Posted by kritzau on August 16, 2010 – 10:39 pm
The past six weeks I have been taking a writing workshop online which is led by a dear friend, Christin Taylor. I wanted to share a piece I wrote there and encourage any of you interested in writing to look into Christin’s Blank Page Workshops. Her tagline “Stop Staring. Start Writing.” gives you a glimpse into her heart to help you turn the blank page into something worth sharing. I can’t say enough great things about it.
Here is a piece I wrote which will make sense if you’ve read previous blogs from my summer adventures:
I am pondering a reality I don’t like. My one-person couch cushions me gracefully in its white marshmallowness – a comfort in the midst of this truth – summer is leaving, again.
These past three months were unique – I finished my first book, my husband, Nate, and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary, and I attended my ten-year high school reunion. As I reflect on all that happened, I’m not quite ready to descend into shorter days or pumpkin spice lattes. Read More »
Posted by kritzau on April 5, 2010 – 5:01 pm
I sat down to write today and couldn’t find a good starting place. So I’ll start there. I knew the concepts of what I wanted to write about this week: Self-care = intimacy and that I have found intimacy with myself and God through contemplative prayer. I am on a journey of getting to know the self that God wants me to be which is all tangled up in the world around me…. so yeah, I’ll just go ahead and jot all that down in a quick blog. (insert ironic laugh here)
I thought of writing about the fake intimacy that Facebook and the world of technology provide, of the addictions that are haunting our families and communities because people can’t find places that will help them become who they are supposed to be. We have become so enmeshed in what family members and friends want from us. The subconscious expectations from youth stomp on our heads so much so that our feet become anchored and can’t move. But then I thought, there I go again, going off on technology and using it in order for this message to be heard.
What I landed on for the first practical step of self-care is that you have to choose it. There is a huge risk involved in that taking care of yourself REALLY will lead to taking care of others better. If we don’t face this reality, we risk collapsing the delicate house of cards we have painstakingly built. And it will fall, it’s just a matter of when. That is what happens when we are not connected to the intimacy in our souls.
I believe this is why there is so much stock, clout and pressure to complete the life checklist: college, marriage, kids, house, or even to just get a facebook page in the first place. That way once these things are checked off society can say, “Phew, she’s okay, she’s playing by the rules.”
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Posted by kritzau on March 29, 2010 – 2:36 pm
Yesterday I was in a conversation with a woman about food. This is a topic close to my heart these days (see previous blogs) as we are establishing an urban farm in our backyard — complete with chickens. The baby chicks arrived this week and will 
soon outgrow their cardboard box and move into their new coop built by my husband and our friends and family. We are trying to live out of an awareness of being more conscious of where our food comes from and how it gets to our table. But before I tell you about that conversation, I must set the stage.
I forget how weird I am until these types of social encounters present themselves. The setting of this particular casual talk was in a wealthy Southern California backyard patio baby shower. I was co-hosting at this house (not mine) for one of my dearest friends as she welcomes her first baby boy. It was a delightful day and great time, but at different times during the day I was caught off guard by how overwhelmed I became. Talk of bottles, boppys, pack-n-plays, breast feeding blankets, nipple cream, clothing, diapers, and all-things-baby started to get to me. The world revolves around this little one before he even takes his first breath … that’s a lot of pressure.
I am over the moon for my girlfriend. She is already a great mom even with that little one in her belly. What took me by surprise was that in a days time, the focus moved from her to “the baby.” When I was shopping for her gift, of course I couldn’t resist the tiny flip-flops and sunglasses — I mean, seriously, how cute are little feet? But I also thought, here’s my friend who has been on bed rest for 3 months. I need to get her something. So I picked up a pair of new sweats and a comfy tank top. Read More »
Posted by kritzau on March 15, 2010 – 10:31 am
“Over the years, the growing consciousness of radical grace has wrought profound changes in my self-awareness. Justification by grace means that I know myself accepted by God as I am. When my heat is enlightened and my heart is pierced by this truth, I can accept myself as I am. Genuine self-acceptance is not derived form the power of positive thinking, mind games, or pop psychology. It is an act of faith in the God of Grace.” (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, 48-9)
I love Brennan Manning. Other than certain stories in the Bible and of course Jesus Christ, Brennan is the poster boy for grace. He writes paragraphs like this that leave me in awe and wanting that so bad — to accept myself as I am, right here, right now — no matter the circumstance.
The problem of perfection is that the right here, right now is not “okay.” We can always do more or do it better. Even if we achieve the desired outcome, there is no time wasted before we’re on to what is next or cleaning up the next mess or faced with yet another disaster that grips our ever-ready attention.
In this world of self-care (or perfectionist recovery) I find myself in, I see many responses to what I speak on and try to live out. The first response, we’ll call her Person #1, is that she gets it. She might not fully know what it entails, but the way of her crazy life isn’t working anymore. She wants to stop listening to the chiding voices in her head and start caring for herself better in order to be healthier for others. Person #2 is quite a different story. The message of self-care is internalized, but to the point that she cuts herself off from her community only to wallow and not heal. She thinks that the wallowing will lead to self-care, but actually this person is not wanting to take care of herself. It is a position of paralysis. Person #3 thinks that self-care is selfish and keeps on keeping on. She is the do-er extraordinaire and will stop at nothing (or stop nothing) to face her own issues. Read More »
