2020 has been brutal on social media. It's literally the worst place to spend time. My advice is to go to the trees and wait, and don't take your phone because your brain doesn't want to be empty and still. It will demand you Google and you will succumb.
I went to the West tired, overwrought, and confused about how to engage our hair-trigger culture in a meaningful way, and I came out with a whole new plan.
Years ago I had a dream where a young woman I didn’t know was stewing over a decision she had to make. She explained the dilemma and I remember saying:
“I don’t know what you should do, but I know every decision I’ve ever made out of fear, has been the wrong one.”
So when/if the opportunity arrives to ramp up and rejoin the rat race, remember you have a choice.
Love or Fear.
Read MoreThe first half of our lives are spent figuring out where we fit, where our container sits, what it looks like, and so forth.
The second half is about what's inside that container.
Midlife smashes the container in ways that are slow and difficult, or painful and dramatic and we humans run from pain.
But when we turn and face it…. It still burns like hell.
Read MoreOf course, good vibes are a great idea because bad vibes ARE contagious, (think complaining, selfishness, victimhood) but I think the Law of Attraction accidentally taught us that someone else’s pain is a contagious bad vibe, and we need to quarantine it before it gets on us too.
Oh crap, she's sad, I don’t want to get sad, lemme help her shut that down: “Well, at least you have your health.”
Read MoreBefore I hit midlife, I regarded those feelings like pond scum floating on the surface of my lovely, blue lake. Pouring sugar on them sank them back down to the bottom, where they belong.
A good storm though - like a global pandemic - stirs them right back up doesn't it?
In those moments when I’m crazy, ravenous for pie, cookies, ice cream, and chocolate, it’s not because I’m hungry.
It’s because something hurts.
Read MoreThe work is not too much for me, I just have to learn how to do it and do it consistently: To pray without ceasing, renew my mind, enter his gates with Thanksgiving, and to quit despising the days of small beginnings. That’s less fun than the magic wand approach, but it’s how I grow.
Overnight breakthrough does none of that.
Read MoreThe message is so simple. Good dirt = Good flowers, but good dirt takes discipline, like not running my mouth just because the world is discouraging. Of course the world is discouraging - Jesus said it would be. That’s why he needs me to stop running my mouth and be the light, so people can get to him not me.
Read MoreIf suffering is actually a vital part of human development - and Paul says it is - why don’t we quit beating ourselves up for experiencing it.
Maybe you don’t need someone to fix you. Maybe you need someone to walk with you through it, helping you keep your eyes on the prize.
Read MoreThere are lots of reasons I drive myself so hard - perhaps you do the same - but wise, free women get to the bottom of that well asap, because it’s for freedom we were set free. We ought not be slaves to our made-up stories.
Ultimately, a good life is nothing more than a long series of days, deliberately made good. One after the other, strung together like pearls on a necklace. After years of this, you look back at what is, in fact, a very good life.
Read MoreAmerica has countless things to be grateful for, but gosh we act like spoiled children a lot. I really do wonder when we came to expect freedom from all inconvenience and license to express outrage over it?
1950?
2001?
1776?
I mean, we're good at complaining, it's become our national M.O. We even rock non-verbal complaining. The grocery checker messes something up and the woman at her counter looks back at me and rolls her eyes.
That happened to me yesterday and ruh-roh that woman had a cross around her neck.
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