What kills a soul? Exhaustion, secret keeping, image management. And what brings a soul back from the dead? Honesty, connection, grace. – Shauna Niequist

Yesterday I had a good long catch up call with a friend who I hadn’t spoken with in a while. We’re both in similar seasons of life, husbands and fathers, trying to juggle competing responsibilities while pursuing some pretty big bets. Since high school we’ve had this affinity for silently putting our heads down, doing the work without regard to our bodies, and seeing it pay off. Now we find ourselves hitting walls that didn’t exist years ago. So we talked about what this might mean. We laughed about the absurdity of life, and we encouraged each other to keep going. Hanging up I knew that I needed that phone call and I suspect he did too.

I love it when you find your soul’s counterpart in another, that’s what I’ve got in my circle of friendships. It’s almost uncanny how we find ourselves in similar predicaments, I just hope we continue to make time to connect with each other in the midst of the struggle.

Honesty, connection, and grace. Right now as life is more full than ever, I’m realizing that I can’t do it all. That’s the honest truth that I’m grappling with (that and the ever increasing awareness that I have no control over how things turn out). I need to rely more on the people in my corner (and what a lovely surprise to find that I do in fact have people in my corner!). This past week a group of friends and former colleagues hosted a fundraiser for my campaign and I was blown away by the kind words shared during my introduction. One attendant in the room said he hoped his own eulogy was just as endearing.

Grace has been big for me lately. My wife and kids have extended all kinds of grace throughout this campaign, showing up for events and canvassing when they didn’t want to. As I told my friend yesterday, I’ve been less present more impatient over the past month than in a long while. Unfortunately I can tell my family has born some of the brunt of that. Last night after snapping at one of the girls I went upstairs to apologize and she told me how it’s felt being on the other side of me for the last few days. Yikes. Talk about a high EQ. I’m fortunate enough to live with a household of ladies who know how to speak their mind and articulate their feelings and I’m working hard to keep up. I told her I appreciated her candor, and I’m going to do better. She told me she appreciated my apology and the fact that I came up to talk to her about it. Then, as if to test me she asked if I really only came up to check to see how messy her room is… !

Finally, connection is what’s keeping me tethered to everything meaningful. First and foremost the connection I’ve been prioritizing is connection to myself, but afterwards, connections to my friends. When I feel myself getting too overwhelmed, I’m trying to stay grounded in practices that I’ve built over the past few years. Yesterday I went for a bike ride after a particularly rough meeting. I took the dog for a walk after an evening of fundraising calls. I’m doing anything I can do to get out of my head and get into my body. As Shauna writes, after years of being careless with my body and soul, trusting in some vague way that they’d probably be fine no matter what, I’m learning that both body and soul require more tenderness and attentiveness than I’d imagined.

I learned years ago that most of the things I’d assume would help me care for my soul are counterproductive (self help, productivity, perfectionism). I’m still learning that my soul needs to be treated more kindler and gentler. When I do practice this type of soul care, it leads to the kind of spaciousness I need to simply be, and then function well. We’re not robots, we’re human and stewarding our body and souls are part of the human experience.

Amen to that.

SDW3