Showing all posts in Identity

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Travel

Another Bridge to Take

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

In the song “This Ain’t Goodbye” by Train, there’s a lyric that brings me to tears. Every time he sings, “Another bridge to take on the way to letting go” I think about how hard it is to release my grip when I want something to stay the same.

But as we all know, life means change. Stages and seasons and growth and pain and learning to let go, over and over and over again. I really kind of hate this. You’d think we’d get better at this as we age, but some things give me a lump at the base of my throat, and keep me awake at night, and cause me to cry when I least expect them to.

One of those things is my youngest child graduating from high school. William has his school dinner/dance this weekend, and his commencement ceremony in a few weeks. This is a big bridge to take. When Ava graduated three years ago, I thought to myself, “William is only in grade nine. There’s lots of time left with a kid at home.”

And now the day is almost here. It’s a time to celebrate all that he’s achieved, and how bright his future looks ahead of him, but as the mom and dad, it’s also a time to grieve the end of his childhood. I’m really feeling the truth of the saying, “When raising children, the days are long but the years are short.”

With all of these significant life transitions (or another bridge to take on the way to letting go), I do my best to prepare emotionally ahead of time. I really do. But there’s anticipation, and then there’s experience. The two are never the same thing, which is another thing I hate because I have no choice but to walk through it when the time comes. Advance preparation only gets me so far, and then the only way out is ever through.

Another one of these bridges I had to take this month was when Ava decided to fly to New York City on her own and stay in a shared-room hostel near Central Park. We suggested she go with a friend, but after our family Europe adventure last summer she wanted to try a solo trip. In theory, I thought this was a fabulous idea, and very brave when you are only twenty-one. In reality, I worried about her until she arrived home safely—feet sore from walking the city at all hours and full to the brim with excitement and stories and joy from managing everything on her own.

These are important foundational experiences for our children to undertake. They have to learn that the world is a big place and they can be smart and travel safely within it. But for the parents, this involves a lot of letting go. Of being there when our kids need us, but not taking over every arrangement so they have their own chance to lead and to shine. It’s exciting. And hard. It requires us to give up some semblance of control, and to lean into trusting our grown kids.

I’m taking a lot of bridges right now, with both of my kids, and I’m slowly (so slowly!) learning to let go of them. Like so many parents, I’m proud, and I’m sad, and I’m a bit lost, and I’m celebrating at exactly the same time. We never stop learning how to adjust to these changing seasons.

Happy graduation weekend to you, William! Congratulations, and we love you.

In Books, Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking

Emotion Tunnels

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I first learned the phrase “emotion tunnels” from the book Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. In the book, they explain that our emotions are tunnels and we must move all the way through them. When we get stuck in the middle of a feeling, because we are scared or anxious or try to numb it or distract ourselves from it, the emotion fails to complete and we get stuck, which leads to emotional exhaustion.

This simple and brilliant definition made so much sense to me. But over time, we forget helpful things like this (or at least I do). Thankfully, my Burnout presentation (loosely based on the Nagoski sisters’ amazing work) got booked for an Alberta teachers’ conference this month, and when I reviewed my slides I realised that I hadn’t been completing some emotion tunnels.

One morning a few weeks ago, I was partway through eating my bowl of Shreddies, when I felt an overwhelming tidal wave of grief. I counteracted this experience with my usual defences: focusing harder on the novel I was reading to ward off any sad feelings, logically approaching the situation by saying to myself, “There’s no reason why I should feel teary right now,” and attempting to ignore it.

An image rose up in my mind of a tunnel, the photo I use in my presentation, and I placed my cereal spoon into my bowl, laid my head down on my kitchen table and WEPT. It was like a storm went through me. I shook, I cried, I grieved, I scared both of my cats.

When it was over, I raised my head and took a few long, shuddering breaths. Immediately, I felt different. Lighter. Less tense and stressed. I still didn’t know why I was suddenly overcome by sadness. But it didn’t matter. This was beyond knowing. What happened to me that morning at the table was simply feeling, and getting out of my own way to allow that particular emotion tunnel to complete the work it was trying to do.

Way later, I realised why I was grieving. But the key was to allow the emotion to have its way, in a safe space, alone in my kitchen. We live in such a cold, cerebral world, where we try to figure out our feelings and experiences rather than actually feel them. Sometimes this helps us to survive, when we are in pain, but mostly it gives us a spinning wheel inside of our soul, that’s desperate to complete.

I just listened to Rob Bell’s excellent and inspiring podcast called This Must be the Void. He echoed so many of the same things I’ve been going through, and it was lovely to imagine that this feeling instead of thinking process is actually in the air – that something cool and interesting is happening on a more collective level. He quoted a phrase from a song (I’m sorry that I can’t remember the musician!) that said, “I’m wired for the new world.” I feel like this phrase is doing something in my very bones and marrow. It resonates and rings utterly true.

In the last few weeks, I’m allowing myself a lot more freedom to complete my emotion tunnels instead of blocking them or attempting to understand them. The understanding comes later. First, there’s a lot to feel, and that feeling happens in the body, not in the mind. What a ride it’s been. I feel utterly changed by this process.

What emotion tunnels do you have to complete? Are there any feelings that have come up for you that you’ve been trying to avoid? Let’s discuss!

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

3 Words for 2024

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Every year, I pick 3 words or a phrase to focus on. In 2024, those words are savour, intentional, and receive.

With savour, I’m determined this year to notice more of my life as I’m living it. I read somewhere that when we plan for the future, thinking about something that has yet to arrive, we are missing our life as it’s being lived in the moment. This resonated for me, because I do it so often.

Savouring goes hand in hand with slowing down. I want to notice my delicious food as I’m chewing it. I want to pay attention to the person I’m talking to when we’re having a conversation. I long to stop fixating on my to-do list or some future event. My life (and your life!) is happening right now, at this present second. I’m determined to revel in it more. To cultivate appreciation for the life, career, and relationships I’ve built. To be here and now and to savour it all, no matter what, for this is what it means to be alive.

My second word, intentional, is designed to help me triage my biggest priorities. I’m 51 now, which means I have a lot of decades to look back and reflect on, while also hopefully having decades still to go in front of me. I want the way I spend my time to matter. I want to be more decisive about it.

I’ve been focusing for a few years now on rhythm. I work, and then I rest. I’ve learned to stop seeing leisure as wasted/non-productive time. It’s just as important. If we don’t choose to rest, eventually our body will choose for us, but there are times when I worry about the hours I’m spending chilling out (especially when I’m under a deadline or have a lot of moving career pieces on the go). This year, I want to be intentional with my time, whether I’m working or resting.

My last word is the hardest one for me. I do not know how to receive from other people. I’m unskilled and unpracticed at it. I know how to give to others – I can do that blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back – but receiving?? It feels foreign and strange and brings up all sorts of insecurities about how I don’t deserve it.

The subject of care has been a big one this past year for Jason and I in our marriage. I kept telling him that I wanted to feel cared for by him the way I would imagine he feels cared for by me. For ages, he couldn’t understand what I meant by this. My counsellor really helped me understand that I know how to give, but not how to receive. For Jason, it’s reversed.

We set these patterns up in the early years of our marriage, and now, at the 25 year mark, we’re trying to create more balance in how we function as a couple. It was really helpful for me to understand that I’m not good at receiving care, help, and love from others. I protect myself from it, and then become resentful and angry that no one is loving me, which isn’t exactly fair to the people closest to me.

With Ava moving out last year to go to university, I began experimenting with the changes in my parenting relationship with her as a grown-up child. Her love felt different to me, with her not living in our house. I was able to practice receiving some love, care, and nurture from her in a way I’d never experienced it before. This helped me open up to the love and care Jason was offering as well.

It’s been humbling. And beautiful. I still have so much to learn. Giving comes naturally to me, but I can also attest to how satisfying it feels to receive care from others. I’m inching my way into it, reminding my scared child self that I deserve love and attention too, and I don’t always have to be the one to give it. Learning to receive is going to take me a lot more time, but it’s a project I’m happy to undertake.

What are your words for 2024?

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Travel

It’s Okay to Ask for Help

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

When we were in London this summer, I was crying uncontrollably in a tube station when a train across the platform pulled ahead and directly across from me was a sign that read in big block letters: It’s Okay to Ask for Help.

I remember staring at it, through my tears, and looking from side to side like this message might be only visible to me. I saw my husband and my kids, waiting for our train and filled to the brim with enthusiasm on this first day of our 25 day European holiday, and I realised with a sense of impending doom that I was falling apart.

Sometimes it takes awhile to understand that we are not okay. I had no idea what to do on that underground platform when I couldn’t stop sobbing. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed to the max, and full of fear. I felt alien to myself. I knew that my kids in particular were worried about me, and I couldn’t reassure them because I didn’t know what was happening myself.

But I clung to that tube station message, like a drowning person holds a life preserver, for the remainder of our trip. It helped me, when I felt utterly lost. I believed in a philosophical manner that it was okay to ask for help, but I had no real experience with this as a practical concept. I was accustomed to being the person who offered help to others. Receiving it for myself was a new experience.

When we got home in mid-August, I felt relieved. Once again, I was in familiar surroundings and felt slightly more capable. But slowly, I came to understand that I was not well and needed medical attention. Throughout the fall, I went to my doctor a lot. I cried in her office every single time. My blood pressure was too high. My sleeping was for shit, and for the first time I considered that I might be struggling with anxiety and depression.

She put me on an oestrogen gel for perimenopause symptoms, and within two weeks I felt significantly better. A month after that I went on the lowest possible dose of a blood pressure medicine, and my heart palpitations/generalized anxiety went away shortly after that. Two months on this medicine and my blood pressure is back to normal, where it always was before.

The long and the short of this post is that It’s Okay to Ask for Help. At any stage or age. Even when it’s inconvenient, like at the start of a big European holiday that we saved for and planned for nearly two years. It’s okay if you don’t even know what’s wrong. And it’s okay to fall apart if you are a wife and a mom and secure in your identity as the one who holds it all together for everyone else. Maybe it’s especially important to know it’s okay when it’s a foreign concept for you, like it was for me.

The second day of our trip, at a gorgeous old pub in Canary Wharf where we had lunch, I told my family that I was thinking about flying home. They were kind and gentle with me, assuring me that I should stay, and that I could take things at my own pace. It was strange and surreal to feel so sad and unmoored and not be able to articulate why I was feeling this way.

In the summer, I couldn’t find a reason, because I didn’t know the reason until the fall. But in ten different countries in Europe, I cried and felt overwhelmed and allowed myself to simply be a mess and not have it all figured out. Looking back on it now, I can see how freeing it was to let go. To ask for help and to try to figure out how to receive help from my loved ones. Jason, Ava, and William were their best selves on that trip. They all thrived, so they led the way and I followed.

As women, we need to learn to ask for help when we are struggling. The last half of 2023 has been a daily exercise in learning how to receive help from others: my family, my friends, my doctor, my counselor. It’s uncomfortable at first, but it’s so worth it, as now I feel stronger and better than I have in a long time. But it starts with asking for help.

As this year ends, and a new one begins, how are you doing? I’m here to remind you that It’s Okay to Ask for Help.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, University

Middle Age Stress

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Late this spring, my doctor took my blood pressure and expressed concern about how high it was. “What type of stress are you under right now?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing, really,” I replied. She prodded a little, and then I said, “I just finished grad school, and I suppose that was stressful, but it’s over now. My husband and I are going to marriage counselling for the first time, because we’re about to celebrate our 25th anniversary and we’ve been trying to make some significant changes in the way our relationship functions. And my daughter moved out last year for university and I miss her so much. My son is going into grade 12 and I’ve been seeing a counsellor to prepare for an empty nest. We’re going to Europe this July, visiting 10 countries in 3.5 weeks, and there’s been a lot of prep, but other than that, I can’t think of anything.”

My doctor stared at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, then she said in a gentle tone, “Julianne, any one of those things could cause a lot of stress. Add them all together and I can see why your blood pressure is so high.”

I burst into tears. I realised after that appointment how tempting it can be to minimise my experiences. I’ve spent a lifetime doing that, so that I’m not causing difficulties or discomfort to anyone else. I bear all of that shit myself, until it becomes so heavy that I can’t carry it any longer and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

That happened for me this past June. But I couldn’t begin to understand or even acknowledge it then. Even now, months later, it still feels strange to type it out here. I feel removed from the story. It’s like I’m watching it happen to someone else.

My wonderful doctor told me to look after myself more. To get more sleep, to try a variety of lifestyle changes in order to lower my blood pressure. I remember saying to her, quite indignantly, “My blood pressure has always been perfect.” She responded with, “We’re all healthy until we’re not.”

I felt mild shame about my increased blood pressure, even when my doctor assured me that it wasn’t a character flaw. But it felt like one. We went to Europe, and I struggled my way through the trip that was designed as a celebration of our quarter-century marriage, my fiftieth birthday, Ava’s belated high school graduation and my MFA grad. Each day in a new country felt overwhelming and frightening. I was lost, and couldn’t recognise myself, which frankly scared the shit out of me.

This fall, my doctor suggested hormone therapy as we began to realise that so many of my symptoms were tied to perimenopause. I started on estrogen, and after a few weeks I stopped crying all the time for no discernible reason and a host of other symptoms started to abate. But my blood pressure remained high, so I just started on a low dose of medicine to try to bring that down.

It’s lovely to feel supported and cared for in my doctor’s office. It’s one of the first times in my life I’ve had this level of kindness from a medical professional. I’m going to turn 51 in just over a month, and my 50th year has been incredibly challenging on a number of fronts. But progress is being made, and that’s worth celebrating. My new counsellor has me saying, “I’m learning how to do things differently” while writing down the words DO LESS and looking at them every day. She has me trying to care for myself the way I’ve long cared for others, and learning how to receive nurture and love which I’m not good at doing.

It’s a strange experience to speak and teach on topics of wellness and mental health, while struggling day by day on a practical level with it myself. I told the teachers I worked with at a conference in October that I’m working on allowing myself to be sad, and scared, and giving myself permission to not have all the answers. It was truly beautiful how many teachers told me after my sessions how much my vulnerability had meant to them. In theory, I knew that vulnerable sharing is the key to true connection with others, but to understand this by experiencing it was next-level stuff.

I know from talking to several friends that this perimenopause/menopause journey (that’s an overly generous word for it; the first one I typed was ‘nightmare’) can last five or more years. Some who are on the other side of it told me to use these uncomfortable symptoms as an invitation to slow down, and take better care of myself. My counsellor says this stage is about getting comfortable with grieving for the end of childbearing and bringing up children. It’s painful to finish one chapter and move into another one, but that process happens so many times in our lives. Grief feels like a spot-on word.

So we carry on. I’m trying to be gentler, and move a little slower, and stay present. It’s helpful to know that others have gone through this and survived (even eventually thrived). I’d love to hear from you if you have any words of wisdom or encouragement for me in these new and weird perimenopause days. It feels so big and scary in the middle of it, but I also know it’s natural and an important life transition. Most of all, it’s great to know we are not alone.