The 50% Rule

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When Gabe graduated grade 8 middle school, the principal got up and gave a speech.

I know I’ve talked about this speech before because it really bothered me.

He told all these young middle schoolers that they have a “right to be happy”. He included it with some rights that I do believe children have: like a a right to a safe environment.

But a right to be happy? Like happiness is a final destination that they have a right to?

I wish he had chosen his words more carefully and let these middle schoolers know that they have a “right to choose happiness, to seek happiness, to go on a journey to find happiness”.

I felt like he was setting them all up for disappointment.

It still makes me cringe when I think of it. (Same way I cringe when I hear parents say they just want their kids to be happy).

I am a huge fan of Brooke Castillo and the Life Coach School. One of my most favourite concepts that she teaches is the 50% rule.

Essentially, she teaches that life is good 50% of the time, but the other 50% is not so great.

Now these percentages may vary here and there (60/40, 70/30, 55/65), but essentially what she is trying to say is to stop trying to fight the bad. Accept that it is there – it’s part of life. It’s actually the part that helps us progress, grow and develop. And it likely will be about 50% of the time.

If we accept that, then we actually spend less time worrying about being unhappy. We all know about the struggles that you can have when you feel unhappy and then you feel unhappy about being unhappy… it adds extra unhappy layers.

But if we feel low and just recognize it is what it is, “oh it’s part of my 50% unhappy”, we don’t have to add the extra misery layers.

The 50% rule can be applied to everything really. Most relationships, jobs, activities. When we expect things to be 90/10 or expect things to be perfect, we end ups being disappointed – and more unhappy.

I know it’s a concept that many people resist. I personally have found it very helpful as it “normalizes” some of the challenges I have – and helps me be able to get through those times and grow. It helps me feel less “woe is me, poor me” when something goes astray – it’s just part of my bad 50%.

Most importantly, I find it really helps me appreciate the good 50%. This is a struggle for me. Rob gave me a key chain at Christmas that says “Enjoy the journey”. I’ve been trying to work hard at doing that, as I’ve always enjoyed it, but then had the fear in the back of my mind that “this is too good to be true, things are going to go off course any moment” which causes me to not enjoy where I am at.

The fact is, things will likely go off course – 50% of the time. And that is ok. It’s part of my 50-50.

I can always choose happiness, but it’s ok to know that a good chunk of my life won’t be all roses, sunshine and lollipops. A good chunk of my life will be hard, sad or messy. And that is ok.

A good chunk of my children’s lives will be hard, sad and messy too. And that is also ok. It allows them the opportunity to grow, learn, develop. It allows them to build resilience, effective coping skills, and character. They need to have the 50% bad – just like I do. I want them to be happy. But I want them to have even more than that too – I want them to know that they can have a beautiful life even when they aren’t always happy. They can thrive even with the 50% rule.

The Hard Way or the Easy Way

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While we were away , I had an interaction with one of my kids.

Although it was with one of my kids this time, I have to say it really could be any of my kids, or my husband, or a friend, or myself, as it’s pretty universal.

We make things harder than they really need to be.

In this particular situation, I had asked my child to do something (I can’t even remember what now, and it’s not important), and they pushed back. It was a simple request, could have taken 2 seconds to do and then it would be over with, but instead they were pushing back, resisting and then it became a “thing” and you know the story…. Twenty minutes later there was anger, hurt feelings, frustration and distance.

Why, why, why?

I said to my child (and my other children that were around), “You know, there are really two ways to live your life: the hard way and the easy way”.

Now I know this seems weird when I am always saying “we do hard things”, but ‘m not talking about the things that we do. I’m talking about the way we do things. You can do hard things the easy way or the hard way.

I was working with a client about processing her emotions and we talked about the three ways you can approach feelings and emotions. As we were discussing them, I realized it fit right in to what I was trying to explain to my child.

The three ways:

1. Resist them  (push against them, deny their existence, run from them, avoid them).

You can resist everything, but that really makes your life much harder. You open up the doors to more contention, and everything seems so hard. You likely open yourself up to more drama too.

2. Try to cope with them in maladaptive ways (try to replace them with other strategies that are usually not helpful and even self destructive)

You can try to “cope” with things, but bad coping can turn into some behaviours which cause more problems. We don’t want to feel negative emotions (which are a fact of life) or deal with things so we choose other things to help us avoid or to feel better: over eating, over drinking, overworking, over sleeping, over gaming, addictions (substance, activities) etc.

3. Process them (feel them, accept them for what they are, talk about them)

Allowing yourself time to feel, grieve, be angry, be happy, be confident, be insecure, be sad etc.  Trying to accept it is what it is. Let it just happen. Acknowledge it’s existence. Talk to someone. Write about it. Sit with it.  Ask for help. Just do it. Let it go. Don’t overanalyze.

Sometimes this even takes a great deal of humility.

I think that in the short term, processing things seems harder. It seem uncomfortable. I know in the case of the situation with my child, it felt like “giving in”, or “being told what to do”. Sometimes it may feel like you are accepting things that you may not want to at that moment. But in the long term, it makes life much easier.

Resistance and maladaptive coping strategies may feel like much easier solutions initially. They may feel like they provide temporary relief, but really all they do is delay things, and often make our future lives more complicated. They are usually what creates more drama in our lives. And often we resist things from a place of pride and ego. “No one can tell me what to do”, “I’m my own person”, “I won’t be controlled”, “I will do what see fit”, Who does xyz think they are telling what to do”. You can do and say these things, but often, it just makes life more difficult for you (realizing of course that you really only control your own life regardless of what stand you are trying to take with others). It just is an exhausting and often lonely path to take.

The question to ask is: Am I making things easier for myself or harder?

Give yourself a bit a of a break (and a break to to others around you) and choose the easier way. Life is hard enough without building your own obstacles and road blocks that you need to go back and climb over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clean and Dirty pain

Quote(s) of the Week(s)

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With working on all our Morocco posts, the quote of the week fell off the wagon.

But we still had some good ones up in our kitchen and shared during Family Night that I wanted to share:

“The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose”.

So many times we struggle with what is the purpose of all this? Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Is there something we are supposed to do.

I love this quote because it simplifies it: you are here to live a life of purpose.

What is your purpose? Well, the beauty is living each day to find purpose. To make each day count. To do things that are uplifting. To be inspired and inspire others. To serve. To love. To laugh. To learn. To leave a legacy.

“Worry pretends to be necessary”

I was listening to a podcast while I was driving when I heard this one and as soon as I stopped driving I had to write it down

Because it is soooooo true!!

I think we feel like if we aren’t worrying, then it seems like we don’t care. I think sometimes people actually judge your care and your concern (and maybe even you love??) by how much you worry. I’ve seen it myself, where people will say to me “Aren’t you worried about xyz”, as if somehow I’m lacking if I am not worried.

Worry is fake.

It makes you feel like you are more invested in something than you really are (at you are the same level of invested whether you worry or not).

You’re actually only more invested in the problem though.

Worry prevents you from being part of the solution. It allows you the indulgence to stay stuck, to not move forward and sometimes to not even take full responsibility (let others do the work as you are too busy worrying).

Now, I’m not saying it’s easy not to worry. It’s not! It’s hard to stop the what if’s and the maybes. But it is so helpful to me to remember that worry is about things in the future that may not even happen. It helps me to remember that I probably should not expend the limited energy and emotional brain power I have now on things that may never occur. Is it not more productive to use that energy on my NOW. On things I can control (namely my thoughts).

I’m ready to call the bluff on worry. It does not serve me well and I’m going to continue to try not to give it a dominant place in my mind and heart.

Casablanca

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We left Marrakech with a vow (from me, at least) to return to spend more time there.

Josh and I chuckled as we walked from our riad to our meeting spot with our driver, at this little stand with all the bread. As I said, they do love their bread:

Our final day was our drive to Casablanca.

It took about 3 hours to get there, and of course, we all slept.

Poor Josh is a little squished in the back seat. Although not as squished as me sitting beside him, lol.

As soon as we got to Casablanca we raced to catch the noon tour of the famous Hassan II mosque.

It is the largest mosque in Africa and the only one where non-Muslims are allowed to enter during tour times.

And it is absolutely incredible. And can you believe it only took 6 years to build (with 10,000 workers mind you).

Where the prayers take place:

Where the washing takes place:

It is massive and just so beautiful.

Look at the scale!

I loved learning about the rituals and process of what happens in the mosque.

So beautiful to learn how different people worship. We are different, yet we are the same.

  

After taking a bunch of pictures, we quickly found our accomodations and settled in.

We decided to walk along the water front and found a really cute restaurant, where we had some seafood.

We had a leisurely lunch, and talked about the highlights of our trip.

Best hotels/riads: Dar Hicham for overall ambience and great rooftop; Chez Pierre (for the beautiful landscape and great kids room); Dar RocMarra for the amazing parent room. We all agreed Dar Finn had a fabulous rooftop, and Dar Charmaa had a great pool and outdoors! We pretty much had great accomodations!

Best Meals: We had a great chicken tagine and fries on our way to Fez. We loved our dinners in Chefchaouen (pretty much all our meals there). Chez Pierre had some great French food too! I loved breakfast in the Sahara. Dar Rocmarra was a great homemade Moroccan dinner. Best couscous was our first meal in Rabbat. Best mint tea was Dar Hicham.

Best thin moments: Being in the desert and walking with the sheep in the Middle Atlas Mountains.

Best activity: Camel riding (highlight for so many things!), Fez tour – we saw so much! Hiking to the Spanish fort in Chefchaouen and sitting on the wall overlooking the city.

Best overall days: Chefchaouen, Fez, Desert, Middle atlas mountains walking to nomad cave.

After lunch we headed back and all rested. We spent some time watching some kids play soccer in the middle of the street – with cars having to go around them – it was hilarious! We all took a nap, looked at our photos and read.

We were all stuffed from our late lunch so we just went to a local cafe and had ice cream for dinner. Nice way to end our trip.

What an incredible trip it was! Loved every minute of it. One day we would love to explore southern Morocco – including Marrakech again as we really only scratched the surface.

Overall, another incredible trip!

 

 

Marrakech

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We woke up in our gorgeous riad. Our room is really quite spectacular.

We had a beautiful breakfast – which was delicious –  before we met our guide: Khalid.

We headed off through the narrow alleys and wound our way to the large square. Stalls and stands were juts being set up. It’s an interesting square, with snake charmers, women offering too do henna, and little shops and then some sad things to see like monkeys dressed up and chained to owners and sold for pictures.

We wandered through the souks to make our way to the famous palace.

We stopped for some cute pics:

There we explored the grounds and the rooms – so beautiful  – and learned the history.

We walked though the Jewish quarter, and then  continued to the tombstones – but everyone was a bit tired to wait the long line to see the nice room.

We stopped for lunch at a place where there were both locals and Moroccans and had a decent lunch

Afterwards we weaved through all the different souks – spice, olive, blacksmith, leather, fabric. So amazing. We practiced our bargaining for several things – with our guide  giving us some tips.

There were so many places I wanted to go, but we didn’t get at chance. You need several days in Marrakesh – so definitely need to come back.

We had a short rest at the riad and then headed out again. Much to the dismay of the kids, I had booked a family photoshoot with Pixaround, There was a big mixup (which Pixaround took care of very quickly) so we went and grabbed drinks – which turned into ice creams in the market! (see how the market fills up by late afternoon?):

We finally did the photoshoot and had a few laughs doing that. Teenage boys aren’t keen on getting their picture taken at the best of times, lol.

        

And our classic Josh:

We walked the markets again, bought a few more things and headed for dinner.

We found a cute little Italian restaurant. No, we realize we are not in Italy, but everyone wanted a change of food and it seems to be a tradition to find Italian wherever we are – so why break the tradition?

We headed back to our riad – but got seriously lost. When we stopped to ask, the man told us it was at least a 30-40 minute walk in the opposite direction. What?!?!? 

Luckily Zach has a good sense of direction and within 10 minutes he had led us back to our riad.

It was a bit of quiet night as Zach and Josh had made a deal that Josh could get a pair of Zach’s shoes if he didn’t talk for 10 hours. Zach desperately tried to get Josh to talk – but Josh stayed quiet for the 2-3 hours before bed, then slept (so that made it easier! Although Zach tried to wake him up several times throughout the night to get hi to talk, lol).

We had to say good bye to our wonderful guide and driver Ali as he was heading back to Ouarzazate to spend some time with his family. His cousin would take us to Casablanca for our last day. 

He truly was an incredible guide and driver. He made our trip so much better!

One last day – finishing up where we leave from : Casablanca.

Ouarzazate to Marrakesh

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One thing is for sure, the Moroccan breakfast is filled with carbs. Breads, crepes, pita/roti like things. Then all sorts of spreads and jam and honey. Not great for someone trying to be reducing the overall carb intake! They also serve freshly squeezed orange juice and mint tea, of course.

After our breakfast, we met up with Ali and headed off. We drove into the town of Ouarzazate – where our guide is from. Ali only gets to be home with his family two or three times a month as he is on the road so often. I’m glad that he got to spend the night with his family (he has a new born baby too).

We continued along the way to the famous Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou – a world heritage site and the backdrop to movies such as Gladiator. It is the most famous Kasbah in the Morocco and one of the most visited too. We walked around and took some pics.

Unfortunately, my pics did not turn out because somehow my camera got turned on to manual and so everything was overexposed. Luckily I have a few ones from my phone and Rob and Zach (and I did some editing so I could use a few).

We drove the most amazing road up through the High Atlas Mountains to Telouet where we stopped and had an awesome lunch. I only got a shot of the appetizer, but some tried Pastille (a sweet savoury pie) that was really good!

We then visited the most beautiful Kasbah – one of the most beautiful ones we saw. We almost didn’t see it because we were tired, but then decided we came all the way here – might as well not miss it (although you end up missing tons anyway when you do a quick trip like this!). We were sure happy we decided to check it out as it was truly stunning inside.

  

  

We continued through the mountains, crossing the highest point in North Africa. It was amazing to see the changing landscape! (and the crazy windy roads). No one got car sick in our family (I did take some chewable ginger gravel just in case though!), but I have heard people have miserable experiences on these roads – so beware!

We finally arrived in Marrakech. There was an old guy with a wheel barrow meet us to get our bags as cars cannot enter the alley ways where our riad was. It was strange though to have this old guy run along with this wheelbarrow when we have these kids that are perfectly capable! But he wasn’t going to let them touch his wheelbarrow! We followed him, weaving in and out of traffic and mopeds!

Our Riad Dar Rochmarra was beautiful – we had a large, beautiful room.

But the kids’ rooms were not too shabby either (love the rose petal touches!):

We had a really nice dinner in the riad (we had pre-ordered). It was delicious!

We then headed out to explore a bit.

Marrakech, so far is a big, noisy city with a ton of energy. Excited to explore it!

Dades to Ouarzazate

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We were sad to leave Auberge St Pierre. Such a pretty place!

We headed to the Dades Gorge and got some amazing views!

We ended up going “off road” along the Boutarar piste – pretty incredible and scary at first!!

We stopped when we saw a bunch of mountain goat.

Ali suggested we get out and walk a bit and he would drive ahead and meet us.

So glad he suggested that because it was so incredible to be walking in the middle of no where.

Another thin place and thin moment.

We got back in the truck and he took us to visit a nomad family who lives in cave. We had tea with the mother. Ali explained that the nomad family wants tourists at times of year when they have no other way to make money. When they can make money other ways, they say no to tourists visiting:)

It was pretty amazing and humbling.

Ali shared with our kids how privileged they are (in a very kind and respectful way) and how important it is for them to recognize that there really are people who have nothing… He really wanted to impress on them the importance of being aware of how others live in the world.

After visiting, we continued on until lunch – where we had a really nice lunch with a great view – and lots of bread, lol.

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We stopped briefly at Kasbah Amredil

…and then continued to our Riad in Ouarzazate, Dar Chamaa. A super cute riad with beautiful gardens and a pool.

The kids chilled by the pool (Zandra swam, Sam jumped in, boys played games with Josh’s shirt) and then got caught up on wifi, organizing photos, reading and journals.

We had dinner at the riad – which was not our ideal meal… it was included and there was no where else to go. I don’t think we were all that hungry too. It’s amazing how tiring travel is!!

From Desert to Gorges

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Our guide Ali told us that every 60-70km the landscape in Morocco changes. It is pretty incredible what we see in a day!

We were up early to catch the sunrise. Because of course you MUST see the sunrise when you are in the Sahara.

Even though it is freezing cold.

But then the sun comes out and it is warm again.

We headed back by camel. I bundled up and by the time we were back at the pickup spot, I was warm again!

I had a crazy camel this time. Sam was in front of me and my camel seemed to really want Sam’s bag – or his butt. Gotta love my face, lol:

It was funny – and a little scary at first. I think I’d be good at a rodeo as my camel acted like a bull and I had to hang on!

Although camels are not the most comfortable, it was a great experience. Brace yourself for many camel photos:

     

And we said good bye to our new friends:

We had a full day of driving – but stopped in lots of different spots.

We stopped at a fossil workshop (where our guide used to work in the mines).

We saw a Ksar (like a village where many families live in one large a castle looking building).

We headed to the Tinghir and the Toudgha gorges.

We had a really good lunch.

We had a good laugh too because they day before our lunch was terrible – and we told our guide – “We even had to go buy more bread” (our server just wouldn’t pay attention to us so we went and purchased things even though our meal was included!). So not at lunch – we heard them say “Make sure these people always have bread!!” (And every meal since we’ve had ample bread, lol, it’s become a funny joke now).

We had another local guide take us on a hike through the Toudgha gorge. We probably could have done it ourselves, but then would have missed out on the back paths he took us.

  

He also took us to another home where the Berbers were making carpet… we were welcome (and they prepared tea that Josh had to serve) until we said we weren’t going to buy a carpet then they politely and swiftly wished us a good day and sent us on our merry way!

We finally arrived at our hotel in the Dades Gorge, “Auberge St Pierre”. It was absolutely beautiful. Our fave so far. We wished we were staying longer! The kids had their own little apartment – it was so cute!

We had an amazing dinner – French cuisine – a welcome change (I usually remember to take a photo after we start eating, lol)

The kids caught up on their documenting:

The perfect ending to our day!

Leaving Fez and Heading to Erg Chebbi (the Sahara Desert!)

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The next morning, we headed out of the Medina to meet our driver, Ali. I love following behind my gang…

Ali does an awesome job of getting us all packed up. He was ready for the Sahara too! I loved how he “dressed appropriately” for each day.

Ali is  a great guy and tolerates us getting in the car for 30 seconds before we all fall asleep!

I struggle with tolerating having a boy over 6 feet sitting beside me for hours…

We knew we had a long drive ahead to the desert.

We first hit up a small town, Ifrane, which looked like a little European city. It is a ski town, believe it or not. And the lion “rock” is an attraction:

We felt like this Charlie Brown tree should be an attraction too:)

We continued further and found the Barbary apes in a cedar forest in the Middle Atlas Mountains. We had a great time feeding them peanuts.

We continued to a few really nice lookouts to get some pictures – travelling through the Ziz valley.

Sam is truly a teen now. His enthusiasm was palpable for these jumping shots. In one shot, he didn’t even jump. I reminded him that we can actually SEE the results of the photo so he can’t just say “I jumped!” as if we wouldn’t notice (insert annoyed teen eyeroll here. But make sure it is followed by annoyed stepmom eyeroll too. Too bad I’m not one of those “kid pleaser” stepmoms desperate for my step kids to love me. Nope. I’m a “we will take this jumping picture 100 times if we have to” kind of stepmom, lol)) This was the best one:

Lunch was the worst one we had yet – a tourist trap for sure and we let Ali know we weren’t happy about it. (Funny story: because service was not good, we ended up going to the other side of the restaurant and bought our own drinks and bread etc. I happened to mention to Ali that the service was so poor, “we even went and bought our own bread”. Let me tell you, from that point on, we always had bread. And lots of it. Too much. Ali always made sure to tell all the restaurants “make sure they always have bread!” We were so breaded out!!)

It was a seriously long drive though, but the scenery was amazing (when we woke up! We joked that it was like we were all drugged in the car (we weren’t, don’t worry))

  

Sometimes there was just no where to stop to go to the bathroom so some had to improvise:

Ali waited patiently for us wherever we were:

Have I mentioned I love capturing this boy with his camera? I took a lot of these. I am very aware that the sand in the hourglass with this boy is slowly running out so I was taking a lot of pictures with my own camera, but mostly with my aching mama heart:

I guess even Zach wanted to capture all the time we spent in the car so snapped this one:

All was forgotten when we arrived Erg Chebbi – on the edge of the Sahara.

Ali got us all scarved up:

  

The camels were all waiting for us.

Josh took took the lead and quickly named is camel “Winston”. I was at the back.

  

Brace yourself for all the camel pics. I could not get enough:

And our shadow family that we decided to bring along:

Our guide took some great pics:

It was a super fun ride!

We got off mid way to watch the  beautiful sunset from the dunes (and our scarves came off at this point too)

We had to say good bye to our camels:

And headed over the dunes to our camp:

We had to stop first to watch the remainder of the sunset:

Our “Luxury safari camp” was pretty awesome. We had mint tea when we first arrived and sat around a fire.

Our accommodations included 3 big tents and they were equipped with a big bed, lots of blankets (although I was still cold – when the sun goes down it is freezing!) and a working bathroom!

We had dinner in the dinner tent…

and then went out again around the fire where there was singing and drums (which they made us do too!) and dancing (which they got everyone up and doing too!)

We headed back to the dunes to try to get some pictures of the amazing the stars. The moon was pretty bright, so hard to see the Milky Way. But Zach got a couple of great photos.

We got up again at 2:30am when the moon was lower to try for more photos but it really was no different so we quickly headed back to bed!

The desert is a thin place for sure.

(And if you are worried that you didn’t get to see enough camel photos, no worries, because we had another camel ride the next day:)

 

Exploring Fez

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We woke up at a decent time to begin our day in Fez. Our guide, Mohammed met us at our riad. I usually like getting a guide on our first day in a city to help get our bearings, an boy was I glad that we did in Fez!

With 9500 alley ways, it’s super easy to get lost. Our guide was born (literally showed us the building he was born in – just next door to our riad) and raised in Fez so knew all the ins and outs. 

We explored the old Medina (old city), trying to take in all the sites – including a traditional hamman, the oldest university, various souks, the silver making area, the tannery, the silk making shop etc.

Of course, with each place, the expectation is for you to buy… we tried to buy only what we would need and use (or was super cool…) I’m glad I walked away from the silver tea pot, because, let’s face it, we really don’t drink that much mint tea at home, lol.

The tannery was super cool – although had quite the smell! I ended up buying s gorgeous bag there.

Everything was stunning:

The souks were incredible – the colours, the smells – explosion of the senses!

The local bakery (every neighborhood has to have 5 things: a mosque, a school, a Hammam, a fountain and a bakery. Families bring their bread to be baked and each family has their own “marking” made in the bread.) It was so good right out if the oven!

We did manage to purchase head scarves for the desert, as that kind of seemed mandatory.

Our guide tried to take us to a very touristy location for lunch (he was great, but I guess kick backs are kick backs). We refused to pay the $120 US the tourist trap would cost us (despite how pretty the place was) and paid $10 instead for these awesome sandwiches from a little meat stall.

After getting a good feel for the Medina, we headed out to the new city to get a panoramic view and to check out the Royal Palace.

The famous gates by which you enter and leave the medina:

The view of Fez:

When we returned, we decided to brave the alley ways for ourselves and did a bit more casual shopping. As we were walking along in the various alleys, I turned a corner, and found this:

 

I laughed so hard, took a picture and then tried to help him get away! lol Donkeys were everywhere in the city:

After exploring, we headed up to the roof top patio of our riad (it was a great little patio), had a coupe of drinks before Rob and I went for the hamman (scrub and massage). It was different. Fun, interesting and different. We enjoyed it though!

We went back to get the kids and found a little local place where we squeezed in for dinner! It was pretty yummy!