Within each person is a holy place called The Self. It is here, in the deepest recesses of who each of us is, that the human spirit, soul, and intellect meld, forming the powerhouse for who each of us is. And, the subtle art of self-care (“subtle” because there is a delicate difference between being self-caring, selfish, and self-serving) is fundamental to good mental, emotional, and relational health.
Appropriate self-care is neither selfish nor self-indulgent. It is not self-centered-ness. It is not self-serving. It is self-awareness. It’s self-monitoring, with the firm understanding that each person is responsible for the condition of his or her self. Each of us is responsible for how we relate to all others (to neither dominate or be dominated). Each of us is responsible, when it comes to all other adults, for maintaining relationships that exemplify mutuality, respect, and equality.
Part of self-care is the enduring understanding that each person has a voice to be respected, a role to be fulfilled, and callings to be pursued. Every person (every Self) requires room to grow, space apart from others, while at the same time requiring meaningful intimacy and connection with others. The healthy Self is simultaneously connected and separate, underscoring again the subtlety required in the art of self-care.
I sometimes hear people of different faiths and denominations proclaiming to be “more spiritual” than others. Here’s a checklist list I hope is helpful.
A so-called “spiritual person”:
-Accepts and respects all people without prejudice. He or she does not allow creed, age, economic status, sexual orientation, or gender, or national heritage to shape his or her opinions or treatment of others.
-Forgives others for real or perceived grievances, yet puts in place necessary measures for future protection.
-Is good with money; understands money and how it works, and yet, at the same time, remains very generous.
-Repairs relationships where repair is possible but remains aware that not all relationships are forever and not all relationship breakdowns can or even can or should be repaired.
-Is free of the manipulation, intimidation, and domination of others and expects others to be similarly free.
-Cleans up quickly – emotionally, psychologically, and in every other way.
-Takes full responsibility for his or her life.
-Has no interest in power and its trappings, yet is invested in empowering others to live as powerfully as possible.
-Addresses conflicts and problems head-on and as efficiently as possible.
It sets children on edge often for a life-time of on-edge living.
I know too well.
The memories may be distant but my emotions still react and I often still feel the pain even though it’s been well over 5 decades since I was exposed to the incessant drinking of close relatives.
Remembering the energy I spent as a boy trying to maintain order in the family and reliving my futile efforts to steer adults away from drinking and the twisting and turning in bed when people raged with drunkenness refreshes the emotional exhaustion that is ever ready to awaken in my body, despite the years.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
If you are a parent who indulges in alcohol and it shifts your moods and messes with your driving and threatens your employment and demands spending money you cannot afford and makes you want to pick on those whom you say you love and it is destroying all semblance of trust people may have in you, please seek help.
Humble yourself.
Get the help you need.
You, and all whom you love, will be better off for it.
I’m convinced that you and I have superpowers and the capacity to radically transform our immediate circle of influence.
Our capacity for hospitality is a superpower and, as powerful as it is, it goes beyond opening our homes to guests and strangers. It’s opening our hearts to everyone we encounter. It’s simple friendliness. It’s a no-strings-attached welcome to all.
Our capacity for generosity is a superpower. We have it in us to share, to give, to alleviate burdens for others. It’s extending this natural gift to those who least expect it from us that elevates natural generosity into a superpower. It’s a planned no-strings-attached sharing of time and resources.
Our capacity to both hear and listen to people is a superpower. When we offer people undistracted attention and hang onto every word they say, we are validating their story, their very existence. It’s a no-strings-attached gift proclaiming “I see and hear and value you” in an often indifferent world.
Our capacity to treat all other people as equals (which they are) and with respect (which all people deserve) is a superpower. We can learn powerful and important lessons from anyone and everyone. This no-strings-attached acknowledgment of the treasures within all people, like all our human superpowers, cannot be faked.
Scout walks “Boo” Radley home…. after he saved her brother’s life.
I am fascinated by process, time, growth; how life itself gets us ready for life itself.
When my sons were very young neither they nor I could imagine them leaving, going off on their own. None of the three of us was ready for that.
It is different now.
It’s not that I want them gone. I do not. But I do want them to forge ahead with their own lives. I want them to find adventures in far off countries and to make friends with people I will never meet.
Life prepared me for that transition. I find no resistance within me for it to continue. I thought I would hold onto the boys in some way but I cannot find it in me to do so. I am ready, we are ready for things none of the three of us could have foreseen us being ready for.
Life did it. The process did it. This is what I am celebrating.
In the meantime I shall Value obscurity. Enjoy doubt. Celebrate ambiguity. Embrace mystery. Love complexity. I’ll stop searching for certainty, sureness, and seek simplicity.
Not only can I not have all the answers, I cannot even have most of the questions!
Life itself, does it’s part in preparating us for life.
Swimming, showering and bathing are the same thing. A shower with soap and shampoo cleans you for four or five days. Licking your fingers washes your hands. Biting an apple brushes your teeth. Potato chips IS vegetables. Flossing and flushing? Why? You just have to do it again.
Sleeping wastes time (weekends). People need sleep (school days). Making a bed is stupid. You get into the same one every night. Wearing a shirt inside out is putting on a clean shirt. Pulling a shirt over your head combs your hair. Putting clothes away means you just have to get them again. A bedroom is tidy if you can see (any part, even a smidgen) of the carpet.
Lighted candles must be disturbed and never left alone. Drip the wax, always, anywhere. You can climb, throw, jump on anything if you really want. All bodies of water must be disturbed, no matter how peaceful or beautiful, you must throw something into it or skip stones. If you have a brother EVERYTHING is a competition. SHOTGUN for the front seat works even if you only think it.
Australia—2010— no, they did not write on the rock (and neither did I)
“There are two little English words,” my mothers would often sing, “that will open any door with ease. The one little word is THANKS; the other little word is PLEASE.”
It’s clear to me that such common manners seem in short supply.
Is that your observation, too?
Stand back for someone, hold the door open, clear the way – and the recipients of common kindness quite often move on, ignore kindness, as if being served is their expectation and you are simply doing your job.
Besides “please” and “thank you” there is another good manners suggestions I’d add:
Before you – anyone that is, myself included, of course – bank it, spend it, eat it, use it – if it was a gift – thank the person by calling or in writing who gave it to you.
“I haven’t had the time to write a thank you letter or make a thank you phone call,” I have heard.
What nonsense.
If you found the time to use the gift you’ve certainly had the time to express thanks for it.
“My grandma (grandma, uncle, aunt) doesn’t expect a thank you card or a call,” he said.
That a generous person may expect no formal thanks does not mean it ought not be communicated.
Thulani was 4 and, coming down stairs he screamed siren-like, a prolonged yell and fell, his whole body convulsively sobbing. When I reached him and picked him up and held him close, my hold necessitated a shift from hug to restraint until the boy convulsed less and relaxed enough to reveal the carpet nail lodged flush in his underfoot.
I had spent the afternoon, while Thulani and his infant brother were napping, ripping, tearing, hauling an old carpet off a stairwell.
Dr. Yancey made me do it.
He said something was bothering infant-Nate’s breathing, perhaps an old carpet and ordered it out.
I examined the exposed hardwood time and again, running my open hands carefully over each newly exposed stair for a missed carpet nail and found none.
Now the nail I did miss plugged Thulani’s foot.
With a boy hanging around my neck I headed for the living room sofa and, using my full body weight, held him down to lock kicking legs.
He froze seeing I was about to remove the nail.
Silent, transfixed – he watched me pull it out and puked as I held him tight against my chest.
The warm flow spewed from his anxious tummy, gluing us together as it snaked down my shirt.
The sludge, a sloppy mucus curtain, dangled between us and, to trap the flow, I held him even closer and waddled to the basement and stripped him. Maneuvering his frame from arm to arm I removed my soiled and dumped our soggy clothes into the washer.
Upstairs, I eased him into a warm soapy bathtub and sat on the rim.
Finding the opportunity to seek forgiveness, participate in repair or restitution with people whom I have hurt may result in their expressing forgiveness. While hearing such comforting words warms me, self-forgiveness remains difficult.
Do you have similar battles?
I know this is a particular struggle because having known what is right, good, wholesome, I have not always done what is right and good and wholesome. I find this painful to admit and address. Knowing better was hardly helpful.
While it is no excuse, I am aware that I am not too different from many.
When I am feeling down it feels as if my failures speak louder than any successes. Despite the knowledge that “people are more than their actions” shame seeps and runs deep and makes me feel vulnerable and fragile. It can be a physical sensation.
Again, I must ask, do you ever feel this way?
When I am at my best, I can humble myself, accept my imperfections and that I am a forgiven person.
Admitting I am flawed is key to my freedom which leads me to self forgiveness at which point freedom fills my soul.
I’ve been asked a few times why I’m a rideshare driver for Lyft and Uber.
The answers are easy.
It keeps me from spending money at local hardware stores.
I tend to drift into a few, earnestly thinking and believing I am good at fixing things, you know, minor home projects like remodeling the kitchen, adding a bedroom, after decades of knowing otherwise. Truth is, I’m not. I have hardly ever finished a single repair, paint, assemble, project I ever began and I have unused equipment to prove it. I’d rather drive a few hours and make a little cash than buy stuff I end up never using and see it sitting wherever I abandon it until it burns my eyes.
When I drive for Lyft and Uber — yes, New Castle, you have at least one rideshare driver I know of — I get the joy and privilege of meeting people who I would probably never otherwise meet.
Read the car correctly and there are riders who really want to talk and will tell you their life stories, most of which, if well-penned, could be best sellers, even movie franchises. Many riders simply want to rest or catch up on phone time after a very hard day’s work. Some sleep. That’s fine by me. It gives me time to be thankful for all the home-projects I am avoiding and calculate all the money I’m saving by not buying the John Deer foundation digger thing I found most attractive and fully believed I needed a few days ago.
I have long prayed that God would permit me to travel and teach young adult students who are rich in almost everything but money and who live in places I couldn’t find on a map. If I drive hard for a week I can earn enough money to fly anywhere in the world where I’m invited.
Paying my own way means I don’t stretch budgets of campuses in some of the most economically vulnerable and challenged countries on Earth.
My three trips, scheduled before 2024 closes are to Santiago – then home, Accra, Lome, Nairobi, Worcester, – then home. After Thanksgiving, it’s Bujumbura. If I drive it means I can go to such destinations. I think my prayers have been answered.
When I drive for Lyft and Uber I get the joy and privilege of seeing parts of the city of Indianapolis (and Anderson, Muncie, St. Louis, Fort Wayne, Elwood, Madison and Columbus, Indiana) I would never otherwise see, and there is beauty, stunning beauty everywhere, just as there is everywhere on this gorgeous planet.
I like to drive because I meet biblical characters. The woman caught in adultery cried her eyes out in my car one morning before 7am. The 19-year old told me God would never accept or forgive her for what she’d just done and cried all the more when I told her that would be most uncharacteristic of the God I’ve encountered.
I’ve driven men and women to and from all the major hospitals who express overwhelming joy in simply being alive.
When women ride with me and I hear them on their phones negotiating extra hours with three part-time jobs, scheduling care of several children – for their own and for the children of neighbors and friends – while also learning a language in a new country, I want to declare my 2013 Lexus holy ground.
Deep breath now: when 4 young men in their late teens got a ride from an abandoned fast-food parking lot and, after a short while started to tell me their stories and revealed that all had lost a dad, uncle or friend in a violent death, and all had been with someone who was dying, and that there were five weapons in MY car (among the four of them) and when I asked why and almost as one they said WE HAVE TO and I drive off leaving them behind, regretting I could not sit with them and hear more and more and more.
Yes. Long sentence. Full of run-ons, just like the conversation we had in the car.
Lyft? Uber?
It’s beautiful I tell you.
Maybe one day this week I will stay home and paint a room.
difficultrelationships.com 