Leave the Old

One who is ill must not wish to do the work of a well man; let him compensate by moderation and patience, and not injure his health.   ~   St. Ignatius of Loyola

 

          Work From Home took effect once more last week, and by the look of things, we could be in for the long haul as Covid cases surge out of control.

          At work, back in March, we were put on a new schedule and it was very demanding. I could barely move from my seat and within a month, I felt and saw its effects. Then came April and a return to my work place. I coped better not having to stare at a screen so much – but the relief was short-lived. When a close contact at work contracted Covid, I was forced into quarantine and soon, our workplace was shut down once more. It made everything so much tougher and that new schedule sure didn’t help things.

           May was a repeat of April in some ways. After another brief time at work, Covid began to overwhelm our nation and soon, we had to shift back to WFH which began last week. After experiencing the fallout from that unforgiving schedule, I knew this time I didn’t want to repeat some mistakes. The awful schedule was going to stay – but I needed to make firm changes to how I handled the workload. I needed to deliver yet manage my health and sanity too.

          We had a short break a week into May and for the very first time, I didn’t touch a single work-related task for those few days. Although travel restrictions meant we could not even go on family drives, not even peeking at my work files and folders gave me such a deep and joyful rest. That short holiday was like a romp in a sunny flower field. There was so much fun with the family. Even the most simple joys delighted me no end. Although I still cooked and cleaned, everything was done at a calm and leisurely pace.

          Around this time, Someone began to remind me about all the little lessons I had learned about coping and living and being happy. 

If today is the best I can make it, the lifetime will take care of itself. If this hour, right now had kitty petting, dinner cooking and book reading in it, and the next had a bubble bath and a call to my mom, and the next had painting with a cup of tea, an old movie and a walk in the woods, if I put all those hours together, what a lovely Red Letter life that would make.   ~  Susan Branch, Martha’s Vineyard, Isle of Dreams.

          Reflecting on this deliberate layering of my day hour-by-hour, I felt led to another life-lesson:

That the time for me to be completely involved and absorbed in one specific thing for hours at a time had passed. More than 2 decades of such commitment had taken so much out of me and I was no longer able to maintain that level of work.

          But neither was this the time to completely shut down and let go. We cannot afford for me to retire early. Neither do I have the luxury of getting more help with running the home. Somehow, I have to still continue working long hours, running the home and still take care of myself.

It was now time to incorporate a bit of everything into a day, whispered a small voice within me. Time to shut out work when it has overstayed its welcome, to firmly ignore the endless beeping of the phone as my superiors text orders and instructions all hours of the day, pushing deadlines on us even at night.

To instead make my day a collage, of not just the tough things which just have to be done, but also of things which sweeten the hours and bring me peace and delight.

          When that dawned on me, it was like light suddenly pooling bright in my mind. I should not wait to live only on weekends or on holidays.

It was time to fight to really live each and every day.

          So, I returned to work after that short break, determined to take charge of my life, to take it back from that terrible schedule first. From Monday till Wednesday last week, I interspersed formal work with work around the home. I began the day very early with my laptop and files and ear plugs stuffed into my ears – but I made sure to get up and move around every few minutes and not become a slave to the laptop. I spent more time in our garden than I ever did before. Granted, it was never much to begin with in the first place. But I learned what so many others have long known – that having even a simple garden routine was a discipline that wrought a lot of good. It was good for my body and certainly good for my soul. A hidden strength and serenity always follows a good  commune with the winds and the sun, the trees and the flowers.

          Those 3 days of the work week passed and I was so pleased with myself. I felt strong and in control. My work schedule had not changed and yet, I had gotten so much done and still felt good.

          Then, came Thursday, Friday, and everything changed. Since March, those have never been good days. A ton of reports is always due on Friday so Thursday is a day to slog. I found myself struggling. On Thursday, I made a lame attempt to be in the garden. On Friday, I just couldn’t.

         It wasn’t that I had fallen off the track or gone back to my old killing ways; I could see no other better way to do things.

          I was disappointed. It was so important to me to learn to work differently and to stay on this new course. So many things were tied in to that. If I failed yet again, then there was little chance to hold on to my job, to win back my health and happiness.

          I wondered if there was something I should have done or not done in order to have lived those days better.

          Just before I fell asleep on Friday, I asked God to speak to me. If there was something that needed to be changed and could be changed, I needed God to lay it out clear and straight for me because all I saw was a hard, high wall in front of me.

          As always, God’s reply was the last thing I expected.

One who is ill must not wish to do the work of a well man; let him compensate by moderation and patience, and not injure his health.   ~   St. Ignatius of Loyola

          The moment I read that quote, I backed away from it.

I was not ill.

That was not the quote for me.

          But those words pursued me gently and silently, like a little friend who loves you and who knows what you need even if you could not admit it to your own self.

One who is ill…

          I am not sick and I will not pretend to be. But for years, I have pushed and battered my body in the mistaken belief that I didn’t deserve any better. While others took breaks and rested, I listened to voices I should have instead shut out, and forced myself to go on working. I worked because I loved to work hard but I also worked to make life easy for others, believing that when you suffer in life, you have to try and keep others from suffering the same. While that might be true and good in many respects, it is not an absolute. In my case, unfortunately, I ended up spoiling some people into believing that I would always be there to pick up the pieces for them. That they could drop things on a whim and yet count on me to finish their job and watch the house, so to speak, while they took time off for hobbies and holidays and rest and rejuvenation.

One who is ill…

          A couple of years back, when it became apparent that something was going very wrong inside me, I tried to get help. I thought it would pass but it didn’t. For a while, meds and herbs helped but soon it was clear that something had been started and my body was set on a path it would not turn away from. Now, I can no longer spend hours scrubbing and cleaning and polishing the house, then, find an extra pair of legs to run after the kids and later, do a good amount of cooking. I will be 49 this year but in a couple of months, I’ll know if I am in menopause. I’m not even 50 but so much has changed within me, little of the old remains. When I compare photographs of myself now and from 10 years before, the deterioration is painful to see.

One who is ill must not wish to do the work of a well man; let him compensate by moderation and patience…

                  There’s something in the Bible about how Love pursues, and those words of St. Ignatius did just that. Wherever I turned, whatever I did, those words from the quote never left me. Soon, I stopped turning my heart away and quietened myself and lay my head upon Jesus’ lap. What do you ask of me, Lord?  

…compensate by moderation and patience…

          There is no point in getting upset over the passing of the old days when I seemed to have endless amounts of energy. I have already mourned that. It is now time to accept the inevitable and move on to learning to do things differently. While I cannot keep to the old pace, I can still do so many things – in fact, I can do a lot – just slower and differently.

          A bit of everything in a day. Work. Gardening. Laundry. Cooking. Cleaning. Teaching the kids. Not for long hours like before but in short spurts. Bit by bit. Or brick by brick as Linda Raha wrote in her beautiful, compelling post.

        …compensate by moderation and patience…

          My Jesus is calling me to gentle living. Even in the midst of the roaring seas that life is now in this country, He is leading the way down a different path, one whose turns and bends I am less familiar with. He wants me to learn that gentle living is not just when I’m on a break or during weekends but that He calls me to it every single day.

          Even if on some days work will not allow me this, I must somehow learn to take back some hours each day to move in God’s meadows. 

          I must learn to let my body teach me how to work. To listen to it as I seldom have before, for more than anything, the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. It makes no sense to punish or mistreat this sacred vessel.

          My step will be hesitant and unsure along these new roads. There will be Thursdays and Fridays. I will trip and fall.

          But slowly, by moderation and patience, in adhering to the new discipline of keeping things simple, I will make my way to new meadows.

          And leave the old behind.

 

3 Words

          Just about 2 weeks ago, I became unexpectedly overwhelmed, reaching a cliff-edge I had not been quite so near in some time. Many times before, I have been overcome by exhaustion and a host of other emotions. But something was different this time. This time, part of me was calm and fully functional.

          But there was another part and that part of me was at the very edge of hysteria; I felt as if I wanted to just scream and scream till I was emptied of everything that had accumulated inside unseen. There was no rage or fury nor sorrow. None of that. Just an overpowering sense of being being filled to bursting with things that had no right being inside me.

          Thank God my husband walked into our bedroom just as that moment and I blurted out to him about how I was feeling. Very firmly and quickly, he told me I had pushed too much, that I needed to drop everything and rest. With that timely support in place, I did just that. Although it was just a little past 10pm and there were still some things to be seen to at home on a week night, I dropped everything, shut the door and picked up a book I had been reading since the beginning of the year, Barack Obama’s A Promised Land.

          The effect of that shutting down was instantaneous. Just a few lines in, a sudden inner quiet took hold of me. It was not due to anything on the page I had been reading – but I suspect just the fact that I had intentionally stepped away from something not quite right – saved me.

          In that moment of sudden quietening, I called out to my God.

Help me, Lord. I need help. 

          I was a workaholic and I needed to quit working the way I did and yet, not actually quit my job. But I didn’t know how. I had tried breaks. I had tried to not care as much. Nothing worked.

Help me, Lord. I need help. 

          Into that silence, I heard a male voice, with an American accent, speak at my ear.

Keep it simple

          Like a bolt of light, those 3 words pierced me.

Keep it simple

          I didn’t need anything more explained to me. Early in the year, I had heard a voice say to me, The time for work has ended. I wasn’t too sure what was meant. With each phase of lockdown we entered after that, I wondered if that end had come. Yet, it wasn’t so. Deep inside, I wondered if it meant that the old way of working had ended. But with the terrible crush of work that came in March, that too didn’t seem likely.

          Keep it simple suddenly made it clear. The world would go on the way it was going – it was I who needed to change my approach to work. The time to work as I had for more than 2 decades had ended. The endless 18-hour days, the vicious cycles I put myself through, the high intensity of perfection I pushed myself to – it had to go. It all had to go.

Keep it simple

          I went in to work the very next day and for the next 2 weeks with those 3 words firmly pinned to my heart. A clear stream began to trip and tumble within me. An exquisite sweetness began to light the edges of my spirit. Some days, I still came home very tired – but something had changed. It was a tiredness that was quickly healed by a day or two of good rest and sleep.

          In the past, none of that had worked for long.

          Today, I realised that the cliff-edge I had almost tottered over was that of irreversible burnout. Had I not been obedient to God’s voice through my husband, something could have happened that night 2 weeks ago.

         3 words sent from heaven had saved me.

Keep it simple

 

Lent 35 ~ The Meadow Beyond

          The week has finally come to an end and not a moment too soon. I couldn’t have managed another day. From the light and energy of yesterday, without warning, I swung to the other end of the spectrum this morning: exhaustion, confusion, every gully within bone-dry. I clearly have nothing left to give where work is concerned.

          But I have a week off from work and after two brutal months, I sink into this promise with un-shuttered relief. I will close the gate to work and lock it behind me, for

there’s a meadow beyond to skip in

flowers to gather

and apples to share

Glory! Glory! Glory!

Lent 26 ~ The Drying Stream

When the devil wants to capture our soul, he first divides our mind by many cares. Some of them appear to be necessary, others appear to be fraternal charity; and as he thus divides it, the stream of compunction is dried up, and when it is dried up the city is captured, and reason perishes. ~ St. Anthony of Padua

Learn To Live Again

I walked back through the front door of Holly Oak and everything seemed different, almost hollow, quieter than it had ever been. I’d been immersed in the book for so long, I had to learn how to live again.   ~  Susan Branch, Martha’s Vineyard, Isle of Dreams

          I had come to near the end of Isle of Dreams, to the author emerging from a long journey of writing and working on getting her first book published. To the line, I had to learn how to live again. And my eyes were placed squarely on it.

          Therein lay the unvarnished reality of much of my problems – living so much of life trying to scrub myself clean of failure, I am finding it difficult to function on my terms alone.

          Like so many adult survivors of narcissistic abuse, much of my life has been built on the jagged rocks of condescension; I was raised to internalize that I was nothing and would have amounted to nothing had it not been for the intervention of others. Thus, I grew up and grew older having a keener awareness of my weaknesses and failings than of anything else. However much I learned otherwise about myself, the inner voice that always had my ear was the one that sniggered at my efforts. So, even as I walked further and further away from my old cage, one hand always remained on its door.

          Even with the grace of awareness and strength to break away and start anew, one shadow has followed me all the way – that of guilt. In my life, there has always been only 2 ways to beat guilt down.

Break away from the source.

Or appease it to the point of silence.

          Appeasing was the main option when guilt attacked at work. No matter how much I did, how hard I worked, I was never good enough. Not for the many suspicious people around me. Certainly not for the hidden past that was somehow always present.

          And so, I just worked harder.

          More than 2 decades passed in this fashion. As work pressure built up over the years, I had another load on me that no one saw –  a hidden demon that goaded me to the darkest depths of professional overreach.

          Then, the pandemic came. After the initial euphoria of working from home, with the heady happiness that comes from the freedom to feed my spirit with the wine of home and all its loveliness in the midst of official work, that gnarled hand returned and silkenly lured me back to the path I swore to leave. Quietly and compellingly telling me people needed me. That much more was needed to prove myself since it was WFH.

          And I let myself be led by it. What ensued were two major mistakes made as a result of exhaustion from working till the wee hours.

          Stumbling to bed, desperate for sleep, I suddenly realised that the need that drove me was mostly a mirage. There was genuine need – but I had not been called to every layer of its depth.

          Lesson learned – but I feared, for a time only – because what many NPD parents bequeath their children is the curse of lifelong guilt that nothing we do will ever be enough.

          I’m sorry, Lord, I whispered as I fell into exhausted sleep. Never again, Lord.

          I awakened scant hours later, with a strange energy coursing through me. I knew immediately that something had happened in the night as I slept.

Someone had heard me.

          Later in the morning, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque paid me a brief visit.

God has shown you His lights. You know what to do.

          But a later search for the exact quote came up empty. I could find no trace of it. And yet, on and on it echoed through the hours,

You know what to do

You know what to do

You know what to do

          All through that sun~scented Thursday, the robins and sunbirds sang, their lilting hymns piercingly clear. I leaned in and listened. Something had changed even here. I was hearing them differently now. Every time, it brought a smile to my heart.

          And all through that Thursday,

You know what to do.

           No, I don’t, I countered each time. I couldn’t understand. How could St. Margaret not know that I had no idea how to escape this shadow called guilt.

God has shown you His lights, she insisted.

          What lights? I wanted to ask, but that wouldn’t have been completely honest of me. I understood some things. Last year, through a dream, God had shown me I was headed for a major burnout. I took immediate steps to break the fall. But with WFH, I figured that I was having sufficient rest and since I had been cut a huge break from unnecessary work commitments, I could afford to work a little harder in other areas.

          But then came those 2 back-to-back mistakes and the searing epiphany.

          God has shown you His lights

          Night brought the needed clarity. After night Rosary, waiting for the house to fall silent, I reached for Martha’s Vineyard, Isle of Dreams.

          In one of those final pages, someone put a finger under the words,

I had to learn how to live again.