Humor In Chaos
Searching for Joy Series
Someone Else's Shoes
There is one ingredient in finding joy again amid chaos that can also be the hardest to maintain and grow – the non-romantic relationships of friends and family.
Illness, divorce, trauma – these things tend to bring out both the best and the worst in people, especially the people caught in the ripple effect.
The saying is, “You will know who your friends are.” For a while, that was proving to be true. However, over time, I lost friends, gained new friends, and, just as important, regained lost friends.
People are on their own journeys. No one’s path to healing looks exactly like another’s. I needed room to heal and walk my journey in my own way along my own path. Some people wanted to hurry me along. Some people wanted to tell me which way to go. It was my journey. Occasional pushes from others who had specific insight in a particular area sometimes helped, but most of the time slowed me down. I needed to discern for myself what was appropriate for me via prayer, Bible study, and lots of self-reflection.
What makes one’s path different than another’s? Perception.
I recently wrote a blog piece on perception. I compared perception with lenses on a camera, and then explained it a different way using an analogy of shoes. I will copy and paste part of it here:
My son recently got married. I had a heck of a time finding the right pair of shoes for the occasion. I tried on pair after pair keeping in mind these lenses: They had to be dressy enough. They had to match my dress and purse. They had to not squeak down the aisle. They had to be comfortable enough to wear all day and dance in all night. And, they had to show off my lovely pedicure.
I never found the perfect pair. I ended up getting two different pairs of shoes. I got one uncomfortable pair for the ceremony that were opened toed sandals in a neutral color that emphasized my pedicure and my dress; and a second pair of flashy athletic shoes, all sparkly and comfortable, so I could dance all night.
The thing with shoes is that as a person wears them, they adjust and contort to fit the feet of the wearer better - until they wear out and tear. In other words, whether I am thrust into the shoes of another through passing judgment on them or voluntarily put on the shoes of another to gain understanding, the shoes will not fit me right no matter what I do to make them more comfortable for me. They are not my shoes. And, one mile is not equal to one hundred miles.
That does not mean I shouldn't try them on. I should. A little understanding is way better than walking away.
Respecting another person’s perspective is a building block to healthy relationships.
As per the very wise advice of my life coach who helped me walk this journey, I worked to grow my relationships with my children. Deliberately. Intentionally. As lovingly as I could.
That sounds so good, doesn’t it? It was hard. It was hard because they were going through their own torment. They had their own perspectives of how things were in our family and in their own lives as individuals, especially through the bad years.
I was sick for many years. We endured other traumas as a family. And now, their father, whom they love deeply and had a deep respect for, up and left. He would likely point out that he intended to leave me, not them. Anyone who has been through this knows that is not how it works. When one spouse leaves another, that betrayal grows and affects others, especially the children, even when they are grown.
They were angry. They were angry at their father. They were angry at me for both letting him go and for fighting for the marriage. They were angry at every individual all over again who had ever hurt any of us individually, us as a couple, and as a family. And they were angry at God.
It was my responsibility as their Christian mother to suck it up and teach by example, not lecture on how to forgive and on how to love. Gently. Carefully. I failed a lot. I made mistakes. I would say I grew closer to them. Each of them. I don’t know their perspectives on whether we are closer. Nonetheless, I am so grateful to God for my life coach guiding me on how to do that. That time turned out to be an amazing blessing for me!
One of the things that irritated me the most during my struggles with trying to stand for the covenant marriage, while letting go of my husband at the same time, was people trying to tell me how to do it. I went through this with my lupus journey as well.
People are very quick to offer advice. Not all, but most of the time, that advice, while well-intentioned, is a form of control.
How is that control? It’s control when the person giving the advice is giving it because they are experiencing their own perceived level of pain from the actual pain of the person going through the situation. They are being triggered from a previous trauma of their own. Or, they are empathic which also comes from a previous trauma, usually from childhood. They give that advice with the unconscious goal of relieving their own pain, not the pain of the person in the battle. They have an unconscious bias. Unconscious. It’s not deliberate.
Here is an example from my own life. When I first got diagnosed, it was bad. There was a chance I was not going to survive.
As word spread throughout my family and friends, there was fear. My family had just been through a highly traumatic rough patch, had just completed a move half-way across the country to start over away from all that trauma, and now this.
My ex and I were flooded with instant advice. Well-meaning, love-intended, advice. Flooded. The last thing we needed was to be flooded with advice from people without medical degrees. But, we did need support, so we wanted those people in contact with us. That’s a conundrum.
Mediterranean diet, gluten free diet, this medication, that medication, acupuncture, ginger tea, this article, that book, you have lymes disease not lupus, you’re just depressed, etc.
Again, these people meant well. And some of the things did help. Some did not. What made that control? The fact that these suggestions came rapid fire from loving family and friends who had already gone through the previous trauma with us and were experiencing triggers of their own from themselves or other loved ones who had been extremely ill in the past, some of whom had not survived, and they were in pain from both my situation and their triggered memories. They needed me fixed pronto to relieve their own pain from their past experiences.
They failed to understand that no way was I going to be fixed quickly. It was going to take years. And then be followed by another trauma. The destruction of my marriage. Who doesn’t have a trigger about divorce somewhere in their past either their own or a parent or friend? We all do.
What did I need? I needed the expert care to come from my medical care team. From family and friends, I needed prayers, love, patience, and compassion. Thankfully, I got that too.
But, the control did not help. In fact, it hurt. I was not able to directly receive what I needed because the relentless attempts to tell me what to do to heal myself put so much pressure on me that I hurt more, and that caused me to put up walls with the very people I needed in my life. I needed them. My ex needed them. My kids needed them. And instead, I pushed them away. I had to. It was all too overwhelming. We were isolated. Control separates.
What would have been better for me? Just their love and prayers. Patience. Hope. Faith.
Over the years I was ill, I received gifts such as journals, tea, devotionals, meals, and phone calls. Journals allowed me to vent without being “fixed.” Those gifts were helpful. I felt the prayers in action. I am still grateful for those most of all.
What I really needed above all else is something even I have a hard time giving to those around me. Here I am, trying to spell it out for you, reading this, and I am admitting this is a weakness of mine.
I needed full acceptance of who I am, what I am going through, and the decisions I chose to make for myself. I needed unconditional love. From everyone, except my husband. From him, I needed the desire to fight. I needed him to be my coach. Most of the time, he was.
When I wanted specific advice from someone, I asked them directly. And then, I weighed that advice and decided whether to take it. I tried asking advice from people I believed would not take my choices personally if I went a different route.
This is key. The friends I lost the most were the ones who took things personally while I was struggling for survival. They were not trying to put on my shoes. They were trying to force their shoes on me.
I have tried to put on the shoes of others, even of my ex-husband. When I do, I get reminded the shoes don’t fit.
I think the best thing we can do when times get bad is to periodically remove all the shoes, wrap ourselves up in a blanket together, and watch a movie. Just exist together for a while. We can try to put the shoes on again later. At times, we should all just sit together and be barefoot.
My parents, as much as they loved me and tried their best, did not teach about the building blocks of relationships. They were not taught by their parents. And so on. That is a common issue generationally and in our society as a whole.
Where did that start? With the baby boomers? Possibly. Gen X like me was pretty much raised to figure things out for ourselves. The helicopter parenting we did to the generations we raised was our knee-jerk response to that and turned out to be not much better.
Where did the baby boomers get it from? Fears from the Cold War? Lasting effects from the two World Wars? The silent generation? The greatest generation? Does it go all the way back to the earliest man walking the earth? Maybe it started with Adam and Eve working so hard tilling the dirt after they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden that they were not paying enough attention to Cain and Abel’s squabble?
I am being facetious. I don’t know where it started. I do want to explore what I learned about the building blocks of relationships next.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more!
Sarah
Humor In Chaos
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