I’ve said this before, but I’ve become slightly obsessed with looking up the definition and the etymology of words. I decided to do this most recently with the title of my personal blog that was largely inspired by the fruit of doing the Unique Call to Sanctity Workshop. If you haven’t done it, and you feel like your life has lost its fizzle, check it out stat!
Back to my blog. The title was inspired by one of my first coaching sessions with Erin Ingold, where she challenged me to move toward the thought that, “Sometimes I’m a messy mom, and that’s okay.” I landed on the title Grateful Blessed Mess. I think the idea to start this research project was inspired by the Holy Spirit because what I found impacted me in a profound way.
I don’t know about you, but often I feel like I’m a bit of a mess. I’m often late, the house is cluttered, I forget things I need, I miss doctor appointments and my hair can get so snarled it’s easier to throw it up in a bun than brush it out some days.
Given the fact that I seemed to have the most affection for the word “mess” I decided to start there and found a variety of definitions.
Mess – untidy, dirty, disorganized, state of confusion or an offensive state of affairs.
I was able to see that I was making an association that to be messy made me somehow unloveable. I decided to journal on this, finding the thought, “I’m a mess when I don’t see a task through.” From there, I started to dig, uncovering more associations.
“I’m a mess. When I’m a mess, it’s because I didn’t see a task through. When I don’t see a task through, this makes me a burden to others. When I am a burden to others, this makes me unlovable.”
Yeeeaa, I could see how this is a painful place to operate from.
We are human. Part of the human condition is to be flawed, to be incomplete, to need to depend on others. I could see how I was rejecting part of my human condition and that it was causing me pain, but I was still attached to the thought that to be a burden made me unlovable. Underneath that was the belief that the pain of being unlovable is unlivable. This needed to be addressed.
So I started to tackle the thought as I was taught to do as a mindset coach, being trained by Metanoia Catholic.
“I’m a mess.” Is this true 100% of the time? Well, no. Sometimes I am tidy, on time, clean or organized.
“When I’m a mess, I am a burden.”
Burden – a load, typically a heavy one, a duty or responsibility that is hard to bear.
Oh my gosh, there it was! I was believing the lie that I am hurting people, injuring them by not “pulling my weight” and that people see me as an unbearable burden when I am a mess. That the burden of ME, my flawed human condition, breaks them.
From here I put my logic hat on. First off, we know from the Metanoia Catholic Academy that I don’t have the power to “break” anyone. That people make choices based on their own thoughts and emotions. So, I repented of that belief. I repented of believing that it is within my ability to “break” another human, and that the “burden” of being in close relationship with me will cause them injury. I repented of believing the lie that I am too much for them to bear and that I am relieving them by removing myself from them to that more comfortable, yet lonely place of isolation.
I realized that it was this underlying root belief system that fed into the other painful view of myself. This was why it was:
- so painful for me to be seen as “needy”,
- so painful for me to have to ask for help,
- so uncomfortable to “be a mess”,
- why I’m a people pleaser – to avoid being a burden,
- and why I just want to disappear when any of the above occurs.
Then Christ stepped in…He chooses to carry the burden that is me on his back. An image of Him carrying the cross entered my mind. He actually desires it. He asks for it, He longs for it. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The weight of who I am is not offensive to Him, it’s not going to break him, and I am actually offending, hurting, and breaking His heart when I “choose to remove myself from His concern.” I’m not meant to be anyone else’s burden to carry but His.
This was so beautiful and comforting. However, I am also aware of the daily realities that can literally make me a burden when I don’t do my dishes, get to an appointment late, etc. And this is the thought that came in…
“Every time I am not able to “see something through”, every time I lack in some way, the person or people this affects are given an opportunity in that moment to be Christ for me. If they choose not to be, this is not an offense against my own dignity, but an offense against Christ. It is the invitation to be Him that is being rejected, not me or my need for help.”
Today, I can embrace the pain of my messiness as a reminder of these truths and the thoughts that were once so burdensome become a source of comfort.
Jenga! My belief system crumbles.
Grateful and Blessed and Kind of a Mess
Let’s be serious here,
If I’m gonna be sincere
I don’t like how I feel
But I’m gonna be real.
Today I’m more mess than blessed
More in distress than holiness
Gratitude sounds like platitude
My attitude needs Beatitude.
The rectitude for which I long
Seems out of reach, I’m not that strong
Drowning in hypermentalization
This answer, unwanted realization.
Reality seems so obscure
My path, unclear, a hazy blur.
Just need to focus, adjust the lens
Then see my worth with you again.
Clarity evades my eyes
Confusion lingers as a guise
But underneath, down at my core
To rest and trust would thus restore.
