Thinking Bigger: New Rhythms and Routines

What an interesting time it has been! I know we have touched so much on this on the blog, but it’s so true. This time has been unlike any other. I recently launched a new series on the blog called Thinking Bigger, and this week I wanted to touch on the idea of new routines and rhythms. I think one of the reasons we keep talking about this time is because it has caused us to pause – We’ve paused from our everyday life, from our routines, our appointments, our errands, our offices, classes, and schedules. And that pause has caused us to think. And we’ve been thinking a lot! Although some of that thinking can cause fear, much of it has been an assessment of what we used to do every day in comparison to what we’re doing now. Things I used to view as such a chore have now become cherished routines. Activities I used to never have time for are now new staples in my schedule – like planning evening meals and eating dinner with Jase, planting a garden, reading a book, or taking joy and excitement in grocery shopping at the local farm. With all this new that has come about in this season, and in light of many of us on the brink of communities opening up again, I’ve caught myself almost sad that “a return to normalcy” would mean potentially losing those routines and rhythms I’ve come to love so much in this time. What will life look like when we are able to be busy again? When those appointments, and errands, and classes, and work will fill our schedules once more?I think rather than being sad, it’s okay to ask this question, and I think it can be a positive in return. We’ve been talking about this time so much on the blog because I think we’re excited about the opportunity that all this pause has given us to become better. Better at being more present at home, better at implementing routines that are healthy and creating healthy environments, better at being intentional about our activities, thoughts, and how we fill our time. I don't know about you, but I don’t want to leave my new cherished routines behind when all this is over. I want to use whatever I have left of this pause to continue to practice them, and instill them in the rhythms of my every day so that, when I have the opportunity to fill my schedule a bit more, I will still make time for those things I came to appreciate so greatly when my schedule was less full. What new routines and rhythms have you begun or been practicing in this season that have made you better? What rhythms can you start now that you can carry with you when this time is over? My hope for you all is that you have found practices and activities that you have come to cherish during this time, those that have made you feel whole and healthy. And for those of you who haven’t yet, I hope that you take whatever time we have left in this pause to find what fills you up in that way – So that all of us can leave this time feeling and being better than when we went in. x

Thinking Bigger: How Simplicity Changes Everything

I have been reflecting on this time a lot, and as I am sure most of us are, thinking about new routines and positive habits that we have developed during this stay at home order that we want to bring with us as we enter back into "normalcy," which I assume will never be the same. Although this time has so much heaviness and devastation that surrounds it, I continually think about how wonderful it has been to be forced to stop, to pause, and to be where we are.These reflections have led me to start a collection on the blog focusing on Thinking Bigger – Over the next few weeks, my hope is to cover topics that have been developed in this time like the power of simplicity, serving others, new rhythms and routines, and digging into new passions.Before this pandemic, the general answer from the majority of us when asked how we were doing would be, "we are so busy."Even though our days still remain full since Jase and I's work has shifted and continued, our days look so incredibly different. We are able to start our day in a more restful way, we have been spending hours in the fresh air and sunshine every day, we have been extra present and available for little Bennett doodle (our 5-month-old puppy), and we are more intentional with who we connect with virtually + having time and space to think about others more, to help small businesses, and the list goes on. Not to mention, shows such as The Today Show (the majority being filmed from their homes) and even my husband's show (currently transitioned to interviews on IG Live) have all felt so personal and so genuine, which I think we have all craved without even knowing it.I didn't realize how much mental space was taken from coordinating and deciding on social plans, organizing travel schedules, unpacking just to repack, going to appointment after appointment, and driving to and from everything. This realization has given me a little hint as to why I feel like we are doing things so differently during this time. I really had to sit and think about why we didn't spend our evenings outside before this since the time in the evenings have stayed quite similar from then to now, why cooking felt more like a chore then and is a joy now, why FaceTiming with family and friends felt distracted then and is longer and so focused now. As I have realized in the past through my own experience is that traumatic times seem to show us immediately what is important. It filters out the fluff and hones in on necessities to live – the simplicities that keep our joy kindled.The things that this time has brought that I feel so grateful for: hearing the birds outside, noticing things in nature that I have never had the time to enjoy before, listening to music all day, buying our groceries from a local farm, starting a masterclass that has taught me so much about cooking, planting a garden, going for long neighborhood walks while getting to know the neighbors from a distance, and reaching out more to friends and family to check-in.One last thought: isn't it so interesting to think that this is so similar to how our parents and grandparents grew up? Neighbors knew each other, people borrowed an egg from the person next door, so many gardened and enjoyed the simple things, cooking and dishes were day to day tasks...Questions to leave with:What has changed in your routine that you feel thankful for? What is one thing you want to continue when the world starts opening up again?Shop the tank here.[show_shopthepost_widget id="4023495"]

In All Circumstances

In the third and final part of her book, Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert travels to Bali, Indonesia. Following her experiences in Italy and India, Liz seeks to fulfill her mission of finding balance between the devotion to her practice and the enjoyment of her happiness. Only after a few weeks into her stay in Bali, Liz reflects on how quickly and satisfyingly she has attained this balance. She reflects on maintaining happiness saying,

“. . . most of my prayers are expressions of sheer gratitude for the fullness of my contentment. I have never felt less burdened by myself or by the world. I keep remembering one of my Guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.”

When do you feed your soul? And when do you allot time to enjoy the things that bring you pleasure? Better yet, how do you find a balance between the two? Between working forty-hour work weeks -for most of us, it may easily be more than that- pursuing further education, caring for our families, and spending time with our friends, it is no wonder that we even find time to have a thought to ourselves. But, if this balance is so important for our lives, then we should either change the way we live, or we should reorient the priorities that seem to fill the void in our schedules, occupy the thoughts of our minds, and use up the energy of our being. Usually, instead of changing the entire course of our lives, changing our mindset and our attitude will lead us to a source of contentment, a point of balance. This source of contentment and this point of balance may look different to each of us. Because we are so vastly unique and because each of our interests, passions, and dreams cover such a diverse array of what constitutes happiness, we should open our eyes to the direction that our quest for finding this balance is taking us. Furthermore, our hearts should learn to sing the song of contentment within every valley, upon every mountaintop, and with every bend and turn that the courses of of lives take us. “ . . . continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments,” Liz writes. How many times do we lift our eyes to look for answers, to seek truth, and to fill our souls when we are trying to make sense of our circumstances? How many times do we instantly turn to prayer only when our lives begin to unravel? How many times do we practice meditation only when we are weary? How many times to we admit that we need help only when we have reached our breaking point? No doubt, these moments that bring us to our knees and point us in the direction of redemption are valuable in and of themselves. But, our contentment does not need to be found only when we reach a point of despair. Finding a point of balance, a source of true contentment, is something we can practice and maintain during those times when everything seems to be going right. When our prayer, our meditation, or all those other moments in which we feed our souls become our ritual, our daily habit, our instinctive remedy, we will notice that our contentment becomes synonymous with the way that we find rest for our souls. We may notice that feeding our souls becomes just as necessary as feeding our bodies. In the same way that our bodies become weak without food, our souls become weary without spiritual sustenance. In the same way that they say, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” creating a daily ritual where we sustain the desires of our souls and maintain our contentment, becomes necessary for us in order that we may confidently and courageously journey through our lives. We find, then, that turning to nourishing our souls does not only become necessary for surviving trying circumstances, but it is essential for living even in the midst of our utmost happiness. These moments that we pray even when we cannot find a reason to complain, these times when we meditate even when we have a complete burst of energy, will become an emblem for how we carry ourselves through the journeys of our lives. When we acquire the willpower and the strength to maintain our contentment and to relentlessly pursue it in the midst of sadness, doubt, fear, but also utter happiness, bliss, and gratitude, we may begin to see our lives in a hue we had not yet seen before. When we come to find our own point of balance and our own source of contentment, we may find that our happiness is not circumstantial but, in fact, defies every law, social norm, and personally crafted idea we have formed regarding our circumstances. With this contentment, we may dare to find peace and joy take root in our souls, flushing away the burdens we have learned to carry for ourselves and for the world around us. 

The Pursuit of Happiness: Why Choose Joy?

“Always find time for the things that make you feel happy to be alive,”- Author unknown. Happiness can be somewhat of a taboo subject. We are told to put others’ happiness before our own. We are told that happiness is fleeting, that we should not pursue it. Nathaniel Hawthorne once said that “Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.” But, what if we pursue what brings us joy? What if, by learning to love the lives we live, we seek out those times and events where we take pleasure in the beauty of our lives? What if we intentionally choose the things that make us feel happy to be alive?As we learn to love the lives we live, as we experience love in living a joyful and abundant life, we should carve out time where we enjoy the pleasures of life. For me, this time comes easiest when I am on a hike. I love to explore, I feel invigorated and energized when I reach a hike’s peak, and I love to connect with nature around me. I am completely pleased when I go on a hike. However, when the business of life picks up, when I get lost in duties, responsibilities, errands, and chores, going on a hike falls lower and lower on my list of priorities. Soon, I find myself meandering mindlessly through the monotony of my life. I find myself wondering why I feel drained, emotionless, lifeless. Then, it is only when I find myself in the monotony of life, in the endless cycle of waking up, going to work, coming home, going to sleep only to wake up and repeat the cycle all over again, that I wonder where my fire has gone. If the pursuit of happiness, as evidenced even in the Declaration of Independence, is so crucial to the wellness of life, then why can it be so hard to find? You see, somewhere along the way, we convince ourselves that our happiness is expendable. In the business of life, in the midst of managing responsibilities, schedules, and priorities, we forget to manage time to enjoy our lives. If we are to truly love our lives, if we are to love all the processes, experiences, and events that amount to making each of our lives so unique and influential, then we must begin to forge opportunities for us to take pleasure in our lives. For some of us, this may mean actually scheduling time for ourselves where we can enjoy a long hike, learn a new language, read that book that has been sitting on a lone shelf for months, take a cooking, painting, or photography class, or visit a museum. When we begin to carve out time for even the little things that bring us pleasure, we may find ourselves venturing to that one, almost unobtainable, place that has always been on our bucket list. For, when we create a habit of prioritizing the act of seeking happiness in the crevices of our daily lives, we will allow happiness to flourish in the dreams we never thought we would achieve.However, while it is important to seek happiness, it is equally important to give happiness its proper weight in our lives. Denying ourselves the time space to enjoy the things that fill our hearts and please our souls can create a detachment in our lives. But, allotting happiness too much weight in our lives can deter or distract us from the significance and importance of our lives. We must, then, carefully consider the effect of our own happiness and we must trust our instinct to reward it a proper role in our lives. Then, when we seek happiness in the appropriate way, we will allow joy to root itself in our hearts and we will notice the effects of that joy in our lives. When we allow happiness a foothold in our lives, we may notice a difference in the way that we love the lives we live and even the courses that our lives are taking us. Once we see the way that joy affects us, we will trust its inherent value and we will begin to believe that we are worthy of its value in our own lives. So, take time to enjoy your life this week. How will you find joy and where will you allow happiness to take root in your life?