What is Your Major Malfunction?

I receive a daily reflection from the Enneagram Institute. 

Briefly, the enneagram is a personality test. It helps describe the pattern of how we interpret the world and manage our emotions. There are nine distinct personality types. Of course, as with all personality systems, we have a little bit of each in us, but one tends to dominate. 

I am a 7 on the Enneagram, The Joyful or Enthusiast Personality. 

From the Enneagram Institute website:

Sevens are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. Playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over-extended, scattered, and undisciplined. They constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. They typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness (self-seeking and self-centered, for sure). At their Best: they focus their talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.

Our basic fear: of being deprived and in pain

This is me, 1000000% me. I am that person who wants to be at every function, wants to go to every coffee date, wants to go on every float trip, every Fourth of July celebration, I have broken up with people because I might miss out on the next person who was interested in me (not now, but definitely in my twenties), I pack my days into task after task...

It makes sense that I would convince myself that I can work two jobs, be a mom, do karaoke every other week, and be in a play! 

What is your major malfunction? What did all that do? It sent me straight to the hospital.

Today's teaching from the Enneagram Institute slapped me across the face:

Teaching:

It is an extremely common tendency to flee from what we are actually facing into our imagination, romanticizing or dramatizing our situation, justifying ourselves, or even escaping into “spirituality”. Staying with our real experience of ourselves and our situation will teach us exactly what we need to know for growth. (The Wisdom of the Enneagram, 346)

I am a master of all those things, especially when I feel like I'm missing out on something. I devolve into this fantasy world where I am capable of all things, but I am not God. I am not limitless; I have a limit, and I have reached it! I had a headache for seven days, and yesterday I went to the ER. I thought perhaps there was more because I started shaking and my left eye was fluttering. They did all the tests, even a CT scan. Diagnosis: headache. I can't wait for the bill. Yay!

But here's the problem... as I sat in the dark room in the ER, my inner critic went to work, "you are so lazy, why do you feel you need this attention?" 

Seriously? I overworked and overwhelmed myself to the point of exhaustion, and my alcoholic brain still wants to convince me I am worthless, and if I want to be worthy, I need to do more??? It's like I'm addicted to my toxic inner critic. 

The second part of the line from the quote above is helpful today:

Staying with our real experience of ourselves and our situation will teach us exactly what we need to know for growth.

So here’s what's up: I can't pretend I can handle it all anymore. No more spinning stories to make the pain look like something noble or exciting. I’ve run myself into the ground trying to outrun the discomfort of rest (crazy, I know). The truth caught up to me in the form of a hospital bed and a pounding headache that wouldn’t quit. I had to see the situation for what it was.

Growth doesn’t come from doing more, loving someone new, or pushing through as if nothing’s wrong. It comes from staying put, right in the mess, in the pain, in the truth. I must stop avoiding the fact that I have limitations. That’s where the healing begins.

Want to know what your enneagram number is? Take the test here. It does cost money, but it's a good one. 

. . .a constant state of deconstruction. . .

I only publicly post about 40% of my writing because the majority of the time I'm processing... my blog is kinda like a journal. I prefer to publish my spiritual musings, not because I think I'm right (although I mostly think I am 🤪), but because I know there are people out there like me who learn much from others' experiences. Some of those experiences land in the brain dump for me to think about later... 

I'm generally in a constant state of deconstructing all the things I thought were ever true about myself and life, and your insights are important to my spiritual walk.  

Lately, I've been struggling with my belief. Let me be clear, I still believe in God and I love Jesus, but I've come to the conclusion that I have kept the loving inclusive God I know, in a box...on a shelf. I tend to bring God out when I want something, or when she doesn't give me what I want so I can scream at her. 

Over the past almost 8 months, though, I've taken God off the shelf almost every day. I've poked holes in the box to let God out, as though a box can contain God! Please. These days I keep the lid of the box open so as not to contain the expansive nature of God. I don't have the right to keep God in a box anyway, and who knows what God plans to send my way? Might as well live in the beauty of the unknowing. 

I began my spiritual journey 17 years ago in the desert in Egypt. I have been a regular member of a Christian community since that time. It pains me to say that it has been rare that I have encountered the Holy within the walls of a church. I did all the things one does. I learned to make prayer a regular part of my day, attended worship and small groups, began giving to the ministries, serving regularly in a variety of capacities, and telling people about my church. Like many Christians I have confused God with the church. The church is important, but we are not meant to worship it. It is made of fallible humans just like me, but we can't help ourselves. I believe this is the foundation of why members of congregations struggle to actually connect with God.

In addition, I believe many American churches mistake "success" with growing churches. I have been a part of large and small congregations - and I can tell you, numbers do not always equal followers of Jesus. More often than not the majority of the membership worship their church. As a pastor, YES, a pastor, it grieves me to no end that I have had to find God outside the walls of the institutional church.

This past winter, I was in a winter of despair, or as Shakespeare said through Richard III, a winter of discontent. I found myself in a loop of despair, crying to God, to the Universe, to whoever, to save me. I got on my knees, sat in prayer at the foot of the cross, sat with Buddhists in meditation, read the Bhagavad Gita, listened to subliminal meditations, had my cards read (what a trip), dove into my human design, went to two spiritual healers, and had a reiki session. I pleaded with God to untether me from my depression and the obsession over things I cannot control. I was looking so hard for God, but I had to let go of the idea that I could logically achieve spirituality.

There were times when I was at peace; the moments when I let go and gave it all to God. The ego of course, is unrelenting and would plunge me back into despair over and over, winning over God, placing God back in the box. The struggle led me to near acts of desperation. There were times when I didn't think I could go on because the path I was following all of a sudden had intersections and alleys that needed discovering. Afraid of the unknown, terrified of cutting the cord to the life I was leaving, I found myself devolving on more than one occasion into a crumpled mess and shell of a human being. I'm surprised I still have a steering wheel for all the times I lashed my anger upon it. 

I read this quote today: "Truly transforming spiritual experiences are nearly always founded on calamity and collapse.” Bill W (co-founder of AA)

Ugh, how awful, but I believe it! That's what happened in September. I collapsed. I tried to distract myself by clinging to a new partner to get me through it (the easier, softer way). I had to break the pattern; I couldn't be dependent upon a partner to hold me up anymore. So we ended things amicably in November. We admit we were both distracting ourselves with each other.  

I finally let myself sink to the bottom of an abyss that seemed unending. I unclenched my fists from this invisible ledge I was clinging to so tightly. I let myself descend into the dark night of my soul, but all the while pushing through, doing the things I needed to do. I let myself feel pain and anguish. I discovered that the God box is deep... it likely has no bottom. 

I thought I would never surface, but in the depths of that darkness I began to see light, God's light. God was, and is still, with me. I began to wake up. 

I still want to take back control all the time, though. I guess that's just me being human. The struggle to free my will to align with God's is tenacious. I don't want to collapse again, and I feel it edging in sometimes. It's scary, but I know God is with me and I loosen my grip. I know God will be with me. I'll learn whatever I need to learn, and I will surface again, more full and more alive. It's the promises being fulfilled. 

Also, I'm pretty sure all the glitter and sparkle I wore helped! You cannot underestimate the power of sparkle!✨