Sunday, October 28, 2012

Taking Time

I've been spending some time lately looking after myself, and one important fact has dawned on me about self-care. To others it might seem to be a no-brainer but to me, it explains (in part) why I never did much of it before, and why I always felt guilty when I did do it.

It takes time. 

I would make time for my husband, for my family, for my friends, for church obligations, for my boss ... and after all that was done, there just wasn't any time for me. I'd drop exhausted into bed at night and the whole thing would start all over again the next day. The only time I seemed to take for me (and even then under protest) was when I'd get so run down that I'd get sick. Even my body was telling me to take some time for me. I wasn't listening. 

When I started therapy in early 2009, one of the first questions asked of me was this: "When was the last time you did anything for yourself, that you wanted to do just because you liked it?" 

I couldn't remember when it was or what I did. Wracking my brain, I did come up with something in 1991: I had taken equitation lessons - English riding, you know, with the helmet and the jumping over fences, that kind of thing. Wait a sec - did I say 1991? That had been 18 years previous! Yikes!

I was a lot skinnier then. A LOT. Almost a hundred pounds skinnier.

Yes, this is a photo from that day in 2003.

I remembered going on a trail ride when my kids were 14 and 11, that would have been 2003. I was much heavier than in 1991. I remembered the poor male attendant and then his assistant joining him in shoving at my hind end to help me mount up; nothing worked, and the saddle started to slip toward my side of the animal. (Shudder.) But I was there for my kids to have the fun of riding, dang-it-all!!. So I looked around and saw a platform with steps up to it. "Take the horse over there, and let me get on from that platform," I told them. It worked, and I did enjoy being on a horse again, but the experience was marred by the lead-up and the snickers of the extremely tall and skinny trail ride staff. It was NOT a happy time for me. To soothe my bruised ego and to finish on a positive note, I took the kids for a milkshake at a nearby diner afterward. They loved it. They wanted to go riding again sometime. I don't remember ever going back, at least not to that particular spot.

I have photos of that day ... somewhere. Fortunately for me, I was the one with the camera, so there are no blackmail photos. (Thank God.)

Back in 2009, in therapy, I recall reliving these experiences and realizing that Judy had taken a back seat ever since, and not out of love but out of shame, out of a feeling of not being worthy, not being adequate. Voices from my past had been all too quick to confirm my opinion of myself. I remember feeling trapped by my physical limitations, and I wanted so badly for things to be different: for me (for one thing) to not be nearly a hundred pounds heavier than in 1991. Every time I'd tried to lose weight, I had gained it back and more beside. My therapist stopped me when I said that. "Someday Judy, when you are healed on the inside, the outside will take care of itself without you even realizing it." And I cried at his faith in me. I didn't even have that much faith in me; how could a stranger know what I was?

I did a lot of crying over the next few weeks and months as I realized how I'd put myself in a corner and let others take the center stage in my life while I wore the "fat, stupid and lazy" dunce cap, self-imposed at that. I began to understand how deep that shame was, how horribly I'd treated myself, how that had spilled out into my relationships with others.

Jack Canfield, the author of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series, said once that in order to change something in your life, in order to keep going and press forward instead of giving up, you need to flood your mind with statements and images that remind you of your goal. 

I learned that repetition is so very important. The self-destructive messages I picked up as a child were huge in my life. I had to lovingly parent that damaged inner child and tell her things she should have been told so many years ago: that she was important, that she was worthy, that she was smart, that she was loveable. One of the reasons I said those things to her was because part of me knew that it was true - the logical part of me. Yet the emotional part of me, where she resided, hid from this truth and pooh-poohed it - even sabotaged it. Repetition was the key. It had taken many years of others repeating the wrong message for it to get so entrenched into my psyche. It was not going to change overnight, especially because those same people were shouting those lies to me every day of my adult life as well. So, I set my sights on filling my mind with those statements, to remind myself daily, sometimes several times a day, of what I knew I should have been told and reminded of daily ... decades ago. 

From "A Letter to my Shy Girl"
It took months for that little girl to stop hiding her face behind her hands. It took even longer for her to venture a weak smile, and longer still for her to reach out to my extended hand. I got help - all the help I could use or ever want - from people who believed in me, from inspirational readings like "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beatty, and from Psalm 139.  Many, many readings of Psalm 139. I learned to trust my emotions to let me know what was going on inside of me, and not to deny them expression in safe ways. And, as hard as it was for me to go through - I did my homework, every day. I learned what I had to learn, examined what God placed in front of me to look at, even when I didn't want to look. I took responsibility for looking after myself and for restoring relationships I had ruined by behaving selfishly. I learned to forgive - to let go. I learned ... how to live life. 

The lessons I learned then hold me in good stead now. I still have to remind myself of what's important. I still have to talk gently to that little girl, because even though she isn't cringing anymore, she still needs to be parented, reminded that she is precious, valuable, cherished. She has gone from about 5 or 6 years old to being about 10 or 11, but she is still too young to be on her own ... yet. ;)  

However, there is progress. 

The one thing all of this has taught me is that it does take time to heal; that it does take time to do the things I need to do for my own benefit. And it's taught me that it doesn't happen in a moment. I need to TAKE the time that it takes to invest in my own growth. I can't let life happen to me anymore. I need to live intentionally, to immerse myself in gratitude-builders, to work on accepting myself so that I can accept others around me and have enough emotional energy to be able to overflow into others' lives ... in a good way.

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