“Let go of the frustration and the judgment, and work with your unruly mind as you would a child or a puppy. It is very important that you come to know this unruliness in yourself and that you be willing to embrace it, not judge it.” Rolf Gates
About a month ago, I saw a post from Sheila Ewers where she described, well she described so much. As Laurel and I always say, Sheila never says anything that hasn’t been well thought out and is very meaningful. She described many things but what captured me the most was:
“Perfectionism is the antithesis of love. It fools us into believing that we are not worthy of love unless we hide our flaws and crouch behind a facade.”
I’ve lived my life beating the shit out of myself for failures, real or perceived, and not being able to accept that I’m not perfect, I’ve hurt people, I’ve hurt those I’ve loved, and I live in shame for what I’ve done. I came to the conclusion when I read what Sheila wrote that if I’m not willing to truly live my life, to accept myself for who or what I am, then I might as well die. OK, please don’t take that wrong, it’s meant to be more of a positive statement.
I then finished Glennon Doyle’s book “Love Warrior”, and I read the one part where Glennon reached her own epiphany, which was:
“We think our job as humans is to avoid pain, our job as parents is to protect our children from pain, and our job as friends is to fix each other’s pain. Maybe that’s why we all feel like failures so often – because we all have the wrong job description for love.”
She went on to describe that what people need is someone to sit quietly with them when they are feeling pain, to stand with them through the pain. Our jobs aren’t to take away the pain, but to provide comfort. We all need to feel and go through pain, it’s natural, it’s a part of growing. If we try to take away each other’s pain, it stunts growth, it isn’t right, it isn’t fair, it doesn’t help.
As I read this, I came to the stunning realization, an epiphany, that I’ve had this all wrong my entire life, and I felt like such a failure. I can’t take away people’s pain, and I have no right to. I’m not God, and I shouldn’t try to play God. I cried when I read this because I was so wrong for so long, and I couldn’t believe that I never saw how ridiculous this was.
Recently, I was working with my new therapist in Ohio, Sarah, and as usual, I was doing my stream of consciousness, bouncing around from one thought wisp to the next, new revelations, and I finally stopped suddenly, and said, “am I OK?”
Now, I haven’t been with Sarah for very long, and I do feel badly for her, I often think that my therapists will want to quit or have to see their own therapist because of me. But Sarah has been able to deal with me so far. Sarah quickly said, “Yes! You’re OK.”
Last week I had a business trip to Georgia, and I was able to work in a visit to Hailey, who had been my therapist for 18 months, but we hadn’t seen each other for several months. We reviewed where I was, what was going on, and we discussed my long-standing inability to deal with shame in my life. What was interesting to me was how what Hailey said to me weaved perfectly in with what Sarah had been telling me. Everything was coming together perfectly.
Afterward, I reached out to Hailey by e-mail, and I said the same thing to her that I said to Sarah, “am I OK?” I followed it up with:
“Who would have thought we’d be talking such nonsense! Thanks to you, I can look at myself, and with my shame, depression, irrational thoughts, and I can say ‘am I OK?’ And I can relatively confidently say, ‘Yes, I think I’m OK’ You’ve helped me gain an acceptance of myself and who I am, and helped me develop tools to get through the difficult times. For everything going on in my head, I feel fairly good about myself.”
Everything was coming together, the tapestry was weaving together beautifully, all of the pieces were fitting perfectly into the little puzzle I had created.
And then it all fell apart. As long and hard as I’ve worked toward this moment, it all unraveled in such a short period of time.
It started simply or with a simple mistake. I lost my credit card. Mistakes happen, but I don’t make these kind of mistakes. I was devastated. I tried to remember or figure out how it happened, but it really didn’t matter. I was able to cancel the card, no charges were incurred, I just had to deal with all the issues of getting a new card, dealing with payments automatically charged to the card, etc. But I had a really hard time accepting that I made such a mistake. I started questioning my cognitive abilities, maybe I was getting old, and my mind was going.
Then I came home, and I was ecstatic to see Laurel, anytime I’m away from her, I miss her, I can’t wait to see her, I can’t wait to talk to her, listen to her, just be with her. I didn’t feel the same zeal coming from her, and that was painful for me. To be fair to Laurel, I was needy due to my mishap with my credit card, I was already down, and I set her or us up with unrealistic expectations. Still, I was really hurt, and I plummeted.
I spent the next several days immersed in irrationality. I thought many thoughts. I imagined many things. My mind went to all of the worst possibilities and scenarios. I’ll leave it at that because my irrationality can go in many painful and difficult directions, and no one should have to see what alternative life I can create in such a short period of time.
And the most devastating part of all? I realized that my breakthrough, my recent awaking and growth, was a big fat lie. It didn’t take much, and I plummeted back down to the depths that I had allowed to be my prison before. But this was worse than before because I had soared higher than I had been in such a long time, so the fall was that much further and harder. I thought I had been able to “embrace, not judge, my unruliness” but I was wrong. All of the reading, counseling, people who have been great role models, all of the tools I have, and these “little” issues or problems sent me downward.
Still, through it all, there is hope. I recently spent a weekend with my small group from my former church, and we talked about a lot of things. One of the things we discussed was hope. I pulled out one of my favorite sermons from one of my favorite ministers, Sandy McConnel, who was on the retreat. The sermon was “A Rose in Winter” which he preached way back on December 8, 1996. Yes, I still have it along with many other of Sandy’s sermons. As Sandy puts it, hope is faith pointed toward the future, the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark, hope is a rose in winter.
While I may have tumbled, and tumbled badly, I know where I can get to, and I know what I’ve read, the counseling that I’ve received, the role models I have in my life are right. I can conquer the demons, the irrational thoughts, I can embrace, not judge the unruliness that runs through my head. And when all else fails, I can use the immortal words of Nadia Bolz-Weber, and I can tell those voices or irrational thoughts:
I’m baptized. So fuck off.
