Happy Shower

Today we celebrated Stefanie and Matt's upcoming marriage with Stef's Bridal Shower. The shower was absolutely beautiful! And I LOVED spending time with my Gram, aunts, and cousins. Isn't my family so pretty? They definitely fueled my soul today.

After the shower, mom and I went grocery shopping for healthy meals this week. I pre-packed salads for the week. I realized that preparation is key for me eating healthy during the week. Since I'm constantly running late in the morning, making meals at night keeps me from running out the door and having to buy fast food!

Here is my spinach, chicken, strawberry, dried cherries, and almond salad:

Make this week great!
Shauna

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful parents, who have been married 28 years today! They have taught me so much about what it means to love unconditionally, to fight and make up, and how to stay married to your best friend. 

Mom and Dad, I love you both so much! Here's to 28 more!

Throwback Thursday: Beautiful Gratitude

This "Throwback Thursday" I'm bringing back an article I wrote last summer for Buchanan's newsletter.  This article was inspired by the amazing work of Ann Voskamp of "One Thousand Gifts". I highly recommend her book for beautiful reflections of God in everyday moments. 

Beautiful Gratitude

Although the Thanksgiving holiday is still months away, I have been feeling God’s call to gratitude recently.  God has provided in marvelous ways and created such a beautiful world for us humans to explore.  Each beautiful thing on earth is just a glimpse of His Glory.  So often we go through life taking beauty for granted. We rush and get distracted and complain.  We feel the weight and the pain of the world.  So easily, we find the ugly in every day.  We become numb to the glory. 

I recently discovered the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Like so many of us, Ann has been burdened by the grief and trauma of this world. In her book, she poetically captures her journey for communion with God through thanksgiving.  She does not just count her blessings in the standard “Thank you for my family, thank you for my friends, thank you for my home.”  Rather, she looks for God in the everyday—the beauty at our fingertips.  Her lists of gifts includes: Morning shadows across the old floors, Jam piled high on the toast, and Cry of blue jay from high in the spruce.  Her list is a peek into the Creator by appreciating the created.  And through this gratitude, she finds closeness with God—a lifting of her burdens.

Ann has been an inspiration to me, to stop and smell the roses, as they say.  She reminds me of God’s call to notice: walks at night with a warm breeze, the green of spring leaves, the warm glow of a candle’s flame, and the perfect breakfast omelet.  She has inspired me to be inspired by God, for He is truly the center of it all.  Gratitude is so very close to mindfulness: being aware of what is present.  When we are mindful, our eyes become open to how very blessed we are.

The Bible is overflowing with calls to be grateful.  1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  God knows that gratitude is good for us.  It is good for us, but it is also glorifying to Him.

When you are in a state of gratitude, there is no room for depression or anxiety. Yes, life can be difficult and painful. Life is broken.  But God is grace.  Can you find your moment? Can you slow down your racing mind enough to see God?  Can you stop worrying about the weeds long enough to see God in the garden?  Can you stop being annoyed at your tantruming child long enough to be grateful for their voice?  Gratitude is the most unnatural, but most Natural thing we can do.  Giving thanks is a discipline, and I fail at this discipline daily.  Some days I just want to whine.  Some days I just want to be mad at the injustice in the world.  But the moments I get it, Ah, those are the moments worth living for.  When I truly stop to be grateful in my heart, that is when I am allowing myself to be in the presence of God.

Love in Christ,

            Shauna 

Easter & Earth Day

I hope everyone had a beautiful Easter weekend and experienced the true joy of a resurrected Christ.  I had a wonderful Easter, full of gardening, a somber Good Friday service, blessed times with lots of family, and an exciting Sunday morning celebration.  I love Easter, when I really stop and focus on the sacrifice of Christ Jesus for my sins.

Today is also Earth Day, where we remember to be grateful for God's creation and be good stewards. I'm excited to be gardening again this Spring.  Gardening is not just a hobby, but can be a restorative and spiritual process as well.  In being close to the earth, nurturing growth, and watching new life form, our spirits are nurtured as well.  I also feel a closeness to God when I'm fulfilling the call He first placed on Adam to take care of the Earth and utilize its resources. Right now, my garden looks like a lot of dirt, but soon I will have spinach and peppers and mint and more!  Makes me think of the transformative process Christ does in us.

"Could a garden come up from this ground at all?" This song, Beautiful Things, by Gungor also makes me think about God turns us from dirty messes to His beautiful creations. I love, love, love it.

I have also realized these past few weeks that blogging is hard! This is a discipline I have not yet mastered, so while I would love to be a regular blogger, I keep falling off the blogging wagon.  I'm on it again and trying to schedule some posts ahead of time to help me keep up.  To all my blogger friends out there, what tricks and tips have you found to keep yourself posting often?

You Are My Sunshine!

We have finally had a sunny, beautiful weekend! There is something about the sun and being outside that makes me feel healthier--both physically and mentally.  Not only am I more easily in a good mood and have more energy, but I am more excited to get out and exercise!

This weekend, I was able to participate in "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" where over 1,000 people gathered to stop gender violence.  The men wore high heels, which was quite entertaining.  Many sports teams from the local college attended, which was so great to see! I love seeing men stand up against violence.  Jackson Katz would be proud, because as he says, violence against women is a men's issue. I love that I could combine being outside in the sunshine and support victims of domestic violence.  A charity walk/run is a great way to support a cause in which you believe and get outdoor exercise at the same time!

I also had a joyous time visiting with family.  My mother hosted a Spring Sing at her school, and we had a pizza party with my Nana and cousins afterwards.  Aunt Shauna was so excited to give M the pottery we painted two weeks ago. 

I finished off the sunshine filled weekend with my favorite summer time treat-- a smoothie! Smoothies are great because they are not only taste delicious, but they are packed with nutrients.  This smoothie has strawberries, frozen peaches, pineapple-coconut juice, and ice. I topped it off with chia seeds for omega-3s.  

I hope you were able to enjoy the sunshine this weekend and get outside.  I hear it may not last much longer... and there are even rumors that it could snow again (shutter!)... but I am very grateful for these few days of vitamin D!  I'm hopeful that this weekend's relaxation and fun will provide me with the fuel to get through another busy week!

Confessions of Control

Tolerating my imperfectly placed heart around the setting sun on the Big Island, HI.

I've known for a while now that I'm a rescuer, but I never realized how much I take on the emotional responsibilities of others.   I tend to decrease my anxiety by care-taking.  I don't do my care-taking in a physical way, but rather in a social and emotional way.  I feel safer when I know that the people around me are happy, and I somehow convinced myself that if everyone else is happy-- I will be happy.  The nice term for this is people-pleasing, but the not-so-nice term is people-controlling.  It's two sides of the same coin.  I like to make people happy. I hate to disappoint anyone. It's the recovering perfectionist in me, hiding a fear of not being good enough. 

I feel bad when you feel bad.  And in order to keep myself from feeling uncomfortable in your distress, I'm going to try to make everything work out perfectly.  I'm going to plan. And worry for you. I'm going to check in on your emotions, but I'm also going to try to fix what is going wrong in your life.   I'll take on your burdens and make them my burdens.  But once I've made them my burdens, I'm going to try to change the way you're doing things... because obviously it's not working. I'm going to start telling you what you should be doing instead. I've made this my problem now, and gosh darn it, this perfectionist needs to solve the problem. I mean, if I don't solve the problem, then there is something incompetent in me. (No, I don't think you're incompetent. You don't need me to solve it... I just need to solve it now for myself... that makes sense, right!??!)  While my therapeutic training has helped me break the "problem-solving" with clients and be able to sit with negative emotions, I continue to see their success as my success. And when your self-worth rests on the success of other people, well, that's a really scary place to be. 

This great article that a friend shared on Facebook really opened my eyes to my controlling tendencies, and has helped me to conceptualize the boundaries of what I should try to control.  My desire to control doesn't come from a malicious place, but really a broken place.  Part of my journey towards well-being is to realize the real Source of my self-worth.  God sees me as perfect because of what His Son did for me in His sacrifice, and as a Child of God, I do have tremendous value.  I'm not good because I succeed at my job or because other people say I'm good. I'm good because Christ died to make me that way. 

I have the head knowledge.  I know I have worth in God. And actually, I do really like who I am today.  But old patterns die hard. And Satan constantly tries to taint our heart knowledge--- he tries to convince us we are never good enough and we have no worth.  Satan knows the power that a healthy self-worth can have for a Christian working for the Kingdom.  That's why I think he attacks so many Christians in this area.  So it takes constant work.  I have to remind myself daily of God's love for me and my love for myself.  I have to notice my controlling patterns and set boundaries with people. I have to regulate my emotions, tolerating the discomfort of seeing people I love struggling and not saving them. I have to stop focusing on how I can change other people and focus more on how I can change myself.  I am so not there right now, and I feel incredibly vulnerable putting this struggle out there for anyone to see.  But this is my story, and I'll end with a quote that I truly believe by a woman who I deeply admire.

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” 

― Brené Brown


By exploring my darkness, I hope I not only discover my light, but His Light in me. 

I'm Back!

Much like The Mindy Project, I am BACK from my (unplanned) hiatus from blogging.  March was a very busy month at work with teaching 4 classes, helping to start a new service for co-parents, and traveling to Baltimore for a 3 day training... which became a two day training because of a snow day.  (Seriously, snow in March! I was very grateful for the sunshine today---welcome April! Let's put the snow behind us for a while, ok?)

Being busy at work tends to make life in general more stressful for me. I'm not very good at compartmentalizing.  So after a long, busy day, writing doesn't make my priority list. Not even journaling or blogging. I only have the energy for the light-hearted and easy. Here is what does make my priority list (in no particular order):

1. Television- Watching TV is just about the easiest coping skill I have. I'm not saying its the healthiest, but it certainly does make tuning out my real life quite simple. And it takes about 0% of my energy.  If you follow me on Facebook, you know I'm obsessed with The Mindy Project.  I'm also a huge fan of The Real Housewives-- currently Beverly Hills and New York have been filling 2 hours of my week. It's incredibly dramatic and kind of trashy if you ask my old roomies, but I love it. Love. It. I recently discovered House of Cards, which my dad and I have been binge watching. It is so addicting, but the characters are terrible, terrible people. You just can't stop watching though! I wish I didn't love TV so much, but the truth is, I do! So shoot me. (Ok, please don't. I'll miss out on all the shows I've DVR'd!)

2. Hanging Out- One of the new classes I'm teaching is only 10 minutes away from my besties, which means I get to have a mid-week sleep over every Wednesday!  I don't think I would have made it through March without regularly falling asleep on their couch watching The Mindy Project and drinking a glass of wine. I had a lot of other fun March dinners and events. Given that this is late on only the first day of April, I can't seem to remember many of them. But I promise, they refueled me!

3. Podcasts- While I managed to get some book and Bible study in (The Sacred Search by Gary Thomas is on my kindle), Podcasts are an excellent way for me to stay spiritually fed when my energy is low.  A good friend sent me a sermon series that rocked my world: Crash the Chatterbox from Elevation Church.  Check it out: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ElevationChurchCharlotte

Ok. That's it. I'm done for now. But I will be back again with more thoughts from the journey! But help me out, why don't ya! What helps you survive crazy times at work/school/life?