Not doing it all

Allowing ease in the ways we're able to

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A song I’ve been enjoying:

In bloom at Crater Lake, Oregon, 2016

I’ve been thinking about making things easier lately. This week, I finally let myself try curbside pickup after spending a lot of time assuming it wasn’t for me, wasn’t necessary, wasn’t something I could justify. I didn’t think the $1.99 pickup fee was justified when I could just go to the store. I thought making someone else shop my groceries for me was lazy, spoiled, and ridiculous. Not for anyone else, of course — just for me. Why do we do this to ourselves?!

My husband reminded me I deserve to make things easier for myself after I expressed frustration about going to the store (what feels like) every day. So, I ordered my groceries online and picked them up in my car an hour later, baby in tow, not having to wrangle her through the aisles wondering what I’d forget. It was blissful, really — easeful — and it made my day/week a whole lot less hectic.

We got home and I realized I had saved myself at least an hour of time. I saved our outing for something enjoyable instead of another errand. I saved play time for my daughter. I saved presence to give to what matters to me. I saved energy for being fully available where I was needed. And all of this is important — it matters — it’s something I need to allow myself to prioritize, even when part of me questions whether or not it’s okay to get help in ways I could just do it myself.

This simple shift had me thinking of all the ways (that are available and accessible to us) we can choose to make our lives easier — using curbside pickup. Creating auto-reminders. Using automatic payments. Asking for support. Actually letting ourselves receive support. Enlisting loved ones who are better at certain things than we are to do those things for us. Offloading tasks we don’t enjoy to people who might get something (like get paid) out of doing them. Investing in practices, tools, supports, and tangible services that nourish and nurture us in some way, even when it seems frivolous or unnecessary. There are so many ways we can make our lives easier when we just allow ourselves to recognize we deserve ease, we don’t need to earn ease, and ease where possible isn’t for the select few.

At the core of this (for me, at least) is getting past the idea that I shouldn’t need to make things easier — that I should be able to push through, toughen up, make it all happen, and magically have the capacity to do it all without stress or overwhelm. In how many ways have we been taught we’re supposed to be able to do everything ourselves? In how many ways have we been conditioned to not ask for help, not need support, not need? In how many ways have we been programmed to assume getting support and help on things we might not deem necessary is lazy, spoiled, too needy, or “must be nice”?

I’ve spent so much time feeling guilty for doing less, for cutting back, for opting out, for slowing down, for receiving support, for paying other people to do things I could probably eventually figure out how to do by myself. I’ve also spent so much time trying to be entirely self-sufficient, trying to do it all, trying to figure everything out so I wouldn’t need anyone else, as if that was the marker of success or maturity or well-being, as if that was evening out my privilege, as if that was less harmful for anyone — myself included.

I’m tired of doing it all. I’m tired of thinking I need to manage everything on my own, that ease is only for emergencies or dire situations, that the things we can lean on to relieve tasks, stress, and overwhelm are only for those who we consider truly worthy of receiving ease. I’m tired of forgetting ease is the whole point, freeing up time is aligned with my values, and all humans are deserving of lives that contain more spaciousness in any and all ways possible. I’m tired of resisting ease where it already exists. I’m tired of pushing ease away. I’m tired of treating ease as a prize instead of a birthright.

Ease is for you.
Ease is for you.
Ease is for you.

And it’s for me.

This doesn’t mean everything is going to magically be easy. It doesn’t mean we don’t do anything we don’t want to do, because we all need to sometimes. It doesn’t mean help and support is always accessible to everyone in the ways we need it to be. It doesn’t mean we’re all able to pay other people or places for support. It doesn’t mean we can find ease in everything, or that ease is available to all of us in the same ways, or that there isn’t a lot of work to do in order for ease to be more plentiful for all.

What it does mean is that we can unlearn the belief that we’re supposed to do hard things all the time, that receiving help makes us less than, that allowing ourselves to offload things means we’re just not trying hard enough, or that cultivating more ease in the spaces it’s available to us is entitled (or fill in the blank with whatever word arises for you when you think about this). It means we can practice shifting out of the story that ease is for someone else, for another time, for further down the road when we’ve finally done enough. It means we can let go of the notion that everything in life is supposed to be hard. It means we can say a big fuck you to the systems and hierarchies that make ease difficult to access for so many. It means we can let ourselves stretch into ease where we might feel more comfortable in difficulty. And it means we can slowly practice trusting ease is for us, right now, as we are.

You’re allowed to make things easier for yourself.
You deserve ease where you can find it.
Ease isn’t reserved for other kinds of people. It’s for you.
Finding ease doesn’t make you lazy; it makes you kind.
There is nothing you need to do to earn more ease.
You don’t need to wait for a certain moment before you allow ease.
You can find and create ease in the tiniest of ways or big ways.
The belief you don’t deserve ease didn’t come from you.
Making things easier for yourself doesn’t harm anyone else.
You aren’t better or more valuable when you need less help.
You get to let ease find you and you get to find ease where you can.

The beautiful thing about allowing for more ease where we can is that it frees up energy to do the same for others — to offer a helping hand — to have more capacity to show up in the ways we’re wanting to — to share our gifts with the world so as to add to ease for other people in some way. When I think creating ease is selfish, I ask myself how making things harder than they need to be is contributing to anything other than the very systems living within me that say I don’t deserve it. I ask myself how not embracing ease helps anyone else, or myself. I ask myself how assuming ease is lazy contributes to this culture of individualism I say I’m against. And I ask myself to remember how cultivating more ease in my life is actually very aligned with my values, with what I believe humans deserve, and with the kind of world I want to live in.

May we all find more ease where we can.
May the world shift in ways that make ease in reach for everyone.
May we remember ease is our birthright.
May we unlearn stories that tell us everything deserved needs to be hard.
May we stop thinking we need to do it all alone.
May we trust our own deservedness of ease.
May we allow ease where it finds us.

Speaking of ease, I am about to head out on my first trip with my little family, the three of us — my first overnight trip with the baby in one of our beloved places, Mendocino — and I have honestly been thinking about all the ways it’s going to be hard. Writing this has helped me shift into all the ways I can make it easier — all the ways I can let go of expectations in order to allow ease where it naturally shows up — all the ways I can invite in ease during this time. It feels relieving and expansive. It feels good. And this is the whole entire point, isn’t it? To find goodness, joy, pleasure, beauty, connection, and presence in our lives? May more ease be one way of doing so, for all of us.

△ Finding ease in aloneness

△ The beauty of dinner parties

△ This beautiful Tiny Desk performance:

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

— Mary Oliver

△ Maggie Rogers and Beyoncé both put out gorgeous albums on Friday

△ I loved this talk with the wonderful Asia Suler

△ This sweet interview

△ Thinking about a new book idea and feeling some spark…

△ I regret ever giving into the cultural trend of hating Crocs because they are incredibly comfortable and I now love them. Especially paired with linen pants… comfort is priority nowadays.

My feet are grateful for their new little beds.

△ This joy. This magnificence. This effervescence. Joni is everything.

With care,
Lisa