Tag: What I Learned

now i get it {winter 2020}

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I’m linking up with Emily P. Freeman and the What We Learned community to share what we learned this winter.

Now I Get It. Winter2020

Photo: Secret Garden by Pexels

Ahh, my favorite season of the year. NOT! I am so ready for Winter to be over! I am beginning to see hints of buds on tree and bushes, as I write this, and that makes me pretty excited.  All that being said, I learned something this winter.

There are many different types of flowers in the world.  Yes, I know, mind blowing right?  But think about it: there are the kind that need next to nothing to bloom (cactus flowers in an arid desert, dandelions between concrete cracks).  There are the kind that need a little bit of care and then, once cut, with a little water stay pretty forever (carnations and daisies). There are roses and hydrangeas.  With care they will bloom beautifully but once cut, don’t last long at all. Finally, there are orchids.  Ah, the orchids. I have killed about 5 of these gorgeous flowers. They required very distinctive care: 3 ice cubes, not too close to the window but close enough to get enough light but only if the temperature is right.  Just the right mix of humidity: not to dry but not to wet.  Not really dirt but some special dirt and moss blend – the list is endless. And move them an inch in the wrong direction and they are doomed.

People are just like that.  Some of us, through our DNA and/or life circumstances and our sheer will, have been equipped to bloom through the concrete.  I say us, but I don’t mean us, in the literal sense.  I am not one of those; I am an orchid.  I need just the right mix to bloom at all and then only for short periods at a time.

What does my mix look like? I have been working on that this winter.  A morning reading, followed by a half hour of journaling.  Meditation and prayer is next.  A podcast is good also and I have been diving into back episodes of Emily’s The Next Right Thing. Then a morning run tops it off nicely. To keep up with this extensive morning routine, I require a bedtime no later than 10 PM.  And all of this just to get a good start to the day.

I lamented my neediness for years! Why did I required all of these things? There must be something wrong with me? Why was I such a pansy? Which, by the way, isn’t an accurate cliché seeing that pansies can survive temperatures below 32 degrees. Then I realized and now I get (with the help of friends and the Hubby) that the orchid doesn’t wish it was a dandelion.  It doesn’t look at all of its requirements, fights against the grain, threatening not to bloom. It is what it is – an orchid – and it needs what it needs for it to offer it’s best to the world.

We are the same way.  We are what we are and we need what we need to be our best for our world.  Now I get it. I’m an orchid and now it’s time for me to get ready to go to sleep.

What do you need?

enjoy life…

now i get it {spring 2019}

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The past few seasons, I knew my “Now I Get It” lesson as soon as it happened.  Many times, I would start working on the post right away, sometimes weeks before the season was over.

This Spring has been different. This Spring has contained so many events that have sparked more ups and downs on my emotional roller coaster at one time than I have experienced in my life which included being a guest on the What Should I Read Next Podcast Episode 179 and a traumatic event. If you’ve been following me here, you will know that it has been overwhelming, terrifying, and exhilarating often on the very same day.

I survived, and maybe even thrived, by attempting to stay fully present in the moment that I was currently in.  I couldn’t do anything about what had happened before and I often did not have a clue as to what was going to happen in the future.  The best I could do was to attempt to stay intentionally focused on what was directly in front of me.

I say attempt because the act of staying is hard.  It often is, isn’t it? We dwell so much on the past, what we should have done and what would be different if we had done it differently. We worry about the future, what will happen and what we will do when it does happen or what we will do when it doesn’t happen and the myriad of scenarios that could happen in between, worrying ourselves sick in the present about something that HASN’T EVEN HAPPENED YET! I know. I am the queen, president, and dictator of the land of Worry.  My mom says that at around three-years-old, I told her “life was hard”.

But at close to 40, I am realizing the complete pointlessness of worry and this Spring I have begun putting into the place the one strategy that I have found that works: stay in the present moment. The axiom of Jesus, “to live one day at a time” has begun to become a very real thing and something that I have realized that I CAN actually do.

A meditation practice has helped. Journaling has helped.  Stillness has helped.  Running has helped.  Reading has helped.  The book, The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman, has helped.

Now I get it. Stay in the present. And do whatever I need to do to stay there.

 enjoy life…

I’m joining Emily P. Freeman to share what we learned this Spring. Head over to her community to check out other lessons learned.

now i get it {winter 2019}

13 Comments

Linking up with Emily P. Freeman and the What We Learned Community to share lessons learned this winter.

Now I get it. It’s OK to slow down. It’s OK to pause. It’s OK to do what feels like nothing.

I intensely dislike winter-hate seems too strong a word to use in this setting but dislike isn’t strong enough.  I specifically dislike winters in Alabama.  The temperature is cold. The sky is gray, most of the time. And it is very very wet.  This month, we have had the most rainfall in four or five years. Without the magic of snow, I might add.  Winters in Alabama are depressing. And for me, the gray days often prompt the gray thoughts.

In November, I decided to try something different this winter. Instead of thinking that I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, I decided that the winter is the time of year where my body, mind, and spirit need a break.  Essentially, I decided to become a bear.

Going into the winter with this mindset made me very nervous.  Deciding to focus on rest seemed so counterintuitive. I believed that I would feel lazy and unproductive as I sat around, essentially, doing nothing.

However, the opposite has proven to be true.  This winter, as I rested, I also have posted to the blog nine times, including a guest post from my sister. We featured Becky Glaze in the first Enjoy Life Interview of the year. We started the first EnjoyLife Project: Create Home thru KonMari. And I have completed the first category: Clothes. Blog post coming in March.  I have started hosting What I’m Into on the first of every month and a good number of you are linking your posts to the site.  I am so honored to have you. Our next post is tomorrow, March 1.

I hosted my first New Year’s visioning party in January. I have read 4 books this year of the 39 that I want to read in 2019. I have attended two Writing Retreats and have written 4000 words to a novel that I want to write. I also volunteered with The CornerStone Initiative for the annual C4 Conference.

On February 12th, Danielle LaPorte wrote a poem: Building Strength. In it she discusses the concept of building strength through rest and feeling deeply. Take a look at it here.

It has proven true for me this winter.

What about you? Do you find that rest makes you more productive?

P.S. One good thing about being in Alabama during the winter months is that we often have at least one burst of Springlike temps and sunshine.  We had one this month, before all the rain, and are going through another right now. Folks are wearing sandals, I kid you not.

enjoy life…

P.P.S. I also played a lot of Sims 4, but if we are being honest, that was something that I intended to do going into this experiment.