People Are Complex

Today was a day where I got unexpected, yet somewhat expected news, about someone I grew up with. Not, the kind of news you want to get about someone and the end of their life.

I wasn't surprised that things came to this. But, I also wasn't prepared for it to come to this.

It's made me think about how people are complex beings. And that makes relationships complex things.

This person had their challenges. They were hard to be with at times. Unpredictable. 

At the same time, underneath all the pain in their life, they had a heart of gold. They cared about the people around them, even if they had a difficult time expressing it or acting like it at times.

Isn't that true of so many people?

Even if there are challenges and difficulties in our relationships with them, there's often also good things in those same relationships.

I'm not talking about relationships where it's dangerous to be with them. That's different.

But, when that's not the case, we live with these complex situations all the time.

I'm honestly not sure how to wrap this up today. These are the thoughts running through my mind as the reality of this news sinks in.

Knowing People's Names Isn't Enough

 Have you ever been in a place where you knew the name of many people in the room and you still felt alone & disconnected?

Maybe you even knew a few facts about the people - their job, if they're married, if they have kids - but you still leave that event feeling like you didn't really connect with anyone?

It's likely you know exactly what I'm talking about. You probably have your own experiences of it. It's something common to many people.

This way of living and interacting has become the norm in our culture. But, it isn't how God has designed us to live. We feel lonely and disconnected because we're missing some of the things that are vitally important to having the community we were created for.

Knowing people's names and factual information about them is not enough. We have to go beyond those surface conversations with some people. That's what we were made for that we're missing.

In our appearance and image-obsessed culture, we've sacrificed being real. We're so focused on how we appear on social media and to the strangers we pass as we run our errands, that we don't share what's really going on.

Even the "struggles" we share in our attempts to "be real" in these environments are carefully chosen. We share carefully crafted words and things that are still planned to make others think well of us.

What we're actually longing for people where we don't have to think about what we share. 

We need people who will genuinely celebrate the good things in life with us. 

People we can laugh so hard with that we cry or snort and we don't care.

People who will sit and cry with us.

People we can ugly cry in the same space as without worrying what they think of us.

People who will sit with in whatever is going on without giving advice or trying to fix it.

People who will ask us the hard questions and tell us the hard truth when we need it.

We've sacrificed this for surface=level conversations where we maintain our image. And we're lonelier than ever because of it.

The only solution is to take the risk and invite people into this kind of community with us. To move beyond the surface-level conversations to deeper conversations.

The Problem of 90s Purity Culture

 If you grew up in church youth groups in the 90s, then the title of this post tells you a lot what I'm going to talk about today. But, for those of you who don't know, I'll start with a bit of a summary.

The 90s was when the "True Love Waits" movement. complete with signing pledge cards and purity rings was in full swing. While the message of what the Bible says about how we should love with our sexuality was well-intentioned, it was carried to an extreme that caused harm and hurt to a lot of those who grew up in it.

As part of trying to get teenagers to understand what happens when you go outside of God's plan for our sexuality, the example of pulling tape apart after you stuck it together was often use. While it is true that God has good reason for the way He instructs us to handle our sexuality in Scripture, and we can live with the consequences of our choices, that example was harmful. In many cases, it left those listening feeling like they were forever damaged and unforgivable for things they had done.

Even for those who didn't cross those lines, there was hard, although it may not have been as immediately visible until into our adult years. In all the purity culture teaching of the 90s, there was an implication that if you follow God's plan for your sexuality as a teenager, God would reward you with marriage in your early twenties and great sex in your marriage. Neither of which were a guarantee or a reality for many.

What this purity culture teaching did was create a generation of people who were brought up afraid of experiencing God's judgement. And forever wondering if you've been good enough in this area. We keep quiet about our struggles in this area out of shame and fear of judgement.

And, if we haven't stayed on the path we were taught in youth group, we struggle to believe we can be forgiven for it. We live in defeat, condemnation, and judgement of ourselves.

The only way to bring healing to the spiritual trauma in this area for many of us is to acknowledge the pain, bring it out of the secret places, and let it be witnessed. Exactly what I've written about in previous posts on the topic of spiritual trauma.

But bring this into the open isn't easy when the teaching is ingrained in you causes shame if you've stumbled or struggled in this area. There's shame and a stigma that carries over. Speaking up and sharing personally, if at all, often comes in mumbled admissions, faltering words. And how others respond can begin the healing journey or further the wounding.

Spiritual Bypassing

Today I'm talking about an example of spiritual trauma that we easily fall into. Often we don't even know we're doing this. But, we have to be aware of it, if we're going to move forward better in this.

Spiritual bypassing is probably something we've all done at times. Often not intentionally, but we've done it nonetheless. 

What is spiritual bypassing?

"Spiritual bypassing is a way of hiding behind spirituality or spiritual practices. It prevents people from acknowledging what they are feeling and distance them from both themselves and others." (verywellmind.com, Spiritual Bypassing as a Defense Mechanism)

Okay, definition aside, what does it look like? How do we define it practically?

When we engage in spiritual bypassing we take very real emotions and struggles people are having and cover them with spiritual words about trusting God and praying more. Rather than acknowledging the pain of someone, we bury it in spiritual language.

Here's what makes this so hard: Trusting God in our struggles is important. Prayer is an important way of walking through the hard times in life. We actually need those things.

So, what's the problem?

The problem comes when we use those things to deny or repress what's really going on. When they're used to stop people from really feeling the emotions and acknowledging what's going on.

"The denial of emotion using a similar strategy or repression and spiritual bypassing, especially when well-meaning, can leave a person feeling misunderstood and like their painful emotions need to go away for them to belong, to stay connected, and to be okay. We know well by now that emotions that go unfelt do not go away. They stay there, lingering, asking to be addressed by getting louder, which can only serve to reinforce the same pattern in some situations that come up, and again they repress and deny them." (Dr. Hillary McBride, Holy/Hurt Podcast, Episode 3: Shards of Glass)

Because it too often becomes normal to us, we easily get stuck in patterns of spiritual bypassing. We don't even realize we're doing it.

Let me share an example from my own experience to illustrate this.

I've written here before about living with an anxiety disorder. Sometimes you wouldn't know and other times it's a more obvious struggle. In times when it's more difficult where I've chosen to share this struggle with someone, I've had 1 Peter 5:7 or Philippians 4:6-7 quoted to me as the solution. Or I get told I should pray more. 

These are classic examples of spiritual bypassing. Not because those Scriptures aren't good to read, or prayer is unimportant. My struggle with anxiety in the moment is responded to  as if it's something I'm doing wrong spiritually and it is solved by Scripture and prayer. No acknowledgement of the struggle I'm dealing with in that moment.

So, what should be do instead?

Take time to listen to what someone is saying. Care about them in that moment. Invite honesty about the emotions they're really dealing with. Don't just look for the Bible verse or spiritual practice you can throw at them. Sit in the discomfort that comes in life at times with the other person.