11/1/22

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This is my first post in Megan Kenyon’s The Women’s Chapel Photochallenge. The prompt is “a piece of you.”

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I went somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go. As a person who loves taking photos of rust, this actually happens to me a lot.

Anyway, when I came out I had burrs all over my shirt and pants. I thought, “I suppose I deserve this.” Then I almost got pretty frustrated. I was walking back into my yard where I spend a fair amount of time weeding the plants that these very burrs come from. So I was pretty upset that I was about to bring them into my yard.

Then I thought, burrs…. I talk about burrs a lot. I talk about them and write about them and think about them and art about them. They are a consistent symbol in my art. I use them to symbolize cognitive distortions.

A cognitive distortion is “an exaggerated pattern of thought that’s not based on facts. It consequently leads you to view things more negatively than they really are.” (psychcentral.com)

They show up in a lot of my work because they show up in a lot of my brain. They often look like burrs because cognitive distortions act a lot like burrs. You’re just walking along, minding your own business, and without knowing it, you collect a burr on your pants. You keep walking and the burrs begin to cling more and more. The more burrs you have, the more burrs you get. But you’ll never know that you have them until it’s time to wash your pants. By then, it’s a lot of work to get them out. The problem with the burrs on your brain is that your brain doesn’t have pants. So you can’t routinely take your brain-pants off to notice the burrs when it’s time to wash them. They’re just stuck right into your brain. So unless someone bravely and lovingly points out the burrs to you, or gives you the tools to regularly check for them, you may never know they’re there.

I’ve been checking for these burrs semi-consistently for the last ten years or so, since my counselor taught me how to practice cognitive behavioral therapy. This is a practice that is meant to help people who experience anxiety.

I am a person who experiences anxiety. I’ve been battling with it for most of my life, but after I was suddenly diagnosed with unexpected Type 1 diabetes paired with PTSD as a 24 year old, I think it probably got a lot worse. That’s when I started going to therapy.

My anxiety took a huge positive turn about a year ago when I was diagnosed with ADHD for the first time and started taking adderall. But the anxiety has recently returned. If I think clearly enough about it, I would say it’s probably due to the diabetes.

Would you like to know why people with type 1 diabetes experience anxiety? If you do, feel free to read on and I’ll tell you.

It’s because we have to do the work for our dead pancreas. We have to make sure our blood sugar doesn’t get too high, or we may die a very slow and painful death. And we have to make sure our blood sugar doesn’t get too low, or we may die a very sudden death that our loved ones would not be prepared for. Always. We have to always be thinking about this. As long as we are people who eat… We are essentially walking a tight rope between death on either side.

That sounds really dark and terrible. And it is, if you let the anxiety take control. But you don’t have to. I have been a pretty happy diabetic for most of the time I’ve had it. I’ve even been known to say that I’m thankful for it - which is an explanation for another time.

But recently I’ve been going to places that I’m not supposed to go. I know I said that earlier, but that was about physical places. Now I’m talking about the places in my mind.

In the last year, since my anxiety subsided so much, I think I’ve lost the habit of checking for my cognitive distortion brain-burrs. I had some recent changes in my diabetic routine. And now I’ve been going into a lot of dark places and collecting these burrs, without noticing.

When I looked down at my pants today and saw the burrs, I thought maybe God was giving me an invitation. An invitation to rest for a moment with Him and work through some of my invisible brain-burrs.

One cognitive distortion that I struggle with a lot is blaming. If difficult and painful things are happening to me, I often subconsciously find myself blaming the people who are closest to me. The people who are closest in proximity and in soul. This can lead to some pretty deep bitterness, toxicity and passive aggression. It’s not fair to them. And it’s not fair to me. If I took the time to clear away the cognitive distortion, I would be more able to communicate any actual pain that they’re inflicting, or more often times - I would be able to see that they are not inflicting any pain at all. The pain is coming from somewhere else. Often times my own mind.

So I sat down and started pulling each burr off with a prayer. It felt a lot like “he loves me he loves me not” which is an interesting thing to think about. That's such a silly little thing. I wonder how much we could be impacted positively if we said healthy mantras and prayers over and over while we managed the tedium of a garden. #monks

I prayed these two prayers, alternating with each burr, “help me not to blame them” “help me only to care for them”

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Change of subject now :

I have a friend named Megan Kenyon.

She is an artist too. She is currently building a solo exhibit focusing on the beautiful, the broken, and the absurd things that women can sometimes experience in the American church these days. Her work is really interesting and thought provoking.

I started following her on Instagram about a year ago, before I met her. I was very intrigued by the way she wrote. Such authenticity and depth. Such honesty about pain and reality. I got to finally meet her in April and we have become friends, coworkers and she now attends my church : )

I started writing with deep authenticity about pain and reality about a year ago and I’m only just now realizing that it could very well be due to Megan’s influence : )

The way she writes and the things she writes about, even though sometimes they can be painful, often give me healing. People have shared that same feedback with me about my writing.

I think that when we share our pain, we can reach points of connection with others that never would have been possible. Now I will say, there is a fine line between expressing my pain so I can get pity from people and sharing my pain so that others know they’re not alone. So I have to be really careful about what words I choose when writing about things like this. And I’m sure that I’ve made a lot of mistakes within this medium and will continue to make them. But the word “share” means to divide something between people. So I do believe that authentic “sharing” can be a gift for two people at once; the person speaking and the person listening. I think it’s one of the most valuable things we can do for each other in this day and age when the latest tragedy after tragedy is just one more finger swipe away.

Anyway, I want to take a second to thank Megan for sharing her life with me, before she even knew me. And then I want to thank God for making Megan, before she even knew life. And then I want to thank God for the invitation to work through some of my brain burrs with Him today. He’s so great.

Megan put together a photo challenge that started over a month ago. I’ve been subconsciously saying that I’m too busy to do it. But I think that God has been inviting me to do it, just like His burr invitation today. Taking time to rest and intentionally process through our pain with God, is one of the most important things we can do. And I should never tell myself that I’m too busy to do that. #grace

This first photo is “A piece of me”

There are about 80 burrs here. They are all pieces of me. They’re pieces of me that I have to battle often, but if I do it well and intentionally, and with God, then I am left with the “peaces” of Him that surpasseth understanding *wink*