They Both Begin with “I”

Isolation – an act or instance of detaching or separating so as to be alone.

Interdependence – mutually dependent; depending on each other.

Which is scarier? Your answer speaks volumes about your life until now. We are probably most comfortable with those things that are most familiar. For me, it’s isolation. I kinda like being alone – except for when it feels lonely and I feel overwhelmed – like what’s inside me is simply not enough to handle the world around me. Yet, many avoid being alone like the plague. They need someone – anyone – to distract them from something. Pain? Boredom? Uncertainty? Talking to someone seems to help – except for when it just doesn’t.

Trying to share the load with someone else simply doesn’t work if we insist on still carrying all the weight. Picture this – you and a friend, carrying a sofa from one room to another. You pick up one side but only allow the friend to lay their hands lightly on the other side. You’re not alone – but you’re still isolated, still carrying the whole couch by yourself. Tell me, how’s that working for you?
What’s missing? Interdependence – being willing to trust the other person with their share of the sofa’s weight, while still being trustworthy in carrying your end. That’s the scary part, isn’t it? Daring to trust someone else while also daring to be responsible for someone else’s reciprocal trust?

People were not designed to carry the weight of life by themselves. We also weren’t designed to abdicate all responsibility, forever letting someone else work things out on our behalf. Will those we depend on disappoint us sometimes? Of course! But we disappoint ourselves almost daily, so what’s the difference? The difference is that within interdependence lies the potential for growth; the kind of growth that only comes from confronting our fears and anxieties. Fear of failure. Fear of intimacy. Fear of being really, truly known. Fear of being rejected. Fear of being let down. You know – fear of life.

Take a chance to grow in the presence of another. At least one of you is bound to grow from the experience… and both of you may even grow closer. Close enough to carry the burden together. Close enough to show how truly miniscule the source of our fear usually is, and how majestic the triumph over isolation can be.

When it comes to relationships, “anxiety and fear are feelings we will learn to tolerate, even welcome. They’re signals… that we’re growing.” Louise DeSalvo, “Writing as a Way of Healing”

Will I continue to go solo (I-solate) or dare to trust, to become interdependent with others? And if I choose to partner with you – will I insist on keeping all the decision-making power while you pay the consequences? Or will I really be a partner, one who embraces joint risk and joint growth? It all starts with me - "I".

Heroes R Us

Been thinking about superheroes and justice and why even grownups seem to need both. Can’t say I’ve come to a definitive conclusion, but I’m increasingly convinced of an old hypothesis of mine… that somewhere in our makeup is the need for justice and balance in life.

It’s why I didn’t become a “real” lawyer, you know. Because my view of justice is so darned idealized that no legal system in the world would satisfy me. I could just see myself leaping over the judge’s desk, going after his or her throat after yet another moronic decision not to grant a protective order, or some such thing.

It’s come up recently because of the 23-year-old newlywed who was stalked and killed by an old (old enough to be her grandfather) customer just a few days after a judge postponed the decision on whether to grant her request for a protective order. I'm not blaming the judge and, yes, I know the protective order can only do so much; it’s just the whole idea that pushes me over the edge. Did I mention I have a 23-year-old daughter myself? So this one hit home….

But back to the justice thing… I’m also starting to believe that the reason we are drawn to fictional superheroes is because being a hero is also part of our makeup. Not only is it something we want to be – it’s something we are capable of. Okay, maybe we can’t leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but we can each be a hero to SOMEBODY. The thing is, in order to really help others we have to wrap up our personal pity party. You know the one… where we go over and over everything that’s ever gone wrong, every injury we’ve ever suffered, every time we’ve ever failed. What? You’re gonna tell me I’m the only one? Didn’t think so.

Because I’ve been through certain disasters (large and small), and because I’ve bothered to do the hard work of learning and healing and letting go, I can now bring at least a little hope to others in the middle of their own catastrophes. Sometimes I can even do more than that. I doubt I’ll ever be a bona fide hero, the kind that gets their face on the news and children named after them. And I really don’t care about that.

Here’s what I do care about: when I was about 12, I decided that my life would only have been worthwhile if the world were somehow different due to my existence; at least a little bit different for at least one other person. It was all about justice, you see… I realized even then that over the course of my life I would be consuming a tremendous amount of natural resources and going through a whole lot of pain. It only seemed fair to give back to the world and to turn the pain into something useful.

And then I got older and realized it wasn’t all about me. There’s a funny story that defines an optimist as someone who can look at a pile of manure under the Christmas tree and happily squeal, “With all this poop, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!” I see people all the time who are still trapped beneath a pile of life’s manure. Each time, I think, “Having been through all this, there’s got to be a hero in here somewhere!”

Here’s to the hero in you, who recycles the bad cards that have been dealt to you into life and healing and hope for yourself and others. Cheers!

Failing to Love

Blew it already.

So we’re barely into February and I’ve already blown my New Year’s resolution. It’s okay, I just gotta get back on that horse now…

I’ve been thinking lately about failure. Maybe because the concept is mentioned in every other magazine article I see. But it is a legitimate subject for those interested in the development of their character. How do you react to failure – your own or someone else’s? And how do I?

“Resistance is futile” say the Borg in Star Trek land. Actually, we surely should resist failure until it happens. But once it has happened, what’s the point of fretting over it? This from someone who has spent a good chunk of her life kicking herself around the block several times whenever one of her endeavors is less than a total, unqualified success. And yet, I’m learning that failure at least proves I don’t spend my life sitting on my rear, avoiding risk. Guess that’s a good thing, right?

But my character is still somewhat underdeveloped when it comes to handling the failures of others. Let’s try that again. It’s not their failures that bother me, it’s when they feel sorry for themselves afterward and I’m expected to cheer them up. “What? First you fail to help me and now I have to work to cheer you up? Really?”

When, oh when, will I be a more loving person? When will others be able to fail me AND to feel sorry for themselves and still count on receiving my forgiveness and grace and love?

So here I fail, and must resist the urge to feel sorry for myself in the midst of this love-failure. Maybe I need to make another resolution… to resolve (again) to love bigger and better. As for you, if I have failed to love you in your times of failure, please forgive me. Let us both risk again.

Year of Discovery

A colleague on Facebook asked for a word to describe what we want from 2010 – in ONE word! My word for this year is “discovery”. I have to resist the urge to think about stuff before I answer questions like these. Fortunately, I’ve learned (slowly) how to listen to my gut/instinct instead of my overly-analytical brain, but it still takes conscious effort. It’s a bit of mental gymnastics… this thinking about not-thinking… you try it!

So now the aforementioned analytical brain is chewing on that word: discovery. What? You think I can resist thinking/analyzing forever? Thinking is in my blood….

Precisely what do I want to discover this year? Well, what’s next professionally, for one thing. And what’s next in personal relationships, particularly the relationships with my adult kids. But more than the results of this discovery, I’m looking forward to the process.

I hate not knowing what’s next. Hate it! That’s because there have been too many painfully unpleasant surprises in my life. But wonderful things have also happened, so I choose to look at the coming year through those lenses instead… anticipating the good surprises to come. If there’s one thing life has taught me is that I will be able to roll through the nasty stuff, get back up, and dust myself off – with the help of friends and family and others who are rooting me on. If you are one of those – thank you for helping me learn to have faith in the uncertain future. It’s been a long, hard road.

It's About Time

So I’m a week late…. I was busy! Today I’m thinking about New Year’s resolutions because I have finally come up with mine. And every year I ask myself “Why am I even DOING this?” I mean, year after year, more often than not, I tend to keep resolutions for only a few days. But after several dozen new years of asking myself that question… by golly, I think I’ve got it!

I believe we humans make resolutions because we desperately need hope. It’s the oxygen of our souls. In our culture, the end of one year tends to prompt a review of everything that happened in the past twelve months. Well, crap. Most of the time, this is just too much. Maybe a whole lot of good stuff happened that we are now afraid to lose, or we’re afraid we won’t “live up to” the previous year. Yeah, right. More often, this review of all the messes is what turns our stomach. And now the clouds start to gather: what if next year is just as bad?

It’s a good thing we didn’t go through all the bad stuff at once, huh? But then, in the year-end review, we re-experience it all in the space of a minute, overwhelming ourselves. So… quick!!!! We reach for something, anything, that will help us feel like we have some sort of control over the new year. Why do I resolve to exercise? Well, yeah, I want the fitness benefits of exercise, but that’s not what I usually get, because I don’t stick with it. Usually, I have settled for the HOPE that I will lose the weight, breathe easier, or whatever. That’s right, I could have the real thing (health) but I settle for what I need the most at the moment (hope).

That’s kind of like being happy with monopoly money instead of working for the real thing. So should we just give up on hope? No, of course not. That’s like not breathing. Let’s see if this year I have finally come up with a real resolution instead of a something-that-gives-me-hope resolution. Stay tuned -- and stay hopeful.

Brave New World... and a Fascinating One Too

So yesterday was my first birthday after joining Facebook. I've lost track of how many birthday wishes I received online... from relatives I haven't seen in twenty years to colleagues I only barely know. And it felt good. I was smiling all day. Which got me to thinking about this "social media" world and relationships and vulnerability and stuff like that.

I've also started studying social media from a professional standpoint to help nonprofits connect with their people. A key to getting along in this quirky little world seems to be to give, give, give and trust that others will respond in kind. We give links to our favorite funny videos, we share our outrage over political bungling, we applaud each other constantly, we share our triumphs and also our struggles.

I struggle over the struggle-sharing. How much is too much? When do we cross the line from sharing to whining? And, just how vulnerable do I really want to be? It's one thing to share my self-doubts or hurts with my close friends, quite another to put them out there for consumption by people with whom I have not had enough real-world interaction to know whether I can trust them with my pain. Often, as I type I'm thinking "will this come back to bite me later?"

I have one comfort, and offer it to those who share my reluctance to open up in public writings. I tend to be a "real" person - or so I have been told. Sometimes I'm too direct, and it can make others uncomfortable. I'm learning how to moderate that.... But so long as I am not showing one face to my friends and quite another to my professional contacts and still another to my family... well, then, I guess I won't have to face that imagined future episode where the Integrity Police shine a spotlight in my face while yelling "wait, on Facebook two years ago you said something quite different - you hypocrite!"

But maybe I am most afraid to be vulnerable in front of ME. Maybe I don't trust myself to be uniformly real, genuine, sincere. Maybe my insatiable inner critic still has more power over me than I'd like to admit. Maybe it isn't others that I'm most worried about. Hmmm. Does that make me a hypocrite after all?

Imagine it Better

Some people have the gift of imagination, and they usually know it. Others have the gift of faith, but many don’t know it. Here’s a good test: do you spend a lot of time worrying about or imagining things that have not happened yet? That’s the gift of faith turned inside-out. Clothes don’t look too good when worn that way, and neither does faith. In fact, it doesn’t look like faith at all but that’s exactly what it is.

The difference between imagination and faith? It’s much like movies. Most merely help you pass the time, but some actually move you – you are no longer the same person after having seen that movie. I think Chariots of Fire was one of those changing movies for me, a long time ago. I know It’s a Beautiful Life falls in that category for many people, particularly those of us who have longed for death. And that’s how it is with faith, whether the faith manifests as fear or hope – it changes us.

I know a young man who, as a small child, was absolutely fearless. All of life was one big adventure, waiting for him to explore it. But he has grown up in a fear-filled household and now he’s afraid to try anything new. It’s sad. The environment of fear has changed him, I'm hoping not permanently.

Here’s the funny thing: we have no more evidence that bad stuff will happen than we have for the hope that we will have good results. No, really, we don’t. It seems that way because we remember –in excruciating detail- every failure, every embarrassment, every injury we have ever suffered or witnessed. For some reason, remembering the good times doesn’t come as naturally.

At one point in my life, I decided to be rational about this. Today, the very idea of being rational about faith/fear seems pretty funny, but hey, it worked for me at the time. Whenever I would begin to become overwhelmed by worry (that’s the socially-acceptable name for fear), I would draw a line down a sheet of paper. On one side I would write down all the bad stuff that could happen regarding the situation at hand. Then I would write down all the good stuff that could happen. I would force myself to keep writing until I filled the "good" side. Inevitably I would stall after the first couple of lines but, if I pressed on, the list on the good side would grow and grow. It became much easier for me to take risks when I could see all of the potential benefits.

As a young child I promised myself that once I was an adult, I would never live in fear again. It took about twenty years after reaching adulthood for me to begin to feel safe, even in my own home. And that fear bug still bites once in a while, but I don’t live there anymore.

Are you living in fear? Move out. We think that by worrying we keep ourselves safer but that’s a lie. The gift of faith was meant to be used for something much more glorious than the illusion of personal safety.