Honesty at the Risk of Perfection

I did a psychological/career assessment earlier this year. After just a couple of days, I gained new insight about myself that I've continued to mull over since that time. For instance, I learned why Chaplaincy seems like such a vocational fit beyond "it just feels right." It's flexible and I get to develop relationships with people, etc. Some ideas, like this one, became clear almost immediately. Other results of the test have become more understandable only over time and continued life experience. Here's my most recent, yet difficult to admit, epiphany.

Part of the results of the personality-type portion of the test explained that I have a difficult time in situations where I don't feel like I can present myself as together/organized/on top of things. I brushed this off at the time, but have come to see it's revealing truths in various situations. To the outside world, whichever "world" it is, I want to look like I'm funny, energetic, organized, and pulled together. This has been true at my job, my church, and in my family. It's only with Dan and very close friends that I let myself fall apart. Or at least be less than the "perfect side" of myself I try to present to the world. This is even worse when I not only have to admit vulnerability, but be cared for and helped.

This came to a head yesterday when I was at work experiencing difficulty breathing. It had been going on for days (Yes, days. I'm terrible about admitting when something is wrong). One of my nurses remarked about how I had been sighing all day. I ended up telling her that I wasn't sighing, but rather trying to take really deep breaths and seemed unable to. She came over and was soon followed by three others from work. With their encouragement (read: *insistence*), I called a doctor, and was seen that afternoon, had things checked, and nothing distressing or worrisome was discovered. (More about that at another time as I may need to go back to find out more).

However, the moments where I was vulnerable and the center of attention at work made me feel supremely uncomfortable. And exposed. And frustrated. Here I was, in a place where I try to exemplify the qualities of organization, creativity, compassion, knowledge in my field, teamwork, etc, and I was in a moment where none of that was the focus and I felt frantic. I know this sounds extreme, and looking back I see that it was. But there is more at work here.

In my CPE Residency, it was brought to my attention that I am particularly terrible at giving myself grace or offering myself forgiveness. I encourage others to focus on self-care, to take time out, to get checked when things are wrong, and to let others help. But boy are those very things that I am terrible at doing. I think it comes down to a deep feeling that people only love and care about my "together" self. As I said, I have a wonderful husband and loving friends who I have let inside the façade of togetherness. Just this year, I have shared a more open, well-rounded, honest part of myself with my mom and the results have been beautiful. But it's not easy and changing (where healthy) won't happen overnight.

I wonder whether allowing myself grace and acceptance for the times when I'm overwhelmed, burnt out, tired and disorganized will help me stave off reaching the point of collapse. Where I want to shut out the world and recuperate until I can smile, laugh, and gather myself into the person I feel proudest to share.

I've had some really incredible examples of people who have brought less than their best self into situations where they've still been valuable contributors. And their best selves always arrive again in time. I don't love them any less when they share another side of themselves. In fact, it feels like a relief.

If someone else in my office had been having a difficult time breathing, you can bet I would have been by their side encouraging support and care where I could. A friend of mine who is also a Chaplain told me once that she has a prayer she says before she makes visits: "Let me bring 100% of what I have to this situation." Not 100% of all that I could be ever, but 100% of what I have to offer at that moment in time. It's much more realistic and freeing.

Hopefully this new and deeper understanding of myself will aide me in becoming more forgiving of myself and offering myself grace to accept my very human well-roundedness.

But I do have some peeves. Oh yes. I do. I've noticed that with several people, when I have had a moment of breakdown and let myself be cared for, then I feel a shift in our relationship. Literally, four people come to mind, who seem to treat me as though I'm forever broken afterward. They tread warily around me and talk to me in the soothing tones one might adopt when trying to keep an animal calm. Instead of asking, "Hey! How're you doing?" the next time we meet (regardless of how many days/weeks later it is) they tilt their heads to the side and ask gently with a furrowed brow, "You okay...?" voice hitching uncertainly at the end. Sometimes I get really irritated and just want to say, "You mean because three weeks ago I was upset about something? Yes, I'm okay now! I haven't been wallowing over the same thing since we last talked!"

Another peeve. Please, helpers in future situations, notice when it's all just too much. Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk at work and four or five people were inside my cube (teeny thing that it is) all telling me what I needed to do at that moment. Please remember that the issue was not being able to breathe deeply. Do YOU think the added anxiety and pressure from everyone was helping? If you answered "No!" then you get a cookie. But you have to get it yourself. But I do give you permission. Go ahead. I'll wait.......










We good? Good. Moving on.

Another bit of venting before I round out this blog! One of my co-workers was even listening in when I was on the phone with the doctor and later my mom when I was calling her to get a ride to the appointment. Just give me a second to be on the phone without interrupting, trying to get my attention and telling me something. It was all just too much at that moment in time. Or maybe anytime. But it was a lot. There's a phrase in Chaplaincy I've probably written about before. It's called "non-anxious presence." My co-workers were definitely not practicing that yesterday.

However, they were demonstrating care, love, concern, sweetness, compassion and others offers of help. And I will continue to feel deeply grateful to work with such amazing women. These are the women I care for hospice patients with. I was a recipient of their love and can explain firsthand how much their care meant...when I calmed down and let myself finally feel it.

Life's a process. And onward it goes... :)

Eat, Pray, Love

For my CPE Residency, I had a didactic presentation to do recently. I had to present a book I read to my group in a creative way. I actually really enjoyed my presentation and the time I had with my colleagues. Prior to the day of my didactic, I had purchased Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. After seeing a preview for the upcoming movie starring Julia Roberts, I decided I must read this book before watching the incredible looking movie. But seeing as I had another book I was supposed to be reading, I made myself promise that I wouldn't start this book until after my presentation day. Miraculously, I made it to that deadline (and then some) which is out of character for me. I think listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in my car (I couldn't read in there anyway!) helped. But Harry Potter was over and my didactic done, so I began this extremely interesting book about one woman's journey.

I'm already hooked. And, thought I'm only 38 pages into the story, I have already learned a bit about myself. So here are some of the insights that have come up for me from this enthralling novel: I haven't prayed directly to God in a long time. At least not consistently. Well, let me clarify. I actually do pray quite a lot in the hospital. I pray for patients and their families. I pray in our devotion time with my fellow chaplains. And, on the rarer occasion, I pray with and for one of my colleagues. But what I do not do consistently is pray to God, from my heart, for my heart.

Last week, one of my colleagues said something to me that hurt me deeply. I was being more open about the way I think about God, and energy, and the Universe. I was talking about my spiritual journey and how I had become UU. His response was honest, and, looking back I'm truly grateful for it. But, at the time, my heart broke a little. What he said was that he thought God hurt because of my spiritual decisions. From his perspective, God's incarnation in Jesus Christ is the only spiritual path. And those that choose otherwise are going against God's will and that therefore God would be hurt because of their decisions; because of my decision.

His honesty, which at first I shied away from, was something I have been exploring further in the past couple of days. What I realized earnestly...is that I disagree. The idea that trying to be who I authentically am is hurting God is deeply painful. But for me, I believe that God understands my search, even more than I do. I think God cares, is glad that I seek spiritual paths, and that I'm on this journey. So I talked to God about it, something I haven't done in a while.

I think part of why I shied away from conversations with God is because of how much I've changed since I was a very conservative Christian. Because I had changed so much, I thought my image of God must therefore change also. But what I'm realizing is that the God of my Christian self is still very much the God of my now-self. This was a surprise to discover. I also think of God as a spirit, the indefinable, hard to nail, floaty-God that I feel connected to in nature. Sometimes I imagine these two God images together, but I haven't often. Somehow I think owning that my image of God is similar to what it once was will help me see these two aspects of God together.

In Eat, Pray, Love, after Gilbert mentions "God" for the first time, she then writes,

"And since this is the first time I have introduced that loaded word-GOD-into my book, and since this is a word which will appear many times again throughout these pages, it seems only fair that I pause here for a moment to explain exactly what I mean when I say that word, just so people can decide right away how offended they need to get."

I chuckled, feeling like I understood how she felt.

She continued:

"... let me first explain why I use the word God, when I could just as easily use the words Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, or Zeus...I have nothing against any of these terms. I feel they are all equal because they are all equally adequate and inadequate descriptions of the indescribable. But we each do need a functional name for this indescribability, and "God" is the name that feels the most warm to me, so that's what I use. I should also confess that I generally refer to God as "Him", which doesn't bother me because, to my mind, it's just a convenient personalizing pronoun, not a precise anatomical description or a cause for revolution. Of course, I don't mind if people call God "Her", and I understand the urge to do so. Again-to me, these are both equal terms, equally adequate and inadequate. Though I do think the capitalization of either pronoun is a nice touch, a small politeness in the presence of the divine." (p.13)

I don't think I intended to write that much at first, but I just wanted to include the entire excerpt in here. I call God different things. Sometimes I address the Universe in my prayers, a habit I picked up from the language of The Artist's Way. At my UU Fellowship the minister often addresses "Spirit of Life and Love" which also resonates with me. But I also find that the word "God" seems more encompassing and makes me think of many things at once. I like the openness.

This morning, during my morning pages, I addressed God about my feelings regarding what P said at work last week. I felt more connected to God than I had in a while. Another thought I toyed with is the idea that every person is divine, that our innermost core is sacred. And I wonder if the "substance" of God is the same as this sacred core. Following this line of thought, then connecting to myself means connecting to God. Hmm...food for thought and further consideration. I might address this again in the future.

For now, I'm heading away from the blogosphere, but I hope to return again soon!

Peace!

To Dream, Wonder and Imagine

Currently, I'm in a CPE Residency program. For two Units I was under the supervision of a woman, E. I got pretty close to her during that time, learning about myself and exploring my vocational calling. For the third Unit of my Residency, we changed supervisors. My new supervisor, C, has been a relative unknown over the past several months. Quiet, but when she spoke, I always noticed a depth. It intrigued me. I decided to choose openness when approaching this new supervisory relationship.

I'm not quite sure why, but I already feel more comfortable with C. I find it easy to be honest and truthful with her. But I think my favorite side effect of this new relationship is her encouragement for me to dream. After our last meeting, she told me she wanted me to take some time and stop thinking about my vocational calling in terms of jobs that I knew about. Rather, she wanted me to dream with no boundaries. I was fascinated and excited! I approached it as a new spiritual practice, often using my journal as the recipient.

Over the next few days, however, I learned something that was both surprising and discouraging. I learned that it's so much harder for me to dream than it used to be! I had no idea! But over the last several years, voices (from myself and internalized from others) have battered me with questions like, "What are you going to do?" "How is that practical?" "How will you make a living with that?" and so forth. I increasingly felt inadequate when I couldn't answer. I used to dream and not try to figure out those answers right away. And I made leaps of faith that turned into some of the best decisions of my life. But during this last week, I had to consistently battle that voices of reason, doubt, and skepticism. The truth is, while I want to be a responsible adult, I don't want to be "reasonable" all the time. I was to dance, play, dream, laugh, wonder and imagine! No barriers!

How will I know if the ideal situation comes along if I haven't let myself dream what that would look like?

For this unit, I made some of the most personal goals of all four units of my CPE history. They are as follows:

1) I want to learn to be more self-aware
2) I want to more fully embrace my own uniqueness
3) I would like to learn more about my gifts for ministry (and I would like to add "for life") and how to develop them

Among the steps for each of these goals are: to do things that regularly connect me to myself like play, color, draw, sing, dance, drum, imagine, read, and do yoga and to be honest and truthful in my interactions. My goals feel like me. I was worried when I presented them because I felt vulnerable. But my group had no qualms about them. This was an example of a time when I felt leery about sharing something because I thought I would be criticized. Instead, it was no big deal. I really do think that I worry more than is necessary.

And the prescription for my worry? For now it's to dream, wonder and imagine...