I love the song by Casting Crowns called “Nobody!” It says “I’m just a nobody, trying to tell everybody, all about the somebody who saved my soul.” Pretty sure they wrote that song just for me, because that’s who I am. In the scheme of things, I really am a nobody, but aren’t we all?
The thing is…I don’t want to become a “somebody.” I already have people everywhere who remember my name and I can’t remember theirs. I know that I know them, but I don’t know where I know them from. I feel like this could make me seem like I don’t care. It’s just that I care too much about too many people to keep all the names straight. I’ve gotta overcome that fear.
This week, Bea and I were at Kroger and a man said “Hi Donna.” I recognized his face, but didn’t know where from. We talked for twenty minutes. He mentioned Becky and the name of my last church, so dots started coming together, but I never placed a name or a story. Bea said “you didn’t even know him did you?” I explained that I know that I know him, but I couldn’t remember specifics. She asked “then why did you spend that time with him when we were in a hurry?” I said, “because he matters.”
“He matters to me, because he matters to God.” He was talking about faith, and also about food addiction. Something God has shined a light on the path out of for me. He has a significant amount of weight to lose and I know how to break the flour/sugar/craving cycle in the brain that keeps him stuck. Should I withhold that information?
Two days later, at Aldi, a young lady said “Hi Donna! So good to see you! How are you?” I said “great, how are you?” She asked what I’m up to and I asked what she’s up to. She mentioned her kids and I said “how old are they now?” When she said five and eight, I knew I don’t know her from my kids classes……but where? I still don’t know. I get a sick feeling in my belly that if people knew I couldn’t place where I knew them from, they would feel insignificant. This is where my fear comes from.
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Another concern is that I have a large circle of people around me who know me….really know me….and they love me deeply. I don’t want anyone to love me because they think I’m “somebody.” I don’t want money, although I promised Sanchez a screened in back porch if my books end up selling. I don’t want public recognition. I don’t want clout. The tricky part is that if I want people to be willing to read the books I write or listen to the words I speak, they have to believe that it will be worth their time.
I’ve been told that I have to make a name for myself. I don’t like that idea. It feels like I’d have to say “look at me, look at me!” I decided I’d just start putting stuff out there and if God wants it to take off, it will. In order to put stuff out there in a way that people can recognize it’s from me, I was told I need to be “branded.” Have a logo or branding that is recognizably me. I’m gonna have to rely on the smart people around me to help out because I don’t even know where to start with all this. Luckily my husband, friends and family know stuff I don’t know, like how to build websites and make logos.
I thought about just having a title, like a business name. I wondered if I could just write as “Contagious Joy.” I thought of writing under a pen name because I thought “who would read something written by someone named Donna Sanchez?” A friend said “who wouldn’t read because of that name?” She helped me realize it was my own insecurities that kept me from believing that who I am is good enough, so against everything in me, I decided on the website donnasanchez.com and branding with my name.
My cousin who does graphic design came over to help me make a logo. She wanted to know what I wanted my logo to say about me. I told her I’m very simple. I want it to be simple. I like the name contagious joy because I want to share the joy of the Lord with others in such a way that it infects them and they in turn share it with others. I don’t want anything that looks fancy, elegant or pretentious because that’s not me, and I love to have hearts on my I’s!
She sent me several options and this one I loved! Thank you Emily!
This post might be seen to some as a controversial one. Some might want to argue the merits against what I’m about to share. I’m not sharing it to tell anyone else what to do or how to do it. I’m sharing it because it’s on my mind and to me, it’s a very relevant subject that circles around over and over in my life.
This movie “When Harry Met Sally.” I watched it several times as a young adult. I remember enjoying it, and I remember disagreeing with it when I was really young. I forget who said it, but one of them said guys and girls can’t be friends without one or the other ending up with feelings for each other. I thought that was stupid.
The subject is coming back around because my daughter talks about how catty and dramatic girls are and how it’s easier to be friends with guys. They are laid back and easy to get along with. My husband tells her they’re just putting on a “good guy” front because they have hopes somewhere in their minds that they can date her. She completely disagrees….even though several boys have expressed that desire already. She thinks they’re just all friends.
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I think you can have guys for friends and that’s fine. My best friends all have boys, so my girls have grown up with boys who are friends and feel like brothers. I’ve been talking to her about the danger of maintaining the belief that girls are catty and dramatic and boys are easier to be friends with.
I think when you’re young, have all the close friends you want. Friendship is the best way to find a boy that you’d eventually want to marry, but once you marry, your close friends should all be girls. She thinks I’m crazy, but here’s my thoughts and I have shared all of this openly with her today:
Be kind to everyone, girls and guys, but once you’re married, close friendships should only be with people of the same sex. Before you put up a giant wall of “Donna’s crazy,” hear me out. I have already answered these questions in my mind and tried to explain them to my daughter. How many marriages do you personally know that have ended in divorce?
Of those divorces, how many of them ended because of infidelity? If you’ve ever been close friendships with a couple getting a divorce, most of the time you find that they went outside of their marriage to get unmet needs met. The number I personally know that have ended from infidelity are in the double digits. Sometimes it’s been the husband, sometimes it’s been the wife, but they have all confided in me that they never intended to cheat, but that other person made them feel special, smart, attractive, desirable etc. Most of them didn’t jump into an affair, they sort of drifted into it.
It was hard for me to explain to my daughter in vague terms without breaking the confidences of people she knows, so I got personal and shared my own experience with her.
I have always held sexual purity as a high standard. As a freshman in high school I vowed not to date or become physically involved with anyone of the opposite sex until I was reasonably certain it was someone I might consider marrying. My now husband got my first kiss 22 years ago and my first everything else two years later when we were married. SOOO….you’d think I’d be immune from this rule of guys and girls can’t be friends. You’d be wrong.
I got a lot of slack as a young wife because I’d invite friends over, we’d all eat dinner together and hang out, then I’d invite the wives to hang out with me and encourage the men to hang out together. The truth was that I didn’t want to like their husbands too much. I didn’t want to intimately know their husbands because I have a deep level of empathy and tend to love people deeply when I love them. I don’t want to love anyone else’s husband.
In addition to that, Mr. Sanchez and I just this year have gotten our marriage act together. Before this year, we sucked at being husband and wife honestly. I was afraid to be myself because I didn’t think he really liked her, and he didn’t like the half-hearted version I showed up as trying to make him happy. My own self-hatred stood in the way of true intimacy. I took everything he said, twisted it and internalized it as “he doesn’t like me.”
This put me at a high risk for allowing my heart to become attached to another man and I was well aware of that. I craved validation and affirmation from men, but I also feared it. When I was a secretary, the men in the office would find time to just hang out alone with me by my desk and talk about life. They would often say things like “you’re amazing. Your husband is so lucky! You look beautiful today.” Those words were like water to a desert flower. I craved them and they nourished my soul!
These men were all married. Some would even go so far as to offer to take me on their business trips with them. I would laugh, but feel somehow special that they would even joke about taking me with them. I thought they were joking until I realized that two different married women from our business office joined two married men, sharing a room, on their business trips. The older I got, the more I realized that these comments were more of seeing where you stand than joking.
I knew that I needed to keep myself far from other men, especially when I didn’t feel validated at home. I knew that I was capable of “falling in love” with another man who paid me enough attention. I didn’t worry about becoming sexually involved with them because I have firm boundaries in that area, but I worried about giving them my heart.
I have high walls (boundaries) with men. I have to. I don’t ever want to let my guard down and make a decision I’d regret the rest of my life just to feel emotionally validated. Even with my high walls, my heart has stepped outside of my marriage on more than one occasion fantasizing about what it would feel like to truly be loved, accepted and valued.
I don’t want to love your husband, I want to love my husband well! I am thankful that I have maintained this posture, even when it was incredibly difficult. I am thankful that I have remained faithful, even when my heart wanted to run. I am thankful that God has honored the decisions we have both made to stick it out when sticking it out was so painful. I love my husband more today than I have in the previous 20 years of marriage.
I wanted to share some of the boundaries I maintain:
The only friends I have on Facebook are females unless we are family. Several situations brought to light that this was a good idea for me. Two men started with the constant compliments every time I posted, and one hinted at a desire for more. Another woman told me that her husband was constantly using me as a bar for her husband to measure her against. There’s no reason non-family males need to be on my Facebook.
I maintain close friendships with my girlfriends and we do go on double dates, but I focus on my relationship with my friends and encourage my husband to form bonds with their husbands. I don’t want anyone’s husband to feel especially close to me and I don’t want to feel deeply for them.
I realize I used to fish for compliments from other men. I’m careful not to fish, and I’m careful not to be too complimentary of other men. I want Mr. Sanchez to feel like the only man in my world, because that’s what he is and that’s what he’ll always be!
My family is waiting for me to join them. I invited them for the super bowl and I hear my mom out there fussing about how I invited them, but I’m in my bedroom with my computer. I just felt compelled to share.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I felt a call on my life to write and speak to encourage women in their walk with the Lord. I was a young, broken girl with more questions than I had answers and I thought the idea to be absurd. I knew that I had a different take on the troubles in my marriage. I knew that I had a gift for seeing and focusing on what’s good in life, but that was about it. Other than that, I was owned by food and very broken in my personal life. Who would want to learn from a messed up soul like me?
I ignored the thought and moved on with life. In 2017 I felt that strong calling again, but this time, I didn’t know what I was to share. I just knew that I couldn’t speak in front of people without tears, so I joined Toastmasters to become more comfortable speaking. In October of 2017 I received the life changing diagnosis of ADHD.
It was life changing because from a very early age, I just felt broken. There was something wrong with me and I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. My mom would comfort me saying “nothing’s wrong with you. You’re just Donna and we love you.” I loved that my family loved me, but I still felt like I was not normal.
ADHD gave me a word for everything I felt was wrong about who I was. It meant I was not alone. It meant that my behaviors I tried so hard to change had a reason. I felt like I finally understood that thing which made me broken. Before long, I came to see ADHD as a blessing, and by April of 2018 I was on stage with a message called “Blessed Not Broken With ADHD.” (Available on YouTube). I had it recorded so I’d never have to do that again!
In January 2018 I challenged myself to a month of silence out of self-hatred more than anything else. I just wanted to learn to shut up and listen. That month and the months to come changed my life forever. As a result I came face to face on a deep level with my food addiction, broken marriage, lack of boundaries, co-dependent tendencies, repressed feelings and severely low-self-worth.
That month landed me in marriage counseling to hopefully undo all the damage I caused by not showing up without a mask, and Celebrate Recovery to address the food addiction, co-dependency, repressed feelings and low-self-worth. It also landed me on the stage of #TEDxDayton2019 giving a little talk in front of 1100 of my closest friends and family called “My Month of Silence.”
People are now coming to me on a daily basis relating to my story and looking for hope. I am thrilled because my heart is for healing and wholeness for women! I don’t ever want anyone to live under the burden and chains of all that emotional crap that had me bound for twenty-nine years! I felt imprisoned in my mind from the age of eleven to forty, and for the first time in my life, I truly feel free.
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I have never seen myself as a leader or anyone to follow, but here I stand at the threshold of a new beginning. I have always wanted to lead others into a new way of seeing the world and themselves. I have always wanted to encourage people to have a Biblical perspective on the subjects we all face, but I’ve never wanted to be a leader. I fully understand this probably makes no sense to you, but it makes perfect sense to me.
Before I met my husband, I talked to young wives about their marriage. I wanted to learn how to be a good wife. When I became a wife, I talked to people who had been married a little longer to see if what was happening in my marriage was normal and how to see it with a godly perspective.
When I became a mother, I talked to older mothers to find out what worked well and what didn’t. When I hit road bumps, these women helped me navigate them. When I became a professional organizer, I met with more seasoned organizers for tips of the trade and things to watch out for. When I was invited to speak at TEDx, I was given a mentor to help me navigate that.
I’ve always had someone a couple steps ahead of me to help me see what I don’t see and avoid pitfalls. When I realized I was stepping into this place of leadership, I took a couple steps boldly, took one look around and thought “where are the leaders in my life?”
I have horrible boundaries and time management! How can I gracefully say no when people ask for time I don’t have to offer? How can I continue my extremely full life of loving and caring for the amazing friends and family I have, AND step into this leadership role with balance. I’m not good at balance. I’ve even had the words “live balanced” painted on the wall above my stove for like ten years. I’m still trying, but if I feel like I haven’t achieved balance without being a leader, how can I achieve it as a leader?
I need a mentor!
There is one incredible woman who I look up to and have learned a lot from over the past year that I would love to have as a mentor. She is a leader and even on occasion a speaker. I have seen and heard her respectful no when she does not have time or energy for something. I have watched to see if her walk matches her talk, and to me, it seems it does.
I wrestled with the idea of approaching her as a mentor because I know her time is valuable and her life is incredibly busy, but my mind keeps coming back to the idea. Could that be God nudging me in her direction?
It honestly took a lot of boldness for me to step out of my comfort zone, risk rejection and send her this message:
Good morning Bren,
I totally get that messages like this could be awkward for both of us, but that doesn’t tend to stop me. From a very young age, I have intentionally looked for women I could learn from and emulate (not imitate). Not someone to put on a pedestal. People are people and I don’t forget that. Just someone who is a little farther down the road than me. Someone who I look at and see tangible signs of their walk with the Lord. Someone who speaks and I am edified by and grow because of.
I have felt that bond with you for a while now. I guess I just want you to know that for better or worse, I see you as a spiritual mother figure in my life (even though you’re not old enough to be my mother.) I don’t see you as perfect and like my daughter’s poem so beautifully says, I don’t want to be like the mask you wear because I don’t see you wearing one.
I have plenty of amazing women in my life with whom I have wonderful, mutually beneficial relationships who encourage me in my walk with the Lord. I have been looking for someone in a leadership role to learn from. Instead, I’ve been the one people look up to and you know I have wanted to run from that, so when someone says they look up to me, I say “don’t.” That doesn’t work does it?
I am accepting and stepping into the leadership role it seems God is nudging me into. I don’t need a sponsor. Hope is a wonderful sponsor! I don’t really need an accountability partner, I’ve got those. I don’t need a lot of anyone’s time, because I don’t have a lot of time available either. I don’t know exactly what it means to have or be a mentor, but that’s more what I’m looking for.
I’m trying to figure out why I feel so awkward saying this. I guess it’s because I don’t want you to think I’m asking for anything, but I guess I kind of am. I would love to have a friendship and spend a little time with you, even if just a walk around the block a couple times a month. I completely understand if your life is just too full, but we could all use a walk around the block every once in a while, right?
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As I clicked send, I took a deep breath and hoped I wasn’t asking too much. I don’t even immediately have any specific questions. I guess I just want to know that when I do, I have a resource.
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I listen every week to a podcast my pastor puts out called “Leading Hope With Kevin Jack.” A day after sending this message, I heard his new podcast where he suggests finding a mentor, and reaching out to them. He says “don’t be afraid to ask, most leaders are happy to help.” I laughed to myself imagining Bren had listened to the podcast the day before my message and thought I was just following pastor’s suggestion.
Funny timing! I’d been debating asking her about being a mentor for weeks and just happened to send it the day after that podcast came out, but I guess God works like that. By the way, she said yes.
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Is there’s an area of your life you feel a little lost in? Is there something in your life that you are wanting to work on or improve? Look around you. Is there someone a little further down the path than you who might be a good resource? If you’re parenting a toddler, you can talk to your friends with toddlers, but look at the parents with high schoolers or grown children you respect. Ask their advice.
If there are two people wandering around in the forest, one might see a more beaten path on the ground and tell you to head that direction, but if you can walkie talkie with someone in a helicopter, they could give you better directions for a clear path out of the forest.
Life is….complicated, confusing, simple, hard, beautiful and messy. Life is not meant to be walked alone. Like I always say “it takes a village to raise a 40 year-old Donna,” maybe it takes also takes village to raise you?
Contagious Joy With Donna Sanchez 