I have heard the question, when faced with difficult times,
with painful experience, with seemingly more than you can handle in your life,
do you bend or do you break? I believe that in some measure we all bend, though
that bending can take a toll. Or as
singer Lena Horne puts it, “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the
way you carry it.” We have all learned some way to carry the loads we have to
carry without entirely breaking down.
I asked you
to reflect on a time in your life when you were struggling, a time when there
was some darkness in your life or maybe a lot of darkness in your life. Let me share one of those times from my life
with you. Martha and I had been married
about 8 years. Aaron, our son, was
almost one year old. We had just sold our house in Fort Worth at a slight loss
and caravanned to Houston with an ice storm hard at our heels. I was starting a new job in Houston so that
Aaron would have a family experience while he grew up. We were financially stable, but just
barely. And we were committed to Martha
staying at home to care for Aaron until Kindergarten. We decided to accumulate some debt and live a
less extravagant lifestyle, and were determined to keep up the repayment of my
student loan plus baby expenses on a single income.
Fortunately my brother lived near my new job, so we moved
into his guest bedroom, but no real home in sight. We had not put a down payment on a
house. We had not even looked for a
home. We just took a leap of faith and
moved, knowing—or hoping—family, would catch us and hold us for a little
while. Steve and Karen, my brother and
his wife, hadn’t been in their house for a year, yet they welcomed us, colicky
baby and all. New job, new neighborhood,
reduced income, reduced—significantly reduced—privacy, new routine. To describe that time as chaotic and
stressful doesn’t really begin to encompass how out-of-control everything felt. And then we got pregnant. The insurance from my new job hadn’t kicked
in and we were afraid if Martha saw a doctor, her pregnancy would be classified
as a pre-existing condition and thus wouldn’t be covered. Given Martha’s history with miscarriages, we
were very concerned about this pregnancy and, like the previous three
pregnancies, she was bleeding in the first trimester. Both of us thought: “How could we possibly
bring another child into the world when we were essentially homeless?” And we had nothing saved up to put down on a
new home. If there was a light at the
end of the tunnel, it seemed to be a train coming at us.
At that
point in my life I was a fairly pessimistic person, even without this stress,
you know I was a glass half-empty kind of person. And with all that Martha and I were trying to
cope with, my glass seemed pretty well completely empty. My resources were spent, mentally,
physically, emotionally, spiritually, and fiscally. I struggled getting by from one day to the
next. And the baby would not stop
crying.
What are some of the things that help a person in a
situation like this? When you are
constantly moving, when you are constantly reacting, you cannot get a
perspective on what is happening in your life.
As simple, as simplistic as it sounds, there is real value in carving
out a small space for yourself, for your heart.
To stop. To breathe. To ask yourself: are you making realistic
plans? Do you feel good about
yourself? Do have confidence in your
strengths and abilities? Do you have
effective communication and problem-solving skills? How are you handling the powerful emotions
that are associated with all that you are facing?
Stop, Meditate, and Reflect.
They are all counter-intuitive in situations when you are just trying to
survive, when all you can do is react to whatever life is throwing at you. Meditating is the last thing on your mind
when you are in crisis mode. And yet, as
people of faith, it is really the first thing we should do when we feel
overwhelmed.
I stopped, meditated, and reflected. Realistic plans, well there was no money in
savings; we had one infant and another on the way; we essentially had no
medical insurance; the debt load was rising exponentially, and we still had no
home. {scream here then breathe} But years of meditation practice had taught me
to allow the problems of daily living to pass through me, that is, to know that
problems will come and go, and to realize that obsessing about problems would
not help me to pull myself out of them, practically or emotionally. Buddhist meditation teaches that attaching to
or rejecting or denying those worries empowers them. Letting them pass through me can give me some
distance, some breathing space, from them. And that is what I was eventually
able to do. All those years of
biofeedback and meditation were finally paying off. Well, it wasn’t like night and day difference
to start. I started feeling more
grounded gradually, now and then at first, and over time, more consistently.
With some distance from the anxieties, I was able to realize
that I was not alone in the chaos. I had
my wife, my parents, my extended family, my Unitarian Universalist Church, my
newly formed men’s group, my high school friends, and my co-workers giving me
support. So many people I could talk to
about these issues, not so that they could fix the situation, but so I could
let off some of the stress that built up inside me. Feeling loved and supported by others makes a
huge difference when your heart is heavy and your burdens are threatening to
break your back. Gradually, I found a
way to carry the load that came close, but would not, break my back.
My parents lent us money to make a down payment on a modest
home. The area near my new job had an
excellent school district. While we
couldn’t pay down our debt, I was making enough money for us to keep from
increasing it. Living with my brother had helped us build up our savings. And my employer appreciated the skills,
talents, and insight I brought to the clinic.
Maybe things weren’t so awful.
As I calmed myself, I regained my self-confidence and
realized that I had the skills to manage the powerful emotions that plagued
me. I also realized that I needed more
sleep, more exercise, and more time to meditate and reflect, again, counter-intuitive
responses to the pressure-cooker life I found myself in. I would not make good decisions when I was
exhausted, scattered, and anxious.
Taking care of myself had to become at least one of my many priorities.
Things were starting to move forward, I was slowly beginning
to get some perspective on the situation.
Then I drove into the side of my brother’s garage, creating a huge hole
in his garage wall. One step forward and
ten steps back. All the old thoughts and
feelings were coming back with a vengeance.
I would need to use my savings to fix the wall and my car, putting us
that much further from getting out of my brother’s house and into our own
home. Our child would be born
homeless. All the plans were falling
apart, the glass was emptying out again, and it was all my fault. My mind spiraled.
Time to stop. Take a
deep breath. Meditate. What I needed to do was talk to my brother
about all this. When I did, he said the
hole was no big deal and we could fix it together. He went on: it did not need to be fixed right
this moment anyway. And my car, well it
was 1970 VW bus, and I had been repairing and restoring for many years. I just needed another trip to the junk
yard. I realized that I could still
easily slip and fall emotionally and spiritually. I realized I was still fragile, too close to
the stress and our new lives were still too new to feel comfortable and, more
importantly, stable.
As I continued to take care of myself and stick to my
vision, I gained some new insights into myself.
I realized that money issues triggered something inside me—fear,
insecurity, failure—I was not entirely sure at the time where those came from,
but I knew they were issues from my past that were coloring my present and
could easily overwhelm me if I let them.
I also learned that Martha and I could deal with some extremely
difficult situations together. The first
10 years of our relationship we had not really faced this kind of stress. It was just the two of us. We could go where we wanted, when we
wanted. We both worked and had plenty of
income. We had great church community
that gave us tremendous support and really empowered us. Martha and I were teaching New Member classes
and helping to build a new sanctuary within the first year of our joining the
church. The world had been our oyster. We had not had to deal with much in the way
of difficult change.
Now we were in the midst of seemingly everything changing in
our lives: our relationship—having to
figure out how to maintain our connection with one another when there was so
little time for us to spend together; and now we were responsible for two new
lives—we had always wondered how well we would parent our own children having
both grown up in dysfunctional homes. I
had come to realize that life was really about change and I had to build up my
resilience muscles to cope with it. I
realized I was changing, too.
I understood, maybe for the first time, how important a
spiritual practice is. I started a
practice of reflecting on my blessings—attending to the many positive things in
my life. I found this helped me see my
glass as more full and less empty. I
would be lying to you to say I was great at this practice initially. And it was many years before I was
consistent. But reflecting on the many
positive things in my life occasionally made difference.
And I needed new friends.
My old high school friends lived far from me, and while we could talk on
the phone, I needed friends near me. I
made some new friends at the gym playing Racquetball. Life was getting better and better.
As you probably have figured out, Martha and I bought a nice
older home, Jacob was born, and life settled into a lower level of stress. I got through a situation that seemed
insurmountable, overwhelming, traumatic.
So, what did I learn?
Why am I telling you this story?
First I learned the importance of recognizing and celebrating having
gotten through a really lousy time in my life.
This week I talked to my Spiritual Director and I realized that I still
have a tendency to say “Woo, that’s over” whenever I go through a really
difficult time, and get back to living life, without recognizing and
celebrating my resiliency. I also
learned that I need to bring back the memory of getting through tough periods,
because it reminds me that I can get through tough periods. So often we forget
that we have fallen and have gotten back up.
That’s resilience. The capacity
to get back up, eventually, and keep going.
And we don’t do that alone. That
interdependent web we keep talking about?
That is what helps us be resilient.
That acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth you
keep hearing about? That’s what helps us
be resilient. Justice, equity, and
compassion in human relations? Yup. That too helps us be resilient. “We gather as an inclusive community to grow
in character, mind, and spirit and to transform the world toward fairness,
love, and compassion.” The willingness,
the capacity, to be transformed is the willingness, capacity, to be resilient. The willingness, the capacity, to grow in
character, mind, and spirit, is the willingness, the capacity, to be
resilient.
Life is very much like the Hopi Elders described; it’s a
river: “Here is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that
there are those who will be afraid, who will try to hold on to the shore. They
are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know that the river has its
destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore. Push off into the
middle of the river, and keep our heads above water. And I say see who is there
with you and celebrate.” This past
couple of weeks have been hard on this congregation. The budget gap and the possibility of having
to lose staff or reduce staff’s compensation or benefits resulted in fear,
pain, hurt, stress. We could have been
torn apart or suffered greatly from hanging on to the shore of our
anxiety. But instead, this resilient
community pushed off into the middle of the river, found a way to keep our
heads above water by raising the money needed to more than fill the gap. Take this time to look around see one
another. Be grateful for one
another. Celebrate. You all did really good.
