Tag Archive for: rest

Creating not Becoming

/in ,

I’ve always been creative, but I’ve never been able to nail it down to one passion. I love acting, singing, decorating, writing-the list goes on and on. I love to create.

For so many years I thought I had to choose. How could I be all of those things? It didn’t fit into what I had been subconsciously absorbing since I was a little girl: that I had to choose something to be known for. Not to mention, that being known by others was of utmost importance.

Creating became a source of great pain for me throughout college and years after. It felt too hard. There was too much pressure, I couldn’t choose what I wanted to be the creator of. I retreated into myself. I was able to skate by using only the creativity I needed to create lesson plans for my preschool class and nothing much more.

Still the nudge to create kept seeping into every area of my life and I couldn’t stop it. I auditioned for a show, got in, and spent the next two years creating as an actress. It was glorious. And then I got pregnant, slowed down, and that desire to create onstage took a back seat to a different form of creativity-writing. For the first time in my life I was content with the switch. I wasn’t afraid I would lose theatre, I knew that would be there when I needed it. I didn’t feel like I was choosing, I felt like I was just cycling creativity to match my phases of life. It was unexplainably freeing.

This morning I am organizing and redecorating the house, which is one of my favorite creative outlets. Under our guest room bed I have been storing my keyboard and guitar, untouched for a few years. As I pulled them out from the dust bunnies, I felt that suffocating need to put these instruments to good use. My mind flipped over to schedule mode and I began to strategize how to get practice time in every day, setting goals to lead worship in church as a seasoned pianist. And then I stopped myself. This was all wrong. These are creative outlets, to be used as I desire, on my own time, in their own cycle. I can put them up in the guest room to be more accessible, but they are about creating, not becoming something more.

You see, there’s nothing wrong with becoming something. Goals are wonderful things, and sometimes we have to push ourselves to reach our goals. But for a perfectionist like myself who sets goals for everything, the importance of creating with no need to become anything is so important.

I challenge you my friends, to create to your hearts content without asking that you always become. Take a pottery class for no reason, or paint a watercolor of your backyard, no strings attached. The pressure for everything we do to be moving us towards “success” is exhausting. Creating allows us to be without needing us to become.

This New Person

/in ,

About 8 months ago I met two new people. One teeny tiny one that relies on me for everything. And one slightly bigger person who I’ve spent my whole entire life trying to figure out.

Me.

It’s interesting how you spend all this time preparing your heart and your home for this little person, and yet you can’t quite prepare yourself for the other person you will meet at the exact same time: yourself as a parent, and for me, a mom.

It’s not a negative, the exact opposite in fact. I thoroughly enjoy getting to know myself better. The ebbs and flows of life and constant transitions, though difficult, are also exciting. When I look back over my life, I see a series of new people sewn in with the old person I was, and what a beautiful tapestry it makes.

Now enough with the poetic writer stuff. My apologies. I expect you want the vulnerable, knitty gritty out of me right? Okay, I’ll do my best.

Trying to find your new sense of self while also taking care for a teeny person 24/7…not easy. Where I used to have a variety of ways to escape or care for myself emotionally, I now am only left with a few, and usually I am too tired to really pursue those.

Self love has taken on a little bit of a different feel these days. A warm cup of coffee in the afternoon, a nap while she naps, a quick workout before she needs to be fed again. Everything feels a little bit rushed, with a baby waiting at the end of every activity. I must try so very hard to rest.

Well crap. Because resting has never been my strong suit. I’ve never been a good napper, mediator, lie around all day-er. Productive is the only thing that feels right to me. Hilariously, now I am a mom, so productive goes right out the window. A day where laundry gets done but the rest of the house is a wreck is a win. A shower every three days is a win. A blog post written on a weekday is a win. A few moments journaling about my hopes and dreams-MAJOR WIN.

When I take a step back, I am the same me I have always been, with just a few little changes. And I have to work hard to remember that when it feels as though my life is nothing like it was, that I am a totally different person, I am just me, with a baby. And maybe the seasons of my life look a little different, and I have to spend my “free time” more wisely than I once did. But maybe it’s a gift to be forced into intentionality. To be given a reason to fight against day to day melancholy as I play blocks on the floor for yet another hour.

I’m still in there. There’s just a teeny person clinging to my hip. And I would take one toothy grin over a weekend on stage, or a 5 mile run, or a full night of sleep. Those things will come again, but for now, this is my beautiful, messy, exhausting life. And I am the same Lizz living in it.

Photography by Lexi Fazzolari. Cover photo by Ashley Sider

Naps Change Everything

/in , , ,

I’m obsessed with sleep these days. Constantly thinking about my warm comfy bed, or more often, how to get lulu to stay asleep long enough for me to close my eyes. She’s a professional sleep fighter like her mama. Not sure why, but sleep feels like letting go, which is hard for me, and apparently my poor daughter has inherited her mother’s odd sleep habits. Sorry babe!

But oh how a good nap soothes the soul, both hers and mine. We’re different people when we rest, kind and gentle. When I’m tired, I can barely make a sandwhich, I snap at everyone, use flowery language because no filter. I’m really a mess without sleep.

It’s gotten me thinking a lot about rest. How our culture leads us away from true rest, and yet how much we all need it. I don’t know about you, but I get anxiety when I don’t have my phone. For years before we had Lilah, I needed the TV on to fall asleep. The quiet rest is what is missing. It’s hard to shut off our brains isn’t it? A little boring to meditate or sit in silence. One of the reasons I love to run is because it’s a rest for my soul, yet my body is still moving. I think that’s as close to real rest as I’ll ever get.

But I wonder how our lives would change if we rested more. And I don’t mean naps or Netflix binges (although nothing wrong with a little Greys anatomy). What I mean is a break from all the noise. Driving to work without the radio, doing chores with just our minds to occupy us, taking a walk with just ourselves-phone away. As silly as it sounds, many of us are fearful of being alone with ourselves. Our thoughts and feelings can feel scary or overwhelming. But it’s a disservice to not know ourselves. Every corner of our heart and minds should be explored. How can we love well if we don’t take the time to rest and know who we truly are?

In a world where there is so much noise, so much doing, so much chaos, my soul craves true rest. I find myself floundering when I can’t find that. And while I know true rest is found in the presence of God, I also know that the noise all around me makes it hard for me to hear God, see God, follow God. And sometimes I’m too angry about life’s hardships to seek and so I just rest, and that is enough.

Connection to self is connection to God. Knowing God is knowing self.

Even if the sight of the word God on this page makes you cringe and roll your eyes. Know that is my journey and my truth. Whether you bring God into it or not, rest your soul today.

Mom Expectations-No Thanks

/in , , , , , ,

Yesterday I got out of the house AND took a shower! Double win!  I spent my time out getting myself a 2018 planner because I’ve been without one for over a week now and I’m barely surviving (type A personality problems). When I am out on my own, I feel like I can breathe again. Lilah needs so much from me that sometimes I don’t even realize that I’ve neglected myself until there’s someone else watching out for her and I can just take a minute to be fully in my body. I don’t know whether it’s my own personality, or the pressure of our culture, or just this overall sense of fear that these moments will disappear and I won’t be able to get them back, but I often feel mom expectations strangling me.

It started when I was pregnant. The pressure to adorably capture every single week with a bump picture was suffocating. I never remembered, and part of me just didn’t care about doing it. But I would see other pregnant friend’s posts on social media and I would immediately panic because I wasn’t doing that. Was I missing something? Was I neglecting to capture these memories for my baby girl? And now she’s here, and the pull to capture every little moment, and document every smile, is even stronger. Sure I take a lot of pictures (have you seen that sweet little face?), and I journal most days and include Lilah milestones in that, but not a lot of planned memory capturing going on here. Of course I had high hopes going into this mama thing that I would create an organized online photo album and write all about Lilah’s day every single evening. But instead, our pictures of Lilah are hanging out somewhere in the cloud, and sleep is much more important to me at night than anything else.

Yesterday afternoon, after a particularly panicky moment in regards to my failure to organize my daughter’s memories, I found myself thinking about what is important to me from my childhood. My amazing mom kept journals and calendars for us and it really is fun to see what I was doing 2 weeks after birth, but honestly I can count on one hand the amount of times I have looked at those. But that picture of me running down the beach in my duck bathing suit? I look at that all the time. And that blanket I slept with until I was 10? It houses more memories than I can even explain. And above all else the most important things have been the things my parents taught me. The hours and hours a day my mom spent teaching me to read and write my name. The evenings when my dad would come home and wrestle with us until we could barely breathe we were laughing so hard. Those things above all else, I hold onto.  The other stuff, while sweet and fun to look at, isn’t a must. I don’t have to do it, and Lilah will be okay, I will be okay.

When wrestling against a certain expectation, I always ask myself if this would be important to the Ingalls family (you know, Little House on the Prairie). And what I mean by that is, was it something that they needed to survive or be happy? It’s my favorite way of bringing myself back to the basics. What do I need here? What does Lilah need here? Is this thing I am obsessing over really all that important? Did Ma and Pa keep endless memory boxes for Laura and her siblings? Nope. They didn’t even have photographs then and yet no one cared that they didn’t know what they looked like as a baby. And I bet that Ma spent way more time experiencing and way less time documenting. And hey, that’s not to say that I’m not going to bask in the beauty that is modern technology, but I’m sure I can learn a few things from the way that they lived their lives.

While I know I will forever battle these expectations of momhood- which bottles to use, or if co-sleeping is safe, or should you really give an infant Tylenol before shots-I am working every day to  create experiences whether I capture them forever or not. Documenting events will not be my obsession, but experiencing them. Lilah may not have a neat little picture album, and the journal of her first year of life may be filled with her mama’s own struggles and insecurities, but I will make sure that she has beautiful, challenging, comforting memories to hold onto for her entire life.

An Open Letter To Myself On A Wednesday In February

/in , , ,

You are enough. You are enough. You are enough.

Hold onto that truth.

I know it feels like the world is spinning too fast and you can barely see straight in front of you. But keep moving forward. One step at a time. Moment by moment.

Deep breaths, baby steps. You got this.

Give yourself SO much grace.

Love yourself in every way you know how.

You can do hard things. You’ve always been able to.

You are not alone. Never have you ever been. The God of the universe is holding you in His hands. Can you believe it? He’s got you, there is nothing to fear! Lean into Him, let Him take it all from you.

Rest.

You are okay.

Nothing that you do or do not do defines you.

You are enough, just as you are.

Now snuggle into a million fluffy blankets, breathe deeply, and rest.

For you are so loved and you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

 

 

 

Resting In The Arms That Won’t Let Go.

/in , ,

I opened my computer today to finish an article for Deliberate Magazine, and I couldn’t. I sat for an hour with my fingers on the keys, willing myself to remember how to string words together, yet I couldn’t remember how.

That’s always how I know that my heart needs to write about something else.

My heart is heavy today.

I have always been pretty good at tricking myself into thinking that I am in control of my life.

And then every once and a while, life hits me like a ton of bricks and I realize, once again, that I am not.

The heaviness that reminds me I am not in control, has become so beautiful to me.

I know it sounds odd. Heaviness is painful, not beautiful. But for me, the heaviness leaves me no choice, but to surrender. I cannot hold it on my own, and so I no longer am able to pretend that I am in control. I can exhale into the truth that I cannot do it on my own.

I prefer it this way really.

I don’t want to run through life on adrenaline, caffeine, and pride. I want to sink into the arms of my Savior. I want to release all that life hands me to Him.

So as I sit here, saddened by the pain of a suffering loved one. I am clinging to Jesus in a way that I have not for many months. And I am so thankful for the heaviness that reminds me of His presence, His goodness, His love for me.

Maybe one of these days, It won’t take so much heaviness for me to rest in the arms of my Savior. But regardless, I know He won’t let go.

 

 

 

Let It Snow.

/in , ,

It seems as if time has stopped and everything is on hold.

The snow is still falling steadily outside my window. The few objects left in the storm’s way have taken on obscure shapes as the snow piles on their surfaces.

On most snow days I would bake some ooey, gooey cinnamon rolls for Eric and I, brew up some coffee, and enjoy a late breakfast. But today, I have made yeast free, sugar free, grain free blueberry muffins that may or may not be edible when they come out of the oven.

I have been on a strict diet for a few weeks now and will be for a few months. It’s main purpose is to rid my body of some bad bacteria that got out of control and is taking over. It’s nothing serious but it is a royal pain, not to mention a first world inconvenience. So for now, no cinnamon rolls for me.

It’s always quite interesting when you have to monitor what you eat. For someone with a history of an eating disorder, it’s like walking a tight rope. Monitor every little thing you put in your body, read and re-read packaging to make sure you can eat that. But don’t become too obsessed. Life, once again, revolves around food, and I am suddenly very aware of how different I am from that girl 8 years ago. Stronger, wiser, gentler with myself.

These past few months have been a series of triumphs and setbacks, medical bills we can’t afford, treatments that did nothing, a spirit crushed with fatigue and hopelessness. But it has also been filled with the grace of God, the power of His goodness, the blessing of His people surrounding us.

Life hits all at once. That’s just how it works. No sooner have you begun treading water again after a near drowning and another wave hits. But i’m learning that it’s not about getting out of the way of the waves,  it’s about learning to ride with them. And I have found the only way to keep afloat when riding gigantic waves is Jesus.

And so I praise Him today for his goodness, his faithfulness. I praise Him for the times life is beautiful and for the times it is too messy to untangle.

I thank him for this snow, this forced break.

It’s His permission to us to stop trying so hard and to just be for a little while.

All we can do is sit and watch it unfold all around us. We can’t control it, we can’t stop it. It’s out of our hands.

So let it snow.

Let it snow.