What You Have Within You

Photo by Katya Azi on Unsplash

There’s a lot on my mind and in my heart right now. My friend’s brother passed away earlier this week and the funeral was today (I'm writing this on a Saturday). It brings up a lot of emotions for various reasons. I don’t know the details surrounding his death. I don’t really want to know the details, though I do know that he took his own life. The first emotions I feel are shock and disbelief. I would never have thought that things were that bad for him and as far as I’m aware there is no mental illness in the family that might explain it. It’s normal to want to know why, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It also brings up feelings of great sadness. Sadness for my friend and their families, for all those who remain to wonder and grieve. Feelings which are all hard, but also a normal part of the process.

What is unexpected is how quickly it brought me back to the times in my life when I’ve been suicidal. I’ve never attempted suicide formally, but I had planned how I would do it, I’ve written suicide notes, etc. I know that darkness. I know that pain. I know that despair. I know that desire for escape, for just wanting the pain to end.

But along with all that grief, there is also, deep within, a feeling of relief. I can look back and see where I have been. Where I am now is in such a better, healthier place than I’ve ever been. I’m immensely grateful. I’m grateful that I survived. I’m grateful that I am no longer in those dark places. I’m grateful to be in a much healthier place, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I’m not lucky. I’m not special. I’m not favored. While I can’t go into all the details, the reason I’m still here is because my Heavenly Father let me know that He was aware of me, that He was aware of my pain, and that He wasn’t going to let me go without a fight. So I’m still here. With lots of questions, but I’m still here!

I have been reflecting on this distance between the here and now and the past – really the difference in who I am now from who I was in the past. I haven’t shied away from sharing that I was a victim of abuse. I’ve mentioned – without going into detail – that I’ve had my share of addictions. I was traumatized in many ways, which left me believing that I was inherently damaged, broken, and worthless as a result of all of these things happening in my life. And I was resentful. Not only was I resentful that these things happened to me, but I was resentful that I wasn’t given what I needed as a child to combat these terrible events/circumstances. I wasn’t given confidence. I wasn’t given the affection I longed for; the praise I sought so desperately from my parents; the comfort and understanding I wanted from my mother; and the sense of worth, importance, and “mattering” that I longed for from my father.

I’m not criticizing my parents here, even though it sounds like it. They did the best they could, and from the little I know, they did better by me than what they had been given from their own parents.

But that’s the idea I’ve focused on my whole life – what I should have been given from my parents; or what I expected them to give me. Which, on the surface, seems accurate – parents “give” their children a sense of belonging, a sense of comfort, and sense of pride/confidence, a sense of mattering to someone, as well as a sense of being loved, of worth, of safety, etc.

And for most of my adult life, I believed those were things I did NOT get from my parents. Which only added to feeling empty, worthless, damaged, not good enough, etc. As if I’ve been walking through life with these holes in me, these absences, that were supposed to be filled by my parents, but weren’t. And I have felt despair, believing that filling those holes was a one-shot deal, either they are “filled” in by your parents, or they are not; and if they are not, well then, you’ve missed your chance and they are going to remain empty for the rest of your life, because they could ONLY be filled at a certain time in your life (i.e., childhood) and in a certain way (i.e., by parents).

But my reflections today on who I am and who I have been, has changed my perspective on that.

For the last few years, I’ve been working on “filling those missing pieces of myself.” I had finally decided that even if I wasn’t given the things I felt I needed from my parents in order to feel whole, complete, and a sense of worth, I could “resign” myself to learning how to fill those pieces in for myself. This, in and of itself, is a monumental shift in changing my way of thinking. I still felt some resentment at needing to fill in those missing pieces on my own, but it was the first time I felt hope at being able to fill in those pieces, i.e., have my needs met – even if I did have to do it on my own!

Overall, I would say that it has been working. It has helped me to reach a better place where I know I have to do what I’m doing to help myself, because I am the only one who can help myself right now, and that’s okay – in fact, this has been a really important lesson for me to learn. 

In order to make another point here, I want to relate a work experience I had several years ago. For a time I was working as a Home Health Speech-Language Pathologist, which meant going to people’s homes to provide rehab on speech, language, voice, swallowing, etc. I recall one particular time, where I had gone to an Assisted Living Facility in Bountiful to treat a lady that had been having some swallowing issues. She was a sweet lady, but my heart went out to her – she was in her late 60’s, very overweight, living in an electric wheelchair and I could just see that life had been hard for her. Sometimes, when you’ve been through a certain kind of darkness, you recognize it in others.

We had met for a couple of sessions, and I had been teaching her some exercises for swallowing. On this particular visit, we went through the routine exercises and I could see some improvement, which I always make a point to recognize for my patients. I told her, fairly simply, though sincere, “hey, you did really well with those exercises, I can tell that you’ve been practicing.” I paused for just a second, and then added, “I’m really proud of you.”

She reacted almost as if she was startled, and then started to cry – which startled me! I asked her if I did or said something wrong, and through her sweet, innocent tears said something that broke my heart. She said, “no one’s ever said that to me before.” I jumped up out of my chair and gave her a big hug; I mean, what else could I do?!

It broke my heart to think that this sweet woman had lived her whole life, never hearing that she had made anyone proud. And it sounds like such a simple thing, but it also broke my heart for another reason – I had lived my whole life never hearing anyone say that to me either. I wanted so much to make my dad proud, or my mom, and I had never, ever felt like I did. Partially because I knew what terrible choices I had made, but also because I believed who I was, was inherently disappointing. I mean, how could any parent be proud of a son who is overweight, ugly, unaccomplished at anything, and gay? I actually have a vivid memory of my dad telling me once that he was disappointed in me. It was only once, but I knew it was how he truly felt about me, because I never heard him say otherwise. And if that’s how my own father felt about me, then what else was I to believe?

I really couldn’t have known what impact the words I spoke would have on this woman, but my words were sincere and I think that’s why they were powerful for her.

Today, as I reflected on that experience, I saw something else in it that I had never considered before: I gave this woman something that had never been given to me. How is that possible? If I never made anyone proud, and I had that as an emptiness within me, then how could I have given that to her? The only answer that makes sense to me, is that I wasn’t empty of this thing, as I had led myself to believe. I suddenly realized that it’s also possible that I never really have been “empty” of anything. That maybe, just maybe, all of those “needs” that I thought could only be granted by loving parents, were not really missing from me after all. Maybe they’ve been there all along, but I just couldn’t see them, because I “thought” they were missing.

Maybe it isn’t that parents are supposed to give you those things that are part of your identity, but maybe they are supposed to help you discover them within yourself. Yes, it is just as unfortunate and sad for anyone who doesn’t have parents or an upbringing that can help them see their worth and value and importance, but it’s not because those things are missing. Would I have wanted my parents to show me those parts of myself? Of course! I will always look back and I will always have wanted that, but for the first time in my life, I don’t feel empty.

I need to say that again: For the first time in my life, I don’t feel empty.

The irony is not lost on me. I have felt empty my whole life and I now believe that I have been perpetually trying to “fill” those needs with anything that would make me feel good – and what better way to feel good than to eat? So I ate. A lot. (It’s also not lost on me how ironic it is that feeling so empty inside would result in me gaining so much on the outside! As if my waistline were trying to compensate for the void I felt within.)

If I had it within me to be able to tell this woman that I was proud of her, then I suppose I have it within me to tell myself that I am proud of me. And just to be clear, I’m not talking about “comparison-pride.” I’m not talking about the pride that makes a comparison and says, “I’m better than…” No, I’m talking about “confidence-pride,” or maybe a better word is “assurance-pride.” The kind of pride that comes from the confidence, or the assurance, that you have inherent worth and value, simply for being who you are, and not in comparison to someone else.

It's hard in this world we live in. It’s hard to not compare. It’s hard to look at someone else’s life and NOT make some kind of comparison. Everything in the world invites that comparison; wants you to believe that you aren’t good enough, smart enough, talented enough, accomplished enough, strong enough, good looking enough, etc. I certainly bought into that idea. I wholeheartedly bought into that idea. And lived in misery and despair because of it; because I compared myself and was always lacking.

I understand, now, that my formative years contained experiences that prevented me from seeing what I had within myself, from seeing my worth, in fact. But I also now see that I wasn’t ever really lacking anything within, I just couldn’t see it.

I don’t know if this insight that I’ve had will help anyone else. I don’t know if anyone else will really even understand it, but I hope that if someone reading this feels empty inside, I want you to know that you aren’t. You already have everything within you that you need to heal, and to be whole, and to feel your own worth and value. It will take some faith and it will take some practice, but you can do it.

Because you have it within you.

Photo by Flavia Carpio on Unsplash

Broken Value

 

I was speaking with someone recently who, at one point in our conversation, just flat out asked me, “do you feel that you have worth the way you are right now?”

My answer was, “no.” I said it easily, with no hesitation; almost nonchalantly, even. Me? Have worth? Of course not? I thought it went without saying…

I have been thinking a lot about why that answer came so easily to me, virtually automatically. My first thought was, “well, just look at me! I’m fat and overweight! Being fat and overweight makes you worth less, i.e., “worthless,” than thin/skinny people because fat is ugly; in other words, being fat means being ugly and no one wants to be either (we all know it, even if we don’t have the courage to admit it!).

I’ve held these beliefs about being fat and worthless my whole life, it would seem. And on the surface, that would be enough to explain why I have felt worthless my whole life, because I’ve been fat my whole life.

But that’s just the surface. Something else has been there my whole life too, but deep; much, much deeper than even I was able to see. It was a feeling, a belief, a profound knowledge that has evaded being known or seen. It’s like an indescribable leviathan, living so deep in the ocean that it’s never been seen, but every so often, evidenced of its existence emerges. It remains unseen, but deeply sensed. And it is just always there. Relentless, tireless, watchful and aware of all that goes on above it. It never sleeps. It never stops. This thing that is powerful enough to move the currents of my life, my behaviors and actions, and yet, stealthy enough to remain “unknown.”

It’s a treacherous journey to dive so deep, but dive I must. This is my journey, to know myself, to know who I am, and what moves me, to know what makes me the way I am. To know what makes me such a problem.

And there it was – the thing that didn’t want to be seen or known, but that I had to enter the dark places of my mind and heart to find. 

I am a problem.

Not just that I have problems, but that I AM a problem. In my mind there is no difference between having problems and being a problem – it is one and the same: If I have a problem, then I AM a problem.

“But why?” I continued to ask myself. My logical brain knows that having a problem and being a problem are not the same thing. “Then why do I see myself as such a problem?”

The answer is equally simple, yet as deeply profound: “Because I am broken.”

It’s hard for me to move past that sentence. It’s hard because it’s true. I believe I am broken. My heart has been broken, my spirit has been broken, my body has been broken, even my mind, in many ways, has been broken. It is a fact that I almost died at birth (asphyxiation in the womb). It’s a fact that I was molested. It is a fact that I felt neglected, judged, and criticized at a very young age. It is a fact that I gained weight, which resulted in being teased, hazed, rejected, ignored, and minimized – for years. I was traumatized in so many ways and those multiple, repeated traumas broke me.

I have felt broken from birth. Everything in my life that happened after, seemed to confirm that I was broken and that I didn’t deserve to be any other way.

You know what else is a fact? That when something in this world is broken, it becomes worthless. We throw it away, because when something is broken it is no longer useful and no longer has value.

The equation I have in my mind is that all the things I am – such as a problem, broken, fat/ugly, etc., equals being worthless.

It’s why I could answer that question so easily and so quickly. 

And it’s why I have such a hard time changing. I tend to resist change because I haven’t found a reason or an argument that is stronger than “broken = worthless.”

I tend to self-sabotage, whether relationships, diet/exercise plans, work, etc. because deep down, I never feel like I’m worth it.

As an example, here’s a loop I often find myself caught in: I want to lose weight in order to feel like I have worth (i.e., when I lose weight, then I’ll be worth something), so I embark on a fat loss/fitness journey, only to very quickly derail my efforts, because as soon as dieting/exercise gets hard (and it’s always hard!), then I give up, or sabotage my effort, because – deep down – I’m not worth it anyway. But then I desperately want to have worth, so I desperately want to lose weight and the cycle continues. 

I get angry when I see how easy health and fitness is for some people. I get angry that they can diet down for a few weeks and look great. I get angry that there are men who are already genetically prone to good health and fitness and pursue that lifestyle, then get on Instagram and give advice, like, “hey, you just gotta eat less and move more and if I can you do it, so can you,” when they’re clearly genetically gifted, and/or already prone to being healthy and active. As my last trainer kept telling me, “it’s just a choice you decide to make.” I hate how simple that makes it sound. I hate it because he’s not wrong, but there are so many other factors, the biggest one being, “do you think you’re worth it?”

Even when some of my previous trainers have been supportive and said, “I believe in you,” I still sabotaged the diet or exercise plan they gave me as a way of saying, “see, I told you I was broken and that you couldn’t help me.” Doing that helps me live in the safety of being right, but also keeps me in the misery of being broken. They all make it sound so easy, or so simple, because it seems to be that way for them. 

And that’s what really gets my goat! These “fitness gurus” all seem to have an inherent sense of their self-worth. They don’t doubt themselves. They don’t stay awake at night wondering if they’re worth it. They seem to be born with confidence. They seem to be born just knowing that they have worth, and yes, that makes me angry. It makes me angry that I’m not like them. It makes me angry that they are allowed to have confidence in themselves because they’ve never had anything happen to them that made them feel small, weak, …or broken. I hate that they aren’t broken, but that I am.

Dieting, health, fitness, relationships, etc., are all so much harder when you feel worthless.

All of which, brings me to the million dollar question: “Can that be changed?”

On second thought, maybe that’s not the million dollar question, because for most of my life, the answer has been a resounding “no!”

I guess the question I need to ask myself here is, “can something that is broken also still have worth?”

It might be true that in this world we devalue things that are broken. We esteem them as worthless and only good for being tossed out. But while this rule may hold true for “things,” maybe there is a different rule for people, because people are not things.

It seems to be quite a paradox to me – to live in a world that is in a constant state of change and decay – entropy, we call it. And yet, this constantly breaking down world is full of people who are full of worth, no matter how much they break down.

I do believe we are eternal beings. I do believe we are the spirit children of God, and maybe, as a child of God, I just need to embrace the paradox that people are full of worth, no matter how they are broken. Maybe it’s why the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants [D&C 18:10] says, “the worth of souls is great in the sight of God,” and not, “the worth of things…”.

Other paradoxes might be – yes, I have a body, but my body is not ALL of who I am; yes, I’m fat, but being fat is not ALL of who I am – it may be a condition I’m in, but it’s not WHO I AM; yes, I have problems, but that doesn’t mean that I AM a problem, because my problems are not who I am; yes, I have been broken – repeatedly, but being broken is what’s happened TO ME, it’s not WHO I AM. 

Maybe the hardest paradox to accept is: I can be broken and still have value.

Can I accept that? I think so.

I think about all the people I’ve known, especially those who “have been through what I’ve been through,” and I ask myself, “do I see them as having less value because they are broken?” Truthfully, I do not! In fact, maybe even the opposite. I see those people as having a great deal of value because they are broken. To my way of thinking they are people who need even more love and compassion and friendship and I would never deny them that simply because they are broken. The real question is, can I see myself that way? Can I offer myself that same compassion? Can I see myself as someone who is broken, and yet, still full of worth?

I think have to.

I mean, I think that is the challenge for me – now that I have had this realization, what will I do with it? Okay, maybe this inherent sense of self-worth is not something I was born with (or maybe I was and life beat it out of me!), BUT that doesn’t mean it can’t be learned, right?

There’s another paradox about this world we live in: that even despite the inevitable entropy, this life was meant for growth. And growth can only come from resistance. Maybe I don’t automatically think that I have worth, but I can practice resisting that thought and practice growing new thoughts where I DO have worth, even with having been broken. It seems like that process is really what this world was meant for – to use resistance to grow.

And maybe, just maybe, instead of despairing over how broken I am, for the first time in my life I can feel grateful for being broken, because, in yet another paradoxical way, being broken is how I’ll find my value.

A Year in Review

Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash

So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything for my blog, which was an active choice on my part, and incidentally, had nothing to do with Covid.

October 2019 I was feeling very lonely. For all intents and purposes, life was pretty good. But I was lonely. I was struggling with more than just loneliness, however, because I also felt even more restricted by being active in the church, which I really loved, but also wanting companionship with a man. I just couldn’t figure out how to reconcile wanting to have a more “intimate” relationship with a man while “being active” in the church. It felt like too much of a contradiction – I suppose we call it Cognitive Dissonance these days, and that’s an apt description. I felt out of balance, out of harmony.

I was slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe the answer was that I needed to pause my activity in the church and pursue finding a relationship. Not with the intention of turning my back on the church, but to actually honor the sacredness with which I hold church doctrines and not feel like I was being duplicitous or living a double standard by dating men while being active in church. I didn’t know if those two things could co-exist, and I guess in my heart, I felt like I didn’t want to offend God by saying, “yes, I believe in and with agree with your teachings, but then I’m just going to flaunt them by living ‘contrary’ to those teachings.” That would be lying to God and to myself, and I just couldn’t do that.

This was an intense period of inner turmoil. How could I actually be contemplating doing something I said I would never do and leave church activity? There was a part of me that felt like if I left the church and started dating men – with everything that it might entail – then I would never go back. That broke my heart, but such is the power of the need for connection and companionship. I literally felt like I was starving for a man’s touch and affection.

Can I just be real here for a second? Please don’t misread what I’m saying as me looking for an excuse to have sex – because that isn’t what I’m talking about. To be perfectly frank, sex was never – and still isn’t – a part of the equation. I would be fine without sex [I mean I’m 43 years old, I’ve made it this far…]. What I’m talking about IS literally companionship – affection, tenderness, kindness, caring, being with someone when I’m happy, sad, scared, lonely, etc. My love language is touch. To be without touch feels like I am a withering plant or like I’m dying inside. It’s more than just loneliness – it’s emptiness, darkness, hopelessness, starvation, and yes, even death. None of which is going to be filled with sex, which I believe is true for anyone, regardless of your “sexual” orientation.

I spent a great deal of time in prayer. I did not make this decision lightly. I wrestled for weeks with what I wanted and what I felt like I needed to do. At times it felt like it was the only course of action and inevitable. At other times it felt like the ultimate betrayal to God and that I would be forever damned for taking this course of action. As I prayed, I did feel that I received multiple responses from Heavenly Father. I did not hear a voice, or have a vision – nothing so grandiose or profound, but I did get answers – eventually. While I can’t relate everything I felt in my heart, I just want to share the gist of the message I did receive.

Not once did I ever feel the Lord giving me permission to leave the church, nor did I feel Him giving me direction to leave the church, but what I felt was His support with whatever choice I decided to make. It was as if He was saying, “I can’t really tell you what to do here – this has to be up to you. But Micah, if you decide to leave the church, I know you aren’t leaving me and I’m not leaving you. Do what you need to do, but I’m still here.” I still get emotional thinking about it. It wasn’t so much that He was supporting my course of action as it was he was supporting me. For me personally, it was a confirmation that my journey is my own, and that whatever road I might be walking, He’s still here walking it with me.

I called my Bishop, who is also my ministering brother, and he came over and we had a good talk. I could never say enough good things about how loving and supportive he was. While he couldn’t know it, his response echoed Heavenly Father’s message to me – “we love you, we support you; do what you need to do, but we’re still here.” He honored my request to be released from my callings at the end of the year and then, beginning January 2020, I would stop going to church. I was about to say, “leave the church,” but that’s not entirely true. I did keep my ministering assignments, because I love my families and didn’t want to lose connection with them.

My next big task was to go about finding “my community.” Not just dating, but actually looking for more friends in the LGBTQ community. I did not have any close gay friends and I was feeling very isolated from the queer community in general. It was like wanting to go to a foreign country, but not knowing the language or the customs and I found that it was a much more daunting task than I anticipated. I signed up to be a volunteer with the Utah Pride Center, thinking that at least I could make some connections there.

Then the world imploded.

Covid-19 swept the globe and everything shut down. It was hard not to take that personally. After all the emotional turmoil I went through, suddenly all avenues of making connections in the gay community were gone.

A couple months prior, as I was planning to stop going to church, I was speaking with a friend about it and he said, “you know, maybe you should be blogging about what you’re going through.” I agreed with him, I thought it was a great idea. But somehow, I just couldn’t. To this day, I still don’t really know why I couldn’t. I attempted to several times, but ultimately, I just couldn’t. That, in and of itself, was strange because writing has always been so therapeutic for me.

Then everything shut down and it was taking all I had just to get through each day. Work was changing rapidly as the nursing home I work in rapidly shut down all non-essential personnel and instituted a host of isolation and contact precautions, which was necessary, but incredibly stressful – for us as employees as well as my patients.

In the first couple of months of the shut down – I would say from about March through April – I gained about 30 pounds; essentially all of the weight I had worked so hard the last year to lose.

I was heartbroken on so many levels. Mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, etc. It was an incredibly dark period for me and the only thing that made it worse was not having anyone to turn to. It wasn’t that I didn’t have people in my life to reach out to, but who could I talk to that would really understand my situation? I had no one that I felt I could relate to and I didn’t know anyone that I felt could relate to me.

So I ate. I gained weight. I stopped working out (gyms were closed anyway!). I struggled to wake up each day. I struggled to have any purpose. In a way, looking back, I think my patient’s helped me more than I ever helped them, because I was glad that there were people who needed me. Or at the very least, were happy to see me each day, and that was something.

All around us other facilities were having outbreaks and we were just waiting for our turn. As our director kept saying, “it’s not a matter of if, but when.” For us, “when” turned out to be mid-December. I got Covid right at the cusp of the outbreak in our facility. It was the week before Christmas, which meant I would be quarantining in my apartment for the next two weeks and would not be able to see my family for Christmas. I was mad, and again, heartbroken. I am extremely grateful for technology that allowed me to be with my family over Zoom and we could still “open presents together,” but it just wasn’t the same as being there, obviously.

I also credit my Bishop, again, and several other people from my ward, who checked in on me and brought me food and treats. They kept me alive in more ways than one. As I said, it was a really dark time.

Perhaps it was the coincidental timing of having Covid resolve for me and my facility at the same time the year was winding down. In an unexpected way, I felt like some semblance of “closure,” and I felt hopeful for 2021. While I can’t say that I felt like everything would “return to normal,” (I don’t think anything will truly be “normal”) I did feel like everything was going to be okay. I maintain my testimony that Heavenly Father is in charge, and that nothing that happens is a surprise to Him or catches Him off guard. He isn’t just watching us go through this, He’s going through it with us. And I know He has the power to make everything okay, even when it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be.

And now here we are. I’m typing this on the last day of the first month of the new year. I found a new doctor months ago who put me on some helpful meds. I’m back at the gym working with a trainer and down about 15 pounds (only 120 more pounds to go… haha!). I turned 43 this month, which doesn’t seem possible, but there it is. And I’m finally able to reflect on what I’ve been through this last year.

I still have plans to find community and companionship this year. I still only go to church once in a while. I still struggle with knowing my purpose in life. I still have amazing friends and family. I am incredibly blessed. And yeah, I still get lonely, but I have realized a few things.

I know now that as much as I need companionship and affectionate, masculine touch, it won’t “heal” me or make everything okay (i.e., “perfect”). The problem is not that I need a man to be whole (or even just another person), the problem is that I believe that I am incomplete as I am.

Nothing I have been through has been as hard as recognizing the need, and then learning how, to change how I see myself along with how I think and feel about myself – which I know now is absolutely crucial to my growth, development, and progress. Nothing is so damaging as believing that I am worthless, ugly, and undeserving, which I have believed my whole life.

My identity has centered around all of the things I am not; or all of the things I have failed to be – attractive, desirable, fit, athletic, masculine, strong, etc. My focus has always been on what I lack. I must be the exact opposite of the rich young ruler in the Bible, who asked the Savior, “what lack I yet?” If it were me in his shoes, I’d be asking the Savior, “what do I even have to offer?”

I read and hear so many people say that you need to find your passion, you need to find your purpose, you need to follow your heart and do what makes your heart sing, and so on. To the point that now I feel like an absolute failure because I’m NOT living with “purpose” or “passion.” I’m good at my job, but I can’t say that I’m doing what makes my heart sing. For everyday that I wake up and don’t feel like I really have a purpose that day, I feel like a failure; which is not a great way to start the day.

I agree that people should do what they love, but what do you do when you have so many “passions” that you can’t possibly follow them all? I love art, music, photography, graphic design, singing, writing, exercising, traveling, hiking, tennis, volleyball, astrophysics, cellular biology, anatomy and physiology of the human body, marine biology, gardening and horticulture, movies, television, and the list goes on and on. All of them make my heart sing in one way or another. I could spend a hundred lifetimes deep diving into every single one of those topics, but… I have to pay rent. I have to buy food, and clothes, and drive a car that requires gas and insurance coverage, and pay bills for electricity, gas, and internet, etc. Sure, I could pursue a career out of any one of those things, but then how do I pick one? They all feel like they could be my purpose!!

I have come to the conclusion that all people will have their own purpose, which will look different for everyone. Maybe I have been so focused on what I’m doing – or not doing, as the case may be – that I’ve ignored the possibility that maybe my purpose should be on what I’m becoming. I am not a person whose purpose is to start a non-profit, or even a multi-billion dollar company, that changes the world, but why does it have to be? Why does my purpose have to be defined by an accomplishment? Can’t my purpose be that I worked on becoming a better human being? That I worked on not only living through some pretty traumatic events, but that I was able to overcome those traumas and make something of myself that also helps me to be a benefit to the people around me, even in some small way?

My hope is that by believing my purpose to be self-improvement that a natural outgrowth of that process will be that I am able to do something meaningful in life. And that when I do find companionship that I will be able to offer my best self – flawed and human as they come, sure – but still my best self, without placing pressure on that person to “fill my needs,” or “make me whole,” because I’m already okay with who I am.

I don’t know what this new year will bring, but perhaps for the first time in my life, for real, I am hopeful that I will end the year a better man than when I started. Not just a changed man, but someone who is becoming the best version of myself that I can be. That being said, I DO hope I change! I do hope I lose more weight this year; I do hope that I find the companionship I seek; I do hope I find my life’s mission; and I do have hope that I can learn to think and feel about myself with more love, compassion, and acceptance; that I will change my perspective from one of “pre-determined worthlessness and inevitable failure,” to “I have within me the pre-determined ability to CREATE the life I want.”

So here’s to the future – all the great things yet to come and all the great things yet to be made.

Unanswered Questions

I was asked to share my thoughts today in church during an Elder’s Quorum lesson about “where our choices lead.” At first, I didn’t know what to say. This is actually a very difficult question to answer for someone like me. As a gay and active member of the Church, I am constantly considering this question because I am straddling two paths – both of which would lead me to very different destinations. If I were to embrace a completely homosexual lifestyle, I would give up many of the blessings I enjoy by being an active member of the church. On the other hand, by embracing the standards of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I miss out on the possibility of a romantic/intimate companionship that all human beings need. I can’t have both.

But this post isn’t about the conflict I feel, living between two worlds. This post is not about justice, equality, or fairness – religious or otherwise. This post isn’t even about me asking “why.” I could delve into a myriad of questions I’ve had over the course of my life, not the least of which is, why have I been burdened with being gay in a hetero-family-oriented church? No, this post isn’t about all of that. This post is about living with unanswered questions.

I won’t go into detail about what I shared with the brothers in the Elders’ Quorum lesson today, mostly because I’m pretty sure I was bawling like a baby through all of it, even though it only lasted about 5 minutes. But, I do want to share one thing I said, which is the foundation of what I want to share in this post. Regarding my circumstances, as stated above, I shared this, “The Lord knows me. He knows this is hard for me. But I know there is a reason to have faith; even if I don’t know the reason yet – I know there is one.”

Essentially, I am choosing to live a faith-centered, abstinent lifestyle, without really knowing why. I have no proof that my faith will be rewarded. I have no proof that I’m making the right choice. But I am making that choice. I am choosing to abstain from a fully gay lifestyle, in order to remain a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in good standing. (I know many people in my situation have opted to leave the church and I fully support them in their decision – we all have a different path and we all deserve to be loved and accepted for who we are regardless of the path we choose.)

I guess that’s what I think faith is – moving forward when we don’t yet have all the answers. Which is, as I’ve come to realize, unbelievably ironic for me. You see, I seem to have a great deal of faith when it comes to religious/spiritual matters. But I have recently come to know that I don’t seem to have much faith anywhere else in my life.

When I look in the mirror, I hate what I see. When I look in the mirror, I see how fat I am and I hate it. I hate how it looks, I hate how it feels and I hate the burden that it creates in my life on every level – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. I hate that I can’t physically do things I want to do; I hate that I can’t wear clothes I want to wear; I hate how self-conscious I am and every time I go out in public, I worry that people are going to laugh at me, make fun of me, or look down on me. I worry that they will think about me the way I think about myself – weak, lazy, ugly, and stupid.

I have been on a multi-year journey to fix this – to lose weight, to feel better about myself and my life. I’ve had some successes, but many, many failures and every failure gets harder and harder to get back up from. The problem, if I can oversimplify, isn’t about knowledge or opportunity – I’ve had an abundance of both. The problem is that I tried to move forward without faith. Maybe it seems ridiculous to you, but I think it takes faith to change nutrition and exercise habits. Every time I started a new diet, or a new exercise program, or hired a new trainer, I struggled to put faith into the process or the person who was coaching me. I struggled with cutting things out of my diet, restricting calories, trying new exercises, needing to modify exercises to my ability level and so on, because I didn’t really know if it was going to work or not. The outcome of changing lifestyle habits was my unanswered question – was this really going to work for me this time?

Paradoxically, there were times when I did put my faith in the process and several times it did pay off – it paid off in increased strength, flexibility, weightloss, increased energy, and so on. But then I had a set-back. Several circumstances made me question my faith in the process, so much so, that I gave up on it. I gave up on eating right; I gave up on exercise. And it took its toll. I lost the energy I had gained. I gained back the weight I had lost. I lost strength, flexibility; and probably the worst part – I lost believing in myself.

As I’ve contemplated the things I’ve lost and as I’ve pondered on the seemingly inexhaustible supply of self-loathing I experience on a daily basis, and especially in light of what I was reminded of in church today – I realize that the one  thing I’ve never had any faith in – is me. When I had faith in the process of weightloss, it worked, I did lose weight, and it felt great. But I didn’t believe that I was worth it. I didn’t have faith that I could sustain the progress I had made because I didn’t have faith in myself. And I inevitably gave up on the process of weightloss.

I have spent thousands of hours, years even, money, tears, and whatever energy I could muster to try to understand why I am the way I am. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bagging on therapy – I love therapy and I’m a huge advocate for it. But after so much time and energy trying to understand why, I think I’m at a place where I realize that some questions just aren’t going to be answered. I don’t know why my first, visceral reaction is to hate myself; I don’t know why I have an aversion to doing anything “hard,” or that will make me look stupid; I don’t know why a good body and self-confidence come so easily to others and not to me. I don’t know why I have to fight my own brain every single day just to function in this world, let alone improve myself. And maybe I won’t ever know. Maybe that’s what faith is – to not know, but to move forward anyway. Maybe what I have needed, more than “answers” is just to have faith that I am worth it; that I can do it; that regardless of how successful I am (I really want to lose that “last” 100 pounds!!), that I’ll be better off for even trying.

Going back to a point I wanted to make – it seems strange that I have no problem having faith in an omniscient/omnipotent being that I can’t see, hear, smell, or touch and yet I can’t have faith in the very physical, tangible experience of being me. I can’t help but ask myself, “what would having faith in myself look like?”

I literally just spent the last 10 minutes looking off into space because I don’t know how to answer that question…

I guess it would mean pursuing health and fitness without having to defend or justify myself. I would do it because it would make me happy. I think it would mean being willing to make sacrifices of junk food/binge eating because I know those things don’t really make me happy long-term. I think it would mean being willing to accept all the bad things that come with life – being willing to be in pain, to be uncomfortable, to sacrifice or go without something I may want in the moment; and knowing that life doesn’t present hardships as a punishment – it’s just a part of life and it’s okay. I think it would mean accepting that some things are just hard, and that it doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or that I’ve done something wrong.

It has been difficult to face hard things because I haven’t felt that I was worth it. I also just realized that when something gets hard, I immediately react with feelings of indignation. When I face something hard, I hear my inner voice saying, “this isn’t fair…” And you know what? It isn’t. It isn’t fair that I have to work so hard to lose weight when it comes so easily to other men. It isn’t fair that I have to sacrifice enjoyable food when other men can eat whatever they want and not gain weight. It isn’t fair that I’ve been through so much trauma, only to have to work even harder at changing my thoughts/beliefs as a result. It isn’t fair that I have to deal with the fallout of things that happened to me, that I didn’t cause, that I didn’t want and that I never would have chosen. It isn’t fair that I have to suffer the consequences of other people’s bad choices/behavior. Yes, I know that makes me sound like a brat – and maybe that’s all I’ve ever been. But I’ve avoided and I’ve retreated and I’ve hid myself away because I just can’t face dealing with hard things when it wasn’t my fault to begin with. Well that also sounds like a victim talking…

Okay, so it isn’t fair. I am absolutely, 100% right – it’s not fair.

Now what?

Where does “it’s not fair” actually get me? Nowhere!!

Focusing on “it’s not fair” just leaves me stuck. I don’t have the answer, but maybe, just maybe, one way to get past “it’s not fair” is to realize that what it is, is an opportunity.

No, I didn’t want to be molested. And it isn’t fair. But it is an opportunity to forgive. No, I didn’t want to be morbidly obese. And it isn’t fair. But it is an opportunity to learn to appreciate the body God has given me. No, I didn’t want to live my life hating myself because other people hurt me. And it isn’t fair. But it is an opportunity to triumph in the face of adversity.

Maybe what “isn’t fair” is also an opportunity for faith. I think having faith in myself is trusting that what I want is okay to want; that I am worth achieving and maintaining improved health and fitness; that it’s okay that the process will be hard at times, but that the outcome will be worth it.

I think having faith in myself will mean doing the hardest thing possible: accept myself for who I am, the way I am, fat and all.

I have gotten used to beating myself up and I have gotten used to misery. I think it will be just as hard to admit that I’m okay, as it will be to accept that I’m okay. I have never allowed myself to be truly happy. I thought I needed to change, to achieve an ideal body/success, in order to matter, in order to be happy. So I’ve never allowed myself to really be happy. I was afraid that if I was happy then something bad would happen to “balance it out.” I was afraid that being happy meant I was being selfish. I was afraid that being happy meant taking happiness away from others, because there’s only so much to go around. I was afraid that being happy meant that I couldn’t change my circumstances, that I had to give up my dreams of improving myself physically or otherwise, because if I’m happy, then what else do I need?

It’s just occurred to me that I don’t think of happiness as an outcome of choices I make (i.e., a side effect); I think of happiness as THE destination – the whole end goal. Once you’re happy, that’s it – you’ve made it. You’re happy and there’s nothing else to want or do because you don’t need anything because you’re happy.

But what if happiness is NOT a final destination? What if happiness is NOT an end, in and of itself?

What if happiness is like a jacket. You aren’t meant to wear jackets all the time, but for some kinds of weather it’s the perfect comfort. In that way, maybe fulfillment doesn’t come FROM simply “being happy,” but maybe fulfillment comes from growth and achievement, and happiness just sometimes comes along for the ride…?

Well this post just kind of went everywhere, didn’t it? Sorry if it’s been all over the place. I didn’t realize until I started typing this that the concept of happiness was such a contributing factor to my lack of self-worth.

Ultimately, I don’t know what will come from all of the realizations I’ve had today. I still have so many unanswered questions. But I suppose that was really the whole point of this post in the first place: Faith is just living life with unanswered questions – and unanswered questions are no reason to stop living.

What Do You Deserve?

I have recently experienced a huge set-back. I say recently, but in reality it’s been happening for over six months. In September of 2018 I hit a milestone – I lost 80 pounds! I’ve never lost that much weight before!

I looked at the number on the scale, hardly able to believe what it meant. Losing 80 pounds was more than halfway to my goal. My clothes were much looser and I was in need of buying smaller clothes, so it really shouldn’t have surprised me to see the number going down.

And in reality, I don’t know that it was the number itself that surprised me – it was my reaction to that number that surprised me. I remember feeling disbelief, then fear, then disappointment. It struck me that I should be over-the-moon happy with my weight being down, but I wasn’t. I got a little angry at myself, “Micah! Look at what you’ve accomplished! Why aren’t you happy about this?! Isn’t this what you’ve wanted your whole life? Well, it’s finally happening!! Why aren’t you happy or excited?”

First, my disbelief. The fact that I “couldn’t believe” I had lost 80 pounds means that I didn’t really believe that I would. How else do you explain being “surprised” by weightloss when weightloss IS THE GOAL?! Deep down, I never really believed that I could be successful at losing weight because I had tried SO MANY times before. Suddenly, this time was different. Something about this process had worked and I wasn’t ready for it. I was seeing it, but I wasn’t believing it. In that moment, I realized that something within me was out of alignment with my goals and how I saw myself (more on this below).

Second, my fear. This is convoluted, even to me. I was afraid of so many things. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to maintain that weightloss. I was afraid that if I didn’t maintain that level of weightloss that people would make fun of me or worse, look at me with that crushing pity or disappointment in their eyes. Suddenly I felt “pressure” to HAVE to keep the weight off and I was afraid that I couldn’t do it – I mean, I wasn’t even able to believe I had done it in the first place, so how could I maintain it? I was afraid that it would make some people feel bad about themselves. (I know, I said this was convoluted… which is just a fancy way of saying my thought process is SO F’d up!!) I was afraid that, rather than be happy for me, it might make others who are also trying to lose weight, feel bad that they haven’t lost weight or haven’t lost as much weight. I was afraid that if I shared my progress, people would think I was showing off or trying to be something I’m not (what does that even mean?! I have no idea!!).

Part of the fear was not purely my own though. I recall telling someone that I had lost 80 pounds, but still have “more to go” and their response was, “but is that realistic?” The moment they said it, my soul was crushed. Basically they were saying, “hey, you’ve lost this weight, maybe you should just be happy with that and stop trying to lose more. That way you won’t set yourself up for disappointment when you don’t lose any more weight.” I know the comment was well-meaning – they just wanted me to be happy, but it confirmed to me that other people don’t believe in me; don’t believe that I could lose any more weight and that I ought to just be happy with what I had achieved, or be happy at being slightly less fat than when I started, or just “accept” myself the way I am and stop trying to improve myself. Suddenly, I had confirmation that I should be afraid of not being able to lose more weight, because others didn’t believe I could either. Which is probably what contributed to…

Third, my disappointment. My original goal was to lose 140 pounds. Losing 80 pounds, as I said, is over halfway, but because it wasn’t 140 pounds, I hadn’t “met my goal.” Why be happy about losing 80 pounds, when I still have 60 more pounds to go? Losing 80 pounds was great, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t be happy about losing 80 pounds because I told myself (unknowingly), that I wouldn’t be happy until I reached 140 pounds lost. It’s all or nothing and I won’t be happy until ALL the weight is gone.  The problem with saying, “I’ll be happy when…” is that you’re also saying, “I CAN’T be happy until…” Here I was, 80 pounds lost, AND I STILL WASN’T HAPPY. I was disappointed that I had ONLY lost 80 pounds and not 140. 

Somehow, of all of the three feelings mentioned above, it was feeling disappointment that was most eye opening. The fact that I had achieved something I had never before achieved – and still wasn’t happy about it, made me realize just how bad my mindset has been. Even as I have gone through the grueling process of trying to change my outlook on life, I still had this deep, deep belief that I could only be happy in one way – at my ideal weight.

But since I had “failed” to reach that weight, I gave in to my disbelief, my fear, and my disappointment. It’s interesting – I didn’t stop going to the gym and I didn’t stop trying to eat clean, in fact, I went through a nutrition certification course so that I could coach others on optimal eating habits. But what did change, was that I stopped really believing that I could do this – that I could maintain 80 pounds lost, that I could lose an additional 60 pounds, that I could actually achieve my goal weight. What has been the result? Well, here I am 6-7 months later and I’ve regained 40 of the 80 pounds lost!!

This is devastating to me.

I feel so disappointed in myself. I feel like a fraud for wanting to help other people eat well and lose weight, when I can’t even seem to do that for myself!

I’ve been asking myself for weeks/months, “what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get my act together? Why do I keep messing up, failing, and hurting myself – mentally and nutritionally?”

It finally dawned on me one day with alarming clarity: I just don’t deserve it.

When this thought came to the surface, I realized how much it felt like “me.” This is my identity; this is who I am – a man who is undeserving of anything good in his life. I don’t know why I haven’t realized it until now. How could I not have seen it until now? But now that I do, I look back over my life and I realize that it has been there the whole time. This belief has been with me for as long as I can remember, influencing every moment of my life, every choice I’ve made, every circumstance I have found myself in. Maybe I couldn’t see it because it was so good a hiding or masquerading as something else – such as being a victim, not measuring up, being afraid, etc. Being undeserving has been a part of all of those things, like an undercurrent that can’t be seen, but influences everything above it.

I have ruined diets, binged, and given up on myself over and over again, because I didn’t believe that I deserved anything better. If I did feel like I deserved something, it was that I deserved punishment, pain, and suffering. No wonder being miserable “feels right,” it’s all I’ve felt I’ve deserved. I deserve to be fat, ugly and lonely because I don’t deserve to be healthy, attractive or in a relationship. I don’t deserve to lose more weight, because that would make me happy and I don’t deserve to be happy!

Being undeserving can – and has – cut through every facet of my life. I think this is why I felt “disbelief” at having lost 80 pounds, as I mentioned above; as well as why I felt fear about losing weight – because I had achieved something I didn’t “deserve.”

For as long as I can remember I’ve had this really weird belief system that goes something like this: If I deserved to have something in my life, then I would have it; if I don’t have something in my life, it’s because I don’t deserve it. A couple of examples of this are: If I was deserving of having a good body, then I would have one (and not have to work for it?); but since I don’t have a good body, I don’t deserve it. Or, on the negative side: Since I was molested as a child, I must have deserved it, because if I didn’t deserve it, it wouldn’t have happened…

It’s as if the condition of having or not having something in my life is somehow “irrefutable proof” of this Deserving rule. Honestly, I have no idea where, when or how this rule developed, but I obviously felt it was so reliable that it just became a part of me.

Which leads me to my next question: now what?

Now that I see what I’ve been doing consciously or unconsciously my whole life, what do I do about it now? How do I just flip the switch and say, “ohp, gosh, you know what? wait…, wait, wait… I guess I was wrong this whole time; I really am deserving of having good things and being successful…!”

Like, I can’t do this. I can’t just wake up tomorrow and suddenly believe that I’m deserving of all good things – it’s far too incongruous with my experience. How do I lie to myself and tell myself that I suddenly deserve all the things I’ve told myself my whole life I DON’T deserve?

On the other hand I have this little “mindset coach” in the back of my head asking, “why does being deserving even have to factor into the equation? Why does everything have to be related to whether or not you deserve it? What if you took ‘being deserving’ out of the equation, period?”

Those are good questions, but I don’t know what that would look like. I don’t know how to answer those questions. Perhaps, instead of looking like “what do you deserve?” it might look like “what are you willing to work for?” Because if it’s no longer a matter of what you deserve, then it must become a matter of what do you really want and are you willing to DO what it takes to achieve it?

I don’t know. I’m really at a loss here. Has anyone else gone through this? What advice would you give me?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? Or have you ever wondered...

What do you deserve?

Why It Was Good To Hate Myself

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I eat. Weird, I know, but just go with me on this. I have a history of emotional eating/food addiction and binge eating. I recently had a relapse into this behavior and I kept asking myself why.

A conversation that basically went something like this:
“Micah, why are you eating crap when you know it makes you feel shitty and you’re only going to regret it? Why are you doing this to yourself? No one is forcing you to eat this way; this is coming from you. Why do you eat like someone who hates himself?”

And my reply was simple, “because I do hate myself.”

“Is that true?” I asked myself in genuine surprise. “Do you really hate yourself? You’ve been doing so much work on self-acceptance; loving and accepting yourself for who you are. Hasn’t that meant anything? Haven’t you learned anything from all that work? How can you still hate yourself?”

It took some time to answer this question, but I was finally able to answer it: “Because hating myself is the only way to be right.”

It has taken me some time to unpack the idea of what “being right” in this context means and it’s not any one thing, but a combination of things.

First, as an overweight kid I experienced a lot of rejection. I was hurt and betrayed practically on a daily basis. And then I realized something. Rather than waiting for people to make fun of me (and I knew they would), I would beat them to the punch and make fun of myself. And guess what? It worked! It was almost as if everyone was saying, “oh hey, we don’t have to make fun of him (as much), because he’ll do it himself.” And while the teasing didn’t end, it changed the way people reacted to me. Suddenly, people were laughing “with” me and I actually felt like I was getting along with people. Putting myself down, i.e., learning to hate myself, made other people “like” me. I learned that people like you better when you hate yourself. Therefore, hating myself was the right thing to do to have friends.

Second, I never felt like I was good enough to warrant my parent’s time or affection. I’ve blogged about all this before, so it’s pointless to hash it all out here again, but just to apply this to my current topic… People who are worthless don’t “deserve” their parent’s time and affection. Since I didn’t deserve my parent’s time and affection, I felt worthless. The only thing you can do with something worthless is to hate it, ergo, it’s “right” to hate worthless things.

Third, I thought the only way for me to be "right" before God was to hate myself. I believed that self-hatred was essentially the same as humility. Or, in other words, being humble by acknowledging my worthlessness before Him was the only way to be "right" before Him. Also, I was afraid of God’s punishment just for being me. (And YES, being a “gay Mormon” has everything to do with this, but that is a huge topic and a whole other blog post!!) I thought that if I could punish myself enough, then He would have compassion on me and not punish me Himself. It’s ironic. My whole life I have professed to know God as a loving Father, and yet, here I am believing that He only wants to punish me.

In every case, hating myself felt right because it was reliable, it was something I could count on, and it always worked. It satisfied every explanation for what was wrong in my life. And it allowed me to have some weird kind of control in my life because I couldn’t count on anything else. Hating myself was more than just a feeling, it was something I could DO; even when it meant that what I was doing was harming myself. Hating myself for being worthless applied to everything and it was an answer for everything: my parent’s and friend’s rejection, every failure, being a disappointment, being fat and ugly, being molested even. I thought that only people who have worth are protected and spared such horrors and that “safety” was well worth hating myself for. I was miserable, but I was safe.

Miserable, but safe.

These three little words seem to have defined my life up until this point. For most of my life, the need for safety outweighed the need for happiness. For the last couple of years at least, I’ve been approaching that tipping point – the point where the misery is just too much of a burden, a shackle, rather than a life line. In other words, the need for happiness becoming more important than the need to find safety in self-harm.

As I have been working on self-acceptance, seeing my past for what it was and seeing myself for who I am, I feel “growing pains” of an emotional kind. It’s scary giving up the “safety” of self-hatred. It’s terrifying accepting myself for who I am – a flawed, imperfect man who just wants to be a good man. It’s terrifying because just being me means I may not be “right” before God; it means I was probably all wrong about how I interpreted my parents treatment of me; it means I can’t control whether or not people like/accept me/approve of me. Giving up control, whether real or imagined, is terrifying. It means opening myself up to the possibility that I’m not safe, or that I may not be safe… that I’m going to be wrong, imperfect, etc.

As I was working through the twisted “logic” of hating myself in order to “be right,” I had a moment of innocent realization. “I just don’t want to hurt myself anymore.” And for a moment, I felt the sweetness of self-compassion.

I often see and hear messages of the need for self-love and self-compassion and I have believed that those concepts were great advice… for others. I never felt like that advice applied to me – again, because I thought hating myself was the only way to be “right.” But for a moment, I did feel self-compassion and that moment taught me a few things. 

First, I only know what self-love looks like because I have known what self-hatred looks like. For the first time in my life, I now have something to contrast with self-hatred. (This idea explains the title of this blog post.) And this is NOT a minor point – the contrast is necessary. Maybe – for me personally – I needed to hate myself in order to know what loving myself should look like. Indeed, as Lehi, a Book of Mormon prophet taught, “There must needs be opposition in all things.” Life happens in the opposition; growth overcoming entropy; faith in the furnace of affliction; 

Second – and please know that I am NOT in any way shape or form advocating self-hatred as a path to self-love – what I have learned is that there is great power in gratitude for where I have been because it was all a part of the journey that got me to where I am now. I could continue to lament the years I spent in self-hatred, to regret all of the things I didn’t do, or missed out on, but what good would that do me now? None. Instead, I can look back and say, it happened. And it led me on a path to finding self-love – no, more than that, to seeing the NEED for self-love and self-compassion. I truly believe that my poor health, being overweight, being sick, etc., is all somehow tied to years of hating myself and wanting to hurt myself.

In all of this reflection I have “climbed a mountain” of understanding and while I appreciate the view, I am, once again, at a precipice. I can back down this mountain the way I came and ease into the safety of self-loathing once again. Or I can jump into the unknown of self-love.

I choose to jump.

Why? Because I believe that there are arms to catch me; the arms of unconditional love. Love without condition. Think about that. Pure love – love with no strings attached, no conditions, no expectations. Just a love freely offered that says: I love you for who you are – all of you; I accept you for who you are – flaws and strengths, imperfections and gifts, all of it, ALL of you!

I didn’t know it, but all my life I’ve been looking for someone to love me in a way that would allow me to escape my prison of self-hatred. Someone who could just hold me, for no other reason than to be close to me; someone who could be affectionate with me; someone who could truly see all of me – the good AND the bad – and somehow love me just as much for having both – unconditionally.

Somehow, and maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think I’ll find that from another human being, until I can do that for myself. Maybe it was good to hate myself for a time, but the best thing I can do now is to learn to love myself, unconditionally.

Fear, revisted

Over the last few months I’ve experienced a lot of anxiety. Not so acute as to need medical help, but a constant, chronic fear that just seemed to keep lurking under the surface, like a shark gliding silently under the water stalking its prey, ready to strike at any moment.

I’ve recently been able to name that shark and its name is “not enough.” (Yes, I’ve blogged about this before. Yes, the theme of “not being enough” seems to be a recurring theme in my life. And yes, I really am going to blog about it again!)

For about the last 6 months, or more, I’ve been experiencing a significant pain in my neck, collar bone, and shoulder, especially during workouts (FYI, my trainer has been amazing to help me modify workouts and movements to strengthen my shoulder, while avoiding pain). But still the pain is there. Something you may not know about me is that I believe that most, if not all, pain or injuries in the body have an emotional component. I think that injuries/pain are the bodies way of saying, “hey, there’s something here you need to deal with…;” especially in the case of a long-term/chronic pain/injury.

So I’ve been “asking” my neck and shoulder what’s wrong; what is it that I need to deal with? And I haven’t had an answer until now. For me, clenching my neck and shoulders are a protective measure. It’s as if I’m trying to retract my head into my chest and use my shoulders as a shield – much like a turtle, actually.

Knowing that I’m clenching my neck muscles to protect myself, I have been asking what it is that I’m afraid of. What is it that I find so fearful that I’m constantly trying to protect myself? And after 6 months or so of asking, it finally dawned on me – I’m not afraid of any ONE thing because I’m afraid of EVERYTHING!

The understanding began to materialize as greater realization came to me. To explain my feelings better I need to relate a bit of my history. You see I grew up fat. Not just “husky,” or “chunky,” but fat. Full on, butterball status. When I was about 9, I doubled in body weight for no apparent reason. I realize now that I became “broken” inside from being molested about that age, but since I had fully repressed that memory, I was unable to make that connection. All I knew was that I was fat. And everyone else knew it. I went back to school (5th grade) after summer break and my friends suddenly didn’t want anything to do with me – I had changed too much, too quickly. I didn’t fit in anymore, literally and figuratively. To say I was devastated is an understatement.

I spent the next 7 years being made fun of everyday. EVERY. DAY. Not a single day went by that someone didn’t comment on my weight or my appearance. People passing me in the hall would move to the other side of the hall, so as to avoid me. Strangers, as well as “friends,” mocked me, rejected me and made me know on no uncertain terms that I was not acceptable. And I woke up terrified – every single day. I woke up with anxiety every morning, knowing that I was going to face an onslaught of criticism, judgment, ridicule and rejection, but I just didn’t know where it would come from or how severe it would be; but I KNEW it would be coming.  I didn’t know how to prepare myself; I didn’t know how to protect myself.

So I hunched my shoulders, kept my head down and lived in constant fear of an attack that I knew was imminent, but didn’t know where it was coming from – so I had to “be ready” at all times and being ready meant being constantly under stress. By my Senior year of high school, I think I was made fun maybe only three times, but after 7 previous years of taking a daily emotional beating, I couldn’t let my guard down. I never stopped letting my guard down. I had learned how the world worked – it pummeled you for being you and brought the worst beatings when you least expected them.

Fast forward to today, when I’m 40 years old and I still wake up afraid. I still clench my neck and hunch my shoulders, “turtling,” in order to protect myself. Something else happened to me when I woke up each morning, knowing I was going to face being made fun of and rejected, it made me feel like “I wasn’t enough.” I didn’t have enough energy to fight everyone. I didn’t have enough energy, or words, or fortitude, or strength, to stand up to those who bullied me. I didn’t have enough in me to combat the onslaught of humiliation I faced each day. I didn’t have enough, because I wasn’t enough. It was so devastating to know – and be told on a daily basis – that I wasn’t good enough to be accepted for who I was, that I just didn’t have the energy to stand up to it, to stand up for myself. And then, one day, I just stopped questioning it and I just accepted that I wasn’t enough; that I never would be enough.

So what changed that this issue is only coming up for me now? I think what changed is the multi-year process of attempting self-improvement and needing to deal with some really crucial aspects of my identity; such as dealing with being molested, dealing with being a closeted gay in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, dealing with family relationships, dealing with multiple addictions, etc. All these things I’ve faced and continue to face, but as these layers peel away, they reveal other, fundamental beliefs that need to be dealt with. I think losing weight and becoming physically stronger over the past year has also been a contributing factor. I think my body is saying, “you’re strong enough to deal with this now…” And there’s the irony – I’ve become strong enough to face the fact that I still don’t feel like I’m enough.

When I wake up afraid every morning, I’m afraid of not being enough; of not having enough strength or energy to face the uncertainty of what the day will bring. It is the uncertainty that I equate with "everything;" i.e., being afraid of everything is really just being afraid of uncertainty. I know that the day will bring hardships and trials; and even though I don’t know how bad it’s going to be, it almost doesn’t matter – I won’t be strong enough to face it; because “I’m not enough.” Even as I type this I feel my neck and shoulder throbbing – as if it’s blinking a warning that coincides with what I believe about myself.

My dilemma now is to know what to do with this realization. I’ve thought a lot about it. I have to acknowledge that most of the time I’m not giving myself enough credit. I really am enough, but I’m so focused on what I lack, that I don’t appreciate what I have.

While I know I need to acknowledge that sometimes I AM enough, there is a harsh reality that, sometimes, I truly am NOT enough. I’m not enough in the sense that I have more to learn and that my capabilities can always grow. Sometimes at work, I really don’t know how to help a patient. Sometimes at the gym, I really don’t know how I’m going to get through a workout or learn a new movement/exercise. Sometimes with my family, I really don’t know how to talk to them or open up to them about what I’m experiencing. Sometimes I really am just too tired to deal with any more challenges. But what I’ve never learned was that even in those moments when I’m not enough, I’m still okay. Who I am, as a person, is still okay.

I wish desperately that I could go back to myself as a child and just hold him and tell him that he’s okay. I would tell him that the way people treated him had more to do with what those people were thinking and feeling than with him. I would tell him that there will be times when he’s overwhelmed and it’s okay, because when he feels like he can’t handle something on his own, he’s worth asking someone else for help. I would tell him that he’s not alone and that he doesn’t have to face everything alone.

I know I can’t go back and hold the younger version(s) of me, but I can look inside my own heart and try to learn those same messages now. Yes, I will have days when I feel overwhelmed and like I don’t measure up, but I’m still okay. I may not always feel like I’m good enough, but I can always know that I’m okay as a person and always worth being loved and helped.

This is going to take some practice. I’m not blogging about this because I’ve learned to “master” this skill or because I’m “through” this challenge. I’m blogging this because I’m right in the middle of trying to resolve it and I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way. If you’re reading this and you sometimes feel like you’re not good enough, just know that you aren’t alone. You can talk to me about it and maybe we can help each other feel like we’re okay, just for being who we are, because it is good enough – just being you.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I watched a documentary on Mister Rogers today called, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and it affected me profoundly. I’m still not sure why. So much so, that I’m taking to a blog post to try to understand it. Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was on the air for 33 years and I was born/grew up right in the middle of it. (It began airing on television in 1968 and I would be born 10 years later, in 1978.)

Once, when I was a teenager, or young adult, my mom remarked how much I had loved watching Mister Roger’s Neighborhood as a child. I thought she was crazy because I could hardly remember watching it at all – and even if I did remember it (which I didn’t!), I would have thought it was un-cool to admit I had liked watching it anyway.

Fast forward to today. I’m watching this documentary and as they begin to show footage from the set, I felt like I was seeing someone that I had dearly loved but had inexplicably forgotten. I remembered virtually everything: the furniture on his porch, the change of jacket to sweater and dress shoes to sneakers, the feeding of the fish, the trolley, the knick-knacks on the shelves (like the castle; the tree-house; the brown, grandfather clock) that would eventually be the life-size set pieces for the imaginary world - the Land Of Make-Believe; a world filled with Lady Aberlin, Daniel the Striped Tiger, King Friday the 13th, (the terrifying Lady Elaine puppet!), Henrietta Meow-Meow, and all the others.

I remembered them all so clearly! Like I had only seen them yesterday, although it’s been years! But as I sat and watched this documentary, something else began to emerge – the realization that, although I had seen the show, I had somehow missed the message. In other words, I could remember what I had seen, but I had no recollection of what I had heard.

The messages I missed as a child were these: You’re special, just for being you; I like you just the way you are; you’re feelings are real and they matter; it’s okay to be scared; it’s okay to be different;

Maybe that’s why I was so affected by what I watched in this documentary. I wondered how could so much of the visual (i.e., superficial) things have “stayed with me,” yet the things that truly mattered were somehow lost on me? As a child, I needed those messages. I needed to hear that I was okay the way I was, but somehow, those messages fell on deaf ears. Here I am, 40 years later, still trying to learn that it’s okay to just be me; only to discover that the truth was there this whole time, I just couldn’t hear it.

I suppose it made me sad. It made me wish I HAD learned those lessons as I watched the show as a child. How different could my life have turned out if I had learned to believe in myself back then. But I can get lost in the “what if’s” and the “if only’s” of my past and I know that regret over what could have been is useless.

I suppose it also made me grateful. I’m grateful that my 40 year old ears are finally opening and hearing the message that I couldn’t hear before. I’m grateful that there were (and are) people like Fred Rogers who want people to know that they matter.

I know there are reasons why I likely couldn’t hear those messages as a child, but I also know that it doesn’t matter how old we are, we still just want to know that we matter. I think that’s what love, time, attention and listening does for others – it shows them that they matter. I hope I can be a Fred Rogers someday, too.