contentment

Contentment is difficult to capture, rarely discussed, yet it defines our experiences. To me, it is not about letting go of desires as much it as it is about unveiling the beauty that is already before us. Doing this is not as easy but it has felt worthwhile.

Sojourning through life with in search of beauty in the everyday has taught me that contentment is woven into a framework of gratitude and acceptance. It is an amalgamation of ordinary moments illuminated in extraordinary ways—a richness found only in the milieu of life..

Early on in my motherhood journey, I assumed that intentions and activities alone were enough to steer our lives toward certain outcome (this is silly, I know—-yet it was my thinking then and, for better or worse, shaped the course of my life). Armed with a vision of intentional living and learning, I set about filling the time I had with my firstborn with more activities than I dare confess to publicly. Since I had to split my time between home, teaching as a professor, and the coffee business my husband and I founded, I filled our days with thoughtful “adventures” thinking it was best .

My chief concern those days were logistical maneuverings to get from one activity to the next; from the art museum to a story hour, then it was nap time, then a service activity before heading home to make dinner from the things in our garden. We lived in a college town and loved hosting students from our community but I feel exhausted just thinking about our weekly rhythm. Those choices, meaningful as they were, culminated as nothing more than a string of endless activity. It left very little room for reflection and being.

If I am honest, it became addictive to be busy. Our culture cherishes the hustle. There seemed to be so much more affirmation for that lifestyle than an humble and slow one.

The truth is bouncing from one activity to the next prevented us from having to confront the reality of our choices. It took a pandemic and great deal of time to recognize the character (or lack there of) that was growing as a result of our hullabaloo of a lifestyle. There was little room for contemplating the emotional cost of a busy schedule. As we began to press into slowness, we found ourselves walking the fine line of scarcity-mindset and contentment.

Seeing and claiming this idea is one and the same. Slowing down requires us to set boundaries foreign to us in our capitalistic culture. This required us to turn down opportunities to grow our business, earn more, achieve more, experience more, ….____more.” Slowing down meant recognizing our humanity. It meant saying “no” but also “probably so.” We had to learn to see our portion differently. By pulling our thoughts through a sieve of of enoughness, we slowly learn to see our circumstances differently. Everything from the physical space we occupy as a family to the connection we seek to cultivate is brought into the light. This is not a denial of needs or wants. It is a humble acknowledgement that all those things exist in tandem.

Enfolded within the idea of contentment is acceptance, compassion, and hope. All of which requires intentionally shedding our innate-scarcity mindset for a growth mindset. As we do this, we shift from control to connection. This is difficult to do when confronted with an endless secession of ‘to-dos’ and ‘needs-to-be met.’ Yet, I have found it to be a life-giving lens through which to view our days. Feelings of enough-ness often precedes courage. When knowing that there is an enough time, enough strength, or even enough safety to try something, there is impetus for action. Cultivating contentment requires letting go of the scarcity mindset. Choosing to see how we have enough is a radical thought these days.

”We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances.”

―Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

Daring to call forward a consciousness, “an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstance” does not equate to comfort or relief, yet it does give us agency. When take the liberty to slow down to reflect and redefine our circumstances, we walk in greater freedom to define our days.

collaging for our letter “C” activity: we gathered up whatever greens we had and contented ourselves with them those items for a creative project .