Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts

Q4U: Where's the Line between Faking It & Making It?

For several months, now, I've had a Post-It note floating around with these words, scribbled in the wee hours of the morning:

 "We're told to 'Fake it 'til you make it!' But what if you never 'make it'?"

 I had no idea what to make of that question until yesterday, when I read these Facebook status updates by my friend Shonna Dalusong:

 "Cluttered heart = cluttered calendar, cluttered priorities, cluttered relationships, cluttered home. Is there clutter in your life?"

 "I grew up holding onto 'stuff' for 'just in case.' It hit me today how much self-sufficiency is in that. If I have everything I need at any time to solve any problem or provide for any of my needs, where does trust and God-sufficiency come in?"

 And I thought back to several clutter-related blog posts



 Then it hit me:  

 When I "fake it 'til I make it"  -- but never actually "make it" -- I'm just a faker.

 A poser.

 A wannabe.

 So of course I'm going to fill my nothingness with clutter!

 I desperately need the trappings of success, or at least progress, so that everyone will think I'm real.

 My stuff serves as evidence that I'm still "making it."
FITYMA Has Its Place

 I'm not bashing the "fake it 'til you make it" concept. 

 I remember all-too-clearly the sheer panic I felt when Annemarie and I were discharged from the hospital on March 26, 1991. 

 I felt like telling the nurses, "You're making a huge mistake!  I've never even babysat let alone changed a diaper! I have no clue what to do with this baby once you hand her over to me!"

 Eight hours after we got home, I frantically called the hospital to speak to a nurse because Annemarie had slept the entire time, and I didn't know how to wake her up...or even if I should.

 No doubt about it: sometimes, "fake it 'til you make it" is the only MO available.
The Line Between My Life & My Lie

But today I'm asking myself:  Where's the line?  

 How can I tell when my purpose has shifted from working hard at actually "making it" to just the continuation of "faking it"?

 How do I recognize when, as Katy put it, the gathering of my trappings completely replaces my original goal...and even deceives me into believing I'm achieving my true goal? 
No Easy Answers

 I'd love to wrap this blog post up with eight easy answers, but no can do. 

 This is all too new.

 I've got a lot of prayer, silence and solitude, and scripture searching to do before I try to offer up any wisdom. 

 This feels big, at least for me. 

 WAY big. 

 Way bigger than let's-just-clean-out-the-unused-pet-paraphenalia cupboard. 

  • More like question-every-book-on-my-shelves big. 
  • More like what-if-my-clutter-is-my-cherished-sin big. 
  • More like search-me-Oh-God-and-know-my-heart big.


 What Do You Think?

 So I'll close for today by inviting you to share your thoughts and experiences.

  • How do you know when you've crossed the line between "Making It" and "Faking It"?
  • When can you tell that the trappings have overtaken your original goal?
  • Anything else on your heart!




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How to Break the Power of Dread


Christmas is over. 

As of two hours ago, we’re back home again.

And it just occurred to me to ask myself:

So, did October’s “A Holiday-Ready Heart” challenge make a difference?

 And I realized:

Yeah, it did.

You see, for years, I’ve dreaded the holidays.


dread

1.  to fear greatly
2.  to be in extreme apprehension of
3.  to be reluctant to do, meet, or experience

(Antonym:  welcome)

And the problem with dread is that it’s self-perpetuating. It feeds on itself and grows exponentially.

Plus, dread invites its buddies: guilt and shame. 

After all, what kind of person 
  • doesn’t love the holy-days?  
  • doesn’t want to celebrate Jesus’ birth? 
  • can’t focus on the joy of giving to others?


dread = fear + powerlessness

For me, dread has always felt like a combination of fear and powerlessness. 

But this year, having key scriptures on hand helped remove the fear.  And I kept praying prayers of surrender to shift from feelings of powerlessness to a sense of acceptance.

Instead of spinning off into anxiety about all the things that “went wrong” or didn’t go “according to plan” or weren’t happening “the right way”, I kept coming back to the present moment.

To a simple state of resignation.


resignation

3.  an accepting, unresisting attitude

If you’d told me a year ago (who am I kdding, six months ago!) that I’d be singing the praises of “resignation,” I would have told you to get thee behind me.

But there's unexpected freedom in choosing an “unresisting attitude.”

My new mantra is “if push comes to shove, perhaps it’s time to LET GO.”

Let go of fear. 

Let go of control. 

Welcome what comes.

(Turns out, welcome truly is the opposite of dread.)
Your Turn

  • How do you react when things "turn out wrong" or don't go "according to plan" or fail to happen "the right way"?
  • Think of an upcoming situation you're dreading; how would removing fear change things?
  • Anything else on your heart!




"The Cure":  a work-in-progress monologue exploring welcoming, rather than dreading, pain.


(Can't see video?  Watch "The Cure" via YouTube: http://youtu.be/5n9XGthx4lM)




Coming in January!
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My "Screwtape Letter" (with apologies to C.S. Lewis!)

(We're gearing up for The PURSE-onality Challenge holiday edition–"A Holiday-Ready Heart"–in October! Stay tuned for full details...Warm-Up Week starts September 24!)

September 5-23, I'll be blogging through Mary DeMuth's soon-to-be-released book Everything: What you Give and What you Gain to Become Like Jesus. Each week, I'll be giving way a copy of the book. You can enter the drawing via the Rafflecopter at the end of each Everything blog post!

* * * * *

"To grow, we give up. We rest. We give God control."

 (Here's the trailer for Everything...it's an honor to have my story of healing included!)


* * * * * 
Over the last month, my AP students and I have read C.S. Lewis's classic satire The Screwtape Letters. This weekend, we'll attend Max McLean's superb stage adaptation. Today, we're sharing our first drafts of our "My Screwtape Letter" essays.

I say "we" because this year, for the first time, my students decided that I needed to write a "Screwtape Letter" along with them. They didn't even let me pick my topic (which I allowed them to do!)  No, they told me I had to write about sarcasm. (As if I know ANYthing about SARcasm! ;-)

Writing mine revealed, once again, how constantly I strive for control. My quote for today from Everything –- "To grow, we give up. We rest. We give God control" –- is yet another reminder that anything I try to do for myself, even something as seemingly "innocent" as a bit of sarcasm, stunts me spiritually.

My Dear Wormwood,


Your patient’s penchant for sarcasm must be approached with care. Yes, you are right in recalling (I’m glad to see you memorized something during your S.A.T.* Review course!) that the Enemy has instructed that his followers mean “yes” they say “yes,” and mean “no” when they say “no.” Sarcasm, of course, is the antithesis of this sort of folksy, do-gooder, so-called “truth-telling” form of verbal communication. But do not assume an easy victory.

Why and how sarcasm is used are of the utmost importance. (This is true also for skepticism and cynicism, but I will address them in future letters.) Your patient reaches for sarcasm to defend herself from the paradoxical twin fears that have dogged her since gradeschool: her terror of looking stupid and her fear of of seeming smart. Spend some time in the multimedia department reviewing her junior high years. In particular, watch the following two clips:

1)  the day when the boy upon whom she has a “crush” (such a deliciously destructive term) asks her, “Do you read the dictionary for fun?” and she naively responds, “Yes!”  Note the eager anticipation in her response, her thrill that he must be a fellow dictionary–or at least encyclopedia–reader. See how many days it takes her to figure out that his sideways glances at her and whispers to peers are not evidence of endearment but mockery. 

2)  the day when she comes home from school in tears, once again, and tells her brother “nobody plays with me at recess.” Note especially his advice (to keep her quiz and test scores carefully hidden) and the ensuing events that she associates as the results of masking her intelligence: invitations to girls’ birthday parties (notice how she actually equates these with true friendship!) and that meaning-fraught scrawled note with “Yes” and “No” checkboxes from a prepubescent classmate of the opposite gender (notice how eagerly she believes a checkmark in the “Yes” box will blossom immediately into true love!)

You may wonder how such minor (even silly) childhood events have the power to reach across decades to influence adult beliefs and behaviors. Trust me: thanks to our Self-Awareness** 
 Campaign of the 90’s, and Entitlement Crusade of the 00’s, you can turn any typical childhood tribulation into A Defining Moment! Re-play these scenes in her memory until the echos of silent vows of self-protection drown out the Enemy’s absurd plea to “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  (Some of their authors dare suggest that the Enemy would even now “forgive” Our Father. As if! But I digress...)

Sarcasm affords your patient the illusion of control over her fear of looking stupid. Under the guise of “self-deprecation,” she plays the trump card of “I’ll-mock-myself-before-you-can.” This is a most excellent form of false humility, as she is careful to expose only those weaknesses calculated to impress her audience with her “vulnerability.” As she considers herself an amateur deadpan comedian, she has no clue how close to a master magician she is becoming. 

But your patient’s most maliciously manipulative skill is her use of sarcasm to cover her intellect. Raised in a family that values brains and education far above appearance, physical prowess, or wealth, she lives in a society that (thanks to our efforts!) treats the term “intellectual” as a swear word. So accompanying each seeming self-deprecation is a vague smugness. Keep this vague. And never let her question why she feels smug about her intelligence. She knows her IQ is the result of two factors entirely out of her control: genetics and upbringing. She chose neither her parents nor the home (a dreadful abode, disgustingly full of books and conversation!) in which she was raised. 

Should her vague smugness ever take the form of words, they can be none other than, “I’m better than you because I’m smarter than you!”  And the shock of such a stark revelation of core convictions will undo all we’ve spent decades devising. I’ve seen it time and time again: when faced with the incontrovertible fact that one’s talents are pure Gift and pure Grace, far too many humans willingly let loose their former death-grip on Pride and take hold, instead, of the Enemy’s incomprehensible vile paradigm known as Gratitude. And when the emotion of Gratitude decays into activities of Service, I need not tell you how desperate our cause becomes!

However, my decades of experience with your patient assure me that you have little to fear. She pays lip-service to truth (and even Truth) but her actions demonstrate a deep devotion to doing whatever it takes to achieve one thing: Security. Sarcasm is her best tool for keeping others at a distance for the sake of safety. She assures herself that her “kind” of sarcasm is harmless because she uses it mostly against herself. But when the wrong buttons are pushed by the right people, she switches instantly from self-mockery to scorched earth, and “I’ll mock myself before you mock me” becomes “I’ll destroy you before you destroy me.”

It’s droll how human psychologists believe they coined the catchy phrase “Hurt people hurt people.”  None suspect that they simply stumbled upon Our Father’s most practical doctrine. Most days, all you need to do is stand back and watch, in sublime satisfaction, as your patient partakes in this most sacred of our sacraments.

To quote one of their more disturbing movies, “Stupid is as stupid does”!

Fondly,


Screwtape

*  Seriously Abysmal Tempter

**  I must write an entire letter–or two or three!–on the glorious successes of our “Self” movements: Self-Defense, Self-Esteem, Self-Image, Self-Respect, and my personal favorite: Self-Righteous Indignation!



Your Turn:
  • If you were to write "My Screwtape Letter," what topic do you think you would select?
  • Fill in the blank: "The one thing I'd like to do differently this year for CHRIST-mas is ______________."
  • Anything else on your heart!

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Grace for the Good Girl: Which Voice?

August 1-14, I'll be blogging as I read through Emily Freeman's Grace for the Good Girl. Each week, I'll give away a free copy of her book! Enter via the Rafflecopter here.

(I'm in Nashville presenting workshops at a teachers' convention; I'll catch up with comments and e-mails in a few days!)

 Hearing Voices

 A few quotes from Grace for the Good Girl by Emily Freeman:

 "I knew how to listen to the spirit of fear. I had not yet learned the voice of the Spirit of God."

 [referring to taunts from cruel boys in childhood]:  "...even though I'm a grown-up now and I can rationalize that those boys were simply insecure and thoughtless, it doesn't change my mind. I still believe what they said even though I am grown."

 [referring to praise and accolades from grown-ups] "...instead of simply interpreting their words as encouragement, I internalized them and let them become a standard to continue reaching for. I put extreme pressure on myself to live up to the good girl in their minds. I wanted people to see me as able, even as young as elementary school. I let their proud words define me and lead me to a puffed-up self-dependence, leaving little room for Jesus."
On Day 2 of The PURSE-onality Challenge, I wrote:

What I Hear...

In her book For Men Only (Yes, I read it; please don't tell on me!), Shaunti Feldhahn quotes a woman from her survey saying, "women are truly verbal and can't help it....the things [people] say to us are in mental tape archives and are as real today as they were the moment they were spoken."

I don't know about you, but this sure hit home for me! 

For almost a quarter of a century, my husband has wondered why I purposely rehearse painful conversations in my mind, re-evoking old emotions. 

I don't do it on purpose. It's just that as a woman, so often what I hear I take to heart.  





Fear vs. Love

 The scripture I'm pondering as I process all of this is 1 John 4:18:


There is no fear in love. 
But perfect love drives out fear, 
because fear has to do with punishment. 
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

If there's anything a "good girl" fears, it's punishment...the ultimate "proof" that she's messed up and, thus, is no longer good.

But when I live to avoid punishment, I live out of fear, not love.

A few months ago, I started pondering this question:  Why do I keep trying so hard to do what God's already done?

Do I really think I can do more than what Christ already did on the cross? 

The issue of punishment was handled at the cross when Jesus said, "It is finished."

It's time to stop listening to the voice of fear. To stop taking fear to heart.

To hear, instead, the words of God.

And take Him–and His love–to heart.

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Grace for the Good Girl: Worry, Fear, & Anxiety

August 1-14, I'll be blogging as I read through Emily Freeman's Grace for the Good Girl. Each week, I'll give away a free copy of her book! Enter via the Rafflecopter here.


Bloggers: I'll be hosting a link-up on Friday on "the try-hard life" and/or "good girl syndrome." If you've got something to share, the link-up will be live at 12:30 AM Pacific. Would love to have you join the conversation!



“Worry is a thief, Fear is a liar, and Anxiety is their trembling, furrow-browed baby. I have lived with this dysfunctional family for the better part of my life. Sometimes I live with them still. 
Worry robs me of the peace I know is available. 
Fear lies and says there is no peace at all. 
And their immature, screaming baby Anxiety keeps me up at night with her unrelenting cries of what if? and what now? and what will they think?”  
What if?
My grandmother lived through the depression. She always traveled with several hard-boiled eggs in her purse. Half-way through any flight, regardless of her hunger level, she’d pull them out and smell up the plane. 
Oh, I was trained to worry at a tender age!  
What if…
  • ...there’s no more food?
  • ...she stops being my BFF?
  • ...I miss a point on this test?

What now?
(Setting:  The eating disorder unit, just before our first family group counseling session.)
My counselors: “People change, Cheri! Just you wait and see!”

Me:  “You don’t know my mother.”
My counselors:  “Just you wait and see!” 
Me:  Maybe they know what they’re talking about!
(After the meeting)
My counselors:  “Cheri, sometimes you just have to accept…”

My worst fear had come true: there was no hope for me. My only “hope” was to try harder.
What now…
  • ...that I have two babies and a difficult marriage?  Try harder
  • ...that we need my income but I dread teaching every day?  Try harder
  • ...that I’ve fractured T7 and can’t do what everyone needs me do?  Try harder

What will they think?
The summer I was 9, a boy at day camp asked me, “So, do you read the dictionary for fun?”

“Of course!” I answered honestly, thrilled to have found a kindred spirit. Only he didn’t talk to me the rest of the summer. 
I can still feel the flush of shame as it dawned on me, days later as he and the “in” girls snickered at me from a distance yet again, that he hadn’t asked a question. 
He’d delivered an insult. One I’d been too dense to recognize.
I grew into a mashup of Sanguine PURSE-onality with hypervigilant anxiety.
What will they think…
  • ...if I talk too fast? too much? too loud?
  • ...when they see the cat and dog fur on the couch?
  • ...about my out-of-season mis-matched Ross clothes? 

Fear drives.
But Love leads.
“God can do anything, you know – 
far more than you could ever 
imagine or guess or request 
in your wildest dreams! 
He does it not by pushing us around 
but by working within us, 
his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”
(Eph. 3:20 Message)

Your Turn!
  • How do you know the dysfunctional family of Worry, Fear, and Anxiety?
  • Which cry keeps you up at night:  What if?  What now?  What will they think?
  • What does “Fear drives. But Love leads” mean to you?

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