We are worthy

When I was younger, I got this idea in my head that I didn't have anything important to say. And the way that this thought manifested was that I wouldn't talk much; in class, with my friends, in public. And when I did talk, I made sure to speak very quickly so as not to waste people's time. It was weird; I clearly remember my 6-year old self going through this thought process. I still don't talk a lot, at work or in social gatherings. Sometimes, if I spend a bit of time talking with a friend, I will say, "Thank you for the talking time. I really appreciate it." I finally had one friend say, "You don't have to thank me! We're friends; friends talk. It's not this great burden to spend time with you." What a concept!

Looking over some of my journals, even current ones, I see that I mostly write about the interactions I had that day, and how they made me feel worthy. What people said to me that day, what they did that touched my heart... Why do I write about these things, instead of world events, or my struggles or successes, or thoughts about life? Time and time again, I see that all I've really written are the wonderful but daily, routine examples of people loving me. It's like I'm somehow still trying to convince myself that I am worthy. When really, I don't need any evidence; I am worthy because God made me, and why would He waste time on making something or someone that wasn't extraordinary?

Recently, in the past couple of months, I've had some challenges and difficulties that I can very easily attribute to this fallacious thinking of personal unworthiness. I can recall times in my life where I felt incredibly unworthy. Like I didn't matter, like I wasn't worth spending time with, and that I was really just garbage and had been cast off to the side. Where these thoughts came from doesn't really matter, but what matters is how I approach them now and try to change them into what is true, and grasp my own innate worthiness. Because not only does the harmful thinking affect me, it affects the people around me, the people I have relationships with. And if I enter into a friendship or partnership with the thinking that I am always unworthy, and spend the entire friendship trying to prove my worthiness, or conversely, looking for ways that people seem to also be saying, "You're unworthy" and thus prove the conclusion I've already come to, then that's a waste. A waste of time, energy, and irreplaceable moments that could be spent embracing our own worthiness and the worthiness of the person we are with. A waste of the gift of the relationship that has been given to me.

All of us are extraordinary, and incredibly worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of time, worthy of each other, and worthy of God's love. No matter what; no matter what we've done, what we've been through, or how we feel about ourselves.

A few years ago, my friend and Christian Science lecturer Marta Greenwood gave a great analogy to demonstrate our worth. She started by taking a $20 bill out of her pocket, and asking who in the audience would like it. Many people raised their hands. Then she rolled it into a ball, threw it on the ground, stomped on it, smashed it below her feet. She picked it up again and told people how dirty it was now. Did anyone still want it? Of course! The worth of the bill hadn't changed; it was still worth just as much as it was before she stomped on it, before it became messy. And Marta explained how our worth was like that. No matter what we had been through, or how the world affected us, we were still just as worthy, being children of God.

Brene Brown, an amazing researcher and speaker, gives a great TED talk where she addresses our worth. She talks about vulnerability, and how a feeling of worthiness as being the tipping point for feeling loved and a sense of belonging. And the inverse is also true: how, if we don't feel worthwhile, we often struggle with feeling loved or like we belong. (Also, I just found out if you type "worthiness" into Google, she is the 4th result to turn up.)

How can we feel worthy when all we can see are our mistakes? Can we get passed what the world may want to say to us, and realize that we are indeed God's amazing creations? No matter what we were told as children, or what people tell us as we grow up, it is our responsibility as adults to reject anything in our thoughts or actions that contradicts that we are God's masterpieces. I need to reject the idea that I am unworthy, and unlovable and unloved. During the past couple months, I heard "Landslide," by Fleetwood Mac a few times, and one of the lines really spoke to me: "Can the child within my heart rise above?" What great self-talk. No matter what the band meant by the lyrics, to me it was a directive to cast off any thought or outdated view that was untrue and did not respect myself as God's. Because I am His. And I can rise above any of the garbage that was told to me, because it's not true.

This all reminds me of the parable of the wineskins in the bible. Casting off the old for the new. Having a newer, better way of thinking about our reality, our identity, our relationship with God. How the old wineskins (our old way of thinking) couldn't hold the new wine (the new truth, the new grace). "Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved" (Matthew 9:17). When faced with the foolishness of something we have always believed to be true (in this case, my unworthiness), it requires a new way of thinking, a new way of doing things. I talked about this more in a previous blog post called "Fixing the Pecan Pie."

And no matter how hard it may be to radically change our way of thinking, as we all know that the prime age for learning long-lasting beliefs is in our childhood, we can succeed. As e.e. cummings said, "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." But if we have anything, it's courage. And God. That's all we need.

The good moments

Sometimes the good things in life get so covered up by our present circumstances, or by arguments we have with people, or by a loss we experience. While we don't want to spend our time thinking of the past, sometimes reflecting on a good moment or a shared experience with a loved one can bring a lot of comfort when we need it.

I have been thinking lately of a friendship I have with one of my closest friends. Even though she passed away about a year ago, our friendship is still there; I still feel her presence, I talk to her sometimes, and she will always be such a big part of my life.

Before she passed away, we talked on the phone and had a bit of a miscommunication. It wasn't an argument, or even a disagreement, just a stupid and strange miscommunication. However, since it was the last time we ever talked, it became bigger and more ridiculous in my mind than it probably was in reality. Sometimes it really bothers me that we didn't have a chance to clear things up before she passed, as I know that if we had talked after that phone call, we would have laughed about our own silliness and patched things up.

Our entire friendship was based on love and admiration and tenderness for one another. Affection, compassion, shared interests, very similar backgrounds. There was such richness and fullness of the friendship, such intensity, that when she passed it was like I hit a brick wall. It felt like such a sudden stop to something, someone, that was so lovely in my life. And even though I believe that life goes on and that we don't just stop when we pass away, it still felt like a very abrupt end to one of the best friendships I have ever experienced.

However, what was amazing to me was the love that I felt even after she had passed away. There were so many loving moments in the few weeks after, so many times where I thought of her and felt peace and contentment, times where I felt her presence and felt she was giving me a great big hug. It was like her intense way of loving hadn't stopped; and why should it? If life is eternal and love is this big powerful force that cannot be destroyed or stopped, why wouldn't I feel love from her even after she passed away? It was a hard time in my life but somehow still so full of this overpowering love.

When I want to feel her presence even more, I recall our greatest day together. We didn't see each other very often, but we had this one wonderful day, October 21st, our best day together, and it remains so clear in my mind. I flew in to the East Coast from Seattle and met her in the morning at a hotel. We hugged and chatted and laughed and shared parts of our lives, we went shopping, we talked with people, we joked with each other, teased each other almost relentlessly, sang songs at a church service, played games, traded gifts, had dinner together, talked about our future both in terms of our individual lives and things that we would do together... It was one of the best days of my life. And that was the essence of our friendship, all of those good moments and conversations and love and tenderness. It wasn't about the 10-second miscommunication we had when we were both feeling grumpy, a time when neither of us were our best in that moment.

Even though I felt so much love surrounding my friend, it took a few months to not be bothered by our last conversation. It was hard to let it go, to release the guilt I was reliving over and over. But when I think of the friendship now, I feel all of the love that is still there, that somehow, amazingly, seems to still be constantly renewing itself. I think about the laughter we had, the way we got such mutual delight out of teasing each other. That is the important stuff, the stuff I can keep in my thought and recall whenever I want to feel her presence. At the very core of our interactions, that was the true essence of our friendship, the only thing that really mattered in our connection to one another.

Loneliness

About 3 years ago I was traveling overseas, visiting some European countries. I love travelling, exploring new countries and cultures, eating new food and hearing new languages. But usually when I travel, whether I am traveling alone or with someone, I spend long periods of time by myself. I write, I take pictures, I think about things... I love this alone time, but because I'm away from home and from everything familiar in my life, I can feel pretty lonely sometimes.

This particular trip was no exception. I even felt so lonely one day that I contacted a Christian Science practitioner in the country I was traveling through, to see if they could pray with me. Unfortunately, they were unavailable as they were in the U.S., doing a series of lectures. Instead of contacting another practitioner to see if they were available, I decided to visit the nearby Christian Science branch church that next Sunday, and to continue praying on my own.

That Sunday, I slept through my alarm and woke up about 45 minutes before the church service was to start. I quickly got dressed and the friend I was staying with walked me over to the church. Neither of us was certain where it was, but somehow we found it. I went inside and my friend walked back home, after making sure I would know how to get back to her place.

I walked in and was immediately greeted with a smile from the usher at the door. He didn't recognize me as a member of that church, and so he asked me where I was from, and how I liked my trip so far. I felt so cared about, just from these simple questions. I then walked into the sanctuary and found a place to sit, but not before a handful of other people all smiled at me and made me feel incredibly welcome.

That week, the bible lesson was, "God the only cause and creator." I remember thinking that each of the bible verses and citations from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, was written specifically for me. Each citation resonated with me, and seemed applicable to what I was dealing with at the time, a deep sense of loneliness. Up until that time, I had felt that much of my sense of worth came from other people; what they thought of me, if they loved me or thought I was lovable. I knew on an intellectual level that God's opinion was the only one that mattered, and I knew He loved me, but I was still struggling with this idea on an emotional level. When I heard, "Without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3), I was reminded that God was the creator of everyone and everything. And when I heard, "There is but one primal cause" (S&H, 207:20), that reminded me that He alone was responsible for all the good in my life. As the bible lesson continued, I was struck by how relevant it was to what I was working on.

After a couple minutes of listening to the lesson, and feeling such love and care from the people, essentially the strangers, around me in the church, I felt this incredible feeling of warmth and wholeness enveloping my entire being. It felt tangible, this feeling of being a complete and loved creation of God, and having everything I needed right there. I no longer felt lonely, or broken, or like I was lacking anything or anyone. It was amazing.

I continued with the rest of my trip, and didn't feel the sense of loneliness that I had been feeling up until that wonderful church service.

The transforming of ingratitude

I was feeling down the past couple of days. I have been having some pain in my back for quite some time (over 2 years now), and have been unable to find the cause or the solution. I have prayed, I have talked with professionals, I have had CT scans, and nothing has relieved the pain, or even shed light on the situation. But finally, a couple of days ago, I went to see a specialist, and he saw what it was that has been causing me so much pain. He offered a couple of solutions, both pretty intense, but said that it could most likely be remedied with one of those options.

After I left his office, I could feel a sadness washing over me. Instead of feeling grateful that after 2+ years, I finally had some idea of what was wrong and what I could do to fix it, I was feeling bitter about the "diagnosis." I felt the methods of getting to the place of healing were too intense, especially when it was only "most likely" going to be a healing, not a 100% guarantee. I had been hoping that it was going to be a quick fix, just simply popping my spine back into place or something of that sort. I was feeling resentful that the physical therapist indicated that a car accident I had 5 years ago was the most likely cause of this pain, and that it had taken a couple of years for the symptoms to catch up to me. I was feeling angry that something as brief and as unlucky as an accident could cause years of pain, especially when the accident wasn't even my fault. And even though I wasn't at fault, I was still the one who was going to have to either suffer with the aftermath of it or go through intense rehabilitation to get better. It felt incredibly unfair.

The interesting thing is, right after I had the car accident (like, a second after my car stopped spinning across I-5), my first feeling was one of extreme gratitude. I was so grateful to be alive, as while my car was careening through 4 lanes of rush-hour traffic, I had thought that that was it. My life flashed before my eyes, I was terrified, and then a few seconds later, I realized I was still alive by the grace of God. And I was SO GRATEFUL. I remember stepping out of my car and pinching myself, checking to see if I was in a dream or if I was in fact still alive. Even though my back and neck muscles were a little sore, I felt like jumping for joy. I wrote about this miraculous experience here.

But in the past couple of days, that gratitude seemed to disappear. Instead of feeling grateful for life and for experiencing all that I have experienced in the past 5 years because I have been alive, I felt hopeless and sad. Where did all the gratitude go for the gift of life that I realized was indeed a gift on the day of the accident all those years ago?

Today, as I was resenting the car accident, I realized that life is complex. Life is short, but also, it is infinite. This material picture is not all there is to life; it doesn't end here when our physical bodies are no more. And on my best days when I am striving to be my highest self, I know that each day is a gift, and each day after the car accident is a day that, for that split second, I didn't think I was ever going to see. It made me view the conversation with the physical therapist a bit differently, and thus it made me feel so much gratitude for life and for all that I have experienced. Instead of feeling ingratitude for what I have to deal with now in the accident aftermath, I suddenly felt grateful for the gift of the past 5 years, and gratitude for all that I have yet to experience because I am alive.

A similar but completely different experience happened a few weeks ago with a friend of mine. The prominent feeling in this friendship, the feeling I have most when I think about this person, is gratitude. I am so grateful they are in my life and so grateful that God felt it fit to cross our paths. But for a few months earlier this year, I started to feel some ingratitude towards this person. Because I could feel this ingratitude seeping in, I decided to start writing a gratitude list, reasons I was grateful for this person. And once I started writing the list, I realized that I had developed an expectation in the friendship a few months prior, and that was skewing the normal gratitude gauge. Once I figured out the ingratitude was coming from the expectation, I eradicated the expectation and all was back to normal. Well, actually, I now feel even more grateful for this person than I ever have, but I think that is because gratitude begets gratitude. And once you start expressing gratitude, there is more in life to be grateful for. It's a wonderful cycle.

The gratitude I feel for this friend has some similarities to the gratitude I feel at being alive. Because I am so grateful for this person in my life, because I have had the opportunity to hang out with this person and talk with them and love them and enjoy their company, feeling any sense of ingratitude doesn't even make any sense. The gratitude of just having this person in my life renders all other expectations or feelings of ingratitude irrelevant. Ridiculous, even.

In both scenarios, I have been given a gift, and in these 2 situations, I momentarily forgot the blessings they offered. And I am so grateful that both times, God pointed me in the direction of what the true essence of each situation was: the love, the gift, the elements of every situation that I am so grateful for, to the exclusion of every other feeling.

Gratitude is a game-changer. Completely turns around the way I look at my circumstances, and replaces resentment or expectations or ingratitude with the sense that I feel so complete, so blessed, and that my cup runneth over.

A Disarming Love



When we are faced with conflict, we have many different ways in which we can respond. With anger, frustration, sadness, compassion, aggression, love, tenderness, or any number of other responses. Lately I have been thinking about how we sometimes respond to conflict with love, and what a difference that can make.

A recent example of what can happen when someone responds with love comes from Georgia, where a bookkeeper thwarted a possible mass school shooting. Antoinette Tuff, the school employee, was inside the school building when the shooter walked in. They had a 10-minute conversation where she helped calm him down, discussed his options, and empathetically opened up to him about her own struggles in life. During that conversation, she was also able to communication with the 911 dispatcher and keep the policemen outside so that she could deescalate the situation. She spoke to him with compassion ("We all go through something in life. You're gonna be okay.") and also with love. "I just explained to him that I loved him. I didn't know his name, but I loved him." You can watch the video here.

Thinking of responding with love, I recently read an article in Scientific American Mind about our negative self-talk. How should we respond to that negative voice? The author, Eleanor Longden, suggested that we treat negative self-talk compassionately, because it usually comes from a place of trauma or of deep pain. She experienced negative self-talk and even heard voices, and instead of responding with more negativity, she explored where it was coming from and responded with love until she didn't experience that kind of self-talk anymore. If I tell myself, "I'm stupid" or "I'm not worthy enough," that may come from a past experience that convinced me of those harmful ideas about myself. Instead of ignoring it or experiencing inner conflict, I can say, "I am worthy, I am loved, but there is a part of me that must still doubt it. Let me explore that so I can heal it from within, with compassion and love." Even the negative self-talk, which I reactively respond to with animosity and aggression, can be treated with love and turned around.

In my own life, there have been a few times where I was having a conflict with a friend and they responded with love, and it completely diffused the situation. In one instance about 6 years ago, a friend and I were talking on the phone, and I was incredibly upset about something. I was emotional, I wasn't thinking rationally, and being in the conversation was like watching a train wreck. But the entire time, my friend was calm and was just listening to what I had to say. And then she gently said:

"Katie, I need to tell you something."
"Okay... what?"
"I love you."

Suddenly the train stopped in its tracks. I took a deep breath and felt so loved in that moment that I didn't have anything else to say. At a time in that friendship where I was being pretty unlovable, definitely not being my highest self, she showed me that I was actually still lovable and that she loved me. We all make mistakes, we all say things we shouldn't say at some point in our lives, and her loving response brought me out of the grave I was digging for myself and up to a place of love and compassion. It was an amazing experience. The other experience I had was a different scenario but similar in the amount of stress present in the conversation, where I came out to my best friend when I was 20 years old. I thought that she was going to end our friendship, or that she was going to be upset or feel uncomfortable around me. I was terrified to tell her. And when I did, her response was simply, "You're my best friend. That's it." Not the response I had expected, but the best one possible, and a reaffirmation that the love was still present and that all was well.

In turn, when I respond in love to someone who is angry or panicked, it tends to soothe the situation. It turns what was seemingly going downhill into a much better outcome. Incorporating love and compassion and tenderness into difficult situations seems to make a huge difference. Even when caring for myself, if I treat myself with tenderness and love, I respond so much better. Instead of becoming angry with myself, I feel loved, I feel confident, and I feel worthy. I don't need to get these messages from anyone else because they are self-generated. And when I treat myself with love and care, I am more productive, happy, and hopeful, because I am not working against myself as often happens with negative self-talk.

Love is transformative. It can turn seemingly dire circumstances around, it can heal conflicts in relationships, and it can diffuse and soothe tense situations. When there is a conflict, it is amazing to see what happens when love is interjected into the situation.

Grief is love unexpressed

Grief is love unexpressed. This is my current view of grief: the seeming inability to express love to someone who has passed, or to feel love expressed from them.

For some reason, the past week I have really been thinking about my friend who passed on. Here I am, almost 8 months later, and some days I feel as if I've made absolutely no progress on this grief. Sometimes I have these deep insights, or moments of peace, or a sense of a loving presence... And then some days I feel as if the grief tidal wave knocks me down again, just as strongly as the first time. It is a strange feeling, to be walking along one day or doing housework or coming home from church, and then suddenly feeling a need to sit down before the wave hits me, my body being thrown completely askew by some memory or strong sense of loss.

I have felt so many things in the past 8 months, so many different types of grief, and this current one seems related to the loss of opportunities for love to be expressed. This relationship was so rich, so deep, and there was so much love present. When someone passes on, there is still so much love present, but no longer an obvious outlet for that love. All this love builds up more and more, and without an outlet, without a way to show my friend all this love, I become overwhelmed by all these built-up feelings. This is the best way I know how to describe it.

I miss all the little ways we interacted, the ways I demonstrated my love for her. When I feel the tidal wave of grief, it is when I feel this regret of not being able to hug her again, or send her an email or call her or tease her or cook for her or... All the ways I know how to express love, that are now unfulfilled and just being tossed around in my brain as lost possibilities.

As much as I miss being loving towards her, I also, selfishly, miss the feeling I got when she was loving towards me. Her boisterous, vibrant, accented voice coming through my phone, telling me I was strong and capable, like a lion! I want to experience more of the intensity of her personality and how it spilled into everything she did, from her emails to her physical presence to the sometimes outlandish things she said, always with love and compassion. Or the way she cared and thought about me, the maternal way she always made sure I was eating enough, the way she asked if I had met anyone "meaningful" in dating. "And you know to only date someone who honors you, who treats you with respect, right? You know that?" Making sure I got enough sleep, "Okay, it's late! Go get some sleep. Sweet dreams", asked if I was feeling well, had enough fun in my life. "Go on some adventures. Live your life. Have fun." I miss how special and important she made me feel. And of course, I miss the loving phrases.

My friend used terms of endearment to address me, and they were mostly terms in her native language. The past week I've been revisiting those phrases, and even though I've done so several times before, I've been asking a native speaker what the phrases mean. I keep thinking that somehow, by hearing the translation again, there will be some nuance I missed. Some meaning that was previously unknown to me that will suddenly make the grief more bearable. But it's the same translation I've heard before, loving and personal, but offering no key to the grief.

Me: Can you tell me what it means again?
Her: It means my sweetheart, my daughter, my little cutie.
Me: So... you say it to someone you love, right?
Her: Yes! But you already know that; you don't need a phrase to tell you she loved you.

Nonetheless, I ridiculously cling to these phrases, feeling that they are all I have left. I seem to forget that love can be felt on another level, and does not rely on the 5 senses, because love is more than what we can just feel or see or hear.

Grief is such a heart-wrenching emotion or stage of experience, but there is so much beauty in there somewhere, the longing for what was such a gift in our life, the love that had yet to be expressed, the desire to feel that special way that person made you feel, the wish to tell them even if it's for the millionth time, "I love you soooo much. Thank you for being in my life." So much love to give, and when someone passes on, we are left holding all of this love and it seems as though the relationship was cut short, because how could there be all this left-over love?

Today, after a week of feeling a bit heavy with grief, I had an insight: Is the love really unexpressed? Love can never die, nothing good can ever be lost, and even if I can't see my friend, she still knows I love her. I can't hear her voice, but I still know she loves me too. Even though her physical body is no longer living, she is not gone. All the love I have for her and feel towards her isn't wasted. And if nothing good ever can be lost, how could she not feel this love still, even now? In the past few months, I have felt so much love from her, beyond what the 5 senses can tell me. Also, it is not like she is suddenly gone from my life and I have to stop loving her. She is just as present as before, as strange as that sounds, because the friendship transcends the surface ways that we were previously connected.

I still have such a long way to go in dealing with this grief, but I feel that little by little I am making some progress. Realizing, even at the beginning stages, that the love is being expressed even now, seems like a little step forward.

I've posted this poem before, but it fits with this blog so well that I'm posting it again.


Thinking today
About love
And intensity and strength;
And wondering what we all need.

It comes from within
And comes from above
But still, still...
Everyone needs someone in their life
Who says, "I adore you."
"You're the best."
"You make me laugh."
"I love you." 

 Otherwise, God would have made
7 billion little islands
Instead of 7 continents.

The Coin in the Fish's Mouth

In the past year or so, I've been trying to find solutions to some challenges in my life. It seems everywhere I turn, I come up against another roadblock. Last week, I hit the wall and was very frustrated with a couple of long-standing issues. While talking with a friend about what was going on, she reminded me of the story of Jesus and the coin in the fish's mouth.

When Jesus and his disciples came to Capernaum, the tax collectors came to Peter and asked him to pay the taxes. Jesus said to Peter, "Go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a 4-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours" (Matthew 17:27).

My friend supposed that Jesus wanted his disciples to look for answers in unexpected places. To keep an open mind to what good, what possibilities, may be present. To not lose hope even when things seem dark or scary or without a way out. This story of Jesus, and this explanation, brought me so much inspiration and hope.

I thought of other times in my life when an answer came in an unexpected way. One example is that there have been a couple times in my life where people have given me a used but well-running car when I needed transportation. What a gift, to find yourself without a dependable car, and to have someone suddenly say, "Oh, I have an extra car. You can have it." Another example was when I needed some help with something, and the help was donated by a group of people, the majority of whom I didn't even know. It was very unexpected, but so needed and so full of love. That night, after talking with my friend, I immediately thought of many examples of unexpected solutions that had blessed my life, things that seemed unimaginable but nonetheless came into my experience. People who came into my life and helped me and blessed me more than I can say. Healing experiences, moments where I felt God's presence, seemingly impossible situations where the answers were finally uncovered. Such gifts that were there right when I needed them. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17).

Sometimes when I am so focused on finding the answers to problems, I tend to look at the problems instead of to the solutions. I focus so much on what is before me, the challenge or the pain or the conflict. What I want to do, what would probably be more beneficial, is to keep an open mind about every possible solution that might be out there, and also know that many times, the solution that will come will be something I hadn't even thought of. Maybe Jesus is just encouraging us to think outside the box, and to keep praying, because we never know how the answer will come.

There are still a couple of issues I am facing which I don't know the answers to. And everyone has some challenges, maybe even some incredibly overwhelming problems, that they are dealing with, things that do not seem to have answers. And I think it is common to begin to lose hope after we struggle and fight, and search for solutions, and still the problem doesn't seem to be yielding. But after being reminded of the story of the coin in the fish's mouth, I suddenly felt so much hope again. For myself, for my friends and family, for people in my community who are all searching for answers. God has so much good, so much love, and infinite ways to express it and pour all that good into our lives.