Pearl One
A couple months back, I fell down the rabbit hole that is Instagram and was algorithm-fed reels featuring newborns and what their first thirty minutes of life look like. Some babies will need NICU, others won’t. And as I watched I realized that the twin, triplet and quad moms were propping bottles to feed their babies.
And everything I’d read said that propping a baby with a bottle was a hard no.
But on these reels the triplet and quad moms were actually showing off how they propped each baby with a bottle. The mom stayed in the room with the babies monitoring the entire time and provided a floor-show for the four smiling, but drinking, adorables. I noticed that each baby waited patiently for their bottle because they had pacifiers.
The other thing I noticed watching the reels: if a baby stayed in the hospital for one or two nights, most came out sucking away on a Binky.
Pacifiers! I’d tried to introduce pacifiers a few times with my babies but didn’t think much about it when they kept spitting them out.
We ended up spending a fortune on mother’s helpers and it’s startling to see that all I likely needed was a small piece of plastic.
The next time I have twins, they’re getting pacifiers and will occasionally be propped. There’s far less crying when the little plug is in place.
So what do babies and pacifiers have to do with you and me?
Here’s what I took from my experience, in every situation in which I find myself, I’ll remember to always be on the hunt for the pacifier.
Look through your life and, as you do, ask yourself how can I make this task easier? Am I sweating something that really just needs a pacifier?
Take a look at the “pacifiers” I used to lose wight and preserve the loss for a lifetime.
- I called weight loss/preservation tasks a part-time job, instantly opening swaths of time to focus on all that’s involved with preserving a weight loss.
- Always used ‘eat before I eat.’ Usually, I’ll have an apple, banana or yogurt.
- I always eat a small dinner and take a great book upstairs (my favorite small dinner is brown rice and stir-fry veggies from Costco).
The first two strategies are about keeping hunger at bay (a huge, huge deal). The small dinner/great book strategy is about giving ourselves something (a phenomenal book) when we take something away (dessert). So, that’s my new plan in life: find the pacifiers. They’re there, just keep looking. ♥
Pearl Two
How are you implicit in your food/weight situation? I have a cousin who has spent many years going and then not going to AA. She’d tried their “A meeting a day for the first ninety days.”
Three times.
I finally asked her. “How does the alcohol get into your home in the first place: she readily said, “The alcoholic brings it into the house, that’s how.” My thought was, why bring alcohol into your home? The problem starts back at the grocery store which is true, but of course, it really starts with her thinking that she can remain sober with her favorite alcohol in the house.
Back to us. It’s easier to see in others and much harder to see in ourselves, but when are we bringing home “the alcohol” and trying to live with it in our house? How do we do this to ourselves?
So, here’s our plan: from now forward let’s give the whole idea of being implicit in our problems over to the journal. Write about how you bring home the alcohol. Write about how you fake yourself out. Write about what being totally honest with yourself would be like. Just keep writing, The wisdom is in the writing. ♥
Pearl Three
Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff.
This sequence is based on a friend’s experience.
Automatic Sequence
- Situation: My neurologist doesn’t return my calls.
- Automatic Thought: What is happening?
- Feeling: Angry. Sometimes furious.
- Action: I keep sending messages.
- Result: I’m not trying the new med that I heard about.
Chosen Sequence
- Situation: My neurologist doesn’t return my calls.
- Chosen Thought: For whatever reason, Dr. such-and-such is gone (in a sense) and here’s what I’ll do now: I have to be my own heath care advocate.
- Feeling: Emboldened, still miffed that this medical process has been so hard, but I feel relief at giving up on this one doctor.
- Action: I get referrals and start reading a lot of websites to find “my” neuro. Result: I find a new neuro.
- Result: I find one that I like who shares my thoughts on my disease and prescribed the med I wanted to try.
Pearl Four
Books love us and want us to be happy
This is the kind of book I always hope to find for our group. It’s a book of essays by a writer who grew up “poor” and she’s writes about the class line between the working poor and the middle class The essays blend beautifully into the next. Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class by Sarah Smarsh is a perfect read for smart, sensitive people like ourselves.
Pearl Five
It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.”
— Queen Elizabeth II
♥, Wendy
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