Shaking Off a Foggy Heart

I am 2/3 the way through a large latte and 3/3 the way through a honey and fig scone.  It was one of those scones that got it right.  The dough was barely sweet and the figs brought that tiny granular texture....and I wish you had shared it with me.  I enjoy enjoying things!  You are one of those elements of life that I enjoy enjoying.  Know that you are enjoyed today.

Here's a question, do you know how to get to your heart?  Yesterday was day 5/5 of solo parenting while Zion was away.  Sometimes when he is gone, I am the least good at making space for my heart to surface.  Do you know what I mean?  Solo parenting is a mixed bag... there's more demand on your non-stop energy being poured out.  But there are also more gaps of space that are all yours.  The evenings for instance!  But, when he's gone it's either feast or famine for me.  Dude, I carry the main load of day-to-day parenting while he carries the load of providing financially for our family of Spencers.  BUT LET US NOT UNDERESTIMATE the impact and load lifter of Daddy coming home each night, chatting, rough housing, and the biggie: sharing bed time responsibilities with me. Reading one of them books and cuddling.  Oh, let us not underestimate that help!  So, sometimes when he's gone, I get to those moments by myself in the evening and I can't resist zoning out.

Mind you, zoning out is a KEY ELEMENT to the health and survival of motherhood.

But, zoning out breeds more zoning out for me.  Zoning out in moderate doses produces good fruit and health.  Zoning out continuously on my off-times produces a foggy heart.

What's that one....you know the one that says our heart is the source of life? Ahhhh yes there it is:

Proverbs 4:23
"Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."

Foggy heart Abi leads to lost Abi.  Foggy heart Abi leads to 'huh? Abi.'  

And while that state of fogginess is a real feeling, it isn't really true.  The older I get, the more leery I am of living from my feelings as a trustworthy story-teller.  It's that odd paradox that avoided feelings lead to death but also, when we take our feelings to the bank as truth-tellers, well, dem lead to death too.

The foggier your heart becomes, the louder the story of your emotions becomes.  The louder the story, the easier it is to believe.

Emotions do tell us a story and by no means do I want to shut mine down.  But they can serve as an entry way back to Truth if we let ourselves become curious about them instead of being owned by them.

So, how do we get back to letting our hearts breathe?

A few ideas that we can give a shot, even on the craziest of days:

• Think/pray to yourself: "Come back to life heart."
• Note: reading that sentence on the screen is not the same thing as thinking it/praying it for your self.  In essence, you are saying to everything that has attached itself to your heart and clouded the way, to take a hike.  You are reconnecting with your heart and Him, by simply acknowledging it/Him. 

• THEN, get curious and watchful.  
• That's it.  Start listening for your heart.  It will feel things, and truth will start becoming louder.  You may not have time to deep dive into it.  So just make a note of it and come back to it, when you can.  

• Acknowledge the things you do to avoid your heart when you do have time for it to come out and play.
• And then commit to saying no to that avoiding thing, the next time you could say yes to it.  This is not permanently cutting out those things.  It is simply choosing your heart/Him over the thing that helps us hide in the one next opportunity you have.  

• Think to yourself, "Being kind and intentional with my heart is important."  
• Your heart is the wellspring of life.  It where His life pours into and out of.  It's very very important.  

Don't you wish we could sit and compare notes 48 hours from now???  If you want to send me any notes on your experiences, please DO IT!  I would love to hear!!!  

Cheers to our hearts, reader friends!

Much love,

Honest Abi

Before You Sleep Tonight...

Ernest Hemingway: "If a writer stops observing, he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed." 

Julia Cameron: "Once writing becomes an act of listening, instead of an act of speech, a great deal of the ego goes out with it." 

Julia Cameron, in my own paraphrase: We are all writers.  

Good evening reader friend.  You are genuinely dear to me: your mind, your heart, your time, your spirit.

Let's observe for a moment.  Just take a deep breath and picture yourself slowing.  Let your brain slow.  Observing starts in the brain, moves down to the soul and then seeps into the spirit. 

When I say spirit, you have one.  Everyone does.  Having a spirit has nothing to do with whether or not you are a person of faith.  It is a part of who you are.  It's the layer and the place beneath your soul - and the soul is where emotion lives.  If the soul is where emotion lives, the spirit is where truth lives.  Where the truth of who you are lives.  If you are a person of faith, this is where the Teller of All Truth resides.  Indeed, that sounds bizarre.  But, faith does lead us beyond reason.  It leads us beyond.  

Take a few cleansing breaths.  And now listen. What's in the depth of you?  What does the deep feel? If it feels uncomfortable, it's normal.  Just stay there.  If you're not feeling anything, it's okay.  Ask God to help you connect.  

If you're like me, I get to that deep place and I look at her and observe both as her and as one outside of her.  I see her wrestle, I see her true joys, I see her questions, I see her weakness, I see her beauty.  I ask Him to help me see what He sees when He looks at her.  You can do the same.   Keep taking the deep breaths and will yourself not to run.  And now I say, come Lord Jesus.  You don't have to claim Christianity to try those words out.  What do we have to lose? Come Lord Jesus.  Come Truth. Come.  

And this is the place, the rooted place of depth, where the Truth is that 

You are protected.

You are loved.

You are known.

You are seen.

You are covered.

You are intricate on purpose.

There is a Helper.

He has the way forward.

It's okay to feel stuck.  You're not really stuck...but it's okay to feel it.

I am praying for you this evening.  Asking Him to touch the deep part of who you are.  The truest part of who you are - regardless of whether or not you know that part of yourself.  He does!  Asking Him to speak to the truest part of you...to let you hear the truth right now.  

Sleep in peace, my reader friend.  

Much love,

Honest Abi

Psalm 42:7 

Deep calls to deep at the [thundering] sound of Your waterfalls;

All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.