When life has become too heavy to carry

Shauna Niequist's story about how she came to the end of herself a few years ago is a story many of us can relate to. Shauna was feeling exhausted and isolated from living a life that was too busy. Shauna finally came to a point where she realized that she couldn't go on living this way even one more day, she needed to learn to live in a new way. Shauna wanted a life that wasn't marked by competing, earning and proving herself constantly. She wanted to live a life full of love, meaning and deep connection with others.

Shauna Niequist's new book Present Over Perfect is the story about Shauna's journey from living a life that was too heavy to carry to Shauna discovering a simpler way to live that satisfied her soul. In session one of the video-study Shauna talks about how her journey started once she finally realized that it was her own choices that had created her lifestyle and that the chaos she constantly experienced in her life wasn't a coincidence.

I love that Shauna has written her new book Present Over Perfect and created the video-study, it has helped me a lot this fall when my own life started to get too busy. I agree with what Shauna says in the video, it's not only people with top career jobs who struggle with a life that is too heavy, most people believe the lie that says "If I do enough, I will be enough" or "If I do more, I will be more." We live in a society that values achievements and perfection higher than ever before so we can easily find ourselves striving for these things in search for acceptance and human value. I think it helps to know that we are not alone in the struggle, most people wrestle with these things. The good news is that once we become aware of the habits that make us exhausted, unhealthy and over-whelmed in life we can change our ways and develop new habits that will make us flourish.