Thursday, March 27, 2014

Now what?

As many of you probably know, I came back from a month-long retreat a couple of weeks ago. It was a hugely transformative time, something that changed my life drastically (and now that I am back in real life, I am happily seeing the changes occur in my every-day feelings, interactions, and routines), and something that seemed to be exactly what I needed. So, now that I'm back, what does this all look like?


I'm kind of figuring this out as I go along. Although the month away was the hardest month of my life, I also knew it was a contained, limited time. And it was a relatively unburdened time; I didn't have the distractions of a job (or several jobs), of taking care of Vinnie, of being tied to my cell phone, of driving several hours and dozens of miles every day, of having to cook and plan a healthy menu every meal. (I mean, not that I do that last one in my normal life, but... I felt especially unburdened by this since someone was feeding me a healthy breakfast and lunch every day and all I had to worry about was dinner.) So, even though it was difficult, it was easy as well; my only requirements were to wake up, eat breakfast, and show up, ready to be real and authentic and vulnerable... Kind of like what I attempt to do in real life. No one asked me to "be" or "feel" anything. I didn't have to wear a mask, or have any expectations placed upon me, except that I show up and be as brave as I can be. It was awesome.


Before I came back home, I realized that I had no idea how I was going to feel once I returned. I had a lot of worries: "What if I lose the sense of peace I've found here?" and "What if things go back to exactly how they were when I left?" and "What if all that I've learned here leaves my mind as soon as I step out these doors?" Each time one of these thoughts would come, I would just take a deep breath and think, "I have no way of knowing until I go home." There was no point in worrying about it, and especially not while I was still on this retreat.


But I didn't need to worry. Each day I had so many revelations and insights, and to think that I could be unaffected by all of this change and progress and growth... Well, that's a silly thought. When something so big, so life-changing, happens, how could things ever go back to being the same? Things will never be the same again, and this is a very good thing.


I don't know if this makes sense, but... I'm completely different, but still Katie. Still weird, quirky, sensitive, intense... but different. I don't know how to describe it. There are definitely no words that come close to how I feel. But just in my own skin, and being with myself, there is a sense of peace. I wrote about this a few weeks ago in my blog entitled, "Loving Ourselves." There is a sense of confidence as well. A type of confidence I don't remember ever having... Actually, scratch that. I think I was pretty confident as an innocent little kid, standing in front of the video camera and making hours and hours of home movies. (I wrote about that in "The World Is Round," in case you have endless time to sit around reading all my blogs.) On a related note, reading the blogs I wrote while on my retreat is kind of surreal. Like I see them as a black and white photograph from the past, but so full of meaning and depth. But back to confidence. I hadn't felt that type of confidence for decades, and now it's back, and I like it!


I was at work today, and had a couple of moments where people talked with me. And something in the way I responded, in the way I smiled at them, felt different. And interacting with people at church, and with my closest friends, and the ways I deal with conflict... Since being home I've already made a couple of big mistakes, and in the past these types of things would eat at me for months, probably years. But somehow, for some reason, I've already forgiven myself for these mistakes. Even though I feel horrible about them, and really wished I hadn't done them, I'm able to be compassionate with myself. Self-compassion, with the gentle reminder that I could have handled something so much better, seems to be such a healthier and more productive way to create change. Who knew? And the voice, the voice of criticism, the negative voice that had been haunting me for decades, seems to have almost vanished. This is amazing. AMAZING. Today I did something ridiculous and heard the former routine criticism, "You are such a stupid idiot." Immediately followed by, "No..." and a sense that that critical voice had no room or relevance with me anymore. And to be honest, that voice hasn't made much of a peep since I left for my retreat, about 6 weeks ago. So I've discovered that not only are my interactions with others different, but my thoughts and treatment of myself are different as well. I like myself! I could spend time with myself and be perfectly happy.


So that's what it all looks like now. I'm sure things will keep progressing and I'll have more insights as I continue on this journey. For now, I'm grateful for what has taken place, and curious and eager as to how it will unfold as time goes on.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

The Puzzle

I just got back from a 27-day journey, one that changed my life. I spent a lot of time reading, meditating, praying, talking, pondering, thinking, writing letters, journaling, swimming, and ... doing puzzles... for the first time in probably 5 years. Puzzles were something that my friend Golnar and I used to do all the time together, and so, while I was away from everyone and everything I knew and loved, doing puzzles was a way to feel close to Golnar. And, puzzles are a great way to process things. You can sit there for 3 hours just puzzling away, and your mind is free to think about whatever it wants to. Almost every single night of these 27 days, I would sit down at the coffee table for an hour or 3, and if something was troubling me, or I didn't have an answer to something, I would usually have the answer by the time I stood up again. AND, bonus, the puzzle would be closer to being finished. Finding puzzle pieces that matched was like finding emotional, mental pieces and putting them where they belonged. Truly a wonderful activity.

Okay, but this blog is not overtly about cardboard puzzles. This blog is about the overall picture of my journey, or at least a glimpse of it, and maybe a little bit about the many puzzle pieces of my life. One thing I realized while I was away: Before I left, I was seeking answers in my life, trying to see how all the pieces fit together. Amazingly, I got some answers on this journey. There were many times, probably half a dozen, where I had an amazing revelation about my life. I would just be sitting there thinking, or talking with someone, and something would click in my brain. I would have a life-changing moment where I would see something in a new light, or the missing piece would suddenly appear. So, over the course of 27 days, I had probably 5 or 6 of these major life-changing moments, and these were all interspersed with smaller revelations, things that maybe were not as life-changing, but still pretty amazing. Every day was like this amazing gift, full of new ideas and conversations and people and solutions and revelations, great and small.

And I also realized while I was away that even though in my 31 years of life so far, when I often felt lost, frustrated, even hopeless, I was still always seeking. Even when it looked like I had given up or was going about it all the wrong way, deep down I was looking for the right answer. I wasn't sure how to go about it, what the right answer was, but I was always trying different things and trying to find the best way. And somehow, even the backward steps led to forward progress, eventually. But how much easier it is when we can move forward to go forward, and not do things in such a roundabout way.

I think life is this giant puzzle, for each of us, that we have to solve during our years here. We may not ever get all the answers. We may find that we have some missing pieces, and while we ourselves are whole and complete beings, there may be aspects of our lives that still confuse us or remain a mystery. But for the things that we can find clarity on, it is our responsibility to do so. We have a responsibility to ourselves, of course. But also to others, as we interact with those around us and we want to offer ourselves to them at our very best, with as many of the pieces completed as we can. This doesn't mean we have to be perfect before we can interact with others, but just that we are giving the best of ourselves to our loved ones. And we also have a responsibility to God. We are asked to seek God, to seek Jesus, numerous times throughout the bible. Life is one big puzzle that we never stop working on, in which we never stop trying to gain greater clarity. Otherwise, what is our purpose here if we stop seeking answers?

I am grateful that during this time away, I felt like I put more pieces of my life together than I have ever done in such a concentrated amount of time. There are still so many pieces and mysteries that I can continue to solve (I mean, come on, I'm only 31), but I am so grateful for what was done in my life the past month. Thank God.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

How much we love

Love. It's probably my favorite topic, and here is yet another blog post about it.


I think about the people in my life and how much I love them. And I was wondering today if I love everyone the same. And not just the family and friends that I have, but people I come into contact with on a daily basis. Acquaintances, people at the supermarket, librarians, my boss and coworkers. Even people I pass on the street whom I've never seen before. People I read about in the newspaper. (Okay, who am I kidding. Who reads the paper anymore? But online.)


And the reason I thought about this is because of the concept of God as love. At my church, in big letters front and center, it reads, "God is Love." These 2 concepts have lots of similarities, but the one I am thinking of is this: I don't know if I can quantify love, just as I can't quantify God. If I say I love someone, can I quantify that? Can I compare it to how much I love someone else, if love is truly God?


We all have relationships in our lives, and we give these relationships different priorities and different weights. For me, there are friends and family members whom I tend to talk with more, seek out, spend more time with, for a variety of different reasons. We have a good connection, we make each other laugh, we have common interests or activities, I may trust them more than anyone else in my life, I feel more affection towards them than towards others.


But I don't know if I love them more than I love others, because love is this universal gift that we get from God, and hopefully from those around us. But even if we don't have much human love in our lives, there is still so much love out there for us; from God, from our pets and animals, from nature. And that is love that we don't even have to work for to obtain. It is a free gift, ours if we will accept it, and even if we won't accept it. But we can embrace it if we choose.


So I guess if we look at love this way, it becomes more difficult to quantify. It's a constant, an immeasurable concept, a wonderful gift.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Loving Ourselves

I had a major revelation today. Life-changing. I know I say this quite a bit, but at this season of my life, I'm having a lot of life-changing things happening. Life-changing thoughts, revelations, conversations. Anyway, the revelation was:

I love myself. Wait, let me say it again, this time with feeling.

I LOVE MYSELF.   

Do you all love yourselves? I hope so. For me, this was a new feeling, so new and amazing and wonderful that I had to rush to a computer (not an easy task on this journey I'm on) and blog about it.

I'm not sure I've felt love for myself before, in the way that I experienced today. Sure, I have intellectually loved myself before; I have looked at myself objectively, asked myself if I would be friends with myself if I happened to meet "Katie Brotten" in a class or at church or through a mutual friend. Yes, I probably would become friends with myself. I have thought about things I've done in my life, to see if I'm proud of those things. Yes, I'm proud of those things. I think about certain qualities I have that I'm happy about. I love those qualities, and so can connect the dots and feel love for myself because of those qualities. I looked at things I've gone through and tried to see myself as the kid that I was at the time I went through those things, and felt love for that 5-year-old or that 10-year-old, even 23-year-old, 31-year-old. Yes, I can love that person who went through those things. I feel compassion for her, I feel a sort of protectiveness over her. Sure, I love her. I love myself. Why not?

These are all important things, but what I felt today was different. It wasn't based on what I have accomplished or what I went through. It wasn't based on if I was, by my standard, a "good enough" person to be loved (because, everyone is good enough to be loved, by people, by their dog, by God... there is not 1 person who isn't loved by God, and loved immensely and unconditionally by God), or by whether or not I was worthy of being my own friend. It wasn't based on any of these outside factors. I just felt, somewhere in my soul, in my body, in my mind, in my heart, that I loved myself. I started smiling, and I felt such a wonderful sense of peace.

The funny thing was, this all came about as I was talking about things I didn't like about myself. I was talking with a group of wonderful people I have met on my journey, and we were talking about the things in our lives that bring us feelings of guilt, or even of shame. The parts of ourselves that we don't like to talk about or share with anyone, because we think, "How could I be like that? How could I have done that, said that, acted that way?" And somehow, in the midst of this conversation, I suddenly felt so much love for myself.

We all have areas in our lives we would like to improve upon. Aspects of our personality, flaws in our character, our perspective and the way we view the world around us, things that we allow ourselves to do or say that may not be the best... This is kind of why we are here in this life, to become our best, to grow and progress and be more like who we want (or who God wants us) to be. This is a journey that we are all on, a lifetime worth of work. This is my perspective, anyway, my view on the purpose of life. I am going to continually learn and grow and progress, and never say to myself, "Okay, I've done it. I have no more room to grow as a person." I want to be open to ideas of improvement, open to change, for my entire life. That feels like success to me.

And I can love myself the entire time. I don't have to start loving myself only when I have reached this benchmark, or this milestone, or have ironed out this particular flaw that I see in my character. I not only "can" love myself, but I "do" love myself, and when I felt that today, maybe for the first time ever, I felt joy. And I felt so much love. It just washed over me. I saw myself as a person with flaws, with funny little quirks that so often seem annoying and frustrating and even horrible. I saw myself as someone who is always searching and seeking, open to new ideas, open to improvement. I saw someone who made mistakes, who will probably continue to make mistakes, and somehow, I love myself even with those mistakes. And maybe, as weird as this sounds, because of those mistakes. Because I could see them, because I was acknowledging them, and because I was seeing what I could do to not make those mistakes again. It was like the pressure was off; I'm human and make all sorts of mistakes, and yet I am loved and lovable, and love myself. I am trying my best in all sorts of situations, I sometimes stumble, I sometimes do incredibly ridiculous/stupid/needy/irritating things, and yet... love. I think another thing that happened today, and I'm only realizing it now as I'm writing, was that I forgave myself for mistakes I've made. It was love and forgiveness all together, and it was awesome.

I am trying to explain what happened for the sake of communication, but more than what I have written, it was just a feeling. It seems silly to try to intellectualize it now, because how can we intellectualize a feeling? Love usually is just a feeling, after all. How many of us can say, "Well, I love him because of these 17 reasons and that's it," or, "My love for her is at about an 89%; not enough to get married, but getting close." We love because we love; there is not some formula or reasoning involved. It's just love.

It's been said that we have a greater capacity to give love when we love ourselves. It's also been said that we can understand other people's love of us when we love ourselves. I am so grateful for today, and for this revelation. God is good. And God is also love.