World Gone Small: The Isolation Trap

I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. Mobile is a charming southern city, dripping with history, Spanish moss, and extra syllables. My elementary years were challenged as a kid with all that humidity and resulting frizz. However, despite seeming eternal spells of awkward and frizz, my childhood was wonderful in so many ways. I grew up with parents who love and enjoy each other as well as their five wildly colorful kids (still do, I’m pretty sure), and siblings whom I call my closest friends to this day. My Dad is a seasoned entrepreneur, writer, teacher, and visionary. For many years he served in ministry, traveling all over to share his keen insight and passion for our unique calling as Christians in this metastory of life and faith. Even though we grew up in a small town, my world view and hunger for more got off to a big start. I attribute this to my Dad.

One of the most valuable truths Dad instilled in us youngsters was that we were made for something bigger than our experiences, our agendas, and ourselves. My faith journey has been winding to say the least, yet I have always come back to belief in a God who is orchestrating something bigger than what I cling to now and that this God is indeed good. This always gives me hope in times when what I see in front of me is a dark and damaged view of Eden.

When I am cut off from a sense of bigger belonging and purpose, I experience deep depression and anxiety. Remember that scene in Star Wars when Leia, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca get stuck in the Death Star trash compactor? The walls close in on them as they frantically swim through a sea of garbage. Solo dryly remarks, “One thing’s for sure; we’re all gonna be a lot thinner.” Classic. Well, that scene portrays the claustrophobic doom experienced when I feel alone in my struggle. (Sans the charming reframe from Harrison Ford, aka the crush of my youth, and maybe even beyond…  ).

Connectedness to something bigger than self, such as creativity, community, and calling, serves as an emotional umbilical cord. It sustains a steady and nourishing life source of hope.

When depression and/or loneliness hit and that inner dialog goes south, we have two options. We can reach out or we can isolate in our pain. Isolation is a sexy temptress, luring us into her grip one little lie at a time.

I work with countless high achieving, self-aware people in therapy who experience a similar feeling from time to time. Often, this feeling is described as loneliness. Ahh, the “L” word. We have all felt lonely at one point in our lives and from what I have observed, loneliness is part of the human condition. Not to be a buzz-kill, but what if our expectation would allow for those times in life that we feel lonely? What if we could embrace this feeling of loneliness, knowing it is part of the collective human experience as well as one we in fact have control over?

When depression and/or loneliness hit and that inner dialog goes south, we have two options. We can reach out or we can isolate in our pain. Isolation is a sexy temptress, luring us into her grip one little lie at a time.
“No one will understand.”

“No one cares.”

“I don’t want to be a burden.” And on and on…

In many ways, isolation confirms a futile story we make up about ourselves that says, “I don’t deserve love and connection, and therefore I will hide out in isolation.” That screwy lie is the very culprit that endangers our existence and smushes a wondrous world of possibility into a tiny marble of a globe.

In her book Radical Acceptance (purchase at Amazon), Tara Brach articulates, “Feeling unworthy goes hand in hand with feeling separate from others, separate from life. If we are defective, how can we possibly belong? It seems like a vicious cycle: the more deficient we feel, the more separate and vulnerable we feel.”

With this in mind, it is vital that we take inventory of our sense of worthiness and connectedness. When the proverbial trash compactor starts closing in, how can we find a way out through resources of support and community? Life can feel lonely even in a room full of people, which demonstrates the faulty belief that we don’t belong. Lie of the century.

You do belong. You are significant, beautiful, and your life matters.

Failure (ish) – Beauty in the Breakdown Pt. 1

Last Monday I took the NCMHCE (National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Exam) for the second time. Last Monday I also failed it for the second time. Ouch. I know. Not only did I study literallydaily for three months—a miracle in and of itself as I am a chronic procrastinator and rarely study for stuff—BUT; I shelled out some serious cash twice to take the rugged thing. If I were going into the counseling business to make money, I would surely have pursued the licensure/testing realm of it instead of the practitioner side of it. Those people must make serious bank.  

SUCCESS IS WALKING FROM FAILURE TO FAILURE WITH NO LESS ENTHUSIASM.

– Winston Churchill

All of this aside, perhaps the most humiliating part of the experience is that people want to know how I did, friends and colleagues alike. These are people I admire, and who actually like me and are interested in me too—well, maybe. Talk about a tragic and shameful ego splattering all over the kitchen floor. Upon receiving the heartless print out reading “FAIL” across the top, I said some choice words loudly (sorry Mom), and bawled my eyes out all the way from that sterile, fluorescent-lit lobby in Brentwood to the dark side of the covers on my bed. Yep, I was going under. Even as I sit writing these words I realize God’s wry sense of humor, thinking back to my last blog that oozed of Self-Compassion. Self-What?  Yeah, not that day.  The screwtape sessions of my inner dialog sliced up any shred of kindness or understanding they could find.  

If you sense a bit of drama here and immediately think of those infomercials where they take a minuscule rash or burn and blow it up like a blimp to show how well their magical product works for dramatic effect, well, you might be onto something. As I’ve gotten a bit of space from that fragile state, I realize perspective gently sheds light on what is really true and important. So, if you can in any way identify with my experience, I ask you to put yourself in my shoes and think about how a similar experience of your own might have felt.  

What is failure anyway? And who holds the failure stick to determine if we pass go and proceed to Space Mountain or if we’re stuck with Grandma slowly getting dizzy on It’s a Small World? (Is it just me or was that ride strangely disturbing for anyone?). Seriously though, are we damned to failure every time we don’t meet a set of perceived expectations?  

Perhaps, if we are curious enough, we’ll find an open window letting in the light to more truth and opportunity on the other side of the fall?  

I know, I know, as my five-year-old behavior models, it is a far cry (no pun intended) to act out of a grounded self-awareness when we sit in the hot seat of our painful rejection. What I have learned is when we are triggered emotionally—just as I was after my test bomb—a fiery signal originates in the amygdala, the primal/survival part of our brain, and sends all kinds of emotions rushing through our bodies. Unfortunately, we hasten to make paralyzing self-judgments based on a surge of hormonal energy coursing through our bodies. 

Without making this an anatomy lesson I am unqualified to give, I want to leave you with some homework. For now, I want you to consider one simple word as you go about your days. Don’t overthink it or analyze it…just consider it. Your word is curiosity. 

What comes up for you when you notice that word? Intrigue, familiarity, enjoyment, frustration? Whatever it is…I believe it is important. Curiosity has been powerful for me this year in that it shifts me away from harsh judgment and nudges me toward empathy and openness. 

Try it on for size and let me know how it fits…

Love,

Katie