This is Your First Time Ever

A Lens for Self Compassion

Hello ♡,

My teen daughter looked at me a few months ago, and said kindly, “I was just thinking, this is your first time ever being a mom.” We have such a sweet relationship, but this moment of her seeing my humanity from her own humanity took my breath away. I felt the soft compassion in her lens. I received it quietly in my heart too.

This is my first time.

And the same goes for you…

This is your first time being this age. You’ve never been here before. You’ve never been in your body at this stage with whatever stories, joys, and pains your body is carrying.

The road before you didn’t exist yet, you are paving it with each step you take forward in the life you are living. Each step is a first time experience.

Forward is new.

Photo by Daria Lyalyulina on Unsplash

This is your first time facing these questions and decisions. You have never had to decide them in just this way before.

This is your first time being a parent or grandparent or spouse or roommate in this particular age, stage, and season.

This is your first time being sick like this.

This is your first time getting through this.

This is the first time you have helped that person you love in this particular way. Maybe this has happened before, but this time is still new.

This is your first time facing this election, you have never been here before.

This is your first time facing these climate changes and grieving with and for your neighbors.

This is your first time reading this post.

This is your very first time living this particular day.

Everything, when you pause and consider, is actually your first. Your first time aging, your first time quitting in this way, your first time being who you are in this way.

And how is it that we treat beginners? “New” moms? Wobbly kneed walkers, learning something new?

With tenderness. With patience. With compassion. And often with humor.

And don’t you, the dear you reading this right now, deserve the same?

Don’t you, in all your wobbly kneed humanity, deserve the same?

I think so.

What would it feel like to look at yourself without the judgemental lens of, “You should know how to do this!” But instead with the gentle lens of, “This is your first time.”

You might exhale, lower your shoulders, lower your “shoulds,” and just keep at it. Nothing fancy, just a lot more kind.

I think that sounds nice.

This is your first time ever. Treat yourself with the gentleness of that truth.

With you,

Monica

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New Still Becoming Episode!

I am so honored and excited to have poet, speaker, public theologian, and author Drew Jackson on the Still Becoming Podcast. This interview is one of my favorite conversations I've ever had on the podcast. Drew invites us into looking  at life, uncertainty, faith, mental health, political acts and more through the lens of poetry. The lens of poetry, as he describes it, is one that we can all practice applying in our own ways to reconnect with where we are, how we feel, what we believe, and what we need. Through this deep and thoughtful conversation Drew shares some of his own journey as well as his own insights through his process of writing and grappling with questions, uncertainty, faith, and his own journey of becoming. Drew's wisdom creates such an expansive space, you will learn so much and in many ways as you listen. Finally we talk about Drew's words as a model for living, “When I forget beauty, poetry is there to invite me to slow down and notice the small blossoms of God’s new creation breaking through. When I become numb to heartache, poetry brings me back in touch with the tears of the world.” We begin this interview with Drew reading one of his new poems, it is so moving. We end this conversation with a beautiful description of how Drew's mom and his wife have each impacted his own becoming. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation.

Drew Jackson is a poet, speaker, and public theologian. He is author of God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God’s Unexpected Coming and Touch the Earth: Poems on The Way. His work has appeared in Oneing from the Center for Action and Contemplation, The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad, Made for Pax, The Journal from the Centre for Public Christianity, Fathom Magazine, and other publications. 

Drew received his B.A. in Political Science from the Univ. of Chicago and his M.A. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He currently works as the Director of Mission Integration for the Center for Action and Contemplation, and lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and daughters.

Find Drew at:

https://drewejackson.com/

https://www.instagram.com/d.jacksonpoetics

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Finally,

I am recording new episodes for Still Becoming this week. If there is a mental health topic or meditation theme you would like to hear email me! I would love to know!