Julianne Harvey

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.

In Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth

Redefining Bravery

Julianne HarveyJune 21, 2016June 20, 2016Leave a comment

Last week, a friend redefined bravery to me. I was searching for the escape hatch, the red nuclear “launch” button, the excuse to reboot and start over instead of facing up to a difficult and messy situation.

She said, “Showing up when it’s hard is brave, too.” I really, really needed to hear this. When it gets dark all around us and we can no longer find our way, it’s human nature to want to flee. And sometimes, of course, this is the right course of action. But many times, the courageous act is to stay strong when the storm is blowing. To refuse to run, even though it would relieve the pressure and make things easier for a while. But there are also great lessons to be learned from staying put.

I’m so grateful to this friend, for she had the guts to give me her honest thoughts. She did not say what I hoped she would, in my moment of desperation with my bold plan to sell everything we own and go on a madcap family adventure. Instead, she listened and offered another perspective, one born from her own painful experiences with loss and growth.

Bravery takes many forms. When life is unforgivingly tough, as it often is, our courage can desert us when we need it most. This is why the community of loved ones we have invested in and built up is so critical. When we lose all perspective and a good deal of our common sense and optimism, we need people who know us and love us to talk us out of the darkness and back to the light.

Stability is no small thing. It matters, to us and to those who count on us. When we feel lost and bereft, it’s tempting to go for the rash and daring option; to shake up the status quo and let the damn chips fall where they may. In certain seasons and stages, this can be entirely appropriate and helpful to jump-start a necessary change, but at other times it’s the coward’s way.

Everything shifted for me during the course of our conversation. It was like putting on glasses so the fuzzy edges came into focus. The fever dream had passed and I could stop thinking about surviving each day and move my vision out by a year or two. Jason and I needed a fresh heart-to-heart, so we could redefine the future we committed to when we joined our lives together nearly eighteen years ago.

It all looks different again, even though nothing outwardly has changed. Life is still hard. I continue to long for something new and hopeful. Every one of us needs extra breathing space in our soul from time to time. We are birds who must summon the courage to stretch our wings and take flight. We all need each other, for support, encouragement and care.

In Nurture, Relationships

Nurture is Valuable: Unconditional Love

Julianne HarveyJune 14, 2016June 13, 2016Leave a comment

Nurture doesn’t exist without unconditional love. Without it, nurture is a business exchange: I’ll give you care and attention and in return you will do the same for me.

I’ve been ruminating on the phrase “nurture is valuable” since January. I’ve thrown out a call to women to answer interview questions on the topic and I’ve received nine sets of answers so far. Not one of these answers has been identical, so clearly it’s a huge topic with a wide variety of experiences and nuances.

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with the word nurture. Sometimes it sounds weak to me, and I grew up despising all forms of weakness. At other times the word feels soft, warm and approachable, but this is also foreign and uncomfortable in a vague, undefined way.

In my heart, I’ve always been naturally drawn to nurture but it took me a while to build up the courage to admit this. I’ve longed to cultivate it and see it grow, even when I didn’t have many examples of it to learn from. I think it was a seed, hard and unwatered, that took decades of dormancy before it could bloom.

When Ava was born thirteen years ago, like many new parents, I began to understand for the first time what unconditional love might actually look like. I only glimpsed it in fits and starts – it would take me another seven years to finally put it into practice with the help of my counsellor.

I needed to allow my perfect facade to fall to the ground and shatter before I could embrace the messy agony of my own vulnerable humanity. For me, this was the start of unconditional love. It was awful at first; isolating and uncertain. It required me to offer so damn much of myself – initially to my children, then to my husband, my friends and some extended family members.

True nurture doesn’t allow us to hide who we really are. Its price tag is steep for a reason: we have no guarantee that our affection and care will be returned in the same measure it is given. The key is to replenish our own tank by offering unconditional love back to ourselves so we can continue to pour it out to those we love. Without self-care, nurture is a temporary proposition. You will burn out if you don’t know how to refuel.

Nurture has so many elements. I look forward to diving in deeper to this topic over the summer. I’d love to hear from more of you on this. If you consider yourself a nurturer in any way at all, please get in touch to answer five short questions for my research project.

I do believe nurture is valuable and that it only succeeds from a place of unconditional love. This makes it risky and powerful. We give without any assurance that we will receive it back. We must look after ourselves in order to nurture others. My dream is to build a community of nurturers who can encourage, support and care for one another. Without nurture, our world is a cold, terrifying and desperate place.

Would you like to be involved? Get in touch and let’s unpack some of these ideas together!

In Culture, Minimalism, Parenting

3 Beginner Steps to Minimalism

Julianne HarveyJune 7, 2016148 Comments

As a family, we are on the road to minimalism. Like many other ventures I’ve tried, with minimalism I want to see instant change instead of accepting that this is going to take awhile.

I didn’t become an addicted consumer overnight, so shedding the trappings of our materialism will also be a slow process. Yet I find myself impatient for a different way of life. I long to be counterculture, debt free, only living with what I need and dumping my excess possessions.

With all major life change, it helps to break it down into small, manageable steps. When I look back, I see that I’ve been simplifying now for several years as both kids began school and stopped playing with so many toys, books and games. Most parents become accustomed to jettisoning clothes and supplies that their kids have outgrown, but this past winter something changed for me.

I began doing 15 minute jobs each day. I wrote down the areas of my house I wanted to tackle (kid’s bedroom closets, kitchen drawers, linen and bathroom cupboards, laundry room, etc.) and I set a timer for a 15 minute blitz of each location. I did this for weeks and months; donating, tossing or selling items based on the answer to this question: do I actually use this?

Before, the question would be much less specific, more like: will I eventually need this? I learned from The Minimalists that “just in case” are three of the most dangerous words in our culture today. And from Joshua Becker at Becoming Minimalist, I got a fresh life philosophy: “It’s better to want less than to have more.”

Are you interested in minimalism? Do you want to get off the consumer treadmill and try to find happiness in other places besides overspending on bigger houses, luxury cars and designer labels? These are the beginning 3 steps we’ve taken towards a simpler way of living.

Step 1: Only Keep What You Need

Start with the easiest areas of your house, like drawers full of batteries and take-out menus from 2008. Work up to harder things like photos, books, DVDs and knickknacks from family vacations. Don’t store it in your house if you don’t use it regularly.

Step 2: Understand Why You Are Minimizing

If you don’t see the value in what you are doing, it’s not likely to last. The more clutter you clear out of your physical space, the freer you will feel. Your priorities get sharper, it’s easier to make decisions for your future, and you’ll be less likely to continue to buy more when you see how satisfying it is to live with less.

Step 3: Tune Out Consumerist Cultural Messages

Tune out the cultural message that bigger and more is always better. If this advertising onslaught were true, wouldn’t your happiness level rise along with your income, mortgage, online shopping and number of possessions filling your garage, basement, bedrooms and rented storage bays? We’ve all been sold a lie. Moving further from debt sets us free from a useless, soulless competition for who has the most and best stuff.

There are more steps to freedom from consumerism, but these three are a great place to start. Drop me a line and let me know if you’d enjoy hearing more on this topic as I’ve got lots to say! We’ve seen our lives change from the inside out as we head down this minimalist path.

In Culture, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

5 Minutes of Encouragement

Julianne HarveyMay 31, 2016May 30, 2016Leave a comment

I’m planning to offer a service at our local farmer’s market this summer called 5 Minutes of Encouragement. The idea is me sitting in a lawn chair under a small white tent, talking with anyone who is interested for five minute slots.

I plan to ask what the person would like encouragement for and then offer it the best I can. This experiment feels vulnerable, unusual, outside-of-the-box and highly unpredictable. I think of those things as strengths, not weaknesses.

Lately I’m tired of living small. I want to swing for the fences and try things that I would’ve been terrified of a few years ago. What if no one comes to my tent for encouragement? What if I draw a blank and can’t think of anything helpful to say? What if the whole shebang is a massive embarrassing flop?

Who the hell cares?

I’m done waiting around for the right conditions to exist before I take risks. “What if” is not a helpful exercise. I want to follow my curiosity, as one of my mentors, Rob Bell, advises me to do.

Life is about much more than our net worth, our fears, our preoccupation with personal safety and our addictions to smartphones and busyness. I long for connection on a deep, true level. I love encouragement, appreciation and kindness, both giving these things away and receiving them back. If I want more of this, then I have to pursue it, without fearing the consequences.

5 Minutes of Encouragement could be a beautiful social experiment. It could also be a flaming turd of a failure. I won’t know unless I try. I’m grateful for a friend at our town office who is willing to gamble on this venture with me. When I pitched it to her last week, I said, “I’ve got this crazy idea – any chance you want to try it?” Bless her heart, she said, “I like encouragement. Let’s give it a shot!”

Part of being alive is pushing ourselves beyond the predictable. When we commit to staying true to our interests and convictions, wonderful surprises await. Risk is a large piece of the equation. We have to be equally prepared for failure as for success.

We live in a world where almost everyone is shouting. Social media posts, selfies, blogs, tweets – most of it screams, “Look at me!” I’m desperate for some one-on-one interaction, driven by kind words of encouragement. Often I just want another flesh-and-blood person to tell me I’m doing okay and that I’m going to make it through.

With my 5 Minutes of Encouragement tent, I’m hoping to give this away to others. I’ll be sure to report back. Would you come to hear 5 Minutes of Encouragement from me (or from anyone)?