You know it's been a long week when the new roll of toilet paper doesn't even make it on the holder. It sits there on the top of the empty one, ever ready to grab but not in its proper place. It might sound inappropriate, but this is how my life has felt the past couple of weeks -- not fully in place and slowly being depleted... and yes I just compared myself to toilet paper. 

Life keeps speeding up, rolling on by.  I rip off way more than I need. In the past two weeks my days have been catalogued by workshops, conferences, students, events, friends and being sick. It's enough to make me feel like putting that roll of TP on the holder really is time and effort I don't have.

Someone somewhere once said that artists create what they most need.  This is why I do what I do.  Yes I believe that this is the path the Divine has me on, but if no one gets anything out of it, at least a little part of my own soul will not be completely devoured in this crazy pace of life.  Perfectionist recovery is what I need, and a few others have found healing too, so this journey has started.  But what the heck is it?  Perfectionism? Self-care?  Sounds intriguing at first, doesn't it? 

Self-care and perfection are words I choose completely on purpose. People can relate to them in their own rite. Self-Care? Spa day! Couch potato! Shopping! Perfection means high achiever, goal setter. Here's where I want to flip these notions on their heads -- Perfection to me is that feeling in the pit of my stomach, the ache in my neck, the wrenching of my heart that I am not good enough, that I will never arrive anywhere.  Sure I can look back and see where I have come from, but I still look out and see how far I have to go.  That is true of my dirty kitchen, my marriage, and my career (etc.).  It is a disturbing force that moves me, not one of peace and reconciliation.  Self-care is not facials and mani/pedi days, although I love those things.  Self-care means slowing down long enough to hear your inner voice and listen for the Holy Spirit.  It means meditation on your life and healing in dark parts of your soul.  It is living with intentionality in our bodies, our communities, and our churches.  It is not zooming from one thing to another, it is creating room to show up to what is already there.  That's hard to do when you're bombarded constantly by messages in your own mind or in ads that what is there isn't good enough.  

But how do we do this in an insane world where there is no time to pause? Where pastors and leaders are more concerned with programs than people? When to stop and listen to my thoughts means that scary things come up? And this is my point exactly: Where are the spaces to pause and think, while doing life with leaders and friends around us on this journey?  Two hours on Sunday morning isn't going to solve this crisis.  

Two weeks ago I had the amazing privilege of speaking at the first National Recovery Conference for churches all over this nation.  I met people from Virginia, Michigan, Texas, Orange County, and Boston.  The church is diving into this thing called recovery head first and there is no greater time for it, but what are we endorsing?  As I looked through the different sessions there were things on boundaries, balance, steps to success, and children's recovery... but even at the conference there really was no space to breathe.  For two days you were shuttled around from workshop to workshop trying to gain tools and resources for your work to take back with you.  So if there is no model of pausing around us now, where do we look? 

It might sound cliche', but one place to start is with Jesus.  His life models the habits of self-care with communion, solitude, and meditation.  He was faced with people around him all the time, good grief, they were cutting through ceilings and grabbing him in crowds.  He would have been in People magazine.  But he would not have been in every issue.  He knew what he needed and when to retreat.

I realize this is a weird concept. I don't live in la la land -- I live in a world where the TP doesn't get refilled. So I get it.  We do need the tools and resources, but we need room to breathe, to cry, to laugh... and those things are becoming more and more rare. The books and steps are great, but true self-care is not about a quick fix.  It's about showing up, being open, and hitting pause.  Going "a million miles an hour,"' as I often say I am, is unsafe because the accidents that can happen at that pace are devastating.  And here is the warning, the tools and resources are not the end-all/be-all -  they will not save your life.  They will help you radically alter your way of being, but you have to truly want to get in touch with your soul. No longer can you avoid it. There will still be rhythms in your life that will make for weeks where the TP doesn't get refilled, but then there is moment of slowing and you start by just replacing the one roll.  That is self-care as nuts as it sounds.  Starting small and showing up to what is there.  Your journey with God is one that will never be "complete" in this life, but it is one that you should feel committed to in a healthy way and not overwhelmed and burnt out by.  

Over the course of the next few weeks I am going to continue to define and introduce this notion of self-care.  I would invite you to consider trying out one spiritual practice or joining us on our April retreat as starting places in this journey in the meantime.  I look forward to hearing where you are at in this crazy life as well, so leave comments about what excites you about self-care, what makes it hard, what do you currently do? Anything really -- it's prime time for this discussion to start.