Tag: self-care

The Charity Of Selfishness

The other day, I attended our mid-week worship service in our church chapel. I started attending this service a few years ago as a Lenten devotional. Attending that service gave me so much spiritual renewal, I decided to continue the habit throughout the year. God and I have been through a lot together over the past years at that service. I have sobbed uncontrollably. I have begged for forgiveness. I have prayed for strength, patience, protection, courage, and endurance. I have asked for guidance on how to walk in love in a world that seems bound and determined to hate. I have laughed at some of God’s little jokes. I have processed experiences I had outside the service and made sense of them in the context of God’s will for me.

As I spoke the words of the liturgy the other day, I became aware of the voices around me also praying. It reminded me of something that Rumer Godden said in her novel In This House Of Brede. In describing the role of the nuns at a cloistered monastery, she referred to the religious house as a “powerhouse of prayer.”  Yes, the nuns had avocations that the abbey monetized to be able to support itself. The nuns wrote books, did illustration work, gardened, and other day-to-day activities. That is how they paid the bills, along with donations. Their job, however, their real vocation, was prayer. Every day, the abbey received letters from people all over the world asking the nuns to pray for them. The nuns did so- in an orderly, intentional, specific, and methodical way. The abbey was a factory. The product generated from that factory was prayer.

One might unwittingly think that a cloistered order of nuns living tucked away from real life beyond the abbey gates would be about the most inner-focused thing in the world. It is easy to think of a bunch of women praying individually and together solely as an exercise in spiritual self-development. In reality, though, that inner-focused action is extremely outer-purposed. Because of the prayers of those women, the Holy Spirit ignites to power the world at large.

The same is true for our own spiritual devotions. As all our souls combine to worship and pray in a church service, we are asking God to bless us and our work. We are focusing on ourselves and our own spiritual development. There is a strong element of selfishness, or at least self-care, involved in the act of praying. However, that spiritual observation that we embrace to expand our own souls contains abundant charity as well. In the same way the nuns of Brede created a powerhouse of prayer to ignite the entire world, our prayer also raises sparks of spiritual electricity to ignite our global community.

I think the same is true for other spiritual exercises. When I attend a discussion group about elements of Christianity, I go because I want to develop my own relationship with God. However, the combined work of all the members of the group produce something much more wonderful and powerful than any one of us creates individually. When we leave the room, I would guess that each of us leaves feeling uniquely enriched. I don’t know if we ever realize how what we ourselves contributed enriched the others.

I have been retired for over 10 years.  I had an excellent job- it was interesting, important, and paid generously. I got to do some exciting, impactful things in my career. I was good at my job and my job was good to me.  Still, I was never one of those people who loved my job. In short, the job just did not fit my temperament. There were many parts of my job that were stressful and unpleasant. There were a few parts of my job that were painful but immensely rewarding. A lot of my job was neutral. There were a couple of adjunct parts of my job, however, that I did love. I got to spend a few weeks each year teaching and developing courses. When I left my career, this was the only part of my job I mourned, aside from the people with whom I worked.

In my retirement, I started looking for opportunities to do that kind of work again. I was not looking for a paying job or the kind of long-term obligation a paying job entails. I just wanted to do what I loved doing… and one of the few things for which I genuinely believe I have talent. In my new church, I have found opportunities to indulge that piece of me that reveled in creating courses and facilitating classes. That has not always been a comfortable or easy process, but the pay-off for me has been beautiful. I feel like my spiritual life is richer, stronger, and more profound because of the energy I’ve invested in these education products. It truly feels like this investment is filling my need for spiritual development rather than addressing the needs of anyone who engages in my spiritual formation classes. It feels like a privilege and an opportunity from God to do this work. It often feels selfish and completely unmerited to be the one who gets to do this stuff.

Then, I remember something I read when I first became an Episcopalian. One author said that effective ministry happens when a person’s passion, skills, talents, and intuition intersect with the needs of the people of God. Perhaps finding the perfect way to use one’s spiritual gifts in ministry is only possible if we lean into our selfishness a little bit. What do we love doing? What gives us pleasure? What gives us confidence? What are we good at? Can other people benefit from it? Perhaps that is what God always intended us to do. Perhaps that is what our most perfect charity looks like to Him… when we are most wholly the unique people He made us to be, fulfilling the unique purpose He gave us the gifts to fulfill.

What charity have you contributed out of your “selfishness?” Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a selfish day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Growing Pains

I think I am going through a growth spurt. I went to the doctor last week and I gained two pounds over the holidays. It appears that my girth, if nothing else, has gone through a growth spurt. I’d like to think it is much more than that.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working on being more intentional about how I spend my time. I wanted to disentangle myself from being overcommitted. I wanted to decrease the amount of energy I spent of activities and relationships that I do not enjoy. Going forward, I wanted to focus on improving myself instead of busy-ness and “contributing.” I really wanted to trust myself and my own intrinsic worth instead of relying on the opinion of others or the quantity of my contribution to form my own opinion of myself. It proved to be harder than I anticipated.

I took a two-month participation vacation from an organization that was starting to consume me. I was starting to not like myself and the way I felt when working on tasks related to this organization. It was not that anyone did anything wrong or that I did not enjoy the organization. It was simply some my own tendencies that I had to tame. I tried to rein myself in and protect my feelings while continuing to participate in the organization’s activities. I found the unhealthy part of me was just too ingrained and I needed to disconnect myself completely for a couple of months.

I finally voiced my reluctance to continue with another activity that had been causing me angst over the past couple of years. I honestly did not have sufficient time to invest in the activity at the required level. Also, there were some interpersonal challenges and confusion as to roles, which sapped my energy.

I stopped trying to be the driver of all the many relationships I accumulated since COVID. In my attempt to help people feel connected and valued, I began reaching out to far more people than my sweet little introverted self could handle. I continued in my quest for connection long after most of the world abandoned the “virtual world” and started interacting in real life again. I was typically the one who was reaching out to my relationships. That fed a need in me, but it also critically drained my emotional battery. I began allowing time for other people- people with whom I had genuine relationships- to reach out to me.

I expected that my self-imposed hiatus from the wild world would be pleasant, relaxing, and satisfying. That did not turn out to be the case… at least, not initially. In fact, after just a couple of weeks, I felt isolated and lonely and discouraged. I felt kind of hopeless. Maybe I was not such good company for myself after all. I struggled through the holidays a bit. My brother, my last tie to my family of origin, died this year. I had given up, at least temporarily, my involvement with some of my affiliations. Many of the people with whom I have the closest, more authentic connections were off doing family stuff. Nothing felt right.

I think my feelings were the delirium tremors of the soul. I was detoxing from this need for validation of my worth- either from activities or from other people. Unfortunately, I did not recognize this right away. I embroiled myself in another major activity by which I was measuring my worthiness. It was something I did want to do for some excellent, valid reasons. However, I allowed myself to stop focusing on these great reasons. Instead, I got caught up with the idea of proving myself and being valuable in other people’s eyes. I did not react well.

Just in the past few days, I’ve realized that I have been holding on to some resentment and hurt left over from before my hiatus. I stopped the activities, but I did not stop the unhealthy thought patterns. Thanks to a frank conversation with a friend, I realized my problem. In that conversation, I allowed myself to feel all the negative emotions I was pushing to the back of my brain, in an attempt to convince myself that they didn’t matter and that I should just get over them. They did matter and I couldn’t get over them until I dived into them. My poor friend was completely unprepared for my reaction and I am sorry she had to see it, but I am so grateful to her for being the pilot light that ignited the bonfire. Now that I have burned at least some of that negative emotion, I might be better equipped to trust in myself and in my intrinsic worth. I am entitled to be me. What’s more- the world is better because I am me.

People always say that there is no growth in comfort and no comfort in growth. I say that I see nothing wrong with comfort. People also say that whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I say that I don’t see why I have to be so frickin’ strong. God often has to drag me kicking and screaming into the next phase of my development.

Still, it is pretty cool when I do see the growth that comes after the pain.

What have you learned after experiencing some “growing pains?” Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a painless day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Winter Wheat

Ever since my mom’s stroke, people have been telling me to remember to take care of myself.  These people mean well. They are often very somber and earnest in admonishing me to take care of myself. It is as if they believe they can will their words to permeate my brain and convert into action. They never quite do.

I realize, on some intellectual level, that self-care is important.  I don’t think I fully accept that it is important to me, however.  After all, it isn’t like my mother is living with me and I am the full-time caretaker.  Lots of people handle much heavier burdens than I do.  Somehow, “just” managing my mother’s life, being her advocate, and visiting a couple of hours a day six days a week doesn’t feel like enough to entitle me to the concern of those well-meaning people.  It doesn’t feel like I deserve the “permission” to take care of myself.

I remember reading the book The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (of Little House on the Prairie fame) when I was younger.  The premise of the book is that the residents of a small town in the Dakota Territory were running out of wheat to make bread during the particularly cold, blizzardy, and brutal winter of 1880-1881.  Most of the citizenry, regardless of how they earned money, raised their own food.  Some people were actually commercial farmers, but even those who weren’t had chickens for eggs, a cow for milk, and fields of vegetables. And wheat.  They grew wheat for home consumption. They stockpiled stores of the grain to make sure they would have flour during the lean times of the year when game was scarce and the ground was too hard and barren to yield crops.  They were hardy, forward-thinking pioneer people who knew how to eke a living off the land.  They were used to living in harsh elements.  That long winter demonstrated that, sometimes, the elements win.

As the wheat supplies dwindled and winter showed no sign of abating, townspeople started approaching starvation.  Because the weather was so violent, it seemed foolhardy to travel to a larger town in hope of finding emergency grain.  People were rationing and doing without, but it became clear that the town was not going to survive until spring without some infusion of food.  A rumor started that the Wilder brothers still had a store of seed wheat that they intended to use to plant the next season’s crop.  One man in town approached them, begging them to share just a little of the seed wheat to keep his family from starving to death.  The Wilder brothers agreed, but could see that this was, at best, a stopgap measure.  Giving up their seed wheat would only stave off the famine in the town for a week or two.  It would also mean that there would be no wheat at all to plant for the next season.  Ultimately, the brothers decided to brave the wicked whiteness to find wheat for sale. After a long, uncomfortable, and perilous trip, they found someone with wheat and brought back enough to see the town through until spring.

I think this story is a good metaphor for caretaking, even if one is “only” providing care for a loved one living in a nursing facility.  Caretaking does mean meeting the hour-to-hour physical needs of a loved one. It also means some other things. It means managing the administration of her life. It means being her advocate to campaign for her wishes. It means listening and concentrating and trying to interpret when she attempts to communicate. It means keeping her company.  It means trying different strategies to keep her engaged and connected. It means being her proof that she has been-and still is- valuable and loved. It means showing her that she, herself, is still able to love.

All these forms of caretaking involve stress. They all require energy and emotional food. All caretakers are susceptible to emotional famine.  It may feel safer to try to just ride out the difficult season, rationing your emotional reserves and hoping you make it to spring.   It may feel dangerous and impossible to remove oneself from the immediate situation to look for the food that might be the longer-term solution to the problem.  After all, if I give my all and do nothing but my best all the time, all I am left with is nothing.  And nothing won’t yield any wheat in the next season.

What do those of you who are caregivers do to replenish your supplies when your “winter wheat” is diminishing?  Please respond by leaving a comment.  In the alternative,  you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a nourishing day!

Terri 🙂