Performing Life Kept Me Anxious & Busy
I had never drank a cup of black coffee until I started hanging out with a ban of cowboys. I watched from the sidelines as they taunted people who asked for milk, or dare I say it-sugar, after pouring a cup of joe that I quickly opted out of that experience and just started drinking the black tar they called coffee. From an outside perspective, one might assume I made this decision as a means of gaining acceptance, but that wasn’t it all. I didn’t care about conforming near as much as I absolutely hated being perceived as weak by anyone, and if this culture of people oddly considered milk and sugar as “weakness,” then I was prepared to accept the challenge.
I’ve carried the fear of looking weak to others for as long as I can remember. At a young age I learned how to evaluate any environmental situation and curate myself to its required expectations. Again, not to fit in, but to simply appear strong to the world around me. This skill just so happened to be a highly valued social accommodation; it fostered an excelling athlete, a strong student, a hard-working employee, and a very well-performing Christian- but on the flip side, it created a very anxious individual.
From my vantage point, the illusion of strength was best upheld by portraying success in every area of life; and for me, this was most efficiently attained by being a people-pleasing, perfectionist. The crowds of the world carried the perceptions I valued so dearly, and it was my responsibility to avoid any image of weakness they had to offer. Over time, this approach made being alone with my own mind very ruthless and tiresome, as these were the moments I spent analyzing interactions and critiquing myself to be better. There was no room for being misunderstood. My options were to 1.) shame myself for areas of imperfection or 2.) resent any person who might have indicated a less than favorable criticism. Either way- it was a harsh evaluation process to endure, and I honestly found that being social and busy was more comforting than risking the time for my mind to share its opinion of my “performances” in life.
God really wasn’t a part of the equation. I was knowledgeable of the Christian expectations, and I did all the things; went to all the services, read before bed, told people I was praying for them, lead and attended studies, raised my hands during worship, volunteered when I could and pretty much followed all the behavioral rules that a ‘non-sinner’ should follow. I would compare my performance to those around me and essentially determined that I was ahead of the curve. I was aware that my life wasn’t harvesting the fruits of the Spirit, but I did the best I could to portray an image of those things to the outside world.
Then one day, God kindly asked me if I would stop. All of it. The performing, the judgement, the portrayals, the analyzing, the shame- He asked if I would take a break from performing life and risk living it.
Something within me told me that this was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done, but the strong person I wanted to be never shied away from doing hard things.
I can honestly say that the last decade of acclimating myself to actually living a strong life, rather than performing one, can be closely compared to the process one endures as they teach themselves to stomach the thick source of daily caffeine a cowboy calls ‘coffee:’ Not smooth or always enjoyable in the moment, but an exhilarating rush as each moment of meaning begins to clear the deep haze of criticism that was there before.
If you are a person who feels controlled by the perceptions around you, or within you, and has a desire to live life rather than perform it- therapy can help!