Just Your Best

#MotivationMonday with Create Change

*The intent: find a phrase in each #MotivationMonday Instagram video and share some unsolicited thoughts.*

This week Nathan and Chyler shared thoughts on Memorial Day, fighting stigma’s and not getting bogged down in the statistical information, “our focus is on people, because if you focus on numbers, people get left behind.” I thought that would be the quote I would decide to make commentary on, but for whatever reason, I found myself staring at the screen and watching the blinking curser for almost a half an hour with nothing being said. At one point it did speak to me, it’s a powerful statement…and so very true. Yet, try as I might nothing came to me. So I sat with myself, replayed the Instagram video and tried again. So here’s take two on  my thoughts.

Chyler was answering questions and yet again, for the life of me I can’t recall the context in which she made this statement, “we can only do our best in any given moment.” So plainly said, so clear in her intent, simple yet complicated. This is usually the part where I talk about how easy it is to put thoughts to paper, but I can’t say that this time even though I feel very well equipped to talk on the subject. I’m going to have to get personal for this entry, a little more than I would prefer but maybe that’s the point. My life is pretty average, started the same way that everyone else’s did. Country girl, no siblings, super supportive mom and absent father…who when he wasn’t absent taught me early to hate myself. He was physically and emotionally abusive to the point that I would get physically sick when I knew he would be home. I’m going to fast forward a bit, to be more specific my early 20’s. I was away at college, I was long since used to the nightmares of my memories of him, and firmly entrenched in negative coping skills and anxiety…but that’s a story for another time.

I hated my father, not just for what he had done to me, but I hated him for cheating on my mother, treating her horribly and for not wanting me…before birth or after. I spent all my early life hating him or fearing him and I remember praying to God to give me the ability to forgive him. At some point I decided to sit down with him and confront him about the damage he had inflicted on me, so I sat across the living room from him and told him everything I thought. I gave example after example of what he had done. I sat there as an adult, broken and battered and sobbing…only to hear him say “I don’t recall ever doing those things. You’re mistaken. I never did those things.”

I was crushed. Shattered. My heart ripped bare, literally feeling as though it was hanging from my chest like a gaping open wound.

All I wanted from him was acknowledgment and to say he was sorry. But after all was said and done, and some more time passed I realized that the only person hurting from my hatred and hurt in this relationship, was me. I prayed for months for the ability to forgive him, not because he deserved it, but so I could stop hurting. I woke up one morning and the hate was gone, replaced by a sense of deep understanding that from everything I’ve learned about my dad, he raised me just like had been raised. His father cheated, his father lied, his father beat him. The anger faded because I learned that my dad only knew one way to be and that wasn’t his fault. The anger and rage subsided over time because I came to understand that he was a product of how he was raised, and likely didn’t know any better. I learned that he did all he knew to do, and while it failed miserably, he gave what he could and did the best he could with what he had. It didn’t mean it was okay, but I found peace in knowing that it wasn’t about me even though he tried to burden me with it. 

So what I’m trying to say is this, and it’s the same lesson I work day in and day out teaching my clients…all we can do, is our best. Sometimes our best is going to be kickass and amazing. Other times our best is going to barely reach the level of pond scum and you know what, that’s okay. The point here is that we try and give our best, regardless of what that best looks like. And for the times that our best is closer to pond scum, forgive yourself and work to do and better tomorrow. We all make mistakes, for whatever reasons, but we are not a finished work. We try and fail all the time, so practice patience, and work on reserving judgement because the other people may be having a pond scum day when you’re having a kickass day. Remember that every day is new, different and a chance to evolve both your understanding of yourself, but for those around you. Expect the best, prepare for the worst and grant forgiveness in times where all else seems lost. 

Sometimes just the fact that you are upright and breathing is enough, and sometimes it’s not and we need to work harder. Our best will continue to grow with us and our understanding and the next time you look back, you’ll be amazed to see just how far you’ve come in practicing self-care and love. The more you understand that everyone’s best is different for different reasons and at different times…the easier it will be to show empathy towards others and forgiveness for yourself. 

Progress not perfection.

Drawing Outside the Lines

MotivationMonday with Create Change

*The intent: find a phrase in each #motivationmonday Instagram video and share some unsolicited thoughts.*

During the Instagram live video with Chyler and Nathan this last week, at one point Nathan had mentioned “drawing outside the lines” and for the life of me, I can’t recall exactly in what context it was said. My guess is likely, when he presented the #TueDoList assignment, regardless of the context I would encourage everyone to watch it, or tune in this next Monday for the next installment. That being said, in the very moment he said that statement a light flickered in my mind and I wrote it down without any notion of why. Sometimes that is just how my mind works…little fits and pops with the occasional winding and whirring of a music box, minus the music. In any event, it dawned on me later in the day that I should try and work through my thoughts and determine what on earth I was meant to do with what Nathan said, so here we go.

In my real life, I’m a therapist that serves a very underfunded and rarely supported population. They are the first to be blamedfor society’s ills, the last to get resources and honestly, I cannot think of working with any other population. The severely chronically mental ill and substance use folks are my people. They are overlooked, mistreated, viewed as second-class citizens and many are homeless, living under local bridges or on the streets outside the ever increasingly full missions. I’ve lost track of how many of those I serve have been wrongly arrested, wrongly evicted, misrepresented, used and abused and played against each other for nothing more than crumbs from society’s buffet table. I have watched people cross the street to get away from them, throw change at them in an effort to get them away from their business door, the police called just to move them from a parking lot and everything in between. I’ve seen people literally walk over them instead of asking if they need help…and I wonder what have we become? Truly, is this what Jesus had in mind when he walked this earth preaching love and acceptance? Where did we go so wrong in failing our brothers and sisters?

I suppose this is the time you ask yourself, are you going to mention the phrase that Nathan spoke of or is this just another complaining statement about the political direction our country has gone? Well, honestly my thoughts have nothing to do with the political landscape. It does however have everything to do with how we treat those deemed ‘not like me.’ It’s the classic ‘us vs them’ problem that tears every society apart at the seams, rather than including all the differences and uniqueness that we carry we find the smallest of differences to create distance. We do the opposite of what we should be doing, what would be in the worlds best interest…just like as a child you get shamed for being different. The ones who get praised, sit still and face forward. They don’t copy from the desk next to them, they get good grades, they look the part and expect that from everyone around them. But what about those that can’t sit still, the ones who didn’t get breakfast before school, or the ones who have brains that work differently than the others…when you stay in the lines, you are praised and your artwork gets placed on the fridge, but for those who color or draw outside the lines, get their work thrown out. An example of arbitrary judgments at best that set up our lives and how we view people.

Drawing outside the lines doesn’t decrease the value of a child’s art because at the heart of it, they tried to do their best. It’s about giving kids and others the skills to get better. It’s about acceptance of what we see, what our individual experiences are like and being present. We don’t have to agree, we don’t have to make judgement calls about who another person is…we’ve never walked in their shoes. We have no idea what private battles others are fighting. We don’t know what their life has been like, where they’ve been or what they have experienced. Yet we look with our eyes and cast opinions about as though they are not hurtful. The reality of this is that we are further apart now more than ever before despite the fact that we are all very similar. We all want to feel love, acceptance and desire to be heard. We all have hearts that break, tears that get shed and have the potential to experience joy at the hands of another.

We are not so different. So take a moment, take a chance to draw outside the lines…be afraid to make a mistake…do something that scares you, try something new…smile at that homeless person you pass on the street. Walk on the same side of the street as the person talking to themselves. I’m not asking for a miracle, I’m just asking you to consider being human. I’m asking you to accept all the colors that make the picture glorious inside and outside the lines. We can be so much more. All great things start small.

After all, even the mighty lion was once a cub.

Create Change

#TueDoList

 “Some people have faith in God and expect miracles in 2020.”

There are so many line in this essay that I could speak on, it took me all day of almost constant thought to finally decide on the above. I have mixed emotions about this because I have two very different sides of me that pull at my feelings and thoughts. I guess the first thing is understanding that faith has little to do with what God does or does not do. We are not, nor have we ever been promised that God will give us the best outcomes if we but only have faith. It holds true in many ways that we find miracles around us and attribute them to God, which is fair. But here’s the kicker, God works those miracles through the hands of humans. Antibiotics while being of God, were created by man. The ventilators that kept some of my clients alive, were created by man, but the intelligence was granted by God. Faith isn’t faith if you can see it, or when it responds because it has too. That’s not faith.

Faith tests us. Faith is what makes humans different than other species. Faith can save us in times of extreme hardship, but faith can also break us. Especially if something we strongly believe in, falters. We don’t always get what we think is right, just and true. Sometimes we get a no and sometimes we get a not yet. God doesn’t want us to suffer, but he understands that we all have free will, the choice to be nice or mean, the choice to save or condemn…and the choice to believe that miracles will happen or believe that caution is the better part of valor. There are no rules to the game we are playing, we just have to believe that we can be better than we are. God works through all of us, He brings people into our lives that can help or push or teach…faith does not equal blind ignorance, so you have to remember that God doesn’t use the speaker button, He whispers. The louder we get, the more quiet He gets.

Don’t get me wrong, miracles are great…but He will not rescue us simply because He is God. That would defeat the purpose of even being on this planet. He is the ever watchful Father who lets us free fully knowing we will act and receive the natural consequences. To some degree or another we need to make our own miracles. All we can ask of each other is to try our best every day, fully knowing that our best isn’t always going to be constant day in and day out. Sometimes just getting out of bed is our best, and that’s okay. Other times our best is seeing our homeless, addicted and traumatized clients under a local bridge and making a difference, no matter how small that difference is. Lately, I’m ashamed to say that my best has been horrible…sure I’m there for my clients, doing my job but I can’t self care because COVID has the beaches I walk for serenity and peace…closed. I can really only say this, remember who you are and how you want to be treated. Remember that God has a plan and sometimes we don’t know where that plan is going to take us. Remember that you are loved even when our walks take us far from Him. He is a constant, ever present. But that doesn’t mean we just sit back and let God do what God does…we have to put in the work. Love yourself. Care for yourself and fill your own bucket before you give to others of the excess. Create your own miracles. Have faith in the process. With the utmost love and respect, Deb