Nicole Berlucchi, Writer on a Mission

“You, O Lord, are my lamp,
my God who lightens my darkness.
With you I can break through any barrier,
with my God I can scale any wall.” Psalm 18:29 NABRE

Pentecost is here. How is the Lord burning up darkness in your life on this fiery day? I have been continuing to examine my very young self. Revisiting childhood and wondering how my habits of people pleasing and anticipating negative reactions from every person I meet became so deeply entrenched that I have gotten this far in my life and barely notice I am doing it.

I have spent a few weeks very focused on the person(s) I blame for this, wanting to provide a laundry list of pivotal or traumatic moments when I was punished for not doing as exactly as expected, wanting to point out responsibilities I should not have had, wanting to explain why a normal relationship would never be possible, wanting to point out the irony of how they lived.

Stay quiet. Keep reading. Keep praying.

Then this week I read the following quote:

“To the extent that we resist and refuse to go into the depths of our heart – where the wounds are –we will remain bound up in unforgiveness and resentment. We can “intercede” feverishly in that case – and we will only be making an idol out of the one who has harmed us, orienting ourselves around him or her rather than worshiping the living God.” This quote was shared by Fr. Derek Sakowski in his piece on spiritualdirection.com, Forgiveness and the Holy Spirit. (I highly recommend reading in its entirety here.)

I have literally worked around this situation my whole life. Expectations were placed on me as a child to grow up fast, to be a source of reliability and to fix or manage things that caused in me an inability to relax in situations, a radar for anything that could go wrong and the need to prevent it immediately. It also created in me a withdrawal and walls.

I came to realize I wouldn’t have to be a source of reliability for people if I simply didn’t enter into a relationship with them. I didn’t have my mind filled with calculating all the anticipated things that could make someone upset with me if I wasn’t engaged in activities or conversations with them. And most of all, I couldn’t be rejected.

Even with certain people in my life who evoke this reflexively in me, I just want to leave it, work around the history there, avoid, avoid, avoid. And now here is the reality of what I am doing. I’ve made it an idol—something over God, something I won’t let God have power over. What?! Um, no way. Nope. That cannot be how I live.

I, thankfully, have been reading two amazing books which have been helping me sort and work through the child in me and the bad habits that have resulted from boxing her up with my past: Befriending Your Inner Child: A Catholic Approach to Healing and Wholeness by Brya Hanan and Sacred Conversations by Dr. Christopher Reed.

Brya Hanson was also interviewed recently on the Abiding Together podcast, and some simple questions she talks about asking herself on her own path to healing brought tears to my eyes when I asked myself the same questions. The book has been helpful in slowly examining what is going on deep, deep down inside of me that has rippled into my adult life and relationships.

Honestly, I did know that my childhood had this impact on me and have been to therapy but as Brya notes the work is constant. I could acknowledge all that went down but I was only letting God change certain pieces of my life, places where I felt secure—in my marriage and with my kids. But there is more to life…I can’t simply draw a circle on where I want God’s healing power and leave the rest out.

Satan would love that, of course. There is no end to Satan wanting us to retreat back to old habits, self-doubt, anything that squashes our own feeling of being a beloved child of God. The devil loves for us to try to limit God, just like he does.

All these revelations have me buckling down to lean in to all the uncomfortable places in my life. Sending texts to people when I normally would’ve only thought about it but then held back…Saying yes to more friendship building opportunities…not faking that I don’t care when I do…getting real with people, being present to them instead of analyzing them.

Sacred Conversations came just in time for this area of weakness in my life. I have rarely desired to enter into deep conversations with people unless it is about them and not me. I have rarely made myself fully present in conversations because I am trying to analyze how the person is reacting to my reaction (I know it sounds crazy but I do it). In a way, it’s narcissistic; I am worried about anything happening in that moment that could have a negative impact on me. And honestly, I don’t trust people. There is a fear there…fear of what they see, fear of what they think of me, fear that I will get called out for something I don’t even know I am doing wrong.

I have been working on it, but it takes a lot of intentionality. I have to ignore the reflexive nature of body language analysis. They turned their body, pursed their lips, looked sideways…any of these things can cause me to stop what I was saying, turn the subject matter elsewhere or my favorite of all…get busy cleaning, checking my phone or grabbing something I suddenly need and abort the conversation.

Sacred Conversations is helping me have anchors to put into practice things that don’t come naturally to me as a result of years trying to make myself invisible, get whatever done that I think everyone expects me to do and get out of the way.

The idea that maybe a person needs me simply present to them over needing me to meet my imagined expectations that they have of me seems obvious but honestly it never occurred to me that I was enough, just my presence, not my productivity, actions or reactions.

Now, God, the Holy Spirit is burning it up…the barriers, the preconceived notions, this part of me that needed to change.

I am resting in His promise: He makes all things new.

Come, Holy Spirit…