Tag: sovereignty

Scrabble squabbles

I was making soup Saturday afternoon when my phone dinged with a text from the depths of the basement. 

My soon-to-be 16 year old asked anyone want to play pitch?

Yes! I responded, psyched for the invitation from the handsome basement troll, ready in 15 minutes!

We played cards, followed by family dinner, community dishes (our dishwasher broke), a prohibition-style game of beer pong and then scrabble, said teenager still in the mix, still upstairs away from his lair. 

About 30 minutes into the game, he declared he’d had enough. He said he was not having fun anymore and began to put his tiles back in the bag. 

No! I screamed. Can’t quit. Only 15 more minutes -you can do it!

I’m done he responded. 

You can’t quit, I told him. Or no phone tonight. Or i-pad. (I’d show him who had the power.) 

His pleasant demeanor transformed before my eyes. His self-awareness and sovereignty (interpreted by me in that moment as defiance and perhaps if I’d dug a bit deeper- rejection) lit my fuse. 

He grew big. I grew bigger. We finished the game. 

Was it the same as before he declared he was done? 

No. 

Was it fun? 

No. 

Did I go to bed proud of myself? 

No.

If I could press redo, would I?

Yes.

I’d say: 

I get it honey, family time in teenage time is triple what it is in tender mom time. Thanks so much for the card game invitation, doing the dishes and playing two more games. I realize that is a lot of time and energy.  

I also know that your little brother and I are having a blast right now. You hanging out with us means so much. You’ll be able to drive next week, which will provide you more opportunity to be away from the house (post Covid-19 of course), and I feel sad knowing our opportunity for time together diminishes every day, despite it being a normal, natural and vital part of your growing up. 

Could you possibly take a little break, grab a snack and come back so we can finish? I’d love for you to demonstrate to your little brother that even if you’re losing or bored you can still finish a commitment you started, especially when quitting affects others. That said, I trust you to know what’s best for you, and if you’re at the end of your rope, I honor that. 

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This morning I scrolled through my audible library looking for someone to read to me while I vacuumed. I knew exactly what I needed. In Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg reminded me of the following:

Punishment is costly in terms of goodwill. The more we are seen as agents of punishment, the harder it is for others to respond compassionately to our needs. The following questions help us to see why we are unlikely to get what we need using punishment to change people’s behavior. 

  1. What do I want this person to do that is different from what he or she is doing? (And why do I want them to do it? What are my needs?)
  2. What do I want this person’s reasons to be for doing what I am requesting?

When I address this second question, I see that my use of punishment and reward (access to electronics) interferes with Max’s ability to do things motivated by a desire to enrich his life or that of his family. I see that I am acting out of alignment with everything I am trying to reteach myself about living my truest life. 

I personally don’t want to act out of fear of punishment or rejection, nor do I want any of the humans I am guiding to either. In my haste (and hurt?) I robbed both of us of an opportunity to speak to our needs and our feelings and to practice acting in alignment with them. 

Luckily (?), I think we’ll get plenty more opportunities to practice in the next few weeks. Luckily, he’s turning 16 and not 18. Luckily, I am well versed in the art of apology.

Heart ball and boundaries

I awoke Sunday morning to a Facebook scroll full of images of elegant couples captured from Saturday night’s big formal fundraiser, of which I was pleasantly unaware. This blissful ignorance made me quickly flashback to a not-so-blissful conversation with my sister three years ago, regarding said fundraiser. 

Me: I am dreading Saturday night. So much about the event makes me pissy. The face painting, the stilts donning, the leaving the house barely dressed in the middle of winter. It’s not fair men get to be warm in their tuxes, while women freeze in their gowns. Then there are the 10-top tables, the booze and the massive amount of food waste. Who needs steak AND salmon? I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it. Why can’t we just send a check?

My sister: If you dread the event so much, why on earth are you going? 

Me: Because saying no would lead to divorce. 

My sister: If that is truly the case, Katie, you’ve got much bigger issues.

Time stopped, searing the scene into memory. My gut clenched and we ended the call. Her words hung over me all day. I did have undeniable issues if I could neither muster the strength to choose me, which would mean disappointing my spouse, nor call in the peace and acceptance I needed in order to attend with him lovingly and willingly.

I’d been beating myself up pretty badly, both about about my big group social anxiety -always exacerbated by the pressure of dressing up, doing hair and make-up and worrying about tripping in high heels- and my inability to go with the flow. I know my husband wanted me to be easy, but more than that, he wanted to feel supported. He believed that attendance at these events was part of his job, and me being at his side was important. So important that he’d neglected to ask me if I wanted to attend, despite his knowledge of the apprehension I felt at this type of event. 

He couldn’t wrap his mind around what the big deal was for me, it was only a handful of hours. I couldn’t understand what the big deal was for him. I was happy to meet in a smaller group with any man, woman or couple he wanted me to meet or get to know better, but these giant events didn’t seem the place for relationship building. 

I believe it was my sister’s reflection of my sorry situation combined with Trump’s recent inauguration and the solidarity I felt with all women for whom men in suits make decisions that finally gave me the strength to say, 

Honey, I honor you and your work. 

I happily offer emotional support

and my presence in small gatherings.

But for this event, to which you RSVP’d without consulting me, 

I refuse to attend. 

I am sorry. I know that stings. 

I bless you going alone or inviting another in my place. 

This voicing of my desire, my will and my boundaries (me choosing me) caused some painful ripples in our household. It was disorienting and confusing for us both, as it often is when one partner decides she’s going to change the dance steps.

But this past Sunday morning— waking up early after a full night’s rest with a clear head, a happy belly and a memories of family moments from the night before— was SO worth the growing pains endured three years ago. And to realize that the event wasn’t even on my radar made the Facebook scroll all the more sweet. I felt empathetic joy in my heart for all those happy ball-goers raising money for a good cause, and I felt personal joy in my heart for me for my husband, continuing our growth as sovereign individuals while celebrating the beautiful partnership of support we are becoming. 

Self-sovereignty

I started binging and purging right about the time I started high school. Right about the time my world was expanding and the rules to keep me safe were getting more restrictive. As a child, I’d had very few rules about where I could go exploring solo on my bike. The world was my oyster and my curfew an empty belly, but when I started bleeding and growing breasts, the rules got much more confining. Looking back, I interpret this change in structure to the disappearance of trust, both my parents’ trust that the world was a safe place for me and my own trust that I had the skills I needed to navigate it. Freedom was pulled out from under me, and I’m pretty sure I simply handed my sovereignty away. There were new unnameable threats of which to be wary and new ways of operating to be learned. My parents’ fear was not unfounded. This was decades before #metoo, long before sex was talked about.

No matter, I knew that it was dirty. The message I got at home, from church and from Midwestern culture in general was that sex was a big no-no. Bad girls wanted it, and I so very much wanted to be a good girl. I was already a good student, so just like I picked up chemistry formulas, Spanish verb conjugations and algebraic equations, I also picked up social rules. 

Good girls are asexual, thin and co-dependent. 

I took it upon myself to stuff my budding sexuality, to strive toward thinness and to find myself a boyfriend. Before long, I’d gained twenty pounds, a nutritionist telling me what to eat, a therapist with whom I shared codified bits and pieces, and boyfriends with whom I played damsel in distress. Somehow, between all the binging and high-mileage running purges, I managed to be both class president and homecoming queen, a sure result of my strict adherence to aforementioned good girl rules. 

I continued playing out a pattern of physical and mental self-abuse, self-mistrust and deep shame throughout high school. And though I’m still shaking off its remnants today, I share here the story that sparked my healing journey, the story that sowed the seeds of self-trust, self-care and sovereignty that I tend to so mindfully today. 

 ________________

Freshman year of college I attended a women’s retreat. There, a woman came to share with us her story of escaping an abusive marriage. She told of making the decision to stop waiting for her husband to get better and instead choosing to take care of herself— right then and there. She sneaked out of the house with her children in the middle of the night to take refuge in a shelter and save her life. 

I was 19, and her story of rising up and owning her role in that story, of leaving behind everything she knew in order to choose herself sparked in me for the first time the thought that I too could choose to take care of myself. I could choose to choose me, instead of choosing to succumb to whatever force was trying to confine me, keep me stuffed and sedated, constantly eating and running. I could choose myself when making the decision to eat or not to eat an entire pizza, loaf of banana bread or batch of cookie dough. I could choose to leave behind patterns that were slowly killing me from the inside, one bite at a time. I could choose to let go of behaviors keeping me from addressing the issues behind the incessant consuming..

Typing I can choose me today seems so silly. So obvious. But at the time, the idea of choosing myself and acting in my own best interest was completely novel. Completely rebellious. And completely empowering. It was one of those time-seems-to-stop moments when I was able to watch my thinking shift in a way that allowed healing to begin. The journey certainly hasn’t been linear, but the insight that I could step out of victimhood and into agency was the impetus toward a new paradigm, one that I am continuing to grow and one that I hope for every human on the planet. 

I have agency. I have choice. I can choose me. 

I hope for the feeling of sovereignty and freedom for all humans, and I celebrate the micro-moments and micro-choices that lead us there. I celebrate that earlier this week, in the midst of severe anxiety and the deep and ancient eating-disorder urge to stuff, control and numb, I chose me. I tended to myself carefully and with love: asking for what I needed, applying boundaries and nourishing and resting the body. The issues that were behind the anxiety didn’t disappear or transform with my nap or the chopping of vegetables, but instead of compounding the issues, I brag that I minimized collateral damage, leaving more energy for examination of those issues.

In these weeks of Mercury moving in retrograde, of communication being compromised, of old patterns being brought to light and of campaigns bringing deep emotion to the surface, I celebrate the thread of learning that begins in adolescence and continues throughout a lifetime. I celebrate the self-awareness and self-reflection happening at the individual level that lead to life-promoting cultural shifts at the global level. I celebrate expanding trust and appreciation for the wisdom and autonomy of every human body.