The Bar ~ Should You Lower Your Bar?

Parents, Teachers, Coaches, Bosses –

Yes, they all tell you to RAISE the bar.

When is it a good idea to LOWER your bar?

I’ll tell you in a second.

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Good Friday to you!

Another week of My Written Thoughts.  I can’t believe we began this conversation back in March.  Time, indeed, flies when you’re having great fun.

But before we get started with the Thought of the Day, I would like to make an announcement!

Good News:  Next week, I’ll be with my younger son.  Even though he has made this cross-country, 2-day trip by himself numerous times, he has kindly accepted my request… to help him pack up his apartment for the summer and make the road trip home with him. He will be a senior, in the fall, so this is my last opportunity to share this journey.

Bad News:  I will be without my laptop or iPad on this trip; thus, I will be unable to write to you each day.  But please know, I will miss our daily visits…and will return to my weekday posts on Monday, May 25th – Memorial Day.  I’ll have a fresh catalog of ideas, messages, and articles to share with you.

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Now on to the message.

This is not an easy one for me….and this is why I have waited so long to actually pen this particular post.

Since my childhood, every person in a position of authority has instructed me to raise the bar.  So when I think about the ‘Bar Analogy’, I automatically think:  Elevate the bar as high as it will go.  Did you have that same experience?  If you grew up in America, I bet so.

In early 2014, I was describing (in detail) my last few, difficult years.

As I droned on and on about my feelings of hurt and betrayal of close friends and associates… and the disappointment I experienced by people who I thought were my true allies, the patient friend who was getting this dastardly data dump…stopped me in mid-sentence.

“Lisa, you have got to lower your BAR, now.”

This woman was my close friend, and we both spoke the same language.  But still,  I truly didn’t know what the heck she meant.

She went on…to gently tell me that my hurt was so completely justifiable and absolutely understandable.  But what was keeping me stuck….stuck in that ‘bad place’ in my emotional life was the obvious Bitterness, Anger, and Resentment.

It’s that old cliché – The foolish person is the one who drinks a healthy dose of poison daily, thinking it will hurt the mean person. The BAR in my life was the poison I was drinking. It didn’t allow me to move on to the good things that life had to offer.

That simple sentence.  Lower your BAR.

To hear it as spoken words… with good intentions… and delivered with true affection and kindness…allowed me, for the first time, to move past my deep-seated hurt and entrenched feelings of betrayal.

My beloved husband and children who supported me and loved me through those difficult years instantly noticed the positive change in my countenance.

I was born an optimistic person.

Always genuinely believed that tomorrow will be even better than today.

Even during my darkest days, I could still feel that sense of optimism and hope.  I just didn’t know what was keeping me from moving forward.

Sometimes life throws a rapid succession of molehills and mountains in the path of even Pollyanna-types such as myself.  No one is immune to the travails in life.

Without a plausible explanation, the basic instruction to lower my BAR resonated with me….

And if something helps me greatly …I am going to share it with YOU.

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Let’s talk again on Memorial Day.  Monday, May 25th.  I’m looking forward to it.