When improvement has little to do with you

I recently re-read Brené Browm’s The Gifts of Imperfection. I came across her Sisters Strong Summer podcast episodes and decided to buy the 10th anniversary copy of the book (I read it from the library the first time). I re-read it in less than a week.

I can’t remember which was my first Brené Brown title. I think I have a set of much shorter works on Audible but The Gifts of Imperfection must have been one of the earlier books of her that I read because it was one of her earlier books. As anyone who has read me for a while knows, I’m a big fan of Brené Brown. I may sometimes say that she’s my spirit animal. I’ve read all of her books at least twice (I usually listen to them because I love her narration of her own work – I feel like she’s a friend whose confiding in me rather than an author writing to a massive audience). As I was reading The Gifts of Imperfection again, I was realizing that I was in a much better place than I was the first time I read (or probably listened to) it. And I was thinking of all that was better now, I was recognizing that so much of what was better had little to do with me, and more to do with other people/circumstances/situations in my orbit.

Seven years ago, things were really hard. My marriage was in a rough place. My kids were incredibly challenging. I wasn’t satisfied with my job. I was so lonely that I was participating in paid-for friend-making opportunities! And my finances were a disaster.

My marriage is a lot better now because my husband finally contributes to household and parenting responsibilities equally. I like parenting so much more (better said, I no longer very much dislike parenting most of the time) because my kids are developmentally easier and have outgrown their most challenging behavioral issues. I’m no longer crippling lonely because I happened to find women that I genuinely liked in the mothers of my daughter’s friends and they ended up not only having the time, energy and interest in committing to a friendship, but also like me enough to build that friendship with me. My finances are still a mess, but they are no longer in crises because both my husband and I make more at our jobs (only because we stayed where we were and gradually moved up our respective salary schedules). The only aspect of my life that was resolved by my own mental gymnastics was at work, where I finally decided that any possible professional improvements a new position might afford would probably be balanced out by unforeseen challenges.

To be clear, I was “doing my work” during the last seven years. In the early days I was going to therapy. Later, when my therapist became unavailable, I was reading books to better understand myself and others, to analyze reactions and recognize patterns. I don’t believe all the “self-help” I engaged in was for naught. But I struggle to identify how much of the “better” is due to the work I did, and how much is the result of external circumstances improving. Maybe I’ll never know, and that is will be part of “doing my work” moving forward.

And there is still so much work to do. And I’m here to do it. I know I’ve laid a foundation that is helping me with current perimenopause symptoms and I very much appreciate that. I know I’m managing some rough patches in my marriage better than I have in the past. I guess knowing it helps is enough, and I can be grateful for circumstances improving, even if they were largely outside of my control. Because, of course, much (if not all) of life is.