What if HAPPY wasn't the goal?


Hear me out on this. 

I've spent most of my life chasing after happy. Thinking that happiness was the ever elusive cure for all of my other uncomfortable emotions. Assuming that finding my own version of happy would be the end to my ongoing depression and anxiety. As if happiness was nothing more than just the eternal absence of depression and anxiety.

Spoiler alert! Happiness is an emotion, which means it comes and goes just like every other emotion. So the problem with pursuing happiness was that I tried to block out all of the less desirable emotions along the way. The thing is, you can't selectively block emotions. To block out emotion is to become numb and you can't numb sadness without numbing joy. It's a slippery slope.

I'm finding that the key to embracing happiness is to actually make space for all of my other emotions in the process. I can bask in the happiness when it's present, but when it inevitably passes I must also give room to the less comfortable emotions that move in to fill that space. In time, I know that they will pass as well and leave more room to let the happiness back in.

The beauty of letting go of happiness as my only goal is that I've discovered a more worthwhile pursuit for contentment and gratitude in its place. When I'm anxious or sad, I'm not in a place to feel happy; but I can feel content and I can reach for gratitude. The goal of contentment and gratitude allows me to find peace in the midst of any emotion.

Parenting with Grace

In my efforts towards living with more intention and purpose, I've spent a lot of time evaluating what my values and long-term goals are. In my motherhood, this has been especially true.

One thing I've definitely noticed is that when I'm only going through the motions--trying to simply get through the day or get to the next item on our agenda--then my main focus tends to be on my children's obedience. Stress levels are high, patience levels are low, and tension is often building. This is when I tend to be short, demanding, and easily frustrated with my kids. In these situations, my brain translates my children's slowness to obey into a reflection of their character. (i.e. "I told you to put your shoes on and get in the car! Why can't you listen? Now we're going to be late.") My focus here is situational and my feelings towards my child are dictated by one single thing he/she did or didn't do. This is not intentional parenting. It is also not a true reflection of what deeply matters to me or how I truly feel about my child.

Blind, swift obedience is not actually a character trait that I am trying to instill into my children. When I list the things that I most hope to cultivate in my future world shapers, obedience does not even make the list. So why then does obedience so often feel like the goal? For me, the answer is selfishness. My life is simply easier when they obey my commands immediately and exactly. But I don't want to be their drill sergeant. I want to be their biggest supporter, their confidant, their place of safety, and their teacher. But I teach nothing through demanding blind obedience and our relationship is not cultivated.

Do some things require strict obedience? Of course. Things like holding hands in a parking lot or crowded place; things pertaining to their physical safety. But even then, their obedience is garnered more effectively through a calm explanation of the reasoning than by forceful, demanding reminders of the rule. And most especially, their obedience is most quickly achieved when they understand that my requests are motivated by love.

As I was pondering this tendency I have to demand obedience, I was reminded of my greatest example of an ideal parent-child relationship--the relationship I have with a Heavenly Father. Of all the parental examples I wish to emulate, this one reigns supreme. Does God demand my blind obedience or use threats and fear-mongering to motivate me to do exactly as he says? Absolutely not. He provides me with direction and explanation for his requests; all of which are motivated by His love for me. Even more importantly, He does not berate me or write me off as a failure when I fail to obey His loving direction. Rather, He allows me to learn from the experience and lovingly invites me to try again. He expects me to fail because He knows I am learning and He stands at the ready to forgive, forget, and continue to guide me in love.

These precious little souls that I am blessed to call my own are too often worthy of so much more than I have offered them. Obedience or not, I am striving daily to respond more to my children in the ways that my Father in Heaven is continually responding to me. Which is with grace, love, and confidence in who He knows I am capable of becoming.

In Hand with God

With motherhood comes the great gift of repeatedly seeking out my Savior. There is no other human relationship that I could ever care about deeply enough to cause me to continually walk knowingly into the refiner's fire again and again. Never have I failed so repeatedly at something in which I so desperately want to succeed.

Desperation is the only appropriate word for my longing feelings towards succeeding at motherhood. I do not take lightly the charge I have been given by God to nurture these sweet spirits that were sent to me. I see their infinite potential and intrinsic goodness and I know that nothing else I do in life will ever matter as much as helping them become the world shapers they are intended to be. A mother is not all I am; but for now, it is more deserving of my time, effort, and devotion than any other aspect of my journey in this life.

In any other situation, I would have given up by now. I'm generally fairly quick to concede defeat when things are overly challenging for me. Thankfully, in this thing, I have a broader perspective from my knowledge that these little souls truly belong to Him and not to me. I am doing God's work, and if I am to do it well then I must seek the wisdom and assistance of the Master. To repeatedly seek out the healing and transformative effects of my Savior's atonement is the only way that I can pick back up and begin anew after each time I stumble. As I find Him in prayer, I regain my footing to move forward in this journey. I succeed in motherhood only when I turn myself over to Christ and allow him to lead me in my efforts.

A Plea For Voices From The Darkness

There’s a dark place in motherhood that virtually no one is talking about. A place where hope disappears, sleep doesn’t come, praying feels useless and the only thing worse than the pain is the numbness.  Everyone who knows this place experiences it differently, and though it doesn’t affect every mother, it affects more we know. Too many women don’t know how to recognize the battle raging inside them for what it is, and so they suffer in silence, confusion, and fear. I’ve been to this place and back, though my climb back to solid ground isn’t over.

I’ve written on the topic of Postpartum Depression before HERE, but I’ve put off writing more on the subject for far too long. I’m in a different place now and the darkness doesn’t suffocate me as it once did, but I haven’t forgotten the all-consuming hold it had on me back then. I remember the feelings of “Why me?!” so distinctly. It’s impossible in that place to not question why God would allow such an impossible load to be placed on the shoulders of a young mother who wants nothing more than to simply feel the joy of those sweet children she's been entrusted with. To feel so broken, so worthless, and so entirely alone when other mothers around you seem to be overflowing with joy, energy, and purpose can completely rob a woman of the will to keep going. It’s so easy in that place of all-consuming darkness to believe that everyone you love would be better off without you present to weigh them down. It’s important to note that not every experience with Post-Partum Depression or Post-Partum Anxiety gets this severe or lasts long enough to feel this impossibly hard. But for some women, this is a daily reality.

For a very long time, I wondered why I personally had to face this trial. It felt cruel that after the painful challenges of infertility, I was again robbed of the joy of having a baby even with that baby in my arms. I have intently searched for meaning in this trial, because I feel that to suffer so deeply without purpose is a waste. I have strived to create purpose by allowing my PPD journey to be a driving factor in many of the changes I’ve made in recent months that have positively impacted my motherhood. Today, however, I find peace and gratitude in knowing that the purpose was greater.

For the first time in my life, as I knelt to pray last night, I found myself genuinely THANKING God for a lifetime of mental health struggles and most specifically for my own experience with the suffocating darkness of Post-Partum Depression. This came about because earlier in the day, I had found myself—not for the first time in my life—talking a dear friend through a moment of severe post-partum crisis. I won’t pretend that I knew all the right things to say, but at the very least I am so grateful that in those moments I was at least able to say, “I understand.” One such opportunity to offer even a sliver of hope, understanding and judgment-free listening to someone I love is more than enough purpose for the months of suffering I endured. I am so humbled that this sweet friend called me in her time of need.

I’m noticing more and more that each time I open my mouth to discuss my varied struggles with mental health and PPD specifically, I somehow give permission for others to do the same. Verbalizing my struggles doesn’t seem to get any easier with practice as the fear of judgment and misunderstanding remains constant. However, each time my openness encourages another person to share their story, I find more motivation to use my voice for this purpose. I can confidently state that there is healing in speaking out about mental illness. Acknowledging my struggles and giving them a name gives me back some of the control that has felt so absent in the dark times. There is catharsis in simply uttering the truth of these challenges aloud (or through writing).

Had I not been open about my struggles previously, I would have been robbed of so many opportunities to connect more deeply with friends and acquaintances that have since opened up to me. Perhaps my sweet friend would not have known that there was safety waiting on the other end of yesterday’s phone call. I hope and pray that as I continue to open up on this subject, others will find more safety and purpose in doing the same.

If you ever choose to share your story, I’d love to hear about it. Here’s to promoting understanding, and ending shame on the topic of post-partum mental illness!

Affirming Goodness

With 3 small kids under the age of 5, Anthony and I have a healthy awareness of how green we still are at this parenting gig. We are making things up as we go, trying to figure out what works, failing a lot, and apologizing to our kids plenty when we do it wrong. We know that we are still in the beginning; that we haven’t really “figured it out” yet. So, I wouldn’t say we have a lot of established family rules or anything, with one exception. That exception being that we do not call members of our family “bad.” It’s non-negotiable, and everyone is conscious of this expectation.

NO ONE in our family is “BAD.”

Ultimately, we just don’t believe that human beings can accurately be labeled as “bad” and it is important to us that our children understand this. Doing bad things does not inherently make a person bad. If we assume that people are nothing more than a summation of everything they do or have ever done, we lose sight of everything they still have the potential to do yet. Not to mention the incredible human tendency towards change and growth when given the opportunity… but I digress.

So one recent afternoon, I found myself sitting in our stairway face to face with a grimacing, fuming, 4 year old in his time-out seat. I was getting nowhere in my attempts to discuss with him the actions that landed him in said time-out. I could see the rest of our day spinning down a proverbial drain (neither he nor I tend to rebound well from these situations) and my own patience and emotions were reaching a dangerous limit. I took the opportunity to pause, breathe, and pray silently for direction. In an instant, I was reminded that Anthony had recently started a bedtime ritual of positive affirmations with Calvin. I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere without finding a way to soften him, so I looked Calvin in the eyes and said, “Repeat after me.” He glared back and our conversation progressed as follows:

“My mommy loves me.”
A glowering repetition from Calvin.
 “I love me.”
Again he reluctantly repeated, and I went on.
 “I am a good boy!”
And instead of a repetition, there came a heart-rending, “Really?!” followed by streaming tears as the wall between us collapsed.

It was immediately clear to me that my effort to instill within my children a confident knowledge of their goodness has been falling victim to my other actions. Because, no matter how often I tell them that “no one in our family is bad,” the ways that I reprimand or react towards them in difficult moments have a much deeper effect on their concepts of worth.

I struggle frequently with knowing how to balance love with discipline. Especially in the most heated moments, I am much quicker to redirect than I am to seek to understand. A punch is thrown, for example, and I jump immediately (and not always calmly) to the defense of the victim without having any context on the rest of their interaction leading up to that moment. Not that I would ever condone punching, but I am realizing that taking a moment to seek understanding before issuing punishment can lead to a much more desirable outcome. More often than not, a better understanding of what motivated my child’s actions is exactly what I need to be softened enough to redirect in love.

 If I want my children to know that they are filled with goodness, I need to acknowledge their goodness at every opportunity—especially when I am disciplining undesirable behavior. A disciplined child that still feels loved and is also confident in their inherent goodness is much more teachable.

Since that afternoon on the stairs, I have taken more frequent opportunity to pause, breathe, and pray in our hard moments. I have also taken more frequent opportunity to practice affirmations of goodness with Calvin and Daphne in the process of discipline. I won’t say I’m perfect at this, but I think I am improving and so is the overall feeling in our home. I can personally attest to the power of affirming goodness in our children. They need the reminder, and so do we.

By the way, YOU are a GOOD [mother, father, sibling, child, person]. You probably wouldn't be reading this if you weren't.

Place of Safety

I had a heavy but enlightening moment tonight as I sat at my daughter’s bedside drawing nondescript designs on her back with my fingers and singing softly to help her and big brother drift off to sleep. She has never been a very good sleeper and it has become more clear lately that she struggles quite a bit with various fears once the lights go out. Despite her obvious and nearly constant exhaustion, she simply does not ever want to go to sleep and bedtime is becoming more of a battle as time passes.

Tonight as I sat at the side of her bed, a thought came creeping into my quiet mind. It was simply this:

“The things she fears now may not be real to you, but they are to her. If you brush them off today, how will she ever feel safe coming to you with the overwhelming fears that life throws at her later?”

Cue grief and an overwhelming desire to recover so many lost opportunities for offering comfort and assurance.

It’s so easy at the end of the day to want to discredit their fears or needs as childish efforts to simply delay bedtime and stay up longer. I don’t know what her particular fears are—she hasn’t been able to express that entirely yet—but I have grown accustomed to her pleas for my reassuring presence at her bedside as she tells me, “Is so scary in my room, Mommy.”

The rational side of me wants to explain away her fears with logic and discredit them entirely. I have also been guilty of threatening the loss of privileges if anyone gets out of bed again... It can just be so frustrating when I know all too well how quickly my little ones can fall asleep if they will just still their busy bodies, be silent, and close their heavy eyes. On most occasions, however, they simply don't do just that.

In my longing for some alone time at the end of the day, the unfortunate truth is that I am quick to brush off the concerns of little minds too easily and too frequently. But I hope to be more in tune with my babies, even at the end of the longest and hardest of our days and continue to remember tonight's gentle nudging.

More often than not, the added time of sitting with them while they slip away to dreaming is such a small piece of my day to offer up in exchange for letting them know that I will always be that place of safety when they need me.

Parenting in the Dark

PPD.  Postpartum Depression. It’s often treated like a dirty word. It seems that there are a million stigmas attached; stigmas that make it feel impossible and terrifying to discuss this topic. So that’s why I’m doing it I suppose, because someone has to fight the stigmas and somehow make it safe for others to discuss it as well. I’m bringing up the topic because I need you to do it as well. It’s not a dirty little shameful secret. It’s a painful reality full of shame and loneliness, that I believe could be immensely helped simply by a sense of community. Did you know that approximately 950,000 women in the U.S. suffer from PPD every year? What bothers me the most is that this statistic only accounts for self-reported cases. I can't imagine how many more women are waiting out the darkness alone and in silence.

My first attempt at writing this basically came out as a horror story that offered nothing but fear-mongering. It made me personally more afraid of what I was facing and less willing to accept and address it. The second attempt was anything but sincere, and completely un-relatable. It was full of “helpful” ideas on how to fight this battle—ideas that I wasn’t at all implementing in my own life. It was a pathetic attempt to motivate myself out of the darkness and come across stronger than I currently am. It’s funny that now is the time that I would suddenly feel the urge to try again. Now as I sit here in a brand new home, surrounded by piles of unpacked boxes and clutter, with dinner boiling over on the stove, and a million other things I should be focusing on. Now, because I just came inside from a lovely visit with a new neighbor and all I can do is wonder if she would still like me and want to talk to me if she knew anything of the inner turmoil living inside of me and my currently frequent and irrational outbursts. Never has my social anxiety been higher, my sense of worth lower, and my perception of failure stronger. This is PPD. It is recognizably similar to the other depression I have faced, but it is also not. It is depression on steroids.

I wonder what people who haven’t faced depression imagine it to be. I suspect they might envision it as sitting in the corner of a room while listening to sad music and sobbing in the fetal position. And it is that, but also it’s not and it’s more.

Really, I can only tell you what it’s been for me. It is overwhelming sadness and physical pain. In other moments, it is fits of rage and destructive impatience. It is fear of being found out and a desperate need to appear normal and functional. It is feeling completely and totally out of control of your entire mind and body. It’s an impossibly crippling lack of motivation to do anything beyond exist, while knowing that another life (or more) is depending on you completely. It is allowing your toddler to spend hours watching Netflix because you know he'll be content and you will have no reason to blow up at him during that time. It is wanting to stay in bed for days at a time. It is walking down the street and inwardly hoping that the next car could hit you and save everyone you love from the damage you are continually causing to them now. It is wishing that your husband had chosen someone else that actually deserved him. It is fighting off urges to smother a crying baby. It is locking yourself in a room to protect others from your overflowing emotions. It is seeing your toddler’s spirit break as you once again tell him that you just don’t have the energy to play his game. It is doing and saying all the things you swore you would NEVER do and say as a mother. It is apologizing a million times but still making the same mistake over and over. It is trying to remember why you ever wanted to be a mother in the first place. It is never-ending guilt and shame that you disguise with ferocious defensiveness and rationalization. It is knowing that you’re being irrational and feeling completely helpless to return to reason. It is crying only in the shower because you know that your tears won't disturb anyone there. It is verbal attacks followed immediately with embarrassment and regret. It is loving your child(ren) deeply with everything you have, but not being able to actually feel in love with them. It is the pain of knowing that neither of your children is secure and confident in your love for them. It is all-consuming darkness. It is questioning your faith and being so filled with shame that you can’t even bring yourself to pray. It is having one good day and feeling like you’ve finally escaped, then being crushed by the realization that the darkness has returned stronger the next morning. It is seriously considering checking yourself into a mental health unit, almost entirely because you want 3 full nights of uninterrupted sleep. It is physical. It is emotional. It is mental. It is a legitimate medical illness which you struggle so badly to accept that you never ask for help. It is all of these things and so many more that just can’t be said out loud or even to a screen. It is never the same one minute to the next and it seems that it will never end.

But this is only my experience.

I tell you these things not to scare anyone who hasn’t faced it away from pursuing motherhood, but simply to say to those who have faced it, or currently are, that you’re not alone. And you’re not defective, worthless, pathetic, unworthy, unlovable, hopeless or any of the other things that the darkness in your mind has been compellingly you to believe. More importantly, I tell you this to say that there is HOPE. I know this, not because I have previous experience with PPD specifically, but because I’ve faced depression in many other forms and I know that it can be lifted. There are shafts of light in the darkness, and there is daylight at the end of a long dark tunnel. In my experience, the trick to getting through darkness is to fight through the crippling fear and just keep moving—reaching out for any help you can get along the way. 

I wouldn't trade my perfect, beautiful children for anything. They are my reason for living and continually wanting to be better. I wish I had been more prepared for the onslaught of PPD after baby number two, but I foolishly thought I was exempt because of the blissful postpartum period I experienced with my first child. I knew better, but I still ignored all the signs and pretended for far too long that I didn't need help. It's hard now to imagine ever having another child and putting my family through this living hell again, but only time will tell. My hope is that you will never experience any of this. I wouldn't wish the experience on my worst enemy. However, my greatest piece of advice for anyone who does find themselves in the despair of postpartum depression would be to ask for help at the first indication that something is off. No one should have to suffer alone, especially not in silence and shame.