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The
Happiness Choice: The 5 decisions that will take you from where you are to
where you want to be by Marilyn Tam
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Fierce
with Age: Chasing God and Squirrels in Brooklyn by Carol Orsborn
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The Gifts
of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who
You Are (Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life) by Brené Brown
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Help,
Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott
It was only when I stacked up the books I wanted to review
for this blog that I realized I might as well just have screamed, “I’m Reading
My Way Through My (Most Recent/Ongoing) Existential Crisis!” While none of these readings led to
remarkable epiphanies that helped me figure out the meaning of life, I do find
that the nuggets I pick up in the process of reading authors who are tackling
life’s big questions can be like stepping stones thrown out on the path ahead
of me.
The Happiness Choice
benefits from not only the author’s own wisdom but that of thinkers from Joan
Borysenko to Barbara Marx Hubbard. The
biggest takeaway for me was the author’s definition of balance, an item on
nearly everyone’s wish list for the good life.
She speaks of what she calls dynamic balance:
At
different times in our lives, our priorities vary. Life is active and constantly changing, as do
[sic] our needs at different stages.
It is unrealistic and almost impossible, as well as unnecessary, to allocate
the same amount of energy and resources to every aspect of your life. Each person has individual wants and needs
that ebb and flow over time. Therefore,
balance is dynamic. What is right and
comfortable for you at 25 is most probably radically different from what is
suitable and comfortable for you when you are 45 or 50. You have to be aware
and reassess and adjust your dynamic balance as your life situation changes.
Equally as critical,
Knowing
your life purpose will help guide you in allocating the proper amount of energy
and attention to each aspect of your life…We can make purposeful decisions and
plans once we are conscious of our true values instead of reacting to outside
events.
Fierce with Age,
from the author of The Art of Resilience,
is the story of a transition period in Orsborn’s life, encompassing everything
from aging to geography to her identity as a writer. She organizes the story by seasons and it is
the dark winter of her soul that really spoke to me, as I struggle in winter
too often. Finally she experiences a
shift, an awareness of God with her through the bad times and the good, and of love
needing to be bigger than fear.
The
thing is that turning your attention towards the pain doesn’t make you feel any
better. But as I learned…your very
willingness to feel everything, including uncomfortable emotions, is the only
way to undercut the temptation to come to superficial resolution. It takes a
different kind of courage to be able to encounter pain without needing to fix
or do anything about it. And it is this
willingness to endure that turns out to be the cutting edge of spiritual
growth.
In The Gifts of
Imperfection, Brené Brown lays out 10 guideposts from self-compassion to
gratitude and joy. It’s her first
guidepost, living authentically (a critical part of my spiritual journey but
one of the most difficult) where she grabs me with her description of the risks
of not living authentically:
Our
unexpressed ideas, opinions, and contributions don’t just go away. They are likely to fester and eat away at our
worthiness. I think we should be born
with a warning label…Caution: If you trade in your authenticity for safety
you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders,
addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.
I don’t think of myself as one who prays, but in her latest
book one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, lets us in on a big secret—it
doesn’t have to be hard, or complicated, and it doesn’t have to be one of the
Greatest Hit prayers from organized religion.
For her, all prayer comes down to one of three words in her book’s title—Help, Thanks, Wow. Her definition of prayer makes it infinitely
accessible and meets you right where you are:
Prayer
can be motion and stillness and energy--all at the same time. It begins with
stopping in our tracks, or with our backs against the wall, or when we are
going under the waves, or when we are just so sick and tired of being
physically sick and tired that we surrender, or at least we finally stop
running away and at long last walk or lurch or crawl toward something. Or maybe, miraculously, we just release our
grip slightly. Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek
union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably
the best conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that
against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to
get it together before we show up.
So I am showing up now, and I pray I can be happy, be fierce
with age, embrace my imperfection, and do it all with Lamott’s sense of humor
and (most of the time) grace.
