SUSTAINABLE

In my post on being committed to morning pages, I wrote something that I want to clarify and re-examine. This is the beauty of taking everything here as compost – it is meant to be stirred and cultivated to release all the nutrients.

This question is both true and gets under my skin: how many things have we committed to because we’re told “it’s good for us” and yet it feels absolutely terrible?

Some things are good for us, and actually feel good. Drinking water comes to mind. Taking vacation, moving my body, doing internal work and going to therapy, and getting enough sleep all fit that bill. And yet, there are plenty of other ways that I did what someone else said would be good for me, and it ended up being extremely harmful – partly because I was given the tool but lacked instructions on how to use it in a healthy and helpful way. 

Here’s how this has played out, too many times to count, in my life: I start something, and either go at it too hard right out of the gate or don’t give myself enough space – time and kindness – to be a beginner, and then I quit because it doesn’t feel good. Or I take it to an extreme because I think if I just really commit to it, and go all in to the point of obsession, it will be the thing to change my life.

I’m thinking of the way I was taught to practice for hours on end, the years of working seven days a week because hustling was the way to climb a corporate ladder or build a successful business, the years I spent running (my body is NOT made for running) and doing hours of cardio, and the numerous diets and “lifestyle changes” I tried to make throughout my teens and twenties. Some of those attempts fall into my struggle with disordered eating and body control, but they all started from a place of wanting some version of success and trying to follow conventional wisdom to get to where I thought I wanted to go.

Conventional wisdom is really good at telling us what might be effective, but it kinda sucks at suggesting sustainable ways to get what you want or need.

Sustainable feels good. It’s easy, gentle, and satisfying. And by nature of feeling good, it encourages showing up over and over again…which actually makes it effective.

I’ve found that so many of the ways we’re told to do something effectively are also really shaming. They use shame as a motivational tool. I can’t participate in systems or religions or groups that do that because it’s taken too much work to undo that damage.

I crave a life that is sustainable in every way. Maybe it’s the part of me that burned out speaking, but I’ve learned the hard way that pushing, hustling, starving, depriving, restricting, and ignoring the pain and emotions isn’t sustainable over time. It’s effective, and we’re told in various ways that those things are good for us, but I can no longer keep up the charade that the trade off is worth it. I need pleasure, I need relaxation, I need space, and I need to feel alive.