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LOTH with little ones - update.

Melanie fleshed out her great comment into a blog post full of tips for mothers of little ones who want to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Check it out!

Introduction to the Devout Life: Which virtue to choose?

St. Francis appears to advise us to work on our faults and seek our perfection one step at a time; so I'm going to take that advice to heart in blogging about the particular virtues presented in Part 3.  I'm definitely not going to blog about all of them at once.

The first few chapters of part three are meant to help us discern which virtues to "choose" and how to go about seeking their perfection. (see  here, here, here and  here)

Having considered that, I'm going to "choose" one virtue which I am especially in need of perfecting.  Then I'm going to move on to consider the particular chapters that deal with that virtue.

I'm not going to look at the other chapters in detail here just yet (although I have read quickly through them as I tried to grasp the overall structure of Part 3).  This would get in the way of my "one thing at a time" philosophy. 

After I consider those particular chapters from Part 3, I'll move on to Part 4, "Overcoming Temptations," and consider its advice as applied to that one specific virtue.
 
Now, which one to choose?  To recap, the particular virtues enumerated in Part 3 are

•Virtue when in troubles: Ch. 3. Patience
•Virtue when others find fault with us: Ch. 4-7. Humility, love of humiliation, and care of our good name
•Virtue when faced with frailties, faults, and weakness in ourselves and others: Ch. 8-9, Gentleness towards others and patience with ourselves
•Virtue in the performance of duties Ch. 10-11 and 35: Avoidance of over-eagerness and anxiety; obedience; fidelity on all occasions
•Virtue in the face of material riches or material poverty: Ch. 14-16 Spiritual poverty
•Virtue in friendship: Ch 17-22 Friendships, true and false
•Virtue in sexual matters: Ch 12-13 and 38-41. Chastity, with specific advice to those who are married, to widows, and to virgins

And in dealings with society:

•Ch 25 Proper attire (not modesty, but attractiveness of attire)
•Ch 26-30 Honest and respectful speech
•Ch 31-34 Fun and recreation
•Ch 36 "We must be reasonable." Fairness to neighbor as to yourself.

As you might have guessed from other things I've written of late, I choose to focus on Chapter 10, "Avoidance of over-eagerness and anxiety," along with the two chapters that have something to do with dutifulness and diligence: Chapter 11 on obedience and Chapter 35 on faithfulness in things great and small.

I admit that there were a couple of other virtues that jumped out at me.  For example, as a mother of small children who loses her temper more often than I care to admit, at first I thought that perhaps I should focus on "Gentleness."  But on further reflection I understood that most of the time I lose patience with my children, it's a direct result of anxiety about being late for something or other.  More of that "attachment to time" I have been writing about.  Better to strike at the heart of the problems.

So, "avoidance of anxiety" it is, or will be in the next post. 

Meanwhile, those of you with access to a copy of Introduction to the Devout Life -- which is all of you, as it is available online for free from several sources -- might consider whether to choose another one of the virtues to examine yourself in.  You are welcome to discuss in the comments here (or elsewhere -- drop me a link and I'll put it up).

More from MelanieB on LOTH.

Re: that great comment MelanieB made on making do the best one can with the LOTH, I thought I remembered that some time ago MelanieB had done a long round-up post on the same subject.

   Found it!

Introduction to the Devout Life: The self-help re-org AND desiring the right kinds of good things.

Last time I wrote about Introduction to the Devout Life, I arranged the chapters of part III, "The Practice of Virtue," more thematically. 

Although I think Francis's approach is shockingly modern for the early 1600s, the way he has organized his information is not what we expect when we crack open a self-help book these days.  Five hundred years later, if we want to reform ourselves, we are used to picking up a step-by-step guide.  But there are two big problems with trying to read St. Francis straight through as if that's what he were writing.

First of all, we are going to be all over the place, attempting to focus on this virtue today and that virtue tomorrow and then back to the first virtue the day after next. 

Second of all, Francis makes it quite clear that different people need to focus on particular virtues according to their state in life.  So his general overview of the virtues could not possibly be a step-by-step guide for everyone.

Commenter Jeanie wrote:

Your posts are encouraging me to keep reading the book. In the past, I've always been overwhelmed by the changes every chapter seemed to require of me and would stop reading. Your idea that the book should be read first in its entirety to get an overview and thus discover that he doesn't mean to do it all at once is brilliant.

Yes, it seems to be working well, isn't it?  I'm going to continue trying to organize and re-present what I am getting out of it, in an order that is easier for us woefully-used-to-self-help-books people to follow.

So, last time, I decided to group the following chapters of part three together as a sort of introductory collection:

•Ch 1-2 The choice of virtues
•Ch 37 Discernment of desires for things we should not have or cannot have; dealing with over-ambitious desire for virtues
•Ch 23 Mortification of the body
•Ch 24 Society and Solitude

I read over these chapters as a group, and here is what I think all five of them have in common, which is also why I think they belong in the "Read These First" pile:

Discernment.

All five of these chapters are guidelines that the reader ("Philothea") can use to discern which practices and virtues she should try to develop and in what degree she should develop them.

I wrote before that the first two chapters "The Choice of Virtues" and "Further Advice on Choice of Virtues" are about selecting the right virtues to practice in accord with your state of life, and understanding what virtues are and are not. Now let's look at the other chapters in my cobbled-together introduction.

Chapter 37, "Desires," is about desiring the right things, not the wrong things -- including the wrong spiritual goods.  According to Francis, it is useless to desire what you ought not to have, or what you can't possibly have, or even what you can't have until far in the future.   We need to examine even our apparently-GOOD desires, to determine whether these desires are really right for us, or whether they take the place of the desires we ought to have:

If I desire to buy something that belongs to my neighbor before he is ready to sell it, such a desire is merely a waste of time.  If a sick priest desires to... carry on his work as usual, such desires are pointless, since at the time they cannot be realized; they merely take the place of those he should have, namely, to be patient, resigned, mortified, obedient and submissive in his sufferings, which is God's will for him at the time. 

But often enough our desires are like those of a woman with child who wishes for cherries in the autumn and fresh grapes in the spring....

If I, as a bishop, desire the solitude of a Carthusian I am wasting my time and this desire takes the place of the desire I should have to carry out my present work properly. 

I would not even wish anyone to desire greater talent or better judgement, for such desires are useless and take the place of the desire everyone should have to cultivate whatever talents he already possesses; instead of desiring new means of serving God, he should rather desire to make good use of those already at his disposal....

A soul once purified... has a great appetite for spiritual things, desiring, as one famished, countless practices of devotion, mortification, penance, humility, charity and prayer; such a good appetite, Philothea, is a good sign, but consider whether your digestion can cope with it all.  You should rather choose with the help of your confessor such desires as can be put into practice here and now; when you have done that God will send you others which in their turn can be put into practice without wasting your time.

This does not mean that you should relinquish any of your good desires, but merely that you should put them into practice in due order, locking them away in some corner of your heart while you give your attention to those which can be made to bear fruit in the present moment.  This applies both to spiritual things and to worldly things.  To act otherwise is to live in a constant state of restlessness and anxiety.

How did you like the comparison to pregnancy cravings?  Priceless,  no?

This is a GREAT chapter to read before going on to read the rest of the chapters on particular virtues, because it reminds us to search out those virtues which it is actually in our power to develop in ourselves -- and to develop them, not all at once, but "in due order."  Otherwise, we'll be anxious.  Any of this stuff sound familiar? 

On making do with the Liturgy of the Hours -- interruptibly.

Commenter MelanieB wrote a great comment on the post waaaay back here, the one with St. Francis de Sales's advice on praying a devotion appropriate to one's state in life.  Totally worth reposting, especially since you might miss it if I don't.

I had written that although the Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH) appeals to me tremendously, I have a hard time fitting it into my day, and was beginning to resign myself to the idea that I should try something different.  Melanie says, don't give up:

I agree that you shouldn't force yourself to stick with a devotion that simply isn't working. However, I have had some success with modifying my ideas of how LOTH should work s that it meshes better with my life as mom of little ones. So you may find that LOTH just doesn't work for you; but perhaps you might also have some success by tweaking the way you approach it.

I have found that I can mostly fit LOTH into my chaotic life but I have had to learn to be very flexible and interruptible and loosen my expectations. I did already have the habit of saying morning and evening prayer before I was married, so I did have a leg up in that regard, I suppose. I also started praying LOTH by being loose in my expectations. I was in grad school at the time and kept very irregular hours and very short in discipline. I said morning prayer whenever I first got up, no matter how tired I was and if I fell asleep a dozen times as I tried to pray, well that's just how it went. And evening prayer I would say last thing before going to bed, also falling asleep many nights multiple times before I got through it all. For me developing the habit of daily prayer was more important than the quality of the prayer on any given day. So yes my concentration wsn't what I'd like it to be; but I think one can pray the hours with reduced concentration and there is still much good that comes from just saying the words even if it feels very empty. But like I said, I was single, so I did push myself to finish each hour.

These days those habits do stand me in good stead. Still, some mornings I only get through part of one psalm before I'm interrupted. And I've learned to count that as my morning prayer time and just pick up on the next hour and do the best I can. It's been very hard to overcome my perfectionist tendencies which try to insist that it doesn't "count" if I don't say the whole hour's psalmody and reading and intentions and prayers; but I've definitely made progress in that regard in the past couple of years.

Like Kate suggested, I print out some of my favorite hymns and post them on the cabinets and sing as I cook breakfast and wash the dishes. They are my backup plan. On mornings when LOTH is interrupted or disappears completely, I try to at least start with a mumbled morning offering, try to say the Invitatory Psalm (95), which I've memorized, and then sing a few hymns as I go about my morning, making breakfast and doing dishes.

At noon I have my cell phone set to ring and we all pray the Angelus (the 2 yr old and 4 year old know most of the prayers and often join in; but I don't require it of them.) I just pray regardless of what I'm doing, I don't necessarily stop momming changing a diaper, dishing out lunch, moderating an argument, etc.

If I can, during nap/afternoon quiet time I pray either the short midday or midafternoon prayer or the longer Office of Readings.

Then evening prayer usually doesn't happen these days till after the kids are in bed, which may be 8 or 9pm. I'm often nodding off or very distracted; but I do my best to get through. If I'm really tired, I just skip evening prayer and say the much shorter night prayer and if I'm super tired I do a shortened version of night prayer that omits the psalm and just says the responsory and canticle and closing prayer.

I've also had success in getting the kids involved in praying LOTH with me instead of fighting to keep them away, make them be quiet. I allow myself to be distracted and figure God will give me quiet prayer times when I need it and at other times praying in the midst of interruptions and the circus is undoubtedly good for me too.

I have a big pile of holy cards in my prayer book and hand them to the toddlers to look at as I pray. Sometimes that becomes my prayer as I use the cards for an improvised litany of the saints: that's St Patrick. St Patrick, pray for us...

The girls have both learned how to repeat antiphons and like praying with me. Another way to get them involved was to listen to the LOTH at divineoffice.org I was totally able to feed the baby and listen to that while I got stuff done. Not optimal to multi-task while praying; but better than not praying, no?

When I've got a new baby I try to use the nursing sessions as my monastery bell and say at least a part of the nearest hour whenever I sit down to nurse. Having a laptop nearby allows me to access universalis. Or with the latest baby I did the readings on my ipod touch. Very handy technology which lets you scroll with one finger and works until baby is old enough to be fascinated with the shiny thing in mama's hand.

Sorry if this is too long and not helpful. [(note  from Erin -- you've got to be kidding!]) But I think I might have given up early on if I hadn't had some cheerleaders telling me it could still work for me if I reduced my expectations of what LOTH requires.

It's kind of the same thing I've learned about attending Mass. I may be very distracted by keeping the baby and toddlers from screaming and fighting and I may not hear the readings and miss the homily and even have to leave to change a diaper and miss the consecration; but there is a grace at simply being present as much as I am able and allowing God to be present even in the midst of the distractions and interruptions. I've become convinced that liturgy doesn't require our full attention and concentration to be a source of grace for us-- though it is good for us to try to give it as much as possible.

(All emphasis mine)  

What do you think, readers?  Should MelanieB expand this blog comment into a whole SERIES of how-to-pray-LOTH-with-toddlers on her own blog?  Is this not absolutely chock full of wonderful advice and don't you want to read more?

So, Melanie... thank you for the reminder.   The "all or nothing" perfectionism is bad for most people, but especially poisonous for mothers of littles... most of our "all" is spoken for already.

And look... more reinforcement of my thesis that strengthening habits is the foundational skill for all kinds of self-reform...

And of having a backup plan... love the idea of hymns as backup plan for prayer!  

In the meantime, remind the young single Catholic woman you might know that there's no better time than the present to learn to pray the LOTH... 

St. Francis de Sales on "baby steps." Sort of.

There's lots more about prayer and the sacraments in Part 2 of Introduction to the Devout Life, but I would like to move on to Part 3, "The Practice of Virtue."

I'll write more in another post about the overall structure of this part of the book; right now I want to focus on the introduction that is formed by the first two chapters, "The Choice of Virtue" and "Further Advice on Choice of Virtues."

By "choice of virtue" Francis seems to mean the selection of which virtue or virtues to prefer in practice.  Wait a minute, aren't we supposed to practice all virtues?  Francis has some reservations about that.  Let's look at a few points from the first chapter.

We are called to practice particular virtues on particular occasions: 

A just man is like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season, for his soul, watered by charity, brings forth fruits of  virtue, each one in due season.

So we can't just pick one virtue and focus on practicing it to exclusion of the others:

To insist on performing acts of a particular chosen virtue on every possible occasion is a great defect... and still worse, to criticize and blame those who do not do the same.

And of course we are never free from the obligation to practice certain "general virtues":

Some virtues...should be practiced universally, either in themselves or in so far as they direct the practice of other virtues; for example, we seldom have the chance to practice fortitude, magnanimity or great generosity, but our whole lives should be coloured by the virtues of gentleness, temperance, modesty and humility.

Occasionally there is tension between the practice of two virtues, forcing us to prefer one over the other:

We should prefer the virtues which accord with our duty rather than our inclination.  St. Paula felt inclined to practise great austerities for the spiritual consolation they brought, whereas obedience to her superiors accorded more with her duty!  That is why St Jerome blamed her for practising immoderate austerities against her bishop's advice.

And there are different ways to practice the same virtue, which we must do in accord with our state in life:

...the virtues of prelates, princes, soldiers, married women and widows are all practised in a different way; though everyone should have all the virtues, they are not bound to practise them in the same way.

Also, we have to be careful not to show off:

With regard to the virtues which go beyond our duty, we should prefer the more excellent to the more spectacular.... because [certain virtues] are more striking and more material, are commonly more highly valued and preferred; for example, temporal almsgiving is preferred to spiritual; wearing a hair shirt, fasting, using the discipline and similar mortifications of the body, are preferred to gentleness, kindness and modesty and other mortifications of the heart, which point of fact are more sanctifying. 

 So, Philothea, choose those virtues which are best, not those which are only thought so; those which are most noble, not those which are most noticeable.

So those are some general guidelines for the "choice" of virtues and of ways of practicing them.

But a major point of this chapter, and the one I want to focus on today is that  practicing one virtue will help a person make progress in other virtues.

Partly this happens because, when we work hard to practice a single virtue, we can't help but call upon all our available strength in other virtues to support that practice:

When troubled by some vice we must as far as possible practice the opposite virtue, making use of all the other virtues to this end.  In this way we shall not only overcome our enemy but make progress in all the virtues.  For example, if tempted to pride, or anger, I must force myself to practice humility and gentleness, making use of prayer and the sacraments, and exercising prudence, perseverance and temperance.

Yes, you heard it right:  Concentrating on practicing just one virtue will help you get better at all the virtues:

Wild boars sharpen their tusks by polishing them with their other teeth and sharpen them all in doing so; in the same way, a virtuous man seeking to perfect the virtue most necessary for his defence sharpens it by the practice of the other virtue, which in consequence are perfected and polished in their turn.  It was in this way that Job, by concentrating on patience in the midst of the temptations which assailed him, perfected many other virtues.  As St. Gregory Nazianzen says, it is possible to attain the perfection of all the virtues by the perfect exercise of only one....

You know what this means, don't you?  

This means we can take them one at a time!  

No more must we resolve in moments of wild abandon to reform our entire lives completely and totally from top to bottom!

(Baby steps!)

Maybe, just maybe, I was on to something last week when I made that resolution that I was going to work on one virtue, detachment (specifically from my time, plans, and schedules), and that I was going to work on it by first resolving to look at my kids (instead of at my work) when talking to them.  Preferring, as befits one in my state of life at most moments, the virtue of love toward my own children to the virtue of perseverance in my work.  Could it be that everything, not just this one thing, could get better if I just take it one at a time?  Could it be that focusing on just one virtue (and one specific resolution to improve that virtue) is not necessarily a slacker method, but, um, the wisdom of the saints, or at least a saint?

Yeah, yeah, I know this whole post could be seen as an exercise in reading into something exactly what I hope to see in it... nevertheless it does provide me with some suggestions and practical help towards the way I am trying to stumble forward.

Argh! Baby steps are HARD.

Today, in the midst of school planning, MUCH tougher than I thought to look the kids in the eye.

I can tell I will be working on this habit for a long while.

Looking them in the eye.

So a couple of days ago I posted that I am going to work on a single new habit: looking my children in the eye when I talk to them or when they talk to me.

 Which is a sort of embarrassing resolution to announce. It's one thing to say "I'm going to quit eating between meals" because, hey, we all know everyone does that. Or to say "I'm going to start doing a load of laundry every day instead of letting it pile up till the weekend." Because there's nothing wrong with having a laundry day on Saturday, you know?

 But I realized after I hit "post" that I had basically just announced to the world, "I don't look my own children in the eye when I talk to them." 

Yup, I habitually give orders, receive kisses, explain schoolwork, and distribute discipline with my eyes fixed on some other thing, namely whatever I'm busy with at the moment. I just can't keep my attention fixed on my little people. The whole time they are talking to me I am thinking about stuff I have to do, or maybe what I was doing before they interrupted me.

I'm like diners in one of those restaurants with a TV up on the wall in every corner. They try to keep up their end of the conversation, but they can't help letting their eyes drift up to the screen they can see over their date's shoulder. I'm like that, but my eyes keep drifting back, not to a TV, but to a cutting board, a notebook, a list, a pile of sweepings, a computer screen, a diaper.

The first day wasn't hard at all. In fact I was a little bit giddy with the new freedom of only having ONE very specific improvement to focus on. And for once it wasn't "I mustn't spend so much time on the computer." So I actually enjoyed spending, well, a LOT of time on the computer that day.

 All I was trying to do was this: When a child came up and spoke to me, I turned all the way away from the computer or whatever else I happened to be doing, looked the child in the eye, gave her my full attention, listened and spoke to her like she was a human being. Then I waited until she was done and went away again before I turned back to my work.

 No, it wasn't too bad, although I found that a couple of times I had to only pretend that I was listening to the children, because my whole brain was consumed with "don't turn and look at the screen, don't turn and look at the screen, don't turn and look at the screen."

The second day, today, was a little tougher because when late afternoon rolled around, I had been out of the house all day, I was tired and overstimulated, and I desperately wanted to "veg." Which at least for me is code for "ignore every other human being around me, unless by chance they are bringing me cups of hot caffeinated beverages."

So I let the kids play computer games and hid with the nursling in my room for a while, hoping the others would not come looking for me. I figured that if I could make it unlikely that they would interrupt me, then I wouldn't have to worry about paying attention to them, and I would still be keeping my resolution. That worked pretty well.

Eventually, however, I had to feed them dinner, and that was pretty rough, habit-wise. When we eat and my husband isn't around, like at lunchtime, or this particular evening for dinner, I tend to dish up dinner in the kitchen and then carry my bowl over to the computer to read blogs while I eat. I am a big believer in the family dinner hour, but for some reason I don't walk the walk when my husband isn't around. (mental note: later, strengthen habit of family dinner hour to include business-trip evenings; it is not called "husband dinner hour" after all.)

 I ate my salad in front of the computer, but then I went back for a bowl of chili and when I got to the kitchen the children started telling me all about the latest nature movie they had watched. We hit the zoo this morning with Minnesota Mom and her kids, hence my overstimulation, and I guess while I was hiding in my room they had been inspired to go watch some of the BBC nature programs.

So I found myself standing in the kitchen holding a bowl of chili and trying hard to appear that I was paying full attention to my 9yo's explanation of why some bird eggs are white with brown speckles and other bird eggs are black with white speckles. And then I had to pretend to pay attention to my 6yo's monologue on the habits of bower birds. And all the time I was painfully, ashamedly aware of how much I wanted to eat my chili in front of the computer screen instead of marveling at bower birds, or egg speckles, or even nine-year-old and six-year-old bird enthusiasts.

About halfway through it occurred to me that I might be able to fake my attention more convincingly if, instead of pretending to the boys that I was paying attention to them, I pretended to myself that I was listening to a narration for schoolwork. That I had assigned the boys to go watch the nature movie and then come back and tell me everything they knew about egg speckles and bower birds. That actually worked pretty well. My teacher brain turned on and started looking for questions I could ask them to test their comprehension, and that made me have to pay actual attention to what they were saying.

 I learned that the surface of the eggs get speckled after the shell forms in the body of the bird. I learned that the bower bird does not actually live in the bower.

All in all, I am glad I am trying this. It is surprisingly challenging, and I am more firmly convinced now that the problem with ignoring my kids is not the computer, or any other one thing that I happen to be doing, so much as it is a problem with my attention to whatever it is I happen to be doing. I get really focused. I have to un-focus myself unless I have created a special time and place where I can be focused. And I think this exercise in permitting interruptions is going to help me learn how.

It's like trying to unlearn everything I absorbed from countless productivity tips over the years, though!

Resolution.

See my cliffhanger post for background.

How can I use what I've learned about gluttony and apply it to the other besetting imperfections in my life?

I've been turning the problem over in my mind especially as I lie in bed at night, waiting to fall asleep.  And a few days ago, just as I was drowsing off, pondering, I had a small thought that seemed promising and then as I tried fitting its connections into the various slots in my problem I found that it seemed to work.

I got up, somewhat astonished, and went downstairs for a glass of water, and in a bleary moment of worry that I would have forgotten my little thought in the morning, I scrawled one word on a sticky note and left it where I knew I would see it in the morning.

Once, when I was heavy, the fundamental problem was that I was inordinately attached to food, and suffered from a fear of going without "enough" of it. I had to learn how to practice detachment from food so that hunger -- the state of waiting for food -- would not make me anxious.

Well, the analogy comes from the fact that my current fundamental problem is also one of attachment.  I am inordinately attached to time.  I keep trying to call it "mine."  My time.  I own it.  I should be able to make it do what I want.  I reach ahead into the minutes, hours, and days, and assign an expectation to each slot.  Because each day I get 24 hours that I think should belong to me by rights.

And of course, that's simply not true.

I need to practice detachment from time, the way I once needed to practice detachment from food.

Because attachment to "my" time underlies all the problems I've written about, the difficulty with prayer, the distancing myself from my children's problems, the irritation with being interrupted, the anxiety about changing plans.  Just as I once feared hunger, I also fear running out of time, not having enough time.  I used to hoard food; I still jealously guard my time, always trying to do something extra to save it for later, spending it with difficulty.

"Mom, can I paint?"
"No. It takes too much time to clean up."

"Mom, can you read me a story?"
"No.  I am getting ready for dinner right now."

"Mom, can you play a game with me?"
"No.  It's my break time."

* * *

How can I take what I've learned about detachment from food and apply it to detachment from time?  Well, there are a number of similarities here.

(1) Both are "things of this world" that will pass away.  As hard as it may be to imagine eternity without, say, hot fresh pizza, the fact is that there are a finite number of pizza slices I can and will eat before I kick the bucket.  It's hard to imagine eternity without time in which to do stuff, too.  And yet, though I like pizza and I like to keep busy, I'm supposed to enjoy this afterlife thing?  I suppose one possible response is to try to eat as much pizza and get as much stuff done as I can, here on earth, but it's plain that another response is to learn to let go of both.

(2) It is impossible to go cold turkey from time or planning.  Just as the person with food attachment issues may not solve them by declining to eat food ever again, the person with time-attachment issues may not solve them by declining to allocate time.  Everyone has to eat something; and everyone has to spend time doing something.  So it is not an issue of "quitting" so much as it is an issue of learning to live peacefully alongside and in the stuff.

Blessed are the efficient, for they shall get all their paperwork in on time, and that shall give them a chance to catch up on the laundry.  Hm, doesn't quite have a ring to it.

(3)  Both are fundamental and fear-based imperfections that feed a set of destructive habits.  In  the case of gluttony, fear of hunger led me to habitually eat too much at meals, to eat snacks I didn't need, to hoard food, and generally to think too much about food all the time.  In the case of attachment to "my" time, fear of running out of time leads me to spend what ought to be my leisure time and my family time working or planning.  It leads me to refuse to respond to children who interrupt me at my work, because I've already decided what to do with that block of time.  Just as I used to like the sensation of eating too much, I recognize that I derive pleasure from working or planning.  Both allayed fear.

(4)  Here is why I alluded to mom-blog angst in the previous post.  I don't know for sure what drives anyone else to find faults with themselves.  But I do know something about ME that might apply to others too.  Just as the invisible fear of not having enough food was the root cause of many bad habits, this fear of not having enough time, underlies a host of seemingly different visible faults.  Instead of attacking everything at once, then, it should be possible to make progress on every visible related imperfection by working slowly and steadily on that root of fear and attachment.

(5) Previously, I tried to deal with the visible problem in ways that actually worsened the underlying cause.  When I dieted to lose weight, I became MORE obsessed with food, and especially with "getting enough nutrition" and "getting enough to feel satisfied."  When I have wrangled with time in the past, I have tried to do it through ever-more-finely-divided scheduling:  Not enough time with the kids?  Put them in another block on the schedule!  Some scheduling is necessary, obviously, just as nutrition is necessary for the dieter, but a schedule is not going to solve the problem of undue attachment to control over my time.  If anything it feeds the notion that I CAN control and own time that "belongs" to me.

(6)  In both cases, it was disgust with the behaviors themselves, with the bad habits, that awoke me to the need for change.  I didn't really detach from gluttony because I wanted to lose weight.  I did it because I was tired of eating so much.  Well, I am also tired of saying NO, I'M BUSY to everybody so much.  I want to stop now, please, even if it will be hard and will require me to fight temptation.

* * *

So how will I do it?  

Well... How did I detach myself from food?

I worked at the level of the habits, changing behavior first.  I hoped that I could teach myself that I didn't have to fear hunger. But I knew that even if I never stopped fearing, I still had some control over my behaviors and my habits, so I started there.

I did experiments on myself to see what worked.

I talked and wrote about my new habits, a lot.  I described the successes and I described what I learned from the setbacks.  I kept it front and center in my attention.

I read books:  how-to books and memoirs.  Sometimes I gleaned tips and tricks, but mostly it was a way of keeping my attention on what I was trying to change.

Knowing I had the rest of my life to practice new habits, I didn't hurry.  I worked on just a few habits at a time, not everything at once, and I took very small steps.

* * *

I don't know for sure if this will "work."  When I was learning how not to be a glutton, I didn't write openly about it until my weight started to come off.  I wasn't willing to take the risk of being proven a coward and a quitter.

It's a little different now. I have some hope, based on my previous experience.

So.  Habit number one.

Starting right now, unless I'm driving, I will look at my children when I talk to them and when they talk to me. 

That's it.  That's my first baby step.

Here we go. 

St Francis de Sales, pray for us.

 

A deliberate cliff hanger.

Surf the Catholic mom blogs and it doesn't take long to gather a lot of angsty I'm-a-bad-mom links.

(I was going to post some, but I decided I don't want the mombloggers in question to think I am picking on them.)

 And what do you see? 

I spend too much time on the internet.  I spend too much time on the phone.  I need to take more time out for prayer in my day.  I need to stop reading about other people's lives.  I need to be fully present to my children.  I need to be more fully present to my spouse.  I probably should be taking the kids to daily Mass.  Maybe I should take a break from blogging.  Maybe I should go on a diet.  I should really re-subscribe to Flylady because my house is a mess.  I should really unsubscribe from Flylady because I can't keep up.  I need to bake more cookies.  I need to celebrate more feast days.   I need to sign up for a holy hour. 

I need to be more loving.  I need to be more devout.  I need to be more motherly.  I need to be more devoted.  I need to be more available.  I need to be more organized.  I need to be ...

... more...

... everything.

Everything at once.

Stop the madness, people.  Stop it now.

  * * *

I've been hinting for a long time that I want to explore the possibility that what I learned about gluttony through my weight loss could be applied in other areas of my life.  

Here:   

Is the "answer" to overcoming temptations of all kinds really for the "inner self" -- the one who "takes delight" in moral or correct or healthy or Godly behavior -- to set up the kind of structure around the "members" that cajoles them to behave?  To offer to the weak flesh, in return for good behavior, the short-term goodies it craves?

And here:

What do you really want to change about yourself?  I mean -- among the things that you could change.  Really.

I know I have a long list.  I wish I reflexively, automatically, responded to my children by strengthening connections, not rupturing them.   I wish that desire for the Lord, rather than duty, would draw me to prayer several times a day.  I wish that my irritation at an untidy house didn't get in the way of welcoming people into my home;  I wish I was more generous to my friends.  I wish I had a better grasp on how much money I spend.  I wish I knew how to teach my children love for Jesus as well as I think I know how to teach them theology and logic.  I wish I didn't waste any time sitting in front of the computer each day.   The list goes on.

Once I would have said "I wish I wasn't so heavy and out of shape."  I don't say that anymore.  So:  hope.

And skill.  I have a theory -- still untested -- that I can apply something I learned with the heavy/out of shape thing, to all those other wishes and longings. 

And here:

I didn't gain willpower overnight.  But I did, it seems, gain a will.  And the will to live differently was enough to drive me to find a way around the obstacles, the impulses.  It was suddenly so obvious to me that to follow these urges would still feel good, but would be the opposite of what I desired -- those paths would not just take me the opposite direction from what I desired, they would BE the opposite of what I desired.  I wanted to feel the steeper trail beneath my feet, not just the smooth downward grade.  I wanted more than the view from the top.  Though the effort would hurt, I wanted to climb. 

That desire is something that seems to have come out of nowhere, a pure gift; the closest thing I have ever come to understanding what grace is.  I believe there is more yet I can learn from it.  I believe I know what I am to do with it next. 

Will I?

And here:

I keep hinting about wanting to use what I've learned to defeat gluttony, to combat my next most besetting vice, which is letting this leisure-time activity of mine (and it's really not just internet use -- reading in general is part of it too) consume my attention.  It's possible that part of the problem is overconsumption, devoting too much time to it, and I guess I haven't exhausted the possibilities of self-limitation of total hours.  But honestly, I don't think it is "total time" that is the trouble.  It's the totality with which I get absorbed, even in taking a very short break to check e-mail or to dash off a quick blog post.  It's the reluctance to be interrupted.  I think Jen may have put her finger on it a bit in her post. 

Part of my vocation as mother demands that I make myself available to be interrupted when my children need something from me.  I am terrible at this.  Yes, I also need to train my children not to interrupt me for trivial matters, but you know, I want to be a mom who says "Sure, I'll read you a story" or "Yes, I'll help you settle that argument" or "Okay, I'll feed you breakfast."  I don't want the first thing I say to my kids in the morning to be "Aaaargh!  What are you doing up already?  It's not even seven o'clock yet!"  Even if I'm not done with my blog post.

I am struggling with how to put the pieces together for a strategy to change myself.  If I can do what I've already done, what can't I do?  But I still am not sure how to go about it.  I feel like I need a plan.

It wasn't just a plan I needed.  I needed a unifying theme.  I couldn't quite wrap my mind around exactly HOW the things I wanted to change could be analogous to the thing I DID change.  I know I don't want my children to remember me constantly staring at the computer screen, I know I need to say "Yes" more often, I know I need to be cheerfully interruptible.  And I had an inkling that the gluttony thing, what I've learned there, is meant to serve that higher purpose.  But I couldn't quite see how.  I have been thinking and praying about it for a many weeks, hoping that something would come clear to me.  Something that would show me how to get started, as clearly as that long-ago epiphany (May 13, 2008) when I woke up and decided to try being hungry for a change.

And a few nights ago, I think it did come to me.  I think I see where this has been going, all along.

More on this later.