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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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When Halfway Is the Best You Can Do

Nov 22 18 Comments

For years, I’ve been committed to working out, and I’ve done so three to four times a week for as long as I can remember. I worked out consistently through pregnancy, started again gently around nine weeks postpartum, and even kept up with it for the first few months of being back at work.

Then for a few weeks, I had legitimate reasons why I couldn’t work out, and I gave myself grace — a decision I don’t feel bad about. But then I got so used to giving myself grace that weeks went by without getting in a real workout, and somewhere along the line, my grace-giving became excuse-making instead. I’m too busy. I have other priorities. I need the sleep. It’s too hard to work out while Selah’s awake, and I need her nap times for other things.

And then one day I climbed two flights of stairs at work while carrying a heavy bag, and I realized that my body felt weak. I’d lost not just my muscle tone but my functional strength. A few days later, my physical therapist asked me what my current exercise routine looks like, and I laughed.

She urged me that if I want to be functionally strong and healthy enough for a second pregnancy and delivery and the raising of a another child, I need to get back to moving consistently. I do want all that, and I want to set a healthy example for my children, and this starts with them seeing Mommy taking care of herself. But, as I mentioned on Instagram several weeks ago, I don’t want to swing too hard the other way by guilting myself into being a perfect example for Selah.

I have an all-or-nothing personality, but in this season of life, sometimes halfway is the best I can do. I'm trying to learn to be okay with lowering the bar and not seeking perfection, knowing that as I do, my daughter is watching and learning.

I have an all-or-nothing personality, and I don’t like to do things halfway. I want to work out four times a week or not at all. I want to publish the best essay I’ve ever written or not blog at all. I want to eat healthily, but if I indulge once, I binge for the rest of the day. I strive for perfection until I burn out, and then I just stop trying.

I don’t like this about myself. This tendency gives me an ego boost when I’m doing well, and it makes me feel like a failure when I’m not.

But in this season of life, halfway is sometimes the best I can do. I need to find a way to be okay with taking baby steps and doing things halfway, for my sanity and for Selah’s perceptions. So I’m going to try taking this healthy-habits thing one day at a time, knowing that her little eyes watch me and that she learns just as much from the small steps as the big ones.

I’m doing a lot of self-talk these days, reminding myself of what I’ve preordained as acceptable and good in this season. I’m finding that if I set reasonable, moderate expectations that I know I can reach, I feel a lot better than when I set high expectations and then fall short — even if I get further or get more done by reaching higher.

These are a few of the reasonable expectations I’m setting for myself:

  1. Do a “real” workout twice a week, but get some movement in most days. I define real as 1) involves weights, 2) gets my heart rate up, and 3) involves some sweating. I’m not setting time expectations for it, because 10 minutes of sweating is better than 0  minutes. I define moving as going for a walk with the family, stretching before bed, etc.
  2. Read a bold-to-bold portion of Scripture each morning. I heard this idea on the Mom Struggling Well podcast, and a lightbulb went off. I don’t have to read a whole Bible chapter and then journal about it for 20 minutes to connect with God. I can read from one bold heading to the next and be just as intentional about reflecting on and applying it.
  3. Continue to blog one-ish time per week, but let go of my expectation that it has to be deep and meaningful and perfect every single time I post. (Just to be clear, I don’t actually think my writing is ever perfect or wonderful . . . but sometimes the desire to make it so keeps me from posting anything at all). I have only enough time to post once a week right now, so of course, I don’t want to “waste” any posts, but much like working out, writing something is better than writing nothing.
  4. Edit pictures whenever I feel like it, without pressuring myself to back-edit old photos unless I want to print a specific one. I’m learning to shoot in RAW and edit my photos in Lightroom and loving it, but I know the moment I start putting pressure on myself to edit every single photo I take will be the moment I stop enjoying it.
  5. Allow myself to be in a playful moment with Selah without wishing I could be doing something more productive. There’s no good way to quantify this one, but I’m going to try to remind myself of this as often as I can.

Even with these newly reasonable expectations, I know I will fall short. It’s especially painful to fall short of a bar that already feels like it’s been set low. But in those moments I’ll try to show myself grace without spiraling into excuses, and I’ll mitigate my guilt by reminding myself that doing something halfway is better than not doing it at all.

Maybe you’re holding your own bar too high. (We all hold our own bars, don’t we? I’ll bet there are very few kids or husbands or friends who would hold our bars higher for us than we do for ourselves.) Maybe you can’t find that middle ground between giving grace and making excuses. Maybe you don’t know how to do something halfway. Maybe it’s time to learn.

What would it look like for you to lower the bar and learn how to be okay with it?

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Filed Under: Motherhood, Simple Living & Minimalism Tagged With: choices, contentment, discipline, family, freedom, habits, motherhood, priorities, simple living

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
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✔️ Kamala curls

It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
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“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
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“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
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“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
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“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
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// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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