Acceptance: OneWord365

"Radical acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is.”

― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

I sing the words under my breath as the kids jam in the backseat: I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed, Get along with the voices inside of my head… I ask them about monsters, and they say they've never seen any. I wish I couldn't picture mine so clearly. It was next to my bed, not under it. Inside of my head now. I've internalized the voice of the abuser and trauma-driven self-talk rattles around on loop-repeat as my modus operandi.

New Year's Eve, and I'm thinking about the monster. Trying to get a visual. I sit down to draw, sketch a little girl walking in the darkness covered by a cape. The monster grows giant in charcoal strokes as I draw in the shadows behind her. A little girl runs away with dirty hair. A grown woman walks with head down and hands in pockets. There is another reflection, skewed, elongated. Most people can't see the cloud of thoughts I carry with me everywhere. I can feel them buzzing, like exploding sizzles of color in pastels bursting over me. A personal fireworks show whenever I am lost in thought.

Just a week ago, I got lost in the sandstorm of pain, the inevitable tide of emotion in the wake of trauma. I lost myself so completely I tried to lose myself forever. In the midst of the memory-driven panic, something inside of me must have wanted to be found. I called my therapist on her help line, and she sent someone to find me. I spent a few days recovering in the hospital.

This, then, is my one resolution for 2014: stop running - from myself, from my pain, from my past.

I once thought my goal for each day was wisdom. This is too lofty for baby steps toward healing. What I search for instead is mindfulness: the ability to stay in the present moment, whatever that moment is. Keep your mind out of the past and off the future so you can live fully in the now. Which, after all, is the only moment any of us are promised. Mindfulness helps me believe that I'm not in danger when everything in my physical body is tuned to high alert, a knee-jerk reaction that doesn't include forethought. I see other survivors, like me, who jump at sudden noises, squirm in chairs while they try to stay still, pace instead of sit, fidget, gesture, everything a big puff of smoke meant to confuse and intimidate the enemies that are no longer there.

I see my past mistakes as signs of weakness, stupidity, naiveté. What I forget is the courage it took to stand back up each time. The gritting of the teeth as I look terror in the eye and walk on. The fortitude to get out of bed and face the day when you live in fear of being maimed, torn apart, desecrated, destroyed.

This is the year I will accept the past, one memory at a time. I cannot change it; there is no hope for a better past. Acceptance, admitting the truth - that's the only way back out of the darkness that threatens to consume me. I am learning that to accept something as true does not mean you agree with it, like it, want it, or support it. It just means you are saying: this was. This happened. To me. I couldn't stop it, I hated it, it burned my very flesh and altered the development of my mind and personality. This is how I plan to cut the chains that bind me to the trauma and swallow my ability to cope, believe, trust, love, empathize, accept my self as I am now.

I always struggle to pick a word that I want to define my year. I picked Hebrew twice but my love affair with that language is definitely over. In 2012, I picked "succeed". That, more than the words before, became a solid foundation on which to build the next 365 days: my dissertation was approved; I graduated with my PhD; cancer went into remission; homeschooling blossomed; I landed the job of my dreams. It was a really good year - minus the depression and anger and all they brought with them. For 2013, I chose the word "less". I was panicking that money and status and privilege could destroy us. Ironically, I thought of less in terms of "less me, more god". Instead, I ended the year with less faith and somehow, fewer questions. Less soul clutter, less mind pollution, less bondage. Sometimes the heart knows better than the mind what is necessary: last year, it was not less of me, but more. I needed to clear my head of the absorbed misperceptions and negative beliefs. I needed to come to terms with myself, and I did. I ended the year feeling more love toward my self than ever before, a sense of adventure as I began to explore, for the very first time, who I am and what aspects of myself I liked.

This year, I tossed around words like "sophrosyne" - a Greek word often simply translated as prudence, meaning the state of a healthy mind, characterized by self-control, moderation and a deep sense of self. I landed for awhile on a related Greek word, "metanoia" - the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life. I considered run-of-the-mill English words like change, being, healing, identity, self, understanding. There were some more heady terms like metamorphosis, transformation, equanimity, mindfulness, intuition, authenticity, unafraid, justice, diversify.

I landed again and again, in the synonyms of the words I pondered, on acceptance. I couldn't get away from it, and for good reason - whether it is accepting the past or accepting myself or accepting my limitations and mistakes, I definitely need more of it. And so I landed, for a few days, on this word. It grew on me. It seemed to encompass all the other goals for the year in one simple term. I write my list of goals from this singular perspective: that acceptance will mean more health, happiness, balance and beauty in our lives, my life.

This year, I will strive to:
1. accept myself
2. accept my past, trauma and all
3. accept the good things in my past as well
4. accept my life circumstances
5. accept my burdens, fears, and failures
6. accept my family, one member at a time, just as they are
7. accept others - students, coworkers, friends, strangers
8. accept ambiguity and uncertainty
9. accept that some answers will always elude me

Have you ever thought about selecting a word that speaks to the personality you want your year to take on? Or perhaps describes a goal you will work on, a concept you are trying to understand, or something you want to change or maintain? Join me at OneWord365 if you wish to read more stories or contribute your own…

Saving Seven: The Next Generation

She just couldn't quit crying when I told her I was going away for the evening. She is seven and all she wants is mama to hold her hand while she falls asleep every night. I was on my way to a tour of the Basilica of St. Mary with some friends. Maybe dinner. A few hours away from the craziness of the holidays and finals week and grading. A few hours with people who "get" me - so I can just laugh and enjoy.

I brought her with. My friends - childless - were entranced by the bewitching intricacies of this very special seven year old. We stopped at the organ shining silver in the candlelight of the silent basilica. I think about all the music Christendom has written over thousands of years. Haydn, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart.

The sanctuary is as cold and soundless as a tomb. An angel lifts her arms to the heavens, face upturned. She is in the deep shadows, lit only by a single strobe. I am this angel. Questioning, begging, gesturing. I am no longer able to talk because I no longer think anyone is listening. But for some reason, the sky still feels the full weight of my fury and my torment.

What do I tell a 7 year old while we tour a basilica on the brink of Christmas, the year I lost my faith? We talk about art. She talks, mostly. I listen to what an innocent seven sounds like. She is so accepting. Everything and everyone? They do their thing, she does hers, and she loves everyone anyway. Why couldn't we always raise kids this way?

Mary looks down from her perch and I feel sorrow like a waterfall falling off that stone. Did she know, when her son was in his 30's and bloody on a cross, that what she believed may not have been true? That now her son suffered and died and she had no idea why or what would become of all of it? Did she ask god why he allowed this? Did she beg for her child's life? Did she wonder, afterward, where her purpose lay?

It is a huge burden to watch my seven year olds grow up. When I was seven, my world shattered and bent like a tilt-shift lens that could only focus on one thing: pain. I've spent my lifetime in a bittersweet romance with pain, because pain causes panic but when I am in control, my hand on the knife, it also numbs me. I look at my little girl barely tall enough to look at the candles on tiptoe. She does not know that pain. She is so different, so real, so much herself, so audaciously Amelia.

I don't know much this Christmas. I know it doesn't feel like any Christmas before. There is an aching grief that comes with loss of faith, a heightened sense of emptiness and futility, an instinct to give up hope entirely. What I forget in those moments is that what I believe in now -

It's right in front of me.

Hemingway said, "Write hard and clear about what hurts." Amy is hurtling up the stairs curving up to the exit. My mind is remarkably silent. Hurt isn't there. There isn't enough belief left to be hurt. Now, I have to pick up and figure out and DO.

What if that man hanging on the cross just thought he was god, like so many before him? Did he know he was going to die, that there was no rescue. Did he wonder about what this "bearing the sins of the world" thing was going to hurt like? His statue at the basilica points to a deep scar on a thorn-cased heart. He points, directing our gaze. Is he telling us about a sacrifice, or just telling us how badly life hurt him? A warning, perhaps, that faith is a cage for the heart that cuts deep when one struggles against it.

I've spent many midnights during advent pondering what in the world to have faith in if it isn't a higher power. Every time, the faces of my children float up into my subconscious. I have to do this right. I have to save seven. I'm no longer waiting for a different savior for them. If he's there, he's not much of a protector. The statistics dictate that someone like me, a long-term, ritual abuse survivor - I should be an abuser, physical, sexual. A predator of children. Instead I have chosen to be a mother hen my whole life, gathering the fragile and vulnerable under my scarred arms and simply loving them. I have made my choice, and I'm going to live for good. I will not waver in that.

Saving seven is complicated. I don't want my children to be burned by the acid of my disillusionment and anger at the universe. Their childlike wonder if refreshing and beautiful. They can hold many truths in their hands at once, never asking how they fit together. They just exclaim at the beautiful colors of these jewels of human tradition we've handed them. Soon will come the time for questions and explaining and their own decisions about all of this.

But what I want to save about seven is seven. Innocence, imagination, the world revolving around their out-stretched arms, scattering love like snowflakes onto their open souls.

………………………..

My faith is in the very flawed thing that I fear and hate. Humanity. Mine, yours, ours. Because we all have choices whether to join the ranks of those who hurt, maim and scar - with words, weapons, bodies, voices; or to be instead healing, light, love, acceptance, grace. I choose to join the ranks working on the unseen hospital wards filled with the aching and broken. I see them pass me on the street - disheveled sometimes, usually with those dead eyes that look right through you because not one passing stranger holds a candle of hope up anymore.

It is easier to understand evil as a simple choice rather than some labyrinth scheme of opposing narratives that frame an awful, awesome, terrible, fearsome, merciful, bountiful god. Would a god of love drown the whole world? Would a god of love destroy cities, murder men, women, children - would he ever give up hope on a whole generation? Would a god who is all-powerful and all-present and all-knowing need to send his son to sacrifice, to pour out his wrath on his own flesh and blood - was that really the best he could come up with? More death and suffering?

Christmas is here, and I am delighting in wrapping paper, sugar cookies, children wound tight with excitement. This year, I'll be listening to the Christmas story read aloud, as I have since I was a small girl. This year, I'm going to listen and think of that innocent baby on whose tiny shoulders was placed an enormous responsibility by society. I know what it's like to hold other people's happiness like a dozen balls I'm juggling, desperately trying not to drop one. I don't want who I am to shatter anyone. 

I can still be friendly with the idea of Jesus. A peaceful prophet, an introvert, tempted, divided, wandering the earth for years on end. I just can't fathom that his father, whose name is Love, sent him as a tiny babe to be born in a stable and to take on the weight of the world.

So as we (the "good guys"?) send drones into the Middle East with no regard for innocent bystanders; as men hurl homemade bombs and face tanks without weapons or reinforcements in Syria; as Filipinos bury their dead and rise from the wreckage of another natural disaster; as we reel in the face of a media onslaught about bullying, suicide, teen aggression, murder in schools and no answers for any of it: there is nothing more - and nothing less - we can do but love where we are, who surrounds us. Grieve with the grieving and dance with the rejoicing.

As for me, I'll keep my questions about futility, being born into privilege, and social justice all to myself. After all, a made up day to be happy is a good reason to eat too much and laugh as much as I can.

Every moment is a fork in the road

I comfort myself with the fact that someday this day will be burned away: reduced to ashes or jewels. This crazy day. This hard day. This day of sadness and grief. This day of betrayal.

Anxiety dissipates as I recall that however this day came about - by the trickle down effect of my sin or someone else or none at all - God has either allowed it or willed it. This is the truth of trusting, that you accept your reality as it is and not how you wish it to be. You can accept what you hate, loathe, are afraid of, disagree with. Acceptance doesn't equal approval. But it does equal a modicum of peace for the soul. When you are willing to accept, you are no longer struggling to change, run from, or ignore whatever terrible or wonderful events occur.

Today is just a day, just one day in your story, and no matter what you did to get yourself in this position, it can be redeemed. The past is just that - the past: you cannot change it, only continue on the right path or turn from the wrong one. The present moment within our own selves - this is all we have control over. The past and the future elude our grip.

Credit

The light slants through the heavy hospital door: "Checks", whispers the phantom in scrubs who will be by every 15 minutes to prevent suicides. Luckily on the first night you're groggy from sedatives in the ER and you slide back into sleep like a warm blanket.

You steal a fork from your dinner tray and carefully fold it in a photo of your kids. Apparently they count the silver, too. From then on you eat in the dayroom with the TV blaring, the smells of all variety of disheveled persons and hospital food - and plastic eating utensils.

With the exception of the occasional manic bipolar patient, we are all recluses thrown together, prodded out of our rooms under protest for a litany of classes, groups, recreation. You're "voluntary" - here on your own free will, they say - so you can refuse, but on your first stay you learned that no progress means no discharge. And so you huddle, heads down, saying as few words as possible. You pitch in occasionally in a monotone, careful not to reveal emotion, say something - anything - to let the others off the hook for a moment.

Twice a day, the nurses walk in pairs, like friends, conspirators. Reporting off to the oncoming staff about your good behavior, bad behavior. You try on a plastic smile, nod, compliant - compliance is key. Most of them are helpers, but many are tired. Worn down from wrestling the aggressive ones, trying to ferret out the liars before they can hurt themselves. Always trying to be a step ahead, while still managing med passes, charting, doctor's orders, maybe a moment or two - precious moments - of compassion. They listen to your story when you need to speak of it, they smile when you need encouragement, give space when it's needed and a quick touch if it will be accepted.

It seems like a revolving door. For a while, you're in and out, then the "out" stretches longer and longer. Once and again, back you go, and some of the faces are familiar and some are new.

You do the therapy, the meditation, the thought policing, the occasional giving in. When you do, back through the metal detectors, into the ill fitting pajamas without strings, into the padded room. You worry about confidentiality. Will those who care for you and those there with you hold their tongues? Who will hear you've been here again? They say the stigma is gone, nothing like it was 30 years ago. But you've met the nurses who don't care to care for someone whose ills are self-inflicted. You've seen the looks when one of your scars is noticed. Worse perhaps are those not versed in broken brains who don't understand the social anxiety, the pauses mid-sentence, the staring over their shoulder. Those who think if they just say it long enough and loud enough, you'll change your mind: believe you're worth it.

You get to know addicts, schitzophrenics, manics and those stultifyingly depressed. Sometimes their bodies and stories are stereotypical - the bleary eyes, unkempt facade, a string of group homes and homelessness. You come to recognize the failed suicides by their dead eyes, you become familiar with the timeline of an addict's detoxification. But most are just like you - "normal". They look so normal. You wonder if you do, too. If there weren't still stigma, why have we all learned to hide so well?

The days blend together along with growing unrest to resume normalcy. Yet there's no denying it - you came in sick as a dog and about as cooperative as a cornered badger. By the time you leave, it has happened once again - the slow, incremental healing. Your nurse reports she saw you smile today. It's been days since you were restrained in lockdown. Soon you'll get your clothes back - the ones with rivets and strings. You'll walk out like an animal from hibernation, blinking in the non-fluorescent light. You look back at the brick prison with the safety glass windows they call a "behavioral health unit". The resentment fades in the fresh air.

After all, it did help. You've agreed to life again.

Can you live these days shut up in the hospital for the glory of God? Does mental illness somehow disable His grace? You learn to find small ways to join life: share a verse with someone crying; a look of knowing with the man who says he feels caged. You practice repentance whenever the dark thoughts take over - turning away and walking away from death and toward life.

Isn't this the essence of the Christian life? Lived out in the minutiae of depression? We are all turning from death toward life all day long. When you choose to serve; when you choose to pray; when you choose to agree to this day; when you take joy; when you pour out your sorrow; when you love and when you live and when you return to what is right.

May it all be for precious stones, may we trade the wood, hay and stubble of our own stubborn path for acceptance of the truth of our lives.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.   (I Corinthians 3:11-15)

The grass is always greener

Pearl's new kittens. They remind me how much I don't miss nursing my babies!

Have you ever looked on in someone else's life, sighed, and thought to yourself, "It seems so much easier than mine!" Have you then given yourself the grace to truly acknowledge that their life really might be simpler than yours...along with a quick soul-check to make sure you're not envious?

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a difficult experience to live through. For many, it involves being surrounded - at random times of day - with auditory, visual, tactile, and sensory hallucinations. In addition, there is an extraordinary increase in cortisol levels - which respond to our body's perception of stress - each and every time a "flashback" is experienced. Because of this, PTSD is linked to symptoms like exhaustion, fatigue, decreased immune function, high heart rate and blood pressure, poor liver function, poor digestion, bowel problems, weight gain or loss, anxiety, depression, and ineffective coping. This adds up to a very difficult life. When PTSD symptoms flare up - which they do for a lifetime in many survivors - it takes extra effort to complete every task of daily life.

There is a verse in the Bible I've always loved, even though it's meaning seems too vast to comprehend: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." (John 8:32) I shall know the truth, and the truth shall set me free. By acknowedging and submitting to truth in our lives, we will walk free, genuine lives that speak comfort to others who must follow on our hard paths. So, today, I am acknowledging this truth: life with mental illness is more difficult than life without it. Accepting this fact doesn't make me a whiner, a quitter, a slacker, or a spoiled brat. It doesn't make me a negative person. Instead, it allows me to go free from some of the difficult yokes of mental illness.

I have depression. I am not just sad and I can't "just get over it" with enough willpower, prayer or positive thinking.
I have flashbacks. I am not any more crazy then you, I am just reliving a particularly traumatic memory.
I have anxiety. I am not always this fidgety: actually, I function quite well most of the time!
I have a huge amount of stress piled on me. I am not a wimp, a weakling or a worrier even though it might seem like I am to you at this moment!
My children might look different than yours. One man's success is another man's failure.
Yes, my husband does the dishes. But get this, ladies! He loves to do it for me. I'm not forcing him.
Yes, I'm still homeschooling. Yes, even with a job. No, my children are not weird, unsocialized or behind academically. Yes, it is difficult for me. Yes, we might send them to school next year. No, we haven't decided yet.

I wonder sometimes if we've taken the old Christian adage that dictates we not compare ourselves to others a little too far. If we refuse to see differences in the name of equality, does that make us less judgmental? Or just blind?

Weigh in! I'd love to hear your thoughts about difficulties in life and how we perceive them. Have you had to adjust your beliefs lately? Do you struggle to admit difficulty in your life for fear of being called a "wimp"?

Wise little owls

They know things, these children, that I didn't know when I was a child. They know all about how the ocean moves, how to get out through the break and ride in on the surf and not get swallowed up in the salty undertow. They also know all about lumps and what they mean.

Last Friday, Rosy noticed the lump on Amelia's neck because it is visible to the naked eye. We hadn't talked to the children about our concerns because it seemed brutal to involve them until we had some answers. Amy was, of course, marginally aware that something was wrong, because we kept feeling her neck every morning. But we hadn't said the "C" word aloud to any of them.

Rosy came running to me with horror in her big brown eyes and told me about the lump, asked me if I knew about it. I reassured her that I did. The tears sprang sudden, and she stuttered out her heaviest question, "Will Amy die as fast as Tally did, Mama?" Our dog, Tally, died just 2 weeks after we learned of her cancer recurrence, and really 3 days after we knew for sure that it was cancer. To the children, it seemed like a very fast death. I held Rosy to my chest, felt her whole body ravaged by the sobs, shaking under the weight of the world no 7 year old should be carrying. I assured her that Amy would not die in 2 weeks. Her sobs ebbed slowly away.

She looked up, this time her face serious but no longer frightened. "Okay. Well, what do we have to do about Amy's cancer then?" A rational question following all that emotion. Alright. If we don't have to deal emotionally with her dying right away, what needs to be done? How many doctors appointments are we talking? Will she lose her hair?

We talked long about the many things that can cause lumps. In her 7 year old experience, lumps are always cancer - they were for Mama and they were for her favorite pet. It was news to her that you could have a lump that wasn't cancer. But she also wanted to know about cancer. What type it might be, what the treatment for it is, how hard the surgery would be for Amy. How often we'd be going to the doctor over the next few weeks, and would Amy lose her hair?

She knows these waves, and she isn't overcome by them. It's an amazing thing to watch, as a mother. I was traumatized when I was just about her age, deeply, in ways that stunted the way my brain grew up. My reaction was to shut off the emotional switch as often and as quickly as possible. I've never been much of a crier. I've been a brooder. It wasn't until I entered counseling at 31 that I started to learn why I acted that way. I lacked a skill known as "Wise Mind". It's the ability to react emotionally and rationally at the same time, using both sides of your brain to respond to a problem. My 7 year old daughter can do this. I still have to practice it.

If you experienced abuse or trauma at a young age, this might be something you need to work on, too. The trick is to allow yourself a modicum of emotional response, followed quickly by a rational list of options for responding to the problem. I actually consciously think, "I need to enter Wise Mind". Then the tears flow for a few moments, and then I get started on solving the problem. It's allowed me to cope better in the moment because I don't bottle up emotions anymore. They come out right away. And I can still view myself as a rational person, just like I always have.

If you'd like to read more about Wise Mind, visit this link to a video walking you through the technique.

To taste honey every day

I remember the first time I checked a website from my smart phone. It was like stepping out onto a glass bridge...a step of faith, praying my data plan would catch me and save us from overuse fees.

Trying something new is always like that. The tentative stretching of the toes onto new territory, testing the ground underneath for stability before we put full weight on feet. Then we do it again, this time with more confidence, and soon what was once a leap of faith becomes the everyday mundane.

Practice makes perfect. It is so with grace. It feels so scandalous, that moment of salvation, when we take the deep breath and say in our hearts, Yes, this is what I believe. I believe I am not enough. I believe I cannot save myself. I believe Christ can do what I cannot.

With practice, there is less fear and trembling each time we accept grace. May it never feel like our right, but always the gift it is. When we stumble and fall (a million times a day), may we reach hands to sky and simply feel the love raining down instead of shying away and covering up the stain left by sin.

She is the scandalous spontaneous, the one who is still a toddler at 5 1/2. She reaches her pink tongue out to touch the stamens of the crabapple blossoms, and her grin is infectious as she urges us to try. It's sweet, like honey, she says. We all laugh - the craziness of this, tasting blossoms like honey bees - and then we, too, stretch tongues and sense sweet and dissolve into gales of giggles over our own silliness. We talk about this - faith like a little child - the child who reaches out to taste God's goodness and never stops to wonder whether it is a crazy idea or not. Trust is so simple, it terrifies and paralyzes us as adults. We ponder the consequences - what if He's not as good as He says He is? What if I should be working harder, what if I don't deserve this grace?


Just like the drops of sweet on the yellow tips of each cherry blossom, His grace just is. It exists and has already been given, whether we reach out to take the gift or not. If we don't, we will never taste the sweetness that stands waiting for us.

Practice radical acceptance. Be the little child, ready to try anything, leaning hard on the Rock of salvation. Simply believe. Simply accept. Simply trust. Throw off the weight of causality, because He undid the laws of the universe at the Cross, and begs us be free from the gravity of the world so that we can soar with Him even through these days scalded by the curse of the world.

What have you done lately to practice radical acceptance of the freedom of the Cross? What can you do today in belief of Grace?