We’re a family of artists. My wife Lisa is an author, our son Kilian is an illustrator/graphic designer, our daughter Kennedy is an actor, and I’m a musician. These are typically not stable career paths. One thing I’ve learned in watching each of us follow our dreams is that you have to take risks in order to have the life you really want.
Today, Lisa is a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-two books and counting, but there was a time when she quit her job to try to make it as a writer and made no money for two years. When she did sell her first book for a relatively small amount, we rolled the dice again and invested that money back into promoting her career versus improving our standard of living.
Kilian has made a name for himself as a highly talented designer for the craft beer industry. I recently attended his highly popular class called Design With Beer In Mind, a part of Design Week Sacramento, that he envisioned, organized, and taught in. Kilian is loving the freedom and creativity his position affords him, but it came with a big risk. A year ago, he quit his secure job to go freelance and lived off his savings while he hustled to get his desired career off the ground.
Kennedy recently landed her dream job starring as Nancy Drew on a television series coming to the CW network this fall. But for a very uncertain shot at playing that highly coveted role, she took the risk of turning down a supporting part on another show that was guaranteed to air, even knowing that Nancy Drew might never get picked up for a series.
Having the life you really want requires risk. Your dreams won’t be handed to you. Planning, preparation, and hard work are all important, but at some point, you’ll be standing on the edge of a cliff. The life you desire will be just on the other side of a big gap. To reach it, you have to make the leap. You might make it. You might fall short. The only way to know is to jump.
That’s a risk I’ve recently taken. I left a comfortable, secure job as a musician to try to make it as a writer. My first manuscript secured me a top agent which I’m thrilled about, but so far, I have a growing list of rejections from publishers. Will I ever make it as an author? Will the risk pay off? I’m not sure yet. But either way, I’m glad I took the leap. Whatever happens, I’ll never have to live with, “What if?”
So how about you? What does your dream life look like? What risks would you have to take to make it a reality? Are you willing to take them? Visualize the life you want. Plan and prepare for it. Do the work. And when the time comes, take a deep breath, screw up your courage, and jump. If you do, you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
I was walking through a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit to visit my niece when I heard a child screaming. Loudly. I glanced through an open doorway and saw five doctors and nurses bent low over a little boy, performing some type of procedure. Whatever was going on, the young patient was not happy about it.
As I walked on, I tried to imagine what that child must be thinking. From his limited understanding and perspective, he just knew a group of scary strangers was causing him pain. He was screaming to let everyone know that he wanted the pain to stop. Now. I’m guessing that in the child’s eyes, the ones causing the pain were bad and out to hurt him. Given my interaction with the caring and professional staff, I had no doubt they were doing something important and necessary for the boy’s healing, but he didn’t see it that way.
That experience led me to ask myself a question – how often am I like that child? I face some type of affliction, and my first reaction is to cry out in fear and frustration and do whatever I can to stop the pain. Soon after, I start assigning harmful motivates to the person or God or fate or the universe or whatever I perceive to be the cause of my suffering.
Over time, I’ve learned that those reactions to pain are seldom beneficial. My perceptions about my own suffering often don’t match reality. Like the discomfort caused by the medical staff to that child, sometimes pain is necessary for my healing and long-term good. While far from being enjoyable, pain can serve as a healthy catalyst to my desired growth and development. And similar to a coach pushing an athlete through arduous training to help them achieve their goals or a parent disciplining a child to develop their character, sometimes those who inflict pain on us are motivated not by malice but by love.
I’ve come to realize that, like the child in the hospital, I’m often a poor judge of what’s best for me. My judgements tend to be extremely short-sighted. Time and again I’ve done whatever I could to alleviate my emotional, mental, or spiritual pain in the moment only to regret it later. I think this is caused partly by my own failings, partly by my human nature, and partly by the limitations of my brain. I have huge respect for what we human beings can accomplish, but our minds aren’t all powerful. We’re not equipped to grasp all the complexities of life or to see all the long-term consequences of our choices.
So if I want to make the best choices for my life and become the best version of myself, I need help from someone who can see around corners. Someone bigger and smarter. Someone who has a better grasp on the Big Picture and has my best interests at heart. I believe I’ve found that someone in God. I know that’s a non-starter for some of you, and I respect that. I’m just sharing what’s worked for me. By cultivating a relationship with God, I feel like I have someone guiding and helping me on my journey in a way that no one else can. It’s helped me to be less reactionary, more peaceful, and to see my pain in a more wholistic light.
So how about you? What’s your perspective on pain? As you experience the inevitable trials of life, I’d encourage you to pause. Take a breath. Look for ways the discomfort can help you heal. Make you better. Make you stronger. This won’t always be the case, but before jumping to assume harmful motives, consider the possibility that there’s something deeper going on, something for your long-term good. Maybe there’s actually Someone looking out for you. And regardless of where it comes from, as best you can, embrace your pain and use it to grow. If you do, you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
It was a big change. After years of financial struggles, the church where I was working as music pastor merged with a giant church nearby. My heavy responsibilities of leading a small team to plan, produce, and perform at the weekend services morphed to light responsibilities of mainly singing and playing at the services as a member of a huge team. The performing side was what I enjoyed the most, so I was excited about my new role. The leadership of the church that enfolded us could not have been more gracious and welcoming, and I felt appreciated and valued. I was reveling in my significantly reduced stress level.
Over time however, I began to notice something happening inside of me. I felt a sense of discontentment and hurt, loss and confusion. I couldn’t figure out where these feelings were coming from. I wrestled with God, read widely, and talked with both my wife and my accountability partner, all in an attempt to understand what I going through.
As the months went by, I started to get greater clarity on the source of my feelings. In short, I was having an identity crisis. I realized that for the previous twenty years as a music pastor in multiple churches, I’d always been the right hand person for the lead pastor. I was consulted on every big decision the church was facing and led the organization’s most highly visible program. In my new role, I was just one of a long list of worship leaders, many layers away from the church leadership, and a full decade older than anyone else in our young music department staff. My influence, my role, and my importance rightly and necessarily diminished, not only in the overall church, but within the music team itself. While I welcomed the decrease in stress and responsibility, I was having a hard time letting go of my former status.
It was a humbling realization. I had always prided myself on not basing my identity or self-worth on my job, on what I did or accomplished. This role change, and the feelings that came from it, forced me to take a hard, honest look at myself. I had to face the reality that my job was a bigger part of my self-perception than I’d wanted to admit. I needed to work through the difficult process of reshaping my identity.
One Sunday morning during this season, I gathered with the other musicians and tech crew as usual before the services started. We had a tradition that one of us would take a few minutes to share something we were learning to help us get our minds and hearts in the right place before leading others. The person speaking that day talked about a prayer he’d found called The Litany of Humility written by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930), who served as Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X. It goes like this:
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled…
From the desire of being honored…
From the desire of being praised…
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted…
From the desire of being approved,deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes…
From the fear of being calumniated…
From the fear of being forgotten…
From the fear of being ridiculed…
From the fear of being wronged…
From the fear of being suspected, deliver me, Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I…
That, in the opinion of the world,
Others may increase and I may decrease…
That others may be chosen and I set aside…
That others may be praised and I unnoticed…
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I,
Provided that I become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
There are moments when you discover something that you know is exactly what you needed. Hearing this prayer was one of those times for me. I’d been given a tool to help me reshape my perspective, my attitude, and my identity. I fervently prayed The Litany of Humility nearly every day for months. It became like a surgeon’s blade, cutting away the cancerous, infected parts of my identity.
It was a painful, yet wonderful process. As the old layers of False Self dropped away, I found a new clarity on who I was, a deeper sense of my True Self. I learned to rebuild on the most solid foundation I know by defining my ultimate identity as this: I am God’s child. That provides me with a sense of self that won’t be shaken no matter how my job titles, relationships, health, wealth, abilities, opportunities, circumstances, or the opinions of others may change over the course of my life. Working my way to that realization has given me a deep sense of freedom, peace, and joy.
That experience was one of the catalysts that led me to start this blog. So many writers have helped me on my personal development journey, serving as guides in my search for my true identity. I want you to find that help for your own journey. If anything I share here can somehow shine a little light on your path, give you some encouragement or a tool to find your True Self, then my efforts will be worthwhile.
So how about you? How do you answer what many call life’s biggest question – who am I? On what do you base your ultimate identity? What false identities do you need to let go of? Do the work. Peel back the layers of your heart. Use The Litany of Humility or something else that’s a better fit for you. Share your struggle with those you trust. Dig deep. If you do, you’ll take another huge step toward Becoming Yourself.
