10/30/2024 0 Comments You are not aloneBefore a training yesterday morning, I took a hike with my friend and workmate Marrin. It was one of the most spectacular visual experiences I've had in a long time, and in turn, one of the most spiritual.
I recently heard Steven Furtick say, "there are some things in your life you need to stop stressing about at a level that assumes you're going to have to do it alone." My eyes heard the echo of Furtick's words in this scene yesterday. My eyes heard God say, "you are not alone." There is a scientific phenomenon known as 'restorative environments.' Essentially what this phenomenon tells us is what we allow our eyes to see can directly influence our mental state, and even our capacity for hope and connectedness. This seems to be especially true of our natural environments. Additional scientific research tells us that filtering positive imagery through our eyes enhances our mental resilience. Intentionally choosing what we focus on, it turns out, can shape our mental health and outlook on life. We also read a lot about this in the bible. In the book of Matthew we read, "the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light." And in the Psalms we read, "I lift up my eyes to the mountains - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." Is it possible life can get to feeling like I'm going at it alone because my eyes are pointed at environments, people, places and things, that are telling me stories of destruction and not restoration? Is it possible life can get to feeling like I'm going at it alone because loneliness can leave my eyes prone to drooping to the ground and not pointing at the beauty of the natural world around me? Is it possible life can get to feeling like I'm going at it alone because I long to see a more hopeful future but I'm filling my eyes with images of a hopeless past? If you're feeling like you're going at it alone today, I would encourage you, consider what you're allowing your eyes to see. And hear. I often say I go into the woods to hear God. People will sometimes look at me a bit skeptical when I say that. They have their doubts, and that's okay. Because when I once again look at this breathtaking image from yesterday, I am left with no doubt what my eyes have heard. Like a beautiful hug they have heard and felt the words I so constantly long to hear. They have heard indeed, you are not alone.
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I have heard this declaration a lot lately: "I will never settle."
It's built on the idea that an individual has worth and desires and to settle for anything less than something that matches that worth and desire is to be cheating oneself of life. I get it. But here's the problem. Or maybe the big question? How does one actually know when they have found this match in life that is the answer to 'not settling?' I certainly hear this philosophy a lot when it comes to romantic relationships, this idea of not settling. But I also hear it in job searches and house searches. I hear it when it comes to one settling on pursuing meaningful activities or hobbies or projects in life. I hear it a lot, this idea that I will not invest my time, energy, and commitment to 'this' if I'm not completely sure this is the right 'this'. When I hear people talk about 'not settling', it's usually as they are finding things in whatever they are tempted to settle for that just aren't quite right. Which really comes from some sort of belief that somewhere out there is something that will be a little more exactly right. But does that exist? A partner or house or pursuit that is exactly right? Does one ever get to a point where what they have doesn't leave them with some level of wondering if there is something a little more exactly right out there? I do think it's possible. I believe one can, actually, get to that point. But don't they get there by settling? Robert Goodin says, "You must settle, in a relatively enduring way, upon something that will be the object of your striving, in order for that striving to count as striving." Gooding suggests that living life to its fullest actually requires settling. He suggests that we can refuse to make a situation our ideal situation by continually pursuing a different sort of less-than-ideal situation. I spend two hours every morning reading and writing. For a long time that was very difficult to do. Not because of the time but because of all the other things I always knew I could be doing with that time. I used to run and workout a lot in the mornings. I used to use that quiet time to get a head start on that day's work. Sometimes I'd use that time to sneak in a little extra sleep. So, for the longest time, writing in the mornings was less than ideal because I always wondered if I could be doing something with that time a little more ideal. For the longest time, committing so much to writing felt like I was being cheated out of other areas in life. Well, here's the reality. We are going to live our lives cheated by other areas of life as long as we think about the areas of life we might be missing out on. We will always suffer from a fear of missing out (FOMO) until we discover what Oliver Burkeman calls, the joy of missing out (JOMO). The joy of missing out comes when we settle for something in life and pour our all into it. The joy comes from knowing I am choosing to miss out on everything else because 'this' thing is so worth my time investing in. It's the knowing that I am refusing other choices that makes this choice more meaningful. Joy comes when we stop refusing to settle and make the choice to do just that. Settle. We live in a world with more options than ever. And we can begin to live in a fantasy world, a dream world of sorts, that every option is an option for me. Well, that is simply not true. And we can get to a point in life when we realize we've waited our whole lives for the dream situation instead of settling for the situation that could have best made our dreams come alive. We can spend our whole lives looking for the ideal situation when the ideal situation was there for the choosing all along. I believe there is merit in refusing to settle. But in the end, a content and meaningful life comes when we do exactly that. We settle. I recently heard musical artist Jelly Roll talk about an experience in his dying dad's hospital room. A nurse came in and gave his dad a pill, and instead of swallowing the pill, like most would do, Jelly Roll's dad chewed it up and then swallowed.
Jelly Roll, caught a little off guard, asked him, "that doesn't bother you?" His dad responded, "sometimes when a pill is too hard to swallow you just gotta chew it up." It's interesting. I spent yesterday participating in a community gathering aimed at helping people gain a better understanding of addiction. And if I'm being honest, I can sometimes, often actually, leave these events far more hopeless than hopeful. I leave that way because you leave understanding the rate and destructiveness with which addiction is overwhelming so many communities. You leave know that this destruction is spreading faster than awareness - the awareness these events aim to spread. That hopelessness comes, I think, because I feel the overwhelming pain of a community and my heart longs for an overwhelming cure. An overwhelming healing. I want for a pill a community can swallow and make it all go away. But that is not usually how healing comes about. Healing comes from staying committed to chewing, taking one bite at a time, it comes from staying the course when the pill - the healing - looks too hard to swallow. I think about all of my friends in southwest Virginia and western North Carolina trying to recover from the floods from hurricane Helene. And to them the recovery has to look like a pill too hard to swallow. How can repair ever be made of this? And the answer is, sadly, not in one swallow. It will come from chewing. One bite at a time. I have been there in my years of divorce recovery. Oh how I have looked for a pill to swallow and make it all better, to make life feel like healed instead of what too many days feels like a constant state of anxiously looking for it. But that is usually not how healing comes about. Healing comes from staying committed to chewing, taking one bite at a time, it comes from staying the course when the pill - the healing - looks too hard to swallow. I was reminded yesterday that healing is also always found in people showing up. People showing up at community events. And more importantly, people showing up in the lives of those looking for a pill to swallow. People who show up and remind the hurting that there is no pill to swallow for this one, but there is one to chew. And I am here to help you do the chewing. A lot of people around us are struggling. They couldn't find a pill to swallow and they long ago gave up on chewing one. So we show up and take a couple of bites with them. Maybe even for them. Because in the end that's how healing happens. Chewing. Chewing, one bite at a time. The boys and I went to see the movie 'Wild Robot' yesterday. I walked away feeling like we all need to be a little more like the main character in the movie, Roz the robot. And yet, at the same time, I think we all need to be a lot less like her.
The story is about a robot that gets stranded in the wilderness with a collection of wildlife. Because Roz is a robot, and she isn't programmed to survive in the wilderness, she initially struggles there. Through some re-programming, though, Roz adapts to her new surroundings. It's through this adaption that she is able to help the wildlife in her new community understand that like robots, they too are programmed in ways that don't serve them well. We humans, like animals, are wired for survival. Our instincts keep us always on the lookout for threats in our lives, even if we aren't always aware of that. We inherit our instincts from genetics and from our upbringing and from experiences across our lifespan. The problem comes, especially with us humans, when we we start to see threats where threats don't really exist. Sometimes that's because our instincts get wired to anticipate the dangers of our past, or of our ancestors' pasts, and we live in a constant state of suspicion or mistrust or even animosity toward others. For the past week, I've watched recovery efforts from hurricane Helene all over the country. I've seen people come together from all walks of life to help others survive a once in a thousand years storm. At a time when it too often feels like our programming pits us against one another, neighbors and fellow country women and men are becoming more than their instincts often point them to being. Their instincts overridden by empathy. Compassion. In the movie, Roz, a robot that was programmed not to feel, reprograms herself to feel what the animals around her are feeling. And in doing so, in a moment of crisis, she helps those animals understand that sometimes it's not our instincts that help us survive, but our ability to feel beyond our instincts into the hearts and struggles of those around us. Oh, somedays I love that we have the instincts of a robot. They are instincts that can protect us from dangers. But then there are days, many of them, when I loathe that we humans are far more robotic than we care to imagine or admit. Robotic beyond a capacity to feel the pain and suffering of those around us. Robotic beyond a capacity to set aside judgment and biases and prejudices in favor of kindness. And in favor of love. We are all born to love. We truly are. But sadly, life comes along and programs us, like robots, with instincts that teach us how to survive in spite of love. Only, that is a lie we are taught and too often accept. Surviving in spite of love is impossible. I've seen it over and over in scenes of raging floodwaters and debris this past week. There is no life preserver like kindness and love. I think we all need to be a little less like Roz, a little less robotic. And yet, at the same time, I think we need to embrace the beauty of Roz, this capacity we all have to override our instincts in favor of kindness and love. Because in the end, no matter what our programming says, our survival depends on it. Mel Robbins has a high five rule. Every morning, the first thing she does is give herself a high five in the mirror. She literally leans over and slaps her hand against the hand waiting for her inside the mirror.
She stumbled upon this strategy. One morning she was having the worst start to a day possible. She was standing in front of the mirror, looking at herself, beating herself up in her mind (a mirror experience many of us might be familiar with). She didn't think she could feel any lower. Then, without thinking, she gave herself a high five and said, "you've got this." She went on with her day, a day that went much better than she originally thought it was going to go. So the next morning - what the heck - she gave herself another high five. And again, it helped her start the day with a more positive mindset. She's done it every day since. In her book, The High Five Habit, she talks about how this habit is much more than a quirky way to start the day. As a runner, I get where she is coming from. When I'm in a race, there is nothing more uplifting than having another runner give me a high five and say "you've got this." I find it equally powerful to be the one GIVING a high five. It turns out there is a lot of research into the impact a high five has on the brain. All of it suggests that giving each other this particular kind of encouragement is a really good thing. Most of the value is linked to the idea of a SHARED and CONNECTED encouragement experience. So Robbins asks, if there is this much power in sharing a high five with one another, why wouldn't there be power in sharing it with myself? Why, Robbins asks, would I be so eager to encourage others, yet so willing to start my day looking in a mirror and beating myself up? I'm not here to suggest we all start giving ourselves high fives in the mirror in the morning. Although Robbins suggests it's a good idea and I might be a believer. But I am suggesting this. We will show up and fight for the people we want to give high fives to. So when we look in the mirror, and we don't believe WE are the kind of person we want to high five, how much are we fighting for ourselves? So today, I am starting my day high fiving me. For no other reason than I am worth the same kind of encouragement I long to give everyone else. For no other reason than I believe in me as much as I believe in you. Make yesterday the last day of your life that you believed you're the kind of person who is good at giving encouragement but not worthy of receiving it. Recognize your own worth today before you go into the world recognizing it in others. Give yourself a high five. And when you do, know I'm giving you one too!! (re-written from October 4, 2021) Life is a journey of opposites.
Joy and sorrow. Strength and vulnerability. Success and failure. Light and dark. Courage and fear. Peace and chaos. Giving and receiving. You get the picture. We always seem to be swinging from one end of an opposite to the other. And if we're not careful, life can become all about getting to one end while doing everything we can to prevent falling into the other end. It can become about finding joy while doing everything we can to deny sorry. Some time ago, a friend reminded me when I was complaining about a 'dark' day that I would never appreciate and make the most out of my 'light' days if I never experienced the dark. The lessons come, she reminded me, not in settling into one end of the scale, but in being open to learning what we can learn swinging from one end to the other. Maybe the ultimate lesson learned is that life is not about settling in but about trusting that the lessons are leading me to a balance. To a place where I treasure the dark because I know it will make the light all the more light, and when I'm in that light I don't live afraid of the dark because I know that's where light is ultimately revealed. I told a buddy it's been a long week of traveling and teaching and so I'm ready for a weekend of rest. I would never want to live my life fully on the road teaching, and I'd never want to live my life fully lounging on the couch. Swinging from one end of that scale to the other has taught me it's the way they balance each other out that I need to treasure. Life may feel extreme today. Maybe completely opposite from where you were last week or last month. And it may be hard to trust that balance is coming. But it almost always does. So learn what you can where you are while you can learn it. It will ultimately point to balance as the best place of all to settle. As the story goes, Kobe Bryant was a rookie for the Los Angeles Lakers. It was a playoff game. A close one. Kobe had three shots at the end of the game to win it for his team.
Kobe Bryant missed all three. Post-game, the commentators observed and talked about Bryant sitting on the bench, his head buried in his hands, surely distraught, they supposed. When Kobe finally rose from the bench, one of the commentators caught up with him for a brief interview. Watching you on the bench, the interviewer said, it's clear you feel awful. Kobe didn't miss a beat and said, what do feelings have to do with it? I was replaying all of those shots in my head to figure out what I did wrong. And now I know. I won't miss those shots the next time, he said. I've come to know that events that are setbacks in our lives are not the actual setbacks. It's the emotions that come with them. And what we choose to do with them. That's what often sets us back. Kobe's emotions could have turned to feelings of disappointment. Of regret. Of questioning his abilities. And those feelings could have lingered a long time and turned a few missed shots into longer term destruction. If it sounds like I know all about that, I do. I have had some setbacks in my life. But what held me back, what held me back for months and in many cases decades, wasn't what happened in those setbacks. It was the emotions that I let turn into feelings that turned into quiet hostage-takers of my life. One day's event can linger as decades of bitterness. As decades of shame and guilt. As decades of self-hatred. It is so hard to find the joy in a new day when you carry feelings into that day that are intent on reminding you of the turmoil of some previous day. Kobe clearly understood that. When he sat on that bench processing his setback, he was essentially leaving all of the emotions and feelings associated with it sitting on the bench he got up from. So, when the interviewer asked him how the event made him feel, there were no feelings to talk about. They were back on the bench. I am better at that these days. I'm not perfect, but much better. And it's been a great thing to get better at, because no matter how hard I try, I'm not avoiding setbacks in this life. But what I can avoid is letting those setbacks turn to forever hold me backs. I encourage you to think about that when you face your next inevitable setback. We all need a moment or a period of time to put our heads in our hands. To process what just happened. To feel all the emotions and feelings. Take that time. But when you get up, when you move on, leave all of that on the bench. Life is hard enough moving on to the next play sometimes. Don't try dragging the bench of your past with you. I told a group the other day that when I am sitting in traffic on I-95, in traffic that feels like it will never end, I tell myself how lucky I am to have extra time to listen to that latest podcast episode. To listen to that song I might not get a chance to listen to otherwise. To listen to a sermon I missed on Sunday but felt too pressed for time to listen to after the fact.
It's the only way I've discovered to make the stress of traffic go away. Please note, my method doesn't require what was stressing me to go away. It requires me to look in a different way at what was stressing me. When it gets down to it, our minds are the source of much of our stress and hardship. Our minds want to tell us a stressful story about our circumstances when there really are less stressful stories available to tell about them. Our minds can tell us the only way out of this stressor is for the stressor to pass. But we can tell our minds, I'm going to make something meaningful of this stressor that will make me grateful I experienced it once the stressor is gone. Many of us have people in our lives who are occasionally difficult to deal with. I know I have them. Lately, instead of seeing these people as sources of stress, I look at them as opportunities to practice patience, empathy, and loving communication in communications that don't feel so lovable. Maybe that does little to make that particular relationship a happy one, but it can serve to make me happier in other relationships in my life. Too often our minds want to put a frame around the situations in our life and tell us, here is your picture. It's useful to know we can hand that picture back to our minds and say, thank you, but I think I'm going to frame this a different way. It's Monday. Life may hand you a picture this week you're not totally up for. Accept the picture. Just put it in a different frame before you hang it on the wall. Several years ago, I unexpectedly found myself needing to move. And the most challenging prospect of that wasn't thinking about the laborious task ahead of the move itself, it was realizing I had no idea who to turn to for help with that task.
As I reflect back on that time, part of that was because in my mind I didn't have a lot of "I'll help you move" friends. The other part of that was, and likely the most significant part, I wasn't good at asking anyone for help with anything. I ultimately turned to my friend Solomon; without hesitation he said I'll be there. Even more, when we couldn't get it all moved on moving day, he showed back up a couple of days later to help me move a couch that arrived after the move. Solomon has become a great and treasured friend since that moving day. I know it has a lot to do with him showing up, but it has a lot more to do with me being willing to ask him to show up in the first place. We have a mental health crisis in our country. For men, who are not immune to this crisis, a lot of it stems from their inability to ask for help. When it comes to help-seeking behaviors, studies show that men are significantly less likely to ask for help with their daily tasks, whether it's related to health, career advice, or even asking for assistance at Home Depot. Asking for help often requires vulnerability and men don't often feel comfortable displaying that. Sadly, this carries over to men when they need emotional support. If they can't ask for help moving, they surely aren't going to ask for help with their depression. As a result, there are a lot of lonely men, isolated, wrestling with emotions they have no idea what to do with, which is unhealthy and often lethal. I didn't know that day when Solomon showed up to help me move that I'd come to depend on him to keep showing up. Showing up to help me wrestle with challenges in my life way deeper than moving. Our traditional Olive Garden chats may look like just that - chats. I assure you they have much more significance than a chat. The beauty of those chats isn't that we show up there for one another, it's that neither of us is afraid to ask the other to do the showing up. It's important to show up for one another in life, but that often starts with a willingness to ask someone to show up for you. It's been my experience that a lot more people than we can imagine want to show up, they just sometimes need an invitation to do so. Don't rob people of the chance to be the good in your life they really long to be more than you can know. Ask someone to show up for you. Chances are they will. And chances are, that will be more life-giving than you ever could have imagined. I try to be a perfect father.
A perfect writer and teacher and speaker. I try to be a perfect follower of Jesus. Trying to be perfect used to work against me because perfection used to be the end goal of my trying to be perfect. And when you're trying to be perfect, something that is quite unobtainable, you'll always feel dissatisfied with your efforts if your end goal is actually being perfect. As I write this article, I have some idea of what a perfect article would look and feel like to me. When I'm done writing it, it will not be perfect. The difference between today writer me and years ago writer me is in spite of me knowing it's not perfect, I will be satisfied enough with my work that I will share it anyways. Perfection is no longer the test of whether I should keep writing or not. Quite the opposite. Recognizing my imperfection is my motivation to keep doing it. The key to having perfection as your friend is seeing perfection as a target and not a mandate. The key to having perfection as a friend is seeing it as an impossibility that helps grow your possibilities along the way. The key to having perfection as a friend is seeing it as a call you'll never fully be able to answer, but one always worth listening to what the caller has to say. We all have a relationship with perfection. For some of us it's friendly and for some not so much. If your relationship with perfection is unfriendly, I encourage you to change the way you look at it. I used to see perfection as a judge of my worth, now I see it more as a friend trying to grow it. I think perfection is probably a beautiful place. I just no longer have to get there and see it to believe it. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
November 2024
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