I know I’m a broken record, but I CANNOT believe it’s July. Here’s what went on in June:
🤔 A thought I’m processing [on living on purpose]
💕 A thought I’m loving [on values and desires]
🗳️ A poll [on your Inside Out character]
🔗 Some link love
📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts
🤔 A thought I’m processing [on living on purpose]
I’ve noticed recently how much my life caves to what CS Lewis describes as “the pressure of the ordinary.” So much of my life is reactive. I just respond to the next thing. Maybe in big, long-term, and far-away decisions, I consider my values. As long as there’s not too much stress in the choice. Most of my life is just in the day-to-day. And too much of that is just responding to my basic drives (hunger, feeling emotionally or physically better, or minimizing stress).
I’ve been thinking so much lately about living on purpose; making conscious choices in my day-to-day that help me build a life in the present that aligns with my truest, deepest self. (shout out to my IFS folks)
I even constructed my summer cohorts for my church around this; around figuring out what that even means and how it looks.
(I decided this summer to form these cohorts around specific things I want to work on! And so they offer accountability for me to actually APPLY some of the things I think about. You can join this cohort if you want! It’s virtual and free!)
💕 A thought I’m loving [on desires and values]
Very much related to the above enjoy some excerpts from Designing the Mind:
“When you reflect on your life, ask yourself if you really chose it.”
“The goals that you have set for yourself may be ones sold to you by the larger culture - ‘Make Money!’ ‘Own your own home!’ ‘Look great!’ - and while there may be nothing wrong with striving for those things, they mask the pursuits more likely to deliver true and lasting happiness. In this case, your priority should be to discern which goals will make you happy in the long term and to follow them.” - Sonja Lyubomirsky
Research shows:
“…wanting and enjoying are two entirely separate phenomena…When you reflect on your values, you don’t feel a sense of cravng, a motivational force pulling you toward them. They are always there, but unlike desires they allow you to neglect them if you choose. Desires are the screams you can’t ignore, but values are the whispers it is often hard to notice.”
🗳️ A poll on [who is driving your ‘Inside Out’ brain?]
One of the tiny details I liked about Inside Out (1&2) is that each person has a different emotion in charge in their brain. For the main character - it’s Joy. But for the mom and dad, it’s different, (Sadness & Anger respectively). It’s got me thinking - who would you describe as in charge in your brain? (Obvi there are more options than this in real life).
Some link love
Cohort I’m leading this summer (figuring out your values!)
A poem that killed me on trying for kids
A graphic on grief that I couldn’t agree with more
Some mid-year check-in questions
The intro to my journaling cohort (with some research that BLEW MY MIND)
📆 What you missed in June
Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them.)
Good Theology’ - a little personal rant
Dayeu - an exploration of the Hebrew word for “It would have been enough”
Thoughts on Journaling, attachment styles & God (May’s newsletter)
I gotta challenge you on the Inside Out poll. The choices are:
Joy, which seems to me a decently positive safe reasonably pleasant emotion and then a bunch of not so awesome choices like fear, anxiety, sadness, embarrassment, anger, envy and disgust. Which to me seem equally...yuk.
I would love an A-, B+ option between JOY and Yikes! (fear, anxiety, sadness, embarrassment, anger, envy and disgust).