That’s when I stopped looking at Abby and thinking: What is my anger telling me about her? And started asking: What is my anger telling me about me? My anger was delivering a package with one of my root beliefs in it—a belief that was programmed into me during childhood: Resting is laziness, and laziness is disrespect. Worthiness and goodness are earned with hustle.
When Abby rested right in front of me—outside family-designated and approved resting times—she was challenging that root belief. She was activating it, unearthing it, bringing it into the light where I could see it. But unlike my root belief about honesty and fidelity, I didn’t like this one. It didn’t feel true to me. Because when I looked at Abby relaxing, my anger was almost a bitter yearning.
Must be nice.
Must be nice to rest in the middle of the damn day.
Must be nice to feel worthy of the space you take up on the earth without hustling to earn it every minute.
Must be nice to rest and still feel worthy.
I want to be able to rest and still feel worthy, too.
I didn’t want to change Abby. I wanted to change my belief about worthiness.
Anger rings our bell and delivers one of our root beliefs. This is good information, but the next part is more than informative, it’s transformationaclass="underline" All of the beliefs that anger delivers come with a return label.
There is a sticker on the package that says, “Here is one of your root beliefs! Would you like to keep, return, or exchange this one?”
I looked hard at the root belief about worthiness that my anger at Abby had delivered to me. I thought: No. I don’t want to keep this one. It was inherited by me, not created by me. I have outgrown it. It is no longer my truest, most beautiful belief about worthiness. I know better than this belief. It’s harsh, and it’s hurting me and my marriage. I don’t want to pass this one down to my kids. But I don’t want to return it, either. I want to exchange it for this amended one:
Hard work is important. So are play and nonproductivity. My worth is tied not to my productivity but to my existence. I am worthy of rest.
Changing my root belief about worthiness has changed my life. I sleep a little bit later. I schedule in time for reading and walks and yoga, and sometimes (on the weekend), I even watch a TV show in the middle of the day. It’s heavenly. It’s also an ongoing process: Still, when I see Abby relaxing, my knee-jerk reaction is annoyance. But then I check myself. I think: Why am I activated here? Oh, yes, that old belief. Oh, wait, never mind. I’ve exchanged that one. And when Abby asks, “What’s wrong?” I can say, “Nothing, honey,” and mean it, mostly.
Anger delivers our boundaries to us. Our boundaries deliver our beliefs to us. Our beliefs determine how we experience the world. So even though it can be scary, we’d be wise to answer the door.
heartbreak
After a decade of listening to women, I’m convinced that our deepest fears are:
Living without ever finding our purpose
Dying without ever finding true belonging
Again and again women ask me, “How do I find my purpose? How do I find my people?”
My best advice: When heartbreak rings, answer the door.
This is what it sounds like to refuse to answer the door:
I wish I could learn more about that injustice…I wish I could visit that sick friend…I wish I could get involved with that cause…I wish I could read that article…I wish I could show up for that family…but I can’t bear to because it’ll break my heart.
It’s like we really believe that our hearts were meant to be kept hidden away, bubble-wrapped, and under lockdown. As though the point of life is to not be moved. That’s not the point. When we let ourselves be moved, we discover what moves us. Heartbreak is not something to be avoided; it’s something to pursue. Heartbreak is one of the greatest clues of our lives.
The magic of heartbreak is that each person’s doorbell rings in response to something specific. What rings your bell? Is it racial injustice? Bullying? Animal cruelty? Hunger? War? The environment? Kids with cancer? What is it that affects you so deeply that whenever you encounter it, you feel the need to look away? Look there. Where is the pain in the world that you just cannot stand? Stand there. The thing that breaks your heart is the very thing you were born to help heal. Every world changer’s work begins with a broken heart.
I met a group of women in Iowa who’d each lost a baby to stillbirth or early infant death. They formed a sisterhood, and together, through education and other kinds of support, they’ve contributed to lowering the stillbirth rate in their state so significantly that doctors are scratching their heads in disbelief and gratitude. Instead of withdrawing or disconnecting from their suffering, they ran straight toward it. Their shared pain became their bond and their fuel. Now, together, they are saving others from the very heartbreak that brought them together.
Heartbreak delivers your purpose. If you are brave enough to accept that delivery and seek out the people doing that particular world-changing work, you find your people. There is no bond like the bond that is forged among people who are united in the same world-healing work.
Despair says, “The heartbreak is too overwhelming. I am too sad and too small, and the world is too big. I cannot do it all, so I will do nothing.”
Courage says, “I will not let the fact that I cannot do everything keep me from doing what I can.”
We all want purpose and connection.
Tell me what breaks your heart, and I’ll point you toward both.
grief
Fourteen years ago, I was sitting in my sister’s bedroom in the home she shared with her then husband. Tish, just a few months old, lay in her car seat on the hardwood floor, sucking on her fingers and gurgling. Sister and I were quiet. She and her husband were struggling in their marriage, and it was all quite confusing and difficult.
While we sat there, her phone pinged and she looked down at it. Then she dropped the phone and slid from her chair to the floor. I grabbed the phone from the floor and saw that her husband had just emailed that their marriage was over. I looked away from the phone and down at my sister, who appeared lifeless, like whatever had been keeping her alive and afloat had gone, like the leftovers of a deflated balloon. Then she began to wail. I have known my sister since moments after she took her first breath, and I had never heard her make a noise like this. Her wail was animalistic, and it made me feel afraid. I touched her, but there was no response. The three of us were in that room together, but we were not together anymore. The pain had taken my sister to a place all her own. Tish was completely still, her eyes wide and watery, stunned by the volume and intensity of the wailing. I remember wondering how a baby exposed to this much raw pain, this early, would be formed by it.
In the coming year, while the rest of the world carried on, my sister, Tish, and I became a small army trying to push together through the muck of grief. Sometimes I think that first year shaped Tish’s depth and tenderness. She still becomes still, wide-eyed, and watery in the presence of another person’s pain.
My sister moved out of the home she had painstakingly created for her future family and into a small guest room in my basement. I wanted to decorate it, to make it nice for her, but she resisted. She did not want to make a home inside my basement, inside her grief. She wanted to make it clear that she was just visiting this place. The only thing she hung on the wall was a small blue cross I gave her with the inscription “For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to give you hope and a future.”