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Hello my wayward comrades. I have been thinking about the ways that I use SI, both to be more intentional about it and to learn about myself, and I would be happy to hear from you about how you use SI.

I'm talking somewhat pointedly to those of you who mostly read and don't interact, or those of you who think you don't have anything helpful to say to others until you figure your stuff out and are healthy and healed. If you read and mostly don't interact - why? I would be happy to hear from you and for you to think about it. If you think you don't have much helpful to say, I hope to convince you otherwise.

I will reflect on the ways that I use it and then hope to hear from you.

Stephen King: "I write to find out what I think."

Joan Didion: "I don't know what I think until I write it down."

Flannery O’Connor: "I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again."

William Faulkner: "I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it."

James Runcie: "In my experience authors do not know what they really think until they write it down. They discover their thoughts in the process of writing. It's the act of writing itself that articulates both thought and emotion."

I don't think it's only published authors. I think it's all of us. The very process of writing helps to surface what we are thinking. And if we struggle for the words, if we are guided by a feeling or a general sense but are not sure what's under it, there are others here to offer what they see.

SI used to be a place where there was judgment for waywards who didn't already have the answers. One of my friends who no longer posts (I hope because she has moved on from infidelity being so central to her life) wrote that it felt like showing up to kindergarten and being shamed for not knowing how to read. I don't see that much on the wayward forum anymore, which makes me glad, and I hope it stays that way, because we all agree not to judge or shame people who are sincerely working through their stuff.

The next way that I use SI is I notice when there is a sense of urgency to respond (and resist the urge to respond. Mostly).

Learning to notice and sit with the urge to respond has been super important on SI for me, and practicing on SI helps me to do better in real life.

It used to drive me crazy when someone would post something provocative or harsh, and others would say maybe if you have a reaction it means they are close to something important. Yeah, maybe, or maybe they are insensitive self-centered and projecting. But here is how I now think of it. There are insensitive, self-centered, projecting people all over the place. Everywhere! Learning how to deal with them is a great skill to have in life, walking down the street, at work, and especially at Thanksgiving dinner. If you can resist the strong urge to respond to them, to put them straight, to correct the record, to make sure they understand your point of view (which they do not want to do), you will live a more peaceful and steady life. And - even better - with time, that peace may allow you to see that their insensitivity to you and projecting onto you is because they are hurt, and you can think of ways you might be able to help them. Not fix them, that's not our job, but help, if you can.

And - sometimes - when I feel the urge to respond to someone who I think is insensitive, self-centered, and projecting, when I sit with it for a while, I see they have a point. That takes humility and it is very hard. It gets easier with practice.

Richard Rohr is a Franciscan monk who attracts a fair bit of vitriol. He says that after his talks, if someone is waiting to yell at him, he listens carefully for the bit of truth that is in what they say. Sometimes 90% of what they say is malarky, and 10% is truth. He listens carefully for that 10%. He says it is disarming to people (in a good way).

[This message edited by Pippin at 7:38 PM, Thursday, May 15th]

When my kids were little I had a puppet called Mr. Mix-Up. Mr. Mix-Up made the mistakes that my kids made because it is easier for kids to recognize mistakes in others than it is for them to see their own mistakes. If one of my kids persistently left out the number 11 in their counting, Mr. Mix-Up would leave out the number 11 when he counted, and of course the kid would notice! (and then I would say: can you show Mr. Mix-Up how to count? And they likely would get it right because they were concentrating).

This also works with adults. Here is the prophet Nathan helping King David to see his sin:

So the Lord sent Nathan to David. Nathan came to him and said, "There were two men in a certain city. One was rich, and the other was poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cows, but the poor man had only one little female lamb that he had bought. He raised her, and she grew up in his home with his children. She would eat his food and drink from his cup. She rested in his arms and was like a daughter. Now, a visitor came to the rich man. The rich man thought it would be a pity to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler. So he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared her for the traveler."

David burned with anger against the man. "I solemnly swear, as the Lord lives," he said to Nathan, "the man who did this certainly deserves to die! And he must pay back four times the price of the lamb because he did this and had no pity."

"You are the man!" Nathan told David.

When you respond to others on SI, sometimes you will notice the mistakes that you are making through your response to them. I don't think this works if you are just reading, I think you have to engage with it. Sometimes when I read back my writing, I realize that I didn't really respond to what the person was asking or what they need, I was actually mostly talking to myself. You might feel foolish or inept if you do this, but it's OK. You are learning and we have all been there. If you want to feel better, look up the early posts of waywards you admire. Generally it's a shitshow, 100% true for me.

Sometimes writing advice to other people on SI gives you the cognitive dissonance you need to do something differently. Change does not always come through epiphany. When I first started writing on SI, I realized that I needed to be committed to the truth in order to heal. So I told my husband the truth (mostly, except certain parts that I didn't want to confess). And preached truth-telling endlessly to anyone who would listen. At first, I felt great! I had never been committed to truth in my life. I noticed the urge to lie and dealt with it. I once lied about something stupid, had a stomachache for a couple of hours, and confessed - and my husband was so understanding. That felt so good! But I started realizing . . . there are a few details I never told him. There are some lies from our past I never corrected. Over the course of the next year and a half, the cognitive dissonance grew and grew until the stomachache was semi-permanent. None of the things I withheld would have been discoverable. But I couldn't live as a hypocrite, and finally wrote down every single lie I had ever told and gave it to him.

This one was the more difficult to write for me. No one wants to confess to being a liar and a public hypocrite. No one wants their spouse to have to suffer at their hands while they take time untangling their evil parts. But I know why I learned to lie early, easily, and reflexively, and I have compassion for myself and the process, as long as I engage in it sincerely and constantly (with periods of rest and integration). Perhaps this is something some of you should think about. It's a kind of indirect public accountability. I won't shame you for it and I hope others don't either.