The Letting Go of Growing

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Toward adventure! Girl relaxing and enjoying road trip. Happy gi

I am not the same person I was when I graduated college 16 years ago. That’s a good thing! As people we should be growing and changing as we age. But it can also be a hard thing. Sometimes change happens so slowly that we have time to grow into our new selves. But sometimes the change is fast and jarring. Sometimes the change comes as a result of tragedy that leaves us breathlessly wondering who am I?

I attended a small, Christian, liberal arts college. Wheaton College was such a huge blessing in my life. I met my husband, I made friendships that are able to stay alive through the blessing of social media as I watch these people impact their corners of the world for Christ, I had professors that turned into mentors. I had four years to grow into adulthood. One of the benefits of going to a school like Wheaton was endless attempts to learn more about myself. Myers-Briggs? Check! Strength finders? Check! Spiritual Gifts Inventories? Double check!

These personality tests gave me labels, and I loved those labels! People in their late teens and early 20s are primed to love labels. It helps us make sense of the world that feels like it is shifting around us at a blinding pace. It gives us identity exactly at a time when we are searching for it the most.

As I headed out into the big bad world where I was starting a career, starting a marriage, and paying my own bills I wrapped myself in these labels. They brought comfort.

Fast forward 16 years and a lot of life has happened. My husband and I have moved more than I ever thought I would in my entire lifetime. We have done the hard work of learning how to really love each other in this wonderful but difficult thing called marriage. We have walked through significant health issues with our children. We have grown as people and grown in our faith.

But I didn’t really feel grown.

Sure! I felt those changes percolating within me, but more often than not I would ask myself, “What would an adult do in this situation?” And then I’d just do that thing. Oh I was fully an adult, but something inside of me didn’t want to let go of those labels that comforted me so in college, because without those labels who was I?

A friend recently wrote on Facebook about how much freer she feels as a person and specifically as a woman now that she is 40. A lot of the old insecurities and hang ups had faded for her, and she felt free to be herself. I feel like I hear that a lot, and I started to wonder if that is automatic. Like is there something magical that happens as you approach your 40s that allows you to be free? To drop the labels that no longer work and embrace every part of who you really are?

Unfortunately I think the answer is no.

I have plenty of clients in their early 40s who continue to struggle with these very issues. Who struggle with understanding or even embracing who they are.  Our therapy centers around growing the parts of them that aren’t serving them well, and learning to accept the parts of them that they had previously not wanted to embrace.

So what do we do when we feel like we don’t know who we are anymore? When we know we have changed, but we are having difficulties feeling comfortable in our new selves.

The obvious solution is finding an amazing counselor and working through these issues with them. I mean it’s not like I’m biased or anything that therapy is the answer! 🙂

Another great thing to do is find a mentor or trusted friend who can help you process some of the changes you are experiencing in your life.

The people who approach 40 feeling more at ease in themselves, are most often the people who have done the work.  They’ve gone to therapy, they’ve surrounded themselves with mentors, they read books that grow them as people.

There are certain books that I recommend most often to my clients to help them figure out who they are, and grow as a person.  (You can click any of these titles to quickly and easily link to them.  These are affiliate links.  See the disclosure at the bottom of the post.)

facing cod

Facing Codependence by Pia Mellody –  If you have struggled in your life with low self-esteem, difficulty with boundaries, feeling like you need to be perfect, being too dependent or not dependent enough on other people in your life, or if your life has just felt too controlled or too chaotic, then this book is for you!  Actually I suggest that most of my clients read this book, because everyone either struggles or has struggled with at least one of these areas in their lives.  Pia Mellody’s “Meadows Model” of therapy serves as one of the backbones of what I do with my clients.

becoming myself

Becoming Myself by Stasi Eldridge –  This book has been amazing in my own life to learn more about how God sees me, created me, and desires to grow me as a woman.  I have so many favorite quotes from this book, but one of them is, “You know what we do as women when we feel afraid: we reach for control.  We do it in relationships when we self-protect But when we choose to protect ourselves in fear and withdraw, we have already lost everything. We are already alone.  Self-protecting is not our ally.  As Beth Moore said at a conference I attended in 2008, ‘We can self-protect ourselves right out of our calling.’ We can self-protect ourselves right out of our becoming, right out of the will of God.  God is a God of love, and we are commanded to love as well.  Do not fear!  Love!

letting go of shame

Letting Go of Shame – Shame can be a huge barrier to growth in our lives.  Shame sends the message that who we are is not good enough, is not okay, is not worthy.  This book is amazing because besides the incredible knowledge and wisdom shared in the text, there are exercises at the end of each chapter to help you grow in that area.  If I ever have a client who has to quit or pause therapy for financial or scheduling reasons, I recommend they get this book and work through it.  It’s like doing some good therapy in the comfort of your own home.

 

What has been your experience growing and changing as you age?  Has it been something easy for you to embrace, or a struggle?  Do you have a book you have found helpful in your life? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!

 

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How My Own Words Hold Me Back

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I’m not someone who reads non-fiction books. I just can’t finish them.

I’m not someone who wears gold jewelry. It doesn’t look good on me.

I’m not someone who is good at following through on things. Never have been.

These are all statements I have believed about myself, told myself, told other people about myself over the years. All of these statements were totally true at the time I uttered them. But just because something is true doesn’t mean it’s helpful!

Earlier this year I bought a “self help” book. I own a lot of those books. I’m a therapist after all! This book had been recommended to me by a client and I immediately started recommending it to some of my other clients. The trick was I had never read it. I know! I know! That is not a good idea! But I trusted the client who told me about it, and I just wasn’t someone who could finish books like that. I had tried. I had read about four chapters of most of the books on my bookshelf at work. I just couldn’t get any further!

One day I recommend this book to yet another client. This time, however, she came back the next week and told me she hated it. What? What did she hate? We had an amazing conversation about the specific issue this book triggered in her, and it was actually really helpful in her healing process, but I finally decided I needed to read this book for myself.

So I bought it and started reading. And guess what? I loved it! It is taking me several weeks to finish it, and in the past that would have made me discouraged enough to quit, but not this time. It’s so good I just can’t quit reading it. Even if it takes me months! I am going to finish this book!

That got me thinking. How many times am I telling myself stories about me – stories about what I can and can’t accomplish in life – that are holding me back!

Our words are powerful, and most of us are well aware of the affects our words can have on those around us. But the words we use on ourselves are just as powerful! They have the power to feed our soul or destroy it. They have the power to push us forward or hold us back!

I am someone who reads books that help her grow.

I am someone who can do hard things and actually finish them!

I am actually someone who wears gold jewelry once in a while now.


What stories are you telling yourself that hold you back; that hurt your heart. Don’t be your biggest critic! Be your biggest advocate! You don’t even have to believe them at first. That’s the amazing power of words. They sink into our hearts the more we use them and have the power to change us from the inside out!

erica blog

Wherever You Go, There You Are

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Back in the day I had a “mommy blog” (who didn’t, am I right?!).  So this little gem came up in my TimeHop today, since four years ago I shared this very post on Facebook.  I thought it fit well with the theme of this new blog, and it’s fun to share a glimpse into what I was working through right after we moved to Arizona.  So enjoy!

When I was pregnant with Micah, I had this image in my mind that stayed with me through much of my pregnancy.  Let me try to describe it to you.  In my imagination, Micah was about 2 months old.  My house was sparkling clean, because of course babies sleep all the time so you have lots of time to stay on top of things.  In this dream world of mine, Micah and I would take a nap every afternoon on our guest room bed.  I would be showered and looking nice.  The room would be clean, and Micah would sleep for a couple of hours while I was rejuvenated.

I even mentioned something about this vision to my co-workers at the time who kind of scoffed at me.  I remember commenting on how much I was looking forward to my maternity leave because I needed a break.

Now that I have kids I understand why they scoffed.  However, at the time I was convinced this would be my daily reality.  Then Micah was born.  He never napped for longer than 20 minutes at a time.  When we was awake he wanted to be held or played with.  Even at 2 months he wanted to be entertained for those long hours during the day when he was awake.

This was Micah at four weeks old. So alert all. day. long. But oh so very cute.

Oh, and I had major feeding issues with him which made each feeding last for over an hour for those first three months that I nursed, pumped, and supplemented.

I almost never took a nap when he was little, because who can fall asleep and get a good rest in just 20 minutes.  Plus each nap was a decision: do I shower, eat, or empty the dishwasher, because I will only have time to do one of those things.

My house was a mess, I usually showered a half an hour before Ben got home, cried a lot.  And watched a lot of Oprah and Dr. Phil in the afternoon.

Those days were also filled with taking a million pictures of Micah every day, spending hours just staring at him, and carting him anywhere I wanted to go because it was easy, but it was no napping in a clean house.

There have been other times that I have had visions of what life will be like in the future.  Often times these visions come during a time of transition in my life.  For instance, in the months before we were moving to Phoenix, I had some new images of what my life was going to be like there.  First, our apartment was going to be clean all the time.  It is tiny after all and it wouldn’t be hard to keep clean.  (What is it with me and images of always having a clean house?  I guess we all wish for the impossible.)

The second was that I was going to eat really healthy.  We weren’t really going to have the extra money to be eating out very much, and I was convinced I was going to move down here and magically lose these last 10 Savannah pounds.

Guess what.  Ben’s parents are coming into town tomorrow and as I look around my house I am thinking, “How did it get this messy?!  It was pretty clean yesterday!”  That vision has fallen totally flat.  Also?  I have not lost any weight.  In fact, I have been having an even harder time controlling what I eat, because I have been using food to “reward” myself after hard days.  Well guess what?  I have a 3 1/2 year old and a 1 1/2 year old.  All days are hard to one degree or another.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Wherever you go, there you are?”  I have been hearing it a lot lately in different venues, and it seems to fit my current struggles in life.  I have always had a hard time keeping a house clean (or even my room clean as a kid/teen).  Always.  It is a huge struggle for me.  I have also always had a hard time making healthy food choices.  I eat plenty of healthy food, but I add a lot of unhealthy food right on top.  Always.  Moving to Phoenix didn’t magically make my struggles go away.  Just like having Micah and being home all day didn’t magically allow me to keep a clean house.  Those of you with kids know, it just amplified the problem.

I am in the process of trying to conquer these issues in particular.  I am going through a process of trying out different home organization systems to give me a plan for how to structure my day to get things done.  I don’t have a messy house because I am too busy.  I have a messy house because I hate cleaning and without some kind of external motivation I will just sit on my butt and do nothing.

I know what I have to do with the food thing, but it just involves being dedicated to being healthy.  I am keenly aware that every year my metabolism slows a little bit.  Getting to a healthy weight now, will make the struggle to maintain that weight easier than trying to lose it later.  Plus Phoenix isn’t really the place you can hide behind bulky sweaters.

What about you?  What are your “things”?  What do you take with you wherever you go even though you wish you could just leave it behind?

Update:  The two areas I highlighted in this post all those years ago aren’t gone.  Although I have grown in both areas, they are both a work in progress and something that I have to continually work on, and be aware of in my life.  Maybe the lesson in that is we are all going to have “our things;” those things that are constant struggles for us our whole lives.  Those things might never become as easy for us as they are for other people, but they can get better.  As I write this, my house is not as clean as I want it to be, but it is also not a disaster, and I did finally lose those last 10 Savannah pounds this year.  So even though “wherever you are, there you are” don’t lose hope, because who  you are can grow and change – I’m living proof of that.

Letting Go is a Part of Living Life

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This morning I dropped my “baby” off for her first day of Kindergarten.  I might have cried, but she doesn’t know that.  The whole walk to the play ground, she would grab my hand, and then let it go, grab my hand, and then let it go.  I wanted to grab her hand, and never let go!!  But I smiled, because I recognized the war within her.  She was feeling so scared, and yet so excited.  She wanted to cling to me, and at the same time she wanted to be a “big girl.”

Last week when I posted on Facebook about my mixed feelings toward her starting school this year, I got some advice about keeping her close.  Advice to homeschool her instead.  Now let me say first that I have absolutely nothing against homeschooling!  I think that it is a wonderful option, and am so glad that families have the freedom to do that!  However, seriously and truly, homeschooling is not for me.  I have a hard enough time getting through the 10-15 minutes of homework that they have while maintaining any kind of supportive and loving relationship with them. 🙂  It’s not the right choice for our family.

That advice got me thinking about how it is our natural reaction to want to hold on to things. We hold on to all sorts of things; things that are great and wonderful like our children, and things that are unhealthy or holding us back.   We don’t want to age, we don’t want our children to grow up, we don’t want our friend to move away, we don’t want to have to move ourselves, we don’t want to leave that job that is causing us so much stress, and on and on.  Wanting to hold on to things is not inherently bad until the wanting turns into grasping.  The truth is that all things, all stages, all circumstances in life are fleeting.  Sometimes that fleeting is welcomed because what we are experiencing is hard, or painful, and sometimes the fleeting itself is painful, because what we see drifting away was wonderful.  But the grief doesn’t mean that what’s happening is wrong, and we need to fix it.  The grief is an acknowledgment of change.  It is an acknowledgment that life will no longer be the same.

So I let go of my daughter’s hand this morning, and I smiled really big so that she would know that I’m excited; so that she would have permission to be excited too.  And then I walked away, and let the tears come.  Not because I made the wrong choice to send her, but because my baby is growing up, and that is filled with a beautifully mixed bag of emotions.  Just like it should be.

pic savannah

Knowing Your Strengths is Great, But Ignoring Your Weaknesses is Not!

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balanceAh, self-discipline.

How I hate that word.

I hate it because I’m bad at it.  It does not come easily for me – at all!

If you know me well, or have ever worked with me on something, then you know that I’m a big picture person.  I have a LOT of ideas, and usually they’re pretty good ideas.  However, ask me to follow up and implement those ideas from start to finish?  That might not a good idea.  That is, unless you want the idea half done.  If you want it half done, then I am your girl!!

There has been a push in the last 10 years or so to find out what you are good at, what your personality strengths are, and stick with that.  We had books like What Color is Your Parachute, endless possibilities for taking personality tests online (and I’m not talking about the buzzfeed “Which Disney princess are you?” tests – although those are fun!).  I’m talking about the Myers-Briggs, the DISC model, spiritual gifts inventories, and many others.

I think there is great value in knowing what your strengths and weakness are as a person.  We need all types of people working together to make things happen successfully.  If we only had big picture people, we would never get anything done.  If we only had people with good self-discipline and follow through, then we would have fewer inspired ideas.  However, this shift to truly understanding and working within your strengths has led some people to just sit in their comfort zone.  They know what they’re good at, and they are going to only do that.  It can become an excuse not to grow in areas where more balance does equal more health.

I absolutely believe that we are created with personalities, temperaments, strengths, and weaknesses that are important to know, and that living your life in your area of weakness is not healthy or smart.  However!! I also believe that there are certain areas of weakness that are important to tackle, and grow through.  If I can’t follow through on anything, that is only okay if there are others around me to pick up the slack.  Unfortunately, I don’t get to have a team of people in my life that follow me around doing that, although that would be awesome!

I’m going to let you in on a little secret now . . .

My desire to grow in self-discipline is part of the reason I started this blog.  I am horrible at following through on things.  I am horrible at sending out that follow-up email, sticking to my goals to spend time reading my Bible every day, keeping my house clean, being self-disciplined in eating healthy, getting that paper work done at work right away . . . I could go on and on, but really it’s already getting embarrassing.  So when I had the idea to start this blog, I told myself that no matter what, I was going to write once a week for a year.  Self-discipline.

Now I’ve already missed one week, and missing that one week gave me the perfect opportunity to bail on this.  I don’t like to “fail,” so if I think I already did, I’m quick to throw in the towel.  See?  No self-discipline. 🙂  But I haven’t, because this time I’m going to see this through, even when it is Sunday night and I have so many ideas of what to write about that I become paralyzed.  I will write something, because I am determined to grow as a more well-rounded person.

What I really want to do is instantly become self-disciplined in every area of my life.  Doesn’t that sound exactly like the statement of someone who isn’t very self-disciplined?? I want success, and I want it now!  But I am aware enough, and have walked with enough clients as they attempt to change their lives to know that trying to change too much, too fast sets me up for failure.  So I am going to work on all these areas, but my main focus, my main goal is going to be sticking with this blog.

3 steps

There is a generalization effect that comes with change.  Tackle one area of your life that needs improvement, and you will be amazed with how it slowly trickles into the other areas of your life.  You don’t have to grow all at once, because sometimes all it takes is a little growth in one area to really start to change.

And remember:
Perfection is not the goal!!
The goal is balance.
The goal is growth – slow and steady growth!