Unprepared and Inadequate

This personal coaching and spiritual direction thing has been present my whole life. Two years ago I began to hatch a polished, clean and professional unveiling to my new venture: Expression ought to impress including a slick website. Thoughts and ideas should wow. Originality should abound. Experience should be apparent in the stories shared and practices promoted.

I must admit that part of me, the real part of me, was being suffocated inside. Cause, if you know me, really know me, that is not who Mike is. The real Mike is clumsy, says stupid stuff, offers far more apologies than insights, wrestles constantly with unhealthy serving and people-pleasing compulsions, and nullifies his wisdom with his foolishness. I love to write and do so virtually everyday. Yet I found myself unable to come to my blogs with what was swirling inside. It was too raw and unrefined. No one wants to read this stuff. I’ve seen the click-bait that circulates the web. Yet, I had one of those small epiphanies this morning that had enough oomph to push me from thought-idea into a deliberate action. As a result, I am writing even though admittedly I feel wholly unprepared and inadequate for coaching, directing, or any of those helping things I try to do. And the questions that came to mind as I turned from my journal to this quasi-public context was “Why write and post this publicly online?” “Is this an attempt to be seen, affirmed, stir up business or feel better about yourself?” The answer that floated to the surface and helped overcome the website blog hurdle was, I cannot be the only one experiencing this and even if I am, I want to help you know what is inside me.

Growing up in my family origin with the genetic composition passed onto me from my parents in the cultural soup in which I was raised, my belief was I could not speak up cause I was too much for people. There is complexity to this which I have spent much of the last seven years working through. But I developed an intimate relationship with words and the page. And I have come to realize that one of the most attractive, deep and helpful parts of me is that inner part of me exposed in my writing. My recent lack of writing and exposure in this way has been stymied in part by my fear that I am too much for you.

Sidebar. Okay, let me be honest about who I think the “you” is. I really don’t know. And so I hope that one person like me might find and read this and resonate. But even if that never happens, I write this as a record to the one I write all my journal entries to which will be enough.

This morning I finished my journal entry with the following passage which brings me to why I am posting and will continue to do so in the weeks and months ahead.

“I feel wholly unprepared and inadequate for the coaching or writing I commissioned myself with at the start of the year. I live in this perpetual no man’s land where to strive is to cause unavoidable harm, to wait is to harm, to seek, to still and to be is to rain down fire rain. I am dying. I guess that all I get to choose is how I do that final act.”

There are some intense circumstances I am experiencing personally and in my marriage right now which I do not want to go into. But the central idea lodged in my spirit like a hard-boiled egg stuck in my throat was that I am dying. (I was tempted to title this article “I am dying” but chose against it for obvious reasons.) This statement is not hyberbole nor a revelation of a recent diagnosis nor suicidal confession. It is a simple, universal truth that became suddenly and incredibly personal. This year can be pictured as a movie scene where I am one of the extras caught in the street as cars and buildings rain down due to some apocalyptic duel. I could embrace my extra role as one frantically running screaming as the taxi cab squashes her, or one staring up with a look of terror as the building collapses on him, or one who hides behind the car grasping a child until the ground opens and swallows them both. Or… I could die my own way.

I felt this morning that I do not want to be a runner, screamer, starer, or hider. I want to be that one extra who defies the director and turns around, runs the other way and yells out (even if I can’t do anything productive because it is only a green screen!),

“They call me Mike, and I was here!!!”

And that is why I decided posting this today - raw and unrefined and lacking all the polish these sorts of things seem to deserve.