Happy Sunday, friends. It’s been…a week. Nothing insurmountable, just a pile-up of a lot of things at once. They all had one thing in common, which is that they were largely outside of my control.
It started last weekend. A relationship that I’d actually been hopeful about (the first in a long time), came apart. Its unraveling felt as sad and mysterious as its beginning had felt bright and surprising. I guess it’s a mark of some sort of progress that I understood all along that I couldn’t really change the outcome.
As the week got underway, I was surprised to find myself in a particularly challenging professional/academic situation. This, too, lay outside of my control. “They” say—and I tend to believe it—that we can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. Even trying to control my responses felt like a lot of work. By the end of the week, all I could do was acknowledge that things were difficult and I was doing my best to get through it.
Through all of this, I was waiting on health-related test results. They were fine, thankfully, but the experience was a humbling reminder that our bodies are vulnerable, and there’s really only so much we can do to take health into our own hands.
There were other things, too. Small reminders that, no matter how hard I try to create a life that is safe and bounded and peaceful, I can’t fashion a cocoon for myself. Life has other plans. Work intrudes. Other people have intentions and needs that vie with mine.
By Friday, I’d entered a state that’s pretty foreign to me, which a kind of passivity. Or perhaps a better word would be acceptance. I wasn’t fighting anything that was happening. I wasn’t trying to change it. I wasn’t even trying to manage things with particular elegance or grace; oftentimes when I’m struggling, I try to wrestle back control by crafting the most “admirable” response I can, whether it feels genuine or not. This time, I gave myself over to everything: to the fact that things were hard, the fact that I was struggling, and the fact that I didn’t have the energy to pretend otherwise.
I can think of times in my life when resistance felt important and useful. I’m thinking especially of moments in my life as a graduate student, which has been marked by a lot of discouragement. It’s been very important for me to fight against the impulse to give up; I’d never have gotten through my post-bacc or my masters program if I’d allowed the dissapointments to get the better of me.
For the most part, though, I tend to overestimate how much conscious control I have over things. This is especially true in relationships, but it can also be true at work and in life as a whole. There are forces at play that have little to do with me. I can craft responses to my circumstances that feel healthy, honest, and kind. And—as I learned this week—I can also let go, stop trying to come up with the “right” responses all the time, and simply allow things to be. Which means allowing myself to be, too.
This shift in perspective has happened quietly, internally, and, until now, pretty unconsciously. No matter how subtle, it feels significant. I wonder how things would be if I allowed myself to feel this way—not indifferent, but unresisting—more often. I guess there’s only one way to find out, right?
For now, happy Sunday. Here are some recipes and reads.
I love the looks of Sarah’s brown rice and sweet potato sushi.
A great, all-purpose plant protein option: sesame tempeh crumbles.
Not sure how I missed these in December, but Sophie’s cauliflower steaks with pine nut salsa are so beautiful.
I’ve got a bag of whole wheat couscous that I’ve been wonderful what to do with. I think these FOK bowls just gave me an answer.
Finally, the vegan paella of my dreams.
1. A new study shows reduced risk of breast cancer death with a low-fat diet.
2. Interesting: the Guardian has changed its style guide to introduce language that accurately represents the environmental crises facing our planet. “Climate change” will now be “climate crisis,” or “climate emergency,” and “global warming” will be “global heating.”
3. Would you see an AI doctor for diagnosis of a routine illness?
4. I’ve had the Sunday Scaries all year long, and they’re particularly bad right now. Maybe Joanna’s strategy of ending the weekend with a bang will work?
5. Finally, I love my friend Erin’s essay about why she and her partner whipped up biscuits and gravy on the morning of their wedding. Here’s a sneak peak:
…[T]here was no moment more perfect than our breakfast together. We sat in comfy chairs in front of our fireplace wearing regular clothes, eating piping hot food we’d made ourselves. It could have been any other day of our lives up to that point—and that’s really what was so special about it. This day wasn’t the day, or the only day. It was just a day.
Here’s to a week full of everyday breakfast. Have a wonderful rest of the day.
xo
I was so saddened to hear on Friday that Fatima Ali, a former Top Chef contestant, had passed away after a year-long battle with Ewing’s sarcoma. It’s been a long time since I tuned into Top Chef, but I’d learned about Chef Ali when she contributed this essay to Healthyish. She wrote it when her cancer had already been deemed terminal. It’s a funny, strong, humble meditation on how she intended to approach her remaining time. The following quotation has been shared widely…
Happy Sunday, all. It’s finally cooling off a bit where I am, thanks to some rain, which has also been a good excuse to spend much of the past two days indoors, reading. My project of slowing down and creating quiet continues each day. I’ve spent quite a lot of time training myself in how to do more: how to be more productive, how to schedule my time efficiently, how to pack more into each day. It was an enormous project of my…
Happy Saturday! And thank you for all of the wonderfully supportive comments about the name change of this site. I was definitely feeling some jitters before the announcement, but everyone has been so kind and so cool. If you’re still not getting redirected to The Full Helping, try clearing the cache or temporary files on your computer and iPhone. And if that doesn’t work, feel free to shoot me an email (gena@thefullhelping.com) or track me down on social media to let me know!…
Happy Sunday, everyone. Thank you so much for your comments on Jen’s green recovery story on Friday. I know that they’re meaningful to her, and I always appreciate the chance to hear your insights. Speaking of green recovery, it’s now officially National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. In honor of that, I’ve put together weekend reading links that include articles and essays about EDs. I hope you’ll find them interesting and informative, and if you think any of them might be worth sharing with family, friends, or…
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I look forward to Weekend Reading every week. I’m reading this on Friday morning, and this week has felt about 4 months long. I really resonate with what you wrote, about how even though you try to make your life bounded and peaceful, we can only control so much. That was the reminder I needed this morning. Thank you for your vulnerability.
Thanks so much for featuring my sushi in your round-up, Gena! 🙂 I’m sorry to hear you had a rough week but I love your words on unresisting…. that is a practice I am trying to implement in my own life as well!
First and foremost of all, Dearest Gena, I’m just glad you made it through such a week. Period. And extra glad that you came to do that the way you did. Sometimes those quiet acceptances and realizations are more powerful than ones that present more obviously. In the end it’s never about control of what’s outside of us or even control within, but more this kind of profound acceptance that helps us, in the end, choose the best path available. I send you my love and support. And thanks for all the delicious recipes and reads, too. xoxo