Putting me on

"You're putting me on."

No, I'm putting me on.

Some time ago, I heard someone make a required phone call to another person.  The tone was friendly, open, sincere, and would have put the other person completely at ease.  The caller obtained the required information easily, effortlessly.  I would have thought that they were old friends.  

What the other person didn't hear, though, was the tone of voice and the choice of words that came out of the caller's mouth as soon as the call ended and both parties hung up.  It conveyed disgust and contempt for the person who'd been at the other end.

Here's where I got this photo

I can't say anything in judgment.  I've done it - lots of times.  Sometimes we have to talk to people whose company we don't particularly care for - and we have to be civil to these people, for the sake of politeness or social norms.  Especially in situations like a businessman talking to a potential client, or a sales clerk talking to a customer. There's a mask of civility that we wear when we need to. We put it on - and when we're done, we take it off as soon as possible and confirm to ourselves that we didn't enjoy the experience.  I'm not so sure that it's wrong.  But I am sure that it's human.  

But when the other person is consistently crossing a boundary, belittling us or using us, it's time to take off that mask of geniality and let the other person know that he or she has crossed the line.  

For me, that's the time when, instead of putting a mask on, it's time to put ME on.  The real me. 

I've discovered something as I do this.  The more I put me on, the less I want to put on the mask.  I like the me that I'm becoming - and I don't want to be the doormat, the pushover I used to be, the one who strove for the least amount of splash upon entry, the one who hated making waves, the one who just wanted to disappear.  Putting on the mask becomes a distasteful task.  

Sometimes putting on that facade is necessary.  Sometimes.  But a repeated pattern of that kind of behavior can make me practiced in hypocrisy - I can so easily 'put it on' and 'take it off.'  It kind of scares - and almost sickens - me.  That's one reason I hesitate to engage in it.  I'd far rather be totally honest.  

When it bothers me the most is when I am in a situation where I believe that I am in a safe place - and all of a sudden I realize that I'm not - and that I need to put 'em on - let 'em think I'm behaving the way "they" want me to - so I can get away unscathed, unjudged.  Whoever "they" are.  Someone who calls himself my friend, for example.  Or perhaps at church.  Maybe even when visiting family.  Or at work.  

What a joy to realize when I really AM in a safe place, with trustworthy people, people who accept me for who I am and who don't judge.  There are a few such people in my life.  I appreciate their friendship - and their company - SO much!  

When I first started this new way of living and came across the expression, "rigorous honesty"... I thought that it meant with others.  It does - to a point.  But what I've come to understand is that it refers primarily to relationship with God, and with myself.  If I can't be truthful with myself, and with my Maker, I am SUNK.  The fact that I sometimes don't share EVERY little thing with someone else tells me that I'm learning who is trustworthy and who is not.  I can trust those that are trustworthy.  It's okay NOT to trust those that aren't, and learning who isn't trustworthy can only be done by trial and error. 

LOTS of error.

Of course, I try my best not to lie, even to those that I don't necessarily trust with my feelings.  I will answer truthfully, but ... briefly.  I've learned not to elaborate and give people ammunition to use against me later, even if they think that it's 'helping' by sharing something I've said in confidence.  

And I SO look forward to the times when I spend time with people I trust, so that I can put ME on.

Learning about living - from the dying

Thanks to a facebook friend, I read an article this morning from a British newspaper entitled "Top five regrets of the dying" which talks about a book written by an Australian palliative care nurse, Bronnie Ware:  The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.  (if the link doesn't work for you, it's because you're not on facebook... so my apologies in advance!)

Anyway, at the risk of 'spoiling' it for those who would have read the book, here are the top five, in order of importance, of things people wish they had done in their lives:

1.   I wish I'd lived a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2.   I wish I hadn't worked so hard (in other words, I wish I hadn't spent so much time at work, furthering my career, and not enough time with my spouse and family).
3.   I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4.   I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5.   I wish I had let myself be happier.

This print is for sale at INMAGINE

Wow.  Truly the dying can teach us about how to live.  

I'd rather not wait until my death-bed to look back and regret what I could have done NOW.  So my response to the top five regrets of the dying is that it's high time I started living the way they wished they had!

In the last three years or so, I've learned more about how to live life unfettered, unwrapped from the grave-clothes of the past, and unashamed of my feelings, than at any other time in my life.  I really feel as though I am finally - after decades of being steeped in tradition, bound by rules and regulations, and hobbled by hypocrisy - learning how to really LIVE.  It's a heady, scary, delirious, amazing ride with lots of unexpected twists, climbs, and drops.  But it's living instead of just "making do" or "managing." It's living intentionally, not just reacting to circumstances.  

Things no longer "happen" to me. That's "victim-thinking." They just happen.  Period.  Living life in the moment, trusting God for the strength for today ... keeping it real, keeping first things first, expressing my feelings - these are the pillars of the lifestyle I'm learning to live. 

And I'm LIVING. What a trip!

In spite of the circumstances, when I look at my own happiness quotient (in other words, how happy I am) as compared to my life before this new day-by-day kind of living - I'm happier now than ever I was before, even on the bad days.  

And the happiness is spreading.  As I'm learning to be comfortable in my own skin-suit, I treat people around me differently... and now THEY are happier too. 

It's win-win.  For everyone.

And when someday I am facing the Grinning Reaper... I hope that I'll be able to grin right back.

Saying it

I was talking last night with someone very dear to me - got a text from him, and then called him on the phone and spent nearly 2 hours with him.  He needed to talk and he needed someone to listen who wouldn't judge him.  As he poured out his heart and his frustrations about being condemned for being different from family members and the members of their social group, I realized that there are people in this world who will never quite understand that if someone believes or behaves differently from the accepted norm, it doesn't mean that person is a bad person.  

It means that he/she is different.  

And I also realized that such "poison people" believe what they want to believe because they have their minds made up already - and if we don't tell them what our truth is, they'll fill in the blanks themselves based on what motives they have previously attributed to us (and that's not going to change, ever).  And they'll get it wrong, every time. If we continue to not tell them, to not set the record straight, they'll assume that their version of events is correct - and spread their perception of us far and wide.  (Um ... I think that's called "backbiting."  Maybe even "slander.")

I've been guilty of spreading such poison in my life ... and of late, I've been guilty of not setting the record straight with those in my life who have filled in the blanks and have spread their poison so far and wide that I am "persona non grata" (person without a status) in some places (places, I might add, where I no longer wish to go - because they are there.) 

Judged.  Condemned.  Executed.  Just for speaking the truth.  Just for trying to help someone who might want to be helped.  Yes, I'm talking about what I tried to do when I wrote and published Get Unwrapped! ... and the people of whom I am speaking are the very people who should have supported me - but never have.  I've mentioned their vitriolic reaction before on this blog, earlier this month.

I used to care what those people thought of me.  I used to.  Then I saw them - really SAW them for the first time, without the rose-colored glasses they thrust upon me from my birth - SAW them treat the man I was talking to last night like the scum of the earth just because ... well it doesn't matter about the because. Let's just say he isn't a 'clone' of them.

Thank God.

The whole experience showed me that I didn't want to continue subjecting myself or my husband or children to that kind of self-righteous, hypocritical garbage any more. So I withdrew from hanging around with them.  Months ago.

What a relief that was.  For me, that is. 

They were baffled by my refusal to keep in contact.   So, they filled in the blanks about me, too. (I suspect that this activity began even before I broke contact.)  

Their answers/guesses haven't been very pretty, and (naturally, to make them appear saintly and me, villainous) they have painted me in the worst possible light.  I know they're 'projecting' - a psychological term that means to attribute to others a motive that is actually hidden in one's self.  In other words, they say I'm vindictive because they are vindictive; it's what they do without even realizing it.  Yet they don't want to admit that they're vindictive - so they accuse me of it.  It's how they get to sleep at night. 

I've decided to give them the answers that should have gone into those blanks they filled in. Of course they'll continue to believe what they want to believe, just like always - and it will change nothing in how they behave toward me - or toward the man I spoke with last evening.  But the right answers will be out there.  I'll have spoken up.  I'll have said it.

"Saying it" has always been taboo.  We didn't talk about the elephant in the room even if he WAS standing on our toes.  It just wasn't done!  And if someone committed the cardinal sin of even saying that there WAS an elephant (never mind in the room!) that person would be taken out and (emotionally) executed: crucified, so to speak - a slow, sadistic, and painful death in front of as many people as possible. And the executioners would feel perfectly justified in their actions - because for them, the illusion of perfection is preferable to the reality of brokenness, after all. ("What would people think?" prevents so many from getting the help they so desperately need.)  When I wrote my book, I exposed the elephant. They couldn't get past the fact that I had the gall to do that, so as to see the wonderful reality and healing that came of my brokenness. And so, they have been nailing me to the cross of their self-righteousness.

So if I'm going to be condemned to such a fate anyway - it might as well be for the right reasons.

But I will remember

I wrote a book about 8 or 9 years ago.  It was never published - I never quite thought that it was finished, and it just lacked ... oomph. 

It sat in a file in my old computer, actually got passed along from computer to computer.  I always knew that someday I would do something with it.  Yet something felt ... unfinished. 

When I was first writing it, the words poured out of me like a torrent.  As I got closer to the point where I left off, though, it seemed ... uncertain, hesitant. It was like there was a bad taste in my mouth - like I was spewing forth poison and someone was going to get hurt.  I didn't have the first clue how to take that out.  So it sat.  The book sat, as it were, on the shelf.  I just had this sense that it had to wait.  It had to wait until I was ready.

About two months ago, it's like I suddenly knew that it was time.  Time to go back and rework what was there, take out the poison, use my current voice, take out some parts and add others, and after that, pick up where I left off.

The hesitancy was gone.  I knew where I was going with it.  

It was to be a prequel to "Get Unwrapped!" 

Source of this photo

I don't know how long it's going to take, or when it will be ready. But I'm working on it... and the words are pouring out of me again. 

The "fever" is upon me again. I laugh and cry as I write.  I remember the things I'm writing about like they were yesterday.  

With the help of all the wall calendars I've kept stashed away through the years, the memories are taking shape, firming up.  I'm getting into the groove of telling my story, remembering how things used to be, what happened, and how I got through it - or didn't, as the case may be. Even as I write, it spurs other memories long forgotten. 

And I know it's right. The poison I felt was there in 2004? - it's being expunged and in its place, compassion and truth reign.  When I left off writing it, I felt I had arrived - and now, that's no longer true.  

A lot has changed. 

I've changed.  

So I'm looking forward to seeing this take shape, to refining it, to getting it ready for publication. 

Who knows? At the rate I'm going, it might even be ready by Christmas.

Digging Deeper

Last evening at 5:30, the rumbling stopped.

But only for the weekend.  At 6:30 Monday morning, the trucks and backhoes will be back again.  After two full days of working, they've replaced the culverts in two driveways and prepared the ditches in between.  At this rate, they'll go up the other side of the street next week and down our side of the street the week after.  We'll be almost the last ones on our street to "benefit" from the "improvements" - yet we were the first to have two huge piles of soil dumped in front of our property.  

Hm. 

And we've learned that - joy of joys - the culvert we had paid someone to install two years ago will be dug up, taken out and replaced by their (larger) culvert pipes and concrete access wells.  We've been busy taking "before" pictures so that if the company wrecks anything on our property, we'll be billing the city (who is paying the company) for any work we have to get done to bring it back to the way it was before.  Like, for example, if they wreck our hedge and we need to replace it! 

The view "up the street" from just behind the central opening in our
fledgling hedge.  You can see some of the silent machinery in the distance.

That said, the whole idea of having to re-dig and redo a job that has previously been done brings up several intriguing thoughts to the surface.  The accuser that sits on my shoulder has been whispering - sometimes shouting - the insults, fast and furious, voices from my past echoing their agreement. The most common one is this:  "Nothing you ever do is good enough."

It's a bald-faced lie, of course.  But the voices persist.  

And my response is that if I had it to do all over again, given what I knew at the time, I would still have gotten the work done.  

The fact is, it was a safety issue in 2010 and I wanted my hubby to not run the risk of injuring himself on such a deep slope as that ditch when he was mowing the lawn.  Technically it's not even part of our property ... but  .... the city certainly wasn't going to mow it!  No, it was the right and healthy choice to make ... for the ditch, for safety's sake.  

The whole process  has me thinking again.  A dangerous thing, I know.  Yet it has brought something new to my way of thinking.

Sometimes, in the emotional and 'inner healing' realm, after I've dug down inside of me and "made it right" to the best of my ability - then .... I grow some more.  And when I've grown some more, there are more subtle, stubborn things that come to the surface - things that make me realize that it IS necessary to dig deeper and do it again, work a little harder than before, root out even more of the dangerous stuff, and make it easier to access should I ever need to get in there again and dig something out. 

The original internal excavation was necessary. (And I was SO glad I didn't have to face it alone!!)  It made life liveable... functional... better.  But it also opened up new possibilities, and set new standards for my inner life.  This new lifestyle isn't easy, and it isn't comfortable.  And often old, long-standing ideas bubble up from beneath - like sewer gases - and undermine the new thought patterns.  It's easy to slip back into them; I held them for such a long time.  

The fact is, the process is never over. That's why they call it a process.  There's always more to do, deeper to go, more improvements to make. And I can see cracks appearing in what I thought was solid.  I can smell things I thought were gone.  Reactions I have, some good - and some not so good.  The way I handled the hard-hat fellas, pretty good.  The way I handled a recent conversation between a relative and myself - some aspects were good, but there were things I could have done or said better, or not done and not said; these things let me know that there is still work to do inside of me: in my attitudes, by being more honest with myself, more open to God's renovations, and more willing to change.  

And that's okay.  
Sometimes it's good to dig deeper if it means an even better life.

Getting Messy

We met them as we were leaving our neighborhood to go to our various tasks: my daughter and I to work and my husband to his errands for the day. Big trucks, backhoes, rumbling and beeping, roaring past us, coming in as we were going out.  We wondered what was up. 

My husband was soon to find out.  When he returned home, the whole street was filled with heavy machinery and large, heavy, rubber culverts and cement  access wells.  And every time one of those big machines revved up and moved, the ground literally shook.  By 4 p.m. when hubby left to pick me up from work, he had a splitting headache. 

What were they doing there anyway?  Well, they were digging up the ditches to install heavy-duty culverts, tying them into the town sewer system! They will eventually be covered in soil .... and seeded....we hope.

Now for the "back story."  

We had approached someone - a private contractor - a couple of summers ago and gotten the same exact work done ourselves, because our lawn was eroding and there was a lot of run-off in the spring, and mostly because it was dangerous to mow that steep a grade; there'd been some near-misses with our old push-mower, and someone could have lost a toe or something!!  The man dug up our ditch, installed the culvert, covered it with soil, and raked it smooth so we could seed it.  We paid him um, okay, a fair pile of money to have it done.  He was reasonable ... and it was worth it to us, to have it done. Peace of mind, let's call it.

We were the only ones on our street to have this done at the time, even though after it was done, there were the inevitable questions from the neighbors.  

Now this.  Now everyone's having it done (quite probably without their permission!) and GUESS WHERE the workers put all their tools and heavy equipment?  And the extra mud they're digging out of people's ditches?  

The view from the end of our driveway... the hedge is behind the pipe...
somewhere... :s

Yup.  RIGHT HERE.  Already they've broken some solar-powered LED lights, and made this huge mess on the very area we had paid to have fixed two years ago.  Including deep tractor treads on our nice, flat culvert surface.  (Sighhhh). And to top it all off, they had used our front lawn as a handy-dandy lunch area, leaving their lunch boxes and their garbage on it. 

That was IT.  I got out of the vehicle, walked down to the lunchboxes, and wordlessly and firmly put them, one by one, in a straight line and following a direct line with the culvert pipe they'd placed not four feet from our fledgling hedge. I took their garbage - a half-full pop can and the top off a yogurt container - and put it with their lunchboxes.  I did each lunchbox separately so that I could be sure that they were watching by the time I was finished.  And then I threw them a scathing, sarcastic grimace as I put the last item in place and walked into the house, shaking my head in disbelief.

Not a word - no explosion, no verbal tirade - nothing of the sort.  But I was displeased (and I let it be known I was displeased) with the lack of respect for our property.  When I looked out a half-hour later, the lunchboxes were gone, and the crew was winding up their work for the day.  

The whole situation got me to thinking (lots of stuff does that...for some reason.)  When we first got our culvert fixed and filled in, and the grass became firm enough to mow, one of the first things that happened when the next summer came around, was that if the neighbors wanted to have a get-together or a yard sale, the extra cars would use our filled-in ditch area as a great place to park.  Hm.  And now this experience with the heavy machinery. How accommodating ... for them.

I guess that when a person gets their life together, and the inner mess starts to give way to some semblance of order, he or she becomes a convenient place for others to to dump their own messes.  The very time that we started learning about emotional and social boundaries was the time when people started infringing more and more upon them - and we had to draw the line over and over again, instead of letting ourselves get walked on.  Kind of like our culvert workers.  

I understand that excavation of all that inner "stuff" can be messy.  My own process was, that's for sure!  And I can expect that when folks start to deal with their own stuff, I might get some of the spillover.  It's okay; it's all part of the process.  But that doesn't mean that I have to stop setting and enforcing my own boundaries.  It just means that I need to be more vigilant about defining just where the line is, given that others need a little bit of leeway.  

Like with our hard-hat friends today.  (By the way, they'll be here in this neighborhood for at least a week..) I could have thrown their lunchboxes at them, yelled at them for screwing up months of hard work in a few short hours. But I didn't.  Instead, I drew the line at the very spot where our own property line merged with the "common property" technically owned by the city: which is where the old ditch that was there two years ago, started to slope downward.  

It was a measured response - and an object lesson for me, firstly to know that it's okay to get messy when fixing a problem beneath the surface, and secondly, for me to know where to set and police my own personal borders while waiting for folks to clean up their messes when they're done.

Hurting people

Hurting people do hurt people.

Sometimes they mean to.  Sometimes they intend to inflict harm to make themselves feel better.  Not often... but sometimes. 

Sometimes they don't mean to.  They live their lives, they do what they do.  And their choices hurt us. It happens.  

Sometimes they try not to hurt us, because they know what it feels like to be hurt, and they don't want that for us.  And in trying not to... in hiding the truth from us ... they hurt us MORE than if they'd been honest.  Especially if they profess to love us.

What happens when people hurt us, for whatever reason?  How do we handle it? 

I know I don't handle it stoically.  I don't like being hurt.  But I've learned that it's okay to say that I've been hurt if that's how I feel, no matter how difficult it is. And it IS difficult.  every.  time.  

There was a time when I would "stuff it" down inside of me - hide my feelings and not show it if my sanity depended on it.  Trouble is, it did.  I drove myself deep into depression and spiraling into confusion by holding it in, year after year. It got so I didn't know how I felt anymore; everything was such a jumble of baggage from stuff I held in years ago, mixed with guilt and shame.  When I learned that it was more important to feel what I felt WHEN I felt it, for my own emotional health, I started to get in touch with what I was feeling, and didn't allow things to build up to explosive force.  Expressing things instead of holding back - within reason, of course - allowed me to discharge psychological energy in safe ways rather than overreacting after getting all pent-up.  

Allowing myself to express emotions validates what I feel - and helps me get to forgiveness faster.  It just does.  Forgiveness is a process and it starts with acknowledging that a wrong has been committed - whether intentionally or not - and knowing that it is okay to be upset when dealing with it.  

There are many more stages in that process, but a healthy start is knowing that it's okay to feel hurt.  There need be no shame in it.  We wouldn't blame ourselves for feeling pain when physically hurt; why would we blame ourselves when someone hurts us emotionally?

Fact is, getting hurt by others is probably going to happen a lot more than I'd like.  But at least I have the tools now to deal with it.

Time to heal

Time to heal.

It is, isn't it?  Years and years of gray living. Going through the motions, day in and day out.  Trying to do your best, and always coming up short, getting the opposite of what you tried to accomplish in your loved ones' lives.  Feeling ignored, rejected, unappreciated.  It wears away at the spirit, in spite of your best efforts to stave it off - leaving a deep root of resentment and bitterness.  But you live in denial.  You tell people how wonderful life is, how grateful you are. Inside you wonder if this is all there is.  

I know.  I was there.  And for me, it was high time to heal.  I'd been sick long enough - caught in a trap of my own making.  For, you see, my desire to control, to influence my loved ones, only made them resentful against me, caused them to resist my best efforts.  I'd push, they'd push back harder. Every time.  I'd give and give some more; they'd take and expect more. I'd give it - and they'd use me and I'd resent them more.  Like I said: a trap.  

It was time to heal.  

But once I had reached out for help, I learned something important.

It takes time to heal.

I couldn't expect a divine "Zap" - a miraculous Zeus-like thunderbolt - no matter how hard I prayed for an instant miracle.  Not that it doesn't happen; it does. Sometimes.  But this was one time it wasn't going to happen.  Not this kind.  

There's a major principle of healing that holds true not only in the physical but in the emotional and spiritual as well.  The deeper and more long-lasting the wound, the longer it takes to heal.  

The wounds were far deeper than I was willing to admit at first.  I didn't even think the problem was in me; I thought it was with everyone else.  If they'd only do things my way!!  If they only knew how much I cared!! 

I never stopped to figure out WHY I cared.  WHY I wanted to have that much influence.  Once I admitted that the problem was not in them, but in me, the pieces started to come together.  And I started to heal.  From the inside out.

And it took time.  The majority of the healing (although it's always ongoing) took place in the first year, and only with the help of someone who'd been through the process before and who was willing to walk me through it.  It took complete honesty, openness, and willingness to commit to the process, in order for that same process to only take a year and not five - or ten.  

While I was going through it, I wanted SO. VERY. MUCH to skip to the end, to not have to go through the difficult, painful process of cutting away the diseased parts of me and starting to get better. 

Messily.  And slowly.  Too slowly for my liking. 

But it happened.  Little by little - mistakes and all - it happened.  Thanks to the strength and help of God, and the assistance of a wonderful counselor, as well as the fellowship of people who accepted me as I was - plus a whole lot of determination to not hide from myself, it happened.  

And now, three and a half years later - I can honestly say that it was well worth it.

Isn't it time to heal? 

... and I in mine

The world is turning into this ginormous village where we see nearly simultaneously what's happening on the opposite side of the globe - where fewer and fewer places are unseen, unreported.  There is so much suffering in so many places by so many people groups - it's hard to know where to start when the collection plate passes, or when the folks come around canvassing for this or that cause.  

Many people think that unless they do something spectacular or give a lot of money to alleviate hunger or thirst in a third world country, or go on a missions trip to a different continent, that they are not doing what they can.  This kind of thinking is fostered in our global village.  But sometimes in trying not to miss the forest for the trees, we miss the trees for the forest.

I'm not saying that those causes - whatever they are and however noble they are - aren't worthy.  Far from it.  But I am saying that we needn't allow others to make us feel guilty if we DON'T go, if we DON'T give to this or that foreign charity across the ocean.

A friend of mine is raising money for a cause that is near and dear to her - being a cancer survivor and seeing how people spend a lot of money to be near their loved ones through such a tough time, well, she's doing what she can.  Here's her blog post on that.  That's not in a foreign country to her - it's close to home. 

There are dozens of people in my own city who don't have a home.  There are even more - including children - RIGHT HERE - who go to bed hungry.  Who wonder where the next meal is going to come from ... and when.  Who are starting over from scratch, having lost everything to alcohol, to abuse, to debt, to unemployment.  And in this city there are organizations that help such people.  The Food Bank.  "The Upper Room" Soup Kitchen.  The Salvation Army.  Open Door Ministries.  Anderson House.  Talbot House.  Lacey House.  Grandmother's  House.  And that's just within a five-mile radius.  All we need to do is open our eyes and look at our own back yard and there are so many people who need to know someone cares. And speaking of the back yard - what about the person across the fence? next door? down the street?  

I remember singing this little song in Sunday School and the words are just as profound now as they ever were.  It's based on Matthew 5:24: "Let your light so shine among men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."  Here are some of the lyrics:

Found this photo HERE

Jesus bids us shine, with a pure, clear light
Like a little candle burning in the night.
In this world of darkness, so we must shine:
You in your small corner .... and I in mine. 

Jesus bids us shine. Shine - for all around
Many kinds of darkness in this world are found: 
Sin, and want, and sorrow - so we must shine:
You in your small corner ... and I in mine.

And this is the essence of it.  We don't have to make a big splash, or turn everything into a big production.  We just need to find our niche - that place where we can make a difference - and go ahead and do it.  Whether it's seen by the pastor, the prime minister or the pope for that matter - matters not.  Even one candle can dispel the darkness.  Even if it's been dark for a VERY long time. 

Even if we've never dared let our light shine before.  It might flicker - but at least it will light the way for someone who needs it.

Fostering Function - not Dysfunction

The reason I so often hear "crickets" (figuratively speaking) when I share something I've been learning is because not everyone is in the same place...and I get that.  But it dawned on me this morning that it could also be because our society has for generations misinterpreted the Judeo-Christian message and morphed it into some sort of masochistic self-punishment monster that it was never meant to be.  

There's a sign on a church bulletin board outside the building, probably in front of hundreds of churches across North America at one time or another, that says, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it's thinking of yourself less."  But most people think that it IS right to think less of themselves - yes, even godly to do so!!  So they subscribe to "put the other person first" dogma but the underlying belief is "put the other person first at the expense of yourself" - which leads to burnout and resentment. I hardly think that this is what Jesus referred to when He said that one of the two greatest commandments ever given was, "Love your neighbor AS yourself."  (emphasis mine).

So people get all caught up in trying to outdo each other in social situations - oh you know, Johnnie and Sue invited us over to their house a week ago Sunday and they had lasagna and garlic bread - boy was it delicious!  We have to do at least as well.  So!  We're going to invite them over this week and have a BBQ with three kinds of salad, two different types of sausages, steak and chicken, and walking nachos, and cheesecake for dessert! Then Johnnie and Sue feel obligated to at least match the spread - and it turns into a thinly veiled game/war of one-up-man-ship. 

Or people stay in abusive relationships because they think that by being nice and taking care of the abuser, he/ she might change.  And by abuse I don't mean physical necessarily.  I've been in relationships when the person just "uses" me - picks my brain and only has anything to do with me when they want to pick my area of expertise clean.  Or they explode and use me to vent their feelings toward someone else, thus involving me in their "stuff" over and over and over again - or they ask me to do favors for them and after awhile, come to expect them. Or they think they have the right to tell me how to live my life, raise my kids, or treat my husband - and use that "right" at every opportunity in order to try to control MY outcome. Or they call themselves my friends ... and appear to take every opportunity to exclude me from their circle.  These things have happened over and over again for as far back as I can remember. 

I know from experience that people who use people will keep on using people.  Even if you DO tell them what they're doing and that it's hurtful. So I've learned - as painful as that process is EVERY TIME - to walk away (either literally or emotionally) from people who consistently use me.  Even if there ARE good times, good memories. Even if the person IS a member of my family.  Ouch - that one hurts especially, because it usually comes with the sting of disappointment, betrayal and shame.  And not entered into lightly, I can tell you.  

But the "Christian" thing to do, the "nice" thing to do is to let that person (whoever he or she is, whatever the relationship) walk all over me, apparently.  To suffer in silence, to never say anything.  Hm.  I somehow don't think that it is.  Yet ... it is fostered in the church - in western society - and sweeping statements like "family is everything" and "church is family" have swept a multitude of inappropriate behaviors under the carpet and allowed them to be tolerated and glossed over far too long.  I held the broom for decades - the rose colored glasses were firmly fixed, the bows welded to my temples.  I was in deep denial.  "They only lied to me because they care about my feelings." (Denial.)  "They're just busy.  A LOT." (Denial.) "Oh, he / she is just like that. They didn't mean anything by it." (Denial.)  "Maybe if I was even nicer to them they'd like me and spend time with me." (Denial.)  "It's wrong for me to be angry and hurt by what so-and-so said / did / didn't say / didn't do.  There must be something wrong with my relationship with God." (Denial.)  

It all fosters dysfunction in relationships - condoned by our society to the Nth degree in the name of "being nice".  

What I had to learn to do was to get comfortable in my own skin - to develop a relationship not only with God FOR ME (not primarily to be a passer-on of prayer requests of other people, but to actually get to KNOW Him), and to develop a relationship with ME - to get to know me (which was really difficult at first because I was such a chameleon to please other people that I didn't know who the real me WAS!), to like myself, and to look after myself.  I was running on empty and didn't know that it was okay to care for myself.  As a matter of fact, I discovered that it was actually biblical to care for myself first (reference the word "AS" in Jesus' command, above, plus Eph. 5:28, 29 - emphasis on nourish, cherish!!) so that I had enough resources to be able to help others and not get burnt out!  

I'm still learning that.  Every situation that tempts me into trying to control the outcome, or to be a caretaker when I don't need to be, or to let people use me as a doormat, is one more learning experience.  And I do it wrong sometimes.  Sometimes I still go back to old patterns of thinking and it always ends up with me messing up the situation and making it worse. But it happens less often than it used to (which was almost all the time...) and because it happens less often, I don't normally let resentment build up and then blow up at people for the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.  That was a regular occurrence as little as four years ago.  God truly has worked a miracle in my life.  

I don't know how to get society or to get church people or other social groups to stop fostering the dysfunction that was so much a part of my life - until it wasn't.  I don't even know if it's my place to try to change that.  Probably it isn't.  I can't do anything to change it.  It's just something I keep noticing on a regular basis.  The only actions I can take responsibility for are my own.  Not my kids', not my husband's, not anyone else's.  Just mine!! (I can't begin to tell you how amazingly freeing that is!)   But what I CAN do is:  I can choose to behave in a non-dysfunctional way in my own life, to like me, to look after me, to live in a close relationship with God, and to help people (not to control them or to create a dependency on me but out of a place of compassion).  It's the main reason I wrote my book, and it's one of the reasons I (in spite of my private nature) keep sharing and putting myself out there in this blog (and others).  And although feedback is nice, I remind myself frequently that it's not the main reason I do this.  I'm just working at being real - and blogging about it helps me shed more and more of my own mummy-wrappings.  

Hopefully ... along the way, I will foster FUNCTION - if only by example.

Getting Zapped

It happens, okay?  It does. 

Every once in a while (sometimes more often than others, and nobody can predict) God "zaps" someone.  He takes an intolerable and hopeless situation, and all of a sudden turns it around: heals someone instantly of crippling osteoarthritis,  miraculously gets someone their dream job out of the clear blue sky, drops a place to live into someone's lap.  

It does happen. 

But it doesn't happen often.  More often, He works the slow kind of miracles.  No less the miracle than the instant ones - but in slow motion.  Years of setting things up, months of preparation, weeks of rehabilitation and hard work, surgery followed by a painful recovery period. Working through people and/or process. Yet the miracle happens, sometimes without us even being aware of it.  And then we look around one day, and discover that the landscape has changed inexorably.  

Who knew?

We like the instant miracles. We eat them up! They get the most press, get the highest ratings on the Christian talk shows.  But the slow ones - the ones that work at a snail's pace in the background unnoticed - these are perhaps the greater miracles because they require even more faith... faith that even though it's slow, it will happen in God's time. Faith that the next right thing will lead to the following right thing, and so on and so forth until the goal that seems so far off today, is within reach.  

It's the faith that believes in the slow miracle that I think is the most heroic, the most spectacular - because it must endure the scoffing and the ridicule (or at the very least, the pitying indulgence) of the ones who got their miracle "just like that" (said while snapping their fingers.)  

I'm a firm believer in the saying, "God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him." (Written by Jim Eliot, missionary, 1927 - 1956)

This includes making peace with the fact that God has the right to say no.  For whatever reason, that possibility exists.  We ASK.  We don't demand.  We ask believing - and accept what God decides: fast, slow, or not at all.  If the latter, we accept that He has His reasons - and move on.  

In the meantime - we're allowed to keep asking.

Stretching

My back went out this past Sunday night - sometime before Monday morning. It was a flare-up of a chronic problem - degenerative disc disease.  Sometimes the vertebrae go out of alignment.  The muscles react - or should I say, overreact - and clench tightly to try and keep the back from going "out" further.  The problem with that is ... it HURTS.

One thing about being in pain - you really cut out the non-essentials. And it's surprising how many things you thought were essentials ... aren't.  

But I digress. 

I knew early Monday morning, as soon as I awoke and put my feet on the floor, that I needed to go to physiotherapy; I was hobbling around and every step I took was agony.  Even sitting was way more than uncomfortable.  The pain was so bad that I called in sick and made an appointment to look after what was essential. After a visit to the doctor to get a referral to physio (as well as a prescription for some pain medication), and going through my first treatment, the pain lessened to manageable levels and I was able to get back to work the next day.  I was rather pleasantly surprised because usually my back is slow to respond to any kind of treatment, be it chiropractic treatments or physiotherapy. 

Here's the site where I got this photo.

My therapeutic regimen involves moist heat, electrical stimulation of the muscles surrounding my back, a bit of acupuncture, and some deep massage to "release" the clenched-tight muscles that have gripped my spine like a vise to keep it from slipping out of alignment.

But there is a home regimen too - some of which I can carry out at work.  It involves 20 minutes each of a couple of different exercises to stretch those lower back muscles.  

And stretch those they do.  Feeling that "pull" is pretty uncomfortable - but I put up with it for the benefits that I know will happen.  Not pain - my therapist is quick to tell me that - but a pulling feeling that is uncomfortable. Very, at times.  But the exercises are teaching my back muscles how to behave, how to let go, so the joints can slip back into place.  

It's going slower than I'd like - well, face it, I'd like it to be immediate!! But I can see a difference, day to day.  And in time, I'll not only be better, but I'll have the knowledge that I need in order to help prevent another flare-up.

In the meantime, I'm learning a lot - about how important letting go is, for one thing.  The back pain seemed sudden, but it had been building for a few weeks - a little tension here, and little clenching there, and finally my back jumped the rest of the way to pain, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  And "not letting go" can creep up on my inner life too.  Little things I hold onto, little things I think I can handle without God's help, tiny things that niggle at me and I ignore them rather than dealing with them as they arise. 

I  need to let those go and relax my grip on them. 

They'll only end up hurting me (pardon the pun) in the end.

Being Human

"It is what it is."

I've taken to saying that lately.  It covers a whole host of situations and it's my way to remind myself that there are some things that just are, and there's nothing I can do to change them, much as I might want to.  I usually say it about circumstances I can't change.  I'm getting better at accepting those things, thanks in part to that little saying.

But I'm starting to learn that it goes deeper than that. "It is what it is" also applies to character traits or behaviors in people that might be difficult to swallow.  And it also applies to feelings.  All feelings: mine, yours, theirs. "Good" and "bad" feelings.  (See my post, "Emotions. Are. Bad.") 

It's all part of being human.  I think that a large part of a dysfunctional lifestyle is living in denial of the fact that we are human: we have made mistakes, we are making mistakes, and we will continue to make mistakes. We need to give ourselves permission to be wrong, and not beat ourselves up for it.  Admit it, yes, honestly, ... but not continue to punish ourselves for messing up, and give ourselves the freedom to err.

I know I need to. 

Too long I have spent time wasted in sitting around "being right" when it would have been more appropriate to "be human" - even if it meant being wrong.  (Most often, it means exactly that!)  

I've often been heard to say that I prefer writing to talking because with writing, there's always the backspace key.  But that whole mentality (in my own psyche) comes from a fear of getting it wrong.  

So I didn't try.  I withdrew; that way I COULDN'T get it wrong.  Slowly, I'm learning to try.  Try, and IF there's an error, deal with that honestly and openly.  Try to do better.  But don't disengage from living life.  One thing about being human is that we can learn from mistakes.  We don't have to keep repeating the same error over and over again; we can rise above it if we are Honest, Open, and Willing (that's HOW to live) to keep trying.  Life is messy. To paraphrase one of my favorite novelists (James Herriot), life hands us unending opportunities every day to make chumps of ourselves.  

But it doesn't mean we stop trying.  We embrace our humanity when we go ahead and attempt to do good, even if we are scared, even if we get it wrong, even if we have tried before and failed.  Even if we have to let go of the way we've always done something. Or set some boundaries - for ourselves and/or others - which we've never set before.  Sometimes, by making mistakes and admitting them, we can give others the permission they need to try - even if THEY don't do whatever it is perfectly.  There is no telling how greatly the world could be impacted by someone - and we never know who it might be - risking making a mistake by taking that leap of faith into action.  

If we are honest, open, and willing, God will let us know (in no uncertain terms!) if we've erred.  But "He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust." (Psalm 103:14, NASB)

We trust God, and then we 'do the next right thing.'  It sounds so simple, but in practice it requires a great deal of effort, especially at first, because part of learning to be human (not superhuman, not divine, not perfect) is realizing how frequently we try to be those impossible things, and letting go of that obsession with being correct - in every action, every thought, every decision. 

That takes practice - and time.  In some cases, it takes a lifetime.  Certain things are easier than others.  But we celebrate the successes and we are grateful for those, while we continue to trust God and do the next right thing in all areas, even if we happen to do it the wrong way and have to learn from it.  It's all part of being human.  

It's who we are.

Seeds

Don't judge each day by the harvest that you reap but by the seeds that you plant. - Robert Louis Stevenson


I heard this quote for the first time tonight. 

It reminded me of one of my favorite stories, based on a true story, called "The Man Who Planted Trees" - if you don't know it, I suggest you go to YouTube and look it up - the video (done by the National Film Board and narrated by Christopher Plummer) is about 30 minutes or so, and for this reason they have broken it up into about three parts, I think.  Anyway, the story is about how the faithful planting of trees by one man for several years, transformed a desolate wasteland into a life-filled countryside. 

I got this still from the video at this site

The truth is, we don't know what our seed-sowing will produce.  We have no idea whose life we will touch, or how - and we may never know. But someone will. 

Someone is glad I am here. Someone has been, is being, or will be blessed by something I do, say, or leave behind.  I do believe that.  I believe it is true for every person; each has a purpose that is far beyond his or her capacity to imagine.  

It is hard to say what that might be, or how it will pan out in the end.  But we all plant seeds - for good or ... not - and these seeds WILL bear fruit.  We may be curious as to the reasons why, or to our purpose, or to the "harvest" that may result.  But the harvest - small or large - doesn't matter.  Only the planting matters.  One seed after another: a smile, a kind word.  Honesty, openness, willingness, day after day, hour upon hour.  

Tiny seeds. Who knows where they will lead, how much they will grow?
I don't.  But I know Who does.

I matter

Over the last few days, I've been trying to convince my husband and best friend of something that is really hard for him to accept. 

The lawn tractor our youngest daughter gave him last summer (she gave him the money and he got one second-hand) has been having more and more problems, and he came to the conclusion that it needed replacing.  


The fact that she gave it to him, and the experience of using it, made him realize how much he enjoyed and preferred using a ride-on as opposed to a push mower. He saw the need to replace it, but....

But he started looking for another second-hand one!  So, I've been suggesting to him the last few days that he needs to get a NEW tractor, one that hasn't deteriorated with use, one with a warranty.  He looked at the price of the new ones and quailed at the thought of spending that much money - even for the low-end tractors, the cost is anywhere between $1,000 and $1,300.  He thought it was too much.  He still does. Since his birthday is in a couple of months, I offered to pay a good bit of the cost so that he could get a new one -- but only if he got a brand new one, not used.  

He still hesitated.  

Got this pic of the NEW tractor we are
getting soon, at this site

During our discussions, I put my finger on the real reason why he hesitates to spend that much money on a new machine.  "It's because you don't think you deserve to have anything nice.   Isn't it."  

It was more a statement than a question.  Reluctantly, he agreed that this was true.  "Well, you DO deserve it. You'd say that I deserved it if I wanted something nice.  Why is it so hard for you to grant yourself the same courtesy?"  

Tonight we went to a nearby store and purchased a new Poulan 17.5 HP, six-speed (42" cutting deck) lawn tractor.  It will be delivered within a few days.  

And he feels guilty. 

We talked a little about that feeling.  It is very hard, after spending your whole life believing that you are worth nothing and that you deserve nothing, to begin to say to yourself, "I matter.  What I want matters.  My dreams, my wishes, ... they matter.  I am worth spending time with; I am worth spending money on."  

But it is essential to say these things to ourselves if we are to have a balanced view of our place in the world, of our importance - neither lording it over others nor cow-towing to them.  We owe it to ourselves to take care of ourselves, to celebrate life, to savour the small pleasures and accept them as from God's hand. We need to give ourselves permission to enjoy life.

Try it. Say it to yourself.  "I matter."  Say it until you start to believe it.  And keep saying it.

Open Season

Since September 2011, when I e-published my book, (see my "About Me" page), I've been exposed to a lot of unexpected criticism.  I happened to mention in my book a couple of times some of the history that led me to the place of living life all bound up in grave-clothes: raised from the dead like Lazarus, and thinking I was free but unable to enjoy anything, unable to make any progress, wondering if this was all there was to life.  Part of that history is the fact that I was abused as a child: physically, sexually, verbally, emotionally and (worst of all) spiritually. 

The book isn't about the abuse, though.  It's about the hopeless state of mind I was in as an adult and how I found a way out, a way which I had never been shown or told about, and into a place of real relationship with God, with myself, and eventually with others, including coming to a place of forgiving my abusers!

Anyway, with only ONE exception, the reaction from the people I mentioned (never once did I give a name or an address; I'm not after revenge) and the response from people who think they know them, has been nothing short of vitriolic.  I'm reminded of the Pharisees who were present at the stoning of Stephen, who, when they heard the truth that they were responsible for the greatest atrocity in history, were so incensed that they plugged their ears, ground their teeth and started throwing stones at him to shut him up.  It was "Open Season" on Christians -- and Stephen was the first to be targeted. Nothing mattered to the Pharisees except their own image. The truth did not set them free... they didn't want to have anything to do with the truth.

Of course, I'm not equating myself with Stephen.  Or my birth family with the Pharisees.  But their reaction has been far over the top of anything that I would have expected, especially since I had given them the opportunity of reading the book before I published, and they said nothing to me about it at the time.  Only after I was published did I hear the rumblings of second-hand stories regarding the reaction of "the family." As it was when I was growing up, they seem to be more concerned with how they appear to others, than they are about how many people (possibly even themselves) could be helped out of the same hopeless state of mind through reading about my experience of inner healing, and applying the principles for "living life" that I learned along the way.  

Their reaction has helped me redefine some boundaries.  I spent my whole life, almost into my 50s, feeling ashamed if I told the truth about myself: hiding so much behind respectability and "what people might think" that I avoided becoming vulnerable and open.  As a result, I not only wasn't able to come to a place of healing from the hurts of my past, I wasn't able to help anyone else either.  When God finally brought me to the place where I was forced to ask for help, I discovered that what was required to begin to heal inside was absolute, rigorous honesty and openness at all times - first and foremost with myself.  

Since that time, it's been "open season" on Judy - all bets are off.  I have given (and continue to give) my will and my life over to the care of God, and nothing in my life is off-limits to Him.  And the road has been quite bumpy; at times it's been nearly overwhelming.  He's brought some pretty difficult things to the surface over the last while, things that I couldn't possibly face by myself - and has stood with me, strengthening me to face those things with honesty and trust in Him. 

The reaction of those people has only served to refine the lessons I have learned (and which I continue to learn!) while healing.  Forgiveness is a process that starts with a decision to want to forgive - and continues as you learn to let go.  Forgiveness doesn't mean you let people walk all over you again and again.  Some relationships can be salvaged and restored.  And some ... can't.  It takes willingness on both sides.  If the other side isn't willing, and wants to go back to the way things were (dysfunctional, manipulative, controlling, etc.) then it's time to walk away.  It's sad, but sometimes it has to be that way.  I can't expect them to be in the same place to which God has brought me by His grace, much as I might want that.  They need to come to that place themselves, and NOTHING I can do will make that happen. 

What I CAN do is continue to be open and honest with myself, with God, and with others - especially with those who might be getting to the place of desperation, the same place I was at 48 years old when I looked at my life and knew I needed help, knew enough to ask for it.  

And I got help, and hope, and healing.  And so can you.