My 2 Cents on Our Current Events.

Today it was Matt Lauer.  Before today, it was Kevin Spacey.  In the past few weeks, the #metoo movement has taken off.  It seems the last straw broke the camel’s back and women have had enough.  I have heard and read comments ranging from admiration for women’s bravery for speaking out to blaming and shaming other women for waiting too long and accusing women that they are only going on a witch hunt.  My heart is saddened.  I have daughters and a son who are watching this play out.  I wish I could blind their eyes and cover their ears to all this ugliness, but hiding the truth is exactly what led us to the place we are now.

I have my own stories of sexual harassment.  I had a professor at a prominent university who sexually harassed most of us female students.  For me, it was groping my pregnant belly and telling me how sexy pregnancy made me.  To others, it included sexually explicit text messages.  Accusations were brought before the Dean and he was “punished.”  He kept his tenured position but was no longer allowed to advise students (a critical part of his job.)  The message to us – our experience did not matter.  He made money for the school.  The administration will overlook his indiscretions.  We women would just have to deal with it.  And it was swept under the rug.  But it was not okay then and it is not okay now.

We need to be having conversations about power and privilege.  Until we address this, until we can really start talking about it, women will continue to be sexually harassed, human trafficking will continue, racism and discrimination will continue . . . these cycles will continue unless we make a conscious effort as a society to change it.

My oldest wanted to be Donald Trump last year for Halloween (before he was President Trump.)  And then the Howard Stern recordings hit the news and I told her despite her fantastic impression of “Making Halloween Huuuuuge Again”, I could not allow her to represent him.  Perhaps if he had owned his words and made amends, our conversation would have been different, but instead he chose to continue to bully and justify his actions.  This led to a deeper conversation about objectification and what it means when we forget to see people as our fellow human beings and only look at another as something to possess.  We had a history lesson on slavery and the Holocaust and the awful truths that come when we fail to see another in their humanness and lose our ability to hold all life as sacred.  When humans feel entitled and fail to keep their power in check, tragedy lurks.  The Nazis were ordinary German citizens; slave owners were businessmen and women, but their power went unchecked, they dehumanized those whom they held power over, and unspeakable abuse occurred.  For a more recent history lesson, read up on the Stanford Prison Experiment where ordinary college students in a matter of hours became sadistic “prison guards” toward other innocent college students playing the role of prisoner.  We all have the ability to both nurture and destroy one another.

When we fail to really listen to one another, we are quick to bully, blame, and judge.  Life is complicated.  One of my favorite concepts I learned in high school from the great Mr. Watt was ETHNOCENTRISM.  The world is right only from my perspective.  Again, this speaks to privilege and our difficulty at having real conversations with real people.  Privilege is another tough conversation I have with my own kids.  As we drive through “ghettos”, my kids will ask if these are bad neighborhoods.  They notice the bars on the doors and windows and the trash littered streets.  Then we talk about what it would be like to live in this neighborhood; what it would be like to go to the local school as we drive by the rundown playground.  Do they think they are equal to the school they go to?  Do they think the neighborhood is a place where the children can run and play freely outside?  The answer is sadly, no they are not equal.  But we are quick to blame these neighborhoods for all the cities violence and drug problems.  We are quick to blame them for being needy on the system; for using up tax dollars of the “hard working people” so they can sit around and be lazy on welfare. 

Back in my therapist days, I had a young boy as a client.  He lived in an apartment with both his parents who both had jobs.  There was a lot of violence in his neighborhood – gun shots were common, and in one incident, a bullet went through his bedroom wall.  This kid could not sleep.  And when one does not sleep, one falls behind academically.  And when one falls behind, one will either act out or give up.  This kid was giving up and at 10 years old had suicidal thoughts.  His family was doing the best they could, but they were locked into a lease and moving was not possible.  They were going to have to live with the constant fear and a little boy too afraid to close his eyes at night.

But we as a society don’t want to have these conversations.  I gave up on the major network news stations when a morning headline was about a Kardashian and a few stories down in an “oh by the way” was an account of the Syrian civil war and the thousands that are dying.  I flashed back to a conversation I had with my great-grandmother showing her pictures from a trip I had taken to Dachau, a German concentration camp.  In all sincerity, she did not believe that 6 million Jews were killed along with another 4 million Gypsies, homosexuals, political prisoners, and other unwanted types.  But the 1940s, news in America did not focus on the atrocities then, and we are quick to bury our heads in the sand now.  We don’t want to feel uncomfortable.  We would rather numb ourselves to tragedy.  But these patterns will continue to repeat themselves until we start having real conversations using our active listening skills.

Maybe the #metoo will lead to other “revolutions” that confront the long patterns of power and privilege in the sexual abuse/harassment arena.  Black Lives Matter has sparked conversations about racism and discrimination.  Unfortunately, what I mostly see is more division and blame.  My hope is that we will rise above and start having real conversations that lead to healing.

Losing Control (or Laughing Until It Hurts)

A huge part of my current mid-life awakening is to address this part of me that is stoic – this part of me that is an emotional idiot.  It is one thing to know what emotions belong into each situation and then to act accordingly, but it is another to actually feel these emotions with reckless abandon.  I was/am tired of pretending my way through emotions.  Tired of only experiencing the surface of what this emotional life has to offer.  I was/am ready for the fullness of what my mind, body, spirit and emotional life has to offer.

To feel to the depths requires trust.  Trust that if I feel, I will not get hurt.  Trust that I can stay safe despite what emotional state I am encountering.  Trust that rage and despair will not choke the life out of me.  At age 40, I am trusting this process; trusting the journey that my emotional life has to offer.  Yes, I am feeling old grief and it sucks.  But on the flip side, the ups are becoming just as high as the depths, and this ride is nothing shy of fantastic.

I just came off three nights working in the ER.  This time of year, we have an increased level of acuity (those who do come in are really sick) and increased numbers of those in a psychological crisis.  This creates a new type of stress in hospital ER life.  Historically I have coped with this increased stress by putting on my big girl panties, sucking it up, and plowing through.  Get the job done – focus on the task at hand, help your coworkers with their task, and then go home and crash.  Once my run of shifts was over, it was time to really kick back with alcohol and mute the stress.  But something is shifting.  I have not had an alcoholic beverage in over a month, I journal instead of avoiding my feelings, drink tea and read good books.  In other words, I have created space to reflect and feed my soul rather than sucking it up and running on empty.

And here is the return of this investment: I am feeling joy, excitement, compassion . . . really feeling from the depths of my being.

This weekend, in between caring for ill patients, I laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks and my stomach hurt from all the jiggling.  I cannot recall the last time I lost myself in the joy of the moment – it has been far too long.  And through this laughter, the bonds with my fellow ER nurses grew deeper.  We were knee deep in incontinent patients and holding down patients who were spitting at us and screaming with wild eyes, and we needed to trust one another.  I had to trust that this team not only had my back in those moments, but then after the situation dies down and the coping mechanisms take over.  When I take the attitude of “suck it up, this is the job” I isolate myself from the shared coping; isolate from the community of caring.  This weekend, the coping was reckless laughter, high fives, practical jokes, and pats on the back.  I am blessed to be able to share my life with this community of hard-working nurses.

While my ability to laugh until tears is an amazing gift, I am noticing a growing depth of compassion that is pouring forth more naturally.  Now I find myself looking into the eyes of a scared schizophrenic and trying to provide reassurance and singing with a demented woman in attempts to calm and distract her as I place an IV.  A few months ago, I may have engaged in such acts, but now it is coming with more ease and comfort.  It no longer feels like an attempt to do the right act of compassion but rather a shift to be a comforting presence. 

This ride and the company I am traveling with is such a blessing.

When Music Speaks.

We sang a song at Mass this past Sunday.  Psalm 23, “Shepherd Me O God,”  and this song was out of place.  We sang it at the end of Mass, not in the typical Responsorial Psalm location (another Psalm was sung there.)  As we started singing, my soul woke up.  Immediately I knew this was reflecting the longing of my inmost being.  Click here if you want to hear the song.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP3eGsqGWZk.

The refrain goes like this, “Shepherd me, O God/ beyond my wants/ beyond my fears/ from death into life.”  The eerie tune combined with these words led me to a place I was not expecting. 

Faith has not/does not come easy for me.  One reason, rather than the song above being my theme, I have lived more by Simon and Garfunkel’s “I am a Rock.”

            “I’ve built walls / A fortress deep and mighty /That none may penetrate.”

Or as one friend so politely told me, “You are a tough nut to crack.” 

Faith requires me to step into mystery.  To embrace the unknown.  To open myself up to intimate connection with the Creator of the Universe and my fellow sojourners.  The two greatest commandments: love the Lord your God and love your neighbor.  Without connection, vulnerability, and intimacy, there is no love.  My head knew how to love.  My body knew how to obey the laws of God (though far from perfect!)  But my heart has struggled with love.  I like the idea of love, but not the vulnerability.  I like control and predictability.  I like my fantasy belief that behind my fortress all alone, I will be satisfied.

Last Sunday morning, my heart was singing, “Shepherd me, O God.”  Lead me.  Take me through the valley of the shadow of death that I may come and see the life on the other side.  Take me beyond what is comfortable; take me outside of my walls, beyond the deep and mighty fortress.  Penetrate my being that I may experience love; so that I may love in return.

There is a space where my spirit groans.  This is the space where vocabulary is insufficient to explain what is there.  “Shepherd me, O God” spoke those groanings.  Lead me.  Guide me.  Take me to the places I cannot imagine. 

Beyond my wants . . . because what I want is to feel safe and happy and avoid discomfort.  But what I want is not possible.  If I cut off the discomfort, if I build my fortress deep and mighty to avoid pain, I also cut myself off excitement, intimacy, joy, and love.

Beyond my fears . . . beyond my terror of vulnerability to the place where I can be seen.  To the place where I can be known and loved for who I am and not the decorated image I project onto my fortress walls.  In other words, loved because I belong and not because I am trying on different masks in attempts to fit in.

From death into life . . . because my masks do not feel.  They are numb with distracting and avoiding behaviors.  But to be led beyond the masks, beyond my strategies to stay numb, beyond my fears, out of the fortress deep and mighty and into love, yes, this is groaning of my soul.

Long, long ago in college I had a faith crisis and I asked a professor how to get through.  In her great wisdom she said, “Let the Liturgy carry you.”  When I bring myself to Mass (even tired after working three nights in a row), I am saying to God, “Shepherd me.”  With humility, I open myself up to the order of the Liturgy and then I smile when I receive not what I want, but exactly what I need.

 

Lessons from Maddie

I believe my youngest slyly entered this world to teach me how to love and live life to the fullest.  I say"sly" because she was "Twin Baby B."  Twin Baby A was a boy, and with us already having a girl at home, we probably would have stopped trying to have more children.  God had other plans and brought us the AMAZING gift of Maddie.

Maddie sees and navigates through this world opposite of my tightly controlled, organized, perfectionist ways.  She will spend three hours cleaning her room on Saturday only to be unable to walk across her floor on Sunday.  What I see as mess and junk, she sees as opportunity and the start of something beautiful.  She collects everything that glittersand shines and then uses her treasures to create art and three dimensional worlds.  She is friends with everyone and wears her heart on her sleeve.  She needs ten hugs before I leave for work and an extra long tuck in before she goes to bed.  She has a contagious laugh that comes from her toes.

Last night, as I was ironically finishing a book on shame, vulnerability, and parenting, Maddie was working her way through homework at a snail's pace.  She was distracted by every little thing, unable to get some parts finished because she left the book she needs at school.  We were creeping up on 9:00, 30 minutes past bedtime and still trying to finish homework.  My frustration grew -- "Why wasn't this done over the weekend like I asked instead of waiting until now?  Focus . . . focus . . . focus."  Which under this message my thoughts exploded, "Why aren't you like me or anyone else in the family?  Why are you not getting this?  Why are you so slow!?!"   I saw her little face fight back the tears. She tried to hide her sadness and shame, but her heart overflows with every emotion.  There was no hiding this one.

And then I swallowed one big giant gulp of guilt realizing that I contributed to her shame and pain.  My frustration spilled out.  I was doing exactly what the book I finished said to avoid.  Another big gulp and deep breath, and then I moved beside her.  We finished homework and moved to her bed for a tuck in.  She still needed to read, so I chose to lay down beside her as she finished the chapter.  As I raked her arm, I could not hold back my own tears welling up.  Deep breath in and out came the words, "Please don't change.  Even when I become frustrated, don't change.  Don't change how you see the world, how you draw connections where others see nothing.  Don't change how you stop to actually take in the beauty around you.  Don't stop putting relationships and looking for the beautiful ahead of every task."  I wiped the tears away from my eyes and she looked at me and said, "And don't you stop being just like you."  All was well in the world.

It is so easy to judge others who do not share similar values as me.  So easy to want others to think, do, and prioritize like me.  My fear is that my own judgment and criticism will stifle what is beautiful and creative about Maddie and the world will miss the blessings she has to offer. Her mind and spirit are a blessing -- it is the mind and spirit God gave her.  My job as parent is to help her embrace her unique design and be a good steward of the gifts she has to give.  In the meantime, she is teaching me how to live, love, and laugh with my whole being.  I am forever grateful for the unexpected surprise of Twin Baby B.

The Joy of Being Scared.

I work night shift in a Level 1 trauma center/emergency department.  I love my job.  I love my coworkers.  This is a job where it is not uncommon to hear, “Will you come help me get clean up this patient?” and you never really know what bodily fluid or massive wound/injury is needing cleaned.  This is an environment where we help one another without hesitation.  We work side by side coding patients and saving lives.  We work together to restrain violent patients.  We give each other reassuring looks before we walk into a dying patient’s room.  We see a lot of crazy stuff and do not think much about how it may affect us.  After all, it is what we do.  But to manage the stress, we are a crew that finds time for playfulness and laughing at what others might find inappropriate. 

Saturday night, I was walking around the hallway at work when a coworker jumped out and scared me.  I jumped and nearly wet my pants.  Now, this is not the first time this coworker has successfully scared the crap out of me.  Not the first time I have jumped and let out a scream.  You would think I would be more prepared, but she spaces it out with enough time in that one is never expecting it.  She has hidden behind curtains, crept up on me in our stock room, and every time I jump, we both laugh, and a smile stays with me for several minutes.

Now pranking someone at work is a regular part of our environment and most nights I do not turn a prank into a life-changing, philosophical moment.  Work hard, play hard are our cultural norms.  But this night, something clicked on a deeper level that I was not expecting.  For a moment, I was caught by the surprise and felt the fullness of the fear.  A surge of adrenaline accompanied the startled response.  My emotions and my response were unrestrained and completely free.  The unrestrained expression triggered deeper thoughts.

When it comes to emotions, I am a bit of a dummy.  I have difficulty identifying what I am feeling, and when I do allow myself to experience emotion, it is typically restrained and controlled.  This stoicism and emotional restraint is what allows me to walk into a trauma and stay calm.  I am grateful for this gift of emotional control, but it is a double-edged sword.  The restraint keeps me from feeling positive things like love, happiness, and joy.  Emotions are a bundled package – avoid or limit experiencing the negative emotions like rage, shame, fear and the positive are equally not experienced. 

Historically I have avoiding feelings out of a sense of dread that if I open the floodgates of feeling I will be overwhelmed with their intensity.  Keep the gates closed and the dread is avoided.  Unfortunately, this also keeps me from my greatest desires which is to feel love, closeness, and intimacy with others around me.  Saturday night, my fear reaction bypassed the flood gates and I experienced that moment without restraint . . . and I loved it.  I loved the emotions surging through my body; loved the freedom I experienced as I felt without the chains of restraint.

Glimpses of this freedom carried over into Mass on Sunday.  As we sang the Gloria, I felt tears well up as I connected with God’s story of salvation.  The freedom continued as I hugged my children and tears welled up again as I became moved by the amount of love I have for them.  I can still feel the restraint creep in – for me, the tears well and I cut short the feeling before they have a chance to roll down my cheek. I sense this is about to change.

Thanks to my special coworker who is the master at scaring me, I am eager to risk feeling overwhelmed by the fullness of all emotions.  I am ready to loosen the chains that hold me back from my emotional life.  I am ready to dive into the messiness of connection with others – to be empathic and open to others.  I am more available to practice the ministry of presence.

Cracks in the Wall

I am reading Daring Greatly, by Brene’ Brown.  This is a book about authentic living and the courage to be vulnerable.  It is about confronting shame and developing resilience to shame’s attacks.   For this moment in my life, her writing is speaking directly into the needs of my spirit.  It is like she is reading my mind – hearing the questions I have struggled with and writing with such honest gentleness I am able to hear and digest.  It is annoyingly painful, yet I can feel a current of joy underneath the pain working its way to the surface.

I have spent the better part of my life building up shame resistance.  I freakin’ hate shame and all its nasty thoughts and feelings it brings to the table.  That voice that says if people really knew me they would be disgusted.  If they were to see me, they would run in fear.  That voice that says I am not worthy of connection; not worthy of love.  I hate this voice and the havoc that it brings.  So, I run from the voice.  I run fast (not literally as my actual fast pace is an 11:00 minute mile).

My early years were spent living in a small bungalow next door to an older brother who brought experiences that forever changed my life.  I was in the third grade the first time I can recall experiencing shame. This was the first time I spent the night at someone’s house other than grandparents or my next-door neighbor.  It was in a wealthy neighborhood.  The family ate dinner together at home.  And what I remember most is the mom tucked all the kids into bed.  She tucked me into bed.  I was in heaven.  The next morning, she drove me home to our tiny bungalow a block away from the liquor store.  It was the first I realized my world was different than others at my private school.  We moved to our own well-to-do neighborhood shortly after this encounter, but the shame of that neighborhood and the abuse that occurred there came packed in its own box and moved with ease into my new second-story bedroom. 

My ten-year-old self fought the shame by being a turd at school and home.  I picked fights.  I bullied.  I developed an anger sword to protect others from seeing my shame.  Eventually attacking others only got me in more trouble than I cared to deal with, and the anger sword became an anger shield.  I built a wall of stone, steel, and concrete (also known as good behavior, no tears, and a I-got-it-together smile) hoping no one would be able to get through.  Eventually this wall took on a natural look It was camouflaged enough with good works and flying under the radar that others hardly noticed.   Most of the time I was too busy to notice the wall. Anger turned inward, and my shame voice did a number behind the perceived safety of my wall.  Business, alcohol, and electronic gadgets filled the gaps when shame started to rear its ugly head.

Shame behind the wall is so incredibly destructive both to myself and those I care about.  I become a distant wife, grouchy mom, and selfish friend.  It’s not that I want to hurt others as much as I become so terrified they will see me and ultimately reject me that I become unavailable first.  I prevent the opportunity of rejection. And here is where I say, “Thank God I am not the best at construction.”  To quote Leonard Cohen (thanks Brene’ Brown for quoting him in your book), “There’s a crack in everything.  That’s how light gets in.”

The wall I built has many cracks that years of patches are no longer holding.  Thank God for mid-life awakenings (I am avoiding the term mid-life crisis) and my soul saying “Enough is enough.  Heal, damnit.”  And thank God I am willing to quiet down enough to listen.  And I know the healing process would not be possible if I did not feel safe enough in life.  I am forever grateful for friendships and steady-as-a-rock husband who have helped me feel and know this safety net around me.  I am forever grateful for my imperfect cracks that allow light, love, compassion, grace, and empathy to seep in and be that much needed balm.