on who I wasn't

“Ten years from now, may we all look back and love who we were while hardly recognizing them.”

— Don Miller

This is kind of a mind dump, so prepare yourself for fragments and a rough flow …

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I spent a lot of my life trying to be someone I just wasn’t.

A dancer. A singer. An actress. A speaker. A choreographer. A leader. 

I didn’t know I wasn’t those things. I guess I kept thinking I could be. So, I kept alluding to being this girl that I wasn’t. Looking back, I can confidently say I didn’t do any of it maliciously or pathologically. Always curious, always wanting to be better, I’d sign up for things, thinking I should and that it’d be different this time — that it’d be natural, good, maybe even easy. But it wasn’t. Ever. At all. 

I punked out each and every time it was time to perform.

I’d quit. Back out. Stall. I even faked sickness a time or two.

Something started me thinking about it all last night. I felt the flush of a fool and it was like opening up pandora’s box. In an instance, memory after memory came flooding back — reminders of times when I ran because I knew I wasn’t going to live up to expectations — mine and/or someone else’s …

Soccer. Track. That time I got cheerleading co-captain for basketball. That acting class. Club president. Choreographing for a local JV cheerleading squad. Choreographing for the church’s family program. Speaking at/welcoming/doing a skit at FCA. Chorus in 7th grade. Random pickup sports. I’m still not even sure I didn’t initially pursue my current career because I realized I just wasn’t an expert in my former one. The list goes on …

This is my pattern. That’s my confession. My fear of failure. My self-loathing and condemnation. My pride and self-protection. My idolizing of labels and talents and my pathetic pursuit of what was never mine to catch.

I’m writing this now because I feel the pull of old habits. Feeling slow at success in this new career, I’m inclined to sign up for what’s not mine to own … to be what I’m not … to walk toward something I’ll most likely turn tail and run from eventually …

But, I won’t give in. It’s harder to run the older you get. There’s more to lose. Less to gain. It’s not really even an option anymore — to walk away. Finances won’t stand for it. My reputation wouldn’t survive it. And frankly, I actually don’t want to run. Even though it’s hard and I’m still learning and growing into/from it, I like where I’m at, what I’m doing, and who I’m impacting. I'm good at this, even if I like to tell myself that I'm not.

So, I’m not going to try and be what I’m not. I’ll never be that counselor that works cases just to get hours. I’ll never be that counselor that markets herself as an expert on something just because it’s a good marketing/brand strategy. I’m made for an in-depth discussion in a little room behind a closed door. I’m a reader and a writer and a thinker. I’m an introvert. I’m flawed. I’m still learning how to evade depression and to reach for connection. I care less about what you think than I did, but still care a little too much about what I think of myself … and I have to stop apologizing for all of it.

I’m working on loving who I am and who I was in my scared, impressionable, reactionary years. My husband says there's a silver lining in all of it — a hint of nobility in my quitting — I got to try a lot of different things, more than most people. I tested waters. I found out for sure what I liked and what I didn’t … what I could do and what I couldn’t … where I fit and what grated against my nature. I may not have known it then, but I know it now.

I’m better today for my foolish ways and failures of yesterday. Praise God.

on conflict and contentment

I'm conflicted about whether or not I should be conflicted about my blogging (or lack thereof) habits. Should I be concerned that I don't have an urge to chat about anything online? Should I be worried that nothing in my life seems to warrant the time and energy of writing about it? And if that's my measure of worthiness - where'd that come from? Idiocy or intellect? Is my current state of contentment cause for concern as a result? 

'Cause I am. Content, that is. 

With qualifers, of course. I mean, I'm completely out of shape - I haven't run a mile in, well, weeks. The last time I hit the gym was like a month ago, which was probably the second time that month. I've self-soothed a time or two (or twelve) with cake. And a beer ...  and I kind of don't care ...

And I still look at homes for sale on Zillow once a week. Occasionally, I send a link to the Mr. for kicks ... and dreams. I stroll through the garden department at Home Depot every few weekends, picturing a landscape overhaul of our current property.

I've got a Pinterest board for a private practice office. I've measured furniture. I've run numbers. I even bought a pillow for color palette reference. I've got more clients. Just note enough yet.

I have a list of books to read a mile long. Fiction, vocation-focused stuff. I'm eager for competence, depth, expertise. I take notes, watch TedTalks ... pick the brain of the established.  It confounds me that they're all so right and all so wrong at the same time.

So, yea, I guess I want more. Other. I'm never satisfied, but I'm content. I'm not as torn and confused as I once was ... I don't need to process or prove much in public anymore. I guess. Very little gets me riled up these days. I don't need as many answers. I've got less expectations for myself and others. It's nice. 

This is good. So, I'm sharing. :) 

on why hope is hard

It's one of those days. The ones where all feels ick. My husband snuggles me on the couch and looks into my eyes with his blue ones, searching and kind, and I'm overwhelmingly grateful and completely numb, both at once.

These days seem to come out of nowhere ... and yet part of me feels like they're the price I pay for having hope. Like the universe is shaking it's head and muttering a "foolish girl."

Because, I felt pretty great last week. It felt really nice. I had a meeting on Wednesday that gave me energy and encouragement and a bit of hope I hadn't felt in a LONG time.

Thursday was good.

Friday was another meeting that at least felt like something progressive and hopeful.

And the weekend was fun — from puppy shopping to waverunner riding with friends, it was a steady stream of happy that worked to keep hope alive.

But then Monday. And the ick factor. 

I catch myself in automatic negative and self-deprecating thoughts. The old feelings of inadequacy and insecurity return. The sense of financial and professional stuckness and a related despondency set in deep. Opportunities feel like burdens and yet, when I refuse to shoulder those "burdens", a weight of shame descends.

Changing your inner narrative is hard. It's a battle. It's taking every thought captive and holding it up to the Truth and deciding to believe differently about myself and life and God. It's a little bit exhausting, this inner work, but it's my work today ... and every day ... because Hope is worth the struggle.

I think. I hope?!

on scrambling

My state-required bi-weekly supervision sessions are costly, but they're worth it. Especially last week's hour.

A little backstory: Eight months into my new career and building my own business, I've been fighting a feeling of failure. I've been fretting over my lack of client hours (seriously, why did I choose a career in which it is my job to make my job obsolete?!) and the fact that a lack of client hours results in a lack of experiential learning opportunities. A lack of learning makes me feel largely inadequate. So, I been frettin'.

Frankly, I've moved beyond fretting to full-on desperation. So, with a lack of clients to talk about in last week's supervisory session, the conversation turned toward me and my fight against feeling like a failure. The conversation didn't start out that way. It started with me talking about all the things I was DOING to fix my perceived "problem."

Him: "So, you're scrambling." 

Me: "Yea, I'm scrambling. [thinking] I don't want to be bad at this counseling thing. I can't afford for this not to work."

Him: "Why do you scramble?" 

Me: "I don't want to talk about this."

Why didn't I want to talk about it? Because I can't handle this feeling of failing. I don't enjoy feeling like I'm not in control. I don't like being needy and vulnerable and uncomfortable. What does it say about me if I can't get this done right and well and NOW?

My supervisor, himself a great counselor, knew my answer. He didn't expect me to answer. He knows I know. Then he told me the story again of the research done on what sets the most successful entrepreneurs apart from the scrambling masses ...

Turns out successful people never think of themselves as failures. Things they do may fail (i.e. that failed), but they, themselves, are never failures (i.e. I failed).

So, as of right now, I have this knowledge that I'm not a failure ... but making it heart knowledge is where I'm a little bit stuck. If I don't rock this ... and the money and the acknowledgement doesn't flow ... somehow I have to figure out how to believe that it's okay and that it's not a reflection on who I am.

And there I go ... a scramblin' again .... :) It's quite the ineffective, but instinctual little pattern of doing life I've got going on, ain't it?

Chances are, how you're doing life isn't quite working for you anymore either. How aware are you of your unhelpful habits of doing, thinking, being?

Welcome to the reality of (and the best proof of the need for) counseling:

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." — Romans 7:15-20

on the wrong side of the bed

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Maybe it was a result of my sleeping thoughts. I mean, I know I dreamt about getting pregnant despite the impossibility of it happening. I dreamt about having to end the pregnancy. I felt awful about all of it in the dream. Maybe I've brought forward into my waking life the emotional wreckage of my unconscious mind.

Maybe.

Regardless, it's one of those mornings where I just despise myself. I feel a failure and disdain for the "have tos" and the "maybe laters" of life. I don't want to do freelance. I don't want to exit my comfort zone to put myself out there for the slim possiblity of getting a client referral. I don't want to exercise and eat right. I DON'T WANT TO. Life, would you just leave me the f- alone? Can it feel easy again, just once? Life texts back with a resounding "NO!" and it stings. So, this morning, I've been short and disrespectful with my husband. I'm irrationally annoyed by everything going on around me. I'm mean. I'm sabatoging another's joy. And I don't know how to stop doing it. So, I'm shaming myself for being this darker version of myself.

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But, my dearest love, in my idiocy I am still wise to your beauty. The giddiness you unashamedly express at new discovery and talent ... I envy it. It puts in sharp contrast my timidity and fear. I love how you speak your thoughts out loud as you click around on the web. You haven't yet let my darkness overwhelm your heart. God, may it never. You hum. It's unrestrained. Regular. Baffling to the parts of me that are hard. I certainly do not deserve you and the ways you forgive me over and over and over again. Thank you for playing "MmmBop" like it wasn't random and for not pushing "stop" just because I rolled my eyes. You are the best thing. God, help me to care better for the glory you've given.

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Love.