as I love myself
“How will I survive being this particular type of person in this particular type of world?”
Monica’s question is innocent enough: how do we want to get to know God better as we navigate life in quarantine? For the past several weeks, our beloved house church has been gathering on Zoom instead of squabbling over the corner of her sofa like the siblings that we are, and I have never been more convinced that life on a screen doesn’t hold a candle to actually being physically present with one another. Even so, we try our best to make do, and inevitably, I wind up sobbing as soon as I click out of the meeting. It has been far too long since we argued over how to season dinner, since we last took communion together, since we last hugged each other. And yet, here we are, trying to find God together in the midst of unrelenting grief.
The truth is, while I’ve never given up on looking for God, I’m finding that more of my energy is being spent on looking for myself these days. Perhaps it is like Jeanette Winterson said, “God is bigger and easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can’t describe myself, I can’t ask for help.”
A few weeks ago, my therapist told me that I don’t seem to have very much tolerance for myself. His eyes were kind and his voice was gentle as he made this observation, and I bristled as I received it—partially out of indignation, and partially out of relief. He is perpetually trying to get me to be a kinder witness to my own thoughts and feelings, to offer myself what Aundi Kolber calls “compassionate attention.” What’s absolutely maddening about this is that it requires that I practice what I spend my whole life preaching: that there can be no witness without withness.
Turns out, I’m not very good at being with myself. I’ve spent so much time trying to outrun my desire, my anger, and my tenderness because those things have always felt much more like afflictions than gifts. During the next week’s session, I tell my therapist with the kind eyes and gentle voice that I am exhausted from trying to keep the dam containing my very big feelings intact.
“Are you suffering underneath all of this?” he asks. The question leaves me feeling disarmed. He offers that maybe if I allow some of what is behind the dam to be released, I might be surprised by what it grows. I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude at the number of times he calls this “a practice.”
The question of what I want has always been a bit intimidating, but these days, I’m trying to slow down a bit and listen to what my body and soul are saying. Sometimes, this looks like reaching out when I need to instead of white-knuckling in isolation. Sometimes, it looks as simple as pressing pause on what I’m doing in order to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom instead of denying myself and despising my body in order to push through to some self-imposed finish line. Sometimes, it looks like making and keeping an appointment with my doctor. Sometimes, it looks like getting up and going for a walk instead of commenting on someone’s Facebook post (public service announcement: Facebook is not therapy). Daily, it looks like taking my medicine and trying to go to bed at a decent hour, because nighttime is the worst for my anxiety. Moment by moment, it looks like choosing to embrace the tension of my own “yes, and.”
Yes, I am grateful, and there are still parts of my life that don’t look like I want them to.
Yes, I am full of faith, and I am often overwhelmed by doubt.
Yes, I am imperfect, and I am still worthy of being loved.
Naturally, some days are better than others when it comes to befriending my own need and imperfection. Mostly, I try to remember to give myself credit for the small things, like managing to meditate for twelve seconds longer than I did yesterday (for an impressive total of twelve seconds). Meditation should really come with a disclaimer, because it is insanely hard to sit still and simply observe your own experience when your way of being in the world looks like losing yourself in trying to meet and manage the expectations and experiences of everyone around you—a task that is somehow made even more impossible in the middle of our collective grief.
The truth is, I don’t know how to be this particular kind of person in this particular kind of world—there are days when I desperately wish to be the particular kind of person who seems impervious to this very deep and abiding ache lodged somewhere between my heart and my stomach that I am charged with unwrapping and counting as yes, affliction and gift—the particular kind of person who somehow manages to move through the world untouched by the fragility of it all, because they have not recognized that they themselves are fragile, too. But I’m not that person—I never have been. And so, I am trying to learn how to be the particular kind of person I am and let go of all of the loathsome thoughts I’ve harbored towards myself for so long.
I practice laying them down, one by one, like stones I have collected in my pockets.
I hope I am lighter without them.