saying ‘no’ when we need to – keeps us from The Resentment.

Is this something you struggle with?

Do you find yourself blaming others for asking too much instead of taking responsibility for saying “yes” too often?

 

You Owe Me Grace

Friends,

I am 30 weeks and a gazillion eons pregnant. My belly is the size of Canada and my brain is the size of a mustard seed (and, trust me, this mustard seed isn’t up to moving any mountains). Pregnancy and childbirth – it’s a Serious Design Flaw, if you ask me. And it’s not like there aren’t better systems out there on the market. Kangaroos, for example, have a perfectly reasonable reproductive system in place.

(Please note, if you’re tempted to mention Eve, original sin, or anything to do with apples in the comments, don’t. I’m in no mood.)

So I’m currently hanging out with our toddler in the land of ice cream and honey (also known as Australia) awaiting the birth of our second child. Meanwhile my husband, Mike, is starting a new job in Laos, overseeing an in-country move, finding a house, buying a car, etc. He won’t be here for another two months.

I was going to write something about pregnancy and cross-cultural living but, well, mustard seed. Instead, I’m going to share an unpublished piece I wrote shortly after we moved to Laos called You Owe Me Grace. This piece still makes me laugh and think. I hope you enjoy it.

Dom Lennox Head 28.4.13-7

You Owe Me Grace

Ever since my husband, Mike, and I moved to Laos three months ago, perhaps the single word that has best described life is, “eventful”. Few weekends, however, have been as eventful as this last one. This weekend was the first time we bought a puppy home, the first time we cooked dinner in our new place, the first day we took possession of a golf cart as our household vehicle, and the first time we crashed it.

The town where we live, Luang Prabang, is small enough to navigate without a car. We’re still debating whether we’ll get a motorcycle or make do with our feet and bicycles, but while we figure it out we’ve decided to take our landlord up on her offer to use the golf cart that was parked on the property when we first arrived.

I’d like to be able to explain how this afternoon’s accident happened, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ve seen Mike safely navigate four wheel drive trucks backwards down dirt tracks barely wide enough to fit a bicycle (though, come to think of it, how we got stuck down that track in the first place could be the subject of a whole other article, and I’ll tell you right now it certainly wasn’t my fault). I’ve been Mike’s passenger on the back of motorcycles and in cars that he has capably piloted on three continents. I’d say without hesitating that he is a better driver than I am.

Except, apparently, when it comes to golf carts.

The golf cart’s not hard. I mean, sure, it doesn’t have lights, or turn signals, or power steering, or brakes that work well. You can’t see out the plastic windshield at the front very well because it’s all scratched up. And you do have to come in the house on an angle or you’ll bottom out. But, still, the thing is significantly smaller than the width of our driveway, which is why I remain puzzled as to how exactly Mike managed to ramp the curb while turning into the house and then drive full speed into our gate.

As “full speed” here was approximately the velocity of a decrepit ride-on lawnmower, no one was hurt – unless you count the abdominal strain undoubtedly experienced by the three neighborhood men standing nearby during their subsequent laughing fit. These men didn’t even try to pretend that it wasn’t the funniest thing they’d seen all month, and I can’t say I blame them. How often do you get to see two foreigners, carrying three kilos of tomatoes and drinking iced coffee out of a plastic bag, pilot a golf cart into a stationary object?

“I think it’s OK,” I said to Mike after we came to a standstill, laughing a little myself and having no clue whether what I’d just said was in any way true.

I hopped out and stared at the front of the golf cart. It was leaking a black, oily-looking, fluid.

Mike was considerably less amused than the rest of us.

“I don’t think it’s OK,” he said, grim, as he got out to survey the damage. “If that’s oil, then it’s definitely not OK.”

The neighborhood men had wandered over to take a closer look.

Bo di,” I said to them, shrugging.

No, they agreed with my rudimentary Lao, “cannot do”. The men went on to say many other things, too, but goodness knows what they were. The options are endless, really. They could have been offering to help us push the cart into the driveway, or they could have been inquiring as to whether we had the brains God gave a water buffalo. Even if I could speak Lao fluently, however, I’m still not sure I would have been able to understand them given that they were still laughing hysterically during the entire one-way exchange.

As Mike and the neighborhood men maneuvered the cart into the driveway I totted the tomatoes, destined for that night’s adventure in “make your own pasta sauce”, into the house. I was chopping away by the time Mike came in.

“I can’t believe I did that,” he said.

“Honey, it’s really OK,” I said. “No one was hurt. It can be fixed. It’s not a big deal.”

“I know,” Mike said, sighing. “But I feel stupid.”

“Yeah,” I said supportively. “I can see why.”

This didn’t quite make him laugh, but it came close.

“You’re taking this much better than I am,” he said. “That’s really good.”

I thought this last statement over while I did the rest of the chopping, and 36 tomatoes later I’d realized something that I’m not at all proud of.

By far the largest part of me genuinely isn’t that fussed about the golf cart. Accidents happen. The money and hassle that will be involved in getting it fixed are annoying, sure, but they are completely overshadowed by the much more important fact that no one was hurt.

But I also realized that there is a small and grubby part of me that can be secretly glad when things like this happen to Mike – a part of me that claps its hands and makes a notation on a mental list of, “silly things that Mike has done in the year and a half since we’ve gotten married”. This list has things on it like: parking ticket in LA (two), leaving a bank card in an ATM, and… driving the golf cart into the gate.

I’m not sure whether it makes it better or worse that I’m not cataloging these incidents because I’m secretly more frustrated than I act when they happen. No, what is happening is much more self-centered than mere repression. The small part of me that rubs its hands in glee at moments like these is happy because I know, I just know, that one of these days I’m going to do something dumb on a scale so epic that Mike cannot yet fathom it. I’m going to book non-refundable international airtickets for the wrong day, or write off a vehicle considerably more expensive than the golf cart, or give the wrong bank account number when I’m trying to transfer money internationally.

Oh, wait, I’ve already done that last one.

The point is, part of me is glad to tell Mike that a dented golf cart is no big deal because I’m hoping – no, expecting – that when I do this next silly thing Mike will smile serenely and tell me everything is fine. Because he will, after all, owe me grace.

Somehow I don’t think that’s exactly the spirit of what Jesus had in mind in Mark 12:31 when he instructed us that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, even if my actions in being unruffled by golf cart mishaps seem to check the box.

Oh well, I’m sure Mike will give me more opportunities in the months and years to come to get my attitude and my actions in a decent place at the same time. And who knows, I may even give him some. After all, there’s a first time for everything.

How do you handle these sorts of mishaps (which can happen a lot when you’re living overseas)?

Have you ever caught yourself feeling “owed” grace? How do you combat that?

Lisa and Mike overlooking Luang Prabang Laos

Lisa McKayauthor, psychologist, sojourner in Laos

Blog: www.lisamckaywriting.com      Books: Love At The Speed Of Email and My Hands Came Away Red