Its Mama……S is for Speakerphone, Simple, and Sanctuary
S is for Speakerphone
Children, I would have liked to see your expression when you saw this week’s S words for my blog. I can only imagine the chuckle and thought, “where in the world is she going with this speakerphone thing”?
There is truth that as you age you see things differently, or maybe even the same but more authentically. In any event, what I am realizing as I age is that not every thought we have in our heads needs to be shared with the public. Our environment perpetuates that “it didn’t happen if it is not posted to social media (guilty) or it is not important if not shared on Insta, or even are we even really living if we don’t express ourselves and our opinions out to the world?” But the reality is that with so much conversation, information, dialogue, and even at times, warring put out in the public view, our genuine selves are often diluted with excess information. We live in an environment where we constantly have on our “Speakerphones” so that the whole world can hear not only our conversations with others, but also our innermost thoughts, opinions, and realities both good and bad.
Some would argue that this bonds us with those we are sharing, and I agree that that can happen, but I suspect what happens more is that it keeps us from having depth to our own spirits. There seems to be a place and reason for public sharing which cannot be discounted. But I find both personally and within my practice that the habit of throwing every thought you have out in a public venue can prohibit true growth within which comes from pondering on our thoughts and feelings internally and within the confines of our own hearts and heads.
We work on this a great deal in therapy….”Thought stopping” to external venues and “Thought exploring’’ within the confines of our selves…the true place where emotional, spiritual, and physical maturity really takes place.
I am not opposed to occasionally “speaker phoning’ others, but I am working on myself to be more introspective and to share less externally and more internally…where God lives as I truly believe that is where our hearts will best grow.
S is for Simple
In 214 days from today, I will turn 60 years old if God so blesses me, and I hope He does. It is the season of “legacy living’ where it us usual for folks my age to start looking at their lives and their contribution to this world. It is appropriate because we are typically still young enough to grow into who it is God calls us to be while old enough to learn from the mistakes while dreaming of our future. What seems to change is our focus. No longer are we typically in the accumulation mode, but rather, we seem to stretch into the give back, give away, give of ourselves mode…and I am finding that I love it!
This is the season where we realize that “this world is not my home” and that “I’m just passing through” as the song goes…
There is a peace that is alighting on me from this knowledge….and, I am loving it.
Joy that comes from caring enough to listen to the opinions of others knowing that it does not require me to adopt them
Calm that comes from being in the presence of those who would seek to hurt or be ugly to me realizing that I don’t have to receive it
Love that comes from understanding that we are all God’s children, and as such, He is present with each of us…and, we will see it, if only we but look
That is why I try to spend as much time as I can in the presence of my brother, Jim, for he truly emulates those traits I want to grow within me….at times, his peace, patience, and expressions of unconditional love have confounded my immaturity, but I have learned that if I follow his lead, I, too, will come to realize that
God calls us to love…and love is what God calls us to
And, in that there is enough…of everything else… to bring about our best selves
I asked him a long time ago, “Jim, how do you manage to find peace, joy, and love for everyone even when it is hard?”
And, he quietly replied, “Sis, you make things too complicated…keep it simple”
“Just love”
“If you will just love the person, then God will handle the rest”
And he is right
When I keep it simple and on love, all other things seem to drift away
There is a clear view of life when there are few distractions
There is depth to my thinking when I remove negativity or fear or frustration and foster simplicity
Keep things simple
Keep your life simple
Keep your thoughts simple
All we really need is God….and, God is all we need
S is for Sanctuary
Every year for the past four or five years, I have been blessed to go at least once and often times, twice a year to The Abbey of Gethsemane. It is my safe place, my secure home, the place I feel closest to my spiritual self. It is my sanctuary.
Sanctuary by definition is a place of refuge or safety and that is what The Abbey is to and for me. A professor at EKU introduced me to The Abbey early when I was in graduate school encouraging us go as a form of self-care as we enter into the profession of counseling, and she was right to do so.
She shared we are given but one life and it is one of our tasks to figure out how to balance caring for others within the safety of our therapy rooms and care for ourselves within the environments of our homes.
She encouraged each of us to find that place of sanctuary and to go visit it often for in the filling up of our spiritual and emotional selves we are best able to encourage and help others with theirs
Once you enter within the gates of The Abbey, there is no talking permitted
I love that
It took me the first full day of my first visit to resist the urge to say something to someone and to “let myself go inside my thoughts” as one of the Fr. Encourages us to do.
Then, as I continued to visit, I would get frustrated when others “broke the rules” and talked when it was clearly marked, “No talking beyond this point”. That same Fr. Seamus must have seen my look of frustration for he said, “you have been here often enough to understand that the true sanctuary is within your own heart and head”
I love that
And I continue to grow in the realization that truly, my sanctuary is wherever God is….and, in that knowledge I genuinely do find peace
I am realizing that it is okay to step outside of this world of maintaining our own existence, fostering family relationships, maintaining friendships, caring for my beloved clients, and even walking my dog to step within the shelter and security of the sanctuary of time alone
Time with myself
Time with God
Which brings me to why my favorite scripture is my favorite…
“If you will draw near to God, if you will be but silent, He will fight the battle” – Exodus 14:14
No matter what is your battle, my earnest prayer is that you are able to find your own sanctuary and go there often…
ILYAOYMC,
Mama
