Do I believe my own message?

Confessions of an Overthinker:

I’m not sure I believe my own message enough to wear the shirt.

Ok, so yeah, I bought it and I’m going to wear the shirt. It’s soft, gorgeous, the best kind of warm in wintertime, and… most of me believes the message it is (and I am) sharing.

(And for now, we can avoid the discomfort – wink wink – of a conversation about my tendency to impulse buy clothing.)

The message caught my eye and resonated with me instantly.

“If it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive.”

What could possibly be the problem with that message in our type A, over-achiever, go go go, sacrifice yourself culture?

I’m SO glad you asked! (says the Overthinker, who is also a bit of an OverExternalProcessor, and therefore is quite often eager to share, like an Oversharer might.)

I truly do value personal peace. To me, this means a sense of being responsible to one’s self, and the choices we make; in honoring our own boundaries, and knowing at the end of the day, that we’ve lived in a way that aligns with their values. And if we haven’t, there’s room for self-compassion and forgiveness.

But I also truly value the discomfort that urges us forward, out of our comfort zone, and into potentially powerful and transformative experiences.

And simply put, that kind of seems like the opposite of peace.

So I guess this begs the question: Is growth the goal or is peace the goal? Does one prevent the other? Can I value both? Can I somehow have both?

I have identified with wanting and needing both.

Looking back, in my just out of college, early marriage, pre-kids days, I erred on the side of being kind of hardcore. It was always about challenging myself to do the front-line work, living my values, stretching my assumptions, and putting myself out there.

I was proud to do that and thought more people should do that.

If I got hurt, or taken advantage of it, I could see it as a lesson and it usually merged into my understanding of my faith.

After a while, I burned out. It lost some of it’s meaning. I lost my energy supply.

It was ESSENTIAL that I discover self-compassion and how forgiving myself factored into the times I was too exhausted to hit the front lines (and in turn, let myself down).

I needed to learn to say “no” to the world’s demands, to pick and choose instead of trying to do it all.

As I got a little older (and became a parent and needs transformed and values shifted), I needed to re-examine some of my values, and realize a job was a job and I didn’t have to sacrifice my days and sanity for it.

It was TOO expensive.

And I had to learn how to reconcile that too, revisiting my sense of self and how self-compassion factored into that.

And as those years with my kids have gone by – not that it’s without sacrifice – I’ve been thankful I can have them as a priority.

But I’ve also had these urges to absolutely blow up the day-to-day routine, and stretch myself, and get back out there, and change things up because I feel my life is in a rut.

But the “cost” of that also feels so big that I find I can fall into worshiping a sense of peace via choosing avoidance.

On this last Sunday, in church, this prayer hit me hard:

Spirit of God, turn us away from the worship of comfort. Give us
strength in this season to say “no” to paths that are easier but do not lead us into life.

That resonated too. I perceived the timeline of my life and how in some ways, things have swung from one extreme to the other for me.

I could clearly see my own tendencies to put things off, live in the day to day blur of routine, wallowing in a self-made rut, almost detatched from the values I used to hold up so high.

Ugh.

How’s that for peace?

These seemingly opposing thoughts definitely in me speak to different periods of my life.

But in an odd way, writing this all out, I see this tug and pull may not point to a simple or put-your-feet-up peace, but it does point to a on-going value of growth… and can that in turn…

… at the end of the day…

bring me a sense of peace?

Can I trust where I am now?

With an ear turned to growth?

And the other turned to grace and self-compassion and … peace?

I want to.

I like that.

It’s not an easy answer, of course – you KNOW that I almost never leave a blog post with “easy answers” – but it may be a way to recognize how seeking and growing might be able to give me a sense of peace at the end of the day.

I’m complicated like that. 😉

And if you are too, welcome. It’s good to know we’re not alone, right?