Identity Archives - Page 21 of 28

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth

Lessons from the Hospital

Julianne HarveyAugust 2, 2016August 2, 2016Leave a comment

So, my appendix ruptured in the middle of last week and I’ve been in the hospital for 5 days now and counting recovering from post-surgery complications and issues.

I’ve learned a lot from this experience. Type A Go-Getters like myself don’t do well recovering at a snail’s pace, with one step forward and three back every damn day. I want to see results. I want to be the BEST at recovering, not the worst.

But what we cannot control, we must learn to accept. Kicking and screaming, maybe, but fighting what we can’t alter is a fool’s errand. To that end, these are some key things I’ve learned in my five days of recovery so far from appendicitis:

Our Bodies are Equally Strong and Frail

My mom reminded me that recovering from surgery is like labour: it helps to get out of the way and let your body do what it knows how to do. When you are tired, rest. When you need to get your bowels moving, walk. When you are puking into a tin in the middle of the night, totally lost, wasted and alone, trust that your body is doing the best that it can to heal.

In this way, I have newfound respect for my body and I feel more ready than ever to let go of my stupid issues about wishing my stomach was flatter or my arms sleeker. My body is a machine, like yours, and it’s healthy to respect what it can do.

The frail part is harder to come to terms with. In the hospital, on my many daily walks around the ward, you see all manners of human frailty in each room. Someone passed away this morning in my ward and family members were clinging to each other and sobbing in the hallways outside of my room. Life does not last forever. It is only here, given to each of us, for a limited, precious, important, undetermined amount of time. We’d best not waste it.

Patience is a Virtue

I spend way too much time rushing through life. Achieving, accomplishing, worrying, Netflix-binging, trying to prove I’m valuable and worthy. What is it all for? In the hospital, you have a lot of time to stare at the wall, cursing your 4-day NG tube and dreaming about the food and drink you aren’t allowed to have because of your lazy bowels and debilitating nausea from bile build-up.

The things that really matter; those you love who love you with their whole-heart in return come to the forefront. The friends you can call and you know they will pick up your kids and love on them. The offers of support, love and encouragement from all over the place. That’s the important stuff right there. Not the to-do list and the being superwoman. Slowing things down was what I needed to see what really matters.

Receiving is as Crucial as Giving

I’m a giver. Always have been. Receiving feels uncomfortable and even selfish to me. So to be this ill, with my supportive and fabulous husband a province away when my surgery was happening meant that I had to receive from a variety of people. I had to let myself need others and it was an eye-opening, beautiful experience.

I told Jason not to fly back, but he was too worried and ignored me. So he came, to bring the kids to see me each day over the long weekend, and this was wonderful. But I also reached out to my mom and many friends for help and they gave it, with such abundance it was like a blooming flower garden in my own heart, where I could stop and smell and get lost in love and inspiration.

There are many more lessons, but I’ve wiped myself out typing this to hit my blog deadline for tomorrow so I shall stop. Plus I just saw a prisoner shuffle past my room in his flappy, vulnerable hospital gown and IV stand, two burly guards walking slowly beside him, the prisoner in leg chains. We are all humbled by the hospital, by our own weakness and frailty. We are levelled, brought out of our disguises and into our true selves. We are revealed to be both more than we thought and less. We are real, humble, true, honest. We are beautiful.

In Books, Culture, Identity, Nurture, Writing

Permission Slips

Julianne HarveyJuly 26, 2016July 25, 2016Leave a comment

I love Brene Brown’s concept of permission slips: writing ourselves notes that tell us what we are allowed to do as a method for getting unstuck.

Lately I’ve been doing this and I’m amazed by how powerful it can be. Some of mine are:

You have permission to write what you want to write
You are allowed to feel successful even if no one says it
The goals you’ve set are achievable if you are patient
Believe in yourself, Julianne – you can do this!

Try it. Write your name on your permission slip so it’s not too general. Make it specific to you. Feel the liberation that comes from knowing you are all you need to pursue your deepest desires and talents. Stop waiting for someone in authority to give you the green light. You are the authority.

I’ve been struggling with my lack of qualifications lately. Looking for a part-time job when you aren’t officially trained in one specific vocation is rough on the self esteem.

I know my value is not located in my achievements. I’m worthy of love and care no matter what my tax return lists as my income or the number of books I’ve sold. It’s the same for you. But sometimes the world beats us down anyway. The good news is, the falling down doesn’t matter. Only the getting up and trying again counts.

Confidence is a tricky beast. When it flows, we feel invincible. We can do anything. But when it ebbs, that’s the time for permission slips. We need to remind ourselves that we have what it takes to sit in the driver’s seat of our own lives. We don’t need someone smarter, stronger or braver to rescue us. We can do that all by ourselves.

I can use my experience to tell people younger than me to persevere in something they love and finish it so they receive a qualification in something. This will make their lives smoother and easier. But if I continue to feel the need for this legitimization of my skill set, I have training options open to me. As long as we are alive, no matter what age we are, we can start a new adventure. We can learn, grow, evolve, become expert in an area of our choosing.

We can refuse to settle for less than we long for. We are in charge of our own permission slips. We can move bravely forward, creating the future we desire, refusing to give up when the inevitable bumps and detours arise. No one else is going to make our dreams come true. That’s on each of us. Permission slips can help us get there when we feel discouraged. Thank you, genius Brene, for this powerful tool.

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships

Suspended Between Two Worlds

Julianne HarveyJuly 19, 2016July 18, 2016Leave a comment

Do you ever feel suspended between two worlds? It’s an uncomfortable sensation; one that stretches you and asks you to be flexible.

Going with the flow is not my strong suit, but fighting against the river’s current is a losing proposition. It seems to always come back to surrender. Acceptance, optimism, courage: elements that make our lives easier if we agree to stop fighting for the outcome we desire and just let it be.

We are quite suddenly moving to the Vancouver area because my husband has taken a new job there. “Sudden” is a tough concept for a Type A planner like myself, but my chief goal for this move is to stay calm, to proceed in an orderly manner toward the red exit sign instead of causing a panicky stampede.

I’ve experienced some success with this serenity and also some serious failure (accompanied by swearing, tears and generalized rage). We met with the realtor and the stager, then worked flat-out for four days before the appointment with the photographer. Our house went on the market less than a week after we discussed it with the realtor.

This accelerated timeline has left me breathless and off-balance. I leaned on friends for help, a spiritual practice good for my overall health, but that sensation of being between two worlds is uncomfortable and stressful. It’s a growing place; one that asks you to summon forgotten reserves of strength and grace.

The key is to refuse to give in to the fear and the “what ifs”. What if the house doesn’t sell, what if the timelines don’t match up, what if the endlessly shifting dates get too crazy and I can’t count on anything? All useless questions, driven by fear and anxiety.

Every one of us has uncertainties to face. We can either panic or remain calm. We can be paralyzed by fear or choose to trust that we are going to be okay. I keep thinking about the 2010 movie title The Kids Are All Right. I’d rather put my faith in that idea as it brings me peace.

Change is beautifully invigorating. It’s also hard and filled with unknowns. Like so much of this life, those two disparate concepts work hand-in-hand. You don’t get inspiration without risk. You don’t get love without pain. You don’t get adventure without fear.

I’m determined to take this move one task at a time. To try to remember that I cannot see the finish line from my starting position. I just have to keep moving, completing lap after lap, knowing that as I inch nearer to the end I’ll gain the experience I need to complete this particular race. And then there will be another one to suit up for and run.

All of life works this way – for me, for you, for everyone. The bitter right alongside of the sweet. The sad goodbyes and the joyous hellos. One person, with a foot in two different worlds, doing his or her best to stay calm enough to survive the challenges of each particular transition.

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships

Stay the Course

Julianne HarveyJuly 12, 2016July 11, 2016Leave a comment

How we handle stress reveals us on a primal level. We have nowhere to hide when the pressure builds. Do we blow up, retreat, soothe with food, shopping, alcohol or sex, or do we face it head on with grace and calm?

Very few of us do the latter, but it’s a new goal for me. I know that the time to prepare for stress is when the seas are still, not wild with uncertainty. We prepare for hardship in the peaceful times, by developing skills that will see us through the bumps that are sure to come in the future.

Confidence is always an inside game. We are sunk if we hinge our self esteem on any outward achievement or praise, for these are fickle and will certainly fade. Our surest hedge against internal or external disaster is to stoke the fires of our belief in ourselves on a regular basis. Waiting until the stress arrives means we are too late.

I’ve been living this out lately, after a turbulent period of suffering. Those old demons that hunch on my shoulder and plague me with taunts of being less-than, not good enough and worthless have finally quieted down. I simply waited them out and in time they got bored and went on to irritate someone else.

Half of this life is just outlasting what tries to defeat us. It’s important to stay busy with other pursuits to minimize the dark forces working to pull us under.

I’m loving this season of internal calm. It’s that dewy, clean feeling after a hard rain. It’s less a triumph than a relief that this particular storm has ended and patches of blue sky are visible once again.

All I know is that it helps to do our internal work each and every day, especially when we see no obvious evidence of it. If we stay faithful to our soul, when the tough times mysteriously end we will see the benefits of this devoted attention.

If you are hurting right now, with no clear answers or insights, simply stay the course. Nourish yourself with the gentle sustaining routines. Wash your face, apply sunscreen, listen to happy music, drink water, eat your vegetables (and also chocolate). Pain doesn’t last forever. Neither does self-doubt, fear and worry. One day, you’ll wake up and feel contented, hopeful, a little bit more secure in your own brave identity.

You are likely doing better than you think you are. I say this to myself as a mantra when all seems lost. Life can be rough with many mountains to climb, but we can do it if we pack the right gear and we train for the trail so we are prepared.

Gentleness and courage are suitable bedfellows for the calm times and the terrifying ones. One day, in the very near future, you will experience a personal breakthrough. You’ll feel different, you’ll see the world in a new way, and all of that constancy in the darkness will get you to that unforeseen moment of light.

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships

Help is the Sunny Side of Control

Julianne HarveyJune 28, 2016June 28, 2016Leave a comment

“No one mentioned until I was in late middle age that – horribly! – my good, helpful ideas for other grown-ups were not helpful. That my help was in fact sometimes toxic. That people needed to defend themselves from my passionate belief that I had good ideas for other people’s lives.

I did not know that help is the sunny side of control.”

This beautiful quote is from the great Anne Lamott’s Facebook page. When I read it, something vital and primal leaped to recognition in my own soul, like a light switch being turned on to illuminate a dark space.

In this life, we have to experience an idea to fully understand it. We must inhabit it by walking it out. Simply thinking through it is not enough to change us. We need to taste it, grapple with it, fight it and then eventually surrender to it.

I did not know that help is the sunny side of control. This tidy phrase encapsulates what I’ve been wrestling with for several years now. I feel like I’m finally ready to accept this bold truth: when help is mostly about me and what I want the other person to do in return, it is not actually help. It’s manipulation, expectation, control.

Learning to face ourselves honestly is a lifelong process. It’s far too horrifying to do all at once. We must take it in tiny stages, lest we be blinded by the outrageous shame of our dysfunction.

If you grew up like I did, help was not free. It was a transaction. For a people pleaser, this meant confusion and anger a lot of the time, because there were no words around this. The system was built on glances, silences, tense body language, raised voices, narrowed eyes and other not-so-subtle clues. You picked your way through this minefield, hoping not to be blown up while trying to earn love and gold stars from others by being so good and helpful that you ached from it.

I learned to control by offering help, while refusing it from others so I wouldn’t owe anyone and they would all owe me. Perhaps not so sunny, but true nonetheless.

Now I practice offering help with no strings attached. It’s new and radical. It’s also hard. I push myself to receive help, support and care from others without feeling that I must repay a silent debt. Unspooling these complex, dysfunctional behaviours is a lengthy job. I must remember that it’s okay to go slow. Many people never even try to face their unvarnished souls – it’s simply too shocking and painful.

Progress towards health is preferable to remaining in denial and darkness. I yearn for light, for beauty, for healing, for restoration. True help is freely given, not bartered for something else or held over another’s head as a ransom demand. That is control. Just because I grew up with that doesn’t mean I can’t change these patterns for my children and for the last half of my life.

I know there is a better way because I’ve seen it in action and felt its warmth on my skin. Love does not demand to be noticed. It is offered with no guarantee it will be returned. I’m going to lean in to this truth, to wear it like a coat and see where it will take me.