The woman is the heart of the home.

How she feels and acts affects everyone.

How you treat your husband and children is how they

learn to treat you and others.


"If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" 


Your mood affects your husband.  He is upset when you

are.  "Why is she unhappy?  What have I done?" 

It affects your children, who feel it even if you pretend not

to be tense. When you are stressed, you fuss at trifles and

over react to normal daily hassles.


A man can be trained to give you space and take over

when you are upset, but it can take years (!), and this help

should only be used in moments of real stress and not as a

routine method of coping.

SO!  

HOW TO BECOME THE EYE OF THE STORM

You train yourself to be strong, calm, happy, good.

Three suggestions on how to do this:

1.  N. Eldon Tanner: "Pray for patience (or whatever virtue you are striving for) in your morning prayers and report (repent) in your evening prayers."

In this way you are working on it daily and having help from God.  It is my testimony (I've done it- lots) that this works!


2.Keep yourself well balanced and strong by developing in all these areas-

PHYSICAL

SPIRITUAL

EMOTIONAL

SOCIAL 

INTELLECTUAL 

These are the 5 facets of a person.  Each affects the others.  If you are strong in each of these areas, a problem (of which there will be many) will not knock you flat.

For example;  physical problems such as injury, illness, pregnancy, will be painful, confining, distressing, but you will endure with patience, concentrating on the things you CAN do  (the other areas) until you are better - instead of letting it spill over into other areas by becoming weak spiritually, upset emotionally, too concentrated on your physical problem to use your brain, isolated socially or straining friendships by whinging too much. Think of how a problem in another area could affect all 5. e.g. grief or a broken heart- sink into depression. All of these are very natural responses to a big problem but there is a better way to deal with them.  You become strong enough to handle the problem, remain balanced in yourself and even contribute to others during the difficult time.

You become strong and balanced by making goals for yourself in each area and working on them each day.  Make them some thing you love doing, or are excited about learning.

Part of the strength is the SELF-DISCIPLINE you develop by doing small goals each day. Example- exercise, scripture study, piano practise,service, showing love to someone- see the 5 areas?

Part of the strength is the small "line upon line" improvements you make.

You will need the self-discipline when you hit a big obstacle, to keep working on the other 4 areas even though you just want to climb into a hole and stay there.  And working on them will give you something positive to focus on when the problem seems so big that you can't see a way forward.  You can say to yourself, "I have a big problem, yes, but I am still making progress in these areas and I will get through this."

3. You can predict the things that will cause you stress. They nearly always are recurring challenges.You learn to recognise these.  What will happen today that will drive me crazy?  Well, what happened yesterday?  Is it the two year old dumping everything?, the teenage tantrums?, someone who says unkind things?

Make a list of likely stresses and decide how to deal with each one righteously- act not react.  Then when the thing does happen you say to yourself, "Oh yes! I knew that would happen AND I know how I'm going to handle it!"  And you calmly carry out your plan.  You feel better about the problem because it didn't take you by surprise (again)  and you have thought about it and made a decision. (trust yourself-you're smarter than you think.)  You will find many of these things can be avoided ( e.g. baby proof your house) and all of them improve when handled with thought and self-discipline instead of reactions of the moment.

Think of how you want to be-

Your husband comes to you and says, "Dear, we have a big problem, I don't see how we'll get through it."  Reaction- "What do you mean?  Why didn't you tell me?  Why did you....?"

Eye of the storm, self trained, balanced,  strong woman (that's you)- "We can handle this. We'll be alright.  We'll figure it out together."

Think of the kind of childhood you are creating.  Calm, happy, relaxed, you playing with your children.  They come to you with their problems because everything feels better after you've told mum.

Along with your striving to improve, be easy on yourself.  You are doing a hard job and doing it very well! 
Thank you for your comments last week, I really enjoy hearing about you and your little ones.  If any of you want to reply this week, tell me about what you do well, what are your strengths - come on, face it, there are not many people you can tell those things to.  Imagine if you turned up to play group and said "I am so GOOD!. Guess what I DID this week!"
But me, I want to hear it!

​

-Lisa