Showing all posts in Relationships

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Care But Don’t Carry

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’ve had a hard time this summer with my nineteen-year-old son coming and going every seven days for his job. He’s been driving a huge truck in a copper mine, working twelve-hour shifts that alternate between days and nights, seven days on and then seven off, with a seven-hour drive each week to get there and to come back home.

It’s been a challenging time for him. The learning curve was steep to manage the trucks and the driving routes. It’s a remote location. He’s working with seasoned veterans who have been doing this job a long time. It’s a radically different world for William from his university student life and his previous employment as a barista at Starbucks.

On the plus side, his two best friends from high school are working with him. They travel together, live together when in the Cariboo region of BC, and faced the same stress when training on the trucks. And they are all making very good money to pay for their upcoming tuition and living costs as students.

When I was talking to friends about William’s experience this summer, and my frustration with listening to him complain about how hard the job is and how he misses being at home, I found myself saying, “The job for me here is to care but don’t carry.”

I liked that phrase so much I wrote it down in my journal. I’ve been mulling it over, considering how it applies to parenting and marriage and family members and friendship and lots of other relationships. I realised I know how to care and I also know how to carry stress for other people. But I don’t know how to do one and not the other.

I found myself trying to gently explain this to William. I said, “You are nineteen now. When you were younger, I would help you with your anxiety by sharing it with you. We would talk, and you would discharge some of those feelings onto me, and then you felt better. But now you are an adult. You’ve taken on a hard job, and I’m proud of you, but you get paid a lot of money for this work because it’s hard. And you’ll have to learn to manage some of that stress on your own without complaining about it to me.”

There’s no switch to flick to turn our kids into adults. I know it’s a long process, filled with ups and downs. But I also know that I don’t want to be weighed down by stress that isn’t mine any longer. I want to offer support and love when people around me are struggling, but I don’t want to carry their load for them because it doesn’t belong to me.

I’ve been exchanging voice notes with a friend who has kids the same age as mine. We’re both trying to navigate our way through the rhythm disruptions of having young adult kids leave home, then return, and then leave again. It’s a stage of parenting that won’t last forever, so we are both trying to enjoy the kids when we still have them living here, but it also requires a fresh commitment to our own self-care and nurture to manage the sense of whiplash with all the coming and going.

Care but don’t carry. I’m living into this phrase. I want my kids and my husband and my friends and family members to know I can be counted on for help and a listening ear. But I also want to free myself from the pressure I can feel to carry burdens for others that I haven’t actually incurred for myself.

What are some ways you’ve practiced care but don’t carry in your life and relationships?

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

It’s Never About the Cat Food

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Jason had a long and busy season of work travel this spring, where he was away from home for nearly a full month. In between one of these week-long work trips, he flew home for three days before leaving again. On the Friday he was home, I said, “I could use your help refilling this bag of cat food from the huge bag upstairs as it’s easier to pour it with two people than for me to scoop it on my own.”

He said, “No problem,” but by Sunday night, the small bag still hadn’t been refilled. We were in the kitchen, getting ready to go upstairs to bed, and I sighed. “I guess I’ll be filling that bag of cat food on my own, because it’s the end of the weekend and you’ll be flying out again tomorrow.”

He went upstairs. I was a few minutes behind him, as I saw a text from my daughter that I wanted to respond to. While I was answering a couple of her questions on my phone, I could hear the noisy sounds of Jason scooping out dry kibble from one bag into another. By the time I climbed the stairs, I saw that he had placed the refilled bag onto my pillow.

I was mad. So was he. And this fight wasn’t about the cat food. It’s never about the cat food.

If you’ve been married for a long time, nearly three decades in our case, you begin to recognise the trigger points that exist between you. When I stated that I’d be filling the bag of cat food on my own, he heard it as an attack on him. He was stressed, and tired, and what could’ve been a calm discussion between us quickly escalated into a war.

The next day, as I drove him to the airport, I found myself crying. I told him that he hurt my feelings with the way he refilled the bag and left it on my pillow. He said that I had been passive aggressive with my tone, and that I didn’t ask him directly to do the job.

I realised that when I said I’d be doing the job on my own, what I was really saying was that I wish he didn’t have to leave again. That I felt raw and vulnerable, offering support to my kids and to him and longing for some of that support to come back to me. I want to be able to rely on my husband for help, as we are in a new phase of a long relationship where I’m improving at receiving care from him and he’s improving at giving more emotional nurture to me.

He cannot be expected to get all of that from, “I guess I’ll be filling that bag of cat food on my own.” But sometimes we say that instead of the really true thing, because what I felt was so much bigger and harder to admit. Telling someone we rely on them and we will miss them is a tender thing to say out loud, especially when I used to be skilled at pretending to be fine all the time, even when I was actually lonely and sad and lost.

He listened to me pour out my heart on that drive to the airport, and he apologised. He still had to get on a plane and leave for a week, but I felt lighter knowing that I hadn’t abandoned myself during this argument. I took the time to ask myself what was really going on here, and felt curious about why I was so sad and wounded by his actions.

I feel like I’m in a new phase of growth right now, where I’m committed to advocating for myself, even when I feel pressured to return to old, familiar, comfortable patterns in my relationships. I didn’t use to ask for help. I wore my ability to “do it all” as a badge of honour, while privately nursing my growing resentments toward my loved ones. I don’t want to do that anymore.

This new way is vulnerable. It requires me to admit that I need other people, and it means I’m responsible to initiate the hard conversation when I’ve been hurt. But now, Jason and I have discovered a new shorthand to represent the old relationship patterns compared to the healthier ones we are creating: It’s never about the cat food.

In Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, Writing

Awakening to Meaning

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

For a few months now, I’ve been ruminating on meaning and purpose. I began thinking that I needed to create a deeper sense of meaning in my life, so I brainstormed possible avenues: volunteering for a hospice society, applying for a new part-time job, taking a class, learning a hobby, making new friends.

I did a few of these things, even going so far as to schedule an interview for a remote admin position working twenty hours a week. As the interview drew near, I started to panic about where I would find those additional twenty hours a week with my current schedule. By the time the interview happened, and the therapist I spoke to about the job said, “You don’t want an admin job, you are too overqualified for this and you are already doing such interesting work!” I had essentially come to the same realisation.

It’s funny how meaning functions. If I hadn’t applied for that job, and scheduled the interview a couple of weeks after the application, it might have gone differently. But in the interim, I slowed down enough to notice my day-to-day life, and it was like an old polaroid photo developing in front of my eyes. The meaning was already there, baked into everything, but I wasn’t tuned in to recognise it.

It’s been an extraordinary time, waking up to the meaning and purpose that’s all around me. I thought about friends I already have that I haven’t seen for ages, and I sent a bunch of texts to set up some plans. Being open to making new friends is lovely, and I hope that happens as well, but I have so many friends from decades back that I could be investing time and nurture and care in.

I feel like my nerve endings are awake now. So much of what I think will fulfil me doesn’t live outside of me. It’s within. The job is to get quiet, to slow down and pay attention. As part of this awakening to meaning, I recognised how much I loathe Instagram. I only created an account on there for Ruby Finch Books so I could see what my daughter posted, but that’s not enough of a reason to have an account that only gave me a feeling of stress. So I deleted it.

I started to look at my work with a fresh pair of eyes. I love my company, about to celebrate its second birthday on June 7, 2025, and I love the vision that I had when I formed it. When I checked in on my online book sales recently, I saw that five paperback copies of Post Civ sold in the UK last month. I have no idea how anyone in Britain knows about my climate novel, but I’m thrilled. I got a report saying that the Las Vegas Library bought an ebook of Post Civ for their patrons. For someone who used to receive royalty cheques in the amount of .09 for online book sales, this news made me smile from ear to ear.

My monthly podcast Intuitive Courage is small but growing. People are listening in Canada, the US, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand and other countries. I have no idea who they are or why they’ve chosen to listen to me, but it’s an honour and a privilege. There’s meaning baked right into those stats. And it gives me a fresh jolt of purpose every month when I consider what to talk about in the podcast. It helps me boost my own confidence as I work through these ideas in real time in front of a microphone. I feel the same joy when I work with teachers and writers at conferences, libraries, and in my online classes.

The idea here is that meaning is everywhere—in our work, our big dreams, our key relationships, our friendships, our unique connection to our own inner life and intuition. It’s all there. The key is to notice and appreciate it. To reflect on why it offers a sense of purpose to us. I’m practicing feeling happy in my life as it is, right now in this exact moment, instead of longing for some other place and time where I might eventually be happy.

Recently I changed my tagline from Author, Educator, Nurturer to Author, Innovator, Nurturer. I’ve been innovating my whole life, and I’ve decided to own it as part of my identity. My first author bio in 2010 said, “I’m fully awake and happily original.” It’s taken me a little while to live completely into those words, but I’m doing it now, and it’s so satisfying to awaken to the meaning that’s all around me.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Politics, Relationships

What World Do You Want to Live In?

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

We have an election in Canada on April 28, 2025. I vote in every election, because our vote is our voice, but this election feels so much bigger and more important than any previous federal or provincial vote. This month, I’m asking myself and others, “What world do you want to live in?”

The answer really matters. It goes way beyond aligning with a particular political party because you want a perceived tax break, or because you’ve historically identified with one party over another. In 2025, we are observing in real time what happens to a country when you vote for a person who dismantles the checks and balances to exert authoritarian control over individuals and systems.

I find the situation developing to the south to be terrifying. It feels like the end of days, like the freedom I’ve previously taken for granted is perilous and in constant danger of disappearing altogether. Every day, reading the news headlines is like watching the water level rise, until very soon I’ll be taking my last breath and the sea will be over my head.

I’m posting this a few days ahead of my usual schedule, because I want it to come out before Canadians go to the polls. I beg any person reading this to ask yourself, “What world do you want to live in?” One that remains the Canada that we know and recognise, which is admittedly not perfect, but still values freedom of the press, gun safety laws, public health, social services, diverse human rights, public school funding, and more? Or something that could slide alarmingly into the power hungry surveillance state that started an unnecessary trade war with Canada and continues to threaten our sovereignty as a country?

I know what my answer is. I’m for freedom, in all areas, and for all people. I keep thinking of how many times I’ve gone down the thought exercise road of wondering what I would have done in Germany in the mid-1930s if I’d been alive then. It’s horrifying to recognise and acknowledge that this is no longer a theoretical thought process. It’s now. It’s real.

I don’t want to live in a Canada that aligns itself with authoritarian governments and economies. I want to know that my rights and freedoms are not worth more than anyone else who lives in my country because we might have different skin colours or backgrounds or belief systems. I want a social care network that holds every individual, for none of us know when we might need that help. Freedom is worthless unless it belongs to every citizen of the nation. Otherwise it’s not real freedom.

In every bone of my body I’m longing for a world where we learn to care for everyone around us once again. Where we don’t prioritise our own safety and personal economic success above what other people might need to survive and flourish. Wouldn’t it be lovely to live in a world that believed it was a good and healthy practice to care for everyone in the community instead of just caring about ourselves and our immediate families?

That’s the dream I put into my novel Post Civ. And it’s what I’m dreaming about this month, as Canadians go to the polls to elect a new government. I hope desperately that government is a Liberal one, that will continue to stand up to the authoritarian threats we are facing from our nearest geographical neighbour. We need to consider history with this vote, and veer sharply away from any possibility that brings us closer to losing our freedom of choice and not caring about those who need help and support.

We are all Canadians, more alike than we are different. When voting, please consider the world you want to live in. Don’t gamble with your freedom or mine. Let’s stay united as a country, as far away from authoritarian rule as possible. Let’s remain the true north, strong and free, forever.

In Culture, Identity, Politics, Relationships

Elbows Up

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

The world feels like a total shit show right now. Since January 2025, when leadership (I’m using that word generously here) changed hands in the US, neighbourly relations between our two countries have sharply deteriorated.

We are known the world over for being polite. But being nice has its limits, and most Canadians have reached those limits by now.

My initial reaction to the tariffs and the threats of annexation was dismay. Then deep sadness and frustration. Now I’ve moved through those stages and into pure rage. I’m angry in my very bones. I feel offended and enraged that we have been targeted and provoked. And I know I’m not alone in this reaction.

This is our country, and we take our sovereignty seriously. When we travel internationally, we wear Canadian flags because we never want to be mistaken for Americans. We love being Canadian, and I take the actions of the current US administration to be acts of war. To me, this is serious business.

I have a lot of friends who live in the US, and I’ve reached out to several of them to tell them how I’m feeling. It helped me to talk it through with them. To hear their dismay and sadness and then anger. To know that on a personal level, we are not enemies, even while their political landscape attempts to turn us into adversaries.

As Mike Meyers said so well on SNL, for Canadians it’s time for “Elbows Up.” We live and breathe hockey since the time we are born, and elbows up means to protect yourself and be ready to fight back when your opponent throws down their gloves and readies for a brawl.

As a nation, we are ready. We will fight. We are angry now. Canadians have a long history of courage on the battlefield. We show up, we don’t back down, and we will fight to keep what’s ours and to not be pushed around.

There’s no sense wishing this wasn’t happening. It’s already underway. Pretending it’s a joke isn’t helpful. Along with many other Canadians, we are buying local and refusing to support the US in any way through travel or commerce. We are committed to growing our economy and sending the message that we will not be bullied, bought, or threatened.

The sense of betrayal we feel from America right now cannot be understated. I find it impossible to understand a majority of the country voting for this chaos, stress, horror, and hatred toward individuals and nations. The long term damage of what is happening here will have ripple effects for generations. When trust is broken, it takes a long time to repair, and it will never be the same.

As a country, our elbows are firmly up. Picking a fight with polite people doesn’t get you kindness in return. In this case, it gets you a show of strength.

Canada didn’t initiate this fight, but it sure as hell plans to finish it.