Just Follow Rudolph!

I have to give full credit for these thoughts to Reverend Leo Booth, who is a colleague, friend and inspiration in some of my more whimsical moments of healing, as well as one of those who manages to remind me that spirituality is at the heart of everything we do!

Yesterday, Pere Leo was working with our folks at the Residential Center and inspired them all with his interpretation of "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer." I am taking the liberty to share it in the Christmas Spirit. So, here is my interpretation of his interpretation one of the world's favorite Christmas myths (that he reminded me was probably a Polar version of "The Ugly Duckling" and others!)

We all went to school with Dasher (the Athlete/Cheerleader) and Dancer (the Track Star/Ballet Dancer), Prancer (the "Too Good Ones" who never talked to us) and Vixen (need I say more?) , Comet (the one we never could measure up to) and Cupid (our true "first love" -- the one we never even made eye contact with), Donder (the one who would tolerate us and talk to us in class, but never sit near us on the bus) and Blitzen (the one who tortured us with taunts and pokes that hurt more in our hearts than on our arms and legs). We WERE Rudolph. We were a little bit different. Sure, they let us INTO the Reindeer games...as the water carrier or time keeper. If we were really lucky (meaning they were desperate), we got to play right field. If we told the same joke they told, nobody laughed. If we had the right answer, they convinced us it was wrong.

Many of us grew up to be different in other ways. Maybe we had a secret life. We saw ourselves as waaay too fat or waaaay too skinny and never did understand what others saw. What we saw in the mirror never matched. We starved or had surgery after surgery. We walled ourselves up in our room or on the other side of town using drugs or on the internet or shopping.

Perhaps, we found that a few drinks made us "different" or more like them. They laughed at our jokes. They let us stumble into the parties. Yet, we were still different. We didn't stop. We gave them MORE stories at which to laugh. We heard about dancing on the tables and barfing in the fountain. We made it OK because we were AT the party and, after all, we didn't remember it any way.

As the years passed, though, we still ended up on the sidelines. They ended up calling us more and different names -- "Drunk" "Druggie." "Addict." "Annie Rexic." "Pervert." The list goes on. If we were lucky, we hid in the back of the crowd and tried to stay "like" the others, even though our hidden, painful lives became more and more hidden and painful.

Then, one Special Eve, in the midst of our fog, many times lost in the woods of our secret, painful lives, a Messenger comes to call.
"Rudolph, with your Nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Perhaps, this messenger isn't exactly Santa Clause. It may be a brick wall...literally. The one the car runs into or the back wall of the jail. It may be Homeland Security knocking on the door in SWAT gear. It may be our family circling the living room with letters written in hand for our intervention. It may be the cameras and crew of "Intervention" filming our lives without us figuring out that it is about our disease and us going to treatment. It may be THAT headache or the one time the money ran out or the one time the purging didn't work or whatever. Regardless, the Messenger is that thing, person, event in our lives that invites us to wake up, find our inner calling and move to the front of the herd.

Recovery isn't an easy journey. Embracing our very "defect" as the gift that makes us who we are and using it to bring gifts to others is the heart of why there's a "We" in the whole Recovery process. The cartoon doesn't show how very, very difficult it must have been for Rudolph to walk to the front of the line, past all those "Superstars" that had laughed at him, put him down, shamed him, and invited him to feel so worthless and useless for all those years. He looks so cute and innocent and happy in the images. Could he possibly trust that he would not be criticized, jeered, taunted and laughed at again. Shouldn't he watch to make sure there were no reindeer pellets in the midst of the confetti and ticker tape in the parade? How could he just forget all those years and all those times he looked in the mirror and ONLY saw that HUGE, RED, FLASHING nose? Isn't that all they saw? What about the huge burden of leading the very crew that had thrown him under the bus so very many times? That need to do it perfectly must have been immense! Surely, he would mess it up like he had done with every high fly to right field! Would Santa forget and hail, "On, Dasher and Dancer....(You know the rest)!" and forget to mention Rudolph. (If Santa is a parent, like I am, he'll forget at least one or mess up and call "...Blonder and Ditzen..." or something else at least once a Christmas Eve!).

Regardless, like Santa, Recovery is a call for us to step to the front, be ourselves and let the gifts that are within us shine. The pain of our past, the struggle of Recovery, and the reality that life is neither fair, nor easy, are all part of the Message. Rudolph didn't have to make the toys, check the list, pack the sleigh, feed the other reindeer, map out the route and figure out the weather. He just had to let that silly red nose shine and be the littlest reindeer at the front of the team, leading the way. (He also did not get to look over his shoulder and make sure that the other reindeer were eating his dust and their "crow." That was the job of the Messenger!)

It's hard work keeping our red noses polished, our eyes on the road ahead, staying balanced in our brief landings on rooftops and mountaintops, and just getting through the nights. On top of that, like Rudolph, we never know if all the gifts go where we think they should. We just let our light shine, do our job and move on. We never really know if all the joy we hope for comes to fruition. However, the reality is that the Messenger knows the List, having checked it twice without our ever seeing it, and just calls us to do our job with our silly red noses.

If we are painstaking in keeping our noses clean, we get to play in ALL the reindeer games and more. Life becomes a joy-filled journey, free of the burdens and baggage that we collected in all those years, when we believed our own fairy tales about how defective we were. The fear that pierced us when the Messenger called us no longer plagues us and sends us running. We are called upon over and over to just be ourselves. Things we never imagined can become real!

Whether the Messenger is one of painful reality or one that would have angels sing in the night or little oil lamps burn for eight days or any of the other wonderful traditions that carry us through this time of year into the light, may the light of a little red nose burn brightly in your mirror and challenge you to move to the front of the Team and be precisely what you were created for!

Just Follow Rudolph!

Thanks, Father Leo and Happy Holidays!

Let the Cabbage Fly

Murphy seemed to like to struggle, even though he got so upset with each round of struggle in which he found himself entwined. Today, it was conflict with me in group; yesterday, it was with a therapist over something similar, but different. Murphy's issue was one with which we are all familiar: He didn't like being blamed for anything, even if he did it. Almost any confrontation led to an argument, usually rooted in the fine art of getting the precise wording that reflected a implication of his innocence in the midst of obvious accountability. Here's sort of how the conversation went:
"Murphy, you told us you would be back from your leave by 10:00 and you weren't back untill after 11:15. What's up with that?"
"I signed in at 11:12 and there was a lot of traffic."
"Did you have your cell phone?"
"I was rushing to get back."
"But you were late anyway."
"I was doing the best I could." (This was accompanied with a sharpening of his tone of voice and reddening of his face.)
"So, why did you need to yell at the people in the Nurses Station when they asked you for an explanation?"
"She was shaming me."
" I think she was trying to get information to record in the log."
"That's gonna get me in trouble and it'll all start over again."
"What's that?"
" She talked to me just like my mother. It was like she was pointing her finger at me and telling me how disappointed she was and all that. Just trying to make me feel bad."

We were off and running after that. In reality, I wasn't talking to Murphy as he sat before me. I was talking to a little boy, lost in the woods in the rural West. At the same time, he was not arguing with me, but with his rigid, shaming mother. Regardless of what I said, he heard accusations, blame and punishment. If I said, "You're not hearing." He heard, "You're not listening to me and you're bad."
Before it was all over, we were almost at the point families get when one of the people in the argument storms out of the room. I thought of a BS moment"

"Just Let the Cabbage fly."

Here's what I told Murphy:

You know, when someone throws a big old cabbage at you, you can do what you're doing, which is to do what it takes to catch that cabbage, then chase them down and shove it back down their throats. your other choice is to stand there, let the cabbage smash into you, then either smear it all over yourself or run home, make cole slaw and eat it up -- making it a part of you. OR, you could do what we all have to learn to do. Watch the cabbage get hurled, see where it is going, duck and just let it lie there, commenting, "That's a big cabbage and quite a throw."

I don't think he really appreciated my little story, but the way he slumped into his chair implied that he got it.

When Murphy felt that a point of criticism was thrown at him, he felt like he had to do something with it. Usually, he argued it back down the thrower's throat to prove them wrong. If he didn't do that, he would hear it as shaming and a reflection of his self worth. He would ruminate on it and it would eat at him, much like the indigestion of a bad meal. However, one of his least useful responses was to let the cabbage hit him with its full force, sit there silently and never address the emotional bruises that were left behind.

My Bumper Sticker story was an invitation to look at what he was doing. None of us like to feel criticized (which often feels like rejection and abandonment). We want to be loved and accepted. Often, in growing up we ended up feeling as though, no matter what we did, our parents and caregivers were either unable or unwilling to give us the unconditional acceptance for which we longed. We would run to them, excited about our day, our coloring, or whatever, in hopes of seeing our excitement and joy reflected in their eyes. For whatever reason, we are, as parents, unable to be that kind of mirror. The result is a reflection of parental inadequacies and fears in messages that imply that the "prize" is not good enough. An innocent child walks away smeared with rotten cabbage.
For Murphy, the impact of those moments over years of experience was very deep and clouded his ability to hear any confrontation or feedback that was not wholly accepting. He would hear only negative, hurtful messages and add to them, his own negative thrust and input. It hurt, regardless of how helpful it might be. This had been played out in his relationships to the point that his spouse would not confront him or challenge him,. Instead, the result was sneaking behind him and hurling divorce papers, complete with restraining orders at him. His experience was that these came out of the blue, as did most direct confrontation.

One of the most difficult aspects of "Growing UP" is to learn to hear confrontation and criticism, filter out our own resistances and distortions, then take what is true and accurate into consideration. Many times, the criticism has nothing to offer us and is just part of an argument. We can choose to let the cabbage just lie there. Sometimes, when we let the feedback land, it opens up into a useful and beneficial gift. We can pick it up, take what fits and leave the rest as the fallout. In reality, we are not getting out of the way of "the Cabbage." We are removing our own filters and our own fears and judgments to be able to see what is there. When we rush to "catch the Cabbage" and quickly do something with it, we are wearing the gloves of our distortion and, usually, responding to old historical battles that we carry around, unresolved.

Our goal needs to be to learn to ground ourselves precisely where we need to be in order to get out of the way and just let the "Cabbage" fly by us. When people take the time to give us feedback or criticism, it is rarely because they are completely wrong. Most of the time, they give a care and believe they are trying to help. (Not always a useful thing, but something we humans seem driven to do. So, when all that negative feeling stuff is hurled your way,


"Just Let the Cabbage Fly"