Fourth gift of February: The gift of fun

Sometimes we have these great ideas.

Last week I was asked to participate in a sprint triathlon and pretty instinctively I thought, “Sure!” So, I am doing it this coming up weekend. In like a few days.

I haven’t trained for it. But, I have done one before. I have some mixed feelings. I have a lot of thoughts. One of them is, “This is going to be miserable.” But I know better than to think that thought because then it will be miserable. My brain believes I have every reason to think this thought, and that it seems logical. See, I haven’t swam in forever, and will be swimming 1/2 a mile. I am going to bike 12 miles, which takes me almost 45 minutes. Then after doing both of those I will run 2.5 miles.

But get this… I am doing it to have fun! Ha.. Kind of ironic.

A thought that I grabbed onto a few months ago is this. You don’t have fun-you ARE FUN! Which changes totally how I view things that I do to have fun, right. If I think the doing of something creates fun then I have a high expectation of said thing. But, if I know that I am the fun, it puts all the responsibility back onto my court.

This new way of thinking has been especially interesting with kiddos. A couple weeks ago we took the kiddos on a hike. They were about 5 minutes into it and one of my kids said, “Is this supposed to be fun?” Which I of course chimed in, “Yes, if you make it fun!” See they, just like I used to think, believed certain activities were fun and certain activities were not fun. And according to my daughter hiking was under the not fun category.

I started to think about what fell under my categories.

Not fun: Laundry/Dentist/Cleaning House/Taxes/OBGYN visits/paperwork/confrontations/selling

Fun: Eating out/coffee dates/being outside/coaching/pedicures/hosting a party/speaking

It is not laundry’s job to be fun, that is my job. If I want laundry to be fun then bring it on. I create the fun. I turn on music, dance around, make it a competition. I do whatever it takes to make it fun. I am the fun.

I can take not fun things and make them fun. I can take fun things and make them more fun. That is a great thought. And when you think about it some of the fun things that I think are fun can be not fun when I allow them to be.

So, let me get back to this whole triathlon thing. I want it to be fun, so I will bring the fun. If you know me that means I will be laughing, and carrying on. I may taunt a little, or try to be competitive with someone else, all in the name of FUN. See the swimming, biking, and running are all as fun as I make it. If I counted on them to make it fun, well then I am at the mercy of them. I give them, the activities, all of my power. We don’t want to do that.

Tell me, what are you deeming fun and not fun right now and what if you started believing, “I don’t have fun, I am fun.”

Hoping for lots of purposeful fun in your future!

Angie

Third gift of February: The gift of grace

I am beginning to truly understand God’s grace more as I am working through giving myself grace.

God gave me a great growth opportunity this past week. I woke up early to go workout and I couldn’t find my pink wireless headphones. So, I started tracing my steps, checking every coat, sweat shirt, and pants pockets that I could have possibly worn. I nailed down the last time I had them and worked through the last moment I remembered holding them in my hands. I can’t figure out the next steps after that.

I was bummed. I went to the college gym where I work out and asked the front desk if anyone had turned any in. I checked every locker that I use, every machine I could have been on. You get the point, I was going to find them. But, I didn’t.

I was super bummed. I couldn’t work out. I couldn’t lift weights. I was mad at myself.

As I drove home from the gym I wasn’t thinking the best thoughts. Thoughts like:

We don’t lose things. What were you thinking? Those were expensive. I loved having my own pair of wireless headphones, and now I can’t. Did someone find them and just take them? Why were you so careless? See, I told you we can’t have nice things. How will you learn? You think this is okay? Why did you do this?

I walked in the door exhausted, not from my workout… but from the beat down I was giving myself.

See, truth be told. If my husband would have lost his headphones, I would have been mad at him. So, I had to be mad at me. I couldn’t just let it go. I walked in the door defeated, and he wasn’t the least bit upset.

He said, “It happens, things get lost sometime, don’t worry about it.” Which made me even more mad. I thought, “This doesn’t happen to me, I don’t lose things!” Also, “This is not OKAY!”

He could tell I wanted to beat myself up. I did want to beat myself. I felt like I deserved punishment. He wasn’t “punishing me” by being mad at me, so I just had to self inflict the punishment. It was like I thought that if I got mad at myself and beat myself up then I wouldn’t do it again. You know, make another mistake. Lose something. Misplace something. Be human.

I came face to face with my humanness. I am human and sometimes humans make mistakes. I don’t like that.

God knew this. He knew we would sin, He knew we would make mistakes. He knew we would lose something, break something, not keep it ALL together. He knew our humanness. The problem is I don’t want to believe that. I want to be better than that.

So, here I was with this dilemma on my hands and just feeling plain awful. I decided to work through it. I asked myself a lot of good questions and it all boiled down to this. Yes, I may have misplaced them and I may find them someday, but at this point I don’t know where they are. How do I want to think about that? I want to believe that it is okay. That I am okay. That losing something doesn’t mean I am a horrible person. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. I can let myself off the hook, by showing myself grace and saying, it’s okay. Covering over this with love may actually lead me to not doing it again. I thought beating myself up would work to make me not do it again, but is there an upside to doing that?

God was saying to me, “Hey I put you here on Earth to teach you so much. Here is an opportunity to extend to yourself the love and grace that I would extend to you. Will you do that for me?”

Wow, accepting my own grace was even hard. I had to say listen God has given you grace here, you are okay to accept that. I am giving you grace as well, it is okay to accept it.

I am learning how to love myself better and giving myself grace is a huge piece of it. I am amazed because as I am walking this out in my life it is affecting my relationships with others. As I am seeing my humanness I am able to see others humanness as well and can meet them there at a common ground.

Oh, yes, we are both humans, doing the best we can.

Here’s to a grace-filled week,

Angie

P.S. The next time my husband or anyone for that matter, loses something I know I will be so much more gracious!

Second gift of February: The gift of God's love

Sometimes I hit the jackpot with a new thought and it just gets me. I know that whenever I think that new thought I feel a certain way. I didn’t used to know this. So now when I find a thought that I love thinking all of the time, on purpose, I want you to know about it too.

So the gift of God’s love is what I am so excited about right now. I know a lot of you don’t feel love regularly. You may feel like that is what marriage or a relationship is for. But, God absolutely loves you and He wants you to live in His love. I didn’t practically know how to do that.

So let me lay out the practical application for you today.

I had been doing some work on finding the specific thought that gets me to feeling love. I used to think my husband would bring me a gift and that made me feel love. Or, if I walked into the house and it was completely cleaned that made me feel love. But in those situations I only felt love depending on how he showed up and acted. Love was temporary based on what he did. But we know that no one can make you feel anything, it is your thoughts that make you feel an emotion. So I started to slow it all down and realized the thought is, “He did that for me….” That thought right there makes me feel love in my body. So, I walk in the house, it is clean and I think, “He did that for me…” and I feel love run through my body. I love knowing this. Because now I use it all the time. He gets the groceries, and I think he did that for me. He turns off the lights, he did that for me. Now see, I can choose to feel love anytime I choose to think that thought right there.

So you might be thinking, “Angie, why are you talking to me about how you feel love from your husband…. I don’t have one of those.” But, it was in figuring out that thought with him, that has got me knowing how I feel love from God, “He did that for me…”

That sunset, He did that for me.

The cross, He did that for me.

That friend that has finally come into my life, He did that for me.

That extra $20 bill I found in my pocket, He did that for me.

That client that showed up out of the blue, He did that for me.

And whenever I think those things I feel love. See, He is constantly doing all of these things for me, but if I don’t stop and think on them, I miss the opportunity to receive God’s love. Which this is great news because some of you share that you feel distant from God’s love. You don’t feel God’s love, or you lack feeling love in general. So, in order to get the gift of God’s love you have to slow down and figure out what the thought is that generates the feeling of love for you. It may be very similar to mine. Once you know that thought think it on purpose, think it over and over. Find all the external reasons to add your love phrase to and feel God’s love deeply. And here is the icing on the cake. When you used to add this thought to a circumstance, “He did that to me.” you can now flip that and think, “He did that for me.”

Singleness, He did that for me.

Divorce, He did that for me.

Cancer, He did that for me.

That tough roommate, He did that for me.

If the above doesn’t feel right, just know you are not ready for that thought yet, and it is okay to not be there.

God loves you so stinkin’ much. We can’t even fathom the links He goes to, to show us that He loves us. But we can purposely think in a way to feel His love. Even when the circumstances don’t “feel” good we can choose to think about them in a way that feels like love. Satan would love for us to live in the pain and to think God doesn’t love us in all circumstances. But God’s love is certain, secure, unfailing, never-ending, constant.

Write down at the top of your paper the phrase What God has done for me and then fill the paper with as many thoughts as you can.

Take this gift this week in the midst of all the LOVE of Valentine’s Day and feel a different kind of true love on purpose.

Here’s to a love-filled week my friends,

Angie

First gift of February: The gift of presence

For the month of February I wanted to focus in on 4 gifts you can give yourself. 

The first one is the gift of presence.

I am learning what it looks like to be fully present in my life. And the experience is teaching me so much. I had 3 experiences lately that have taught me a few key things.

It started when I had a weekly tea time with each of my kiddos. I put my phone away and remove every distraction from our midst. I then set a timer and totally focus on the kiddo in front of me. I look at them and see them. I share with them my heart about who I see them as. I remind them of scripture and truths that I want them to remember about God and our family. That got me really thinking about how often I am just with them. Not thinking about a lot of things but just being with them. During that time I don't worry about the other kiddos, or what is for dinner, or when my next coaching session is. I am not worried about the time or really anything. I just set my gaze on them and just be.

Then I was on an evening get away with the women in my community group. The minute I stepped foot into where we were staying for the evening my sole focus was on being there. I was so interested in the other women and what they had to share. I couldn't wait to hear how they were doing and what they were all processing. I lost all track of time and not once thought about what my kiddos and husband were doing. I never looked at my phone. All of my attention was just about being there and being with these women, sharing and listening. What a gift that was to me to have their undivided attention too. When it was time to all leave it was so interesting because I seriously had a whole mental shift and it was like I changed gears. I immediately started thinking, what are my kiddos doing, what needs to get done today, what do I need to do next. It was so funny because I immediately checked every email account, Instagram and Facebook. It was like I had been checked out and totally present with these women and now I was getting checked back into my real life, and fully distracted by all of the "demands" on my life.

 Also, I have been having my quiet times in the mornings. I like to have them structured and so typically I work on scripture memory, pray over my precept study, and then get busy with the study. Precepts is broken into daily homework and so I do it, then I kind of run down my mental list of people or circumstances to pray for and then, check it is all done, let's move on with our day. So this whole being present thing has been making me think differently about being present with God. I may have my phone put away but my focus is not really on being with Him. It got me thinking about how much I love quality time with people. I feel most alive when I just get to be with people and not think. So when am I with God and not "thinking" about all of the things? I want to be in His presence and just enjoying who He is. Which ultimately is what I think God wants. He wants to be present in my life and wants to experience my presence with Him.

So these 3 scenarios got me thinking about presence and here are my takeaways. 

1. I feel most present when I stop thinking about other things and just keep my gaze on what is in front of me. This my friends takes practice. When you are present in the body but in a million places in your mind you get really good at multi tasking and getting things done but you aren't "really there". I am working on this in my own life by very intentionally focusing my brain on what is at hand and the minute my mind wants to wander or think about something else I re-focus my gaze. I am practicing this in the shower, when I am on walks, or when I am working on a project. I see when my brain leaves what it present to go into the past or future, or to another thing to think about.

2. Focus is best done when we remove distractions, but lets be honest we can't always remove the distractions. So the thought that gets me focused is, "This is the most important thing to me right now." That thought helps retrain my mind to put attention there. We will get to other things when they are important but right now, this is the most important thing. I am finding that when I identify what is important for my brain it will focus their easier.

3. Taking inventory of all that distracts me has been helpful too. Do you constantly check your phone, email, or social media?  Our mind would rather be distracted because it is easier to just live unconsciously, the act of being present is actually very hard for our brains. Once I realized I was doing this and had an awareness it was like a light bulb went off and I began to understand why it is so hard for me to be present at times because I am not deciding what is most important at that moment. I am leaving everything up for my attention and in turn everything is getting a little bit of it and nothing is getting all of my attention. That kind of non present living is not fun to me. It feels inauthentic to me. I feel half there, and I am experiencing things partially. 

So, I wanted to give you some tips for how to be more present in the life that God has given you, I hope this helps and look forward to how being present starts to bless your life and those around you. 

Doing this right along with you,

Angie

What do you believe is possible?

Everything begins as a possibility.

It might be possible to walk on the moon.

It might be possible to carry around a tiny computer that doubles as a phone, camera, and flashlight.

It might be possible to…. Everything that has been created or started began with that line. It is amazing to think about some of the things that have been created because someone decided to sit down and believe it maybe, could be possible.

I love it when my clients start to see the possibilities. They start asking questions like so if it is possible that I could meet a guy how would that work? They might say, “What do you think it would take to….. ?”

It all begins with that thought… it could be possible. And then they let themselves go to the place where it is possible. Where they figure it out. But in between the possible and the here and now is a whole lot of questions, doubt, confusion, failure, getting back up, learning, and growing. That my friend, is the good stuff.

I didn’t realize that I was putting limits on what was possible for me, until I gave myself the freedom to fully dream. I was in a coaching session and the coach asked, “Angie, what is possible for you?” I first thought I don’t know. Which I had just been taught was my brain being lazy. So I knew I couldn’t say that for an answer. Then I said, “I believe that it is possible for me to run my own business as a life coach that helps single women find contentment, confidence, and feel capable to chase their dreams.” and then… “oh no… did I just say that out loud?” I started to feel half giddy and half about to throw up. My coach told me if that was how I felt, then I was on the right track. I let it sink in for a couple of days. I stewed on it. And then, I began to believe that it was actually possible. I even told a friend about it, and when I spoke it, it was like something inside of me lit up. That’s when I knew I was on to something.

So, I have been thinking about you. I wonder if you are putting limits on you. I wonder if deep down inside you want to believe that something is possible for you that you have never said out loud before.

Is it getting married? Or starting that mission, business, or ministry? Is it switching jobs or moving? Is it going on dates or meeting guys your age? Is it losing that weight you have always wanted to lose?

So, let’s pretend you are in a coaching session with me and I ask you, “Friend, what is possible for you?

What would you say? (By the way I don’t accept I don’t know….)

Do you feel half excited and half nauseous? Good!

Feeling it with you,

Angie