Not caterpillars forever

I have been looking over some of my posts of late. I seem a bit flaky, lurching from stability to crisis and back again. How come? How can I be sorted one minute and stressed the next? I travel in a straight line for a while, and then I stop and circle before I find my way back to the path.

Some days I just forget where I’m going.

There are two caterpillars sitting on a leaf when a butterfly flutters by. The first caterpillar turns to the second and says, ‘You’ll never catch me going up in one of those!’

I was prompted by this fine joke to look up the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Pretty amazing by anyone’s standards. And also pretty instructive. The caterpillar eats, grows and sheds a skin. It eats, grows (anyone else relating to this?) and sheds. It eats, grows and sheds. You get the picture.

In a letter to the Christian community in Rome Paul talks about how believers grow as they respond to God.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you will be able to test and approve God’s will – his perfect and pleasing will.
Romans 12 v 2

I’m happy enough to stand out and not conform when it suits me, but I suspect that’s not what Paul, the apostle who endured shipwreck, imprisonment and torture, had in mind. But he also says that a life responding to God’s love won’t simply improve my morals or make me nicer, but transform me. My imagination is unable to conceive what this might look like. So I take it on faith that change is a given.

Whether it’s changing country or teacher, or job or house, change cuts us loose from normality; suddenly all things are uncertain, shifting, impermanent. Almost as soon as it starts, what you have known starts sliding away from you. What has been will never be again.

Christians are promised this amazing transformation but in the meantime, we just see more of the same. We shed some old behaviours or habits or addictions or whatever, we look forward to being different and yet… we look the same. We can begin to doubt that anything is really different. That God has made a difference. We don’t fly to work or see through walls or, at least in the circles I move in, raise the dead. We can forget we’re moving towards something glorious.

Releasing the old to make way for the new is not a pretty or comfortable process. Think of the caterpillar’s bulk morphing, somehow, into a butterfly. Much like us. Like the caterpillar, all our baggage feeds into the process that produces a butterfly. We just have to take it on faith. And keep going.

Yes. And No.

A poem by Roger McGough called The Leader neatly describes where my head was after I wrote The Confidence Project. Just substitute the word ‘Confident’ for ‘The Leader’ and you’ll have it. There I was, all dressed up with my great new attitude and nowhere to go. But then I began to say yes instead of no to things, some small, some more significant. Instead of panicking loudly at whoever is foolish enough to listen,  I started forcing myself to do things for other people. Make stuff. Turn up.  The thing is, I don’t like to commit. It puts me under pressure to live up to some expectation or requirement I’m not certain I can meet. But Confidence says yes where I would usually say no. I haven’t been this busy or satisfied  in years. It is possible that I have finally grasped the blindingly obvious fact that confidence isn’t a superpower that is imparted all in one go, fully formed, but grows gradually, as experience teaches you.  Replacing the long perfected and amusing excuses to say no with reasons to say yes is like learning a new language. That’s okay. I’ve learned new languages before.

And then there’s No. Starving myself of  my usual negative behaviours.  This means observing more and saying less. Trying less hard. Breathing out more. Allowing myself to relax before the event, not afterwards. Switching off the internal commentary. Relaxing for whole minutes at a time. I didn’t realise this until the church picnic I organised at the weekend. Tell you why. Because I fell off the wagon, big time. Instead of saying no to the first negative thought that sidled up to me, I let it in and shortly thereafter slid off into full-on sweaty-palmed panic at the thought of all that could go wrong (go wrong? At a picnic? Are you kidding? I hear you say…) no, really. It was a pitiful catalyst for an adrenalin overdose, but I felt powerless to stop it. And then I remembered to say no, enough. I shut my mouth and opened my eyes. These lovely people I was worried about were talking, laughing, eating, and playing games. In short, enjoying themselves. All was clearly well. Like it usually is.

Day 32. Puncture Marks

This week I realised that as well as complaining about the world out there, a lot of the negative, critical thoughts that have gone (mostly) unvoiced in my mind since I gave up complaining for Lent are actually about me. Things done or not done, said or not said. And it’s a tricky balance for a Christian because we are all aware, or should be, that we are sinners who mess up; the reason God had to make a rescue plan in the first place. So yes of course I’m rubbish at keeping it together. I wouldn’t need God otherwise. But I have been stuck in front of my own flawed reflection, and it’s not healthy.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made, according to Psalm 139, and God knows all about me and loves me anyway, whether I’ve got it together or not.

It’s been difficult hearing my inner moaner revealing some awkward attitudes and expectations of life, God and the people around me. However, this past week has been more about hearing what’s wrong with me than anything else. Yes I’ve just repeated myself. Just one of the things I’ve been noticing and criticising more and more of late.

I have 8 days to go, I think. Who knows what cheery revelations they will bring. I can hardly wait. But  – hold on, I seem to be complaining, don’t I. About complaining about I. See where this stuff can take you?

So I am resolved now to bring an end to this hitherto unnoticed habit of finding fault with myself. Of harping on my defects, and all the reasons I can’t do things. When I say this habit has gone unnoticed, that’s perhaps not strictly true. Others have noticed. My parents. My husband. My friends. Almost everyone who gets to know me, in fact. But I have not believed them before this week. Because I could not hear myself. This week it has been loud and clear. And, at times, very hard to bear. I realised that what may have started life as false modesty or shyness had grown into a deep valley of distrust of my own abilities. I need to climb out, but how?

This week has been one the most difficult yet. But I am grateful for it, even though I had no idea where to start my recovery until this afternoon. At my kids’ school assembly, a class of 1^st-Graders shared what they were good at. These accomplishments covered diverse skills like bike riding, singing, playing Minecraft, hiding in small spaces (loved that) and making friends. And I thought, what a great exercise. Instead of finding fault with myself I can try listing the things I’m good at. Some days the list may be shorter than others. It doesn’t matter. Beats stabbing myself with a fork.