Spiritual Wellness

Stale.  Bored.  Listless.  Apathetic.  

Day in.  Day out.

Is this what life should be?

When life becomes stale, we have compromised with our spirits.

We have said 

"This is just the way it is."

Life can pass us a mind numbing drug.  Be it a job to make ends meet, a relationship that keeps us from being alone, a new item to sit on our shelf.  Another episode of a TV show to entertain our emptiness.

I am saying no.

No to the emptiness and the apathy that we settle for. 

Say no to any action that takes us away from living a passion filled life.

What habits, routines, lifestyle choices keep you away from your passions?  What lies have you let yourself believe about life?

Stand up, wake up and shake it off.  

Live! 

We arrived into Barkton place with very little insight into what 'real life' was.  

I acted rashly in my new freedom of choice.

He stayed secluded.

We both...struggled.

Struggled in our early twenties to find some sort of balance in a life we had no idea about.

And there was one desperate prayer we made.  One desperate plea to a God we could barely believe existed after such trauma and degradation of our spirits

"Make this a place of life.  A place of thriving spirits.  Make us understand each other and bring healing here."

And over the months that two bedroom, one and a half bathroom apartment became a hub.

Our couches became worn with the bodies that stayed over night for comfort.  Our kitchen was filled with food, drink and conversation.  Our walls leaked music and dance.  

Dance partner came for practice, friends came for creative conversation, cousins came to stay overnight, words of affirmation and encouragement overflowed and our door '305' became a number referenced in conversations.  

Barkton Place blossomed into a haven and a safety net for our friends.  For us.

We grew.  We learned.  We were blessed.

Blessings overturning into blessings.

And now that Barkton Place has been left behind we embark on a new journey of setting up a new home.

"What kind of couple are we?" I asked the one girl who saw us through all of these changes.

"I don't need to answer this for you.  You already know." She responded.

"No I don't."  But really, I did.  My spirit knew, but I wanted to hear it aloud.

"You are makers...you are ... you both embody what home is.  You are East Coast Lifestylers."

And that is what we have become.  Jeremy and I.

We have been enriched by our home.  Our roots.  We are enriched by those who have passed through our doors.

May our new home off the shores of Halifax be as open as Barkton Place became.  May our daughter be blessed by the musicians, the food and the freedom that we have found in passing grace as easily as we pass the bread and the wine.  May we allow this new home to be transformed into a new chapter of abundance, discovery and discovery.  

Social/Relational Wellness

There begins a knot somewhere in our throat, or a deep indignation that wells up from the pit of us.  

What has happened?  Why are we failing these people? Why are these people failing us?

Expectation is a social/relational wellness pitfall.  It makes us think we know everything.  It makes us think we are in control of our surroundings and our relational interactions.

When we find ourselves feeling suppressed in our relational interactions it could very well be that we have not released ourselves or others from our expectations.

The expectations we have for ourselves.

The expectations we have for others.

They suffocate. 

Who do you need to release?  What can you release yourself from?  

Enjoy the freedom releasing gives.  

Change is inevitable yet at times it can throw us off guard.  Even when change is good how do we deal with it?

This is how I do change:

1) Identify initial reaction and embrace it.  

Knowing how I feel about something is empowering and imperative for me to work through what 'it' all means.  Wether I need to yell, cry or take my own 'time out', I do it.   Often times when change happens we can react our own fears and confusion of emotions on others.  I try my best to react in a safe and appropriate environment.

2) Grieve the loss/change.  

When things change on me, it often means there was something else I thought would happen.  We can't ignore that part of ourselves, but we can't let it rule us either.  Take a moment to feel those emotions, light a candle, blow it out and move on.

3) Make a game plan.

Nothing makes me feel out of control than not having a plan.  Plans can alter and change, but ultimately I thrive by putting a plan for the change in place as soon as possible.  Wether it's making a daily schedule, or a few fun goals, I thrive by challenging myself with new ideas, goals, routines etc.

4) Celebrate!  

Change is always good if we embrace it fully.  Just because something isn't as you thought it would be doesn't mean that our original expectations are better than the reality.  Reality is what you make it.  If something is different than I thought, I make use of the different.

5) Declare it!  

When something changes and I am walking in the change, I have learned that shouting it from the rooftops is an amazing way for me to walk in positivity and enthusiasm. 

Spiritual Wellness

Our souls need time.

They need space.

They need focus.

We can't juggle the endless balls forever.  At some point a ball will be in mid-flight and will be dropped.  It's not at fault of the performer, but a mere human thing.  We weren't made to be jugglers for more than a short period of time.

We need to sleep.

To eat.

To drive.

To...exist.

Simply put, we need be able to focus on one thing at one time.

Are there things we do in our day to day that enforce a juggling that stresses us out more than calms us?  Is there a juggling vortex that we find ourself falling into?

Let's begin to focus solidly on what we do.

One thing, at one time.

Emotional Wellness

The thing that blew us out of the water was not the wee baby we brought into the world this May, but the everything else.

The tiny wee one we love so much just made life brighter ... yet somehow life got clouded.  Clouded by all the work, decisions, expectations and misunderstandings.

We started watching the days we thought would be family bliss become days of rushing from this to that.

No time.

No breathing room.

Barely able to meet up for groceries.

And in all that rush, all that work there is a band that can only stretch so far before it snaps.

Where is that snap?

Is it in the necessary moments of groceries, gas and budgeting?  Or the extra moments of birthdays, parties and visits?

Either way we need to breath.  We need to let life flow through us so we can continue walking, moving and dancing.  

Identifying our limitations are key to being able to breath free, breath proper and breath with purpose.

What are your limitations?  What is stopping you from breathing?

Financial/Physical Wellness

Tracking.  We are always tracking.  Our social media accounts track our posts, our work tracks our performance and our cars track their milage.

Tracking is a way we keep tabs on what we need to know. 

And what is it that we so easily loose track of?

Spending.  The dollars in our pockets.

Diet.  The food on our plates.

Keeping track of our finances is a great way to begin to respect the money that has blessed and is filtering through us.  We need to and should be good stewards of the funds we find ourselves with.  So often it can be easy to let it slip through our fingers without a second thought.

So many pro tips on staying healthy attest to a food log and or calorie counter giving insight to a diet.  We go through out our days fuelling our bodies but rarely taking the moment to truly consider everything and the 'weight' of what it is we are putting inside it.

What happens when we take the time to record our spending?  What happens when we write down everything we are eating?

Insight, awareness and empowerment.

Tracking what we so easily can loose control of empowers us to make decisions based off of knowledge instead of ignorance.

What do you need to start tracking?  Is there something in your life that is out of control?  

I love my smart phone.  It is one of the main things on my person at all times.  That being said, I am learning daily how to better balance my interaction with media, others and the outside world. I routinely turn airplane mode on my iPhone 6 when I am with my daughter, on a date, at home on the weekends and connecting to nature.  

Why?

1)  To be present in the moment with others, what I am doing and the world around me.  

We have gotten used to experiencing the world and others with a screen in front of us.  When we connect with the things around us we should be giving it our undivided attention.  How much do we truly miss when we are checking our likes, retweets, news feeds etc?  Being present with our friends, family, work and hobbies is irreplaceable.

2) To model to our children how to best use technology.  

Our children are now growing up with a different culture around them.  Screens are more than just 'entertainment' they have become everyday 'necessities' for many.  Keeping our screen usage in check will not only be healthy for ourselves as adults but will be a model to our children that playstations, TV's, iPads, iPhones, etc are a part of our lives but not our whole life. 

3) To take a break from demands.  

Having a smart phone with all it's notifications can be the equivalent of having a door bell rung in our homes every few minutes.  It is intrusive to our private lives and very easily becomes a source of pressure when we feel incapable to keep up with the 'most recent'.  

4) To use our technology as a tool.

When we put our phones on airplane mode we are enforcing the concept that the 24/7 feature of the device is not required.  We can use our phones as a tool to the life we want to lead instead of being lead by our phones.  

5) To force a break and focus on other things.

It's easy to get caught up in Facebook, Buzzfeed and other mind numbing apps that encourage us to decompress, but there are other ways our bodies, minds and souls need to decompress.  A walk outdoors, a conversation with a close friend, a drive to the ocean, playing an instrument, gardening, cooking, reading a book are all things that one can do to take a break from lifes' stresses and reconnect with other parts of ourselves.  

Emotional Wellness

It's so easy to get stuck.

Stuck in the place we are at, the thinking we carry and the lens we see through.

It's very ... limited.  To be a one-way-road thinker.

We do this.

'This is just the way I am'.

'This is just how I see things.'

We don't realize how jarring this is.  At least I didn't until that college professor of mine years back would catch me on it.  She would look at me frustrated.

"Amy, you have to get past explaining why you are doing these things, and start to own them."

But wasn't I owning them by explaining why?  

She would say in our communication classes:  "If you are finding yourself getting critical, you need to get curious."

And I would blah blah past it.  Thinking 'of course' but not really dwelling on what it meant.

But we grow.  We find we are capable of self reflection and overcoming personal barriers with the Grace we've been given.

It's time to get over being 'stuck'.  Stuck in our emotions, our ways of thinking, our personalities, our 'this-is-just-how-I-do-it' life.  We were made for more than our stumbling blocks.

What are your stumbling blocks?  What is so much 'you' that you end up explaining it away?  What can you work through daily to pull out the roots of these limitations?

We have not done a summer meet-up before, but now we have, and it was exactly what 'The Creatives' needed.

Everyone has been shaken up and around and somehow we are all landing in new places with new visions and aspirations.

All of it, a good thing.

The core of 'The Creatives' are moving on in many different ways.  They are growing, moulding, making and meditating on everything new.

Montreal 

Denmark

British Columbia

Asia?

...

Everyone has a timeline and a place they belong.

For the core, there have been changes and for the new there will be growth and more changes.

Connecting with the old and the new has created a new development of growth and change.

Autumn is bringing us to a new and different place.

For all the development and changes we give thanks.

May Autumn see us, shiny bright and new in ways we have ever imagined.  

Spiritual Wellness

I stare up at my new home.  The ocean across the street and the breeze lifts the sails of a boat across the way.  The seagulls cry and remind me that this was the home of my family.  My roots are here and I was made for 'here'.

I see the doors of the homes that line this street, some old and some new.  I laugh.

Everything in life that is meant to be is so 'unhinged'. 

I remember standing on a dock only months ago praying and asking for that abundance.  Not for the bigness, but for the smallness that my heart wanted to share.

Let me share the ocean and let me share the ocean air with my daughter and others.  "Is that too much to ask?"  I had prayed.

We walk in a world that likes to tell us no.  It's as simple as that.  

What we think is a world of 'we can be anything' is actually a world of nos.  

It's not a pessimistic take, it's just the way this universe turns.  

But it's upside down, so those no's are yes's and the yes's we receive may actually be no's. 

How topsy turvy.  How can we trust in anything bigger than us to guide us to the right place?

Have you come against a door that seems shut tight and won't budge?

We all have windows and doors.  What are they saying?

Are we trying to wedge them open when in fact they want to stay closed to protect us?  Are we passing open windows and doors without even knowing it?

This street that I am moving to...it's a street I spent my whole life on.  Yet I thought it wasn't for me.  And here we are walking to the ocean with our daughter in tow just as I used to run the street as a girl.  

Sometimes it's the doors we don't see that are unhinged and ready for us to walk through the door frames. 

Look for your unhinged doors.  They are all over the place.  

Social Wellness 

It was this image on a TV show that we saw.  An image of a family gathered around a table and the dynamics that occurred when they did.  Everyone so different yet there was a unity that survived around that table.

They had gathered.

Many of us long for this type of ease.  But is it ease?  How do we balance the high demands of real life with the desire to stay connected and respectful of each other?

Getting an extended family gathered routinely creates an opportunity for unity and understanding.

What keeps us from gathered?

Expectations, technology, schedule conflicts .... a myriad of life.  

How can we connect in an 'organic' way with our close and extended family?  Can it be a routine added or a sporadic moment?  A moment to unplug from our screens and share in an activity?  Or simply a weekly walk?

Whatever works for your family dynamic, gathering takes initiative and is a journey into wellness with each other.

Get creative.

What works for your family? 

Our little family made some changes right before Zoë was born.  We looked at our fridge and our finances and decided that it was time we focused on 'the fresh'.  Don't get us wrong, we had always focused on a certain element of healthy eating, but this was different.  This was a commitment to learning about fresh food and our body chemistry in tandem.  

Knowledge, as they say, is power.

1) Fresh fruits and vegetables is natures natural way to support your immune, digestive system and overall body chemistry.  

There is a deep science to how our bodies take in the food we eat.  Wether we eat (chemically) processed or unprocessed foods our body will reap the benefits/negatives. The boost received from fresh food encourages health and weight loss. 

2) Supporting local farms is one of the best gifts you can give to your community/citys' economy.  

Farmers and other crop growers are in constant competition with imported goods.  Buying what is fresh and in season in your area will not only be good for your lifestyle, but will benefit the community as a whole.

3) Eating fresh means buying in season.  

Even if not all the in season fruits and vegetables are our favourite, it really forces us to find creative ways to prepare, eat and enjoy those foods.

4) Consuming fresh fruits and vegetables encourages a lifestyle of 'full nutritious calories'. 

Fruits and Vegetables are high in calories but in all the right ways.  Eating fresh helps us avoid the 'empty calories' that other foods would provide.

5) It's pretty.  

Let's be honest.  For all those instagrammers, there is nothing more stunning than photos of fresh food.  Who knows exactly why, but eating fresh sure makes documenting mealtime more enjoyable!  ;)