#brandoncarleton

“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

We’ve all heard the stories about a musician or an athlete who had a fall from grace. Take Brett Favre for example. Favre was a Super Bowl winning quarterback, beloved by America, and full of southern charm. Then news comes out that he took photos of the least photogenic part of every male body and sent them to people who did not request such a photo. Sure he is back on TV now selling back braces with Jerry Rice, but for the most part, his approval rating is low.

Some would say he “let down” his fans and his supporters. This doesn’t just happen with celebrities. This happens with our friends, our coworkers, our families, our partners. Let’s say I’m meeting up with a friend and maybe that friend shows up late, and has had a bad day, and we don’t have a good conversation. But I wrote the story, “They will be here on time and we will have a great discussion.”. When it doesn’t go according to script I’m mad because, unbeknownst to them, they didn’t live up to the story I had written.

We all write stories about the people in our lives. This is partly what our brain needs to do just to make it through the day, but it’s also a sneaky way we don’t allow people to live freely. We try to control people with the stories we write for them.

This is where I am at right now in life: Whenever I get angry at someone I ask myself, “Am I really angry with them? Or are they simply not living life according to my agenda for them?” Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is the latter. It isn’t love if it comes with an agenda. It isn’t love if the person feels boxed in.

I’ve been trying to use the perspective changing mantra  of “Yes, thank you…” If someone is late meeting me for a drink I say to them, or just out loud to the world, “Yes, thank you…” Thank you for being late. Maybe it gave me a few minutes to catch my breath and slow down, to notice how hurried I have been. Maybe it gave me a chance to make a grocery list so I wasn’t frazzled at the store. Maybe their tardiness simply reminded me to accept everyone and to stop writing a story for everyone I meet.

It is possible that our biggest offense, however, is the stories we write for ourselves. We all play various roles in the melodrama that is our life. We are the parent, the spouse, the successful business person. 

We all write stories for how we see our lives going, what direction they will head, and when this doesn’t happen we find ourselves disappointed. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with setting goals at work, or trying to be a good parent. The problem comes in when we attach our value and our identity to those things. They are masks that we wear. Roles that we play. They are not who we are.

You are you before you are an employee. There is a you beneath the you that is a parent or a spouse or a friend. I’m sure you can identify the people in their lives they feel safest around, the people who allow you to be your true self, unashamed. This is the challenge in life; how can we come to know our true selves? How can we surround ourselves with people that bring us into awareness of our true selves? How can we stop writing stories for ourselves—and those around us—and begin connecting to ourselves and others on a deeper level?

Our theme for 2019 has been “Finding Your Voice.” I was introduced to this poem a few months into 2019--certainly one of those “god-things” or stars-aligning coincidences. It was after the passing of Mary Oliver and a friend and I were talking poetry. He shared with me this poem and it it perfectly encapsulates our theme.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott:

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Quite often in life we come up against various forces---friends, family, teachers, marketing agencies, etc---that one way or another, tell us to not trust ourselves. Many of our early life structures are intentionally built to eliminate decision making and they serve us well for a season. In our classrooms, our home life, our piano teachers and coaches… all are better served by group think and “falling in line” with those around us.

As we get older, many of us turn to coping mechanisms that are designed to remove ourselves from ourselves. When life gets difficult we often try to numb ourselves, and as a result we disconnect from inner voice.

To make matters worse, the church and its well meaning church leaders often tell us that our intuition--that which is deepest within us--cannot be trusted. Our emotions, our physical bodies, and our “flesh,” are all things that are evil and do not deserve our attention.

It’s no wonder then, considering all of this early programming to not trust ourselves, that many of us get well into adulthood feeling incapable of tuning into our inner voice. We become strangers to ourselves.

The good news is that our inner voice is in there somewhere, waiting to greet us. We just need to work on our ability to listen. A task easier said than done, no doubt. That is a large part of the focus of our group this year: to exercise the muscles that are required to listen to ourselves. Hopefully, at some point this year:

“You will love again the stranger who was your self. At your own door in your own mirror, you are right there, it doesn’t take much work to find you.”