Nurture Archives - Page 21 of 27

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Relationships

Held

Julianne HarveyJanuary 10, 2017January 9, 2017

Whenever I start to panic about the state of the world (fairly often, these days), I picture the word “held” in my mind. This word conjures up a sense of safety, even when it can’t be found in anything around me, and helps to remind me that I am not alone.

The incredible success of the wonderfully joyful musical La La Land at the Golden Globes on Sunday night speaks to a dearth of optimism in the hearts of people at this moment in time. I think we are all in need of serious cheer. We want to believe that the U.S. isn’t going down in flames and threatening to bring a large portion of the globe down with them.

I am either held and safe, or I’m not. So I choose to believe that I’m going to be okay. That we are all capable of surviving difficult times. We have reserves of strength that none of us have ever had to touch yet that will be there for us when we need them.

Meryl Streep’s powerful speech beautifully drove home the power of empathy and how dark the world seems when it’s missing or under attack. All I know is that we must shine brighter when night falls. Being afraid is not going to get us very far. That is the coward’s way, and I have to believe that we are not cowards.

Held. To be held implies a sort of surrender, to someone or something bigger than we are. This can be God, fate, love, a higher power, forgiveness, nature or anything else. It just has to be big enough and capable enough to hold you and comfort you. To help in the scariest moments of your life. To offer peace and hope when these elements are in short supply.

Together we are always stronger than when we are divided. It’s time to come together, to keep the dialogue of empathy and generosity going, even when it might not be popular. Especially when it’s not popular.

Many of us are heartbroken and discouraged by the direction of the world. Today, let’s remember that we are held, and safe, and find in this knowledge the courage to keep going. To let our light be enough for us to see by, and possibly to spread hope to a few people around us. This is our legacy. This is enough.

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth

3 Words for 2017: Open, Accepting, Anchored

Julianne HarveyJanuary 3, 2017January 3, 2017

I’ve chosen my 3 guiding words for 2017: open, accepting, anchored. I enjoy the process of arriving on these words to focus on. I get quiet, I close my eyes, I breathe deeply and I wait. They settle in on my soul, like snowflakes, one by one. I recognize each word as it enters my consciousness, inviting me to accept the unique challenge it offers.

I loved this 3 word experiment so much last year that I pushed Jason and the kids to pick new words along with me for 2017. Ava and Jason each chose one and William, true to character, refused (but Jason and I selected one for him).

Author Sarah Bessey picks one word for her year and she shared this beautiful site where they will handwrite your words and send you a digital copy to print and look at all year. I plan to order one.

The power of choosing these 3 words is that when I get off course in 2017, as I inevitably will, I can use them as a rudder to point me back in the direction I want to be going in. For as long as we are drawing breath, we can improve, change and grow. We are never stuck, unless we decide to be. We always have more internal work we can do.

Here are my 3 words for 2017:

Open.

I spent way too many years of my life closed off in a world of black and white absolutes. Now I long for openness. I must practice being open in a variety of areas: my mind, my heart, my beliefs, my breath, my body. I’m visualizing a rose tightly coiled in the bud, ready to unfurl day by day to reveal its fullest beauty to the world.

Accepting.

After openness comes acceptance. I often struggle with people or belief systems that are wildly different from who I am and what I hold dear. This year I am seeking chances to practice accepting others where they are instead of forcing my ways and ideas on them. For this, my visual is open palms, tipped to the sky, accepting experiences and people as they are instead of trying to make them what I want them to be.

Anchored.

To me, this word means present, held, rooted. I’m in need of this discipline as I’m so often somewhere else. My mind noses way down the road, to some uncertain future, instead of being anchored in the now. I want to notice more in 2017. To use my five senses. To remind myself to stay rooted and here in my own life. For this, the image is a wrought-iron ship anchor – heavy, ornate, rusty, well-used, dependable and beloved.

Happy New Year, my friends. What are your words for 2017?

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships

3 Words for 2016 Review: Strong, Clear, Optimistic

Julianne HarveyDecember 27, 2016December 27, 2016

At the end of 2015, I picked three words to focus on in 2016: strong, clear, optimistic. Looking back over the course of my year, I can see how I lived into these words, defining and understanding their worth and value.

The messy process of human existence is a fascinating topic. Our growth tends to be agonizingly slow and frustrating. It’s one step forward and three back, making us doubt any progress is happening at all, but if we give it enough time, eventually we can chart our halting, incremental changes.

I started 2016 with a smouldering restlessness. It was undefined and non-specific, but a fuse was lit in my spirit that signalled a need for a reboot. As the year wore on, it became apparent that Jason and the kids were also feeling this vague discontent, so as a family we actively sought what we referred to as a new start (actually, ANUSTART, which fans of Arrested Development will appreciate).

This came to us in early July, in the form of a job offer in the Vancouver area for Jason. We worked our butts off to list our house and get him out to B.C. to start his new job.

Then my appendix burst and made everything significantly more complicated, but it also propelled me onto a fresh track for deep personal transformation. In a very real sense, my appendix was the catalyst for a necessary life rupture for me.

Out of that painful, expensive, frightening and uncertain time came the opportunity to practice being strong, clear and optimistic. I would never have foreseen or designed this hospital stay and complex recovery period at the beginning of the year when I chose those three words, but in the way of most significant events in life, my appendix surgery gave me exactly what I needed to make those words real in my experience.

So as this (mostly) challenging, difficult, stressful year winds to a close, I am reflecting on what it means to be strong, clear and optimistic. I’m feeling grateful for the opportunity to live out these skills that I recognized as areas of weakness when I chose them to focus on.

I also stated that I wanted to let go of my deep-seated fear that I am not enough: a shame-fueled energy suck that has hampered me for my entire existence. I had many chances to practice this in 2016. Plenty of situations invited me to walk through my scalding fear that who I am was not enough, for myself or for others. And slowly I proved that I am indeed enough, just as I am, without having to distract people or fool them.

The relief in this discovery was as large as the galaxy itself. None of this was straightforward or easy, but so worth it when I look back and chart this growth trajectory. It feels inevitable, like it was always going to unspool this way and set up the new challenges and triumphs that 2017 is sure to bring.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth

My Tummy’s Name is Doris

Julianne HarveyDecember 20, 2016

I named my tummy Doris to personalize her. It’s harder to dislike someone with a name and a personality. Now, when I wake up in the morning, I say, “Hello, Doris” and it helps me to treat her gently and with more respect.

I’m utterly fed up and discouraged by our culture’s obsession with thin, perfect bodies for women. Men are not under the same pressure to look sleek, elegant, stylish and fit. Sure, many men would prefer six-pack abs, but I’ve never heard a man referred to as “plus-sized”, yet women have to endure this label all the damn time.

No societal change happens quickly. It’s a twenty year process, at minimum, but we can choose not to play our role in it anymore. No outside pressure can make us feel bad about ourselves. We have to opt in for that to work. As Amy Schumer famously said, “I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong. You will not determine my story – I will.”

I’m exhausted worrying about how Doris will look in a swimsuit or a new pair of jeans. There are much bigger things to be concerned about in this life. I’m longing to opt out of tying my weight and appearance to my sense of self-worth. But there’s no point in yearning for this. Now is the time to decide to let this nonsense go and carry on by saying if I’m beautiful and if I’m strong.

Doris is still sore from my appendix surgery this summer. The three laparoscopy sites are mildly tender to the touch, five months later, and I feel like the work I did before surgery with weights and sit-ups has been undone. I want now to simply accept my body as it is. To stop wishing it was like someone else’s. To thank it for carrying me around in this world and to look after it and love it with kindness instead of shame.

As women, we have impossible beauty standards all around. I rebel against the idea that I’m supposed to be made up and pretty when I’m out and about. I’ve been leaving my face free of makeup and going into stores in a ponytail and yoga pants and trying to make it a radical act. But this only works if I truly believe I’m allowed to do this. Some days I feel strong and sure on this, and other days I look around at the women who are made up and look stunning and then I feel insecure and silly.

Perhaps this type of growth is a slow process. I loved it when Alicia Keys talked about not wanting to cover up anymore. Something in me rose up and shouted, “Yes! Me too!” It’s brave to show up as we really are instead of hiding. Occasionally it feels too radical, too unsafe, so I retreat behind my desire to conform and work harder at being pretty and acceptable.

Is it okay to want to be pretty just for ourselves? And is it okay not to want to be pretty? To just go into the world as a man would do, without applying makeup and blow-drying hair and dressing up to go buy fruit and milk?

For now, I’m working on talking myself off the ledge with a series of affirmations. I greet Doris each day and tell her I love her, just as she is, round and soft and ample. I say, “You are okay. You are worthy of care and affection. You don’t have to look like a starving model to be beautiful.”

I wish I didn’t have to try so hard to offer myself permission to look the way I look. I’d rather not aspire to a concept of beauty that is unattainable to most. I enjoy food too much and the gym too little to make that level of sacrifice so I’ll have a flat stomach and shapely limbs. At the age of 44, it’s not likely to happen, especially since I’ve had this same basic body type since I was a teenager.

Now the key is to accept myself and to opt out of the madness that is the beauty and fashion industry. I don’t have to believe I’m less-than. It’s counter-culture enough to love myself (and Doris) with a radical sense of care and kindness, no matter what size I am. Who’s with me?

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Writing

A Reprieve from Depression

Julianne HarveyDecember 13, 2016December 12, 2016

This fall, I experienced a prolonged depression. Other than when I had my soul breakdown in January 2010, I have not felt such all-consuming darkness until 2016.

Some things are too desperately intimate to write about until we have achieved a bit of distance from it. I’m learning now to walk through the worst of it with a few trusted confidantes, and only examine it when I feel more stable and sure. I’m definitely still not out of the woods yet, but it’s better now.

Anyone who has been depressed knows just how scary it can get. The sense of hopelessness and despair is all around you, with no reprieve in sight. Just getting through the day until you can sleep is like climbing a steep mountain in the dark when you don’t have the necessary survival supplies with you.

For me, it was a perfect storm of moving, being homeless for two months and living with my in-laws (who were gracious and kind with us in their space, but not having my own routines and home was tougher than I expected), getting the kids settled in new schools and Jason in a new job, plus recovering from my 8 day hospital stay after a ruptured appendix this summer.

Everything left me off-kilter, sad, lost and fearful. I had to acknowledge just how rough it had been, while still moving forward because the pace of life doesn’t gently slow to allow for ongoing quiet reflection. I found another gear to downshift into and simply keep going: painting our new place, buying groceries, writing, keeping up with friends…but all of it was shaded in grey and held no vibrancy or optimism in it.

I booked a phone call with my fabulous therapist in Alberta and she helped me sort out a lot of these complex emotions. We can’t run from what haunts us. It’s better to stop and face it, when we are able to, and feel it thoroughly so it releases its death grip on us. I needed to do this in a few areas. After weeping a gallon or so of hot tears, I could choose to let it go and make space for something new and better in its place.

The key ingredient I needed was rest. This is true for many of us. We are not machines and cannot go like the Energizer Bunny forever. Eventually we crash. It’s preferable to anticipate the impending breakdown and make a change before it happens. I needed to make the choice to slow down, both internally and externally. To journal. To sleep in on the weekend. To not have the answers. To say no to a few commitments and yes to a board game with my kids in my pajamas.

It’s so true that if we don’t have our health, we don’t have anything. And no one will look after it for us. That job falls to each of us. We get to choose what makes us happy and determine what is contributing to our ongoing grief and darkness. I am longing to move toward the light, in whatever form that takes. With people, with activities, with my own strength and courage.

Sometimes we simply have to survive these bleak and awful seasons, but if we want to thrive we must make space for our own souls. Less Facebook ranting and more kindness. Fewer nasty opinions on Twitter and more quiet winter walks where I can breathe the clean air and pray. We can make room for all of these big feelings without labelling them as bad or good. In making our way though it, we slowly find our way home, back to our truest, most authentic selves.