authentic

After writing Frustration Redux I got to thinking about the line “buy the lie”, and living an authentically faith-filled life. “Fake it till ya make it” and “stay positive” are popular sayings in our current culture, and we have a princess telling us to “Let it go!”
When lo! and behold! Why rejection hurts so much – and what to do about it came up in my LinkedIn home page. Rejection hurts, a lot, like getting sucker punched by life experience.

As happens the thoughts started whizzing around between my ears, making me wait and listen. We’re often told that God put the eyes in on the front of our head so that we keep looking forward. Well, he gave us feet, that will turn us around to look back. I don’t think it’s the looking back that is the thing that gets us all knotted up. I think it’s the obsessing about what we might have done differently, not forgiving our self, and not forgiving any others involved in whatever the situation. I think too, that it is in this self-reflection that the taproot of maturity lives.

Back to “buying the lie” and living authentically. Buying the lie simply means accepting as truth something that is not true – such as that I pretty much suck as a person – and owning it with great passion. Living in that lie is costly in terms of my relationship with God, my Sweetie, with friends, and with my work. The cost is often higher than I can pay spiritually, emotionally, and in relationships. After reading the TED blog post (see link above) I realized this is how we, as human beings, are hard wired. When we experience being on the outside of the community we can spiral into a great deal of yuckyness that we do not need.

The other day when a job I’d applied for sent me the, “we’re going with one of the other candidates” letter, my inner critic started having a field day. A bit of prayer and the realization that my thought process was out of whack brought me back to a place where focusing on the work before me was possible. A few years ago, heck nine months ago this would have lasted much longer. Nine months because the emotional work of closing that quilt shop just wore me out. The truth is I have the skills for the job, they candidates who meet their needs in a way I don’t. That’s okay. This “rejection” doesn’t give me permission to listen to the inner critic when she’s totally wrong, now does it. This is something I don’t think God highly approves of anyway, as this robs us of a good relationship with Him.

As humans we are created for community (think Adam and Eve, the tribes of Israel, the Christian communities, marriage, family) and as quilters we live that out. We live out community, we have a unique opportunity to build each other up, to teach so that others may grow, to offer critique when a quilter asks, to hold back criticism all the time, to offer words of encouragement every day, to BE community for one another. We can give each other permission to pursue quilting with reckless abandon, great joy, and in life-giving ways.

When things are going wonky, as they did with my machine earlier this week, I didn’t need to make it about me being a bad quilter. I’m not, and I know better. After a bit of a tune-up and a fresh needle I’m off and stitching again.

As I move forward, continuing to search for the right day job, and working on the gift of quilt making I’ll go ahead think, reflect, and pray. But when the wallowing, and self-bashing start coming into my head I’ll turn my feet around and start walking in a different direction. Because feet are like that…(so are quilts!)

God bless,

Teri

PS – sometimes when I’m in the car I’ll listen to Catholic Radio…I’ve been liking Hallie Lord, and Jennifer Fulweiler. Hallie’s video from earlier this week reminded me of so many things. Enjoy.