Does this post look familiar? I scheduled two posts for the same date last month, and didn’t realize till they’d already gone live. I pulled this one down and rescheduled it. If you’ve already read this post but didn’t request the book from your library yet, consider this your friendly reminder.
Are you intentional about modeling how to deal with negative emotions to your kids?
Society, and our nuclear families growing up, have a big impact on how we process our emotions. Some families have certain acceptable emotions. Maybe it was OK to be angry, but sadness was mocked. Or only certain responses to negative emotions were encouraged. Snarky wit in response to feeling hurt? Cool. Crying? Not cool. Society also teaches us no one wants to see you when you’re angry or sad.
How do we teach our kids to function in a healthy way in a world full of broken people?
When my friend Laurel mentioned Finding Spiritual Whitespace: Awakening Your Soul To Rest, by Bonnie Gray, was next up on her reading pile, I picked up a copy for myself.
Based on the title, I was already on the journey. Plus, I’ve been curious to get a purely Christian perspective on this concept since reading After the Ecstasy, The Laundry, which included Christian ideology alongside other faith traditions.
I’ve introduced a lot of whitespace to my life this year, and I tend to still feel defensive about it. No one really gives me grief about my dance class, but meditation? The first response I often get if I mention that is, “But what do you do while you’re meditating?“
Like I mentioned in this post, I often work a night shift just before we leave for our yearly Tobago trip. This time around, I scheduled myself off that weekend, so I tried something else instead. Another gong bath. This time, I went by myself.
Why are you telling me about another gong bath? You could rightly ask. After all, I’ve been to two already, and I’ve written about both. I think the reason why I want to write about this one, too, is that they’re all different.
It feels amazing when you have energy and you’re getting a ton of stuff crossed off your to-do list, doesn’t it? If it were easier to keep a balanced perspective, those times would probably keep you going during the times when making even simple decisions felt exhausting and you were staring down your third day of laying on the sofa all afternoon because you just couldn’t get up.
Maybe that’s just me.
On my Netherlands trip, I mentioned that my relationship to pain changed after I had a huge knot in my neck disappear after the psilocybin trip.
I see a few doctors here and there, and they’d given me the gift of names for why I feel so crappy: Hashimoto’s, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel. Fatigue? Achy joints? Blame one of those pesky autoimmune things you’ve tested positive for.
Before the trip, I was wearing wrist braces to bed every night because of pain in my wrists and hands. It used to make me anxious when I had to launder the braces, that I wouldn’t get them washed, dried, and find them again before bedtime.
They’ve been in one of the four laundry baskets of unfolded laundry in my living room for days now and I’m totally cool with it.
