Present Over Perfect

If you follow me on instagram you know I'm reading Shauna Niequist's Present Over Perfect right now.  I love all of her books.  I pre-ordered this one and waited impatiently for it to arrive and I'm so glad it did.

I have read it constantly since Thursday and I'm almost finished.  I've read it standing up in my kitchen making lunches because I couldn't stop, didn't want to step away from the beauty of it.  I've also cried every time I've cracked the binding of that book and read a page.  

It's good crying, crying that needs to happen.  For a lot of years I didn't allow myself to really cry.  I would start to cry and stop myself.  I would tell myself I was fine, I could handle it...don't cry.  Whatever you do don't cry I scolded myself.  I'm not like that anymore.  I cry all the time about everything.  Matt is getting use to it because it's definitely a shift.  He came in our room the other night and I was folding laundry and crying at a commercial.  He just smiled and shook his head.  My sweet, understanding, often mystified husband. 

I needed this book at this point in my life because I'm on a path to finding out who I am.  Not who I am suppose to be, who others think I am or need me to be, or some perfect me, I'm working on figuring out me.  This path for me started in December.  I had post partum depression after Olivia and it cracked me wide open.  Then several huge life changing things happened, that to be honest I'm not ready to share with you yet.  It was a hard fall and winter but we made it through.  

What didn't survive was the very carefully constructed way I had operated in life.  The patterns, behaviors, coping mechanisms I had always counted on weren't working anymore. See I am a perfectionist, a doer, an over achiever a never, ever, ever give up devotee.  But after having my second child and all of the life events that slammed right in behind that beautiful event I fell apart.  There's a line in The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when one of the characters says "I dropped my basket".  That line went through my head about a million times this past year.  

One particularly hard day I cried, actually sobbed, to my dad on the phone.  I was driving and he made me pull over and I was crying in a way that neither of us really remember me ever crying.  I scared him, I know, with the depth of my despair.  I didn't tell him what I normally do which is something along the lines of I got this, I can take it etc.  That day I cried uncle, figuratively.  I said "I can't do this anymore" about a million times.  "Do what?" he said.  "Live like this." I said.  

And I couldn't.  I could no longer push and push and try to be perfect and try to be everything to everyone and completely ignore myself and my needs.  I could no longer pretend that I didn't have needs and that the only thing that mattered was that everyone else was happy.  Later that day I was on instagram and someone I follow posted a book called Spirit Junkie by Gabrielle Bernstein.  I don't remember what the caption said but something in me said order that book.  So I did.  

What I know in my soul is God will find a way to speak to you, to get your attention and sometimes that's through the power of social media (or it was in my case).  I think God had been trying to get my attention for sometime but I had become amazing at numbing, at not listening.  I believe the post partum was what I needed to stop, look around and listen.  Not to sound dramatic but the book changed my life.  In every way possible I needed someone to tell me to slow down, be still and take care of myself.  

Present Over Perfect is taking it a step farther for me.  I love Shauna because I so relate to her story.  I am a doer, a fixer, a hard worker and I've been rewarded and patted on the head for it all my life.  And like any good junkie I got my fix early and often.  The problem for me is that (like any junkie) the small hits started not being enough and I needed more and bigger approval.  I needed Matt to be happy and content so I could be, I needed Emily to sleep so I could sleep, I needed Olivia to be an easy baby so I could be easy on myself, I needed to be the best, #1 to feel even somewhat validated.  It was exhausting, unsustainable and I cracked, I dropped my basket.  

It's scary to drop your basket and to effectively walk away from the old patterns that you were so use too.  There's a small voice that will try to lure you back and say it's so much easier we know how to do it this way.  On a daily basis I tell that voice to fuck off (sorry for the language mom).  Because honestly that voice got me nowhere.  It's interesting, difficult, overwhelming and beautiful to actually live your life for you, period.  What this journey has taught me more than anything is the beauty of gratitude.  The ability to be grateful for what you have (not what you think you should) is an incredible, incredible thing.  Actually slowing down long enough to sit still and say thank you to God and the universe is worship in its highest form.

Everyday I wake up and I thank God for giving me another opportunity to get to know myself.  I thank Him for never, ever giving up on me and for gently leading me, to me.  I thank Him for life changing books, and the people that are brave enough to write them.  I thank Him for Matt because he has encouraged me like no one else on this journey.  He may not understand it but he allows me the freedom and the space to walk this path.  He is so much more than my husband and I will never stop thanking God for his presence in my life.  I thank God for my two beautiful, strong, sassy, daughters.  I am in awe of them.  They inspired this journey like no one else!  I started finding me for them and in the end realized once again this was for me.  They reap the benefits, thank goodness, but without them I never would have taken the time to find me.  Thank you for that my precious girls!  

All of this is to say...buy the book Present Over Perfect!  It will change your life if you let it.

xoxo





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