Category: Self Care

Living through the In-Between Time: 3 Steps to Surviving the Midnight Hour

9/11/2019

You are in the in-between if something is no longer,
but the next thing has not yet become.

The in-between is a dark place. Sometimes we get there by our own choices. Other times it is handed to us. We are used to something being one way and then it changes. When this change is close to our heart it’s like losing something essential. Something that defined who we were. Something that marks the coming of a new season.

In a recent effort to simplify my life, I’ve started to sift through my belongings. I’ve read old journals and gazed at photos from the past. In some ways it felt like peeking into a past life. Images of people that are no longer in my world. Circles that I no longer circle. Much of the time it’s like a glowing ember of warmth. I can remember the concerts, the dinners, the resting on couches to discuss life’s most important topics. Then as I turn the page or scroll up on my phone I’m back to right now. The in-between.

I’d like to think that when we choose our changes they hurt less. They don’t. We are creatures of habit and we like the reliability of a stable routine. Until those routines don’t work for us anymore.

When we say no; no more; this must go – we mean it. But we can’t escape the severe stab of loss. It’s dizzying and lonely.

I call this time the midnight hour. For weeks and even months it feels like midnight. The darkness makes things blurry. We doubt our eyes and think ill-intention is everywhere. We rehearse. Ask questions. Beg the next step to reveal itself. The midnight hour does not pass quickly. It triples and quadruples in length. It doesn’t care that our feelings are hurt. The midnight hour invites us into the void.

We don’t always choose this path. Sometimes it is handed to us through diagnoses, deaths, and paths unseen. Life is moving on just fine and bam! We have a weird medical symptom, a loss, and new thing that takes over our every thought. It alters how we show up. It rewires what we know to be true and breaks it down piece by piece. It’s disorienting and painful.

The midnight hour is like a well of doubt. Anxiety deepens the space. Hurt makes it darker.

I am not a stranger to the midnight hour. When we are committed to growing we will have these seasons. Even when we know the midnight hour well, the vastness of it never ceases to pull us under.

If you are stuck between what was and what is yet to be, here’s a way through:

1.  Go inward.
Take this time to know yourself better. When the world seems like it’s swirling past you find a way to slow yourself down. If we’re not careful we’ll hook onto a story that fuels our fears. We’ll start to believe that midnight will last forever. This isn’t true. Take the time to ask good questions. Honor your feelings. Look at your problem with a softer focus. Wonder about how this issue can help you. Instead of being mad at it, ask, “What are you here to teach me?”

2.  Go outward.
You cannot do this alone. I repeat: you cannot do this alone. You need to go to your people. Ask them to listen to your story. At first you just need someone to hear your story over and over. When the sting begins to lessen you can ask for feedback. You can discuss, “What does this mean? What is my role? How can I hold this gently?” You get to share this story with people that you trust. This connection will be a reminder that dawn will come again.

3.  Seek the Wayfinders.
During the midnight hour we will do almost anything to receive the map. The get-me-out-of-here-now plan. The answers are everywhere. You will find your way through a random conversation, in a wise Instagram post, a line in a novel. You will get closer to the light through prayer and meditation. You will see things more clearly with the aid of therapists, healers, mentors, and dear friends. Your wayfinders are everywhere. Be open to them. Everything is designed to help you.

This process of simplifying my life has been good in many ways. I’m a bit of a “keeper”. I like to store items that remind me of a previous time. After a while though they stack up and become just another pile of papers that were once important to me. In my decluttering process I found old pay stubs, movie tickets, trinkets, and notes (from decades ago, people!). In this pile of memories, I saw old problems. Jobs that weren’t a good fit. People that were once central to me and eventually moved out of orbit.

In this pile of things from the past I remembered my old midnight hours. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it through some of those midnights. The dark seemed so dark. I remember praying for answers. Wishing for crystal balls. Wanting the map to present itself. When I re-read old notes and looked at photos I was reminded of the intense ache. The anxiety. The distress of not knowing when the long-awaited daylight hours would return.

But I’m here now. So midnight didn’t, in fact, last forever.

I ask you now: what was your midnight hour three midnights ago? When I asked myself this question it felt like my brain had to stretch itself to reconnect to old problems. Problems that I thought would overtake me. Would pull me under. Would undo me and make my life unrecognizable. But now? Now I have to work to remember them.

The midnight hour is a tricky place. It bends shapes and messes with our sense of time. Hours and minutes get mixed up. Darkness has a way of making us forget what lives at its edges. There will be a night that feels like the hour got stuck at 12:00 a.m., but more is yet to be revealed. At the edge of this hour is dawn. Lines will sharpen as the sunlight slips through our shades to brighten the room. Like a slow yawn, we will be released from the grip of night to begin again. A new way always shows itself. It just takes longer than we’d like.

To your midnight or future midnights & to new beginnings.

With Love and Backbone,

Jen

P.S. Check out this Chai Talk Podcast, Don’t Bypass Your Anger, to learn more about healing and moving through hard emotions.

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Forgiveness Is Too Hard: Ideas For Self-Care While You're In The Depths Of Loss

5/4/2019

Forgiveness Is Too Hard When You're Drowning In Grief

On the day of Forgiveness I’m not feeling very forgiving.

It’s been a long season. Last year I was pulled down into the muck. I’m still finding mud footprints all over my mind.

You see, loss is a tricky thing. One day you’re riding the wave and feeling all Zen-like and the next moment you’re seething with anger or crying or rehearsing conversations.

In her book, Rising Strong, Dr. Brené Brown describes how her research participants recounted losses that were difficult to identify or describe because they weren’t necessarily deaths or separations. She writes, “These included the loss of normality, the loss of what could be, the loss of what we thought we knew or understood about something or someone.”

This long season has included losses. Today (of all days) is Easter. The revered forgiveness holiday of the year. It’s the day when the betrayers, backstabbers, haters, and false friends are set free. So maybe I’m still stuck on the darker part of the story, yeah? I’m decidedly in the midnight of my loss today.

The day started out bursting with love. We enjoyed candy-filled Easter baskets, homemade lemon pound cake donuts, and morning snuggles. We danced in the kitchen and sang hip-hop songs. All of the love was bubbling up to the top. Good energy filled our home and our hearts.

Then we got in the car and my body had time to settle. You know those moments of stillness where your mind tells you exactly what’s going on with your heart? Yep, that’s what happened. I began driving and finally had time to feel what was going on. I started rehearsing conversations. It went something like, “Well, if she says this then I can list my ten thousand (correct/right/absolute) reasons for doing what I did. And then if she says that then I can remind her of this. Yadda, yadda, yadda.” I noticed the story, because my heart was racing and my jaw was clenched tight.

Rehearsing future conversations that will likely never happen is not helpful. Stressing myself out over imaginary conversations is not wise.

I reminded myself to stop the story.
I breathed in through my nose and out my mouth.
I sent the story and person away with love and peace.

But I’m still mad.

To tell you the truth, I’m brokenhearted. I’m deep in the loss of something that I thought I knew and understood. I’ve been deeply misunderstood. Stories have been made up about me. I have no control over any of it. I’m upset that I can’t direct the narrative. I’m shaken by having loved someone that doesn’t know me or chooses not to see me. It’s a loss of the oddest sort. Perhaps I’m even grieving something that was never there? I don’t know. My heart is telling me that it’s tired, and overworked, and sad.

So this is where I’m at today. I’m in heartache. The deep, dark, pulsing heart of grief. I’m stuck in the whirlpool of frustration, anger, sadness, forgiveness, and love. I’ve touched on all of those emotions today and they just keep cycling through.

I’m not sure that forgiveness is an actual state that we reach. For me, it’s been more of a process. I keep lovingly releasing the person until my relationship with them or the story changes. Time is always a magical factor in letting things go. At some point new routines and relationships become strengthened and the loss becomes less piercing. Distance from the experience also changes my relationship with the story. I begin to see the lessons, the wisdom, and all of the love that lived within the story.

In Rising Strong, Brené Brown writes, “Forgiveness is so difficult because it involves death and grief…The death or ending that forgiveness necessitates comes in many shapes and forms. We may need to bury our expectations or dreams. We may need to relinquish the power that comes with “being right” or put to rest the idea that we can do what’s in our hearts and still retain the support or approval of others.”

Last year, I made a clear decision. I trusted myself and acted from a place of self-care. I have scrutinized this decision and my communication around it. I’ve had to look closely because it caused a tsunami of loss. Loss with such gravity that I felt pulled under the ocean waves. Disoriented. Lost. Pure darkness.

Now I find myself gripping and bracing for impact. I can almost predict when another wave will hit and I’m trying to be ready for it. Ready for the flood of anxiety. Waiting for the pain. Predicting the anger that will surge up.

Grief is a lonely place. Even though I know that I have a team of swimmers by my side, the loss still pinches me at unexpected times. I might be totally in my joy and a brief moment too close to the loss will pull me down.

I want to be on top of the water. I want to be riding the wave. If it were sunny with clear blue skies for a while that would be awesome, too.

Right now I want to be driving my car to see my favorite person with my kids giggling and talking in the back seat. I want to be all peace and love on this glorious day. But I’m not. One foot is still in the murky water.

I’m imagining myself facing the ocean as a torrent of waves prepare to knock me down. I’m resisting getting hurt. I’m pushing against any potential for softness or love to get through. I’m armoring up to avoid feeling vulnerable. I’m trying to be tough, because inside I feel so broken. One giant wave could crack me open.

I think I could do this differently.

I could be softer.

More understanding of myself.

Instead of resisting this grief I could be open to it. Instead of rushing through it or diving over it, I could wade slowly. I could let the water lap against my thighs. I could float along with the waves. I could be present to what grief is teaching me.

I could let myself be angry. Sad. Upset. Lost. Loved.

I could move with my grief instead of charging against it.

I could be like the water instead of fighting it.

Recently, my cousin passed along some wisdom to me. She said, “Flow like water, Baby.” Yep, I think that’s the key to my healing. Maybe it will be a part of yours, too.

We’re all after the resurrection. We want a peek at what our lives will be like once time has washed away our wounds. But we can’t skip the hard part. The darkness is speaking to us about love and loss and growth. It’s showing us why forgiveness has so much value. It’s not because it’s easy to come by, it’s because it’s incredibly challenging to get to. Getting to forgiveness will cost us our peace, our righteousness, our precious time. But when we get through the darkest part of it (and I know I will), we will be reminded of all of the light that exists in the world. We will deepen our capacity to love. We will become stronger and softer in all of the best ways.

If you’re in the well of loss right now, here are some gentle reminders:

You don’t have to be right. It takes so much effort to prove yourself.

You don’t have to get better quickly. The heart takes it’s time.

You don’t need to forget the good stuff. Love is at the center of it all.

And lastly, “Flow like water, Baby.”

With Love & Backbone,

Jen

P.S. Check out the Chai Talk Podcast, “Let it Go” for more support on healing from loss.

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How to Disconnect From Busy by Re-Connecting to What Matters Most

9/23/2018

How To Get Un-Busy and Why It Matters

Let’s jump into a normal day in our lives. We’re doing one thing while thinking about another thing and scrolling through our social media accounts at the same time. Our attention is constantly being pulled in different directions. We’re sort of being dragged through our days in a way that makes everything seem like it needs urgent attention. Look at me right now, Mom! Answer that text immediately! Keep mulling over that weird conversation that you had yesterday. Do all the things NOW!

Yikes! I’m stressed out just by typing all of that out. If you’re feeling overwhelmed regularly stay with me here. We need to look at why we’re so stressed out.

Our culture has become quite immediate. Is your boss looking for you? She can get to you through a simple text and you can respond within minutes. Is your partner wanting to know where you’re at? They just locate you on Find My Friends and boom you’re close enough to the grocery store to grab a dinner ingredient. Is your friend upset? Well you better contact her like yesterday to sort it out. People need you to get with the program, Girl! So get on it or maybe don’t.

Busy has literally reprogrammed our brains. How many of you get a little jolt when your phone buzzes? I do. It’s like I have to see who messaged me…it could be important. What if it’s the kids’ school? Maybe it’s an important reminder. Maybe it’s just noise. I don’t know. What I do know is that my anxiety peaks until I set my eyes on my phone.

An article in the Washington Post by Brigid Schulte reads, “Somewhere around the end of the 20th century, busyness became not just a way of life but a badge of honor. And life, sociologists say, became an exhausting everydayathon. People now tell pollsters that they’re too busy to register to vote, too busy to date, to make friends outside the office, to take a vacation, to sleep, to have sex.” Oh geez, we’ve lost our joy.

We are social creatures so we’re often watching what everyone else is doing. When everyone else is running from thing to thing and scanning their phones during their downtime it seems normal. We’re now confusing relaxing and self-care with numbing out. When we reach for something outside of us to quiet our inner life then we’re numbing. We do this by overworking, drinking, online shopping, and checking-out through social media.

You might be thinking, “What’s the difference between numbing and self-care? I look forward to sipping my glass of wine while I check up on my Instagram friends.” Okay, maybe you do look forward to it. I wonder what your intention is around your routine? Are you looking to connect? Are you able to stay present with your own feelings and the events of your day? If that’s the case then maybe it could be a version of self-care. But I wonder if your thought is, “Today has been so hard! I can’t wait to pour that glass of wine and zone out. It’s my me-time.” If that’s the case then it’s probably numbing.

Self-care is the process of going inward to nurture yourself. It’s consciously slowing down to soothe our systems and acknowledge what’s happening in our lives. When I enter the world of “too busy” my self-care seems incredibly hard. Meditate for 10 minutes? Sure! (Then I open my eyes every minute to see if I’m done yet). Sit outside in silence? Great. (Followed by needing to look at my phone to check that thing or searching for a book or starting the laundry). Can you relate? Doing is the default. Being is both the sweet spot and the challenge.

Though my body sometimes resists slowing down, I always receive the greatest benefits when I fold into the practice. I can’t tell you how many times an amazing idea has come to me after a yoga class. I tend to write blog posts and record podcasts on days that I have no structured schedule to follow. Freedom in my day often leads to increased creativity and openness.

Not to mention that I’m softer and kinder when I slow down. Let’s face it, being busy is not our best look. Frazzled entries and departures, distracted conversations, and half-in relationships are not creating our best lives. Not even close.

So maybe you’re wondering how to get un-busy? Maybe you’ve slowed down and you don’t like the feelings that live there. Yes, it’s hard. But you don’t have to do it perfectly, Love. You can set your own pace in this process of slowing down.

Here are some ideas for you to try:

Put your phone to bed. Yes, seriously. Give it a bedtime. 9 p.m. lights out. We need time to let our brains prepare for beauty sleep.

Plan for 10 minutes of nothing. Hmmmhmmm. Nothing. Just you sitting and breathing. Notice what your eyes see. Listen with your ears. Do nothing but breathe. How do you feel?

When you’re driving see what it’s like to turn off the music/podcast and simply drive. Pay attention to where your mind goes and what starts to bubble up for you. Stay with it.

After dinner go outside and look around. What color is the sky? What is around you? Enjoy it.

Now I want to come to my final point: our relationships. How does busy affect our people? The other night I was trying to create a post for Nice Girl Uprising on Instagram. I wanted to get the words just right. It was sucking all of my attention. My daughter came along and she was all smiles. She wanted to sing songs to me that she had learned in school. I was totally listening while just doing ONE MORE THING on my phone. Ugh! I feel sad just writing that out, but it’s true. One of my very favorite people was trying to connect with me and I was distracted. I was too busy.

We can say it was just that one time, but the truth is that it happens more than we’d like to admit. We’re busy and we’re distracted. Connecting with other people is nearly impossible when we can’t be fully present. I sometimes wonder why we’re living our lives for the people way out there that we can’t see on social media and texts and phone calls. How did those people and activities win out over the very people in our own homes?

Life is already too short, Girls. A life well-lived is defined by memories with our favorite people. We remember the moments that require our attention and energy. If we’re only halfway-in all of the time then that is the legacy that we will leave. If I know you well enough at this point, I know that you want to be fully IN. We are women that want to be engaged with our people and to be mindful of our experiences. The good. The hard. The sweet moments. We want it all. Fully present, paying attention, and wholehearted. Set your phone down and move inward. Connect with your people. Pay attention. We’ve got this.

With Love & Backbone,

Jen

Here’s a link to a short 3-minute meditation. Enjoy this easy self-care practice!

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Living through the In-Between Time: 3 Steps to Surviving the Midnight Hour

You are in the in-between if something is no longer,
but the next thing has not yet become.

Forgiveness Is Too Hard: Ideas For Self-Care While You're In The Depths Of Loss

Forgiveness Is Too Hard When You're Drowning In Grief

How to Disconnect From Busy by Re-Connecting to What Matters Most

How To Get Un-Busy and Why It Matters

Author

Categories

Living through the In-Between Time: 3 Steps to Surviving the Midnight Hour

​​You are in the in-between if something is no longer,​but the next thing has not yet become.

Forgiveness Is Too Hard: Ideas For Self-Care While You're In The Depths Of Loss

Forgiveness Is Too Hard When You're Drowning In Grief

How to Disconnect From Busy by Re-Connecting to What Matters Most

​How To Get Un-Busy and Why It Matters

Author

Categories

You are in the in-between if something is no longer,
but the next thing has not yet become.

How To Get Un-Busy and Why It Matters