A Little More Dangerous

We were talking about the re-opening of society after the COVID-19 outbreak, my supervisor and I. We discussed various safety precautions and the physical, spiritual, mental, and social implications of enforcing them. "Maybe life is just going to be a little more dangerous," He said. That comment struck me.

"Maybe life is just going to be a little more dangerous." Maybe we will be more worried that we will get sick after going out in public. Maybe there will be more risk to life. But hasn't there always been risk? Traffic accidents take lives every day. Natural disasters steal lives. Crime steals lives. Genetic disorders and cancer and old age steal lives. And yet we still go on living.

I am not saying we should disregard safety precautions. I'm not encouraging you to disregard orders from the governing authorities. I am saying that life has always been inherently finite, because it has a beginning and an end. Life has always been inherently dangerous, because all life ends in death. So maybe as we go back to living (outside our homes at least), what we we need is not greater fear, but rather greater appreciation. Maybe we need to value full shelves at the grocery stores. Maybe we need to value our commute time to and from the office. Maybe we need to value time with friends and family more. Maybe we should take a few risks. Maybe life is just going to be a little more dangerous.

I don't know what valuing life looks like for you, but I encourage you to explore it. Danger doesn't keep us from living. It might make us need to be more contemplative about the way we live, however. Maybe this pandemic is just what we need to motivate us to cultivate more thoughtful, more intentional lives.

Repressed Feelings

I work with children in the behavioral health field. Something we talk about time and time again are seasons and how they affect kids. We often find that kids get dysregulated around certain times of year, not because of the times of year specifically, but because of the things associated with those times of year. Guess what? Adults are the same way!

I've had several times recently where I've found myself unknowingly upset about something. I've despaired about a move, even though it was exciting. I've been sad around a holiday, even though there is no sadness this year. I've felt trapped by weather, even though I'm not actually trapped. In each case, the emotions I felt were associated not with the actual events or seasons, but were brought up by associations with previous events and seasons. I've had moves that were traumatic. I've had sad holidays. I've been trapped by snow, tornadoes, and other tumultuous weather. The brain is a powerful machine, and the external stimuli associated with current events are bringing up unpleasant feelings associated with past events.

Why do I share all this? Because I think a lot of us have feelings that upset us. We judge ourselves for the feelings without realizing where they might be coming from. We think we should be past the past and we give ourselves no grace to feel the way we do. And in so doing, we miss the change to reprocess times and seasons of our lives so that they might become good again.

So in this new year, if you have some unpleasant feelings, I encourage you to acknowledge them, to sit with them, and to see if you can find out where they come from. If you can, process those feelings. Let yourself feel them. And then resolve to redeem the current seasons and events. And if you don't know where the feelings come from, still let yourself feel them. Let yourself grieve. And then move on. This is the way to authentic living, to living in the moment, to feeling the joy, even if there is some associated pain.

Too Much

I can be a bit of a firecracker sometimes. I'm an oldest child. I have a Type A personality. I'm stubborn and hard-headed. And I have a lot of strong preferences.

Sometimes I worry that my personality is too much. I think I should be more soft and demure. More docile or tame and less opinionated. But then I realize that I really can't be. I have a fiesty nature. That's just who I am, and to change that would be to change the person God made me to be.

There is certainly a time and place for being polite and respectful, for withholding. I never want to purposefully offend people with my personality. And I don't want to camp on my opinions and preferences to the point that I'm ridiculously inflexible. I don't want to be rude or prideful or selfish. But I don't want to be fake, either.

More and more, God is revealing to me who I am and what I am about. That allows me to be more assertive in expressing my preferences, more firm with my boundaries, and more sure with my "Yes" or "No." And in a lot of ways, that is freeing.

So if I've offended you in something I've done, please tell me and let's talk about it. Maybe I need to change, or learn to be more soft in my authenticity. But if my personality offends you because it's too much, maybe we need to have a surface level, respectfully tolerant relationship and let the rest go.

And on the flip side, if I invest in you, know I'm trying, by God's grace, to living an authentic life. I'm quirky and weird and full of it sometimes, but that's me. What you see is what you get, and if I share with you, it's honest, and intentionally real. I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. Too much? Maybe. But this is the too much God has given me. And He's in control.

Don't Judge My Jeans (Or Whatever Pants I'm Wearing)

I didn't wear jeans until around fifth grade. I didn't like the way they fit or felt. I started wearing jeans when I moved to Arizona and was made fun of incessantly for my stretchy pants. I had a love/hate relationship with jeans shopping. I had to wear cowboy Wranglers for awhile to get them long enough. Later, I paid too much for Calvin Klein jeans that fit, but quickly ripped. I found some St. John's Bay jeans that fit for awhile, but then JC Penney stopped selling them. My last pairs of jeans were hand-me-downs from my Arkansas best friend. I outgrew one pair and the other is only good for winter. I told myself to look for new jeans and I occasionally did, but I didn't buy any last year. And I didn't for most of this year.

So what did I buy? Yoga pants and legging. They're not for everybody or every job, but they work for me. I spend a lot of my work days playing with kids. My body is constantly changing and fluctuating in size and yoga pants will fit most of the time. Yoga pants are cheaper and easier to clean than jeans anyway. And I can buy multiple pairs for the price of one pair of jeans. It seems like a win to me. And it feels more authentic.

Clothes are so much of a status symbol. And I'm not saying I'm immune. But what I am advocating for is more acceptance. Please don't judge me or the person next to me based on our pants (or our pant sizes!). You never know why a person wears what the clothes they wear. Those clothes might be all they have. Those clothes might be medically or job necessitated. Those clothes might be a marker of that person trying to accept their body. Those clothes might be just for comfort in a stormy season of life. Whatever the case, don't judge.

Side note: I did finally buy one pair of jeans. They're the same brand as my best friend hand-me downs, but decidedly shortly. They work with boots, so for this season, they'll do....

Vulnerability is a Verb.

I've been thinking lately about feeling vulnerable, about how I use feeling vulnerable as an excuse. I use it as an excuse for not getting out and being social. Being social risks too much, I tell myself. I use vulnerability as an excuse for hiding my emotions, even from myself, because the depth of my emotions scares me. I use vulnerability as an excuse for not telling people how much I care about them because I don't want to risk loving and losing. But you know what? Without vulnerability, I'm hard, stoic, and cold. I'm inhuman and inanimate.

Vulnerability requires action, either on the part of others, or myself. And since I believe I'm responsible for my own feelings, I don't think anybody can actually make me feel vulnerable. That's a choice I have to make for myself. And I don't think I can feel vulnerable as much as I can be vulnerable.

Failing to admit my hurt and pain and rawness is part of my perfectionism. And it sucks. It keeps me scared and afraid and trapped. I don't want that. I want to connect and learn and love and grow. All those things require movement, choice, decision-vulnerability.

Vulnerability is a verb, folks. It doesn't happen in a vacuum, and it doesn't happen without some pain and agony. So here's to being more vulnerable, come what may....

Saying No

Saying, "No," to things that disrupted my very structured way of life was never very hard for me. I liked the safety and control that saying, "No" gave me. I willingly turned down opportunities to get off the beaten path of life because the straight and narrow felt right (and I'm not talking morals here). But in this season of resettling, I've told myself that I need to start saying, "Yes" more. I need to start saying, "Yes," when people invite me to do things, even if it feels uncomfortable or the timing isn't "right." I need to start trying new things, things that I might not think I like. I need to be brave, take risks, sit with discomfort.

But in this season of saying, "Yes," I've realized that I still have to say, "No."  I have to say, "No" to extra work opportunities, even when they feel important. I have to say, "No," to service opportunities because they don't seem right for me.  I have to say, "No" to non-essential items on my to-do list, things that used to be important to me, like having a clean car, or trying to keep things "perfectly" organized. Sometimes I have to say, "No" to my preferred early bedtime or preparing and eating healthy food. I've certainly had to say, "No," to sitting at home on social media, which I enjoy, but really isn't that productive. Changing my, "No" to the unknown to a, "No" to the known feels unsafe and uncomfortable and scary. But it also feels right.

If life is about living, I need to to expect the unexpected, find joy in the journey, and give my scared yeses more and more often. It's kind of crazy that embracing life still means saying, "No," but hopefully those noes make room for the yeses that need to happen.

Dust

The dust hung heavy as the sunlight streamed in through the living room windows. I could see the dust in the air, on the wood, on my hands. And no matter how much I tried to wipe that dust off, it clung to me, and to the surfaces from which I was trying to remove it. Sure, I removed some of it off, but the sun showed just how much more remained.

Life's like that. We've all got hurts, habits, hang-ups, and areas of just plain not knowing. The more we let the light in, the more we see we need to learn, grow, heal, and let go. Letting light in, whether via accountability, or preaching, or teaching, or plain old learning can be painful. It reveals our inadequacies. It shows us how much we don't know. It shows us how much dust yet remains.

But as we learn and grow, some of the dust clears or disappears. The sun exposes and reflects beautifully off the cleaned areas, even as it still shows the dusty ones. Light reveals life just as it reveals stagnation.

I'm not always all about living the vulnerable life. It's uncomfortable. I feel exposed. But if I have to let in the light to get some clarity, bring on the Son.

Filling the Time

Work has been crazily slow lately. Like I logged less than an hour overtime two weeks ago and got to take an unplanned day off last week. I've been trying to figure out what to do with my life in the meantime.

I usually fill my life with work, work, work. I love what I do, but it's not all of me. I have friends and family and church and maybe even some hobbies. But far too often I forget and neglect all of these. And in some ways, I'm afraid to indulge in real, authentic living, because I fear getting attached to it and then getting crazy busy again.

Crazy busy in an armor, so I'm trying not to overfill my life in this time of respite. Maybe God is trying to do some new things in my life. So I'm trying to live life a little and fill my life with some of the good things I've been lacking like community and relationships and rest. 

God's Word says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecc 3:11a, New International Version). Hard as this season of my life has been, I think I'm beginning to see this truth played out. Praise be to Him.

Embracing Fear

I have an issue with fear. And I've let it run my life for far too long. As a perfectionist, I've often missed opportunities because I was afraid to try something and fail. As a fearful person, I've made mountains out of molehill issues to the point that I've been paralyzed. And I've run away and hidden because I was afraid way more times than I want to count.

But God's Word says, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim 1:7 New Kings James Version). God has been impressing this idea on me through a variety of means. My best friends keep telling me to stop overthinking and just live. I hear songs like, "Fear, He Is a Liar" by Zach Williams or "All In" by Matthew West. The latter song says,

I don't know that I'm "all in," but I do know that God is teaching me to be less fearful. For me that looks like saying what I really think, rather than debating about whether or not to share. It means picking up the phone and making the call rather than putting it off. It means initiating a conversation rather than expecting the other person to do it. It means branching out and trying some new things. It means failing sometimes and being okay with it.

I suppose that I'll always struggle with fear, but as I face fear, it gains less power. As I embrace fear instead of running from it, I embrace God and His plans for my life. For it is God who says, "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand" (Isa 41:10, New International Version). With God at my side, I'm saying, "Fear won't win."

Crazy-busy

"‘Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us."

~Brene Brown

This quote is perhaps another way to explain where I'm at in life. I've been crazy busy for so long. And now, as life slows a bit, all the emotions are hitting me in the face. I feel lonely. I feel scared. I'm angry. I feel sad. And I find myself trying to fill time instead of feeling. I go on more walks. I take on more projects. I try to sleep more. None of these things are necessarily bad, but they're just other ways I keep myself numb. They're ways I stay a human doing instead of a human being.

What I really need right now is to sit with my feelings, to ask God what He is trying to tell me through them. But I don't want to. Admitting my feelings makes me raw and vulnerable and real. And that's not comfortable, or painless. It's pain-full.

I know God made me a feeling creature for a reason. My emotions help me connect to other people. My emotions help me experience the richness of this world God has made. My emotions remind me that God is God and I need to be still and know Him (Ps 46:10).

So here's to letting down the armor a little bit, to feeling the feels, to trying to enjoy life a little more instead of numbing myself with busyness. Jesus, hold me close.

I Have a Hangover.

No, not that kind of hangover. I don't drink. I have what I'd call "vulnerability hangover*." It's that incredibly confusing and painful state that comes from being so real that it hurts. It's that sensation that you've shared too much, done too much, and want to go back, but can't. I've been extremely vulnerable with myself this weekend, and it's left me feeling overstimulated, overly sensitive and overwhelmed with emotions I can't seem to sort out.

My job requires me to show up and be present with people and their stories each and every day. It's not the kind of job where I can show up and put myself on the shelf. No, I am there in person every day at work, and sometimes, the work is there with me when I leave. I like my job, I really do, but I haven't ever had a job where I've had to be this real, and it's hard. A particular call this past week reminded me of that.

It isn't very often that I go out with people and let loose and really have fun. And I did that this weekend. It reminded me of the value of community and of the importance of activities that really have no extrinsic worth. It was an experience that made me painfully aware that fun and community are seriously lacking in my life.

My parents were out of town this weekend, so schedule and routine were completely up to me. I'm so used to the rhythm of life with my family that decisions like where to sit to do my devotions and what to eat for dinner became overwhelming. I had to really tune in with myself and ask myself what I wanted. And I'm not used to that.

I've lost a lot of myself in my years of moving away from home, getting an education, trying to be perfect, and living an overall inauthentic life. In this process of coming home to Arizona, I'm coming home to myself and feeling the pain of God breaking down the walls of what I have known to make me into who He wants me to be. It's confusing and awkward and strange. 

My life right now is messy and complicated and I'm afraid, but I'm trying to show up. Please be patient with me. I'm in God's workshop and He's not done with me yet.

*I got the term "vulnerability hangover" from Brene Brown, but am using it in a slightly different context here.

Coming Home

“He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'”

~Matthew 18:2-3

I made the decision to move back Arizona a little over two years ago. On faith, I decided to pack up and leave, without a job, relationship, or a place of my own to go to. It has been a rough several years, but despite all the twists and turns of life, I feel like I'm finally coming home.

Coming home in a lot of ways looks like becoming a child again. I live with my mom and dad. Little brother was home for awhile. Though Mom and Dad treat me as an adult and respect me, we are once again making family memories over kid things like meals and grocery shopping and hiking.

I am regularly engaging in kid activities in my daily life. I ride bikes with a kid every other week for work. I went kayaking for the first time in 20 years a few Sundays ago. This year, I hung out with horses for the first time since I moved home. I do a lot more art. The things that mattered to me as a kid (and even some that didn't) are suddenly coming back into my life.

My relationship with my body has had its fits and starts, but I feel like I am becoming more comfortable in my own skin. I've become un-vegetarian since moving home and eat a lot more “fun food” because it's available. I now enjoy pizza most weekends, a favorite “kid food.” I wear yoga pants more than jeans, and that's okay, both with me and with work. Yoga pants/leggings were my favorite attire growing up, and they are becoming so again. Why not wear comfy when I can?

When as a child, I first told Mom what I wanted to do with my life, she told me that she couldn't see me sitting behind a desk. I got a little upset, but she was right. My job has been hard, but I feel like I'm finally starting to own it. I play with kids A LOT, and it's fun. My employer embraces atypical services and that's a good thing for me. Hard as this job may be, I feel like I'm doing what I was designed to do since I was a child: helping people.

Brene Brown writes, “We can't selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light.” Children generally don't know how to numb. They learn that “skill” as they experience trauma and hardship and disappointment. They start to tune out life as a means of survival. God doesn't want us to live like that. He wants us to live out of faith and trust and a belief that He is good and that there is good in the world created. He wants us to celebrate the good amidst the bad.

I've been “home” for almost two years, but I feel like I'm finally coming home, home to myself and to the person God created me to be. The highs are high and the lows are low, but I am finally feeling them and integrating them into my existence. God is bringing me to a place of more authentic living, to increased reliance and dependence on Him, and that is where I need to dwell. Praise be to Him!

Synonyms for Shame

I recently finished I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't) by Brene Brown (2007). It's a book about shame and how it affects our society. (Brown defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging....Shame creates feelings of fear, blame, and disconnection" (p. 30). It's definitely informed the way I think about some things, for example how I view my words. 

Case in point, when I say, "I've had a crappy day," I'm not usually saying that there's literally been poop all over my day. I'm saying my day's been bad. I'm saying I'm tired. I'm saying the day I've had feels disconnected from the life I'd like to live. I'm usually sending a signal that I either need love and acceptance and belonging.

A second example is when I say, "I feel crappy. " Sometimes I say that because I have stomach ailments. But most of the time it's because I feel self-conscious, run down, disconnected from myself and from others. I feel afraid. I feel ashamed. It just seems more socially acceptable to say the word "crappy." (Note that I didn't say socially correct.)

My own experience with synonyms for shame make me wonder what other code words are out there. And it makes me ask why we're so afraid of saying we're ashamed. Is it because we're guilty and don't want to change our behavior? Is it because in this culture of rampant individuality and self-seeking we don't want to be vulnerable and acknowledge that we don't have it all together? I don't know. I just know that using synonyms for what I'm really feeling isn't really honest or authentic or real. So now that I know how shame presents itself, maybe I need to call it out, and call it what it is.

Friends, do you use synonyms for shame? If yes, what words do you use? Please share below.

Feeling the Feels

"No pain, no gain." I think that's the way of authentic living. But man, does it hurt.

I'd venture to say that these fast few years have been some of the hardest and most painful I've had. Why? It's not necessarily because the worst things in the world have happened to me, but because I've actually felt the grief associated with church changes, the fear associated with family struggles, and the terrible sadness associated with world tragedies. I now work in a career where I have to feel the feels all the time in order to be present, and it's an exhausting and hard task.

In the past, I used to think that strength was forcing down the feelings and keeping on. Now I think it's feeling the feels, being honest about them, and choosing to go on. And although I don't like it, I think I'd make the argument that feeling the hard stuff, voicing it, and figuring out how to acknowledge it and integrate it into my life experience is actually what makes me stronger. But it's still no fun.

Nikita Gill wrote, "Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it heal. And let it go.” When wounds bleed, the blood washes away toxins and brings fresh oxygen to help the wound heal. I think it's the same when I feel the pain of suffering. I can actually learn from it and let it go. This new ways of living feels dangerous, but no good things or important lessons seem to come easy....

I'm linking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons for this Thinking Out Loud post.

Gut Instinct and God-Things

I don't believe in coincidence. If you know me, you know that I make that comment often. I believe in purposeful living, in living authentically. I believe that when I listen to my body, and "go with my gut," things make more sense.

Take for example the other morning, when I was debating what to have for breakfast. I wasn't that hungry, but I felt a strong urge to stop and eat a big breakfast. What I really wanted to do was practice yoga, dilly-dally, and eat a long leisurely breakfast. But I decided to listen to my gut. It just felt like I needed extra nourishment for some reason. Ten or so minutes into breakfast, I got called out for work and only had a chance to to eat a protein bar between breakfast and dinner. Good thing I had that breakfast to tide me over.

Further back in time to Sunday, I felt obligated to go to an event for Christian community, but didn't want to go. As I was wrestling with my guilt over saying, "No," a friend came up and invited me to a different kind of gathering that was more conducive to my lot in life. That confirmed my, "No," for the other event.

At work, I had an instinct that something wasn't right and that I'd need to reach out to some specific resources. So I programmed those contacts into my phone before leaving. It turned out I needed them.

Is my gut instinct always right? No. I'm human, and a sinner (Rom 3:23). But I do believe that the Holy Spirit indwells me, and that the Spirit's still small voice is often what speaks to me through my visceral responses to things. Oswald Chambers writes in My Utmost for His Highest, 

"When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God’s will. And all of your commonsense decisions are actually His will for you, unless you sense a feeling of restraint brought on by a check in your spirit. You are free to make decisions in the light of a perfect and delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will lovingly produce that sense of restraint. Once he does, you must stop immediately."

I think Chambers' words totally apply here. Listening to gut instinct, or common sense, is a good rule of life for the most part. And when things don't turn out right, it's time to regroup, repent, and consider if the "common sense" I followed was my own voice, or the Holy Spirit.

Gut instinct? Nah. Holy Spirit? Yes. And with the Holy Spirit, there are no coincidence, just "God-things."

I'm linking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons for this Thinking Out Loud post.

What a Gray T-Shirt Taught Me About Blame

"Who put this gray work shirt in with my white load of laundry?" I grumbled as I pulled the wet clothes out of the laundry. Roughly yanking up the shirt and unfolding it, what did I discover? It was my "good" t-shirt, and I put it in the white load of laundry to keep it away from the dirty gray "work" shirts.

I am so guilty of blaming other people for my problems. And I do it without ever trying to investigate the facts or gain perspective on the situation. Blaming other people keeps me from realizing my contributions to problems. It keeps me from feeling my own pain and shame when I screw up. It can keep me from being accountable for the consequences of my own actions. 

I want and need to be quicker to investigate and slower to judge. I need to be faster to admit fault and slower to cast blame. The world might be a better place if I did (or at least I'd have a better attitude about that gray shirt in the laundry).

(Brene Brown's video on blame is excellent and the source of some of my thoughts here.)

I'm linking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons for this Thinking Out Loud post.

Perfectionism, Rejection, and Authentic Living

I waited over a year for this opportunity. I attended multiple trainings, underwent a background check, and even sat through an interview process in order to get accepted. And now, after just a few times of serving, I asked to be taken off the list. I felt so shameful in doing so.

I wrote a few months ago about the rejection of children's church service and the pain of growing. And now here I am again. I don't know if children's ministry is not for me, or if this is just not the season. But for now, after receiving a, "Yes" to service from the church, the answer to my availability is, "No."

I wanted to justify myself today when I asked to be taken off the church ministry schedule. I wanted to give a reason for my request that would make sense. But I realized that the children's minister didn't need my explanation. She needed honesty and forthrightness and that was all.

But I didn't fully understand my own decision. I couldn't figure out why I felt so terrible and ashamed of myself for "resigning." God graciously brought me into the book Uninvited by Lysa Tykeurst this afternoon, however, and specifically to these sentences:

"This rejection doesn't mean I'm [whatever negative label or shame-filled feeling you are having], it makes this [opportunity] [person] [desire] a wrong fit for me right now. Instead of letting the feelings label me, I'm going to focus on God and His promises for good things." (p. 132).

All of a sudden, I had this realization that the shame I feel is a product of rejection, not the rejection of the church, but rejection that stems from perfectionism. The perfectionist side of me says that I have to be all things to all people. The perfectionist side of me asks why I can work with kids at my job five days a week and not add on a day of service at church. The perfectionist side of me condemns me for my lack of endless energy. The perfectionist side of me creates guilt and shame when I rest.

But guess what? I'm human. I'm not the Energizer Bunny. I can't be perfect, and I need to be honest about that, instead of ashamed of it. This is the real me, the me who needs to say, "No," right now. The me who needs to do less in order to focus on GOD, and what He sets before me to do. The me I need to learn to accept, instead of reject.

This is raw. This is real. This is hard. But this is authentic living.

I Just Couldn't Do It

I'm normally one to persevere, to keep going when it hurts, to do the max I can. But last week, I just couldn't. I had some stomach pains after lunch, and when I went to go to my next activity, the more I moved, the more I hurt. The more I hurt, the more I got hot and cold flashes. The more temperature changes, the more nausea. I could hardly move at times and rated my pain at a 10/10 in some moments. I didn't know what to do. I was with kids and didn't want to make a scene, but I wasn't moving like I should to coach and guide them. 
I wasn't supposed to leave the other adult alone, either. I thought I might need to go to the bathroom to throw up, but couldn't figure out how to make it there without crawling, and that would be a scene.

Eventually, another coworker arrived and I told her I wasn't feeling well. I told her I thought I needed to go home and asked if she could stay. It was embarrassing. I hate to admit weakness. The kids got upset and I felt like I was letting them down. But I really had to go.

I still feel embarrassed and sheepish and weak, but you know what? That's life. Real people get stomach pains sometimes. Real people have to leave work sometimes due to illness. Real people have to admit when they can't do it anymore.

This experience wasn't fun. It was painful in many ways. But it was real, and isn't that the journey I'm on? Authentic living in sickness and in health, I guess.

Self-Improvement

I recently completed Paige Schmidt's 10-day Authentically You course. (I'm kind of a self-improvement junkie and jump on courses that are free and not gimmicky-which Paige's aren't.) In completing the course, I kept coming back to the idea of approaching self-improvement from a stance of worthlessness versus from a place of worthiness. Let me explain.

When I try to improve myself to gain worth, I fail. I can never do enough to please my perfectionist self. I can never do enough to please my judgmental peers. I can never do enough to gain complete, unmerited favor with my family. Simply put, I am not enough to please people 100% of the time. So improving myself to gain approval isn't going to work.
On the other hand, if I operate from a place of worthiness, I work to improve myself because I love myself and want my life to be better. When I learn to love myself more, I get out of the head space of trying to earn worth. When my life is better, I have more energy to attend to the needs of other people and serve them well. So operating from a place of worthiness is not necessarily selfish or self-centered. How do you operate from a place of worthiness? That is probably another post for another time.

For now, I encourage you to stop trying to improve yourself from a place of worthlessness. Stop saying:

"I'll be beautiful when I lose X pounds." 
"I'll be strong when I gain X pounds of muscle."
 I'll be happy when I get a promotion at work."
"I'll be content when I find a person to marry."
"My life will be worth something when I make a difference."

Don't stop working towards self-improvement and healthy goals. Just approach them differently. Approach them from a place of worthiness:

"I'm trying to improve my nutrition so that I'll have more energy to play with the dog I love."
"Weight-lifting is a good habit to have for relieving stress."
"I know I am capable of moving up the ladder at work and am working toward it."
"I love myself and can't wait to find a person to share love with for the rest of my life."
"I believe I have something to give to the world, so I work with integrity and hope."
Changing our self talk requires work. But I think that work with be worth it, and actually contribute to more success with our self-improvement projects.

Thoughts? Comments? I'd love to hear you motivate yourself to work towards self-improvement. Which strategies work, and which don't?

Self Care For Me Right Now Means More Rest

I recognized that I needed to amp up my self-care when I started my new job. So I began looking for and pinning self-care challenges. I did one in June and another one in July. A few days ago, I deleted the rest of them from my Pinterest board, however. Why? I'm tired. Too tired to commit to another challenge.

I can complicate almost anything, and I've done it with self-care, too. I've made completion of the self-care challenges an item on my "to-do" list, rather than using them as opportunities to rest and take care of myself. To be honest, completing the self-care challenge has made my days more stressful at times (like when I needed to run on a rainy day or buy flowers when I didn't have time to stop at the store).

One day, I got rebellious and didn't complete the daily challenge. I sat on the floor of my room and scrolled through my social media accounts instead. Shauna Niequiest talks about wasting time in Present Over Perfect, and this was a precise example of that. Scrolling social media was also my version of play, which Brene Brown mentions as important in The Gifts of Imperfection. Engaging in play over productivity felt SO good.

As I listen more to my body and try to live more intuitively and authentically, I'm realizing that self-care for me is less about self-love, and more about self-compassion. Practically, it's about accepting when my body is hungry, tired, or scared. It's about accepting when my mind won't work or just doesn't want to be productive. It's about stopping and resting.

Am I abandoning self-care or not doing the things I need to do to remain healthy? No. I'm just focusing more on self-acceptance and self-compassion. I'm resting more and doing less. This is the only kind of self-care that will yield the kind of renewal and growth that I need.