If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing or share your story, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough. Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else can offer: yourself.
So what the hell does it mean to talk about the hard things?
This is what it means. Get out of bed. Don’t lie there and think—thinking is the kiss of death for us—just move. Take a shower. Sing while you’re in there. Make yourself sing. The stupider you feel, the better. Giggle at yourself, alone. Joy for its own sake—joy just for you, created by you—it’s the best. Find yourself amusing. Tell yourself that today isn’t the day to worry. Invest in yourself. Keep good books within reach. If you don’t have any good books, go to the library. (My sisters have to be shaking their heads right now. I never used to read). If you don’t have a library card, apply for one. This may stress you out. You may worry that the librarian will sense that you are a disaster and reject you. Listen: they don’t know, and they don’t care. They gave me a card, and I’ve got a rap sheet as long as your arm. When reentering society and risking rejection, the library is a good place to start. They have low expectations. I love the library. Also church. Both have to take you in.
In surrendering to the Lord, my prayers have become simple—and only three I have found necessary. Mine are “Please!” “Thank you!” and “WTF???” That’s all the spirituality you’ll need for a while. Get up and go somewhere. Somewhere like the library, coffee shop, church, grocery store—any normal place will do. Don’t worry if the other people there are “enough like you.” Face it: we are all the same. Be humble. Get out of the house. Take a walk outside. Do not excuse yourself from walks because it’s too cold. (FYI—those of you back in the states and experiencing a real winter, I am jealous. Today it was a blistering 93 degrees here in Cambodia). Bundle up. The sky will remind you of how big God is, and if you’re not down with God (eventually he will find you—honestly, you can’t run), then the oxygen will help. Call one friend a day. Do not start the conversation by telling her how you are. Ask her how she is. Really listen to her response, and offer your love. You will discover that you can help a friend just by listening, and this discovery will remind you that you are powerful and worthy.
Shoot. Get a yoga video and a pretty mat. Practice yoga after your kid goes to bed. And if you don’t have kids—you have more free time than you’re willing to admit. At some point or another in this crazy life—you’ve wished you could bend in the ways that people who do yoga on the regular can. The evenings are dangerous times for us thinkers and those who have been living a life of shame and regret, so have a plan. Yoga is a good plan because it teaches us to breathe and appreciate solitude as a gift. Ok, I’ll cut to the crap. Yoga is not my cup of tea or my preference. Straining like crazy for an ungodly amount of time while also holding my breath only to release it at a time given by the instructor is what I consider hell. And don’t even get me started on hot yoga. Nothing motivates me less than walking into a steaming hot room where I’m experiencing an insane amount of swass (sweaty as$) and boob sweat (humiditities) and then encouraged to work out. But hey, yoga works for the general population. Point is, you need to learn how to keep yourself company in a healthy way.
When you start to feel, do. When you start to feel like you don’t have enough love, find someone to offer love. When you feel under appreciated and unacknowledged, appreciate and acknowledge someone else in a concrete way. When you feel unlucky, order yourself to consider a blessing or two. Then find a tangible way to make today somebody else’s lucky day. These strategies have helped me sidestep wallowing.
Don’t worry about whether you like doing these things or not. You’re going to hate everything for a long while. And the fact is that you don’t even know what you like or hate yet. Just do these things regardless of how you feel about doing these things. Because these little things, done over and over again, eventually add up to a life. A good one.
Friend, I am FREE today. Thank God Almighty, I am free today. I’m here, friend. Lots of beautiful and horrible things have happened to me over the past 4 years (since I finally came to life), and I have handled my business day in and day out without filling my God-sized hole with poisonous things. Thank you Jesus, I rock.
Today, I am a woman of God, a dreamer, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. When I was unhealthy-I wasn’t any of those things. And I absolutely love being a woman in recovery. Because—I am free.
What will you be, friend? What will you be when you become yourself?
When Jesus saw her lying there and knew that she had been there for a long time, he said to her, “Do you want to be made well? Then pick up your mat, and walk.” —John 5:6-8
