Showing all posts tagged support

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Care But Don’t Carry

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’ve had a hard time this summer with my nineteen-year-old son coming and going every seven days for his job. He’s been driving a huge truck in a copper mine, working twelve-hour shifts that alternate between days and nights, seven days on and then seven off, with a seven-hour drive each week to get there and to come back home.

It’s been a challenging time for him. The learning curve was steep to manage the trucks and the driving routes. It’s a remote location. He’s working with seasoned veterans who have been doing this job a long time. It’s a radically different world for William from his university student life and his previous employment as a barista at Starbucks.

On the plus side, his two best friends from high school are working with him. They travel together, live together when in the Cariboo region of BC, and faced the same stress when training on the trucks. And they are all making very good money to pay for their upcoming tuition and living costs as students.

When I was talking to friends about William’s experience this summer, and my frustration with listening to him complain about how hard the job is and how he misses being at home, I found myself saying, “The job for me here is to care but don’t carry.”

I liked that phrase so much I wrote it down in my journal. I’ve been mulling it over, considering how it applies to parenting and marriage and family members and friendship and lots of other relationships. I realised I know how to care and I also know how to carry stress for other people. But I don’t know how to do one and not the other.

I found myself trying to gently explain this to William. I said, “You are nineteen now. When you were younger, I would help you with your anxiety by sharing it with you. We would talk, and you would discharge some of those feelings onto me, and then you felt better. But now you are an adult. You’ve taken on a hard job, and I’m proud of you, but you get paid a lot of money for this work because it’s hard. And you’ll have to learn to manage some of that stress on your own without complaining about it to me.”

There’s no switch to flick to turn our kids into adults. I know it’s a long process, filled with ups and downs. But I also know that I don’t want to be weighed down by stress that isn’t mine any longer. I want to offer support and love when people around me are struggling, but I don’t want to carry their load for them because it doesn’t belong to me.

I’ve been exchanging voice notes with a friend who has kids the same age as mine. We’re both trying to navigate our way through the rhythm disruptions of having young adult kids leave home, then return, and then leave again. It’s a stage of parenting that won’t last forever, so we are both trying to enjoy the kids when we still have them living here, but it also requires a fresh commitment to our own self-care and nurture to manage the sense of whiplash with all the coming and going.

Care but don’t carry. I’m living into this phrase. I want my kids and my husband and my friends and family members to know I can be counted on for help and a listening ear. But I also want to free myself from the pressure I can feel to carry burdens for others that I haven’t actually incurred for myself.

What are some ways you’ve practiced care but don’t carry in your life and relationships?

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

It’s Never About the Cat Food

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Jason had a long and busy season of work travel this spring, where he was away from home for nearly a full month. In between one of these week-long work trips, he flew home for three days before leaving again. On the Friday he was home, I said, “I could use your help refilling this bag of cat food from the huge bag upstairs as it’s easier to pour it with two people than for me to scoop it on my own.”

He said, “No problem,” but by Sunday night, the small bag still hadn’t been refilled. We were in the kitchen, getting ready to go upstairs to bed, and I sighed. “I guess I’ll be filling that bag of cat food on my own, because it’s the end of the weekend and you’ll be flying out again tomorrow.”

He went upstairs. I was a few minutes behind him, as I saw a text from my daughter that I wanted to respond to. While I was answering a couple of her questions on my phone, I could hear the noisy sounds of Jason scooping out dry kibble from one bag into another. By the time I climbed the stairs, I saw that he had placed the refilled bag onto my pillow.

I was mad. So was he. And this fight wasn’t about the cat food. It’s never about the cat food.

If you’ve been married for a long time, nearly three decades in our case, you begin to recognise the trigger points that exist between you. When I stated that I’d be filling the bag of cat food on my own, he heard it as an attack on him. He was stressed, and tired, and what could’ve been a calm discussion between us quickly escalated into a war.

The next day, as I drove him to the airport, I found myself crying. I told him that he hurt my feelings with the way he refilled the bag and left it on my pillow. He said that I had been passive aggressive with my tone, and that I didn’t ask him directly to do the job.

I realised that when I said I’d be doing the job on my own, what I was really saying was that I wish he didn’t have to leave again. That I felt raw and vulnerable, offering support to my kids and to him and longing for some of that support to come back to me. I want to be able to rely on my husband for help, as we are in a new phase of a long relationship where I’m improving at receiving care from him and he’s improving at giving more emotional nurture to me.

He cannot be expected to get all of that from, “I guess I’ll be filling that bag of cat food on my own.” But sometimes we say that instead of the really true thing, because what I felt was so much bigger and harder to admit. Telling someone we rely on them and we will miss them is a tender thing to say out loud, especially when I used to be skilled at pretending to be fine all the time, even when I was actually lonely and sad and lost.

He listened to me pour out my heart on that drive to the airport, and he apologised. He still had to get on a plane and leave for a week, but I felt lighter knowing that I hadn’t abandoned myself during this argument. I took the time to ask myself what was really going on here, and felt curious about why I was so sad and wounded by his actions.

I feel like I’m in a new phase of growth right now, where I’m committed to advocating for myself, even when I feel pressured to return to old, familiar, comfortable patterns in my relationships. I didn’t use to ask for help. I wore my ability to “do it all” as a badge of honour, while privately nursing my growing resentments toward my loved ones. I don’t want to do that anymore.

This new way is vulnerable. It requires me to admit that I need other people, and it means I’m responsible to initiate the hard conversation when I’ve been hurt. But now, Jason and I have discovered a new shorthand to represent the old relationship patterns compared to the healthier ones we are creating: It’s never about the cat food.

In Culture, Identity, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Feminism Means Equality

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Feminism Means Equality

I had this exchange in one of my university classes this week:

Young Man: I am NOT a feminist.

Me: Do you believe in equality for men and women?

Young Man: Yes, of course, but I’m NOT a feminist.

The definition of feminism is as follows:

The doctrine advocating social, political and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

It’s not burning bras, hating on men, trying to raise women above men, or shaving your head and ranting in the town square. Feminism is equality. That’s it. Full stop. And when eighteen-year-old men become angry at the idea of calling themselves feminists, in an era where equality is being discussed everywhere you go, I become dejected and overwhelmed.

These conversations matter. Clearly, the word “feminism” carries a charge and men are afraid to be associated with it. I can’t fix this and I’m not interested in fixing it. But the word itself means equal rights for both genders and I will continue to bring this up until it becomes more widely understood.

My lovely professor approached me after class to talk about the exchange and to thank me for not escalating it. She said, “I’m really glad you spoke up to define the word ‘feminism’, even if he did appear to be upset over it.” She wanted to be sure I felt supported. I did. Support was not the issue. Having a discussion about a word where the person agrees with the concept but not the word we use for it makes me want to bang my head on a table until it bleeds.

Do we need a new word for feminism? I asked some young women in my next class this question and they said, “No. If women come up with a new word so men won’t be uncomfortable with it, the men will find a problem with the new word, too.” Fair point.

At the dinner table after my classes, I asked my eleven-year-old son William if he considers himself a feminist. He said, “Yes.” (To which Ava replied, “Of course he is. Growing up in this house, what else could he be?”). Then I asked Jason the same question and he also answered, “Yes.” When pressed on what this means, both of them said some version of equality.

Let’s have more of these discussions, equating the word “feminism” to the word “equality” as they are one and the same. You can’t say you believe in equality but you don’t believe in feminism. I know that the term can be loaded for people, I do understand that, but then let’s bring it back to the definition. If you are a man who doesn’t call himself a feminist, please consider how hard a woman has to work to even get you to understand the importance of equality, let alone fighting over the words we are using.

The road to equal rights is long and arduous. If every person helps, even just a little, we’ll move closer to the goal of a fairer and more generous world for every person. A rising tide lifts all boats and language matters. I thought this was easier for young people, but after my experience this week, I’m not so sure. As a culture, we still have a ton of work to do to close this gender gap.

In Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth

Redefining Bravery

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Redefining Bravery

Last week, a friend redefined bravery to me. I was searching for the escape hatch, the red nuclear “launch” button, the excuse to reboot and start over instead of facing up to a difficult and messy situation.

She said, “Showing up when it’s hard is brave, too.” I really, really needed to hear this. When it gets dark all around us and we can no longer find our way, it’s human nature to want to flee. And sometimes, of course, this is the right course of action. But many times, the courageous act is to stay strong when the storm is blowing. To refuse to run, even though it would relieve the pressure and make things easier for a while. But there are also great lessons to be learned from staying put.

I’m so grateful to this friend, for she had the guts to give me her honest thoughts. She did not say what I hoped she would, in my moment of desperation with my bold plan to sell everything we own and go on a madcap family adventure. Instead, she listened and offered another perspective, one born from her own painful experiences with loss and growth.

redefining braveryBravery takes many forms. When life is unforgivingly tough, as it often is, our courage can desert us when we need it most. This is why the community of loved ones we have invested in and built up is so critical. When we lose all perspective and a good deal of our common sense and optimism, we need people who know us and love us to talk us out of the darkness and back to the light.

Stability is no small thing. It matters, to us and to those who count on us. When we feel lost and bereft, it’s tempting to go for the rash and daring option; to shake up the status quo and let the damn chips fall where they may. In certain seasons and stages, this can be entirely appropriate and helpful to jump-start a necessary change, but at other times it’s the coward’s way.

Everything shifted for me during the course of our conversation. It was like putting on glasses so the fuzzy edges came into focus. The fever dream had passed and I could stop thinking about surviving each day and move my vision out by a year or two. Jason and I needed a fresh heart-to-heart, so we could redefine the future we committed to when we joined our lives together nearly eighteen years ago.

It all looks different again, even though nothing outwardly has changed. Life is still hard. I continue to long for something new and hopeful. Every one of us needs extra breathing space in our soul from time to time. We are birds who must summon the courage to stretch our wings and take flight. We all need each other, for support, encouragement and care.

In Culture, Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships

We Have Choices!

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
We Have Choices!

Isn’t it delightful to remember that we have choices? I know I’m stuck in old, nasty habits when I feel victimized, stuck, helpless. I am none of those things and neither are you. The key is to keep this awareness front and centre.

We are women in 2016. We can do anything and be anything we set our mind to. We are done playing small and being nice as our main mode of existence. Now is the time to step up and make a difference in this world, for our own self esteem and to help someone else who can use what we have to give.

Choices are like oxygen. They make everything easier, as long as we have the courage to pursue them with our whole heart. Sure, risks will be required and there are no guarantees of success, but prioritizing safety above all else becomes just as dangerous over a long period of time. Life is meant to be lived, dammit, and it’s up to us to go out there and make our dreams come true.

we have choicesA little over one hundred years ago, women couldn’t vote. We’ve come a long way, baby, and in some ways we are only just getting started. I worried about pleasing my peers in junior high, but thirty years later my daughter Ava doesn’t give a shit about that which looks like progress to me.

We can all learn from each other. I have a mentor, Toby, who shows me what it looks like to kick ass and take names. From her I learn clarity, focus and drive.

One of my friends, Pam, is a beautiful mix of gentleness and strength. When I watch her, I see conflict resolution marinated in grace and humour.

Then there is my walking buddy, Kari, who teaches me how to be warm, fun and generous. Without these women and many others, it would take much longer for me to develop new and healthier habits. They light the path in the darkest times and I’m there to do the same for them.

Let’s never forget the myriad of choices we have. If we hate our job, we can find another one. If we are bored where we live, we can seek out a new town or city. If we feel stuck and unhappy, we can figure out why and change our part in the dynamic for a different result. The only limits that exist are the ones we place on ourselves.

This world is a huge, exciting place and we are all alive at this one point in time. Let’s support each other and make it count by using our voice, bravely facing our areas of conflict and making bold choices that will alter the trajectory of our futures.