Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

managing your thoughts during a life crisis

As happens to everyone in all circumstances and for a variety of reasons, life has surprised us this week. We had for a nice long while been luxuriating in a sweet little season of ease and contentment, and now out of the clear January blue, Handsome and I find ourselves in the unpleasant thick of external stressors and a handful of hard decisions. 

It’s totally fine. I don’t mean to over dramatize anything; but this bears mentioning. One day this week all of it together gathered like a storm in my heart, and I ached and ached for hours. I went for a long run and cried almost the entire time. Maybe it was the surprise of it all. Maybe it was the sharp contrast of emotion, like the pop-up storms we get here in Oklahoma, when the skies have been so calm and sweet. Violent and shocking. I thought briefly that all of our hard-won peace was lost. (Not just for him and me, by the way, but for our most precious people too.)

Of course it’s not. I know better than that by now. But from time to time peace is ruffled and we have the job of maintaining composure and moving forward in Love. Remembering what is true and how to handle ourselves in crisis is vital. It’s not just about not tail-spinning and making a storm worse; it’s about the difference between surviving and thriving in the midst of it all. 

So that’s what I have to offer today: Some lessons I have learned over the years that this week I had to actively bring to the surface, thinking strategies that can transform a deeply stressful, scary time.

 

managing your thoughts during a life crisis sticker

 

Gratitude is so powerful. Take your pulse and breathe deeply. Carve out some time to look around outside of your pain and take stock of all the good things you see. Good things in the world at large, in your life overall, and in your exact situation. Name them. Focus on the most beautiful, amazing, magical details of whatever you are facing, whatever your circumstances are, both abstract and really precise. Even the ugly seeming parts can have hidden blessings, so give thanks for them too. Gratitude interrupts all kinds of anxiety, for starters, which feels nice, but it also has the power to literally transform the truth of things. You can invite light into a dark space with heartfelt gratitude. It’s a choice you can make even before you think you feel thankful.

Focus on the actionable details of your problem then shed all that anxiety and get moving, get out of your thoughts and trust God. I personally get a little paralyzed when faced with a big problem, but it’s unnecessary. That kind of fear is an illusion. Just look at the thing plainly, knowing it is a temporary crisis, just a problem to be solved. Identify the parts on which you can and should act, asking for divine inspiration and direction if needed , and begin. I find a lot of relief in the knowledge that I am only a part of the solution, that God is sovereign over all of it, even the unseen layers I may never see. Trusting Him with all of that makes seeing my part of the solution and acting less overwhelming. 

Ask largely and expect miracles. I have to occasionally remind myself of how much bigger our answers to prayer have been over the years compared to the problems we have faced. We have been shocked by grief, sure, but we have always been preserved in those times. More often we have been shocked by life-altering miracles, and because of this my underlying fear of “What if…” has eroded to almost nothing. I have learned to reign in my imagination accordingly, wearing blinders to the wildly negative possible outcomes. Instead, I force my thoughts forward and train them on wildly beautiful possibilities and amazing outcomes. Remember all those miracles and happy surprises from your past? Call them up to your mind. Convert your impulses to prayers, asking God for things bigger than you could ever do alone. I know in my bones that He wants to do big things for us and surprise us. 

Recognize that weird internal banter that robs your peace and mute it. Do you ever catch yourself arguing in your own head, either with yourself or an imaginary opponent or even just the situation you’re facing? It’s can be like a dress rehearsal, and I suppose that sometimes it can be useful to help you articulate your thoughts and prepare for a confrontation. But there’s a limit to this banter’s usefulness. I have learned to halt it, to silence the nervous flurry of arguments and deliberately aim my thoughts on something more productive. It makes such a difference in my overall sense of peace and therefore in how I can help my loved ones get through the crisis. Remember all that Worry Door business? It’s still very real. Cracking open that door is dangerous. Silent weird mental arguments counts as worrying. When you hear those demons whispering in your thoughts, mute them. You have power over them.  They have no place in your emotions or your decision-making.

Watch what you glorify. Do you spend a lot of time and energy talking about, or even just thinking about, how big your problem is, or how worried you are? Do you feel that common addiction to complaining about feeling victimized or overworked, etcetera? It’s a trap and a nasty one. Problems are real, but that don’t deserve our worship. Stressed is a real and valid condition, but it should only motivate us, not destroy us. Focusing on a perpetual state of being stressed and sad, weighed down by life, glorifying it instead of using it as fuel, only grows it and weakens us. Choose to glorify the healing forces in your life. Spend time and energy glorifying how excited you are about the brewing solutions and the future. Talk about and rest your imagination on how blessed you are, how capable, how far grown. Actively speak Love over the situation. Every detail of it.

worry prayers graphic

 

Thanks as always for checking in, friends. Handsome and I and all of the Lazy W characters are really great! Just taking our pulse in the midst of some very normal life changes. I hope some of this is useful to you for whatever crisis you are facing now or maybe in the future. Because life is certainly full of such stuff. But more importantly life is brimming with Love and beauty and miracles.

“Peace Be Still.”
XOXOXOXO

in the midst of winter, an albert camus poem

Hello friends, happy Saturday! Are you frozen, cuddled up somewhere and thinking of comfort food? Or are you making plans to seize the day because like Choctaw, Oklahoma, your town has dodged another winter bullet? However your January Saturday looks, I have a small, luscious dose of literature to share. Maybe it will warm you a little.

Albert Camus was an Algerian writer living in France during and following the Nazi occupation. Brought up by proletariat parents and active in journalism during a fascinating chapter of history, he contributed to the world a sea of newsy, theatrical, and philosophical writings for all of his 47 years (Camus was killed in a car wreck). In 1957 he became the second youngest recipient of the Nobel prize in literature.

The poem below is one of his that I have personally loved for many years, and as casual readers are free to do I have always gleaned from it whatever I wish, whatever I need at the time. Lately, I appreciate the idea that we can nurture within ourselves a wellspring of joy, health, and light. Not humanism, by the way, just a deliberate sort of well-being and faith.

I understand the need for all the seasons, including the dying and waiting times like winter and grief; but I also believe strongly in the power of gratitude and joy to transform our circumstances. Imagine building a little greenhouse for our own happiness. Like growing our own gorgeous food, cultivating our own private sense of health and joy frees us from relying so heavily on outside circumstances to be content, you know? If we can from the inside out, by our own volition, change some perspective and even actual life circumstances? Rule over them? Quite a tempting thought.

My dear, in the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy.
For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me,
within me, there’s something stronger-
something better, pushing right back.

An easy little dig about Camus lead me to a school of thought called absurdism and, friends, it’s pretty interesting. It teases to the differences between an absence of hope and actual despair: “…the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement – and a conscious dissatisfaction.” Does this sound to you like a little echo that despair is a choice, and so maybe also is joy? 

I hope you like this poem. And I hope that whether you are simply unhappy with the cold and the dormancy of January (like my husband) or whether you are in a true valley of despair, one of those times in life when you are pressed on all sides by difficult, negative outside forces, that you find within yourself all the love, smiles, calm, and summer. I hope you can gather whatever strength you need and improve your circumstances.

You absolutely can cultivate within yourself an endless summer. All those big and little ways you have learned to nourish yourself emotionally and bodily, spiritually, all of it, they are important and valuable. I hope those seeds germinate and sprout right when you need them to. I hope they bloom and brighten your scenery and attract the right people you need and want.

red amaryllis C

And I hope you find some disco balls, yarn crafts, jungle greenery, and other things that please you to make the picture complete.

No despair. Bring on the cold.
XOXOXOXO

 

 

saying thank you for 2016

Soaking in our second Hot Tub Summit of the day, this time drenched in bright sunshine instead of stardust, I casually asked my husband how will he remember this past year. What stands out to him about 2016. He said that was too big a question to spring on a person, and of course he’s right. I have been meditating on this question for days and still have not distilled a complete answer.

These past twelve months have been wildly textured, rich with hurt and joy, adventure, romance, back-breaking labor, stress that made us brittle then relief that rinsed us clean and made us pliable again, accomplishments, failures, more accomplishments, and so much popcorn.

Thank goodness for homemade popcorn, really, and all the cuddling that comes with it.

I do not count myself among the folks who are weighed down mourning the apparently disproportionate loss of celebrities this year. To each his own, for sure. I admit that our 2016 In Memoriam will be a tear jerker when those video montages start circulating, but my real actual life has been such a roller coaster of grief and joy, and that roller coaster has lasted for so many years with almost no acknowledgement from the outside world, that I have little need to mourn strangers. Does that sound cold or dis-compassionate? It doesn’t feel that way. I just feel fairly focused on this gorgeous little nine-acre bubble here. Well, these nine acres plus all the places on Earth where our disconnected loved ones call home.

Love knows no property lines, of course. And maybe also not time.

I can barely remember whether I declared a big glittering resolution a year ago, but I am so happy to look back and see that the year was far better than I could have hoped or achieved on my own. The Law of Attraction must have a built in clause about excess and grace, because so many things have happened beyond my wildest imagination, it’s thrilling. I feel healthy, settled, strong, grateful, excited, nourished, and eyes-wide-open, you know?

That last one bears a cool distinction because for a while (a few years) there I was living so much by faith that my eyes were shut tight. If that makes any sense. I had to drive fast and hard and follow the curves completely blind in order to keep moving forward.

I am still relying on faith, as it always should be, but now minus the constant terror.

Anyway. If I had a resolution or even a theme word for 2016, I don’t remember it and have little interest in searching my blog or journal to know for sure. Life has brought me (us, I hope) to a better place.

Instagram “Top Nine” offers the following memories, based solely on likes:

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It was fun to walk down that lane. But I don’t put everything on Instagram. Those photographic archives don’t show the late night conversations with Jocelyn, the private moments of reflection spent reading challenging books, and certainly not the irreplaceable romance I enjoy with my husband. Even logging most of my sweaty, hard-earned miles one digital place or another, I cannot see anywhere online how much running has changed my life. My sister Angela’s full-spectrum journey back to health and the family is nowhere on the internet, and neither is my husband’s amazing career evolution.

No collective experience on social media, not even on this blog where I indulge myself constantly, can paint the full portrait of my life lately, and that’s good. That’s really, really good.

We still have unfulfilled longings, unanswered prayers, and goals for which we strive constantly. This also is really good, because we remain (mostly) humble and hungry.

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It’s the last day of a spectacular year, and I just want to say THANK YOU to God, to all the elements of the Universe that have converged to answer our hopes and reward our work. I want to say thank you to our friends who have helped shape our world so beautifully, and even to our few enemies who are just living their own lives, after all. We learn plenty from you, and we don’t feel hate anymore.

Handsome and I have not quite decided how we’ll celebrate New Year’s Eve, because we both assumed it would be easy to find the right event, but everything locally is sold out, ha! It’s fine. Friday night we attended a wonderful engagement party for our friends Tami and Jason, and tomorrow night we are hosting a casual bonfire to kick off 2017 with easy fun. So if tonight we stay home with our animals and soak up a quiet countdown to midnight, that’s fine by me.

Homemade popcorn and cuddling sound perfect.

Then on to dreaming big for 2017.

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See you next year, friends!

XOXOXOXO

soul cake

Hello, happy first weekend of December! Long time no blog, haha. That’s getting to be the usual around here, but not for lack of things to share or writing urges. Evolution is in the air, though, and I am happy about it. Blogging will pick back up in time.

A good portion of my week has been spent up in the Apartment, sewing aprons and towel sets, organizing Christmas gifts, making yarn crafts, and playing a not-low-key-enough game of fetch with Klaus. Between tasks we chase each other back and forth along the length of the second story and up and down the stairs. We have wrecked many a laundry basket and more than a few framed paintings on the wall in the hot pursuit of slobbery tennis balls. His slobber, to be clear, not mine. Okay.

These hours immersed in creative projects have been so nourishing. My thoughts are clicking into place. My physical energy is adjusting from slightly obsessive marathon training back to a steadier, stronger norm. And I have lots of beautiful textiles to show for the time.

This was a fun custom order!
This was a fun custom order.

The soundtrack of this past week has been mostly Sting Christmas music. One of the best songs kind of sums up life lately. Soul Cake. Do you recognize it? Please go give it a listen.

Soul cake, soul cake, please good missus a soul cake.

An apple a pear a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing to make us all merry.

I actually feel like we have been feasting on Soul Cake for weeks. Life has taken a delicious turn, and we feel nourished far beyond even the good done by a few days in the Apartment.

Thanksgiving with my family was beautiful. Aunt Marion and Uncle John hosted us locals, including sweet Grandpa Stubbs. My sister Angela was with us, such an answer to hopes and prayers. The nieces (when did they get so tall and skinny?) kept everyone entertained and stocked up on cuddles. As always the food and surroundings were perfect. We feasted and laughed and healed each other a little and made a thousand sparkling memories. We wrapped each other with love. It was an excellent beginning to a long, cozy winter.

My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).
My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).

 

Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.
Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.

 

I feel like this photo will go down in infamy.
I predict this photo will go down in infamy.

The Soul Cake feast began before that, too. Handsome and I managed to spend a few precious days in Estes Park with our oldest, maybe my fifth trip to visit since she moved there but Handsome’s first. Every minute with her is worth a hundred written pages. She makes us proud and happy, and we cherish the opportunity to see the world through her eyes. That quick weekend also gave us a good appetite for winter and all the wintry holidays. (But let’s not talk about extreme altitude sickness, which is apparently very real. I discovered the depth of this particular despair for the first time on this last trip and hope to never experience it again.)

We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can't you tell? xoxo
We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can’t you tell? xoxo

I often fall asleep saying thank you thank you thank you for so many things. From our marriage and family to my husband’s career and my own secret aspirations, from health and well-being to finances, and every little thing in between, life is amazing. So many answered prayers, miracles of every shape and size, unexpected blessings, and innumerable joys. Even the remaining heartache is so clearly encased in the glow of hope and faith that it barely casts a shadow. This is not one of those fake it till you make it seasons. It’s a bright, hard-won time for celebrating. And we intend to seize it.

God bless the master of this house

and the mistress also

and all the little children,

that round your table grow.

Soul cake is everything around us lately. The food we eat, the people who love us, the work we are lucky to do. Soul Cake is time and energy and reading material and music. Movie nights, cowboy parades, Santa sightings, and twinkling light displays. Scriptures, traditions, desperate prayers answered beyond our wildest dreams. It is all abundant for us, for our children, for the generations before us. Our friends are Soul Cake for us and we hope to be theirs.

Nourished in all these way, fed heavily on Soul Cake, the Christmas spirit comes easily. On this first weekend of December I am already effervescent and relaxed. Giddy, really.

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Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions...xoxo Check out those longhorns!
Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions…xoxo Check out those longhorns!

We were talking this morning about the sustainability of Christmas traditions. We were between donuts in our pajamas and the Christmas parade in Stockyard City, and the radio ads were full speed ahead with materialism. I am feeling the exact opposite of worried about that. Because the extra nonsense always falls away in its own time. We are healthy and strong in our Souls, because of all the Cake, and that’s what matters.

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We hope that you’ll be kind

with your apple and your pear,

and we’ll come no more a-soulin’

till Christmastime next year.

How is your winter starting out? Are you feeling hopeful and confident, or do you need a heavy helping of what nourishes you? Either way, I wish you all the very best. We have plenty Soul Cake to share if you need some.

Happiest of Decembers, friends.

If you haven’t got a penny
a ha’ penny will do.
if you haven’t got a ha’ penny
then God bless you.
XOXOXOXO

 

friday 5 at the farm: nourished

Hi friends, happy Friday! Lots has been happening, as always, and I am remiss in sharing a thousand great stories and photos with you. Life continues to be full to bursting with beauty and surprises around every corner.

For now, for Friday, let’s pause to notice the things that have been nourishing us, the features of average daily life that keep us going day to day, task to task. Are you game? Here are five of mine, lately. I would really love to hear what has been fueling all of your grand adventure and such, too. 

1. SOUP. I am really in deep over soup right now, maybe even more so than salad, which is saying a lot. My favorite ones to make at home involve lots of chicken broth and chicken and maybe lentils, some raw kale, a squeeze of lemon, twist my arm over half an avocado why don’t you. My favorite ones at restaurants lately have been this chicken Florentine potion (So creamy! So much celery!) and one gloriously plain and satisfying cauldron filled with clam chowder. Here in Oklahoma we are barely cold enough for soup yet, really, but every chance I get it’s happening. Makes me feel so great deep in my bones.

2. NATURE, always and forever, especially views like these…

view

lily-lake

3. TIME with my people. Romantic getaways with Handsome, quick caring afternoons with girlfriends, nighttime walks and long sunshine talks with my daughter, Face-timing with my sister-in-law and newborn nephew, meaningful conversations with my best friend (Handsome again), extended cuddles with my dog. (Yeah for sure he counts as one of my people.)

hike-w-joc-bridge-lily-lake-nov-2016

4. STORIES like that of Jesse Owens. Have you seen the movie Race? Friends, it’s so great. In fact, may I strongly suggest that you watch it with your family this holiday season. We all need some balm on our hearts. Agreed? His story is told beautifully in this film. And not for nothing that it’s about running, okay?

5. THANKS and all the amazing energy that flows from the giving of it. Gratitude is a trans-formative force, lest we ever forget. I have lately been enjoying a ribbon of happiness thanks to, well, thankfulness. The more you rest your mind on your blessings, the more you show your appreciation, the more you mean it, the better. I think soup helps with this, as does spending time in nature and with your people. So do great, inspirational, true stories; they give us hope on so many levels.

Pretty great little cooperative effort we have here.

What is nourishing you these days?

“I consider that all which lives must feed itself and nourish itself
in a manner suitable to the way in which it lives.”
~Giordano Bruno
XOXOXOXO