Deconversion - check; Deconstruction - in progress

I have been detoxing from my scrupulous religiosity for a good many months now.  

The first thing that happened is I gave myself permission to miss Sunday Mass.  This was big bc I had an almost compulsion to work around that weekly ritual.  Now, having missed a few Sundays, I am able to still attend without it feeling like a must.  My husband and son really still like going, and since it's been a family tradition for us all these years, and we haven't found a replacement yet, I still go.  My son in particular enjoys serving at the altar, and since we have a move coming up where he won't be able to continue serving at the new location, I want to give him the opportunity while we still can.  

The shift in thinking from "Sunday obligation" to "family tradition" has allowed me to still get some spiritual benefit from the liturgy.  I'm not sitting there angry at having to be there, or at having to listen to preaching I disagree with.  Technically I'm not sitting much anyway since we attend an Eastern Rite Catholic church ;) .  Rather, I focus on what I find enjoyable - the beautiful interior, the ability to sing/chant 90 % of the liturgy, watch my son doing something he takes great pride in, and this lets me turn a blind eye to any message that might come across as problematic for my deconverted sense of truth and justice.

Perhaps tied for first place was also my prayer life.  I stopped praying.  It wasn't that difficult.  At the height of my most recent religiosity, I recited the Modeh Ani (Jewish morning prayer) in Hebrew and English upon opening my eyes in the morning.  I recited prescribed prayers in front of our prayer corner, with icon veneration and metanoias (venerations).  For a time, I covered my head with a scarf as well.  Slowly, the practice dwindled to an evening family prayer where we just cuddled together in the dark and prayed.  This is the practice that needed tweaking once I made the conscious decision that I have deconverted.  I had to stop dragging my family through my spiritual quest, as I had been doing and they had graciously come along for the ride.  Besides, gathering together right before bed was a good practice.  It's just that what was said and done during it had to get tweaked.  

We kept a couple of rote prayers we cycle through as a way of continuity, and we sing a favorite hymn or just the Our Father together.  But the focus of this time together has shifted to non-spiritual things.  We go through and say what we are grateful for (which may or may not be seen as spiritual).  Then we say something we like about each other, including ourselves.  This started as a way of strengthening sibling bonds between my oft quarreling kiddos.  We then mention something we're working on ourselves that may need some accountability and/or what we need from each other in the coming days, as a way of encouraging open communication and humility.  

But otherwise, my so-called prayer-life has been getting replaced by a meditation practice.  In the past week or two, I've crossed into prayer during one of them - I do miss having a personal God to talk to, Whom I believe to have my back no matter what.  I hope to eventually land there, but for now, it's still marred by a very religiously dogmatic lens that I don't want to reintroduce into my spiritual life.

Probably the most freeing change as a result of my deconversion has been the process of revisiting my worldview as a whole, and reassessing my politics and ethics without reference to "what the church says".  I have returned to a more liberal political viewpoint, and I had to face head-on the single issue that always prevented me from truly and fully embracing leftist ideology: abortion.  Roe v Wade was just recently overturned, while I was very much still religious and unapologetically Pro-Life.  It was that day that I told my children about abortion.  I had been dreading the topic, but I felt elated when it was overturned.  I wanted to explain to them why I supported some candidates and not others, when the only reason was really their stance on abortion.  But now that I was revisiting the issue, I realized that it's way more complicated than I was led to believe, way more nuanced, and there really isn't a single clear solution to the problem, aside from universal voluntary abstinence which apparently is a no-go for a lot of people who are much more vested in their sexuality than I am.

I remember giving a talk at a women's retreat where I shared that feminism had become a type of religion for me.... Or was it environmentalism?  Either way, I was criticizing myself back then for letting something "other than God" replace my sense of direction in life.  My lifestyle and actions were seen as worshipping ideals other than God, but really, this was only true if "God" were defined as the war-lord of the Hebrew Bible and not the Universal Source and Destiny of Taoism.  To worship the God of Nature - the only God that it makes sense to worship - means to do many of the environmental actions encouraged by "the left".  Starting with not being wasteful.  Valuing natural resources and the contributions of all species to life on our planet.  Dismissing materialistic and convenience-based practices in favor of ones that build life up.  Really, I was becoming more "pro-life" by expanding my acceptance of ALL life, all lives, not just those from a narrow set of issues supported or opposed by the church (abortion, embryonic stem cell research, artificial reproductive technology, capital punishment, euthenasia...).  There were issues of life that never got touched with a ten-foot pole by adamant pro-lifers - the exceedingly high suicide rates among trans and gay youth, the plight of children neglected and abused by religious extremists, sexual harassment and abuse and rape of young women.  Immigration was an issue that was embraced by the Catholic church, but not by Evangelicals, who have warped into the American Nationalist Christianity of MAGA Trumpism.  

At any rate, I realized that if there ever was a disconnect between my religion and my conscience, the problem was not my conscience!  Even though that is precisely what is taught in catechism - that we have to "form" our conscience.  That we don't know what's right or wrong unless we are taught it from an authority wearing vestments at the altar.  Talk about gaslighting!  I am so done with being gaslit from my codependent upbringing in a family of an undifferentiated mass!  I'm supposed to doubt the still, small voice inside of me (in spite of what the Bible says (1 Kings 19:11-13) in favor of trusting external authority?  Based on what evidence?  Their lived experiences were somehow more trustworthy than my own?  Ahh, and there's that pesky word - evidence. 

I realized that I was becoming more scientifically minded.  I wanted to study formal logic and critical thinking.  I wanted to use reason.  And while I do recognize that reason is not actually a perfect guiding light, it beats brainwashing every day of the week.  I kept coming back to this word: nuance.  

Neither religions - any of them - nor the strictly secular, atheistic resources I started to dabble in were actually correct.  Everything in life and in the world is nuanced.  Nothing is actually black or white.  Imagine the blow that had on my autistic brain!

So my deconversion is now complete, but my deconstruction is ongoing.  I no longer believe in the literal dogmas of Christianity - none of their variety, nor the competing monotheistic options of Islam or Judaism.  Now begins the exciting part of figuring out what I DO believe then, and what that means for my spiritual practices, how I share these things with my children, how I make moral choices in life, and the inner dialogue that I carry with me.  See, I was once diagnosed with mild OCD, which may or may not be a valid diagnosis, but it points to the scrupulosity with which I tried my best for decades to "be a good person".  I measured myself using artificial metrics that no one could live up to (Virgin Mother, anyone?).  Was there any wonder that I constantly second-guessed myself?  That I deferred to others even against my better judgment?  That I had a hard time establishing healthy boundaries with my mom?  Religion not only didn't help with my mental health, it made it worse.  Now that I'm free of it, I can start to rebuild my life on what is truly good, beautiful, and well, true.  

 

Spiritual Independence

I have discovered recently that the underlying reason for my codependence is anxiety.  The way I came to that was by recognizing my overdependence on external validation and seeking approval of others.  The reason for this, as it turns out, is my lack of trusting myself.  And the result has been living from a place of ongoing anxiety.  The anecdote is confidence.  So I am slowly working on building my confidence in various areas of my life. 

Once I recognized the weak boundaries I have with certain individuals in my life, at one point it dawned on me that I likewise have weak boundaries with the Catholic Church.  I seek the approval of Church figures, I don't trust my own conscience, and I operate from a place of anxiety.  This led to a spiritual quest that took me on a mission of finding a place of worship where I already agree with the people there so that I don't have to face disapproval!  It did finally occur to me that no such place exists, and that what I actually need is to work on embracing the potential conflict that may arise if and when I speak my mind.

An interesting but sad thing happened as I allowed myself the freedom to think for myself.  You see, that's the problem with codependence, boundary violations, external validation - you let someone or something outside of yourself tell you who you are, what to think, and how to feel about any given thing.  I grew up with this sort of dysfunction in my family of origin, but it was once I realized it bled over into my faith life that the rubber hit the road.  I realized that I didn't understand the very word "conscience" itself, supposedly something the Catechism of the Catholic Church claims is of paramount importance even above and beyond church teaching.  Because the RCC teaches that a conscience ought to be "formed" by thorough study of what the Church teaches and why.  Basically, if I didn't agree with something the Church taught, my conscience "wasn't formed" well enough.  Come again?!  So only people who agreed with the Church had a fully working conscience?  This of course is ludicrous.  The very definition of conscience implies that no one outside of oneself can affect it. 

Once I allowed myself to listen to my own conscience, without fear of judgment from "Catholic authorities", I started to ask questions that I never dared ask before.  The trajectory of my unraveling faith was as follows.

1. Even before I started down this road, I believed in universal "salvation" (though I use that term loosely, for I don't believe in original sin nor the idea that God "needed" the atoning death of Jesus in order to let me back into His good graces in the afterlife).  What this meant was that I didn't believe my religion was the one true religion.  Perhaps, at my most serious in the faith, I thought we were "the closest", but certainly still missing bits and pieces of information.

2. I started to object to certain teachings of the Church that went against my inner sense of justice.  Namely, I disagree with the Church's stance on LGBTQ rights.  I disagree with the excessive fixation on sexual ethics to the near exclusion of all other transgressions.  I disagree that God would make some people attracted to the same sex and then impose lifelong celibacy on them.  Celibacy ought to be something entered into willingly, after discernment, and given there is the other valid option of a lifelong committed relationship (namely, marriage) held out as an alternative.  In other words, I couldn't get on board with the Church's anti-gay marriage rhetoric and the various discriminatory practices by Catholic institutions done in the name of "religious freedom".

3. Once I loosened the control the Church had on my conscience, I started exploring various religions, which I've done previously.  But this time, I started to notice something.  Each group seemed to be using certain critiques to discount the teachings of other groups, without applying the same critiques to themselves.  This became most noticeable when I was watching a popular Orthodox Rabbi on YouTube.  He was of course critiquing Christianity as a whole, but he said - how can mainstream Christians reject the idea of Mormons or Muslims reinterpreting Christian Scriptures and claiming additional revelations and prophets, yet they accept their own changes and reinterpretations of the original Hebrew Scriptures?  I knew he was right.  And then I added... and what is so uniquely sacred about the Hebrew Scriptures that makes them sacred beyond questioning?  If we don't believe in the more recent prophets' revelations, why should we believe in more ancient prophets' revelations?  Why can't God simply reveal Himself to each of us directly, based on our receptivity?  And so, I realized I could not follow any religion based on the supposed limited "special" revelation of supposed prophets.  The prophets of the world, or at least their followers and the interpretations of their revelations, don't agree.  Hence, we have as many different religions as we do today.  Some, like the Bahai, claim that all prophets are saying the same message, yet this has not at all been a universal understanding of religious prophecy.  The most recent prophet is always thought to be the more relevant one.

4. Once I left revealed religion behind, I automatically had to put down written Scriptures.  The Bible was no longer a source of authority for me.  A modern group of influential leaders could gather the inspired writings of more recent spiritual gurus, like Deepak Chopra, let's say, and declare these to be the Modern Testament, Scriptures that supersede all the others.

5. Without Scriptures or organized religion of any kind dictating the boundaries of where my thoughts could wonder, I began to look at how other faiths envision Ultimate Reality.  I started to question the nature of God as He is presented in the Bible and in Christianity.  I realized that this God, indeed was made in the image of man - with human weaknesses of character that led him to be full of wrath, fickle, power-hungry, jealous, violent, and then to smooth things over, merciful and forgiving.  It sounded like a control freak show, honestly.  You never knew "which" god you would get.  Mainstream Christians would tell gay people that their active engagement in homosexuality would invoke the wrath of God, but their own tendencies to lie, cheat, even kill - well, God was all loving and all forgiving then.  It was utter nonsense.  I couldn't believe in "this" god any longer.  I realized that this god was simply too small.

6. I was ok with God being less personal, more mysterious.  After all, technically that is what Christians already believe about God, yet they continue to try to make sense of Him with various attempts at domesticating Him.  If it's not the Trinity, then it's calling Him Our Father.  We are never forced to just accept the fact that God -whatever and whoever God is - is simply beyond our understanding.  We ought to just be grateful God created us, and do our best to live a life of purpose and charity, so that we can better know God in the afterlife.

7. Ah, the afterlife.  I started to wonder about what sort of an afterlife we might have, since I didn't have to parrot back "bodily resurrection" or "heaven and hell".   I was never particularly attached to the idea of having a physical body in the afterlife.  I was more or less thinking that our soul was what lived on.  I just didn't know the details.  As I pondered what the soul might be, I thought of consciousness.  Because it did me no good to think that we simply got reabsorbed into the Universal Force after death, and that the way we "lived forever" was in terms of the energy we left behind or our molecular restructuring or mere memories of those still living.  The kind of afterlife I always imagined was one where I was aware of myself.  Very anti-Buddhist.  I wanted to keep the Ego.

8. So I looked into what consciousness really was.  I watched a certain video by an atheist that explained the biological functions of consciousness, how certain parts of the brain are involved in our ability to be conscious of ourselves, and then it dawned on me - the implication is that once the body dies, so does the consciousness.  There goes my afterlife.  And this created a bit of a panic on my existential journey.  For better or worse, I am not prepared to abandon the idea of immortality.  I know it may sound cliche, and to some even naive.  But if I have to go through the rest of my life believing that when I die, that is the literal end of me and I will never again see any of my loved one, not the ones who went before me and not the ones I'm leaving behind?  Well, I'm sorry but I simply cannot imagine going through life with that world-view.

9. Thank God ( ;) ) I remembered an old argument by religionists against the secular materialistic scientific world-view.  Science as we know it today is actually rather new in the history of humanity.  It has definitively answered lots of questions that previously religions merely had theories about.  Yet I realized I was finding myself being swayed - yet again - by an outside source.  I was allowing the "scientific community" to tell me who I am, what to think, and how to feel.  So I shook off the depression and despair long enough to think this through.

In a way, science can be compared to religions in that it provides an alternate world-view.  Just like religions, it makes certain assumptions.  It holds certain values in higher esteem than others.  It has well-respected "prophets" and "authoritative writings".  Most markedly, it has set up a system of checking for evidence of theories within the material world, and rejects out of hand anything that doesn't exactly fit into its scientific method.  Sound familiar?  Religions likewise draw certain boundaries and just don't venture past them for fear of being proven wrong.

What's more, by definition science deals with the material world.  How, then, can science possibly answer any questions about the existence or nonexistence of a spiritual realm, when it is simply not equipped to measure frequencies beyond the physical?  It is easy to say that if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist.  But it is not very honest to do so.

10. And so where I find myself is here:  I do not know what the nature of God is, nor what exactly awaits us in the afterlife.  However, I have had enough spiritual experiences to tell me that there must be something worthy of mention there. That science has no more ultimate truth than does religion.  One thing I think science does a much better job of than does religion is to focus on the improvement of our world, here and now.  Religion often prioritizes the afterlife over the here and now to the point of ignoring the legitimate needs of our planet and certain marginalized people.  Religions tend to cater to the poor, though not universally and often with limitations, not to mention failing to see how minority group membership status affects poverty.  Yet for all the bad things that religion has done and sadly continues to do, there are also things that religion is doing better than science, providing hope, meaning, purpose, comfort, as well as high standard for character formation.  We need both.  Perhaps in a few hundred years, there will be talk of ecumenical discussions between the scientific community and the religious community (singular), like there is today within religions.  Religions need to band together and focus on what they as a whole bring to the table, because if they continue to bicker among themselves, greedy to win maximum adherents, people will simply trickle out and get lost in the sea of science, living for today, but with no hope for tomorrow.

I know some people don't need the affirmation of God or an afterlife to feel fulfilled.  There are also people who don't seem bothered by their religion going against what science has already established as fact.  We need to accept that different people need different things to lead a happy life.  We need to find a way for science and religion to talk to each other, not over each other.  But that's for another day.  For now, suffice it to say that I am holding on to that last shred of spirituality that was nearly extinguished by my newfound freedom of thought.  And that I need to focus my attention on reframing my own religious tradition in a way that I will find meaningful, a way that I can teach to my children while maintaining integrity.

If indeed I need a label for this new spiritual adventure, perhaps Spiritual and Religious is the best available term.  Not specific to any one religion, but rather valuing different aspects of several different religions.  Yet spiritual first and foremost, pursuing an individual and unique spiritual practice, building fellowship in unusual places, and only supplementing and falling back on religion as a way of being grounded in something that - while I don't believe in it literally - has stood the test of time and certainly holds certain valuable truths about the human condition.

Alternately, I certainly am "Spiritually Independent", and so perhaps this term is even more appropriate, since I am in need of labels ;)

Embracing my Inner Homemaker

Who am I?  My codependent upbringing handed me an identity that I never questioned.  Until now.  I'm an American Catholic wife and mother. But what does that mean to me on a daily basis?  This is what I will attempt to uncover.

To me, "American" means the sky's the limit.  Yes, there are cultural traditions, but I do not feel compelled to be bound by them.  Since the United States is not a monolithic society, there are at least four types (if you will) of cultures that are part and parcel of the history of US culture.  First of all, that of the various Native American tribes, which sadly remains mostly in the names of various places, both natural and man-made, and very little else.  Second, that of the African American slaves, which have had a significant impact on modern-day American culture, starting with music and food, and more recently (relatively speaking), media and sports.  Third, that of the original European settlers, which brought with it the language and religious traditions, as well as various socio-political norms that our country is based on.  Fourth, that of the vast diversity of more recent immigrants from literally around the world.  I cannot possibly fit into a single paragraph the myriad of ways that cultures vastly different from each other have mixed and mingled to form the modern day norms of the United States.  Essentially, though, what resulted is a wide range of "normal", with a strong emphasis on the choices of the individual to pick and choose what resonates with them and run with it. 

"Catholic" literally means "universal", which is actually a lovely segway from national to religious identity.  It's a way of being a Christ-follower, which is what being Catholic means to me; that I aspire to center my life on Christ.  I believe the Catholic Church has the closest interpretation of Jesus's message available to us, and I love many things about it: the authority with which it teaches on matters of faith and morals; the traditions of beautiful art and music; the social outreach it is known for (hospitals and schools in particular).  I also love the way the Church allows me to approach my Lord in a way I was never able to do in any other worship environment (and over the years I've tried plenty).  First and foremost, I am reminded on at least a weekly basis that God loves me so much, that He has come down first in the Incarnation and person of Jesus, and now in the Holy Eucharist.  I can not only "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8) when I receive Him in Holy Communion, but I can also "keep watch with [Him]" (Matthew 26:40) in Adoration.

I am a wife.  I am not just "a wife", but "the wife of Oscar".  Being a wife is something that by definition ties a person to another, hence we are "one flesh" (Genesis 2:24, 1 Corinthians 6:16).  We are of one mind.  We make plans together, we share our joys and sorrows together, we raise our children together, we offer each other unconditional friendship and companionship.  My #1 go-to person is my husband, and vice-versa.  There is no one I feel closer to than him.  Without a doubt, he is one of the best gifts God has bestowed on me.  So for me to be a wife means to be a life partner to Oscar, with all that this entails.

I am also a mother.  This role, too, is by necessity tied to the specific children God has allowed us to raise for His glory.  And that precisely is my job as a mother - to raise little saints.  To be a saint means to be happy with God forever - who wouldn't want that for one's children, or oneself for that matter?  It's quite the undertaking, motherhood.  I believe it is my job - our job - to educate our children, to protect them, to prepare them for life, to share the gospel with them, to help them reach their potential in any way I can.  I do not buy into the modern-day secular belief that pretty much all of these tasks can be delegated to others. In my mind, doing so leaves the parent with the role of "supervisor", supervising the job that others are doing in regard to their children.  Some situations necessitate such an arrangement, and I certainly don't judge those who opt for it.  But it is not what I am called to.  To me, being a mother *entails* staying home with them and homeschooling them.  I wouldn't feel like a mother without these factors in place. 

But how do I incorporate these four roles into my daily identity?  I believe that God has arranged the circumstances of my life so that I may best attain my potential through homemaking, at least in this current phase of my life.  Previously, He had tasked me with teaching English to immigrants and international visa students (I'm not aware of any of my students having had refugee or asylee status).  And I can never be certain where He will lead me in the future.  But right now - and that's all we can ever truly know and embrace - I am a homemaker.  I am tasked with making a home for my family.  I am painfully aware of the lack of homes being made, well, homes, in many American households.  Rather, the home is taken for granted as merely a place to hang one's hat.  With adages such as "home is where your heart is", it is easy to think that "home" simply means "comfort".  And while I agree that one's home should most definitely be the place members of the household feel most comfortable, it is so much more than that.  It is a place of togetherness, of ongoing learning, of building the smallest segment of society.  It is where proper adult roles are learned, and where daily tasks are taught to the next generation.  It is where a family becomes more than simply a group of people bound together by blood or by law, but rather a place where a family develops its own family culture and becomes a unit unto itself.  None of this happens by happenstance.  Someone must be charged with orchestrating the smooth running of the household, ensuring that these various goals are being actively pursued.

The first few times I heard "creative" job descriptions for stay-at-home moms (such as "domestic engineer" or "household CEO"), I chuckled.  But it wasn't because I thought it was funny; it was because I felt shamed for not getting a paycheck for what I do.  I in no way believed that these creative phrases were meant to value the role of at-home parents.  Rather, I felt it was meant as a way to juxtapose terminology one associates with the "working world" with the domestic sphere, as if to prove the utter silliness of there being any true worth in the work done by homemakers.  And even though I never doubted that raising one's children full-time was, well, a full-time job, I did reserve some of the same aversion to stay-at-home wives without children at home.  Actually, if I'm being honest, I even held a dislike towards stay-at-home moms of older kids who attended school.  What do they do all day? - I would ask. 

And this is the crux of the situation.  I had no concept of what went into "making a home".  I mean, I knew there was childcare for those with kids, and some general cooking and cleaning that goes into keeping house.  But I viewed it from the perspective of a child.  I was given chores as a child.  So I didn't see these same tasks, when done by an adult in charge, as anything more.  Not only that, but I didn't consider the various chores that simply weren't being done altogether, or at least not nearly as frequently as they ought to be in order to keep a truly welcoming and cozy home for the family. 

Now I see so many opportunities in this new role as homemaker.  I already mentioned that my husband and I opted to educate our children at home, so "childcare" remains permanently something that we do on a daily basis. And instead of having to manage the feedback of teachers and coaches from afar, trying to inc

There's cooking, too, but as someone who has struggled with a lack of talent for cooking, I can tell you there's a world of difference between, say, ordering food or buying microwaveable meals, and cooking from scratch or even making one's own [hummus, guacamole, jam, bread...] and harvesting ingredients from one's own garden!  While both extremes feed the family, there is certainly more time, work, effort, and planning that goes into the latter, and generally more money going into the former.  In addition, I'm discovering that meal-planning not only helps to keep a steady variety of food, but it allows for the application of nutritional knowledge to maximize health and vitality, not just satiety. 

And as far as cleaning goes... I now have a vision of what I want my family's surroundings to look like.  Organized, not cluttered.  Bright and airy.  Clean.  So the chores that go into cleaning the house serve a higher purpose now.  I aim for a certain end result.  I haven't yet attained it, but at least I have a vision I'm aiming for.  And there are so many chores that I don't remember doing, which doesn't mean they weren't being done... plus there are maintenance issues that also escaped my notice as a child.  When I first became a mom, I timed myself one week to see just how long it took me to do all the chores I was doing at the time.  My efforts amounted to roughly 8 hours - for the week.  So based on what I was doing in maintaining a two bedroom apartment, I seemed to have confirmed that being a "housewife" with no kids to keep you occupied was not a full-time endeavor.  But now I see that I was simply doing the bare minimum.  To truly embrace the role of homemaker, there is always something that can be improved upon, that will keep one busy all week long. 

I admit it - in a sense, I am trying to harness my own version of a June Cleaver.  I want the feel of something of eras gone by in my home.  Of course, I know better than to apply a blanket statement to the effect of "good old days", because I know for everything I wish was still the same as "back then" (and when exactly, that varies), there are things I'm grateful we have moved past.  But the American in me gives me the freedom to pick and choose what resonates with me from various eras, and those are the things I'm hoping to embrace in my home.

I am learning to make our house a home.  I am learning to be a homemaker.  For the sake of my children and husband, but also for my own sake of feeling like my own home is a microcosm of society, I am embracing the role of homemaker.  Not some lofty-sounding domestic engineer or CEO of my family - these roles imply professionalism that seems too distant and cold for my taste.  But simply - home-maker, maker-of-a-home.  What can be more important than making a home for my family, so that they have a literal home base to which they can return from their adventures into the world, a home base where they learn how to treat other people, a home base that serves as a domestic church.  This last one is a new concept for me as well, but I'll save that for another time.

Recovering from Codependency

Over the past year, I have focused on self-improvement.  The way this has manifested itself is through spiritual direction as well as counseling.  I remember sitting in the Confessional about this time last year, hearing myself say to the priest that I'm not sure my recurring issues need a spiritual director or a counselor.  The Lord heard me and gave me the answer: I need both!

Through my spiritual direction, I have slowly begun to turn over more and more of my life to the Lord.  I am learning to trust Him and to include Him in all aspects of my life.  I remember when I first started meeting with my spiritual director, Jennifer, how I argued with every suggestion she made as far as making a dedicated daily time for prayer.  I was full of excuses.  I had a new baby and a preschooler at home.  I couldn't be expected to find any time to myself.  And what little time I did have, I wanted to use it to relax.  "Couldn't you look at prayer as this unwinding time for yourself?"  Jennifer asked.  Nope, my go-to response.  When I thought of alone time, I literally meant alone, not even with God.  I wanted to pursue my hobbies, which were reading, watching YouTube videos, or otherwise researching homeschooling, sometimes among other things. I couldn't share this precious time with my Maker.  But I dutifully went through the prepared questions Jennifer would give me at each of our meetings, trying to spend about an hour on them once or twice a week.  I still don't spend daily time in this sort of long, dedicated prayer.  But I have since reframed how I view prayer.  Turns out I can and I do pray throughout the day in a variety of ways, and being conscious of this slowly opened up a bit more time here and there.  My baby growing into a toddler also has helped, and I expect it to only get better!

Through my counseling sessions, I've discovered that my issues have a name: codependency.  Even though I am not an addict in the typical fashion, nor am I married to one, nor were my parents, I nonetheless exhibit classical codependency thought processes and behaviors.  My "drug" of choice?  As it turns out - my mother's approval.  Both she and my dad are adult children of alcoholics, which apparently means that they grew up with a dysfunctional view of the world and then passed it on to me.  They tried so hard to make up for the issues in their families of origin, yet they were unable to realize how overcompensating for one problem led to another.  I'm sure my personality has a lot to do with how I internalized my upbringing.  After all, my siblings have very different attitudes towards life than I do.  My counselor, Dr. Brian, noted right off the bat that since I mentioned my faith, we could incorporate my Christianity into our discussions, which has been a great blessing.  In the last month or so, I finally realized how being able to include God in my counseling has led me to see His hand in my life, all of it, not just the compartment I labeled as "spirituality". 

I have been able to shed some of the guilt I carried for wanting that alone time.  I no longer think of it as either-or between my "research for fun" and my "prayer time".  I have different types of prayer that I engage in throughout the day, and only one of them requires an extended period of silence and light.  I say light, because over the summer I started praying the Rosary every night right before bed.  It is quiet, but I can pray in the dark.  I don't need to reference anything anymore, since all I need to pray the Rosary I've committed to memory now.  Praying consistently every day for five months will do that.  I try at least once a week to spend time with my Ignatian Daily Retreat book and prayer journal, reading Scripture, pondering the questions and comments, and praying from the heart without the constraints of the clock ticking.  I wish I could do this more frequently, but I don't worry about it right now.  As my youngest gets older, I will have more time.  For now, I give the Lord what I have.

And what I have is a new understanding of what my issues are, where they originated, and how to proceed.  I have started attending Celebrate Recovery meetings that just so happened to have started at my church about a month before I joined.  I am bringing to the altar my history, my confusion, my pain, my trials and errors, my hopes and disappointments, my guilt, my efforts gone awry, and I'm turning them over the Lord.  I am looking to the future.  I am trying to reinvent myself for the first time.  Apparently, growing up with codependency has robbed me of the ability to be authentic with myself.  I assumed I knew who I was based on what I was told I was.  No one ever asked me who I was or who I wanted to be.  Now I am making these decisions and it is freeing.  Scary, but freeing.

One of my hangups is that I have an internal voice that is constantly asking me what my mom would think about any given decision I'm making.  It's like it's playing on auto-replay, whether I want it there or not.  I assume that a decision not in perfect agreement with my mother is automatically the wrong decision.  I have allowed myself to be handicapped in my decision-making abilities.  I freeze when pressed for time and having to make a decision, especially a big one, but even small ones like where we should go to eat give me trouble at times. 

Another hangup of mine is that I engage in wishful thinking.  If only my mom could see things from my point of view, then she'd be able to relate better to me and we'd have a better relationship.  If only she would love me unconditionally rather than imply that I am only worthy to be her daughter if I do as she would do.  If only my mom didn't get offended at my attempts to assert myself, then I could assert myself more and live a life of freedom.  Bullocks.  Dr. Brian has helped me to understand that my mother's happiness is not my responsibility.  I actually still get an uneasy feeling typing this.  It feels as though I'm saying that I don't care if she's happy or not.  But that isn't the point at all.  The point is that every one of us chooses to be happy or not, regardless of the circumstances.  Codependents like me and my mom often choose to be happy only as a reaction to something in our environment.  This is not healthy.  I can be happy even if my mom doesn't approve of my choices.  I can be happy even if she gets upset that I disregarded her advice.  I am not obligated to take her advice.  I wish (there's that wishful thinking again), I wish I could ask for her advice, hear her out, and then make my own decision and have her be happy either way.  Instead, what ends up happening if I don't take her advice is that she stops giving it.  As in, she refuses to give further advice in the future because she thinks the point of giving advice is that it ought to be followed. 

Finally, a hangup of mine that was probably the crux of the situation that allowed me to seek out both spiritual direction and counseling is this: I struggle with the first commandment.  I don't make golden calves to worship, but I do worry much more about what my mom thinks than what God thinks.  In this way, I have long idolized my mother, thinking that I was honoring her per the fourth commandment.  I am currently trying to iron out the details of what it means for an adult daughter to honor her parents.  As it turns out, it does not mean obedience anymore.  It does not mean taking all of my parents' advice.  It does not mean doing whatever they want, whether I want to do it or not.  It does not mean trying to make them happy.  This last one is going to be difficult to overcome.  I can't make my mother happy, and yet I still need/want to try.  I think that's called loving her. 

It's sad that I don't really know what it means to love my parents.  Or siblings.  I don't struggle with loving my husband or children.  I don't have any anxiety in those relationships.  I am able to be authentic and vulnerable there.  But when it comes to my family of origin, I get all confused.  Dr. Brian introduced me to a fantastic phrase that pretty much sums up the story of my upbringing:  the undifferentiated family ego-mass.  He got the phrase from a wonderful book I recently read per his recommendation. Another term comes to mind that I've long known but never applied to my family before: groupthink. 

One of the reasons I struggled with my identity as an adult is because the identity I was spoon-fed growing up didn't match what I felt on the inside.  I was told that I was a Scorpio, Polish, "smart, pretty, and polite".  These were treated as givens.  Now that my faith tells me astrology is not where my trust must lie, I'm having to rethink "my astrological sign's characteristics" and just think about what makes me unique.  Being smart, pretty, and polite were handed to me without explaining what I did or could do to maintain or lose them.  When times and cultures shifted, the old paradigms didn't fit and I couldn't understand what happened.  How come I wasn't considered these things by everyone, if they were a given?

Being Polish gave me the most trouble because I cannot deny being born in Poland to two Polish parents.  I even speak Polish, for crying out loud, so of course I'm Polish, right?  Except that I now live in the United States.  I married a non-Pole.  And while I speak Polish, it's certainly not at an educated adult level, so I am uncomfortable in Polish settings.  I lack a lot of cultural knowledge because I wasn't exposed to Polish culture outside the home, and I didn't have Polish peers growing up.  I'm Polish mostly in name.  My experience is not the same as my mom's, who didn't migrate to the US until she was 30.  And it's certainly not the same as my relatives who still live in Poland.  I'm "Polish, but..."  In other words, I'm Polish-American.  But I grew up looking down on this phrase because my family associated it with Americans of Polish heritage, people who didn't know the language and probably never set foot on Polish soil.  They weren't "Polish enough" to be called Polish.  How could I associate myself with them?  I clung to my Polishness so hard, that I changed my last name to my mom's because it was more Polish-sounding than my dad's.  I refused to check "White" on forms and would write in "Polish".  (White, to me, meant Protestant Anglo-Saxon.) With great pride I announced that we were raising our children multilingual, fully expecting to pass on our native languages (my husband's is Spanish) to our kids without much effort.  I panicked when this last bit started to become a challenge.  At three years old, our daughter already prefers English, and after some reflection, we had to admit that it's because... so do we!  We also prefer English!  I think in English.  I do math in English.  I speak to God in English usually.  I prefer to read in English.  I prefer to watch videos in English. I only find the Bible meaningful in English.

There is a very limited segment of the world that I like in Polish.  Namely, those things that I associate with my childhood in Poland.  I love Polish Christmas carols and other religious (and patriotic) songs.  But there are also plenty of English songs that move me.  I am moved to tears by a select few Polish poems, but again, English poetry also has that affect on me.  There are a handful of Polish prayers that I learned as a child that I easily recite (I pray my Rosary bilingually), but I don't have anything against the English versions.  I clung to these few things and finally realized they weren't enough to build a life around.  I felt like I was betraying my family by admitting - even to myself - that I was actually American, not Polish.  Ok, Polish-American, but that's the best I could do.  Even though I was born in Poland and started school there and even though I speak and read Polish, I am still more appropriately grouped in the category of "Polish-American" than "Polish" (or Polonia na emigracji).  I'm not merely living abroad.  I have made my home here.  For better or for worse, this is who I am.  I felt like I couldn't be both, American and a member of my family, but with my siblings, who were born here and don't have these same qualms about who they are, I was able to realize that 1) I am still in the family, and 2) their approval is not what makes or breaks me.

So yes, I have been addicted - to approval by my mom.  It has been paralyzing at times.  And you know what?  It's not her fault!  I have blamed her in the past - in classically codependent fashion - but it is not her fault.  She raised me based on what she knew.  And she instilled a lot of good in me.  The rest is now up to me.  I can choose to keep letting her micromanage me, because it's what she knows and is comfortable with, or I can choose to set boundaries and assert myself and forge a new beginning in our relationship.  No more conditionals.  No more, if only.  No more.  I am who I am, and she is who she is, and that's all I can ask from God, who created both of us.

What is the Good News?

"Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence"  (1 Peter 3:15)

For years I asked the question - what is the good news?  It seems so vague, reading about it in Scripture.  I hear it weekly, proclaimed from the pulpit.  It appeared as though every other Christian knew what this was all about, except for me.  I kid you not, I truly didn't know what exactly was the good news!  

Basically, it's like this.  God loves me unconditionally, and He sacrificed even Himself on the Cross to ensure that I could spend eternity with Him in heaven.  He loves me so much that He couldn't stand the idea of being separated from me, even though I turn from Him when I sin.  He loves me like no one else loves me.  He loves me like I love no one else.  He models true love for me.  I am loved to the ends of the Earth.  What can possibly be better news than that???

Ok, so here comes the natural extension of this realization.  If I feel so utterly loved by God that I live my life in a way that is often contrary to the secular standards of the world, then shouldn't I be grateful beyond measure for this gift of unconditional love and the resulting inner peace that comes with it?  And if I am indeed grateful, then shouldn't I desire to share this gift with others? 

(Of course, if I don't live my life any differently than Secular Sam, then I have to wonder if I really believe in God's eternal love for me.)

I struggle with self-consciousness.  But in Christ (the incarnation of God's love for me!), I am learning to accept who I am, praising the Lord for my positive attributes, and humbling accepting correction surrounding my negative tendencies.  

I worry. But in Christ, I trust God and needn't worry any longer!

I judge. But in Christ, I am aware of my own smallness and feel a sense of comraderie with my fellow sisters and brothers, all children of God, all struggling to some degree in various areas of their lives.  

I have been waiting to replace these faults with virtues (mainly humility and faith) before feeling ready to be able "to give an account for the hope that is in" me (1 Peter 3:15).  But perhaps the best way to attain these virtues is through practice!  Humble in the realization that I am not where I'd like to be, where God calls me to be, as far as virtue is concerned, I have faith that He can nonetheless use even my imperfect attempts to give a testimony of His great love.

So, if right now you do not have a sense of peace about your life, if you are anxious about the future or have regrets about the past, if you struggle with tendencies that you aren't very proud of, if you feel alone and unloved.... I have great news for you!  

Your Creator loves you beyond measure!  He made you on purpose, with a plan for your life. He forgives you for whatever is nagging at your conscience, so long as you admit your wrongdoing and repent!  He wants to spend not just this earthly life with you, but all of eternity!  Whatever is holding you back from living up to your potential, He can help!  He is, after all, the mastermind behind the blueprint for your life!  He can fix it!  He can make it better!  All He wants in return is your love.  Can you believe it?  Can you accept His love? Because that is all it takes - accepting His free offer of unconditional love and eternal life.  

Affirmative Ten Commandments

I don't know about you, but I always find it easier to apply affirmative directives instead of negative ones.  For one thing, when we hear "don't do X", we still hear the forbidden "X", and subconsciously we nonetheless focus on that which we are supposed to be avoiding.  Also, abstaining from doing something is not the same as doing the opposite.

When it comes to the 10 Commandments, I've always thought that perhaps linguistics is where Moses went wrong.  (I know, it'd be way too easy if all it took for world peace is to change the focus of how the 10 Commandments are written.)  At any rate, I've decided to give it a try myself, so that when I'm going over them in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation, for instance, I'm better challenged to grow in character instead of just checking off all the ways I'm not failing God!

So without further ado, here are the 10 Commandments, as I understand them, that go beyond just what not to do, and instead note what we are to do instead.

1. Remember Who made you; therefore worship God alone, prioritizing Him above all else.  (Two ways to do this follow.)
2. When you speak about God, do so with respect.
3. Every week, set aside time to honor God.
4. Honor our parents as God's co-creators; know your place and hence be humble.
5. Safeguard life; be a steward of it.
6. Be chaste.
7. Share what you have with others.
8. Be honest and trustworthy.
9. Be modest.
10. Be content with what you've got.

A bit of commentary on the above.  The first three commandments I think are self-explanatory, as they already appear in the affirmative on the original templates.  The only observation I've made here is that commandments 2 & 3 are examples of 1.

The fourth commandment is also in the affirmative, but I've always found it confusing how to apply it to my life as an adult child of my parents.  I think when looking at my parents in the grand scheme of things, I'm reminded of my place in the pecking order, which should lead to an attitude of humility in life in general.

The fifth commandment I found a bit passe.  I mean, don't murder, really?  I would think in this day and age, this sort of goes without saying.  People of course ignore it, but not because they're confused about whether they should or shouldn't take life.  I am always tempted to skim right over this one as I do my examination of conscience, bc of course I haven't killed anyone.  But when looked at through a life-affirming lense, ah, now I'm a lot more challenged.  Do I build people up or shut them down? And what about other creatures of God?  I do not give life, not to animals or plants, and not to people (even my own children); I merely assist at best.  So it should go without saying that I can't take that life.  But do I look the other way when others take life into their own hands?  Or do I stand on the side of God, trying to safeguard it?

The sixth and ninth commandments always confused me because I didn't understand why there needed to be two commandments that essentially say the same thing.  Do not commit adultery, and do not covet your neighbor's wife (or husband, though if you want to be a literalist, us women appear to be getting a free pass on this one ;) ).  I get that one is physical action and the other is thought, but is that really sufficient enough difference?  But when looked at as what we ought to be doing instead - being chaste and modest, all of a sudden I understand the difference.  Chastity has to do with our actions when it comes to our sexuality.  We are to keep sexual intimacy inside the marriage covenant.  That is the definition of chastity.  So if we're not married, no sex.  If we are married, sex only with our spouse.  Easy enough.  But then modesty is a lot more nuanced.  It's in our dress, our demeanor, in our sense of humor, our entertainment, our words.  Do we tempt others towards unchastity by our immodesty?  Or do we do our part to safeguard marital sexuality?

The seventh and tenth commandments also gave me trouble over the years.  Again, I thought they were saying the same thing.  Don't steal, and don't covet.  Instead, go beyond merely not taking what doesn't belong to you (because sometimes this is actually up for debate), and share whatever you do have.   That way, there's no question that you're not stealing because your focus is on how you can share what you have instead of how others ought to share with you.  And then there's the coveting. That leads to envy, jealousy, and all around a nasty selfish attitude, as you think about all the things you don't have instead of counting your blessings.  Instead, be content, ie. count your blessings!

Finally, the eight commandment has to do with honesty, and here too I think we can grow so much more if we live our lives focusing on integrity and authenticity instead of just not telling any lies.  We lie with much more than our words.  Omissions can be lies.  Disingeniousness can be lies.  The way we present ourselves in life can be a lie - putting on a facade to try to impress others.  There's no truth in that.  But we can still glaze over this commandment and say we don't technically tell any lies, so we're all good.  No, we're not.  That's just not good enough.  Be honest and trustworthy.  There's the goal of this commandment.

So I plan on looking to this version of the 10 commandments from now on as I try to improve as a human being.  Maybe it can help someone else as well.

Theme for New Year 2017: Self-Improvement

I used to make a laundry list of New Year's resolutions.  After keeping and reviewing my sheets of paper, I realized that all I was doing was listing what I wish I were accomplishing, and just rolling it over from year to year whenever it didn't happen the previous year.  I didn't actually have any specific plan in place to bring my "resolutions" to fruitition.  So I stopped making resolutions.

Recently I read about an alternative that piqued my interest.  In lieu of specific things to check off a list, some people think of a term or phrase to help them guide their overall approach to the year.  A theme, so to speak.  Almost immediatly I knew 1) that I wanted to try this, and 2) that my theme for 2017 would be "self-improvement".  This idea probably appeals to me in large part because of its minimalistic approach.  The goal is not what follows; the goal is "self-improvement".  It's a very subjective goal, but then, I'm only accountable to myself, so why not?

I have several areas of my life where I have specific action plans in mind to reach the overall goal of self-improvement.

Spirituality.
In February, I hope to start meeting with a spiritual director.  I'm waiting for February because a couple of women from my church are being certified in January, and I hope to start meeting with one of them.

Since August, I've been going to monthly Confession.  Similar to broken resolutions, I've noticed that I tend to confess the same sins over and over again, which has helped me isolate some underlying problems that need to be addressed.

Daily prayer and Scripture reading. I was doing pretty well until my son was born.  As could be expected, having a newborn and a preschooler has thrown me off my game.  First thing in the morning was working well for me, but I'm squeezing in as much sleep as I can right now to help ward off postpartum depression and anxiety, which debilitated me for months after my daughter's birth.  And when I get some alone time in the evenings, I'll be honest, I feel like I should use at least some of that time to pray, but I don't.  So this is definitely an area in need of improvement for 2017.

We do pray together every bedtime as a family, and I've tried to pray the Guardian Angel prayer in the mornings with my daughter, and the Angelus at noon.  So we'll want to solidify these practices.

On a positive note, though, when the PTSD-style thoughts creep into my mind, I immediately call on the name of Jesus to push the enemy away.  And you know what?  It works!  So I suppose these count as spontaneous prayers, scattered throughout the day.

Retreat.  I'm not sure I'll be able to swing an overnight weekend retreat this year, as Fernando will only be 9 months old for the women's retreat through my church, and a year old for the silent retreat through my alma mater, and I'm not sure what our nursing status will be by then.  Though I am certainly hoping to not be nursing at night by then, but we'll see.

Beauty
I've been slowly revamping my wardrobe.  With minimalism as my guiding light, and keeping femininity and modesty at the forefront. The idea is to have only items that I love, that fit me, and that go with more than one other thing.  My color scheme is neutral, so black, white, gray, brown, beige.  I am on a mission to find some solid colored tunics, or mini-dresses that I'd wear as tops, as well as a couple more maxi skirts.

My skin routine seems to have to change as I no longer have oily skin but rather combination.  So I'm in need of a new cleanser.  I think for moisturizer I will stick with the shea butter I got for my daughter last year.

I do want to have a bit of makeup on hand for going out, as eye liner in particular makes me feel more confident and, well, pretty :)  So I'll need to find something with natural ingredients.

I'm due for a new pair of glasses, and I think I'm done trying to get frames that are as inconspicuous as possible.  I think I want to go bold for a change! All around red frames, maybe?  This may end up less expensive as well, since I've been paying for the glass to be treated so as not to be as visible on the bottom, where I don't have a frame.

Exercise.  I suppose this should be in a category of health, but I'm being real here.  I want to lose the rest of my pregnancy weight and get my pre-pregnancy abs back, not because it'll mean I'm healthy, but because it'll make me feel confident and, well, pretty again ;)

Emotional Health.
Basically, I want to deal with my mommy issues with the help of a therapist so I can be a better mom to my kids.

But also, as mentioned above, I'm actively warding off postpartum depression and anxiety.  I refuse to succumb to it again.


I think that covers what I think of when I'm thinking of self-improvement.  So there it is, out there in the virtual world, hopefully to keep me accountable, so that this time next year, I can post about my successes :)