Who do we listen to?

When we got the news that Andy was going to be deployed, I was devastated. It was instantly a heavy weight that fell on my shoulders. I’d probably already through several stages of the grief process before he even left. Of course, it didn’t help that the dates and location and logistics of it all kept changing on us. But once he left, I felt like I had a rhythm and I was knocking stuff off my ever-growing to-do list. But I probably wore myself out, because then my body protested with daily migraines (they’d increased since the original deployment news, but it had become almost unmanageable). I switched some meds around three weeks ago and have only had one migraine since, which has been a world of help managing everything. My to-do list is still growing, but it seems to be slowing down a bit. Maverick’s baseball season is almost done. He has at least one more game with the single-elimination playoffs starting this next week. His team has done fairly well, and I feel like Mav has improved a lot this year. He’s the team’s hype man. I love seeing him cheer others up. It is truly his gift. I’ve also enjoyed his games more this year, because the players are better and there are far less face-palm inducing plays. Andy deserves a big shoutout this week because he stayed up past 1 AM his time just so he could watch Maverick play on Friday. I know that Andy’s virtual presence was a big deal to Maverick.

Most of the kids have been doing better as far as dealing with the deployment goes. No more crying right before bed (for the most part). Harvey is really struggling with going to school. Every morning, he complains of his stomach or head but then once he gets to school it seems to go away. I know he likes to fake things so he can stay home, but he seems very believable, so I really do think it is bothering him– at least to a certain extent. I asked the school counselor to meet with him to see if she could figure out what was making him so miserable about going to school. She said he didn’t mention anything about kids not being nice to him (though he has definitely told me that he’s been having a hard time on the playground). I asked her if he mentioned anything about his dad being gone. She said he never even mentioned his dad. Which made her think that his deployment wasn’t the issue to his irrational fears and stomach aches, but it made me even more worried. My kids are very attached to their dad, so the fact that Harvey had talked about all of his siblings and me, but never once mentioned his dad made me certain that his stomach aches and fears have a lot more to do with his dad being gone than this counselor realizes. To me, I see avoidant behavior by him not talking about it, but also it seems similar to the migraine situation I went through. I felt fine mentally. I got up, got my stuff done and carried on, but my body was trying to tell me that I wasn’t as fine as I was letting on. It makes me think that maybe his stomach aches are his body’s way of processing this whole thing. It is very common for anxiety to give you stomach issues.

Emotionally, I feel like I’m doing better than the past two Sundays, but I have down days too. Usually, I turn to Andy to process things that are bothering me, but sometimes things bother me when I’m about to go to bed and Andy’s time zone isn’t conducive to hashing things out. So, I turned to ChatGPT to talk about some things, lol. I’ve never used ChatGPT before, it was quite the experience and a little unnerving how on point it was with some stuff. It sounded very human-like. I don’t know what our future holds with this AI stuff, and I’m sure some will be good, and some will be bad (just like with most inventions). I guess it’s just important to ask questions now, before our society becomes dependent upon it. Will the benefits out way the costs? I don’t know if we could’ve assessed that with smart phones. I know a lot of people resisted getting one for a long time, but it came to the point that you really couldn’t survive this modern world successfully without one. I’ve heard of people going on phone cleanses and I get the desire to do that, but I honestly couldn’t function without mine right now. My schedule, my to-do list, my reminders to take my meds, facetime with Andy, listening to my books while I do mind-numbing tasks, all of my church and school communication is on there. Most of the time, I even do my scripture study on my phone. I keep in touch with long distant family members and friends through Marco-Polo, utilize the map app to get to various appointments, check my email, etc. Heck, I even use my phone as a key for our Tesla. All the things I listed are important and very integral parts of my life, but I do find that the phone can be mind-numbing and distract you instead of aid in your day-to-day life. I set a time limit on social media, but even with that time-limit, I am sure I get more brainless time on my phone than I should. As we move into nearly two decades of the smart phone’s existence, we are able to do more anecdotal research on the effects phone usage has on the brain. It is making attention spans shorter, causing people to have more ADHD-like symptoms, which means that in a way it is rewiring our brains. Neural pathways can be debilitating or empowering, depending on how we exercise them. There was a time in my life where I truly believed I was unloveable. I know I’ve shared that here before but bear with me. After having a therapist share resources with me, as well as finding a few self-help books on my own, I learned that my belief system was very wrong. I was wearing a lens that made even the most loving things twist into someone with an ulterior motive: “They want something from me.” There are various things that led me to have this belief system, but I realized I didn’t need to stay in that headspace. Now comes the fun part. How did I manage to change these neural pathways where “loving action” = “they secretly despise” you? Practice. It sounds simple, because it is, but it has to be consistent. I had to be aware of these intrusive thoughts. Label them for what they were and look for alternative ways to assess the given evidence. They said, “I love you.” Before I would think, “they’re just saying that because they have to” or “they want something” or “they feel guilty about something, so they’re compensating,” but then I recognized that I did that and I stopped myself and reworked the thought. “I love you.” Isn’t that nice? Three words and they show they care.

In a world where people can read the same “fact” and get two very different stories, it is important to think about what “evidence” you are feeding your mind. I have found that the best way to avoid confusion is to utilize the scripture in Galatians that reads, “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith…”

Yes there are hard things in life, but it’s not the fact I’m assessing, it is the thought I follow after the fact. How should I feel about that? What actions should I take in response to that fact? And if my thoughts bring goodness, then it is of God. Moroni 7:13 states, “That which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.” I am truly grateful that in a world with tumult of opinions and divisions, I can always turn to the main source of truth. The Holy Ghost can truly be the compass in this perilous time.