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Meet Carey Cruz

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“May you be able to feel and understand …
how long, how wide, how deep, and how high
His love really is

and experience this love for yourself…”

Ephesians 3:18-19a

My Story

I was raised by missionary parents in West Africa,

in a country just below the Sahara Desert. My dad built our simple house near a small village on a red dirt road which ran on for two hours before it reached the nearest city. Ours was the only car for a hundred kilometers in any direction.

 

Void of electricity and motors, the dense quiet served to amplify the familiar rhythms: the whirr of the windmill pumping water from our well, the scraping of hoes in the nearby field, the pounding of pestles as women prepared dinner, and the evening drums that sang me to sleep. Time was slow, arbitrary, governed by the sun who meandered through the sky.

Mindfulness came easy in that spaciousness of geography and time.

Solitude and silence introduced me to the Compassionate Presence. Rhythm set my heart to search for Steadfastness.

 

Early on I learned a secret! The spelling of my name held a special word: “Care.” Carey. I took it to heart, helping my mother as she tended to wounds, dispensed medications, and prayed for miracles. I held newborn babies while she offered supplements and comfort to their weeping mothers. Children with distended bellies from starvation and malnutrition came to our door and I offered them slices of bread, knowing it was never enough. Never enough. A village of heartbreak and there was never enough.

 

These were the days of no rain, no crops, so no food for those of the small village. As I watched famine steal, kill, and destroy the lives around me, I experienced a painful cognitive dissonance: I saw injustice all around yet knew I was helpless to respond in a meaningful way. I wanted to compassionately care, yet who could feed a village? I was only a child. My heart needed its own compassionate care.

I was expected to do my part, as a little missionary.

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“Sacrificing self for others” was the guiding value of missionary culture and we the children were expected to do our part.

Unfortunately for us, this meant being sent away to boarding school so that our parents could serve God unhindered. We too were “little missionaries,” the adults said, admonishing us to consider the needs of others as more important than our own.

 

Six-year-old Carey wondered why she didn’t feel joy as she followed the admonishment of the little song the teacher taught her: “Jesus, then Others, then You … Put yourself last to spell JOY.”

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Moving to America after high school, I carried this false narrative right into adulthood,

finding outlet for self-sacrifice as a public-school teacher, volunteering in my children’s schools, investing in my neighbors and community, and taking on church leadership. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” I had been taught and I assumed that meant to just keep going. It all seemed to be working … until it didn’t.


As I approached my fortieth birthday, I suddenly crashed in burnout and depression. Compassion fatigue had gotten the better of me. Losing a sense of God’s presence, I entered a season of spiritual darkness. Where was the God who had accompanied me through all those years?

Dark Nights of the Soul are unique to each person and last as long as they last - directed by the Spirit, not the experiencer. I was led out of my own Dark Night by the flickering lantern of self-compassion held out for me by the Gentle One. (Matthew 11:29). As I learned to turn towards myself with gentleness, kindness, forgiveness, and care (all the qualities I eagerly offered to my friends), I was able to realize God’s turning towards me with the same compassion.

Moving forward from that dark season, the spiritual discipline of practicing mindful self-compassion has become one means of letting myself be loved by God. And “letting ourselves be loved by God,” Brennan Manning asserts, “is the most important thing that ever happens in prayer.”  I couldn’t agree more!

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You too are beloved and be-liked and invited into ever-deepening loving attachment with the God who looks like Jesus.

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My Promise

Through Compassion Care, I am dedicated to helping others internalize this love from which nothing can ever separate - not even an inner critic! I do this through self-compassion coaching, spiritual direction, group spiritual direction, poetry nights, and morning compassion retreats.

If you are ready to explore any of these opportunities, I would love to meet you and explore how I can support you as you experience the depth of God’s love!

Ways I Would Be Honored to Support You

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Spiritual Direction

“I am out with lanterns looking for myself.”
~ Emily Dickinson
A spiritual director accompanies an explorer, holding the lantern through narrow caves of the Dark Night; offering cups of water in the dry desert of Disorientation and Doubt; and providing compass and map in the wilderness of Discernment and Decision.
 
The path through each of these terrains on the spiritual journey takes you ever deeper into intimacy with Jesus. All the while, your soul is widening to receive the Generous Love that is already coming for you.
 
Sometimes it takes a compassionate co-traveler to help us recognize signposts along the way and remind us to pause and notice Beauty in ourselves that we had not seen. I would love to travel with you.
“When we are not afraid to enter into our own center and to concentrate on the stirrings of our own soul, we come to know that being alive means being loved.”
~ Henri Nouwen
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Self-Compassion Coaching

"A moment of self-compassion could change your entire day. A string of such moments can change the course of your life.”
~ Christopher Germer
Self-compassion opens our hearts. It gentles us and makes us more receptive to the compassion of others, including God. Mindfulness allows us to cultivate awareness of what we are thinking and feeling in a given moment so that we can support ourselves with kindness and strength. 
 
Research indicates the self-compassion increases motivation, productivity, resilience, optimism, curiosity, and connectedness. It is linked to a decrease in anxiety, depression, rumination, fear of failure, and shame. Self-compassion plays a role in healing trauma and in forming secure attachments with others and with God.
 
Applying principles developed by Dr. Kristin Neff and Dr. Chris Germer, you can safely avoid self-centeredness and self-indulgence while caring for yourself with kindness and support – the same compassion that Jesus wishes for you and is extending even now. Through strategies such as Immanuel Journaling and Thought Rhyming, you will experience God’s compassion.
“Kind words are like honey, sweet to the soul and healthy for the body."
~ Proverbs 16:24

LET’S GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER

Connect with Me

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