Someone sat in on my spirituality group this morning, the
one that feels as if it’s finally gelling after two months of frustration with
their chatting, wandering, or disrespectful ways. I’ve written about the challenges, prayed
about them, we’ve talked about it as a group, I’ve listened to what they want,
they’ve stepped up a bit, and I don’t wake at 4 am anxious twice a week. This
is progress.
After group today, my visitor’s first question was Do you go over the protocol with them?
Oh. I should probably say it every time—no leaving unless
it’s an emergency.
And no cross talk, she said, and not using the F bomb. People did seem to be authentic, she added,
and we went our separate ways.
I felt like someone who lives in a messy house and company
drops in. I felt ashamed. The truth is
I’m so happy when they share something real that the way they say it
doesn’t matter. And, although I am a spiritual director I also swear, a lot
sometimes, though never at work. Or at least with clients. Would setting that rule up be hypocritical
or help them in the long run? This is a whole new issue to ponder.
I DO say at the start of each group to please respect the
speaker and not talk, but I haven’t enforced that guideline strictly. Ironically today’s reading was about being
changed by listening, so why didn’t I use the first side comment as a teachable
moment. What we ignore we condone, and
it eventually crescendoed. That’s the
mess my visitor witnessed.
Her comments brought on a sinking feeling I’ve come to
recognize as shame. I remembered my mother’s admonition right before we moved
to a little town for my father’s new job. “You’re
the principal’s daughter now, and all eyes
will be on you, so you have to be good.”
I’d always thought of myself as a good girl but apparently I needed to
be better. How had I missed that? I became a self-conscious eight year old, vaguely
uneasy but unable to pinpoint how to improve. I couldn’t see this as my mother’s issue and
made up something about myself that made sense of her concern. For the first
time came the thought I'm not skinny enough, and thus began the 50 year
journey of body size=worth.
Today, after my observer’s comment I knew how to improve—I
would enforce the codes of behavior. In the
next group when a participant was spitting regularly into a cup, I gently told him he couldn’t do that here. He rolled his eyes, got up to throw the cup away, then
stormed back, picked up his stuff and left.
Was that really a better outcome?
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