Chapter 22: Trying to Be Like Me
I felt a voice that said, "that’s what I want for you, too. I don’t want you to be like Jesus. Be Rachel."
During the week of Dad’s funeral, I woke up in the middle of one night. I was agitated. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was in the state of trying to get back to sleep and feeling half asleep, all while I was having strong dark thoughts. Insomnia isn’t new to me, but Dad’s death, plus pain medication and the stress of the week definitely affected my sleepy brain. After fighting the thoughts for a while, I sat straight up in bed and woke Josh up, asking him to talk to me so I could get the darkness out of my head.
I don’t remember what I began with, but our talk soon turned to church stuff. At one point, I declared, “I am so tired of striving all the time, of being told we should be daily striving. And what’s with this ‘I’m trying to be like Jesus’ teaching? I can’t do it. I don’t want to be like Jesus. I want to be like Rachel!”
That’s what I want for you, too. I don’t want you to be like Jesus. Be Rachel.
I felt those words in my heart center as clear as if I’d actually heard them. I even looked around the room to see where that came from.
Oh my gosh. That’s it! I don’t need to be like Jesus, I can be like me! What? It feels so right! But is that ok?
I told Josh what I was feeling, how the spiritual answer came to me and we talked about it more. I didn’t know I needed that answer so much. I decided that I didn’t want to be like anyone else. I just want to be me! But changing that mindset takes work.
I feel like I still constantly hear the variations of that phrase in our church. I wonder when it started becoming more popular. Is it the actual doctrine that everything we do must be about "becoming more like Him?" Is it actual doctrine that we will or have to become just like Jesus?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in church say something like, “wake up each morning and ask yourself, how can I be myself today?” Instead, it’s more like:
Ask yourself each morning how you can be like Jesus today.
We need to be like Jesus.
Our purpose is to become more like Him.
Everything we do and say should be about becoming like Him.
Serve “so we can be like Him.”
Be obedient “so we can be like Him.”
Stay on the covenant path “so we can be like Him.”
I’m just going to say it. I’m tired of hearing it.
Which is strange because I have always really loved the song, “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus,” 1 especially the beautiful rendition by The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. And it’s one of my dad’s favorite songs.
I’m sorry, Dad.
I personally don't wake up each day thinking about how I can be like Jesus. It's more like, how can I get through this day, with some self care and love and patience and not completely lose it.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe in personal growth and Jesus Christ, but the constant pressure to always strive, strive, strive, be perfect and the constant worry about my salvation was wearing me down.
That night taught me that God loves me just as I am, right now. I’m enough. This has done more for my spiritual health than I can express. It was one of my first experiences of the spirit teaching me about self acceptance.
I feel like if we embrace ourselves in all our messiness, progression and connection will naturally follow. Healing ourselves and loving ourselves is essential because we are part of God, and They are part of us.
Now, I know that the “trying to be like Jesus” phrase doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect, that it’s more like, let’s help each other, be kind, forgive others, and love completely. I know the phrase doesn’t mean I need to be doing all the things Jesus did.
Even though the general purpose of “trying to be like Jesus” is to improve ourselves and connect to Christ, problems can develop for religious people when we are constantly striving for something outside of ourselves, with the idea that we are inherently separated from God. We’re taught that we are separated from God because of Adam’s fall, that we are carnal and devilish, we are quick to rebel, lazy, and that we must daily grovel in penitence. (Maybe we are those things to an extent, but more than that, we are amazing, unique humans). It’s like we are trying desperately to close the separation from God with perfect obedience. When in truth, God has been with us all along.
Add on top of that, we can start believing that true happiness will come after our earth life. Our progression will come in heaven. If we earned it. And if we aren’t in a state of constant happiness here, know our divine purpose every single second of every day, find joy in Christ all the time, we are doing something wrong. If we are perfectly obedient, then we will prosper. When in reality, life is messy and hard no matter how obedient you are.
I have a very strong emotional protector part that I sometimes call Righteous Rachel. And Righteous Rachel often says,“Loving yourself?! Gasp! Be careful. You know what happens when you think too highly of yourself: The P word.”
PRIDE.
Somehow Elder Benson’s famous talk on pride got us all thinking that we don’t dare think positively of ourselves. Don’t you dare say, “I’m so proud of myself.” Or maybe that only happened to me.
In my teens and twenties, I was so terrified about being prideful, that I thought the way to avoid it and be humble was to think the worst of myself. Combine self-loathing with manic depression, and that led to a lifetime struggle with disassociation and disconnection with myself.
The crazy thing is, I think I kind of prided myself in being sooooooo humble. =)
It’s like saying, I will love myself when I am perfect.
I have learned about radical self-love and self-compassion in the past few years, especially in therapy. And it is really difficult to untrain a lifetime of self criticism. Sometimes my therapist and I will talk about self-compassion, or doing something just for me, or even being proud of myself. And Righteous Rachel comes in strong over my right shoulder. “Watch out, you’re not supposed to work on yourself. You are supposed to lose yourself and forget yourself in the service of others. Remember, you suck. You’re the dust of the earth. And also, if you do something kind for yourself, it could lead to the P word, thinking that you are better than others.”
Often my therapist has then asked me, “Rachel, after you have done something to care for yourself, when have you ever come away from that thinking that you are better than anyone else?”
Never.
In fact, the more I learn to love myself, with all my flaws and all my goodness, the more I cherish the Goddess in me, the more I see the divinity in others. I feel closer to all of humanity. I have less pride, or an “us versus them” way of thinking.
Which is so interesting because so often I feel that in our church we're putting ourselves in an “us versus them.” way of thinking. The active vs. the inactive members. The saints vs. the sinners. The covenant keepers vs. the rebels. The righteous vs. the world. The whole-truth havers vs. the poor souls who only have a small portion of the truth. The straights vs. the gays. We’ve taken being a peculiar people to an extreme.
For most of my life, the admonishment to be like Jesus made me believe that it was sinful to feel “negative” emotions, like anger, jealousy, sadness. After all, Jesus is perfect. He doesn’t get angry except for that one time in the temple. So I shouldn’t either.
So I became an expert conflict avoider, anger denier and pride defier. I did all I could to push those evil emotions down. It’s actually hard for me to differentiate something: Am I easy going, patient, a peacekeeper, as part of my inherent personality, or did pushing emotions down make me believe that my feelings didn’t matter? It’s interesting to think about, especially in the context of codependency. (See chapter 14) There have been so many times in my life in which I let another person talk to me or treat me poorly, and I didn’t say anything. I turned the other cheek. I thought I was being like Christ. But I really lacked boundaries and self respect.
I think Jesus did have boundaries.
Some of my favorite responses to “I’m trying to be like Jesus” include:
Ok, you want me to be like Jesus? Awesome! He was a nonconforming rabble rouser who defied the church leaders and hung out with the outcasts. He also took time to rest and went on a lot of nature walks.
Also, it doesn’t quite sit well with me that the men who claim to be closer to Jesus than anyone else on earth tell me to be like Jesus and then in the next breath teach that anyone who hasn’t perfectly made all the perfect covenants on the perfect straight (not gay) path will not make it to heaven.
Oh, and if you’re lazy you can’t have access to all of God’s love.
No wonder we are holding on to perfection so tightly.
Even as I write this, Righteous Rachel is saying, but wait! Checklists! Covenant path! Qualify! Damnit, she is relentless sometimes.
So, to her, I say, thank you Righteous Rachel for your service. I appreciate all your worry and concern for my salvation. But it’s time for you to chill the heck out.
I just need God’s love right now. I honestly can’t handle trying to qualify for anything. I’m just trying to get through some real hard shit and make a life of meaning and peace.
I’m holding on to my personal revelation:
That’s what I want for you, too. I don’t want you to be like Jesus. Be Rachel.
“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Kapp Perry, Janice. “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus.” 1980
I have had this EXACT revelation! I wonder if perimenopause was created specifically for overwhelmed women to say, "I'm done" and God to respond,"FINALLY!" I remember sobbing in prayer saying "I've tried, you KNOW I've tried. I'll never be (fill in the MANY blanks). I've repented more times than I can count and I'm still not who you want me to be" I immediately heard in my bones "That's because I want you to be exactly as you already are. I need you here now as you are - as your loud, brash, messy, bull in the china shop self. I'm tired of you trying to be something you're not too. You don't need to repent of just being. You need to repent of listening to everyone else but ME. Jesus didn't die for you to be someone else, He suffered to understand you so he could heal you, not change you." I've never looked back. I LOVE our faith community now, because I participate on my terms, listening to my still small voice and being loud and brash and bull in the china shop open about it being doctrinally incorrect to discriminate for any reason and doctrinally correct to love EVERYONE. We are to enlarge our stakes, not close them off. I wear my rainbow ring on my temple shifts, openly express my love in testimony and classes for my Heavenly Mother or at least Parents, etc. I've never felt more joyful in church. This community is just as much mine as it is anyone else's. I'm not being rebellious, I'm just doing/being who I'm supposed to be. If I make you uncomfortable, that's ok, you probably make me uncomfortable too and it turns out, we both belong here; and are required to figure out how to love each other regardless. Whew! sorry, that was a long comment lol!