Yes, I'm tired

On being honest, with ourselves and each other

Human Stuff is a free weekly newsletter. If you’d like to create reciprocity for my work and also access my monthly audio recording, q&a, & journaling guide, I invite you to become a paid subscriber. Your support means so much. 

Please feel free to share parts of this newsletter that connect with you on social media or send to someone you love. You sharing my work helps my words reach more people!

---

A song I’ve enjoyed listening to:

35mm photo taken in Point Reyes, California, 2010

The other day, I was getting ready to do a grocery store run. While brushing my hair, I gazed in the mirror and was a bit taken back by the person looking back at me — by myself. I felt an urge to find some sort of product to put underneath my eyes to make the bags appear a little less dark… to make myself appear a little more “put-together.” I then felt the need to change my outfit, put a cuter one on my daughter for show, and magically (aka effortfully) turn ourselves into the picture we’re sold to strive for. There was a desperation to be different than I was in that moment. To be less messy, less lost, less… human.

I paused in search of said product (I don’t have any, anyway) and outfit (it was laundry day) and asked myself who I was trying to impress. Who was I trying to appear more put-together for? Who was I trying to hide my tiredness from? Who was I afraid to be seen in my real, honest state by? Who didn’t I want to feel ashamed of myself around? Who?

The answer was everyone: I wanted to hide my true self from everyone because in that moment, I forgot that there’s actually nothing to hide here — nothing to be fixed or ashamed of — nothing to blot over with product in order to “improve” — nothing in need of keeping out of sight from the world. I forgot I was acceptable and worthy of being seen, just as I was, in the tiredness of what my life looked like that Tuesday.

And, what was I really wanting to hide? What felt so shameful that it needed to be buried away before I went to a grocery store? What was in such need of mending, of re-shaping, of molding into something we’ve been taught to mold ourselves into?

The answer was the real bits: the bits we’re told to clean up, the bits we’re pressured to make more presentable, the bits we edit out and hide and pretend aren’t there… the human bits.

But the most true answer was myself, because let’s be real — so often what we assume is for others is actually for the parts we’d rather not see in ourselves. Ouch.

My transition into Motherhood has been tough in many ways, one being just how much it shows on the outside. My hair literally falls out in clumps. I haven’t plucked my eyebrows or my one chin hair in who knows how long. I still can’t wear my jeans. I’m more flustered and more easily brought to tears these days. There are many things with more depth I could list that I’m not ready to talk about publicly yet. And I know this isn’t just a Motherhood thing — it’s so often a seasonal thing, a being-a-person thing, a life thing. We all go through phases and stages where we feel more and more distant from ourselves — where we look in the mirror and wonder where we’ve gone, noticing just how dark those circles have gotten — where we, on some level, feel as though we are supposed to be better, or somewhere else, or someone different.

Once I realized it was my own judgment I was running from, I changed course. Instead of tidying myself up, I brought my own bags to the store in more ways than one. I didn’t hide my worn-down reality or paint over my lack of sleep or touch up my lack of time for Self. I let myself wear the truth on my face, which was tiredness. I let myself be what was real, which was exhausted and unkempt. I kept my daughter in her pajamas. I allowed myself to stop performing a less tired version of me, my day, my life.

This is all a relatively simple example of a larger experience: we are deeply conditioned to hide what’s true from people. We answer “fine!” when asked how we are, even though we feel like we’re drowning. We create some lovely image for Instagram, only to go immediately back to the whole untidy picture right after sharing. We literally try to cover the tired on our faces with products made to do so.

We do this for the good stuff, too: we downplay our joy for the sake of making sure others are comfortable. We minimize our successes, big or small. We wince at compliments and turn the conversation back to centering others. We make ourselves so small.

All of this pretending is tiring, isn’t it? And it feels like such a waste of energy, of precious time, of creativity and spark and aliveness. It feels like such a tragedy to deny ourselves the full permission to just be human we all so deeply deserve. It isn’t our fault why it’s so hard… and it’s our job to change what needs to be changed within us.

I don’t want to keep pushing my humanity away — I want to push away the idea that I was ever supposed to.
I don’t want to keep pushing what’s true away — I want to push away the idea that I was ever meant to.
I don’t want to keep pushing my tiredness away — I want to push away the idea that I’m not allowed to just be what I am on any given day, in any given moment.

Even in writing this week’s letter, I thought… should I come up with a topic more positive? More “hopeful”? More filled with thriving vibes? More… something? But I remembered what’s true, and I remembered how okay it is to just say and do the true thing sometimes. How maybe that’s all we need to ask of ourselves during certain seasons of life. Maybe being with what’s true is the best thing we could do. Maybe it’s okay to just say we’re tired.

I think there’s something magical about telling the truth of who we are — and even more so about being the truth of who we are. Martha Beck’s book The Way of Integrity talks about the consequences of hiding our truth, both from ourselves and from others… and also why it makes sense that we do so. There’s so much at play that keeps us from knowing, let alone being, our true selves — fear, judgment, grief, rejection, abandonment, loss of a sense of belonging, change in how things have been… so much holds us in the cycle of keeping our truth at a distance.

Yet there is something potent to be found in what happens when we let ourselves finally say, do, and be what’s true, too. Slowly, maybe, but surely it comes — the healing that occurs when our insides match our outsides. Carl Rogers, one of my human heroes, calls this congruency; I call it wholeness. All the energy spent molding ourselves gets redistributed toward the things that actually matter to us: the art we want to make, the relationships we want to cultivate, the lives we want to live.

Letting ourselves unravel from the fantasies and presentations of who we think we’re supposed to be, over & over, gives us access to get to know, and be, who we truly are — which is an ongoing practice in a world that doesn’t always make it easy to do so. And it’s worth it.

Hiding is tiring — admitting how tired you are might be less so in the long run.
Pretending is tiring — letting yourself acknowledge what’s true might be less so.
Minimizing is tiring — allowing yourself to be with the reality of it might be less so.
Editing is tiring — receiving permission to show up as you are might be less so.
Performing is tiring — holding the depth of your true experience might be less so.

Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I’m thriving. Yes, I’m scared. Yes, I’m certain. Yes, I’m lost. Yes, I’m full of delight. Yes, I’m still grieving. Yes, I’m ready. Yes, I’m… what would you say? What would be true? What if all of it were allowed without question of what it meant to simply live into what is true for you in this moment? What if we deserved to be seen, witnessed, loved, and admired in who we are not just during our most flattering and “best self” moments, but always?

Can we be willing to look within ourselves and ask what it is we’re hiding?
Can we be willing to look within ourselves and ask who we’re hiding from?
Can we be willing to acknowledge what we might lose by telling the truth about who we are, but also what could be gained?
Can we be willing to notice all the ways we’ve been conditioned to believe there is something wrong with letting ourselves just be human?
Can we be willing to let what’s true arise within us so we can know how to proceed in our choices, our ways of being, our lives?

I’m working on a Yes for all of the above — an invitation to explore what that might look like in your own life, too.

If you need the permission (which really only comes from within you), here it is:
Permission to be honest about what you are feeling or experiencing.
Permission to not gloss over what’s hard or what’s joyful.
Permission to let what you have capacity for be enough.
Permission to stop hiding what is true for you.
Permission to show up as you are, without shame.
Permission to no longer bend yourself in order to appear “better” or “worse”.
Permission to allow what is there to be there, so it can pass when it’s ready to.
Permission to practice, to get it wrong, to fall out of integrity and make your way back to it, over and over, for the rest of time.

Yes, I’m tired. That’s a truth I don’t want to have to hide — one none of us should have to make magically disappear by way of under-eye concealer. I’ll be practicing embracing the truth I hold within me this week, whatever it is, even when part of me feels the need to hide it… I hope you allow yourself to do the same.

△ In Defense of Melancholy

△ The Secret Lives of Writers and Mothers

△ This book is next on my (never-ending) list.

△ New music from Maggie <3

△ This reminder from Tricia Hersey

The Nap Ministry @TheNapMinistry

Your body is its own technology. Spend hours logged in there.

△ A surprisingly touching essay on Britney Spears' Instagram

△ Notes on journaling

△ “There is no best musician, best artist... the creative arts are subjective and they reach people in the moments in their lives when they need it most." Jon Batiste’s speech below is beautiful and feels like truth.

△ This interview with Ocean Vuong is mesmerizing.

△ Poems that will inspire you to keep writing

△ This:

△ We Are Earth

△ Tuesday’s book release day was a good one:

△ The Transfixing Beauty of Starling Murmurations

△ Something to read if you doubt the work (of any kind) you put into the world

With care,
Lisa