Personal Growth Archives - Page 33 of 33

In Personal Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Life

A Good WOE

Julianne HarveyAugust 25, 2015Leave a comment

Last week, a friend was going through a busy, stressful time, so I decided to text her a daily WOE (Word of Encouragement) to help her finish strong in her commitments. She let me know that these morning WOEs served their purpose by motivating her through the lowest ebbs of her week, but I was surprised by what they did for me.

I found myself slowing down and turning inward to find something creative and specific to tell her each day. If I got quiet, drawing long, deep breaths and picturing my friend in my mind, I was able to connect with an intuitive sense of what to say. It reminded me how powerful our subconscious is, when we make the attempt to tap into it.

Offering a WOE to those we love doesn’t cost us any money and only a small investment of time. But it does require vulnerability (the willingness to be seen as our true selves) and courage. We offer up a portion of who we are, a radical act of bravery in a culture that tends to value self-reliance above all else.

I started writing handwritten appreciation letters to my friends and family in January of 2015 because I was longing to connect, to belong, to tell those I am in relationship with what I most love and appreciate about them. It has been a wonderfully satisfying exercise in growing my friendships. I needed to step out in vulnerability, for the health of my own soul, as much as my loved ones needed to hear why I am specifically grateful for each one of them.

These new WOEs, via email, Facebook or text, are the same. They are an intentional bridge to intimacy in my relationships. They can bring a tiny shard of light into someone’s temporary darkness. They remind us that we are not alone. We are all in this struggle together. Any time we can help someone shoulder a heavy load, it is good for our soul to step up and offer a few kind words.

My friend sent me a personalized WOE in the middle of the week. I think I read it about fifteen times. Every reading brought a lift to my spirit, tears to my eyes and a smile to my face. Encouragement truly does have a spiritual power. It lights up the darkness, providing a dose of motivation when we aren’t even aware that we need it.

Who do you know that could use a Word of Encouragement today? Take this small step, letting your friend or family member know that you are thinking about them. Feel your soul rise along with theirs. Risk a little bit. Invest in the people that matter to you. And see what happens when you give away a good WOE.

In Identity, Personal Growth, Writing

Waiting it Out

Julianne HarveyAugust 11, 2015August 10, 2015Leave a comment

Going on vacation is like a reset button for me. This summer has been strange up to this point: disjointed, off-kilter and emotional. I have felt like a fish out of water with no logical reason for this out-of-step sensation.

Then I went away. I had high hopes of learning something profound or life-altering, as has occurred in the past, but instead it was just more of the same. Scratchy on the inside, easily irritated, a rising wind of discontent pushing my peace out of reach.

We all have crappy seasons that we just have to walk through, whether we want to or not. I find them easier to bear when I can pinpoint the cause of my malaise (“Oh, that’s why!”), but this time around no source for my frustration made itself evident.

When the time approached to head home, I felt disappointed that no great revelation had descended. Like most people, I wanted to feel happy and relaxed; to embrace the summer heat with its long days and pleasant evenings. I yearned to flip a switch and feel like myself again, but nothing was working.

Then we came home. Suddenly, a heaviness lifted and I knew a shift had taken place. I still couldn’t identify a reason for this change, but somehow it ceased to matter. Our inner landscape is a tumultuous place. We can’t hold onto the good and avoid the bad. We must accept what comes, learning from what is unsettling as much as from the things that bring us joy.

I long to be patient with my own humanity. I want to extend mercy for my flailing vulnerabilities instead of hurrying my soul through its inevitable rough patches. And yet I fail miserably at this. I want to assign a scientific meaning to everything I feel, like pencil points on graph paper, instead of accepting that feeling blue is part of the human condition.

We can’t be skilled at everything. There is always more to learn and to achieve. Perhaps, for today, it is enough to simply rest in my own soul, without forcing any one specific outcome. I know from experience that a painful season leads to a fertile, peaceful one. Hurrying growth along breeds nothing but resentment. Patience is a better plan. Too bad it’s so damn hard.

We are all doing better than we think we are. I tend to make it harder than it has to be. Sometimes, we just have to wait it out, finding the good and the beautiful in the midst of the difficult. Answers come to us later, when we stop fighting the power of the current and find ourselves back out on the sand. Labour is agonizing for a reason. At the end of it, you get new life.

In Identity, Personal Growth, Spiritual Life

Finding Stillness

Julianne HarveyAugust 4, 2015August 4, 2015Leave a comment

Learning to be still is a skill. It’s not something we can think ourselves into. Stillness is a state to be experienced, felt, lived. It’s a choice. No matter how chaotic the world is around us, we get to control what happens inside of us. And stillness is a decision.

Our culture doesn’t really support stillness. With technology, we speed up instead of slowing down. It feels like we go against the grain when we work at a quiet interior space. But it’s so healthy for the soul. It’s similar to cleaning a clogged and dirty filter so that everything functions again the way it is meant to.

Meditation is a part of stillness, but I find it challenging. I love it when I’m doing it, but it seems to get pushed aside in favour of other things. A friend just shared a meditation app she uses called Headspace. I’m planning to give it a try to see how it works.

Getting to a place of stillness requires concentration and effort. If it’s not a priority, it won’t happen. Breathing is an excellent path to inner calm. The more we can slow down each individual breath, the better our physiological response will be. Long, deep, relaxing breaths recalibrate our inner rhythms, helping us return to our true selves.

We are so much more than our schedules, our anxieties, our regrets about the past or our fears for the future. We are now, we are here, we belong to this moment only. It’s far too easy to miss this ideal present. We can be pulled in so many directions at once, feeling fragmented and lost, but the task at hand is to gently return to where we actually are.

I know I’m on the wrong track when the squirrels get running in my mind and I forget to anchor to here. This moment is the one that matters. Other people and specific circumstances can churn and stress and grind ahead, but I can choose to slow down and search for stillness inside of myself.

I know that the benefits of this are well worth the cost, but yet I wait too long to get intentional about serenity and peace. It’s an area for me to grow into. I believe that when we move toward stillness for ourselves, other people sense it and benefit from this radiated calm. It offers permission for them to slow down and move in the direction of stillness.

I want more of this quiet. More of GOD (either a higher power or simply Good Orderly Direction). More of the certainty that I am enough, that I have enough, and that in this present moment, I lack for nothing. Worrying is a dead end street. Stillness is a healthier choice. Inching toward it is preferable to not recognizing it at all.

In Identity, Parenting, Personal Growth

Unicorn Expectations

Julianne HarveyJuly 21, 2015July 20, 2015Leave a comment

I’ve had a rough start to my summer. I couldn’t seem to figure out why I was feeling so tightly wound, irritated and falling behind until I had a conversation with a friend about it.

“Like most moms, I get so tired in June and just attempt to limp over the finish line,” I heard myself saying. “As each commitment wraps up, like music lessons or board meetings or school events, I heave a sigh of relief and think, ‘now I’m done and won’t have any more stress for the next two months.'”

As soon as these words left my mouth, I started to laugh. How ridiculous is that? But it was a revelation about my own secretive messed-up thinking – the kind that lurks in the basement of my psyche and trips me up again and again.

“An expectation is a premeditated resentment.” I love this wise tidbit from the recovery movement. When we establish a set of expectations, especially impossible ones like having a pollyanna summer where everything comes up unicorns and rainbows, we are ensuring defeat before we even get going.

I’d like to think I know this by now. Magical thinking is a hallmark of growing up in an alcoholic home. It was sewn into my DNA along with good manners and a raging inferiority complex. I have trouble shaking this iron-clad belief that some future “there” is easier/better/happier than this present “here”.

I know with certainty that “the grass is greener” is the road to doom. It doesn’t work. It’s never worked, and yet I fall for its seductive charm time and again, like the badass in the leather jacket who catches your eye in spite of your many and reasonable misgivings.

Falling into magical thinking is a child’s response to a set of very adult circumstances. Unicorn expectations are not compatible with a vibrant, healthy, responsible life. When we want everything to be clear-cut and easy, and it’s anything but, we are pissed off and disillusioned before our foot even leaves the starting block.

I”m really grateful for the conversation I had with my friend. It opened my eyes to why I have spent the last two weeks sullen and resentful. Real life doesn’t match up to fairy-tale expectations. It’s better to expect some bumps and roadblocks than to assume it will be smooth sailing because the calendar turns to July.

In Parenting, Personal Growth, Writing

Disconnected

Julianne HarveyJuly 14, 2015July 14, 2015Leave a comment

Is it a hallmark of being human to feel disconnected from time to time? Adrift, from oneself as much as from another, off-kilter and irritated?

I must say that these vague and shadowy elements of human nature tend to piss me off. No matter how close I get to genuinely accepting the many unknowable mysteries of this existence, at my basest level I continue to long for stability. I prefer certainty to doubt, even though the latter opens the spirit and the former tends to close it down.

Perhaps the issue here is specificity. When I’m talking about human frailty and loneliness in the abstract, I understand its value and the lessons it teaches. But when my life is running smoothly, stacking up peaceful and happy days in succession like Lego bricks, I don’t want to be derailed by this ethereal loss and a gnawing discontent.

Especially when there is no damn reason for it, other than my own stupid expectations. I may have abolished my paper to-do list, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still draft one in my brain. To-do lists equal expectation. They generate that rat-on-a-wheel sensation of picking up the pace while not actually getting anywhere. And it feels miserable. It takes my joy and sucks all the air out of it, like those machines that prep meat for the freezer.

Life is what we make it. We all have certain obligations to meet, which rev up our stress level, but I tend to forget that my reaction is squarely under my control. I can feel as if I’m failing and behind, or I can celebrate the accomplishments I’ve achieved and let go of the rest for this one day. That choice belongs to me.

I’m lost when I start projecting into the future. What I have is this moment, in the middle of this day. As Victor Hugo put it, “The rest is only the rest, and comes afterward.” Borrowing ahead brings a churning mental and physical stress, with the added kick of removing the pleasure you could have felt today. I am so unbelievably awful at staying in the moment when future deadlines loom in the distance.

I can see now that this is a big practice area for me. The summer is particularly difficult because I long to relax with my kids and simply play, making memories that will sustain me later on. And yet I worry I’m falling behind, not meeting my own expectations, or worst of all, being lazy.

I have no bloody idea how to strike this balance, but I do know that pretending to rest when I’m actually worried about future projects is not a sustainable plan. It brings about this sense of disconnection within myself, extending to those I love, and I’m going to have to find another way to make this work.