Showing all posts tagged grace

In Culture, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized

Endings and Beginnings

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

We are in a time of transition, with seasons ending and new ones beginning. This pandemic, which has dragged on forever and a year, is entering a fresh stage with our province announcing a re-opening plan. All four of us in my immediate family have been vaccinated with our first dose, providing hope for a return to normalcy.

But what the hell does that even mean? Almost fifteen months into this thing, we have adjusted to masks, social distancing, staying at home, being extra cautious all the damn time. This weird version of life now feels normal to us. I can’t quite imagine getting on a plane again, going on vacation and out to restaurants, socializing with others, and speaking to a crowd of real live human beings instead of through a screen.

I’m reminded again of how strange and unsettling change can be. I know it’s good for me, like eating my vegetables and flossing my teeth, but I really hate not knowing what to expect. For this whole pandemic none of us were able to make any real plans, because staring into the future was like peering at a giant question mark. But now it appears hope is on the horizon, and yet I find myself still feeling cautious and uncertain.

Every ending has an invitation to a beginning built into it. I’m trying to focus on that as we move into the summer. Ava graduated this week from grade twelve and we’re preparing for her to attend the University of Victoria in September. She’s enrolled in the theatre program where she’ll work toward a BFA in acting. Another rough ending, when she moves out of our house, with an exciting beginning just after the tears have dried.

Perhaps the key is to make room for all of it. The sadness when one thing ends, then the vacuum of the liminal space where we feel unprepared and afraid, and finally the rejuvenation of a new experience. As Anne Lamott wrote, “My diocesan priest friend Terry Richie says the thing is not to try harder, but to resist less.” I’m inherently bad at resisting less, but it’s something I’m working toward. Flowing with the current instead of against it.

Each of us is at different stages of change, but when it comes to the pandemic we are all experiencing some of the same growing pains. We’re like butterflies emerging from the chrysalis, flying into the sunshine, freer to move around than we’ve been in over a year. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe that’s part of the allure. To allow ourselves grace when we feel timid, and to celebrate together when we feel brave. When one season ends, another one automatically begins. It’s hopeful and scary at exactly the same time.

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

Struggling

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

How are you doing this fall? I’m struggling.

I keep telling myself it will be better when I get some space to relax. When I have less to do and fewer deadlines to meet. But that never seems to happen. I finish one “must-complete” project and there’s ten more after it. The space to process my feelings doesn’t appear, so I remain sad and frustrated.

I’ve been working with a new counsellor for the last few weeks. It’s helping, in that I feel less alone and it’s lovely to hear new coping strategies from her, but it’s also not helping, because I feel like I’m only two steps in while attempting to climb Mount Everest.

In these challenging seasons, everything feels much harder than it should. I’m sick of only seeing shades of grey where I used to see vibrant colour. I’m bored of feeling sad and flat where once I felt hopeful and at peace.

I know this will pass. But that doesn’t really help on the shittiest days. It’s too far away to count. It’s an idea, not a reality. Asking for help in the form of counselling was difficult for me, because it meant admitting that I’m lost and don’t know where to go from here. I kept telling myself that I’ve had loads of therapy and I should know better. That’s when I knew I was in trouble.

This pandemic is dragging on forever. Not just for me, but for everybody. We all long for some kind of certainty and normalcy, if for no other reason than to just feel stable again. It’s exhausting looking into the future and only seeing a long series of question marks. Part of me knows there’s no real certainty, but in a pandemic this fact becomes crystal clear, with very little to hide or obscure it.

It’s so easy to tell someone else that the struggle is where the growth is found. No cost is associated with saying those words, but in the Mondays and Tuesdays of our lives it just plain hurts to feel you are in the dark. We set up our Christmas trees last week and when the lights come on in the late afternoon, I feel a tiny dart of joy, because for a few hours the darkness is pushed away.

The only way out is through. It’s one foot in front of the other, with additional grace and kindness to get me through these days. I’m tired. I miss my cat, Little Rose, who died in September. I feel adrift and sad. I think the key is to say it out loud; to let these emotions bloom in the dark instead of trying to pretend they aren’t there. Reaching out to other people helps. So does making space to journal, meditate, walk, breathe, create.

It’s a hard season, friends. What are you doing to look after yourself at the end of this pandemic year?

In Culture, Nurture, Personal Growth, University

Learning French

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Learning French

This spring, I’m learning to trust the process in my beginner French class. Like the Anthropology class I took last semester, I dreaded having to enrol in a language class. Flailing around and feeling out of my depth is not my strong suit.

Learning a language requires incredible vulnerability. Every class for the first two weeks was like drinking from a fire hydrant. New verbs to conjugate in six different ways. Masculine or feminine nouns. Prepositions that shift and change when you least expect them to. And either a verbal or a written test every week.

My oh my, did I struggle. I know a lot of self-soothing techniques, so I tried saying, “It’s okay, Julianne. You don’t have to get an A+ in every class. You can’t graduate without 2 intro language classes, so all you have to do is get through it.” None of this lovely wisdom sunk in.

Until the third week of my condensed French class (I’m attending 2 classes per week for a total of 6 hours, plus 90 minutes of language lab where we practice conversing in a smaller group). I felt my usual anxiety spike in the lecture when the new words and grammar rules came at me like a slingshot, but suddenly I realized that in a few days it would settle in and I would be fine.

I’d like to get a t-shirt printed with this slogan on it: In a few days this will settle in and you will be fine. I’ve become fooled by the digital immediacy of modern life, where I hit a button and I get an instant result. Our human process does not work like this and will never work like this. When my brain is overwhelmed in French class, it begins to shut down, but a few days later, the information is not so impossible to understand.

There has to be a lesson here for all of us. We must stop confusing real life with digital life. As human beings, we will forever lurch along like cave people when we learn new skills. I’m endlessly working on accepting this. It’s not as pretty or organized as I’d like, but when I’m brave enough to be vulnerable in my mistakes, I actually learn.

I’m astonished at the amount of French I’ve learned in five weeks. But the bigger take-away is improved patience with myself. Trusting the process means that we might not get it NOW, but we will eventually get it. Most days, that’s the best we can hope for. Gentleness and grace works more miracles than stress and blunt force.

One week to go and then I’ve got the summer off from school for the first time in two years! I can hardly wait.

In Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Life, University, Writing

Recalibrate

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Recalibrate

My word for the summer has been recalibrate. Not in any scientific form, but a subtle yet intentional change to the way I function in the world.

The greatest aspect of this particular recalibration has been the decision to step back and allow the process to unfold organically. In previous versions of my self development, I’ve tended to force, cajole, urge and shame my change into being. I wanted it done now, dammit, and a specific way.

Not this summer. I felt inspired by a Facebook post from my friend in late June that said, “You have 18 summers with your kids. Don’t waste them.” I took these words to heart. I stopped looking at leisure time as wasted time. I mixed work with play and I felt a lot more relaxed and content.

This recalibration took the form of my general attitude shifting from something set into something more fluid. I tried to take things as they happened, as opposed to forecasting and planning too far into the future. I wrote in my journal a lot, without trying to be fancy or inspired. I just recorded what I was feeling and this practice helped me to slow down internally.

I’ve realized that the process of querying agents and facing a ton of rejection has tampered down my capacity to take risks and to write for the sheer joy of telling a story without thinking about whether or not that work can be published. I’ve just begun two university courses for the fall and both are centred on writing. I’m determined to challenge myself to grow in these courses and not expect that I’ll be the most stellar writer in the class.

Hopefully my spiritual recalibration this summer will offer me a fresh dose of grace and gentleness toward the writing that I do. In this season, I hope to simply be a better version of myself and write from that place with lowered expectations for jaw-dropping genius and a place on the New York Times Bestseller List.

One of my words for 2018 was enough. I can see how this word has been working on me over the last few months. I am enough, just as I am, and so are you. It’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of proving our worth, but this striving brings pain, shame and loss. Feeling like we are enough is a challenge, but it’s well worth the effort.

Part of recalibrating my attitude involves surrendering once again to the flow of this life. Forcing my hoped-for expectations on myself or others or situations is a fool’s errand. I long to swim with the current and not against it. Take it one day at a time, as the recovery movement teaches. Anything else is too uncertain and fraught with peril.

What we have is now. We have the people we love most. We have our own deep well of personality to excavate and mine. We have the chance for contentment, hope and peace. We have kindness, shown first to our fragile selves and then to the world around us. My soul recalibration this summer has given me a fresh perspective on all of these things. Knowing I am enough is a daily battle, but I will fight it, for these moments are precious ones and I want to be fully awake to experience them.

In Nurture, Personal Growth, Speaking, Writing

Lost

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Lost

I’m feeling lost. After a surge of excitement and scheduling after a big writers’ conference, I’m now floundering with so many possible projects to pursue and no clear direction on what should be the top priority.

Do you ever feel that way? Rudderless, slightly adrift, believing that it will all make sense eventually but for now you simply exist in a fog of too much of everything.

The cure, in the past, has been to embrace my frail humanity. To acknowledge that I am not a machine. Perhaps the worst part of being lost is the shame associated with our humanity. I want to feel like a world-beater, not a sad, confused person making my way through the dark on my own.

Life is made up of seasons. Some are bright, clear, happy. Others are murky, painful, baffling. Extending grace for the hard times certainly helps. I don’t have trouble offering love and nurture to those around me who are suffering, but when it’s me, the rules seem to change.

Eventually, the light will shine again and I’ll have a better sense of where I’m heading. I suppose I simply have to wait for that, and do the best I can in the meantime. Gentleness is the key here. Inching forward toward your goals, little by little, is better than no movement at all. After so many years of struggling with patience, you’d think it would begin to come easier. And yet it remains elusive.

I stayed after my creative writing class to chat with my professor about the number of projects I’m working on. She encouraged me to narrow my goals to four things and write them on an index card. I had a terribly hard time getting the list to four. I initially cheated and wrote eight by using slashes, essentially creating two categories out of one line.

After looking at this card for a few days, I realized there was too much on it. I worked at it again, creating four clear categories in my work life. Suddenly it was a little bit clearer, but I still feel overwhelmed.

What helps you when you feel lost? Do you wait it out? I’d love to hear any of your strategies.