Boundaries (Part 3 of Soul- Excavation)

If you're still hanging with me, I've been working through writing some of what I've learned over the last several months of what I've come to call my "soul-excavation project". If this is the first you've read of it, you might want to jump back a couple of posts and catch up, as I'm just jumping in where I left off last time. This has been a slow, plodding process. It has not been easy, painful even at times, as I've allowed myself to take a good, honest look at myself and some of the reasons why  make the choices I make.

During Celebrate Recovery, one of the most important things I learned in helping me to move forward, to get "unstuck" in my anger, was to learn to sit with my emotions. I am not good at this. Negative emotions, to my old way of thinking, are sin, weakness. As sin, they need to be rooted out and discarded in as quick a fashion as possible. I don't necessarily believe that anymore. Yes, anger can lead me to sin, but anger itself is not sin. Anger is a signal that something is wrong. Grief can often feel like it is a lack of faith or a giving up, so we try to push through it quickly and just believe God's promises that would turn that grief into... whatever positive emotion we're supposed to have in the face of loss. Fear signals that something is, or at least feels, bigger than me - it has always caused me to feel that I lack faith, so I fight to ignore it. I would feel these negative emotions and try to find ways to push through them as quickly as possible, often denying their existence all together. When in truth, denying them will likely allow them to grow, just under the surface, usually eventually manifesting in rage or cynicism or complete withdrawal. 

I'm learning to sit with these emotions. Feel them.

• When I feel anger welling up, I sit with it long enough to analyze what is wrong that is bringing the anger to bear. I don't allow myself to feel it in the sense that I explode all over someone, venting my anger - but I sit with it...allow myself to meditate on where it's coming from. Sometimes I find that my anger is coming from a place of unmet, unrealistic expectations. This allows me to process that - to release myself or the other person from my ideas of what life must look like in order for me to be happy. Other times, I find my anger is coming from a place of unresolved grief...
• This leads me to facing that when I am overwhelmed by grief, allow myself to feel it... to grieve what is lost, be that a dream or a person or a goal. Giving space for my grief will bring the healing I need to move forward again eventually.
• When I am afraid, stop... Analyze what it is that I actually fear. In finding the source, I can approach it more rationally - is it truly too much for me, or am I believing an old lie that I've learned to listen to? Am I leaning into God for strength? Am I letting trusted friends in to help? Am I allowing something or someone to have control over me that I need to put a stop to? Facing that fear can actually give courage.

In practicing this, I often find what I need to do. Is there action I should take? Sometimes the best, most pro-active step I can take is to be still. Other times, I need to act. Call Senators, volunteer, walk across the street and get to know my neighbor, share a meal with an old friend (or a new friend), set a boundary that prevents enabling cycles, get off (or maybe on) social media for a stretch, run head-long into that thing that scares me. But none of this should be reactionary. Sit with it. Meditate on it. Then take intentional steps forward.

In Celebrate Recovery, one of the things we did every week is recite the Serenity Prayer. I have heard what I thought was the entire prayer for decades, but have since learned there is more to it. The portion that has spoken to me the most is as follows:

"...Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time,

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

taking, as Jesus did, 

this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right

If I surrender to Your will..."

"taking this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it..." -- This has been a tough lesson for me. I don't believe this is a fatalistic "giving up". We must continue to live a life that promotes mercy and justice, to defend the defenseless, to be present for the poor, the orphan, the widow. Accepting the world as it is does not mean that we don't continue to pray for and work toward "Your Kingdom come" while we are here. But, it does mean I will give up on the idea that things and people (even those closest to me, those I love most) must be a certain way in order for me to be happy, at peace. It means that I will give up my everlasting need to fix everyone and everything around me.

Exploring this part of myself led me to the book Boundaries by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. I cannot recommend this book enough. I read it for the first time last year, on my own - desperate to find answers for why I continue to return to these emotional cycles. This year I re-read it in the context of a group that explored and discussed it each week. This has done so much to open my eyes to the ways I had not established good, safe boundaries in my own life, and also could easily run roughshod over other people's boundaries when I believed them to be wrong. It's helped me learn to welcome those negative emotions as red flags that can guide me to a better way. It's helped in learning to let go of criticism and judgment of others - to honor their choices, even when I disagree (sometimes strongly) with them.

I'm learning.

I've learned the value of silence. I find peace now in sitting in utter silence - no TV, no music, no people talking... just let God speak to me, to listen to my own inner voice and talk to God about those hurts, joys, emotions. I've learned that I do not need to speak to everything. Certainly, everyone does not want, and likely does not need to hear my thoughts on every available topic. Silence is a virtue that we've all but lost in our culture. One of my favorite authors, and one of my favorite of his quotes: 

“Silence frees us from the need to control others. One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. A frantic stream of words flows from us in an attempt to straighten others out. We want so desperately for them to agree with us, to see things our way. We evaluate people, judge people, condemn people. We devour people with our words. Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on that. When we become quiet enough to let go of people, we learn compassion for them.” ~ Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

When someone says something that triggers anger, I do not have to respond right then. The world keeps spinning when I choose to walk away. It continues to spin when I let go of the everlasting need to be right. I may come back later and say something if that seems to be the most appropriate choice. Maybe not. It is such a relief to finally embrace the truth that I am really not all that important. God does not NEED me to fix all the things.

Again, to clarify, this does not mean we should be silent in the face of injustice. As the Body of Christ, we must be among the first to raise our voice in the face of injustice, to abuse, to hate - to be a voice for the voiceless. I will never believe the virtue of silence should be applied to standing with the marginalized. That is not the silence I am speaking to. The virtue of silence will lead to true peace, to letting go - not to ignoring the pain of others or enabling the oppressor. 

In silence, I've found peace again. I never felt I'd lost God in all of this, but I did feel I'd lost an anchor in many things I believed about Him or the Church or the Bible. I've found my anchor to be fully in Him again - and having that anchor has allowed me to begin to trust others again. I've learned I can laugh, love, find joy, all around me, even when there are parts of my life that are still very painful. When I give myself permission to sit with my pain, I've found it also frees me to feel my joy as well.

It is what it is, people. It is what it is.

I can continue to struggle and fight, I can continue to judge and critique, I can continue to control and manipulate. Or I can let go.

One day at a time, one moment at a time, I'm choosing to let go.