Cross-cultural Adjustment, Faith, Fridays with Robynn, God, Grace, home, Identity, Life, Life in general, Robynn, Third Culture Kid, Transition
One of the sweet daily habits of our marriage is that Lowell makes the bed. When we first got married and he was still dew eyed and love drunk he asked me what the one household task that I least liked was. I didn't hesitate. I hate making the bed. I love a made bed but I really begrudge making it. From that day forward he has made our bed.
Not long ago as he was pulling up sheets, smoothing the bedcover and piling on pillows, he mentioned that he had once heard that making your bed is like extending hospitality to yourself. That captured my imagination and all summer long I've been thinking about the idea of being hospitable to myself. What does that look like? What would it mean if I greeted my weaknesses with grace, my strengths with kindness? What would change if I embraced my past and invited it into my presence? How might that level of acceptance of who I am-including my whole story-change the way I respond to me?
You see I'm very good at slamming the door in my own face. I've been known to shake my head and say, I Don't Think So or No Thank You to myself! I've been known to meet myself at the door with shame and contempt: You don't belong here. You're not welcome. Some of me that has snuck past has been quickly boxed up and stored in the deep basement of my soul. There's no place for that me here.
It still feels like there are large chunks of me that seem to be at odds with the world I live in. I'm very aware that I'm a foreigner. It seems that I should be more settled by now-I'm mean good golly we've lived here nine years-and yet somehow that hasn't been my experience. There are so many things about living here that I don't know. I'm often clueless and unsure of myself.
On the other hand there are lots of things I know that no longer are necessary in this current context. I know how to get around South Asia. I'm really good in airports. I know how to speak Urdu and Hindi. I know how to bargain and barter with joy. I know how to think in Celsius and kilograms. I know how to take a bath in a dipper of water. I know how to use a pressure cooker. But none of that matters any more.
A good friend invited me to read Leanna Tankersley's book, Brazen (with the fabulous subtitle: The Courage to Find the You That's Been Hiding) this summer. One of the chapters in this rich volume, Allow for Expansion, invited me to begin to open the door to myself with some degree of welcome. Please permit me to quote her extensively. This is good stuff!
...The temptation for me is to say, "That is no longer me; this is now me" and abandon parts of myself as irrelevant or no longer....In fact, the Hebrew word of life-hayim-is actually plural ... we are a dynamic unfolding of many selves. If I would have known then what I know now, I would have realized I was expanding, not necessarily losing. Expansions can be so drastic that they feel disorienting. A new facet of me was arriving. One I had to meet and embrace and get to know. I was going through an incredible change, but that didn't mean other parts of me were being replaced....there are so many different aspects to me. Like you, I'm not one self. I am a strange amalgamation of different, sometimes seemingly contradictory selves: athlete, creator, nurturer, ideator, homemaker, extrovert, introvert, football fan, poetry lover. I've often erroneously believed I must trade each of these in for the next, instead of learning the fine art of embracing all these different aspects of my identity, letting each of them inform the collective me that is becoming.
Allow yourself to become, to expand. Don't feed the temptation to replace your selves. Expand your self. Don't be afraid of all these parts of you. Welcome the mother in you even as you are overwhelmed by her responsibilities. Welcome the achiever in you instead of rejecting her as soulless. Welcome the sensual in you instead of demonizing pleasure. Welcome the artist in you instead of believing she must be defunct now that you are running a household. We are both complete and becoming. Let yourself expand. (Leanna Tankersley, Brazen, 2016. Pgs 83-85).
I'm slowly changing how I greet myself. I'm giving me permission to be fully me. I'm learning to accept my whole story-including the pieces that I've previously poured shame on. I think I'm learning to welcome Robynn; to embrace her as God made her, with the story He gave her and for what she has to offer.
This is who I am-Robynn Joy Bliss-a combination of vast assortments of me! I choose to accept all those versions of me. I've been a foreigner most of my life. I often feel like I don't belong or I don't fit in. I choose to accept that piece of me too. I can be kind to the foreigner immigrant me, I can, because Jesus is. There are gaps in my knowledge but that's ok. I am human. No one knows everything. Everybody has something they don't know. I can be gentle to that me. I can ask for help. I can choose to humbly admit my ignorance and naiveté. There is no shame in that.
If I pigeon-holed myself, I, my family and friends and the world would miss out on the fascinating fullness that is Robynn Bliss (slightly paraphrased Brazen p84).
Admittedly looking up the word 'hospitality' in the dictionary did very little to satisfy my sudden longing to explore what it would mean to be hospitable to me. Hospitality is the, "generous and friendly treatment of visitors and guests." But I was struck deeply by the example of hospitality that Merriam-Webster used in a sentence. "It was refreshing to be met with such hospitality after our long journey."
Welcome Robynn. It's been a long journey. Have a seat. Can I get you anything? Please make yourself at home. Unpack your things. Take as long as you need. You are welcome here.Merriam-Webster is on to something. It would be refreshing to be met with such hospitality after this long journey. I'm determined to learn to extend this to myself with acceptance and joy; with generosity and warmth.
