Learning! Roundup: Getting Cold and Lonely, Viagra Helps Labour, Maslow's Hierarchy Redux, and More!

A black and white photo of a person walking down a snowy street from behind, they are alone.
Photo by Viktor Kern.

Cold and Lonely


Our body temperatures may actually influence our desire for social interaction. When we get cold, we are more likely to seek out social connections than when we are warm. Perhaps when we are physically cold we also think we are emotionally cold?

Viagra Helps Labour


Viagra increases blood flow to our nether regions, and it looks like this might help reduce the need for emergency c-sections in labour. By half!

Maslow's Hierarchy Redux


If you've taken an intro psychology class, you know Maslow's Hierarchy, which asserts that people need to have their basic physical needs and safety met before they can move up the triangle into more emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs until they reach the peak: self-actualization. According to the Blackfoot Nation's way of thinking, this is wrong. They begin with self-actualization, then community actualization, and then cultural perpetuity. The inversion is intriguing and beautiful.

Paternity Leave Saves Marriages


Want to prevent divorce among married couples with children? Give the dads parental leave. A new analysis, based on Iceland's recent shift to encourage fathers to take parental leave, shows that couples who do this are less likely to separate. It's almost as if women don't love being 100% responsible with childcare and it benefits a man's connection to his family to spend time with them.

Give Praise


I've never had to manage a classroom in any significant way, so I have no idea what it's like to have 20-35 kids that I have to get to sit down and listen and just please learn something. According to new research, teachers who do have to do that will have greater success if they focus on praising good behaviour than punishing bad behaviour, though.


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This Week in Church: Saying Goodbye

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

A picture of a small chaple with a steeple in a field, with the text This Week in Church written on the sky.

This week in church we said goodbye.

One of our co-founding head pastors is moving on to something new (an unknown something new! It's very adventurous.) and last Sunday was his final service. We did a full goodbye where people shared what his presence has meant to them, gave him gifts, and we even performed a little liturgy of release into his new adventures. It was a proper goodbye.

There are few opportunities in life to say a meaningful goodbye to someone. To let them know what they really mean to you and what you have appreciated about them and send them off into their new life. Usually, when people leave, it's sort of a slow fade and then one day we realize they are, in effect, gone. Even when it is a hard exit, like moving away, how many goodbye parties have you been to that involve genuine expressions of love or a ritual of releasing the person into their new life?

I am not good at telling someone to their face all the things they mean to me, so it felt nice to be a part of an overall farewell event. I could contribute to the goodbye without being on the spot for any specifics.

It made me think about endings and how, generally, when things end we are supposed to just let them be over and move on and how much a meaningful goodbye really helps with that.


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Inspiration! Roundup: Small World, Interior Design, Flutters, and More!

A photo of a breakfast table covered in dishes, in front of a window looking out on a snowy landscape. The colours are all muted.
This Week's "I want to go to there": Doesn't this jus look nice and cozy?
Photo by Ihor Malytskyi.

Small World


The Nikon Small World competition always gives the world some incredible photography. Here are the top twenty from the 2019 contest - they are incredible! Nature is incredible!

Interior Design


Photographer James Friedman did a series called Interior Design, featuring the surprisingly colourful insides of golf balls. What fun!


Indigenous Around the World


Photographer Jimmy Nelson went all over the world, photographing Indigenous tribes everywhere he went. Scrolling through the collection of individual portraits, which you can find in this Daily Mail article, I was struck by the fact that, despite the differences between everyone, there seemed to be an underlying similarity to people who live so connected to the land and their own history. If you visit his Instagram page, you can find stories from the people who were photographed.

Flutter


I love illustrator Vlad Stankovic's nature animations. (Via Colossal.)

Art by Vlad Stankovic via Colossal.

Weird Art


Sometimes, contemporary art is weird and is probably meaningless. Like that guy who taped a banana to a wall and called it art. Sometimes, however, contemporary art is weird and then when you learn what it's about it's deeply impactful. Like Felix Gonzalez-Torres' piece "Untitled", which is a pile of free candy in the corner of an art gallery.

The candy must weigh 175 pounds and patrons are invited to take a piece. 175 pounds is how much Torres' partner weighed when he died of AIDS. By taking a piece of candy, patrons taste his sweetness, but also participate in consuming his body until it is gone. Stunning.


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Recommended Read: Getting Past Your When-Then Thinking Traps

A colourful graffiti'd wall that says "THEN" and "NOW" in large block letters
Photo by Gary Butterfield.

One of the blogs I follow, Rad Reads, did a post for the new year about "when - then" thinking. It's that terrible trap we all (right? All of us? Not just me? It can't be just me, this other guy wrote about it.) fall into that WHEN a certain condition is met, THEN we will be happy/free/satisfied/or some other desirable thing.

The post includes a link to a crowdsourced document where his readers have added their own when-then thoughts. Here are the ones that stuck out to me:

- When I feel spiritually anchored, then I'll share my true self.

- When I have more money, then I will pursue my passions.

- When things slow down, then I will start working fewer hours.

- When January comes, then I will sort out my life.

The one theme I realized looking at the list? With a few small exceptions, everything in the "then" column could be done NOW. The person just has to choose it.

- They could share their true self now, they just don't think it's good enough yet.

- They could pursue their passion with less money, it just might be on a slightly smaller scale. BUT THEN THEY WOULD BE DOING IT!

- They could work fewer hours now, they just have to set a limit and stick to it. (What would happen if they had a family emergency or some other event that trumps their crazy work demands? They would work fewer hours, that's what.)

- They could sort out their life now, they just have set an arbitrary rule that it should happen in January.

Just like how it's really easy to think that someone else's fear is not so scary, it's really easy to see how other people's when-then barriers are baloney.

So what about my when-thens? What conditions am I waiting for to be just right so that I can be or do what I really want?

I realized that they all seemed to fit into two categories of "then" and my "whens" were all the same.

My thens all amounted to either shaping my life into the one I truly want to be living or a glorious state of feeling secure about myself and my future.

The whens? They were predictably the same: having enough money, having enough time, and having a partner to provide emotional and practical support along the way.

Apparently, my heart believes that with more money, time, and a partner, all my problems would be solved.

It's not exactly revolutionary. All of these things can make life a lot easier. They can also create barriers all of their own or be frittered away. None of them guarantee that I will actually go forth and do anything, let alone pursue the shiny little dreams on the "then" half of my when-then statements.

That's the true value of this exercise: it reveals what we really want (our then-states) as well as our excuses or the things we think are standing in the way.

That means that, if we want to actually start pursuing those dreamy then-states, we now have what we need to make a map.

Here's how that breaks down for me:

- I know in my little, mushy heart that a partner is just something I want all on its own and not a pre-requisite to anything else in life. It's both an excuse to stand still and a then-state of its own, but one I can't really control so I make it "when" instead.

- I could always use more time, but I also spend plenty of time doing other things. I can develop systems to make it easier to set my priorities and work more effectively with what I have.

- A certain amount of money would actually help, buying meaningful chunks of time and equipment. Instead of waiting for more money to throw itself at my door, however, I need to figure out a hard number and a plan for how I can start saving towards it while I work with what I've got.

Here's the thing, though: really confronting your when-thens means facing down what you really want AND the critical voices in your brain that stand in the way. The voices that not only think you CAN'T get there, but that you don't DESERVE to get there. You deserve your then-state, my friend. You deserve it so hard.


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Cute! Roundup: Baby Skunks, Sea Bunnies, Playing Crows, and More!

Sometimes, Gertie is incredibly relaxed, but her eyes are wide open as if she has seen something terrifying. It's kind of confusing to look at.

A black and white tuxedo cat lying on someone's lap and looking out, her eyes open wide. One paw is up close to the camera in the foreground.

OTHER CUTENESS:

Baby skunks, skunkin' around, stealing hearts.

Did you know there is a creature called the SEA BUNNY??? It's underwater and it's adorable!

A crow, entertaining itself in a playground.

Gimme a cuddle!

Elephant thinks he's people!


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Singalong! I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash

This is a good time of year to keep digging into songs about how everything will be okay. How about this one? Also, this song was in COOL RUNNINGS! What a good time that was!


I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW
by Johnny Nash

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

(Ooh...) Look all around, there's nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, there's nothing but blue skies

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Here is that rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It's going to be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
Yeah, hey, it's gonna be a bright (bright) bright (bright)
Sunshiny day

An animated gif of Johnny Nash singing Soultrain
Giphy


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Learning! Roundup: Do Less to Save the World, Protester Monitoring, Peak Misery, and More!

A black woman with natural hair lying on a couch and reading.
Photo by Thought Catalog.

Do Less to Save the World


Here's an easy way to help fight climate change: simply do less. By doing less, you'll avoid participating in the system of creating and transporting people and things using stadium-sized buckets of fossil fuel. We all feel a lot of pressure to DO something, but sometimes doing the thing means you're still a part of the system, whether it's buying the latest sustainable item and participating in a damaging capitalist economy or using fossil fuels to fly everywhere.

Protester Monitoring


A new report on how the RCMP (Canada's national police) assesses risk for Indigenous protesters shows that instead of worrying about potential criminal behaviour (you know, their jurisdiction), they worry about the ability of the protesters to gain public support. It doesn't seem like that should be their concern?

Peak Misery


Apparently, middle-aged misery peaks at age 47, and then you get to live on a downward slide into happiness. This is based on research that most people's lives are on a curve of happiness (or unhappiness) that is U-shaped. We get less happy as we age, to a point, and then it reverses. This is for people who live in "richer" countries with longer lifespans. I also wonder if this will shift as people are doing things like having kids at an older age.

Smell This


People who don't have a sense of smell may be missing out on more than the sweet scent of freshly mowed grass. According to new research, every aspect of a person's life is affected if they can't smell things including personal hygiene and sexual and personal relationships. They don't enjoy eating as much, couldn't confidently serve dishes to family and friends, and didn't get vital signals to avoid danger (like the smell of smoke or gas). Yikes!

Wildfire Carbon Emissions


Among the terrible results of the Australian wildfires is a huge spike in carbon emissions. These fires are putting out up to 900 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is way more than the ecosystem is prepared to store. So climate change is getting a bump, I guess. Terrifying.

Procrastination


It looks like procrastination is more about emotional management than time management. We tend to procrastinate the most when the task we are meant to be doing makes us feel bad, whether that bad feeling is boredom, fear, or incompetence.


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This Week in Church: Creation, Fear, and Stepping Off the Boat

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

A picture of a small chaple with a steeple in a field, with the text This Week in Church written on the sky.

This week in church we talked about creation.


The term ex nihilo means making something out of nothing. It is darkness to light and chaos into order. But you can't do it without experiencing some of the darkness and chaos first. You need an overlap. Too much chaos and everything's a mess. Too much order and everything is stifled. Creating anything (art, a glorious spreadsheet, a program to provide meals to school kids, etc.) means stepping into some level of chaos and finding the order.

This week in church we talked about fear. (AGAIN!)


"I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note. Only one word, actually. STOP!"
-Elizabeth Gilbert

"Most of the things we avoid are avoided because we're afraid of being afraid... The negative outcomes that could actually occur due to speaking up in class, caring about our work product, interacting with the boss–there's not a lot of measurable risk. But the fear… the fear can be debilitating, or at the very least, distasteful. So it's easier to just avoid it altogether."
-Seth Godin

These two quotes that were shared in the service really hit me. One, that our fears are uninteresting, repetitive, and predictable, and two, that the negative outcomes are almost never that bad. It's just that we want to avoid feeling the fear. (Which is why I still haven't made a real list of my fears, because I am avoiding even thinking about them and feeling afraid as a result.)

We also did an exercise where everyone wrote down a fear they hold onto. We then tossed those fears around so they got all mixed up and then read each others' fears out loud (it was anonymous). Hearing other people's fears, I realized that I believed everyone in that room was strong enough to face their fear, which probably meant that someone else believed the same about me and my fear. Wild.

This week in church we talked about stepping off the boat.


In the story where Jesus walks on the water, he comes to his disciples who are on a boat in a terrible storm. They think it's a ghost and Peter weirdly calls out, "Jesus, if it's really you, command me to walk to you." (Like, on the water.) He does, and after about two steps, Peter starts sinking and needs saving.

Here's the thing with this story: when we are stepping out of our comfort zone into the chaos of creating something new (be it art, spreadsheets, or a new direction in life), we are usually stepping out of a good place. The boat was a good place. It wasn't entirely safe (it was at risk of capsizing), but it did provide protection from dying on the bottom of an icy lake. The first step out of the boat and onto our journey of creation will be rickety and uncertain. The ground will feel about as solid as water. After a few steps, we'll think we've made the worst mistake of our lives and we're now going to die alone in this storm of unknowingness.

So basically, taking first steps is the worst. It's hard and terrifying and not only do we need a bunch of faith, but we need supports in place. People and things that will save us and keep us on our new course. Peter didn't walk on water alone, and we don't need to try to step out alone, either.


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Inspiration! Roundup: The Pile of Good Things, a World Underwater, the Marvel of an Ordinary Life, and More!

A lake on a mountain with forest around it and a small cabin next to the water. It is so peaceful and welcoming.
This week's "I want to go to there": Get me to a cabin on a mountain, STAT!
Photo by Dino Reichmuth.

The Pile of Good Things

“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.”
— Rainbow Rowell

This is a wonderful reminder of one of the elements in my book Feeling Better, which is to simply do things that make you feel good, and then you'll spend more time feeling good. I forget it all the time.

World Underwater

Hayden Clay's World Underwater series shows us the world when sea levels rise.


The Marvel of an Ordinary Life

This may connect back to yesterday's post about my achievement disease.

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
― William Martin


Moth Woman

Ooooh look at Laura Rodriguez's beautiful work! I love it!


Painting in Secret

Charlotte Salomon, a German-Jewish artist, spent two years hiding from the Nazis and painted 784 paintings while she was doing it. Called Life? Or Theatre? the series includes paintings and text documenting her time in hiding and her struggle to stay sane through it all.


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What Do You Do When Your Achievement Disease Wasn't Good Enough?

The sign for a trophy shop - there are two matching signs, shaped like a trophy saying "trophy" down the front and then shop underneath.
Photo by akahawkeyefan on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

I have always considered myself to be a high-achieving-type person. I join projects, I work hard, and I do a good job.

In the past, all this achievement was motivated by a need to prove that I deserved to be alive. If I was writing and producing plays or getting really good grades or running a club, my existence was justified (for the time being) and maybe people would want to be around me.

I was sick with the achievement disease, a ride-along illness to not feeling like you are enough.

Since then, I have gratefully learned that this is a faulty way of looking at things. While my desire to be productive hasn't really changed, I have worked pretty hard to learn that I have inherent value, regardless of what I produce.

Or so I thought. Turns out, I am fine as long as I don't hear another person talk about their own achievement disease. Then I compare the heck out of the things I accomplished while I was sick with the things they accomplished while they were sick (and maybe also the things we are both accomplishing now, for good measure). Guess what? I always manage to count it so that I never stack up.

A lot of the podcasters I listen to and writers I read are coming clean about their own achievement diseases these days. This means that our culture is becoming more aware of this as a problem, which is wonderful. It also means that I encounter this more and more often.

By the very nature of the fact that these folks have the platform of podcasts and articles with enough followers that I've heard of them, their past achievements are much flashier than mine. While I was organizing the local theatre awards show, they were organizing conferences for international thought-leaders. While I was diligently plunking out this very blog, they were publishing articles on Forbes and the BBC. While I was creating a podcast listened to by hundreds, they were on network television.

The work was similar, but the sphere and scope were very different.

And while I know - I really do know - that achieving what they did wouldn't have made me happier and that none of this makes anyone worth more than the other, I find myself feeling like my achievement disease wasn't bad enough. I could have done so much more if I had been just a little bit sicker.

Am I finding a deeper layer of not-enough-ness in my heart that I didn't know was still living there? Or am I simply butting against the practical fact that my current goals would be easier to reach if I had a bigger platform, and my platform would be bigger if I had done fancier things when I was younger, and instead of working away at it now I am spending my energy blaming my past self so I don't have to risk the failure of trying? (Of course, what is the fear of failing but the fear of not being enough?)

Well, dang. Looks like I need to give myself a hug and remind myself that every part of me is enough, including this deeper layer of insecurity. And then maybe I need to be brave and make a plan on those goals. After all, if this is the year that everything is going to work out, that includes loving each layer of myself and bringing it all to the work.


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Singalong! Come to Mama by Lady Gaga

The other day I did that thing where you just listen to music and read the lyrics and absorb it all and it was as close as I could get to my high school days of listening to an album in my room, lying on the floor and staring at the lyrics book that comes with it. It was amazing. When I got to this song, I was struck (struck!) by its lovely positivity and call for unity. Come to mama, folks!


COME TO MAMA
by Lady Gaga

Everybody's got to love each other
Stop throwin' stones at your sisters and your brothers
Man, it wasn't that long ago we were all living in the jungle
So why do we gotta put each other down
When there's more than enough love to g-g-go around?

Come to mama
Tell me who hurt ya
There's gonna be no future
If we don't figure this out

Dude in a lab coat and a man of God
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Fought over prisms and a forty-day flood
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Well, I say rainbows did more than they've ever done
So why do we gotta fight over ideas?
We're talkin' the same old shit after all of these years

Come to mama
Tell me who hurt ya
There's gonna be no future
If we don't figure this out
Oh, come tomorrow
Who are you gonna follow?
There's gonna be no future
If we don't figure this out

Psychic guru catches minnows in the harbor
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Everyone tells him he should work a little harder
(Come onto mama, come on, mama)
(Hey, man, get to work, catch up)
They all tell you that freedom must be bought
But, baby, he's already caught them
So why do we gotta tell each other how to live?
The only prisons that exist are ones we put each other in

Come to mama
Tell me who hurt ya
There's gonna be no future
If we don't figure this out
Oh, come tomorrow
Who are you gonna follow?
There's gonna be no future
If we don't figure this out

Come to mama (Come onto me)
Come on mama
Come on mama
Come on mama

'Cause I wanna be there
I wanna be there for you
I wanna be there

Why do we gotta tell each other how to live?
The only prisons that exist are ones we put each other in
Why do we gotta tell each other how to live?
Look what that rainbow did

An animated GIF of Lady Gaga acting like she is swooning for someone
Giphy



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Learning! Roundup: This is Your Brain on Meditation, Pregnancy-Related PTSD, Abortion Impacts, and More!

A black woman seated and meditating. Her hands are in prayer position, her eyes closed.
Photo by Madison Lavern.

This is Your Brain on Meditation


Regular meditation really does seem to change your brain: people who participated in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program not only reported that they felt reduced stress in their lives, but brain scans showed increased grey matter in their amygdala and hippocampus (the brain regions responsible for emotions and memory). This was compared to a control group who had none of these impacts. Now... these participants did an average of 27 minutes a day - do you think I can get the same benefit on my 10-minutes-most-days-but-definitely-not-always practice?

Pregnancy-Related PTSD


This is another scientific discovery for the "it's obvious for the people who have experienced it" file: women who have miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies are more likely to have depression and PTSD. This stuff has a huge impact on your life.

Abortion Impacts


Speaking of pregnancy-related science, a new study looked at how women feel about their abortions, both immediately afterwards and years later. They found that there is often a powerful mix of emotions (including guilt and relief) in the immediate aftermath, and that over time all emotions basically fade away. They also found that right away, 97.5% of women think they have made the right decision, and after 5 years, that number goes up to 99%.

On Track for Climate Change


A new study confirms that models of climate change have been very accurate, and we are right on track for all the disastrous degrees of warming predicted. This ain't good!

Why Narcissists Hurt the Ones They Love


You know how narcissists will say incredibly cruel things to the people they love during a fight? This is because they lack object constancy, which is the ability to retain a positive emotional bond with something while simultaneously being hurt or angry with them. This might be borne out of early trauma.

The Rich Live Forever


Okay, not forever, but a new study found that in both the US and the UK, higher socioeconomic status was associated with longer disability-free life. The rich actually get 5-9 more years without disability in old age. Interestingly, the study's intention was to see if UK residents have an advantage over Americans, I assume due to the more equally-distributed healthcare in the UK, but wealth was a greater indicator.


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What Are You Afraid Of Part 2: Feeling Better and Stress

Needpix

Last week I shared some of the glorious lessons I learned from the Ologies podcast episodes on fear. Now I have MORE TO SHARE!!!

Last time was all about facing your fears by naming them and understanding them. (And yes, I remember that I promised to make a list of my fears and report back - to be honest, I really half-assed it and was clearly avoiding actually facing my fears, so I have to do it again.)

This week we're talking about two more things. 

The first is feeling better when we're scared. 

Mary Poppenroth (the expert interviewed on the podcast) says that connecting to community is the number one way to alleviate our fears.

I love this. It's everything from grabbing the arm of the person next to you in a scary movie to emergency-texting your best friend after your boss yells at you and you're afraid you may get fired to the way that fear can make people want to get frisky.

This reminds me of a lesson I got a lot in church. (The connection part, not the getting frisky part.) One of the things they would say all the time is "perfect love drives out fear." Of course, this was church, so they were talking about God and how we don't need to ever be afraid when we've got him on our side (something that is just ineffable enough to not be entirely useful when you are in a moment of terror), but the sentiment carries: part of feeling loved is feeling safe. Reconnecting to the people we love when we are afraid is a wonderful remedy.

The other thing we are talking about this week is stress.

Stress is fear, but for some reason we feel better saying we are stressed than that we are afraid. Perhaps there is weakness in being afraid, or maybe we don't want to admit how much fear is actually present in our lives.

So what would happen if we resisted this cultural rebrand of fear into stress, and called it what it is?

For one thing, I think we might tolerate it less. We might be more motivated to change our lives because being scared all the time seems less okay than being stressed all the time.

For another, we might be better able to face down those fears, as opposed to letting them be a constant undercurrent in our lives that we occasionally pretend don't exist through the "self-care" of bubble baths and Netflix marathons.

One of the things Poppenroth pointed out that I found fascinating is that people who are "big deal" creators and entrepreneurs will talk about their fears quite openly. Their work is often about facing their fears, moving towards their fears, and using fear as a signal that they are on the right path. On the other hand, people who live more ordinary lives tend to talk a lot more about stress than fear.

Now, I'm not saying that we're all supposed to be big deal creators. There is plenty of beauty in ordinary life. But when you imagine the glory of an ordinary life, does it include constant fear or things like reading in a hammock and games with grandkids? Maybe we cheat ourselves out of the life we could be living by tamping our fears down into a constant background experience and call it stress.


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This Week in Church: Making Moves and Renaming Fears

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

A picture of a small chaple with a steeple in a field, with the text This Week in Church written on the sky.

This week in church we talked about moving.


Throughout the Bible, there are a ton of stories where God or Jesus simply invite or tell someone to leave where they are and do something different: "Go to the Promise Land," or "Come, follow me." That's about all the information they get. And, at least in the stories in the Bible, people came. They went.

I don't know about you, but I tend to need more information than that before I make even a moderate change in my life, let alone leaving behind everything I know.

Here's one thing, though: we don't make many discoveries while we are standing still. It's while we are moving to pursue something, anything really, that we are encounter both ourselves and opportunity. It's possible we wind up in a completely different direction than we planned, but we never would have gotten anywhere if we hadn't started moving in the first place.

Okay, I am on board that sometimes we need to move, even when we don't have all the information. But how do we know when it's that time? Sometimes, prudent planning is needed, right? (Honestly, I am already hedging that MY movements in life require clear roadmaps from the beginning to end even if other people should leap, faithfully, into the unknown.)

One other thought on this: how many times were those calls to action actually giving the person permission to follow their deepest heart's desire? Certainly, things like seeking a promise land were deep longings that were already in place. But what about the fishermen who Jesus invited to follow him? Maybe they, too, were longing for change. For something new. Maybe they just needed an excuse to throw down those nets and leave everything behind.

(I am partially hedging again. If this is the case, it's a lovely example of provision. It also gives me an excuse not to act on my deep longings because I haven't been explicitly invited to do so by a greater being.)

This week in church we talked about giving our fears a new name.


I have to say, I never would have expected a pastor to stand up and paint responsibility and living with caution as a bad thing. Sure, pastors growing up would reference Jesus as the "ultimate rebel", but they only wanted us to rebel from things like parties, drinking, and sex. They wanted us to be so rebellious that we stayed home to play board games with our parents and did a devotional before bed.

So hearing my pastor challenge us that we may have taken to calling our fears responsibility and suggest we read a book called The Crime of Living Cautiously was a bit of a surprise.

Are you letting the fact that your fears all wear the name tag "Hello, I'm Responsible" keep you from your deeper longings? I am.


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Inspiration! Roundup: A Brighter World, Satisfaction, The Heart Remembers, and More!

This Week's "I want to go to there": I want to visit this dreamy dreamscape.
Photo by Pawel Svmanski.

A Brighter World


William Santiago is a Brazilian illustrator whose work is so bright and colourful I want to live in it.


Satisfaction


“Satisfaction is always available. It is just not always looked for. If, when you enter any experience, you enter with curiosity, respect and interest you will emerge enriched and with awareness you have been enriched. Awareness of enrichement is what satisfaction is.”
-Ann E. Hastings

The Heart Remembers


Love this "The Heart Remembers" book.


Fly Me to the Moon


Just try not to get swept away with Nancy Liang's carefree animations.


It's Your Right


A court in the Netherlands has ruled that people deserve protection from climate change. Biiiig chef's kiss to them!


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