Sub-Mission

I’ve never liked the word submission. I know. Weird, right??!!

In my experience, the idea of submission has often been used (directly or indirectly) in reference to a woman submitting to a man. Of placing herself under the authority of someone else, most likely her husband, the leaders of a church, or some other male authority figure. Like I said, not my favorite word.

However, recently I’ve come up against that word in a different context from the one I’m used to, challenging me to consider if submission doesn’t have its time and place for a girl like me.

Submission is a combination of 2 words. Sub, which can, among other things, mean lower than, beneath, or under, and mission, which is an important assignment with an intended outcome, an expedition, or a calling. Submission, then, is getting beneath something that matters. It’s placing the strength of my will under the mission in order to achieve it.

Three weeks on the other side of a total knee replacement surgery, I am finding that in order to recover, heal, and rebuild, I have to embrace the reality of what will be required of me to achieve the outcome I want. Doing so is an act of submission to what is true now in order for it to become what I want to be true in the future, which is a strong knee ready to take me wherever life leads.

I’m having to submit to the facts that this is a marathon and not a sprint, that pain is part of the process, that I can’t do it alone and need help, and that doing the hard work, which sometimes means doing less rather than more, is the only way. Or as my daughter’s coffee mug says, “There is no secret. Keep going.” That’s how it is with any worthwhile endeavor, whether writing that next book, healing from past trauma, getting an advanced degree, raising good humans, building an NFL team, or recovering from knee replacement surgery. It’s hard to admit, but submission is required.

Submission to the process required by this new knee is me getting under the mission, and supporting that mission with everything I’ve got.

Submission is a choice requiring no one’s authority but mine. And I like that. I know. Weird, right??!

Rethinking Obedience

I’ve never loved the word obey, or any of its derivatives. They all imply submission to an authority figure, the exertion of control over my choices, and a loss of personal agency.

Not my jam.

Recently however, the phrase a long obedience in the same direction showed up in a text of encouragement from someone I love. There was something about that gathering of words that had the rich ring of a deep truth.

In a culture that lives on clicks and instant feedback, going the long haul for something that matters can be a tall order. My family and I are in the midst of one such long haul, and maybe you are too. That’s where the whole obedience thing kicks in.

It isn’t submitting to someone else’s authority. It is staying true to our own.

It’s not turning over the controls to someone else. It is continuing to stay our course.

And It’s not a loss of personal agency. It is the exercising of our will to achieve something worthwhile.

A long obedience in the same direction gives us the power to hold true to a vision worth waiting for and working for.

“The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche

Starting Today

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

What if we took these as our marching orders, starting today?

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

Is This The ______________ That I Want?

Tom and I had been married about eight years when he spent a couple of weeks teaching at a remote retreat center in the North Cascades, while I stayed home minding the fort. During those two weeks it became clear to me that there was no question that I wanted to be married to Tom. However, that wasn’t the real question. The real question was—Is the marriage we have the one that I want?

It wasn’t.

Those aren’t thoughts one can keep to oneself if one wants things to change.

After he returned we were out running errands one day, and stopped at a Starbucks. I can still see the table where we were sitting out on the sidewalk. I’m sure he was expecting just a nice catch-up visit, so when I quietly told him I wanted to talk about our marriage, a deer in the headlights about sums up his initial reaction. Thankfully, unlike a deer he didn’t disappear into the woods, but leaned forward, and leaned in. That conversation, over lattes, on a sidewalk outside of Starbucks is the conversation that changed the trajectory of our marriage.

Together we began to give voice to what was working, and what was not. We needed plenty of help along the way from therapists who could help us navigate all of the issues that could derail us if we let them. After 25 years together, we still hit brick walls and have to talk about scary things. On any given day, we work hard to bring the best of what we have to each other, with varying degrees of success, but always with the commitment of building the kind of relationship and life we want. Our conversation over coffee that started all those years ago is one that we will probably be having for the rest of our lives. At least it should be if we want to keep building the marriage we want.

The changes in our marriage all started with a hard question, as most hard changes do, and, it is a hard question that can help any of us get to the heart of any matter that matters to us.

Is this the…relationship, parenting approach, community, fitness level, body, friendship, career path, communication pattern, story emotional health, financial reality, team culture, family dynamic, belief system, outcome, home-life, fill-in-your-own-blank…that I want?

If the answer is yes, then we keep on keeping on.

If the answer is no, maybe today is the day to figure out what it is we do want and how to go about getting it.

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About Face

Life becomes a matter of showing up and saying yes.

~ Richard Rohr

Two days after Thanksgiving I was up early before most of the others tucked into every nook and cranny of our home were awake. Throwing on my coat and boots I headed out into the cold and still dark morning because Gracie-the-chocolate labradoodle needed to go outside. Truthfully, I needed to go ousidet too. Every day for the past couple of weeks seemed to have required everything I had to give, the day that lay before me did too, and frankly, I wasn’t sure that I was up to the task. Not, at least, as the kind of person I like to bring to the party on any given day. I was tired and spent, and when I get like that grace, joy, and gratitude aren’t my forte’.

Standing out facing the pines, the house behind me, I waited for the dog to take care of her morning business, pondering the day ahead. I dreaded it, unable to imagine anything other than making it through. I wanted to turn my back on the day and pretend it wasn’t waiting for me when I walked back inside.

And then In the morning stillness, these words rose up:

How you go back into the house will determine the kind of day you have.

In that moment I knew that it was up to me. I could show up and say ‘yes’ to the day before me or not. It was my choice. It’s always my choice. A truth that is rarely convenient is that we have far more choice over who we want to be in any given moment than we give ourselves credit for.

Turning around to face the house, and the day before me, I headed back inside.

It was a good day.

Shake A Stick At It

It was a cold, wet, dark, drizzly morning in our little neck of the woods. But rain or shine, Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle needs to get outside and get some exercise, and frankly, so do I.

Heading out it didn’t feel like there was much joy in the air, and to be sure, there are days when joy can be hard to come by. Part way down our road we came upon a downed branch from a nearby tree. It was almost twice as long as Gracie with smaller branches sticking out all over, and my thought was to toss it off to the side of the road out of the way of cars. Just throw it away, be done with it, and check the walk-the-dog-in-spite-of-the-cold-wet-dark-drizzly-joyless morning off of my list.

Gracie, however, had a different idea.

She grabbed that stick by one of the branches and took off at full tilt. She shook it this way, and then that way. Head held high, tail up in the air, she pranced up the road, raced in circles, lost her grip on the branch, and snatched it up again. Shaking a stick at the cold, wet, dark, drizzly morning, up and down the road she pranced, around and around the field she raced. She just simply wouldn’t, or more likely couldn’t, quit. She was brown, curly haired joy from tip to tail. Pretty soon, so was I—minus the curly brown hair and tail. Joy, it seems, is contagious.

Rather than shake our fist at a dark day, maybe we can try being like Gracie, and shake a joyful stick at it instead.

Who Do I Want To Be?

Question of the day:

Who do I want to be in the midst of the life that I have?

We can’t change other people. We really can’t.

We can’t control many of the things that make life challenging. We really can’t.

What we can do is bring the best of ourselves to the day before us. And then get up and do it again tomorrow.

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok from Pexels

The Wrong Reason

There are plenty of reasons not to show up fully for your life.

Don’t let fear be one of them.

The Decision Before The Decision

Making big decisions is rarely easy. Even small ones can give us pause as we worry about getting it wrong, making a mistake, missing an opportunity or getting stuck. There is no doubt that some decisions have bigger consequences than others and have the potential to impact us, and those we love, for years to come. Developing the ability to choose well takes practice. We learn by getting it right, and, by getting it wrong, and while we can never know if things will turn out as we plan and hope, and in fact will rarely if ever work out as we envision, we can decide what matters to us. We can identify the boxes that need to be checked in order to feel good about our choices.

Making a good decision starts with deciding who we are, what kind of person we want to be, what we want to get out of life and what we want to give back to life. It’s the decision to make before making the decision.

It Takes Practice

The more we commit to doing the work of becoming more authentic and whole-hearted, the more we discover about ourselves. The more we discover about ourselves, the more things we find that we love and appreciate about ourselves, and the more things that, well, we don’t. So just what do we do with those things that aren’t what we might call our most endearing qualities?

First we notice them - There it is again.

Then we name them - Hello impatience, anger, defensiveness, fill-in-your-own-blanks.

Then we practice navigating them in better ways when they show up. Take a breath and choose a better response than the knee-jerk one we’ve been perfecting for all these years.

Notice.

Name.

Navigate.

Repeat.

If you’re like me, you’ll get plenty of opportunities to practice.

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