Your Formidable Self
In the coming weeks, many of us will be gathering with family, enjoying meals, traditions, and making new memories. But let's be honest, with family also comes known brokenness, stress and more emotional triggers than we really want. Why is that?
Author Henri Nouwen* speaks of the effect family has on all of us from a very personal point of view, that of our younger self.
“A part of you was left behind very early in your life: the part that never felt completely received. It is full of fears. Meanwhile, you grew up with many survival skills. But you want your self to be one. So you have to bring home the part of you that was left behind. That is not easy, because you have become quite a formidable person, and your fearful part does not know if it can safely dwell with you. Your grown-up self has to become very childlike—hospitable, gentle, and caring—so your anxious self can return and feel safe.”
Even in the best of families, because of the the sin of the world and the sin within us, we grow up with warped approaches to life in select areas. This leaves us on the one hand anxious, fearful and vulnerable, while on the other hand due to coping mechanisms and instinctive survival skills, we have become "quite formidable". In saying this, Nouwen is referring to relational styles that we learn to operate with. Some of us are aggressive, hurting others before they hurt us. Some of us withdraw, putting up protective walls so that we don't get hurt. We make vows and agreements with ourselves never to let this happen to us again or not to put ourselves in a vulnerable position. In short, we do become quite formidable. As Nouwen speaks of it here, part of the way forward is to be re-parented. Think of what Jesus says in Matthew 18, "And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. " (vv. 2, 3) Certainly here Jesus is addressing issues of pride and humility, but Jesus is also recognizing that we did leave a part of us behind in childhood and he is inviting us into the arms of a loving heavenly Father to be made whole in our adult selves. It is as we surrender like little children to our Heavenly Father that we learn to grieve our losses and see that broken little child morph into our adult self with grace and tenderness. Perhaps then we can face our fears and anxieties with both sadness and hope, with vulnerability and courage
* Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom
Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash