Living Brave

I am doing my best to live brave.  To conquer what it is that holds me back.  As I do I find that it in some respects it gets a little easier to step into the brave.  And with these bravery steps joy is slipping in. Actual joy. I am liking this.

A couple of Wednesdays ago I put on a pair of roller skates for the first time in probably 25 years.  Can I just tell you that roller skating is NOT like riding a bike.  Your muscles do not remember what to do to keep your body upright.  Age and gravity are also very unhelpful to this staying upright process.  In my head I knew what to do, but my body, mind, and the wheels were not working as a cohesive team.  I only fell once.  I made it around the rink twice.  Then I put my shoes back on. Twenty minutes was long enough.  I think I may even try again sometime.




A few years I ago I would never have even tried.  The fear of failure and embarrassment of falling as well as the fear of physical pain would have kept me on the sidelines.  


Later that same night several friends and I went to our local Applebee's for karaoke.  Normally I am just a spectator or a group singer, nowhere near the microphone, just standing down there with the group, can't really hear me kind of a group singer.  Never would I get up and attempt to sing on my own.  Putting a microphone in my hand is means for an instant panic attack.  However, that night I went up and sang...

              ...............ON MY OWN................. 
                                                                                         (meaning by myself, not the song "On My Own").


 Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!    Yes, I did!  Not just once, but twice!

So, what changed?

My perspective.  I quit caring (as much) if I made a fool out of myself.

I also made friends who supported me and lifted me up.  I had a cheering section.  They didn't care if I fell, or went flat.  They cared about me and they made me feel like I could do it and even if I couldn't they would still be there. I surrounded myself with support.

Now, it isn't that I have never had people in my life who would do that before, I know that if I had let people in, that they would have been there for me.  I never gave anyone the chance to be the support I needed.  I had to learn how to let them in before I could open up.  I also needed to learn that I am okay. Just the way I am.  I don't have to measure up to some imaginary bar in my head.  Who I am is good enough.  That is huge.  Learning that didn't happen over night. It has been a process of small little steps to get here.  I am still learning it.  Walking it out daily.  Also I learned that if someone wasn't there for me when I needed them to be that it wasn't a reflection on me.  That is where they were.

Another thing I have learned is that when I open myself up it is giving permission for the other person to open up as well and that is when JOY comes in.

Live brave friends, one step and one day at a time.  You are enough.  Just where you are and who you are.  Take chances.  Get messy.  Fall on your butt.  Sing off key.  Take that next step.  Find your cheering section. Be someone else's cheering section.

It took 40 years for me to get here, but here I am and I am loving it!

Five Minute Friday: Dare

*I never time myself for Five Minute Friday. 

 I take the word and run with it where it leads for however long it leads me.*

Dare

I dare you.

I dare you to be brave.

To hold your head up high and wear your bravery like a cape.

Be the hero in your story;

The one who stands up and says,

 "NO MORE!"

To all the voices that try and keep you down.

Wrap that bravery cape around you tight.

Keep the cold winds of "less than" and the spitting rains of "unworthy"

From hurting you any longer.

All you have to do is

STAND UP!

Stand up and fight.

I know that you can do it.

You are braver than you think and stronger than you know.

I dare you to be brave.

I dare you.

Learning the art of bravery

What is Bravery?

Bravery can look like a lot of things to a lot of people.

I don't think bravery can be defined the same way for every person.

Brave for me means stepping out of my comfort zone, choosing to ignore the tapes that play in my head, and forging a new path.

This month has been a month of brave for me.

I set off on a faith journey to the distant land of........ O-hi-o. 

I forged new roads, made new tapes, and I met some great people.

Let me take you back a bit to a little over a year ago, because that is where this story of bravery really starts.

As I was reading the comments of a blog I saw my name and thought, "when did I comment on this?"  It was not me though, but another Karmen with a K.  I was thrilled and had to let her know I existed. This was my first step of brave; putting myself out there and introducing myself.

From there we began an online friendship through facebook and our blogs.

The more I learned about her the more I wanted to meet her.

I battled the tapes in my head telling me that I am not worth getting to know and broached the topic of meeting.  She was game, so we made a plan.

At O Dark thirty in the morning, otherwise known as 4 am, on Friday October 3rd I hopped into my husband's truck and started my long drive from CT to Ohio.

Sometimes, you don't even realize that you are being brave.

On the trip out there I was following the gps on my phone.  I had programmed it the night before to avoid tolls as much as possible and also to get me there via the fastest route possible while also avoiding New York.  As I was driving along in the dark through all the construction my gps told me that it had a new route that would get me there 1.5 hours faster.  That is a lot of faster so I pushed the reroute button without a thought.  It wasn't until I was driving through Jersey and the sun was coming up that I realized that I had just driven right smack dab through New York City.  Right smack dab through it! I was brave and survived it without even realizing where I was at the time and that I was even being brave.

Allowing someone else to do the leading let me conquer something that if left to my own devices I never would have thought I could do.  (Bigger life application inserted here.)  I was big and brave and stronger than I thought!  I felt like Super Woman in a white pick up truck.

As the hours and miles went by I would push out the creeping thoughts of "what if she doesn't really want me to be there?" or "what if they think I am weird for coming all this way?"  and would replace them with how I would feel if someone were to think so much of me to do the same.

That is another step of brave, hearing the old tapes, ignoring them, and recording new tapes to replace them and then play those.  And not just play them, but choose to believe them.

When I pulled up she came out and we hugged like old friends and I was welcomed into her home with the ease and comfort of walking into my own.  Her daughters were also wonderful, engaging, and also inviting.

Her sweet dog, Nigel, and I made fast friends. The day I wore capris he couldn't stop licking my legs, I think all the sugar I consume must make me taste extra sweet.  If I could have brought him home with me I would have, he is just the sweetest little guy.  I mean seriously how could you not fall in love with this face?

That night we went to dinner and  I got to meet many of her friends, all of them were just as lovely as they appear to be on her blog.

It was kind of surreal actually.  Imagine one of your favorite books, now imagine getting to step into that world for a weekend and live in it with all of the characters from that book.  That is kind of what it felt like, but not, because, you know, they are all real people.

I loved being allowed into her world, wanted even.  

Although a  part of me wondered if before I had come she was like, "Hey, friends, come have dinner with this lady in case she is a total nut case and I need back up!", but I told myself that it was probably more like, "Oh my gosh the other Karmen is coming and she is so Ah MAy Zing that you must come and dine with her, because it would be selfish to keep this much awesome to myself!"  

I am guessing that the truth actually lies somewhere in the middle of those two.  

The whole weekend felt easy and wonderful.  I felt able to be myself.  Even when being myself included dumping insane amounts of ice all over her kitchen floor, because the ice had not been falling into my water bottle like I had thought and instead was backing up into the chamber from whence it came, so when I pulled my bottle away all the ice fell everywhere.  (If there is a way for me to make a mess and be a klutz at the same time, you can bet I will find it.)  Or the time when I was getting ready in the morning I whacked the towel bar with my arm and sent the rod clanging, LOUDLY to the tile floor.  Myself is a bit loud, and messy, and imperfect and it all felt OKAY.  (Another brave, accepting me as being me and not belittling myself for it.)

When bravery changes your armor.

On Sunday, I went with them to church.  I was new, but I didn't feel it.  Everyone was so welcoming and warm, I was greeted with hugs and smiles.  During the service I felt right at home. That to me is the mark of a good church.  No matter what denomination it is, if it is God loving and Bible preaching the same Spirit should be present within it.  If it is, then it will feel like home, even if the "decor" is slightly different.

By Sunday night it felt as though Karmen and I were old friends.  Chatting freely and deeply.  At one point her husband came into the Kitchen and said that we were in there solving all the worlds problems.  We were.  Get ready world, Karmen and Karmen for President & Vice President 2016!  (okay not really, but we would be awesome!  We could throw the world an awesome party and solve all its issues at the same time. Of course I am too much of a flighty creative to hunker down and get to business, so it is probably better if I just stick to blogging and kitchen table conversations.)

When I came back home my Sister told me I was brave for going.  I was, and I am.  I am brave.

It is an evolving bravery.

It is giving me a new armor.  It is a process of shedding my old armor of walls and fear and replacing it with an acceptance and comfort of who I am.  And with this new armor I am gaining with it an army. An army of people who also accept me and bring me comfort and who are helping me to remove those walls that I hid behind and are inviting me to go with them into this brave new world of freedom to be m.y.s.e.l.f.

An open letter to pastors

I wrote this letter to my new pastor.  Really it could have probably been written to any pastor anywhere about the deafening silence coming from the pulpit about sexual abuse and how it has a huge voice that needs listening to in discussions of sexual purity.

July 1, 2013

Dear Pastor .......,

                I sat through service yesterday and listened to you talk on purity.  At one point the room went hazy and it became hard for me to see, so I knew it was something I probably really needed to hear.  But the more I heard the angrier I became.  Angry, because for every time I have ever heard a sermon preached on purity not a single pastor, not one, has ever touched on the sexual sins that adults commit on children and how those sins fundamentally change those children.  Not one!  And so I wanted to stand up and point my finger and shout out:  “Okay, OKAY!  I HEAR what you are saying, but what about us?!  What about those of us who were used as others sexual dishrags before we had any say in the matter, or when we were in that in between stage of child and teenager and we were so confused by what happened and our reaction to it that we felt somehow to blame for it?  What about those of us who grew up thinking that our purpose in life, or worth, was nothing more than that dishrag we were used as, maybe even made to be?  You tell us to be pure, to control ourselves, but you never once touch on how to do that when someone else’s actions fundamentally has changed everything about whom God created us to be. It changes who we are, how we see ourselves, how we see the world around us. Pastors love to speak on how sex is a gift.  I have never known it that way, so I understood when you spoke of the man who asked for his sexual drive to be taken away.  To me sex is more like a poison.  It isn’t intimate, it isn’t holy, and it certainly has never felt like a gift.  It is and always has been a thorn: a deep piercing, infection producing thorn, so how about we as a church discuss that sometime.  Because I know that I am probably not the only one.  I am guessing that just about 75% of any congregation at any given time has been or will be sexually abused, maybe even more.  So where are the sermons on that?  Where are the sermons telling the adults to stop using children as rags for their desires?  Where are the sermons talking to those raggedy children turned adults addressing their shame, their guilt, because they had desires from the time that they could remember that the church says is impure and wrong.  Where are the sermons that will stop making them feel shamed and guilty and start helping them figure out how to change those desires, because shame and guilt sure aren’t getting the job done.  Where are the sermons that discuss how to move sex from the shame/guilt/ poisonous thorn in my side box to the intimacy gift box, because boy I would sure like to know how to do that?!  Are pastors afraid to discuss this?  They aren’t afraid to talk about homosexuality, adultery, pornography, etc., but I am pretty certain that in a large number of these issues if you did a little digging that you would find that the root of many of these sexual sins would be childhood sexual abuse.  So yes, I am pointing my finger, yes I am angry, because why don’t we as a church, as a people address the root of the weed instead of just pulling at what we see coming out of the ground.” 

Please understand that I am not really angry with you.  I am angry with the situation, the silence, the deafening silence from the church when it comes to sexual abuse.  Do people think it doesn’t happen in churches?  That Christians are immune from this plague?  Are pastors afraid to offend the abusers or is it just nicer in general to pretend they aren’t there?  Because trust me they are there, in your congregations, sitting in your pews, invisible, but there and so are we… the sopping wet or crusted over stained and used dishrags. 

Sincerely,

Karmen Madan

On Being Brave

On being brave and speaking out
There will always be people who will judge and condemn and not hear the hurt behind the bravery or who will look to add shame to the already shamed. Those people might hear the words, but they are deaf to the cries from the heart of the one being brave. Those people will always exist. They are the ones who keep people from bravery, from being able to share. But there are others too. They are the ones who desperately need to hear those heart cries of the brave, so that their own heart might be able to cry out with them and in the process both can begin to heal. And then there are those whose hearts don’t necessarily cry in the same way as the brave ones, but they need to hear those words so that they might understand and help other crying hearts heal.It is for those who cry and for those who need to understand that we should be brave; that I should be brave. Give me grace Lord to still love the ones who judge and condemn and give me the strength to not live in their condemnation.