It’s been a rough week and it’s only Wednesday. I spent yesterday morning in a puddle of tears for a variety of reason. Mostly because I’m human and life is half amazing and half terrifying.
This morning I’m committed to meditating on Psalm 107:9, “The Lord satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.”
It’s a good reminder that ALL IS WELL.
And with the current state of crazy chaos we find ourselves in, there’s never been a more important time to TRULY decide what you want to think, how you want to feel, and HOW YOU WANT TO SHOW UP IN THE WORLD.
It’s always a choice. We’re going to dive deep today into what it means to make hard choices NOW for benefit LATER.
You can choose thoughts that bring comfort and peace and calm. Or you can let that crazy brain run wild with whatever it chooses.
But remember that thoughts have consequences. And those consequences become your life.
one- Remember WHOSE YOU ARE.
Stevie and the kids and I went on an overnight tent camping trip. When you’re in the woods at night, it’s kind of an eerie thing. We had three tents. Tom and I were sleeping in one tent. Elea had her own tent and Stevie had his own tent.
Elea’s tent and my tent were right beside each other. There’s literally no light. You hear weird noises. We were whispering back and forth to each other the whole time, “Did you hear that? What was that?”
You know what gave me so much comfort? Stevie’s tent was right there. He’s the dad. He’s the boy scout. He’s got this. He’s got bear spray and a knife and a saw and he’s strong. So much comfort! I would never in a million years do that without him.
Same for our Heavenly Father. He’s here with us. This is not surprising to him. We can trust him with our jobs or our lack of jobs right now. We can trust him with our kids. We can trust him with our lives. It’s not helping anybody for us to live in fear and panic.
Have you noticed when you are spinning in fear and panic, it makes you feel alone?
I am here to remind you that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
This is not God’s first rodeo. This is not a surprise. There’s no panic in heaven. Only comfort and grace and love and mercy and peace.
So how can we incorporate that into our daily lives? Less panic, more peace, less fear, more trust! One thought is not serving us in any way and one thought will keep us calm and productive!
So how can we remember whose we are? I have been keeping my bible open to Psalm 91 to remind me for a while. You might also find my Lenten study helpful and you can find it here.
We are loved by the most high God. He is in charge here. He will take care of us. Whatever your circumstances, they are not surprising to him.
two – Remember WHO YOU ARE.
You are resilient, so much more resilient than you think you are. You’ve been through hard things before. You are so much more resilient than you think. You will come through this.
Remember how God made us. He made us with these amazing, creative minds. He made us to be like children that could trust in Him so we can just go about our business because we’re not worried about all the other stuff. We know He is here, and He’s made this amazing playground called life for us!
We also are living through something that gives us this chance to have a broad range of emotion. I’m not saying, “Oh, you should just be Pollyanna and you should just be happy all the time.” The truth is that both negative and positive feelings are essential for surviving and thriving in times of crisis.
I have had many periods of frustration. I know many of you work from home and now everybody’s home! It’s kind of hard to work from home with a house full of people.
I had this moment where I was thinking, “Does everybody not realize I have a job to do? I have things I have to do.” I’m just one of the humans and I get to be frustrated sometimes and I get to have fear sometimes. I let myself feel that. I let it wash over me and then I come back to the things that ground me, scripture and my family and my purpose for being here, which is to serve and love.
Practice deep and abiding positive emotions such as hope, compassion and heartfelt gratitude that times of crisis bring. Those emotions have broadened and enriched my ways of being.
Many times you cannot change the circumstances, but you have so much control over how you respond to them. You will look back on this time and you’ll remember how you responded.
It’s ALWAYS up to you how you respond to what’s going on around you.
This crisis can be the greatest time of growth in your life or or it could spiral you into bad health and not sleeping and fear and panic. You get to make the choice.
three – Remember to stay open & curious & keep learning and growing.
I love to keep learning. I love to keep growing. There’s really no better way to fight the fear and panic and all the things that come during a crisis than you going on the offensive and being willing to just keep learning and growing, staying open.
A mind is like a parachute — it works best when it’s open.
When you get in a fight or flight kind of crisis mode, everything shuts down. Your heart rate goes up. It’s hard to breathe. Your brain shuts down. Everything gets small. Your mind gets small. You get very narrow, and you can’t see any answers.
I also find we become so narrow in the way we see things, that anybody who does it any differently, you’re instantly judgmental of them. “Those people should be doing whatever!” Our brain just gets negative and judgmental and we don’t even like ourself when we get like that.
If you open up, stay curious, get into more a parasympathetic state of being with your nervous system where you’re open, you’re breathing and your heart rate comes down. Your brain gets fluffy, it expands. It can think of a thousand things to do during a pandemic, or a quarantine. It can think of all kinds of creative things that you could be doing right now with your time other than scrolling through Facebook and watching news and getting depressed.
Open your heart up, open your mind up. Be willing to keep learning, to stay curious. How can you be part of the solution? Let’s teach our brains how to open up and see solutions and stay curious and get creative and productive? It’s such a better way to spend your time than spiraling in judgment and all the other negative things that it’s so easy to spiral into in times of crisis.
What can you create right now that didn’t exist in the world before? How can you contribute to the world in a way that maybe you haven’t before? There’s so many things that you can do!
Actions speak louder than words, so we must seek out mentors who exemplify what we aspire to become, because the most important lessons in life are not taught but caught. Passion, commitment and curiosity are highly contagious. Stop spinning in worry and negativity and judgement and START DOING things that are calming and productive and creative.
four – Remember to nurture habits that nourish your body and soul.
Which also means avoiding things that bring more panic and worry, like watching too much news and scrolling social media. Let’s do things instead that expand our minds, that open us up, that help us keep growing, that help us keep learning, and that help us take care of our body and soul.
Here’s a list of things we’ve been doing—baking, art projects, planting an herb garden, hot baths, writing, cleaning, organizing, hiking, exercising, journaling, praying, staying in the scripture, puzzling, playing games, napping, and so much more.
Life Mentoring School is the perfect place to JUMP into the deep end and figure out what is possible for you. Click here and start your own killer summer school accelerated learning program! Enrollment is open now and will close July 3rd. I would love to have you join us!!
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