However, sometimes these emotional breakdowns sneak up on you, and if you happen to find
yourself in this position because, say you are a reading Brene Brown book and realize that you have serious issues with shame and unworthiness, for God's sake, get off the stair stepper! We all know it's hard enough to breath on that thing without a ball of tears, snot, and pent up emotions in your throat.
Also, if you stop as you first start crying, your tears will make sense because who hasn't cried on that pointless torture device. Your behavior only appears unusual if you keep going as you are crying only to have such a hard time breathing that your foot misses the step and you and your book and your phone involuntarily exit the stair machine which is now visibly taunting you by continuing to run even though you are obviously not. Don't let that thing win, people!
So apparently I have some shame. Not just for continuing my workout until I collapsed on the floor because that has happened before and the good people at TruFit have learned to ignore me. Yesterday I had to do something I completely and utterly dread even more than waxing, tights, or high heels. This was mascara-in-your-eyes dread. I had to talk about The Land to a group of people entertaining the idea of starting something new in their own communities. This was a vomit and pass out rating on the anxiety scale. The type of anxiety that actually inspires you to look on Amazon for a Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak or to check in with your insurance company to see what surgeries might be covered under your current plan; everyone knows we don't need our appendix!
I dread talking to others about The Land so much that it actually makes me physically sick. I obsess over what to say and what not to say with the goal being that if my talk is perfect enough no one would notice me. And that's the realization that kicked my ass off that stair stepper, the realization that my deepest wish was that no one would notice ME. Underneath all that fear of being misunderstood, or overshadowing other people who are doing amazing ministries, is this deep fear that if people see ME they will put two and two together and wonder what the hell I am doing up there speaking. Whether or not anyone else if wondering that, the real core issue is that it's a question that taunts my soul just as like stair stepper; it's always running with or without me.
At the end of every talk the question I wait to hear is one that comes straight from the pit of my stomach; "Why do you think you're so great that God would use you?" This is where the Invisibility Cloak would be worth the investment. I have no answer. And that is a problem. It's a problem that keeps me "hustling for my own worthiness," as Brene Brown would say, as opposed to claiming my own worth. It's a problem that prevents me from giving others the one thing I wish for them to have because I don't have it myself; a claim to my own worth. Not a worth that comes when The Land is financial sustainable or my daughter is at Harvard Law or I can afford to buy my own new tires without the help of my parents but a worth that is present within me right now.
A few weeks ago I was doing a guided meditation in my apartment as a last resort to stave off what felt to be a panic attack to end all panic attacks. The meditation was based on visualizing and appreciating your Divine Mentor. (Conservative Christians breathe, I picked Jesus). The meditation guided me through this visualization where the Divine mentor was standing before us, smiling, embracing us, and over time the two became one. I'm not sure I can think of another time that I have had such an intense and powerful spiritual experience. I could see Jesus beside me, smiling as slowly he reached out and held me so close and so tight, until the two merged we became one. Tears streamed down my face as the meditation ended, but the feeling of God's presence within me and the visualization of Jesus' compassionate smile gazing on me remained.
I realize that for me worthiness is not something I can find once and for all but something I must intentionally cultivate through my connection to the Christ within me. Cut off from this source, I have little hope of standing and offering the one gift I wish to give; a glimpse of worthiness that comes from being nothing more or less than a child of God. But the meditation experience also opened my eyes to something new about my relationship with Christ, something I think we often get wrong. God isn't using anyone, or at least not me, not anymore. To me, the idea of using suggests a value in our usefulness, serving only as a means to some predestined end. Instead, I am consciously re-visioning this partnership; a worthiness not in the usage of power for the purpose of production but in the presence of one another, human and divine, for the process of relationship. In this paradigm, that stair stepper climbing toward some concept of worthiness is much easier to turn off, step aside, and rest in the promise that I am enough where I am in each moment.