What if instead of self-improvement I chose self-contentment?
On trying to find peace with who I am
Today’s art is me trying to, well, gather the inklings.
inspiration
What if instead of self-improvement I chose self-contentment?
contemplation
While I love finding a good quote, I’ve decided sometimes I’ll just share the inklings I am gathering along the way, which feels on brand given the name of the publication. For those of you who have been on the journey a minute, you know I keep talking about rest, mostly because I’m trying to share with you the very thing I’m struggling to give to myself. It’s like what I say about my preaching: I’m only ever preaching to myself. And, through all this rest talk, I am preaching to myself.
I can’t help but always try to “hack” rest, if you know what I mean. I try to find books about rest, or a 5 week program that promises I will be refreshed, or I will project a million different definitions onto rest, so I have a clear understanding of what “counts” as “truly restful.” This is, of course, the antithesis of rest for me, as it becomes more productivity, but now with lavender essential oils. Interestingly enough, in my pursuit of rest, I have become frustrated with how much rest is just… being. Being with myself, being inside my body, being able to trust that I know what I want to do with my time, and being able to trust that I will know when productivity shows up as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Amidst the trusting, the being, in terms of finding rest (and other things I say I want to do and don’t do) I struggle with what I call the barrier to entry. For example: I will decide I want hobbies, then think “what if I learned how to sew!” which inevitably results in me turning on Netflix, because the barrier to entry was too high for my energy level. While dream Erin really does want to win Project Runway, real Erin knows the idea of learning to sew always feels so big it is stressful, no longer fun, so it always sends me back to my same old haunts. It’s the same with food: I will act like I’m going to make this nice, complex meal for myself, go to the store to buy all the little condiments I will only use one tablespoon of, then ignore all those ingredients to eat convenience food every night, because at 5p.m. my “future winner of Top Chef” energy is gone due to the work from the day.
So then, in order to actually do any hobbies, or to fix myself a meal, I have to level with myself and ask: What’s the barrier to entry for this? And does it feel too high? This means abandoning my hopes of being a reality show competition winner in favor of getting a beginner craft box (that can be finished! or no craft at all to be honest) and budgeting for meal kits (and sometimes even those are too much). It might not sound like a huge shift, but choosing to accept myself, and be content with how I am wired, reduces my stress. It means I’m actually eating better meals than when I abandoned my fancy ones, and I’m genuinely looking forward to diving into this craft when it arrives (or looking forward to not thinking I have to do a craft in order to be resting).
But in order to feel more fully inside this self-contentment, I know I will have to leave behind self-improvement as a lifestyle, because it assumes an eternal working on myself that will not heal me. Yes, I need to stay attentive to my trauma, to my mood, to who I am becoming, to the eternal work of healing, but improvement is not the goal, because I am content with myself. Yes, I will continue to grow, but I will not hustle to try to become someone else, because I like who I am and refuse to forsake her. I choose to be with her.
Productivity, and the feeling that I need to become a better person, will sneak up on me — they always do — and I might even entertain the notion for a little bit. But just the entertaining of it will lead me back into the place of exhaustion, the place of burnout, the place where I have to face what I turned away from in the hustle: Myself. How I need care. How my body aches. How my self-improvement became self-abandonment.
And, because grace precedes and follows me, when I face myself I will see that I can come home to myself, as I always do.
reflection
What are some ways to care for yourself that have a really low barrier to entry?
programs & offerings
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book club
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