The Problem With Being Good at Enduring Things

I have spent a good portion of my life believing that if something wasn’t working, the answer was probably to try harder.

This has served me remarkably well, until it hasn’t.

It’s how I became an RN. It’s how I built a business while raising three children. It’s how I’ve survived difficult seasons and continued showing up for people I love. It’s also, unfortunately, how I’ve found myself staying in situations that no longer fit, wondering why I felt so much resistance to things I thought I wanted.

I’m beginning to suspect that being very good at enduring things is both a strength and a liability.

Lately, life has had a way of slowing me down. I’ve been spending more time with family as some of us enter those later chapters that naturally invite reflection. There has been a lot of driving, a lot of conversation, and more reminders than I’d care to admit that none of us are getting out of this alive.

Somewhere in all of that, I found myself crying during the cool-down walk after a run and thinking, Well, this feels inconvenient.

The thing is, I don’t think I was crying about running. In fact, I don’t think running had much to do with it at all. It would appear that life is trying to teach me something and, despite my best efforts, I think I may finally be listening.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what it means to care for ourselves. Not the version that is sold to us online or packaged into the perfect morning routine, but the quieter version. The version that asks whether our lives still have room for us in them.

As a psychotherapist, there are a handful of questions I ask clients over and over again. How are you sleeping? Are you eating regularly? Are you drinking enough water? Have you had a chance to move your body in a way that feels good? Have you laughed recently? Have you connected with someone?

I’m not looking for perfection when I ask those questions. I’m looking for signs that someone’s life may have become too full, and that some of the things that help them feel most like themselves have started to disappear.

It struck me recently that I had stopped asking myself those same questions. Somewhere along the way, I had quietly replaced them with a completely different set.

How can I fit more in? What am I not doing? What else should I be working on? How can I do this better? Why does this feel so hard when everyone else seems to be managing?

It’s exhausting, really.

Apparently, despite years of helping people explore their values and practise self-compassion, I too remain a human. An unfortunate discovery, really.

Life has a funny way of asking whether we believe the things we so easily offer to everyone else.

The more I sat with it, the more I realized this wasn’t a new pattern for me. I have spent much of my life learning how to adapt.

I was the child who did not want to get in trouble or upset anyone. I learned to explain myself, tolerate poor treatment and make excuses for other people. I learned to keep going. I learned that being good often meant being easy to ask things of, easy to work with and not particularly demanding.

That way of moving through the world can look very capable from the outside. It can also mean saying yes when you mean no, staying longer than you should, explaining decisions that do not require explanation, convincing yourself that needing rest is somehow a character flaw, and assuming that if something no longer feels right, you probably just need to work harder at it.

I have done all of those things quite well.

There have also been seasons in my life when my world genuinely needed to become smaller. Years when food was not just food in our family. It was safety. Every ingredient mattered. Every outing required planning. We packed meals, read labels, asked questions and did what we needed to do to protect the people we loved.

There have been other seasons of grief, caregiving and survival where there simply was not room for much beyond getting through the day.

There is no shame in those seasons. Sometimes narrowing our focus is exactly what life requires of us.

But survival is not meant to become our permanent address.

I think that's what I've been bumping up against lately. Not one particular schedule or goal, but the familiar feeling of my life quietly becoming smaller again.

Something that was meant to give me space had started to feel like another place where I was falling behind. Another thing to complete properly. Another area of my life to optimize. Another quiet suggestion that if it mattered enough, I would find a way to fit it all in.

At nearly 40, I am becoming less convinced that every problem in life can be solved by trying harder.

In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if some problems are solved by paying closer attention.

Paying attention to the things that disappear first when life becomes too full. The laughter. The ability to sit down without immediately making a mental list. The feeling of being present with the people in front of me. The space to do something because I enjoy it, without turning it into another measurement of whether I am doing enough.

Paying attention to the moment when something that was supposed to care for me begins to feel like something I must perform.

And paying attention to the possibility that I have spent much of my life arguing against what I already knew.

But I am beginning to understand that caring for ourselves is not only about what we can add to our schedules or how consistently we can follow a plan. Sometimes caring for ourselves means noticing that something is no longer working. It means saying no, stepping back or changing direction before we have a perfectly defensible reason.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is stop arguing with ourselves.

I spend a lot of time encouraging clients to consider what they want to add to their lives, rather than focusing only on what needs to be taken away. More nourishment. More rest. More movement. More laughter. More connection. More moments where they feel like themselves again.

Perhaps I needed to ask myself the same question.

Not, What else should I be doing?

But, Does my life still have room for me?

I’m not entirely sure what this season is trying to teach me, but I know this much: I don’t want to spend the next forty years becoming even better at enduring things.

I would much rather become someone who knows when to rest, when to change her mind and when to trust herself. Someone who can let go of what no longer fits without turning it into evidence that she failed.

At nearly 40, that feels like enough to be working on.

And if I happen to learn it while crying in my running shoes from time to time, I suppose there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

If this resonated with you, I hope it leaves you with one question to carry into the week:

Does my life still have room for me?