Practicing Abundance

This summer I read a fantastic book called The Upside of Stress: Why Stress is Good For You And How To Get Good At It. It was a life-changing, fascinating read and I learned SO much I will probably read it again soon.  One thing that made a lasting impact on me was the concept that stress could be defined as when a perceived challenge outweighs one's perceived resources.  One: that makes stress largely about perception , not events. Interesting.  Two: if we take Jesus Christ at His word, we definitely have the skills to learn to stress less. Jesus promises that He will be with us, He leaves us His Comforter and Spirit, and gave us multitudes of scriptural stories of followers learning to trust and lean on Him - and succeeding. "I am with you always" , He says.  Jesus Christ is our strength . He is our Resource. Our Reserve. What perceived challenge can outweigh us now?? What earthly power could be stronger than The Creator, Lord, and Savior of our world, not only the...

  I have been hearing about this verse a lot lately.  It is the youth theme for youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the year 2023.  It is part of our study of the New Testament this year.  And it fascinates me with its layers. For such a short verse it has caused me a good deal of consternation. If I can do all things, why can't I get good grades on my homework? Or, why can't I keep the house clean?! Get to appointments on time? Never say snarky things??  Something must be wrong with me .  Not so.  I heard in a conversation recently that "it says you can do all things, but you can't do everything".  *lightbulb* Ahhhhh. That feels better. I had really wondered over the years why we would be told we could do everything when clearly I wasn't the only human feeling like I could barely get through the day sometimes.  Then, I was reading the book of Phillippians as part of my study of the New Testament this year.  I sa...

  $50 I earned babysitting just days after setting my goal to earn $100 in the month of September You may have heard - I have been building a private speech-language therapy practice. It's been a long, sometimes beautiful, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes incredibly frustrating ride so far and it's far from over.  I took the first few months away from my school job to really focus on letting my mind and body recover. It had been a painful, hard year as lupus, allergies, overwhelm and unacknowledged grief surged like the proverbial beach ball of emotions after being held underwater for too long. I was exhausted.  I also recognized how incredibly, exquisitely blessed I was (am) to be in a position to leave my job without intense financial repercussions. As I started to feel like I had found a daily rhythm and care routine that helped my body be well, I also started to feel enormous pressure to "make money" (I do realize this was all from the stories in my head. But it ...

  I recently attended a virtual professional conference through the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), the governing body in my field of speech-language pathology.  One of the presenters (who I particularly enjoyed listening to) shared several concepts and practices that have helped her to build awareness and mindfulness into her private practice life. She talked about identifying and living within boundaries, building, resilience, and living true to our core values, among other things.  One concept that she shared has really stuck with me - the idea of "declaring enoughness". It's easy to want to keep going at the end of a work day and finish whatever thing, or keep trying to achieve a higher level of perfection on a project.  But we can reach a point, or a pre-determined time of day when we can sit back and declare it "enough". We can do this by establishing what she calls "conditions of enoughness" These are her exa...