Trust the River

Grace-fully Release Your Worst Stories…

Hello again friends.

Franciscan friar and founder of The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque New Mexico Father Richard Rohr, encourages us all to “Trust the River.” In a recent Daily Meditation, he says the following:

“Grace and mercy teach us that we are all much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves or about one another. Please do not get caught in your small stories; they are usually less than half true, and therefore not really ‘true’ at all. They are usually based on hurts and unconscious agendas that allow us to see and judge things in a very selective way. They are not the whole You, not the Great You, not the Great River. Therefore, it is not where your big life can really happen. No wonder the Spirit is described as ‘flowing water’ and as ‘a spring inside you’ (John 4:10-14) or, at the end of the Bible, as a ‘river of life’ (Revelation 22:1-2). Strangely, your real life is not about ‘you.’ It is a part of a much larger stream called God.”

When I am awash with shame, as I have been recently, I find it hard to trust the river. Actually, I find it difficult to know there is even a Great River, a Great Me, or a Whole Me.

This past week at dinner one evening with our oldest son, we found ourselves sharing difficult memories as we collectively looked for healing. It was a brave and courageous conversation. Shame researcher, author, and storyteller, Brene Brown, encourages us to lean in when we are flooded with uncomfortable emotions. I was surely uncomfortably uncomfortable, but taking the risk I leaned in and told my son a story I had never told him, my husband Ed, or anyone else. My intention in sharing the story, was to relieve his sense of unworthiness and adopt it myself. As a mother and ACEs survivor wanting to “fix” things for her son.

Thirty-plus years ago, as a young mother of three infants, that ranged in ages 2, 1 and newborn, I struggled to do the best I could and be the best I could. As I shared in my book Finding i, A Journey of Repair, I wanted to provide for my children in ways that I was not emotionally or physically provided for as a child. It was hard, though. Our oldest son suffered terribly with night terrors, screaming through the night, sleepwalking, attempting to climb out windows, open doors, and thrash uncontrollably. My nights bled into the day leaving me weak with exhaustion, emotionally drained, and lost in a wilderness of loneliness. Throughout the night, I would soothe my oldest son until he finally would calm down and sleep, only to move to the second son, now awake from the screams, and rock him back to sleep. As I would close their door, the new born would cry to be fed. Once fed, the oldest would begin again, and this sleep-wake cycle lasted the night through.

Friends, this is very hard to share. Very hard. One night in a fog of frustration, exhaustion, and anger I, for one second, put a pillow on my oldest son’s head, hoping to quell the screams. This admission is terrifying to reveal. It was a gross moment of failure. A gross moment of utter despair. That moment has haunted me all these thirty-plus years and continues to color how I view myself as a person, wife, and mother.

Instead of providing healing in the sharing of this story, the story lit a near fatal fire within me, consuming my every thought and action. I did more than adopt a sense of unworthiness for my oldest son’s sake; I owned the shame of the young mother desperately exhausted and alone and the young Bess lost, alone, and scared, hiding under her bed from the monsters lurking in the dark, and maybe I even owned the shame of ever being alive.

What is shame? According to Richard Schwartz, PhD, psychotherapist, and researcher most widely known for developing Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS),

“Shame is a powerful emotion caused by a sense of embarrassment about the self. People who experience shame may feel humiliated, worthless, or afraid that someone will find out how inherently bad they are. Shame is a two-part phenomenon: first, there is an inner critic that says, ‘You are bad.’ Second, there is a younger part that believes it.”

Dr. Schwartz is right. As an adult, I feel like I am a bad person; and the inner child within believes I am, as well. How do I climb out of this prison of utter worthlessness?

Sharing the story did not relieve me of the emotions that have festered all these years. Sharing the story did not make the incident disappear from my consciousness. Sharing the story, ultimately, and surprisingly, did not particularly phase my son. However, I have been left with a gaping hole in my chest spewing humiliation, fear, and worthlessness onto the floor. I am empty. Desperately empty inside.

French philosopher, mystic, and political activist, Simone Weil said, “It is grace that forms a void inside of us and it is also grace that fills that void.” I need grace. I am so lost and so, so empty.

It is said that grace leads us to the state of emptiness, to that momentary sense of meaninglessness in which we ask, “What is it all for? What does it all mean?” These are the questions I have found myself asking since leaning in and sharing a truth I wish was not. Was it grace that took me to the bottom of the pit? Can grace return me to the surface?

Father Richard Rohr says:

“Without grace we will not enter into such a necessary void, and without grace the void will not be filled. All we can do is try to keep our hands cupped and open. And it is even grace to do that. But we must want grace and know we need it.”

My hands are cupped and open. Please give me answers. Why am I so afraid? Does it matter? Will it matter at the end or in the great scheme of things? Is it worth holding on to? How can I release and let it go? Am I really that bad? Am I lovable? As an ACEs survivor, it is so hard to be me sometimes. As an ACEs survivor I do see and judge things in a very selective way based on my old hurts and unconscious agendas. This is obviously a “small story” that is impeding fulfillment of my “big life”.

And so, I pause. I invite you to please pause with me. Hold my hand. Do not reject me as I ask for grace. Grace can lead me into facing my fears and my emptiness and grace can fill me back up. Or so, I pray.

Father Richard calls it a “kind of negative capability that God seems to make constant use of.” He is not asking me to engineer an answer too quickly, which I cannot. He does not want me to get settled too fast, or to manufacture some answer to take away my anxiety by brushing it under the rug. To trust in the big river, I guess, means I must let go of my attachments to my negative stories and feelings, which are hopefully going to pass away anyway, someday.

Perhaps that is why Dr. Brown wants us not to run away from our big emotions when we are caught in the escape room of shame, fear, anxiety, but rather lean into those feelings. Wrestle with them. Unclothe them. Understand them. Hold them.

In Father Richard’s words:

“People of deep faith develop a high tolerance for ambiguity and come to recognize that it is only the small self that needs certitude or perfect order all the time. The Godself is perfectly at home in the River of Mystery.”

I don’t yet have a tool to offer you for our green toolbox. After more than a week of suffering the recollection of my exhausted weakness that happened thirty years ago, I am empty-handed.

I am certainly more than the bad stories I tell myself. And so are you, my friends. And I think we all need to hold each other through these uncertain and troubling emotions. Maybe, just maybe, we need to trust the Big River.

For now, friends.

Please consider supporting my writing and findingi.org. Donations accepted through PayPal below.  Also, if you know anyone who might benefit from reading my book or the Finding i posts, please turn them onto our https://findingi.org website. Word of mouth is an excellent way to grow our readership and help others. Thank you.