In my notes from our last session, two lines caught my attention repeatedly as I spent time in reflection. As I sat with them more, it’s striking to me that they only make sense when I look at them out of order. First, near the bottom of the page, the question: “What are obstacles that came up for my own belief in my belovedness?” Second, near the top of the page, the question: “If violence begets violence, what begets goodness?” I kid you not, when my thoughts finally crystallized into something understandable, I groaned out loud because I knew that being honest in this blog post was going to require vulnerability that’s a touch farther (and more honest) than the kind of vulnerability I access every day in my ministry work. I want to give a heads up that I’m going to mention abuse, so please feel free to take care of yourself and engage however is most healthy for you. Here we go:
I am a fighter. I have been my whole life, as a means of survival. When I’m honest with myself, one of the propellers that has historically kept me centered as the beloved is the sheer willpower and fight to never go back to the places within myself where I wrestled with feeling worthless and unlovable. I experienced quite a bit of violence and abuse in my childhood and some of that violence persisted into my early adulthood, as well – the physical violence was bad, but worse were the messages I received about my worth and belovedness. When I finally got a taste of a message of something different in my early 20s and started to consider that I might not only be worthy of love but actually already beloved, I took off running out of fear of never wanting to go back to that dark place. It hit me in reflecting on Friday’s session that I think, for the most part, I’ve never actually really stopped fighting or running. I’m going to circle back to this at the end of my post.
Once I finally got a glimpse of myself as the beloved, I found some key anchors. I started learning how to let myself be loved by actual people and letting them call me back to myself and reflect my belovedness back to me. I have also come to rely on little things like deep breaths and positive self talk, reminding myself that it’s okay, that I am okay and I am already loved and already enough. The most transformative of my anchors has been imaginative prayer. When I did the spiritual exercises (a yearlong Ignatian “retreat”), some of the weeks invite you to a practice called the Colloquy, where you imagine yourself in conversation first with Mary, then with Jesus, and then with God. These imaginative conversations are the first places I’ve had glimpses of allowing myself to rest in my belovedness, and when I start to get a bit uncentered, if I can find the space to enter into this form of imaginative prayer, I find myself readily returning to my belovedness.
Since I’ve fought so hard to understand myself as the beloved (and others as the beloved as well), I do at least benefit from an undercurrent of knowing who I am and whose I am… but I do lose sight of it sometimes. These days, the smaller moments of losing sight of this show up in pretty clear ways as long as I am paying attention: I start by not being able to see other people as beloved and lose my patience with them. I start striving for things that are not for me – I hustle for my worth instead of paying attention to the places God is calling me. When I get beyond the early stages of losing sight of my belovedness, it gets a little more significant and I have a harder time pulling myself out of it. I’m less willing to apologize or admit when I’m wrong, and I start to go back to some of my instincts of acting out of worthlessness – I push people away, which is counterintuitive when I think about it objectively because when it gets this serious, I usually need help from others to call me back to myself.
When it comes down to it, most of the things that push me into losing sight of who and whose I am are rooted in fear and scarcity. This brings me back to the idea of my persistent mode of fighting and running – it’s all fear and scarcity based. I am scared of really losing sight of my belovedness because I know what that feels like and I would like to never feel that way again. The biggest obstacle, I think, to me fully resting in my belovedness is that so much of my path to understanding myself as beloved is paved with violence. My experience of violence has begotten a violent way of fighting for my belovedness. But man, I am just so tired of fighting. How can I put my fists down and just rest in it? How can I grow into actually trusting in God’s abundant love – that there is enough belovedness for me and for each person? I suppose that’s part of what this journey is for… so here we go, friends.
(The picture I’ve added to the post is one of me before I ever questioned by belovedness – it makes me smile and keeps me anchored in the work I have before me)
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Thanks to Jer, Lindsay, and Katie for your questions – they helped me pull together some loose threads I had been thinking about. I admittedly might’ve gone into more detail in my original post, too, but it felt like it was getting pretty long! I am not exactly known for my brevity.
As I have gotten better in recent years at actually letting people come alongside me, and it has been the result of really hard work. I often find my temptation is to isolate and attempt to be self-sufficient… but I can’t actually do much of any of this on my own – none of us can. During a long stretch of EMDR therapy, my therapist helped me gather mental images to return to that helped me feel secure when I got a little out of sorts. Much to my surprise, every image that came to mind was an image of a friend embracing me or offering some other form of supportive physical touch. It made me realize that half the time what I need to be called back to myself is just a hug from somebody I care about or to sit side by side with a friend for a while and re-regulate. The hardest part after I realized that was doing the work of actually being able to tell people that was what I needed with all of my perceived risk of rejection that comes with an ask like that.
I’ve gotten more comfortable with this in recent years – and I’ve also built solid relationships where I know I can ask and if the answer is “not right now” it has nothing to do with me as a human. It’s still hard and I have to talk myself down from the instinct to isolate, but I’ll share a recent win: It has been a pretty hard month for me. Towards the beginning of the hard month, I got some news that threw me for a loop. I ended up crying so hard that I couldn’t get myself off my kitchen floor – I’m a big crier in general but this is rare for me. I talked myself into texting a friend I knew was around and she ended up coming to pick me up off the floor and she let me cry into her shoulder for a good hour before I calmed myself down. It was a real image of resting in my belovedness and an experience of deep community which I wouldn’t have been willing to risk for a few years ago. To return to the image Jer offered, it really is an experience of embrace – both literal embrace, and of a willingness to embrace my own belovedness and allow somebody else to embrace me as beloved as well. It isn’t always so extreme, but I do try to reach out and let people know when I could use a friend or a person to sit next to, and I hope to be the same kind of friend in return – mutually reflecting belovedness in our friendships.
Just wanted to acknowledge and appreciate your further reflections on this here. I am so sorry it’s been a month, but I am thankful for your ability to reach out to a friend and ask for what you need. What a step of self-care at the highest level! Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow and hearing more. Every part of your story I hear leaves me wanting to know more.
Hopped on here to work on the newest blog prompt and I saw you’d replied to our questions, Meredith! I’m so thankful to hear that report of a “win” with calling your friend and asking for help. Wow. That can be so so challenging to just send that text/ make that call.I’m so glad you did. I truly look forward to getting to know you more. I too am starting EMDR so I would love to talk to you sometime about how weird (haha – and amazing) it’s been for you.
Such a profound post here…such a gift to share in it. Thank you for your labor of drafting it and your courage in posting it. I’m struck by the notion of fighting to hold onto your belovedness and how that is shaped by the experience of violence that you’ve had to endure. I wonder how you might get imaginative in considering the verbs “fighting” and “embracing” in your journey toward the truth of your belovedness. How might that imaginative work disarm your pursuit of that which is already and forever yours?
My new friend, I am so grateful for your vulnerability and sheer bravery in sharing the truth of your story. I really appreciated many of your thoughts here and they have stirred up multiple thoughts. I sat an stared at this sentence for a minute: “My experience of violence has begotten a violent way of fighting for my belovedness.” That’s a deeply helpful connection that helps me reflect on what in my own path. Thank you.
I had some questions similar to those Katie poses above. What are some of the ways those around you call you back to belovedness? Do they know this is their role in your life?
My new friend, I am so grateful for your vulnerability and sheer bravery in sharing the truth of your story. I really appreciated many of your thoughts here and they have stirred up multiple thoughts. I sat an stared at this sentence for a minute: “My experience of violence has begotten a violent way of fighting for my belovedness.” That’s a deeply helpful connection that helps me reflect on what in my own path. Thank you.
I had some questions similar to those Katie poses above. What are some of the ways those around you call you back to belovedness? Do they know this is their role in your life?
Thank you Lindsay – I appreciate this. Longer reply in larger comment thread since there are similar questions…
Meredith, thank you for your vulnerability here. I feel honored to have gotten a glimpse into younger Meredith, and just want to hug that little girl in the photo, look her in the eyes, and say “Oh how beloved you are! You are always beloved. Hold that truth close, no matter what happens.” She looks so free. I know you are longing to find her again in full.
As you said you usually need others to “call you back to yourself”. ..How can friends come alongside you and help you, as you said, “put your fists down and just rest in (your belovedness)? How have others been able to successfully do this for you, or what do you wish they would do instead?
Ah Katie, thank you for this! Longer reply to come in response to severeal questions posed on this comment thread…
Meredith, I so look forward to walking this pilgrimage alongside you. Thank you for sharing a story that is one that I can relate to. Being able to rest comfortably in your belovedness is such a gift and it does take so much work to get there when you have had a life of rejection and violence. Persevere my friend!