One volume that has been a very important part of my recent study journey is a book that, sadly, seems not to be well known or easily available. It appears that this incredibly helpful book is still available by contacting the publisher at the website listed below*. It should be required reading for everyone! The book is Walking on Water: Self-Esteem and a Journey of Faith by Robert Ball, and this book will provide the content for this week’s posts with deepest gratitude to Dr. Ball for his friendship and for being a mentor and colleague!
Once we begin believing that, “I am not that unloved child anymore,” all that comfortable familiarity is lost. We can no longer go on feeling inadequate. We can no longer say, “I’d like to be more patient and more loving, but I don’t have it in me.” Once acknowledged, goodness has to be used. If we have capacities for love and patience, we must begin living as patient and loving persons, thus producing the new experiences in our memory banks that affirm: We are lovable and loving persons.
Practicing our faith, we will talk differently: no longer mumbling as if incompetent or being brashly assertive in an effort to cover our sense of incompetence. We can also talk to ourselves differently, no longer condemning and shaming ourselves for failures and no longer portraying ourselves as victims of circumstance. We can relate to other people differently: no longer afraid to be known, no longer feeling desperately inadequate and unworthy, no longer yearning to be someone else or despising those others who are (or seem to be) what we yearn to be.
Once we look into ourselves and find capacities for good, we can change our lives. We need no longer be stuck with unsatisfying jobs or inconsiderate friends or abusive relationships. We have choices. We can no longer blame others for holding us back. Being competent persons, having skills that are of benefit to the world, we know we can take risks to discover just who we are and where we belong. The voices out of our past say, “To seek to succeed is to risk failure.” The new reality – the good news – is that, believing ourselves to be loved, we can afford to put ourselves into positions where failure and rejection are possibilities. We know that only in such positions are love and success real possibilities. (198-199)
This is wonderful good news!!!
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