How Brené inspired my self-help hiatus
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Earlier this year, when the weather was warmer, I tried to run outside a few days a week.
So one morning, I’m running and I realize I miss what Brené just said in the podcast about the gifts of imperfection. I am thinking instead. Wondering about a writing prompt I’d just been given:
Rewind.
I am thinking I should stop and rewind, catch something more about vulnerability or shame, or whatever it is she’s talking about with her sisters.
But instead of rewinding, I hit upon the a-ha moment, my answer to the prompt. Somewhere near the corner of Kenwood and Downer, while I jog in place, waiting for a car to pass, I wonder:
What could I have done with all the time I’ve spent self-helping myself? If I could rewind and get those hours back, the ones I spent reading the gurus who tell me how to be my best self, who could I really be?
I start trying to figure the math. How many books, how many minutes of podcasts, how many online courses, how many meditations, how many 7-day challenges, how many pages and pages of journal entries. If it started when I was in my teens, how many hours have I spent on self-improvement?
It’s been my constant companion, this quest to be a better human.
I pick up the pace because now I am kind of angry. (Though of course, I know that anger is merely a guidepost, and I really need to examine what is behind that anger). Screw you, Wellness Industry, I say in my head, thinking about the gurus like Brené and Glennon and Deepak and Oprah and all the other first-name-is-enough titans who rule this market.
Somewhere in the background, Brené and her sisters are laughing, but I am now making a new pledge to myself. Enough. And not just “you ARE enough,” which sounds decidedly like something Brené might say to me. But just straight up ENOUGH. Enough with the self-help manuals, enough with the self improvement, enough (let’s be real here) with the guilt that comes with returning the books to the library, mostly unread. (I'm looking at YOU Martha Beck and Eckhart Tolle).
Maybe this is what happens at middle age. If - in my twenties and thirties - I was like a sponge, soaking it all up (Miracles? Laws of Attraction? Core Desire Feelings? Angel cards? Vision Boards? YES - I WANT IT ALL) … maybe now I am saturated and cannot take anymore. I know enough to survive. I do not need any more (self) help.
What if instead, I read fiction, went for bike rides, set up coffee dates with friends, planned parties, joined organizations I care about, ate more chocolate, read the newspaper, wrote that novel. What if I stopped concentrating on how to make myself a better person and just did better things?
I’m almost up the Water Tower Hill now and I've had enough with this podcast again. They're talking about joy, and about how it is not joy that makes us grateful but in fact, the other way around, gratitude that makes us joyful. And I’ve heard this before. I'm pretty sure they're plagiarizing Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Catholic theologian, and not even giving him credit.
Somehow rolling my eyes gets me up the last part of the hill a little faster. I’m tired, but not from the run.
Enough, I say to myself at the top of the hill where I pause to take in the view of Lake Michigan.
I switch off the podcast, and let the birdsong carry me home.
How have I not noticed they’ve been singing all along?
Now, I totally understand the irony creating my own challenges and offering my own e-courses - like the one I’m running now with my friend and coach, Shelly Roder. The one full of incredible women taking 21 days with us to pause and recalibrate before the holidays. I get the irony, I do. But I think there’s something about doing things in community. Instead of ‘self’ help, it becomes ‘we’ help, or more accurately, ‘we’ inspire, or ‘we’ encourage or ‘we’ witness. Because ultimately, that’s what we’re doing when we come together in community. And it feels SO much better than reading skimming a self-improvement book on my own.
Lately, it’s been the people who are DOING cool things that have been inspiring me the most. For example:
My brave friend Angie is trying her hand (or should I say feet?) at stand up comedy! (Get it?? feet, stand up, comedy? Wahwahhhh, I’ll leave the stand up to her! At Second City no less!)
My friend Laura created a spiritual care practice that helps people tend their soul and their city (genius!)
My friend Kelly regularly gets her groove on - on roller skates (!) and grows her own micro-greens (seriously, cool! and btw, that's her holding up the moon in the picture!)
My friend and chef Nell is working on her second cookbook!
My friend Emily opened a wine bar in the middle of a pandemic. (Who does that?)
My writer friends Kate and Christi teach incredible classes online
My friend Sara inspires me with her gentle spirit through (online) yoga and writing
My other friend Sarah created a TV show for kids and is pitching it to major networks! (you better believe I will link to this when it's out!)
These are the people who've been inspiring me to “do better things.” (Is it weird that I just quoted myself?) Remember, action begets action!
Whose actions are inspiring you of late? What are you doing? I’d love to hear so I can shout you out too! Also - saying the scary things out loud is good! It makes them more real. Plus real = possible!
(and you don't have to have a hyperlink to be inspiring!) Go on!
P.S. Watch this space for more ways to connect in 2022. Shelly and I have SO many ideas up our sleeves already …
P.P.S. Lest there is any confusion, I mean no disrespect toward Brené ... I still do love her and have her new book on my Christmas list. Hiatuses are by definition, a short break, right? (actually, the dictionary says "a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process" ... how appropriate ... a PAUSE!) 😊
