Breathing

I have spent two and a half years in a job that involved helping men who had been slaves to addiction to the point of homelessness. The average client was in their late forties to early sixties, and had spent an average of five to ten years in  homelessness. I was the program manager, the case manager, and the counselor; their life coach and life skills teacher, full time security, building maintenance, and building supervisor, as well as the part time chauffeur, and part time cook. I have met some amazing men who have overcome phenomenal things to become productive citizens again. I have also met some amazing manipulators—as clients, as employees and as bosses. I am not calling anyone out by this post, I am merely using the opportunity to write things down and take advantage of the first real opportunity I have had at self care for two and a half years. It is the first opportunity I have had since taking this job. I guess in a way I am using this as a confessional.  This is because the biggest lesson I have learned is that my lack of self care has caused me to fail in meeting the needs of my clients, my family and my self in so many ways. In the middle of it, I knew I was failing them, but at the same time, just like the Dutch boy with his thumb in the dyke, I couldn't stop. 

For the first time in two and a half years I can breathe. I am slowly not having a PTSD reaction to a text, or phone call. I can even leave the house without my phone. The current sermon series by our pastor talks about the spiritual depression that Giants of the Bible went through—men like Hezekiah, Elisha, Jonah and David. All were men who, in their lives, forgot how to or had trouble breathing at one point or another.

Scripture talks about man receiving the breath of life. It was the start of Adam’s existence. There is much in Scripture that shows that every breath after Adam’s initial breath is also a gift from God. The biggest part of self care is remembering to breathe. We have to breathe God in as we breathe out our troubles to Him, as well as our praise. It has been a long time since I have been able to truly breathe out praise, or even breathe out the confession of my troubles and care to Him. I am thankful that I am learning to breathe again. The tyranny of the urgent will kill. It will kill your relationship with your God, with your family, with your friends, and with yourself. 

The tyranny of the urgent puts you always on edge. Nothing is ever done, nothing can ever be checked off. It clutters your life with so much junk that when you finally get a chance to breathe, it’s like a hoarder waking up for the first time to just how much of a junkyard they live in. There is a song by the Zach Brown Band about living in a junkyard. The song can mean so many different things as songs do. It could be talking about addiction, about the tyranny of the urgent, or about abuse. I don't know what their intent was when they wrote the song, but every time I hear it I think about losing my breath or my ability to breathe. Propaganda, a spoken word and hip hop artist, talks about it in his piece on being present. He talks about a conversation with his father who was a Vietnam vet and civil rights activist. The part of the lyrics that are relevant are as follows:

He proceeded to tell me why He failed as my mother’s husband

He said it was the same reason half of his platoon died in Vietnam

And the same reason you are deathly afraid of your daughter becoming a teenager

Son, you can't hear past the explosions, either the ones that already happened or the ones

You anticipate

See the former paralyzes

Living life in the rear view mirror driving full speed across traffic into the center divider

So shell shocked you too stupid to duck when bullets are flying

Or the latter

Your life a game of capture the flag

So focused on the finish line, you stepped right on a land mine

You’re so ready to attack the day

Frustrated because you can't find your keys

Focused on the meetings you're gonna miss

And the traffic you’re gonna sit in to realize that you’ve been holding your keys the whole time

Slow down

You have been hypnotized by the possibility

Son, I couldn't hear past the bombs

The first one didn't kill me and the second one ain't even happened

Yet it ended our family

He goes on to talk about our love story with time. He says:

He told me a love story

Of a woman born before him

He said I knew her before and at the moment of conception

There was an eternal connection

And although I didn't know it then, I'd fight for her affection

It's this war we’ve been waging since day one of creation

And only when you lose her do you learn to appreciate her, like even

When I’m with her, I’m itching to get rid of her

And she only gives you one shot, blow it and she's gone

And I took advantage of her

Thats why I’m telling you this

Son, you can't rush her or slow her down, you better keep here on her side

She will slip through your fingers

Like sand her name is Time

And she told me a secret

She said multitasking is a myth you ain't doin’ anything good just everything awful

And she begged me to stop stretching her thin and stuffing her full, and stop being so concerned

With the old her and future her, but love her now

Her presence is God’s present, and you should be that, present

This is where PTSD comes from: so intent on reaching the goal that we lose everything, or so overwhelmed by the latest crisis that we just stop and quit. When we forget how to breathe we become the abuser in an abusive relationship with time. We lose track of everything; our relationships with our spouse, our kids, our friends. Life is about relationships, we were created for community, for each other. Psychology is built on the fact that we can’t get our relationships right; mostly because we abuse time, or we allow time to abuse us.

I will not allow the abuse to continue; I will change, and I will breathe.

 Thanks to my wife, my friends, my church family, and most importantly to my Heavenly Father.