winter 2022: what I’m learning and loving
I fell off the blogging wagon – obviously! I typically like to do an end of the year reflection on my own and in this space, but this January was rough and February wasn’t much better. So, instead, I’m going to share what I can recall of what I’ve been loving and learning from the past winter instead of forcing myself to stick to the typical program. This is actually a big part of what I learned in 2021: asking myself what would it be like to let things be easier, gentler, softer.
What I’m loving
Outlander. Part of why January was such a drag was that I was sick for most of it. Because I wasn’t sleeping well, I got totally sucked back into the Outlander series. I had given up a few years ago around book five, but for whatever reason, I picked it back up one restless night and ended up bingeing through the remaining books (except I’m still on hold for the newest one at the library). It was a fun distraction to get swept back up in an epic story.
Martin Shaw. As I mentioned several months ago, I’ve been following my curiosity down the rabbit hole of myth, and I can’t get enough of Martin Shaw. I wish I could buy everyone I know a copy of his book, Smoke Hole, as we navigate together what a new living-with-Covid might look like. I’ve been binging him on other people’s podcasts, loving this series that he did, and I subscribed to his Substack, which has already been worth the price.
Concept 2. We splurged and bought ourselves one of these after Christmas because we have a rule at our house that it’s almost always worth spending money on things that 1) get us outside more and/or 2) getting us moving more. I’ve long loved incorporating rowing into my gym workouts, but our family’s schedule in this season has made gym workouts a bit harder to get to. It has been really great having our own rower in our family room, where we can easily add some movement throughout our day. I researched lots before buying, and we settled on the gold standard because we plan on using this thing for at least the next 30 years.
What I’m learning
Go softer. From a young age, I’ve been rewarded for hard work, competence, and general “good girl-ness.” These days, I think all of those things are vastly overrated in our culture, which doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits to those things; just that I don’t think they’re the peak of human achievement that I’ve been led to believe. However. The tentacles of those values run deep and untangling them will probably take the rest of my life (and then some). One question I’ve been asking myself as a way of dismantling some of these achievement-obsessed identities is to ask myself: could I try doing this thing a little softer? Could I do this thing with a little more ease? Could I let good enough be good enough? If we are, as I believe, made good from the very beginning, we have to let go of the idea that our worth comes from what we do instead of who we inherently are. Asking myself if I could go softer helps remind me of my own inherent worth – and that spills over to how I treat others too.
Something is always better than nothing. The all-or-nothing mentality (of which I am a MASTER) is toxic to growth. Ebbs and flows of energy, rest, and growth are natural. Thinking anything worth doing is worthless unless I do it 100 percent perfectly is not only a waste of time and energy, but just dumb, frankly. Nature shows us that growth isn’t linear in various ways every day and certainly over the course of a season. We are nature, so why would we be any different?
On the need for humility. I said here that “all of the great faith traditions boil down to growing in your practice of gratitude, presence, and humility.” I think that’s true more today (especially after these Covid years) than I did when I originally wrote it. But I think we sell humility short because we have this idea of it meaning lowly or putting everyone before yourself.
The original word comes from the Latin word for earth, soil, or ground. Father Richie reminds us that “The word ‘human’ comes from the Latin humus, which means earth.” He goes on to say, “Being human means acknowledging that we’re made from the earth and will return to the earth. We are earth that has come to consciousness. … And then we return to where we started — in the heart of God. Everything in between is a school of love.”
Cultivating humility, then, is a practice in rooting ourselves to the ground beneath our feet, reminding ourselves from where we came and to where we’ll return, and trusting that the world needs us to be more fully ourselves, not less. We aren’t here, planted on this bit of earth, to do anything less than be as truly ourselves as possible.
I would love to hear, as always, what you’ve been loving and learning lately in the comments!
