The Two Things to Give Up for Greater Joy and Purpose

Today I walked my dog around our neighborhood through freezing rain, dirty snow and slushy puddles. Of course, my neighborhood has seen many more pleasant days and many more will come. Knowing that only made me want to escape to one of those days, either past or future. 

However, I resisted the pull because I’ve given up “longing and rumination” for Lent.

During Lent, many Christians “give up” or “take on” something as a reminder and representation of Christ’s sacrifice leading to Easter. It’s meant to strengthen your connection with God and create more space for Him in your life.

In my life, longing and rumination serve as an indulgence like chocolate or alcohol that fill space to be otherwise inhabited by God and other relationships. These longings and ruminations give me a false sense of control and distract me from real life—because real life can be hard.

Are You Distracted by Longings and Ruminations?

The dictionary defines longings as “a strong desire especially for something unattainable,” and rumination as going “over in the mind repeatedly.” Put simply, longings and ruminations are ideas, hopes, worries and memories that you turn over and over in your mind for emotional gain by remembering, imagining, fantasizing or wondering. 

Longing is a “when this…” thought, while ruminations are “what if…” thoughts.

For example, you might be longing for:

• Happy hour to start
• The weekend to arrive
• Better weather/summertime
• The next holiday
• Work to slow down
• The kids to get older
• Your health to improve
• Better personal finances
• Something exciting in your social media feed
• Lots of “likes” and “shares” of your last post

You may be ruminating on:

• Whether you should have said that
• Why you didn’t speak up
• How that interaction should have gone differently
• What’s causing the pain in your side
• The things you don’t like about your job
• The things you don’t like about your life
• The things you don’t like about your partner

Even if they point to a good thing, persistent longings and ruminations steal you from the present moment, which is where life is. For all its “not yets,” regrets, fears and discomforts, only the present moment is really real. Relationships aren’t made in longings and ruminations. You can’t create, love or grow in your mind’s version of the past or future. We only have now.

What To Do Instead?

You’re encouraged in Lent to replace what you’re giving up with a practice that draws you closer to God, others and your core purpose. Following that model, here are three examples of practices I’ve been doing instead of longing and ruminating that have been game-changers for me:

1. Noticing. The opposite of noticing is escaping and avoiding. So, in order to not escape and avoid, I’ve been very intentional about paying attention to my breath, the people around me and the movements of spirit and emotion. It’s very difficult to do this while looking at my phone. For example, I took my daughter on a date last weekend and just sat watching her color the menu rather than using it as a chance to daydream or check my texts.
2. Appreciating. The opposite of appreciating is wishing, worrying and complaining. To appreciate more, I’ve been making mental note of beauty and blessing. It’s a form of asset-based thinking: looking at the assets rather than liabilities around me. Simply, it’s seeing the glass half full rather than half empty.
3. Grinding. The opposite of grinding is coasting or resigning. By grinding I don’t necessarily mean working more or harder, I mean choosing to do hard meaningful things. As Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson challenged her players last year, it’s making the choice to “handle hard better.” Grinding is a form of accepting the things that you don’t want to experience but that do matter in the long term. It’s deciding to take your walk through the neighborhood in the freezing rain and embrace it because you care about your dog and your health and the value of being outside.

Whether you observe Lent or not, here’s where we can all agree: Spending your energy on longings and ruminations robs you of life.

Consider giving it up for the next 40 days and see what happens. If it works as well as I think it will, you’ll find greater joy and purpose… even through the hard seasons.

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