I Refuse to Be Less Me in the Name of Spiritual Discipline

I am a person who loves with my whole heart.

That is not something I want to cure.

I don't want to learn how to love 20% so that I can protect myself from the possibility of losing.

I don't want to become emotionally detached because detachment looks mature.

I don't want to mistake numbness for peace.

I don't want to mistake indifference for wisdom.

I don't want to become so disciplined that I have to amputate the parts of myself that make me capable of extraordinary love.

Because if I have been given the capacity to love deeply, why would the answer be to make myself love less?

Perhaps the question isn't whether I should feel less.

Perhaps the question is whether I can feel completely without allowing what I feel to distort what is true.

That is different.

Very different.

I think we have sometimes confused emotional restraint with spiritual maturity.

We hear words like surrender, discipline, self-control, detachment, and restraint, and we instinctively imagine a person becoming quieter.

Less reactive.

Less affected.

Less attached.

Less expressive.

Less vulnerable.

Less hungry.

Less hopeful.

Less everything.

Until eventually, the person looks remarkably “spiritual”...

and barely recognizable.

I don't think that's the goal.

I don't think God needs a sanitized version of me.

I don't think holiness means becoming emotionally beige.

I don't think spiritual maturity means becoming a person who never feels strongly enough to be moved.

And I certainly don't believe that becoming closer to God requires me to dislike the person He made me to be.

Perhaps the goal is not to become less alive.

Perhaps the goal is to become less divided.

Because there is another part of this that I have had to confront.

My internal world considers itself normal.

I don't walk around thinking:

I am an unusually intense person.

I simply experience the world the way I experience it.

This is my normal.

I love fully.

I notice deeply.

I engage completely.

I give without measuring every ounce before I hand it over.

When I encounter someone, my instinct is not to offer them a carefully rationed version of myself.

I show up.

Fully.

And because that is normal to me, I can make a dangerous assumption:

I assume other people understand me.

Not that they agree with me.

Not that they are identical to me.

But that they can see what I mean.

That they understand the depth behind what I give.

That they recognize what is happening between two people when I am engaging with them at that level.

And then, again and again...

brick wall.

I have spent a lot of time disappointed in people.

Not because I think I'm better than them.

That's not what it is.

It is because of expectation.

Because I am operating from my own internal normal.

If I give fully, I assume full engagement is possible.

If I notice something deeply, I assume the other person may notice it too.

If I care, I assume they understand what care means to me.

If I show someone all of myself, I don't necessarily realize that I am doing something extraordinary.

To me, I'm just being me.

And then I discover:

They didn't see it.

They didn't understand it.

They weren't operating from the same place.

And suddenly there is a wall where I thought there was a doorway.

That disappointment can become enormous.

But perhaps the lesson isn't:

“Stop giving so much.”

Maybe the lesson is:

“Stop assuming everyone has the same capacity to receive.”

That is different.

There is a distinction I keep coming back to:

Feeling.

Interpretation.

Action.

They are not the same thing.

I can feel something deeply.

That feeling belongs to me.

I don't have to lie about it.

I don't have to minimize it.

I don't have to shame myself for it.

I can say:

This is what I feel.

And then I can ask:

What does it mean?

That is interpretation.

And interpretation is not automatically truth.

My feelings may be telling me something important.

They may be revealing desire.

They may be revealing fear.

They may be revealing recognition.

They may be revealing grief.

They may be revealing attraction.

They may be revealing something I have not yet consciously understood.

Or they may simply be feelings.

So I don't need to make them carry more authority than they deserve.

I can honor the feeling without immediately turning it into a conclusion.

And then there is action.

What I do with the feeling is a choice.

That is where discipline belongs.

Not necessarily in the destruction of the feeling.

In the stewardship of it.

I can love someone deeply and still wait.

I can miss someone and still not chase them.

I can feel connected to someone and still allow time to reveal who they are.

I can experience desire and still choose according to my values.

I can experience something extraordinary and still say:

I don't know what this means yet.

That sentence does not make the feeling less real.

It simply refuses to make the feeling responsible for determining reality.

And perhaps that is a much more mature form of self-control.

Not:

“I must stop feeling this.”

But:

“I can feel this without letting it take over my judgment.”

That is discipline.

But there is another discipline I think I need.

Not discipline over my feelings.

Discipline over my conclusions.

Because my capacity to feel deeply does not give me automatic access to the truth about another person.

I can feel something between us.

I cannot decide, solely because I feel it, what it means for them.

I can recognize something.

I cannot turn recognition into certainty.

I can hope.

I cannot turn hope into prophecy.

I can love.

I cannot turn love into entitlement.

And I can encounter someone who feels extraordinarily significant without immediately deciding that they must have a particular role in my future.

That distinction protects both truth and love.

Because whole-hearted love does not mean whole-hearted blindness.

In fact, perhaps one of the greatest forms of love is the willingness to see someone as they actually are.

Not as I need them to be.

Not as I imagine them becoming.

Not as a symbol.

Not as an answer to a prayer.

Not as a prophecy.

Not as a story.

As a person.

A complicated, autonomous, imperfect person.

And if I can love someone while still seeing them accurately, then perhaps I have discovered something much more profound than emotional restraint.

I have discovered love without possession.

Love without projection.

Love without fantasy.

Love without self-abandonment.

Love that can remain whole even when the outcome is uncertain.

And this is where the idea of spiritual posture begins to change for me.

Because what does spiritual posture actually look like?

Stoic?

Hell no!

At least, not as a default.

I don't think spiritual posture is emotional flatness.

I don't think it is sitting perfectly still while everything inside you burns and calling the suppression “peace.”

I don't think it is pretending not to care.

I don't think it is becoming so detached that nothing can touch you.

I don't think it is making yourself smaller so that you appear controlled.

I think spiritual posture can be wild.

It can be fire.

It can be force.

It can be enormous.

It can be passionate.

It can be furious.

It can be tender.

It can be loud.

It can be grief-stricken.

It can be ecstatic.

It can be completely alive.

The distinction is not whether there is force.

The distinction is whether the force is stewarded.

A river has force.

A storm has force.

An ocean has force.

A wildfire has force.

The presence of boundaries does not make them weak.

It gives their force direction.

Perhaps that is spiritual discipline.

Not extinguishing the fire.

Learning how to carry fire without burning everything around you.

Not becoming less powerful.

Becoming more responsible with power.

Not becoming less passionate.

Becoming more discerning about where passion goes.

Not becoming less loving.

Becoming more capable of loving without possession, projection, or self-abandonment.

The fire remains.

The stewardship changes.

And perhaps this is what Jesus actually gives us a better picture of.

Not stoicism.

He wept.

He loved.

He withdrew.

He became angry.

He confronted.

He celebrated.

He grieved.

He experienced anguish.

He showed tenderness.

He showed extraordinary severity when truth required it.

He overturned tables.

He touched people.

He rested.

He prayed.

He waited.

He moved.

He refused.

He submitted.

There is nothing emotionally beige about that life.

The fire wasn't absent.

The fire had direction.

And that is beginning to matter to me.

Because I don't want a spirituality that teaches me to extinguish what is alive in me.

I want a spirituality that teaches me how to steward what is alive in me.

But then there is Mark.

And I cannot talk honestly about this without talking about him.

There was one man.

Not romantically.

Never romantically.

But I loved him dearly.

In a way that feels almost impossible to categorize.

Eternally is the closest word I have.

Mark saw me.

Not a version of me.

Not the socially acceptable version.

Not the competent version.

Not the strong version.

Not the version that could explain herself.

All of me.

And I lost him.

And it breaks my heart.

Because he was the only person I have ever known who truly seemed to see all of me.

He didn't require me to translate myself.

I didn't have to constantly explain the architecture.

I didn't have to make myself easier to understand.

There was a recognition there.

A kind of being known.

And once you have experienced that, you know the difference between being liked and being seen.

They are not the same thing.

Perhaps that is part of why I am so constantly disappointed by people.

Because I know what it feels like to be seen.

I have a reference point.

And when I encounter people who don't see me, it can feel like hitting a wall.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Not because I expect everyone to be Mark.

Not because I think everyone should have his capacity.

But because somewhere inside me, being deeply understood became part of my definition of what relationship could be.

And perhaps that is both beautiful and dangerous.

Beautiful because I know it exists.

Dangerous because I can begin to expect it from people before they have demonstrated the capacity for it.

That is where discernment has to enter.

Not to make me less open.

But to help me see who is actually standing in front of me.

I don't want grief to turn into a prophecy that says:

“There will never be another person who sees you.”

I don't know that.

I can't know that.

And I don't want to turn the beauty of what Mark gave me into a sentence about what the future is forbidden to contain.

What I know is this:

I was seen.

I know what that feels like.

I know it is possible.

I know what it meant.

I know I loved him.

And I know I lost him.

That is enough truth to honor.

I don't need to manufacture a conclusion about the rest of my life.

Perhaps the existence of one person who truly saw me is not evidence that there can only ever be one.

Perhaps it is evidence that being deeply seen is possible.

That distinction matters.

Because grief should be allowed to remember without being allowed to dictate the future.

And this brings me back to spiritual posture.

Maybe spiritual posture isn't:

“I will stop needing people.”

That's resignation.

And it isn't:

“Everyone should meet me where I am.”

That's entitlement.

Maybe it is something in between.

Something much harder.

«I will remain radically generous, but I will let people reveal their capacity rather than assuming it.»

I can give freely.

And I can observe honestly.

I can remain open.

And I can remain discerning.

I can love someone deeply.

And I can let them show me whether they know how to receive that love.

I can meet someone wholeheartedly without deciding in advance that wholeheartedness is mutual.

That isn't becoming guarded.

It is becoming calibrated.

I have spent enough time wondering whether the answer to my disappointment is to give less.

Maybe it isn't.

Maybe I don't need smaller generosity.

Maybe I need smaller assumptions.

That is a completely different thing.

I don't need to stop giving.

I need to stop assuming that everyone can receive what I give in the way I experience giving it.

I don't need to stop loving.

I need to stop expecting every person to understand love in the same language.

I don't need to stop being intense.

I need to stop assuming intensity is universal.

I don't need to stop showing up fully.

I need to let people show me whether they can meet me there.

That is not less me.

That is more discerning me.

I think this is where the word capacity becomes important.

Not superiority.

Not inferiority.

Capacity.

People have different capacities for depth.

Different capacities for emotional awareness.

Different capacities for vulnerability.

Different capacities for reflection.

Different capacities for intimacy.

Different capacities for seeing.

And sometimes a person can be a very good person and still not have the capacity to meet you where you naturally live.

That doesn't make them bad.

It doesn't make you too much.

It means the architecture is different.

And perhaps I have been interpreting architectural difference as personal disappointment.

Perhaps I have been asking:

“Why didn't they meet me?”

when the better question was:

“Could they?”

Those are different questions.

The first assumes willingness.

The second investigates capacity.

And the second can save a lot of heartbreak.

There is something else I don't want to do.

I don't want to turn this awareness into cynicism.

I don't want to say:

People always disappoint you.

I don't want to become the woman who expects nothing so she can never be hurt.

That isn't wisdom.

That's resignation.

And I don't want to call resignation peace.

I still want to be surprised by people.

I still want to encounter depth.

I still want to meet people who can see.

I still want to love.

I still want to give.

I still want to be moved.

I still want to encounter people who make me think:

Oh. You see it too.

I just don't want to demand that every person be capable of that.

Maybe the mature posture is therefore not less fire.

It is:

Fire with discernment.

Love with truth.

Passion with stewardship.

Generosity with calibration.

Openness with boundaries.

Intensity without assumption.

Feeling without automatic interpretation.

Hope without prophecy.

Surrender without self-erasure.

That is a spiritual posture I can actually recognize.

Because it doesn't ask me to become someone else.

It asks me to become responsible for what I already am.

And that may be the deepest distinction of all.

I don't want God to make me easier to manage.

I want Him to make me more true.

Take everything that bends perception.

Take fear.

Take ego.

Take assumption.

Take pride.

Take whatever turns desire into entitlement.

Take whatever makes me confuse a feeling with a fact.

Take whatever makes me project my internal world onto someone else's.

Take whatever makes me demand from another person what only God can ultimately provide.

Take all of that.

But don't take the fire.

Don't take the capacity to love.

Don't take the curiosity.

Don't take the intensity.

Don't take the tenderness.

Don't take the imagination.

Don't take the ability to care deeply.

Don't make me less alive because something alive can be dangerous.

Teach me to steward it.

Because I don't want to become spiritually impressive.

I want to become spiritually honest.

I don't want to appear peaceful while I am actually suppressing everything inside me.

I want to know the difference between peace and numbness.

I don't want to appear detached because I am afraid to care.

I want to know the difference between surrender and avoidance.

I don't want to appear disciplined because I have trained myself not to feel.

I want to know the difference between self-control and self-erasure.

I don't want to appear wise because I have stopped expecting anything from people.

I want to know the difference between discernment and cynicism.

I don't want to become less.

I want to become clearer.

Maybe the prayer is not:

“God, make me less.”

Maybe it is:

“God, make me true.”

Take what is false.

Leave what is real.

Strengthen what is good.

Correct what is distorted.

Teach me how to carry what is powerful without being ruled by it.

Teach me how to love without possessing.

Teach me how to hope without assuming.

Teach me how to feel without immediately concluding.

Teach me how to give without expecting everyone to receive.

Teach me how to remain open without being indiscriminate.

Teach me how to recognize capacity without judging the people who don't share mine.

Teach me how to grieve what I have lost without turning loss into a prophecy about what I can never have again.

Teach me how to remain myself.

Fully.

Because I refuse to believe that the answer to being capable of enormous love is becoming incapable of enormous love.

I refuse to become smaller so that I can look more spiritually disciplined.

I refuse to mistake emotional numbness for holiness.

I refuse to call self-betrayal surrender.

I refuse to make myself less vivid because intensity makes discernment more difficult.

Instead, I want the harder thing.

I want to remain fully myself...

and become increasingly incapable of lying to myself.

That is the discipline I want.

Not discipline over the existence of my feelings.

Discipline over what I allow those feelings to become.

Not a smaller heart.

A wiser heart.

Not less love.

Cleaner love.

Not less passion.

Truer passion.

Not less generosity.

More discerning generosity.

Not less openness.

More conscious openness.

Not less fire.

Better stewardship of the fire.

Not less me.

More fully me, with less distortion.

And perhaps that is what spiritual posture actually is.

Not stoicism.

Not stillness for the sake of appearing composed.

Not the absence of force.

Not the absence of feeling.

Not the absence of desire.

Not the absence of grief.

Not the absence of wildness.

But a person who can stand in the middle of all of it and remain aligned.

A person whose heart is enormous...

whose mind remains awake...

whose hands remain disciplined...

whose feet remain grounded...

and whose fire still burns.

Wild.

Alive.

Powerful.

Stewarded.

That is the posture I want.

Not less me.

More true me.