Julianne Harvey

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, 2016204 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)?

In Personal Growth, Writing

Rejection

Julianne HarveyMay 24, 2016Leave a comment

Rejection is a bitch. It can take you out at the knees and severely bruise your confidence.

I received a rejection this week for a government grant I applied for. I wanted to take the Literary Salon experience of meaningful conversation to as many high school English classes as possible in the 2016-17 school year.

I thought this project fit well in the Spoken Word category, but the deciding committee did not agree.

Expectations

I fully recognize that a huge part of my problem with rejection is the expectation that I build around certain outcomes. This is my fault. I’d love to be breezy about every aspect of my life (hell, even a few areas would be a good start!) but find this immensely challenging.

In theory, I should’ve applied for this grant and then carried on with my other work – writing a manuscript and a screenplay, querying agents, submitting to magazines, developing new workshop topics, sending out speaking proposals, creating another grant application – and allowed the chips to fall wherever they are meant to without investing in any desired future result.

I need to practice this. I have no shortage of other projects to work on, but I seem hardwired to daydream my way into what I long for most, and then become righteously pissed-off when the reality veers away from my carefully-laid plans.

We all face rejection, in one way or another. As a writer, I’ve stuck my damn hand up in the air and volunteered for it, but some still hurt more than others. Perhaps it’s the cumulative effect of too many “no’s” without a “yes” thrown in to break up the monotony.

Internal Monologue

Our internal monologue is what gets us into the deepest trouble. I should know by now that saying to myself, “It’s okay, Julianne. You tried and that’s what matters. This particular committee didn’t see the value in this work but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. Keep on going – you’re doing fine” is healthier and more productive than the alternative, “You suck and everyone knows it. Why don’t you do the world a favour and stop writing, speaking and creating altogether. You’re only embarrassing yourself.”

Rejection is a part of life. How we handle it is what matters most. I’m going to allow myself to feel this one by having a good cry and then summoning the courage to call the grant office and try to understand why my application failed. If I can learn from this for the next setback, it will help me in the long run.

Where I go from here is the important part. Which voice will I listen to? The angry, critical, shaming one or the loving, hopeful, supportive one? I get to choose that. So do you.

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships

Preparing for Change

Julianne HarveyMay 17, 2016May 16, 2016Leave a comment

Change is a process. We can’t see it clearly peering into the future, but when we look back it’s easier to plot the high and low points on our individual graph.

I’ve come to recognize that the groundwork for change gets laid days, weeks, months and years ahead of the actual shift that we can point to and identify. Extreme patience is required in the preparation stage. It’s the seeds, deep underground, beginning to grow but nowhere near ready to burst through the soil and make themselves visible.

So much of this life is preparing. We must wait, whether we like it or not, until the time is right for the longed-for change to take place. As humans, we are wired to become bored and discontent when our existence becomes too predictable and safe. We crave adventure, change, new scenery and experiences. It’s in our DNA.

But between the desire and the reality there is a gap. Sometimes it’s short and other times it’s dishearteningly long. Most of us would not make big changes unless we first felt motivated by boredom or loss or an inner compulsion to inject fresh vitality back into our lives. It’s easy for inertia to set in, to lull us into complacency, but when the spark ignites for something new, we begin to stir up our excitement and then we usually have to wait.

I’m trying to change the way I view this preparatory period. I know that work is happening, deep in my soul, just as surely as flowers bloom out of buried seeds and not by accident. We’ve been painting our house and boy, oh boy, painting is mostly prep work. And the preparation doesn’t look like much, but without it you’d never get to those beautifully altered, crisp and clean walls.

Change is a long, messy, unpredictable process. You get great news and you’ll be flying high, then a rejection or a disappointment hits and you feel abject despair, all of that inspirational hope erased like a whiteboard. Life is a series of hurdles. Some you clear with room to spare and you are filled to the brim with success and optimism. Others you smack into and fall hard, occasionally breaking a bone or bruising your confidence, and you have no choice but to muster the courage to stand up and try for the next one.

Preparation is critical to implement change at some point in the future. We wait, we dream, we continue to work even when the odds are stacked against us. It’s better to believe that those seeds are, in fact, growing, even if we can’t see them. We show up, day after day, learning what we can and refusing to give up on what we long for most. And one day, perhaps when we least expect it, all of that prep work will turn into actual change, just in time to start the process over again with something else.