I have rewritten this post half a dozen times now, because I am trying to get back to blogging and I want a post that is pretty and impressive. All that is doing is hiding what I really want to say, so I am going to try to do this as simply as possible.
I have an issue, a bad habit. It is a thing that I think is not confined just to me, maybe it is a “mom” issue, but maybe it is just an “adult” issue and has nothing to do with parenthood status.
I am addicted to momentum.
Here is the thing. I am really tired. Exhausted most of the time. For a while that feeling had mostly gone away, but it has been seeping back in to my life, my body, recently. To the point where I can’t really remember what having energy feels like. You can blame this on what ever you want – stress, depression, nutrition, illness, lack of discipline – it doesn’t really matter where the blame falls. (It doesn’t matter for what I am talking about here, it is always worth getting to the root of the problem.)
I have a lot of children to get to school and extracurriculars, meals to make, house to clean, and my own work to complete. In this state of exhaustion, it feels like it takes a herculean effort to push myself into beginning whatever I need to be doing at that moment. Once I get started, it is less hard to keep going. I get to ride on the momentum of that original energy. So I cling to that momentum and try to guard it against anyone slowing me down.
The conflict comes from living a life full of interruptions. In my focus on this weird idea of conserving my energy by riding my own momentum, I miss important cues around me. I miss being present to the people who mean the most to me. And I look like I have it all together to others who don’t know that I am just white knuckling it through this wild ride.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this problem over the years. There are three specific things at work here.
1. Me, me, me – my focus is on the energy *I* generate all by myself. I get this crazy idea that I have bootstraps and that I have pulled myself up by them. I forget that everything around me is gift, including my ability to get stuff done. St Paul has excellent words about this: “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, but it was not I but the grace of God that is with me.” 1 Corinthians 15:10. The energy that I am moving forward with is not created by me or maintained by me. It is on loan to me from God. Like any other precious item I might borrow, I need to take care of it and use it wisely. This means being gentle with myself. Wait, what?
2. Fear – If I stop, will I be able start again? What if I miss something important? This is one of my biggest problems. Fear. Fear is a lack of trust – in others, in myself, and most of all, in God. But if the energy I began with initially was not mine, but was a gift, is it possible to receive that gift again? Trusting in that possibility means leaving this situation open ended. What if I forget to come back to it? What if I make a mistake? Fear cranks up the pressure I put on myself. It whispers in my ear that everything depends on me and that I am already so worn down, I surely won’t be able to begin the task again if I set it down. Fear doesn’t let me remember that grace comes in all shapes and sizes and at all times. There will be enough there when I need it.
3. Self-determination, or, in another word, Pride. I am the one who knows how things should go. I am the one on whom this all depends. I can’t rest until it is all done. This is a combination of the first two. This is the belief I fall into that the energy I use is mine, that the result is something I control, and that it all depends on me. None of these things are true.
On a practical level, how does this play out? How can I release my strangle hold on momentum?
I write this as a person in the process, not as one who has tackled this and moved on. What it means for me is that in little moments when I find my rage rising and think to myself, “Just let me finish!” I have to stop and ask myself a crucial question:
What am I clinging to right now?
Am I clinging to my own energy and plans? Am I clinging to the real people in my life? Or am I clinging to something very vital that has to be worked on without interruption? The answer can be any of those. There really are moments when you have to push through and stick to it.
There is grace to be found in these daily struggles.