When I open my phone’s storage tab, it gives me a little chart that shows me how all of the memory on my phone is being used. It breaks it down into categories and gives me advice on how to free up space. But the thing is, I usually only open this when my phone runs out of space and starts giving me alerts that I can no longer take pictures or download new apps. When I feel the crunch to make space, I open this function and find myself bewildered by how much space seems to be taken up with… nothing. It seems like a full third of my phone’s storage is dedicated to this mysterious category called “other”.
Other is pretty easy to overlook, both on our phones and in our actual lives. When it comes to my phone, I confess I have no idea what is actually in this category. It dawned on me that this is like all of the things we carry around with us unacknowledged, all the mental and emotional energy that we pour into things that we usually forget to take into account. We look at our lives, tally up the time and resources we feel like we should have, and end up feeling flummoxed and frustrated when we can’t keep up with what we think we should be able to accomplish. But we forget about the real space that the other things in our lives take up.
I can’t say what those things are for you, but for me they are things like chronic illness, grief, the uncertainty that comes with change, and unprocessed emotions. This space contains all my background worries and fears, the weight of happenings in the world around me, and my deep concern and care for those around me who are suffering. I tend to calculate what I should be able to handle from some mysterious total that generally doesn’t account for these things, or minimizes their actual impact on my capacity. When this happens, it is easy to be very hard on myself, chastising myself for what I think I should be able to do with no regard for what my actual capacity happens to be.
Unfortunately, unlike my phone, my actual life can’t be simplified by a hard reset that magically shrinks this category. But I wonder if simply noticing what is there can be an important starting place. When we run out of capacity before we think we should, what if we receive that as an invitation not to beat ourselves up but to consider the true weight of what we’re carrying? What if simply naming some of those things might help us to have compassion for ourselves? What if acknowledging what we are actually carrying lightens the burden just a little bit?
For me, it sometimes helps to actually list these things, either by writing them down, talking to a trusted person, or even just thinking through them. But there’s an important caveat. This is not a to do list. Maybe making a list like this will help you to discern a helpful next step, but it is not a list of things to add to the work you’re already doing. It is simply an exercise in truth telling, of acknowledging the real space that all of these often ignored or underestimated things take up. It is about coming to terms with the reality of our lives and learning to see ourselves as we really are, with all our challenges and weaknesses included.
If this is a struggle, consider pretending that you are actually listening to someone else who you love, who happens to be wrestling with the exact same things. How would you respond to them? Would you be critical or tell them to get on with it? Would you berate them for not accomplishing as much as they feel they should? Would you minimize what they are navigating? Or would you listen with care and compassion, echoing back to them the reality that what they are carrying in indeed weighty and hard to bear?
Can you see your way forward to bringing your “other” things into a space of prayer and quiet? Again, try to be gentle with yourself. It is not a spiritual to do list either. What if you were to simply bring these things softly into God’s presence with care and attention and watch what happens? What if you consider that Jesus is the friend who turns to you with love and gentleness, not a taskmaster with a time sheet? What comes up for you as you hold these heavy things in his presence?
Wellspring 