Joy in the midst of the storm

Making peace with self-care

Dear friends—

Thank you for being here. Today, no matter what else is happening, I’d like to encourage you to take a moment for self-care. It is so worth it. You are so worth it.

And if reading Sandwich Season feels like self-care to you, read on. Because that’s the topic of the day.

All my best to you and yours,

Sarah

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“Sometimes God calms the storm, but sometimes God lets the storm rage and calms the frightened child.”

Rabbi Harold Kushner, The Lord is My Shepherd

I heard this quote last weekend at a memorial service for a friend and mentor of mine, John Q. Paulsen, who passed recently at age 95. He was a prominent community leader who emanated a calm, respectful demeanor no matter what issues were sparking around him.

I should know. For a few years, he was a key source on my beat when I was city hall reporter for my hometown newspaper. I watched John Q. listen intently to testimony, guide board members, and bring wisdom and good humor to conversations—and conflicts—as chair of the city planning commission and a leader in various other civic groups.

Despite his busy schedule, he was almost always available to answer questions and fill me in on the background of various process and projects. Even after I left my reporting job and moved away, he stayed in touch, always making time for lively conversations over coffee when I returned for visits home.

John Q. Paulsen

Sitting in his memorial service, I wondered, How did he do it?

Certainly some people are born with a calm temperament. But as friends described John Q., whose life story included the grief of losing his wife and a son, something else started to become clear to me: So many stories revolved around the fun he had. Tennis games and golf. Cocktail hours and dinner parties. A late-in-life discovery of the local symphony orchestra. The pontoon boat he captained, taking friends and family speeding across the lake.

John Q. showed what calm can look like in the midst of life’s storms and busyness. Perhaps he was able to do that because he balanced the losses and worries of this world with what we call “self-care.”

Caring for ourselves

The term self-care feels loaded to me. First, it can sound like Just One More Thing to Do. I’m helping out my dad, I’m overseeing my son’s activities, I’m working with my husband on home improvements, I’m caring for the dog … now I have to carve out time for myself? Great, thanks, I’ll add that to the list.

Second, the idea of doing something special for myself in the midst of all this can feel selfish. My world feels like it’s spinning off its axis, everyone else is busy with something, and you’re saying I should roll out my yoga mat? What if somebody sees me?

One way I make peace with the idea of self-care is by repackaging it in a different term: “benevolent selfishness.”

Those words popped into my head during another much earlier challenge, when I began to realize that if I didn’t take care of myself, I would be unable to recognize—or care as much about—the distress of others. I found that the happier and better rested I was, the more love and care I had available to give.

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Dad’s epiphany

My dad is not exactly the King of Self Care. In his career as an English professor, he not only taught classes, sat on committees and chaired various groups at the college, he also took on additional work. He ran a large annual conference on reading and writing, did extension teaching for teachers across the state, wrote multiple series of textbooks and other nonfiction books, and studied poetry. I used to half-jokingly make him practice repeating after me, saying the word “no,” “nnnnno,” “noooooooooo.”

It never really took. More recently, as he cared for my ailing mom, he insisted he was strong enough to do it on his own, in addition to caring for the house. For a long time, he resisted the idea of bringing in caregivers or cleaners, or moving into a retirement community.

But the other day, six months after losing my mom and five months after suffering a stroke, Dad and I had a conversation about the idea of self-care.

“We’re told, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’” he began. “Not ‘Love your neighbor better than yourself.’”

Whoa, Dad, I thought. That sounds dangerously like self-care evangelizing.

Dad

It is easy to take Jesus’ words from Mark 12:31—“Love your neighbor as yourself”— and focus on what we can do for others. When we see our friends and family members in a raging storm of life, we buy them flowers, we make them hotdish or soup, and we release them from extra commitments.

But what Dad was getting at the other day is that sometimes it’s important to look at things the other way around. Are we being as kind to ourselves as we are to those around us?

Committing to joy

Early in Jon’s and my journey of parenting Max, whom we adopted at age 3, I recognized that we weren’t going to be able to parent him without help. The opposition and tantrums were unlike anything either of us had ever experienced.

Living near Portland, Oregon, at the time, I found a therapist who specialized in the dynamics of the adoption triad: birth parents, adoptive parents, adopted child. Gail Hardman-Woung offered a calm space and wisdom born of her own experience adopting three children and working with many other families.

After several sessions with Max, she reflected that he might not be ready for therapy. Turning her penetrating gaze on me, she suggested in her gentlest voice, “How about we work on you for a little while?”

What? Me?

Surprising as it was, this was the moment I’d been waiting for. No one had ever put me on the couch. I was that (mostly) well-adjusted child, strong daughter, capable friend who helped others. They say that sometimes we’re the ones carrying the stretcher, and sometimes we’re the one on the stretcher. I had always felt more comfortable being a carrier. Now someone was offering to carry … me?

At the time, I was losing weight, losing sleep, frantically trying to figure out parenthood. Gail’s first goal was to nudge me into some solid self-care. One of the first things she suggested I do was make a list of fifty things that would bring me joy. Fifty! Then she prescribed that I do a dozen of those each day.

I don’t know that I ever completed the list—fifty seemed like a surprisingly large number. But I did start a blog titled 50 Joys—because for me, writing is a form of self-care. That blog inspired me to keep my eyes peeled every day for something that brought me joy. In the evening, after we put Max to bed, I would add the images I’d captured or a few thoughts to my blog.

Looking back this week, I found one of my favorite “joy” entries, from August 2011, which I titled “Pea-pod toes.” Here is one of the images. (Click here to see the slideshow on 50 Joys):

Max’s toes and a peapod we grew in our garden. See the resemblance?

Nearly thirteen years later, that little moment still makes me smile.

The other day, I read “Double the Joy: a Strategy for Spiritual Self Care” by hospital chaplain Christine Vaughan Davies. She writes,

One mindset that helps me is the idea of Doubling the Joy! Since hospital chaplains are exposed to more sadness than the average person, I teach my students that we need to seek out equally more joy. Even if it feels forced or corny, we need to balance out the hard things with the joyous ones.

I think this applies to those of us in stressful times of life, like sandwich seasons. What would it feel like to pursue joy with double the gusto? To:

• Do the yoga.

• Watch the funny movie.

• Read a few pages from the silly book.

• Go for a walk with your favorite human.

• Run with the dog.

• Watch the birds.

• Doodle.

• Call the friend.

• Enjoy the funny reel on Instagram.

• Look at the wall.

• Eat the chocolate.

• Breathe.

Those are twelve possibilities. Gail would probably tell me to add thirty-eight more to the list! And I suspect John Q. would agree.

Because I’m guessing joy-seeking behavior is a form of self-care that helps us find a sense of calm in the midst of our raging storms.

Found on a recent run with Leo the dog: a reminder to just be

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Share your thoughts

What does self-care look like for you?