How I wrote a better story with my life at age 11

Hey there.  How’s your story going?…You know. The one you are living?

What do I mean?

Well, there’s a buncha folks talking about this very thing over at Chris Brogan’s blog:

His first post describes why he digs Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I learned While Editing My Life.

His second post offers up 100 copies –thanks also to Thomas Nelson publisher’s Michael Hyatt–to anyone who blogs about the importance of story in your life.

Seems simple enough.

I’m a coupla days behind the offer cuz I only just now read his post but I valued the ask enough to give it a go..so here’s my take for now and then a bitta story to go with it:

What I treasure about story, especially more recently, is the ability to engage with ideas…ideas that you can’t at first know where they’re gonna go but which you feel compelled to follow.

My own life as story kinda reminds me of what I feel when I embark on a road trip. I’ve done several across country on my own road trips actually, sometimes with a map, other times gladly without one. All the while, one of the greatest lessons is learning to expect and then trust that moment to moment nudge of what’s the right step to take. If we look at our lives as story, then at any moment, if we sense that something is going on we’re not jiving with, we can listen for how to edit it and do so, sometimes more readily than others.

Both of Chris’ posts found me recalling a time when I was 11 that found me editing my story and making some awesome changes, and learning some invaluable lessons. Here’s a glimpse:

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Once upon a time there was an 10 yr old fifth grade girl named Tresha. (yes yes, that would be me coupla — eh hem 3–decades ago).

And she was pretty much a typical fifth grader of the late 70’s:

• she rode her favorite bike to school.
• she had a pet mouse named Sam (yes mouse, everyone and their brother had a hamster).
• she braided her long hair every day and pretended to be prepping for her someday role as Rapunzel (princess at heart).
• she was a girl scout and did her part to save the world by collecting for unicef and helping clean trash out of the Biscayne Bay.
• she still played with barbies (only on Saturday mornings and only with her sister, ssssshhh!).
• she pined for Shawn Cassidy and planned the way she’d dress up, pretended to be 18, just to whoo him over.
• she was consumed by Hello Kitty and Judy Blume’s short stories…especially Forever.
• and her favorite movie was “The Little Darlings” because it was her first rated R movie and because she thought Kristy McNicols was the coolest thing ever next to Lindsay Wagner as Bionic Woman.

But one thing singled out Tresha from the rest of the 10 yr old girls at her school and in her neighborhood:

Tresha was very, very, very chubby–about 30lbs too chubby to be exact.

And while being chubby troubled her to no end, worse was that she was really really miserable in her heart.

Her parents divorced 2 years prior and to comfort her emptiness from missing her dad, she used to eat in secret when no one was home.  She didn’t realize it then, but the makeshift comfort tool was her own clever way to help herself heal. She simply needed a more healthful, wholesome tool  to squelch the emptiness she felt due to missing her Daddy at home.

Back then, no one really thought to ‘check in’ with how the children of divorced parents were doing, see how their hearts were, find out how they were adjusting to the change.

Back then, no one was getting divorced. Like no one.

And Tresha wasn’t finding comfort in the shift of living 3 days away from her home and having all these new people (mom’s boyfriends and dad’s girfriends) in her life. Nothing felt stable about her home life.

And nothing was stable anymore at school.

Fifth grade was a time when students started changing classes every period.

And that meant greater visibility and more interaction with people.

Overnight kids became really mean, like the more names you openly attacked someone with, the cooler you were esteemed.

Hallway dashing to class found Tresha often being chased by chants of ‘Tresha tub-of-lard”, “fatso,” “lardass,” “tub of fat” and worse.

She was last to be chosen during P.E. because no one picked her to be on their teams. “Who want’s lard-ass?” (right there infront of the coach).

And the cafeteria became hell. No one let her sit at their tables and so she’d sit down where-ever only to hear the squeals and cackles from the more popular girls making fun of her eating by herself.

By age 11, Tresha loathed going to school because she didn’t have any real friends and couldn’t stand running away from the name callers.

She wanted more than anything else to stop feeling like she was the only one on the face of the planet with ‘divorced’ parents.

And when she was really honest with herself, she knew she wanted to stop feeling out of control and instable and unsafe. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to feel loved again, inspite of her well meaning parents. She wanted to feel loved within, not spinning around and around in a cycle of ‘divorce aftermath.’

She burst into tears one morning at her Sunday School class and told all of this to her very compassionate and tender teacher. And that teacher responded in a way that would leave such a lasting impact: “Tresha honey, I know all this feels really hard right now, and yes the love of your parents has shifted. But there is a greater love that is reliable all the time which you can’t ever be cut off from it or divorced from.” And she would go on and teach about the nature of God as divine Love. And this lesson would turn into the beginnings of Tresha growing her then sense of spirituality, learning to lean on and cultivate a sense of divine Love, that bases us and grounds us and parents us — in thought — each and every moment. (these are obviously more grown up words used now).

This insight gave Tresha a sense of calm and home she hadn’t really felt in a long long while.

And behaviors started to change.

Upon her Dad’s recommending, Tresha agreed to help her grandmother Mimi–also overweight–with a program to help her lose weight. Her Dad encouraged her to ‘try it out’ with her grandmother and “keep her on task” by doing the program with her.

Well, this gave Tresha a project to consume herself with: helping her grandmother improve her health.

The two signed up for the 12 week Diet Workshop program.

Every Monday night, albeit a school night, Tresha attended meetings with her Mimi and then slept over. And every Tuesday morning she would eat her diet breakfast with her Mimi and then her Granddad drove her to school. Talk about feeling like a princess! Her grandparents tender love refueled her confidence. (And her Granddad was an awesome storyteller about the great Pete’s dragon, btw).

For the next 12 weeks, Tresha would attend meetings with her Mimi, learn about how to eat a more balanced diet, how to incorporate a regular exercise routine, and really how to manage her moments. But even more than this, during those three months, she would learn how to really tune into her thoughts, figure out when she was feeling empty, and seek out better choices for comfort than just unconscious eating. She learned how to love herself a whole heck of a lot and value her thoughts. She learned how to trust herself and gradually, she started building more and more confidence and courage.

During those weeks, she would lose just about 39 lbs.

And when 7th grade began, Tresha looked a lot different.

On the first day back to school, every kid who used to call her names voiced their admiration and praises by how much weight she lost and how different she looked.

And that year would be kinda weird because she’d receive a ton of social invitations for after school get togethers and parties–even going skating with the cool kids on Friday night–the same kids who’d broke her heart the year before.

And yet she would learn that true friends are the ones who stand by you no matter what you look like, the ones who give as much as they expect you to outpour.

And she would walk around with this feeling of being connected to a deeper sense of love that wouldn’t let her go.

And she would eventually learn how to forgive a lot of the folks who’d been so mean to her.

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Flash forward to now…well a year ago to be exact.

One of the very first friend requests she received on Facebook was from a guy who had been one of the regular name callers in 6th grade….And in his Facebook friend request, he wrote an apology for all the many ways his verbal attacks may have hurt her.  For see, he now had children in grade school, was hearing about the name calling and empathized with his children, he realized how his actions may have hurt her.

His whole apology touched Tresha so deeply, she of course wrote him back to thank him, accepted his apology and appreciated the heartfelt message therein.

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So what’s this story have to do with seeing our lives as story and being editors of our lives?

Well, 30 years ago, the story was twofold:  I lost 39 pounds at age 11 AND I learned how to love myself and figure out how to stay connected with that deeper sense of divine Love that grounds us.

That would have been the story even 20 or 10 years ago too.

Now?

The story is one of forgiveness….of not only the kids that ridiculed me so, but also of my own self…for troubleshooting and being well meaning to find ways to comfort myself…I just chose the wrong ways…and even further…forgiving my parents….they surely didn’t divorce to send me into a period of helacious adolescence. They were navigating life the best they knew at the time.

But a point worth noting and underscoring: we can’t ever take for granted how our choices impact the children in our lives, directly or indirectly.

Let’s face it: in middle school, kids can be mean. It’s part of reacting to a whole ton of unknowns that occur when striving to figure out who the heck you are and what the heck you are about.

All the more reason it should be a time when tons of nurturing occurs.

The importance of checking in often with their hearts can’t be emphasized enough, even when they’re saying ‘they’re fine’…even when you think they’re strong enough to handle change.

Worth sharing too: when I had the privilege of teaching in the public school system for 8 years as a 6th grade teacher, I checked in all the time with my students and made as much an effort to touch-base with their hearts as I did figuring out how to impart language arts or social studies.

Newsflash: trying to dump curriculum or agenda on children’s hearts when they’re broken, lost or fearful or empty is like trying to rescue boaters in a dinghy baling it out while it’s sinking. They need to be lifted out and rescued by another boat. Baling at that stage is not gonna help.

We can’t do enough to stay tuned in to the hearts and minds of our children.

I’ve thought about this a ton and there’s countless other lessons I could add:

Change happens and lives are moving really fast around the tender hearts we are often striving to nurture and protect the most. Do whatever you are able to keep stability steady, in spite of constant change.

It’s never about the food. I will say that to children. I will repeat it to adults a million times over. It’s not about the food. And losing weight is never about going on a diet only. Check in with your heart. Check in with your loved one’s hearts. Why is over eating or unconscious eating (or any unbalanced activity…) happening? Look at that why.

We can’t do enough to stop verbal abuse. It shouldn’t be okay to put someone down. Child or grown – up. Ever. Those who hear it and say nothing are contributing to the pain. Let’s engage and stop allowing bullying on every level. Why does that have to seem so difficult to do?

Everyone’s writing their story.

You may well be meeting someone at a time when they are waking up to what they need to edit.

Your compassion, listening, respect and human kindness with him/her may be the very thing that nudges them to make the edits they’ve yearned to.

Imagine that. 🙂

Thanks for taking some moments to read my story….Here’s to continuing to write and edit our lives.