Tag Archives: thoughts

March 15, 2012 · 9:55 pm

Layover Reframe

The first text from Southwest Airlines came this morning at 8:24 PHX time. My flight home to Austin was delayed about half an hour. Throughout the morning, I got alternating texts; my flight was on time or it was delayed. They couldn’t quite make up their minds. I got on my flight from PHX to HOU without too much concern for how it would play out, assuming the 30 minutes wouldn’t make too much difference. When the plane touched down, along with everyone else, I pulled out my phone and turned it on. Suddenly it’s blowing up with texts from Southwest that my flight is delayed until well after 10. As I sit here typing, the latest is a departure of 11:10. Ack. I’m tired, irritated, and I just want to be at home. While texting with a friend of mine, she asked for my high and low from the conference previously mentioned and I listed the current layover delay as a low. Her reframe:

“It’s the universe’s way of getting you to slow down and reflect one last time before jumping feet first back into reality.”

Sounds better to me than being all pissed off about it, right? And given that I may have just talked about the importance of reflecting, here goes, y’all.

These Student Affairs conferences always leave me pondering my life, identity, choices, direction, and purpose. It’s a bucketload of items to consider, mull over, and ultimately act upon. A snippet from one of the conversations I had with a Dean of Students has stuck with me because it was about implementing and acting on your priorities. She said, “if it’s really important to you, you will find a way to make it happen.” Now isn’t that just simple, profound truth? Speak it, my new friend. While it is certainly applicable to the topic we were discussing, this nugget gave me the insight into many moments throughout the duration of the NASPA conference. I’ve been ruminating on whether or not to get my PhD for years. YEARS. There are times when I feel quite compelled to start the process, or I feel like I ought to have it, or it would be a mistake to not have it. But more often than not, I am not moved to pursue it. But if it was important to me, I would make it happen. It’s just not quite the right fit for me and my life, at least right now. It was actually a great relief to be able to tell people this time around that I’m just not ready to commit to it, and I’m okay with that. Cause y’all, “when are you going for your PhD?” is a common question at these conferences and you have to be ready to deal with it.

Generally speaking, though, I think this is advice worth printing out and putting on my bulletin board – sort of the modern day version of embroidering a little pillow or something, yes? If a work project is important to me, I will make it happen. If a personal life choice is important to me, I will make it happen. If a goal is important to me, I will make it happen. Bam. Git’r done. Otherwise, life keeps moving and things don’t get accomplished. Sometimes, perhaps, what is important to you might not be important to other people, but friend, those other people are not living your life. They don’t look at you every day in the mirror. You do. So if it’s important to you, get busy doing and figuring out how to make it happen. You got this!

What are you going to get busy doing because it’s important to you? Anything that you felt you should do because it was important to other people that you can take off your plate because it’s not actually a priority for you? I give you permission for that. It’s your plate and your life.

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March 13, 2012 · 8:56 pm

Silence is Sometimes Golden

I’m a pretty big extravert. Huge, really. One of my top five Strengths is Woo. My mother likes to say that if I’m in a room with strangers for too long that pretty soon I’ll have a social calendar organized, new friends made, and folks connected to each other. I’m good at making friends. My grandfather had this gift as well so it’s reasonable to assume that I come by it honestly. 🙂 I might not talk to total strangers as willingly as he seemed to, but give me 40 years and maybe I will then. More often than not my energy comes from being around people and having a good time.

Sometimes, however, peace for me is not being around people. There can be too much of a good thing. I’m at this Student Affairs conference and one of my goals for the conference this year was to be more relationship focused, rather than being so tunnel-vision minded about attending sessions. It’s been going well for me, but it comes at a price. There has been little time for reflection, processing, and being silent. Currently I’m in my room with no music, no talking, no noise except the keyboard and it is blissful. In 8 minutes I will walk over to a reception where I will kick my extravert into gear one more time and get back to the business of relationship building. I love relationships, and I’m not knockin’ ’em. But sometimes, the silence is peaceful – even for an extravert.

I’ve taken so much information in over the last 2.5 days – either from educational sessions, long talks with people, or snippets of introductions with other folks. The silence gives me a chance to mull it over and reflect. Too much dissonance with noise, networking, group work, introductions, and so forth has left me just a smidge unsettled. So in this moment, I am thankful for the silence. It allows me to regroup and prepare myself for round 46. It also reminds me that in my regular life that I need to make a space for silence and reflection. My regular life may not be as noisy as a conference with 4,500 of my closest Student Affairs buddies. However, there is no less need for processing and reflecting on what I’m learning, where I’m wanting to go, and how I want to get there.

I wrote a blog post recently for my Student Affairs colleagues on balance and there is much discussion on whether balance even exists. Y’all, I believe it does – it just exists differently for each of us. And you can’t have noise all the time, nor can you have silence all the time because then you start to take the one you have all the time for granted. Make a place in your life for both, I think it’s good for you. And in my case, a little extra silence brings me peace – so maybe it will for you too.

And I’m off to make new friends! Ready or not, here I come!

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February 13, 2012 · 10:43 pm

What Are You Thinking??

I’m reading this really cool devotional book this year, courtesy of my mother and Christmas. It’s called Jesus Calling by Sarah Young and if you do devotionals, you should check it out. It’s pretty awesome. A line in yesterday’s reading said, “as your thinking goes, so goes your entire being.” I found that to be fairly significant given how much of my thought-life has been very negative and pessimistic lately. There has been little peace in my thoughts, my being, or my life in the last few weeks.

I believe it is difficult to just up and change your thoughts, but I do believe that thoughts/what you think can be very powerful. If you spend your day ruminating on how blessed and thankful you are, despite whatever junk comes your way, you are liable to be more cheerful and pleasant to be around. If you spend the day stressed about the junk, thinking and exuding, “poor pitiful me, my life is so terrible, woe and woe again” then you may find yourself wallowing in your pit of self-despair all alone. At least I find myself alone in that pit on those days. It stinks. Yes, I have real problems – we all do. But I cannot let them rule my brain or my life. I was not created to submit to problems, stress, woe, and discord. I was created to live an abundant life full of joy, love, peace, and thankfulness. Even when experiencing the crap that may come my way, I can choose how I will respond to myself, those around me, my Creator, and the instigator of the crap. The challenge is to choose joy, love, peace, and thankfulness. Challenge.

So what am I thinking about today? How can I choose joy, love, peace, and thankfulness?
– I am thankful for a job that allows me to pay my bills, provides me with health insurance, and is currently quite challenging for me.
– I am loved by so many people. I can forget this because I don’t talk to them all every day, but I am loved by people in at least 10 states off the top of my head and I love them all back so very much.
– I can have peace knowing there is a good plan for my life and it will all work out for the good.
– I have peace knowing there are people in my life who pray for me regularly.
– I am thankful for forgiveness and grace, daily.
– I have joy when I laugh myself silly with my friends and loved ones.
– I have joy when my d-group girls and I have meaningful conversations.
– I love my cat. She’s awesome and loves me back, every day.
– I am thankful for the rain and have joy when the sun comes back out.

I need to be more careful about my thoughts and do better to control them rather than letting them run away in my brain. No good comes of that. What are you thinking about these days? I’d love to hear what’s on your mind!

PS – Meatless Monday #2 was a relative success. I just need to remember that Greek yogurt isn’t a full meal and eat more for lunch. Doh.

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