18
Make Peace with Self-Possession
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
—e. e. cummings
“What would it be like for you to disappoint someone?” Elaine asks me when I tell her I’m in a couple of churn-worthy situations I’d like to crawl out of. (Ummmm, please stop asking me such aggressive questions, Elaine.)
My eyes dart and my mouth drops open slightly. I take a deep breath, knowing I don’t have a good answer to her question.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone was crossing your boundaries and it was making you churn? Maybe this person overstayed their welcome at your house. Maybe they wanted more of your time than you wanted to give. Maybe they had expectations of you that you did not want to fulfill. Maybe you made a decision about something and they bulldozed right over your decision. Maybe they walked right into your house and took over, when you had not asked them to take over.
I’ve been in a few of these highly awkward, usually angering, situations. I’ve had to learn the hard way that sometimes people feel entitled to you, your time, your home, your friendship, even though you have not given them passage. What frustrates me the most in these situations is that I either have to be uncomfortable or, to alleviate the discomfort, reinforce my boundary. I resent being put in the position of having to be the “bad guy.”
But, wouldn’t you know, that’s part of being a grown-up. (Hideous.)
We can take the precious time and energy we have and spend it churning, or we can spend that same precious time and energy creating, communing, cooking, cuddling. The only thing standing in our way? Possibly having to tell someone no and then living with their disappointment in us. Which is kind of a lot to deal with, if you ask me.
I understand in theory the idea that I will have to cross people in this world, especially the people who are not listening to my words, not heeding my decisions, not respecting my space. But for so long I’ve never called people out on these things because I was more concerned with being thought well of than protecting my own wellness. Then all of a sudden I realized I was tired not because life was full but because life was full of things that were draining the soul right out of me.
My arms are wide. A certain side of me is highly invested in wooing (winning others over), if I let it off the leash. All of these things are giantly beneficial in life when you’re trying to build new relationships or trying to make easy conversation or trying to make an uncomfortable situation comfortable or even trying to persuade someone over to your way of thinking. Most of the time, this all works out great. But then sometimes I am caught in my own woo-gone-wrong moment, and I realize I cannot tolerate asserting my needs and my boundaries for fear someone will think poorly of me. So I obliterate my limits, and give someone entry, even though I can already feel the low rumbles of the churn.
I know all this sounds terribly adolescent. It is, really. It’s the adolescent in me that is looking to secure her spot through affability and approachability. It is the adolescent in me who never disappointed, who worked to be sure she never, ever disappointed.
But I am older now. I care more about living from a soulful place than a striving place. I’d like to settle into my own skin a bit more than the adolescent me ever did. She leaned heavy on applause, and she got it, but I’m ready for something more than acceptance at this stage of my life. I’m longing to be self-possessed.
When you think of a person who is self-possessed, think about someone who knows what she believes, knows her own opinions, knows her own taste, and isn’t trying to morph or chameleon into what the next person walking toward her needs her to be. She has a sense of herself and she lives true to that sense, honoring it.
She has a strength of intuition, and she’s loyal to her Created Center. She can practice her “no” with confidence because she’s in tune with her own needs, her family’s needs, her soul’s needs, and she isn’t going to allow the requests of others to bulldoze her priorities and her capacity.
And if someone manages to get close to her and then they abuse that closeness, she is able to rescue herself. She’s able to stand up for her own existence and politely excuse herself from the relationship. If the other person thinks she’s a heartless witch for doing so, that’s fine. Because the self-possessed woman knows, surely, that she is not a heartless witch. She is, in fact, a soul warrior.
She has spent extended periods of time in the presence of God, listening to the deep-waters voice of God that teaches her to honor her family, honor her craft, honor her desires, honor what has been put in her hands. She knows she is God-possessed, and so she is able to be confidently self-possessed.
Her limits and her boundaries aren’t just a “no” to intruders. They are about protecting her “deeper yes,” the yes she has fought to discover in the presence of God. Her creative space. Her quiet mornings. Her kids’ bedtime. Her night out with her husband. Her sanity. The self-possessed woman is learning that a well-tended life requires these touchstones, and she will be angry if she allows other people’s agendas for her to rob her of her life rhythm.
Sometimes I find myself angry with the offending party. Don’t they know they’re crossing my boundaries? Don’t they know that’s too much to ask? Don’t they know that’s not going to work for me? All my energy is directed at the other person when I’m actually really frustrated with me. When I refuse to rescue myself from the boundary bulldozers, I’m choosing to keep everyone happy with me instead of live my own truth. This is me silencing my own voice, refusing to be the soul warrior I want to be. This is me being others-possessed, not self-possessed, for a self-possessed person takes responsibility for herself and her life.
I’m just now learning it’s OK to say . . .
I don’t know.
I don’t like that.
I don’t want that.
I need help.
I need to think about it.
I’m not sure.
I don’t think that will work for me.
I need to go now.
No, thank you.
No, you can’t.
In other words, I’m just now learning how to articulate—out loud—inconvenient truths. Not to be rigid or jerky just for the sake of getting in people’s faces—belligerence is every bit as adolescent as people pleasing—but to protect those things that matter most to me. Exhibit A:
I was at a party once when I was nine months pregnant with Elle. A guy, who was falling down drunk, kept flirting with me, inching his way closer and closer to me. I was disastrously uncomfortable. Steve was way on the other side of the very noisy room, not privy to my discomfort. I looked up across the room, waiting for him to rescue me, not realizing I had everything it took to rescue myself.
The man scooted closer, invading my personal space. He leaned in to tell me something closer to my face and he ran right into my huge belly, which was apparently the first time he realized I was, ahem, already spoken for.
He looked up at me, alarmed, and he backed away, out the door to the patio, and promptly fell in the pool.
Why couldn’t I protect my own dignity in that situation? Why did I let him get close enough to run into my belly in the first place? Why did I give him that kind of power?
Not anymore.
So we decide to build the boundary muscle and we violently swing the pendulum of petulance over to the other side of things and we start yelling at anyone who will listen, usually our partner (see earlier confessions on the subject of rotten chicken). We start standing up for ourselves in knee-jerk protests that are unproductive and unhelpful.
And, ultimately, even if we learn how to stand up for ourselves in ways that are productive and healthy, that person across the table from us may decide they don’t particularly appreciate our newfound liberation and they may decide to stand right up too.
This is not clean-cut.
Beth calls it the “prayer practice of disappointing others,” and she gives me this practice as an assignment. I hate what it brings up in me. Even the idea of letting someone down turns my insides to flubber.
But I’ll tell you some of the biggest ways we stay in hiding: Worry far more about being liked than being known. Worry far more about wooing others than honoring ourselves. Worry far more about keeping the peace than finding our voice. Worry far more about control than figuring out who we are. This is how we learn to live as a chameleon, and it’s no good. Instead, we want to look a lot more like this from The Velveteen Rabbit:
You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.1
So where do we start?
We start by talking to God about the “deeper yes” of our lives, asking him to help us discover or rediscover those pursuits and people worth protecting our time and energy for. And then we tell the truth, which is so much harder than I imagined. But you know what’s even harder than telling the truth? Looking back and realizing you never quite had the time to really live.
Reflection & Expression
Write about your “deeper yes” or what you’d like to make space for in your life.
For Your Brazen Board
Find an image that represents your “deeper yes.”