How to Self-Help Without the Self-Loathing

We've all heard it. The how-I-became-a-better-person story in every self-help genre book. It normally starts with a tale of woe about how awful they were, how not enough, how behind, and how horrible the world was for them.
Maybe it's true, maybe some people have to hit their own rock bottom before making a change. But every time I read these stories I wonder how much more encouraging they would be if the self-loathing wasn't such an integral starting point?

Like what would happen if women (because let's be real, that's the typical target audience of these stories) could hear story after story of people making a change in their life out of a place of acceptance?
What if instead of fad dieting, in its many forms, we ate food for nourishment and in connection with other people?
Couldn't there be balance in our activities?
Making a change out of a desire to grow, instead of a desire to run away from our now-selves?

I think what's missing from most of the writing of self-help authors is a knowledge of the goodness and inherent dignity of each person. They're missing God.
Which isn't to say they don't respect the people they are writing for - clearly they think we are capable of becoming more than what we are. They just miss the point where without an understanding of the humanity end game, it's very hard to travel to that destination.

Most self help books fail to answer why we should want become what the author is proposing. Yes, sometimes it's wrapped up in studies showing why we should make this change, but those are often less convincing when investigated. Too often the author is arguing we should remake ourselves in their own image.

I have a favorite quote from St. Anthony of Padua on the subject - yes the guy you pray to to help you find lost stuff.  Many don't know that St. Anthony was a prolific writer, and we still have many of his homilies and talks. He has a beautiful perspective on how to approach becoming our best selves:

"Do you want to have God always in your mind? Be just as he made you to be. Do not go seeking another ‘you’. Do not make yourself otherwise than he made you. Then you will always have God in mind."

Oh how wonderfully freeing! 

What St. Anthony gets, and most self-help books don't, is in order to become our truest selves we must have a complete understanding of reality. An understanding of truth that leads us to see ourselves completely and fully as who we are. We have to seek ourselves to seek God, and seek God as we seek ourselves.

That means we can't buy someone else's prepackaged wellness religion. We can't shut off whole parts of ourselves. It often means leading a very different life from our friends and loved ones.

But we get something so much better.

We get to love others without the comparison, envy, and eventually hatred that comes from loathing ourselves. 

We get to take perfection out of its oppressive, perverted, usage and reclaim it for it's truth - that seeking perfection is seeking God who is perfect. 

We can take all of the anxiety and worry and pressures we have heaped on our shoulders, and notice that it's never been our burden. That was never meant to be there.

We are meant for love, we are meant for God, and we are meant to be who were created to be.

Thankfully, God is patient. He lets it be a process. I have all the leeway in the world to get frustrated, angry, and just done with trying. He lets me be sorry. He lets me stand up and try again. He's infinitely patient, infinitely good.

Seeking his path and truth is the image I want to discover in myself. It does take work. It does take effort. It sometimes looks like getting my butt to the gym and eating well. It does mean making time to read and continuing to nurture my mind. But that only stays helpful if I am seeking the me God sees. Because I am already who he loves - this isn't about making myself good enough for God. It's about learning to see myself in God's truth.

That's real self-help.

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How I Do Grief + Blogging Thoughts

1

I have a particular need to do something meaningful, or tackle a project that has been forgotten, when I'm grieving a loss. Really any loss, but especially a death.

It's why my house looks oddly clean for someone morning her child.

And why you are likely to find the entire contents of a closet or drawer on the kitchen table while I re-organize spaces that have bugged me for months.

When things are happening that are not in my control, it helps to make my surroundings just a little better.

2

If not apparent from the above, I'm awful at resting.

I'm a slow physical healer and I know the need to rest is a thing for promoting better healing. But I hate it. I hate feeling like my body can't let me live my life.

So I bribe myself....

3

With books!

But not fiction. For some reason I have a decided distaste for most fiction, and it gets bad in grief times. When there is so much to process, and so many things I can never know or understand, I love me some thick history books. 

History is knowable, verifiable, and enlightening for the present. Understanding a little more about something beyond my own grief is what lets me be ok laying in bed when I'm supposed to do so.

4

Tea is amazing.

I still love my coffee, but for some reason Earl Grey tea has been my jam during this time. Hot drinks, even in summer, remains an important tool for reminding myself to pause.

5

Then there's writing.

I do keep a bullet journal and do some writing processing that way, but this time around I haven't been as inclined to write about it on the blog. I know the words might come eventually, but I'm deciding it's also ok to not share everything with the internet (as lovely as y'all are.)

6

Speaking of the blog, Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum wrote about blogging as a side hustle vs. leisure as her 7 Quick Takes today. If you can't tell by the fact that I'm still a proud blogspot.com URL user in 2019, this is not a side hustle blog. 

Growing the blog was never about getting well known, getting my writing out there, making money, or launching a career (which is good because I'd say most of that has not happened.) I've always written this blog hoping to reach just one person who needed to hear it. Just to let one person know they were not the only person on this Earth who shares their struggle, concern, or perspective. Just let one person not feel so alone.

"Grow enough to reach the one" is basically what I do around here.

7

I did have a goal to participate in community better, perhaps via the blog, back when this all started in 2015. Sometimes I forget how successful the internet has been in that regard.

Going through another miscarriage has brought that reminder.

Far away internet friends have sent cards and restaurant gift cards. I've relied on books written by fellow bloggers to help me through this. Priest friends read the update and offered prayers and liturgies for our baby.

Over the years there have been conference meet ups, skill shares, Facebook groups, and messaging friends I only know from the internet when I happen to be traveling through their town to ask them to get coffee. It can sometimes be weird to be so invested in people I've never met in person, but thank you to all the people who have said yes to hanging out with me. 

Thanks to the mighty few who have been readers since the beginning. 

The ones who keep coming back even when I float away from speaking to your specific season of life. Thanks for riding on this journey with me.

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New this week:

Why you should care about true stories (and why they're awesome) plus a little life updates and check in on the Cool Historic Catholics of America series.

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In honor of St. Anthony of Padua today - one of my favorite quotes from him: “Do you want to have God always in your mind? Be just as he made you to be. Do not go seeking another “you”. Do not make yourself otherwise than he made you. Then you will always have God in mind.”

A post shared by Kirby Hoberg (@underthyroof) on Jun 13, 2019 at 9:57am PDT

The Power of the True Story

Have you ever considered how many stories were instrumental in shaping your family, neighborhood, environment, and your personal experience? How many of those stories left their mark but were not told to you?

The families that have lived in your home before you.
The parishioners who built your church.
The long gone loved ones who changed the people who raised you.

In the true story, the lived story, there are true surprises. Little details can really surprise the main characters.
I'm an awful theater person when watching a play or movie. I'm always on the look out for the whys. In a scene that has been edited, work shopped, rehearsed, and choreographed - nothing happens without a reason. It's nearly always possible for me to get a scene or two ahead in the story just by paying attention to the little details.

But in real life those little details have unforeseeable and lasting consequences. They can't always be anticipated even by the most observant person.

Those little, personal, details manage to speak to seemingly unrelated stories. The story of the mom going through chemotherapy while homeschooling her kids can speak deeply to the story of the mom experiencing Hyperemesis Gravidarum with young children at home. Yes, their experiences are not identical, but both are going through a time of intense life change that is largely outside of their ability to control. There are multiple subjects within their stories that ARE shared: coping strategies, emotional and physical care coordination, keeping kids busy when you have intense needs.

The true story remains true, even when the specifics diverge. That means the story of a person who looks radically different from me can still speak to my life and struggles.

How cool is that?!

Once you start to gain an appreciation for the true story, it becomes a lot harder to shut people out. Because all of those people can now potentially speak to your story, despite what appears to be polar opposite situations. No longer can you compare the checklist of external identifiers to determine if this person has anything to share that will speak to your life. It makes telling these true stories, discovering the personal side of history and society, an extremely powerful tool for building empathy and entering into communion with each other.

Telling a story is not just about the subject of the story - it also tells a lot about the storyteller. I am not going to tell a story in exactly the same way as you might. Different aspects will speak strongly to me that might not have even been noticeable to you. The aspects of a story that I choose to highlight say a lot about what I see as important and how I view the subject of the story. When I write about a priest who was murdered by the KKK or a woman who became a modern day anchoress, I'm not trying to write the most accurate story possible (even though everything is accurate to the best of my knowledge), I am writing to convey something I find important within this person's life story.

The historical is personal, for history is made up of the story of persons. It lets us practice seeing the trials and surprises of life in a bigger context. In the context of the human story.

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Some updates.

I have LOVED writing the Cool Historic Catholics of America series. But I don't know if y'all have noticed, but it's going to take a looooooong time to release all 51 stories via blog posts. Even with doing 3-4 at a time. Like over a year long.

Before starting to write this series, I did identify someone for each of the 50 states plus Washington DC. If your state hasn't come up yet, I DO have someone for you.

I want to finish telling you some of the stories of Catholics and the Catholic story in the US, but I am going to pause and rethink how best to do that. Stay tuned!

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If you follow me on Facebook or especially Instagram you have probably heard that we recently lost our baby (and that pregnancy announcement was the last thing I published on this blog). Recovery is very long and slow, and it's going to be a little touch and go for a bit here. I am still active and writing when I am up to it. If you're interested in updates, most of those will probably be on Instagram and sometimes Facebook.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out, prayed, showed up. Just all of it. Thank you.