Catch and Release

While it may have been weeks and weeks ago that I last blogged, the thoughts of that post have not been far from my mind. I decided to view it through a catch and release framework.

You see, I'm a master of self-judgment. Thinking about friendships that I'd let go or a project that never seemed to get finished, those are the kinds of things that I can mentally beat myself up over - and over - and over! I'm good at THAT.

I thought that perhaps most people have this internal self-critical dialogue going and we just don't talk about it. But then I realized that an acquaintance of mine really doesn't have that internal self-critic going at all. For maybe a few minutes, but then she's right back on the blame everybody else bandwagon! It's never her fault, she is always innocent. She tries her best at everything and doesn't hold herself liable for anything. She's right. Even when I can clearly see that she's NOT right, she firmly believes that she is. It can be difficult to have conversations with this person, because it's hard to be honest with someone who is just so incredibly selfish and spoiled.

So that led me to think about the extremes and a middle ground, a place of balance. If my inner self-critic voice is the loudest voice, that is just as much of an extreme as the selfish voice. Where is the middle ground? The catch and release framework is helping me to find my place of balance and peace, in the middle ground between selfishness and self-critique.

When I think about friendships that I've let go, the inner critic says that I've been a lousy friend. So I caught those thoughts and examined them for what has really happened. Sometimes, the friendships were one way. The responsibility for making contact, doing the traveling to meet up, or providing emotional support were imbalanced. A friendship should be give and take over time, not one sided over time. So in those cases, I decided to release the critical voice and let it go. It was time to let those imbalanced friendships go. Sometimes the friendships just weren't strong enough to last. And it's okay.

When I think about my ongoing office project (yeah, that's right, it's still a work in progress) I have been much easier on myself. Writing about it here and in my journal has helped me to see my procrastination and avoidance of office work for what it is - and not as a failure on my part in housekeeping 101. When I had a staff position at a church and a fabulous office manager, I had a great filing system. My fabulous office manager set it up for me! It's not easy for me to do the filing when it's overwhelming. I've caught up the inner critic, examined it for what it is, and released it. No surprise that the office project is coming along, bit by bit. It's a working space now, with my priorities up front where I can reach them (books and binders). Those old records and files? They can wait.

Applying catch and release to my vocation - that is the next step. I don't quite understand what it is that God has called me to do, what shape that will take or how it will play out. It was much easier when I was working on my masters leading to ordination - that path is quite clearly defined. The only question was "where". Now the questions are what, where, how, when? What will I be doing? Where will I do that? How will I support myself until then, and maybe even through it? When will this come to pass? I know those questions don't have answers yet, and I'm okay with that. But some days, trying to focus and study on my own, without my fellow students around me, without a church and clergy colleagues around me... some days it's just hard to hear God. Those days it feels a lot like a valley of dry bones.

So I catch and release, let go of the inner critic voice, and try to focus on the work in front of me again.