Becoming Yourself

Developing a Better You

Category: Personal Development (Page 5 of 56)

The Freedom of Finding Your True Self

May 11, 2024 / / 0 Comments

One of the main reasons I started this blog in 2017 was to map my own journey toward finding my true identity. The real me. My deep self. Who I am apart from the various fleeting hats I wear. Teacher and author Richard Rohr has been an important part of that journey. In his recent Daily Meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation, he spoke so compellingly on that topic that I wanted to share it with you. I hope it helps you on your own journey toward Becoming Yourself.

We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot, four quartets

In the Everything Belongs podcast, Father Richard speaks about the spiritual path that winds both away from and toward one’s true home:  

The first going out from home we can say is the creation of the ego. While this is a necessary creating, it is also the creating of a separation. It’s taking myself as central. We probably need to do that, at least until we reach middle age. But then we need to allow what we’ve created to be uncreated. Maybe I was a great basketball player, but that’s gone now. Or maybe I was good-looking, but that’s gone now.  

When we can say “yes” to that uncreation and still be happy, we’ve done our work. My True Self is in God and not in what I’ve created. My self-created self gave me a nice trail to walk on, and something to do each day, but it isn’t really me. It might be my career or my vocation; yet as good as it is, it isn’t my True Self.  

In the metaphor of life as a journey, I think it’s finally about coming back home to where we started. As I approach death, I’m thinking about that a lot, because I think the best way to describe what’s coming next is not “I’m dying,” but “I’m finally going home.” I don’t know what it’s like yet, but in my older age I can really trust that it is home. I don’t know where that trust comes from or even what home is like, but I know I’m not going to someplace new. I’m going to all the places I’ve known deeply. They’re pointing me to the big deep, the Big Real. I do think homecoming is what it’s all about. [1] 

Father Richard continues to reflect upon finding his home in God in this season of his life:  

Well first, I have to say, I don’t fully know how to live there. I’m used to living for 80 years out of building an education, a persona, a reputation, a career. When we’ve worked at those things for so long, on a very real level we don’t know how to live without them. But thank God, they’re taken away from us. God slows us down, I think necessarily, or we won’t fall into the True Self.  

My understanding of the second half of life is mostly homesickness for the True Self. I want to learn to be who God really created me to be. And I think all God wants me to be is who I really am. [2]  

As shared in the May 6, 2024 Daily Meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org) [1] Adapted from Mike Petrow, Paul Swanson, and Richard Rohr, “Tips for the Road,” Everything Belongs, season introduction, ep. 5 (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2023), podcast. Available as MP3 audio and PDF transcript.  [2] Adapted from Mike Petrow, Paul Swanson, and Richard Rohr, “The Two Halves of Life with Brené Brown,” Everything Belongs, season 1, ep. 1 (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2024), podcast. Available as MP3 audio and PDF transcript.

What I Learned Officiating My Mother’s Funeral

May 4, 2024 / / 2 Comments

I’d never written a eulogy before.

My 82-year-old mom fell on February 18, 2024. She fractured both cheeks and the C1 vertebra in her neck. Her elbow shattered so badly the surgeon said it was best not to operate. The blow to her head produced two brain bleeds.

Miraculously, she survived. After a week in ICU, she spent twenty days in a rehab hospital before fresh bleeding beneath her skull triggered a seizure requiring emergency brain surgery. Another week in ICU led to another rehab hospital. Four days into that stay, she became non-responsive. A trip to the ER revealed yet another brain bleed.

At that point, my family knew what my mom would want. No more surgeries. No more rehab. No more tests. We moved her home into hospice care. Her prognosis was less than six months. Within a week, she stopped talking, eating, and drinking. Within another week, she was gone.

As a former music pastor for twenty-six years, I’d performed funerals. But this was my mom. I didn’t want to do it. I desired my own time to grieve without being “on.” My dad’s pastor friend agreed to officiate her service. Two days before the memorial, his father unexpectedly passed away, forcing him to cancel. Since neither my dad nor I wanted a stranger to do mom’s funeral, I agreed to officiate.

At first, I was resentful. Angry. Frustrated that circumstances forced me into this position. And a grueling month-long book tour immediately followed by five weeks living out of state at my parents’ house while navigating this crisis had left me physically and emotionally exhausted. So I cried. Cursed. Vented to my wife. Prayed.

Then I sat down to prepare the service. I reflected on who my mom was and the impact she’d had on my life. Thought of her beautiful soprano voice. Her landscape oil paintings. Her chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies as big as my hand. Her unshakable faith. I remembered how she rubbed my aching knees when I was little. How she screamed when I hid under my bed then grabbed her ankle as she bent to kiss me goodnight. The time we were breathless with laughter when she read me the picture book Are You My Mother? in the doctor’s waiting room.

My wife Lisa, me, and my sister Shannon with my mom, Nellie

As I stood beside her casket sharing these memories at the memorial, something beautiful happened. My tears and laughter were cleansing. Healing. Cathartic. The act of public expression helped to ease my private pain.

Also, my deeply personal reflections somehow touched universal feelings of those in the room. It became a shared experience, helping each of us to grieve, celebrate, and reflect in our own ways. Singly, yet together. The very thing I’d tried to avoid became an instrument that brought me, and others, some of the closure we were seeking.

When life forces you into a corner, find a healthy way to express your frustration. Your anger. Your grief. Then take a deep breath and face it. Open yourself to the hard reality. Embrace it. You may find that the very thing you were running from is exactly what you need to take another step toward Becoming Yourself. 

The 4 D’s: A Sustainable Response to Suffering

April 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Spoiler alert—the needs of the world are endless.

Poverty. Disease. Human trafficking. Food shortage. Climate change. Homelessness. Income inequality. Racism. Cancer. War. Political division. The list goes on.

For anyone who cares about the well-being of others, this deluge of suffering can be overwhelming. It certainly is for me at times. The problems of the world seem like a vast mountain peak, and in its looming shadow, I feel incredibly small.

In the past, I’ve fallen into three responses to the world’s pain:

1. DENY – I look away. Pretend the problems aren’t there. Focus on my own needs and desires. Cling to my distractions. Operate out of selfishness.

2. DESPAIR – Help a little here. Give a little there. Half-heartedly attempt a few good deeds without any plan or purpose because deep down it all feels hopeless. Operate out of guilt.

3. DESTROY – Become consumed with serving others. Act like it all depends on me. Drive myself to exhaustion. Operate out of duty.

None of these responses proved healthy or effective long term. But is there a better way? I think some keys can be found in this quote by the late Henri Nouwen, a highly regarded author, lecturer, and Harvard professor who left his enviable position to work with mentally challenged adults:

The more I think about the human suffering in our world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of impotence and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me.

henri nouwen

The healthy response to suffering that Henri describes is:

4. DEVOTION – Acknowledge the world’s pain without being consumed by it. Find one or two areas of suffering that resonate with your heart. Use your gifts to address them well. Let other areas go. Embrace the joy and peace you find along the way. Operate out of love.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

Kenneth Untener in honor of Bishop Oscar Romero

Finding and maintaining a healthy response to suffering isn’t easy, but it is possible. Find where your passions meet the world’s needs. Use your gifts to meet them in sustainable ways. Rest. Let go. Trust that others will shoulder the burdens you were never meant to carry. Be joyful. Remember that you are loved. Love yourself. Operate out of that love. If you do, you’ll do your small part to ease the sufferings of the world, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

Text excerpts taken from “You are the Beloved” by Henri J.M. Nouwen, © 2017 by The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust. Published by Convergent Books. As shown in the Dec 21, 2022 daily meditation from The Henri Nouwen Society.

Prayer written by Kenneth Untener (bishop of Saginaw, Michigan, 1980–2004) in 1979 to honor Bishop Romero. See Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 153–154.

This post was originally published Jan 7, 2023.

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