Self-Care

Eleventh Consideration: Silent Reflection

Kristin Ritzau — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:56:48 -0800

I grabbed Sabrina Ward Harrison's The True and the Questions this morning for permission to delve into a time of reflection. This week makes room for that as people take the rest of their vacation time and relax - or in our case, work on our homestead.

(Yes. More planter boxes are going in... stay tuned.)

As I paused from the morning routine, I ran across this prompt: "In the silence I understand..." So I went with it while embracing my own silence. In the silence I understand that mystery is incomprehensible. I know that there is more I don't know than I do. I realize I shouldn't workout directly after eating. I understand that this year is coming to an end... and then I found my writing stride.

A year I reclaimed as my golden year is almost over. My birthday is June 11th, but my 11th year on this planet was a year of awful inbetweens. Caught in the middle of girlhood and becoming a woman; stuck in the divide between the carefree elementary school years and the freedom of high school and between my divorcing parents. It was not a year I reflect on with a smile.

2011 was my chance to reclaim -- for restitution instead of resolution. It was a genuinely good year. A year for me with nothing more than a common cold. A year with a last minute trip to Mexico. A year spent going deeper with new friends. A year of taking A Beautiful Mess to Colorado - of full workshops in Southern California, and selling 600 books.

It was also a year I got demoted and quit my job. See good years don't mean sans heartache, trouble, or even sickness. I can attest to that truth after having spent the better part of the last decade, (which was still good) sick.

However this year the rupture of comfortability caused me and my husband to move into the goodness of vocation -- of a calling instead of success in society's definition. These 11 considerations have been a chance to reflect on this advent season, but also the goodness of the past year and its own darkness, gifts, peace, and food.

In silent reflection, I hold John O'Donohue's words close, "We tend to perceive difficulty as disturbance. Ironically, difficulty can be a great friend of creativity.” And creativity has been the outcome of 2011 for me.

In my inductive thinking state, a year ago I could have never imagined this outcome. I plastered my walls with giant sticky-noted options. I laid out all of the plausible four alternatives I potentially had, the pros and cons. I cried. It sucked. There is no other word for it.

My perfectionist nature drove me to want the perfect route forward. I dove into lunch meetings, networking opportunities, and sessions with my spiritual director. They all called me, not forward, but deeper, and instead of suffocating while they pushed, I became a fish in water. It was a good year.

This year has held challenge and heartache, but of a different sort. The sort where I have never worked harder whether that be planning a class or giving out a failing grade; digging holes for seedlings or never seeing them come up. To see the growth and steps my marriage has taken to full equal partnership and working out patterns of the past that we do not want to see repeated; to spending time in the prayer of examen, with my consolations and desolations knowing that no matter what, the Spirit is there and will be there in 2012, just as in 2011. It has been a treasure to reflect on it all today. After all, why do we only get one golden year?

So as this week affords some space for reflection, I would invite you to list here what you're considering this week. What has this last year held? For better or worse? In sickness and health? Because every year holds a promise, like a vow, that is only fulfilled if we reflect back upon it.

Quote from John O'Donohue's Anam Cara

Third Consideration: The Christmas Letter

Kristin Ritzau — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:54:44 -0800

Sarah Ban Breathnach writes, “There is a woman still at large – charmed and dangerous. She waves her clever hand over a room and it looks like a page from House Beautiful. She waves her creative hand over the fruits of the earth and a feast appears nightly. Her thumb is green, her herb vinegar is curing, her potpourri recipe is sought, her PTA cupcakes are from scratch, her Halloween costumes are legendary, she still wears size 8. Her celebrity lawyer husband adores her, her five summa cum children think she’s laude. She finished her holiday shopping, wrapping, and sending in November. Now she’s turning her attention to making her own New Year’s Eve confetti out of naturally colored eggshells. I know this because I’ve just received her annual Christmas letter. Be forewarned. It’s speeding its way to your house.”

Lordy, this season is exhausting. These words ring loud and clear as Christmas gifts clutter my bed, wrapping is all over my office, and I wonder if I am doing enough. I am. But just in case I didn’t get the memo, the letters start arriving. You know those ones: typed, perfectly folded, maybe even on Christmas letterhead. Some are brief updates with tidbits from friends of old. But others, well, they are legendary… and apparently, so is every year they have lived.

But these letters that are so one-sided, speak to a different phenomena, one where we are disconnected from those on a mailing list and feel the need to fill everyone in. We feel the need to shout from the rooftops all of the “good” things that happened, and I always wonder what the “bad” stuff was. What would another member of the family say? Therein is the issue, we catalog out lives into good and bad: good and bad food, good and bad gifts, good and bad events, good and bad people. One person becomes the spokesperson and everyone else is just a player in the game of life.

In this crazy “updating” world, I am learning to let go of good and bad. I’m investing in handling what is. What is right in front of me – the to do lists, the packages to be sent, the frost that is wiping out our new little seedlings. But it is more than just what we have done or need to do, and I think that is what drives me nuts about these letters. We whittle our lives down to checklists each year and each season. And these lists have little to do with what kind of people we are becoming in community.

If our communities are getting letters once a year from us, I would question if those truly are our communities or if we have moved towards “generous acquaintances.” In general, that is how I feel about social networking; it leaves something to be desired when everything about ourselves can be managed, deleted, or hidden. Too much of that is bleeding into our daily psyche as well.

So for Christmas this year, consider writing a Christmas letter to yourself. May it be one of glad tidings and great joy, but may it not rob you of the valleys that have shown you light and wisdom in the depths. Hopefully, it will be a tool of connection, but not to those far and wide outside of yourself, but to those voices who live deep within your soul who never get a chance to hear you or be heard.

Consider others’ letters and hold them loosely knowing it’s never the whole story and consider who your real story needs to be told to and not just in a letter. That just may be one of the greatest gifts you could give someone this holiday season, to tell your story and also listen to someone else’s.

And then, as Breathnach reflects again, “for this year’s crop of Christmas letters, I find they make quite absorbent liners for the gerbil cage.”

Quote from Sarah Ban Breathnach. Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy. Warner: New York, 1995. December 9^th Reflection.

Just sit you silly

Kristin Ritzau — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:26:10 -0700

“I can see it, it’s just that my feet feel like lead.”

“Are you tired?”

I am on the phone with my spiritual director. We are working with a vision where I’m trying to get up a hill – to a house – a house where I feel so safe and like there is no other place I belong but there. However, I can’t get there.

Am I tired?

I look at all I need to accomplish in the next six months and I feel a tad bit overwhelmed, but I am not tired… yet.

I see my younger self up the hill beckoning me to come to her. She is full of energy and charisma. Her hands are waving wildly as she doesn’t understand what is taking me so long to get up the dang hill.

“Can you tell her that your legs feel like lead?” My director prods me further into my imagination.

“I can, but I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to ask her for help – to burden her. She is so unabashedly herself and free. I am an adult, I feel like I should be capable.” It is amazing how good honesty feels.

I can almost see my director’s understanding and grace-filled eyes. “So ask her if there is a place to rest,” she says gently.

The little girl bounds around me. “If you’re tired, just sit down,” the girl says with an unadulterated playfulness like the next words are You Silly. And she runs around me like it’s no big deal. Oh yeah. Just sit.

As I it dawns on me the way to go forward is one step at a time, sitting as needed, I am suddenly transported to my fourth birthday party. I am watching myself in my birthday dress that my mother sewed for me even with an infant brother and toddler clamoring for her attention.

We had a tiny hill in our backyard. And I wanted to open my presents on the hill. I announced to my little friends to come up on the hill. They came without question until my mom announced that probably wasn’t the best option, reigning in her “bossy” daughter as I had become known in our family.

I smiled as I saw this image fly across my mind. Such energy, such confidence, such assuredness, there I was… and I was four. Sitting on the top of the hill.

Children really are unencumbered. The truth is I need that little girl, now more than ever. I need her help, her advocacy, and her example.

“You can’t run up and down hills when you’re tired,” my spiritual director said, announcing our return back to reality. Oh yeah. Just take one step at a time; just sit you silly.

This new season has the potential to exhaust me. To drain me. To rip me to shreds. Haven't we all felt like that at times? However this time, I know I'm going to by okay.

I know that because I also know I am going to need rest. I will need help. I will need advocates. I will need Jesus. I will need Love. Who doesn’t? Realizing this at the beginning of the adventure is one of the most precious gifts I could receive. I usually awaken to this idea when I am burnt out, frustrated, and spent. So I am not necessarily making a plan, but I am dwelling with this gift today.

That little girl had those things. And a beautiful birthday dress. She wasn’t mean; she was four. And she was amazing!

So here is my hope today – that I will take rests when needed. That I will ask for help. I need advocates around me, even if they are four years old. And I need to listen to the Voice of Love often.

I’m doing centering prayer this week with the word “communion.” Centering prayer is a way to focus in with God and your core around a word that pulls you back again and again. Will you consider doing this exercise this week for fifteen minutes and let me know what happens?

From Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun (page 210)

Sacred Word. Choose a prayer word – perhaps Communion - as the symbol of your desire to let Jesus' action and presence form you. The word could reflect a deep desire of your heart (e.g. love, grace, peace), or the word might be a name or title of God (e.g. Jesus, Shepherd, Counselor, Healer). Become still and offer yourself and your love to God. Let this word or phrase draw you into the presence of Christ. When you are distracted, return gently to your word and to the Lord. At the end of the prayer, remain still for several minutes.

[I would add here remain still and ask if there is a invitation coming out of this time - a vision, verse, or another word for you. Don't forget to write it down]

Getting off the ladder

Kristin Ritzau — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:07:50 -0700

My sister-in-law called me last night. She just returned from a trip and I started teaching, so we had a bit to catch up on.

"How's work going?" I inquire, because she talked about a promotion right before she left.

"Good, but they might end up moving me to full time. I know you're supposed to 'climb the ladder'...."

I cut her off, "Yeah, whose ladder though?"

"I know right? I lose freedom of my schedule and I'm just not sure I want that, but I do love it."

I hear the wrestling match in her voice. The part time job which allows her flexible hours and the benefit of three day weekends every weekend might move to more time at the office. Opportunity is about to knock - or is it?

(my sis and I)

Earlier in the day, I saw similar wrestling matches going on in my new class. My students look worried as we enter into the world of deconstruction.

"We were taught the burger method," one of my eager students chimes in after I asked them if they were taught the five paragraph way of writing essays. All but two had raised their hands.

I looked at her, one of the two who did not raise her hand, and think, Hmm, the Burger Method -- trying to remember some composition theorist named Jim or Jane Burger.

"I don't know what that is," after I wrack my brain all of three seconds. "Tell us about it."

"It's like a burger," she answers while holding her hands in the shape of a sandwich in front of her mouth. "Ya know, bun, tomato, cheese spread, meat and bun." She looks ready to take a bite, while I contemplate what the heck cheese spread is.

We all share a quick laugh and I explain I thought they were speaking of a person. Additionally, I hear the small growing voice in my mind lamenting what we have done to America's youth by teaching them how to communicate with fast food. I decide it's not time to go there yet. I'm on the verge of being labeled that weirdo-hippy-prof after announcing last week I live on an urban farm complete with chickens.

"Well, we're going to put blue cheese and bacon on those burgers," I quipped, running with said metaphor. One student looks at me like I'm nuts. Uh oh, abort! Abort! "We are going to learn the fine dining of writing."

I went on to explain the thought behind the five paragraph, three to five sentences each, structure. This is in place because the teacher has to grade hundreds of them. Beginning with a structure isn't necessarily bad, but nowhere in the world other than high school English class is this kind of writing accepted. It won't work in college.

Some throw their arms in the air in a moment of actual liberation. Others look petrified. Their world is being shaken up -- a predictable one of how to get As and perform in their adolescence. I had begun to pull the thread of unraveling.

I tell my students we have not been served by villainizing the word evolution. Call it morphing, changing, maturing, or evolving, I don't care. It's just that the cultural notion of thinking we "arrive" at some point scares me. The thought that we can figure it out - get somewhere - run a rat race to gain a head on someone - and just stop learning, wondering, deconstructing, and know what we need to know... that just sounds so paralyzing and exhausting to me.

Think what the world of writing would be if it were just a five paragraph theme...

My students and I both "arrived" for our first college class simultaneously. Me, as an instructor and them as freshman. We both prepared in different ways for this day, but we were beginning a new evolutionary journey. One of finding our voices, vocations, and passions. It was where a new arrival jettisons you not towards what you know, but throws you into the deep end.

There is a structure, but for a lot of them it is their first time dealing with quite a bit of unstructured time. Me too. I no longer have an office I sit in hours on end. I haul a tote bag and use the back seat of my car for filing. I am re-figuring how to do my life all over again.

It does not necessarily look like I've climbed up a ladder. My pay was massively cut to teach. I have no office and I'm working harder than ever.

I understand the way my students and sister feel because in this day and age we have to figure out our own definitions of success. The people who had arrived, who were "successful" are now the horror stories of massive cutbacks in a never ending recession. No longer can it be about "How it used to be." It's about moving forward into a mysterious way of being, where trust and reconciliation must be rebuilt. There is no easy way to get an A or to arrive and be done.

For me, it is a never-ending journey of evolving, maturing, morphing - of growing more comfortable in who I am created to be. In making peace with that concept, I can help in areas where there is a lack of comfort and care. Where tiredness, burnout, and getting ahead seem normal, I would like to suggest that is not the Spirit's design.

The goal can't be "arriving." Just ask those who thought they arrived. They are the horror stories we now read about and listen to in a country trying to go backward instead of moving into the mystery of tomorrow. I grieve for the people who are slaves to the culture's way of comfort. A way that says one needs to buy more, be more, do more, and hate one's self.

It is a way of life built on the structure of constantly adding and never subtracting; of losing the art of asking questions or wondering if change is possible, or even more scary if change is necessary to survive. To seek our own comfort while exploiting others to get ahead will only push us more towards to brink of utter hopelessness. It revolves into a resigned ignorance that closes one off to the world instead of believing love truly can change society and even more importantly our own souls.

So as I spend my unstructured time today writing and praying for my students, I pray my students will be open to change. I don't wish on anyone to save the world, that's already been done, but I do hope for softened hearts and open minds. Because if one knows they can get off the ladder and find their own unique path, I truly believe they will find their vocation. Vocation meaning, as Fredrick Buechner puts it, "The place where the world's deep hunger and your passion meet." Hopefully the ladders, the hamburgers, and the five paragraph themes will be fond memories as we all move into a season of journeys, smorgasbords of tantalizing options and lots of messy drafts full of questions.

Home: A commentary about my "next chapter"

Kristin Ritzau — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:58:59 -0800

I love receiving letters about the book, comments on the blog, and interacting with audiences at different events. Since the book has come out a funny thing has happened. I’ve been able to rest into the message as a vocational stamp on my life as well as laugh and cry with other perfectionists trying to find recovery from the madness. However, there is another introspective anomaly that happens when I connect with others too.

When the book comes up and people have not heard about it, I explain the topic - in brief - if they ask. They seem interested and nod as if pondering something much deeper. I blanket the answer as this is “My journey - my story” of how I made peace with the feeling of not being good enough; that I was driven by everyone's expectations of acting and being and doing my life in a certain way. In no way, shape or form am I trying to project my journey onto theirs (or sell the book, but that's always a perk).

The look on their face turns inward. I usually take a bite of my sandwich in this interim not knowing what they will come back with. And, though I have no study to back this up, three out of four times the person says, “I didn’t think I was a perfectionist, but I do _____. Does that mean I am?” The topic instantly catapults them into a sort-of self-examination. A wondering if they've mislabeled their own selves, of wanting answers. I did not write the book for this intent, but as the message gets out there, it's finding a home with more than just perfectionists.

My sister-in-law and I discussed this while hanging out on our annual girls weekend. She said, “I am not a perfectionist, but so many of the ideas you wrote about resonated with me.” The journey the book goes on is one of awareness, ownership, grace, and recovery. It introduces you to a messy life, one that is not clean but not in terms of drug addiction. Rather an addiction to living completely outside of yourself, for the opinion of others. It gives tools on how to bring your voice to the surface. So it is surprising that this is happening? A little.

I am learning more and more that sharing my story (or if anyone shares the honest version of their story for that matter), makes it hard for walls to stay up. If the brick and mortar remain, indifference and surface-talk become a way of life. People don’t really want to know what’s happening because then they have to deal with it… this was true of the events in my own soul, in my family, with friends. I have “known” people for decades at this point, but I don’t really “know” them or feel like they know me either. And we move on into a daily rhythm of “I’m fine. I’m busy. We’ll talk later.” Which for a little girl wanting to be known was (is still) hard to take in.

My father worked 70-hour weeks when I was growing up. As I talk about briefly in the book, he thought he needed to be working that much to provide nice things for us. When I spoke with him a few weeks ago after reminiscing about his old schedule, he said assuredly, “Well, aren’t you working that much now?” As if that was the way to contentment and success.

“No Dad, I’m not." I replied, trying to inflect more compassion that strife in my voice. "Between writing and working at the university I probably put in close to 40 hours, but I value my sanity too much to work like that.” As I lie in bed right now writing this with another ear infection, I am reminded by my body of what happens when I push my still recuperating immune system.

As some of you may know from following the blog, I’ve been on a kick of tackling some nagging projects in our old home --- 1916 was its birthdate to be exact. After living in dorms, next a condo, then a married-student housing apartment, my soul longed for a yard and a bedroom with a door instead of a sheet separating it from the living room.

For some people, this dream stays a dream and I recognize my privilege now in being a homeowner. But I’m a weird homeowner. When we walked into our home in July of 2008, I cried. Not tears of joy, but of dread. The old owners trashed the place and it wasn't a foreclosure. I don’t mean, oh they left a few things. Sure half their belongings were still on the lawn, but they also took a BB Gun and shot out the windows upstairs; they punched holes in the wall of the stairwell. Their dog had shared a little too much of himself (or herself) all over the carpet ... And it stunk.

The next two weeks we tried in vain to make the house livable. My dreams of writing A Beautiful Mess that summer were horribly interrupted and came crashing down as literally plaster came off too. Gas leaks were unearthed and, the cherry on top, we found drugs in what was supposed to be my office. We disappeared from community life for five months pouring all of our remaining money, effort and hearts into making the house a home.

It would have been easy to stop after two weeks, or even five months, but we didn’t. We are not out to make the house perfect, but we are on a journey to make it a home. So it is fitting that the next phase of fixing up the house and of my journey as a writer would coincide.

Certain people I come in contact with after they have read the book ask quizzically, “So what now? How do I live like this?” (Meaning in the tension of moving from black and white to gray like ABM suggests). Like I said above, a releasing happens when you become aware. Some people dig themselves into holes and berate themselves, but there is a movement happening of people who genuinely want to live differently.

So my next project is about this house, about making a home in a society that has forgotten what home is; it’s about living even deeper into the idea that life is beautiful and messy all at the same time…. It’s about ripping out our lawn, eating extremely differently, but still getting In-n-Out, and why it’s not about finding a home in this world, but making one without doing violence to one’s self or others.

Not sure what led me to writing this today. Maybe because it’s the last day of January and this is my resolution; maybe it’s the antibiotics…. But I share it here because this is also a home, and I thank you for being part of it.

Advent's Changing Seasons

Kristin Ritzau — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:47:02 -0800

This week last year I had just returned from my family's home in the Pacific Northwest. My grandfather has passed away weeks earlier and this was the first holiday without him. My relatives and I were adjusting to the new era, one ushered in by death's reminder that the kids are now adults and the adults on their way to grandparenthood. This is not to be morbid or say they need walkers, but you could sense these thoughts on the faces around the living room as we pondered life without grandpa.

Two weeks later there was a murder a block from my house and I wrote an incredibly somber piece reflecting more than the emotions stirred by the effects of gun shots. I had spent 2009 recovering from a weakened immune system due to thyroid radiation treatment and it showed in my little brother whispering at Christmas asking if I was okay as I slept through most of the three days at his house.

Advent almost always puts me in this reflective mode - wondering where the year went, pondering last year at this time. I am brought into a space of wondering, waiting, grieving, anticipating, and dreaming. It is a season drenched in tradition, but also change. As much as tradition tries to keep things the same, change always interrupts -- sometimes subtly, like snow falling, other times like a swift tear to our hearts.

I am oddly comforted this year by time marching on. This December my body feels healthier, so does my mind. It is a homecoming of sorts amongst the chaos ensuing from dashing through the mall and heading off to one more Christmas party.

I have not "arrived" in my life, rather I am accepting of my journey, even though there still is darkness this year. It is out of this place that I no longer need to prove, explain, berate, or disown myself. I am forgiven and I am building my own traditions.

As I lay in bed on Thanksgiving morning, I found myself missing my mom as I do every year we are not together. We always watch the parade while she cooks -- it was (and is) a tradition that is about more than a parade. I cry every time Santa rolls by the crowd because the tradition has changed.

The sun crept its way into my bedroom and a funny thought occurred to me. I wondered if I would have to have kids to pass this tradition on? Is that what would ease the change happening as I arrive into my thirties? A dawning came to me that had nothing to do with the sun - I have to create traditions for me - regardless of kids or husband - sure that might be part of it, but if the expectation is to create it for other people, I will always be let down because people are not perfect.

It's about that little girl who still waits, wonders, and dreams, it's about being with her. She is my guide this season, not because of toys or Santa, but because she is a delight. She is so uncomplicated and not busy. She is amazed and amazing regardless of her Nutcracker performances or singing, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" to all of the church ladies. Simply due to her trust, wonder and belief in things bigger than herself.

So this advent I celebrate who she is because as Madeleine L'Engle says, "We are every age we ever were." I will commemorate where we've come from. Together we will build our own traditions with the cornerstone of our past and the blank blue prints of the future -- the in-between, though, that is the peace of home holding us right here, right now.

Checking-in: A Self-Care Thanksgiving

Kristin Ritzau — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:13:48 -0800

Thanksgiving is upon us. At the same time this thrills me, I am also struck by its ever rapid approach this year. I have been pondering the pace and meaning of time and Thanksgiving quite a bit as I skim cookbooks and Food Network.com as well as navigate through Trader Joes like it's boot camp.

Last week I wrote about the reality of "what is" in terms of books and this week I find myself wrestling with a similar conundrum around food and neighboring.

For the past year, I've found myself speaking in different arenas about what self-care is. It's hard to define a lifestyle change in a one-time visit, as exciting and great as these events have been. So I've broken my latest definition of self-care down even further (probably for myself even more than audiences). Self-care is a "checking-in" to your life, not a "checking-out." It is a concept flanked by the Word of the Lord saying, "Be still and know I am God" and the gospel of Luke asking -- no, telling -- that we daily need to take up our crosses. As John Wesley writes, the option of no one not having a cross to bear is gone.

There isn't a better time of year where these two concepts are forsaken. What is supposed to be the holy season of advent is left on the altars of starving ourselves so we can gorge a few days later and worrying about gift-buying. At some point comes the realization that January first's reset button is right around the corner, so we succumb to the pigs in the blanket while reading another article on how to eat right at holiday parties and charge those credit cards. I'm not trying to say we "all" wrestle with this, but rather point out the absurdity of our cultural commentary of consumption during this time of year. How I know it is the season of giving, not because I sense it in my family or in my community, rather because Target starts rearranging their store.

The guilt becomes the overarching feeling of the season. From food to buying that perfect gift we might overcome this feeling by serving one-day at the shelter downtown. Then we are "serving" at least. Right?

My contemplative heart begs to ask why though? Why am I concerned with feeding those an hour away than asking my neighbor if he has a table to sit at? Why did I give the little girl next door my old cans laden with food I deemed not worthy for my family's bodies for her food drive? Essentially tossing my leftovers in the name of "blessing" someone. Like opposing magnets, it further propagates the us-and-them cycle. A lifetime of disconnect and lacking a unified "we."

This cycle is what I wold like to call "Life Dieting" -- constantly consuming less than satisfying substitutes instead of tasting all life has to offer: food and relationship. Fluctuating between stores and diets is a path to starving our souls and our neighborhoods of the dire nourishment both need. When everything has to be done right, perfect and huge... it misses the little sparks of intimacy and savoring.

Diets don't work. Sorry to be Scroogy, but that way of life, it will defeat you. It wins... whatever award, I don't know. I gave up a couple of years ago when my thyroid stopped working. That's another tale for another day, but I learned that the society's remedies were not working for me when my body held onto weight like a child to her blanket. I had to tune out the same-old sing-song of the culture's "shoulds" in terms of dieting, decadent desserts, and devotion to the homeless people I don't know.

Instead I checked-in to my own life. I learned what my body really needed to find some semblance of functioning. I found out that the single gentleman living next door had no family in town. I waved at the man in the wheelchair across from my house who, probably due to a stroke, has not remembered my name in two years, but gives me roses from his garden on Mother's Day solely because I'm a woman he vaguely recognizes. It's small and it's personal, but it won't save the world. However, I don't think I'm supposed to.

It would be easier in a way to diet. It would be convenient to serve others in a town miles away from where I live and then come home to my quiet house where I don't know what's happening across the street. This way of life-- of checking-in after I've come home from work, of letting people swing by when they need something or even, asking for help -- is hard. Asking myself to think about where my food comes from and of inviting the neighbors over when they are not "in my circle" is a life I would have laughed at 10 years ago, but this is the simple life; it is not grand. This is putting down roots.

To put down roots this Thanksgiving means that I have finally started making peace with God, myself, and others... from the people I talk to on a walk to the park around the corner to the solitude day I'm taking this week. Do I have this figured out? I'm trying. But it's a process. Putting down roots doesn't mean having kids or a mortgage payment. It means no longer running to what's next or dwelling in the "what ifs." It's right here, right now -- making effort with everything I have to work towards a sustainable way of life. One of walking humbly with the Lord -- treating our neighbor as justly as we treat ourselves and realizing that our bodies and souls can no longer live in the life-sucking pattern of gorging and starvation. They need the consistent love and nourishment that only diversity of people, thought, and food can bring. Starting this at home, no matter where home is, is what Thanksgiving is about.

(our home)

This year I am thankful for my home, the literal building, yes, but mostly the home I am making in my uniquely created soul. Because learning that God is already embedded in my true self -- nourishing and caring for me -- is what is.... real. I just have to slow down and check-in to realize the constant reshaping is occurring. And a turkey, no matter how good it is, cannot bring about that peace.

So slow this week and ask yourself, even more than what you're thankful for, what do you want to show-up for? What do you want to stop checking-out about? Where do you need to check-in?

(And feel free to share it here as a metaphorical Thanksgiving table as well - I would be grateful to hear.)

Picture credit - Kristin Ritzau - please do not use without permission.

the reality of what is.

Kristin Ritzau — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:23:54 -0800

I devour books. I gorge myself on them until my brain is so full of plot lines, "what-ifs," and I-have-to-know-how-this-ends, that I have little space for other creative endeavors. It is not uncommon to find me at midnight with a headlamp strapped to my forehead nestled under the covers so I can stay warm, but not disturb my sleeping husband with our more powerful nightstand light.

Since finishing my own book, I have read cover to cover books for fun, for work, and to complete my certificate in spiritual direction. Let's just say I have had my fair share of this pie and am more than satisfied.

I surrounded myself with the likes of Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila and Madame Guyon. I happily put down their 500 year old words at times and reached for novels like Water for Elephants and The Help or the latest Kristin Hannah tear jerker that my fellow reading lover mother would mail to me. I also had non-fiction books to read, like Shauna Niequist's new book, Bittersweet, so I ordered that one and the feeding frenzy continued from the summer well into the fall. I was encircled by an amazing league of women. Ancient and new, seasoned and novice, prophets and storytellers, fiction and real life -- And in a sublime way, it kind of made me check out of my own.

Sure, I'm watering our yard and reading Ina Garten in the kitchen nightly for a cooking lesson. But what I realized is that these writers -- all of them -- kept triggering emotions in me that I was unaware of. I would become paralyzed with grief when Hannah wrote about a character dying. I would find myself lonely and hungry as I read Niequist's words on friendship and food. I grew incredibly angry at Teresa of Avila calling herself stupid and explaining (more times than I cared to count) that men were smarter than her.

I was so caught up in all of their worlds that I couldn't see into mine. I began to project onto others around me instead of appreciating them, a sure sign of disconnect. I was missing that I needed friendship and food, I needed to grieve (yes, again) about some family issues that have surfaced, and that I have to stop undermining my own gifts and abilities. By no means am I saying the world revolves around me or that I should shut myself off from caring for others, but my view gets so skewed when I lose touch with my healthy motivation; with my own reality. I lost touch with my own story in the midst of so many others. Yes, yes, yes, I can relate, but in the end, I need what is real in my own life.

After finishing my certificate, reading Bittersweet, and getting back on a regular sleep schedule after finishing the last novel I had, the final straw was picking up a book I've had for over three years. I've lost count of how many times I have begun to read it and stopped. It just didn't make sense to me. The topic of it, the chapters, the length; it was lost on me. But as I frantically dashed out of my office to meet some students in downtown LA last Friday, I decided I needed a friend to go on public trans with me: Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary on Faith. Kathleen Norris' name starred up at me as so many other names have and I tossed it into my bag.

As I sat in the metro car on my way home listening to the sounds of the city in a flurry to get home for a weekend's rest, I pulled the book out. I needed to hear her words, I wanted to understand her redefining of faith "words" which I feel is a chapter I continue to deepen in my own life. The tears sprang up before I knew why -- I was reading about the blessing and curse of inheritance; a short anecdotal piece on the life we are handed and what is determined even before we are born. How "what is" depends so much on "what was"... on our inheritances.

Norris writes, " The temptation to simply reject what we can't handle is always there; but it means becoming stuck in a perpetual adolescence, a perpetual seeking for something, anything, that doesn't lead us back to where came from."

Turning from book to book, from page to page, was my rejection of what was going on in my world. I kept distracting myself from developing my own lens. Of course I love learning, but only looking to books will not show me the end all be all of how to conduct myself in this body and in my community. In the end, I won't learn that solely in a book. Niequist has similar sentiments, even though I found them in a book, but there I read about her making peace with a season of her life that is bitter and sweet. It is her story of reality.

Her words also rang out in my head, "This is the thing: when you start to hit twenty-eight or thirty, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: on one side, people who have used their twenties to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn't, who have pushed through to become real live adults.

And then there's the other kind, who are hanging on to college, or high school even, with all their might. They've stayed in jobs they hate because they're too scared to get another one. They've stayed with men or women who are good but not great because they don't want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don't do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college."

As the train made its way back into the valley jolting along, something shifted and jerked in my soul too: I am in the Bittersweet place of redefining my own Vocabulary of Faith. I'm learning to live the real. I'm in charge of my life, my reactions, my emotions, my being. A process that begun unwinding in college, but will always continue to expand and unfold. God help me. This is hard; it's the hardest thing I will ever choose, to learn to live my life each day in the reality that God has given me, but I will continue to tell my story, even though there are pieces of it I had nothing to do with. My story is mine to tell and same for you. Niequist closes her book with the statement "tell your story" and then there is a mentoring moment from Norris as well, "Storytelling is the way I've sorted through all this, and tried to make sense of it."

So I will continue to make peace with my story because the alternative of denial, unreality, projection and falsehood could just be what life without God is all about. I will probably pick up more books, but I will try not to get lost in other people's lives as I get a grip on what it is that "what is" means; on where I am now... of finding God in the reality of my life and what has brought me to this place. Only then can I see where I am going.

(And I thank all of my "friends" who help me in this from Shauna Niequist and Kathleen Norris to Madame Guyon and Teresa of Avila -- because you went before, so can I; I am grateful)

Quotes from Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris, Riverhead 1998, page 25 and Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist, Zondervan 2010, page 89 & 241

Picture by Megan Lundgren

A return to the blog: Becoming Women Friends

Kristin Ritzau — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:16:49 -0700

The book is off and running. Interviews have been posted. And finally I have had some time to write. Writing can quickly seem like a last priority as I have spent the last month gearing up for a new year at the university I work at and with hosting a release party at my home this past weekend. But it is a discipline I love, so it was not a matter of if I came back, but when...

At the party I wrote something to share with the crowd that came, but it was namely a gift for the women who have touched my life in the last five years. I decided to share it here so that everyone could partake in a little piece of Saturday night.

Becoming Women Friends

You didn't know me when I had perms or braces or pleated skirts. You didn't have to pick up the pieces of boyfriends gone bad or stay up late studying in the library with me. You didn't have to come to my wedding or participate in the drama of it.

You came into my life after all of that, at a time when I had a tiny grip on who I was becoming. You were my first friends I met as a woman. There will always be a girl-ish-ness inside me -- after all, we are every age we ever were. But there are no memories in yearbooks to haunt us or old sorority sweatshirts that bind us together.

We're women with matching towels. Even if we weren't married there's something about arriving at a place in your life where if you see one more tweed couch, you might scratch yourself to death. We weren't held to things or needed luxury, but we were grown-ups. Grown-ups who understood things like finances, moving towns, and job searches; anger, pain, suppression and perfection. We understood the weariness of trying to establish our careers and looking for passion in life and love. Most of all we were trying to understand ourselves.

So when we met there was an energy, a chemistry of sorts -- not romantic, but idealistic in another sense. There was no competition or condemning, only curiosity and creativity. Words on paper gave us something to talk about, but a desire in our hearts led us to connect on a deeper level, one of authenticity.

Because we weren't bound by junior high crushes or college letter rejections, we were able to meet each other right where we were at. There wasn't a past to be competitive about or much to prove. Sure if we dug, there it would be, but we did something unthinkable -- we put our shovels down.

Instead we started building and it got messy. You brought nails, I brought a hammer and we began to piece together a friendship built on the foundation of vulnerability and honesty. Our journeys had taught us many of life's hard knocks, so all we could do was appreciate the others for taking those hits.

We began to learn from the other and the energy and enthusiasm built. We weren't girls playing dress-up; we were women whose destinies had collided... so we planned. We planned to help each other, stay in touch, and to hit the road. This wasn't an accident that we met as women just at the beginning of planning our own dreams and vision casting.

You, my dears, have become such an important voice in my life, uninhabited by knowing my past firsthand or going to the same college. So we deepen each other because we both value the other's experience and wisdom. We didn't know each other as girls -- wide-eyed and ready to explore the world. We still are those explorers, but wide-eyed because we have seen the world -- the ugly and beautiful and we see the potential in each other to change the world or at least help each other, which is transforming our worlds.

So I thank you, I thank you for being you and being open to this experience - one where we never knew this day would come where I shared my journey, which is your journey, with the world. I thank you for becoming my women friends.

FREE download of chapter one

Kristin Ritzau — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:35:44 -0700

Check out my website to download your own copy of Chapter one from my book A Beautiful Mess: A Perfectionist's Journey Through Self-Care.

Click here to visit abeautifulmess.org