It has been recently brought to my attention, by several different sources, that I talk a lot.I know that I talk a lot. I have always talked a lot. I have a very random thought process, that mostly contains of the fact that I think out loud and I think very randomly. For instance...my friend just reminded me about a story I once told about how everytime I see garbage bags on the side of the highway, I anticipate that it could be filled with dead bodies. Everytime that I walk in the woods, I feel like I am going to happen upon lost children. I sit up at night thinking of a plan if someone were to break into my house at any moment....basically I often anticipate the worst possible scenario. Oddly though, I would consider myself to be a pretty positive person. Someone told me recently that I do this thing when I am having a converstaion, where I tend to talk over them, fill in thier answers, anticipate what they MUST be thinking and basically hold the whoel converstaion with myself. Well that cant be fun for the person on the other end of that conversation. So, obsess is what I do best, so I have been thinking about why I think that I do this. One. I am ALWAYS thinking. I am always wondering about things that have not happened to me yet, or fear that things will repeat the same pattern that they have in the past, or wondering about some off the wall subject. Then I feel this overwhelmong need to share EVERY BIT of this information with everyone who I come in contact with. Two. I am ALWAYS analyzing. I am trying to figure out what people are thinking, mainly what they think of me and what they are thinking about what i am saying. I think that I know people that are close to me very well, so I think that I know what they are going to say. Three. I am impatient. I like to dominate conversations. Its not that I don't care what you are saying to me, I really do. But I am also anxious to relate to it and somehow bring it into my own experiences. I am a problem solver. If someone comes to me with a situation, it is far more likely that I am going to try to "fix" your problem then really just listen and empathize with you. I have mixed feelings about this quality in myself. Four. I am DEEPLY disturbed by long periods in which no one says anything. When I am driving somewhere with my husband, he would be happy not to say a word the entire way there. I think that the only reason anyone could POSSSIBLY have for not talking is if they are upset. Therefore when it gets too quiet I start analyzing what I could have done to upset the other person. Are they mad at me? Are they upset about something I did? Five. Genetics. Six. Constant need for approval and to feel like people are relating to me. I think that most of us have a hard time feeling like those around us REALLY understand what we are like. Who we are. What our lives are like, what our days are like, its hard to really know someone that way. But we are all desperate to feel understood. The truth is, no one will really ever know what it is like to be us. The things that we struggle with, worry about, love, hate, are irritated with...no one will really know that.

My immediate reaction to being told that I talk a lot, was yeah I talk...but half the time no one is really listening. Its more of my random babble. Calming myself down and just bringing the listener along. The things is, I don't think a lot of the time that I am expecting the other person to really KNOW....just for them to empathize. The most important thing I can get from this is actually in two parts....ONE i need to stop thinking that other people are going to always get it. Sometimes they will, sometimes they wont. I also need to stop trying to fix everyone else's lives. People aren't always seeking an answer.The same way that I am not.TWO. I need to realize that conversations are two part. There is speaking, then listening. Asking and answering. If I am having the whole conversation with myself, I am not really allowing the other person to think for themselves. I may think that I know what someone is going to say, but you may be surprised if you let them actually answer. I also am trying, TRYING, to learn that silence is not always bad. Just because someone is not talking to me, it does not mean that they hate me and are annoyed by the fact I am even sitting next to them. Sometimes silence is just that. Silence. No need to analyze further then that. I find that as I wrote this blog...the reason i started this was basically to have a constant outlet to " think out loud" no one is necessarily going to answer me. But I still learn to define and resolve my anxieties by putting them out there. and one more thing....those of you that have listened to HOURS of me going on and on about nothing in particular.thanks.

Anxious

Sometimes I think that my anxiety is overtaking my life. I think that I have been a fairly anxiety ridden person for most of my life, I obsess over things REALLY bad. I always worry about what people think of me. I am a people pleaser, perfectionist, dont like change....etc. In some ways my anxiety has gotten better over the years. Some of the things that I used to obsess over are gone. But wait. Now they have been replaced with NEW obsessions. OK, its not beter. Its worse. I am really bothered by crowds of people for one...we went to the Baltimore Aquarium this weekend with our girls and as I was standing in the crowded giftshop, my palms began to sweat, I got shaky and started feeing like everything was closing in. Thats one of my issues. Then there is my obsession with germs....I have a PROFUND FEAR of being sick, one of my kids being sick, anyone being sick, the thought if sickness, the word sickness. I sanitize all the time, wipe down groery carts, door knobs, bleach toys, carry lysol srpay and hand sanitizer. When kids get sick and their boogers are running down thier face and the wipe/eat/lick/blow them, I get heart palpatations. The words, " Mom, my stomach hurts." make me literally fear my pulse raise. Yet my kids have had some pretty strange boughts of illness...we have scarlet fever, HINI, various allergic reactions, cold, flus, fevers, strep throat...and everytime I have to decontaminate EVERYTHING. I just bought a new washer with a sanatize cycle. It gives me comfort.I am really obsessive over certain elements of my house...like the allignment of the couch cusions, the way the beds are made, dust on glass surfaces, pilows being fluffed the same way, vaccum lines in the carpet.....etc. Hi. My name is Rebecca and I am a neat freak. I dont care for the mess to happen. I let my kids do a lot of art and play in the dirt and lay anyway they want to, but GOd help me as soon as the project is done, everything has to get cleaned up right away and go right back in its place. When Eden opens new gifts, she immediately goes and puts them where they belong. OCD at four. Thanks, genetics. I freak out REALLY easily over things. I dont like unexpected, or different, or change. I dont handle the unexpected well.AT ALL. I like a very orderly flow to my day, dont like when my plan gets disrupted, or my agenda altered. That being said, I work with children for a living. I find my line of work to be a kind of therepy..a way to say" Hey, Rebecca...no matter what you think YOU have planned for today, we have DIFFERENT plans..hahahahahaha." Working with children for a livin, though it is hard for me in many ways, has taught me to lighten up and let the dishes sit for a minute and read another story. Having children around me is very good for my soul. My latest obession, is over the fact that I talk to much. I care WAY to much what people think of me, and I am trying VERY hard to let that go. I like everyone to be happy, dont like conflict, will usually defalut my own preferences and needs to make someone else happy...blahhhhh. I am working on not being like that. I had like five people in the last couple of weeks tell me that I talk to much. Its not like I dont KNOW that I talk to much. I know this. I think that I do it becuase I have a constant need for reasssurance. And I think out loud. My stories often make no sense becuase as I am talking, one point makes me think of another point and then I end up having an entire conversation with myself.

I want to learn to listen.

Jesus tells a parable in the book of John about sheep following thier shepherd. The sheep( us) know the sound of the shepherd voice ( Christ) and we are supposed to follow it. To trust it. When the shepherd speaks, we are to listen and to let Him guide us. If I am constantly filling my day with my own thoughts and obsessions and inner dialogue....how am I going to hear what He is telling me? I need to quiet my mind and let the voice of GOD guide me with my day and realize that I am not in control of any of this. I have no control over how my day is going to go. I CAN control how I handle it. I don' t think that I am going to suddenly be able to quiet all of the things in my mind that tell me what to panic about. But I do think that I can learn to stop and listen to the voice of God telling me that its going to be alright and that I can somehow handle it. And one more thing..... really, when we stop and listen, the message that is really being given is not what we thought it was at all.