Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

writing

Navigating the New Landscape of You

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A few years ago I dramatically pruned the shrubbery in my backyard. For two days I went at it with the loppers, chopping off clumps of foliage, clipping dead twigs, sculpting and reshaping the remaining branches. When I was done, the landscape was transformed.

Noah, our resident Tree Lover, was not pleased – he disdainfully called me Paul Bunyan for weeks afterward – but I loved it. I could see more of the sky and the neighbor’s house across the street. Light streamed into spots that had previously been dank and dark. Though it was still the same size it had always been, the backyard suddenly felt much more spacious – open, airy and inviting.

Still, for about a week after the dramatic pruning, every time I glanced out the sunroom windows into the backyard, I did a double take. The landscape was so different, so unfamiliar – I hardly recognized it. Even though I loved the openness and was glad I’d pruned the shrubbery, my new backyard took some getting used to; I had to reacquaint myself with it.

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A few weeks ago, my friend Kimberly read my blog post about whitewashing the reality of poverty and Voxed me with an idea. It was a good, strong piece, she said, and she suggested I might want to rework it a bit and pitch it to Christianity Today. It was a timely topic, she noted – something she thought would resonate with a broader audience.

I immediately set to work researching other online articles on global poverty and mission work, reviewing Christianity Today’s submissions guidelines and considering how I would reshape the post into an article that might resonate with CT’s audience.

In the middle of that process, though, I became aware of the slightest bit of a pit in my stomach, which in turn prompted me to ask myself a question: Do I actually want to revise this blog post and pitch it as an article to Christianity Today? Do I want to do this work?

At first, in spite of the stomach pit (note to future self: the pit tells the truth!), the answer was not readily apparent, and so I held out the question – Do I want to do this work? – and examined it further. I turned the question around and around and gave myself the space for my true desire to make itself known. I allowed myself to figure out how I actually felt about pursuing this opportunity.

In the end, I realized I did not want to revise my blog post into an article to pitch to Christianity Today. I realized it was, in fact, the very last thing I wanted to do.

Turns out, striving is still my default mode. After a lifetime of pushing to make progress and striving for measurable results, it’s easy, almost mindless, for me to fall into my old habits and rhythms. Striving is familiar terrain for me (and just to be clear: striving to achieve a goal or make progress is not inherently a bad thing; in fact, it can be a very good, very positive thing. But it’s not the thing I want to do right now). On the other hand, this new place I’m now navigating – this place of writing solely for creative pleasure, of writing toward no particular outcome – is still largely unknown and unfamiliar, which makes it equal parts exhilarating and unnerving.

I am discovering that it takes intentionality to learn to live and thrive in a new landscape. I’m learning to slow down rather than steamroll ahead, to look inward at my own needs and desires rather than capitulate to what I think I should do or what I assume is expected of me. I’m learning to ask myself probing questions and then allow the time and space to listen for and hear the answers that come from my soul.

I’ve done some dramatic pruning in my life over these past several months, and while it’s been a fruitful, space-making, life-giving process, and I generally like the results, it’s also taken some getting used to. I am, in many ways, getting reacquainted with myself. I am still navigating this new landscape of me.

 

Why Your Passion Doesn’t Have to Be Your Job

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This morning on the way to school, my son Noah, who is a senior and deep into the college application process, mentioned he might want to attend the University of Nebraska here in Lincoln. “That way,” he said, “even if I live on campus, I can still come home to take care of my plants.”

I bit my tongue to keep from blurting, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” I mean, really — who selects a college based on its proximity to their houseplants?

Well, the answer is: Noah does. Because plants are Noah’s passion.

Noah started collecting plants almost before he could speak in complete sentences. This is the kid who, when he was a preschooler, sat on Santa’s lap at the mall and asked for the book Designing with Succulents for Christmas. I’ve never seen a Santa Claus look so utterly baffled as I shouted out from behind the velvet rope, “It’s a gardening book!”

The shelves in Noah’s room are lined with succulents and cactus. A rubber tree is staked near the window, and a dracaena marginata sits adjacent to his nightstand. In the early mornings, a fuchsia glow seeps from the crack beneath his bedroom door, light from the “grow lamp” he bought for his candelabra cactus. When I went to Honduras this summer, I texted him photos of giant agave clinging to the rocky hillside. I know my son; he prefers pictures of plants over people.

I thought about all this in the car this morning after Noah made his declaration about choosing a college that’s close to his houseplants. “That’s fine; I get that,” I finally said (diplomatically). “But you know,” I added, “I’m surprised, given how much you’ve always loved plants, that you don’t want to major in botany or horticulture. Plants are your passion, so why wouldn’t you want to major in something that would lead to a career working with plants?”

Noah has told us that he wants to pursue a major in the humanities. He’s mentioned English, German and history as possibilities; he insists he’s not interested in science, in spite of his obvious proclivity toward plants, the environment and nature.

“What about botany? What about forestry? What about environmental studies?” my husband and I ask from time to time. We’ve always expected, assumed, Noah would pursue something planty, something sciencey. Which is why I asked him this morning, “Why? Why wouldn’t you pursue something that is so obviously your passion?”

Noah shrugged. “Your passion doesn’t always have to be your job,” he answered.

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann

I wrote my first book, Spiritual Misfit, 12 years ago (it was published in 2014, but it was written long before that). It took me two years to write the first draft of that book, during which time I would awaken before dawn, pull on my red fleece robe and a warm pair of socks and traipse down to the basement, where I hunched over the keyboard for an hour or two while my preschooler and toddler slept.

During those early mornings, tapping out words on the basement computer, I lost all track of time. The world did not exist during those hours. Time did not exist. My responsibilities and the demands of my daily life did not exist.

There was no blog (that came later). I didn’t have a Facebook account, Twitter hadn’t gone mainstream and Instagram didn’t yet exist. I didn’t know what a “platform” was. I wasn’t thinking about “felt need” or audience. I didn’t know anything about proposals or querying or agents. Sure, I had dreamy hopes that maybe someday I would publish whatever it was I was writing, but that all seemed very vague and very distant.

Mostly I wrote because both the process itself and what it revealed was intriguing to me. I wrote because through the process of writing, I discovered important things about myself, and I was curious to uncover more. I wrote because writing revealed myself to me. And because it was fun. Writing the first draft of Spiritual Misfit was a pure, undiluted pursuit of passion.

“Creative fields make crap for careers, but creative living can be an amazing vocation,” writes Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic.

This may not be true for everyone. I’m sure there are plenty of people, Gilbert herself included, who are able to successfully meld their passion and their career into one fulfilling, delightful pursuit. I have learned, though, that I am not one of these people.

Over the last ten years, writing morphed from my play and passion into my profession. It was a slow change, so slow I didn’t even recognize what was happening. I think maybe for a little while I was able to have it both ways — a passion that was also my profession. But over time, the demands of my profession — platform-building, meeting a “felt need,” mainaining social media, growing an audience, tracking sales, speaking, attending conferences, managing launch teams, writing book proposals and articles — edged out my passion bit by bit, until finally, like the moon covering the sun in a total solar eclipse, it obliterated it entirely.

Today I find myself in a different place. I have a job that I like and find fulfilling but is not my passion. The professional demands that strangled my passion for writing have fallen away. I am not building a platform or writing for a particular audience or striving to address a “felt need.” I do not feel the need to be productive with my writing. I’m not thinking about branding or messaging. I deleted my professional Facebook page, and I post on Instagram when I feel like it. I’m writing what I want to write about — and when I hear myself saying, “That’s selfish,” I tell myself, gently, “No, it’s not.”

Once again, I am remembering why I like to write. I am remembering that writing is fun and helps me feel more deeply alive. Most of all, I am remembering what I knew 12 years ago when I wrote the first draft of Spiritual Misfit in my basement, which is exactly what Noah clarified for me in the car on the way to school this morning.

I am remembering that my passion doesn’t have to be my job.

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann, Life’s A Story Photography

What I’ve Learned in the Six Months Since I Left Publishing

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A friend recently asked me what I’d wished I’d known before I published my first book. She may have been asking what I’d wished I’d known about the industry or the culture of publishing, but my answer went in a different direction. “I wish I’d known how deep my desire for approval and recognition was,” I told her. “I wish I’d known myself well enough to recognize that a career in publishing wouldn’t be the very best fit for me, for who I am.”

I knew I was Type A. I knew I was an overachiever with a deep desire to be successful. But I didn’t know how deep my desire was to be validated, recognized and known.

Turns out I had to learn that the hard way.

I would have much rather learned about my shadow side from a distance – who wouldn’t, right? But it doesn’t often work that way. We learn who we are not by holding ourselves – our good parts and our flawed parts – at arm’s length, but through real, lived experience, which more often than not includes struggle, pain, tumult, disappointment and failure.

My shadow side was only fully revealed when I was deep into my vocation as a publishing writer. And I was only able to recognize, acknowledge and ultimately confront this part of myself after it had fully emerged – and then only after I realized I couldn’t subdue it or overcome it through my own best efforts.

They say of all the nine Enneagram types, Enneagram Threes know themselves the least well. Apparently this is because we are so busy performing and producing, so busy trying to live up to who we think others think we are, or who we think we should be, we don’t acknowledge or even recognize who, in fact, we really are.

I can’t speak for other Enneagram Threes, but I can say, for myself, this assessment is spot on. When I page through the journal entries I wrote as I was moving toward my decision to step away from publishing, I see the same words repeated again and again. “Fragmented.” “Disintegrated.” “Fractured.”

It’s obvious to me now. Of course I felt fragmented. Of course I felt disintegrated and fractured. I’d spent so many years trying to be someone other than myself, I’d segmented myself into a million disparate pieces.

I realize this all sounds overly dramatic and more than a little psycho-babbly, but here’s the long and short of it; here’s what I have learned that I hope might be relevant for you too:

When we know ourselves, we are able to recognize and move toward the environments in which we thrive. And, at the same time, when we know ourselves, we are able to recognize and move away from the environments in which we fail to thrive.

Some of us – maybe most of us – will become better at knowing ourselves through trial and error. Some of us will learn more quickly than others where and how we thrive and where and how we fail to thrive.

Some of us will be stubborn. We will try to make ourselves fit into a space or a place that is not right. We will try to change ourselves to fit our circumstances. Ultimately we will fail at this. And ultimately, in failing, we will come closer to knowing our true selves.

Turns out, publishing was too big an arena for me. The public nature of the publishing industry fed my voracious shadow side like gasoline feeds a fire. The more I looked to the publishing world for approval and recognition and the more I pushed myself to be successful and admired and known, the more my ego demanded and the more distant I became from my true self, from the person God created me to be.

My shadow side has not vanished simply because I’ve stepped out of the publishing arena. My desires for validation, recognition and success are still there. The difference is, these desires are not being fueled in the same way and to the same degree. I’m still a Type A overachiever, and this is not inherently a flaw. I still strive to be successful in my work as a writer for The Salvation Army, and I still enjoy the validation I receive from my boss or my colleagues for work well-done. But because my work is not public in the same way, and the arena in which I am working is much, much smaller, my ego stays in check.

Over these last six months I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing I could have done that would have better equipped me to succeed as a published author while at the same time keeping my self whole and intact. I didn’t “do it wrong.” Nor is the publishing industry “bad.” Like a couple with irreconcilable differences, we – the publishing world and I – were simply not good together.

Still, I have no regrets. I haven’t for a moment regretted my decision to leave publishing, nor do I regret the fact that I entered in. The fact is, as Parker Palmer so astutely says, “There are no shortcuts to wholeness.” I learned a lot about myself through the ups and downs of that journey. I am closer to knowing who I am. And still I am learning, learning to recognize and embrace the whole of me – shadows and light, flaws and gifts. I am learning where I fit best – where I thrive and where I don’t. I am learning to live as my best self, the person God created me to be.

I Am Not a Brand

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A few weeks ago a good friend admitted to me over lunch that for the last few years, whenever she read something I’d posted on Facebook, it had struck her as “a little off.” “I can’t explain it exactly,” she said. “I knew it was you, obviously, but at the same time it didn’t seem to be totally you.”

I cringed. After all, no one wants to be accused of inauthenticity. Yet it seemed that was exactly what my friend was implying. What I heard her say, in so many words, was that I was not quite the same person online that I was in real life.

Years ago, long before I’d published my first book, my agent and I talked often about marketing and branding. She’d encouraged me to figure out who I was and where I fit in the Christian publishing landscape. “You need to find your place and your people,” she advised.

It was good advice. Finding your audience is important, especially for a new writer. The problem was, I didn’t seem to fit anywhere.

As a member of a mainline Protestant denomination, my personal theology aligns with that of “progressive” Christians, yet I’m not outspoken, and I shrink from controversy like it’s the Black Death. I admire many progressive Christian authors, read their work and agree with many of their views, but I also knew the online realm they often occupy was too contentious for me.

On the other hand, my views on marriage equality don’t square with most evangelicals. Though I was always welcomed with grace and love, I also knew in my heart that the more traditional evangelical online communities for women weren’t the best fit for me either.

It seems there is ample room if you sit squarely on either end of the theological spectrum as an outspoken “progressive Christian writer” or a more traditional “evangelical writer,” but, ironically, less space for those who roam the gray area in between.

I wrote both biography and memoir. My first book was released by a progressive Christian publisher, my second (and third and fourth) by a conservative evangelical house. Depending on both my mood and the tenor of the piece I was writing, my “voice” swung from gritty, self-deprecating and sardonic to encouraging, contemplative and lyrical. Once or twice when I was feeling especially convicted I wrote provocative “lightning rod” pieces, but my preferred sweet spot was writing stories and observations about ordinary life and faith.

In short, I did not write in a single genre. I did not have a finely tuned message. My voice varied, and I didn’t fit neatly in one place with one particular audience.

I also did not have a consistent personal brand.

“A brand,” marketing expert Debbie Millman said recently on the Hurry Slowly podcast, “is the result of manufactured meaning.”

Think of the Nike swoosh. What was once simply a random mark, something you might have absentmindedly doodled in the margin of a notebook, has become imbued with meaning. Today we can’t see “the swoosh” without automatically connecting that once-random symbol with attributes like strength, power, athleticism, success, action and “just do it.” Nike manufactured meaning around its brand.

With the rapid explosion of social media came the rise of the personal brand. Influencers from entrepreneurs to movie stars to talk show hosts have personal brands, and these days, most authors – particularly non-fiction authors – have a personal brand too (or at the very least, a consistent, recognizable image and message).

The fact is, the most successful non-fiction authors – both “regular” market and Christian – have constructed powerful personal brands (to be clear, I’m defining “success” based on sales numbers, and, to a lesser extent, number of social media followers). Look no further than best-selling author Rachel Hollis, whose first book Girl, Wash Your Face – published by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson – has sold 1.5 million copies. Hollis has 1.4 million Instagram followers and 1.5 million Facebook fans. Readers know exactly who and what they’ll get when they pick up a book by Rachel Hollis (or when they visit her Instagram, listen to her podcast, watch one of her FB Live videos or attend one of her RISE events), in large part because Hollis has masterfully built a clear, consistent and compelling personal brand — a brand that sells.

Hollis has done exactly what Forbes magazine journalist and entrepreneur Goldie Chan advises in her article “10 Golden Rules of Personal Branding.” Along with “Have Focus,” “Be Consistent” and “Be Genuine“ is Rule #8: “Live Your Brand”:

“Have your lifestyle and brand be one and the same…Your personal brand should follow you everywhere you go. It should be an authentic manifestation of who you are and amplify what you believe.”

At first glance this sounds perfectly acceptable. Who can argue with authenticity and beliefs, right? And from a business, marketing and promotions standpoint, it makes sense. Consumers like to know what they are getting and to have their expectations met, and branding helps achieve that goal. If you like the image and message Rachel Hollis projects online, chances are good that you’ll like her books too.

The problem, though, is that we are talking about human beings. And human beings are inconsistent by nature. We are complex. We are messy. We are complicated and unpredictable. No matter how genuine or authentic we aim to be online, these projections of ourselves are mere holograms. Our very inability to be defined and contained is what makes human beings both amazing and, at times, awful. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; we are flawed and fallible.

We are both/and. And both/and does not make for an effective brand.

Branding works great with sneakers, cars, appliances and handbags. But human beings are not sneakers. We are not cars, appliances or handbags. Human beings are not intended to be brands.

I think this is what my friend was getting at when she observed that there was something not quite right about my online presence. She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly, but I suspect what she was intuiting was a subtle tension, a quiet battle of sorts unfolding just under the surface. I was trying to convey a consistent message. I was trying to offer a consistent voice and a consistent image. I was trying to find a place to fit. I was trying to have focus and be genuine – please believe me when I say that I was genuinely trying to be genuine! I was, in short, trying to give my “audience” what I thought they expected or wanted. In my own stumbling way, I was trying to have a brand, to be a brand. But on the inside, my soul knew better. My soul knew that a human being can’t be a brand.

Here’s the truth about me: Sometimes I’m crabby as all get-up. Sometimes I’m snarky and cynical. Sometimes I’m funny, silly, lighthearted, full of joy and optimism. Sometimes I’m morose. Sometimes I’m energetic. Sometimes I’m withdrawn. Sometimes I’m outgoing. Sometimes I’m exuberant. Sometimes I’m subdued. Sometimes I’m compassionate. Sometimes I’m selfish. I’m two parts sweet and sentimental, two parts crass (or maybe that ratio is 1:3). The scent of a blooming apple tree can move me to tears in the middle of my morning run. I also burp out loud in the privacy of my own home (much to my family’s ongoing horror) and use the F-word from time to time.

I mean, can we just be honest here? No brand in the world could be an “authentic manifestation” of that!

If there’s anything consistent about me (and dare I say, about any human being, even the most masterful personal brandmasters!) it’s that I am inconsistent. I’m a bundle of contradictions. I’m always changing. Sometimes I’m growing, moving forward, being transformed. Sometimes I’m stumbling one step forward two steps back. I won’t be the exact same person tomorrow that I am today. I’m not the same person today that I was yesterday.

In short, I am a human being. I am messy and magical, mundane and mesmerizing. And here’s the truest thing I can tell you about myself right now: I’m grateful that everything that makes me both fabulous and flawed can’t possibly be captured and contained in a brand.

Why We Need to Feel Our Grief

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“You’re going to feel some pressure,” the doctor murmured as he inserted the needle into my elbow. Turns out “some pressure” was the euphemism of the century. What I actually felt during the five-minute platelet injection was teeth-gritting, fist-clenched agony.

By the time the short procedure was over, hot tears were slipping down the sides of my face, along my hairline, over the edge of my jaw and down my neck, where they dripped one at a time, slowly and steadily like fluid in an IV bag, onto the white sheet beneath me.

Much to my surprise, once the tears started, they didn’t stop. Neither the doctor nor the nurse knew quite what to make of my silent but persistent weeping. The nurse thrust a fist full of tissues into my hand. The doctor advised ice, two Extra Strength Tylenol and limited elbow movement. And then they both fled, the nurse urging “take your time,” before pulling the door closed with a quiet click behind her.

I cried as I retrieved my purse from the hook and gingerly slipped it over the shoulder of my good arm.

I cried as I hurried through the waiting room, chin tucked, hair shielding my streaming eyes so as not to scare the living daylights out of the patients awaiting their own appointments.

I cried as I drove home, wrangling the steering wheel with one hand.

I was still crying as I tucked myself into the corner of the sofa, cradling my throbbing elbow with a cupped palm.

It was only then that it occurred to me that I might be crying over something other than my elbow.

Earlier that morning I had published the blog post I had written about my decision to quit book writing. As I’d sat in the orthopedist’s waiting room, I’d pulled the post up on my phone to read some of the comments that had begun to accumulate.

I didn’t expect any “big feelings.” Though I’d published the post about my decision that morning, I’d made the actual decision weeks before. Choosing to leave traditional book-writing and publishing was a decision that, after careful discernment, I believed in my heart was right and good. I acknowledged there was sadness – I even named it grief in the post – but mostly what I felt in the aftermath of the decision, and as I wrote the blog post about it, was relief, an unburdening.

Until, that is, the orthopedist’s needle pricked something else far beneath flesh, bone and tendon.

What began as a tearful reaction to unexpected physical pain crossed an invisible threshold. My tears at the sudden, sharp stab of the needle deep in the soft tissue of my elbow opened a portal of sorts into which I tumbled headlong, like a time-space traveler hurtling into an unfamiliar dimension.

The tears prompted by the unexpected jolt of searing pain opened the way to the sorrow and loss I had acknowledged in words but hadn’t actually allowed myself to feel.

Experts say that we Enneagram Type 3s are the least aware of and in touch with our feelings. Until recently I would have told you that I was a person who was very in touch with her feelings, thank you very much. But I am beginning to see this might not be entirely true. I am beginning to realize that just because you say you feel something and even name it publicly doesn’t mean you’ve taken the time and space to actually feel it – to wade into that sorrow and allow yourself to experience the confusing, uncomfortable, unkempt mess of it.

The truth is, it’s hard and deeply uncomfortable to feel, really feel, pain. No one actually wants to sit with and in pain. And yet, I believe the only path to true healing, growth and transformation is to do exactly that – to step into the pain, to stay in it and lean into it for as long as it takes. As so many wise people have said, the only way out of grief is through it.

After the emotional ungluing in the orthopedist’s office, I spent the rest of the week quietly and slowly reading through every beautiful, heartfelt, kind, loving, and encouraging email, blog post comment, Facebook message and tweet I received in the wake of my announcement about leaving traditional publishing. There were A LOT. (thank you!!!)

My inclination was to rush, to skim over these notes of kindness, empathy and compassion. I wanted to read through them fast, to get it over with in order to keep myself at arm’s length from whatever emotions might begin to rise to the surface.

But I didn’t do that. Instead, I read each message slowly and thoughtfully and responded personally to many of them. As I read and replied, I let myself receive and feel all the feelings – gratitude, love, joy, relief, regret, sorrow, fear, disappointment, grief. I stayed in the feelings, leaned into them – into their unruliness, into their stubborn refusal to be managed and contained.

It was uncomfortable and unfun to feel the real brunt of this loss. And yet, I believe it was an important and necessary step toward trusting in something that is, for right now, beyond what I can see.