Some folks are a fan of the philosophy “fake it till you make it.” While I can understand why they might believe this to be a worthwhile venture, I’ve never been keen on the idea. My perspective—“behave with confidence to get where you hope to go.” For me, that also means I put faith and trust in the Divine to provide guidance along the way.
So, why the personal exhortation to not fake it, especially now? As with so many things these days, the present pandemic enters the picture.
There’s likely not a person alive or rock big enough to hide under to ignore this awfulness. At the same time, even after months of doing my best to accept what I cannot change, an incident a couple days ago hit me like a ton of bricks. My beloved and I realized, with heavy hearts, our treasured family celebrations [extra special this year with the addition of our first grandchild] of Thanksgiving and Christmas were not going to happen the way we have typically enjoyed these festivities in past years.
The reality is we’re not alone in our sadness. After all, who really wants to be physically separated from loved ones? Families and friends all across this country [need I say world?] will have to make similar choices. There’s too much at stake to brush off this virus as if it were simply a bad head cold.
As I allowed myself to feel the sadness and shed tears, I knew I didn’t want to slip into despair. I had to make a decision. As with other times in my life when things have been hard, I leaned on this valuable lesson: Focus on our blessings and choose gratitude.
When we expend energy and attention trying to fake it till we make it—in this case the belief everything is business as usual—our brains struggle with one reality while our heart and emotions speak a different story. We awaken one day to realize we are caught in the conflict, exhausted in in our efforts to try to be someone we aren’t.
A confession. I haven’t been trying to fake my way through this pandemic by behaving irresponsibly or throwing caution to the wind, nonetheless, what I was about to do with regard to the holidays was resort to old behaviors–suppress what I considered dark feelings and emotions.
Thankfully, gone are the days when I believed it was somehow virtuous to maintain a stiff upper lip amid the challenges and difficulties of life. It was only when I reached a depth of personal pain and suffering beyond anything I’d ever experienced that I finally understood the value of allowing myself to feel.
Like many families, we will come up with creative ways to connect with one another for these events. It won’t be the same, yet if we can keep our attention focused on our blessings and choose gratitude, we just may surprise ourselves and discover a new, deeper sense of what it means to be compassionate and loving. And if, in the process, we find ourselves feeling sad, let it be okay to cry or heave a few deep sighs. For to be real, to be authentic, is to embrace the hope and healing that comes with being fully human, a person created in the image and likeness of God.
