Finding Ourselves.. NO MATTER THE SEASON By Elisa Brooks
We are smack dab in the middle of a season most of us did not expect to find ourselves in. Life continues in the middle of a pandemic … but at the same time, life is not the same. Have you felt that way? I often go for walks outside. The sky is still blue, the birds are still chirping, the grass is still growing, and life at that moment feels “normal.” And then I return to my house and my four kids are home when they would normally be at school, I livestream my classes from my living room instead of teaching inside the gym, and friends that I spent time with in person, I now connect with over the phone. And I often wonder, who am I in the middle of this? What am I supposed to be doing? What am I not supposed to be doing? Can I thrive, even in a season of unknowns? Yes. Absolutely yes! I can and you can. There are lots of ways we can continue to become the person we long to be. Ways to continue to grow relationships with others and to thrive, in any season. I want to share one simple thing that has helped me immensely in my personal life to experience abundant life - both in “normal” seasons of life and even in this unprecedented time. Quit dying to the wrong things. You read that right. Quit dying to the wrong things. Do you ever feel like you are juggling five million things? Have you ever wanted five minutes of silence but it seems like you can’t find it? Do you ever say
“yes” to things, when on the inside you were wishing you could say “no”? Do you truly enjoy the things that you do each day? We often walk along the pathway of life, adding things to our to-do lists, adding events to our calendar, responding to more emails and more texts, but we are left feeling unfulfilled. Even resentful. If you can relate to any of that, it might be because you are dying to the wrong things. Geri Scazzero, in her book The Emotionally Healthy Woman says it this way: “You die to the wrong things when you set aside or devalue activities that cause your soul to feel fully alive (music, dance, writing, art, astronomy, outdoors); when you ignore important relationships; when you care for others to the detriment of yourself; and when you fail to honestly state your preferences, always deferring to others.” In my own personal life, I realized a few years ago that I I felt constantly exhausted. Occasional migraines, which I have dealt with since college, became regular occurrences each week. I felt like every request from family, friends, and church were obligations I had to fulfill and I was saying “no” to nothing. I was dying to the wrong things. My body was giving me a wake-up call with the migraines. I had four children under the age of 11. I rarely set aside time for myself. I love to read … but I never gave myself time to read. (continued on p.28)
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