Gentle As We Go

Gentle As We Go

I read an article this morning about a conversation between Oprah and Marianne Williamson. They were discussing Oprah’s ongoing struggle with weight and what revealed itself was that it wasn’t a struggle about weight at all; it was a struggle of self-love.

When I think about myself, I think I’m pretty confident, pretty self-assured. I have a strong foundation and sense of self. And yet even with all of this, there is no greater critic of me than me. My struggle with anxiety and fear comes down to the same thing: I am not drowning because of anxiety; I am drowning because I have neglected the lifeboat of self-love.

My lifeboat is under inflated not because someone didn’t pump it up for me, because in reality no one can do that but me. It’s under inflated and, in fact, sucking me down in the depths of the ocean of fear even more than the anxiety itself, because I have done nothing to fix it. It’s a self-fulfilling situation, this lifeboat. Pump it up yourself regularly, or watch as the lack of buoyancy drags you down even further than you thought possible.

Unlike this analogy, however, crises in self-love are not inevitable; like everything else, they are a choice. We’ve been given the gift as living creatures to do better when we know better. Trouble is, we often think we know better when we really don’t. This shows up when we deal with the symptom instead of the disease. We diet, we medicate, whatever; in reality though none of that will matter until we figure out that self-love is the only path to the peace and contentment we are fighting to achieve.

So, now we’re ready. We identify the issue isn’t food or anxiety or whatever our drug of choice; we recognize the issue is a lack of self-love. Now what the hell do we do?

Some will pray. Some will write. Some will get therapy. Others will still go back to whatever it is that soothes their souls, no matter how shallow or temporary that fix may be. I know this because even after I knew my anxiety manifested in a perpetual need to control things because of ridiculously high expectations, which in turn created more crippling anxiety and stress, I didn’t know what to do about it. So I did what came naturally: I controlled.

I prayed, I wrote, I even got therapy, twice a week no less. And yet, in doing all those things I still wasn’t releasing control. In fact in doing all those things I was still trying to manage myself, control my environment, beat my foe on my terms and emerge, once again, the victor. My prize: fatigue. And I don’t mean a little tired, I mean physical and emotional exhaustion.

It wasn’t until I read something by Angie Mizzell, who talked about the importance of being gentle with ourselves. Gentle, there’s a concept I had never embraced for myself. A sister to compassion, the act of being gentle was something I did often for others but never for myself. Angie is a great writer and friend and as such I was able to hear the message and it gave me a lot to think about.

Shortly thereafter I was in counseling and my husband and I were working with our therapist about, of all things, my son’s birthday party. I had a whole list of things I wanted to do to the house to prepare and I felt my husband resisting. Was he lazy? Did he not value my opinion? What? What? The intensity of this issue was very strong for me, to the ultimate perplexity of my husband.

I had just spent five minutes detailing this issue and I waited for her to validate me and then coach us through what to do. Instead she said to me, “You have a very strong vision of what you want for this party, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.” I replied.

“Why is that?” Typical therapist question, I thought, and a ridiculous one at that.

“Because I want my son’s party to be perfect,” I said matter-of-factly. Clearly she didn’t love her kids as much as I did.

“Perfect,” she repeated. “Perfect for him?”

“Of Course!” I answered. What the hell was I paying this woman for anyway?

“Tell me,” she said, “How would he describe a ‘perfect’ party?”

“Well, he would say…” I started. But I never finished. I didn’t have to. I just started to cry.

My son would describe a perfect party as one where he and his friends had fun, ate good food, played cool games, and opened loads of presents. On my list? Hanging pictures, repairing a hole in the yard dug by the dog, dusting the baseboards. Nothing on that list had anything to do with him. It was all about me and my unrealistic, unrelenting, senseless version of perfection.

And then, this article. Oprah is someone I admire for hundreds of reasons but more than anything because for me she seems to be a closer. The universe lines up a lesson, doles it out in just the right increments at just the right time and then, enter Oprah. She closes the deal on the lesson and, if you can forgive the cliché, the light bulb goes on.

My struggle isn’t about conquering my anxiety; my struggle is about self-love. I have to soften my vision of, “what should be” and instead embrace, “what is.” I have to ease the lines of my boundaries. I have to release myself from the prison of having to be perfect and just live and love myself the best I can.

In short, I have to re-inflate my raft and get home; home to a compassionate and gentle way of being not only with others, but most importantly with myself. And I have realized that getting home means behaving in a way that makes getting there possible. I have to develop that self-love just as gently and compassionately as I live, allowing it its own space and time and way to come to me. Above all, I have to avere fiducia, have faith, that it will come.

We gave my son his seventh birthday party last month. The pictures weren’t hung, the hole in the backyard wasn’t filled, and the baseboards were still full of dust. And yet, when he woke up the morning after the party he gave me a hug and said, “Thanks mom, the party was awesome.” Awesome, that’s about as close to perfect as it comes.