A Prayer
O God, help me to believe the truth about myself
no matter how beautiful it is!
Amen.
— Macrina Wiederkehr, quoted by Robert Holden in Loveability, p. 77
Category: Acceptance
10 Posts
We Have Changed.
When we experience some traumatic change in our life – whether it’s the passing of a parent, a painful divorce, or, God forbid, the death of a child – as much as we might yearn to go back to the way things once were, it is impossible. What was behind us no longer exists as we knew it, not because it changed but rather because we changed. It’s kind of like how the house you grew up in did not get smaller; you got bigger. What happened in the past changed who you are, and now you cannot return to that old you because that you no longer exists.
This is a painful truth to accept, especially when we are in a dark hallway, scared and unsure of what lies ahead. When we are stricken with doubts and fears about the future, our brains reflexively tell us that the past was better; and whether this is true or not, our tendency is to believe it. So it is understandable that instead of running forward to the unknown our instinct is to run backward, toward what is known: the past.
— Sherre Hirsch, Thresholds, p. 160-161
You Are Loveable.
Even if your parents weren’t perfect, and even if you weren’t raised with unconditional love, and even if your history is full of heartache, the truth remains that whether someone loves you or not has no bearing on how loveable you really are. Your childhood is not the last chapter in your story. Your first love is not your only love. Your greatest heartache is not the whole story of your life. Your parents are not God. An unhappy past, no matter how terrible, is not a reason to say “I am not loveable,” nor is it a reason to stop loving yourself. Actually, it is a reason to love yourself more.
You can only be held back by your past if you use it to reject yourself in the present.
— Robert Holden, Loveability, p. 76
Seeing Alternatives
Most of our decisions do not lead us exactly where we want to go. Yet the more narrowly focused we are on a particular destination — the more focused we are on getting to a particular room — the harder it can be to see the alternatives. After all, if you’ve spent half your life chasing a dream — whether a dream job, a dream marriage, or a dream family — it’s terrifying to suddenly switch course and take a chance on something different. Yet only once we broaden our scope of vision can we see all the many other possibilities for happiness.
— Sherre Hirsch, Thresholds, p. 148
Last Year’s Blooms
And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments [of our past experience] which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope by fondling and sniffing, to get last year’s blooms, and you will get nothing. “Unless a seed die. . .”
— C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, Chapter 5
Unexpected Gifts
Gratitude supports basic trust. Gratitude helps you to suspend your judgment. It gives you another angle, another way of looking at things. “Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you,” I wrote in Be Happy. Sometimes cancellations, rejections, traffic delays, bad weather, and even more bad weather can come bearing gifts. A layoff, an illness, or the end of a relationship may well be the start of something wonderful. “We don’t know what anything is really for, says Louise. “Even a tragedy might turn out to be for our greatest good. That’s why I like to affirm Every experience in my life benefits me in some way.”
— Robert Holden and Louise Hay, Life Loves You, p. 160
The Beauty of Our Cracks
Just as our experiences of foreboding joy can be located on a continuum, I found that most of us fall somewhere on a perfectionism continuum. In other words, when it comes to hiding our flaws, managing perception, and wanting to win over folks, we’re all hustling a little. For some folks, perfectionism may only emerge when they’re feeling particularly vulnerable. For others, perfectionism is compulsive, chronic, and debilitating — it looks and feels like addiction.
Regardless of where we are on this continuum, if we want freedom from perfectionism, we have to make the long journey from “What will people think?” to “I am enough.” That journey begins with shame resilience, self-compassion, and owning our stories. To claim the truths about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, and the very imperfect nature of our lives, we have to be willing to give ourselves a break and appreciate the beauty of our cracks or imperfections. To be kinder and gentler with ourselves and each other. To talk to ourselves the same way we’d talk to someone we care about.
— Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 131
Why Are We Here?
Each of the givens or conditions of existence evokes a question about our destiny. Are we here to get our way or to dance with the flow of life? Are we here to make sure everything goes according to our plans or to trust the surprises and synchronicities that lead us to new vistas? Are we here to make sure we get a fair deal or are we here to be upright and loving? Are we here to avoid pain or to deal with it, grow from it, and learn to be compassionate through it? Are we here to be loyally loved by everyone or to love with all our might?
— David Richo, The Five Things We Cannot Change . . ., p. xiv
Exposure to Light
Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That’s why it loves perfectionists — it’s so easy to keep us quiet. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.
— Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 67
Better Bruised Than Ill
Whenever we Christians are enclosed in our groups, our movements, our parishes, in our little worlds, we remain closed, and the same thing happens to us that happens to anything closed: when a room is closed, it begins to get dank. If a person is closed up in that room, he or she becomes ill! Whenever Christians are enclosed in their groups, parishes, and movements, they take ill. If a Christian goes to the streets, or to the outskirts, he or she may risk the same thing that can happen to anyone out there: an accident. How often have we seen accidents on the road! But I am telling you: I would prefer a thousand times over a bruised Church to an ill Church! A Church, a catechist, with the courage to risk going out, and not a catechist who is studious, who knows everything but is always closed — such a person is not well. And sometimes he or she is not well in the head . . .
But, careful! Jesus does not say, Go off and do things on your own. No! That is not what he is saying. Jesus says, Go, for I am with you! This is what is so beautiful for us; it is what guides us. If we go out to bring his Gospel with love, with a true apostolic spirit, with parrhesia, he walks with us, he goes ahead of us and he gets there first.
— Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy, p. 19