Navigating Your Growth Path

When I got to the end of my rope and let go, it did not mean I gave up. I continued to practice the things that I ask others to do in recovery - exercise, eat healthily, get sleep, phone a friend, ask for hugs, lean in. But I also knew that I needed MORE.

So I reassessed. I acknowledged how difficult things actually were for me. I told my friends. I spilled the beans to my husband. I even told my kids. This was not natural nor was it voluntary. It was my children who first called my attention to my despair, "Mom, you do not seem yourself." Over and over they said it until I could agree.

Next, I tried to apply what I would tell someone else in my situation. I spent one day in front of a roaring fire with an afghan and a bottomless up of coffee (decaf). I decided that I was standing at a crossroads and although I did not know which road to travel, I accepted that I was staring into the face of opportunity.

I also chose to study the masters, my friends who do hard things well. What I noticed is that the suffering ultimately can be beneficial and I couldn't help but notice that doing HARD things seems to build more muscles than doing EASY things. I want to be strong in a healthy way. I do. I do not want to live with a vague sense that I have somehow allowed myself to be a victim of my circumstances.

So what could I do? Stay tuned. But before you leave, think about who you want to be - do you want to be the person who would rather change their circumstances so that they feel more comfortable or do you want to be the kind of person who is willing to change yourself and shift your goals as needed to continue on a growth path?

Moving Toward Wellness

In the Nagoski sisters' book, there is an amazing quote,

"Wellness is not a state of being but a state of action."

When we learn how to move through the stress cycle, we are healing; we are moving towards a lifestyle of wellness.

What do you think you need to start taking action on? What's your next right step?

Reawaken Your Life

I've been promising a series of posts about my breakdown and waking up experience, but I want to throw in a couple more pre-remarks. When we are exhausted, lose our compassion and feel hopeless, we acclimate to the climate of this dark and dreary existence. We may not realize that this is not "us." Maybe we think this is the way life works. I want you to hear me: this is NOT true. There may be many reasons we feel "off" or bad, and I'm not suggesting that my "off" is the same as yours. I do not know what your pathway through the tunnel and back into the light might look like or what you need.

I just want you to know that you may need to reawaken to your life and it may take a LOT more time, effort and exploration than feels reasonable to you. Also, I do not want you to look for the magic bullet because I do not think there is one. I suspect that it is more likely a series of small steps forward, backward, to the left, to the right, over and under and around.

When my mother died my body tried to tell me that this was not a normal grief process. My usually sturdy, healthy body got sick. I caught every virus that floated in the environment. My joints felt creaky, my workouts were half-hearted. My sleep was off. I asked my husband, "Do you think I will ever feel happy again?"

I started my road to recovery by finding a primary care physician who believed in wellness. This required spending money on myself, lots of bloodwork, a nutritionist, an exercise guru and more. It was a decent start but did not immediately come with a side order of joy. What it did accomplish was return my body to a baseline of wellness with a regular monitoring system to warn me if something physically was moving in an unhealthy direction. I also found encouragement. My physician, looking at my numbers, asked me if I practiced mindfulness and meditation and I said, "I do." She told me that my cortisol reflected my good work in that area.

I was practicing my self-care routine even though it did not FEEL like it was helpful. Hearing that my body was getting the message even if my emotions were not exactly falling into line was an encouragement. Who knows if I could have sustained the efforts around self-care without my physician's encouragement?

When you consider human giving and human being - obviously, balance is key. How is your balance? Does one need more attention than another right now in your life?

A Commitment to Happiness…

“Happiness is not out of reach.”

Krista O’Reilly David-Digue

The pandemic taught me so much about happiness. I discovered that it is not out of reach even if a lot of things that I thought brought me happiness are off limits. The pandemic required a level of paring down that most of us never dreamed would be required.

But in this, I found that happiness was still within reach.

For Pete and I we needed to recalibrate to grab hold of it because our longing for our “old” life was causing us a lot of anxiety. Anxiety was creating health problems and health problems were making us feel as old as our kids seem to believe we are - we were starting to feel our age.

We regrouped. We asked ourselves - what makes us happy that is attainable? We decided to believe that God is for us and with us and in us and that even a pandemic could not keep us from the love of God. We consciously, deliberately, asked ourselves - what do we need to practice that fits our chosen way of seeing?

We turned off the television and limited electronics. We started long daily walks. We found that eating home all the time allowed for better food choices. We gave ourselves permission to do more puzzles and read more books that in no way would improve our mind or body. Funny, mysterious, formulaic fiction. Whatever it took! I started taking online classes that filled me with the joy of learning. I followed both my personal interests and tried to up my ministerial skill sets - believing that one day the world would open back up and there would be plenty of fields in need of harvesting (Luke 10 if you are curious).

And we increased our conscious contact with people who love us. We had to ask ourselves, maybe for the first time in our lives - who loves US? We figured out how to play bridge online with our friends. We walk down the street and talk to our neighbors. We wave at strangers and smile even when we feel like crying because we know everyone needs a little encouragement.

Happiness is not out of reach if we are willing to take it on its terms - not as we would always have it, but where we can get it. The world is starting to open back up but Pete and I have made a promise to ourselves - we are not going to re-enter the world buried under the weight of obligation or duty. We are going to require of ourselves a commitment to happiness, the happiness that we have found in the most unlikely places.