Stepping Out.

Soon before deactivating my Facebook exactly one month ago, a recommendation from a favorite author of mine (Jen Hatmaker) caught my attention. In her usual buoyant and overstated tone, she wrote this:

"Good FB friends, surely SURELY you have read this. It is the most fascinating, instructive, enlightening book I read this year. When science and sociology line up with what the Bible has said all along, I just freaking love it. If you live your life anywhere near another human or two, you should read this book. My entire copy is marked to shreds."

I later ordered the book, immediately digesting it upon it's arrival from Amazon and quickly realized that Jenny H. had not overstated in the least. It may be the one time she has been understated about anything. My highlighters have been drying up and my eyes widening with each nugget of new realization leaping easily from the pages  (and seeing as though I naturally have big brown eyes, the additional widening has made for a startling expression). Most everything she writes is completely customizable to the tenants of my faith in God.  It has been a most eye-opening and freedom-giving blend to learn...and now the hard part will be the undoing of the old and the instilling of the new. 

Real quick, here's one little insight into the book, if you're interested:

Daring Greatly is about vulnerability and it's nemesis, shame. It lays out the problem in raw detail and gives practical solutions.  Among many "ahh-ha!" moments for this reader, there was one concept which immediately laid bare an issue I didn't even know I had. In Chapter Three ("Understanding and Combating Shame"), she writes:

"Shame derives it's power from being unspeakable. That's why it loves perfectionists--it's so easy to keep us quiet. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we've basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to the light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it. 

Just like Roosevelt advised, when we dare greatly we will err and we will come up short again and again. There will be failures and mistakes and criticism. If we want to be able to move through the difficult disappointments, the hurt feelings and the heartbreaks that are inevitable in a fully lived life, we can't equate defeat with being unworthy of love, belonging and joy.  If we do, we'll never show up and try again. Shame hangs out in the parking lot of the arena, waiting for us to come out and feel defeated and determined to never take risks. It laughs and says "I told you this was a mistake. I knew you weren't ______ enough." Shame resilience is the ability to say, "This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devestating. But success and recognition and approval are no the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame."

The fact is, no matter how deep the wounds of our experiences, we all have our own brand of shame which leads us to resisting the vulnerability to live fully. Sometimes, we are able to name it, but more often then not, we need to dig a little.

While reading this, a surprising reality crept into my understanding regarding a resistance to being vulnerable and it involved (on the surface) my love/hate relationship with Facebook. (I know! So sad/pathetic/pitiful). 

I had decided to hang it up for a month or two based on the obvious need to restructure my days in a new season called "most of my children are now in school".  It was clear to me that I needed to establish new habits (and I have!) and "hang up the phone" addiction (it no longer has a place in our bedroom or during family time in the evenings). Both of these resolves have been followed through on...and I have felt healthier for them.

But then, right in the middle of chapter three, it occurred to me that there was yet another unspoken reason for me leaving social media. It's name was shame. It was the sense (not even firm knowledge of!) a cluster of people rolling their eyes at the sharing of my life-in whatever form--and the old voice of insecurity that tells me I'm too much, too loud, too wordy, too communicative silently suggested that indeed, probably everyone agrees that is true and that I should sit down and shut up and be the sweet, demure and quiet woman I was not designed to be (and greatly admire/wish I was). Stepping away from sharing was healthy to a degree...and then past that, it was a form of allowing myself to be silenced at the hand of insecurity and shame. I wouldn't call that healthy.

I do not mean to be dramatic, as it has been a quiet and personal unfolding. Many souls struggle with far deeper grips of shame than I. Even as I type, it feels self-absorbed to be writing this and I am tempted to rest heavy on the backspace key. And yet, I know I am not alone in this. We all wrestle with the sense that we are not enough or too much to be of any use. It is scary to be vulnerable, no matter if you come from a place that desires perfection or a drive to please people. 

This is why, after a month of healthy and life-giving reprieve, I am allowing myself to come back to Facebook... or to allow myself contribute in the new Sunday School class I love...to not always be telling myself to shut up and sit down...to accept that I have a loud laugh and a love for communicating. I am good at so little, but I cannot allow shame to rob me of the good works which GOD has planned out for me--with my personality (big old, obvious warts and all!) to do. 

Where I would go a little deeper than beautiful Brene Brown did in her amazing book, is in how I apply this to my Faith. I would suggest that cowering under shame is a slap in the face of God and His purpose for our individual lives. Saying that "I am not enough" is ultimately deeply selfish, because I AM has made me and desires to have His power coursing through my veins to make me more than enough just as I am. Shame is a gray distraction from the colorful purposes He has in placing us in the world at the very moment we need to be here, using our personality, gifts and quirks unapologetically and to His glory. As I write this, I find it believable...but ultimately, words are simply words and the doing is where it counts.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Coffee Cottage...and if we are "friends" on Facebook, for bearing with me on my little stage within it (please, please feel free to block or unfriend me if you are one of the perceived "eye rollers".  I won't be offended..for long!)