There is Postpartum Anxiety, Postpartum Depression and Then Just Postpartum

How long does postpartum last? 

Is it six weeks? Three months? Indefinitely? 

Clinically speaking, it’s six to eight weeks. But when you consider all that the season of postpartum holds, you would think it would be more than a matter of weeks.

There is postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, and then there is just postpartum - the time after birth. And there seems to be this idea that without anxiety or depression, postpartum is smooth-sailing. 

At 30-some weeks pregnant, the aftermath of what birth could hold for me physically, mentally, and emotionally was the last thing I was thinking about. (Ok, maybe I was thinking physically to an extent, like… how soon would I fit back into my Levi Wedgie Icon high-rise jeans?)

I thought little about what my body would go through after giving birth - or rather a human being excavating my body. Of course, I had moments of wondering and worrying, “Am I going to panic when I deliver?”, “Is something going to go wrong”, or my biggest fear, “What if poop?” Which was my first question for the nurse when everything was all said and done, although there were plenty of other things to be concerned with.

Following what is both a miraculously beautiful and traumatic experience, I didn’t think of all that my body would have to go through to recover.

After you deliver and are wheeled out to a room, assisted by nurses caring for you and your baby on the hour, and before you walk out the door with an entirely new family, the doctor stops by to “clear you” with little to no preparation for what you are about to face. Not much more direction than “no movement for 6 weeks.”

Days after your baby has been born, you're still pinching yourself that he’s real and not a figment of your imagination. But you’re also riding off three and a half hours of sleep. No amount of pinching or coffee could make you feel normal. 

Within the first week at your baby's first checkup, you're asked to fill out the Edinburgh Postnatal scale, rating your level of depression. 

I blame myself when things go wrong. 

I am not able to laugh and see the funny side of things. 

I have been anxious or worried for no good reason. 

The irony in filling out these forms is that overnight you’ve been given this little being to care for, and suddenly your senses are acutely heightened to the grave fragility of life. So yes, you just might be worried your baby will get sick, have newborn sudden death syndrome, or your foggy head will somehow miss a step and you will clumsily drop them.

Without any clinical anxiety or depression, postpartum alone is a step into an entirely new bodily, emotional and mental realm. 

There is the physical event your body has just encountered. Things are immediately deflating in places and inflating in others. Your breasts are sore from learning to feed an eager baby who is learning to eat. Your only way of sitting like a normal human being is on a donut pillow due to tears that are so painful it makes you wonder how you will be able to walk again. And as eager as you are to wear those Levis, you can't even think about putting on lace underwear without wincing. 

Logistically, your life has been flipped upside down. You’re learning how to swaddle, feed and read the language of cries. Never mind you’re not getting sleep. Like literally, you are not sleeping.

And if you’re smart like us, you don’t get more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep for five months until you finally bite the bullet to sleep train. (But I’ll take the blame for that, I just wasn’t ready to part with waking up to my little boy in that bassinet each morning -  the things I thought I’d never say.)

Ultimately, the ride of postpartum I could have never anticipated was rapidly my heart would grow, almost painfully so. The transition to experience this wild love was something nothing and no one could have equipped me for. A love that runs so crazy deep and feels crazy because you are immediately bound to this little boy who has just entered your life. You feel like you know them inside and out and yet are overwhelmed with anticipation to discover the depths of who they are. 

This season has been a wild ride for me. It has been both losing a part of myself and yet gaining the whole world in this little boy's smile. 

The magnitude of this season of life is often diminished for us by a culturally skewed view of the word. I'm not sure if it is that many of us women feel we need to keep this season private because we don't have it all together, or it's too unglamorous a season for society to engage. 

But if postpartum was anything for me, it was the most blissful exhaustion. 

It continues to be pure bliss, now just with more sleep and dirty diapers. 

A Lack of Maternal Instincts

Motherhood was never my dream.

I often felt I was lacking some innate female trait that is expected of women.

I was never the girl ooo-ing and ahh-ing over babies. I was the one taking a step back for someone else to hold them, as if being so considerate, “No really, you go ahead and hold her,” when I was just saving myself from having to string together the sweet nothings that naturally spill out of a normal person's mouth when holding a baby. 

Babies seemed unrelatable to me, almost alien-like. I can’t speak their language, I didn’t know what to do with them and there was no draw to try, so why should this be natural to me?

Yet growing up the oldest of four kids I’d somehow always found myself babysitting, working in church nurseries, and nannying to make ends meet while pursuing the penniless career of being a New York yoga instructor. It seemed that since I was a woman there was always someone assuming I wanted to be around babies. (Cause doesn’t every woman?) So I assumed every other female but me did. I had no maternal instinct. Even as a kid I skipped the baby doll phase to play with barbie dolls who were preoccupied with doing their hair, were Olympic athletes, or in a rock band.

So many girls I knew, even my younger sisters, had this innate knack for handling little ones, while I'd be keeping my distance, waiting for a clear look of approval from the tiny human before attempting to approach. I felt misplaced around children. I wondered, “how is this ever going to work?” How could I be a mom if I don’t even feel a desire to hold a baby?

As I write this I’m nine days away from my due date. And still, I can’t fathom that I have a baby inside me. Is this real life? Right now I can’t even wrap my head around it. But here we are.

It’s a strange thing to know you want a family and of course, you want to have children someday but feel no desire to be motherly. You want the loving home and white picket fence - at some point. Just not at the average going rate. But becoming a mother to someone, a baby no less, there was not a pressing desire.

Even now pregnant, I don't think I’d ever feel ready. Mostly because I’ve had a harder time imagining being at the beck and call of another being. 

Yes, it sounds selfish and I admit it is. 

Beyond babies and children feeling foreign to handle, it’s entirely selfish. Because let’s face it, when you’ve been single, navigating life on your own, well into your thirties you don’t care to be at the beck and call of anyone in constant need of you if you don’t have to.

Even with all the moving and kicking inside of me, the tiniest drumbeat of a kick that first brought me to tears, I sometimes forget there is a human being in me - an actual baby. It feels like I’m just waiting for this belly to be released of this additional weight. But I suspect that the miraculous magnitude of it all makes it nearly impossible to wrap my head around what is about to happen. 

Many may assume that anyone who doesn’t get married until their 35 would be ready to have children right away. But at 35, freshly married, even then I had no desire to have kids and probably tried to bury any that would surface. Because when you’ve spent that much time single, mingling, dating, moving, transitioning, you mostly feel ready to just feel content being with someone for a little while. (Emphasis on some “one”.)

Being single longer than the norm you feel a great many steps behind the traditional track. You feel on a different track entirely. Because you are. What is normal to everyone else is foreign to you. And what is normal to you is foreign to everyone else. 

I wasn't ready to welcome someone who would need my constant help, attention, and instant access to my body, and waking up to someone else's needs before I'm able to get my workout in. The thought of all that was far from being desirable.

It may even be the reason why no matter what age you are as a single woman it can sometimes be hard to connect with other women who do have children. It feels like you’re both living in different worlds because in reality, you are. When you’re pushing thirty single you get the sense that some view you as selfish, self-consumed, and one-track-minded. Some just tell you point-blank. 

You may never hear it directly, but you can certainly feel it. “Must be nice.” “Gee I can’t remember the last time I had no one but myself to think about.” “You’re so lucky you can work out when you want ‘cause you don’t have kids.” It’s indirectly direct, which can often be our way as women. 

The longer you are single or without children the more you hear this. And the longer you’re single the more you feel you have to fend for yourself, fight for the same adequate benefits as your male co-workers, and struggle to access some kind of relational depth in a social world that grows increasingly invasive yet progressively superficial. Add the trait of an introvert to the mix and it’s a hot mess. Often those of us viewed as entirely self-consumed are simply still trying to figure life out. 

After years of singleness, it’s not natural to take time to think much about being needed. Or that’s just me - I never know. 

Something about motherhood never sounded appealing. I wanted it someday, yes. Just not today. The word itself carried a negative connotation. Motherhood sounded like the end of something - of so many things: the end of my morning routine, the end of my spending budget, the end of my frivolous meal preparation, the end of uninterrupted nights, frankly, the end of who I want to be. (Granted, being a mom likely sounds a lot more exciting than my weekly routines in singleness. Who am I kidding?)

Motherhood sounded like the end of me. 

I’m quite a selfish individual. I am fully aware of this. 

The idea of being pregnant appealed just the same; The end of control, control over my body, my thoughts, who had access to it, invaded it, or upset it at any moment. The whole package deal seemed like the termination of some kind of sanity I thought I somehow had a handle on. 

When I had yet to find someone I want to share my paycheck or saliva with, I simply couldn’t wrap my head around being responsible for anyone else. But it’s funny how unexpected life circumstances can change what we want. It's funny how we think we always know what we want. 

After getting married and beginning the whole discussion on when to start trying, that resistance certainly didn’t just go out the window. Since my twenties, I had told myself I’d want two years of marriage before even thinking about a baby. So by the time I was engaged and 35 I had to be open to a timeline I hadn’t necessarily planned for or hoped for.

Some might think that waiting until you’re 37 to get pregnant isn’t the greatest idea. But hey, if Megan Markle could do it why can’t I? The suggestion that getting pregnant “at your age” was any more complicated to me than any other age was beyond me. That is until people start asking, “So how do you feel about having a baby at an advanced maternal age?” or categorizing my pregnancy as geriatric. (But we’ll save that for another day.)

Ready or not, here I am pregnant. Timing is never convenient. And just because my belly has grown doesn’t mean any innate instinct has. But some things have.  

It’s interesting how the entire process of pregnancy prepares you to let go of all that control I’ve been petrified to give up. Just as all the relaxin and progesterone are loosening your muscle, it loosens your inhibitions to ease up your grip on the reins, and you start to wonder why you were holding onto them so tightly, to begin with. 

Self-set relationship parameters & online dating

I was thirty before I finally caved into the online dating scene. 

Of all people, it was suggested to me by my dad. The last person who would ever eagerly pry into my dating life, let alone suggest meeting places. 

That year I had returned to Lakeland, Florida, for the umpteenth time -  a fact I was too humiliated to admit. It was October and I had just returned from living in a mother-in-law suite in College Park, Florida, had gone through one of my longest relationships in some time, which came to an abrupt end before I moved back, and experienced a once-in-a-lifetime debacle of a sexist, hypocritical, financially exploitative workplace (just to later discover there can be more than one of these in one’s life.) I was about as defeated as I had been when I returned to Lakeland after living in New York City for under a year in my mid-twenties. 

Then my dad suggests online dating?

I was devastated.

I’m not the most unfiltered (let alone filter savvy), engaged social media presence. That is, when I’m even present online. I used to wish I had more of a knack for it. But it just always felt odd, unnatural, out of place. Just not me. 

It was probably the same reason I was routinely avoiding any guy who tried to contact me via Facebook or Insta DM’s when they could approach me in person. I used to think if he doesn’t have the guts to talk to me face-to-face, he’s not ballsy enough for me.

So for online dating, I was convinced, “this just isn’t me.” 

I knew my dad wanted the best for me. And being one and the same - both homebody personalities, who can sit on an idea a little too long, wait for others to approach you to know they’re interested and overall just more comfortably on our own - my dad knew I needed a little shove to be actively open for something outside of the NYC meet-cute I had imagined. 

My dad had learned how to break through these patterns in his own life. He had written the book on it - a series of question books for every type of relationship called, “Now we’re talking.” So I knew he saw a resistance in me that needed to be pushed out of my comfort zone. 

Still, at first, I was resentful and frustrated at the thought. Like when someone attempts to set you up with a person you don’t find remotely attractive and all you want to say is, “Really? That is what you think of me?”

I felt however my love story would pan out and define the quality of the love. (This wasn’t a philosophy or some kind of moral code, but more like a suppressing subconscious notion - maybe an ever-so hopeless romantic notion at that. And at this point, I was pretty hopeless.) But, like most times my Dad offers a suggestion that I initially combat, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right. “Am I limiting myself? Am I cutting off the possibility of meeting someone online? Are there dateable people online?”

Mind you, this was also 2014, months before the more-approachable Bumble was launched and years before friends would shamelessly share they were on Tinder. 

But I knew my Dad was right. So I decided to give it a go. 

And the only option that seemed slightly approachable at the time, if at all digestible, was. . . drum roll, please...

Tada - eHarmony. 

(Aren’t you so underwhelmed?)

I set up my profile, grueling over which three pictures to load, overanalyzed my bio, and hit save. And so it began. First the compatibility quiz, and then the varied forms of communication. 

Initially, I hated every minute. Within the first week, I had a few guys about an hour out of town requesting to meet up, that I continually put off. And about after two weeks, someone I was semi-interested in put me off, which then makes one utterly interested. 

Also, being my very practical self, I had set my location nationwide. Of course, I didn’t want to meet someone in town? Ha, are you kidding? Who would do such a thing when you have the world at your fingertips. (And yes, I did have to refrain from selecting worldwide. I mean I have to be somewhat reasonable here.)

I would give it a month. I was convinced that was all I could mentally take. Because who wants to put down their own money for just another emotionally exhaustive outlet for not finding a relationship? 

Then there was a new match, a semi-pleasing, exciting match. He was tall with dark hair and a beard. A “musician from California.” Something surprisingly felt mutual. The light conversation transpired easily and effortlessly. And within a week he asked if I wanted to Facetime. So, a few nights later, after I refreshed my hair, put on a new outfit (just for the top third of my shirt to be seen) and cleaned my face to put on an entirely new full face of makeup (which, you know, is beautifully detected in horrid lighting once the sun goes down.) I sat at my computer and waited thirteen minutes with bated breath for that call to come through. “What the heck, what the heck am I doing?” (That and a lot of other words raced through my brain.) 

At seven on the dot, the call came through. After an hour of conversation, it went fairly well and even ended with the possibility of another. 

The random texts continued throughout the days - the ones that give you excitement soaked in anxiety, that hoists your stomach up to your throat. And there was more Facetiming.

I was both nervous and somewhat thrilled there could be potential. I worked to be patient, not to hold my breath or let my expectations get ahead. After all, I just met this guy for the first time. So I tried to move with the pace of the texting and Facetiming as it came. There were even the occasional emails. It was a kind of healthy progression that makes you feel at peace that you’re in sync with it all. 

Suddenly it was November, and we were still texting and Facetiming. Things were feeling good, new possibilities were on the way, and anytime someone tried to set me up with anyone in town, I was more satisfied than ever to casually say, “No thanks. I’m good.”

But come the week before Thanksgiving, the Facetiming was suddenly delayed. The texts had come to a bit of a lull, and responses felt uninterested. It was only a matter of days, but of course, I felt like I had already been ghosted. I was embarrassed by any previous enthusiasm, annoyed to be dangled along, and overall generally pissed. 

Every Thanksgiving my family goes away to a cabin in the woods, and given how things were looking, I knew it was exactly what I would be needing. Then I got the text. “Hey, want to FaceTime tomorrow?” I was surprised but wasn’t about to hold my breath. And delayed my response an appropriate length to be certain my decreased interest would be felt. 

At this point, I was so done being hopeful or eager, just when a relationship is about to go sour. I was familiar enough with the feeling. 

So the next day, I didn’t do my hair, didn't have a lick of more makeup on, and didn’t sit down a moment early to concern myself with appearing ready when the call came in. He called on the dot. We talked and I had to work just to look interested, keeping sentences short and my answers infrequent. I just wasn’t about to be the girl anxiously waiting, while the guys played it all collected and cool. I was over it.  Although this time he wasn’t so cool and collected. He seemed more engaged, interested, and palpable. But I had finally got myself to play it cool, so I wasn’t about to give it up.

I looked at the time. It was thirty minutes in and thirty minutes wasted. “Well, I gotta go,” I quickly inserted. “Already?” he said. “Is everything ok? You seem a little upset?” 

“Well, actually. . .”, yeah I let him know, I was upset. I didn’t beat around it. I didn’t feel like waiting around and playing this game if he wasn’t interested. So we could just call it quits if he wasn’t into it, because I didn’t care to waste my time. “Oh,” he seemed surprised. “Well actually, I wanted to talk tonight because I was thinking I’d come out and visit you.”

I didn’t think I heard him right. “In Florida?,” I asked.

He laughed as he responded as if knowing we had gotten our signals crossed over the past week. “Yeah, in Florida.” 

Well, the call went on longer than 30 minutes. I melted out of my ice queen and was kind of floored that this was what he was thinking about the past week. 

I walked into that Thanksgiving trip in the woods on a cloud, in disbelief that this relationship was moving forward after just giving online dating a month. We had begun planning the time he’d come out in the next month and my mind was racing, while I was still managing to work on a magazine publication during the vacation. Thank God I had something to keep my mind busy, and thank God so many questions and doubts could be put at bay. 

I went downstairs one night before dinner, worked on a bit of editing, checked my Gmail and an email had arrived just a few hours ago from him. Pretty much it went, “Hey, so I hope you understand but I just ran into a girl this week I used to have a thing for in high school and I need to see if this could go somewhere. No hard feelings, but I just need to pursue this.” It was longer than that, but all a blur beyond those few sentences. In short, it was nice to know you. Bye. 

After sobbing for an hour over it, having to explain my red face to my family, I just wanted to crawl in a hole. The next day my version of crawling in a hole was a trail run through the woods. (Sidenote: I was never a real runner until these more recent years, but since college, I’d spontaneously become one whenever a guy broke my heart.)

I ran through, somehow converting tears to energy to a focused and steady pace I probably would never attain in any coherent state. Twenty minutes in and I hit an uneven part of the trial, rolled my ankle, hit the ground, and had the wind completely knocked out of me. I had rolled my ankle before, but could at least fool people into thinking I was fine. But by the time we were packing up and leaving the cabin, I couldn’t find a shoe to fit my foot in. 

I swore off online dating after that. But I had also sworn off a lot of things, what cities I wouldn’t meet someone in, what platforms I wouldn’t welcome any pickup lines on and all in all found myself for another year or two yet again determining the parameters of my dating potential. Granted, if I were to find love online or not, those guards were bound to come down. 

Sure, online dating was a brutal experience for me. And at face value, two months of conversation are a drop in the bucket. So when girls ask me today if I’d recommend online dating, I say sure. Go for it. What’s stopping you?

Dating online or not, you’re bound to get your heart broken a time or two. Or maybe you’re bound to find the real deal.

So why limit where and when it happens?

The fine line between being a hopeless romantic and realistic

I once had a guy tell me, “Wow, you really are a hopeless romantic.” 

And I always knew I was, but thought, “Isn’t everyone?” I mean Hollywood didn’t make bank from the likes of When Harry Met Sally to Failure to Launch for nothing. Plus, rom-coms have been record-breaking box office hits well before the genre was ever coined.

Of course, I knew everyone wasn’t a hopeless romantic. I may have been on the deep end of it, but I knew I wasn’t the only one swimming out there and searching. 

I took the comment as a bit of a knock, as the words were followed by a roll of the eyes and a slight “pshh” sounds as if someone has already written you off in their mind before stating it. (Well, actually it was a comment someone made on a blog, but somehow I still remember it audibly.) Mind you this was after I turned down his offer to take me out. So I knew the comment didn’t carry much weight. Or did it?

It made me read back over my hopeful account worried that I may be viewed by others as some type of starry-eyed young woman whose feet were unhinged from the earth and wore her heart on her sleeve. 

I was in my late twenties, at the time, bubbling over with hopes in all things careers, love, and life-related. And I had already been knocked down a good bit by enough crazy life moves, relationship situations, and jobs that my hopeful romantic outlook on life didn’t add up. But, I must have spilled over sentiments out of anticipation that something beautiful was on its way, even though it wouldn’t arrive for another near-decade when I was enraptured with the idea. (Well, technically it had arrived but… yeah, it’s a long story.) Due to concern that I may come across as hopeful in romance, I’m pretty sure it was the last post I wrote about love for some time until I returned with the topic of “Good Girls Need Cold Showers Too.” Which isn’t really about love so much. But yeah, waiting can wear on you.

Suddenly I was very wary of exposing any of my heart’s hopes in nearly anything. I didn’t want to come across as delicate. I didn’t want to be seen as naive, or God-forbid, a hopeless romantic. “What guy wants that burden?” I began to think. (In truth actually, no guy fully wants to carry that, but we are very whimsical and cute for thinking they do.)

Something does shift in you over time. Maybe it’s comments or worries like these that get us all a little fearful of being wistfully hopeful or revealing any excitement about what could be. 

Of course, life has a way of naturally stripping us of many of our starry-eyed tendencies. It has a way of dimming out the sparkle in our eyes. There is a wantingness that you get tired of, and one too many miserable dates can make you sick of wanting and cynical of anticipating anything good. 

At some point, you almost feel like you don’t have the right to be whimsical or optimistic in love. You give up being a hopeful romantic, let alone a hopeless one. That or too many bad Bumble dates, misleading texts, or disconcerting set-ups can be enough to knock the wind out of you and create some barrier that you define as resilience, which is actually a reluctance to be confident of anything in the future. Because who likes hoping for something that may never happen?

At this point in the twenty-first century, being a man-hating cynic is expected of single young women. So we tend to just give the people what they want. 

There is a fine line between being sensible and hopeful. When there are endless possibilities in awaiting love and simultaneously seemingly absolutely no potential whatsoever, it can all be a little tricky to steer.

So be sensible, sure. 

But for anyone who is looking for love, the expectation is always far from sensible. So I’m not sure why we always feel the need to hide it. 

The real struggle of finding and keeping female friendships (for singles & non-singles)

There is a preconceived cultural notion that nothing on this earth comes easier to women (and in multiples) than female friendships. 

But past college, when you’re single and everyone else’s lives seem to be catapulting forward with new additions, new relationships, and new experiences, relating to the same people isn’t always possible. Most all relationships begin to change and shift.

Close friendships are supposed to be your saving grace, particularly when you’re single. But female friendships are complex, as are most of us females. (Shocking, no?) So unless you fall into this culturally assumed norm, you likely only have so many steady relationships you can rely on to fully get you.

Whether single or married, female friendships have never been the most natural thing for me to navigate - not by a long shot. Having spent the majority of my adult life single and now just over a year into marriage, there are many realities of friendships during singleness that I want to make sure I never forget. So excuse me as I draft out this mental note-to-self.

For those of you who are 100% go-with-the-flow, completely non-analytical, who never second-guess the words that come out of your mouth and are utterly secure in your skin, you might just want to stop here because this article may in no way resonate with you. 

Female friendships have never come easy to me. Sure I enjoy girly things. I like a good weekly mask as much as the next girl, can get preoccupied over trivial things like the perfect lip color, and new clothes are my nemesis. 

But I am far from what I’d consider being a girly girl. I’ve never watched Gossip Girl or Gilmore Girls (nor do I ever care to. I’ve never been able to bring myself to verbally abbreviate words. I despise workout groups and am most strongly introverted when it comes to my fitness routines. And I still can’t take a selfie without audibly making fun of myself. 

Still, female friendships are just as vital for me as the next girl. Of course, platonic friendships are a vital need for us all throughout life. There is a different kind of need for them when you’re single. 

Romantic or not - relationships can be complicated.  Because, as humans, we’re all complicated.

When I was single I probably was in self-denial and worked hard to be deeply content as an introvert independent. Sometimes it was pure laziness. Sometimes loneliness was just easier. 

Before I was ever in a very steady relationship (because any “steady relationships” managed to be fleeting for me), my days appeared incredibly free. Beyond some isanely consuming, neurotic and overbearing work experiences, I could do what I want, eat what I want, and watch what I want without a discussion about it with anyone. There was no one else to consider in how I spent my time. Yet “free” was often a far stretch from my perspective on it.

Nights out with the girls, or just having a friend over for a movie and Talenti’s Gelato, ring more clear in my memory than any boyfriend, lame date, or a potential guy I had my eyes set on. When you find the right friendships they are a respite, the breathing room through most any season of life. But when you’re navigating life every day on your own, that respite brings a different kind of needed air to your lungs as much as you may be in denial of it.

I would often have months where nearly every weekend plan seemed to be canceled or friends forgot they had a date night with their husbands. So you get used to not depending on people. But it doesn’t matter how introverted you claim to be, how career-focused you are, or how content you are being single, these moments can just serve as a reminder that you aren’t a priority on anyone’s list. And it can take a toll on you.

There is a kind of armor some single females feel they are expected to wear, more so as an expectation of themselves than anyone else’s. And through the difficulty of maintaining friendships that guard can easily thicken and become more stagnant because it’s always easier to keep it up rather than let it down. But even if it’s more work, heartache (yes, female friendships can still lead to heartache), and emotional exhaustion, just let it down.

It is difficult to accept the reality that all of your dating or married friends have several people in their life to prioritize over you, or so it seems. It is often how it can feel.

And it is really easy to forget what it is like to be single once you’re married. It is easy to forget how overlooked you can feel and how much your soul and psyche could use those few hours to open up, laugh, and reset. 

Female relationships can be complicated. And as much as I despise saying it when you get married life inevitably gets more complicated. But I hope it never gets so complicated that I’ll forget what was like before I was married.

The many holes in Christian standards of dating

Sometimes when you address seasons that you have passed by in life, you can just be speaking out of turn. 

When I was single I’d often roll my eyes, passing muted judgment on any married woman who tried to speak to where I was in life. (As if anyone gets it when they’re not in it, right?) Particularly when she had married well before my age and had the luxury of bypassing a dating world that felt never-ending, it was difficult to take it all in. 

Because, past a certain point of singleness, I recognize you don’t really care to hear what everyone has to say.

Yet here I am, one and a half years into marriage, speaking out of turn…

There seems to be so much pressure for Christian females to have to date a certain way, which honestly boggles my mind, considering I was facing this some fifteen years ago.

With today’s feminist culture, post-I-am-woman-hear-me-roar stage (because nowadays we have things to do and don’t have time to waste our roars), I would’ve thought things would have drastically changed for single Christian women by now. 

But, they haven’t. 

Christian culture’s standards of dating can be so restricting, so formulated, so prescribed, so serious, that it can feel downright crippling at times. And, sure it is serious. You’re looking for the one - the individual you want to spend the rest of your life with. Believe me, I get it. This is serious business. 

The funny thing is, the serious business of Christian dating guidelines are often set and promoted by individuals who married straight out of college, dated decades away from the average age of marriage for a female being 31, or somehow seem to be deflecting their past regrets on your value system. 

The expectations are many. And for many single Christian women, we welcome them. We admire them. We work to live by them. But they are no short order.

You are expected to view dating as courting, and not... dating. (This is a serious matter, no tomfoolery here.)

You are expected to keep your hands to yourself and wait. (And yes, I know. Waiting is no fun. I don’t condone it. But, let’s just say you can read more of my thoughts on this taboo topic here and there.

You are expected to have high expectations. (But really, is that hard for any of us girls raised in the rom-com era?)

You are expected to be selective. (Which, hi - married at 35 - never came too difficult for me.)

And you are expected to navigate relationships with grace, decisiveness, and reservation, all the while remaining completely confident of who you are as a young woman in Christ.

These expectations are fairly high. But they’ve been normalized by our Christian culture to be, well, expected.

And these were often the expectations I placed on myself and had come to believe were most virtuous and, somehow, would more quickly and magically lead me to the jackpot in a more timely fashion. (Although I did eventually hit the jackpot - just a lot later.) Funny enough, my standards in the wake of purity culture were quite contrary to my parents, who encouraged me to get out and have a little fun while I was often set on waiting for the real deal.

Trying to maintain any sanity within a modern Christian approach to dating can already make one feel like you're entering psychosis. Add to that a pandemic and I can only imagine the confusion and frustration that ensues. (It’s one thing pre-COVID to date a stranger or get set up on a blind date. But these days the thought “what if we end up making out and he has COVID?” must cross the minds of many.)

I don’t think it was until I was in my late twenties that I accepted I could enjoy myself dating even when it clearly wasn’t meant to go anywhere. (Granted, family members and friends may vouch differently for all the times I was losing my God-given mind dating and not dating.)

The dating world for Christians today can look more like a marriage arrangement or cherished Amish tradition compared to how our parents dated in the ’70s and ’80s, back when double dates were a weekly occurrence and our moms asked out our dads for the first date. (Yeah, that really did happen.) As a whole, dating in previous decades, prior to any established Christian standard of dating, was more casual, more simple, more relaxed, more (dare I say) fun. 

Have we forgotten that dating is supposed to be fun?

I know, some of you are thinking, “But Kristin, you don't get it. Dating guys who aren’t the one is only disappointing, disheartening, and exhausting. Dating guys who don’t match my prayer list of what I’m waiting for is a waste of time.”

But is it? 

I know, when your heart is in it, it can disappointing, disheartening and exhausting - and deeply so. But the expectation to wait, and not date until you find the one can be paralyzing, causing you to fear even going out a few times with someone who doesn’t line up entirely to your ideal.

I'm in no way suggesting you lower your expectations, let go of hope or lose sight of the qualities you have prayed and waited for. But maybe you can shift your perspective on what it can mean to date.

Then again maybe there are some of you that recognize you’re not going to find your husband the next date after you graduate, the date after your younger sister’s wedding, or the date following break-up number seven. Maybe there are more of you who are up for meeting new guys for the sake of meeting new people, having a good laugh, expanding your world a bit, or even getting a free meal (God forbid). I could be totally off. And if that’s the case, props to you. 

In our Christian culture as a whole, many of us expect God’s best and we expect it rather quickly. We can be a little self-entitled and just want to get what we have coming to us. (All I can think of after that is Sally Brown from Charlie Brown’s Christmas, saying “All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.”) This not only builds us up with expectations through the roof but creates anticipation to want it now, expect it now - get a little lazy - and in some cases, demand it now. (This widespread Christian self-entitlement has infiltrated across the board in the pastorate, within Christian organizational leaders and figures to be a detrimental trait reflected in our faith. But that is a very different conversation for a very different day.)

Unbeknownst to the Christian standards of dating, just because you are a Christian out there dating doesn’t mean the next date has to potentially be the one. Who you date doesn’t have to be confined to a list of traits you are pining and praying for. Dating the not-right person can be fun. (And no, I don’t mean that kind of fun. 😉 But do what you will.) 

So, if you’re feeling a tad psychotic dating these days, take a breather. Give yourself a break. Take off the unnecessary pressure of only dating the guys who fit the bill and let go of the unrelenting notion that each meal out with a man has to be a walk on eggshells, and let yourself just date. 

When you are single, no matter how long it takes to meet that one, I think God truly wants you to enjoy yourself along the way. Because if there was supposed to be one perfect way of dating, there must be a reason God chose not to write the book on it.

9 reasons to quit your job during a pandemic

Quitting a job should always be your last resort, right?

At least that’s what my dad always taught me. Having coached me through every retail and administration job before I made a career in writing (which were more than I care to recall), I never took his advice lightly. 

So, when I was seeking my parent’s counsel on the phone a few months ago and my dad suggested, “Kristin, do you feel you’re at a breaking point? Do you think you’re ready to quit?”, I knew I was well past it. 

In my position, I was a ghostwriter for an executive leader who aspired to be known as a leadership guru. But given the nine reasons found below, I knew it was time to quit my job. Granted, I know not everyone has the ability to quit their job for many reasons, particularly in such a strained economy. Yet at this season of our lives, my husband and I were privileged for me to have this choice, to resign. Still, it was no option we took lightly.

In April my husband was let go from his role as a professor along with 33 others, “due to COVID.” Needless to say, my job became critical for us as we were only four months into our marriage, and I had just moved into our home that we hoped to start our family in. Without my husband’s job it would have been financially infeasible for us to keep our home.

So I’m sure you’re wondering, why would she want to quit her job when in such a dilemma? More specifically, why would anyone quit their job during a pandemic? 

Well, I’m here to give you those very reasons.

1. You don't care to be incessantly micromanaged. Even in the case that a micromanaging supervisor is seeking the optimum outcome, they will always be grappling for more control. You may attempt to automatically reply to their texts before they start counting the minutes in your delay, yet this never seems to dissipate the core issue. Incessant, unrelenting, and suffocating treatment, is in short, suffocating. When employees are being watched like fishes in a fishbowl, it will never allow them the freedom they need to reach notable strides in their role. 

2. You forget what a “healthy work culture” looks like. When you can’t remember what it’s like to be around people who call out the best in you, uphold high standards of morale, and, rather, constantly have an excuse for why they aren’t a “perfectly” healthy organization, it’s unlikely your work environment is a healthy one.

3. They can’t produce what they advertise. If a business advertises they make sourdough bread, you should get bread. If they advertise chocolate chip cookies, you can expect cookies with a decent bit of chocolate. If they advertise being Christ-centered, Christ should be displayed in their actions and their midst. Try as one may, when human decency and integrity isn’t a core value, a Christ-centered culture will never be produced.

4. Love isn’t at work. We may not ever think that love has a place at work, but it most certainly should. In fact, without it, no place can thrive. Cultures that celebrate your wins, remember your birthday, go the extra mile to make you feel appreciated, and take the time to hear your frustrations are places where love is at work. The irony is, some of the very best leadership and cultures I’ve worked among have not been Christian. Yet these organizations that weren’t Christian treated me with the respect and love that a Biblical faith promotes.

5. Interactions with leadership are cold, rare or non-existent. When bosses avoid interacting with employees (with the exception of the office “rockstars”), the common thought is, “Oh, they just have too many important things going on to be bothered with.” But a true leader should be continually engaged in a spirit of kindness, generosity and enthusiasm that its organization can emulate. According to Lieutenant General George Flynn of the United States Marine Corps, leaders must be willing to lay down their own desires. If a leader can’t walk past an employee in a hall without saying “hi”, the characteristics and values they are promoting should be in question.  

6. You thought you left female bullying behind in 8th grade. Bullying doesn’t necessarily always come in the form of sexual harassment. In 2017 the Workplace Bullying Institute reported, although workplace bullying isn’t equally split between males (70%) and females (30%), females tend to bully more females than males. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) states "usually if a person genuinely feels they are being singled out for unfair treatment by a boss or colleague they are probably being bullied". Constant intimidating, insulting, abusive, and berating behavior is bullying. It’s easy to get stuck in this cyclical treatment or try (as hard as you may) to brush it off. But bullying not only harms your work performance but will exasperate one’s mental health. 

7. You’re not passionate about it. When you’re doing what you love for a vision you can’t get behind, carrying out the role will be a struggle to maintain. As Simon Sinek puts it, “Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion." When I first stepped into this role I was thrilled with the opportunity to write pieces that could inspire healthy leadership and organizations. Mind you, these pieces I was writing were published for major news and leadership outlets. But when I began to see that the workspace I found myself in was far from the ideals of what I was writing, the passion quickly dwindled. 

8. You don’t trust your organization. There is always a healthy amount of fear in a job that pushes us beyond our limits, but a culture of fear only debilitates our growth. In an Inc. article, Marcel Schwantes wrote, “Managers that truly care for their employees will create an environment in which people feel psychologically safe… This type of workplace feels more like a community because fear has been pumped out of the organization.” If you can never feel safe in a work environment, you can never trust they will have your best interest or professional career in mind. 

9. Because, at the end of the day, a paycheck simply can’t compare to a sound mind and quality of life. By now, I hope this point can speak for itself.

Certainly, there are some tough jobs you just have to stick out some seasons in life, as I have. But there is a difference between tough and toxic. 

While quitting a job may not be a part of the plan, especially during a pandemic, consider if all it is asking of you is worth it in the long run. Having a job that supports, equips, and has your best interest in mind should not be a luxury. It should be standard. Working in a position that inspires, challenges you, and truly enlivens you doesn’t have to be some modern-day dream. It should be our reality. Work should be a passion and fuel, rather than something that has the potential to wear us down and eat away at us. 

In these difficult times, I think it is easy to lose sight of the power of choice. We choose the work environments we want, and we can also choose the ones we don’t. 

Why "not kissing until marriage" isn't the best idea + other good girl myths

At thirteen, I got home from a Wednesday night youth group and announced to my mom, "So I've decided I'm not going to kiss anyone until I get married." That night our youth pastor introduced the book and revolutionary idea, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye." 

By this point, the so-called "purity culture" had evolved into an ideal Christian young women were expected to live by. (Granted, I doubt the pastors, marketers, and youth workers at the time realized that over half of the young people they targeted would enter their 30's still single.) Even still, I can not deny that this message met me as a young idealist and highly hopeless romantic as an approach that appeared to ensure true love at last. (Mind you, I was thirteen.)  

Honestly, I thought my mom would be proud her daughter would choose to set the bar so high at such a young age. 

"I think that's a dumb idea," she responded, giggling. Then, I think she was seriously concerned. "There are some important things you are going to want to get to know about a guy before you get married," she said. "And a kiss can tell you a lot." Now my mom - also the senior pastor's wife at the time - was one hundred percent behind high standards and practicing caution in dating. She just didn't want her little dreamy-eyed girl to get all the wrong ideas in her head about relationships and love.

Truth be told, a kiss can tell you a lot. (And no, I did not have my first kiss at the altar.) 

Today, there are endless articles and podcasts on "A Generation Shamed by True Love Waits" or "How the Purity Culture failed me." Now, I don't have such a drastic story; I don't regret the decisions I've made through my single years, the standards I set for who I would marry, or the expectations I’ve had for myself.

But the vague message of sex in the church became so idolized and glorified that many of us raised with them were left with a ton of confusion, frustrations, and misconceptions. Because even when I was attempting a balanced approach to dating (whatever that means nowadays), learning to set my own personal standards and navigate my sexuality through my 20’s and 30’s was nothing short of exhausting. 

Since I've been married, I've hesitated to jump back into this topic. I know what dating today looks like. And I know, regardless of what your beliefs, standards or situation may be, singleness is not always as "easy, breezy" as many married couples may like to make you feel it is. 

I first wrote on the frustrations of sexuality for Christian females in 2017. I titled it Good Girls Need Cold Showers Too -  but really, I was asking, "Am I the only one who feels this crazy?"

For any females whose fundamental ideas of sex and sexuality were formed by the church, two things often added to the confusion: First, the topic of dating and marriage is often addressed as if there is only one type of female. Second, is the subject of sexuality, in all of its potential complexity and beauty is nearly nonexistent. 

For men, it seemed to be a different discussion. In youth group, boys were led in candid conversations on their own sexual desires and curiosities while us girls, in the next room, would be discussing the appropriate skirt-length and prayer lists for the ideal man. 

Even in college, there were exclusively male and female services the week of Valentine's Day. One year, the girls were in one room being cautioned that "falling in love messes with your head" and releases oxytocin in your brain, which "causes you to think unclearly." (Truth be told, oxytocin also plays a crucial role in social bonds, reproduction, and trust, which is some of the real magic of love - but that's beside the point.) Later I found out the guy's service was basically a free for all Q & A, covering every topic from porn to masturbating. Often for females, the natural complexity, hormonal tendencies, and emotional depth of sexuality are commonly overlooked, are so neglected you might as well assume Christian females are supposed to be asexual beings. So it is no wonder many of us walk through our 20's and 30's feeling so frustrated, confused, and strange.

I'm not saying it's all black and white, that everyone's ethics should be the same, or that navigating your sexuality in singleness gets any easier.

Because, if you have sexual frustrations, you're normal. If you're still trying to figure out how to navigate it, you're normal. And if you're tired of navigating it, you are normal. 

Because you are a female human being. 

Already, any girl who chooses to live by a sexual standard on her own usually is not going to set the bar low. So it's ok to feel a little crazy at times. You probably wouldn't be normal if you didn't.

The complications of modern-day au naturale beauty

We live in the era of self-love and pure, unfiltered and untouched beauty, right? 

Well, in reality, this era of natural beauty we live in is not so simple as they all like to paint it: Accept it, embrace it, and love it. For some, maybe it really is that simple. But, for me, it’s not always been.

My parents raised me to understand the value of self-worth. And I'm so grateful to have always been loved and celebrated simply for who I am. Still, there have been so many (so so many) stages where I struggled embracing who I am, right where I am. 

Going from my teen years to twenties and then thirties, there are certain expectations I subconsciously had for myself. The surprising one in my thirties was this idea that I would no longer be easily swept up by today’s standards of beauty. 

Since I was a kid, with an affinity for film and editorial, I held a lot of weight and insecurities in looks and a so-called “personal style,” more than I’d care to admit. I'll talk numbers briefly here - don’t worry Enneagram-haters, this will be quick: Supposedly I’m a 5 wing 4 - the investigator, who idealizes and searches for the best among the best. My wing (hi, 4’s) also delights in being different. 

At the same time, I’ve strived for an ideal, or rather, grounded sense of self. (Hence, the push and pull.) Who I am and how I view myself internally matters a great deal. My psyche knows that seeking my identity through who I see in the mirror is a faulty sense-of-self. The reflection falls flat; someday when I’m 78, and too old to worry about who's going to notice if I’m wearing the same trousers three days in a row, what I see is not going to matter.

Many say we’re no longer in a “Barbie world,” so to speak, but one scroll through Instagram, and you may be hard-pressed to suggest otherwise. The push and pull of insecurities within the pursuit of effortless attraction can be oddly overwhelming and almost teasing at times. (Particularly when you think of all the makeup, cost of outfits, natural lighting, and extra filtering often involved.)

This modern pursuit of a fabricated natural beauty can be a bit of a trap. 

Let me set up the scene for you: You’re feeling ok about yourself. You pick up your phone and begin to scroll Instagram for “inspiration.” After mentally collecting more posts than one woman can pull off in a lifetime, you glance at your reflection to find nowhere near the inspiration you see on your phone. Suddenly - even if ever so subtly - you are not quite so pretty, not quite where you would like to be style-wise, and not quite enough. As these daily scrolls add up, you not only begin to set the bar so high for yourself but don’t even recognize you’ve set multiple, unattainable bars. From the time you get on to the time you exit off the app, you are left feeling subpar to collectively everyone else’s standards of beauty- in many ways, by your own choosing.

I’m not sure we realize how often we function in a comparative outlook. When we don’t know how to set boundaries on our expectations or what we consume, our brains quickly forget what is truly natural to begin with. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m as much of a sucker for Rosie Huntington Whitely’s tutorial on full brows as the next girl. But if we’re not careful, we can allow trivial self-expressions to become such a strong representation of our identity that we can no longer draw a line between the inward qualities that make up who we are from the outer efforts we work to maintain. 

But if one thing these recent years, and the great love of my life, Aaron (let me give credit where credit is due) has taught me is that when it is truly natural beauty, it doesn’t require more anything. It does not require a flesh-toned highlighter. It doesn’t require fuller brows. It doesn’t require spending an extra 15 minutes and texturizer to make my hair look more unkempt. Natural beauty does not require, period.

When we can discover how to remove ourselves from a state of comparing (in any way, shape, or form), we can then find our most beautiful self. And finally, stop working at it - which will probably be even more attractive because it is relaxed and content just as is. 

And it doesn’t even need to be posted on Instagram to be valid.

Anxiety-Inducing Female Friendships

I recently saw a meme, which you’ve probably all seen some version of at some point. It read: “Every good friendship always starts with ‘when I first saw u I thought u were a ____.’” (Well, you probably can fill in the blank.)

Why this rings true with so many females, we all know but hate to admit. 

After being single for 34 years, enduring painful blind dates, squirming through awkward encounters, stomaching the minimum of online dating I could handle, navigating the game of texts, Facebook messages, DM’s, and the ever-so-awkward selfies sent to me by boys and men (or should I say deal-breakers), I can easily say navigating the world of female relationships are more complicated than male relationships.  

As females, already, most of us are very slow to trust each other. We tend to keep our guard up with one another more than we ever manage to with men, even though we’re quick to act like it’s down when, in fact, it’s not.

Unless you find it easy and comforting to be in large gatherings and congregations of women (which I have never been), female friendships can be tricky. Nay - anxiety-inducing. 

Maybe me and my introverted self are the only one who deals with the stress that can come with developing female friendships, but there is an underlying anxiety that I believe all women encounter when initially meeting others. Some can ride with it; others are shut down by it. (I tend to fall into the latter). 

Don’t get me wrong. There are those friends that come with no inhibitions, no game-playing, who instead cause you to let your guard down rather than put it up. And sometimes, it takes a conversation or two to see there was never a need for any reservations at the start.

Now, I first began writing this blog as a single woman with a single’s perspective. And (even for an introvert, yes) loneliness in this state of life is no joke. So it is no wonder many women crave more friendships or feel that if our company isn't #squadgoal-worthy that there is something wrong with us. I completely get it.

We would all love to think that thoughts such as the meme mentioned above would never cross our minds, but they do. Yet, we tend to feel as if we don’t have a “squad” of dozens of dedicated friendships around us, at all times, that something is wrong with us. It’s the glamorization of how social media makes us think our friendships should always look. 

I recently watched an interview where Brené Brown was asked about the topic of shame and friendships. She was discussing why you should be selective with what friends you confide in and how we all tend to feel the need for a large company of friends. Brown said if you have one friend you can truly trust “you are so lucky. Two or three - the lottery.” 

If that’s the case, I’ve had a pocket of gold for some time now. 

Anxieties among female friendships are a reality, just as mind games, gossip, incessant comparisons, and perpetual insecurities are a reality to some degree for us all. But who wants to admit any of that?

I guess I've come to an age where I've discovered I already hit the jackpot in this department. Not to say, new friendships aren't worth the time, effort, and energy. Because new relationships are as enriching and exciting to my life, as new travels and new films are to my psyche. (Which is saying a lot.) 

But is it worth a self-altering, anxiety-inducing, nerve-racking version of myself?

Frankly, for me, it’s not.

Ungooping oneself

I tend to be a bit of a sucker for certain female empowers, so to speak.

Ever so discreetly, though. 

Aka, you will not see me regularly post about these fascinations (well most of them):

Greta Gerwig’s modernized, unromanticized adaption of Little Women is nothing short of brilliant. 

Goop is about as guilty a pleasure as one admitting to eating Oreos with peanut butter. 

The book She Said, on the women who broke the sexual harassment accounts of Harvey Weinstein, is to be devoured.

And the #MeToo movement they began is to be applauded. 

In college, I commended Felicity’s haircut. (Quite literally. Albeit my hair did not do Keri Russell’s justice even though mine was also a relationship induced haircut.)

And in another life, I shamelessly wear every outfit featured on Man Repeller. 

If there was ever an era to be a confident, empowered female, with an assured sense of self it would be now, no? At least that’s how I feel it somehow should be. Particularly on days when my self-confidence is subpar and I give one too many thoughts to “what should I wear?” 

A pure, unadulterated self-identity for women has never felt more accessible, more forgiving or more unabashed. 

Maybe I’m ashamed to admit that I allow the current culture to at times tamper with exactly what I identify to be my self. But, I undoubtedly have, and at times certainly do, even if in the most minute ways. But these minute ways can have a way of building upon each other.

Recently, I was finishing a workout (which I pay too much to stream at home - but, I love it so... ). At the end of it, I sat down panting and sweating to my weekly instructor pep talk (to which, I should add, always is conveyed as a genuine, authentic talk rendered from her own life experiences).

They are these brief empowering talks and even though I’m wary of posting any kind of “I am female, hear me roar” type of posts, I’d be surprisingly spurred on by her simple statements. They are the kind of female-affirming ideas that the media is currently consumed with, but yes, is at times needed.

But the caveat is this lithe instructor also speaks in what appears to be a weekly rotation of new Nikes and designer workout clothes that compete with the variety of clothes I wear in a month.  

This one session she was batting off bits on self-identity, not finding your worth in performing, in how tight your butt is or flat your stomach may be, but simply finding it in you - right where you are. 

We’ve all heard this before, right? From many different women and through many different platforms.

While I felt remotely compelled to offer an uncharacteristic shout out to the screen, it hit me - am I being self-empowered by a streaming workout right now? Now, this would be normal today. There are endless online workouts, fitness gurus and influencers reminding us to not tie our identity to all the things they simultaneously promote online.

They are simple truths. The ones I know and seek to live by. 

But why is it they appear more powerful and affirming when it comes packaged in an outfit that looks like Net-A-Porter’s athleisure look-of-the-day?

The pursuit of self-identity for women today can feel at times double-sided and conflicted: We don’t have to do it all anymore, but we still try to. We don’t need any material thing to have a complete sense of self, but then again we seem to need everything to feel like complete, presentable females. Even in a day when the make-up free, fresh-faced girl is the goal, we still feel obligated to maintain so much. (I mean, the makeup-free look still requires makeup.)

It’s similar to my relationship with Goop; Yep, that Oreo-covered-in-peanut-butter guilty pleasure. 

Only it’s more packaged to incite a self-loving, deep-thinking, existential-exploring, Chase credit card equipped, modern-day woman who knows how to dress for the moment and treat herself right. It explores the type of questions you second guess before you Google. So of course when Netflix released The Goop Lab series, it had my full attention. That is, until about halfway into the first episode, when suddenly seeing many things I had read brought to life on-screen made me second guess why I was reading it in the first place.

I won’t give away the six episodes (yes, I watched all six), because they’d be an enlightening experience for anyone to see the ways we as females are seeking to better understand and improve ourselves.

Granted Goop has been known to push the envelope and make you go “wait, that’s crazy.” (If you’ve heard about the Jade Egg, you know what I mean.) So while I always knew this was a cutting-edge, new age, L.A. perspective on how to be a woman of today, seeing some of these ideas come to life has caused me to more closely audit if I subconsciously inform any ideal sense of self every time I check in on current mental health practices, the latest turmeric latte, or a 5-minute all-natural beauty routine. 

In the search for maintaining a solid self-identity, do we consider what all we allow to inform our identity?

You could say some of this auditing has had me second-guess just how much weight I hold into all these empowerers, and how brief daily engagements with influencers can create a sense of self. 

I would never demonize Goop because, to be honest, I’ll probably be back there next week. And I will probably never unplug from my streaming workout, because yeah, I like my workout. 

But nonetheless, I’m still in the process of ungooping myself.

Common Pitfalls pt .02

If you’ve been single more Valentines Days than not, you may have already been sent this love note via the web: honor thyself. Or... Roses are red, violets are blue, give yourself a gift, 'cause today's about you.

No, that is not my Valentine to you today.

But there’s almost enough of it swirling about to make a single girl stop and think, “Wait, do I really love myself enough? Do I go to Starbucks often enough? Do I see enough of the movies I really want to see? Have I shown myself enough that I’m worth it today?”

I’m not sure who it was to send out the initial memo, but apparently American, modern single females just don’t think about themselves enough.

Back to the questions above. In short, yes. In most all circumstances, yes, I’m likely to think about myself quite diligently, buy myself more almond milk lattes than necessary, and be sincerely concerned with whether or not I’m going to see Annihilation opening weekend. (Shocker.) Yes. Without thinking, actually, I naturally think about myself.

In Common Pitfalls part .01 I discussed the common pitfalls single females tend to fall into, and our tendency to fall into this rut of changing our identity to attract a guy. It’s often this heightened sense (particularly at an all-time high on February 14) that life doesn’t begin until we’ve met the right man. When we’re not falling for that as single females, (or have already fallen) this one is a close second.

There is a modern concept of self-identity, widely accepted to be a cultural truth, that our inner feelings are our inherent truth that we need to acknowledge in order to live life to its fullest. That to be a strong, modern single women we need to know ourselves and be true to what we want. Many of us have been quick to welcome this idea of self-identity because... well, it feels right. To most of us it feels natural that what we feel must be true and by honoring these feelings we come into our most honest version of self.

But for the single female who claims Christ to be her Savior and true source, this concept of self-identity is somewhat distorted - almost a romanticized mirage, that, as often as it disowns us, we continue to run back to. As substantial advice for life, it falls flat for anyone who professes to be a believer in Jesus Christ.

Granted, I’d consider myself rather a natural at putting myself first. Some might call it a gift. Frankly, it doesn’t take too much for me to identify my feelings, and discover it is my right for each inner emotion to be validated. Maybe it’s just me, but what l feel and think has yet to offer some profound discovery that has to lead me to a stronger or truer version of myself.

As Christian females who pray they won’t have to spend many more Valentine’s Days solo, finding purpose in a self-identity that is based on what we want just doesn’t work. Rather it muddles up our view of life, and our ability to receive truth from the word of God and allow it to actively change us. Regardless of the misleading prominent message we receive today, you weren’t created to be satisfied within a version of self-identity that isn’t centered on Christ. Without the power and grace of Christ we lack the depth and stability to ever possibly fulfill the expectations we bring to it. A skewed concept of modern identity propels us into adulthood with a footing too unstable to mature, a tainted love to offer others and leaves us drowning in the deep abyss of depression in search for this idea of true self.

Many of us, even in the Christian faith, have disillusioned ourselves to believe that a trustworthy, sturdy identity could emerge from our feelings. So, in the midst of a misleading urge to prioritize yourself over Christ, how do we actively engage God as the core of who we are? In a speech on Our Identity at Wheaton College, Timothy Keller simply states the solution:

You’ve not only to believe he died for you. It’s got to go to your imagination. It’s got to be the aesthetic core of your life. When you’re struggling with what the culture says about your identity - because you’re not good looking enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not having enough transformative sex - you’ve got to know how to pull out your identity in Christ and push it to the top of the deck. And you do that generally through imagination.

If you don’t get it regularly in your imagination, through worship, through thinking, through applying it at the moment, it doesn’t go to the top. And you’re back where everyone else is: cultural captivity.

You may have just been allotted another solo Valentine's Day to pull yourself out of this cozy pit, place your self-worth in Christ and begin to use your imagination as God intended. Not only so that you could solidify your identity in Him, but allow His enduring truth to dwell with you and discover that today you are not alone.