Showing all posts tagged present

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

3 Words for 2024

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Every year, I pick 3 words or a phrase to focus on. In 2024, those words are savour, intentional, and receive.

With savour, I’m determined this year to notice more of my life as I’m living it. I read somewhere that when we plan for the future, thinking about something that has yet to arrive, we are missing our life as it’s being lived in the moment. This resonated for me, because I do it so often.

Savouring goes hand in hand with slowing down. I want to notice my delicious food as I’m chewing it. I want to pay attention to the person I’m talking to when we’re having a conversation. I long to stop fixating on my to-do list or some future event. My life (and your life!) is happening right now, at this present second. I’m determined to revel in it more. To cultivate appreciation for the life, career, and relationships I’ve built. To be here and now and to savour it all, no matter what, for this is what it means to be alive.

My second word, intentional, is designed to help me triage my biggest priorities. I’m 51 now, which means I have a lot of decades to look back and reflect on, while also hopefully having decades still to go in front of me. I want the way I spend my time to matter. I want to be more decisive about it.

I’ve been focusing for a few years now on rhythm. I work, and then I rest. I’ve learned to stop seeing leisure as wasted/non-productive time. It’s just as important. If we don’t choose to rest, eventually our body will choose for us, but there are times when I worry about the hours I’m spending chilling out (especially when I’m under a deadline or have a lot of moving career pieces on the go). This year, I want to be intentional with my time, whether I’m working or resting.

My last word is the hardest one for me. I do not know how to receive from other people. I’m unskilled and unpracticed at it. I know how to give to others – I can do that blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back – but receiving?? It feels foreign and strange and brings up all sorts of insecurities about how I don’t deserve it.

The subject of care has been a big one this past year for Jason and I in our marriage. I kept telling him that I wanted to feel cared for by him the way I would imagine he feels cared for by me. For ages, he couldn’t understand what I meant by this. My counsellor really helped me understand that I know how to give, but not how to receive. For Jason, it’s reversed.

We set these patterns up in the early years of our marriage, and now, at the 25 year mark, we’re trying to create more balance in how we function as a couple. It was really helpful for me to understand that I’m not good at receiving care, help, and love from others. I protect myself from it, and then become resentful and angry that no one is loving me, which isn’t exactly fair to the people closest to me.

With Ava moving out last year to go to university, I began experimenting with the changes in my parenting relationship with her as a grown-up child. Her love felt different to me, with her not living in our house. I was able to practice receiving some love, care, and nurture from her in a way I’d never experienced it before. This helped me open up to the love and care Jason was offering as well.

It’s been humbling. And beautiful. I still have so much to learn. Giving comes naturally to me, but I can also attest to how satisfying it feels to receive care from others. I’m inching my way into it, reminding my scared child self that I deserve love and attention too, and I don’t always have to be the one to give it. Learning to receive is going to take me a lot more time, but it’s a project I’m happy to undertake.

What are your words for 2024?

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Lessons Learned from my Appendix Rupture

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Lessons Learned from my Appendix Rupture

One year ago my appendix ruptured and my whole life changed.

With the most significant events and milestones in our lives, we need time to truly understand and appreciate how these tragedies define and alter us. My surgery and complicated eight-day recovery in the hospital taught me the beautiful art of surrender. I had the chance to practice letting go of what I wanted in order to embrace what was actually happening.

This deliberate act of remaining present has changed the trajectory of my last year. It taught me to recognize what really matters to me and to stop stressing over the little annoying parts of daily existence.

Measured from August to August, we’ve had massive upheaval as a family. We sold a house in Alberta and bought a townhouse in BC. Jason started a new job. We lived with my in-laws for two months. Ava and William changed schools and left their friends behind. Nearly everything looks different a year later.

But it’s my internal changes that have shocked me the most. Fundamentally, I am different. The specific insecurities and fears that I have wrestled with forever have been sublimated and conquered. Surviving those long, lonely days in the hospital when I was getting worse and not better showed me what I’m truly made of. I proved something to myself that I couldn’t talk myself into; I had to live it out, minute by minute, under adverse circumstances in order to put this worthiness garbage to bed once and for all.

I didn’t get a choice about how sick I was last summer and how shitty the timing was, with Jason working in BC and most of my friends out of town for the August long weekend. But I can honestly say, one year later, just how grateful I am for what I learned in that dark corner bed at the Peter Lougheed Hospital in Calgary.

Deciding not to feel less-than and unworthy of love any more was lesson number one. Recognizing that Jason, Ava and William are the most important people in my life was lesson number two. And finally seeing that I am capable and strong was lesson number three.

Each of these lessons has drastically improved the daily quality of my life. I’m no longer lost in a fog of longing for what I do not have or regret for what I cannot go back and change. Now I’m choosing to stay present, with those I love and with the exciting possibilities present in each day I’m alive, knowing that I am enough for any challenge or setback that comes my way.

This confidence is foreign and yet so welcome and inspiring. I am enough. And so are you. 

Living as if anything else is true is to waste precious time. Let’s stop doing that. It’s as simple as making a decision. Decide what is most important to you, who is most important to you, and know that you are competent for any task that comes your way. It’s life changing.

In Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

More Beauty, Less Rushing

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’ve committed to waking up to the beauty and inspiration all around me. Far too often I notice I’m sleepwalking through life, going through the necessary motions of getting exercise, eating, trying to get enough sleep, writing, e-mailing, planning for the future, remembering to text or call friends, making sure the kids and husband are okay, watching Netflix and so on.

But when I really begin to pay attention, the minutia of existence falls away, just for a little, and I’m able to function in a different, more beautiful dimension.

On Monday, I dropped Ava at her dance class and stopped at Save-On for some groceries. As I pulled into a parking spot, Corey Hart’s “Never Surrender” came on the radio, so as all self-respecting people of a certain age would do, I pumped up the volume (see what I did there?) and stayed in the car until the song was over.

This gave me a chance to sing and look out the windshield for the brief interlude of one fantastic 80s song. Dusk was just beginning to descend, so the sky was that intense shade of blue, like the ocean after a storm. Clouds perforated the landscape, creating visual interest and texture.

Across from me was an old minivan, with the back hatch open. A young, bearded man sat there, reading a beat-up paperback book and stroking the soft head of an ancient dog lying with his head in the man’s lap. The scene was so gentle, intimate and stirring, it restored my hope and my focus. Watching for two minutes took me out of my harried modern world and restored me to myself.

Ava worked this weekend on a short film and on Saturday morning her set was a small park in North Vancouver. While the cast and crew blocked a complicated fight scene, my attention drifted to a dad pushing his eighteen-month-old daughter on a baby swing a few feet away. He stood in front of her and pretended she kicked him in the stomach every time the swing came forward. He said, “Ooof!” with a mock pained expression and the baby laughed every single time.

This game went on for about ten minutes. He never once glanced at his cell phone or seemed bored. He was utterly dialled in and present with her. Simply observing the connection between the two of them gave me an enormous lump in my throat.

Beauty is everywhere. I’m determined to create more of those moments in my own life. To stop rushing and to savour instead. To slow, to rest, to be enough, to cease hustling and proving. To recognize that success is how we define it and not what anyone else thinks or says.

Time is fleeting. Petting a dog while the sun sets or soaking up the giggles of your beloved child are worthwhile, important pursuits.

More beauty, less rushing. Awareness makes these gifts possible. They are right there, ours for the taking, with the power to change us for the better.

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking

Anchored

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Anchored

For 2017, the three words I wanted to focus on were: open, accepting and anchored. The first two months of this new year are drawing to a close, and I would say that I’ve had a lot of opportunities to focus on being anchored.

I’m working hard on staying in the present moment. I’ve traveled a lot in February, flying to Alberta three times to present at teachers’ conventions in Edmonton and Calgary. Ava’s acting career has also been heating up with lots of auditions and some bookings for film and commercials. This has kept me busy, but in a good way, not a frantic one.

When you have a lot of balls up in the air, it really helps to take each day as it comes instead of worrying about the next day. Each one has enough challenges and excitement in it. I used to live so much in my mind, stressing out over things that were way down the road. This business of anchoring in to each present moment is so much better for my overall sense of life satisfaction.

Meditation has been a huge help to me since the beginning of January. I downloaded Insight Timer to my phone, a free app with lots of guided meditations to choose from on a variety of topics. It’s free (which I love) and setting aside ten to fifteen minutes each morning to indulge in meditation has calmed my mind and my soul more than I ever dreamed possible.

It’s not an overstatement to say that I feel like a completely different person. One that can handle uncertainty and short timelines much better than before. I can now roll with the punches and I’ve accepted that it’s fine not to have the next twenty steps neatly mapped out. It’s enough to know what I’m doing at this moment and have a vague idea of the next step. Anything beyond that feels too stressful.

Anchoring myself is a wonderful gift. I credit meditation as the number one change I’ve made in the last two months, but also simply fine-tuning my awareness and working at calming myself when I’m anxious has made a big difference to the overall peace I’m experiencing. Sometimes we need a scary illness like I had this summer to properly crystallize what matters and be finally able to let go of what hangs us up and  never really served us.

My need to control has been a lifelong habit, strangling me without me being aware of how hampering it was. But now I’ve learned a better way of coping, one that involves kind words to myself and to others around me, plus a clear understanding that I am in charge of very little in this life. And that’s okay. It’s up to me to keep my mind sharp and clear, to push out of the way all of the little irritations and time-wasters that conspire to steal my joy.

I’m feeling grounded, anchored, held. I can easily admit I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I have very few of them. But it’s really fine. No one has all the answers. If they say they do, they are lying to cover up their overall anxiety level. Gentleness works better. So does staying in the moment. Having a sense of humour helps too.

Worrying about tomorrow truly does rob today of its happiness. I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m staying here, right now, and noticing what’s in me and around me. What a difference this change has made to the quality of my days and my willingness to try new and challenging things.

In Books, Identity, Personal Growth, Spiritual Life

The Untethered Soul

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
The Untethered Soul

I just read The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer (thank you, Pam, for the recommendation!). The book blew my mind. As I turned each page, I felt something in my cells and molecules shift and rearrange. Reading it was a holy, beautiful experience.

Singer’s basic premise is this: we are not our psyche. We should be sitting in the seat of awareness; observing what happens, but not being personally involved with it. He talks about how energy is designed to move through us, but we block this healthy process by storing unpleasant emotions and they remain trapped inside of us. This keeps us living in the past, bound up inside by negative energy and fears.

He offers a better way: to feel emotions or notice thoughts as they come, but then relax your shoulders, breathe deep, and choose to let them pass through you. It’s just energy, and not personal to us (even if it may feel personal). This practice helps us learn to live in the present moment instead of remaining fixated on events from years ago or anxiety about what could go wrong in the future.

untetheredcoverI’ve been practicing this and I’m utterly amazed at the difference in how present I feel in any given moment. Life is not meant to be taken so personally. Shit will continue to happen to us. Small and large energy shifts will occur in us, where we feel unsettled, afraid, joyful, optimistic or angry. We can notice these feelings and name them, but the key is to let them go so they don’t stay trapped inside of us.

The same is true with thoughts. Our racing, fevered minds can get us into all kinds of trouble, but we don’t have to engage with the rabbit-trail our thoughts want to lead us on. We can simply observe the thought, “Oh man, I forgot to pick up the dry-cleaning and where in the world did I put that receipt I need for my taxes and the car needs more windshield washer fluid…” and then choose to let it go.

We are much more than our minds or our emotions. We have a higher consciousness, and it can only help to free us if we move beyond the confines of our frenzied thoughts and hyper-sensitive feelings.

The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself has offered me a new set of skills to practice. Whenever I start to feel worried or disturbed by the incessant chatter in my brain, I can observe from my seat of awareness and then allow the energy to pass through me. I don’t want anxiety about the dry cleaners or taxes or windshield washer fluid trapped inside of me for the rest of my days. No thank you!

I’m looking for peace and beauty and inspiration, not a prison of drudgery to whatever stress my mind or emotions can dream up for me. Making a conscious effort to be aware of my thoughts and feelings has anchored me to the present moment in an entirely fresh and real way. I love it. I’m so grateful for this brilliant book and recommend it to anyone and everyone.