Growing Up Christian: My story continued
Transcript:
Hello friends, I am happy to be back. How was your week been? How are you doing?
Let's *exhale.* Take a deep breath. I can only imagine your week has been filled with many hard things. Challenges, stress, long days, some late nights or early mornings, problem solving, reminding yourself to relax when that feels like the hardest work to do… taking care of yourself in the midst of knowing there are other things and other people who also need your care, but being the loving parent who chooses to also take care of yourself in the middle of it all. That is no easy work. And I am pretty sure your week has been filled with some of those things I just mentioned. I know mine has, and it is common to humanity that we are experiencing a lot of the same. So sometimes I say it at the end, but I'm saying it right now. Much love, my friends. Much love. We need it.
All right, so I am *moving my shoulders.* Respond to whatever your body needs right now. Support it in this moment. Lean back if you can and relax. Close your eyes as you listen if you can. Maybe you're in the middle of getting something done and you're so excited about that. Great. Maybe you're actually at a point where you're feeling the pull to sit down, or listen while you go to the coffee shop and grab yourself a treat. Go out and take that walk with your earbuds in. I don't know what you need to do. I don't know. But take a moment and ask yourself what you need. And as much as you can, offer it to yourself right now. You deserve that. You deserve that.
All right, well, I wanted to share another piece of my story with you today. But I don't know, I feel like there's something here. Maybe there's something in my story for you. But I just want to sit for a moment and listen in because I don't want to miss what is here for you right now. Because I'm here for you. Course sharing my story is even meant for you really. Sometimes we hear what other people have been through, or we listen to them as they unravel their inner world out loud, and there's so much comfort we receive from it. So much validation. I also pause wondering if there's something else that's in it for us this moment.
You know, sometimes we rush through life and we don't get to pause and do this. Like, is there something different than what was planned for this moment? Is it my agenda, my plan that needs to happen right now? I always believe there's a larger - there's so much more at play. So this isn't minimizing any one of our plan, our agenda. It's totally fine to have a plan. But I don't wanna plow through life where I miss also what's in the present moment. Yeah, so I'm going to leave it at that. There's a lot in that we can all glean from. And I'm going to jump into my story because that is feeling like what is for now.
So last go around. You know, I don't always remember what I say at the beginning. But I had kind of said I was going to talk a bit about the spiritual components, the church community I grew up in, that journey and where that's led me today and how I'm kind of talking about that a little bit more now on social media. Then I didn't. I didn't talk about it. And here we are. We're going to talk about it now.
So, I grew up going to church. I went to an evangelical Christian type of church, just a small community Bible church. And the community was really a community. We were a group of people that did life together. We didn't just go to church and see each other there. We were at each other's birthday parties. We were there during the hard times, there during the happy times. I can really say that. The people were good people to each other. They were some of my very best and closest friends growing up and even into adulthood.
The saddest part for me was that there was a spiritual awakening inside of me that many of the people I went to church with did not have. They were seekers in many ways, but there was a driving force inside of me that propelled me to question some things, to respond in certain ways, and to not feel settled in the culture, in the environment that I was a part of. Now, some of those things I just articulated, I was not able to articulate throughout my life. But it was there inside of me gnawing at me, coming out in the ways I seemed aggressive or the ways that I functioned, even some of the responses that were off putting to people were because underneath all of this, I was trying to figure out how to be in a space where it didn't feel like my authentic self was welcome to be.
And so I went on a journey. I went on a journey that was messy and uncomfortable, not just uncomfortable for me, uncomfortable for the people around me. I'm really grateful for the people that just allowed me to be myself throughout the process and that loved me through it. Certainly there were people who disliked me through it, who disagreed with me, who told me off. And some of them were the best intentioned and others of them, I just don't know. But we're all human in our messiness and learning as we go and I recognize that. And by all means, I am not saying that I had it figured out. “I am right and they're wrong.” In fact, that's what I grew up around. I grew up around that ideology that we know it. We have the right angle on spiritual things. You need to believe the way we do, think the way we do, listen to what we say, and we won't associate with you if you don't agree with us. So I'm not trying to come from that angle. I know all too well what that feels like and it is not who I aspire to be. I'm still weeding out the judgmental parts of me, the learned condition parts of me that know what it is to think I know it all. And yep, I got this figured out. Try to be like me and everything will be good. Nope.
So at this point, I think it doesn't even feel like a super interesting story. I think I need some questions, send some questions my way. That'll help. But really I just, wanna say that it’s been a journey. I'm still on the journey. I don't have it all figured out. I know less now than I ever did before. That's how it feels. It feels like I'm unsure more than ever before. I don't even want to have it figured out. I don't... There's things I'm certain of within myself. That's great. That's always going to settle me. But I don't really want to have it figured out where I'm like teaching somebody, because I just don't think that's the point of all this. And that doesn't even seem right or beautiful when it comes to this spiritual part.
What I am so grateful about right now is that I am a part of a church community that allows me to show up and present myself as feels authentic for me. I am in a place where I do not agree with a lot of what's said, some of what's done, and I'm comfortable enough to be there because I don't think the point is that we all have to agree with each other. I don't think we all have to look the same, sound the same and act the same to be able to come and be happily together.
I think fondly of the people and the church communities I've been a part of in the past. I know no church is perfect and no person is perfect and so the point isn't that we don't have flaws. That's just not the point. But as I've said before, are we aspiring to love each other? Are we seeking to get to know each other? Because you're not gonna do that if you just go to church and you worship together and you listen to somebody preach and you leave. You have to do more than that if you wanna get to know each other. If you wanna really love.
And I know this isn't all about what happens in church. I get that. But I'm talking about that because there are some of us, myself included in this, okay - I say some of us, meaning me also, who don't always feel like church is the place for us. And I'm sitting here telling you that is BS. It doesn't mean you have to go to church, okay? That's not the point either of all this. There is a place for you if you want to be a part of a church community. I don't know which place. I don't know what it's going to be like. But if there's a driving force in you that wants to be there, you do not have to let that die. You might need to take a break. I definitely took a break. I definitely stopped going religiously. I didn't go every week. I didn't go every time I felt like somebody expected me to show up.
In my family, we don't demand that our kids go every week. We don't go as a family every week. I'm not here to debate whether that's good or bad. I don't even know. I am learning as I go, folks. I'm allowed to be messy. I'm allowed to make mistakes and so are you. You're allowed to be messy. You're allowed to make mistakes.
Maybe my formative years, my childhood experiences formed me into who I am today. Maybe it was all for my good. I'm just not going to do exactly what was done to me simply because I'm afraid of messing up. I'm not going to do it to my kids. I do not want to live in a way that I function out of my fear. Do I still function and make decisions out of my fear sometimes? Hell yes. Yes I do. But it's not my goal. I'm going to sit back and reflect on why I'm deciding what I'm deciding to do and let myself make my decision not based off of fear if in that moment I'm aware of it. And if I make a decision based off of fear, I'm also not gonna shame myself for that. We're allowed to be messy. We're allowed to make mistakes. We're allowed to be messy. We're allowed to make mistakes. You're allowed to be messy. You're allowed to make mistakes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Hands are going on my heart. I need to be reminded of that truth. I need to remind myself out loud in public. I'm allowed to be messy and I'm allowed to make mistakes. And you also, you also are allowed to be messy and you're allowed to make mistakes.
Can we get comfortable in the process, in the middle of it all when it doesn't look like anything yet, it doesn't make sense? The critics and the judgment feel like they're gonna pounce on us. Can we be with ourselves in that messy transitional place?
I'm in the middle of letting my eyebrows, which I have plucked for years, grow back in to see what they would be like if I let them grow and fill in instead of being thinned out. Well, let me tell you, it's a bit of a messy place. I'm in the in-between, where it looks like did you forget to go get them waxed or to pluck them? What's going on? I am accepting myself and allowing the misunderstanding and the potential judgment to be there. And you know what? There's probably a gazillion times nobody even notices. And I think someone notices when they don't. And there's other times when people certainly will notice. But will I be with myself in the discomfort is the question. It's a really good outward way for me to actually see what I need to do inwardly, what I've been doing, what I need to do going forward, getting comfortable with the transitional times, being in process, with it not looking all right, with it not being typical, perhaps letting myself be misunderstood and judged. This go around can be different than the other times.
You may have been misunderstood and judged all your life, but in those moments, were you able to show up as the wise loving adult who said, I know, I know it hurts when they do that, but I'm here with you. I know what you're going through. I see the end goal. I know who you are deep down. I like who you are. I'm okay with who you are. I don't mind messy. I don't mind real. You don't need to pretend. You don't need to show up always looking good. If we can be with ourselves and we can be the wise loving adult who soothes and attunes to the child part of herself that's afraid of the judgment, the criticism, the bully, the parent who's going to punish them. If we can be what we might not have had years ago, it's going to be a whole lot easier to walk this out.
So there you have it. It's our invitation to be the wise loving adult who comes alongside of that little kid we used to be who still lives with inside of us. We are them. We've grown up on the outward, but sometimes we haven't grown up on the inside. And they might be feeling ashamed. They might be questioning things. They might be hurting. This is our moment. This is our life's work - to notice them, attuning to them, connecting with them, feeling their emotions with them and being the one that says, I don't mind you showing up that way. I'm with you in it, and I'm going to be with you through it. I'm not going to rage at you. I'm not going to hit you. I'm not going to scream at you. I'm not ashamed of you. I like you. I like you so very much. In fact, you're my favorite.
Can we say that to ourselves? Can we look in the mirror, see our reflection, and say, “you're my favorite”? “I like you.” “I'm comfortable with you being messy and making mistakes.” You deserve that, my friend. We all deserve that.
If you're not sure how to be the wise loving adult for yourself, I can help you learn. Please reach out, book a session, pick up one of my courses, start with one of my workbooks. They're the most basic. They're gonna give you some journaling prompts, some information on different concepts. You can find all of this at my website, changeradically.com.
It is time, the time is now to take care of yourself. You have always deserved that. So how about today? Start today.
All right, I'll see you back here again soon. Until then, much love.
