Considering Your Own Preferences

To recap, some stress is inevitable but lots of it is self-imposed. When I was confused about my goals in life, I was chasing after outcomes that were not even relevant to my core values! Individuals discover the source of meaning for them in ways that are completely unpredictable. But the common factor that I notice is that if we stop and listen, we can hear an inner voice of wisdom. This voice is informed from a variety of sources, no doubt about that, we do some self-selecting in terms of what our outside ears attune to which impacts our inner voice. But the bottom line is this: we have wisdom that we often ignore and our body will not let us forget it - hence, stress.

Yesterday someone called me desperate for a meeting to discuss a particular crisis in their life. They preferred that I drive over to their house (50 miles from me) so we could discuss it in the comfort of their home. I told them that I'd send them a zoom link. They countered with an offer to come to my house. I reiterated that I was currently meeting with folks via zoom. They sighed loudly and agreed. I sent the zoom link without a moment's stress. We had a lovely meeting.

Who changed? Me. I cannot tell you how many times I have hopped in the car and driven somewhere to meet someone because it was their preference without considering my own preferences. Considering both is the ultimate in respecting self and others. They could choose not to zoom with me and that would be fine. But I am freed from the weight of my own unreasonable expectations of myself, because these expectations were built on frustrating and inappropriate goals. I believe that a meaningful life includes service but I no longer accept that the totality of my life requires me to serve others without considering my own preferences.

What about you? Do you over-depend on your preferences? Do you ignore your preferences? How can we find a balance?

When is Enough, Enough?

One of the questions I began to ask myself in the face of some pretty harsh conditions was this one: "How much more do I have to do before I've done enough?" This is a great question to ask when we are under a lot of stress, especially if we have wise companions to help us sort out our confusion. "Done enough," might best be understood as thinking about living out our core values and sacrificing for them. This is a good thing; but it can also be quite destructive. The gift of the pandemic and family suffering for me was coming to realize that I was doing the wrong stuff for the right reasons.

If my life and spiritual path and love for scientific data taught me that personal freedom and chocolate cake for breakfast leads to a fulfilling life, then I am quite sure my goals for myself would look different. I would have, perhaps, become a baker who refuses to work according to anyone else's schedule. But this is not what life and the pursuit of faithfulness has taught me. For me, what I happen to believe is that a meaningful life requires that we all find a way to connect to something larger than ourselves. I assume this will be hard and not always fun.

Years ago, I noticed how hard it was for people in recovery or in need of recovery to fit into some of the traditional environments for meaningful connection. I was in a position to participate in changing this dynamic and it felt like a worthy goal to me as a woman who grew up in a family that could have used this kind of community but never found one. I still believe and support this dream.

When I thought my work included helping others find a meaningful life and provide them the tools to accomplish it, I was a failure. And presumptuous too. But once I burned out, I realized that my success was not dependent on convincing others how to do hard things; my truest goal is to be present for people who are having a hard life. My desire is to continue to show up because it is who I am. This shift is seismic. I am not responsible for making it easy for people to be faithful; I am responsible for being a faithful person.

I cannot tell you how much added stress I have heaped on myself over the years because I had this misguided notion that somehow I was supposed to be helpful to people in this particular way. I have quit this life of hoping that if I try hard enough others will try hard too. I do not plan to return.

What NOT to Do!

Here are a few things to NOT do when you are trying to figure out how to thrive. First - suppressing stress does not work. I have a lovely friend who keeps telling me how she is awesome at powering through - and I agree with her. But the stress is building and she is starting to have symptoms, none of which she is able to see as stress related. That's ok. Her body will keep talking until she listens!

An example of another tried-and-failed attempt to manage my life is the ever-popular but still ineffective self-talk around being tough. It's when we keep fighting for what we believe is an important principle even though our attempts are failing miserably. This is fine when we are not stressed out. But when we are freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional this is not the time to go to war for our principles. This raises an important point. Standing up for our principles is a core value and often the only thing that stands between good people and evil. Someone stands up against evil, and others benefit. If we want to be a warrior, then it is even more important to handle our stress on all fronts. We do not win when we are surrounded on all sides and stripped of our weapons. On these days we need to ask for help SO THAT we can return to an advocacy role once we recover. I cannot stress this enough. Helpers need breaks. Helpers need to be human beings, even if they get called names in the process. There is no greater stress reliever in the world than to stop caring about what people who do not invest in your wellbeing say about you.

Who are you choosing to be your mirror? Who do you listen to for appropriate feedback?

Dealing With Despair

According to those very smart, very funny Nagoski sisters, our bodies are super smart. Part of us (they call it the Monitor) understands what our goals are, how much effort we are investing in that goal and how much progress we're making.

My Monitor understood during the pandemic that my goal (to help my community survive a pandemic without losing our collective minds) was requiring extreme effort (the things that foster community were not always possible in a lockdown) and we were not making progress (I am called lazy because I cannot figure out how to create a church environment "like the old days"). This blew all my circuits.

Despair, stress on steroids, became my friend - albeit an unwelcome guest. My pit of despair felt deep and wide. Despite what my Monitor was saying, I also have these core values that continually compel me to do things that my Monitor thinks is crazy. Like refuse to give up.

But I needed more support if I was going to get through this battle. How about you? Have you ever been at the end of your rope?

Re-Train Your Brain!

I have a friend who is not as old as I am but old enough to make up her own mind about everything. She can drink or not, smoke or not, work or not, marry or stay single, be sexually active or celibate. These are her choices. But she struggles to make choices because every time she makes a decision her mother gives her grief. Nothing she does is quite right. She's either selfish or not taking good care of herself. She is either too frugal or a spendthrift. The feedback, contrary and inconsistent, would be funny if my friend did not care so much about her mother's approval.

My friend has a boundary problem. I'm thinking about buying her a hoola hoop and suggesting she learn how to wear it as a shield against her mother's intrusion. It's easy to poke at the mom and blame her for my friend's distress, but that violates my core value of taking responsibility for every single part of life.

My friend shares this value but she is struggling to practice it. So is it a value for her? Yes, I believe it is and I have seen her over the years develop good skills with others. But her mom might just be her final test in taking responsibility for her life. All of it. Including learning to reject, let go of, activity resist HER REACTION to her mother's words.

Yes, that's it I think. She cannot control her mother but she can learn how to practice new ways of responding. Her brain, lazy as all brains can be, prefers that my friend respond with despair just like she always did when faced with so much negativity as a child. She will have to try all sorts of new tricks of the trade to re-train her brain to stop caring so darn much about her mother's opinions.

This is hard work. It will be learned clumsily over time, so long as she practices. She's practicing and I'm excited to hear, over time, how it works for her. This I know - if she figures this out, she will be able to be more loving to herself and maybe even her mom. That's a big win from my perspective.