Showing all posts tagged family

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

Recalibrating Identity

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I just returned from a trip to Kelowna, BC where I was speaking at a teachers’ conference. In previous years, Jason has come with me on this work trip, but this year I decided to go alone. I listened to music, and some episodes of the Smartless podcast, but realised partway through the 5 hour drive that being alone in the car helped me to recalibrate a sense of my own personal identity.

As women, and mothers, so often our identity becomes intertwined with the identities of those we love and nurture. It can become challenging to separate out our individual needs and desires, because we exist in a context of our other relationships (and identities).

While driving to Kelowna, I found myself weeping for no apparent reason. I decided to let the storm of feeling pass through me, so I cried on and off while I drove. This continued even after I checked into my hotel room and ordered myself dinner.

As the evening progressed, I started to realise what was causing this storm of tears. I pulled out my journal and began to write. I worked through some things that had been building up during the summer. Questions about this new stage of life we’re about to enter as parents and as a family when William leaves for university in January.

I’m certain these feelings would’ve made themselves known whether I was at home or in Kelowna, but there’s something powerful about prioritising our own solitude from time to time. Over the two nights I was away, by myself, I could feel my identity recalibrating back into something I could recognise as my own.

Earlier this summer, we did a family driving trip down the coast to Los Angeles, one of my favourite places on planet earth. We had days of sun and soft sand and salty ocean air and palm trees and In-N-Out milkshakes. It was glorious. But it was a family trip, which meant all of our decisions were made together, with everyone’s needs and interests considered.

In the middle of August, I had a work trip to Alberta to speak at a writers’ conference and teach classes at a number of different libraries. For that trip, it was just Jason and I, which meant I left my Mom identity behind but remained in my Marriage identity. We had a wonderful trip, and I’m glad we went together, but I needed the alone time in Kelowna to understand the difference between solo trips and together trips.

When we give a lot of ourselves to others, it’s important to take time out for ourselves. I’ve been teaching this over the last six months in the form of nurture classes for writers and Nurture Starts with You sessions for teachers. But sometimes I fail to give it enough attention for myself.

It felt strange to say to Jason that I wanted to go to Kelowna on my own this time. He had loads of work to do and was happy to stay at home to look after Ted since William happened to be visiting his sister and some friends on the island when I was gone. But during my trip I realised how much it mattered that I listened to my own intuition. I gave myself time to feel things and a little bit of space and distance to better understand some relationship dynamics that were challenging to see up close.

This solo trip restored me to myself. It gave me time to reflect, and to cry, and to plan for the coming months. It helped me recalibrate my own sense of who I am.

How about you? As we say goodbye to summer and approach the brand new fall season, what steps could you take to recalibrate your own identity?

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Travel

It’s Okay to Ask for Help

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

When we were in London this summer, I was crying uncontrollably in a tube station when a train across the platform pulled ahead and directly across from me was a sign that read in big block letters: It’s Okay to Ask for Help.

I remember staring at it, through my tears, and looking from side to side like this message might be only visible to me. I saw my husband and my kids, waiting for our train and filled to the brim with enthusiasm on this first day of our 25 day European holiday, and I realised with a sense of impending doom that I was falling apart.

Sometimes it takes awhile to understand that we are not okay. I had no idea what to do on that underground platform when I couldn’t stop sobbing. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed to the max, and full of fear. I felt alien to myself. I knew that my kids in particular were worried about me, and I couldn’t reassure them because I didn’t know what was happening myself.

But I clung to that tube station message, like a drowning person holds a life preserver, for the remainder of our trip. It helped me, when I felt utterly lost. I believed in a philosophical manner that it was okay to ask for help, but I had no real experience with this as a practical concept. I was accustomed to being the person who offered help to others. Receiving it for myself was a new experience.

When we got home in mid-August, I felt relieved. Once again, I was in familiar surroundings and felt slightly more capable. But slowly, I came to understand that I was not well and needed medical attention. Throughout the fall, I went to my doctor a lot. I cried in her office every single time. My blood pressure was too high. My sleeping was for shit, and for the first time I considered that I might be struggling with anxiety and depression.

She put me on an oestrogen gel for perimenopause symptoms, and within two weeks I felt significantly better. A month after that I went on the lowest possible dose of a blood pressure medicine, and my heart palpitations/generalized anxiety went away shortly after that. Two months on this medicine and my blood pressure is back to normal, where it always was before.

The long and the short of this post is that It’s Okay to Ask for Help. At any stage or age. Even when it’s inconvenient, like at the start of a big European holiday that we saved for and planned for nearly two years. It’s okay if you don’t even know what’s wrong. And it’s okay to fall apart if you are a wife and a mom and secure in your identity as the one who holds it all together for everyone else. Maybe it’s especially important to know it’s okay when it’s a foreign concept for you, like it was for me.

The second day of our trip, at a gorgeous old pub in Canary Wharf where we had lunch, I told my family that I was thinking about flying home. They were kind and gentle with me, assuring me that I should stay, and that I could take things at my own pace. It was strange and surreal to feel so sad and unmoored and not be able to articulate why I was feeling this way.

In the summer, I couldn’t find a reason, because I didn’t know the reason until the fall. But in ten different countries in Europe, I cried and felt overwhelmed and allowed myself to simply be a mess and not have it all figured out. Looking back on it now, I can see how freeing it was to let go. To ask for help and to try to figure out how to receive help from my loved ones. Jason, Ava, and William were their best selves on that trip. They all thrived, so they led the way and I followed.

As women, we need to learn to ask for help when we are struggling. The last half of 2023 has been a daily exercise in learning how to receive help from others: my family, my friends, my doctor, my counselor. It’s uncomfortable at first, but it’s so worth it, as now I feel stronger and better than I have in a long time. But it starts with asking for help.

As this year ends, and a new one begins, how are you doing? I’m here to remind you that It’s Okay to Ask for Help.

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Uncategorized, University

Changes

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’ve always loved the beginning of September. Cooler weather, trees beginning to prepare for the upcoming dormancy of winter, back-to-school excitement in the air. It’s a time of fresh possibility and change.

I’m usually invigorated by it. But this year, I find myself mourning in a way I hadn’t anticipated. We took Ava to university on the long weekend, settling her into her new dorm experience at the University of Victoria. She deferred her acceptance last year when a housing shortage meant she couldn’t live on campus for her first year, so we had bonus time with her.

I knew I would miss her, but like everything in life, we don’t really know what we haven’t experienced yet. I worked with a counsellor, starting when Ava was in grade twelve, and she helped me with some excellent preparatory strategies for a child moving out, but the sadness still hit me with a ton of bricks on Sunday night when we hugged goodbye.

I cried. She cried. Her roommate began crying. Her roommate’s mom cried. Every woman in that tiny dorm room was crying. I knew she was going to be fine. I believed wholeheartedly that Ava was right where she was meant to be, and that once the initial rocky goodbye was behind us, she would find her footing and begin to thrive at university.

All of this has happened, and yet I still feel utterly bereft. I reached out to a few of my friends who have walked this road ahead of me, and it helps to know they all felt the same. Thrilled for their children, and proud as punch, but also undeniably grieving the loss of that child in their home in an everyday way.

The surprise for me has come in the way our family functions. Taking one person out of a four person equation means everyone has to adjust and change. I’ve realized now how much I enjoyed chatting with Ava, about everything and nothing all at once. How much we laughed at similar things. I never really noticed how our two-way relationship functioned until it disappeared. And now I really miss it.

Once her classes started on Wednesday, she’s called to tell me all about her new profs, and the friends she’s making, and what’s good and what’s not in the cafeteria. She sounds bright and happy, which is a wonderful thing. I know that we’ll all find our way through this change. It will take time. I also know that when she comes home at Thanksgiving, she’ll be a different person than the one we said goodbye to in early September.

This is the natural order of things. As parents, we take a dependent baby and turn them slowly into an independent adult. It’s an honour to see them coming into their own unique identity, and finding their way as young adults. But it’s also okay to admit that this change is hard on the parents. It leaves you adrift for a little while. I’m trying to be gentle with myself. She hasn’t even been gone a full week yet. It helps to know how other moms navigated these choppy waters.

My counsellor is amazing at reminding me to think about my coping strategies in other turbulent times. However I made it through before, is how I’ll make it through again. This really helps me. It’s healthy to love someone so much that their absence leaves a gaping hole. Like all pain, the only way out is ever through. One foot in front of the other. One day where you cry less than the day before. We are messy humans, having a messy human experience, and navigating key life changes will always be challenging.

But the good news is that we’ve made it through before, which means we have the skills required to make it through again.

In Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Writing

Moving Things Forward

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Moving Things Forward

Do you ever get overwhelmed at the enormity of tasks in front of you? Try this strategy: Moving Things Forward (or MTF for short if you enjoy acronyms, which I do).

Every day, try to think in terms of moving a project forward. Do one or two things that will help you inch closer to your goal. Over a month and then a year, these little steps add up to large progress.

In my case, when I go a day without writing, I usually go to bed feeling ticked off that I didn’t get any words down. Even when I do sit down to write for an hour or two, often I feel irritated (at best, morose at worst) that I didn’t accomplish more.

But when I sit down at the end of my day and look at all of the areas where I did move things forward, even in small ways, it can add up to much more than I realize. I’ve been using my journal for this purpose, in a type of success tally, and it’s really increased my ability to feel as if I’m accomplishing something on a daily basis.

How about you? What are all the ways you are Moving Things Forward in your life? Break it down into specific categories (family, career, friends, hobbies, leisure, vacation, etc.). Booked a babysitter? A haircut for next week? Sent a friend a text to say you are thinking about her? Browsed vacation possibilities for this summer? Researched something that will help you in your work? Watched an episode of Mindhunter or Stranger Things? (Awesome, you are moving toward finishing these excellent series).

Every one of these are examples of moving things forward. I’m working on thinking smaller with my day-to-day existence. The small things, done well, do eventually add up to become the big things. This also gives me significant breathing room to enjoy my life as its unfolding. Progress, each day, in specific areas will eventually get you where you most want to go.

I’d love to hear a story of how Moving Things Forward is working for you!