Receiving In Order to Give

So, there I was…  a newly-divorced single-mother yearning to heal from the savage pain of and life dreams lost to the cataclysmic failure of my once-beloved marriage.  It was early 2006, and I was bent on recovering from a reeling 3-year blunt force trauma to my soul, and I needed to somehow establish equilibrium with my new circumstances, and yet how?

I’ll be candid here and admit experiencing a wildly incongruous mix of feelings about my situation; on one hand I was exhausted and feared the overwhelming tide of emotion sucking me helplessly towards a consuming sea of hopelessness and uncertainty, while on the other hand I detected a quiet inexplicable sense of hope and adventure percolating within me as I came to realize that for the first time ever, I had unfettered freedom to determine my (and to a certain degree, my children’s) future life’s course.

Fortunately, the three-year purgatory-like hiatus from life as I’d known it, had come with a profoundly beneficial reward – TIME.  Time was a gift to me, slowing me down, allowing me to recover from the horrid seemingly interminable blast of adrenaline that engulfed my body and soul, ravaging my appetite, my ability to reason, my sense of balance, my internal GPS.  And once the adrenaline slowed, Time allowed me to regain my spectrum of emotions; I could finally tap into feelings beyond shear anxiety and fear.  I experienced the “luxury “ of processing anger, remorse, and profound sadness, each granted a grand solo performance in the vast melodrama of my so-called life… 

And then all was desolate.

It was in this post-apocalyptic aftermath of emotion, that I discovered a gentle nudge, one that lacking the then-barren landscape of my heart and mind, would never have been noticed otherwise.  The “nudge” was in a direction which made no sense to the rational mind; for it had me working off an enormous debt of gratitude, with what appeared to be a grossly ravaged wallet ransacked and exhausted of any recognizable resources. 

And yet, the nudge nudged more insistently than ever, refusing all of the rational objections I posed.  In all of, and despite my, weariness, I surrendered my apprehensions to my fledgling sense of adventure allowing it to guide me.  And I eventually gave in. 

Despite the ostensible peril of it all, I followed the nudge…

And so, following on the heels of my divorce, I reestablished contact with University Presbyterian Church’s Divorce Support Workshop, and ever-so-humbly offered my broken and weary self up as a volunteer in whatever capacity they felt me useful in.  My family and friends thought me mildly lunatic, believing instead that I should be marshalling my strength and resources in anticipation of the imminent sweeping lifestyle changes that awaited me.

Alas, I was welcomed even in my humbled, zeroed-out state, back into the fold of the source of so much strength during my lengthy hardship; I was invited to be a facilitator in the Spring Divorce Support Workshop at UPC.  While honored by this token of faith bestowed upon me by my support group peers, I expressed my concerns as to whether I was up to the task emotionally.  I so desperately wanted to repay the debt of gratitude for the generous gifts (see last blog for details), especially those of hope and compassion, lavishly bestowed up my children and me during our workshop experience, that despite my fear I let the nudge become a shove.

And just like that…  I was a facilitator.

And what a gift, a truly profound gift, this role of facilitator has been.  Not that there is any obligation ever, to repay the kindness of those who’ve devoted themselves to helping people in their time of horrendous marital turmoil, I have discovered that in those quiet hours of receiving that goodness so many years ago, I, in what seemed to be my wholly-inadequate state could somehow give this same gift of empathetic goodness to others.

And so now when asked what lessons I’ve gleaned from all of this, and I offer up these…

• In a true philanthropic sense, it is not selfish to receive without giving, for sometimes it is the very act of humbly receiving that piques our awareness to the needs of others, allowing our hearts to open so that we then give freely to those in need, thereby creating a circle of genuine benevolence,

• Quiet your mind, and open your heart to “nudges,” despite their completely irrational demands,

• From the ashes, the phoenix will rise,

• We can, from the most horrific of circumstances, be redeemed – and so can our devastating experiences.  For more on this, read Henri Nouwen’s, “The Wounded Healer” http://www.amazon.com/Wounded-Healer-Ministry-Contemporary-Society/dp/0385148038.

Brooks Baldwin, aka "Divorce Doula" offers Collaborative Divorce Services, Mediation, and Limited Scope Representation at Baldwin Collaborative Law in Lake Forest Park, WA.