I’m Haley. Book midwife (editor), author, and single mom of four.
I have spent most of my life expecting the next season to be easier: when this pregnancy is over, life won’t be so hard…when the baby sleeps through the night…when I can quit my job and stay home…when the kids are older and I can start working again…when I finish writing this book…when no one is in diapers…when the divorce is finalized…
While there are certainly seasons that are more overwhelming than others, I believed a fantasy that life will get easier, that I will have a soft life without so much struggle or pain. When the kids go to college? When work slows down? When I get this or that kid the right diagnosis and therapy? When I can finally have the freedom to move somewhere I want to live?
As soon as I came up for air to face that my life had completely been turned upside-down a new challenge presented itself of getting emotionally accustomed to being away from my kids every other week. And then came the transition of having them full-time solo and the overwhelm that comes with that. And sure, someday I won’t be raising four kids as a single mom. They’ll be grown, and my life will shift yet again. But that elusive soft life will not arrive then, either. Young adults still need help from their mom. Illnesses may emerge. An economic crisis may strike. Or a completely unexpected catastrophe.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the next era for Haley is some European noble falling in love with me and eagerly relieving my financial burdens of raising four kids as we join him in a castle with a moat? And my only burden is all the books I need to carry home to my castle from charming European bookshops? I would love to enter my soft life era. But as unwelcome as the reality may be, it seems unavoidable to acknowledge that the roller coaster of life simply will keep moving up and down. There will be sharp turns and unexpected drops. Things will move backward just as soon as you think you’re finally making progress to the finish line.
I don’t say this to cause anxiety with a grim “SUFFERING COULD BE JUST AROUND THE CORNER!!” message. Instead, I actually have something hopeful to say, something hopeful that’s based in reality.
What I’m learning over the past two years as I’ve recovered from divorce is that while the hits keep coming, I am more resilient and capable of surviving them. I recover faster from the painful things. I have a map for moving through them. I am getting better at managing hard things.
A helpful (and healthy) shift is to focus less on a fantasy of life getting easier and instead more on building our own resilience, strength, and support systems. That way, when the next hard thing arrives, we can thrive in spite of it.
I’ve written about the new habits I’ve been learning to care for my body so that I can stay sane (tldr: giving my body the sleep, water, nourishing food, and movement it needs; working on healing my nervous system from chronic fight or flight). For our bodies to gain strength and resilience, they must experience challenge and stress. That doesn’t mean not letting our bodies rest, of course! But healthy muscles need to be used in order to be strengthened. Our hearts need exercise in order to function well. Lack of struggle doesn’t lead to strength but to weakness. Can we view navigating the hard things in our lives the same way? As a practice in resilience that primes us to handle more when it arrives? And with wisdom and confidence that accompanies each hurdle we overcome?
Just before my kids and I went to Ireland, I read a piece about how kids gain resilience and confidence when they travel. They must navigate the unfamiliar: new places, new foods, new languages, new culture. What do I do if there’s no room in the overhead bin above my seat for my luggage? How many pairs of socks should I pack? Where do I dump the water out of a full bottle before going through security? How do we find a taxi from the airport? What do they call bathrooms in this country? How do I tap my card on the bus and figure out which stop to go to?
Is our obsession with ease a result of not giving ourselves and our children enough opportunity to figure things out when they’re not simple or obvious? Will this only get worse and worse as we offload decisions, research, and tasks to ChatGPT?
I do dream of an easier life. And I wouldn’t turn it down if I had the opportunity to live with fewer hard things to juggle. But I grow in resilience and confidence all the time. (The crazy thing is that I can even track my physical resilience with my Oura ring and see how I am recovering from stress more effectively just by tracking my heart rate and biometrics!) Each time we handle a hard thing, we get stronger and more capable of handling hard things. And we know we can do it again, because we’ve already succeeded.
You have handled every hard thing you’ve ever faced. You have been through it and survived. And that should be empowering! But one thing I’m pondering is why for so many years did hard seasons break me down more and more rather than strengthen me? (And we can all probably think of someone we know who does not tackle difficulties well, but tends to crumble.) Burnout is real and I don’t think that only mindset changes can be the answer to nerves that are as raw as Mrs. Bennet’s and stress-induced health issues. A positive outlook is not enough to conquer significant mental health issues. As I look back on my own experience, I don’t think I could gain resiliency because I was not nourishing my body and mind. It’s like trying to gain muscle by lifting at the gym while starving yourself—a futile attempt.
So how do we cultivate resilience? I certainly don’t pretend to have the answers here and I’m interested to hear how you think this can be achieved. Obviously caring for our bodies helps us deal with the stresses of life. But what about building support systems in our communities, so we have friends to catch us when we are falling into despair? What about a mindset that doesn’t view each difficulty as wholly negative but as a new challenge to conquer? How can we encourage resiliency in our children and in ourselves? Can we balance intentional care for ourselves and be realistic about what we can and cannot handle? And at the same time gird our loins and view each new difficult season not as an unexpected imposition on our soft life but as a new challenge we are capable of overcoming?
I don’t want to silver-lining the difficulties that I or you face. Life is hard, and sometimes it brings you to your knees. It certainly brings me to mine. But while I don’t think it gets easier, I think we can get better at hard. At least I hope I can.
A quick note: most of my posts about my divorce are protected behind the paid subscription paywall for privacy reasons. (Substack subscriptions are a huge help to me financially as a single mom, so thank you to everyone who has upgraded to a paid subscription.)
These are some of those recent posts:
A Year After My Life Fell Apart
Please, let me save you from “Wuthering Heights”
The Terrible Gift of the Truth
Have a beautiful weekend,
Haley
(Editor of Word on Fire Votive, Author, Podcaster)
Haley’s Catholic Kids’ Cookbook
Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns
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