For the last several years, I have not made New Year’s
resolutions. Rather, my daughter has challenged me to choose a word or phrase
for the year, and most years I have done that. The “word for the year” has
proven to be a gentle reminder to orient my choices in the direction I want to
go, or maybe more accurately, the direction I believe God wants me to go. This
has always been a spiritual task for me.
Last year at the time I would be making such a choice, I was
at Darrel’s bedside in the hospital as he was recovering from major spine
surgery. This, as many of you know, was a much more arduous road to travel than
we expected, and it consumed much of our energy for the year. One day back at
work, I slipped on the ice in the parking lot, fell hard, and wrenched my
already aching, arthritic knee. The very next day, while running an errand
before driving to the rehab facility where Darrel would spend a month
recovering after nine days in the hospital, I slipped on the ice again and
wrenched it even worse. I could barely walk.
I went to the doctor that day, and it turned out the
immediate damage wasn’t that bad in spite of the extreme pain, but I decided I
was tired of living with subpar knees and I scheduled myself for physical
therapy. That proved to be challenging to fit in my schedule, and I didn’t love
that first physical therapist nor the dungeon-like location of the PT clinic in
the bowels of the hospital. I quit going for a while.
Then my daughter’s boyfriend (and a former student of mine)
suggested I come in for a fitness analysis at his workplace, Experience
Momentum, which offers physical therapy, fitness classes, massage, nutritional
counseling, and more. I accepted his challenge, but after the fitness
assessment he said that he thought I should start with physical therapy to
address my knees and improve mobility in my shoulders after nearly three years
of frozen shoulder that no other treatment had successfully addressed long
term. So I decided to try PT again at this new venue.
I love the Experience Momentum approach to health.
Everything was oriented towards my personal goals and functional living. The
therapists listened to me when I described what was happening in my body, and
made adjustments accordingly. If I couldn’t do an exercise they gave me, they
modified it so I could do it. When I told them I hated the exercise bike, they
put me on the rower instead. If I hadn’t been able to do my home exercises,
they never shamed me, but they invited me into greater health every time. I
learned to use different muscles to do my daily life; my favorite new skill was
learning to walk up and down stairs without pain! I sometimes felt like a
toddler—how on earth can I not know how to climb stairs?—but relearning such
skills was worth it. I saw quantifiable gains.
The success I had there transferred into other areas of my
life. During the summer, Darrel and I swam several times a week, and I became
strong enough to actually swim laps and not just splash around. I figured out I
could do moderate walks if I used hiking poles, a simple and inexpensive
adjustment that enabled increased activity. When my younger daughter and I
traveled to Arizona to help my mother move into a retirement community, we
stopped in Disneyland as an early birthday present for her; the hiking poles
helped me get through our long day of extreme fun with minimal discomfort.
When school started in the fall, I felt ready to face some
new challenges. My job assignment had changed, so that in addition to teaching
Bible 8, I would also take on the new Junior High Chaplain position, working
with a small chapel leadership team of Junior High students to plan and present
our weekly chapels. At church I became Pastor of Confirmation for this year,
working with seven wonderful Junior High aged students to review the whole
Bible and church history and, we hope, grow in their faith. I continued to
preach as needed in areas churches.
When I told my physical therapist that I wanted to start
taking some of the exercise classes, but I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough
to succeed, we agreed that a good intermediate step for me would be to do some
personal training. I signed up for and completed ten sessions with a personal
trainer, also at Experience Momentum, again with the goal of improved daily
functionality and specific preparation for the kinds of movements I would be
doing in the yoga and boot camp classes that they offer. I never worked so hard
in my life! And because I was paying out of pocket for the personal training, I
wanted to get the best bang for my buck, so I actually did my home workout
assignments each week. And if I ended up skipping one because of life or health
or whatever, I chose not to shame myself. Indeed, I actually missed my workouts when I couldn’t get
to them. I went to my first yoga class last week and signed up for a month of
boot camp and yoga classes!
Somewhere along the way, I realized I was ready to tackle my
diet again. I started every day drinking a glass of water. I began carrying a
large bottle of lemon water to school each day and made sure I drank the whole
thing; sometimes I filled it up again and drank a second bottleful. I cut my
Diet Coke consumption in half. I went back on my ketogenic hot chocolate
breakfast routine, had salads for lunch whenever possible (not always possible
with our schedules), and prepared healthful dinners in the evening. I mostly
quick snacking. If I did want a piece of birthday cake in the teacher’s lounge,
I ate it with gladness and joy, and then backed off of sugar for the rest of
the week. I didn’t make Christmas cookies this year. We mostly kept junk out of
the house. I have lost a total of 25 pounds over the last three years from my
highest weight, about 10 of it in the last four or five months.
I have more energy. I can do stairs. I can carry groceries
in without feeling winded. I have learned to be gentle with myself when I need
to be, and push myself when I can. I say to myself, “Do it now,” and most of
the time that helps. I have been able to say yes to many life-giving activities, such as preaching and
confirmation and gatherings with friends, in spite of the extra time that
exercise and new assignments take.
All of this not to congratulate myself, but to say that my word
for the year was a retrospective. I didn’t start 2017 with a word, but I ended
up with one: self-care. Somehow God
showed me that I was worth the effort, the money, and the time it would take to
be healthy. I finally gave myself permission to invest in my longevity. The women
in my family live a long time, and I knew I didn’t want to live those years as
an invalid, constantly struggling with health, weight, and pain. I didn’t want
to retire from serving God! I also came to terms with the fact that health,
especially at my age, takes intentional effort. In taking self-care seriously
this year, I have had more margin for
ministering to others, more joy, more gratitude, more capacity for generosity, more
ears to hear and eyes to see what God
is doing in me and my loved ones and my world, less need to self-protect. 2017
was my year of radical self-care.
So what about my word for 2018?
I decided that a couple of sessions with a counselor to sort
out some interpersonal struggles would be beneficial. I’ve been in counseling
before, and I’m a believer in its value. But this time I contacted the
insurance company representative who can obtain referrals for us, got the names
of some therapists, and finally made an appointment (it was a four month
journey from the first contact to the first appointment, but I persevered).
My new counselor invited me to be present with my own
feelings when I have a visceral reaction to a difficult situation—to notice
what is going on in my body, to name the sensations and sit with them before I
try to solve the problem at hand, before I try to minister, before even I try
to have empathy for the other. She wants me first to have empathy for myself!
She likened it to the announcement they make on airplanes: “Put your own mask
on first before you assist others.” I must not rush past my own experience. I
must take care of myself not instead of
taking care of others, but in preparation
for taking care of others. Then I can truly and authentically be the
non-anxious presence that others sometimes need from me—as a friend, as a
teacher, as a pastor, as a family member, as a neighbor, as a citizen of the
kingdom of God.
So my year of radical self-care has led me to my word for
2018: presence. I want to live into
the calling to be truly present—with myself, with my body, with God, with my
family, with my reality, with my church, with my world, with whoever God brings
into my sphere. I want to put down my phone more often, listen better, react
less, read more, and be more available to the Holy Spirit’s whispering in my
life. I’ve begun again the practice of contemplative breath prayer.
This won’t necessarily be easy for me. I’m a multitasker; I
can be easily distracted, as my husband and children will attest. My brain is
often full of ideas and tasks that mentally take me away from what’s right in
front of me. I’ll need discipline. But one thing I’ve learned from my year of
radical self-care is that God will give me what I need to move forward into the
next thing I need.
I am confident in
this, that he who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until
the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1.6 paraphrased)
What word is God giving you
for 2018?
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