7 ways to cultivate contentment

In a Word with Jacey Verdicchio

Hey y’all,

In place of a typical issue, today I’m sharing something I made for you, and for me: 7 Ways to Cultivate Contentment. (Press the play button or click “listen in podcast app” above for the audio version.)

Contentment is deeper than happiness, and broader than joy. We all want it, but pursuing it feels counterintuitive. If we chase the feeling of not needing to chase things, are we like dogs chasing our tails? Contentment isn’t yet another to-do list item we can check off. It is not to be attained, but cultivated. But how?

I’m no expert, but I’ve got some things I use in my contentment practice that you might consider adding to yours. I made this guide because I needed some practical reminders of things to do when I get pulled into the vortex of discontentment.

First, I want to be honest with you. I’ve been sitting on this for months. I started to wonder: is it morally irresponsible to be content when there is so much in the world that needs repairing? Is contentment a cop-out? A head-in-the-sand privilege?

When I think of contentment, I don’t mean living in a bubble and suspending empathy. I don’t mean crafting a life that includes everything I want, so I no longer want. Too often, the small things I chase to feel whole distract me from big, weighty pursuits.

Or, as C.S. Lewis puts it in The Weight of Glory,

“…it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Perhaps we can get to the real work when we aren’t perpetually spinning to overcome some deficiency in ourselves or our circumstances. We do not have to prove our worth or earn our right to be here. In fact, we can’t. Our lives have been given to us by our Creator. So are we going to waste time wringing our hands over what we lack?

Some days, probably. The bulk of my last week was spent doing just that. I looked at unkempt corners of my home and felt disgust. I looked in dusty corners of my heart and felt contempt. It was embarrassing, how quickly my soul shrank into a Chihuahua quivering in a thunderstorm.

While I was trying not to pee myself in a corner, metaphorically, I worried that this guide doesn’t say anything we don’t already know. Well, it doesn’t. Because even though it isn’t easy, contentment isn’t complicated.

It’s a practice, not a formula, and cultivating it will be a lifelong project. If we assume it should come naturally and berate ourselves when it doesn’t, discontent will eat us alive. It will serve as a perpetual distraction from the real work. If we consider it too beneath the Big Problems in our world, it won’t stop affecting us. It will just be insidious, beneath the surface, sabotaging our every move.

I’d have sent this sooner if not for all my handwringing, but now feels just about perfect. Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and we could probably all do with a minute to stand still and bear witness to the good unfolding around us.

If you like the guide, I would be so grateful if you shared it!

Feel free to use these images or the phone wallpapers for easy sharing on social media. Tag me @jaceyverdicchio so that I can thank you, and possibly re-share! (New In A Word subscribers will get the guide in their welcome email, so you can point them towards the sign up.)

I’ll randomly choose someone who shares this week (11/5 - 11/11) to send my favorite fall candle! (Who doesn’t feel more content in the glow of a candle?)

Shoutout to Erin at Primavera Studio for her beautiful design work!

May we have eyes to see the beauty in our midst, arms to embrace our proximate people, feet planted where we are, and hands ready to do good, here and now.

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