A perfectionist’s Lenten journey of radical self-care

“You are my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

I imagine God telling me these words. And I enter the wilderness.

Two things happened the day I realized I did not love myself. I sat tall in my vessel in yoga class, motivational words pouring into me. “How you treat your body says a lot about how you feel about yourself. Listen to what you tell yourself in yoga class.” 

I knew then. I’ve treated my body like dirt for so long. I deprived it of food in my adolescence when I struggled with an eating disorder; I didn’t give it the rest and nutrition it needed for so many years, always pushing it to further limits; I made it endure perpetual pounding from stress and anxiety, long past when it sent me signals that the life I lived was hurting it.

“We are the wilderness,” my friend and Episcopal priest Hailey had offered in her sermon that week at the beginning of Lent. That day in yoga class I went deep into my own wilderness, to sit with myself.I focused on being kind to my body, telling it, “Thank you. You’ve done good work.” I focused on being gentle and respecting my body’s limits. I walked through my wilderness. I kissed each tree and thanked it for living and growing despite neglect and harsh conditions. I appreciated its deep wisdom. It soaked up all it could from sunshine and rainwater and nutrients it found on its own.

That day I also went to therapy. I brought up the voices that I hear from my past that criticize and condemn me. They step in sometimes to try to get me in line by telling me things like, You’re selfish. You only think of yourself. Grow up. Why are you making such a big deal out of this? You’re too sensitive. You have no reason to be so upset. YOU’RE the problem. If you were stronger, this wouldn’t bother you. My therapist postulated, “How would you feel if you knew those voices were your own voice? They used to be the voices of the people who hurt you, but now you have taken them on as your own.” I didn’t blink. I looked to the side. I looked back at her. I swallowed.

It’s hard to listen to the voices when I know they’re my own, when I know that I’ve integrated them into my own thoughts and have kept wearing the shackles that I was free to take off at any time. When I hear those words spoken in my voice, when I say them aloud and imagine telling myself those things, it hurts. It hurts more than remembering. It hurts more to realize I’ve been talking to myself this way all along. I am my own hostage.

When I hear those words in my voice, it’s not as easy to blame someone else.  I can only blame myself for letting these voices make themselves at home in my head for so long. I don’t want to blame myself. So I take a deep breath. I sit in my wilderness. I touch each tree and send love to the towering ones and the ones stunted by the tall and broad growth of the others. You’ve grown well, tree. You grew the best way you knew how in this wilderness.

I didn’t embark on this Lenten journey with a clear mission.

I didn’t map out a discipline for myself or a meaningful daily ritual to add. I didn’t enter the wilderness with a plan. No tent, no heavy pack full of changes of clothing and toiletries, no food. I had no destination in mind, no stops along the way. I wandered into the wilderness, stumbled in. I said to God and myself, “Here I am. Show me the way.”

I’m a new mom. (I can claim “new mom” for the first few years, right? Maybe 18? Everything will be new to ME as a mom all the time.) I’m already missing some sleep and happy to take one bite of food for every five bites I cut up for my baby. I stay home with my child, which means I have few hours in the day when I am not actively needed. Sometimes being needed means literally attaching a crying baby to my body, where he slurps down liquid comfort and love. Some days he drains everything from me, and no one else better come to this well looking to be filled because guess what? WE’RE CLOSED.

Some days I forget to brush my teeth until 4:00 in the afternoon. And my arms have no purpose other than soothing and protecting this little life from crashing lamps and electrical outlets. This is not the time of limiting myself and of deprivation, of challenging myself with self-discipline. I’m going to give myself a pass on that. 

I’ve already watched myself completely alter my life to make space for the growth and development of this wondrous child. I’m doing something really hard. I don’t need another self-improvement project. I’m going to eat the chocolate I want to eat, drink the wine I want to drink, do good things, and feed my soul the best way I know how that day. Lent is a road only God and I can travel together. And I don’t think God wants me pushing my perfectionist agenda, finding more proof that I continually fall short of who I want to be, of who I think I should be.

This is how my perfectionist agenda plays out.

I signed up to participate in a Lenten small group book club at my church. I signed up because the facilitator and hosts were people I wanted to get to know better.

I am not one who can just write my name on a list and have that be the end.

First, I wondered endlessly, Did I join the right group? The page for the other group said, ‘Children welcomed’, and they’re going to have a babysitter…but that group had about 12 lines of names, and I don’t like talking to that many people…I probably joined the right group…Do you think they’d mind if I bring my baby?…Does that make me entitled to think I can bring my baby to the group that does not say ‘Children welcomed’?

“You’re in the right group” was my answer for the night.

The next day the perfectionist machine cranked up again. I worried I wouldn’t have the time to commit to this 5-week book club. I worried I wouldn’t have the time to read thoroughly, and no one wants a worthless body who hasn’t read the book.

You always overcommit. You told yourself you would slow down. This is not slowing down. This is adding more. Remember last week when you felt like you were going to suffocate and have a breakdown and you couldn’t even remember where food came from in your house, that you had frozen vegetables you could microwave?

…Maybe this will be energizing, though. Maybe this will not take energy from me.

…But what if other people sign up for this group, and it ends up being a big energy-sucking group?

STOP. Reality check. This is a book club. For five weeks. This is not a high-risk situation. What is the worst thing that could happen here? You don’t do the reading, and you have to just listen. You have to stop going to the book club because you don’t have the time or energy.

I tuned into my perfectionism and my people-pleasing habits. I realized that I didn’t want to be a part of a group if I couldn’t guarantee that I would be extremely well-prepared and able to offer insightful comments. And quitting is just not an option. The voice says, When you sign up to do something, you do it. Quitters are flaky. They’re weak. No one will respect you. You’ll disappoint people. They won’t want to be friends with you.

Breathe, sister. Hug the trees in your wilderness.

Here’s where I found myself at the beginning of Lent. At the edge of my wilderness I saw a signpost that said, “You are my beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.” A wind stirred the dust around the sign, and by the time the dust settled, so did the heaviness of the realization that I am not beloved to myself.

Being beloved has been my deepest desire in every relationship in my life. I thirst for it and search for it everywhere. I search for it in the places where I don’t feel beloved, valued, or treasured, in the places where I’ve never felt a sense of belonging or worth. And I leave those places feeling empty, like the riches of the beloved are not available to me.

I start playing the “if” game. If this one thing had been different, how much better off would I be now? If only my father had known how to make me feel treasured, beloved and cherished…if he had shown me respect, how would my world be different? This is the game I play. If that deep need had been fulfilled for me, how would I have been less hurt by the world? I tell myself I would be more confident. I would speak fluidly. I would sparkle. I would have “it” more together. I wouldn’t have been abused by another man because I would have known that I deserved more and that my voice could hold my one steady truth. I mourn the person I think I would have been without the abuse. 

The nameless yearning, the part where I just sit and say, “Why God?” draws me in. “Why didn’t I get this? Didn’t I deserve it? Now I’m not as you imagined I could be. I’m less than my potential.” 

I run to the places where I don’t feel beloved, and I dwell there. The good words wash off me, and the negative ones get caked on like mud. What if instead I could dwell in the knowledge that I am beloved, to run to the center of that love, to find the place within me that rests steady in the knowledge that I belong? I could sit in a light-soaked clearing in my wilderness and know that every little thing that has hurt me has grown me into the strong, insightful, compassionate person I am. 

Those negative words that were lathered on me like layer upon layer of mud would dry and crack under the warm light of all that love. I could peel off the layers and say, “Not me. Not mine.” I could soak in a bath of the good words and let them seep into my pores and know that I was water and light all along. I could love this person exactly how she is. 

Asking for help when I need it. Saying no to what is too much for me to carry. Choosing self-embrace instead of self-judgment. Embodying the gifts God has given me by sharing my writing and experiences with the world. This is a Lent I can sustain this year.

I walked in my wilderness and traded self-discipline for radical self-care. I traded the mountainous ultra-marathon for the creekside nature walk.

That early Lenten day my mother-in-law was in town to watch my baby so I could take some time for myself. What a gift. On top of yoga and therapy, I ingested aromatic curries at an Indian buffet with my best friend before we treated ourselves to gourmet popsicles. To top it all off, that night I went on a date with myself. I felt like staying home and sleeping, but I knew this was my chance. Dinner and a movie with no one but me. I ordered the sushi roll with the crazy pink sauce on top. It looked like the official sushi roll of Legally Blonde. It’s called Pink Cadillac and is wrapped in pink rice paper. Pretty much the frilliest sushi you can imagine. I drank a glass of wine and read a book by myself in a restaurant for the first time.

After my pink sushi, I bought a ticket for La La Land. I ordered a small popcorn, peanut M&Ms, and Diet Coke. I never drink soda. This was a supreme indulgence after a day of indulgence. I wore my red raincoat in the theater because it looked like it might storm that night. The first tear slid quickly down my face and audibly plunked when it hit the collar of my raincoat. A fat ol’ drop. No rain that night. Just my tears falling as I pondered dreams and the crazy risks of the creative life. I thought about the chance I’m taking putting my writing out there with this blog, and it made me all weepy. The Griffith Observatory came on screen again, and I remembered the clear L.A. night I was third in line at the telescope to see the rings of Saturn. Dancing in the clouds. Ryan Gosling’s face in the stars. Paris, my lovely Paris. Life is beautiful! I am beautiful! It all showered on me in one cheesy cinematic moment.

This is Lent for me tonight. Radical self-care and junk food. While some are abstaining from chocolate and giving up television, I am stuffing my face alone at the theater on a Monday night. Because I was anorexic once, and I had never been to the movies alone, and I needed some revolutionary self-love. This is how I love myself tonight. Can this be a thing? Is this sacrilegious? Jesus went into the wilderness, and I went to a Hollywood musical. I’m not sure about the hermeneutics of it all, but it feels right to me. 

I’ve had seasons of living like a hermit in my wilderness. Sitting in my darkness. Not saying a real word to anyone for weeks. 

I’ve given myself thousands of lashes for not measuring up. It’s time to put some honey on those wounds.

This Lent I walked through my wilderness and found myself emerging in the sunshine standing on a beautiful mountain vista.

“You are my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Photo credit: Christopher Guider