katherine betty

I’m not much of a New Years resolution type of gal (clearly since it’s mid February and I’m just now getting around to my “New Years” post). I used to make the typical “go to the gym,” “make my bed every day” type of resolutions but now I’ve started choosing a focus for the year, a mindset that affects my approach to how I’ll live life, which naturally guides my actions.

At the beginning of this year I was praying about what my focus should be for 2017 and I felt like the word that God was speaking to me for the year was FEARLESS.  I was so annoyed. Fearless? Really? But I’ve already done so much work on this. People even comment pretty regularly on how brave I am. Do I really have to work more on fearlessness? Last year alone I faced a chronic illness diagnosis, sought medical treatment in the jungle of Ecuador, left my career, friends and family, and moved across the country. I’d say that’s pretty damn brave thank you very much. I’ll take another word, thanks.

How about WILD, I suggested. WILD sounds like so much more fun. I even bought a keychain recenlty that says WILD on it. I’m ready to be WILD, God. Let’s do that one! And His kind response was:

A) You’re already WILD, my love.

B) Yes, FEARLESS is the word for this year.

C) You don’t even know what it means yet. Give it a shot.

“Ugghhhh, okayyyy,” I responded, and decided to give “fearless” a chance.

Upon investigation I discovered that “fearless” is much more than just courage and bravery. Look at these synonyms I found: valorous, lionhearted, daring, audacious, spunky, gutsy, ballsy, feisty. Now those are some words I can get behind. Sign me up for lionhearted and feisty! LOVE IT!

I also found these descriptions of “fearless:”

“A fearless defender of freedom”

“To set a courageous example by leading them safely into and out of enemy-held territory”

“Audacious explorers and intrepid pioneers”

“A frank and courageous heart…triumphed over pain”

“Able to push through the storms of a shattered heart, broken spirit and tattered body, emerging twice as graceful and determined than before”

WOAH. I don’t know how to describe how empowered this made me feel. “Triumphed over pain”…”Emerging twice as graceful and determined”… What if all the pain I’ve experienced is actually birthing a double portion of grace and determination and setting me up to help lead others “out of enemy-held territory.” What if I turn pain into power and fearlessness. What if I get beauty for ashes. Holy shit. I take back everything I said about fearlessness. This is epic stuff.

When I continued studying “fearlessness” I discovered something even more epic though. Perhaps the most impactful thing I discovered about fearlessness was it’s connection to LOVE.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” 1 John 4:18.

Fearlessness is more than just a lack of fear, it’s actually an abundance of love. Going after fear is more than just being brave, it’s letting love lead, letting love into every area of your life.

And that’s what I’ve decided to run after this year. To find the areas where there’s fear and invite love in. To find the areas in my body, mind and heart that don’t feel lovable and let love in there. To fiercely love and celebrate even in the midst of mess. To say, “Katie, you are worthy of being loved right now, before you get your crap together, before you think you’ve “earned” the right to be loved.” To let go of who I think I’m supposed to be and to embrace who I am right now.

I’ve started on this work a little bit and guess what, it can be pretty tough stuff. Why? Because in order to let love in you have to give up shame and perfectionism. Perfectionism is the worst because it doesn’t celebrate. It points out all that you didn’t do instead of celebrating what you did do. When I invite perfectionism in for a drink it usually says things like, “You should have done more, given more, said more, been more”. When you do one load of laundry it says, “You should have done two.” When you read for an hour, it says, “You should have read for two.” When you clean one room, it says, “You should have cleaned the whole house.” But love celebrates. It says things like, “I’m so proud of you. You’re killing it. Take the risk. I’ll be waiting on the other side no matter what happens.”

Part of learning to reject perfectionism and to be loving towards myself has involved redefining success. At the end of the day, how do I define myself as successful. A few weeks ago I was having trouble falling asleep at night. When I’d get in bed my mind would start going over all the things I didn’t get accomplished that day. After a helpful tip from my counselor (seriously, if you don’t see a counselor every once in a while, please do. If you’re thinking, “naw I don’t need counseling. I don’t have any issues,” listen to me…I love you, but go make an appointment right now. You probably need it most of all. If everyone could just do a little counseling, I think we’d all have a little less anger and a lot more fun.), I started a practice at night that is life-changing. Before I went to bed I would list everything that I accomplished that day (instead of what I didn’t accomplish) and ask, “God, what are you proud of me for today?” And the craziest thing happened…I discovered that I had way more to be proud of than I originally thought and by the end of the list I felt like the most spectacular person in the world. And not because I had accomplished something spectacular. Most days that list includes “I got out of bed today” or “I took a shower today” (showering is hard sometimes, okay?!) or “I went to school today and sat through half of the lectures” or “I smiled at that cashier today.” No matter what the list included I chose to celebrate and embrace love because nothing that I did or didn’t do that day was worthy of me feeling shame or worthlessness.

Before you’re tempted to just write me off as one of those lazy millennials, just know that I know how to work hard and achieve. I’m not saying don’t be excellent or responsible, but excellence without love is perfectionism. Brene Brown in Rising Strong says, “Perfection is about the furthest thing in the world from badassery.” I don’t know about you, but I’d take badassery over perfection any day. I tried the performance/perfectionism thing for a while (most of my life actually) and let me tell you, all it gets you is panic attacks and sticks up your ass. I’d rather live life taking risks and embracing the messy than live in fear that I’m not enough.

So here’s to a year of redefining success, breaking up with perfectionism and living in love and celebration! I think 2017 is going to be a hell of a year!

XOXO,

KB

 

“Hi, how are you?”

It’s one of the simplest, most common questions, but it’s been so hard for me to answer recently.

If I were to answer that question honestly these days it would often sound like, “I’m bad. I don’t feel like I’m doing well at all. I’m in a lot of pain. I don’t feel well physically and I’m scared and disappointed.” I feel like I should answer, “I’m good, thank you,” but for some reason that doesn’t feel right anymore. It feels like a violation of my heart to push the pain aside, to pretend it’s all rainbows and unicorns and “God is so good” when really it feels more like all the shit has hit all the fans. Send in all the help and all the wine ASAP.

Of course I have happy moments and good days, but for the most part the last few months have been marked by a lot of pain. The pain of being diagnosed with a chronic illness for which there is no cure, the pain of having to get rid of most of my belongings due to the diagnosis, the pain of facing a potential future that looks drastically different than what I’ve always imagined, the pain of believing that God is going to heal me but feeling disappointment in the waiting, the pain of saying goodbye to family and friends and my home to move across the country, the pain of not being able to get out of bed some days.

I thought that moving to Redding and starting BSSM would be the opposite of painful. I thought it would look like joy and fun and laughter and drowning out all the pain, but it hasn’t.  Don’t get me wrong, I love NorCal and Bethel and BSSM and I don’t at all regret my decision to move. But it has been hard. I think partly because being here and being faced with a model for family and church and life that feels so healthy and happy and whole makes you face the dysfunction in your own life. The pain of realizing, “Wow, that was not okay that I was treated like that, that I believed that about myself/God, that my situation looked like that…

And I think it’s also due to the fact that I finally have time and space to process.

And for the first time I feel invited to feel instead of ignore the pain. I’ve been good at sweeping the pain under the rug and pretending it’s not there, but unfortunately it seems that all the pain won’t fit under the rug anymore. Or maybe I had to sweep it under there for a season so I could survive the trauma and chaos and function while trying to make sense of my situation and prep for a cross country move. Either way, I’ve now had to face the fact that I may have to actually take out the pain, look it straight in the eyes and let myself feel it.

And that’s terrifying. But also relieving because I hear that feeling pain is the first step towards healing and that feels like Hope to me.

I’ve found that people sometimes try to convince you that you shouldn’t feel pain. When they see your tears they say, “No don’t cry. It’s all going to be okay.” Or “God’s in control. Just choose joy. This trial is making you stronger.” Maybe those people are ones who stuffed their pain too, those that can’t handle their own pain and so can’t handle yours either.

What if what we need when we’re in pain isn’t, “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay,” but rather, “I’m so sorry. I see your pain. I’m here. You’re safe to feel it. You’re doing a good job.”

Glennon Doyle Melton writes in Love Warrior (my latest inspiration), “People who are hurting don’t need Avoiders, Protectors, or Fixers. What we need are patient, loving witnesses. People to sit quietly and hold space for us. People to stand in helpless vigil to our pain…It’s a holy space we can enter with people only if we promise not to tidy up.”

People ask me all the time, “What do you need?” or “What can I do?” I’ve had the hardest time answering that question but I think I’ve started to formulate an answer. What do I need? What I need is NOT for people to remind me to be joyful in affliction or to tell me why I shouldn’t be sad or scared or angry. (I want to punch those people in the face.) Or people telling me about how this supplement or this doctor will fix all my problems (because clearly they are an expert in the disease they’d never heard of until 5 minutes ago. I want to punch those people too).

What I’m discovering that I do need, though, is for people to be with me in my pain. People that will let me feel what I need to feel without wanting to run away or tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way. People that say, “I’m with you in this. We are going to get through this together.” People that can believe for my healing but not need me to believe with them.

And sometimes I need wine. Lots of red wine. And Dark chocolate. And fresh juice from Roots Juice Bar. Sometimes I need to not shower and put my hair in a greasy bun. And  sometimes I need to curl my hair and put on red lipstick and be reminded that I can still be sassy and fun in the midst of pain.

But most of all I need to give myself permission and grace to feel the pain and grief and be kind to myself no matter how much of a crazy, hot, emotional mess I appear to be. I keep telling the nice new people I’m meeting here,”I’m not usually like this. I just want you to know I don’t always weep like this everyday. I’m usually pretty and put together and stable and calm.” When I get tired of crying, I’m tempted to just sweep everything under the rug, to put it back in the nice box and hide it in the closet again. But something about that doesn’t sit right with me anymore. It doesn’t feel like the right direction. As much as I’d like to be able to wear mascara again, I’d rather have a whole heart and this seems to be a necessary (and valuable) part of that process.

XOXO, KB