Holiday Grounding 3.0: Generosity of Spirit

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

I never start Christmas shopping until the week (or day) before Christmas.  I know, ludicrous.  I literally have an emotional and mental block against starting any earlier.  Call it procrastination, call it laziness, call it stupid, call it whatever you want— I’m cool with it.  I love a hard deadline and have always been drawn to excitement and adventure with a heavy dash of adrenalin.  Practical and organized are not typically words people use to describe me, quite the contrary actually.   Lead with vulnerability, right?  I’m also very cool with that.

Liturgy

That said, if you’re looking for a holiday gift guide, keep looking, this will surely dissappoint.  If you’re looking for a strong shot of reality to take the edge off all the holiday frenzy, I’m your girl.  I want to look beneath the liturgy of commerce, all the glitter and lights, and recover a far more beautiful and valuable thing.  Your friends and pocket books will thank you.   Let’s get grounded in generosity of spirit.

Gifting

This week, we continue building out the Holiday Grounding series and I’m super excited to explore the practice of cultivating an inner generosity, which sometimes manifests in the form of a pretty package.  Gifts are a significant aspect of the season, and there are two sides of that coin, like most things in life.  If the stuff of gifts sits on the throne of this Advent season, the giver and relationship become obsolete.

Have you ever received a gift and thought to yourself, “hmm, this is so random, I have a feeling this is an unwanted trinket of old excavated from the back corner of a misfit toy closet and i’m now the lucky recipient.“ It sounds bad, right?  Ungrateful, cynical, and well, totally fair game because we’ve all done it!  Chances are, the giver of that gifted object wanted you to feel special, valued, so they scrounged up something quickly to wrap, give, and communicate that thoughtfulness.

Love Language

In those instances, I feel so much love because there is no ego behind the gift.  It’s simply about the act of generosity, the heartbeat of that exchange—that is the gain.  What about you?  What do you love about receiving a gift?  Is it the wrapping job, the contents, the monetary value, or perhaps the intention behind the gift?  We are all so unique and there are no wrong answers. Gift giving is a love language in and of itself and how many of us communicate feelings.  There is nothing selfish or surface about speaking this language as your mother tongue.

Song

I love receiving gifts with a story behind them that were meant just for me.  Perhaps my most treasured gift I’ve ever received is a song my husband wrote and recorded for me last year.  Besides being a brilliant work of art, truth and vulnerability bleed through the lyrics, instrumentation, and production.  It cost him nothing, yet is worth its weight in heartfelt gold—it reminds me I’m treasured and deeply loved.  Leave it to a song to paint passions and cut to the core of our emotions.

Reality Check

That’s lovely and sweet for sure and I’m grateful beyond measure.  Here’s the deal though: for most of my adult life, the holidays have been incredibly painful as I’ve walked through loads of dark, chronic depression and anxiety, only heightened by the unrealistic expectations of all that is “merry and bright.”

Rat Pack

Gift-giving felt vapid, rote, even obligatory.  Sure, I still enjoyed the hustle and bustle of shopping and wrapping all to the velvety soundtrack of Frank, Bing, and Nat, yet my weak and wounded voice couldn’t fully join in.  None of it really mattered, though it was a welcomed distraction.  I’ve shared bits of that journey in previous posts, yet I feel it extremely important for you to know that this whole idea of holiday grounding, generosity, what have you, comes from a very sensitive and real place of pain—bleak days seen through a  hopeless tear-filled stare.

Certainty

Generosity transforms need into plenty.  I saw this growing up in my own family as we experienced some stark financial stretches.  It never mattered, my parents always gave out of their place of need, without hesitation.  I saw miraculous provision appear time and time again due to this lifestyle of faith.  Mom constantly delivered to neighbors, offered prayers for hurting friends, and they gave resources freely, whether in plenty or in want.  Though there may have been financial lack at times, there was always abundance and generosity of spirit—a certainty that faithful giving always manifests a healthy return.

Ruthie

Many of you are staring felt needs down these days: need for connection, community, belonging, health, acceptance, provision, peace, perhaps even hope to get through the day.  I know that feeling all too well, especially this time of year.  You may have finished your shopping back in August, but you don’t care, all you can see is your pain.  A couple of months back, my beautiful friend Ruthie Lindsey shared her inspiring journey through immeasurable physical pain and relationship losswith us on the blog.  Her poignant words bear repeating:

“If we lead from a place of brokenness, insecurity or bitterness, that is exactly who they will think we are.  But, if we lead from a place of love and wholeness, with compassion and strength, they are able to see us for who we really are.  I started to speak out loud the beautiful things I saw in people, places and experiences I was having.  I was looking for it and I was speaking it, and what’s so amazing is that as I was looking for beauty all around me, I was reconnecting with my community.  

The more I made myself get out of my bed and connect and love people, the less I was noticing how much I was hurting.  The very nature of pain is selfish and pulls our focus inward.  When I focused my energy outward, when I was doing things that were life-giving, things that I loved, I wasn’t thinking about my pain.”

Clarity

What do you desperately need to receive this season?  Clarity as it relates to our needs and desires is clutch.  I need healing in a few places of my life that feel very broken and unsettled.  I don’t know what that healing will look like and what form it will come in, yet I’m committing to a simple practice of generosity that sees the world around me through the lens of beauty and possibility rather than hurt and unresolve.

Name the feeling

This practice starts with intention.  What feeling is at the root of that which I long for and need?  Is it healing, or love, or worthiness?  Is it confidence, or chosenness, or validation?  In my case, it is relational healing, so that is exactly what I will give away in whatever capacity I can.  I’ll step into those shoes of empathy and see the gorgeous potential in everyone I encounter.   Like attracts like and that healing will come, I believe that.

Oil & Canvas

Maya Angelou rocked my world with this one so I’ll leave you with it today as a reminder for us to dig down deep into our unique brand of generosity.  She reveals, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  Without a word or a deed, we have the power to be the reason someone smiles today.   Your essential self, your brand of generosity, is so special and the world needs to feel it.  That’s the most valuable gift the season.

Sure, that swoon-worthy oversized abstract oil painting I stumbled upon last week in Ed Nash’sBelmont gallery blows my mind.  However,  oil and canvas don’t exactly do it for me when what I’m really needing is a hug and to know I’m enough.  Slow down, simplify, and give freely from your place of need—it’s a most courageous act of faith and a magnet for the rich favor awaiting you in 2017.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

P.S (I haven’t forgotten about last week’s homework! How’d you do??  The suspense is killing me… please email me, I want to hear all about it.)

xoxo

Triumph Over Misery: The Beautiful Story of Ruthie Lindsey

Author Jamais Cascio once said, “Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival.  The goal of resilience is to thrive.  I never thought I would need to know this lesson until my life was turned upside down.

-Ruthie Lindsey

Meet Ruthie Lindsey

Today’s post is very near and dear to my heart for several reasons.  Our guest blogger is Ruthie Lindsey (visit her website), a designer, speaker, stylist, and overall inspirer.  She travels all over sharing her incredible story that invites us to a high and spacious place of living beautifully in the midst of painful realities.

  I have known Ruthie now for about fifteen years and have observed from a distance her journey in and out of joy-filled vibrancy and physical/emotional pain, concurrently.  Whereas we will go months without seeing each other, every time we do, I’m reminded of something so lovely and moving.  I am reminded that there is always hope, even in our darkest nights.  She simply exudes life, style, and fun.  If you have met Ruthie Lindsey or follow her on social media, you know exactly what I am talking about.  She takes her pain and brokenness and fear; she holds it up to the light, vulnerably-courageously,  and gives it a name outside of hers.  Unmistakably, she touches the hurting hearts of countless others.    It’s beauty from ashes and that kind of beauty is simply incomparable; without need of filters.

Close to Home

My older sister and best friend, Kristen has dealt with chronic pain due to endometriosis and resulting surgical nerve damage for nearly two decades.  It breaks my heart to watch her in pain; to know she is suffering and no one can take it away from her, definitely not me.  This type of pain is systemic: when she hurts, her community and family suffer as well because we love her and desperately long to see healing.  This overcoming story not only gives me hope in facing my own nasty demons, but also for my remarkably courageous sister who has yet to see the light at the end of her tunnel.

Ruthie Lindsey’s story is not just about chronic pain, it’s about the suffering we all face in our human frailty.  It is about standing smack dab in the middle of our story, pain, loneliness, heartache and all, and writing a new ending that offers life and hope to others.  In return, our cups get filled no matter what circumstances dictate.  Hope is a hurricane of a force.  When we give it away from a place of desperate need, we cultivate sunshine in the center of our storm.  I sincerely hope you read every word of her story.  Your life will be richer for it.

The Accident

When I was a senior in high school, I pulled out in front of an ambulance that hit me after crushing my car door going 65.  I broke three ribs, punctured my lungs, my spleen ruptured and I broke the top two vertebrae in my neck.  I was told I had a 5 percent chance to live and a 1 percent chance to ever walk again.  After I was stable and off life support, they took bone from my hip and fused it into my neck by wrapping it with metal wire.  I was so fortunate to have youth and good health on my side.  After a month, I walked out of the hospital with only a neck brace.  I was able to graduate on time and I honestly went back to my “happy go lucky” life as normal.  I would occasionally get sore if I danced too much (which is often), but otherwise I was able to forget it even happened.  I felt very removed from my story.  When I spoke about it, it was almost as if I was talking about it in third person, like it happened to someone else.

A Rude Awakening

A year after graduating college, I met my very first boyfriend and we were married within 10 months!  A year into our marriage, I was walking out of a Starbucks one day, when a searing pain shot through my neck and into my head.  I fell to my knees and nearly blacked out.  The pain continued with more and more frequency, and would leave me with horrific migraines.  It was so debilitating that I couldn’t function.  I saw tons of doctors, and each time they would order a scan and an elusive black spot appeared on the film.  They simply informed me it was the magnet in the machine interacting with the wired from my spinal cord fusion.  I tried countless (unsuccessful) therapies, then was prescribed heavy narcotics for my pain.  As a result of the pain, and the medication, I began spending more and more time in my bed.  I isolated myself and withdrew from my community and my marriage.  I though of myself as a burden.  This continued for over four years, exhausting money we barely had.

After these four years of mental and emotional exhaustion, I saw a new doctor who insisted on seeing what was under that little black spot on all my films.  A $50 X-ray showed that one of the wires had broken and pierced my brain stem.  What I learned is that I am apparently the only person in the world who has ever had this.  Specialists explained the risk of paralysis involved in attempting to remove the wire, but explained that if we didn’t try, I would eventually become paralyzed anyway.  I was one wrong turn of the head away from never walking again.  Insurance wasn’t going to cover my surgery, claiming my accident as a pre-existing condition.  Two weeks later my dad informed my mother that he was going to sell our farm to afford the procedure.

Loving Well

The night before he came to see me and tell me what he was planning to do with the farm, my dad had a freak accident.  After falling down a flight of stairs he passed away shortly thereafter from brain damage.  My dad’s sudden passing was a massive loss to my family, our community and me.  I remember lying in my bed night after night pinching myself until I bled because nothing felt real.  I felt I must be in a nightmare.  We were all absolutely devastated and heartbroken, but out of that loss something really beautiful happened.  My godfather set up a medical fun for me in my dad’s honor and money and letters started pouring in.  We would get letters that said, “Your dad sent me on my senior trip” or “your dad bought my prom dress” and your dad paid my tuition” or “your dad fixed my roof,” and on and on.  When my brothers and I were kids, whenever we left my dad’s presence, he would always say, “I love you so much, remember your manners, and always look out for the little guy.”  He wanted us to see and love the people who everyone else missed, and that’s what he did.  because he had loved people so well, this crazy amount of money was raised so that I could have this surgery.

Spiral

The doctors were able to remove the wire from my brain stem by taking bone from my other hip and fusing my neck back together with titanium screws.  Although able to walk afterward, I ended up getting major nerve damage in the surgery, and now my right side feels like it’s on fire at all times.  While recovering, I ended up contracting a bacterial infection called C. diff while in the hospital for another minor surgery.  I was so sick.  I stopped sleeping.  I had constant panic attacks and ultimately I had a full-blown nervous breakdown.  My husband was away on tour in Australia, and I had the feeling my marriage was coming to an end, which sent my downward spiral into a tailspin.  I became incapable of taking care of myself, so I moved home to live with my family in Louisiana.

Wakeup Call

My breakdown made me want to change everything.  I realized that I had identified myself with my pain for so long, so that is exactly how everyone else saw me.  Every conversation and interaction revolved around my condition.  When I would see people, they would ask, “How’s your back?” or “Are you hanging in there?” In some subconscious, gross way I found comfort in that, because it helped to justify having resigned myself to never-ending bed rest.

We teach people how to see us.  I don’t know what it was, but something changed, and I decided I was tired of people always feeling sorry for me.  If we lead from a place of brokenness, insecurity or bitterness, that is exactly who they will think we are.  But, if we lead from a place of love and wholeness, with compassion and strength, they are able to see us for who we really are.  I started to speak out loud the beautiful things I saw in people, places and experiences I was having.  I was looking for it an I was speaking it, and what’s so amazing is that as I was looking for beauty all around me I was reconnecting with my community.  The more I made myself get out of my bed and connect and love people, the less I was noticing how much I was hurting.  The very nature of pain is selfish and pulls our focus inward.  When I focused my energy outward, when I was doing things that were life-giving, things that I loved, I wasn’t thinking about my pain.

Energy Shift

The best decision I made was to wean myself off of all the pain meds I had been on for so long.  It took four months to wean myself off of the meds completely.  My marriage couldn’t survive under the circumstances, and I found myself single for the first time in a decade, and as a result of my time in self-exile, the bills were piling up.  I decided to focus my energy on doing little projects around the house to help me reclaim the space as my own.  I didn’t think much of it at first, but friends began assuring me that I had a knack for design.

The Rest of the Story

In short time, friends asked me to collaborate on projects.  I started an Instagram account and began posting the things that I was doing.  People started asking me to help them throw dinner parties, arrange flowers, set tables and decorate spaces.  I learned to say yes.  Around this time I had also started having people who didn’t know me following me on Instagram.  I started getting comments like, “You live my dream life!” And “I want your life!”  And to be honest, it made me feel nauseous.  I remembered lying in my bed for years, looking on Facebook and feeling so depressed, wishing that was me playing with my children and having all of these adventures, instead of lying in my bed hurting all the time.  I needed to give people a context for my joy.  I ended up writing out my entire story and sharing it online.  I remember feeling so vulnerable and exposed when I hit publish, but I knew I needed to give everyone the full scope of what was going on.  The truth was, my circumstances had not changed.  I was still in pain every minute, I was handling a divorce and I missed my dad every day, but I had learned to live differently.

We so often think, “I will be happy once I get, fill in the blank (that boyfriend, a certain job, a husband, baby, that house, etc.).”  But those things won’t fulfill us, until we ourselves are fulfilled.  I learned to find contentment despite my hardship.  And unexpectedly, I discovered that exposing myself made me feel less vulnerable.

Living to Thrive

Suffering is one of the things that unifies humanity.  At some point or another we all experience loss.  Sometimes, feeling hopelessness can give us a new lens through which to see the world because we learn to be more empathetic to those around us.  Now when I interact with someone suffering from heartache, loss or unendurable physical pain, I immediately have common ground to stand on with him or her.  I would never wish what Iv’e experienced on anyone, and I know that there are plenty of people with even more harrowing personal stories, but if telling my story of overcoming anguish helps just one person feel like she or he is not alone in despair, then at least what I went through had a purpose.  It took a long time, but I finally found myself.  It’s not the version of a life that I fantasized about as a child, but it’s better, because it’s a life that I earned in triumphing over my misery.  I’m proud to say I learned resilience from the unexpected, and now my mission in life is to thrive.