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Author Archive for Leeana Tankersley

One of My Most Important Learnings from Bahrain

Posted by Leeana Tankersley on Monday, April 30th, 2012 in Military Wives Overseas | Comments (0)

We are halfway through our tour here in Bahrain, finally feeling settled. I thought I would commemorate this milestone by sharing one of my most important learnings from our overseas move:

Things won’t always feel the way they feel right now.

I’ve had to return to this mantra time and time again as we settle into making this foreign place our home.

Going through such a huge transition can throw you into semi-hysterics at times. Or, let’s be honest, even full-blown hysterics. Being without your belongings, receiving damaged household goods, figuring out how to do all the normals of life all over again (gas, groceries, hair, school, church, friends, etc), caring for your family in the midst of your own disorientation . . . these are emotionally demanding tasks.

Some days can feel so incredibly inefficient that you just want to scream. What have we done? How did we get here? Are we really starting all over . . . again?

God knows we are prone to the hysterics, the totally unhelpful “always” and “never.” He says: Hey, I’ve got an idea, here’s a suggestion, why don’t you try this  . . . do not worry.

When navigating change, it’s too easy for me to believe that life will never feel right again, that life will always feel as hard as it does in that very moment. This mindset keeps me stuck in perpetual hand-wringing, and I need a way to stop the toxic loop.

Those 10 little words have helped me greatly in the “do not worry” department. If I can remember that sentence, if I can internalize it and trust it, the hand-wringing stops and I can get on with real living.

Leeana, things won’t always feel the way they do right now, so go take a nap. Go take a walk. Go play with your kids. Do not worry. Breathe. Get some rest. This too shall pass.

Over this last year, I can truly say life here has gained some ease and rhythm. What once felt ill-fitting now feels like home. Through this tour, I have learned that how I feel initially won’t necessarily be how I feel ultimately.

And so for me, “things won’t always feel the way they feel right now” are 10 little words to live by. I hope they will be of some help to you as well.

***

Leeana Tankersley is the author of Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places (Zondervan 2009), spiritual writings inspired by her time in the Middle East. Leeana lives in Bahrain with her husband and three children, Luke (3), Lane (3), and Elle (2 months). She is inspiring fellow gypsies at www.GypsyInk.com.

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Calm in the Chaos

Posted by Leeana Tankersley on Monday, October 18th, 2010 in Military Wives Overseas | Comments (3)

When Steve and I had been married eight days, we boarded a plane for a tiny island in the Persian Gulf, and lived our entire first year of marriage on the other side of the world.

Though I didn’t know it when I stepped off the plane for the very first time, Bahrain would become something significant to me. More than just a tour, I would come to consider the experience a pilgrimage of sorts. A journey of holy significance.

Slowly and subtly the entire essence of the foreign place seeped into my skin. And, ultimately, into my soul.

I remember our very last night in our flat. Flat 41 in the Starview Building. I snuck away and stood at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined our living room and faced the Gulf. I breathed in one more moment, one more sunset, one more look at the horizon.

I could see the men from our building—the Nepalese gatekeeper and Mohammed the receptionist and another guy who washed cars for spare change—downstairs talking and laughing about something, their shirts billowing on their backs as the wind swept by.

The orange and blue dump trucks, quiet after a day of loading and hauling, sat in front of our building like toy trucks waiting to be pushed around in the dirt the next morning. Stray dogs barked and chased the occasional passing car. The sun burned in the sky as it set. To the north I could see the cupolas of the Grand Mosque in the distance, at any moment ready to commence the call to prayer.

Before we arrived in Bahrain, I had never heard the call to prayer before. The words meant nothing to me. I remember the first time I really heard them as I stood in the kitchen at Starview. I remember what it felt like to sense that God was speaking to me through those words, as if somehow he was using something unfamiliar to break through the numbness and get my attention.

It’s strange how life often requires something foreign to connect us with something that, in the end, was so close all along. Sometimes we need a change of scenery in order to see what is really there inside us—all the parts and pieces of ourselves that have somehow been lost but are in desperate need of finding again.

Life routinely deposits us—expectedly or unexpectedly—in foreign places. Sometimes those foreign places are around the world, like an overseas tour. Sometimes they find us, right in our living room. Illness. Marital issues. Financial reversal. Job loss. Parenthood. Military life. Every one of these “foreign places” is difficult to navigate and harder still to find ourselves in.

I’m learning that life is one foreign place after another. I keep waiting for things to normalize, for a sense of ease to settle in. But equilibrium is always just out of my reach. In light of that, I must choose to look and listen for the beauty that is nestled into all the chaos. So hard to do, isn’t it.

On our last night in Bahrain, the world was buzzing with the electric shock of chaos—as it always is—and I stopped and listened to the call to prayer. Just a handful of miles away terrorists attacked. Wars raged. Bullets flew. But somehow, I just kept my eyes on the red-hot skyline. Listening. Breathing.

I am praying for all of us today . . . that we might find a bit of beauty even in our most chaotic moments, and that God might be near to us even as we walk through life’s foreign places.

Grace and peace to you as you journey.

Leeana Tankersley

www.gypsyink.com

@lmtankersley

Leeana is a Navy SEAL wife, a mother of 21-month-old b/g twins, and a speaker and author. Her book, Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places, is memoir of the year she lived in the Middle East.

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The Slippery Slope of Coping

Posted by Leeana Tankersley on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 in Practical Help | Comments (9)

I talked with a Navy wife the other day. She has five children, and her husband is preparing for his fourth deployment. I asked her how she was handling it all, and she coolly (read: defensively) told me she was doing “just fine.”

She added that she gets so frustrated when military wives struggle with their situation. “We knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this marriage. We have no right to complain.”

I stared back at her, somewhat pained, knowing she was not doing “just fine” and fairly sure she had made the mistake many of us make, which is to simply dismiss any kind of honest confession for complaining.

Some of us have gotten good, maybe even too good, at coping. We steel ourselves into this pillar of strength, and we challenge anything to penetrate our armor. Meanwhile, we may or may not be feeling that same way on the inside, underneath our self-protective layers.

The problem with practicing this kind of incongruence—the outside and the inside at odds with each other—is that we get used to living split off from our true selves. We become accustomed to denying what’s actually going on inside us, and this creates a person who cannot be honest about her pain, cannot let others see her weakness, and cannot tolerate any kind of authentic struggle in others.

This woman sends the subtle (or not so subtle) message to her friends and to her children that the real winners are those who suck it up and deal with it and never let anyone see them sweat.

How incredibly isolating this behavior becomes for everyone. Yes, others may see us as amazingly stalwart, but they will never see us approachable. This keeps everyone dancing around each other at a safe distance, never really able to offer help and support. How sad! All of us in need, and yet none of us able to access our own emotions or each other’s.

So how do we decipher between complaining and true confession? Complaining is all about staying stuck, rehearsing the injustices with no desire to see things differently, change behavior, or receive support. Complaining is about wallowing and whining, unconcerned with growth, maturity, or transformation.

Confessing is something different altogether. Honest confession is an externalizing of an inward conversation for the purpose of gaining insight, releasing a burden, or admitting reality.Confession leads to movement and helps us get out of the grind of merely coping. It opens doors to growth and change because it is an act of congruence. By externalizing—sharing—our true state of affairs, we are better able to identify what we need and how we might be able to engage in some simple acts of self-care.

So, let me practice what I’m preaching.

If you were to ask me how I’m doing with 17-month old twins, a Navy SEAL husband who is in and out on travel, and the delicate situation of all of us living with my mother in her house, I would tell you the following:

“I’m tired. I’m trying to be honest about how exhausted I feel and, instead of pushing myself all the time (read: punishing myself for not doing my life better), I’m slowing down when I can.”

What does that slowing down look like? Glad you asked.

“I’ve started yoga twice a week. I’m taking naps when my kids nap. I’m reading more and watching TV less. All of these things are good for the soul. In addition, I’m trying to figure out some fun things my family can do together when my husband is home because we need more fun in our lives right now.” Then I might add, “So, tell me what you do to take care of yourself in the midst of this stressful life? And what do you do for fun as a family? I could use some suggestions.”

And then you might offer me some great ideas of how you and your family are getting through the ever-changing days of military life.

Beautiful, huh.

Isn’t that so much better than, “just fine”?

(BTW, I really would love to know how you take care of yourself and how you create fun for your family. So post a comment and share the wealth!)

__________

Leeana’s first book, Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places, begins as she steps off the plane in Bahrain, the pin-dot island in the Middle East where she and her Navy SEAL husband spent their first year of marriage. Found Art follows Leeana as her life and her soul are changed forever. She blogs at www.gypsyink.com.

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Know and Be Known

Posted by Leeana Tankersley on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 in Hope | Comments (0)

When my husband Steve and I moved to Bahrain, literally days after we were married, I was all of a sudden transported to a world where I knew no one. And because Steve and I had dated seven weeks before getting engaged and then spent the better part of our engagement apart (me in San Diego; Steve in the Middle East), you could safely say that Steve and I didn’t even totally know each other.

During those first few weeks in Bahrain, I spent long hours decompressing from the hectic pace of my western world and embracing the landscape of my new life. I would pull open the heavy green drapes in the master bedroom of our Persian Gulf-facing flat, and I would stare out at the whipping water and just let the peace of it all seep into my soul. At a time in my life when I should have felt the most alone, and I was truly alone, I didn’t feel lonely at all.

One year later, when Steve and I returned back to San Diego, back to my hometown, I was excited to be returning to a place that was familiar and comfortable to me. Immediately, I was blindsided by how much had changed in just one short year. I assumed re-entry into my former job and former relationships and former church would be somewhat seamless, and I was devastated when I realized how much I had changed and how much “home” had changed in my absence. At a time in my life when I should have felt the most surrounded and known, all I felt was utter isolation.

Loneliness is a strange condition, having less to do with the state of our surroundings and more to do with the state of our souls. Thus, confusing and counter-intuitive. Over and over again, I have learned this lesson.

I’ve been a mother now for just over a year. My introduction to motherhood came in a double-dose with the arrival of boy/girl twins. Certain days, the better days, are an adventure. Other days, the lonelier ones, cause me to feel as though I am death spiraling toward an irrecoverable soul oblivion.

Here is one thing that has helped immeasurably:

I meet with a group of eight women every week. Some are married. Some are single. Some with kids. Some without. The common denominator in the group is simply the desire to know and be known. Somehow this shared pursuit binds us together beautifully, mutually supporting and being supported.

Every meeting, we each spend a chunk of time updating the others on the state of our souls. Though rarely comfortable to engage in this level of authenticity, this practice of truth-telling has become essential to my survival. One of our group members reminded me recently that, “when we share our burdens with others, the weight is divided among the hearers and we are left with so much less to carry.”

The most powerful part of the evening—and this never ceases to amaze me—comes directly after each woman shares. The entire group looks at the woman who has just opened up her soul and says in unison, “We see you. We hear you. We love you.”

A sure antidote to the ache of isolation is the awareness that someone sees me, for loneliness breeds whenever I begin to feel misunderstood, taken for granted, overlooked, invisible, or just plain useless.

Each week, my group of women puts words to the message God is forever whispering to me throughout my day. “Leeana, I see you. I hear you. I love you.” They have become his eyes, his ears, and his heart to me.

On the days when I am tempted to run headlong into my own head and begin spinning scenarios of personal invisibility and irrelevance, I send an email to my group. Just the simple act of reaching out allows these women the opportunity to reach in, and the load begins to lighten the minute I press send.

Loneliness has so much more to do with believing the lies of “you’re not worth it,” “you don’t matter,” and “you’re on your own” than it has to do with the number of people on your speed dial. On the days—and they will come—when you’re feeling that the lies may very well overcome the truth, practice the courageous disciplines of opening up, reaching out, and letting in. Small miracles are surely forthcoming.

__________

Leeana’s first book, Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places, begins as she steps off the plane in Bahrain, the pin-dot island in the Middle East where she and her Navy SEAL husband spent their first year of marriage. Found Art follows Leeana as her life and her soul are changed forever. She blogs at www.gypsyink.com.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Here Today…

Posted by Leeana Tankersley on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 in Faith | Comments (0)

 My husband is gone this week. He was home last week. Gone the week before. Some seasons it feels as if I’m married to this gust of wind that blows in, changes the landscape, and then rushes right back out. The whole bluster happens so fast that I’m left tired to my core, sidelined by this low-lying soul-fatigue.

This week I began to flirt with despair, wondering how in the world I was ever going to find my stride. Two sick fourteen-month-olds. No husband. No freedom. No sleep. No relief.

Out of nowhere, Steven Holcomb comes to mind.

Last weekend, I watched a special on Holcomb, the driver for our gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic Bobsled team. Holcomb suffers from a degenerative eye disease, and his eyesight had become so poor that he almost retired before the 2010 Olympics. Devastated, his coaches talked him into an experimental surgery that placed a permanent contact lens in his eyes. Ten minutes after the surgery, Holcomb’s eyesight was perfect.

So why was his first run with 20/20 eyesight such a total disaster?

Because Holcomb’s eyesight had deteriorated so much, he had come to rely on other senses to help him navigate. He had learned to “feel” the course instead of see it. His new eyesight was getting in the way of this intuition, of the intricate faith he had developed with the sled.

So, in an act of rebellion, he scratches and nicks and smudges the visor on his helmet. Peering out from behind the assaulted plastic, Holcomb climbs back into the sled. This time, his run is perfect.

In a beautiful scene, the camera zooms in on Holcomb in a room alone, eyes closed, swerving and swooping his way around the room as if he were floating through the curves of the course, moving with the bobsled, dancing. This exercise has become a pre-run ritual.

I had tears in my eyes as I watched him turn and sway with such grace and ease. I thought about how rarely we can really see much at all of life, but how we desperately long for clarity and vision. And, though it’s so hard, how much better off we are relying on faith instead of sight.

Holcomb’s story teaches me that, as it often turns out, seeing isn’t always the best thing. Sometimes believing helps us trust the ride so much more.

I hate it when my husband’s gone. I hate that I have to go one single day without him, that our sweet little babies have to go a single second without the love and fun of their daddy, that I have to keep making my way through life even though he’s gone. And yet, I find myself holding on to the truth that sometimes not-seeing can connect us to something or someone we love in ways that seeing never could.

So, today, since I can’t see my husband, I’m closing my eyes and leaning into the turns and feeling the track and embracing the ride even though I feel scared and unsure. I’m choosing to believe in what we have and I’m choosing to believe in what God’s given us because I know that faith is the handle we hold on to when we can’t see a thing (Hebrews 11:1, The Message). Most of all, I’m trusting that God sees us both with a kind of transcendent God-vision that looks straight through our skin and into the transformation of our souls.

In my here-today-gone-tomorrow marriage, I’m trusting that God put us on this track for a reason. I truly have no clue where we’re headed. I can’t begin to anticipate the particularly difficult curves that will certainly come. My visor is unbelievably scratched and grooved.

So, in lieu of being able to see much of anything (my husband included), I’ll close my eyes and dance around the room, holding on and letting go all at the same time.

Leeana Tankersley
www.gypsyink.com

Leeana’s first book, Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places, begins as she steps off the plane in Bahrain, the pin-dot island in the Middle East where she and her Navy SEAL husband spent their first year of marriage. Found Art follows Leeana as her life and her soul are changed forever.

Popularity: 1% [?]