This Voice

There is something happening in my spirit. I don know if I can describe it, but I'll do my best. I have been asking and praying and hoping for the path to my purpose..to know my strength and my power, to live my truth and find my live's work. I don't mean a career. I mean my life's work...the reason I came here, the thing that I do that makes a difference in the world and in my soul. I have emptied my heart and my calendar, I have rid my home of children for regular intervals, I have stopped saying yes in the hopes of dwindling responsibilities so that I could create a vacuum for nature and life to rush right into. It hasn't been easy. Some of the things I have said no to have been important to me. They have spoken to callings that I have. I have denied them, each and every one, for the purpose of listening better and hearing my purpose. I have said no because I was told to say no by this voice, this knowing deep in the pit of my stomach. I was compelled to sit still. Sadly, these things I am missing out on are still whispering to me "what if?" "why not?" Those things are silently goading me, wondering (not-so-quietly) if I made a mistake, if I will regret it. Some days I resent those little things sitting there, staring, imploring, doubting. I stare back at those things and calmly, bravely, but softly say "NO."
What rushes into this space I have created are sadness and tears. What I feel is a fear like none I have ever allowed myself to feel completely. This fear is a little girl's fear. It's 10 or 11. It is the fear of hope dashed, of dreams unrealized, of life's realities preventing the imaginings that create the beauty that is living who I truly am. These fears are not unlike the thing that makes us stop drawing about that same age. It's the realization that what we are producing does not represent reality. It's the dawning that something 2-dimensional cannot easily represent something that is 3-dimensional. It's the sinking truth that a stick figure looks nothing like a person. In this life on earth, what we dream and envision is limited by the reality that we paint it into. When those things don't match up, we often quit, rather than continue to risk creating something that doesn't meet our expectation.
The pain that I feel at giving up the dream is more painful that not meeting my expectation. It is harder for me to stop making art than it is to make art that isn't what I pictured. The pain of setting down my dreams, so easily disrupted by the limitations and realities of life, is more painful that holding onto it...albeit poorly.
When I allow myself to sit in this space of fear and really allow myself to feel it, there is a sadness that follows that can only be the grief of not realizing it all sooner. I feel so sad that I thought it better to set the dream down that to face the stark-raving lunacy that I fear will come from trying, with assumed futility, to realize those dreams from this very human condition with all of life's very real limitations.
So that is where I keep finding myself..in this place of fear and sadness. And I keep allowing it, returning to this place because it feels so important to face it, to hear it, to accept and walk through it. I keep returning here because I want to see what is on the other side of this wall, waiting.
I keep hearing this voice, compelling me forward. It is my own voice. It is my mother voice that reassures small people who feel insecure. I have seen myself still small and suffering, I have recognized that my younger self had all the same awareness of the realities of life that my adult self does, but without the emotional ability to handle all that comes with it. I have agreed to go back and get that small girl and to hold her hand. I have agreed to bring her here and now, full heart intact, into the present.
She has work to do.

The last few weeks have brought about a fresh batch of human struggles for Clare and I to grapple with together. We did some couples emotional work with our chiropractor before school started. It seems that at times we function emotionally like married people would. This is not surprising, as many of our feelings are similar and the ways in which we grapple with our truths are ingrained in what often looks to be the very same soul. So it has been since the tiny days. I have come to see this as both a gift and a curse. I get to fight the good fight with her by my side. I get to journey this road with a living angel to point out the not-so-obvious places where we must stop and work. However, because she is in it with me as an accomplice, there is often no denying and no complacency possible. She turns the volume way up on the sound of the struggle so that it cannot be ignored. I love/hate her for that. She is not so long human that she has become savvy with the burial of many things unpleasant. She sees it, she feels it, she yells it.  Game on.

This particular work that we're doing right now delves into a deep place of trust. As she has walked into a new classroom with a new teacher and all new friends (her 4 best ones are right next door...together), she is needing to explore her source (in this situation, her source is her keeper, her teacher). She is being asked to stand on her own in this great place of new with only a few things old to rely on (like familiar geography and her same TAG teacher from Kinder). She is flailing and needs to know where the boundaries are, who to trust and how to get what she needs. In writing back and forth with her teacher (A LOT), I have discovered many things about both of us. Yesterday I wrote to her this:
"...she will often push the limits of her emotions and watch for your reaction. She wants to know how you are going to respond to each of them so she knows what to expect if she gets into deep water, emotionally speaking. She wants to know that she is safe, that she can trust you if the stuff hits the fan (she can be emotionally stormy and she knows it).
...her driving desire is acceptance. She needs to know that it's OK to cry, that a 2 on her report card is just grand, that when we are mad at her we will get over it. She needs to know that disappoinment is fleeting and that she HAS TO make mistakes in order to learn."

It occurs to me that I am struggling right now in the very same way. My source and my keeper is God and he is (relatively speaking) new to me. I am just now starting to figure out how he and I can work together to keep me emotionally safe. I am on a journey to let go of my own human guidance and allow him to guide me through my spirit, using my intuition, my deepest desires and gifts. I, too am working hard to find my way...and I am often terrified, in need of a blanket, wishing for more familiar people and things. I can feel myself pushing at the boundaries of where I am in order to find out if I can trust my Keeper. I, too, doubt my source. I, too, need to know what he will do when I cry, when I screw up, when I get a 2 on my report card. I, too, need to know that it is ok to disappoint him.

Today I sat down to my TAES homework.
Here's what screamed to me:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God"
Eph 2:6-10

What I realize as this settles into my heart is that I didn't do it. No amount of work or effort or perfection or love on my part saved me. Nothing I did determined whether or not God will love me. I didn't do it. And I can't UNDO it, either. No amount of bitterness or angst, struggle or sin can change it.
It is God's gift.
I can stop testing the boundary and just rest in that.
It's immense and it's enough.

“HOLD ME FAST. HOLD  ME FAST, ‘CAUSE I’M A HOPELESS WANDERER.”

I was listening to Mumford & Sons this morning after a long bout with pain and frustration and screaming at my kids and my heart just cracked wide open.This one line unzipped me and let all the contents of days and months and years of pain spill out. I am a hopeless wanderer. I saw years of wandering flash before me and knew instantly what all my current mama pain is about. I have been struggling in my heart to find a career, a path for myself. I long for a thing that can allow my heart to feel settled and fulfilled while still finding the time to raise my daughters. I want to work on their schedule and no more...maybe a little less....and I want to make a million dollars doing it. But I just can’t seem to sort it out, and worse, I feel trapped. I am in pain and feel lost trying to sort it. It’s as if this one thing might define me and so I am terrified that I will pick the wrong thing. I’m running out of time, after all. I’m 40! I’ve been tooling around for years, not landing on a thing. Wandering.

The thing is, it’s about The Pain. Since The Pain, I have roamed from place to place, heart to heart, home to home. I haven’t searched as much as I’ve floated. I am easily intrigued. I am explorer, true. But it’s more than that. I have been refusing to stay put, refusing to get past the excitement and into the comfort of really being somewhere. There is a time in a new job or home where everything feels great. The honeymoon, I guess. Things are arranged just as I want them, everything feels on track and right, goals have been met. Then there is all the time that follows. Things get dingy, they lose their shine. They take on a new shape and there are crumbs. This phase pleads for new goals. And that’s when I wander. My life as I’ve known it has been one uproot after another. From the get go, there was no time to bloom where I was planted. There was only the floating. It’s what I know. And boy, can I plant myself. But I don’t really know how to put down roots. I am the queen of adventure. I am brave and willing and capable of many odd things like adaptive scuba, building ropes courses, working in an ER, teaching and training people who have autism...but I don’t know how to set roots. So this motherhood gig? Not so simple for the likes of me. This career choosing? Totally out of my genre. I cannot fathom how the rest of you successful people do it. It is foreign to me. And I feel so sad about that. 

I have been lucky to have a few amazing souls in my life who have loved me through the wandering. They have willingly and gently tethered me to this world that we share and allowed me to float, knowing my need to do so. They hang near, ever willing to let go of the string, always aware that I might go at any moment. After all, if you love something, you have to set it free. I am so grateful for you who tether me. I don’t know where I would be without you and your thin, gentle strings. In truth, it is my heart that you have lovingly held. More than that, it is the light that you carry that illuminates my path. You have showed me the grace and love of 1,000 sunrises by holding me gently in place and letting me float, having long since given up the notion that I may some day come down. I love you. Thank you. 

“I WILL LEARN, I WILL LEARN TO LOVE THE SKIES I’M UNDER.”

So here’s the deal: I’m tired of floating. I feel like God’s voice can’t find me out here. The breeze feels more like wind and I’m bloated. Worse yet, I can’t hear you very well. I want to come down. I want to look in your face. I want to hear my own pulse, to follow my feet, to go where I’m meant to go. I can’t do that up here in the floating. There’s no way to steer and when I want to change direction, it takes sooooo loooooong. It’s true what they say about your problems following you wherever you go. I haven’t been running from them, really. But like hot pavement, the pain is easier to bear if you just keep moving a little. I have gathered more than enough life experience to write a great novel. I have more than enough interest to keep me entertained right here for a lifetime (or two) in any number of careers. So let’s give it a shot, huh? Let’s see what roots feel like. 

<insert panic attack here>

I have had more than two really amazing prospects for this year and I have turned them all down. There is something (this thing right here) happening in my heart that needs my attention, and God keeps asking me to wait. The whole of it (this thing), is really too big to discern, but there is an energy and excitement behind it, driving it like none I have ever experienced. It sound a lot like this in my head: 

ooooooooooo. How about a class? 

nope. 

Seminary? 

nope. 

Oh, hey, let’s apply for grad school! 

nonono. wait. 

uuuuuuuumok. But maybe another drawing thing in the meantime? 

nooooo. 

Well then I’ll just plan to walk every other day and alternate yoga and swim with weight lifting. That way I stay busy and I get RIPPED. 

uh-uh. 

More political wrangling? I can work on the 2014 campaign.

noooooo way.

Damn. You want me to just sit here and wait for a revelation? OOOOO. Is it the rapture?? Is this about the Mayan calendar thing? Cause that didn’t happen, neither did Y2K....or Jesus returning. 

sigh. 

Damnit.

I am so, so uncomfortable with this. You have to know that. If you know me, you have to know that it is. If you’ve tethered me, you definitely know it. (taps foot) But it’s big and it’s worth it, and it’s something. So I’m willing. I will wait. I will simply stop the floating and stand here, completely rooted and wait. Hit me, God....gently. Bowl me over, but don’t knock me down. I'm game.

Teacher's Pet

The email below is something I composed and sent to Clare's teacher last night. She has been coming home distraught over how she has been reacting to her friends lately. They aren't getting along well. One friend is the clear leader and decides what they will play. When Clare tries to take a turn with an idea, leader friend does not budge. Well meaning other friends try to change her mind, make her play, cajole her into compliance because they don't like the power struggle between the two super-powers. Clare loves to be in charge and feels aware that she is putting a strong desire to boss aside in order to take turns. Because she is yielding already, she is close to explosion when this situation occurs. 

Because Clare has watched as I explore my own anger and boundaries through motherhood, and because she has seen 1000 power struggles ending in anger....followed by 1001 resolutions (sometimes between gritted teeth) that have led me to grace, she is intensely aware of her own problem in what is happening. I am awed by what she observes and honors about herself. She has asked for help in knowing how to walk away to calm herself and keeps addressing her need to do just that. But her friends are not letting her. They are terrified she won't return and feel the sting of rejection as she tries to care for herself. We have been walking her through it from here, but as that failed yesterday (when her teacher fussed at her for ignoring their attempts), I knew I had to address it. So I did. And this morning we talked. 

I saw her teacher's assumptions of the situation crumble as I explained this very same way what was happening for Clare. I watched her very judgement of the situation shift into one of capacity and love for my daughter. I saw her shift her paradigm and opinion of playground resolution change on the spot. I didn't do that. I simply walked through the experience as I was led to, by Clare. I am determined to teach my kids to honor their processes, whatever they are...even when (and especially when) they are messy. I believe it is how we learn about ourselves and about life. I also believe that when we walk through this kind of messy and painful process, it is where we meet grace, where we find our source and learn how to step into our own unique power. It's life or death. 

Kristin

Motherhood is not for sissies.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Teacher
Subject: Re: Playground shenanigans

We can visit about this. :)

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 8:17 PM, Kristin Braun <kristinlbraun@me.com> wrote:

Clare has been struggling lately on the playground. We've been walking her through it from here, but I think it's important to bring you in on it as she is working very hard to empower herself...and it isn't working very well. She told us she lost her temper today and is really just suffering with it in general. I don't want to give it to much attention or effort, as its the end of the year and drama always runs high for girls then. However, she is learning something here and I don't want to miss the opportunity while she is in an environment she trusts.
She is not enjoying the games that her friends are playing at recess. They don't play what she wants to play (a normal predicament) and at some point she just wants to walk away because she is frustrated and disappointed. Once she is at this point, she is overwhelmed and really feels the need to just sit and catch her breath alone so she doesn't lose her temper. But they aren't allowing her to do that and she isn't holding her ground. They follow her and ask what's wrong and encourage her to come back. I know they're trying to be nice and love her dearly. However, because she can't get space to calm down, she loses her temper. She doesn't really know how to ask for that space without being rude or hurting someone's feelings. So she is often stuck, not knowing how to proceed...and being followed...with questions. And thar she blows!
We are encouraging her to gently suggest another game and then if they don't want to play it, to realize that she can't force or change the situation...and walk away if she needs to. Our message is that everyone has a right to play and be who they are. Including her.
It's very important for her to find her gentle and firm voice. It's important that she can advocate for herself and recognize and honor her own desires and guidance. It's critical she honor her own right path, rather than follow along with something she doesn't like or feel compelled to do. She is working so hard on knowing and honoring herself and others at the same time.
I will keep guiding her from here. I just wanted you to be aware of the place she is working from. She loves her friends, and also doesn't want to play their games sometimes. I think that sums up my entire life. ;) maybe she can learn to handle it with more grace than I....
Much love and gratitude,

Kristin

Motherhood is not for sissies.