How did/does your culture shape your perception of strength? My sister and I are half Filipino and half Scotch-Irish.
Growing up, I was always aware of my dual-identity – whether it was being asked if I was adopted when my dad took us on field trips or if I spoke enough Tagalog to jump the security line at the airport. Truth be told, I thought I had a super power as kid because of my mixed ethnicity. My heritage hailed from opposite ends of the earth and the stories and the values I grew up with were a constant clash and harmony in my home. Bi-racial and bicultural families are not the product of peaceful, intellectual cool-headed understanding or absolutely mutual values. They are not the result of familiarity, but rather a particularly persistent strain love and strength that is stubborn and resilient. It is such because marriages like this are not without exceptional challenge and conflict, both which arose in and around my family.
It was hard for my red-headed, umpteenth generation American Dad to feel at home in the plastic covered, weird-smelling homes of my Filipino not-actual-blood-cousins of my mom. And likewise, my mother was acutely made aware of her dark skin and foreign look if we ever ventured far from the cities or the coast. Where we vacationed and which families we saw were always an emotional topic; but always handled with deference and grit.
I watched my parents love each other persistently and with much tolerance for one another and the homes they came from; in turn saw the fruits of patience and compassion grow in my sister and I. We internalized these examples of love and strength that were borne out of a love and respect our parents' showed to each others' heritages - and now they are ours and we are stronger for it.
What’s one thing someone could do today to make them stronger? My brother in law told us when we had our first kid that if we "lift our baby above our head once, everyday, until they were full grown, [we] would be significantly stronger in 18 years." The thought of lifting my adult child over my head always made me laugh and poke fun at him. But he has a point - there is a deep strength that comes with discipline and, I might venture to say, ritual.
Pick rituals that you intend and expect to maintain regularly, perhaps every day. Brushing your teeth is a good and important ritual that prevents dentist visits and damaged or uncomfortable byproducts. Brushing your teeth is a good ritual. An even better one is prayer. Meditation is a hot topic lately and that because the news is out about the health benefits of intention-setting and regular practices of mindfulness. Our ancestors and the Church Fathers saw the fruit of prayer and passed many beautiful practices, images, and writings down to us. One thing any given person can do to make them strong is to deliberately set a little time aside and join brothers and sisters in prayer.
When has your strength been personally challenged and how did you respond? I work in a difficult industry. Production of any sort is demanding, but creative production - particularly in commercials - can be a special kind of grueling. As you progress up the chain of command (if you are arrogant enough to do so!) the rules & roles get more fluid but the stakes get higher and expectations for the miraculous more common. For almost 15 years in my field, I have had one or two projects each year that I was sure would break me.
One such time was a particularly complicated situation where I was returning from maternity leave to find that my position had been downgraded and immediately appropriated to a particularly demanding project and function – one that required me to work, on site for on-call crew management 12-16 hrs a day over a week or so (and this only three months after giving birth!). I wasn't excited about this prospect, but I thought I could and should handle it, so show that maternity leave had not made me weaker while I was away.
But if the demotion wasn't a difficult enough pill to swallow re-entry, I was still pumping and the project was out of state. This was not the job that taught me to set boundaries and ask for support - though it should have been. Instead, I landed in Bay Area and excused myself from set to be available by phone call to my team while I pumped my breastmilk in my rental car, in an Oakland public bathroom, at the back of a college fabrication shop, and in the men's locker room. And on the days of the shoot, where my presence was needed the entirety of the 12 hour day, I didn't pump at all. I let my bra soak up the milk that I wasn't collecting and bit the inside of my cheek when the breeze blowing across my sweater sent my head swimming from the pain. I came home to an empty victory - no one died and the shoot happened, but I found my milk supply had been totally compromised and was disappearing. I realized that what I thought had been a show of strength was really just prideful stubbornness; and I had let it undermine my priorities.
I still make this mistake – but less often. Knowing my own strength is as important as knowing when and where to use it. The people I lend my strength to are receiving a gift – not because I am special or especially strong – but because it is a quality God imbued in me. It's not to be conflated with fleeting earthly gains, nor is it to be squandered.
