So many people are out there searching for their passion, trying to find some meaning and purpose in their lives. However, they’re also avoiding any type of pain or suffering at all costs. What they don’t seem to understand is that passion is suffering, and it’s simply not possible to find something if we’re also avoiding it at the same time. For me, there are several things that I enjoy doing. I like going for walks, especially hiking in the woods. I like running, singing, dancing, and playing cards. But writing is my passion. Why? Because I can’t NOT do it. I feel so much pain in my heart for everyone out there who has had to go through any past hurts like I had to endure. People struggle so much. Our specific hardships are often different, but the inner wounds are all the same. They grow and they fester when they’re kept in the dark. So, my sole mission in life is to shine the light of love on people’s broken places, to heal the world with empathy and understanding. I’ve been there, and I felt so alone. And the feeling alone part is what hurt so much. I felt like no one cared, and I felt like nothing mattered. But people do care, and you do matter. So, if you want to find your purpose, your passion, make some time to sit with your pain. Make friends with it. Ask your suffering about its purpose in your life and how it can use you to help others in a similar situation. If we all do our part, we really can change the world.
Author: ChristiePanter
Raise the Bar
If I want to reach my goals, I need to start by raising the BAR. My body is trying to keep me safe. My brain is wired for perceiving danger. My past experience is full of pain. The irony is how painful it is to push through my body’s natural desire to avoid pain. I can barely see the screen for how hard I’m crying. Thank God for the typing class I took in high school, so I don’t need to see the keyboard. I have snot all over my face. My throat is so tight that I can’t speak. It feels like there’s a bowling ball in the middle of my chest, and I could hurl at any moment from the rollercoaster that’s raging through my abdomen. This desensitization stuff sucks, but I press forward anyway because I have a goal. I’m going to write a whole book regardless of how I feel about it. I’m not going to let my body stop me this time. I’m going to raise the BAR: Become aware of what I’m currently doing to avoid what I need to be doing, Assess my thoughts and feelings to determine what is legitimate and what is a lie of my mind, and Redirect my efforts toward what will move me in the direction of my goal despite how my thoughts and feelings rebel against it.
World of Why
Why’d you put this dream in me and not make it reality? I don’t understand it. Instead, I’m lost in misery nursing wounds and injury. Is this how you planned it? In a world of why and a swirl of shame, I try to ease my whirling pain. In the midst of doubt on a sea of fear, is it enough for me to know you’re here?
Why in the world would I turn this way when even the winds and the sea obey? I can’t hear your voice. Instead, at the moment when I feel weak, you seem to be in the stern asleep. How can you not hear the noise? In a world of why and a swirl of shame, I try to ease my whirling pain. In the midst of doubt on a sea of fear, is it enough for me to know you’re here?
Why does this race have no finish line except for the grave for my faith that’s dyin’? I get turned around. Instead of reward all I see is debt, so I cling to the words you’re not finished yet. When will I be found? In a world of why and a swirl of shame, I try to ease my whirling pain. In the midst of doubt on a sea of fear, is it enough for me to know you’re here?
You say you’re here and you care for me. In a world of why I can simply be.
Feeling My Feelings
What is the difference between honoring my feelings and indulging my feelings? I think it comes down to who is in control. I have four children. I do my best to honor them as the special, unique, individual persons that they are. I treat them with respect. I listen to what they have to tell me, even when I don’t understand a word they say because they’re talking about something for which I have zero frame of reference. There’s an unconditional level of acceptance. I don’t try to force them to be who I want them to be. I love them just as they are, even when I don’t particularly approve of their behavior or share their varied interests.
However, I also do my best not to cater to them. I don’t give them whatever they want just because they want it. They do not get to make decisions for things over which I am responsible. My kids are the best part of my life, but they don’t run my life. I don’t bend over backward to placate their desires nor to remove obstacles from their life journey; they need to have the freedom to pursue their own passions and the opportunity to overcome their own challenges.
If I have the ability to take a step a back, to view my feelings as separate from myself instead of as an extension of myself, then maybe it will be easier for me to listen to the messages they need to communicate to me without letting them take over my thinking or dictate my behavior. It’s possible for me to accept my feelings as they are, learn from them, sit with them for a time, and allow them to be expressed through my body. But, I am responsible for choosing how they get expressed. I can’t always choose which feelings arise, but I can choose what to do with them. I guess that’s where the difference lies. Do I defer to my feelings and let them run the show, or do I listen, learn, and respond to my feelings with the same level of compassionate care as I do with those whom I love?
Realization
I had a realization today. I’ve been trying to “fix” my problems at the same level of consciousness that created them. These efforts are futile. I keep spinning myself in circles thinking that if I merely rely on my strengths, I can gradually pull my life into a desirable comfort zone and stay there. I want to stake my claim, pitch a tent, and camp out forever wherever my life can be filled with peace and tranquility. Well, life doesn’t seem to cooperate with my goal.
My lazy butt wants to sit around on my couch all day singing to myself and simply bliss out. I don’t want to feed myself, care for myself, or fend for myself let alone do anything for someone else. Life would be perfect if I could simply bliss out and ignore all the bumpy parts. I thought peace was the answer, the solution for my tendency toward sloth. But no. It isn’t. That line of thinking was wishful thinking.
What I actually need is self-control. I need to discipline myself to do the things I don’t want to do. By “discipline,” I don’t mean punishment. The last thing I need to do is to judge or to criticize myself for what I’m not doing well. The definition to which I’m referring here is the act of training myself to obey the rules of conduct that will get me the results for which I’m longing. If I keep sitting around waiting to feel like doing something, I’m not going to make any progress toward my goals. I need to take constructive action.
How do I get myself to take action when I don’t want to do it? For me, I begin by asking myself whether I really want the result for which the action is necessary. After I ask myself whether I want to cook a nutritious meal for myself, (hint: the answer to this question is always a resounding no!), I then ask myself whether I want to have the energy I need to fuel a productive day. Do I want to have a healthy body? Yes. Do I want to be able to go out and play with my friends? Yes. Do I want to be able to help other people to feel better and to live the best version of their lives? Yes. Okay then. The only way I’m going to accomplish these objectives is to cook a nutritious meal, to feed myself some healthy food, and to clean up after myself as well so that I don’t have a linger mess lying around, weighing me down, and distracting me from the other things I want to get done. If I stay focused on the results toward which I’m striving instead of allowing myself to get bogged down by the amount of work it’s going to take to get myself there, I find that I’m much more willing to do the work, to take the actions I need to do in order to get there.
Do I want to take a shower? No. Do I want to not stink around my friends? Yes. Okay then, into the shower I go.
My Pattern
My pattern in love is continually experiencing abandonment. Other people keep leaving me and not showing up for me. I developed this pattern by internalizing a few critical experiences of abandonment in the past. I have been the source of perpetuating this pattern by not fully appreciating the people who did show up for me at other times in my life. I have also ensured the continuation of this pattern by not expressing what my wants and needs are. I have allowed my fear to keep me silent. If I ask for what I want or need, I might be shamed for having them. I already feel shame for having wants and needs. I should be independent and self-sufficient and not be a burden. I grew up feeling like a burden, not like I was valued. But I so desperately need to feel valued that I will do whatever it takes to prove that I have worth and value, which ultimately backfires and only serves to demonstrate to other people how little value I have for myself. Therefore, I need to learn how to value myself without devaluing others. I need to practice expressing my wants and needs instead of remaining silent and keeping them hidden. I need to begin to believe that other people will show up for me if I give them the opportunity to do so and that not everyone will abandon me, especially if I first refuse to abandon myself.
There is a There
There’s a passage in the Bible with which most people are familiar. The shepherd boy, David, kills the warrior giant, Goliath. The part most people miss is how David encouraged himself through his fear. He was reminded of how he had killed large, wild animals out in the pastures with his sling shot, and he told himself that this giant was no different. When I first reflected on this method, I felt sorry for myself because I didn’t have any past success to draw upon. I felt as though my entire life had been one successive string of failures. My past is full of depression and addiction, learned helplessness and avoidance. I didn’t know how I could use that shitshow as fertilizer for a fulfilling life now. I might not have evidence of success, but I do have proof of survival. I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I have a deep sense of empathy and compassion. I hate these prosperity teachers who were born into privilege who’ve never been in the trenches, who don’t know what it’s like to low-crawl through the bloody battlefield of life; they just want to tell everyone else what to do, and they don’t understand what it’s like to have nothing, to be nothing, to be less than nothing. I do. I get it. I know, because I’ve been there, and I’ve come through to the other side. And yes, there is an other side. There were times when I wasn’t so sure. I used to think there was no “there” to get to, but I’m there now. It just doesn’t look like I was expecting it to. It’s not a place where everything is easy or grand. It’s a place of acceptance, of seeing the gems my past had to offer me, taking the trials, the tribulations, and, yes, even the traumas, and turning them around to see where grace, the goodness of other people, and the grit of sheer determination pulled me through. The journey of acceptance opened my heart to giving and receiving love again.
Seven Cs
I’ve spent most of my life lost in daydreams and mental fantasies pretending to be loved because I believed that it wasn’t possible for me to be loved in reality. My whole life, I tried to prove that I was worthy of love because deep inside I believed that I’m fundamentally not good enough for it. I’m too sick, too weak, too poor, too boring, and too broken to be loved. I got caught up in promiscuity, providing sexual contact to whoever wanted it from me so I could get my needs met in exchange: to be held, touched, and accepted no matter how briefly. I needed someone else to make me feel as though maybe I wasn’t a walking disease to be avoided at all costs. My strategy didn’t work. It backfired. It left me feeling worse, not better, and it became an addictive cycle of craving a fix of any kind to numb the pain.
What was the solution? I call it the 7 C’s: Courage, Compassion, Character, Curiosity, Creativity, Calling, and Community. I’m going to break down what worked for me. As we say in recovery, “Take what you like and leave the rest.” I highly encourage you to try everything, especially the things you feel the most resistance toward. The places where we push back the most are the things that draw us the furthest from our comfort zones. If something is currently too much, you can circle back around to it later. Recovery is incremental. We take steps, sometimes baby steps, sometimes backward steps, but we do make progress. We can rewrite the scripts of our lives. We can overcome the pain of the past. We can come to a place where we feel worthy of love and belonging, and we can experience them for real.
Integration
I don’t want to integrate 8-year-old Christie or 18-year-old Christie, 22-year-old Christie or 32-year-old Christie because I don’t want to go back to re-experience her pain. I want to leave the past behind me, to cut it off and move forward as Cee Marie, as a whole new person who wasn’t left behind or betrayed. I want to set my past ablaze in a heaping bonfire and simply walk away, but I can’t escape it no matter how hard I try. Every prior version of me still resides within me, still lingers in the cells of my being. Just like the rings in the trunk of a tree, my past selves form the core of who I am. They serve as proof of the dry seasons when my soul received little nurturance, and they bear witness to the storms my spirit has endured. Now, I need to be strong enough to go back and revisit them, to wrap my arms around my younger self, kiss her head, and run my fingers through her hair, even if it requires me to acknowledge her pain. I have to be willing to love her through the times when no one else was there for her. It’s the only way to bring healing into my present reality. It’s my responsibility to love her and to tell her that everything will be okay because I’m the only one who can. And, it’s really all she’s ever wanted.
No Faking
The 12-Step recovery movement has coined many useful phrases and aphorisms. However, there is one familiar slogan I would like to abolish: fake it till you make it. Those of us who have struggled through the throws of addiction know firsthand the harmful consequences of our dishonesty. The intention behind the phrase might be innocent enough; the wording isn’t. The word fake literally means not genuine, a forgery, sham, or a counterfeit. Personally, there is not a single part of my life that I want to allow to continue as a disingenuous projection. Authenticity, vulnerability, and radical honesty are my central aim.
So, instead of “fake it till you make it,” I recommend utilizing the phrase “act as if.” The word act means to do something, behave in a specific way, a deed, or to have a particular effect. As a recovering addict, it’s important for me to take responsibility for my behaviors and to pay attention to the effects that my behaviors are having on those around me. My brain wants to react to perceived threats automatically, without wasting any precious time for escape on things such as evaluating the situation or considering the feelings of others. In order to override my autonomic nervous system, I need to teach my body to slow down, to practice safety inducing exercises, and to remind myself that I do have the ability to choose how to behave. I am able to act as if I am safe. I can act as if I am loved. I do act as if I am responsible for my behaviors because these things are all true. I am safe. I am loved. I am responsible, even when I don’t particularly feel like it.
Worthy of Love and Belonging 