Just show up

In her book, Carry on Warrior, Glennon tried telling me that showing up is enough.

Ha! So funny. She's talking to the girl who intended to write her senior thesis on Post-modern Catholic Social Ethics and ended up discovering a social-ill, a struggle with "enoughness." She's talking to the girl who has grown up in a world where "enough" is about as real as pixie-dust yet something that must still be strived for...because that makes soooo much sense. Let's just say, her words did not meet willing eyes.

Well, time went on, as it always does, and some people and some situations pounded my heart with a tenderizer--yeah, that shit hurts just like it sounds--and compassion has skillfully climbed its way to the top of my value list. It happened through a lot of scowling through therapy and softening sarcasm and conversations with myself about being a friend to myself. 

The process has just begun. A journey of self-reflection leading to self-actualization. Yum. It's so good. I'm dreaming of going off the high dive someday and also being content with splashing my feet with wild abandon for now.

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These days, it feels like almost every day is like starting over.

It feels like I need a whole new toolbox of knowledge and skills to get through my life.

Perhaps it is because I'm in "therapist-training-school" and go to class where we use our real-life problems as case examples and do homework assignments that dig up all sorts of raw gunk, but it feels like my life is a series of identity-crises that do not get resolved before another pops up. 
Sometimes, I leave class thinking "what the heck just happened?!" and I've learned not to think about the future because the uncertainty will only create an unrelenting pathological crisis.

During one of these class conversations about real-life problems this week, a classmate mentioned that she was wondering though the conversation about asking me what it is about competence that is important to me. That's how she stated it. She didn't ask but my mind immediately jolted to "oh, my God! that's too personal!" 

The answer? Competence is important because I've learned it has a connection to integrity and independence and purpose and usefulness--all things that are also important to me. I struggle to have patience in the learning stage when I feel as though I should already be fully competent (even when this is not the case). For example, the thought that I will be doing therapy in just two months is terrifying to me because I don't know what I am doing! 

The antidote here, is compassion. Compassion involves determining that your best is enough and accepting that it is unreasonable to ask for anything more than that. In this case, compassion is telling myself 'just show up.' Every day I have to lie in my bed for a moment and remind myself to just show up that day.  

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To balance my life, I coach a swim team. I work primarily with kids 9-13. These kids are learning long division and what the state capitols are and reading their first novels. These kids are in a stressful life stage. For many of them, swim practice is their "happy place" where the only expectation is that they do what we (their coaches) say.

Whenever I think about compassion, my mind pulls me to think of my swimmers, specifically how I talk to them--instilling motivation and confidence, requiring accountability and responsibility, etc. One of the coaches is known for his lack of compassion. According to him, you don't miss practice unless you are dying or unable to breathe. When a girl missed practice for her 8th grade graduation, he told her that walking across a stage wasn't going to make her a better swimmer and she needed to get her priorities straight. According to him, if you're late, it's always your fault--even if you're 11 and have no control over your parents leaving the house on time. According to him, if you don't swim well at a meet, you failed.

I want to be different.

I want these kids to grow up knowing there is something that is enough, that their best is enough.

One girl was freaking out in February right after she turned 13--that's the age when your events get dramatically longer distances. Hyperventilating, in tears over an hour before her first race, she told me she couldn't do it. She swims over 5000 yards in a practice so I know she is capable. I've witnessed this scene with other swimmers and other coaches before. It's a conversation about "man up! stop being a baby! stop crying and get your crap together!"

I wasn't interested in creating a hardened heart from such invalidation. I know what that's like.

We sat on a bench and I told her to just show up and get wet. She immediately stopped crying and looked at me blankly. Apparently, she had never been coached to just do her best and not strive for something higher than her grasp.

She didn't do awesome. This was no miracle. But she swam. She showed up behind the block for every race and she got wet.

Sometimes showing up is most of the battle.

Even now, as I write, I notice myself feeling some strain in communicating exactly what I want to say...and I tell myself it's okay, just show up. Just write. Words written a little awkwardly are better than words unwritten.

JUST SHOW UP.