Let me introduce you to my friend, Leeana. Leeana Tankersley is the author of Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places and the Breathing Room: Letting Go So You Can Fully Live. Leeana holds English degrees from Liberty University and West Virginia University. She is married to Steve Tankersley, an active duty Navy SEAL, and they are currently stationed in San Diego, California, with their three kids Luke (5), Lane (5), and Elle (2).
This fall, I’ve invited a few friends to share what God is teaching them. I hope their words are an encouragement to you as you continue to awaken to the joy and delight that comes with being a child of God.
I started seeing a spiritual director, Beth. Luckily for me she has dreads because I’m absolutely sure people with dreads hold the spiritual secret the rest of us are seeking.
I’ve been in one of those seasons of life when you look in the mirror and realize your eyes are melting down your face and you greet your kids in the hallway and have to think to remember their names. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Unhinged.
We meet on Beth’s patio, which overlooks a eucalyptus canyon. Dozens of ceramic monkeys riding surfboards line her deck, watching over us like elders. Beth’s patio quickly becomes a quirky sort of womb.
Each time I see her, I tell Beth how poorly it’s all going. I cry. A lot. I risk appearing needy because, let’s face it, I am. I tell her I’m “drowning in a void” to take a line from Psalm 18:16-19 (MSG) and, like the psalmist, I am in desperate need of a wide-open field, a spacious place, some breathing room.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been there:
Overcome with this feeling that something in your life has got to give, that you’re finally ready to start caring more how it’s all feeling on the inside than how it’s all looking on the outside.
The truest thing I can tell Beth is: “I feel like I’m running to keep ahead of whatever this thing is right at my heels.”
And then I confess: “I’m tired.”
Because, the truth is, so many of us are tired. Tired of the scrambling and striving. And we need someone to look in our eyes with compassion and tell us, “Stop. Just stop.”
Beth says, “What if you stop. Turn around. And eat that shadow that’s chasing you.”
I’m sorry. What?
Beth tells me to go home and look it up. So I read that the shadow, an idea popularized by Jung, is those things in us that we’ve rejected, those traits or characteristics that we’ve disassociated from, denied, even come to loathe.
We hate certain qualities in other people. We vow we will never be “that way.” But somewhere, deep down, our contempt is actually a sign that we are, in fact, “that way” too.
Beth says to me, “Go into the kitchen and get out a big spoon and think about all the things you’re trying to outrun in yourself, and just heap them into your mouth. See the re-integration as nourishment, fulfilling your soul hunger. See the acceptance and even compassion for your shadow as a way into wholeness.”
I actually like the gruesomeness of it—chewing up and swallowing these bits of myself that I’ve bullied, silenced, pretended didn’t belong to me. All the rejection has ever done is keep me drowning in the void.
Christ is reaching down and offering me rescue. I don’t get there by working harder. I get there, ironically, by stopping. No more proving. No more striving. No more heroics.
Because—and this is one of the most profound truths I know—I’ll never run fast enough. The running will never, ultimately, set me free. It just perpetuates my confinement.
I am in the throes of this work. Asking God to help me welcome all the parts of me I’ve rejected. Asking God to gently remind me when I’m anxiously trying to secure my own place in this world.
So, here it goes: Inner frantic fixer, inner free-spirit, inner carb lover, inner fear-based non-dancer, inner intensity addict . . . I see you. I hear you. I love you.
Your turn. (Oh, and, I believe in you.)
This week, were giving away 3 copies of Breathing Room by Leeana Tankersley.
Leeana, like so many of us, began to feel overwhelmed by life. And like so many of us, she assumed she was struggling not because life is inherently difficult but because she was personally failing in some way. She knows firsthand what it is to bully yourself, to put yourself down for not being able to keep it all together, to compare yourself to others and find yourself lacking. But she’s also discovered that all of the hurt and hostility and pain only add up to a life of holding your breath. What if we could exhale and let go?
Breathing Room is her beautiful release of self-condemnation, her discovery of the rest that comes when we give ourselves some space to breathe. She draws readers in through shared experiences of perfectionism, jealousy, and striving and shows them how to let go, how to be radically on their own team, and how to experience the broad grace that Christ has offered all of us.
Anyone who has been trying to do it all, who has been putting on a strong front and yet secretly struggling, will find in Breathing Room both a trusted friend and a generous Savior.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The three winners will be selected and announced on Friday.
What activities give you rest?
Trying to fit in is human nature….it’s taught, modeled and expected. But that doesn’t make it right
I think we try so hard to fit in because we want to belong. We don’t want to be the person who falls between the cracks. We were created with a desire to be loved and valued. Depending on where we or how we meet that need determines how we respond or react.
Leeana did you write this book just for me???
I LOVE this, “Christ is reaching down and offering me rescue. I don’t get there by working harder. I get there, ironically, by stopping. No more proving. No more striving. No more heroics.” and I can so relate to this, “Inner frantic fixer, inner free-spirit, inner carb lover, inner fear-based non-dancer, inner intensity addict”.
Thank you for putting into words what is in my heart and in my head!
This book is going to be such a blessing to so many women who struggle with feeling like they need to be all things to all people and have it all together, all the time! We’re being pulled in so many directions it reminds me of a song that was used in a commercial years ago — “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never ever let you forget you’re a man, cause I’m a woman!”
The idea is so exhausting but what so many of us are striving for!!
I too, am in desperate need of some breathing room…
We all want a sense of belonging…a connection, if you will. If we would only open our eyes, heart, and minds and realize we DO belong. We are God’s and whoever we are…we fit in with him and to his plans.
Oh my. I have areas of who I am that I despise. I think if I loved them, they wouldn’t have so much power. I don’t know how to do that. My eyes are leaking.
No man is an island so the song goes but unfortunately it is our nature to seek acceptance from those who are tangible. We need to let go and realize that through the blood of Jesus we are acceptable to our almighty God.
I am bawling right now. When I close my eyes to envision the rejected bits of myself, I see several small children with names like chubby kid, insomniac, over thinker, rejected one, unlovable, over eater, under eater, flower child who believes love will fix EVERYTHING… You get the picture, there are quite a few of them. And I scoop them all up in my arms and feel the most overwhelming feeling of love which flows into acceptance. I am able to love myself as Christ does. Thank you so much for this post, Margaret and Leeana. My life will be forever changed because of this!! ~Blessings to you both.
Please choose me! I would love to read this book and allow the Lord to minister to me in this area!!
A beautiful and poignant picture, Alee. Those “abandoned” voices inside of you that need your compassionate scooping up. I love it. Yes yes and yes. Thank you for your vulnerability and bravery. Amazing.
Elisa — exactly. This is what I’m learning, too. The parts of me that I’ve rejected and loathed so adamantly are precisely that parts of me that keep showing up, unwelcomed and unloved. And so they are screaming for attention. When we turn toward them, look them in the eye, we see that we don’t have to be controlled by them. I know this will sound like a shameless plug, but I’d love for you to read Breathing Room. I talk about my own journey with this and how I’ve started — very slowly and imperfectly — to become a better companion to myself. As a dear friend of mine always says, “follow the tears.” Love and grace to you today.
Lanette — Ha! I think I wrote it for all of us (especially me) who have been drowning for far too long. But what’s crazy is that I think so many are bravely saying — “yes, I feel that way too!” which is so very healing. I hope Breathing Room will be a meaningful place for you to find words for what you’ve been experiencing and also a way that God meets you in your journey. Love and grace to you, Lanette.
Breathing Room sounds like just what I need to read during this season in my life. I’d love to read it.
Would love to read this book!!
I like the idea of confronting all the shadows in my life, taking a large spoon and eating them as if they would be consumed and I would see the items of my shadow in a more compassionate way. It would integrate all the negative in my being to nourish me instead of being a threat. I am grateful for this illustration that will bring about a energy and strength in my spirit. No longer chased by my fears and inadequate feelings, I will become an overcomer who is restored with joy and love.
Societal pressure: I think that’s why.
I have been drowning for the last 4+ years after much tragedy in my life. I have yet to recover from it. All I want to do is be able to breathe again and move forward by allowing the past to be the past. I look forward to reading your book and seeing how to rid myself of the dark shadows.
Wow!!! The book sounds amazing. Lately I feel like I can’t keep my eyes above the water because of my striving and perfectionism!!
Ahhh, that old inner critic, ever in pursuit! Breathing is just what I need.
Thanks
Kris
I really enjoyed reading Breathing Room, and wrote about it on my blog. Just in case you need one more reason to go out and buy the book, check out my review here: http://michelemorin.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/its-time-to-exhale/
Stop. Turn around. Seems so simple and yet so impossible at the same time. Thanks for the encouragement and vulnerability. I know I too can stop and turn around.
Its human nature to want to belong and fit it. I think the media plays a role in this too because we see other people who appear prettier and smarter than us. We long to be like the people the media are portraying as better than us.
Leeana, personally I believe we try to fit in because we desire to be accepted and loved. God created us to be social beings, to live in community. I believe that when we come to Jesus with our open hearts, minds and the longing and desire for Him to fill our souls, answering His calling to us, accepting His gift to us of His Love, faith and hope in Him…we come to know He is all that we need, all we could ever want and that He loves us with a love we can never earn…His love is a gift beyond all understanding!
Listening to praise music
Enjoying a friend’s company
Nature walks
I am realizing more and more how intentional one has to be with these rituals of rest in the daily grind of life.
Society teaches us that we should conform, but God loves our individuality. This books sounds just what I need during this chapter is my life. Thank you for sharing 🙂
I always work hard to fit in because I want acceptance or be value to someone. Its way to overwhelming to be a people pleaser
We try to fit in bc we dont see ourselves the way God sees us. our perspective is off.
I’m in full-time ministry (mostly young adults and youth…but I dabble in other things too) and I am a full-time grad student in seminary…at a university 4 hours away from where I live. So things stay hectic. And the schedule isn’t the killer. The constant pouring out and trying to be all things to all people is. The reminder to just rest in Christ…stop running…what a great gift.
Looking more to God to see myself in the “mirror” instead of the world. 🙂
I think I try hard to fit in because I love the affirmation and acceptance and approval of other people. That’s it in a nutshell!
A need for acceptance. The real beauty is to experience that acceptance by being just exactly who God made us to me.
*to be.
We all have that need to be accepted. As someone who even at an early age had others held up to me as who I should be like and never feeling that I measured up, I always felt like I had to work harder to fit in. It has taken a long time but I am working to being my own person, the person God created me to be.
Fitting in for me was & still is more about not being alone. I am growing to realize that there are consequences to that choice however. I am more prone to ask is the momentary feeling of being accepted worth losing peace in my heart. I usually end with a resounding NO. Then God usually shows up!!
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