So I last wrote about the good, the bad, and the lessons learnt at training camp but I wanted to make this a separate entry. There was some hard stuff at training camp. First a disclaimer: I am not writing this for your sympathies; I am writing this for the purpose of letting you into my life and my journey that is the World Race.
There were two hard things I faced during training camp; community and some self-realizations.
First, community. Once again I realize now that I went into training camp with expectations I didn’t even know I had. I was so excited to go to training camp and meet my squad and my team and make friendships that would last a lifetime. I read all these blogs that talk about how close you become with your squad, how they feel like family, and I guess that is what I expected. Instead I felt like I was 19 again and had just flown out to Newfoundland for university where I went from being an only child to navigating life with 100 strangers who again I was expected to do everything with and make life long bonds with in residence. In case you’re wondering that was 11 years ago and the number of people made those kinds of bonds with I can count on one hand. I have always worried about what I was wearing, worried about how I looked, worried about what to say, worried about what people would think about me, I was worried people didn’t like me, I was worried I wouldn’t make friends. But the nice thing about being 30 is that over time I have learned that these worries are useless and while yes deep down they nag at me I don’t let them own me. So while I worried about those things at training camp I wore what I did regardless of how it might have looked, said how I felt, and figured hey if people don’t like me that is their loss. But I looked around and saw everyone else making the kind of friendships I wanted to be making. While I tried to show people who I was inside, I felt lonely, shy, and scared of judgement. I left training camp feeling like I suck at making friends.
But I don’t suck at making friends. I have friends, friends who love me for exactly who I am not in spite of who I am. I realized this when I got home and a friend who lives on the west coast called me up and asked me if I wouldn’t mind showing her husband, who I had never met, around Winnipeg while he was in town on business. I was happy to do so and thoroughly enjoyed spending the day wandering around the city with him. Even though we had just met I was relaxed, comfortable, and at ease. I learned that I was much more able to be my outgoing self in a smaller setting rather than being thrown into an experience with 36 other people. My mom’s reaction was “Duh, you’ve been like that your whole life, what did you expect, there is a reason you never wanted to play team sports and why you chose to go to the smallest high school in the area.” Good to know my mom knows me better than I know myself sometimes. Talking to my friend, and mentor, Janelle when I got home also helped me to put it into perspective. Yes I was reading blogs about life long bonds being formed but those weren’t training camp blogs. Training camp was TEN DAYS and I was with 36 other people! I need to give myself a break and no put so much pressure on myself. Bonds will form and deep friendships will be made but they take time. And while I saw everyone else making the kind of friendships I wanted to be making that was my perception of it and I need to 1) realize that things aren’t always as they seem and 2) stop comparing myself to others.
Self-realizations. This is a journal entry from July 9th.
Session this morning was about pain and loss.
I realized that deep down I am carrying a lot of pain that I didn’t even realize. I didn’t let myself feel it for a few reasons. 1) I didn’t know if it would end 2) I didn’t want it to cause a depression 3) I didn’t want to admit to others I was hurt by them 4) I didn’t think God wanted me to be angry or dwell in negativity.
So I’ve always ‘dealt with it’ and moved on. Dealing with it has been 1) acknowledging to myself the hurt and processing it myself until I could say I was okay 2) leaning on others until I felt like okay I am able to finish dealing with this on my own now or 3) talking to my therapist.
It always worked and I was able to move forward because I thought I had dealt with it and processed it. I am good at feeling my feelings, I don’t hide them, I wear them on my sleeve for everyone to see. I am not afraid to be vulnerable and share my heart my others. But I now realize that I deal with things by cutting them up into manageable chunks. Manageable for me and manageable for others. In session they talked about how we all have an emotional cup and if we don’t empty it it spills over and suddenly we are overreacting to the littlest thing and blowing up for seemingly no reason. I asked God to show me my emotional cup and I got a picture of a cup with a false bottom, like those double-walled cups with the liquid between the walls that you can freeze to keep your drinks cold longer. That even though I thought I had dealt with things and emptied my cup I really had only dealt with part of it. Like an iceberg many of my feelings and issues have a top and a bottom. The top, while sometimes treacherous looking, is always clean and pretty looking. The bottom half is what no one ever sees because it is underwater. It is significantly larger than the top half and jagged and sharp and can tear boat hulls apart. I only ever dealt with the top half of the iceberg and steered clear of the bottom half hidden under the water.
Maybe this is why I feel blocked, feel unable to be myself, fully present, disconnected. I feel often like an outsider. Only with people I know who accept me for me can I let my guard down with. But if I don’t let my guard down on this race I will be missing out. But I am scared and this is new to me. I have been hurt in the past and while I am willing to try again I don’t know how.
God please SMASH down my walls. Tie up all my insecurities. Fill me with confidence. Let me see myself as you see me; a strong warrior.
After sharing this journal entry with Janelle she spoke a lot of truth and some of it wasn’t easy to hear. She again reminded me that I need to give myself grace and not put pressure on myself to feel a certain way within a certain time frame. But more than that she honed in on two things; wanting God to tie up my insecurities and holding on to pain between the walls of my cup. Tying up insecurities doesn’t remove them and doesn’t make space for me to be filled with confidence. I need to let the insecurities go once and for all. I knew she was right but as strange as it sounds in that moment I was scared, I didn’t want to let my insecurities go, I didn’t know who I was without them. She told me that by hanging on to my insecurities and my baggage it gave me a type of ammo or leverage, something I could use to show people and say I need you to love me look at all I have to deal with. I had never thought of it like that before and it took a bit for it to sink in but in the end it made sense and it made sense as to why I was fearful of letting it all go. She assured me of the freedom that comes from letting it all go and told me that it takes time and patience and commitment to let it go. That it doesn’t happen all at once and that sometimes you have to let things go more than once. I told her that they talked at camp about how some people bring 11 small things, even as simple as stones, from home which they would name either before hand or throughout the each month and then leave them behind as a physical symbol for something they go of. While a very cool idea she knows me well and knows I would only just go through the motions and pretend I let that thing go at the end of the month. I agreed. Just thinking about trying to name and let go of a thing a month made me feel stress. Instead, she told me that I will naturally let things go as I walk through this next year of life and whether is one thing or twenty things I let go of what matters is the journey.
I spoke to two people about all this, Janelle and later her sister Arlyn (man that family is full of wise women) and they each gave me a word they wanted me to take with me throughout this journey. Janelle gave me the word ‘Authentic’ reminding me to be me and not worry about anyone else, that God is the author and perfecter of my faith and anything I try to force or fake will crumble. Arlyn gave me the word ‘Embrace’ reminding me to embrace every opportunity in front of me; opportunities to step out in faith and love others, opportunities to be uncomfortable and be stretched, opportunities to grow and learn, and opportunities to experience new things and try new ways of doing old things.
I started this blog out with a disclaimer. The old me either wouldn’t have shared this because it made me too vulnerable (it’s the ugly side of the iceberg) or would have shared it in hopes that it would make you feel sorry for me and love me. As I said I am writing this for the purpose of letting you into my life and my journey that is the World Race. But I am also writing this to take the first step in calling out my insecurities and letting them go; stripping them of the power they try to hold over me.
