A Drama-free Holiday

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Why do we expect people to be different than they are and then act shocked when they do exactly what we knew they would do? Could that possibly be the protagonist to our drama-filled holidays?

Let’s be honest. We know our families. We know that they (whoever they are) are going to get on our last nerves. They are going to pick apart something. They are going to tell the same story they always tell. They are going to favor Boo Boo’s kids over yours. They always criticize. They always hate. They always argue. If asked, we can give a blow by blow of exactly what’s going to happen when we get there. So why do we get so upset about it?

To hear us vent, you’d think we didn’t grow up with these folks. Uncle Julian is going to drink too much and he’s going to start cussing about all of us being against him. He does it every year; yet everyone including you gets so upset about it. To this, I say, it is futile. Can Uncle Julian be any different? I know you want him to be but if you were to step outside of your emotions and look at this thing objectively, can anyone in your family be any different than they are?

They cannot help it. I know you want them to be different. You want them to be the ideal husband, the ideal wife, the ideal in laws, the ideal family. You want them to treat you the way you want to be treated. But that’s your script. It’s not theirs. Even if you agree on the principle, their practice may be entirely different from yours.

Let me ask you something: can you change who you are? I’m not talking about your hair color or your education level. I’m talking about who you are at your core. Your beliefs, your values. How do you feel when someone criticizes who you are? When they say you talk too much or that you’re too quiet. Does it make you feel put down? It’s no fun feeling like you got to be this way or that in order to be accepted. You might try to be different; but after a while, it breeds resentment.

If that’s how you feel, then isn’t it just as wrong for you to require that they be different? What makes your ideal better than their’s? Perhaps that’s the cause of your holiday drama. It’s not Uncle Julian. Uncle Julian is doing what Uncle Julian always does. It’s not your mother in law. You already know what she’s going to say or how you’re going to feel around her. There’s a word for hoping against hope that you can win someone else’s approval or that they’ll be different this time – denial.

Could it be that denial is what’s causing the drama? Regardless to how you’ve been treated in your family, people can only be who they are. Just because they are your family, your in laws, your child’s other parent, it doesn’t change who they are. As I see it, this holiday, you have two choices: One, to continue to allow the same drama into your heart and life or two, to have a change of heart.

Growing up, I had a love-hate relationship with my dad. Though he was the man I tried most to please, my dad was stubborn. He saw things in black and white. Shades of gray were not in his value system. As a result, his ideals and beliefs were very damaging to my very gray female spirit. I don’t blame him anymore. By the grace of God, I’ve forgiven him and he and I had some glorious years before he died. Nevertheless, when I was college age, I dreaded coming home for the holidays unless my sisters were going to be there. The internal drama I felt continued until one particular day. I remember it well. I was having my usual emotional back-and-forth when mom told me that dad wanted his children to come home. I remember praying loudly and bitterly about it. Then I remember telling God how it was too late. When we wanted him to be a part of our lives, he was too drunk or too churchy to do it. Now, he was older and wanted us to act as if the past umpteen years hadn’t happened. It’s too late. He lost that time with us and would NEVER ever get it back. I was incensed. I remember saying aloud, “all I wanted was my daddy. I wanted him to be there for me. All I wanted was for dad to love me.”

“He did love you,” I heard. It came out of nowhere. It was so profound that it was almost audible. Stunned, I stopped crying and I heard, “Loving you was NEVER the issue.” It was as if my ears opened up. For the first time, I heard with my heart that my dad’s behavior towards me was not due to a lack of love. He had plenty of that. He just couldn’t be anybody other than himself. He had his own struggles. He had his own demons. And sometimes that fight left him too bitter, too tired, too emotionally spent to be the father I needed. He did the best he could. That’s not a cop out. It’s a fact. That day, I accepted my dad for being who he was for the first time. And it was on that day I became free. I no longer needed him to be different in order for me to have peace.

Acceptance doesn’t mean that you think how your family members are or how they treat you is okay no more than forgiveness means it. It simply means that you accept them as they are. My mom and dad will always be my parents. They will always have the values and beliefs they have unless God himself changes them. Regardless, I can love them. And if you cannot love your parents for any other reason, they are the reason you exist. No other egg and no other sperm could have resulted in you. That’s enough reason to honor them.

Honor them, yes. Allow drama, no. Honoring someone doesn’t mean you have to do anything but honor them. Loving your parents doesn’t mean you are required to spend the holidays with them if it’s not a safe place. Loving your in laws doesn’t mean you have to subject yourself to ridicule or put downs. It is more honoring to guard your love for them than to jeopardize it by putting yourself in situations that re injure you. You always have a choice. It may not be popular – seldom is – but it is absolutely and unequivocally your choice. You choose how you will spend your time and with whom. I use to tell my son this. “You can’t stop a person from swinging at you; but you certainly can duck."

As an adult, you are responsible for your own emotional health and well-being. You don’t put that in someone else’s hands. So, if you want a drama free holiday, be courageous. Stand for and with you. Let me clarify that standing is not mean-spirited or at the expense of someone else. It’s that you speak the truth in love. You say simply, “Mom/Dad, I love you. I have other holiday plans this year.“ And keep it moving. Choose other ways to show them you love them. Maybe you can take them in small doses or when there isn’t all that holiday pressure. Be creative. Be resourceful. But most importantly, take care of yourself.

Will everybody like it? Heck no. Some folks will think you’re being a brat. Some will think you are being selfish. Some will think you are just doing this for attention. At this point, however, what some think is not most important. It’s honoring them and yourself enough to choose to act like a grown up.

And if you decide to go home for the holidays, then stop whining. Again, put on your big boy pants and man up. Prepare yourself for what will happen and decide a self-honoring, empowered way to respond instead of copping an attitude and walking away the wounded martyr once again. Let’s be clear: martyrs of old were courageous not the walking wounded. Heal your wounds and be the change you want to see in others. It takes courage. It takes resolve. Trust me when I say that you can be that person. It took some years and some work, but it was well worth it. I learned that no drama started with me. In this case, I had to forgive my dad for not being who I wanted him to be and accept him as he was. When I did, it ended the internal drama and the holidays were no longer burdensome. When I ended the internal drama, my holidays became drama-free.

A Whole Nether Level

Coming to terms with a painful time in your life takes chutzpah. It really does. Who wants to revisit trauma, hurt, humiliation?! I mean, really? It took me this long to come to the other side, to finally get all my marbles back, to finally be able to smile from my liver. Why should I need to, have to or want to go back? Yet I knew that Purpose was requiring that I do that very thing.

In the aha of the moment, I realized that it is not enough to be whole. It’s not enough to be free. It’s not enough. There is a whole nether level. It’s called grace.

A shining example is Tyler Perry. I know that Spike Lee and some other brothers have a problem with him. They feel that he portrays Black men in a derogatory fashion. But I ask that you put that to the side for a moment and allow me to make my point. It is public knowledge that Tyler was sexually molested. Despite this, he has overcome challenges from within and without to attain huge success. He has been featured in various magazines and is now considered one of the most influential men in America. So why go on The Oprah Show and expose the depth, the breadth and the height of such a painful time in his life. After all, by all extents and purposes, he’s made it. He can now thumb his nose at all the naysayers and folks who discounted his talent. So why?

I think it lies in something he said. He said that he remembers when the little boy in him was lost. The abuse was so severe that he saw his innocence run and keep on running. Maybe just maybe he felt that with all the adulation, he had failed to go and get that little boy. And maybe he knew he would never ever be complete until he made it safe for him to come home. He had to give him a voice. He had to bring him out the shadows and let him know it was alright. If nobody else had his back, he did.

Sometimes, I’d dare say most times, life will bring us right back to the moment of our greatest shame. The very thing you don’t want to talk about. The very memory you have strived so hard to forget. I have found that you cannot be whole when there’s a part of yourself you’ve disowned. I don’t care how successful you are, your happiness will be short-lived if you don’t make peace from those broken pieces. Some books call it that wounded child inside of you. And you know what? I believe that is what the Bible is referring to when it talks about your lost soul.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t stop there. There’s a whole nether level. There’s another passage in the Bible where Jesus speaks to Peter. He says to him, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan desired [to have] you, that he may sift [you] as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not: and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren.”

When Tyler returned to the Oprah Show the next time, it was with 200 men who also had been sexually molested. As I watched that show, the only words I could come up with to describe that moment was grace. You could tell that for many of them, this was the resolution they so deeply needed. It was validating. For Tyler to be able to go back to a painful place so that 200 other souls could be strengthened meant a conversion had to have happened. Now let me clarify. I am not speaking with religious or Pentecostal labels here. By conversion, I mean a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of position.

In the same way, Purpose has been dealing with me. It’s not enough that I survived. It’s not enough to get to a freed place and to celebrate it. There are others who need someone to come and get them. To be honest, in my adult life, the two most humiliating, hard-to-get-over experiences of my life have been divorce and my marriage to a gay man - twice. And last Saturday, I was wrestling with shame that was still there. Since that time, there’s been a change. I’ve changed my position.

Just call me Harriet Tubman…lol. This woman risked life and limb to find the path to freedom. For most people, that would have been enough. But she went back down that path to lead others. Every time she travelled that Underground Railroad, she risked being caught; yet something Greater required that she do it. And something Greater kept her safe. This tells me that Purpose won’t require something that there’s not enough Grace to enable you to do it. And so I surrender. Hence, the change.  I say to the Universe, to God, use me.

I had a moment today. I was listening to the Super Soul Sunday documentary. It was a rerun about Jonas Elrod. He sees dead people. I couldn’t resist. Actually, he sees auras, ghost, demons, spiritual beings. I know, it sounds unreal but he was walking along and out of nowhere he was able to see things that he couldn’t before. I found it interesting. After all, I know what it’s like to hear something, see something that those around you aren’t seeing or hearing. Happened when I was young and my life has continued to be different than what I was brought up to expect.


There was a point where he said, “I didn’t want this. “ He was on a quest to understand why this was happening to him and what he was suppose to do with it. He went from spiritual guide to spiritual guide—mystics, priests and seekers, many of whom he felt were out there. “I don’t want to be one of them,” he said. Lord knows, I understand him. I was cleaning the bathroom at the time and as I was wiping out the sink, I heard him. Before I knew it, I was saying the same thing. “I don’t want to be one of them.” I said it over and over again and as if a dam burst, I started crying deep heaving sobs. I didn’t want to be divorced. I didn’t want to be a straight wife of a gay husband. I didn’t want any of it. I felt myself going into a cathartic cry and started fumbling with my telephone. I needed to talk to somebody but I didn’t want to be consoled. I wanted someone who would help me to face this and stay present in it. I didn’t want to swallow this back down. My wise self knew that I needed to deal with it.

Thank God for Natalie. She didn’t answer immediately but called me back. I explained to her how I’ve been struggling. The light of my purpose getting more intense yet still working the same job. You almost feel like you’re coming unglued. That’s what makes transitions hard. Where you’re going is having a tug of war with where you are. Doesn’t feel good at all.

As she helped me gain perspective, not only was it evident I was grieving but there was some shame there too. I felt guilt and I felt shame. I felt like I had failed myself and failed my son. I felt like damaged goods that people would either pity or think I was stupid. “How could you not know he was gay,” straight wives are often asked. I think the guilt is because he told me he had lived a gay lifestyle. In my naivete, I believed him when he said that God delivered him. After all, God can do anything. I believe that. But to marry him twice? All I can say is I was ignorant. I had never caught him in the act. I told Natalie that I just wanted to be normal.

Her response was absolutely what I needed. “Normal!” she said with surprise. “Who wants to be normal? I pride myself on being unique. Who wants to be ordinary. Please, anything normal.” As I listened, I began to laugh. I heard it. I heard it for what it was. Why would I want to be normal, average, run of the mill? Why? What I considered as shameful was something to be celebrated. As she reframed what I shared and how admirable it was, I felt proud. I had overcome something that many women haven’t. My heart echoed what Natalie said. “You worked through it. You did. You aren’t the one responsible for what happened to you. You believed your husband. You trusted what he said as truth and you loved him. He was the one who was dishonest. He’s the one. You aren’t responsible for that.” Like a warm blanket placed gently around my nakedness, I felt deeply cared for. The grief that I was feeling was simply that—grief.

I didn’t expect to grieve. And I might many more times. I wasn’t rejecting the journey, I was rejecting the label. What I’ve been through doesn’t define me. I don’t have to wear a label. I am Suzette. I am alive today because I fought to live. I took advantage of every resource God made available so that I could live. I am not broken, marred or disfigured; I am resilient and strong.

I made it! And if there is anybody out there who I can help, then I want to do that. As I shared with Nat, what I’ve been through has given me such compassion for those who struggle. The outcasts, the rejects of society because their look, their ways, their authentic selves doesn’t fit the status quo. People who have dared to come out of their closets or have kicked down the constructs placed on them by people who have no idea of their plight. My heart is full of compassion for the men and women courageous enough to come out to their families and the world. If anyone thinks that is easy, they need to guess again. To face almost certain distancing, criticism, hostility and judgment is not something people would pick for themselves. The Carson Kressley’s, Ellen Degeneres and Chaz Bono’s out there who just want to be loved and accepted. Like me and others, they didn’t ask for the cards they were dealt. They are playing them the only way they know just as others are. They’ve just chosen a different way. They didn’t ask for this. I certainly didn’t ask to be an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. I didn’t ask to be divorced. I didn’t ask to be sheltered by my parents and not prepared for certain personalities we’d meet. I didn’t ask to be a Straight Wife. But it asked for me. So when things ask for you, you have to do what you have to. And I believe that if you’ve prayed, cried, agonized, sought and you remain in your state, there is sufficient grace for you. Now, I know that my Christian or Pentecostal friends don’t and won’t agree. But that’s my truth and I’m sticking to it.

Nobody. Not gays, not straights. Nobody should have to carry around guilt or shame over something they can’t help. What kind of life is that? That’s why some of them have to leave family and friends and create a new normal. Who wants to be with people who want you to act less than what you are just because they are uncomfortable with your choice. That’s no life. And I’ve found that society just wants you to comply. They couldn’t care less whether it’s from your heart or not. They want you to do and be the way they want so they, themselves, will feel better. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Only God cares about your heart, it seems. He looks at the heart. I believe that we all have to find our own North Star. My path is not yours and yours isn’t mine. But we are all God’s children. I may not agree with you, but I will respect your right to your choice. God gave it to everyone and he hasn’t renigged on it. I often say. I don’t fault my ex-husband for being gay. I only fault him for involving me.

For baiting and switching. For promising to love, honor and cherish and to keep himself only for me yet withholding himself from me. I was reading the 50 things that gay husbands say to their straight wives to avoid intimacy that my friend, Bonnie Kaye posted on her blog. As I read them, I remembered how awful it was. You stink, when you ask for sex you sound like a whore, you are a nympho were some of the reasons he gave me. He even told me that I needed to ask God to help me because I shouldn’t give anyone that kind of power as I begged him to touch me and laid crumpled on the bed crying my eyes out. He just sat there smugly and matter of factly telling me what was wrong with me. So cold. So distant. No care. No compassion. No regard. In my vulnerability, he made me responsible. He blamed me. He made me the reason why he couldn’t love me.

The things I dealt with emotionally in silence could have driven me to drink, to do drugs, to have an extramarital affair, to lose my faith and to lose my mind. I use to have many panic attacks and often felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown. There was a period where I did lose faith. I didn’t want to hear any scriptures. I didn’t want to go to church. I didn’t want to do anything that reminded me of that period in my life. I didn’t want to talk to the same people. But during that time of isolation, God helped me. He preserved me. Even when I fell headlong into a sexual impropriety, God took care of me and wouldn’t allow the man to hurt me. Despite his reputation, he took care of my wounded heart. God was with me and never ever left me. He left me breadcrumbs to follow through all the mirk and mire and ups and downs and twists and turns so I could find my way back home. And no, I’m not the same person. I no longer fit in certain places. How could I after that? It’s nobody’s fault. It just is.

My way out brought me to a different place. A different consciousness. I can’t act like I don’t know. I can’t go back to complying and feeling guilty for not wanting to. I belong outside of the box. I didn’t choose it, it chose me.

It is human to want to belong. And I’m so glad that everybody on this planet has someone that understands them. They don’t have to be isolated or feel like nobody understands. If they live long enough, they will always find somebody who understands them. Who gets them. Who appreciates their journey and where it has taken them.

I was reading on Twitter where folks were criticizing the life coaching community. At first, I was going to defend it, but then I decided not to. Truth is, every single person on this planet has been coached in some way, shape or form. Oprah admits that the reason she didn’t have to go to therapy was because of her BFF Gayle King. Athletes have coaches. Children has coaches whom we fondly call parents. We have all been a coach to someone or been coached by someone. Coaches are encouragers. Coaches are mirrors. Coaches are teachers. Coaches are illuminators. Coaches keep us accountable. Coaches give perspective. Coaches are objective. Coaches don’t lie to us or tell us what we want to hear. Coaches don’t counsel. Coaches walk alongside you. Coaches affirm you. They let you bounce things off of them. They offer insights. And yes sometimes they let you know when you’re coping out, not reaching your full potential. Coaches don’t coddle you or protect you from you. They are straightforward and real. Coaches are expressive. They show emotion. They touch you. They don’t just sit and peer at you from behind reading glasses with an otherwise blank stare. Coaches honor what you want for your own life and say, okay, I’m with you. Coaches are good friends. Coaches are good listeners. Coaches are cool. That’s why I am a coach. And yes, we’re worth our weight in GOLD. That’s why I don’t have any trouble paying my coach. Her help is priceless and I hope that someone will feel that way about me one day.

Are You Ready?

"But you never said you liked me," said Iyanla.  "I won't accept that," says Oprah.  "What did you think that was?  I sat in the audience and gave you the mike."  Grabbing Oprah by both hands, Iyanla looks deeply into her eyes, "I didn't know what that was.  Hear me, you've got to hear me...I thought you wanted the work, not me."  A light bulb came on for Oprah.  "Iyanla wasn't ready to receive it," she later shared while discussing this very intense interaction with her friend, Gayle.  It was Oprah's 25th Season and she and Iyanla engaged in some long overdue talk about why Iyanla left The Oprah Show some years before.

Are you ready?  How many of us miss the opportunities that come into our lives because we aren't ready to receive it? 

These are questions I've been grappling with as I anticipate my next move.  I've been praying for quite some time about taking my writing to the next level.  Am I ready?, I ponder.  I'm reminded of the tabloid frenzy surrounding our own North Carolina native, Fantasia Barrino.  She is without a doubt a rare talent, a stellar performer and a powerful young woman.  American Idol was the opportunity for her dreams to come true.  Yet, as I have followed her career and her very public struggles, I've had to ask if she was ready for the very thing she dreamed of.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not judging her or Iyanla for that matter.  Everyone has a path they have to walk to grow into their best selves.  Just the same, I do believe that failure and yes, success, reveal what's fixed and what's broken in a person.  When one's life has not been properly nurtured and structured, success can cause it to spiral out of control.  What's broken in our lives and in our psyches moves from the background into the forefront at break-neck speed.

Do something for me.  Focus on what it is you want.  Get it in your mind.  Now ask yourself, "Am I ready?"  I know you want it.  You might want it so bad you can taste it.  But are you ready for it?  This step cannot be rushed because as Dr. Phil says, "you can't change what you won't acknowledge."  Besides, just because you aren't ready right this minute doesn't mean you can't get ready. 

To this very point, let me share a page from my own history.  Actually, I think I'd better give you the cliff note version lest this should go from an article to a short story.  I was not seeking home ownership.  Not at all.  But it dropped in my lap.  Once I got the notification that I qualified for a loan and realized that I--a post-divorced single mother who had filed bankruptcy--was going to be a homeowner, I had to get ready.  I had to make room in my life and in my finances for a home.  Now this is where it gets sticky for most first-time home buyers.  We spend all available resources on the front-end of getting ready.  We focus on raising the money for the down payment and negotiating the monthly payments.  But it doesn't stop there.  Borrowing another quote from Dr. Phil, "you can't just plan for the wedding, you have to plan for the marriage."

So, how do you start?  

Educate yourself.  The more you know, the less your ego can get you into trouble.  I know that is a bold statement but truth is, it is our ego that sabotages our success.  It's our ego that spends more than we can afford.  It's our ego that uses money to soothe emotional discomfort.  While I worked as a Substance Abuse Counselor, part of the therapeutic process was to help our clients to feed the rational part of their brain.  The more the client learned about his drug of choice, its affects on his body, the psychic pain that he took the drug to numb and the importance of a healthy support system, the less the pleasure centers of his brain could dominate and rule his life.  In the same way, I believe that educating yourself about where you want to go in life will increase the likelihood of your thriving in that new place. 

Come up with a plan.  Take stock of where you are and what you need to do to get to where you wanna go.  For instance, if you have a lot of bills or a lot of debt, come up with a plan to pay them off.  Or say you're coming into a lot of money, plan how you want to use your money.  If you want to get married, come up with a plan.  You may already have your hope chest or have found the perfect wedding dress, but what about your credit score?  What about your availability?  What about your relatability?  Do you have trust issues, unresolved anger, character defects that you need to resolve?  All that is part of the planning.

Write it down.  Write down your end result and develop a way to get there.  Don't overwhelm yourself.  For me, dividing my plan into bite-size, doable pieces made sticking to it less intimidating.  Going back to my home buying experiences, my plan was to be out of debt by the time my first mortgage payment was due.  Seemed pretty ambitious until I wrote down the income I'd have, the bills I'd have to pay and the frills I could do without.  Not only did I find it doable, but I got it done in two months time.  I checked off and celebrated each benchmark accomplishment.  It felt so good!

Hold yourself accountable.  Businesses have advisers, bookkeepers have CPAs, athletes have coaches and we need someone to help us stay true to our plan.  This is very important.  No matter how motivated you are at first, life and time will distract and interfere.  At those times, it is key to have someone to ignite your resolve and to encourage you to finish strong.   That's why I see a life coach regularly.  I tend to be more accountable to someone I'm paying.

Are you ready?  Let today be your day to bust a move!

Codependent No More: Don’t Let Some Truth Blind You To The Truth

She’s pulling up in the driveway. It’s 9:00 at night and I’ve been calling her for hours. Why didn’t she pick up? I’m not going to fuss or fight. That always ticks her off. I’m going to use a loving tone. Okay (deep sigh), I hear her turning her key in the lock.

“Hey baby”

“Heyyy sweetie”

“How was your day?" (He kisses her on the cheek)

“Babe, it was sooooo hard. Before you say anything, I saw on my phone that you were callin me; but I was in meeting after meeting.”

“I was worried though. When you didn’t pick up, I didn’t know if you had been in an accident or something.”

“Somethin? I just told you that I was in meeting after meeting. What are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating. Don’t get defensive. I was just concerned. When a man can’t reach his woman, he gets a little crazy.”

“See. I knew that you would jump to conclusions. You know I have a demanding job. Why can’t you trust me? Look, I ain’t got time for this. I’m going to bed.” (She walks to the bedroom and closes the door. He stands there with his mouth opened in disbelief)

Sound familiar? For some of us, this has been the play by play of what just happened last night. Might not be that your partner, boyfriend or spouse had to work late; but it is still reminiscent of that feeling of what in the world just happened.  For me, it’s the excruciating not-returned phone call. Arggggggghhhhhhh! Sure, it’s true that a person can’t always respond to you immediately. But you do wonder if there is a bigger truth when it's the rule. Hence, today’s blog: don’t let some truth blind you to The Truth.

I’m not trying to turn you into Sherlock Holmes. That’s not my intent. For some of you, what you don’t know won’t hurt you is the way you live your life. If that works for you, I say, fabulous. For me, it hasn’t worked. Trading the truth of my intuition for some other truth has not worked for me. I'd dare say it hasn't worked for some men out there either.  They know that something isn’t right or something doesn’t add up. I’m not certain what makes them dismiss it though. For me and maybe women in general, we don’t like to be lied to.  Words have meaning to us.  If you tell us you love us but your actions say you don’t, we’ll hold on or obsess about it because of what you said.

Now, ladies, before you challenge me on this, I ask you, what is the first thing you say when you are complaining about a man to your girlfriends? You will tell them what he did that bothered you, true; but your sticking point 9 times out of 10 is “but he said.” Your confidante can say to you over and over and over (did I say over?) again that he’s playing with you or that he isn’t a good man. Yet, to all their examples, their wisdom, their feedback, what makes you take his phone call yet again is what he says.

Lest I should sound preachy or over generalizing, I will talk about myself. After all, that’s what blogs are for right? My litmus test is when I begin to complain about something. For those who know me, I’m not a complainer. I’m Suzy Sunshine. Suzy Optimistic. Suzy Social. Okay, you get me. So when I start complaining incessantly that is a blaring indicator that something's off.

I use to be a minister at a local church. It was years ago. I wasn’t the traditional minister – the one who stands in the pulpit and preaches when the pastor is taking a break – but more an altar worker. When the pastor would give the altar call and folks would come up for prayer, I was one of the people who greeted them, listened to what they wished to pray about, and prayed with them. I learned a lot during that time in my life. Though people told me they were encouraged and they were helped by me being a minister, it never rang true for me.

So what were the some truths that allowed me to do it? It seemed important to my then-husband.  That was a biggy.  People told me they were about to give up, commit suicide, at wits end but my prayer was the difference. All that appealed to my ego but it was sooo draining!  So why not just walk away?  I needed to feel that I mattered. Being a minister made me important.  At some deep level, I needed to feel accepted by the church as it were. In my previous blogs about losing my voice, I go into more detail about my upbringing and my growing up in a very rigid church culture. It’s funny to me, or should I say peculiar to me, that I wanted to fit in. Maybe that’s the deeper truth that allowed me to give consent to being a minister. 

Every step from some truth to The Truth was necessary. As time progressed, the need for validation was challenged by discontent. I remember when my aha moment came. I was listening to my then-husband talking to others over the phone about what wasn’t right. This was the umpteenth time. You know, the umpteenth time is when you’ve had or just about had enough of whatever it is that’s going on in your life. It was during this umpteenth time of hearing yet again his complaints about the church, the leadership and what he believed about it all that I heard The Truth. “You don’t belong in this.” That was the truth. It wasn’t just the truth of the moment; it was the truth from the beginning. It's not that I didn’t hear it. I did.  The message got lost in my need for validation.  The Truth got buried under my need to have my husband's approval and to be regarded as spiritual by the church's standards.

Codependence will make you do that. Resist what your gut is telling you and make you second-guess. From the beginning, I told my then-husband that the only reason I wanted to join that particular church was for us to worship together as a family. I felt it was a good place. I told him that I had no desire to serve in any capacity there. I didn’t want to become involved in leadership. I had no agenda. Welllllll, time revealed that my then-husband had other ideas. Soooo, I went along to get along as they say. I saw it as his chance to be acknowledged for the valuable man he was. I saw it as my chance to gain his favor.  Had I been standing in my truth, I would have encouraged him to go on and do what was in his heart while I remained true to myself.

Ohhhh the insidiousness of codependency. It parades around as love for someone else. Putting someone else’s needs above your own. Sacrificing from a God-fearing place. But if you peel that banana back, codependency is grounded in fear and insecurity. It was my need to belong that took center stage. Bottom line: My husband needed to be acknowledged and I needed approval.

When you realize that codependency is behind your tolerance of the intolerable, you stop blaming other people.  Insecurity is the mother of codependency. I just came up with that. Sweeeet. Seriously though, that's the culprit, not the other person.  Two insecure people propping themselves up using each other is my definition of codependency. Why did I sit by the phone until I couldn’t take it anymore and came up with a reason to call him? Insecurity. Why did I consent to being a minister when I didn’t feel a calling to do it? Insecurity. The truth had nothing to do with anybody else but me.

Over the years, I’ve learned that time passes and getting older doesn’t necessarily mean you are getting wiser. What makes us wiser isn’t just life experiences, it’s what those experiences teach us about ourselves. It is The Truth that is uncovered. Every single experience in my life has taught me to stop dismissing The Truth just because there is some truth in what people are saying. An abusive man tells his wife that he knocked her head into the wall because she burned the corn bread. In tears, she admits, “He’s right. I did burn the corn bread.” Certainly, there is some truth to what he said, but the deeper truth is he is abusive. Whether it’s corn bread or simply you breathed today, he’s abusive and that has absolutely nothing to do with you. Even more importantly, your consent has nothing to do with him; something inside of you needs to be healed.

Some truth will keep your eyes shut. I call that denial. The deeper truth will open your eyes to what is going on. I call that illumination. But it takes The Truth to heal those eyes. I call that transformation.  As the Good Book says, "and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."  Amen!!

Related articles

• Codependency and Church Ministry (drnickmazza.wordpress.com)
• Tackle Insecurities in Relationships, Find Out If You Are Codependent (personalsunitedstates.wordpress.com)
• Codependency (cherished79.wordpress.com)
• Excessive Parental Expectations and Codependency (revdlesley.net)

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Saved But Lost?

Finding one’s voice is the need of every human being with a pulse. It’s what enables us to communicate with others, to express ourselves, our needs. It's what allows us to connect with others.  We feel understood, acknowledged by others when they get the meaning behind our words.  Entering a space is not enough.  You might not even notice me.  But if I say something, everyone becomes aware that I am in the room.  I am here.
In our home, God was everything. Every feeling, every impulse, every thought, every action was held to what we saw as His Law. It is interesting to me that people congregate around whatever aspect of God is most familiar to them. I’ve seen many a person impose their ego, their upbringing, their beliefs as they quote different passages in the Bible. For a person who grew up in a loving and welcoming environment, the thought of God not listening, not accepting, not loving them is as foreign as hearing another language. So they go to churches that are nondenominational or inclusive. Or they don't go to church at all.  They find communion in the experience of living, loving and serving outside the four walls.  But for folks like me who grew up with a consciousness deep in oppression, the message of God’s Love was seldom heard. For us, a Loving God would punish you if you didn’t obey him. “He chastens those He loves,” we were taught.

It’s no wonder my mom would tell me I didn’t hear from God. Why would God say something different from what our church super culture would think? Why would God tell me something that was no where in the doctrine, the tradition, the Bible as we understood it? After all, the Holiness church believed they were right and anybody who differed was wrong. So wrong in fact that they were going to hell.

I don’t want you to misunderstand my mom. Her goal was not to hurt me or to confuse me. She was protecting me the best way she knew. She was devout in her beliefs about God. He spoke to her. I remember when I was in college and I was having an affair with a married man. I didn’t tell my mother. She told me that God woke her up and told her that someone was taking advantage of me. She demanded that I give her his name. I wouldn’t. Who wants their mother hunting down the man they are crazy about—even if the operative word is crazy? My jaw dropped to the floor when she came back to me and said that God had given her his name. And the name was right.  That's just one of many examples.  So if this woman said that I didn’t hear God’s voice, then in my mind, she had to be right.

Sad for me, however, that was the day that I lost a significant piece of my soul. Growing up, I didn’t feel seen. I didn’t feel like I mattered. But there was the hope that if I kept on talking, if I kept on saying what I felt, if I kept showing up, they’d eventually pay attention. I just needed to get the right mix of words.  I just needed to say it right.  But the day my mom told me I didn’t hear from God, the light of hope went out. I went from feeling like God saw me, heard me and I really truly undeniably mattered to him to...nothing. I was lost.

The whole premise of salvation is that Jesus died so that we wouldn’t be lost. To accept him as your Savior was to…well…be saved. Saved from what though? As a child, saved meant saved from going to hell. It was simple. God, heaven; the devil, hell. If you didn’t get saved, you’d go to hell. For me, living saved was HARD. Everything that delighted me, excited me, everything I wanted to do was of the devil. Sin, they called it. I wanted to sin. That’s why it was so important that I get filled with the Holy Ghost. It was the spirit of God who gave us power to conquer that desire to sin. Without it, you weren’t sealed. You were vulnerable and unprotected against the devil without the protection the Holy Ghost provided. This is how I saw it and heard it as a child.

What do you do? What do you do when you try to do right but you keep comin up short? What do you do? What do you do when your innocence, your vulnerability is mishandled and the truest, most honest part of you goes into hiding because it is no longer safe? What do you do? I couldn’t imagine my life without God. It was more than the fear of going to hell. God was everything. To not have God was like dying. I soooo wanted Him to love me, to accept me, to approve of me…..to speak to me. I needed help. I wasn’t getting this saved thing right. Nothing I did worked. If I danced in church, I was wrong because it wasn’t pure praise. Pure praise was when the spirit would make you do the holy dance. If I prayed and begged God to take the sin away, it was futile. I kept wanting to sin so that meant I wasn’t getting through to Him. If I went to the altar to receive the Holy Spirit, I was denied. Had to be, cause everybody else would speak in tongues but not me. I’d just cry.

I was lost. How can you be saved but lost? Makes no sense.  It's like an oxymoron.  How can you be claimed but lost?  Singing in the choir, lost. Lifting my hands and crying as I worshipped, lost. Going to revival after revival, church meeting after church meeting, lost. Smiling, lost. Straight A student, lost. I looked the same. I acted the same. Nobody around me knew it. I was high functioning and just as animated.  Still, I was lost. I wasn't enough.  As I sit here, typing on this laptop, I know that the whole point of my journey from that point to this has been about reclaiming what was lost—me.