Welcome to The Pause, dear friend. Come on in and make yourself comfortable.
Y’all, I’d be lying if I told you things have been going swimmingly lately. Life has felt hard. I’ve been around long enough to know these tough times come and go, so I mostly feel grateful and lucky to have access to therapy and a therapist who reminds me of things like, “It feels hard because it is hard,” while I weather this current storm.
One thing I’ve felt really proud of this time around is how I’ve been doubling down on joy and taking care of myself. I’ve been going on longer walks with Rufus. I’ve been committed to going to bed early and staying away from screens at night. I’ve been communicating—what sometimes feels like excessively—with my loved ones about when I’m feeling tapped out or in need of help. I haven’t always been this way, so I appreciate just how much these changes have been supporting me and allowing me to keep my joy amidst struggle.
(it’s hard to stay gloomy while watching Ru frolic on the beach)
Along with joy, I’ve been doing my best to choose to lean into the love in my life. Joy and love seem like compatible lifelong friends, and I’m grateful to have done enough work on myself to know that both of them are powerful choices when faced with tough times.
So today, I want to use our pause to talk about just that: Joy, love, and how doubling down on them equates to self-preservation and self-love.
Settle in, take a deep breath, and get ready to pause in 3…2…1…
Lean into love
Lean into love.
That’s the phrase that keeps bubbling up from my heart to my throat when I find a moment of calm in this part of my life.
Lean into love.
I want to lean into love.
I have been taken by the undertow of the circumstances in my life too many times to want to choose anything else. Judgment. Criticism. Negativity. Anger. Frustration. I’ve been sucked under by them almost religiously when hard circumstances arise, and they rarely—if ever—have taken care of me.
Einstein told us, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Why should the approach to the hardships of my life be any different?
I listened to a podcast episode recently that discussed just how important joy, savoring, and love are when we’re in hard times. It talked about how we don’t typically think of joy as something we need to practice or seek out, but that it actually is. “The absence of suffering is not joy, it’s the absence of suffering.” As obvious a phrase that is, it’s profound.
Choosing to lean into love is not denying the reality of what’s really happening in my life or being blindly optimistic. It’s being able to love the ugly out of life. It’s a practiced skill that has the ability to yield relentless power. Life can throw me around—upside down, all over, and sideways—but it never, ever, has the power to take away my love.
⏸ Pause
Think of yourself in conflict. In times when life isn’t going the way you planned.
What would it feel like to lean into love?
I love you. Thanks for being here and for taking a moment for yourself.
Until next time, let’s keep choosing love.
🤍, L
I needed this today! Thank you for sharing! Love you. Sending you air hugs and lots of love!!!! To you and myself!
Beautiful. Thank you for the reminder that there is always room to lean into love!