You Have Permission to Slow Down
High-intensity living, evangelical culture, and hitting the brakes
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Winter-y vibes have settled across Ohio this past week, and for someone who generally feels they hate winter and the cold (especially the cold!!!), I did not hate it. This past weekend, I just felt good for no particular reason in a way I hadn’t in quite a while. The kind of feeling where you suddenly realize you had not been feeling good for awhile, and you only fully recognize that by contrast to feeling good.
Feeling good meant that I tried out a new thing (yoga classes at the studio I’ve been renting office space from for the past 8 months but had yet to take a class at!); I had energy and motivation to cook (a task that often overwhelms my brain); and I cleaned all the floors of the house (suddenly an urgent task when the baby starts crawling into the bathroom and you realize how gross and dusty your floors are…). You have your own standards of feeling good — these are just how I knew.
Also, I’m usually a person who’s pretty “type A” about running and being active (like many runners are). You can ask my family - they will probably roll their eyes and agree. But after eking out a half marathon race two weekends ago with the lingering effects of probable Covid (early October) and maybe adult RSV?? or just a horrible cough in my lungs, I’ve just like… stopped caring. Which, to be clear, is super unusual for me! Unless I am in the third trimester of pregnancy, I always, and I mean always, care about running. But running and I now have an open relationship, and we’re seeing other people sometimes.
Place, to me, is as important a character in my life story as the people. Recently, I was talking with my friend who lives in Colorado, where I used to live. I was surprised to find that she’s had the same exact observation about living there that I had -- especially once I left and moved to the Midwest. In Colorado, especially in Boulder (the dreamy, adventure-y, gorgeous town we’ve lived in), there’s such an intensity and energy to living there… but it’s also exhausting. It’s like everyone’s cranked up to 10 at all times. The sun shines 300 days of the year, the outdoors is calling, and you’re living in one of the most envied places to live in the country. It’s great - but it’s also, oddly, so much pressure! Like you need to be living your best life at all times! Then when I moved to the Midwest - Indiana, then Ohio - there was a visceral sense of relaxation I experienced in my body. It’s more boring, yes, but suddenly the pressure to be so awesome and intense and high-achieving and all the things all the time was suddenly released.
Exhale.
That’s kind of what it felt like this weekend. Not that I lead a very exciting life usually, especially being an introvert in a new-to-me small town where I am raising two small children, but I gave myself permission to do whatever felt good. No pressure.
I don’t know how you experienced it, but when I was an evangelical, there was so much felt pressure to be on fire for God, doing my daily quiet time, loving on people, being the best Jesus-follower and doing all the Christian things all the time. It was a lot if you took it seriously, like I and I’m sure many of you did. There was never an actual “good enough” way to be the best possible Christian because even though grace and forgiveness and etc were emphasized in official doctrine, unofficially, you were always striving for more sanctification, more witnessing to the world, more proving your devotion to God and not being that lukewarm Christian God spits out of God’s mouth.
It all felt so holy and important and so so very necessary — but also, so exhausting. And demoralizing. And shame-based because just being your normal self was never really good enough. God always wanted more of you (as the worship songs go, right?).
Then I began to deconstruct my faith, and I did that whole-heartedly too. Being the very best student of Bible scholarship I could, journaling my heart out seeking the Truth, confessing to God that my doubts might be sinful but I also couldn’t just *stop* doubting. It was also a lot. Intense and exciting but also nerve-wracking and afraid that I would never be enough.
And eventually, in a very very gradual process, I began to stop caring quite so much. I skipped a Sunday at church and didn’t feel so incredibly wracked with guilt as I used to. I didn’t have to read the scholarly books on the Bible, and just let the information exist without me having to know it frontwards and backwards. I slowly - slooooowly - began to put a little less pressure on myself to be a Very Good, Striving to be Perfect Human. I didn’t have to save the world, because I couldn’t.
This one was, and is, the hardest to let go of. Because deep down I’m still convinced (Enneagram 1, maybe??) that the BEST way to be human is to be perfect and make the world perfect. And even though I don’t believe in saving souls anymore, I want to save something, which probably means that I have to be unhappy and sacrificing a lot of things in the process. Then I have times like this weekend, where I don’t do much of anything of value to other people but rejuvenate myself and clean my house and remember what it is to feel the simplicity of happiness-ish. And it feels so good.
So here’s to caring just a little bit less, and letting ourselves off the hook. If you’re anything like me, you’ve held yourself on the hook for far too long. It's about time we allowed ourselves to get in touch with what feels good, to strive for good enough, and live life at paces we set for ourselves, not in comparison with other people.
If you enjoyed this post, would you share it with someone(s) who might like it too? And if you’re not a subscriber yet, hit the subscribe button to make sure you don’t miss a post! As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! What’s your relationship with the seasons and the pace of life? If you were a Very Religious Person, what do you notice about that pace of life now that things may have shifted for you?
Christine, I used to hate those sermons about being lukewarm! I'm a type B personality, which means I'm naturally lukewarm unless I'm doing something new and exciting. I just knew God was gonna spit me out any second, and I'd be on the highway to hell (a favorite AC/DC song btw; I must be pretty far down that highway just for liking the song. In fact, that song is probably a rocket sled to hell among evangelicals--LOL)!
It's good to hear you've learned to accept slowing down a bit for winter, Christine. Last winter, our friend Katye quoted somebody to me who said wise words about winter being a time when our bodies naturally need to slow down and rest, to follow the dormancy cycle of nature. That made a lot of sense to me, and for once I didn't resent the cold, dark, and lessened activity of winter.
Amen! I felt that way after 9 /11. My gynecologist recognized this as some sort of save -the-world complex of which she had been seeing a lot in those dark days, and wisely prescribed Zolof. Medicine can also serve God.