We're wrapping up simplify your life month here at To Love, Honor and Vacuum. We've talked about finding your purpose, and organizing, and paring down, and all kinds of things that will help your life become more peaceful.
Today I want to talk about another fundamental one, and it's this: give yourself a break.
Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I made some career goals for myself. One in particular I was supposed to have attained when I hit 40.
Guess what? It's not going to happen. For years I was trying to twist myself into a pretzel to try to shortcut my way to that goal, so that when my 41st birthday hit I would have done it. But no matter what I do at this point I won't have time to meet that goal. It's fallen by the wayside.
I've realized that the issue isn't whether or not I meet the goal; the issue is whether or not I am at peace about not meeting that goal.
We women just don't tend to like ourselves. We can see all our shortcomings, and we feel as if we should be pushing ourselves, beating ourselves, forcing ourselves to change and be different. We shouldn't be this heavy; we should exercise more, lose weight, eat less. We shouldn't be this lazy; we should be able to earn some money at home, create a small business, generate some income. We shouldn't be this shy; we should have more friends, more social engagements, more people over to dinner.
Do all those "shoulds" help you actually accomplish anything? Or do they just paralyze you?
I find so often that when we set up goals for ourselves, we just end up paralyzed, unable to move forward, because we feel overwhelmed and guilty. I know goal setting can be important, and some goals are worthy. But not all goals are.
Let's go back to my professional goal that I had for myself at 40. Do you know why I won't meet it? It's because since I made that goal, my life has changed. I decided to homeschool my children. I decided to work with the youth of our church. I decided to do more at home to support my husband's career, because our life was becoming too busy. I made decisions that were smart for my family, but those decisions made that goal pretty much impossible to attain. Usually the reason that we haven't met a goal in our lives is not because we're lazy and undisciplined; often it's because we have used our time to do something else. We have decided that something else is momentarily more important than that goal.
For instance, I've gained fifteen pounds over the last ten years. For a while I felt really badly about this, and desperately wanted to lose the weight. But over the last year or two I've come to the conclusion that as long as I maintain what I am now, that's okay. I don't need to have the body of a mid-twentysomething woman when I'm forty. It's okay to learn to be comfortable in your skin.
And it's much more emotionally healthy to accept yourself for what you are than to hate yourself because you haven't beaten your body into submission.
In order to have that body again I would have to radically change how I eat (because I already eat quite well), and I would have to add a lot more exercise to my schedule. My girls and I already start the day with a jog, at least four times a week. It's not overly long; we're usually only gone for twenty minutes, but it's something. But I've realized I don't really have time to do much more than that if I want to attain the other goals I've made for myself. It's not that I'm lazy; it's just that everything has an opportunity cost. In order to have that body of the twenty-something, I would have to work out for an hour a day. I would rather spend that hour going over Katie's math with her, or writing, or organizing something with our youth group, or making dinner. I am consciously choosing that there are other things in my life that are more important right now.
Here's the truth: we cannot do everything. We cannot maintain the perfect body, and maintain a perfect home, and spend tons of time with the kids, and have romantic getaways with our husbands, and create small businesses to make income for our families. We just can't. Why not instead talk to God about what is good enough in each of those areas of your life? And then accept the good enough; don't keep feeling badly that you're not doing more.
Of course, many of us aren't getting important things done because we waste time. We spend too much time in front of the TV, or the computer, or on the phone. If that's the case, then maybe you need to re-evaluate. You certainly don't want television to keep you from attaining an important goal in your family. But many of us don't have that many hours, even if we wanted to find them. They're already being used. And we still, after all, do need downtime.
I think we are completely unrealistic about what is possible for us to accomplish in this life. Everything comes with a price, and if you're not willing to pay the price, then that's okay. But don't just say, "I don't have time to do this," and then continue to feel guilty. Say, "I don't have time to reach this goal," and then accept it. Accept who you are right now, even with your limitations, because you are doing the best you can. And your best is always good enough.
Isn't that what we tell our children? We don't care what they get on the test, as long as they tried their best. If they get a 95% but they didn't try, we'd be unhappy. But if they got a 65% and that genuinely was their best, then that's okay. We'd get them some more help, but we wouldn't be angry.
So why be angry at ourselves? If we're doing our best, and we're talking to God about how to prioritize our lives, and we're talking to our husbands about our lives, then let's give ourselves a break. We're doing what we can do, and in this season of our life, this is the best we can offer. Don't compare yourself to someone with more time, more money, or more energy, because that is not how God made you. Just be the best of who you were made to be, and whatever that is, that is okay.
Wouldn't that feel so much better?
What do you struggle with accepting about yourself? Do you often feel negatively towards yourself because you aren't meeting some goal? Let's talk!
I've been trying to find some order to what I blog about, just to help me figure out what to write and when to write, and to help you figure out when you want to read (although I'm sure you find all my posts absolutely incredible and enlightening!).
But at the suggestion of a friend, I'm launching Media Mondays, where I give book and movie ideas, to go along with Wifey Wednesdays. And now I think I'll add Spiritual Saturdays.
So that's what this is: Spiritual Saturday.
Spiritual Saturday One of the reasons I love blogging is that I can get all my thoughts out without worrying about editing or who is going to publish this. So much of what I write is eventually for publication, and it's stressful. Blogging is my release.
And so I want to share something that happened to me a few weeks ago.
I spoke at a retreat, after a week of feeling very jetlagged and rather ill. I was not at my best. But the retreat went well, everybody said. People shared their thoughts of the one point that really hit home, and many had those "one points". I should have felt good about it.
But I felt as if something had been missing. I have given that same retreat in the past and felt much greater power, and it seems to me that sometimes I feel the Holy Spirit's strength, and sometimes I do it in my own strength.
The next day, at church, the sermon was on exactly that: how to have the Holy Spirit work through you, instead of doing it by yourself. And I found myself desperately praying for "thirst". Thirst for God, thirst for Him to work, rather than me.
On Monday I was reading my devotions, and my Psalm for the day just "happened" to be 42. Here's the first two verses:
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
It was so timely! And so I read on. And here's the point: I was desperately worrying about what was wrong with me. Why wasn't I experiencing God? That's what David was doing, too. He was consumed with feeling alone, with wondering why God wasn't there. And this is what David kept coming back to:
My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you.... Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me. Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him...
In both cases, David is feeling alone. He's burdened. And the solution is not to think about how alone or burdened he is. It's to remember God and what He has already done in your life, and then to turn your attention to the hope you have in God.
God doesn't ask us to DO anything except hope. Except Remember. Except think and meditate about Him. He doesn't want us to work ourselves up into knots trying to reach some major level of spirituality. He just wants us to focus on Him.
And it reminded me of this clip from the retreat, where I talked about this exact thing:
When you're down, focus on God. Don't put yourself through a guilt trip. Don't worry. Just focus on Him, remember Him, and let Him do the rest. He is the source of our hope, not our own effort. And that was a good reminder for me last Monday!
Every Friday my syndicated column appears in several papers in Ontario. This week's is brought to you by YOU--you all helped me out with ideas for this one back in this blog post. So thank you!
They say that love makes the world go round, but I think they’re wrong. I think the majority of the things women do are motivated by guilt.
We women feel guilty about everything. In fact, they say that the most common emotion women feel is guilt, and if you’re a woman, and you’re not feeling particularly guilty right now, just think about it. I’m sure you could talk yourself into plenty of guilt in two minutes flat.
Do you have laundry waiting to be folded? Laundry still in the washing machine, after three days? (Note to self: I’ll get to it, but I’ve got a column deadline, okay?). And don’t even mention the ironing. Then there are those thank you notes that we forgot to send after our wedding twenty-six and a half years ago, which guarantee that at every family reunion since we have avoided Aunt Peggy, because we know she remembers our transgression.
And what about parenting? Motherhood, of course, is the guilt that keeps on giving. We feel guilty for locking ourselves in the bathroom, just to get some breathing space. We feel guilty for not serving vegetables for dinner. We feel guilty when we yell at our kids.
We feel guilty for relaxing, for reading a novel and leaving the housework behind, for spending money on a manicure instead of on paying down debt, and for feeding everyone cereal for dinner.
Those of us who are older feel guilty for all the missed opportunities we had when we were younger. We feel guilty for not saving more, not loving more, not giving more. We feel guilty for letting our parents down. We feel guilty for letting ourselves down, our kids down, or our friends down. We feel guilty for our health deteriorating, and not being able to do all that we used to.
We feel guilty for folding our towels in half and then half again, instead of in thirds like our mothers taught us. We feel guilty for rolling the fitted sheets up into a ball and then throwing them in the linen closet instead of folding them properly.
And most of all, the number one thing that women feel guilty about is our weight. We feel guilty that we like food, that we eat food, and that we want food.
What does all this guilt do to us? We have three possible responses: the first is that we examine the guilt, take the legitimate to heart, and then change our lives for the better. That one’s pretty rare.
The second is that we feel so guilty that we deflect that guilt by getting mad at everyone else to ensure that the grumpiness is spread around evenly. That one’s pretty common.
And then there’s the most common of all: we run around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to do the impossible, with the hope that if we just keep it up, the guilt will stop. But it won’t, because what we’re demanding of ourselves is superhuman. And there really isn’t such a thing as SuperWoman. There is only Exhausted Woman, and I don’t particularly like her.
Men find it easier to shrug guilt off. They don’t tend to bother themselves with silly things like housework standards, menu standards, or etiquette. And they don’t even have to go through labour! They’ve got it easy. So maybe, while we’re still in summer mode, we should try, just for one day, to be a man and not to feel guilt about stupid things. I doubt it will work, but it’s worth the effort. If only someone else would fold the laundry while I tried.
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And if you have three minutes, watch this quick video of a comedy routine I do about women and guilt:
I'm creating a game we're going to play at a women's retreat I'm speaking at this weekend, and I need to know: what are stupid things you feel guilty for? Examples might be:
Sending the same thing in my child's lunch every day Not calling my mother-in-law Forgetting to shave my legs
etc.
We're talking things that ultimately don't matter (you could argue the mother-in-law one, I suppose) but eat emotional energy just the same. Can you leave me a comment? Thanks a ton!
Two weeks ago I was really down in the dumps. I felt like nobody in my family really understood me or supported my speaking ministry.
They loved me, sure. They told me that, they hugged me, they helped me around the house. But they didn't ask about my speaking, and sort of seemed disappointed everytime I had to go (even though I'm home 90% of the time because I homeschool). If you've read me for a while, you'll know I just had a little pity party.
Anyway, I ended up talking to them about it, and guess what happened today!
I had to drive 2 1/2 hours this morning to a women's outreach I was giving, and Keith got up at 6:00 a.m. to make me breakfast. Isn't that sweet? I've never gotten up at 6:00 when he's had to go to work early. I'm going to have to make it a point to do that sometime soon!
And then when I came home I found out that my 11-year-old had completely cleaned my study. Even my craft closet. She organized my yarn, she shredded all the paper that needed shredding, she moved stuff around so it looks better. It's wonderful!
So I'm feeling very loved and very silly for my pity party. My family does appreciate me, and I appreciate my family. It was a good day.
But it reminded me of something. There are times when we see the worst in our family members. Often, if I'm honest with myself, those times are hormonal, but sometimes it's because we simply haven't communicated to them what we need.
However, the problem may go even deeper than that. I've been wrestling a lot with guilt over my speaking for the last few years. My family comes first, and I've always felt a little torn everytime I have to go away overnight. I wonder if this is worth it, if God has really called me to this, or if I'm just pursuing it on my own.
I put myself through the wringer on it, and start to accuse myself of all sorts of things. Am I in it for the pride? Do I just want the recognition? Do I think being a mother isn't enough? And then I can take a different tack: what right do you have to give advice anyway? Do you think you're better than everyone else?
You know the things we women say to ourselves.
But here's the issue: the areas in our lives where we are most likely to feel guilty are also those that we are most likely to project onto others. So if I'm feeling guilty about speaking too much, and my family doesn't gush all over my speaking engagements, I assume they're mad at me because that's what I'm feeling. Or maybe you're feeling guilty about not losing weight, and whenever your husband orders a water instead of a pop at a restaurant you feel like he's silently judging you. Do you ever experience that?
We tend to assume other people are mad at us for the very things that we struggle with, when in reality those issues may not even be on their radar screens. So what I've realized is that I need to own my feelings. They are mine. I have to stop attributing these feelings to Keith, or my kids. They are not trying to make me feel guilty; I was doing that just fine on my own.
So ask yourself this: what is the one area where you are most sensitive right now? Is it about your sex life? Your work? Your relationship with your mother? Name it. Often we hide from these things because we don't want to face our feelings, but name it to yourself.
Now, ask yourself this question: have I been assuming that my husband is mad at me for that, too? Have I been supersensitive to other people about this issue? Talk to them about it, and try, from now on, to not assume the worst in people. Don't project your guilt onto them. You'll find your marriage, and your life, goes so much better!
Do you have some marriage advice you want to share with us? Just write a post on your own blog and then come back here and enter the URL in the Mr. Linky! And please don't use the URL for things that aren't marriage related (if anyone knows how to remove an inappropriate link from Mr. Linky, can you tell me?)
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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