Meditations Upon Returning

[Lilllabettt]

So somebody (Dame Agnes?) in the other thread mentioned making a place where we could gather together thoughts, advice, lessons learned, etc., about adjusting to life "back in the world."

Entering, and then leaving religious life is, these days, a fairly singular ordeal. Most people who undergo it will have no one in their personal accquaintance with whom this is a shared experience. And yet it is at this time of great vulnerability that a person needs to know that they are not alone.

Our experiences may differ widely, depending on the circumstances of the returning and the particulars of what came before and after. I think that variety will make this a information-rich thread.

Maybe people who have left religious life recently can use this thread to ask questions or just "process" thoughts outloud. People who have made it "through the valley" can offer advice. People discerning could prolly get a lot out of this ... and, I think it would be especially cool if people who were leaving religious life knew about this thread, that they could come here and get help trying to figure out what to do ...

So, post on, people.

[DiscerningSoul]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' date='04 September 2009 - 04:26 PM' timestamp='1252092377' post='1960919']
So somebody (Dame Agnes?) in the other thread mentioned making a place where we could gather together thoughts, advice, lessons learned, etc., about adjusting to life "back in the world."

Entering, and then leaving religious life is, these days, a fairly singular ordeal. Most people who undergo it will have no one in their personal accquaintance with whom this is a shared experience. And yet it is at this time of great vulnerability that a person needs to know that they are not alone.

Our experiences may differ widely, depending on the circumstances of the returning and the particulars of what came before and after. I think that variety will make this a information-rich thread.

Maybe people who have left religious life recently can use this thread to ask questions or just "process" thoughts outloud. People who have made it "through the valley" can offer advice. People discerning could prolly get a lot out of this ... and, I think it would be especially cool if people who were leaving religious life knew about this thread, that they could come here and get help trying to figure out what to do ...

So, post on, people.


[/quote]

Good Idea!

[HisChild]

Very nice thread. This would have been quite the balm for me a couple years ago. Thank you for thinking of this wonderful idea!

[FSM Sister]

Great idea! It's quite a grieving process [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/sadwalk.gif[/img]- for the one leaving, and often for her family and friends who do not know what to do/how to react. I am currently helping some parents a young woman going through the process, and could sure use everyone's prayers! [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/pray.gif[/img]

[CatherineM]

My spiritual director used to do that for her order. Women who were leaving, would get counseling on stuff like how to pay utility bills for those who had been inside since they graduated from highschool, or on how to avoid being taken advantage of. The reason she was so good at it is because she was out of the order for a decade from ages 35-45.

[Lilllabettt]

First advice that comes to mind:

1. Fight any desires to isolate.

For me, personally, it was a pendulum thing. One moment I wanted to be alone, the next I needed to be around people and feel "connected" to reality. This makes sense to me now, it reminds me of the Lord in Gethsemane.

Anyway, I found it really important to avoid isolation in the weeks and months following my return. Keeping perspective was central, and interacting with people helped me do that.

On the otherhand, one of the pitfalls of interaction is: talking. Some people will be curious and ask, but other times just the natural flow of conversation will bring a need for explaination. I found myself telling all kinds of people about where I 'came from,' repeating the story again and again.

I think its possible to avoid talking about it ... there are a number of tactful-enough brush offs. But if you do decide to talk about it, its important to put as positive a spin on it as possible. A lot of how we respond to events depends on the story we tell ourselves about the event. If it was a sad or scary thing, "rehearsing" it again and again can be detrimental. I eventually came up with an "elevator speech" ... a quick, all-purpose explaination, with a positive "but it made me stronger!" type statement at the end.

This helped me avoid retraumatizing myself by going into "oh this is so awful" type thinking after telling what happened. And by making it clear I didn't want any pity, it allowed the conversation to move on with as few "i'm so sorries" as possible.

[laetitia crucis]

For me, the most helpful thing after leaving (and thus having to leave my spiritual director in religious life) was finding another spiritual director. One of the most difficult things I found myself facing was doubting my vocation to the religious life. Since that order didn't work out, (which before and upon entering I thought without a doubt was "The One"), I immediately questioned if I had a religious vocation at all -- something that I practically never questioned once I had discerned that I am indeed called to the religious life. It felt like some kind of panicked downward spiral mixed with a dash of "mid-life crisis".

Having a good spiritual director helped me to think more clearly about my time in the convent -- which after all, is still a time of vocational discernment -- and now my time out of the convent. He helped to keep me focused on God's will, not my own.

And in dealing with friends and family that had seen me as a religious -- they, too, were just as confused as I was about the whole ordeal. They had seen me so happy and seemingly "at home", and here I was two years later broken and confused. I most certainly wasn't looking for a "pity party", but I will say that I was in need of support. And blessed be God, that's what they gave me. No one ever thought I was a "failure" (though I felt like I was), or even hinted that I had wasted the last two years of my life. I am very grateful to have those people in my life.

The other thing I did was also along the lines of not isolating myself -- I became involved in active volunteer work. I found that helpful in getting me out of the house and doing something meaningful with my new found "free time".

And as always, one should always (at least try) make time for daily Mass and Adoration. No one else understands quite like Jesus and our Blessed Mother.

So... here I am, still searching for "The One".

I'm glad this thread is up for my own growing and meditation, too. Thanks Dame Agnes and Lillabett!

P.S. -- I also agree with Lillabett about the talking and "where-I-came-from" stories. I too, wanted as little "I'm sorry"s as possible and didn't want to shed a bad light upon the order I was with. Plus, I ditto the "...but it made me stronger!" addition to one's explanation. (Which of course, is true -- "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger! )

[Maggyie]

Lilla, I hope you don't mind if I post some beautiful advice that an anonymous person left on your blog long ago.

[quote]My dear little sister,
I have been where you are! It may take a long time for you to come to peace with what has happened to you.

God knows the pain you are feeling! Give it to Him...Talk to Him, cry, get angry, weep, become a total catharsis, then become quiet and just be in the Eucharistic presence.

If you can't do this in Church, go out into nature and just sit and be quiet...breathe slowly...be silent in the moment.

When you come to the quiet in your heart you will be amazed at what clarity He gives...no matter how angry and hurt, no matter how others have talked behind your back or in front of you, no matter the "shame" and bewilderment, you are HIS! He loves you! You are the only you He made and He don't make junk.

This silence may bring you to journal writing of sorts, to music, to beauty of living again.

If you journal the experience of departure and loss write it thoroughly, every smattering of what you can recall. Then put it in a box and determine NOT to read it no matter what for 5 years! Allow yourself some distance, don't wallow in the indecision of the spinning mind in which you are troubled.

Find a religious community in the area and ask whom they use for spiritual advisers. Find a great confessor, spiritual director. If you are seeing a therapist of sorts make sure that you and this therapist and your spiritual adviser are on the same page so as not to be torn in opposition to one another.

Be bold. Walk in faith, fake it til you make it!

You are in the prayers of many and my daily prayers for you!

God bless you child of heaven!
a friend[/quote]

[url="http://thebeautifulroses.blogspot.com/2008/12/great-depression.html#comments"]Link[/url]

[FSM Sister]

The priest at my parish gave me two days to "mope," and then told me to make a prayer and work schedule and then stick to it. The parish was very supportive (my family was thousands of miles away) while I tried to find my way as a single woman living in the world at the age of 36, after having been in the convent since just before turning 18. Why did I leave? Actually, my story is an 'inside out' kind of thing. It was more like my community had left me, and not the other way around. The prayer life was eroding, habits were changing, traditions were being tossed aside. Anyway...
Going to daily mass, praying the liturgy of the hours, working, volunteering... staying very busy helped me avoid depression. What an insightful priest, and how fortunate I am to have had his guidance! Within three years, I was in a more stable community - and now, almost a decade later, the community I left is finding its way back to solid ground - and getting some new vocations.
That was more than a dozen years ago.

So yes, I [i]am[/i] stronger! God [i]IS[/i] good! He [i]WILL[/i] see you through this! Do not start slacking on your prayer life, no matter how busy you think you are. God must still have 1st place, or you will see how quickly things start to spiral out of control. Find some people to pray the liturgy of the hours with you, or pray it out loud all by yourself (I do that a lot!) Of course, not when there are other people around! Make a retreat at least every six months, and if your own parish doesn't have Adoration on a regular basis, find one that does. Ask someone to go with you. Start a little group. Ask your parish priest what sort of little apostolate you could take on or help out with (St. Vincent de Paul, visiting nursing homes or shut ins, religious ed., volunteering at the Catholic school, help at the rectory, etc.)

I still miss my first community - and probably always will. And that's okay! Our Lady understands. She remained here for many years after our Lord's ascension, right?

[AccountDeleted]

[quote name='FSM Sister' date='06 September 2009 - 12:35 PM' timestamp='1252197341' post='1961463']

Our Lady understands. She remained here for many years after our Lord's ascension, right?
[/quote]

This one statement meant so much to me - thank you. She suffered so much, Our Mother.


Before I entered Carmel the first time, I was having fears and doubts about what might happen and I mentioned this to a really sweet old priest in Confession. He said something that has stayed with me for the past two years.

He said, "God doesn't love you because you are becoming a nun. You are becoming a nun because you love God. And He will still love you whether you are a nun or not." Sometimes it even helps a little.

This is a great topic, especially for those of us who are still going through the pain - thanks to all of you who are sharing what helped. I am trying to maintain the regular prayer life, Mass etc... but sometimes I will start crying right in the middle of reciting the Office, remembering being with the community. It just seems to hurt a lot when I focus on God, and so I want to distract myself with things like TV, Internet etc to "not think" about my life and what is happening or where I am going, but it doesn't help.

I know the only answer is to pray and trust, but oh it hurts. I know that God does all for the good of our soul, but oh it hurts. I miss being in religious life, I was so happy and now I feel so rejected... even though I know this isn't true. To top it all, I need desperately to find a job and a cheaper place to live than a motel, and yet each step into the world is like walking on glass with bare feet. So much I don't want to be "here" (in the world) and I know this is making it hard for me to be as positive as I need to be to get prospective employers to hire me. And then on top of that, now I suddenly feel so "old", and tired and useless.

And all of this focus on myself is so distasteful to me as well. I know that there are people much worse off than myself (at least for now - homelessness is getting closer!) and every day I come across someone who really needs help or who is begging, so I give something and also pray for them, but then I wonder what will happen when I don't have anything left at all to give except my prayers.... sigh.

Please tell me this is all to strengthen me and teach me compassion, and trust and all those really good things - ok? My intellect knows all the right answers it seems, but for some reason, I still waste time worrying about things I can't do anything about.

Well, I am going to the Missionaries of Charity now - they are having a Mass for Mother Teresa's feast day this afternoon - that should be nice. Prayers please I need someone to get tough with me and tell me to stop whinging and to just "get on with it"!

God is in His heaven and all is for the best, in this the best of all possible worlds, right?? Blessed be God forever. I am grateful for the gift of faith and being able to love Him. Nothing is more important than that.

Edited September 6, 2009 by nunsense

[Orans]

[indent][indent][quote] I just wanted to add something. Is it just me or does it seem to others that God has put into motion in the world a tremendous transitional work? His gears move differently and more slowly than ours. Considering the upheavals after the second vatican council, and how the gear turned and everyone thought, "oh what now?" and it seemed like the consecrated life would be over in a few more years, it seems to me that the gear is nearing completion of its turn, that soon we will hear the "click" of God's plan fitting rightly into place, in a way we can all see and understand. Suddenly so many women and men forming new orders, so many advancing toward lives of total renunciation, the resurgence of hermits and even anchorites. It speaks very hopefully to me, it tells me God did not do all his best work in the middle ages (not that I ever thought so, but I know people in the world who think it), but that God continues, unchanged, Eternal, the great I AM, who IS and who has predestined us to be his own. [/quote]

[/indent][/indent]There is this this little jewel of a post that DameAgnes wrote in another threat, and I want to bring it here to the conversation because I think it has a lot to say to us "returnees". Some comments from my experience:

I have no doubt that we are at a crossroads in religious/consecrated life and in the life of the Church, because we are, indeed, at a crossroads of the life in our planet. I won't expand on this because it seems so obvious.

As difficult as it is for a person with a vocation to find a community -or even THE community to live a total consecration to God, it is as difficult for communities, especially cloistered communities, to accept all the newness and the different that comes their way with each new candidate.

This is much more so in cloistered communities that have remained "faithful" (and maybe rigididly so) to THEIR WAY of doing things. Communities are extremely wary of people who they realize would change THEIR way. So they get rid of them ... as a "survival" mechanism. Even though they may see the vocation clearly in the candidate, they will say, yes, there is a vocation, but go away and find out some other place to live it. This is even more likely to happen to candidates with leadership cualities, and candidates not so young and easy to shape in their own way.

I think there is no one to blame for this. The communities are doing their best. Sometimes they only know one way of being faithful, which is "remaining the same". It is very interesting that they attract vocations because of it, but they hardly can retain them. Somehow what they have is not enough anymore.

And here is where I see Dame's quote to the point.

The vocation, the CALL, is most probably TRUE, it is real. But there may not be YET an adecuate container to live it out. Because we are living, collectively, a huge TRANSITION time.

This is where the next step for the returnee is above all to continue TRUSTING THE LORD -first- and also the call. We entered the community because we wanted to give God ALL. Well, God took it all... INCLUDING the community we entered into. So, coming out again, instead of a failure is probably a great step forward in the vocation. And here is where a spiritual director, and a regular prayer life (as much as it is possible) is ESSENTIAL to the development of the process, and to the psychological and spiritual sanity and strength/healing of the returnee.

I don't think that everybody has the call to form a new community -that's still a really scarce charism in the Church, even in our times when so many new communities are flourishing. But I am certain that every returnee is called to deepen their search, and to really discern if the call should be in a different direction (like married life), or the call to total consecration is still present and has to be worked out in circumstances and even places as yet unknown. This again is what I think many people today are called to do. Sometimes it will have to be lived out in a kind of "underground" way, that is out in the world, but not being of the World. This is not easy, but Grace will be always present for us to do that. And yes, new communities will be born too, communities with traditional and modern values woven together in new ways.

I think this is already happening. And it is important to realize that we are not alone, isolated, or have failed when we come back from a time intensely lived in a religious community and have to deal again with the nitty gritty of ordinary life. We have certainly GROWN during that time, and we will grow even more by facing, accepting, and trusting the Process of the Journey beyond the present moment where life (God) is taking us.

I will never give God enough thanks for the treasure of wisdom and training I received in the first community I entered. It has served me for the rest of my life. It is invaluable even though it was not meant for me to remain there for life. We come out with a big bite of a treasure that we have to continue chewing and discovering as we co-create with God our life every day in whatever path we may find ourselves walking.

Peace,
Orans

[AccountDeleted]

I am really appreciating all of these posts, and the one that Orans just wrote about the time of transition is very interesting. Knowing of all this doesn't seem to help a lot though, because what is needed is that deep interior trust - that letting go of all doubt and fear, and I am just not at that point yet, although I am begging and praying for the grace to get there eventually!

I used to be able to cope with all the games that seem to be needed to "succeed in the world" but for some reason it isn't as easy any more. All I want to do is to spend time in prayer and adoration, but the practical realities of everyday life intrude. I just keep telling myself that this is what all people face every day of their lives in trying to support their families and survive, but I have been so protected from all of this in the cloister. I only want to focus on God alone, but now I have to find Him in everything I do - it is much harder. I have so much respect now for all who are trying to live holy lives while still being "in the world". Trusting God while living life as a religious is a lot easier than doing it day to day while trying to survive in the world - at least for me it is. This time in my life is demanding a level of humility that I just don't have!

I have even started thinking about "running away" to hide, going somewhere where I don't really think I have a vocation, just so that I am "safe and protected" again. I really do need a spiritual director to help me, so please pray that God sends me one soon. I have enquired at two different places but still haven't hooked up with someone - this must be a priority this week for sure.

I had no idea so many people had come out of religious life and were facing similar difficulties - this is hard on everyone I know, but it is also comforting to know that one can and does survive it! I think this time is so hard for me because in the past, the leaving was my decision, but this time it wasn't - I wanted to stay, so I am in a state of shock about it all still, unable to let go of it, I guess. It is a little like grieving - understandable, but life does have to move on eventually, and in my case, sooner rather than later, so that I can function again in the world. ahhhhh.... God be gentle please, I am so weak.

Edited September 6, 2009 by nunsense

[Maggyie]

Another important consideration: Stay as close to the sacraments as possible. It is not unusual for people who leave religious life to become angry at the Church or God or to cease going to Mass, praying etc. because of the painful memories. This is totally understandable, but to be healed in the soul one has to be close enough to God for Him to reach one.

Nunsense don't put too much pressure on yourself - you have not even been "back" for a fortnight and there is no way anyone could "let go" that soon. For the people I know it took about nine months, and by then they had made very significant spiritual progress - and their material progress (job, bank account, ability to "function" etc) was much, much faster! And this was a person who had to leave because of serious illness, which badly hampered the ability to go out and live life. Life in the world with all its demands seems overwhelming right now, but remember that you were in Carmel this time for only four months (I think?), and before that you had what it took to get on! Those skills have maybe only atrophied a little, but you are a survivor of many battles and will survive this one, too. You are still in a state of shock and that's why it feels like you can't remember how these things are managed. Every day will get easier.

This is another adventure God has sent you on and you are certainly entitled to tell God that you have had your fill of adventures and to give them to someone else for a change! But up to this point the whole story of your journey has been courage in spite of fear or uncertainty. In the end you will be able to lay yourself down for the last time with the satisfaction of having never denied God when He asked you to take a risk for Him or His kingdom.

[cmaD2006]

I have to say that I truly appreciate this thread -- I've felt quite alone in my return to "the world" since January. I didn't realize that there were so many people out there that were going through similar things as I was.

I think the hardest thing is to "figure out what to do." I've been lucky in that I was able to get rehired by my company (for the 2nd time). *But* I'm left with the "ok, so now what" question still lingering.

I'm still reeling from the last experience ... its hard to leave the world to enter a community but its even harder when you've given so much up in order to do so and it falls flat.

The hardest part for me is reconnecting with friends ... the last community I was with did not even allow letters from friends (they wouldn't give me an address even to pass onto my sister). At one point the community wanted me to contact friends for donations -- but it had been about 8 months since I had contacted them so it was quite awkward.

And there is this awkwardness with those who knew that I had entered ... some don't dare ask "why"; although I think sometimes its better if they came out and asked instead of beating around the bush. No, I don't have canned answers yet -- but I have stopped people from being too curious with a "I'd rather not discuss it"; it may seem as a negative way of putting it but at least it stops the 20 questions (and its less rude than a "its none of your business"). :-)

Thanks for starting the thread!