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~ When life doesn't turn out as you had hope it would – It may not be 100% factual truth-but, it is 100% me.

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Tag Archives: Relationships

Authority

16 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts

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Atheism, Attitude, Authority, Changes, Choice, Choices, Christianity, Courage, Forgiveness, Humanity, Inspiration, Journey, life, Prayer, Reflection, Reflections, Relationships, Truth

When I was a Christian it was easy to do things to help others in a way that felt very monumental; after all, I was doing God’s work. Believing yourself to be a direct conduit between God and others is pretty major.

I walked in, what Christians like to call, “authority.” I had the authority of God with me. What I did, what I said, it was greater than myself, it was done with a believed God-given authority.

The belief that I was part of something bigger, that I had a “calling,” and that I was doing “God’s work,” gave me the confidence, or the imagined authority, to get involved in situations and in people’s lives that could seem, and does seem to me now, to be intrusive.

One thing I realized many years ago, when I first became an atheist, was how Christians use the idea of prayer as a free ticket to pry into people’s lives, and make assumptions.

I was taught to “pray with authority,” even though you know that you can’t tell God what to do. Part of being a responsible pray-er was to be as specific as possible. Therefore, it was important to know specific details about people’s lives and struggles, in order to pray for what was needed with more authority.

One thing that has not changed for me since becoming an atheist, is my love and care for people. I still want to do what I can to help those around me live their best lives. I like helping and supporting people. I like being able to celebrate with them, or be there when they need a helping hand. But, this is much harder to do without this sense of “authority” behind me, without a feeling that I’m doing God’s work, and therefore am infallible.

I know better. I know and have witnessed how much harm can be done by those who try to help, but are not professionally equipped or trained to do so. I have experienced how “the power of God” has been an insufficient tool to deal effectively with complicated situations. The truth is, the “authority” under which Christians operate is dangerous because it gives the believer a sense of entitlement as well as a false idea of ones ability.

But, as I was trying to drift off to sleep tonight, I was missing this feeling of authority and wondering how things might be different if I still felt as though I had authority. Could I find somewhere else from which a sense of authority could be plucked? Can the authority to assume I have the answers to someone’s problem, or am a solution to their struggles be found in my humanity? Separated from a celestial being or deity?

As I finish up, I will be drifting off to sleep thinking about this: Can I conjure a similar feeling or level authority from the idea that who I am as a human gives me the authority needed to help who you are as a person, not because some God exists and says so, but because my humanity can reach out to yours and find common ground?

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The Best of Times/The Worst of Times

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts

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change, Changes, Choice, Choices, Confidence, Control, Determination, Disappointment, Emotions, Fear, Forgiveness, Freedom, Friendship, Growth, Happiness, Healing, Help, Home, hope, Hopes, Inspiration, Journey, Joy, life, Life Lessons, Loss, Me, Memories, Memory, Moving, Nostalgia, Pain, perseverance, Progress, Reality, Reflections, Relationships, Rest, Stories, Toronto, Truth, Victory, Writing

I frequently have dreams that place me in various times and places of my “previous lives” with people I haven’t seen for years.

There was, what is now, a short period of my life that has had an enormous impact on me. By the amount of emotional and mental baggage it has left, you would think it spanned more than 15 years, when, in reality, it was around 5.

Spanning the years between (roughly) 2001-2007, I lived an incredibly exhilarating and intense life that left me feeling burnt-out, beat-down, and deflated. Though, not right away. Some of this settled-in over the years as I reflected on the life that I have lived, the experiences I had, and how horribly underprepared and unqualified I was for so many moments I found myself living.

I’m going to attempt to unravel this time of my life that has kept me tied in knots for over 15 years now.

This is me just putting it out there and starting the process for myself.

Watch this space.

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These are the Times

25 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts, Seeking Life Now

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change, Changes, Endings, Gap Year, Growing Up, Growth, Journey, life, Life Lessons, Memories, Memory, New Beginnings, Nostalgia, Reality, Reflection, Reflections, Regret, Relationships, Talk, Toronto

Sometimes I get lost in nostalgia. Today is one of those days.

I lived in Toronto for 11 years in two different time periods. There was pre-New Zealand and post-New Zealand and the experiences are vastly different from one another.

This morning I find myself in deep reflection, once again, on my time there pre-New Zealand. This was an intense time full of deep relationships, friendships, emotions, highs, lows, struggles and heart aches.

During this time I led a reflection activity for a group of young people using Billy Joel’s song “This is the Time,” encouraging them to make the most of their young days because they would not last forever. I didn’t realize how true these lyrics would become for me. I truly thought that this was a time that would last forever; at least for me.

Watch on YouTube: This is the Time

As I sit here writing this, listening to these lyrics again, I am almost surprised by how much things have changed. I was certain that my life was going to continue-on in the same manner, that I would be surrounded by the same people, doing the same things, for the rest of my days.

But, everything has changed.

There are beliefs, lifestyles, locations and people long-gone that I thought I would never leave, or leave behind.

Despite the fact that I was encouraging a group of young people to be mindful of their current situation, that it would not last forever, I did not seem to grasp this reality for myself.

There is one truth I know in life – things will change. I miss my friends, I miss the city and sometimes I even miss some of the experiences. I never thought I would be sitting here, miles away, having not spoken to most of these friends for many years, worlds apart from one another, living completely different lives.

In-between us now sits the large ocean called “Life,” and it seems impossible to cross.

“Sometimes it’s so easy
To let a day slip on by…”

 

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An Unholy Confession

06 Sunday May 2018

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts, Seeking Life Now

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Courage, Emotions, Fear, Imagination, Journey, Just Something I Wanted to Write, life, Life Lessons, Memories, Memory, Relationships, Religion, Shame, Stories, Writing

She knelt down at the bench that was drenched with the tears and prayers of all those who had come before her. This was a seat that was not meant for resting, but for wrestling. Sinners came to this bench to confess, to plead, to repent and to rise in salvation.

The black shoes she had been wearing restricted her from attaching herself to the bench in the manner she thought necessary to get close to God, and as she twisted-around to remove them, her black uniform skirt got caught on the sleeve of her tunic, revealing more of her regulation nightshade pantyhose than modesty would approve.

She did not know that he was watching her.

He was always watching.

She went about her business, preaching and teaching the word of God, leading the people in praise and worship of the creator she loved so very much. She was just doing what she had been called to do, the best way she could.

In her twenty-one years of life she believed she had a firm grasp on the world, and was wise and mature to its ways.

When he came to her and confessed his love, she found herself spinning and dizzy, unable to find her bearings and questioning what she had believed to be the safest place.

“My wife knows about you,” he confessed. She felt sick to her stomach and wanted to turn from him and run. Unable to speak, he continued, “I’ve been talking to my therapist about you.”

Was she, honestly, hearing him correctly? It seemed as though she had been thrust into another world, like a twisted version of what one might find beyond the wardrobe.

How could she have let this happen? What had she done to lead him on?

She stared back at him, in shock and disbelief and noticed for the first time how many wrinkles his face held and the glisten of his silvery white hair.

He was in his 50’s and had kind, but lost, eyes. She had always appreciated his gentleness, but now she felt like he was a predator. He was no longer a sheep, but a wolf in sheeps clothing.

“I love you,” he made his confession plainly.

She tugged at her white blouse nervously, suddenly feeling naked and exposed. In her mind she was pleading with him to stop looking at her. She felt undressed by his stare.

“What am I going to do?” he asked.

She said nothing. Frozen to the ground, unable to move, the world rang in her ears and she remembered what it felt like to want to disappear.

She never wanted to be seen by a man again.

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I’m Sorry. So Sorry.

26 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts, Seeking Life Now

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Acceptance, Emotion, Forgiveness, Guilt, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, Love, Relationships, Sorry

*

Back during one of my previous attempts at blogging, I talked about being a “highly sensitive person”.

I had found this blog on Huffington Post and it resonated with me:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/26/highly-sensitive-people-signs-habits_n_4810794.html

I’ve been thinking about #6 quite a bit lately: An HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) is “more upset if they make a ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ decision.”

My husband will be able to attest to the fact that I do not say “I’m sorry” very easily. This can often be misunderstood as me not being sorry. But, the truth is exactly the opposite.

The problem, and I try to explain this to him (though, I don’t think he ever believes me), is that I feel so sorry and horrible for what I have done that it’s difficult for me to talk about it.

The Huff Po article says “You know that uncomfortable feeling you get after you realize you’ve made a bad decision? For highly sensitive people, ‘that emotion is amplified because the emotional reactivity is higher’”.

Here’s an example of how this works for us HSP’s from an experience I had just this morning.

When I was changing my son’s diaper I found that he had pooped at some point, most likely, during the night and it had started to squish out of his diaper. When I removed the diaper, I noticed that, because he had been sitting in it for so long, his skin was beat red. Here is what happened in my brain:

He probably did it right after we put him down last night when he was fussing.
Why did I ignore him?
If I had gone in and checked on him this wouldn’t have happened.
It’s my fault his bum is all red and sore.
I tortured my child all night long because I’m lazy.
I’m a horrible person.
I don’t deserve forgiveness.
I don’t deserve to be loved.
With all of that going on in our brains, can you really blame us for struggling to say “I’m sorry”?

The ability to move through these thoughts and say “I’m sorry” is further stymied if the person we have hurt has a strong reaction to what we have done.

For example: I drop a can of peaches on my husband’s foot and he instantly screams in pain and shoots me a dirty look. Here is what happens in my brain:

What’s wrong with me?
I’m a stupid klutz.
Now he hates you (judging by the look he just gave you).
Why are you so dumb?
You can’t do anything right.

I’m a horrible person.
I don’t deserve forgiveness.
I don’t deserve to be loved.

What’s the solution? Should we just be ‘off the hook’ and not have to say “I’m sorry” ever again?

I don’t think so.

I’ve been working on being able to apologize by first of all, trying to explain what is happening in my head at the time so there is an understanding of what I’m facing. I also practice self-talk in my head and try to formulate something to say that, may not be the words “I’m sorry” but mean the same thing, with the hopes that, one day, I will be able to actually just say the words.

Until then, if I’ve hurt you in any way, please accept my apology and know that I’m working on being able to say I’m sorry for the next time I (inevitably) hurt you.

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