What is the opposite of an affirmation?
Getting Real about Life. Wonder Club Week 1
Hey, there friends,
This month in Living the In-Between Times we’re doing something a little different. A Wonder Club! Like a book club (yes, there’s a book involved) but much more interesting because we’ll be discussing the questions the book raises, trying to get to what the ideas in the book could actually mean for real-life people (aka moms trying to get dinner on the table).
Whether you’re reading Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts or not, I hope you’ll take some time to wonder along with us in the comments!
And the first four days of Meditations for Mortals produced a mountain of wonders for me this week!
What’s the current reading on your control-o-meter? Are there places in your life you especially tell yourself that success = control?
Is there a place in your life where you can just do something instead of masterminding/plotting to do the perfectly right thing?
Where in our lives are we telling ourselves “I have to do something” instead of doing what we want and intentionally choosing our consequences?
Which of these do you wonder about or wrestle with? I’ll meet you in the comments below for more juicy discussion!
Give up Hope
This quote, which was one of the most challenging ideas of the book for me so far, hit me in just the first few pages of the introduction.
Here at Living the In-Between Times, I write a lot about perfectionist mindsets. And I’ve met many people who tell me they don’t identify with the word “perfectionist.”
“I’m not a Perfectionist!” They’ll smugly intone, picturing some kind of Stepford, Martha Stewart wannabe who is constantly trying to appear as something they aren’t, forever seeking everyone else’s approval. And I suppose that is one kind of perfectionist. But it’s not the kind I’m talking about.
So often, we casually say, “Oh, I don’t expect things to be perfect! I’m happy to just go to work and do my thing and take care of my family and I know things won’t go perfectly!”
Then just as quickly, we get caught up in frustrations over how freaking bumpy and unruly life is, and fantasize about how things could be better (maybe even close to perfect?) “If only…”? If only I devoted just a little more time or energy to figuring things out, I could finally finally fix everything and it would be sooo much better!
We scheme and fret and turn our calendars into a patchwork quilt of color-coded blocks, then stamp our feet and throw ourselves on the couch to stuff our face with popcorn when we see that no matter what we do, we’re still so behind and “failing” to achieve All The Things.
Maybe that kind of perfectionism rings a bell?
Oliver Burkeman’s book suggests from the start that this suffering stems from a single thought error: thinking that our efforting can make life controllable. We humans tell ourselves that total success is within our grasp if only we try just a little harder. But life was never designed to be controlled, and total success is an illusion. If, instead, we start by accepting we’re NEVER going to be on top of things, that ‘figuring out our lives’ is a fantasy, then maybe we’ll start getting somewhere.
This resonated for me. My whole life I told myself I was the problem. If I could just fix myself, I thought, I’d finally be able to do it all better. I invested hundreds of hours and dollars in books and courses and retreats and journals. And while much of that led to worthwhile self-discovery, the truth I’ve needed to deeply accept in order to live with contentment is this: I’ll never fully arrive at Total Control.
And what does it look like to live daily life rooted in the truth that I’ll never fully arrive at Total Control?
I’m coming to think it means finding a way to live the very opposite of affirmations. Instead of spending every morning repeating, “I can be anything I want to be!” I have to spend some time with the radical thought, “I can’t and won’t ever be everything I want to be.”
Living this truth means making today’s plan and then letting my very first act, my first in-between time of the day—rinsing the dishes, pushing in all the dining table chairs my crew has left helter-skelter as usual, wiping last night’s spaghetti stains off the counter—become my peace of mind. Instead of constantly flinging my “success” out to some imagined future finish line, I bring accomplishment into this moment when I can—these words I’m crafting on the page, these steps I’m taking out my front door.
I’m coming to realize that accepting my limitations doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on my dreams, but rather, bringing those big feelings I’m hoping my dreams will bring me—contentment, pride, meaning—in closer, so I can feel them every day, right now, in the in-between cracks of my days.
As for the unrelenting firehose of tasks coming at me each day?
Well, I’ve taken to thinking about the sky at moments of overwhelm this week. Much like my to-do list, the sky is also infinitely vast, stretching beyond where I can fathom its ending. I can think of the sky and its infinitude as scary, threatening, bewildering, or frustrating. Or I can think of it as strangely comforting, the way that I can take the unending stream of stuff coming at me in my life to simply mean—I’m still here. Fully alive.
Which sometimes, can be all the peace of mind I need to keep on going.
Wonder Club Bonus Content!
I’ve asked some other writers around Substack to contribute their thoughts on our weekly Wonders! Here’s what the lovely
WHAT’S THE CURRENT READING ON YOUR CONTROL-O-METER?
Are there places in your life you especially tell yourself that success = control? What are your indicators that you are sliding into over-control mode?
Any practices you think help dial it down?
I can certainly see many places in my life where a desire for control is equated with success but the area that screams this is...parenting. There is so much about parenting culture today that is about control. From the time you are pregnant, you are given all these things you need to do to be in control and reduce risks, which is all well intended but sets you up as a parent in a certain posture of needing to control everything. And then when the baby is born the list continues. It becomes a constant pursuit of control to reduce risk with the hope that you arrive at "success". As kids get older, the risks we believe we are reducing are much more complex, ambiguous, and very often out of our control.
So as a classic overachiever, of course, I took to parenting hoping to control all the things and be a "successful" parent. Luckily, my children were up to the task to let me know they would not oblige. They have done an excellent job of showing me over and over, how not in control I am. It doesn't stop me from trying at times but I am much better about getting out of the way when I've slid into over-control. My oldest child, who is a voracious reader, recently asked me what genre of books I think his younger brother will like when he is his age. We wondered about it for a while. And then I said we will just have to wait and see. And what a wonderful thing, we will just have to see who this person is. That would be a helpful practice perhaps-- pausing and reminding yourself that we will have to wait and see.
Brilliant! Yes, Kathryn, we’ll have to wait and see!
(And be sure to join us for next week’s Wonder Club, when
chimes in with her genius practice for getting out of “productivity debt”!)What think you, Wonder Club? Chime in the comments below!
Such a meaningful idea and way to shift how we live. Now, as an elder at 71, I am finally coming home to my Self, who I've been all along but tried to shift and twist and bend to what I thought others wanted me to be. My self is imperfect, and very human. I've made many mistakes, and grown from them, and related to others with them. I've tried to hate myself into perfection. These daye I walk into the jury room in my head and talk with them, tell them it's ok to relax, that I know that they have been trying to protect me from the pain of others' judgment. I tell them they can let go, that we're ok just as we are. And that it's time for us to simply breathe. And be.
Love this Marika and thank you so much for including me!