I am discovering that everything you see on television and everything you read on the internet is not always correct. My latest revelation is that the Energizer Bunny lies.
I have spent my life believing that emotional energy is an infinite resource. If I wore down, it was because I was obviously doing something wrong. If I only had the right motivation. If I only was not so lazy. If only it didn’t take me so long to complete tasks. If only I had the right batteries. If only something, I could keep on running endlessly, beating my bass drum, and bopping across surfaces. If only something, I would never halt suddenly and flop over on my side. Unfortunately, in the real world… at least in my real world…. I seem to flop over on my side with an alarming degree of regularity.
This Lent, I have been teaching a course at my church. Several years ago, I adapted some material I learned in my working days and that I have picked up along the way on my spiritual journey to create a class on stewardship and ministry. That course focused on stewardship and ministry, but it also covered other subjects such as prayer and working together as a church. My church offered the course as the world was just cautiously emerging from our COVID cocoon. As you may recall, that was a gradual process. It took a lot of people longer to feel safe enough to occupy public spaces than others. The class consisted of four weekly sessions. I taught each class twice each week, to allow for different schedules and to create opportunities to allow for some social distancing. Between the two offerings, I hosted about thirty people. The feedback from the class was highly positive, suggesting that it might be worth trying again when breathing the same air as our neighbor began to feel a little safer. Since the course was much broader than simply stewardship, the pastor and I toyed with the idea of making it a more foundational class for people who were new to our congregation. Time passed and stuff happened. The timing just wasn’t right to hold the class again. Last summer, I began working on an expansion and adaptation of that course. Finally, we launched the new St. James Spiritual Formation Course the Tuesday after Ash Wednesday. We are again presenting the classes twice each week, on Tuesday evening and Thursday midday, plus one Saturday session. This represents 33 hours of teaching time between March 11 and April 10, plus prep time. It also represents exposure and focused interaction with 50-65 people each week. For someone as introverted as I am, that is very peopley.
I will share more of my observations about this experience in another post once I’ve finished the course and have time to reflect on it. For now, let me say that it has been immensely satisfying, rewarding, nourishing, and growth-creating It has also been exhausting.
Knowing that the journey was going to require all my energy for the duration, I purposely tried to structure the rest of my life to minimize competition for my emotional energy. I intentionally “protected my introversion” by limiting any other people-focused activities in my schedule. I once had a colleague tell me that I am a “closet extrovert.” Most people see me interacting with others, especially when teaching a class, and assume I must be extroverted because of the way I present myself. They don’t realize two significant factors. One factor is that much of my success in teaching has to do more with listening intently and mindfully, not talking. I can connect and help people towards discovery because I notice signals and listen to everything everyone says to steer the presentation in the direction the students most need to go. The other thing is that, when I finish, I am exhausted. Actually, it is even more than exhausted. I am almost catatonic. I stagger around the room in a trance, unable to hold a thought or frame a sentence. I understand, on some primitive level, that I should be packing up and helping to clean up the debris from the learning party over which I have just presided. However, I can’t seem to figure out specifically what to do. The idea of simply unplugging my computer and putting it in its case is overwhelmingly difficult. I have no judgment about how much I can carry at one time. I forget things as basic as remembering to retrieve my purse from the seat where I left it before leaving the premises. I have a little team of keepers who have made it their personal mission to keep me away from sharp objects after a session. They have taken over the mental load of food wrangling, kitchen duty, and general maintenance to protect me from myself. I am very grateful.
Even with this emotional safety net, it is a marathon. We are more than halfway through now and I may be winning. It is, however, requiring me to carbohydrate load. I fear the beat of my little bass drum is well and truly out of rhythm. I get depleted. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. The huge rewards I am reaping are more than worth a little depletion. Besides, creative energy is a renewable resource, and God is a great recycler. Still, I don’t think it matters which brand of batteries I have installed in me. The Energizer Bunny is a fraud.
Have an energetic day!
Terri/Dorru 😊
Do you have experiences that deplete your energy in the short term but create energy in the long term? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.