What is possible for you today?

 ...the trick in life is not to try harder but to resist less.

~From a conversation with Anne Lamott, Washington Post

I am the queen of trying harder. I have a daughter who's the princess. When she was young, I posted a quote on my fridge that read something like: Reasonable people adapt to suit the world. Unreasonable people try to change the world to suit them. Therefore all progress depends on unreasonable people.

It was my way to put a positive spin on my daughter's "spirited" personality. It was my way to put a positive spin on my own personality. Somewhere, perhaps before birth, I became wired to believe that I could make anything happen simply by trying hard enough. That I could change my world through sheer force of will.

It's a tough lesson to unlearn. And living with addicts, both as a child and an adult, didn't do much to change my mind despite overwhelming evidence that I was changing nothing except myself, and not in a good way.

The lesson eventually stuck, however, and I am now convinced that our happiness, or at least our peace of mind, depends on learning the new lesson. Depends on accepting that no matter of trying can change another person uninterested in changing. No matter of trying can unbreak a heart. What's more, I've come to understand that so much of my own healing, my own growth, has come not from trying but from releasing: Expectations. Perfection. My breath.

There's magic in release. Almost instantly, our bodies relax. Our hearts soften. Toward others definitely but also towards ourselves. Which is what prompted me to write this to one of our secret sisters who is working so hard to forgive her husband and herself:

I sometimes think that our valiant attempts to forgive ourselves and him can exhaust us. I have come to believe that rest is at least as important. To give ourselves a chance to just breathe. To take it moment by moment. To stop looking ahead in the hopes that we see a rosier future than our current present. I think aiming for acceptance is wise. "Today, I am fine. Today, I choose to be here." To focus on cherishing and nurturing our best selves but in a gentle way, not a striving one. We are such a culture of strivers. And yet, I think healing from the trauma of betrayal is learning how to just comfort ourselves in healthy ways as our bodies and mind adjust.

The brilliant Kate Bowler puts it this way: Somewhere between "anything is possible" and "nothing is possible" is the question: What is possible for me today?

Putting it that way changes everything, doesn't it? What is possible for me today? It takes the pressure off. It gives us a break. It allows us to nap. To be angry. To sob into our pillows. It accepts the truth that today is just...today. It is not forever. It is not necessarily predictive of anything other than what we can manage right now. What a way to live our lives – moment my moment. Hour by hour. Day by day.

I'm often asked how I got through those horrible early months post D-Day. And it was like crawling over broken glass. But broken down into those moments, it was manageable. Not pleasant. Often painful as hell. But manageable.

We get through not by trying harder. We've done that, haven't we? It didn't work out so great. But by resisting less. By being easier on ourselves because healing from betrayal is, perhaps, the hardest thing we've ever done so we deserve some kindness, some gentleness, some nurturing, some, yes, forgiving. We get through by unclenching our jaw. By letting the house be messy. By letting our kids watch TV for the 24th day in a row. By screaming all our lost dreams into the pillow. 

What is possible for me today? What's possible is to try, just the tinest bit, to release yourself from having to feel better. From having to forgive either him or yourself. Release. Try it.