This summer was wild. A number of big events preoccupied me and sent me into a sort of mental paralysis.

Locally, ICE raids began to indiscriminately disappear brown folks, and armed forces were turned on civilians. Nationally, public institutions were gutted in ways that will take over a decade to rebuild. Internationally, Israel is using force to keep food and aid out of Gaza, and President Trump flirted with nuclear war with Iran.

The mental paralysis led to me writing Just Sustain Yourself. Living in that space is temporary, and in recent weeks I’ve been fighting to get out of that space and rebuild my routines and habits. As I’m trying to be myself again, I am fighting to restart my habits around food, activity and faith.

A strong weekly routine to meet one’s needs and sustain oneself throughout the week is important. When I contemplate what helps me succeed, such as good eating patterns, or what supports my mental health, and what supports my spiritual practices, the logical first step is to begin listing things.

Well, good rest helps me manage my appetite and keep an eating pattern that supports my health. Good eating patterns give me more energy and take less willpower to be more active. If my activity involves walking outside, I spend more hours of the day in the natural world. Access to the natural world helps me connect with my spiritual practices. Each of these habits support the success of the others. All of a sudden, the one simple answer is that it’s kind of everything.

So the key to getting back on track is simply to do “kind of everything.” That’s hard because it’s not straightforward. Another difficult thing is that maintaining and repairing are work, and worse, the work is boring.

Maintaining doesn’t leave you feeling accomplished. It’s a constellation of so many daily habits, and somehow, all together, they help me to be the person I want to be. I love the man I am trying to be, and I think it’s important to love myself along the way. I think it’s important to love the way itself. This boring work is easier when I think of it as an act of love.

So trying to get back into my routines will take “kind of everything,” and it’s an act of love. But one of the hardest parts of getting back into an eating pattern or diet is shame.

It feels personal that I broke my habits. It’s easy to forget that we are not our practices. If we think of our faith journeys as only our practices, who are we when we forget to do them? Do we become less worthy? I have spoken to many people who describe a sense of shame about a time they didn’t maintain their prayer practices or scripture reading practices and how that shame led them to avoid restarting their practice. There are whole message boards about shame and eating patterns.

Shame tells so many lies. Shame tells us that our old good habits don’t matter, as if spending time on our wellbeing could be time wasted. Shame steals determination and willpower. And we don’t overcome shame with willpower. Shame is overcome by grace. Shame can’t be beaten; it must be released.

I broke my life-sustaining practices in the midst of chaos. I am rebuilding them. I am falling back in love with the journey I’m on. Along the way shame has been trying to stop me. There is more than enough grace to try again.

Consider how shame might be affecting you

What do you want to do that you can’t quite get started, or restarted? This could be:

• Activity or exercise routines
• Eating patterns or diets
• Spiritual practices
• Skills/hobbies/language learning
• Social activities/settings

Questions and ideas to consider

What do you want this area of your life to look like?

Is shame telling you that you shouldn’t, or you can’t, start a practice because of something else you’ve done or failed to do?

Shame doesn’t tell us the truth. You are worthy of building the habits and life you want. Release the shame, and know it’s always okay to start again.