Is anyone else feeling the weight of this new normal? Do things just feel a bit off? They do to me. I’ve recently had some setbacks, and they have pretty much permeated every category of life I can think of. One setback bleeds into another, and if I can’t get perspective and perhaps a reboot, then the charcoal-colored mood sets in. This morning, before I began my day, I just really needed a win!
My question this morning was, what is something in my life that I can win at, that will pull me out of this swirling vortex that is threatening to pull me down? How can I get back on my feet? I decided to hit the pavement and run a 10K. This seemed a lofty goal because 1. It’s been so ridiculously hot outside, 2. I hadn’t run this distance in months, and 3. I had a running setback when I didn’t reach my goal last month and was already feeling a little less than. Despite those arguments, I decided to go for it. I plugged myself in to Coach Bennett and took off.
Somewhere into my run, Coach asked about setbacks. What are they and how can one come back from a setback? That question jolted me, but perhaps not in the way one would expect. It felt like someone injected hope into my veins. Even as I surveyed my landscape, which was littered with recent setbacks, I needed this framework. In all of these major and minor setbacks, I had framed events as failures, betrayals of self, brokenness, inherent defectiveness, etc, etc. While there may be some truth to those things, it is not the entire picture.
With every meter of ground covered, I began to reevaluate how I looked at these setbacks. That’s all they are. Everyone has them. In the past, setbacks have caused me to freeze up. They have created a sense of futility. They have caused me to question who I am, what I do and why I do it. Perhaps that is why they are so valuable. Perhaps this is my reboot. Perhaps your setbacks are an invitation to reboot.
With every setback, I am mapping my way back to my essential self. When I have a setback that is a result of self-betrayal, meaning, I have acted in a way that is inconsistent with who I really am at the core, I am all the more closer to knowing who I am and constructing an authentic self, or deconstructing a false one.
There is a distinction to be made here. We are not the sum total of our setbacks, but we get to infuse our setbacks into our existing identity to further substantiate the essence of who we are. Then, we become stronger people who are operating out of a deep sense of essence and presence over the ego structure.
In this way, it is necessary for a time to breathe into charcoal (the absence of color), so that when we inhabit color, it will have a richer depth, texture and saturation that will change us. St. Ignatius of Loyola talks about a consolation and desolation rhythm of life that ebbs and flows. I like to use the language of color to describe the same patterns that we live. He says that while in a state of desolation, we can know that consolation will always come around again. So, though charcoal has its own kind of beauty, we know that color will always return….