Our Best?

(My dad and me at our happy place, the beach. A place where many soul filled conversations were shared. Both of us being water signs and most in sync when we were closest to it.)

I recall vividly hearing Kate Bowler, the author of several insightful and amazing books on a podcast say something to the effect that not always is everyone doing their best. No doubt we have uttered it as well and heard it said to us directly or about another. What if we can live within the messy paradox of life and embrace that sometimes we are doing our best and in other moments, perhaps not so much?

My insides do a bit of an uncomfortable flip flop when I hear it most especially after something feels harsh and unsettling. Perhaps it is all the person knows and was their best attempt at something, yet what if it just wasn’t? Could we behave differently and desire to incorporate and approach from an elevated way of being? Or is it sometimes just easier to fall back into our default, known and familiar ways? I feel full of curiosity and questions about this, because what I cannot abide by is that when I realize that I have not been my highest and best self. I might catch myself trying to pull that phrase out of my shame back pack to try to minimize and self soothe what has transpired. It doesn’t work for me and often reminds me of when a person who could really use a bath with a vigorous scrubbing, instead chooses to try to mask the obvious with a heavy cologne or perfume.

A way in which I try to manage a sense of comfort around this is to desire to remain open. Sometimes the statement that someone is doing their best may be true, yet at other times it clearly is not. A living into the paradox of life where two or more things can be true at once. What I am aware of both within myself and in others is a full ownership of our parts we play within this. A dialogue rooted in how whatever was said, not said, done, not done was perceived and heard. Each of us carry our internal filters, and without these kinds of honest exchanges, I sense we’re forever in neutral, and not able to move forward with any kind of clarity.

Is any of this easy, oh, absolutely not, and I’ll never forget approaching my dad about some past hurts and his initial response was that I was ripping his head off. I actually burst out laughing recounting he must not know me very well, because if it was a head ripper, he would find himself without words. Yet, what it offered was a front row seat into how uncomfortable he was hearing what my experience of him was as a child and young teen when he left my mom because of his infidelities. I could not be concerned nor worried for a red, hot second about any kind of parent fragility. Speaking my truth to him was my initial first baby step into healing what had been deeply rooted and pulsing all throughout my system. It could no longer remain within me or it would continue to wreak more havoc spinning me inside out and upside down.

We delved whole heartedly into our father/daughter relationship until he was no longer earth side. The two of us were in a very honest and healthy place when he died because of our willingness. This could not have happened if he would have used that he did his best with me. Clearly he had not, and there was some serious accountability that had to be taken for both of us. I most certainly had my part that I fully owned and made a sincere amends for.

These kinds of conversations and healing moments cannot be ours if we are always passing out the they did their best tickets for half price at the door. Sometimes we must lay that down, and realize that the best did not occur, we could have done better, and it was not ours in that moment. Now, we can engage in some very needed and ongoing circling back, healing and showing up differently. This is the world I desire to be inhabiting and I am trying my best to live into. When I am not, taking accountably, and hopefully turning it around as swiftly as possible. Never a final landing spot nor goal and I'm all done. Rather an ongoing awareness to keep this practice alive within. A muscle not in atrophy, quite the contrary, one that is developing and growing stronger as I engage it.

this conflict is natural ~ Elena Brower

Allow yourself to evolve.

You are a creature of

distinct beauty,

daily discovering what it means

to be human

to be close to yourself

to stake a claim on your own happiness.