Faux Intimacy vs. True Connection

“When someone asks me why I cry so often, I say, ‘For the same reason I laugh so often - because I am paying attention.’”

Glennon Doyle

Fixation is different from attentiveness. Fixation is getting stuck; attentiveness opens us up to new ways of thinking, seeing, doing and feeling. Fixation leads to compulsivity, certainty, restlessness, agitation and discontent. Fixation isolates us from others because our fixations never align perfectly with the world or the way others experience life. Fixation creates barriers.

If fixation has so many downsides, why lean into it? It also has benefits. It gives us a feeling of certainty. It allows us to find people who share our fixations and instantly we feel connected. And this is the biggest problem for me with fixation. It’s a shortcut to relational intimacy and it’s a losing proposition.

Brené Brown speaks, and I have quoted her a million times, about this faux intimacy created when we share a common enemy or a common fan crush. I smile at strangers who have on a University of Virginia sweatshirt - I feel connected. But they do not know me and I do not know them. There is no shared experience of true “knowing”. How do I even know that this sweatshirt clad human is a Virginia fan? I do not. My Virginia Tech educated son has often worn Virginia gear. (It’s easy to find at our house and he prefers to get it sweaty over his good Tech swag.)

Intimacy and attentiveness are required for real life connection. When our Virginia Cavaliers won the NCAA title Pete and I took time off work (gasp!) and drove up to Charlottesville to welcome them home. We waited outside the JPJ arena with hundreds of strangers for the buses bringing the team home from the airport. It was convivial. It was fun. We felt the zing of faux intimacy.

Then we saw a couple we actually knew and decided to share a burger and bask in the glory of the coveted championship title before returning home. We talked about our jobs and kids and memories. THIS is true connection.

True connection takes time. It’s inefficient and requires more than a shared passion for a team. We discover points of agreement and disagreement, experiences we share and others we do not. These differences are enriching AND can reduce our certainty and fixations. It’s as simple as trying a new burger place (for Pete and I) that is an old standby for our friends. True connection requires that we pay attention and it will require us to let go of certainty in deference to curiosity. It will require us to open up to new ways of seeing as we share the lens of another human by listening to their worldview.

What good is fake connection? It’s all a mirage.

Slow Down

“I lied and said I was busy. I was busy but not in a way most people understand. I was busy taking deeper breaths. I was busy silencing irrational thoughts. I was busy calming a racing heart. I was busy telling myself I’m okay. Sometimes this is my busy.”

B. Oakman

A friend and I were zooming about her anxiety and grief. She told me that she was struggling to find meaning in her life. Recently retired, she speculated that perhaps after decades of being mind numbingly busy, maybe this new season of rest was waking up all the skeletons in her closet.

Disruptions in our routines can do that. Many of our routines are actually created to keep us perpetually distracted, numb and out-of-touch with ourselves. This short term solution is attractive but over the long haul? Not great.

Productivity addiction is like those weird diets we fall in love with - attractive for the immediacy of the relief but inevitably we return to our pre-carrots-only diet weight. Too hard to think of slowing down? I know. I feel you. But let’s try.

Permission to Rest…

“You are worth the quiet moment. You are worth the deeper breath. You are worth the time it takes to slow down, be still, and rest.”

Morgan Harper Nichols

I miss pre-pandemic snow days. It’s tough to justify cancelling zoom meetings because the roads are too icy for safe travel.

We NEED snow days. We NEED breaks in our routine. We NEED unexpected quiet moments.

Why is it that we so often require an act of mother nature to give us permission to take better care of ourselves? Look around! Notice how all this productivity and efficiency is impacting our mental health!

Google the stats. So many people NOT taking all their vacation days - have we lost our marbles?

Boredom, wasting time, inefficiencies, these are all fertilizer for creativity.

In a world in search of so many solutions, my prayer is that I can remember the words of Jesus, who encouraged us in Matthew 11 to come to him and receive rest. If you, like me, need permission to take a break even though it FEELS like we shouldn’t need it - here is your permission slip.

Take a snow day. Or a personal health day. Or spend a vacation day...on you.

A Glimmer of Light…

“We get to the beauty through the brutal. Not over or around or under but straight through. We do not ignore each other’s pain - we help carry it.”

Glennon Doyle

I used to think that the best way to manage pain was to super-spiritualize it. Be hopeful! Be positive! Remind myself of all those sayings I have heard all my life about God and suffering. Then I studied the scriptures. The dissonance was shocking. It gave me the same feeling as an ice cream headache.

I read the laments - full on works of suffering, grief, mourning and loss. The writer was going THROUGH pain. He (I assume) even had the temerity to question God about his suffering - much like Job. What’s going on here, I thought? The few “friends'' who tried to correct Job’s theology ultimately received the harshest critique from God - not Job!

I’ve got a lot of unlearning to do. I’ve worn deep ruts around tough topics, suffering, and grief. I’ve tried to tippy toe around them and not get caught in their sticky web. I’ve tried to comfort the comfortless. Why? Was I simply trying to relieve my own anxiety? Was I parroting others, assuming they must be right about the nature of loss?

Straight through. Like the psalmists; on we march. God with us. That truth is amazing enough right there. We need no fancy stories or justifications or blaming to deal with suffering.

God with us.

God with us.

God with us.

There it is; there is the glimmer of light in darkness.

Moments of Merriment

Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.

Proverbs 27:19

Let’s pray!

Father, grant us the awareness of our face and what it shows the world. May we show kindness and grace and mercy. May we find moments of merriment. And if on this day our heart is sagging a bit, maybe our face can remind our heart to sing again.

Father, our face counts. It affects others. May we be mindful of what our face is telling those we love, and Father, if at all possible, may we be a bit of sunshine in the life of someone else.

Amen

May you stand close to someone today who feels like sunshine!