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Shining light into darkness

lightintodarkness-jungI don’t like haunted houses. They’re dark, spooky and filled with a whole lot of unknown. Plus, being scared or startled is not my idea of a good time. To all of you that like them, more power to you, but I’m taking the big ol’ pass. I think the darkness is a big part of it. I just don’t know what to expect, I can’t see ahead.

That’s a little how I was approaching 50 this week. In reality, Tuesday I was Lisa who was 49 and Wednesday I was Lisa who was now 50. It wasn’t a catastrophic change. But my mental lead up to it was. Literally the last 6 months it’s been on my mind. Not in a mid-life crisis aspect, per se, but a ‘what’s next’ standpoint. When I was thinking about it earlier this week, there was so much unknown, like the haunted house. A darkness of sorts.

Except it wasn’t. Once I did nothing more than wake up Wednesday morning, magically 50, the thought in my head was, “well…alright, this is it, game on.” I wasn’t depressed, didn’t suddenly feel old, I felt the same as the day before. If you’ve already hit the magic number, I’m sure you experienced much of the same.

The unknown is often like that, darkness. Think about it…

The conversation you need to have but are dreading…darkness…

The decision you need to make but avoid…darkness…

A move in your life or career that you’re procrastinating on…darkness

Once you make the decision, have the conversation, you wonder what you were avoiding! Here’s another perspective, once you shine the light on it, it’s no longer unknown, no longer scary.  “The light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5. It’s the same in life. The light takes a lot of forms but in reality, it’s truth.

Truth is powerful. Truth tells you that you and your spouse are on the same team, not opposing parties. Truth says that the conversation you need to have will have benefits for both you and the other person, that’s there’s nothing to fear. Truth helps you got past hurt to see what actually happened in that long ago argument. Truth says you’re beautiful when the scale or your pants try to tell you otherwise. The light is truth so why don’t we believe it?

What would it take you to believe it? To look past the darkness and see the light? What belief from the past are you bringing forward that limits how you look at your circumstances today? What assumptions are you making that give you tunnel vision? What does the voice in your head – not the voice of truth – the other one that keeps you small – what does it try to tell you? What if you looked at each of those and asked yourself, what is true? What is the truth? And from there you made decisions…

Essentially…turn the light on in the haunted house…see the truth and embrace it…shine the light on it.

That…my friend…would be brave.

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Here it comes…now what?

Live a life of loveI make no secret of the fact that I turn 50 next week, and I’ve been doing a lot of reflection. I’ve heard life over 50 called the “Second Half.” That seems appropriate. But what’s in that half? If you think about it, the BIG stuff that created your memories, your experiences, essentially created who you ARE at 50, it happened in the first half.

If you’re me, you lived your childhood in Yosemite. You spent three months in the hospital at 4 and came out of it with a love for doctors and nurses who showed love to a whole group of young children there alone. And you returned, shaped by your experience. You played in meadows, stayed outside past dusk with your friends, walked to school in kindergarten – alone…because it was a different era. You skied for PE, ate hot dogs and drank red dye…aka Kool Aid…and lived.

The first half included slumber parties, good friends, selling Girl Scout cookies, dances, BIG hair, bad fashions…ones which I have no desire to wear again now, even though they seems to be back…not going there again. There was young love, dumb love. And you had college and all its shenanigans. Then came the big stuff, you married, had two amazing kids, climbed the career ladder – jumped off it… And you also had your share of pain, divorce. The beauty of getting married again…

And I thought about all that first half stuff yesterday, as I swam what I called my “birthday yards.” My years x 100’s. As I got tired around yard 4,000 and wondered why I hadn’t chosen 50’s instead of 100’s, I had the big epiphany.

What I DO does not make who I AM.

I kept swimming, but thought about that. The way I’ve lived my life, really the way any of us live our lives, represents what’s inside of us. It’s an extension of what’s inside. But ultimately, our life’s experiences, those created who we are on the inside. It’s a little bit of the chicken and egg theory. We’re born, clean slate. Everything we experience shapes what’s inside which drives what we do outside.  And it shapes what we think we need to do.

By the second half, most of those shaping experiences have happened. Truthfully, a lot of them happened when I was young. Now I have a choice of how I’m going to use them, how to show up, how to love, live, what’s important.

Here’s what is important in the second half.

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Loving more, loving deeply. Not being a roommate to my husband.

My family…time with them…relationship.

Knowing what I believe in my heart and being brave enough to say it, even when it goes against the grain with those close to me.

Helping other people. Serving them with the gifts God gave me and developed in me.

Making mistakes…I’m far from perfect, it’s time to embrace it. Time to be silly.

Close girlfriends…we’re walking through this part of life together, understanding w

hat being a woman really means now.

Do what I love. Tryouts are over, I know what I like and it’s time to stop wasting time of stuff I don’t.

Never stop learning. Some of the most impactful learning and growing I’ve done has been in the last year.

Be brave… I have nothing to prove. This has been one of the hardest to learn, and I’ve done a lot to try and prove I’m worthy…of love. Now I know that I am worthy. What I do doesn’t make me worthy. That is the truth for each of us, we are worthy of love, from

others and more importantly, from ourselves.

The second half…you’ll find me showing more compassion to myself. Embracing who I am and sharing that with others. It took 50 years for me

to get here…

hopefully it didn’t take you as long…be brave with me…let the years ahead of you be filled with compassion, with family, friends, and most importantly, with love.

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Trusting my inner voice

trust yourselfSometimes I wonder how much I actually trust myself. My own wisdom. I have days where I question myself, flip flop my decisions. But I think if I were to be still, my inner voice would lead me. Truthfully, I’ve been working on being more in touch with that inner voice. Paying attention to what comes up, what I’m hearing, sensing, feeling. Acting on it has been a little slower, until recently.

Last week my husband and I had a trip planned for my upcoming BIG birthday. He was indulging me with tickets to see Celine Dion. Now, I had a friend say “you either like her…or you don’t.” I do. She doesn’t. You might not. That’s ok because when Celine hits those big, dramatic, building notes, I’m all in. My poor kids had to listen to Celine ALL the time in the car when they were young. They could do a mean sing along if the moment presented itself, but also did not hold back in mocking me.

Right now, the only place Celine is playing is Las Vegas. And we were scheduled to fly out this past Monday morning. On Sunday, I was anxious all day. No known reason. We had a great day celebrating our grand-daughter’s 3rd birthday. It was an afternoon of relaxing and hanging out with family and friends. But I had anxiety. Any of you who have anxiety know that sometimes you don’t know why, it’s just there and Sunday was one of those days.

Monday morning, we woke up early to get ready for our trip and heard the news of the horrific tragedy that unfolded in Las Vegas the prior evening. It was awful and sad…blocks away from where we were headed to celebrate. A trip we’d planned and paid for months ago.

And this is where trusting myself came in. I really don’t like losing money. But in that moment my gut was telling me not to go on the trip. I was reminded of the anxiety the day before – and could see it was intuition, God whispering to me. So I asked the question, “if money weren’t an issue, what would we do?” And we stayed home.

For so many reasons, I knew that was the right decision. Primarily, it did not feel right to go there with the intent to celebrate when so many had lost their lives, senselessly. The tragedy made me incredibly sad. And yet, even thought I knew it was the right decision, I second guessed myself for the better part of the day, even after cancelling the flights and hotel. That’s when the competing voices in my head came up. The ones that get in the way of trusting myself.

Those voices are certainly not mine, but represent the doubts about myself that carry forward from the past. The ones that remind me of all the decisions I’ve made that were, shall we say, less that optimal. We all have them. What I now know is that our ability to trust ourselves is related to identifying exactly what comes up for us in those moments. We all have those things we think are true and right that have evolved in our minds over time (whether they are actually true), but that hold us back from making decisions in the present. Those are the things that scream at us in our minds. But you can choose to ignore them. And I did.

And we all can, and should. Choose to look at what’s in front of us today. The facts of the situation we’re currently faced with. Not the voices in our head telling us that we can’t, or shouldn’t, or even worse, that we’re not good enough, not worthy. Those voices aren’t true. They’re not our friends. We CAN trust ourselves and our own inner wisdom.

I would be remiss if I didn’t end with a moment about the tragedy in Las Vegas. It was incredibly sad and we should have systems and rules in place to prevent it. It’s a time when each of us needs to dig down inside ourselves and be brave enough to voice our true concerns about how this happened. But right now, in this moment, we can use that voice to pray. Pray for the victims, their families, the witnesses, and all the first responders. My heart goes out to all of them.

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Moving past perfect to good

View More: http://mercarty.pass.us/lisa_kirby“Once you’re done being perfect, then you’re good.” I was listening to a podcast the other day with Jen Hatmaker and Glennon Doyle and felt socked in the gut when I heard Glennon share those words. Because I got it. Deep in my heart I understood what she was talking about. Having spent the majority of my life striving for perfection, I am tired. And the thing about it is, you never really reach perfection, because it’s based on someone else’s standards. I’ve learned you’ll never meet those. It’s impossible.

In the last year, however, I’ve been working on giving up being perfect. Straight up truth is, I’m not. No one is. We’re all one step away from a hot mess, and half the time, I feel that’s where I’m squarely sitting. That’s what life is. We go through the hard stuff to get to the good stuff. And that’s what I’m starting to experience. Living in full awareness of my messy life and not trying to ignore it or get away from it. It leads to so much more, the good in life.

I think that part of getting away from perfection and towards good is moving away from feelings of shame. Shame is something that we’ve all experienced it. Brene Brown studied it, speaks on it, writes about it. Her work helped me understand that shame is the feeling that you’re a bad person versus having done a bad thing. I was pondering that this morning and had another sock in the gut moment.

One of the worst things anyone could ever say to me is that they were disappointed in me. It is crushing to me. Causes me to lose all sense of self confidence, self-esteem. Today it dawned on me that I interpret someone being disappointed in me as “I think you are a bad person.” It clicked…and when it did it was as though another layer of me was shed. A deeper understanding of myself and my wiring was reached. So what do you do with that? With the past messages you may have received? For me, I’m trying to reframe them. Thinking that in those instances I may have done a bad thing, but I’m not, nor was I, a bad person.

I also realized this week that part of perfectionism for me was really not trusting myself. Constant striving. Always doing what I thought I was supposed to do to color within the lines, to follow every rule. There’s very little independent thinking or reasoning when you’re sticking to the plan. So now, I have to ask if I really trust myself. My own decisions. I think I do trust myself when it’s something I know well, like work, but personal things are a lot harder. I question myself a lot and have a hard time getting to an answer at times.

So what’s so good about all this? Well first off, I’m realizing it. I’m making my own choices. Living in my mess knowing that good is going to come from it. Letting go of the impossible burden of perfectionism. Learning to trust myself and in the process trusting others more. And the truth is, I don’t believe I’m alone. I believe that the experiences I’m having, the realizations, are the same that others have…once you’ve lived for a while.  The challenge is to not only be aware of the messages that have been programmed, but to choose different to think differently. To make decisions for my life based on what is good for me now – not what I think should be good for me now. To listen to the truth. As with anything else in life that’s worth it, I’ll have to work at it. How about you? Are you ready to believe in yourself? Trust yourself? Get to the good stuff? Let’s do it together, be brave together.

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A Rite of Passage

love yourselfI feel like I should issue a spoiler alert. To all my young friends, I’m going to throw down a bit about middle age. If you don’t want to know what’s coming, proceed with caution. I’ve been thinking about middle age and all the “joy” that comes with it, particularly menopause. I’ve heard menopause described as a “rite of passage.” Wondering if that could really be true, I decided to look up what that actually means.

Rites of passage have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So let’s think about it for a minute…yep, perimenopause, then you’re in the thick of it, and I’ve heard afterwards you move into a new phase. So, yeah, it does sound like a rite of passage. And it’s something all women go through one way or another. Truthfully, men go through it too, alongside the women in their lives and they have their own rites of passage.

So if it’s a nature process of life, I wonder why it’s so hard? At least it’s hard for me and my friends in the same boat. As I think about it, the hard part is all the physical symptoms that seem impossible to control. I did not ask for whiskers to randomly sprout from my chin; or for the hot flashes that make sleep elusive; or, let’s get honest, the uncontrollable weight gain – I think they call it the middle age spread. Let me just say…I am not amused.

But I’m wondering if there’s a different way to look at all this. The truth is, it’s inevitable. No woman can escape it. Some have fewer symptoms or are propelled into it, but we all go through it. I haven’t even mentioned the emotions that go with it, but they can be extreme. My husband can attest to the crying that came with the early stages for me.  Where is all that coming from???

What if, instead of fighting it, or resenting it, we embraced it? Leaned in to it. Accepted the fact that our bodies are changing rather than being angry about it? Accept that we have no control over it…that is a big issue. As women, we’re used to having a lot of control over what’s happening in our lives. We have taken care of our homes, our families, jobs…juggled our hobbies and things that bring us joy…for the majority of our lives. This should be something we’ve got covered. We (and I include me in that), want to continue controlling our bodies…and we can’t.

We accuse, we blame, we fight our own bodies. And we’re tired. What if you tried to hold off a car rolling down a hill? You likely wouldn’t be successful and you’d get rolled over in the process. If you just stepped aside and accepted what was going to happen you’d save a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It’s the same thing with menopause. Our bodies want to be loved and we’re the primary person to do that. We may have grown humans in our bodies, climbed mountains, risen in our careers – whether in or out of the house. We have put our arms around others to comfort them, loved on others…but we’re failing to do that for ourselves. We fight what we need and it’s a fight against ourselves.

So if we’re in the midst of a rite of passage, why don’t we lean in? Accept what’s happening. The struggles we might be facing in the midst of the transition are ones we’re bringing on ourselves. Stop the battle. We need to love ourselves, our bodies and not abandon them during this time of transition. Know that this process is taking us to another phase in our lives.

If you’ve stuck through this post and are not in this phase, I encourage you to look at what you may be going through in life. Are you fighting an unnecessary battle? What do you really need right now? Listen to yourself, your body, your inner voice and follow it. Today, let’s choose to love ourselves as we are. We’re here for a reason…lean in to learn what that reason is. Be brave.

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A Return to Vulnerability

VulnerabilityEver had that conversation that you knew you needed to have but you were avoiding it? Maybe with a spouse, a close friend, a family member? Yeah, me too.  What happens is that instead of having the conversation, I create a story in my head about the other person’s motives, what they must be thinking, or the why behind what they’re doing. I create their side of the story without giving them a chance to chime in. And, invariably, my story is far worse than what is actually happening.

In my story, I am being hurt, slighted, or ignored. My feelings are being smashed down. It’s never a version where it all works out. It’s a version where there is conflict. And in my story, I’m upset, and crying. What does all this storytelling do for me? Well, my brain swirling about it usually leads to me actual crying, getting anxious, feeling upset…even though the conversation never happened!

Been there? Most of us have.

This was the topic of conversation with my friend/coach the other day. It started off as just chatting and next thing I know, we’re smack in the middle of it. How did that happen?? And yes, there was crying, by me of course.  There is a HUGE bonus to having a friend who started as my coach. We float in and out of that mode at times. So she knows me. We’ve gone there. And when she sees it, she gently calls me on my crap. Those are friends everyone should have, in my opinion.

She pushed up on me and I’ll spare you the gory details but it came back to vulnerability. Rather than having a conversation, I was creating story. So the bigger question is why not just have the conversation? Well that was scary, full of unknowns, had the potential for me to get hurt. Then again, was it hurt, or was it that the other person wouldn’t see things from my perspective. The truth is, they might not. So what was really keeping me from having that conversation?

Vulnerability. I’d have to be vulnerable, share what I was thinking. Open myself up to those unknowns. Now that was scary. But was it worse than what I was doing to myself? Creating the stories in my head. If you also create the stories, think about how much free brain space you’d have if you skipped that step and just had a conversation.

The thing is, I’d done the vulnerability thing. Moved past it. And now I had to do it again?? I think I’d always known it, but vulnerability is not a one and done thing, it’s a practice. It’s part of life. It’s what keeps you from spinning yourself into victim mode. Or from creating stress and strife – in your head – about your relationships. Being vulnerable lets you speak your truth. Let’s you be your true self, and how the other person responds is up to them, but if you speak from a place of vulnerability, you’ll know. Instead of the story, you’ll know the other side.

I’m not going to lie, the thought of being vulnerable makes me queasy. But I have to do it. We have to do it my friend. It’s not a one shot deal. We can’t say “oh I’ve done

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vulnerability,” and move on to something else. So, are you in? Are you with me? This is one of those be brave moments. I know we can do it. Trust you heart, guard your heart “…it determines the course of your life.” (Prov. 4:23). Your heart knows the way to vulnerability, trust it.

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Listen to me!

bodily-wisdom-quoteHow often do you have someone in your life say, “just listen to me.” Maybe they yell it at you, or maybe you’re the one saying it.  With all the space I’m making in my life, to just be, to rest, to be creative, I’ve noticed that I’m hearing that phrase more often. Not from anybody else, but from my own body. I’m not kidding. When I slowed down enough to pay attention, I started noticing what my body was feeling, what it said to me.

It said, I’m tired, quit beating me up, I need rest…it also told me that the shape it’s in now, well that’s where it needs to be. That’s a tough one because for probably the last 35+ years, I’ve felt like I was in a diet battle with my body. The weight it would hold onto made my body an enemy. If I lost weight, we weren’t quite friends, but had reached frenemy status. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and eventually, it did. We’d go back to battle.

And that wasn’t all, I pushed myself to do all kinds of crazy, albeit fun, adventures. If I did something wildly athletic all day, I could eat without guilt. While those time truly were awesome, my body got more and more tired. The fatigue never actually went away. Now, I’ve slowed down, but less by choice and more by necessity. But in the midst of what would otherwise be lamenting for that life, the crazy adventures, I’m finding myself feeling still, content.

Once I got to that point, that’s when I really started tuning into what my body and my intuition. What it was telling me was a crazy thing. I felt more peace. I realized that my body has wisdom, it knows what it needs, rest, food, fun, love, comfort. And though I don’t always do it, when I listen and respond, when I’m actually kind to myself, my body responds favorably. I realize it’s not actually the enemy. I spent all those years essentially fighting my true self. Instead, my body has so much to say, it’s done so much for me, it’s been through life with me. Even though my brain thinks it’s my true self, it’s not, it’s just part of it. My body is the one feeling, sensing, being.

So what’s the point in sharing this with you? I’d ask you to think about how you treat your body. Are you in a battle? Enemies? Do you ignore it altogether? Any of those responses would be normal. The question is where do you want to be? I know that for many, many people, especially women, our body is a source of contention. Our image of ourselves is formed from countless sources over the years. If you grew up when I did, ultra-thin was the goal, but was it realistic? After all these years of trying, I can tell you that it’s probably not – at least for me. We need to learn to love ourselves, to listen to ourselves, just as we are now. If you were meant to be thinner, or a different shape, tune in and you can get there. How you are now, it’s where you need to be, for now. It doesn’t mean you’ll always be that way, but maybe you will. Take the brave step of putting down the sword you’ve yielded against yourself for so long.

You are not helpless in this, your body is not the enemy, you don’t have to be made at it. You can show it love and compassion, and it will reward you – with joy, peace, abundance, creativity and love. Today, be brave for yourself and always remember, be kind to the one you’re closest to, the one you’re living in, you.

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Are you in your lane?

stay in your laneThis weekend we drove to Bakersfield to visit my mother-in-law. Long, long holiday weekend drive. You know the kind. Crazy insane traffic, people everywhere, cars everywhere. At some point you just want to tell someone to stay in their lane. To relax, I like to listen to podcasts. I’ve recently started listening to Oprah’s Super Soul podcasts, love them, and one of many I played on that drive was Oprah talking to Joel Olsteen.

Now, I’m not a regular listener of Joel Olsteen, but their conversation was interesting on many levels, and one area that struck me was discussion about staying in your lane. Appropriate for what we were experiencing in that moment! Joel talked about Hebrews 12:1 “…Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Doing that requires that we stay in our lane. Our lane.

That begs the question. Do you know your lane? Because it’s hard to run your race well if you don’t even know what your lane is or maybe even the race you’re in. Or if you’re always looking into someone else’s lane thinking it might be better. Strike a chord? It did for me.

For a lot of my life, I believe I’ve been running someone else’s race, without really being clear on what race it was. That’s what happens when you try to live your life trying to meet someone else’s expectations. And you might think you know what the other person’s expectations are, but chances are you really don’t. In my case, the expectations I’d chosen to believe, and probably had enhanced in my mind, were impossible to reach, and worse yet, they probably weren’t even legit.

All trying to meet someone else’s expectations is going to do is leave you empty. Aching. Knowing that there is more you’re being called to do, but not knowing how to break out from the wrong lane you’re in to get there. I know, I’ve been there. I was in the wrong lane for so long, and in reality, I wasn’t that far off track, but off enough to feel the ache. Enough to know that there was more that God was calling me to do. It looks like unhappiness, it feels a little like depression, life feels flat.

And I searched, mainly within myself. I looked deep inside at my beliefs. At what was holding me back. I questioned a lot of things in my life. A spiral…so many false beliefs …assumptions…based on what I thought I should be doing, or what I thought other people wanted me to do. Things I believed, and when I finally realized they weren’t true, that I didn’t have to feel restricted by them anymore…well then what??

That’s when I found my lane. Stepped into the me that I was created to be. And all my wiring finally started coming together. I remember feeling like I was stepping into my life, into confidence in how I was created and what I was supposed to be doing. It wasn’t exactly what I thought, because that’s other thing. Sometimes we think we want to be in a particular lane and it’s not where we belong. We can force it, muscle it, but only for a while. But when it’s wrong it will exhaust you.

What about you? Whose lane are you in, yours’ or someone else’s? If you want to run your race, get into your lane! Don’t think the person next to you has a better lane, more glamorous lane. Know that your race is just that, it’s your race, unique, and specially created for you. Only you and God know what that race is supposed to be. When you find it, or if you’ve already found it, you’ll know that it is an amazing place to be. Life clicks. You have to be brave to get there, to stay there. I did, it’s still a journey, but I’m staying in my lane while I do it. I hope you’ll join me.

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Grab on…

View More: http://mercarty.pass.us/lisa_kirbyI was at a women’s conference yesterday, Christine Caine’s Propel Activate Conference. It was a fire hose of a day with amazing speakers throughout. As always, my brain wanders in many different directions and by the time we nearing the end, I had a lot of ideas on the brink of happening. Lisa Harper was the last speaker and she was the perfect choice because she used humor with her message which kept me engaged at the end of a long day.

I’ve been through times in my life when, to be transparent, I’ve seen myself as a victim. Let me define that. A victim of my circumstances. Life was happening to me. I didn’t feel I had any control. I felt like I was along for the ride. Truth is, I lived to other peoples’ expectations, didn’t speak up for what I wanted, typical life of a people pleaser. But I wasn’t happy. Discontent but couldn’t put my finger on it. The great thing about being in that space is that you can blame others for things that happen. Someone else is calling the shots, not me, so I wash my hands of it. Not a good place to be, for anyone.

Last year, my eyes were opened to that reality and I started taking more ownership for my life. Calling the shots, taking chances, even if I risked failing. But it’s a process, one that is still ongoing. Yesterday Lisa Harper’s told the 2,000+ women that God will never tell you that you’re “not good enough,” and challenged us to look at what He’s calling us to do. To be honest, that’s a message a lot of women struggle with, me included. Feeling like we’re not “the right one” for the job, or that we can always be “just a little bit better.”

The problem with that (one of many), is that we look for “evidence” to support our own insecurity. Things that happen around us are put into a box that supports our fear that we’re really not good enough. We build our case…and it paralyzes us.

So today, I’m calling you out on it, calling myself on it. I’m going to spend time thinking about how to propel myself forward, to further embrace the plan God has for me. I’m going to think and journal about questions like:

  • What do I feel is at my fingertips?
  • What is within my grasp but I’m not grabbing on?
  • What gifts do I have that I’m keeping on the shelf?
  • Where do I feel like I fall short…but that’s not the truth?
  • What do others tell me about my gifts that I have a hard time believing – that I could embrace and run with?

This is push through kind of work. Can be fun, but not always. It’s going to require digging, confronting myself, challenging my limiting beliefs. Those thoughts that I think about myself that aren’t true but that I’ve let myself think are true. I challenge you this week my friends, what are you being called to do? Look at your gifts, embrace them, you are amazing. We can do this, we’re brave.

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Creating Time…to Think

Slow down and Focus

I’ve been on a quest this summer to slow down. Life feels so incredibly busy all the time and I’ve been working on being more present, instead of working ten steps ahead in my head with no time to actually think. Except the more I do that, the more stuff seems to come up. It’s the proverbial peeling of an onion. My obsessive cleaning friends will get this…it’s like when you’re cleaning your house and the more you clean, the more stuff you see to clean. Next thing you know, you’re on baseboards, windows, and look out garage, you’re next.

That’s how it’s been trying to slow down my brain and life. This week, I’ve continued to work on doing one thing at a time instead of multi-tasking.  I’ve also started thinking about screen time. I consider myself a moderate to low phone user. I use it at work, there’s a little time spent on social apps, I research and diagnose myself with diseases on it (just sayin…Mayo Clinic is a reputable site…my doctor said so), ok, I can see the list is getting a little long. And yet, I think I don’t use it as much as others I know. But…I could use it less. Although, full disclosure, I think I’ve picked up my phone five times in the short time I’ve been writing this post, because I could not live without know the hour by hour weather today? Or sending a picture to my friend of something that struck me as funny?

I listened to a podcast my friend sent me this week exploring how spending so much time on our mobile devices can actually limit our creativity. Our brains stay occupied with what everyone else is saying and doing and we don’t spend time in our own creative genius space. At the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, speaker Juliet Funt spoke about the concept of White Space (check her out on YouTube). Creating time to think strategically, not meditation, but carved out time to let your mind wander – in a strategic way. I loved this concept – completely aligned with my focus in the last couple months.

I remember when I did a half-Ironman a couple years ago (first and only – kinda a bucket list thing), we couldn’t use headphones, so basically, no phone use the entire time – which for me was quite a while considering I walked the run portion. Oddly enough, it was amazing. My brain wandered all over the place…I spent a lot of time with God…I saw things in my life clearly…I felt calm and at peace. I can see now that was White Space. In the Bible, Jesus left to be alone with God and pray. Time for clarity. Leaders go on retreats to get away from day to day…to get clarity. Clarity is a White Space concept.

So how does all that fit into slowing down? If I look at the goal of slowing down, it’s really to feel rested and have clarity on the things that really matter. Get into my creative space, think and plan strategically, and gain energy. What stops me? Me. If you’re trying to find more time in your life, what stops you? You.  Sometimes we might feel like we’re along for the ride in life because we’re bombarded with doing. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

There’s a choice to make and it’s a choice I’m making. If I don’t start making time to slow down and create that White Space Juliet Funt spoke about, I’m going to keep feeling like I’m jumping from one thing to the next – like changing channels. Each of us has the ability to take back our lives from the fake need to keep up with everyone else’s lives. Let’s make the choice to live and be in our own lives. Our lives are definitely worth showing up and being our best for. Are you in? Let’s do it…be brave.