esteem.

:If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are? ~T.S. Eliot:



I've come realize I am so hard on myself... I can barely stand my own weaknesses. Which is funny, because I tell myself I have so much grace for other peoples weaknesses. I heard Brene Brown once say, "When you cannot offer help without SELF judgement, then you are never really offering help without judgement." I remember being so floored by the thought of that statement. It carries over to so many aspects of relationships. Plainly stated...if I have no grace for my own weaknesses, then I can truly have no grace for your weaknesses. What actually happens is that I pass judgement on myself when I'm weak, therefore I pass judgement on you when you're weak, eventually creating separation instead of intimacy. 

Anyone that knows me knows what a smack in the face this was. My life is a call to love and intimacy. It's my thing. It's what I do. Looking back over my life and digging out all these codependent issues is wrecking me at such a deep level, because I have to admit that I've been doing it wrong. Please don't take it to mean I have had no positive moments of influence in my life. There have been times that I have loved very well. I have cultivated deep and meaningful relationships along the way. But at the core of myself, there are usually ulterior motives. There is selfishness and judgement there. Not for other people as much as myself...but the truth is they are so deeply intertwined. Turns out that loving and accepting yourself, and all your weaknesses, is at the root of sustaining all relationships. 

I'm still working though step one of my giant workbook. For anyone interested, the title of the workbook is Breaking Free: A Recovery Workbook for Facing Codependence by Pia Melody and Andrea Wells Miller. I highly suggest getting some form of guide or workbook yourself. It has done wonders for my life. In a lot of brutal, gut wrenching ways...but worth it. Sooooooo worth it. I read the book first and while it was really great and eye opening, I needed practical application. Like, that's a great thought but how do I get from point A to point B on this? The workbook is doing that for me. 

In the workbook, they list out the five core symptoms of codependence. The first of those is "difficulty experiencing appropriate levels of self-esteem"...It goes on to state the powerlessness related to this core symptom is that whenever you encounter another person, you perceive this person as having either less or more value than you. It also states that when you operate this way, you are operating in the disease of codependence. 

Hot damn. And all this time I thought I did this because I was Southern...

What I like about this is that it isn't just one side of the coin. Everyone knows that when you are experiencing low self-esteem you are struggling. I was just there(aka: see last post)...down, not seeing my worth, not feeling strong. But the flip side is also true. People that live in a place of arrogance and grandiosity are actually in the same boat. The "look at how big and bad I am right now so I have to be cool" philosophy. These are the people that tend to belittle others to feel good about themselves. Sometimes people can be real jerks about it, but they can also truly believe that it is confidence and that they're doing the right thing. Arrogance is a tricky beast. Sometimes it is bred out of necessity...My dad use to say, "There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and I walk it well." There are times we need to feel confident to overcome. But we also need to realize that it is not true confidence in ourselves if it comes from a false sense of being superior to someone else. 

Let me say that one more time. 

Regardless of how you look on the outside, if you have no idea how to have proper esteem for yourself, you cannot and will not have proper esteem for others. 

Which will lead you to look at people and judge them based on where you see yourself in the hierarchy of society at any given time. 

We all do this. I know we do. Society tells is this the normal response to every personal encounter we have. That we are suppose to measure ourselves against others. This is a lie...One that I hope to put a dent in. 

I picked up a hitchhiker a couple days ago. I had seen him trying to get a ride back and forth from Anchorage for work twice, and I told myself that if I saw him again I would pick him up. The weather here has been getting chilly and the rains have come, so it's definitely not great to be standing out in. He got in the car and I asked if he was going to Anchorage...I told him I had seen him hitchhiking before. His response was, "so I guess you've just driven by me a million times and just left me there." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. And it stung my pride. It instantly set us up as him being lesser than me, because I can drive and I have a car. But I don't have a car. That car was on loan to me. I've only been driving a little over a week...since I broke my right leg in May and haven't worked in months. The truth is, this hitchhiker and I have a lot more in common than he could possibly know... 

I love helping people. I love the downtrodden and the homeless. I love the drunk Natives downtown. I see my life in these people...and I think about the many, many instances that were it not for the generosity of others and the grace of God I could be right where they are. In the days that have followed  meeting this man, I've felt a wide range of emotion. I felt truly sorry that he instantly had disdain for me, even though I did stop to pick him up. The necessity of his life right now is that he has to depend on the help of strangers to get to his job. He doesn't like it. That much was clear. I also realized that what he said hurt my pride because I was looking at the situation wanting to be admired somehow...I was looking to have him admire me for my generosity, to feed my arrogance. I wanted to be a hero. But he didn't need a hero. He just needed a ride home. 

Being with people that have absolutely nothing to offer me from the perspective of society...no money, no status, no power..is comforting to me. It's what I know. It somehow made me feel like I had really escaped my past, because I had overcome the life of poverty that I grew up in. I could be with these people and help them because I was now better than them. This was my own version of arrogance. I have learned to live differently over these past few months. To depend on the kindness of others. To ask for help. In this place of feeling like I have nothing to offer, I am finding a little more of myself everyday. It becomes easier to know what true self-esteem looks like when everything you value about yourself is lost. I hope not everyone is as stubborn as me and has to get that far lost to be found...But if you do, that's ok too. 

Sometimes, you've gotta get in over your head to know how tall you are. 

Sometimes, you've just gotta get some perspective on self-esteem from a hitchhiking, carrot picking vagabond. 



:...for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7: