Dust yourself off and try again

Staying sane and sober during holidays part 2

I failed chemistry in college. Twice.

The third time, I passed with a C+ after extra credit, office hours, and desperation before my elder professor who wanted me to keep my scholarship. Chemistry made no sense to me even though math did — I started my freshman year in Calc 3 and twelve hours earned in high school under my belt. But chemistry was necessary to dye fabrics and textiles so I couldn’t keep going in my degree without passing.

In our grad school cohort, we have a saying: “C’s get degrees!!” It doesn’t stop me from my pursuit of straight A’s, sadly, but I love the freedom to accept that some of my work will be meh. Twenty years ago, I couldn’t do that and the shame spiral of perfectionism sent me deeper into addiction and further from my aspirations.

Not getting it “right” and not being “perfect” is at the root of many relationship struggles and addictive behaviors.

From avoiding conflict for fear of saying the wrong thing to hating your body because of dominant beauty norms, there is a societal pressure to perform to internalized standards, standards we struggle to source and name. My first decade in recovery was sourcing and naming the roots of my knee-jerk performative, people pleasing. I explored the way guilt, shame, and anxiety propelled my work and relationships and began to undo those motivators as central tenants to connection. Reciprocity, autonomy, and humanity became critical to my relationships: space for mutuality, freedom to choose without judgment, and mistakes as a part of genuine connections.

In my forties — because it took that long — I’m undoing the lack of reciprocity, autonomy, and humanity in my career and work. How easy it is for us to transfer our internal angst and need for approval and significance onto coworkers, employees, business partners, and managers. If we’re not careful, work can become a cocoon where we try to repeat and master our trauma with unsafe people who — consciously or unconsciously — have no intention of supporting us. But work can also be a place where we find our voices, harness our power, and exercise healthy boundaries to accomplish incredible things with others. That is the kind of meaningful work I hope to continue for the second half of my life.

Anyway, I miss bread and it’s Christmas, so I found a gluten free focaccia recipe from an Austrian lady that was the catalyst to all of this in the first place.

I am a profoundly bad baker. Why? Because it is chemistry, fam. Putting ingredients together with precision while following rules to a tee. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, so I ordered gluten free flour from Italy, bought Christmas tree focaccia decor, and tried my hand at baking bread.

Pathetic. But I had two bags of flour from Italy and plenty of toppings to try again, so I asked my husband to help me understand what went wrong (the recipe is one of those that has six stories and four rabbit trails before the ingredient list and ma’am, I’m not here for the stories, I’m here for the bread). His findings uncovered that I’d tried to activate instant yeast (oops) so the pile of dough didn’t prove, and as is now obvious to you, my pan was too large for the dough.

Cody, who is a very good baker (wtf doesn’t he do) mixed up another batch that proved (twice!) and then I decorated. We made something beautiful together, which is a good lesson in learning and asking for help.

Pretty sure this could still say “nailed it” but let’s take the win.

Mostly, I’ll stick to cooking because 75% of the time, I prefer rules that are open to interpretation and desperate for flare. For example: A tablespoon of garlic? How about three. A pinch of spice? How about a fistful. Those three veggies? These three instead.

Suspending judgment is critical to healing.

Courage is required to accept yourself as you are, all your flaws and weaknesses, and to embrace that perfection is not God’s standard — wholeness is. Integrating all the good and bad bits into a nourishing perspective of yourself generates new life, new hope, new possibilities. Day one in recovery was like, wow, I’ve really made an impossible mess of my life; it is completely unmanageable, and I need God to help me. That level of surrender to something bigger than me and the acceptance of the reality of my life helped me stop the pretending and performing. Suspending judgment gave me the ability to see the legitimate needs I was trying to meet illegitimately.

If we are constantly critical of ourselves, our internal environment will be hostile to healing.

Sorry to say, the same is true in our judgment of others. (Which is hard cause sometimes I be judging. Like really, man, really?!) The reality is, we are living in an external environment that is also hostile to healing. Sanity and sobriety is challenging but it is possible when we cultivate the gentle nourishing we need anywhere and everywhere we can. That might mean gently examining our stressors and making conscientious choices that foster healing, even if they cause short-term discomfort. It might mean standing up for yourself instead of shrinking to keep the peace. It might mean getting more sleep or finding more ways to play. And I hope it looks like radical acceptance of yourself, making peace with reality, with the things you cannot control, and the things that are well within your power to influence and change.

I hope you don’t give up on things you might have failed at. Like chemistry, for me. With a little help and a lot of kindness, anything is possible. Even gluten-free Christmas focaccia¹.

love you,

Ashley

PS If you want more teaching about acceptance and judgment, I preached at our church in Los Angeles recently. Grad school has deepened my love for history and context and human understanding. I am so grateful for its impact on my teaching. If you’re inclined, may it bless you this Advent season.

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1. I know the autoimmune girlies will ask me, so here’s the recipe: https://theglutenfreeaustrian.com/gluten-free-no-knead-focaccia/ I made the Christmas toppings based on wild guessing that photo. ART! SCIENCE!