From the archives: Seasonal rhythms
I’m taking the month of August off to soak up the last days of summer and renew my creativity. This month, you’ll be receiving prewritten, shorter versions of Choosy or content from the archives. Thanks for supporting my newsletter, it means so much to me. I’ll be back September 3.
I’ve been thinking about how natural it is for rhythms to change with the seasons (seasonal living, I guess). For most of my life, I have been strict about habits: eating healthy at home, waking up early, reading and journaling in the mornings and going to bed at the right time.
But I’ve struggled with those habits over the last months (years?) and I think I’m coming to grips with how it is simply a change of season and maybe a change of outlook, too. For a while, the guilt I felt about letting go of seemingly good habits was exponential. There is no relief from information about how to improve your life, how you should be living healthier, what you should or shouldn’t eat, or, more deeply, what it means to be a good member of society. It’s exhausting to be so informed.
When presented with so many options for optimized living, my brain collects them and adds them to an already long list of ways things should be. I fall quickly into a false dichotomy, thinking that there is only one good thing, correct choice or right way to do something.
In an attempt to rectify some of that perfectionism and relieve the pressure of the long list of habits, I have, over the months, neglected a good handful of them. Letting myself be, just be, was my first attempt at silencing self-criticism and leaving more room for nuance. While effective in some areas — I’ve developed a glorious, guilt-free cheeseburger craving and I haven’t spent my Friday night cleaning the house in a long while — I ended up applying that black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking once again, just in a new way.
I’ve begun to miss my daily walks, my morning routine and the soothing, repetitive nature of cooking dinner at home each night after work.
Turns out, some things are just good for you—and they’re worth sticking with. As a friend wisely pointed out, removing a trigger (for example, how I feel stressed or disappointed in myself if I don’t get to my walk on a busy day) doesn’t solve the larger issues of perfectionism and stress. I removed the things that, without a doubt, made me feel happy in life and started to feel … worse. Naturally!
This season feels like coming back to equilibrium. That’s how a pendulum works: you swing from one extreme to the other until, eventually, the swing loses momentum and you find yourself more or less in the center.
To maintain any kind of consistent habit, you will need to adjust as life changes — there is no shame in that. In large and small applications, I’m reminding myself that one single choice does not make a life. There’s much more nuance to it than that.
All the best,
Mary Grace