Recovering Simplicity: The Art of Enough

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

-Leonardo Da Vinci

The holidays are upon us.  Between the unseasonably warm weather and the loud, distracting force of our recent election, I haven’t thought much of it yet.  Sure, Kroger and Home Depot immediately threw up Christmas decorations the Tuesday after Halloween and quicker than you can say, “turkey and dressing” and honestly, I’ve come to accept that over the years. What’s tricky is when I still work up a sweat mid-November while rummaging around the car to find my favorite lip balm that went missing somewhere back in September. My body and brain register pure confusion in this suspended time frame hovering right between summer and fall.  I call it “fummer”… (“sall” works, too).

Great Expectations

For many, myself included, the holidays can be a real bear.  I notice a heavier client load in my practice seeking out extra support and space to prepare for extended (often distressing) family time, along with the unrealistic and unwarranted expectations we put on ourselves.  There are also those who battle intense and palpable loneliness as family time and connection in general isn’t even an option.

Shift

I tend to have this extra special need to seek out more grounding than usual and constantly remind myself of what is truly important during this buzzy, disjointed time. That or else I find myself glued to emotional porn of the season’s finest Rom Coms (The Holiday, Love Actually, what have you), with one too many glasses of wine and a shiny headache the next morning to prove it.   Over the years, a welcomed shift from numb consumerism to creativity, simply making things, has happened.  As a result, I’ve noticed the hazy fog of some of my own deep loneliness has lifted.

Reject Scarcity

In last week’s blog post, we talked about the slippery slope of scarcity mindset.  You know the one: it whispers insidiously sexy sweet ( literal) nothings to us in the name of certainty and staying stuck precisely in the seat of disconnection we’ve gotten cozy in.  I call it “rear view mirror“ living— we have one eye on the road ahead and one eye glued to the dusty view of our past.  Besides developing some bizarre version of strabismus (the medical term for crossed eyes—thank’s Google), we are at best a divided passenger in our own life while some ridiculous imposter drives us around all day in the driver seat.

I can’t insist enough: we must ruthlessly interrogate those dangerous, infiltrating voices of scarcity like we’re Jack Bauer thwarting a terrorist attack in season three of 24.  Not your style?  Ok, well then at least firmly defend yourself! Identity is on the line here and the holidays can be a war zone.

Willy Wonka

One of my life long scarcity dialogs has been: “you are unworthy of the creative journey and will never be taken seriously as a writer and creative.”  For some reason, I grew up thinking you had to be handed a golden permission slip by Willy Wonka himself in order to pass go and gain entrance into the umpa lumpa inhabited twizzler- bursting land of creativity.  I had no such permission slip.  As a result, I skated through most of my early life avoiding that magical existence all together while settling for life as a control freak/consumer.

Bliss and Calling

I tried to control everything and everyone around me, ignoring all the resources and possibilities bubbling up under the surface while lushly consuming and cheering on the harvests of other’s efforts whether they be  music, ideas, achievements, fun, art, stuff, travel, you name it. I was living on the sidelines, cheering on the players in the game.  Eventually, I woke up one scared, vacant little puppy seriously underestimating all that patiently subsided  somewhere deep inside. The diamond of truth I came to treasure through all of this is that there is a vast difference between our calling and our bliss.  My consumeristic bliss wasn’t satisfying my heart’s longings and the resistance of my calling felt too big and scary to embrace.

Making things

I’m a bonafide late bloomer.   For years this felt extremely self conscious; now I think its pretty cool.  I got real tired of dishonesty: the pursuit of people pleasing and placing so much weight on everyone else’s vision for my life. Finally I started digging deeper into those dormant soul-longings I mentioned earlier and it’s been healing and scary as hell to say the least.  Writing is hands down the most powerful and healing agent for change along my search for worthiness and presence.  This first took shape in the form of songwriting and has morphed into a different versions throughout the last decade.  The physical act of writing, making something out of nothing, proves powerfully life-giving as it bumps me out of my constant state of analysis and consumption and into a new role of creator.  

You’re creative

We are made to make things, all of us.  I hear it time and time again and it gets my goat every time, this notion that , “Oh I’m not a creative person…I didn’t get that gene.”  Hog wash.  We are all creatives.  Want proof?  Of course you do.  I am re-reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest, Big Magic(game changer).  She speaks to this point, drawing a hard line in the sand:

“Look at your ancestors.  Look at the ones who were immigrants, or slaves, or soldiers, or farmers, or sailors, or the original people who watched the ships arrive with the strangers onboard.  Go back far enough and you will find people who were not consumers, people who were not sitting around passively waiting for stuff to happen to them.  You will find people who spent their lives making things.  This is where you come from.” 

Big Deal

She goes on to say that for most of history, people inherently just made stuff, yet the difference was they didn’t make such a big deal of it…it’s just what they did.  We put impossible expectations and parameters around our creativity.  We think it has to look a certain way, all wrapped up with a bow, or a record deal, or a website or, God forbid, a job title.

Timing

There is a distinct reason I bring this up on the heels of the “most wonderful time of the year”.   I heartily subscribe to this idea that healing power flows when we let go of the things we don’t have control over (i.e. how Aunt Lois will react to the new sleeve of tattoos you’re rocking these days) and focusing energy on that which we do have control over (i.e. the story we make up in our heads about her passive aggressive comments all week).

Revolt

This season, I’d like to start a bit of a Holiday Stress Revolt by proactively choosing something different— and talking about it along the way.  It’s an art form that lends this soft, insanely gorgeous glow to our uniqueness rather than literally, buying into rat race around us.  Here it is: we must create and cultivate simplicity, a quiet safe place where we dial down the expectations, stop comparing ourselves to others, remember what’s important, give voice to our desires, and create the moments we will cherish without harsh judgement.  It’s beckoning the wisdom, creativity, and resourcefulness of our ancestors who were makers, NOT passive consumers.   It’s tapping deeper into calling as opposed to gorging on the pumpkin pie of our bliss, and in doing so, unlocking a lion share of peace and contentment…even stillness.

Reminders

Throughout the next several weeks, I am going to be amping up this conversation a bit both on the blog and social media fronts.  If there is one thing I need in this life, it’s constant reminders of truth, especially during stressful seasons.  Reminders that I am worthy of love and connection and that I’m not alone.  If you’re like me, I invite you to come along on this month-or-so long journey.  I would really enjoy your company and I think it’ll be good fun.  We have some incredible guest bloggers lined up as well.  I can’t wait to share them with you.

Finish Strong

As we near the home stretch of 2016, I am inspired to refocus in on those beautiful, life-giving desires that burned brightly in my heart back in January.  I want to honor them, listening closely to the litter of ideas they birthed along the way.  Let’s finish strong my friends; we are all in this thing together.

Love,

katie

xoxo

Finding Family: The Broken Road Home

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you. 

-Frederick Buechner

I’m not sure if it’s the fall weather encroaching or the fact that I’m becoming more nostalgic with age, but something has been at the forefront of my heart and mind as of late and I can’t seem to shake it.  I don’t want to shake it.  It’s beautiful, complex, frustrating, exhilarating, heartbreaking, fun, weird, grounding, dangerous, and safe all at once.

 Everyone has it on some level and have been seriously impacted by it, undoubtedly.  I believe we must somehow, either literally or figuratively, leave it at some point in order to honestly choose to love and enjoy it in the end.  This thing is called family.

Longing for Camelot

What comes up for you with the mention of family?  Is it sadness?  Regret? Longing? Love? For me, this slow and heavy wave of gratitude washes over. It wasn’t always like this as my journey of self-exploration and wholeness have taken me through some dark stretches of distance from my family.  Of course there were disappointments due to impossible expectations, yet what I am learning is that many of those expectations are really for myself, not my family.  Camelot was always an illusive grasp away.  This post is a personal one; one I hope you don’t mind me sharing.  It is one of stark honesty and yearning.  This post is for anyone who longs for family- for home; anyone who may sit in a place of loss and loneliness.

This past weekend my husband and I had a marriage celebration for close family and friends in our hometown of Nashville.  We both come from large families and were unable to invite everyone to our teeny tiny wedding ceremony in California.  For this reason, we decided to have a small reception back home for those who couldn’t make the trip.  I saw relatives I hadn’t seen in years and met several new ones I had just gained.  It was truly special.

Late Bloomer

I waited until age 36 to get married.  Though this wasn’tnecessarily on purpose, it was absolutely perfect timing. God knew that all along.  I say this because I have never quite experienced anything like a wedding or shower where I felt the love of lifetime relationships joined together and funneled in my direction until the past several months.  It is humbling, beautiful, and a bit awkward as I always just feel I make things a little bit awkward with my pointed strangeness in the center of an outpouring of goodwill.  Receiving just for the sake of receiving doesn’t come naturally, I like to earn it.

The power of choice

I realize I am blessed.  I realize something deep and glaring and worth its weight in gold: Relationships are the most important thing and should be intentionally nurtured over time.  Sometimes this comes in the form of a family of origin; often times this comes in a family of choice, one we build.

I love how Elizabeth Gilbert puts it: “We must take care of our families wherever we find them.”  The truth is, for many of us, the word family brings up immeasurable pain and anxiety as safety and protection were needs that went missing in our family of origin.  In therapy, we spend a great deal of time unpacking that pain and trauma in order to rewire a narrative of value, love, acceptance, and possibility.  Needs such as provision, encouragement, affection, play, and structure were denied and as a result, had to be met elsewhere.  Survival became twisted resulting in unhealthy relationships, denial of our needs altogether, parenting aloof parents, acting out behavior, and on and on.

Bloodlines

I have been watching, no bingeing on the Netflix series, Bloodlines, recently.  Wow… Talk about some serious family dysfunction.  They (the Rayburn’s) make The Sopranos look like a squeaky non-animated version of the Flintstones.  It seems there is a dominant thread touching every piece of brokenness: dishonesty.  As a result, everyone is operating out of their own best version of who they are and what might be happening.

More of my story

In Falling Upward, Richard Rohr aptly concludes, “When you get your, ‘Who am I?’, question right, all of your,’What should I do?’ questions tend to take care of themselves”.  The first half of life is often spent grappling with identity, or at least mine was.  Hell, some days I feel the ballot is still out.  Our first mirror of identity dwells in the home and is largely held up by our families.  This is the natural flow of life and development, however not always accurate and/or affirming for many.  I have wonderfully loving, encouraging parents who instilled their values and beliefs into us five kids.  This infrastructure is necessary for ultimately receiving, learning,  doubting, questioning, and forming a collective of tested individual convictions from which we grow and live.

The Rub

This was somewhat of a brutal process for me as I had to lay down that inherited set of values from my parents in order to refine and embody a set that brought peace and congruence into my daily experience.  Anxiety, depression, and bouts of seemingly unending insomnia peppered that process.  As of late, I am seeing more parallels with that of my family, however, in the underbelly of that journey of self-discovery, perspective is dim.  This really sucks sometimes.  Mostly because it is a scary thing to leave familiar tight places in order to risk finding something more spacious and free…something that fits and sounds like the truth of our voice and calling.  After all, love looks an awful lot like letting go, so I am learning.  Control in relationships is always fear-based.  

The Human Condition

I can remember like it was yesterday sitting in my spiritual director, Gail’s office.  She had this big old winged-back chair with robin’s egg blue patterned fabric and a worn-in seat.  Her office felt like a dreamy English cottage or something; full of love, tears, books, a host of mismatched story-ridden antiques, and the occasional whip of tired laughter.  During stretches in my twenties I would sit with her and shed stories of disappointment and loneliness as if she had an “all better” pill to give me in the end.  Well, she didn’tand I miraculously was still okay.  I remember her gentle response to my wounded, longing soul, “You know Katie, loneliness is really the human condition and stillness is not the worst teacher.” I know, I know, I would reply with a deflated sigh.

Surrender

Coming to embrace this as truth has been a peaceful rendering for me.  Because we are relational beings who long for and are made for connection, we all ebb and flow on that spectrum of connection, energetically.  It is impossible to stay in a static place of fullness at all times. We are not machines.  I know this when I ask my friends how they are doing that appear bulletproof and fabulous on Instagram only to find out in conversation that they are really struggling with a deep sense of disconnection and sadness.    The rat race of keeping social media appearances may be a glossy and temporarily successful campaign, however it does not satiate the desires that well up beneath the surface after all those hearts and likes cease to flow.

Embracing Longing

There is simply no substitute for family: the one we’ve been given or the ones we have chosen.  “Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible — the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.” Virginia Satir, family therapy innovator and guru, had it right.  I take that a step further and add this: the flourishing of self-worth and acceptance can also be re-created in families we cultivate along the way; those safe people who have earned the right to hear and bear witness to our stories.

This, like so many things in life, starts with intention and openness.  On your unique journey of cultivating family, community, and home, I hope and pray that you will not abandon ship when the space feels too big and the silence, too loud.  Listen to that constant longing and echo it to the world, though your voice may crack and your heart falls flat.  And then do it again, and again, and again.  You’re on your way to a place called home and that journey starts within.  You are worthy of connection.

Love,

katie