On Grief

My Grandma died this weekend and my grief feels like a massive burning flame. I’m afraid to get too close to it for fear it will totally consumes me. My Grandma read everything that I wrote, and I always write to make sense of what is in my heart. So writing this for her is the best thing I know to do to when I’m feeling a little lost.

She always heard the song of my heart.

My Grandma wasn’t just a grandma to me. She was my person. If you like or admire any little thing about me then there is more than likely a thread that you can trace from that quality, to her.

Her love of coffee and pizza. Her love of late nights and disdain of early mornings. Her love of beautiful things – art, music, clothing and people. The way she loved. The way she gathered. The way she always, always made space for people – in her home and in her heart. She was never out of room.

A few months ago, my Grandma was in my home having lunch with me. The kids were out playing and I was telling her about something difficult in my life. She reached for my hand. She told me I was doing a good job. And when I cried, she told me she loved me.

My Grandma was many things. But to me, she was my safe place. My soft landing. The one person who really saw me, and didn’t just see me, but liked what she saw. She told me she was proud of me. She told me she loved me. She told me I was doing a good job.

Yesterday, I got to hold her hand. I got to tell her I loved her. I got to tell her I was proud of her and that she had done a good job.

And then, I got to say goodbye.

I don’t know why people talk about comfort in times like these. The only thing that would bring me comfort right now is if I were to wake up tomorrow to find that she is still here. I’m angry that she is gone. I thought we had more time. I don’t want a world where she isn’t in it.

But in the face of not finding any immediate comfort, I do have something.

I have this raging, burning love that is rivaled only by my raging, burning grief. And I know you can’t have one without the other.

She loved me so well. She showed me how to make space for others. She showed me how to enjoy the beautiful things of life. She showed me how wave a middle finger at the people who say you drink too much coffee and stay up too late. She showed me how to hold people’s hands and look them in the eye and see them for who they really are and say that you are proud of them. She showed me how to live a life that wasn’t perfect – but perfect was never the goal. The goal was always, always people.

I know I was just one of many fortunate people whose life was made better by my Grandma. But to me, she wasn’t just a grandma. She was the person who showed me pieces of myself.

Grandma, I’m hitting “publish” on this post at 1 am. I’m thinking about our late nights at your old house. Do you remember the night you introduced me to Butterfield 8? We talked about how glamorous Elizabeth Taylor was and ate ice cream and then you asked if I was spending the night and when I said yes you walked away to put clean sheets on the high bed before going to your room and turning on your bedside light to read into the small hours. You never asked me why I was there and not at home. You never gave me advice. You always just made up a bed for me and had coffee ready in the morning. You always had room for me. I love you so much it hurts, Grandma. I hope I can do the same thing for others that you have done for me. And when they ask why I am the way I am, I can say, “Let me tell you about my Grandma Barb.“

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Does Your Outer Doing Reflect Your Inner Being?

What would you do if you didn’t just know, but believed and lived like you knew the truth that you aren’t what you do.

What would you drop? What would you walk away from? What would you shift your focus away from?

If you follow me on Instagram and watch my stories, then you might have already heard me ask these questions. But they bear repeating, because we don’t seem to get it.

What we do – our actions, our words, our choices – they get to be a beautiful reflection of who we are. But when we get the order confused, when we start behaving as if we are what we do, then we get caught in a very dangerous cycle of building a life based on external validation.

When we live like we are what we do, then we open the gate for people pleasing, for allowing ourselves to be people pleased, for comparison, for dissatisfaction, for chasing our identity is sources that have no ability to tell us who we are, and for – wait for it – manipulation.

I know, you probably weren’t expecting that last one, so let me tell you what I mean.

When we live like we are what we do, then we place a burden on the things that we do that they can’t live up to. We expect the things that we do to fulfill us, and when the things that we do include other humans, we expect those people and our experiences with them to be identity building and affirming. And friends, that isn’t anyone’s else’s job. And when we do things with the expectation that others will give something to us in return – whether we do that consciously or subconsciously – that is textbook manipulation.

Let me give you a few examples, because I know this can be a difficult one to see in yourself. Because believing the lie that we are what we do is often times wrapped up in good intentions. But as a wise and wonderful therapist once told me, if you step on your dance partner’s foot while dancing, it doesn’t matter what your intentions were. It still hurt.

So let’s take a look at what I mean, and then see if we can see ourselves in these examples.

Maybe you see yourself as a giver, so you do everything in your power to help others. You take meals when friends are sick, you send cards when friends are having a hard time, you run errands for others, you do it all. Basically, when there is a need, you are the person that hops in your car to meet that need. Only…you feel drained by all of this. You are continually disappointed by the way people never seem to notice all you do or reciprocate your love and giving.

Or maybe you are a mom and you love being a mom. But you are tired of doing ALL the cooking and ALL the cleaning and paying ALL the bills and making sure that life continues to run smoothly while also trying to meet your own personal needs. You love your family and the life you chose, but you find yourself continually giving more than you feel you have and receiving less than you need.

Or maybe you see yourself as a really good friend. And so you go with the flow and do your best to never rock the boat and let everyone else always pick the restaurant and remember everyone else’s birthdays and are almost always the one reaching out to say hello and ask to get together and while you love being such a good friend, you always seem to end up feeling hurt that no one sees you and knows you the way you know others. You long for someone to be the type of friend to you that you are to others.

Or maybe you have a job and your husband has a job and you have a few kids and a good group of friends and life seems to be progressing in the normal, expected way, except it’s starting to feel like all you do is the normal, expected things. You do a great job at work, you meal plan healthy and quick family dinners, your kids are thriving at school and at t-ball and wrestling and basketball and swim practice. You wish you had a bit more time for friends but you accept that this is just the season of life and wave to them from across the crowded school gym at the science fair or catch up in between innings at your sons’ baseball game. The nagging feeling that you wanted your life to have a little more, well, life to it, sometimes keeps you up at night as you think about how you had hoped things would turn out, but you assume that if everyone else is living like this then maybe it just is what it is.

Do you see the pattern here? When we live all outside of ourselves, when we form our identity around what we do instead of who we are, then we continually live a life where we expect other people and experiences to support our identity.

Maybe you really do love taking meals to other people. Me too! Maybe you really do love being a mom. Me too! Maybe you really do love being a good friend. Me too! Maybe you really do want your life to have a little more freedom and life in it.

me. too.

Here’s the problem. We can truly be all those things. But we are those things, not because we do them and other people see us doing them and affirm us in the doing of them. We are truly those things because of the deep, intrinsic, permanent, internal truth of who we are and who God has made us to be.

Let me tell you why I’m so hot for this issue right now.

The month of May came at my family H A R D. We tend to be pretty healthy and escaped the winter months unscathed. Not a single cold or sniffle. And then May hit and we have just been DOWN. The kids keep passing this nasty cold virus back and forth and then one day, I felt something amiss in my own body and I just knew.

It was coming for me.

So what did I do? Rest? Eat some nourishing soup? Drink extra water?

No. I cleaned the house like a crazy person. “I’m getting sick!” I thought. “No one else is going to clean the kitchen and while I’m at it I should clean the exhaust fan filters and OMG this floor is dirty I should sweep and mop and while the floors are drying let me try and cram all the dirty laundry into one load and OH MY GOSH THERE IS SO MUCH I HAVE TO DO BECAUSE I AM MOM!”

Then I got sick. And then I got even sicker. And then I spent 8 days in bed. Like, in BED, bed. Then I dislocated a rib and sprained my rib joint because I had such an intense and constant cough for 8 days. And then I was really, REALLY helpless.

And you know what that showed me?

One day, I was in bed, feeling pretty miserable. Both physically and mentally. I felt terrible that I couldn’t take care of my family. I felt terrible that other people were having to step in. I felt terrible that I had to cancel a special birthday outing with a friend whom I really, really care about being a good friend to. I felt terrible that I had to cancel volunteering at an event I was looking forward to being a part of. I felt terrible that my kids saw me being so sick and saw me not DOING anything. I felt terrible asking friends for help. I felt terrible asking my husband to stay home from work.

I wasn’t able to DO the things that I felt were “me.” Therefore, I didn’t feel like “me.” Why? Because I was using all of the things I do to give me a sense of identity, meaning and purpose.

But then, for a season, those things were taken away from me. And I learned the powerful truth that even when I can’t do the mom type tasks that I love to do for my family, I AM still mom. Even when I can’t do the typical fun and caring things for my friends, I AM still a friend. Even when I can’t do the typical things that I value doing like yoga, volunteering, writing, cooking, hanging out with friends, going to church on Sunday, or homeschooling, I AM still me, because who I AM is based on things that can’t be taken away from me.

I’m going to get a little bit nerdy here, but stay with me.

You remember learning about the “be verbs,” right? Well…don’t you find it a little bit interesting, that “am” is a be verb?

What I’m saying is this – who you are is directly linked to your inner being. Not your outer doing.

Or maybe you’d like a spiritual connection to take this one step further. in the New Testament part of the Bible, in the book of John, Jesus refers to himself as “I AM.” When asked who he is, Jesus doesn’t first tell you what he does. He says who he is. And by using the phrase, “I AM,” he is calling back to an earlier part of the Bible. A part in the Old Testament where God is telling a group of people not only who he is, but who they are, too.

Our actions are important. Yes. So important. But our actions should flow from a rooted and rested place of who we know we are instead of from an expectation to be seen and filled for what we do. Do you see the difference? Can you feel it? Can you think of areas of your own life where you are desperately trying to use what you do as a way to add value and meaning and purpose to your life, when really, what you need is to work from the inside out?

When we allow our actions to be a reflection of who we are, instead, we are free from needing other people to approve or respond to us in a way that validates our identity. We can take people meals out of the overflow of our core identity as a giver, feeding others because we have first been fed. We can be friends to others out of the overflow of our core identity as a friend, befriending others because we have first been befriended. We can mother our children out of the overflow of our core identity of someone who is grace and strength and love because we have first been given the name of grace and strength and love.

With this in mind, I’m going to ask you again: what would you walk away from if you knew and truly believed – deep down in your bones – that who you are comes from an internal, intrinsic place of being and not an external place of doing? What things do you do simply because you feel obligated to do them? What things do you do simply because you are trying so desperately to show others who you are? What things are you doing because you are desperate for others to do for you?

Allow these questions to help you narrow your focus. To help you live out of your “bullseye,” the place where you intentionally say no to a few ok things so you can say yes to less but better things. Allow these questions to help you determine the truth of who you are so that you can act in a way that reflects that truth.

I know this is an intense question, so go gently my loves. But ask it of yourself anyway – if all of what you are currently doing was taken away from you, who would you still be?

The answer, I hope, is that you would still be – you.

You would still have the same purpose, same value, same calling on your life.

This is not to suggest that you stop doing the things you love – CERTAINLY not! This is a suggestion to evaluate why you do what you do. Are you doing it because it’s a life giving reflection of who you are? Or are you doing it because you are expecting it to be who you are? Or to put it a little differently, are you doing certain things because it’s who you feel you are expected to be? Are you doing things because the things themselves validate who you as a person? Are you doing things because of the hoped for response that would validate you as a person?

Or are you living from a place of rested being? Of knowing who you are. Of knowing that who you are can’t ever be taken away from you. Of knowing that you are who you are even if no one else sees the real you or validates your thoughts and feelings. Of knowing that you GET to do the things you do because you GET to choose to respond from a fulfilled place of being. Free of expectation. Free of external validation.

Free…to be.

Here is a helpful exercise I’ve created that can be used to determine whether you are thinking and acting from a place of internal being or external doing.

Find a quiet place to sit and just SIT for a few moments. If you are like me, this will be quite excruciating. 😉 Allow all the thoughts to come to mind of all the things you think you should be doing in this moment. Then, quiet your mind once more and allow your thoughts to be turned to truth. Who do you know you are? Who have you been create to BE? Notice the difference between the two lists. And then, choose to act from the latter, and be freed from the former.

Grace and peace, my friends. Grace and peace you have been offered, and so grace and peace you can receive.

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Podcasts, Mornings and Learning To Be Myself

I’ve never been a morning person, and this reality has always carried a heavy dose of shame, especially once I became a mother. How much you accomplish in the morning, before everyone else is awake, seems to be (somehow) symbolic of how much you are accomplishing in your life. If you aren’t rising in the wee hours of the morning to read, work out, start a load of laundry and work on your personal goals, then are you even trying???

This message comes from so many different sources. The workout fanatics. The mom bosses with side hustle after side hustle. And of course, those from inside faith communities who tout the benefits of early rising and Bible reading as a spiritual practice.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wrestled with not being a morning person and the shame I felt over what was obviously a glaring character flaw.

Until this year.

Last year, two important things happened.

First, I read a beautiful essay by a woman who was raised by a mother who wasn’t a morning person. She described mornings where she was up before her mother, and even once her mother was finally up, it was only to go and make herself a cup of tea and return to bed with her morning paper, books, and hot tea. Instead of feeling shame, her mother simply embraced the slow mornings that her body and mind needed and invited her children into this rhythm of rest. She invited her daughters into her bedroom to join in the slowness. The stillness. And today, as an adult, this daughter reflects upon these mornings with her mother with nothing but fondness. She writes about how, though her mother didn’t realize it at the time, she was actually offering her daughters one of the greatest gifts: by showing them how she said “yes” to being herself, she showed them how they could grow up and say yes to being themself, too.

I love how kind this mother was to herself. I love that she didn’t fight what she knew about herself. Instead, she embraced it, and invited her children into it.

Second, I listened to the “Morning Routine” episode from one of my favorite podcasters, The Lazy Genius. I was resistant to listen to this episode because of all the aforementioned reasons, but Kendra of The Lazy Genius always flips what you feel you “should” be doing and speaks into those “shoulds” with so much kindness and practicality that I come away from her episodes inspired to live my life better and more authentically.

One thing that was so helpful in the morning routine episode was the idea that Kendra kept coming back to about small changes. She is a big beliver in the idea that routines are the building blocks to larger life changes, they aren’t the changes themselves.

For example, she says that when you think about what you want your morning to look like, you should start with a small and simple step that is too difficult to ignore. Say you want to become a tea drinker. You don’t challenge yourself to drink one cup of tea each morning. Instead, you begin by simply putting out a mug and a bag of tea each evening, and then see what happens from there. The point being, if the mug and tea are already out, it’s going to be kind of hard to ignore them each morning. And yet, is there anything more simple than just putting out the tea and the mug? See how gentle yet practical this suggestion is? Kendra is the queen of taking the ways we beat ourselves up over what we think we should be doing and showing us the way to move forward with what we really want.

Kendra describes a morning routine as a “collection of pre-made choices, either thoughts or actions” that help us “kindly open the day with the purpose of gradually increasing productivity and energy.”

She says, “Can you imagine a world where we as woman are fully alive in who we are? That we confidently begin our day in a way that makes the rest of our day have life? Where we take initiative in our own stories?”

I think I found this perspective to be the most freeing and inspiring. How often do we beat ourselves up over the things we see others doing well and assume that we should be doing, too? But the thing is, if something isn’t for us, if it doesn’t speak to how we are hardwired, if it isn’t the next chapter in our own story, then it isn’t motivating – it’s shaming.

I know we’ve all experienced this. We’ve talked to someone (or read something or listened to someone) who is SO excited for the thing that has worked for them. And suddenly, because that person has found something that has worked for them, they share it as THE thing that works. THE thing that everyone else should be doing. THE thing that you should be doing.

It is so easy to moralize our choices. It’s so easy to moralize the choices of others! It’s so easy to see the results that other’s are achieving and assume that what they are doing is “good” or “best.” It’s so easy to look at the ways that others are doing things and finding success and think that we should just copy and paste their process into our own life. But that is a dualistic mindset that assumes there is only ever two options – the right option, and the wrong option. This isn’t only a false and limiting belief, it’s destructive and depleting.

This limiting belief fails to take into consideration that we are not all made the same, made for the same things, or living the same story. It fails to take into consideration that we don’t all want the same things, value the same things, or care about the same things. And this is SO IMPORTANT to recognize. It’s important to recognize so that we can free ourselves from a false and unrealistic measuring rod, so that we can instead make decisions from who we know we are and who we know we want to become.

It is easy to see other women rising early to work out or hone their skills and think that they are better. It’s easy to judge them as strong and myself as weak. But instead of judge, I’m learning to look honestly at the way other women do things and simply know that I am not her. And I’m not supposed to be her.

I know I’m not a morning person. I know I don’t care about becoming a morning person. I know that when I think about what I want my ideal morning to look like, it doesn’t include rising hours before the rest of the house wakes to workout, hustle, or accomplish tasks. And this has been the crucial, life giving distinction that I’ve come to realize.

The thing that has deterred and discouraged me the most about other people’s “motivation” behind a morning routine is that it is just another area to get more done and be hard on myself. I don’t need help being hard on myself. I do that on the daily. I don’t need someone telling me to do more, work harder, accomplish more, or be better. I have that soundtrack playing on a loop all. day. long. And I certainly don’t need to rise two hours before my kids to “get more done.” I know a lot of people say that the early morning hours are when they accomplish most of their tasks for the day, and that – honestly – just depresses the heck out of me. Because I work all day for my family. I’m a stay at home mom of four kids and I homeschool. The idea that I need to get up earlier to accomplish even more for these people is a recipe for mommy to lose her ever loving mind. No thank you. I won’t and I will not.

But I have spent some time thinking about what I want MY morning routine to look like, and I’ve learned that I’m not a routine person. I’m a rhythm person. I’m someone who has a few, simple and kind things that I want to include in my morning and I’ve learned that it’s more about moving slowly and thoughtfully through those things than it is about checking things off a list. I don’t follow a clock, I follow a flow. It’s more about intuition than inspiration. It’s more about a feeling than accomplishment.

I want to thoughtfully craft a morning that I care about. One that sets myself and my family up for success. One that allows us to savor the truth that I have been learning lately – there is no rush. There is time. Sit. Savor. Enjoy.

I’m not an early morning person. But I’m allowing myself to become the best version of myself – in the morning.

I’m learning to notice the things that really matter to me. Because, friends, if we can’t notice what matters to us, then what are we noticing? The things that matter…to everyone else? If we are paying more attention to what matters to others then this isn’t allowing us to respond from a deep and rested place of who we are and what we are here to do. It isn’t selfish to start here, because what that means is you are starting with divine purpose rather than mundane people pleasing.

A morning routine that starts from a grounded place of knowing who you are allows you to thoughtfully and intentionally move through your day. Kendra says it best, so I’ll leave you with these powerful words from her episode:

“A morning routine helps you feel like yourself so you’re not frantically searching for yourself throughout the day. It can remind us who we most deeply are. Start your day abiding in the deepest truth of who you are. Why you are here. And the beautiful things you have to offer the world. It’s not about being a robot, but recognizing what you need to gradually increase the energy of who you are and what you want to carry with you into your day.” -The Lazy Genius Morning Routine, episode #58

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What My Little Easter Baby Has Taught Me About Control, Fear & Freedom

Honestly, I know there are people in my life who probably think they are a better mom than me because they have more rules, more structure…more control.

I wish I didn’t care what other people thought about me or my mothering – but I do. Mostly, I think, because I care so much about being a mom. It can be difficult to reconcile just how much you care about something with other people’s criticism of how you handle the thing you love. I’ve learned to see it for what it is, though –  a reflection of where other people are at and not a true reflection of me. Because what is true about me, motherhood, and how I view control, is that I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons that have left me a little beaten up at times, but ultimately – a whole lot freer. Because we cannot cling to control and freedom at the same time. Continue reading “What My Little Easter Baby Has Taught Me About Control, Fear & Freedom” →

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What Our Restlessness Can Teach Us

Often times our bodies know things that our hearts and minds are yet to acknowledge or admit. You can’t fool the body. You can ignore it. Try to override it. Deny it. But you can’t fool it.

The body, is a truth teller.

I’ve heard it said that symptoms are like prophets. They are like little (or not so little) messengers, come to tell us something we need to know. What’s funny, though, is that we humans HATE symptoms. We focus all our time, energy and money on figuring out how to make them disappear, all the while, forgetting that symptoms are mere messengers. They are sent TO us, FROM something deeper.

Symptoms have something to teach us. Continue reading “What Our Restlessness Can Teach Us” →

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I’m Not Setting Goals For The New Year… Here’s Why

For the past few years, I’ve chosen a word to carry with me into the coming new year. A word that I could use to help me focus my goals and center my thoughts. A word that could help me bring more intention to my daily life and refinement to my year as a whole.

Last year, I chose two words! (You can read that post, here.)

This year, though, I’m going to do something different. Continue reading “I’m Not Setting Goals For The New Year… Here’s Why” →

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