Culture Archives - Page 14 of 16

In Culture, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Relationships

Rest

Julianne HarveyDecember 6, 2016December 6, 2016Leave a comment

Occasionally we need to wave the white flag, if only for ourselves, to say that we now need rest. If we don’t do this on a regular basis, we will get sick, which is our body’s way of waving that white flag without your input.

I’m learning to recognize when I’m emotionally, physically and mentally spent. It still takes me far too long to get there (and I’m usually helped along by a cold or other illness), but I’m trying to quiet down enough to listen to my body when it whispers before it grabs me and shakes me violently.

Every year I get seduced by the mirage of a restful December as long as I bust my butt in November to get ready. It’s almost always a lie. I can’t seem to make it happen. The calendar gets overloaded and suddenly I feel not only behind, but also resentful that the peace and calm I’ve worked for is being messed with.

It helps to remember that we get to set our schedules. If we feel too busy, we can pull back and identify what matters most to us and what we can let go of. Perhaps the key is searching for pockets of rest and time that we can carve out for ourselves and then refuse to feel guilty for enjoying a bit of leisure in and among our commitments.

The Christmas lights call to my spirit at this time of year with their beauty and tranquility. They ask me to slow down and appreciate them. To look at my kids when they are talking instead of trying to get something else accomplished at the same time. To recognize that our relationships matter most of all.

Who is willing to rest with me this month? Even when it seems impossible? (Actually, especially then). Let’s make a few different choices. Brew a cup of tea and sink into a favourite book. Get out a board game and make a few memories before you flip on the TV to unwind at the end of a busy day. Eat that ginger snap cookie and savour it.

Let’s be intentional about our presence this year, even as we make our lists for presents. We get to choose how much to spend and how to design our December so it meets the needs of our family. Running to catch up doesn’t make us happy. It’s better to decide what we want and create it ourselves. We don’t need anyone’s permission for this; only our own.

A large part of nurture is paying attention. Noticing who is hurting and who needs a hug and a moment of our precious time. Sometimes that person will be ourselves. And it’s not selfish to stop and look after the one who needs our care and love. It means we are awake and aware and committed to health and happiness.

Happy December. Let’s make rest a higher priority than rushing this month.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships

The Key to Personal Freedom

Julianne HarveyNovember 29, 2016Leave a comment

Freedom from other people’s approval is an ongoing struggle for many of us, but when we experience small victories it’s important to step back and take stock of just how far we have come.

I used to crave approval like it was a drug. I was only okay if someone else gave me permission. The entire world looked different when I realized that I could give myself the approval I yearned for instead of searching for it from others.

It’s helpful with all growth to measure it in tiny incremental steps. Something in our human nature wants instant gratification (a condition only worsening with the internet available in our pocket, where any touch of a button yields immediate results) so anything less feels like failure. But the only way to sustain change is to approach it in little ways that don’t completely overwhelm us.

A person was angry with me recently and I didn’t become unhinged like I would have a few years ago. I was able to breathe through my anxiety and halt any developing shame spirals. I said calmly to myself, “I’m allowed to own my feelings and actions and this person is allowed to own theirs. We don’t have to agree. I’m okay.”

This type of positive self talk is huge in recovery from people pleasing. It takes us down off the ledge, turning mild hysteria magically back into tranquility. It felt so good to see how far I have come with my new and healthier skills. The exchange I had with this person knocked me off my stride for ten minutes instead of ten days, months or even decades.

The key to personal freedom is incremental growth. It’s one small alteration at a time, which over years adds up to a big difference in a moment of stress when you really need it. When a person can no longer push your buttons and get the expected reaction from you, you’ll know you have cut the cord and broken free. Now you are fully in charge of your own reactions and emotions, but this wouldn’t have happened for me without all of the hard soul work that came before.

We are all human. We make mistakes. We can become mired in a swamp of other people’s approval and get stuck, spinning our wheels and stewing over what other people are doing. But we can also make different choices, on any given day, and start to build a bridge to our own freedom. We can say, “This is unacceptable. I am worth more than this. I want kindness, honesty and love with no strings attached.”

We can stand up for ourselves and taste how joyful that feeling is. We are not responsible for other people’s happiness. Only our own. And getting to that understanding in our actual experience is what sets us free.

In Culture, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Going Deeper

Julianne HarveyNovember 16, 2016Leave a comment

I sat down to write my blog yesterday and for the first time in six years I had literally nothing to say. I started and erased four different entries before giving up.

The U.S. election has put me in a funk. I’m fighting my way out of a cloud of uncertainty, fear and barely suppressed rage. It’s awful to watch something unfolding and have no compass for understanding why it’s occurring. I hate the direction the culture of the world is heading in. It feels like stepping back in time and losing all societal forward progress toward acceptance, freedom and kindness.

Today I feel marginally stronger and able to marshall my flying thoughts in one direction. I long to go deeper. The answers are not found on Facebook, Twitter or by watching so-called “experts” on the news. This is the way of madness; futility and bleak predicted outcomes that have no basis in reality.

What helps is sitting still and breathing. Praying. Being generous to ourselves so we can give to others without burning out. Remaining calm when the world is burning is an act of radical courage. Peace provides a balm that soothes frayed nerves and overworked minds.

It takes a lot of willpower for me to stop forecasting disaster scenarios and listening to other people’s doom and gloom doesn’t help me break this cycle. The world has not ended. The sun continues to rise and set and our loved ones are still all around us. Our kids need us to show them the way through. Bravery is the currency we need right now.

Answers are found in stillness, not in social media. I’m weary of my own opinions and everyone else’s. When nothing is clear, go deeper inward, to the place where peace is buried. It’s there, under the noise and the strain and the worry. It’s in each of us, a lit candle in the fiercest, blackest storm, and I’m determined to find it and shelter its flame.

We need each other, now more than ever. It’s helpful to reassure and encourage when so much of the Internet is aflame with anger and insults. We are all just trying to find our way. We want the best for our children. We do what we think is best so gentleness is paramount, even when we cannot grasp why this series of events has unfolded and we have strong feelings about it.

I’m so glad Christmas is coming. This year, more than ever, I’m desperate for hope, love and a promise of peace. If I want stability in the world I must first create it in myself. And so must you. Let’s link hands in the darkness and whisper, “We are okay. I’m here with you.” This will help. So will going deep to find that place of stillness and comfort. It’s always darkest right before the sun rises and we get another day to do some good for ourselves and for others.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth

When Worried, We Have Two Choices

Julianne HarveyNovember 8, 2016November 7, 2016Leave a comment

Like most people, I’m concerned about the U.S. election today. But I’m over worrying about the things I cannot control. I’ve wasted too much time on that already.

When something is worrying us, we have two choices. We can stew and obsess and forecast disaster. Or we can intentionally choose to hope that it’s all going to work out the way it’s meant to. Probably not the way we would design it, but we only have a portion of the information we need at any given time. In order to see the whole picture, we have to simply keep going to see what’s next.

This summer I decided to live in the now instead of the future or the past. It was easier to do this when I was sick in the hospital and recovering at home, because my whole world shrank down to the next hour in front of me. I could not make any plans for anything beyond that.

Once I accepted this reality, everything got easier, simpler and clearer. Planning for the next hour makes more sense than the next month, year or decade. But when I recovered from my ruptured appendix and we were suddenly moving to BC and dealing with massive change, my commitment to staying in the present was put to the test.

And I failed, more often than not. Lately I’m stuck in the past, longing for the comforts of the life we had built for ten years in Alberta: predictable, safe, reliable. Our new existence in the lower mainland is the opposite, but I know this is a temporary instability.

So I’m back to the two choices when I’m worried. Stew and obsess or hope it’s all going to work out. My fallback is always number one, but I can work at this and choose a better option for my mental health.

At the end of 2015 I picked three words to focus on for the new year: strong, clear, optimistic. I’m reminded of these now when I feel weak, muddled, hopeless. We can all do hard things. We can make it through the challenges we face on a daily basis. We can choose optimism over despair.

No matter what happens tonight with the election, I’m not going to allow it to steal any more of my peace and contentment. I’m going to love myself through the change in the U.S. government the way I must love myself through every other obstacle that arises.

It’s all going to be okay. It’s going to work out like it’s supposed to. Believing this can be challenging, but it’s preferable to the fetal position where we are too afraid to continue. Let’s put our fear aside and trust in God, the universe, goodness, ourselves.

Let’s believe that something bigger is going on here than we can piece together with our own perspective. When all of the pieces are eventually revealed, our individual lives will make more sense, to us and to others. For now what we need is optimism, teamwork and kindness. We can get through this together.

In Culture, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Uncertainty

Julianne HarveyAugust 23, 2016August 22, 2016Leave a comment

Uncertainty is a part of life for everyone. We can defend ourselves against it, using strategies such as denial, manipulation and over-confidence in our ability to control outcomes, but at the end of the day the result is the same: uncertainty is always a factor.

I’m a Type A personality, so I find uncertainty to be an uncomfortable bedfellow. And yet as I practice going with the stream and not against it, I discover a fresh source of peace and contentment. When I believed I was the centre of the universe, by squeezing my eyes shut and willing certain things to occur, I felt more in control of my circumstances. But I paid a high price in stress for this make-believe certainty.

It was never real. Not then, not now. It’s the equivalent of a toddler standing in the middle of the room with her chubby hands pressed against her eye sockets, shouting, “You can’t see me!” I’m embarrassed to say I lived more than three decades of my life with this as a worldview. But the older I get, the clearer my uncertainty becomes.

I’m more certain now in my uncertainty than I ever was in my certainty. I’ve said that before and I’m sure I’ll state it many more times before I’m through. The sheer relief of admitting out loud that I don’t have the answers and I never really did is liberating. It’s the bubbles in a freshly-poured glass of Prosecco. It’s the helium that allows you to soar above your surroundings and see the bigger picture.

Uncertainty means you need faith on a daily basis. It requires you to let go of your preconceived ideas about how any experience or relationship should go and invites you to surrender to what is and not what you want it to be. Living this way allows you to recognize that you are one part of this world and not the whole shebang. You play a small but valuable role but huge amounts of this life are above and beyond what you can influence or manage. And this is more than okay.

I am practicing staying in each moment I am in. I don’t allow myself to forecast far into the future any more, for too much will shift and change and I’ll be forced to re-evaluate anyway. So I may as well just decide once, when the moment is upon me, instead of having fifty outcomes mapped out. It simply takes too much energy to live that way.

If you need permission not to have all the answers, please accept this from me. You are not the world’s Wikipedia. As Rumi said, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” We are marvellously complete, all on our own, but we must live this life to the best of our ability day by day. We don’t have to see around every upcoming bend, simply because we cannot. The job is too big and we are defeated before we begin.

It’s lovely in some ways to live in this age of instant information, but it messes with our natural rhythms. We aren’t sages or fortune tellers. We aren’t certain of what is coming. What we do have is our natural intuition, our sense of humour, our huge, warm hearts that can love without measure. We don’t have certainty of what will happen next or a set prescription for how others should behave.

We are responsible for ourselves and for our dependent children. We can let the rest slide from our shoulders. We can walk away from the drama and the fears of others that spread like wildfire if we let them. We can learn to live with uncertainty; to talk ourselves through it the way we get our kids through difficult situations. By breathing, discussing it in a calm manner, eating a bowl of chips or some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

Uncertainty is part of life. We may as well embrace it instead of fighting it.