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In Culture, Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships

The Tension of Opposing Forces

Julianne HarveyMarch 29, 2016Leave a comment

Where is the line between strength and kindness? Or authenticity and respect for the dignity of others who behave radically differently than you? What about using your voice versus choosing to stay silent?

The tension that exists between each of these dynamics can be a real bitch. Relationships can become thorny in a hurry when we are deciding between these options, plus you add in a charged emotion like outrage or hurt and suddenly nothing is clear cut.

Recently I stumbled on a picture that said, “Do no harm but take no shit.” This helped to soothe and calm my restless spirit. It doesn’t help with clarity for each individual situation I find myself in, but it’s short and punchy and in the midst of stress it offers a basic framework for what is acceptable or unacceptable for me.

Most of us long to be kind but we also want to speak up and be heard. Both of these things are noble, decent and worthy. Do they have to be at odds? I’m trying to reconcile them in my life and my relationships, but if I’m being honest (and I do strive to tell my truth), it’s a huge struggle.

Perhaps it all comes back to awareness. The key is to be conscious of any disturbance we feel in our own spirit – when something is off, it’s time to pay attention. I hate that so often I go along with what another person desires because I want to be nice or not be labeled as difficult.

It can’t be bad to try to be kind, but the tension exists where what I think is socially acceptable intersects with what I want or don’t want. Is every situation unique and a decision must be made in the moment for each one, or is there some magic formula that helps me feel true to myself while balancing out what other people might need or want?

I’d prefer a magic formula, but I’m starting to see that this is wishful thinking. This above all: to thine own self be true, as Shakespeare told us so eloquently in Hamlet, and it feels like sage advice. When it seems false to me, I must be on the wrong track.

Sometimes niceness to others masquerades as my own lack of courage. This is an area for me to work on. But it’s also healthy and right not to give in to every fleeting impulse that arises, for words spoken from frustration and temporary irritation can do a lot of lasting harm to others.

It’s important to come to terms with the tension between two opposing forces. Kindness and strength; authenticity and respect for others; speaking up or remaining silent. No “one size fits all” works here. As we deepen our understanding of the person we are in the process of becoming, new relationship choices open up to us.

We grow a little every time we practice these skills. We make mistakes and we learn from them, offering grace and forgiveness to ourselves and to those we love (and those we can’t stand). Nothing about this is easy, but we are not given any guarantees in soul work. Every single day we get a new chance to practice doing no harm but taking no shit.

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

Self Care and Pride

Julianne HarveyMarch 15, 2016Leave a comment

I’ve noticed something in the last few literary salons I’ve facilitated: a link exists between self care and pride. Both words make people uncomfortable but in total different ways.

As a culture we have work to do in these areas. We’ve sped up the pace of our daily lives, causing the concept of self care to fall to the bottom of our to-do list. And we’ve also begun to define pride as selfish, egotistical, shameful.

Why do these two words (okay, three words but let’s lump “self care” together into one) make us squirm? I’ve heard women and men deflect away from questions centred on these ideas. In the two salons I ran yesterday in a high school, male and female students in grade nine and eleven shied away from anything involving pride and self care.

I find this fascinating. Like the brilliant Brene Brown’s research linking shame and vulnerability (not that I’m in the same league as my hero…see, there I go, qualifying what I’m about to say so it doesn’t sound too boastful), I am beginning to see that self care and pride are somehow connected.

I don’t understand it yet, but my Nurture is Valuable project ties in here (I’ve now interviewed 9 women on my way to my goal of 100 – please get in touch if you are willing to answer 5 short questions via email) and I want to pursue this further. We seem to feel afraid of our own strength. It’s uncomfortable to stand up and say, “I’m good at such-and-such. I’ve worked hard. I made/wrote/raised/cooked/organized/cold-called/created/cared for/succeeded at this.”

Why is it so challenging to own our abilities, work ethic and outcomes? When I wrote the question, “What is one thing you did last year that you are proud of?” I assumed it would be hard for women to answer but easy for men. WRONG. So far its stumped almost anyone who has drawn it randomly from a bag of questions, including straight A students and those with solid careers.

And self care baffles people across the age and gender spectrum too. I’ve had to define it over and over, and it still falls flat and lifeless among the different groups engaging in conversation. It seems to be arrogant to talk about our successes publicly and embarrassing to explore the topic of looking after yourself. How long has this been the case in our North American culture? Has it been brewing for years or for decades?

I’m going to dig deeper into this subject. Does anyone have thoughts that they would be willing to share with me? My work is taking me in this direction. Personally, I am longing for radical self care, anchored by strength and pride in who I am and what I can do in this world.

My heart aches for meaningful connection and intentional conversation with other like-minded people, which is the birthplace of the literary salon. I have identified my own need to learn to love myself, exactly as I am, so I can in turn offer this gift to others, for we can only give from our own overflow and not from our deficit. I have much to discover on this topic of self care and pride. Who wants to be part of this with me?

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, Writing

I Am Enough

Julianne HarveyFebruary 23, 2016February 21, 2016Leave a comment

I made a list of things I wanted to let go of in 2016. At the top of the list was this: my deep-seated fear that I am not enough.

I had no idea when I wrote that how massive the reverberations would be in my psyche from the earthquake this would cause. We’re seven weeks in to this new year, and expressing a willingness to work on this hidden area of shame and being less-than has cratered my life.

The explosion is the worst. It blows all of your security and coping mechanisms apart. You are left with nothing safe or familiar. You feel naked, exposed, stupid, alienated. You think you cannot survive what just happened, but then something miraculous occurs: you do.

Getting at wounds that feel primal takes a herculean effort at courage. We want to scatter, like rats or cockroaches, as soon as the light touches the poorly-healed scar. Our deepest and darkest secrets reside in these places. The pain is staggering, fresh, overwhelming. The first instinct is to run; to put as much distance as possible between you and the hurt, to throw everyone else off the scent by summoning every trick in our arsenal to show that we are the opposite of our greatest fear.

But if we don’t run, something remarkable happens to us and in us. We stare it down. In my case, I saw that over the course of my life, I’ve developed healthier skills that helped me face the anguish I’d been running from.

Just because I felt less-than doesn’t mean I am less-than. I could prove, to myself, that I am more successful than I’ve been allowing myself to take credit for. While staring into this stinking abyss of not being good enough, I saw that I already had what I needed to be happy, fulfilled and optimistic. It was already there. Now the task was to claim it, to hold it in my hand, to cease striving for someone else to give it to me and simply be enough exactly as I am in this moment.

It all had to fall to shit before I could see it clearly. I had to risk losing everything and everyone to see how much I already had. This one has been a muddy, long slog. No one else was responsible for my own sense of worth. This was on me. I had to feel the sting of the shame and the fear in order to stare it down and come out safely on the other side. And damn, was it a solitary and terrifying journey, but the other side is as wide open as the prairies.

I’m free in this new landscape. I own my choices, my value, my soul, my fresh belief that I am enough and always have been. But worrying about what came before is a fool’s errand and I’m done being foolish. I can only move on from here and live out of this place of truth and beauty, where forgiveness finally exists for myself as much as for anyone else.

It will be less lonely now, for I can choose whom to invite into this new reality – the one where I am enough, simply because I breathe, and not because I’m terrified to show you just how hard I’m working to prove my worth to you. Those days are gone and it all looks so different now.

Our inside reality determines how we experience everything. I’m not setting my value now in a hypothetical sense. This is finally real, part of my daily experience, and I’m not handing this gift to anyone now. It’s mine, I own it, and I’m going to treat it much better from this point forward.

In Identity, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Life is Messy

Julianne HarveyFebruary 16, 2016February 15, 2016Leave a comment

I’m lost. And afraid. I’m not clear on anything at the moment, which means I’m in the shittiest phase of the growth cycle. I know I won’t be stuck here forever (even though it feels like it) and big changes are likely in the pipeline that will be good for me. But none of this knowledge helps to heal the current pain I’m feeling.

It’s time to get honest with myself and to others about how confusing, alienating and exhausting life can get. It’s messy with a capital damn M. My soul is like a wounded bear, growling from my den, daring anyone to come at me with yet another “this too shall pass”. I know that already. We all do.

I’m longing for more shared honesty. For more “me too” and less stoic pretence. I want no more advice, so I must continue to work at not giving any out either. What helps the most when my soul has been rubbed raw with lemon juice is a piece of hope from someone else who has also experienced genuine pain, loss and grief.

The world is a scary place. Sometimes it’s simply all too much for me. My kids are in pain and I must do my best to help them through, to offer encouragement and strength even when I am thoroughly beaten and defeated myself. I’m trying to be gentle and kind to my weary mind and heart, offering love in place of judgement, but life offers none of us a chance to get away from our problems. We only get temporary reprieves at best. The sadness will still be there, lying in wait, when we are done with our shopping, eating, Facebook surfing, exercising or Netflix binging.

Every one of us is in constant flux, evolving and changing, trying our best and still occasionally falling flat on our faces. This journey of becoming our true selves can be so rough. We get lost, night falls, our compass breaks and we have no clue where we are in our own inner landscape.

I pretended for years that I was fine when I was actually dying inside. I know that way doesn’t work, but trying to be vulnerable in a world committed to posing as rich, thin, happy, helpful and eternally young is deeply challenging too. No one said it would be easy, and at the end of the day I must choose what is right for me no matter what anyone else is doing. But stepping out as your real self, keeping a soft and open heart, trying to be honest when you are struggling – these things go against the grain, and the sense of isolation can be enormous.

The only way I know how to survive is to keep going. To breathe in and out. To hug my husband and my kids. To watch a great movie and read an inspiring book. To reach out to someone I respect and love to say, “I’m hurting. How are you?” To try again, when I prefer to hole up inside myself and never try again. To realize that the mess of life serves a growth purpose.

Nothing worthwhile is achieved without significant pain. Doubt is a huge part of this process. It’s normal. I’m not the only one to feel this way. Something is happening. New life is around the corner. I have no choice but to wait for it. All I really have to do now is the best that I can in this rough patch.

In Personal Growth, Relationships

Safe in the Moment

Julianne HarveyFebruary 9, 2016February 8, 2016Leave a comment

When I’m afraid, it helps to follow the advice I regularly give to my son William when he begins a panic attack: breathe slowly, bring yourself back to your body, stay in the present moment, repeat to yourself, “I am safe.”

Most of what worries us lives either in the future or the past. It’s fear over a potential outcome that might never materialize or regret over something already done. If we make an effort to exist in the present moment, with all of its attendant feelings, sensations and realities, we have a better chance of staying calm and collected.

The question I’m trying to ask myself is: what is under my actual control? We all know that our response to any situation is completely up to us, but practicing this while under stress is still challenging. Our minds nose way down the road, anticipating poverty, relationship conflict, uncertainty, loneliness. It’s easy to become overwhelmed.

The key is to bring my focus back to the present moment. To breathe. To imagine myself as safe, cared for, loved…as I can provide these things for myself. Prepping for doomsday scenarios only increases the chaotic sense of panic. Whatever comes, each one of us will have no choice but to deal with it.

Imagining stress is optional, facing reality is not. We are better off working to remain calm and stable, so we are in a more secure mental space to handle misfortune if it should arrive. And it helps to remember that most of what we worry about never actually happens.

Good things are just as likely to occur as horrible ones. Most of our problems originate in our minds, because we long for a specific outcome and anything other than that brings us grave disappointment and loss, even if it was only a vague possibility instead of an actual reality. Damn this internal pessimism of mine, this infernal waiting for the other shoe to drop which ruins even the happiest of days.

I should know by now that the doom and gloom I forecast usually disappears with time. If I allow a little light and air on it, I’ll watch it vaporize. Old habits like shame, depression and fear roar back into life if we let them, for they’ve worn a deep, familiar groove in our subconscious. I have healthier skills available to me, such as trust in myself and others, a newly-kindled optimism, the ability to set a long-term goal and work patiently at reaching it.

Where it all falls apart is the intersection with other people, for I cannot control what others do and say. But I am not responsible for the actions of other people. I must simply observe what they do (or fail to do) and then respond in the healthiest way I can. The stress of others does not have to become my reality. Only if I let it. I can come up with a happier strategy. The critical thing is to be clear on what’s mine and what isn’t – a lifelong struggle for me but one I have to keep working on.