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Finding Stillness, Finding Your Happy Place

Living along the Oregon Coast these past years has deepened my love of the ocean. The sounds of crashing waves, the salty sea air, the long walks on deserted stretches of sand, collecting shells, and enjoying the quiet.

The beach has become one of my favorite happy places. It has become a healing balm. It is a place where I can feel the tension slowly drain from my shoulders, and where my mind and racing thoughts slow down.

It’s also become my thinking place, my praying place, and my journaling place. As I walk, head tilted down to watch for shells, that I don’t need but can’t help but look, my heart stills, and I tend to start to pray.

It’s the stillness that keeps drawing me back.

Which of course is strange since the beach is not still. The waves always crash, the landscape changes with every incoming and outgoing tide, and the weather, you never know what it’s going to be like. The beach is full of power and majesty. It is not still. And yet, that is where I long to go when I need a break, and when I know Bailey needs a nice long run.

One of my favorite beaches to visit is Bandon Beach, in Bandon, Oregon. It has some of the most beautiful rock formations, at low tide, miles of beach upon which to walk, and some of my favorite photographs have come from being on this beach at sunset.

In October I had the opportunity to go back down twice with family, with house hunting, and just needing a brain break. It was wonderful, and as always the time went too fast.

This is also the beach where Bailey gets charged by other dogs most often! It happened again on one of these trips. I don’t know why… but that is a story for another time. But even with that, it is one of my favorite parts of the magnificent Oregon coastline.

With long walks on the beach comes time to think, to pray, to analyze, to dream, to wonder, to plan, and for ideas to flow. Enjoying the stillness, enjoying Bailey’s joy at the freedom to run, play, sniff, and explore has once again reinforced my desire for finding stillness.

I’m not good at it. I struggle with placing boundaries on my work taking over my entire day. I struggle with balancing travel with spending time at home. It has been a long, discouraging search in looking for a home; thankfully that search is done! I struggle with always wanting to learn something new, create a new product for my business, and so much more.

On the one hand, I crave stillness, on the other hand, I sometimes run away from it in my desire to keep moving and trying, and striving. It’s something that I kept thinking about in my long walks on the beach.

From these quiet times of walking and reflecting a desire has arisen to understand Sabbath. What is it, what does it mean, and how does it apply to our lives today. I’m reading excellent books that are teaching me and showing me what rest looks like and what it means to observe the Sabbath.

What I know right now is that Sabbath, at the core, is two things. First, it is finding rest, the rest of God. And second, it is about trusting God. It is trust that you are placing your schedule, your family, your projects, your plans, your business, and your efforts into His most capable hands.

It’s a subject I know I’ll be reflecting more upon in the coming weeks and sharing with you what I learn.

Where is your happy place?

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Finding Stillness In the Midst of The Messiness of Life

Over the past couple of months, I’ve wanted to run away from home and find a nice quiet place to hermitize myself from the “out of controllness” of life, the “unknowness,” and the frustration over the lack of clear direction.

It’s not uncommon for me to announce that I’m ready to buy my private island now and that I’ll see you later!

Ever felt that way?

Thankfully I don’t feel that way all the time. Mostly it’s on the days where I’m extra tired, overwhelmed, and not sure what my next should be.

And, thankfully, these are the moments when God steps in to remind me of a few things.

I’m Not In Control. He is.

This one is hard because I like knowing what comes next. I like knowing that I am making the right decisions and headed in the right direction. I like knowing that there is a plan laid out, and I understand the expectations.

The reality is, left to my own devices, my life would be even messier. I have such a limited view of life, and I do not see what is on the road ahead of me. But God does. His plans are way better than mine, I need to surrender control and my idea of what needs to happen.

Lara Casey of LaraCasey.com has said many times, “Embrace the mess.” Embrace the awkward, lean into God and all that He is doing in your life.

But, I don’t like messy!

How many times, however, have we looked back as we come out the other side of a season of messy and see the amazing work He has done. Changes and lessons learned usually come as a result of an incredibly messy and hard time of our lives.

Your discomfort awakens you from the slumber of routine and reminds you that I am in charge of your life.

It also presents you with an important choice; you can lash out at your circumstances – resenting My ways with you – or you can draw closer to me.

~Sarah Young, Jesus Today

Now that is a show-stopper, isn’t it? This idea had me immediately checking my thoughts, my plans, my efforts, my complaining, and more. I do have a choice; I do have an opportunity to learn and grow, and draw closer to Him.

Then I also get hit with this from my niece on Instagram:

I know this life is hard. I know that your emotions and thoughts and yearnings and doubt threaten to capsize your mind and leave you to drown. I know that sometimes fear is all you know.

I know.

But I also know that fighting is worth it; that every ragged breath we draw in takes us closer to being whole, being free.

Cling to life, cling to hope, to being passionate, to loving people well, to caring for yourself, to enthusiasm and positivity. I know you can make it little fighter.

~Danaya Huber

Notice how neither one of these talks about running away? They both talk about embracing messy.

How to Embrace the Mess

I got great advice from my sister recently. She told me that now, more than ever, you need to step up even further and be deliberate in practicing what I write about on the blog. Things like:

3 Ways to Find Be Still Moments In the Midst of Messy

Get Outside

My morning walks with Bailey are essential. The fresh air helps clear out the mental cobwebs and stretches my legs, As I start to wake up I can take the time to look and see, to be quiet, and listen. I know when I have not taken the time to do this in the morning, my day is different and usually not for the better!

Most of the photography you see on Instagram are from these morning walks. It’s also where I find many of my #bestillmoments.

Devotions and Quiet Time

I need reminders that God is in control and I’m not. That he loves me enough to send His only Son. That life in the here and now is not all there is. That life is not just about me. These reminders come when I spend time reading my Bible, journaling, and praying.

Here are a few of my go-to verses on the anxious, overwhelmed, and messy days.

I Peter 5:7
Matthew 28:20b
Philippians 4:6
Lamentations 3:23
Psalm 46:10
Jeremiah 29:11

Self-care

For me, self-care starts with my daily walks with Bailey, but it also means:

Time spent in prayer and reading my Bible.
Scheduling time to write, to think, and to create.
Taking care that my introverted side is taken care of and that I give myself time to recharge and refill.
Getting outside on a regular basis to hike, explore, and seek beauty.

Being in the middle of messy, finding stillness in the midst of life is possible, it takes deliberate action, it takes actively pursuing it and not just saying, “Someday.” We each find stillness in different ways, how do you find stillness when life feels extra messy?

The Lies and Addiction of Busyness Part 2: When does our busyness cost too much?

I’ve been reading a fantastic book called Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist. It’s a book that has spoken to me in many different ways. Especially her realization that she had become someone she didn’t recognize and missed who she used to be before, busyness, constant action, and noise took over her life.

Adulting is hard, don’t you think? When we look at the budget, the meal plans, the school activities, the marriage and relationship building, or the raising of kids, we realize that life is hard. It is not always a bed of roses and all too soon we are running ourselves ragged trying to keep up.

Shauna writes about how busyness lead to a high-stress lifestyle which even caused her to throw up on a regular basis. Uhm, NOT FUN. She lost sight of who she was as she ran through life at top speed. Her family suffered as they watched her become a driven, always on the go, needing to control everything wife and mother.

She also realized that one of the reasons she kept so busy was fear of the silence. Of the thoughts and doubts, that would appear in the quiet moments. Makes me wonder if that might not be one of the biggest traps of busyness.

When we are constantly on the go, we lose sight of who we are, and more importantly who we are in the eyes of God. We feel like we need to perform, be strong, and show that we can do it all. It’s as if we believe that showing vulnerability, asking for help, or saying no, is a sign of weakness, and that we will let someone else down.

When we operate at such a high level of activity, it’s easy not to hear the Still Soft Voice speaking to us, nor our bodies and minds screaming for us to slow down. We can become a version of ourselves we don’t recognize in order to keep up.

At what point does our busyness cost too much?

There is no set answer on this. It will be different for everyone. Especially if you can see the good you are doing and the difference you are making.

The trouble is, as Shauna describes in her book, that when we are running and always moving it may be we are doing so in order to fill a void. Or we work hard at keeping busy enough, so we don’t have time to face the areas of our lives that need attention.

Are you running away from something?

What will you find when you stop running 24/7?

Maybe it’s fear. We think slowing down means we will have to face issues we would rather just push to the side, things like:

Not being enough.
Of the emotions so close to the surface they may overtake us, and we will fall apart.
If we add the word “No” to our vocabulary, others will think less of us and believe that we are not doing our part.
That we are letting God down.

This kind of fear is debilitating, no wonder we don’t want to face it!

Laying Down Our Busyness

It’s a hard step because continuously living at a high level of stress, the adrenaline alone can be addicting. But it’s also addicting to work for the approval of others, to be social, to not be alone.

But as we have talked about before, this addiction is also a lie. A lie that can destroy our self-image, and slowly steal away the person we used to be.

There have been times over the past year as I look at my schedule and activities (or lack thereof) and wonder, where is the girl who loved to walk in the rain? The one who would jump at a chance to go camping at a moment’s notice, the one who grabbed a backpack, lunch, Bailey and headed out with her camera to go out hiking on a whim.

I miss that version of me. Busyness has blinded me to these important parts of me.

How to Slow Down

Shauna shares that it wasn’t until she began to see her identity in Christ that she began to see the cost of always being on the go.

Once we see and understand this, we can begin to understand that our works are not what makes God love us.

Slowing down is not something that happens overnight. It’s a journey of recognizing where we need to start saying no. And pay attention to when we need to rest, when we need to put our focus on health, and the needs of our family.

In slowing down, we may feel vulnerable. We don’t usually like that, do we? It’s uncomfortable and risky to let others see that we are not superhuman and can’t do it all or have it all as society tells us we should be able to.

It’s in this moment of realization where we can start to rebuild ourselves, recapture the parts of us we miss and address the need to work for approval.

My copy of Present Over Perfect is full of underlines and highlight. I will be reading it again.

When you look back at this past week, what do you see? Do you recognize that person? If not, what is one thing you could say no to in the coming week so you can slow down and find some stillness?

Are You Struggling with Achieving Your Goals?

Have you ever heard a quote that kind of hits you out of nowhere and stays with you?

That happened to me recently. I can’t stop thinking about it. It is changing the way I look at self-care, health, business, and more.

It’s a short quote that makes you wonder why something so simple could suddenly change your perspective on how you view a problem your are currently facing.

This quote is from the Building a Storybrand podcast, where author Donald Miller interviews golfer, Ben Crane about the “5 Habits of People Who Win Big (Even Under Pressure)“. I’ve already listened to this podcast episode twice!

Tomorrow’s great performance is today’s great habit. ~Ben Crane

This incredibly short and straightforward quote packs a powerful punch of uncomfortable truth.

After hearing him say this, I was suddenly thinking of some business goals I have been pursuing this year. It has been frustrating to look at my list and see that I am not making the progress I had hoped in achieving them. While I’ve put lots of work in on these goals, I have not been nearly as consistent as I should be and need to be. This lack of consistent effort has made a significant impact on my ability to achieve them.

From there my thoughts roamed to health, creative projects, and to other areas of my business. I could suddenly see where I have not developed the great habits needed, nor put in the daily work necessary to make some of these goals happen. Yes, I work hard, and long hours, but I’ve had to ask if these long hours are being spent working on the right things or on the bright shiny objects that distract and grab my attention?

If I answer this question honestly, sometimes it’s the right work and sometimes it’s not.

Reaching a goal does not magically happen overnight.

I’m glad it doesn’t happen that way (most of the time…). You have to make the commitment to show up day after day, and put in the work in order make it happen. Putting in the time, seeing the progress made, and then enjoying the results of that hard work, is rewarding. If we used magic wand solutions, we would not appreciate the results of our efforts nearly enough.

This idea can apply to all different areas of life like:

Finances
Learning a new skill
Exercising to build muscle
Writing a book
Building a business
Training to run a marathon
Daily devotions and quiet time
Journaling
Practicing self-care
Learning to find stillness
Cultivating an attitude of gratitude

I could go on, but you see it, and I see it.

We all get the point; we reap what we sow.

If you look at that list, none of it happens overnight. It happens after making a commitment to show up day in and day out and make daily incremental progress, building on the effort of the day before.

Again, it’s such a simple concept, but sometimes it takes a different turn of phrase for it to give that Aha Moment. A moment of clarity when you finally see and truly get it.

Going for your goals and cultivating healthy habits is not always easy.

I don’t think it is supposed to be. I believe that there are rewards to be had in the journey itself and of what you learn along the way. It’s not always about the result of pursuing a goal, it’s also about what happens between your starting point and the end result.

The challenge for both you and me, in this case, is to take a close look at the goals we have written down and honestly ask ourselves if we are showing up each day and doing the work needed to reach our goals? Are we cultivating great habits today so we can have a great performance tomorrow and ultimately reach out goals?

For the Love of Aimee: Finding Joy, Peace, Love & Faith in the Midst of Grief

This week’s post is going to be a little different. It’s a post I have started, stopped, written, re-written and probably will re-write as I type it out here on the blog.

July 8, 2016, will be the 5 year anniversary of my sister Aimee’s graduation into heaven. To make it a bit of a double whammy, she stopped fighting her cancer 2 days before her birthday on July 10th.

I don’t talk to a lot of people about the months leading up to those final days or about how hard the rest of the year was, there are a few people who know.

The writing of this post has left me feeling drained and rather emotional. But, for some reason it seemed that it was something that needed to be written and shared.

I’m a traditions and anniversary kind of gal and when these are not properly observed, life feels off to me. So, it is not a total surprise that this 5 year anniversary is being hard.

Late June and early July are never easy. My mind goes back to those last few weeks as I remember what we were doing, what we were dealing with, and how my sister was during that time.

Even July 4th will never be the same. I remember watching fireworks, just down the street from the house, atop huge piles of gravel. We wanted the kiddos to have a chance to see fireworks, but for the adults our minds were still back at the house.

Joy In the Midst of Grief

We serve a gracious God and He gifted us with laughter, music, friends, family, and special moments, during those final months.

A steady stream of family and friends flowed in and out as we sought to spend as much time together as possible. In the midst of the emotions, the questions why, and the anguish and grief, there were moments of joy.

There were special times with those who came to visit. There was love that flowed to and from my sister, it was incredible to see. The comments we would hear about how Aimee was touching lives through her calm, her faith, and her peace were such a blessing.

There was laughter as we shared stories, told jokes, and even played with a leaf blower to see who would have the funniest face as a result. Here is mine :), but mine was definitely not the funniest!

There was even the “joy” of losing water because the well went dry and needed to be drilled deeper! Yep, that happened too.

Peace In the Midst of Grief

The night she passed away I got to witness one of the hardest, most beautiful things I have ever experienced in my life.

As she took her last breath, surrounded by a small group of friends and family, there was a peace that certainly passed all understanding. There were tears of course, but there was also joy as we prayed. We were thankful she was no longer struggling, and rejoiced in knowing, without a doubt, where she was, and that we would see her again.

Love in the Midst of Grief

The months after her death were also incredibly hard, each of us grieving and coping as best we could. But, even in the midst of the grief and tears, there were bright spots of love to be found.

I had the incredible opportunity to spend a lot of time with my nephew. I had moved down to help take care of him as he stared Kindergarten. That is a time I treasure and will never forget.

Aimee’s best friend, Tiffany, has become like a sister to me and she and her family have made me part of their family.

And you know what? I finally moved to the Oregon Coast, a place I love to explore and photograph! It was something I had thought about doing but never thought the opportunity would come. There were long walks on the beach with Bailey, collecting of shells, and lots of picture-taking.

Faith in the Midst of Grief

Life is hard, and at times excruciatingly hard. It’s filled with health issues, relational issues, financial issues, emotional issues, and spiritual issues.

Sadly Aimee’s battle with cancer has not been my last to witness. My picture book “Be Still & Know That I Am God” is filled with my friend Marilyn’s favorite verses. I created it for her as she was fighting lung cancer.

My sister-friend Tiffany has been dealing with breast cancer for the last year and a half – you can read more about her journey at TiffanyAOlson.com.

Aimee’s death is also not the last I have witnessed. I was there with my friend Marilyn and her daughter (also a long-time friend), as she took her last breath and was ushered into heaven.

I have no answers why that any of these things have happened. But, what I do know, is that when I look back I can see God’s hand moving and directing events along the way. I see His provision and care.

Life is a journey that has to be taken step-by-step. When we take that next step in faith, God does provide a place for our feet to land. It may not be an easy step, in fact it may be incredibly hard. And we don’t always understand His reasons or the direction He is taking us, but we learn to take that next step anyway.

Taking that next step, even in the midst of the grief, the unknown, and the unseen, knowing God will never leave us or forsake us, isn’t that what faith is?

Aimee Marie Olson 1980-2011

You can read more about my sister at ForTheLoveOfAimeeO.com. It’s a website started to collect and share stories and memories of Aimee.

One more tradition to observe this weekend, on her birthday, we will sign balloons with messages of love to Aimee and release them to the sky.

Finding Stillness, Finding Your Happy Place

It’s the stillness that keeps drawing me back.