Miscellaneous
I love family recipes. They are time tested and often so reliable. And using a family recipe feels like you are sharing a meal with that beloved family member.I have been told a story of a woman who used a family recipe for a roast that both her mother and grandmother used. As she routinely prepared the roast, her own daughter asked her why she cut off the ends of the roast. She wasn’t really sure. So she asked Grandmother, who laughed and said she did this because the roast was always too big for her little pan.We all have inherited rules that we have accepted as THE way to do things. We tell ourselves this is the way we have to do it because it is the only acceptable way to do it. We don’t need to start from scratch and throw away all the wisdom of the past. But thoughtlessly doing what others have told you to do is not wise. Now if you start questioning EVERYTHING you are gonna be stuck in decision paralysis. You’ll never get anything done. So when do we know we need to revise our recipes for success.I would suggest starting by revisiting the “recipes” that are not giving you the results you want. This just means to look at the areas of your life where you are frustrated not happy. Write down one area of your life where you're getting frustrated. Now start thinking of what your approach is with this obstacle. What are you doing or have done to try to be successful in this area? That’s your formula or recipe. Often we are barely even aware of the formula we follow because we’ve literally blocked off other possibilities from entering our mind because we believe this is THE way. If you draw a big blank when trying to articulate exactly what your approach to this obstacle is- this just maybe you!!! There are areas of life where we have accepted certain things as absolute, and it feels unnatural to question them. Sometimes we accept “rules” or “formulas” that other people have given us that don’t work. Sometimes we even make up OUR OWN rules which don’t work, and then we refuse to let go of them, insisting the problem lies somewhere else! I’ll tell one more story to demonstrate that. Every first Sunday of the month my family and I fast purely for spiritual reasons. We encourage our kids and we ourselves think about the needs of other people and We make that the focus of our fast. Now, this past Sunday morning my nine-year-old complained about fasting saying she didn’t know what to fast for. So we talked about it, and there were 3 different people that she was (somewhat reluctantly) interested in fasting and praying for. Then she proceeded to spend the next hour complaining that now she can’t choose which one. I asked her why she had to choose one. Her answer- because I can’t do it for all three, that’s too hard. She insisted she had to choose.It didn’t matter how much I tried to help her see that for her the work is the same whether she fasts for one person or three people. She refused to believe this was a possibility. I reminded her that she does have permission to go eat if she doesn’t want to fast. Fasting is a choice, and if she doesn’t want to fast she doesn’t have to. I honestly expected her to walk right into the kitchen and eat because I just gave her permission. Instead, she continued throwing a tantrum about how hard it is to fast when you don’t know what to fast for. Let’s just say that I couldn’t contain my eye roll!I honestly don’t think she wanted to fast. But she wouldn’t own it. Because she couldn’t bring herself to admit that, she instead clung to made up constricting rules to explain why she was feeling the way she was. When time ran out and it was time to leave for church she was furious we wouldn’t let her go eat and she blamed us for her being hungry.