The Fruit of Self-Care

The Fruit of Self-Care

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we have been pondering weekly questions to help us connect with our word of the year in order to make it an active part of our lives. This week our question is:

How can you nurture your word with self-care this week?

We can thank Valerie Sjodin for these great weekly questions.  :)

My word for 2020 is fruit. The quote that describes my intention for selecting this word is by Dallas Willard:

"If you tend to the tree, the fruit will take care of itself."

For me, a large part of "tending to the tree" is about self-care practices. Fruit is the by-product of something else. Spiritually, it is the by-product of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. He enables us to position ourselves before the Father for transformation. Spiritual practices or disciplines help us in this positioning, they help us live the life of the Spirit.

Self-care can be a loaded term in some circles. Some may see it as selfish or being self-indulgent. Others may have the view that it is a time waster, something only those who have a lot of extra time on their hands can indulge in. Whatever your view of self-care may be, I hope you'll indulge me in sharing my thoughts on the subject. 

In my own journey, embracing self-care came out of a time in my life when I was experiencing burn-out. I had worked in ministry for quite a few years - the same ministry I work in now - and I was struggling with feeling worn out, having no energy, constantly emotional, and not seeing how I could continue to pour out myself in outreach ministry for much longer. I was running on empty and it felt like the only solution to my problem was to quit my job. I am not going to go too much into the details here, but I ended up not quitting my job, and over the course of a few years of reading, studying the Bible, and talking with a few trusted friends, I found the answer to my burn-out issues was in self-care.

One of my foundational passages of Scripture for self-care is Mark 12:28-31.

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” "

Jesus says that loving God and loving our neighbor/others are the most important commandments. Yet this verse also makes an assumption: that you are already loving yourself. Not loving yourself in an unhealthy manner that is self-absorbent or verges on narcissism, but in a manner that is healthy and good, and that out of that place you will love your neighbor/others in the same manner. To me loving yourself is about self-care. It's about taking care of yourself in ways that keep you healthy emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually so that you can be your best for others. Jesus modeled this when he withdrew and sought solitude, rest and time for prayer. He even did this at the expense of not serving others needs at times. He taught it and modeled it to His disciples. He was so in tune with His Father and the Father's will that he was able to discern when it was time for self-care and when it was time for caring for others. 

Over the past years I have used this verse as a guideline when determining my intentions or goals with my word for the year. Jesus is calling us to love God with our whole being:

• With all our heart - this is our emotional health. Often burn-out has more to do with a loss of emotional energy than physical. So what habits and activities help restore my emotional energy? How can I make time for these activities in order to fill up what has been drained?
• With all our soul - this is our spiritual health. How am I regularly drawing closer to God? What practices can I put into place that deepen my relationship with Him and that help create spiritual health?
• With all my mind - this is our mental health. What am I doing to keep my brain healthy? How can I keep learning and growing? What practices need to be in place?
• With all my strength - this is our physical health. Being physically healthy helps all of the other areas of our health. What practices do I need to put into place to eat well, to exercise, to insure good sleep? What practices do I need to eliminate that cause my body to be unhealthy?

The other passage for self-care that is important to me offers Jesus' prescription:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Self-care is about resting in Jesus and learning from Him. But that's a message for another day!

This week think about your intentions and goals for your word of the year and ponder this:

What am I doing to care for my heart? For my soul? For my mind? For my strength? What am I doing to grow healthier in these areas, so that I may love God with my whole being and love my neighbor/others well? 

(Complete with a pen slip-up!)

"When I stop and rest, I can fill up and that enables me to pour out." ~Sunshyne Gray

Join us in the Living Your Word Community

My friends Bernice Hopper, and Valerie Sjodin, and I share insights through blog posts for creatively living a word of the year. In our Facebook group, we encourage one another by posting questions and prompts to inspire living out a word focus, keeping a journal etc. It is a safe place to ask for prayer and support. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word, you can ask to join our Living Your Word of the Year 2020 by clicking on the link below.

URL for Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingyourwordoftheyear/ 

Hashtag for Instagram:  #livingyourword2020

Check out their blogs:

Bernice: https://newlycreative.com

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/ 

Using A Mind Map With My Word

Using a Mind Map With My Word

The challenge with using a word to guide you through the year is how to keep that word present throughout the whole year. We all start strong in January when everyone's focus is on fresh starts and setting goals, but the energy and motivation can often start to fizzle a early as February. This is where our Living Your Word of the Year group comes in. We share ways to engage with and practice your word of the year all year long.

So far I have looked at how I chose my word for the year and about my journal here. Last week I shared a video and a worksheet on how to do a word study in the Bible for your word, as did Valerie Sjodin. Bernice Hopper shared last week about how her word of the year changed to a new word. Information about joining our group can be found at the bottom of this post. 

This week we are focusing on using a Mind Map with your word. A Mind Map is a way of visually brainstorming. I am a visual person so it often helps me to use a Mind Map when I am trying to get clarity or to organize my thoughts. At litemind.com they describe a Mind Map like this:

"A Mind Map is a visual tool that helps structure information. A graphical way to represent ideas and concepts."

I used a Mind Map to organize and visualize how I want to live out my word this year. My word is fruit and I've decided to use an agricultural metaphor with my word this year, much like Scripture does. So I researched some verbs that are agricultural and have set up my intentions based on these words. By the way, I will be talking about the difference between goals and intentions in the next few weeks.

Another way I'll use a Mind Map is to try to sort through and organize things I am studying. Here is one I did for Galatians 5:22-23, where my word for the year, fruit, is found. I found some great articles and grammatical information and I was trying to sort it all out in my head. Mapping it out really helped as it gave me a visual.

I don't think there is a right way or a wrong way to do Mind Maps, but I do think they are a great tool!

Living Your Word 2020 Opportunity!

My friends Bernice Hopper, and Valerie Sjodin, and I share insights through blog posts for creatively living a word of the year. In our Facebook group, we encourage one another by posting questions and prompts to inspire living out a word focus, keeping a journal etc. It is a safe place to ask for prayer and support. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word, you can ask to join our Living Your Word of the Year 2020 by clicking on the link below.

URL for Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingyourwordoftheyear/ 

Hashtag for Instagram:  #livingyourword2020

Check out their blogs:

Bernice: https://newlycreative.com

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/ 

Vacation and Art - Part 2

The second half of our vacation was spent in the Harrisburg, PA area. We really enjoy taking Fall vacations. The weather is usually cooler, yet still wonderful. We had a perfect week in the upper 60's and lower 70"s and sunshine almost every day. The bonus: it was peak color time in the mountains.  Experiencing fall colors on rolling hills is much different than in flat Northwest Ohio.

While my husband visited an antique auto show I bopped around the Harrisburg and Hershey area visiting art supply stores and taking a photo walk in a park along the Susquehanna River.

On our way home we took a side trip to Falling Water, which is probably the best known Frank Lloyd Wright house. It was an incredible tour of an amazing house. And the fall colors enhanced the experience.

I saw a lot of birds on my vacation and recorded them in my nature journal.

A page from the notebook I've been doing quote art in. Curved edges are an idea from Bernice Hopper's class The Promised Land on the HKC site.

Reading about breathing exercises in The Creative Call and making a habit of taking photo walks as my breathing exercise has been one of the most beneficial things I've done in a long time. It combines solitude and self-care and exercise with being outside in nature enjoying the works of the Creator.

That's all for me today. I'm off to Bliss Cottage and a weekend with my sister. :) Enjoy your weekend!

Breathing Exercise

Earlier this summer we did a book club in the HKC community and read the book The Creative Call by Janice Elsheimer. But I got busy and didn't finish the book. The other day I picked it up again and what I have been reading has been just what I needed. God knows what we need when we need it!

In chapter five she talks about the artist gaining their creative inspiration from the Holy Spirit. So often it is my time in prayer and in Bible study that sparks creative inspiration in me and much of the time I can connect dry times creatively to having not spent much time with God in His Word and in prayer. I tend to suffer spiritually and creatively when I get too busy. It's a constant theme for me and one I wrestle with often as I try to balance the many demands of life with what is best for my heart, mind and soul. So, for the past week I have been reading abut what Janice Elsheimer calls "breathing exercises". She says that, 

"In order to take in, to breathe in, the inspiration God offers us, we have to learn to pay attention tot he world around us."

It's doing things that stimulate our senses and things that give us energy - things that nourish creativity within us. Breathing exercises are "taking time to be alone, to absorb whatever God wants you to take in." It's funny because God tends to speak the same thing to me over and over again to get my attention. I have spoken often on my blog about the battles I have faced with burn-out. As I have studied my Myers-Briggs personality type (INFJ) in attempts to help fight the burn-out tendencies in me, one of the things that came out is the need for me to 'stimulate my senses" in an effort to stem the tide of burn-out. For me, that means getting outside and taking in nature. I've known this, but have been slow to make it a practice. So when I read this chapter in The Creative Call I felt God once again leading me to the same thing, to something He knows will feed my soul and give me energy. In the chapter she really encourages us to simply get out and do whatever it is. Not to talk about doing it but to "just do it". So, on Monday, after getting my work done, I drove over to the park along the river and I took a photo walk. Walking in nature with my camera is relaxing and stimulating, and is even a spiritual experience for me. I planned for an hour and ended up spending two! I took in the water and the birds and the sun. I breathed in the fresh air and listened to the sounds of nature. It was wonderful and I felt my spirits lifting. It was therapeutic. I have vowed to do this for at least one hour per week, to make time for it no matter what is on my schedule or what the weather is like. I went back for an hour on Wednesday afternoon! Here is how I recorded it in my Creative Call journal and some of the pictures I took:

White-breasted Nuthatch

I saw a Killdeer for the first time!

I think this is a Sandpiper but I couldn't get closer.

I'm pretty sure this is a Red-cockaded Woodpecker

I found a bit of Autumn

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Toward the end of my time on Monday I stumbled upon an artist painting along the river. Her name is Patti and she is new to our area. I ran into her again on Wednesday.

This experience also reminded me of a quote credited to Augustine that resonated with me last year:

"Solvitur Ambulando - It is solved by walking."

I really feel so slow in getting the things that God places before me for my good. He just keeps lovingly putting up billboards in my path to help me get the message!

What are your "breathing exercises"?

Bird Sanctuary

We live about 35 minutes from one of the most incredible bird watching area's. Thousands of people come from all over the world each May to catch sight of the many varieties of birds that rest here on their migration journey before crossing Lake Erie. Since my mom moved here a few years ago we have made it a tradition to go to the bird sanctuary each spring. We go the week after bird week to avoid the major crowds. The bird sanctuary at Magee Marsh has a beautiful board walk that meanders under the tree canopy and is a great place for capturing photos of the birds. I have been eyeing a zoom lens for my camera for some time and this year my husband bought the lens for my birthday. It arrived just a few days before our bird watching adventure.

Besides birds, the other thing I thought of there was our theme this month in Take Me Deeper about self care and sanctuary. Being in nature is a place of sanctuary for me. Experiencing God's creation always connects me with His power and His majesty. And being in nature and walking with a camera in hand is definitely something that feeds my soul and brings me energy and joy.