The Ocean of Me

I remember studying correlations in psychology class. (Insert overly dramatic sigh representing my sporadic longing to be back in school here _______).  

WARNING: Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert! (Can’t say you weren’t warned).

A correlation explains a relationship between two variables but does not in fact equal “causation” meaning it’s not technically an “if... then” statement or a cause and effect type of relationship. And to be more exact, an imperfect positive correlation simply reveals how one factor can (frequently) predict the other. For instance, Poverty and Obesity. Lack of Sleep and Stress… things like that.

Well, I just figured out a new one. For me, at least. Ready for my fearless psychological power to unleash to the masses? Ok here goes…

The more I…

Understand

Accept

Embrace

and Collaborate with

my own personal freedom, the more I feel empowered to say one enormous and sometimes horrifying word that I am not always good at saying: NO.

I have been learning a great deal about this word lately-

What it means.

How often it is misread.

How much it can hurt to say.

To hear.

To talk about.

This one word has the deep-gut potential for so much destruction, so much doubt, and so much fear. Yet, what I am learning is that it can just as easily be a beautiful, life-giving, soul-singing, I-know-myself kind of word. And a word that is, at times, incredibly necessary.

The more I understand myself, the more I understand what I need- what I choose to take in and let go of. In other words, I choose what to say No to and what to say Yes to.

And sometimes all this means is saying No to a hang-out with some pretty amazing friends who I love to be around, simply because I need to invest in some self-care and spend a night reading or writing or just collecting my thoughts from the blurred, what-just-happened tangled mess of a day.

So I sit.

Alone.

Without people.

Without words to interrupt my current thought flow that sets sail as a yielding and hesitant but existent trickle.

Slowly, it glides down the unforgiving, immovable mountains of my mind, creating tributaries from every angle, it seems.

Eventually, my thoughts collect speed and intensity as the water meets the stream.

Then the river.

Then the ocean.

The Ocean of Me.

There I sit.

Silently.

Boldly.

All because I said one tiny little No.

A No that leads to so SO many Yes’s.

A Yes to Growth.

A Yes to Solitude.

A Yes to Space.

Big girls know how to say No. What’s your No look like?

Creature of Discovery.

An afternoon off work in the middle of the week. 

What a sweet, often underrated blessing. I mean, seriously, my leg muscles are still for a change… not hiking up massive, rugged, never-ending hills at camp. You may not realize how big of deal that is, but it’s a pretty big deal.

Right now I’m drinking an iced latte at Aroma Roasters, a cozy little coffee place around these parts, and thinking about this wild and crazy California adventure I have been on since August (minus my little 2 month stint back in Nashville). What does it mean? How has it... 

Changed me?

Disturbed me?

Energized me?

Motivated me?

…All things I will see in time, I guess.

The bit that I have seen thus far, though, has been more than encouraging. As I told my new roommate, coworker, and friend at the start of training when she asked how I liked the job, I simply like who I am out here. I feel calm most days… like the clutter in my mind is being spread out in front of me and I can see its various shades and colors for the very first time.

My fears and doubts no longer scare me like they used to. In fact, I am finding that often, I actually embrace them head-on… or at least try not to run away every time I sense that an uncomfortable, yet very human emotional battle of some kind is approaching. Just like weathermen predict a tornado by the wind’s increased speed and strength, I am coming to know myself better and finding that I can sense when certain feelings are building up inside me. I feel the wind of my internal tornado hit my face… the cloudy eyes or the shortened breath, and I know that the storm is coming. And in this season, I let it happen. 

Bring on the storm, I tell myself. 

Whatever it brings, I choose not to run.

Also, in this season, I take my time for writing very seriously and I have, in many ways, mastered the sense of alone time. Oh, and I read a lot more than I used to. You know, I actually look forward to reading every night before bed. (Should I be embarrassed to admit that?)

With this new layer of myself exposed, one may not be surprised to discover that when I retook my Myers-Briggs personality test at the start of training in January, my introverted and extroverted tendencies were tied, a very first for me. And you know what, I am more than ok with that. I have always had a sort of crush on the introverted world, anyway. 

Now. Lord knows I can live the extroverted life fairly well when I am surrounded by those who I am comfortable being a kid around (which is a lot of you...), but I think what's different in this season, is I have learned how to enjoy myself more.  I have come to realize...

Hey… I kind of like myself. 

And if I am completely free under my own skin, I don’t really need anyone to tell me that they like me because I like me. 

And sometimes, that’s all you need in life… to genuinely like yourself.   

The Daily Stretch

So I have a new hobby.

Stretching.

And with stretching comes pain. The two are practically inseparable just like fifth grade boys and paintball. Chipotle’s burrito bowl with guacamole. Sufjan and unicorns.

Initially, the pain can be anywhere between a noticeable annoyance to an unbearable bullet to the muscles. But over time, it grows into an expectation and then a challenge and then perhaps even a mere moment in paradise.       

As silly as it may sound, the physical pain related to stretching can be enjoyable in the sense that you are pushing through and beyond a barrier of some kind. And then there is the small hope that the next morning there will be less pain until you just go deeper and deeper into a stretch.

And this brings me to my point.

Sometimes and even more than sometimes, pain is good… and not just the muscle kind, but the heart kind too. Just like with stretching, pain can be an obstacle to push through, an internal battle worth fighting over. I believe somewhere deep in my gut that emotional tension can be a good thing. Awkward silence can be a good thing. Not knowing what to do with emotional tension and awkward silence can even be a good thing.

Yet over and over again, we wake up into a new day of opportunity, a new day of stimulation, a new day of Divine Appointment and yet we choose to fall so easily and almost effortlessly back into our small and predictable Corner of Comfort, choosing against stretching of any kind...

Physically

Emotionally

Mentally

Spiritually. 

And in this process, we are actually experiencing more pain than we will ever know what to do with. We experience an invisible pain of sorts, a pain that exists in the majority of our population, a population of Silent Sufferers, all with emotions made of brick and ideas made of concrete. Just sticking to the routine because that’s all we know how to do. Of course, this is in hopes of avoiding the pain that we think we know so well.

We avoid stretching ourselves conversationally and experientially because we simply fear pain. We fear the unknown, the risk involved, and the overall soreness that can follow that initial ache. We will do anything in our power to fill in the gaps, to cushion our words, to stick to the script, all for…what??

Sometimes comfort can kill.

Sometimes routine can destroy.

And sometimes, a little pain is worth it.

The Ask

A three-year-old asked his mother a question.

And then another question.

And then another question.

Like a robot on repeat, the child just kept going and going becoming lost in the melodic rhythm of his Why's and What If's until finally, in order to maintain her last ounce of sanity, his mother answered.

Big mistake.

The child burst into tears as soon as the words escaped her mouth and within seconds, his eyes became free-flowing, never-ceasing, are-you-kidding-me miniature waterfalls. “But mommy why did you answer??” he asked, acting as though she had committed a terrible, shameful crime.

Can you blame him?! Ok maybe this is a slightly dramatic example but it proves a powerful, unavoidable point: Sometimes questions are meant to be just that…Questions.

Last month during training for my current job, we discussed inquiry-based education and the importance of encouraging kids to explore their own questions.. ya know, get lost in the wonder of it all. And well, I don’t think that should necessarily stop with children.

Adulthood comes with a curse, I dare say. And part of that curse is that we forget how to ask questions. We forget how to wander around in our own curiosity and imagination as we actually admit to ourselves, Hey… maybe I don’t know everything.

If you look at the stories of Jesus, He always welcomed questions. In fact, He asked a lot of questions Himself and even answered others’ questions with a deeper question. You know, I am not quite sure where in the life of Christianity that we decided questions were bad, that questions were scary.

I could not disagree more with that idea. I believe questions pull into a deeper sense of who we are. I believe they pull us into someone who knows more than us, someone we will never fully know on this side of life because He is simply more profound and more complex than we could ever imagine.

I believe questions have a unique power to draw us into heaven, a place where our questions will one day be answered and we will stand face to face with our Creator, our ultimate Answer.

A Forgotten Task

Today I spoke with a dear friend who straight up knows how to encourage. And in this Jesus-orchestrated, time-stopping, raw and completely unpolished conversation, I was reminded of something important.

Celebration.

Too often, we as humans find ourselves trapped in our own isolated, lonely, and often meaningless (that’s right, I said meaningless...) world of To Do Lists and Goals and even Disappointments that we simply forget how to celebrate. We forget what it means to step back and breathe and say, Wait a second. I’m actually growing. Good things are happening. Things are changing.

Sometimes it actually takes someone else to pull us aside and say these things to us, to allow us to really go there, to boldly and deliberately step into that terrifying place of… here we go… reflection.

And as we begin to step back and let go of the control that we think we have over our own lives, may I dare say… we gain awareness. With each step back, we gain a keen and valuable insight into our own stories, our own personal moments and experiences worth celebrating. And it is in this place that we begin to leave room for the very voice of God to enter into our perceived failures, our perceived shame.

Here’s the Truth: Our Creator celebrates your utter existence. He celebrates each breath that enters and leaves your body. He celebrates each eyelash, each fingernail, each brain cell. Our God is a God of celebration.

And it is time we join in.

Think Again.

I remember when I could do a backhand spring.

Tumbling Tides.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

8^th grade.

Ribbon in hair.

Ready.

Go.

And now just the thought of doing such a thing makes my wrists throb, my lower back ache, and my head spin. But REAL LIFE yall. I could do me a backhand spring. In fact, I could do several if I had the momentum for it.

I loved that feeling.

Upside Down.

Arms straight as arrows.

Back fully extended forming the perfect St. Louis Arch.

Feet in mid-air.

Body bent like rubber.

Speed building.

Wind in my ears.

Every joint in perfect unison coming together forming
a Choir of Movement.

Yes. Backhand spring at its finest everyone.

My teacher Chris told me I was a fast learner. “You’ll have your standing back tuck in no time,” he affirmed. But just a month later, something began to happen, something peculiar. You might have heard of it…

FEAR.

That’s right, little 8^th grade me got scared. I started to second-guess myself about everything. And I mean everything.

Wait…

How much do I bend my knees before I jump?

What do I do with my hands?

What am I supposed to look at?

How long should I be in the air?

I know, ridiculous right? Here I was, well on my way to the Promise Land of Tumbling Champions and then it hit me like an unexpected snowball to the face. It’s as if my bones and muscles went on strike refusing to do anything the least bit productive.

And if I did try to do a back handspring, the worst of all worses would happen. Well, I would make it over, at least. But my once frame-it-on-the-wall, back-fully-extended arch became an unbearable mess of undercut. Undercut. That was my new word. This meant that mid-air I second-guessed myself and cut under so much that my hands would bend back to where my feet had just been, hardly making an arch at all.

And come to think of it, I second-guessed myself in horseback riding too when it came to jumping my horse. I went through a miserable, not so fun phase where I would psyche myself out and lean forward too much too early, causing me to mess up my balance and I would in turn, mess up my horse’s steps.

Hmm… I’m beginning to see a trend in my used-to-be hobbies.

And if I let these memories really sink in to the depths of me, I am drawn to a truth that stretches much further than a backhand spring catastrophe or a hunter jumper paranoia. I am drawn to a reality that reaches far beyond this awkward, self-conscious 8^th grade or even elementary version of myself.

How often I over-think the most beautiful of things, the things that aren’t meant to be fully understood nor fully analyzed. Believe it or not, some things, many things, are not meant to be drained out like a sponge, becoming so dry that all its original shape is forever lost and forgotten.

What would it be like for me to take part in a process in which for once, my mind is at rest… a process where I freely yet consciously submit to my senses. A process where I let the healthy emotions settle in, learning how to feel with my being instead of thinking and over-thinking and then thinking again. I am learning more and more that what often seems like a crucial necessity can just as often be a hindrance.

A hindrance to beauty.

A hindrance to raw experience.

A hindrance to life.

As human beings, we have a unique power to very easily paralyze our greatest strengths by over-thinking and therefore producing doubt and fear. And in this act, we become smaller.

Please note: We are not made for such small things as doubt and fear. We are made for participating in a world so divine and glorious that we as humans cannot help but stand in awe of its God-ordained details. We are made for participating in a world of risk-taking, grace-giving love, a world of creation simply in awe of its Creator.

I don’t know about you but that’s the kind of world I want to live in.

He Sings

I’m telling you, God is so kind. I just feel like I’m sitting on His lap right now and He’s singing to me like a Father singing His child to sleep. He sings right into my ear. Right into my scattered, fragile, don’t know what I want half the time kind of life.

I sit.

He holds.

I sit.

He sings.

I sit.

He embraces all the parts of me I never want shown.

And then He calls those things beautiful.

I sit.

He sits.

Even when I fail to notice His presence.

Even when I go all day without even saying His name.

Even when I am pounding fists at my steering wheel because my car won’t start or I’m at a standstill on I-65 or because I want to be anywhere but where I am at 

This 

Very 

Moment.

It is in these moments I fail to remember where I am. And where He is. I tune Him out. But He just keeps singing. His voice is like water. Falling onto a bed of rocks that are as hard as… well, rocks. Like a majestic waterfall, His voice draws all kinds of attention… except mine. My heart sits like a rock at the bottom of the waterfall, His waterfall.

Yet He still sings.