Ronna J. Detrick's Blog

You get to be 100% yourself, 100% of the time! 

It’s true: this is 10 words (plus the two %-signs). I’m getting to the 6-word version. Stick with me.

One of the primary reasons I remain compelled by and committed to the “be-100%-yourself” idea, by authenticity itself, is because it serves as a direct contradiction to patriarchy, capitalism, and all that (endlessly) strives to keep us “in our place,” silenced, shut down, and often shamed. We live in a world that is adamantly committed to us NOT being 100% ourselves. It wants us wanting. It wants us to see ourselves as not enough. And it wants us endlessly searching for (and buying) any and everything that we’ve become convinced will make us better, more, perfect, seen, heard, valued, worthy . . . Blech!  

With authenticity, all of this falls away. You are no longer lured by the promise of a future or “someday” you because the current you is 100% present and accounted for. More than enough. And never too much. 

I’m also compelled by you being 100% yourself, 100% of the time because it serves as an incredibly  powerful discernment tool.

When you’re NOT being 100% yourself, 100% of the time, you have something VERY specific to look at, be curious about and investigate. Here’s what I mean:

Consider a scenario or situation in which you felt “off.” Maybe something just wasn’t right. Maybe you were uncomfortable, even if only internally. Maybe you sensed tension – whether within or without. Maybe there was an edge of insecurity that hovered around you . . . or a tinge of anger. Maybe you pulled back or withdrew. Maybe you withheld your opinion. Maybe you felt ever-so-slightly (or blatantly) invisible.Now, as you place yourself back in that particular scene, ask yourself this question: Was I being 100% myself?

When I look back on so many conversations, circumstances, relationships, even jobs in which I felt “off” (or any of the other myriad possibilities named above) I already know the answer to the question. “No. I was not being 100% myself.” Instead of being irritated by such, ashamed, frustrated, or self-berating, I can choose to be curious. I have new questions to ask. New things to wonder about. And new data to rely on that is housed in my very emotions and body! 

Here’s a quick example:

In my most recent corporate position, after a sudden and shocking leadership change, I found myself feeling an increasing level of irritation. I was frustrated almost all the time. I felt levels of tension and stress that had not existed before. I was pouring one extra glass of wine at night. I woke up feeling exhausted before I even began another day. It took me a while to acknowledge any of this, believe me; but once I looked closely enough to determine what had changed, I saw that, indeed, I was NOT being 100% myself. My relationship with my new boss had me second-guessing myself, compromising, complying, and feeling a low-grade level of fear that I’d do the wrong thing. In both big and small ways, I was contorting myself into what I thought he wanted me to be. 

This was a powerful “seeing” for me. It allowed me to put my emotions and bodily responses in the context of authenticity (or lack thereof), I had all the discernment I could have needed – and the necessary next steps. 

Clearly, the work ahead was to be 100% myself, no matter what; to watch what would happen when I was genuine and authentic 100% of the time; to not compromise or comply; to choose to trust my voice, my perspective, my opinions, my experience – come what may. I knew it wouldn’t go smoothly. I knew I would ruffle some feathers and upset an apple cart or two. I also knew that I couldn’t not be me! Not anymore. Not after years and years (and years) of doing so throughout my life. Not after working so hard to identify who that 100%-me actually was!

It didn’t take long (less than a month, I think) before it became clear that I could not stay. Of course, I felt every bit of the risk and fear that went along with this. I was severing myself from my source of income, after all! But at the very same time, I felt confident, sure, and strong. I trusted myself and my decision. Being less than 100% myself was no longer tenable.

So, the 6-Words that change everything form themselves into a question:

Am I being 100 percent myself? 

I’d cannot encourage you strongly enough to ask yourself this question again and again and again. NOT from a place of self-critique or self-criticism or irritation or shame; rather, from a place of gentle and grace-filled curiosity. 

When your answer is “no,” you now have information, data, and context to work with. That’s exciting! It means you can ask another whole series of questions that helps you understand and discern even more!

Why am I not being 100% myself in this situation?What would happen if I was?What is it costing me to be less than 100% myself? Where else and how is this impacting me in other aspects of my life?Is there a pattern (or a person) that consistently brings this tension to the fore for me? What does that awareness invite me to explore?What behavior(s) do I demonstrate that lets me know I’m not being 100% myself?What emotion(s) do I feel that give me a clue that I’m not being 100% myself?What happens in my physical body as powerful reminder that I’m not being 100% myself?In what small (or large) ways can I experiment with being 100% myself when this situation presents itself again?

“We know when we’re in the company of someone who has cut through hesitation to be brilliant, gentle, ridiculous and natural. They evince the most compelling and authoritative quality there is. Enough, just be who you are.” ~ Susan Piver

When you are 100% yourself, 100% of the time, YOU are that person! Brilliant. Gentle. Ridiculous. Natural. Amazing. Wise. Witty. Kind. Generous. Creative. Courageous. Strong. Tender. Compassionate. Winsome. Grounded. Whole. You evince the most compelling and authoritative quality there is. You are enough. Just be who you are. No hesitation at all.

May it be so!

The post 6 Words that Change Everything appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

In the midst of life’s ups and down, I am grateful for that which is steady, familiar, and comfortable.

I haven’t always seen things this way.

Too often, I’ve resisted the “ordinariness” of my life. I’ve fallen prey to the myth that I should be better and more. I’ve been exhausted by endlessly waiting for something, anything, everything to change. I’ve searched and searched outside myself for a fix, for respite, for “salvation,” so to speak.

I still do sometimes. Thankfully, less and less.

These days, “ordinary” feels like respite. Better and more feel like lies (because they are). I rarely wait or hope or pine for change. And bit by bit I am learning to look within and somewhat-miraculously discover everything I need.

Even this is comforting: these slow-but-sure shifts.

“Comfort is so much more than bubble baths and chocolate. Not that both aren’t fabulous, but the popular conception of comfort is often about numbing out or escaping, not about truly finding a way to face into things honestly and authentically.”  ~ Jen Louden

Amen.

True, deep comfort is found when we face things honestly and authentically, when we ARE our honest and authentic selves. The opposite is also true: when we are NOT our honest and authentic selves, (deep) comfort is impossible to find.

I came across a different expression of this truth in a book I read this past week (and highly recommend): Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May.

She says, “We ‘want’ in the archaic sense of the word, as if we are lacking something and need to absorb it in order to be whole again. These wants are often astonishingly inaccurate: drugs and alcohol, which poison instead of reintegrate; relationships with people who do not make us feel safe or loved; objects that we do not need, cannot afford, which hang around our necks like albatrosses of debt long after the yearning for them has passed. Underneath this chaos and clutter lies a longing for more elemental things—love, beauty, comfort . . . “ 

“Chaos and clutter” come when we look outside ourselves for wholeness; when we forget that WE are what we need. Said another way: WE are the font from which deep comfort flows. 

Quite frankly, even knowing what I know now, it is still a struggle to trust all that dwells within me, to receive the deep comfort that is and always has been mine. I want nothing more. And I am certain that every bit of this—this learning to turn within—is a process, a journey, a heroine’s quest, an endless discovery, the gift of life itself.

“A woman discovers the way home to herself in a quiet descent into the richness of her own life. In the descent, she reverses the tendency to look outside of herself for salvation. In the “deep places,” she reunites with her essential self and reclaims her natural resources.” ~ Patricia Lynn Reilly

THIS is comfort, yes?

A woman who knows to live in ways that are not dependent on external circumstances, other people, better and more, success or not.

A woman who knows to dive deep below the surface to find respite and calm; to be and remain whole.

A woman who knows she can quiet the clamor and din, discern among pressures and demands, by listening to her heart.

A woman who knows that being her honest and authentic self is her birthright – whether or not that creates dis-comfort for others.

A woman who knows joy is to be found in the ordinary, in the rhythms and routines that provide both structure and support.

A woman who knows she has more to express, more to reveal, more to offer, more to give; who nurtures all that she carries within; who cannot help but birth ever more of her true-and-beautiful self into the world.

We’re invited to all of this and then some. We’re invited home . . . to ourselves . . . at last. Comfort, to be sure.

May it be so. 

The post Everything You Need appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

“It’s a relief to speak the truth. I don’t have to pretend.” ~ Karen Maezen Miller

My thoughts about truth-telling are supported by two bookends. One the one side is my deep and inviolate belief that you already know your truth. It’s that know-that-you-know-that-you-know voice within that cannot and will not be silenced; it never leaves you. On the other side is the acknowledgement that your truth-telling often comes with risk, cost, and consequence – which is the very reason you, me, most women, often forego it, tone it down, keep ourselves safe, all of the above.

What’s missing though, is what Karen Maezen Miller (above) offers in naming truth-telling as relief.

Without rest as promised-reward, truth-telling often remains too daunting and not worth either the effort or the exhaustion. Pretending then, becomes our default.

About pretending. 
We are conditioned to pretend from a very early age. We learn how to be what others expect, what others need, what others demand. And confusingly, our ability to do and be exactly this, is what earns us affirmation, praise, and belonging. (No wonder we’re exhausted.)

“In the fullness of time, we become dizzy from swirling; our lives ache from being twisted out of shape; and our spirits become depleted from servicing others with our energy and attention.” ~ Patricia Lynn Reilly, A Deeper Wisdom: The 12 Steps from a Woman’s Perspective

To tell the truth, to NOT pretend, feels far more like labor than rest, far more like risk than reward because pretending is what we’re used to, what we know best, what we become best at. But to keep pretending, even though potentially “easier” (deceivingly so), chips away at our true self, our wholeness, our groundedness, our very experience of who we are as a woman in this world.  

In thinking a lot about this in the past few days, I decided to compile a cursory inventory of my own pretending:

I learned early that being smart, witty, and a “thinker” would get me the most attention from my dad. I wasn’t pretending to be smart, witty, and a thinker but I DID know, somewhere within, that it was required to feel loved. Being who he wanted and needed me to be allowed me to feel seen, heard, and valued.As a teenager and through my 20s, I pretended in ways designed to summon male approval. It didn’t work a lot of the time, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t committed to trying. If I pretended to be what they wanted, surely I would be wanted.During five years of infertility, I pretended to trust in God’s will by (trying to) believe in some higher plan for my life. The truth—what I really felt—was too dark, too hopeless, too devoid of the faith I had learned to display, no matter what.During way too much of my marriage, I pretended that I was OK with what was happening around and within me. The truth would be too disruptive, misunderstood, the beginning of the end. Pretending felt like self-preservation, relationship-preservation.In a later relationship, post-divorce, I pretended to be fine with his distance, his cutting sarcasm, his utter disappearance emotionally. Pretending meant I didn’t have to be alone.In more than one corporate position, I pretended that feeling like I was the crazy one was normal; that it was “just the way things are” as a woman in leadership. Pretending meant that I could stay, that I had a seat at the table, that I belonged.

Now I know better.

The truth is that I am worthy of being seen, heard, and valued because of who I am – not because of what I do or how I act, even how smart I might sound.The truth is that I am worthy of being wanted, period.The truth is that the heartache of infertility was hardly a divestiture of my faith, but a fierce (and faithful) clinging to any faith at all.The truth is that my marriage was pretend as long as I was pretending; what I was working so hard to preserve was not honest or real.The truth is that being in relationship with someone who couldn’t stay, couldn’t express emotion, and wouldn’t honor me is not worth being in at all.The truth is that I am not the crazy one; my seat at the table is deserved – even if not given or allowed.

The truth is that typing every one of the sentences above IS a relief, even now. Though some were a long time in coming, each were a relief then, as well. 

“It is a relief to speak the truth. I don’t have to pretend.”

Where have you felt the exhaustion of being someone other than yourself? What stories come to mind? What “inventory of pretending” might you compile? What blessed relief might you know if you did speak the truth, your truth? 

These are not easy questions. Answering them with intentional choice and bold action IS risky, costly, and full of consequence. But so is pretending.

You deserve to be yourself. You deserve to experience every moment of every day fully and completely yourself no matter what. You deserve to speak your truth. You deserve to never pretend at all. You deserve to know that who you are is beautiful, worthy, and wise no matter what. And that IS a relief.

The post It’s a relief to tell the truth. appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

Is this exactly the life I want?

My answer is sometimes a definitive and enthusiastic “yes,” and other times, just as definitive but far less enthusiastic, a “no.” So many aspects of my life have far surpassed what I would have imagined for myself . . . and . . . I am not the same woman I was twenty, ten, even five years ago. What offers meaning has changed. What matters has changed. What I want has changed. At the same time, there are realities (within and without) that are not exactly what I want; there is so much room to grow and change, so much with which I both struggle and hope.

Years and years ago, I would have pondered this question and been extremely frustrated. “Why am I not further along? Why am I not more satisfied? What is wrong with me?” I am pretty sure I felt an implicit and explicit demand to get my s**t together – harsh, contemptuous, self-critical. I don’t particularly like admitting this but somehow, remembering and acknowledging it is like opening the windows for the first time in Spring, the freshest breeze, a fragrance that wafts through the room and carries the memory of so much healing and growth during the seasons of darkness and cold.

Years and years ago I would have been determined to come up with an answer that was specific and detailed and lofty, I now feel no need to come up with an answer at all – which is an answer in and of itself.

I’m far more compelled by the life that I have than wondering if I’m living the one that I want. 

This is not to say that the question is not relevant. It most definitely is! Years and years ago and still today. It’s the asking that matters. 

*****

Is this exactly the life you want?

Your answer offers you crystal-clear insight into the life you have right now: all that you can honor, all that you can change, and all that remains yours to take agency in/with on your own behalf.

Your answer gives you profound perspective into the life you have right now: what you know and experience in relationship with others, what might be missing, what needs to be said, what needs to be forgiven, what is yours to do and say and celebrate.

Your answer ushers you right into the center of your desire right now: no ignoring it, no toning it down, no compromise or compliance. And that is a VERY good thing!

Your answer calls you home to the truth of what “is,” to the life that is already yours, to the day-in-day-out reality of here and now. Which feels like the point of even asking the question in the first place. It is an endless and arms-wide-open invitation to live boldly, period. Not perfectly. Not adeptly. Not even consistently. Embracing struggle and hope, painful setbacks and leaps forward, old stories of self-contempt alongside increasing moments of self-love, loss and celebration, grief and joy. This IS exactly the life we want, yes? For ourselves, for others, and for our world.

May it be so.

The post Is this exactly the life I want? appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

The desire, temptation, and lure to live an extraordinary life is strong; to figure out our “one thing;” to do, create, be, achieve, rise up, astonish, accomplish, shine.

When we consider this within the expanse of time, it is a relatively new phenomenon. For generations, life was shaped by survival and perseverance, seasons and hours, shelter and sustenance, tribe and family. Ordinary life took precedence. And somehow, in the midst of such, extraordinary lives were lived.

A few examples from the stories I reimagine and retell?

Hagar: a slave who was forced to bear the child of the man who owned her, she was then banished to the desert with her young son, Ishmael. He became the patriarch of Islam.The Midwives: two Egyptian women who birthed the babies of Israelite women, they were ordered by the Pharaoh to kill all newborn boys. They did no such thing. One child spared was Moses who freed the Israelite people from slavery.Mary: an engaged girl trying to make sense of an unexpected pregnancy became the mother of Jesus.

How about these?

Andrée de Jongh saved hundreds of Allied airmen escaping from the Nazis, and Freddie and Truus Oversteegen spent their teenage years luring Nazis to their death by seducing them. Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve on the US Cabinet. Aung San Suu Kyi spent fifteen years on house arrest in the name of non-violence and democracy. Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb ran in the Boston Marathon after being rejected because she was a woman. Amani Al-Khatahtbeh started a pioneering publication by and for Muslim women. Rosalind Franklin discovered the double helix structure of DNA. Sybil Ludington rode twice as far as Paul Revere to warn about the British. Mary McLeod Bethune served on FDR’s “Black Cabinet” working as an activist for education and civil rights. Lee Miller spent years photographing all the heroic women of World War II. Gertrude Bell was a legendary explorer who helped establish modern day Iraq. [Source]

In her book Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly tells the true story of three black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. In an interview, she said:

History is the sum total of what all of us do on a daily basis. We think of capital “H” history as being these huge figures—George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Martin Luther King. Even so, you go to bed at night, you wake up the next morning, and then yesterday is history. These small actions in some ways are more important or certainly as important as the individual actions by these towering figures.

Generations of women have gone to bed at night and woken up the next morning. They have birthed life into the world in every form. They have sustained and saved life in infinite ways. They have survived life itself. Each of these are “certainly as important as the individual actions by towering figures.”

Ordinary women cannot help but live extraordinary lives. 

I’m certain you have stories of your own:

When you say no to anything that compromises you or others.When you choose courage over compliance.When you risk everything on behalf of what you know to be right and true.When you refuse to let your boundaries be breached yet again.When you love who you love—regardless of laws or opinions.When you do the hard and ongoing work of acknowledging your own internalized racism.When you demonstrate, lobby, and vote on behalf of women’s right to their own bodies, their very choices.When you speak up in a meeting at work even though doing so goes against the grain.When you refuse to internalize patriarchal messages that intentionally have you doubting whether or not you are enough.When you do not believe the overculture that says you only matter when you are young and beautiful (and that we must endlessly strive toward and purchase such).When you stand humbly alongside other women who have known harm, violence, bigotry, and bias that few of us can begin to imagine.When you refuse relationships that require your silence or perpetuate your shame.

It is in living an ordinary life that YOU are extraordinary. 

Not because you try. But because you survive and persevere and “be” – day-in, day-out. Good and bad. Easy and hard. Joyful and excruciating. Wins and losses. Gifts and hassles. People and places. Normal, everyday, ordinary.

Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.

If, in the mix of all that you write a book, or stand on a stage, or build a successful business, or raise a family, or get a promotion, or take a demotion, or make your mortgage payments, or crochet an afghan, or nurture a garden, or (fill in the blank), it will be because you have – in obvious and ordinary ways – taken the next step, done the next thing, walked through the next door, lived through the next day. NOT because you have pushed and prodded and persuaded yourself to be more amazing and incredible than you already are.

You being you is extraordinary.

Last week, in one of Jena Schwartz’s beautiful posts, she included this quote from Anna Quindlen:

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

That same wisdom could be stated this way, as well: The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being extraordinary and *just* being you. Because, after all, you being you is extraordinary!

May it be so.

The post About Being Ordinary appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

It seems that we are endlessly confronted with realities that confound, enrage, and incense. We sift through their rubble for the smallest shard of meaning. We search for clues, breadcrumbs, anything that will put our tired minds and broken hearts at rest. And for all of this striving, it is rarely with measurable result.

We are always left with more questions than answers.

Rainer Maria Rilke offers us well-known words on the subject:

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. 

Easier said than done.We know the value of living the questions. We also know the discomfort inherent in not having (and offering) answers. 

A case in point: When we are with someone who is grieving we know to not speak a single platitude (e.g., “God has a plan.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”). We know to not try to make sense of what has happened. We know to not talk about our own feelings. We know to not offer answers to questions that cannot be answered.

I know this . . . and . . . in my discomfort over others’ discomfort, I have rushed to possible explanations, to next steps, even to hope many, many times. As recently as last week, I SO wanted to offer some explanation for life’s unfathomable cruelty (even though I don’t have any). I resisted, but barely.

In truth, it’s no different internally than it is externally. If I don’t catch it quickly enough, I slip into a sort-of frantic motion both within and without. I get more busy. I run through a Rolodex of memorized stories in search of logic, affinity, and sense-making. I think and think and think instead of feel. I talk and process and talk some more (even if only to myself). I work and wrestle. I write and write and write. And at the very same time (maybe inherent in these very things), I avoid and dissociate.

Bottom line: I am in search of and in demand of answers all the time! It’s exhausting.

I want to believe there is a gift in unanswerable questions, that there is grace to be found in the midst and the mess of it all.

Here’s what I know, in spite of myself: 

Unanswerable questions invite me to remember that I am not in control, that life is impermanent, that *just* being here is worth it – for myself and for others.Unanswerable questions call me “further up and further in” to what and who truly matters.Unanswerable questions require that I sit still instead of run, allow instead of demand, let go instead of grip.Unanswerable questions are not a “pass” from action and agency; rather, they are incentive to stay awake to the need and pain and deserved advocacy that is all around me, all of the time.Unanswerable questions invite me to stay. Stay present. Stay here. Stay put. Stay with.

This all sounds right. I’m sure it is. And yet again, easier said than done.

A confession: 
I’ve deleted almost everything I’ve written today. Paragraphs and paragraphs that have been an attempt to land on something that feels complete, tied up with a bow, hopeful . . . My attempt to provide answers, really.

I know, it’s ironic. And not all that surprising.

So, just this remains:

 . . . there is a gift in unanswerable questions; there is grace to be found in the midst and the mess of it all. 

Though I don’t know how, I still say, “May it be so.”

The post Unanswerable Questions appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

Last week I watched someone I love ascend into the heights of joy only to descend into its complete opposite. All within a span of about six hours. It has been excruciating to witness, acknowledge, experience, and allow. I feel completely helpless, barely helpful, and tongue-tied to say anything that might offer a modicum of comfort. There is no sense-making, no sufficient explanation, nothing that can possibly console.

They sit with the devastation of hope.

In the in-between moments of texting and talking, shedding my own tears, and worrying about them, I have noticed particular snippets of thought flit through my mind. Shards, really. Sharp and glistening daggers of truth.

*****

Hope, as an emotion, an experience, an aspiration can feel dangerous, even foolish.

Why hold onto it when there is the possibility of it slipping through your fingers? Why trust in something good when there is a definite chance that something bad will happen instead? Why have faith with no guarantee that it will be rewarded?

It’s understandable, really.

We have all had moments-and-seasons in which we know hope beyond measure. We let ourselves feel all the emotions of hope-fulfilled, of what it will be like when X, Y, or Z finally happens. We allow ourselves to imagine. We see the future and it is beautiful beyond compare.

Sometimes every one of those emotions, imaginings, and visions come to be and we soak in the gift and grace of it all. And sometimes (it seems, more times), what we hope for does not happen and we berate ourselves for ever believing it would. “I was foolish to think that this could ever be.” “I should have known better than to hope.”

As hard as it is to sit with loss, disappointment, and grief, I don’t know what the alternative is. Well, that’s not exactly true. I do know the alternative: pessimism, disconnection, severely lowered expectations, low-grade cynicism, numbness, all of the above.

And these? It’s tempting to believe that not hoping will keep us safe, that it will prevent us from ever feeling what is as close-to-unbearable as we can possibly get. 

But here’s the thing . . .

We are not safe from the realities of life—either the heights of joy or its complete opposite. This IS the reality of life—at least one fully and well-lived: allowing all of it, letting ourselves grieve, celebrating with abandon, knowing profound ecstasy, reeling in pain, everything in-between.

To try to not feel shuts us down and prevents us from really living. My therapist once told me, “The degree to which you try to avoid grief, Ronna, is the degree to which you will not know joy. The reverse is also true: the more grief you let in, the more joy you will know and feel.” (Reluctantly and over a very long time, I came to agree with him.)

And so, given these options, these realities, these truths, I will always, always choose hope. Yes, even the devastation of hope. 

*****

The devastation of hope is a marker of just how beautiful our desire is, how worthy, how holy, how profound.

The devastation of hope is an unswerving commitment to what we deserve, what we know-that-we-know-that-we-know, what we will not not believe.

The devastation of hope is the evidence that our longings are worth having, holding, and honoring.

The devastation of hope is what invites us to the depths of grief, the most honest acknowledgement of loss, and the eventual return to hope’s embrace.

The devastation of hope is what enables us to hope yet again.

*****

Part of a text conversation from a few days back:

Are you OK?

Not totally sure. But I will be.

Hope.
The devastation of hope.
Hope, yet again.

And in between every one of these, so many tears. Theirs and my own. Over their sadness and grief, yes; but also in stunned gratitude for their honesty, their courage, their strength, their heart, their hope . . . despite its devastation.

What I am privileged-beyond-measure to witness in them IS the cycle, the ongoing truth, and an open-ended (albeit somewhat reluctant) invitation to a life that is full-to-the-brim with all the feels. Alive. Awake. Accentuated. Excruciating. Glorious. Beautiful. Grievous. Impossible. Amazing. Holy.

*****

Even after writing all of this, I am clear about hope’s danger, even seeming-foolishness. What it costs and what it affords. What it threatens and what it invites. What we suffer and what it summons.

Still, I don’t know how to not hope.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
~ Emily Dickinson

“Hope . . . never stops – at all . . . “

May it be so.

The post The Devastation of Hope appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

As I write this (early January, 2023), I am in Toronto at the home of my dear friend, Tanya Geisler. I was scheduled to fly there nearly three years ago, but had to cancel at the last minute because of my dad’s sudden and unexpected illness, days thereafter, his death. Then Covid. And border restrictions. And leaving my job. And moving across the country. And life. Now, at last, as of this past Thursday, I am here.

Tanya and I met online more than a decade ago. 2010, if I were to take a guess. I knew of her and somehow, shockingly, she knew of me. I decided to invite a small group of women to an in-person event, certain every one of them would say no. Three days together with no agenda—just time and space. All of them said yes, instead. Tanya was one of them.

She flew out of Toronto. Changed planes somewhere in the U.S. Landed in Seattle. Took a shuttle to the ferry dock. Took a ferry to Whidbey Island. Took another shuttle to where I picked her up. Then, having never seen me in person and after travelling for far too many hours and feeling a three-hour time difference, she jumped out of the van and literally ran to me, arms wide open. That embrace? Words fail me.

When I got here three nights ago, I felt that same embrace.

I leave tomorrow. She’ll embrace me one more time. It seems too soon. I cannot, would not trade these precious days for anything in the world.

*****

My mom, knowing how much I love the writing of Ann Patchett, recently told me about her latest book, a collection of essays entitled, These Precious Days. My library loan expired before I got all the way through it, but I’m back on the waiting list. Before it was out of my grasp, I highlighted these words:

I’d been afraid I’d somehow been given a life I hadn’t deserved, but that’s ridiculous. We don’t deserve anything – not the suffering and not the golden light. It just comes.

This is how I often feel when I reflect on my relationship with Tanya. I don’t deserve it. Maybe better stated, I’ve not done anything to deserve it. It just came to me, and to us. It’s precious, sacred even. It’s a gift of grace.

In truth, there are countless, countless people and stories and memories and experiences in my life that are just like this. They have “just come”—in both suffering and in light. They have changed me, strengthened me, shaped me, and ushered me more deeply into a sense of awareness and acceptance and gratitude.

Precious, to be sure.

Why would we turn “precious” into something that is, well, less so?

I don’t have definitive answers, but I am reminded of a story . . .

*****

I got married when I was 31 years old; my husband was almost 48. Given our ages, we were determined to get pregnant as soon as absolutely possible. After five years of infertility (and unsuccessful treatments), I was convinced it would never happen.

You already know how this story played out. I have two amazing daughters. Emma Joy is 26 and Abby is 24. I remain stunned and humbled by their presence in my life. Miracles, both. Precious, to be sure.

But let’s go back to those five years. I did NOT, in any way, see my suffering as precious. In point of fact, I didn’t even allow myself to suffer. At least not visibly, consciously, wisely. Every twenty-eight days I’d give myself a good talking to: “buck up, accept your lot, get it together, trust God’s plan!” If you hear a ridiculous degree of harshness, you’d be right. Even typing it now, I feel a lump in my throat. In many ways, what I told myself (without realizing it until this very moment) was to NOT be precious; to not consider myself more highly than I ought, to not see myself as “entitled” to that which I held most dear and of great worth and price.

Isn’t this sad?

My longing deserved to be precious and dear. My suffering and grief deserved to be precious and inestimable. My hope deserved to be precious and prized. Instead, I told myself that I was being affected, fragile, and pretentious.

We can be so quick to dismiss that which is rich and tender and vulnerable in our lives. To Ann Patchett’s point, we can, all-too-often, see ourselves as undeserving and so, not notice what “just comes.” When what’s precious comes to us through suffering more than light, it’s that much harder to see it as such.

Before I turn this around (which I promise I will do), I’m wondering where all of this lands for you. I’m wondering if, like me, you have stories of suffering that you didn’t allow, experiences you couldn’t let yourself grieve, hopes you couldn’t dare hold onto. I’m wondering if, like me, you have been far more inclined to see yourself as undeserving and so, in light of such, have not given yourself permission to take in, revel in, and honor all that is precious in your life . . . and in you.

I cannot be talked out of this truth: The definition of “precious” defines you—valuable, of great worth or price, honorable. The synonyms for “precious” describe you—adored, cherished, dear, inestimable, loved, prized, treasured.

You are precious, to be sure.

*****

Tomorrow I will fly back to Charlotte NC. I’ll go through customs, take the shuttle to my car, and then make the 3.5 hour drive back to Hampstead. I’ll feel tons of gratitude for the days Tanya and I have shared. I’ll be lost in thought about all we talked of together. I’ll be happy the weather is at least 20-30 degrees warmer. I’ll wish I weren’t driving back in the dark. I’ll listen to an audio book. I’ll stop for gas and probably drive-through dinner. I’ll pull into the driveway, see the porch light left on for me, and say a prayer of “thanks” that I’m safe, that I’m home, that this is my life. All of it is precious—when I choose to see it as such.

I’m certain the same is true for you.

May it be so.

The post Treasuring All that is Precious appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

For as grateful (and amazed) as I am that I’ve completed my book, it is an incredibly odd thing to place it in someone else’s hands, to know it is no longer in my own. I’ve been writing its words and pages and stories in some way, shape, or form for nearly two decades and so, without it, I feel a bit wobbly, out-of-sorts, and slightly disconnected from myself.

I am rhetorically and repeatedly asking what I’ll do next, what I’ll create, what writing will yet be mine.

No answers come.

It’s not only about the writing. It’s also about time. What do I do now? What do I not do now? How do I fill up the empty space? And with what?

Still no answers—at least not any that are immensely helpful, generous, or grace-filled.

And so, as one does, I turn to Google.

I thought about asking “what to do with extra time” or “how to manage a slightly existential crisis” but both of those felt just a tish too broad. Instead, I asked, “what to write when you don’t know what to write.” There are lots of helpful tips and techniques to be found but none were quite what I wanted to hear. So, I looked at the books on my shelf, thinking maybe something would inspire me. Nope. Then I got out a deck of cards I’ve had for a long time, but rarely use: Writing Down the Bones Deck: 60 Cards to Free the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. I thumbed through the first ten or so, and came across this one:

” . . . there’s nothing you feel like writing about. Don’t pop up or pull a different card. Sit there for ten minutes, feeling your breath. Allow everything to be as it is. Just now I’m asking you to be.”

Hmmmm.

On the back of the card, she says this:

“Now write what you can accept with no judgment, no criticism . . . What else can you accept? The more we accept what’s around us, the more we can accept what’s in us and what comes out on the page. Let’s face it, we are all a little odd, maybe demented. From another angle, delightful. For our ten minutes of just sitting, we can put our arms around it all and write from a softer place.”

We can put our arms around it all and LIVE from a softer place. 

That sounds lovely, doesn’t it? To live from a softer place.

If you’re at all like me, you are immediately looking for the how-to manual. Apparently, Natalie Goldberg anticipated this:

accept what’s around youaccept what’s in youno judgement, no criticism

Deep breath.

I have a hunch that were I able and willing to do this—accept, accept, accept—my writing, creativity, time, and life itself would, indeed, be softer. 

This is what I want.

*****

There’s an ancient, sacred story told of two sisters. One was busy with all the details connected to hospitality: cooking, cleaning, serving. The other sat at the feet of their guest and soaked up everything he had to say.

The striving one complained, “Don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

Their guest responded, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

There’s plenty I chafe at in this story. But at least in this moment, I’m accepting the wisdom it offers: to live from a softer place is the better choice.

The better choice—and—in my lived-experience, the harder choice.

It is easy for me to stay busy. I know how to work hard. I am actually quite comfortable with efforting and striving, thank you very much. *sigh* What is not easy, what I do not know how to do, at least as well, is to let go, to wander, to wonder, to sit still, to accept what is, to be.

It strikes me that my first step is accepting even this. Allowing it to be as it is, me to be as I am. Putting my arms around it all. Taking another deep breath. Letting these ambivalent places between work and rest, striving and ease, knowing and unknowing, even writing and not writing, be a softer place to land . . . and live.

How about for you?

Whether you are a writer, or not, it is well worth your while to spend some time with pen and paper (or, like me, keyboard and screen) and these questions. No urgency. No wrong answers. Allowing. Embracing. Soft, remember?

When you look at your circumstances, your surroundings, your relationships, your work, your world, what is yours to accept? Not accede to, but name honestly with deep breaths and no stiving.Where, when, and with whom do you notice your tendency to strive, to effort, to push, to labor? What if you didn’t, even for a time?What yet longs to be accepted within you? How can you put your arms around it all?What would happen if you let go of judgment and criticism? How would you feel? What would change?If there were a softer place to land and softer way to live, what can you imagine that would look and feel like in the most specific of ways?

And for us?

Imagine a world that is not endlessly embroiled in arguments, political tension, and seemingly constant fights over gun-violence and abortion rights and same-sex marriage and racism and ableism and sexism so much more. Acceptance does not mean we look the other way where injustice is concerned; rather, it means we see and name it for what it is. We respond from a place that is clear, succinct, and even devoid of judgment and criticism. It means we are compelled by courage, desire, and hope. And collectively, that would create a softer place for us to live—together.

Deep breath.

May it be so.

The post Living from a Softer Place appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.

We can never know with any degree of certainty all the ways in which our choices, our life, has rippled far, far beyond us and into an interconnected world that is wide beyond comprehension. Wider still when we consider the lives of others (known and unknown) and the ways in which their choices have influenced and impacted us. It defies definition. It’s beyond our ability to fully comprehend or grasp.

Mystery.
Magic.

These two words—mystery and magic—captivate me. To allow for them, to anticipate and expect them, invites me into imagination; into a belief in things that are beyond me, my understanding, my efforting, and my control. One might even say they require faith.

The poet, W.B. Yeats, said this:

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

This feels like perfect intention and hope: having the “sense” to see a world full of magic (and mystery).

It is my intention and hope.

As I’ve reflected on this for the past few days, I’ve felt the near-demand of competency and perfection show up in full force. Surely there is a plan or process or 3-step succession I can employ that will ensure mystery and magic.

And this? The part of me that already wants to control?

Deep breath.

Mystery and magic will not be tamed.

So, this leaves me with a choice:

Will I demand exhausting certainty and proficiency (of myself and everything/everyone else), or will I loosen my clenched fists, take another deep breath, and *just* trust? 

As is true with most things of value and worth, this is easier said than done.

I spent large swaths of my life certain that if I could just get everything in order—my thoughts, my emotions, my desires, my weight, my money, my marriage, my work, and yes, even my house—then I would feel safe, at peace, and whole. This is, of course, what our capitalistic culture promulgates and promotes. And it is, at least in part, what my former belief system promised (along with “reasons and proofs”). Everything hinged on my efforting, my competency, my perfection, and yet again, my control.

Fewer absolutes and more “Maybe.” Fewer answers and more curiosity. Less order and more that is random and strange and serendipitous. Less pressure, no more “perfect,” and lots more possibility. 

Mystery.
Magic.

The post Mystery and Magic appeared first on RonnaDetrick.com.