We are in the middle of Colleen Duggan's blog tour for her new book,
Good Enough is Good Enough. Today I am sharing a Q&A with Colleen.
Q: In your book you give glimpses into some of
the mentors who have benefited you as you navigated different phases of
motherhood. What can you share about finding good mentors to support us along
the way?
A: In my own life, I’ve been
very fortunate to have found good counselors and spiritual directors. Finding
these mentors to help me, however, took prayer, time and energy.
It didn’t happen overnight.
If you desire some kind of
support, I encourage you to begin praying for the right people and if someone
comes to mind, approach them and ask them if they can assist you. Give it a few sessions and if the determine
the person isn’t a perfect fit, discern if God has someone else in mind. There is a bit of trial and error in
assembling a support team. Ultimately,
you want to feel comfortable with whoever it is you are working. They will learn lots of private information
about you and it’s important that you trust them.
Some suggestions:
If you think you might benefit from a
counselor, you might check out the
Pastoral Solutions
Institute. They offer both telecounseling and spiritual
direction over the phone. Phone sessions
can be less threatening than face to face sessions, especially at first.
To find a therapist in your
area, check out www.catholictherapists.com to identify trained therapists in your area who might be able to
help you with the particular problems you are facing.
Finding a spiritual
director can be a little more challenging.
The job of a spiritual director is to help us sort
out our relationship with God and notice the workings of the Holy Spirit in our
lives. They can also help us identify the
best kinds of prayer routines given our personalities and temperaments. It’s important to remember a spiritual
director is not a counselor.
If you desire
to find a good spiritual director, Father Larry Richards suggests thinking
about a priest who loves the Eucharist.
If that priest is reverent and devoted to Jesus through the Sacrament of
the Eucharist, they will probably be a good help to you.
This tip has certainly
proven true for me: good spiritual
directors truly love Christ in the Eucharist.
Q: Writing honestly about our
own lives requires vulnerability. What helped motivate you to move beyond that
vulnerability in order to share your story?
A: When I was a young mom, I
desperately wanted a safe space to talk about the sufferings I
experienced: issues surfacing in my
marriage, feelings I didn’t anticipate I would have when I became a parent
(frustration, surges of anger, worry, fear, etc.), unhealthy habits (poor food
habits, poor sleep cycles, drinking too much caffeine, exercising too much or
not enough), and even parenting conundrums I didn’t know how to handle.
I grew up surrounded by
addiction and I felt emotionally weighed down by that experience, but I also struggled
with some of my own unhealthy behavioral tendencies. I needed someone to talk to about the
struggles I was experiencing, but often when I opened up with the people around
me, I often didn’t share appropriately, or the other people couldn’t really
hear me because of their own sufferings, or people felt compelled to “fix” me
(or give advice!) instead of listening to me with care and empathy.
I felt alone (and the reality
was that I wasn’t alone because many people struggle in their marriages and
parenting) but when I did share, I felt judged, isolated, and misunderstood.
I’m a verbal processor, I
know what I think once I say it out loud, but I didn’t have a safe place to say
things, so I walked around thinking,
“I must be the only one who struggles like
this; It must be just me.”
As I grew in my faith, sought
counseling and spiritual direction and frequented the Sacraments, however, I
experienced personal healing from deep wounds.
As I got older and grew a little more confident in my vocation, I
realized how Satan exploits the notion and sways us to believe that we are
alone in our familial challenges.
After years of direction
and counseling, I couldn’t deny the freedom, peace and healing I felt when I
brought my struggles into the light and examined them under trained guidance.
This work aided my realization that I wasn’t alone, that other people struggled
too but many of them were like me, convinced they were the only ones.
I wrote this book so
struggling Catholic parents would know there are other parents struggling too, and
that God is there, patiently waiting to heal them and give them hope.
Another reason I wrote so
openly about my own struggles is because many Catholics are very weary of
sharing the Real Deal. We always have
the notion of perfection floating around in the back of our brains and we are
weary of giving scandal to others if we share our sinful tendencies or bad
habits.
But we all sin and have bad
habits.
It does no one any good to
pretend otherwise.
Sometimes I think well-meaning
Catholics actually alienate others because we are so afraid to share the good,
the bad, and the ugly that we never
engage in the kinds of helpful dialogue needed to help us move forward. We stay in hiding and therefore stay stuck in
sinful tendencies, bad habits, wounds and secrets.
We forget that we aren’t saints
yet!
I was so honest in my book because
I want the mother feeling the effects of woundedness from her family of origin to
know she’s not alone, that she can get help, that there are safe people in the
world with whom she can share her heart.
I want to encourage those
really struggling in their vocations to seek help both inside and outside the
church. I want them to know healing is
possible and we don’t have to stay stuck in our sin or our woundedness.
Q: In my own prayer life, I
have realized non-negotiables. Can you share a little bit about the rhythms and
routines of your current prayer practices?
A: I think it’s always tricky business to share prayer routines
because our lives are all so different. This
is why having a spiritual director is so helpful for me. If he sees that I’m trying to do too much or
not enough, he recommends an adjustment to the routine. He knows me well, knows
my life situation, and generally his suggestions are appropriate.
That said, I’m the kind of person who breaks out into sweats when
I see in bullet point form the Lenten practices or elaborate liturgical family celebrations
and even prayer routines of others.
I think it’s important not to make our Catholic faith a series of
practices we check off like a to-do list.
It’s good to have a habit of prayer but that habit needs to be grounded
in growing our relationship with God, not motivated by our desire to feel like
a Super Catholic.
While the prayer recommendations/suggestions found in books and
blogs are meant to be helpful (and often are to the readers!), I think there is
a danger in looking at a list of suggested prayer practices and seeing only
those things I’m not doing (and therefore failing at). OR I see that list and I
feel smug, accomplished, and maybe a tad spiritually superior because I’m able
to tackle most of what’s suggested. What can I say? I’m a very
limited person.
Consequently, I won’t outline for you when I pray and how. I will say that I have certain prayers I
consider foundational to life and all of these have been assumed under the
guidance of my spiritual director. They
fit my life and work for me. Whether
these will work for you or not, that’s up to you to pray about and discern.
- Lectio Devina: daily reading and meditation of the
scriptures. This practice has been
instrumental in cultivating my relationship with God, knowing his will for me
in my daily life, and begging the graces from him to fulfill his call.
- Regular Confession: This
will look different for everyone but at this point, we try to go as a family
twice a month.
- Exam of Conscience: I use this
book recommended to me by my
spiritual director and I love it. The
important part of the examination for me is recognizing the GOOD in my day
first: the blessings God showered upon me (an encouraging word from a friend, a
random act of kindness from my husband) BEFORE I look at my sin.
- Participation in regular
prayer groups/bible studies
- Regular spiritual direction
Q: I loved the section where
you addressed the dangers of the negative impact an over-emphasis on academic
pressure and too many extracurricular activities can have on families. I recently reflected on struggles with setting and maintaining boundaries with
how I use my time in comparison with others' decisions but ultimately realizing
that I have to decide based on what I know is healthy for my family and for me.
What do you think has been the hardest part about being able to make your own
decisions rather than what seems to be typical or expected?
It's so hard to ignore the
Jones’s! We all want what’s best for our
kids and it’s easy to get swept up into the idea that Rocket Camp or The French
Club or a trip to the South of France might be just the thing to grow their
life experience and minds.
And maybe those things will
do that?
But I wonder about the
effects some of these demanding extracurriculars have on the family—how it
limits the time we spend together, the number of meals we have together in the
evening, and how it erodes a peaceful lifestyle in favor of a frenetic,
demanding one.
Extracurricular are a great
tool to hone a child’s skills but if we aren’t careful, they can slowly eat
away at family time.
I’m not against
extracurriculars but as a family we are selective about how we spend our
time. When considering a specific
activity for one of our six children, my husband, John, and I ask ourselves
these questions in order to determine if the sport/club is a good fit:
- Do we have the money right
now for this particular extracurricular activity and the accompanying equipment
to participate in the activity (for us this means, can we pay for it out of our
pocket and not put it on a credit card or rob Peter to pay Paul)?
- What is the benefit of this
activity for this child? What are the
downsides of his/her participation?
- Do we have the time for it
right now? (This entails a realistic
look at the calendar of events and our other commitments.)
- If we commit, will we have
the emotional and physical energy left over for the rest of our children and
for our marriage, which is our number one priority.
Q: You mentioned that
"God calls all families to love, follow, and serve him, but the way in
which he calls us to do it looks different for everyone." Can you
summarize some of your tips on being able to discern God's will for your
life/your family's lives?
A: Discernment requires silence and prayer. It requires listening to the movements of God
in your soul in order to determine if He is calling you towards one thing or
another. Discernment also requires we
pay attention to those situations, conversations, experiences, which bring us
peace and those that don’t.
What is God calling your
family to?
Only you can answer this question and the answer to this requires
prayer and silence. It requires discussion with your spouse and your family
members. Once you’ve spent a significant amount of time in prayer and in
discussion, I encourage you to write these things down and put them in a family
mission statement. Then, evaluate
everything in light of that mission statement.
Should we go on this vacation?
Well, does the trip fit within our family mission?
Should we enroll the kids in this school? Does the school fit within our family
mission?
Should we put the kids in spring baseball? Does spring baseball fit within our family
mission?
There will be pros and cons to every decision you make in life,
but I find that when both spouses are united in their vision for their family
and they have defined the mission concretely, it makes decision making much,
much easier.
Thank you Colleen for sharing your insights with us! You can find information about other stops on the blog tour here.
