{"id":244,"date":"2010-02-06T18:05:27","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T18:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2010\/02\/got-home-from-the-hospital.html"},"modified":"2010-02-06T18:05:27","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T18:05:27","slug":"got-home-from-the-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2010\/02\/got-home-from-the-hospital.html","title":{"rendered":"True Confessions: (Finally) Coming Clean on My Dirty Little Secret&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Got home from the hospital last night following an unexpected three day stay that included lots of tests and a few odd physical episodes of unknown origin that quacked like seizures but didn&#8217;t quite walk like them. I will spare you the details of prodding, poking and monitoring. Suffice it to say that I feel a little beat up, have as many questions as answers and will know more as results come in and further tests are conducted in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But that&#8217;s not what this post is about&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This post is about a sneaky bit of arrogance that masks itself as humility and results in an arms-length distance between me and the folks I interact with on this blog and in my day to day life.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I should have seen it sooner. The hints were there in my writing&#8211;or should I say my lack of writing&#8211;in the weeks since <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/11\/nothing-like-a-visit-to-the-er-to-shake-loose-a-little-gratitude.html\">this started on the day after Thanksgiving<\/a>. &#8220;<i>I&#8217;m just procrastinating<\/i>,&#8221; I&#8217;d tell myself, as I wrote a sentence or two and saved them, half convincing myself I would actually return to them later. &#8220;<i>I&#8217;m blocked<\/i>,&#8221; I justified as I unintentionally, one day at a time, just stopped writing.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It wasn&#8217;t until it became obvious that this little health challenge appears to be lingering that I began to see that I was neither blocked nor procrastinating.&nbsp;I just didn&#8217;t want to admit to anyone out there that there was something wrong with me&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>My first thought? The illusion of perfection thing I thought I&#8217;d kicked to the curb years ago was rearing its ugly head. But a little reflection (and the fact that I have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Flirting-Faith-Spiritual-Journey-Faith-Filled\/dp\/1439149879\">a book hitting shelves in May<\/a> that makes excruciatingly clear just how flawed I am) told me that my old bravado was not the problem. Instead, something new occurred to me. By admitting that my health is in question,&nbsp;I open myself up to the well wishes, caring and encouragement of others.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And for some reason, that makes me incredibly uncomfortable&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Too tired to unpack this one at the moment, but thought I&#8217;d start by getting it out there. For now I&#8217;m just wondering: anyone else have trouble when it comes to accepting love, help and support from others?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Got home from the hospital last night following an unexpected three day stay that included lots of tests and a few odd physical episodes of unknown origin that quacked like seizures but didn&#8217;t quite walk like them. I will spare you the details of prodding, poking and monitoring. Suffice it to say that I feel&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>True Confessions: (Finally) Coming Clean on My Dirty Little Secret... - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2010\/02\/got-home-from-the-hospital.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"True Confessions: (Finally) Coming Clean on My Dirty Little Secret... - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Got home from the hospital last night following an unexpected three day stay that included lots of tests and a few odd physical episodes of unknown origin that quacked like seizures but didn&#8217;t quite walk like them. I will spare you the details of prodding, poking and monitoring. Suffice it to say that I feel&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2010\/02\/got-home-from-the-hospital.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-06T18:05:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"True Confessions: (Finally) Coming Clean on My Dirty Little Secret... - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2010\/02\/got-home-from-the-hospital.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"True Confessions: (Finally) Coming Clean on My Dirty Little Secret... - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"Got home from the hospital last night following an unexpected three day stay that included lots of tests and a few odd physical episodes of unknown origin that quacked like seizures but didn&#8217;t quite walk like them. I will spare you the details of prodding, poking and monitoring. 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