When We Know Better, Lets Do Better

For those who apologize often this is for you. The other day, I was feeling all sorts of guilt, and my initial reaction was to apologize. My knack for apologizing is like no other, and often it can become a default. Its so funny, because I write about this extensively in my book. You see, I find myself at times apologizing for things I have no business apologizing for....apologizing for my success, apologizing for others experience of that success, and apologizing for areas that are true invitations for another to consider for areas of growth in their own life. Now, I am not saying don't apologize to others, or that I am perfect, on the contrary, an apology done from a place of authenticity I find is one of the greatest acts of self love and a great liberator of shame and guilt. This is for those who listen to the voice in their head that says something is wrong with them, they are not enough, there is something that needs fixing; for those who have that song on constant repeat, this is an invitation to hit pause.

Growing up, I heard every negative statement you could think of, my father commented on my weight, made fun of my effeminate disposition, my high butt, my teeth, my weight, you name it, he critiqued. What that manifested into is a man who grew up addicted to fixing himself. I got braces, worked out, got three degrees, found 5 wonderful therapist along the way, and picked up a slew of self-help books....all in the quest to quench that inner voice that says I was not enough. At the same time, making myself wrong for everything. If you were upset, I must have done something wrong; if you had a bad day at work, it must have been about me, if my success caused you pain, it must have been about me. I apologized to everyone and for everything....-it was narcism on overload. What that lead to, was continual bouts of insecurity, and enabling others to continue paths of ineffective practices in their engagement with me and sometimes in their greater engagement with life.

Often I have been told, "Darren you are grown now, let go of what people said to you growing up." I share this as a counter argument. Michelle Obama (who I speak of often) grew up with two parents who said she was smart, beautiful, and had the power and possibility to do whatever she wanted in the world. Those investments lead to her going on to Princeton and then to Harvard. Now, in her early 50s if her mother one day says, "Michelle, you are stupid and a worthless woman" her response might be something like, "wow, my mom is trippin' and must be having a bad day" You see, she is easily able to dismiss it, because the imprint that was put on her spirit as a child in the Robinson household was that she was great, and that imprint can silence the negative just that quick. Conversely, someone like me who grew up with the most unloving of things said to about them has an imprint, that well, lets just say looks different. 5,000 people can speak to my greatness, my ability to inspire, and their delight in the things I have and continue to do, but the one who does not, becomes the one I Iisten to most, the achilles heel to my emotional and spiritual growth.

Now, I am not sharing this to garner sympathy, or shame those whose care I was under as a child. Today, I share it to offer how now as an adult, I am asked to engage differently. To not allow those feelings and inner voices to dictate my behavior, but to move in the truth of who I am (even when I don't fully believe it myself). When I know better, I do better, and now I do differently. I still get the stings of guilt, of shame, and the temptation to apologize: to control the situation, mediate the tension, and absolve others the opportunity to sit in their own mess. Yes, today I move with love, love for myself, to take responsibility when needed, and to sit in the discomfort of new practices when it is not. I, at the same time, love others by excusing myself from the opportunity to be their cup in which they pour their pain, low self worth, and hate into. Spring has spring, we know better, lets do better.

What We Resist, Persist

"I have heard the phrase, “what we resist, persist” for years. I have misinterpreted what that meant for my own life. I would hear the phrase and I would think, perhaps it means I need to accept things as they are, stop resisting change, and allow things to just be. Certainly there are merits in the former statements, but recently, I have begun to embrace a new way to live out this phrase.

For quite sometime now, I have been encouraged to join a sports league: kickball, volleyball, dodge ball, you name the league, and I have been asked to join.   I would resist, telling those who encouraged me, including my therapist, I am busy, with work, celebrating my book, and a host of other commitments, I just don’t have the time.

At the same time, I was feeling sad, looking to find new ways to build community, to have an outlet where I could decompress and just have simple fun. The more I resisted sports leagues, the more the pain/ache of not having community continued to grow.  Feeling immense loneliness, I finally surrendered and joined a sports league.  I joined a sports league for many reasons, but the ultimate reason was I could no longer continue complaining about something, and resisting the invitation life was giving me to do something about it.

Resistance has a sibling named Fear and fear is the greatest inhibitor of joy. For some who read this, resistance is going to the gym. The act of being in a space unfamiliar, with people whose abilities supersede your own can be intimidating, invoke fear, but the longer you wait, the more the pain, or shame you may carry based on your weight persist. For another, you have been in graduate school for years, working on a dissertation that has found itself at a standstill, the fear and lack of structure has caused a since of paralysis.  You do everything you can to distract yourself: television, volunteering, or plain out avoidance, but the more you resist, the more it persist.

For someone else, there are big life moves that you know you need to make, perhaps its searching for a new job, going back school, making a mends for past hurts, whatever the case may be, until you do what you resist, the lackluster feelings you currently experience will persist. Let today be a new day, a kick-start to a fresh way of being. Let today be the day we silence our need to complain, and raise the voice of the invitation life is giving us to do some things differently.  When we find a way to move past fear, whether it be the gym, professional pursuits, or in my case dodge ball, we give notice to God that we are ready for the fruits ahead, and we acknowledge the power and responsibility we have to direct movement in our own lives."

Genesis and the Revelation

A couple of months ago, I was in my car and I was full of resentment, anger, and rage at a former friend. My frustration was at a boiling point, and I let it all out in the car – thank God, I was by myself and that conversation remains between God and me.

After my vent, I reflected on how could I be so angry at another person, where does this stem from, “nothing anyone has done to me can be that deep to feel this level of anger and hurt” is what I said to myself. With time to sit with my feelings, I realized that the anger I was harboring currently toward my friend, was just the by product of the seed of anger that had been planted when I was much, much, younger. You see, I grew up raised primarily by mom, its something I talk about briefly in my book, but what I don’t speak to is the strain that raising a child put on my mother. My mother had me at 19 and with the world ahead of her, she sacrificed a lot to raise me, with that sacrifice though, came resentment and bitterness that my mother held toward me, that up until recently neither one of us was fully present to. As a child, my mother would beat me, not simply from a place of disciplining an unruly child, but from a place of anger. – She beat me at times , because life was beating her. She was being beat by financial struggle, relationship difficulties, and a community that frowned upon the idea of a young, unwed woman raising a child on her own.

For the emotional beating life gave my mother, she gave it to me physically. I grew to fear my mother, doing all I could to be the “perfect child” to stay out of harms way and not upset her. I never expressed my fear, my pain, or hurt. Like many, I suppressed, - suppressed it for years and then grew into adulthood not realizing that all of those years of covering up early childhood hurts had not gone away, but had just been suffocated with things to keep me busy, to occupy my mind from having my thoughts drift to the past.

It was that fall morning in the car though when it all came to me. I saw the genesis for my anger was based in fear that had metastasized into anger toward my mother that had never been dealt with. Like clockwork, soon after came the revelation, that I could call up my friend, tell them off in anger and rage, and for a brief period of time, I might feel better, but the reality, in the long run, I would in time feel just as bad as I did before – because the root of my anger was not with them, but a hurt that came from long, long, ago.

I think we are hard wired as humans to look at the current situation as the root of our problems, I and I hear often others say, “if only my significant other would do this” “if only she would just do right” “if only my co-worker would stop doing this” we make all of these ultimatums on the present not realizing they are just the ultimatums of the past that were handled improperly. I made the ultimatum in the past that if I could just be good enough, say the right thing, not do the wrong thing, then my mother would be happy and I would have peace. I fostered that illogical thinking in my adult life of thinking if I just was good enough, said the right thing, and did not do the wrong thing, then maybe this person would show up differently in my life. What those bad ultimatums left me with was this: frustrated, an inability to be fully expressed, feeling as though I was a doormat…with the end result being me harboring pain and resentment, and for the other person, me serving as an enabler to their ineffective ways of being. It’s a powerful lesson, I am just now learning and will spend a lifetime trying to master, that’s understanding that the genesis of my current pain is often rooted in yesterday’s events, unpacking that revelations, unlocks tomorrow’s destiny.