Hello, lovely you!
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring some pretty tough questions together. We’ve talked about the difference between comfort and fulfillment, the fears that keep us from changing our lives, and the quiet ways we shape our decisions around other people’s expectations.
As I reflect on those conversations, another question has stayed with me.
What am I tolerating that I shouldn’t be?
I don’t think most of us set out to settle for less than we deserve. Life is rarely that dramatic. Instead, we adjust. We tell ourselves this season is unusually stressful, that things will calm down after treatment, after the next deadline, after the kids are older, or after life becomes a little less demanding. We become so focused on getting through today that we stop noticing what our tomorrows have quietly started to look like. Then one day we realize we’ve become accustomed to a way of living that our younger selves would have recognized immediately as exhausting.
Sometimes I wonder what the woman I was years ago would notice if she stepped into one ordinary day of my current life. Would she wonder why I answer emails while eating lunch? Why I apologize for needing to rest? Why I have become so comfortable carrying so much? I think she would gently ask a question I’ve learned to ask myself more often:
“When did this start feeling normal?”
We Get Used to Almost Anything
One of the most remarkable things about being human is our ability to adapt. It’s one of the reasons we survive heartbreak, loss, illness, and extraordinary challenges. We learn to carry what once felt impossible, and eventually we stop noticing the weight of it.
That ability helps us heal, but it can also work against us, because we don’t just adapt to the things that strengthen us, we adapt to the things that slowly diminish us. We get used to living with constant stress. We stop noticing that our shoulders are always tight, that we answer, “I’m fine,” before anyone has finished asking how we’re doing, or that we can’t sit through dinner without mentally organizing tomorrow’s to-do list.
Little by little, what was meant to be temporary becomes the rhythm of our lives. Just because something has become familiar doesn’t mean it has become healthy. Familiarity has a remarkable way of disguising itself as normal, and once something feels normal, we stop questioning whether it’s still serving us.
The Body Often Knows Before We Do
One of the things I’ve learned from my own cancer journey and walking alongside people facing cancer and chronic illness is that our bodies are often paying attention long before our minds catch up. I’m not suggesting that every illness comes from stress or difficult relationships. Healing is never that simple.
But I do believe our bodies keep an honest record of the lives we’re living. When we spend years rushing, worrying, putting ourselves last, or pushing through exhaustion because we believe we have no other choice, our bodies eventually begin asking us to pay attention. We may dismiss the fatigue, ignore the tension, or promise ourselves we’ll slow down someday, but the body has a way of whispering the truth long before we’re ready to hear it.
The body often notices what the mind has learned to excuse. I think that’s an invitation, not a reason for fear. Instead of asking, “How do I make this feeling go away?” perhaps we can ask a different question:
What have I been carrying that I’ve started calling normal?
The Quiet Things We Stop Seeing
Sometimes the hardest patterns to recognize aren’t the dramatic ones, they’re the ordinary ones we’ve lived with for so long that they’ve disappeared into the background.
It’s the relationship where you’re always the one checking in first.
It’s apologizing before expressing an opinion.
It’s believing exhaustion is simply part of who you are.
It’s speaking to yourself with a level of criticism you would never direct toward someone you love.
It’s realizing you can’t remember the last time you did something for no other reason than it brought you joy.
None of those moments feels significant on their own, but together they shape a life.
Sometimes the things we tolerate are simply the price we’ve been paying to keep everyone else comfortable. We stay quiet because we don’t want conflict. We keep giving because it feels easier than disappointing someone and convince ourselves that this is just how adulthood works.
Over time, we stop asking what those choices have been costing us.
Awareness Comes Before Change
Whenever I write about these kinds of questions, I worry someone will think I’m suggesting they need to change everything overnight. I’m not.
One of the things I’ve learned is that awareness has a way of changing us long before our circumstances do. Once we’ve told ourselves the truth, it’s surprisingly difficult to go back to pretending we don’t know it. We may not have immediate answers, and we certainly don’t need to make impulsive decisions, but something important begins the moment we’re willing to be honest with ourselves.
Healing often starts there. Not with action – with awareness.
A Gentle Invitation
So today, I want to leave you with the same question I’ve been asking myself.
What am I tolerating that I shouldn’t be?
Don’t rush to answer it. Simply notice what comes to mind before you begin explaining it away or telling yourself why it has to stay the way it is.
Every life asks something of us. The question is whether the things we’re carrying are helping us become more fully ourselves or quietly pulling us farther away. We don’t have to solve that today. We simply have to become honest enough to notice what we’ve been calling normal.
Prue Sinclair – https://Pruesplace.org
Photo Atribute: Ryan Zipp – Photo Attribute: https://www.facebook.com/ryanzippphoto
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