change Archives - Page 5 of 6

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.

In Personal Growth, Relationships

The First 20 Years are the Hardest

Julianne HarveyApril 5, 2016April 4, 2016Leave a comment

Being in a long-term committed marriage is hard. If you are both open to change and growth (which is a prerequisite if you want to have a healthy, mutually-satisfying relationship), you will have periods of calm interspersed with turbulent weeks and months of upheaval and uncertainty.

Jason and I are in one of those uneasy stretches of our path right now and we have been for a couple of months now. Over the course of our almost 18 years of marriage, we’ve made our way through many of these rocky patches so I know if we persevere, we are likely to make it through to a place of strength and encouragement. That helps in a vague, otherworldly sense, but day to day it’s not much damn good.

I really hate the rawness of these relationship struggles. Where my brokenness meets his brokenness, it all feels broken. And yet day to day we make it through. We laugh over silly little things, we cook meals, we make plans, we parent as a team.

Trying to be real with each other has its rewards when the sky is blue and the sun is shining. When the storm clouds roll in, that same level of honesty and authenticity can be terrifying. It leaves you feeling alone, naked, vulnerable and small. It’s agonizing, but this is always where the growing happens. I want the growth. I just don’t like the pain that precedes it.

I’m glad we fell in love and chose each other all those years ago. Thank God the tough times are mixed in with the happy ones or no marriage would succeed. I think it’s important to get honest about the real struggles and hardships that every couple goes through, especially now when we live in such a shiny Instagram world. The pretty pictures don’t tell the whole story. There is more going on than we can see in photos and glib status updates on social media.

The point of commitment it to be committed. To walk as partners through the darkest sections of your lives. To confront the fear head-on, with as much bravery as you can muster. To own your own words and actions and allow your partner to own theirs. To do your best to collaborate with kindness, riding out the scariest times and trying to remember why you love each other and decided to hitch your wagons together all those years ago.

The easy days don’t teach us much. They are there to enjoy as memories to keep us warm and safe, but hardship is where the greatest lessons reside. One day we’ll look back on this season and it will make more sense to us. For now, we will keep moving forward, together as a team, doing our very best to ask for what we need and learn what we can when the dice doesn’t roll our way.

As a favourite pastor told us many years ago when we were newlyweds, “The first 20 years of marriage are the hardest.” Now that we are close to that milestone, I think I finally know what he meant. But the only way out is always through – so we continue to walk together, whistling in the dark to bolster our courage, reaching out for the other person’s hand in the blackest sections to remind yourself that you are not alone.

In Identity, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Life

What is Hard for You?

Julianne HarveyFebruary 2, 2016February 2, 2016Leave a comment

We have a key jar (courtesy of our friends at Momastery) that we pull out at supper. In the key jar are a variety of open-ended questions designed to get us talking about more meaningful subjects. The kids love it and so do I (I’m pretty sure Jason tolerates it).

I’ve been thinking a lot about one of the recent questions Ava drew out and read: What is one thing that’s hard for you? A few of the answers around the table were “patience”, “being wrong” and “trying new things”. I said, “Watching people do stupid, mean or irresponsible things and not getting involved.”

Asking ourselves this question, “What is hard for you?” helps us get at our blind spots; those areas of weakness we paper over and pretend they aren’t there. Denial is a powerful force. It protects us from pain, but it also keeps us a prisoner of our own bullshit, making it impossible to move forward unless we summon enough courage to face it.

Letting air and light on our greatest areas of shame give us an invitation to grow. We begin to see where improvement is needed and this helps us outline what to work on in our daily lives. For me, I must practice letting go of any misguided notions of control. It’s egotistical for me to assume I know what’s best for someone else. I simply do not have that kind of reach, power or influence.

I must learn to stop obsessing or worrying about what other people are doing. It’s none of my business. If I am asked to help, I can decide at that point if I want to offer assistance. But if I am not asked (which is most of the time), I do not need to trouble myself with any swirling drama, chaos or fall-out from the life choices of other people.

It seems freeing to state it like that – a marvel of healthy boundaries. It’s not so clear-cut or easy to carry out in regular life. I get angry too fast over perceived injustices, frustrating parenting examples, a stranger’s rudeness in a store. Perhaps the only thing I can do is take a long, deep breath and clarify again that I am not the moral conscience of the universe.

As the recovery movement so succinctly declares: Let it begin with me. I must be the change I wish to see in the world. It’s obnoxious for me to tell other people what they are doing wrong, for after all, this is only my opinion and therefore highly subjective.

I rarely tell people how much they annoy me, which I can slot in the “win” column. But I lose too much of my energy, joy and peace thinking about situations that are not my direct responsibility. Bringing this up at dinner has clarified the need for me to put effort into this area.

Strengthening my boundaries is a worthwhile goal, so I can focus on my own priorities instead of worrying about messes and problems I had no hand in creating. Bringing these buried and dusty weaknesses to the light is a painful process, but it gives us a road map to follow when it comes to our own emotional health.

How about you? What is one thing that is hard for you?

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships, Writing

The Shift

Julianne HarveyJanuary 19, 2016January 17, 2016Leave a comment

When a shift in how we understand something happens, it’s often unsettling. It’s a private thing, especially at first, because it takes time to understand what’s changed and until we get clearer, we find it hard to talk about it.

This is a normal part of change, but I really do hate it. I’m trying to come to terms with that off-putting sensation of not quite belonging anywhere. I feel like I’m at odds with myself when I’m sorting through these rough patches. The work is all internal and therefore not easy to categorize or understand, and so a certain loneliness tinges the entire process.

I love the epiphany itself and I’ve been through this enough to know that the eventual result will be worth it. But that damn middle section is a huge pain.

It helps to realize that privately nurturing these small seeds of growth is both valuable and important. It’s part of the process. The challenging bit is seeing the world in a different way, but still living as if the epiphany hadn’t occurred. It requires patience to manage these shifts in understanding. We have to be gentle with ourselves, the way we would treat a child going through a major transition.

I get trapped up in the middle sections of change. I feel lost, bereft, alone. It’s easy to feel misunderstood, like the ground is no longer solid under your feet but it’s not quite clear where your next step should take you.

I know that something big is happening for me in these uncertain places. I’ve been here before and I’m certain I’ll be here again. Anyone willing to risk by growing and changing will feel some of this unsettled discomfort. It’s the stretch before the new thing fully reveals itself. It gets dark in this unfamiliar terrain, with accusing doubts whispered into your ear. “Who are you to try for this? No one else thinks this is a good idea! If this was so great, more people would be on board.”

When we make decisions based on what other people might say, we are sunk before we get moving. It’s a losing game, and I know this, but far too often I start to play it when the doubts get loud. The key is to stay the course, to allow the passion to ignite into flame, to tamp down the fear and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

It’s okay to be the only one who initially believes in something. The rest of the world is busy with their own stuff. If it brings life to your soul and hope to your spirit, pursue it. Make your way bravely through the middle ground of the shift. Fight the insecurity and the doubt. Emerge on the other side, into the sun, knowing that you will never be the same. That alone is enough reward.

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships

The Gift of Uncertainty

Julianne HarveyNovember 24, 2015November 16, 2015Leave a comment

Walking the thin line between uncertainty and planning is a killer. For those aggressive Type A personalities out there, like myself, you just want to KNOW, dammit, so you can confidently head in a specific direction.

Places of uncertainty stretch us, like Gumby (for those of you too young for this reference, Gumby was a green 80s figure pliable enough to bend into various poses). It’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. It can really, really blow, because it asks us to live in the now; to give our undivided attention to this moment.

Uncertainty reminds us that we are not in control of everything. It invites us to trust: in timing, in goodness, in an invisible safety net that we hope is there even if we can’t prove it.

On the plus side, not knowing what the outcome will be sharpens our senses. It’s like going to the optometrist and marvelling at how crisp those letters can be with the right prescription. We suddenly notice what we’ve long taken for granted, because something has shifted in us and we know that nothing in this life stays the same forever. We change, and so do the people around us. Circumstances shift, children grow up, the snow comes to end the autumn.

Once again, this comes down to surrender. As the brilliant Cheryl Strayed writes, “Acceptance is a small, quiet room.” When we choose to give up our right to know what will happen, we turn our soul loose on this present moment and space, believing that we are enough for whatever challenges and triumphs are coming.

We can’t see them, and we must come to terms with that. We all have limits. Twenty-four hour days, three-hundred and sixty-five day years, one mortal body we cannot exchange or upgrade, an enormous world that we can only make our home in one minuscule part of.

But our spirit is limitless. It can soar, dream, expand, transform. We have external limits, but no internal ones – except for what we impose on ourselves. Every so often we discover a fresh perspective, renewed gratitude, a surge of optimism. We stretch. We feel pulled by what we cannot anticipate, manipulate, or control. But when we get through that, we are different.

The key is not to break faith with the process. To believe that something wonderful might be around the corner, slightly beyond what we can see, instead of fearing a dark and scary experience. Staying anchored to the now helps us believe in a better future, because we are fully alive. Equally surrendering our fierce grip on the past and the future offers us peace for today. And that equips us for whatever is coming.