Making space for living life

My favorite magazine right now is The Magnolia Journal, by Joanna Gains of HGTV's "Fixer Upper".  I love the clean lines of the layout and Jo Jo's personalized photos and stories, as well as her themes of "Hospitality" and "Simplicity". The journal and Joanna are so inspiring -- not just her design skills, but the way she lives her life.

But it's hard to take Joanna's simplicity advice seriously when she's filled her life with two TV shows, a wildly successful decorating business, a bakery, a greenhouse, a farm, the Silos stores, a new book, a restaurant, the journal, travels, four kids and a hyper active husband.  She's worked extremely hard for all that she has in her life, but her pace would kill me.

In the past three years I have focused on my own version of "Simplicity" which looks a lot different for me than it does for Joanna. I have been aware of the concept of "Simplicity" for the last 23 years because it's one of the Quaker tenants -- Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship.

But just over three years ago I knew I needed to make a big change in my life and really live into the concept, in an effort to "make space" for what's really important to me.

I won't go into all the details here of what my life was like before the change, but...

...simply put, life became very complicated and I had no "space".

I was a basket case. I couldn't sleep, I didn't have energy for exercise or for preparing healthy food, I had gained weight, I didn't have time for friends -- even for my good friend Cindy who I worked with. I didn't have any hobbies, and I was angry and stressed with my family all the time. I had no space to breathe. None. I felt like crying all the time.


So I made major changes, including a job change (I'll talk about another time). The simplicity of my current position, and the space it opened in my life, has been life changing.  I have had time to focus on my iPhone photography passion and fulfill a goal of having artwork in an exhibit. While sharing my photos on social media I have connected with new friends and reconnected with old friends who tell me the photos inspire them. I took up kayaking as a hobby, enjoyed spending time outdoors, breathing fresh air, listening to birds, working my muscles, and staring at sunrises and sunsets. Space to breath.

The best thing, though, is that I made several new friends through kayaking; lovely, artistic, progressive woman who are my kindred spirits. I also had time and energy to join a book club where I developed deep and meaningful friendships with women who I didn't have time to get to know previously. And I started doing yoga again -- another opportunity to develop friendships with like-minded men and women. I've also had time and energy to be a doting grandma, a mom to my teenager, and a devoted wife. I now feel happier, more content, lighter, freer, and more focused, without the urgency of a demanding job that offered few rewards.

"Enough with grace is abundant life" 

My current life is very, very far removed from Joanna Gaines's life. Jo Jo does more before 9am than I do in a week, I'm sure.  Maybe a month. What she calls simple I call exhausting. But we all have to live into the life that works best for us personally. We can't compare ourselves to others and judge our success (or lack of) by their accomplishments.  We also have to set our own appropriate boundaries -- and defend them with our life!

When my friend and co-worker Cindy passed away last summer I was reminded that life is much too short to fill it with things that won't matter in the end. That's why from now on I want to give my attention and energy only to those things that feed my spirit and enrich the spirits of others.

Friends. Make space for friends.

I'm not sure how I could have coped with Cindy's death had it not been for the support and love I felt in the new friendships I had developed over the last two years -- simply because I had the space to make friends.  Keeping things "simple" has made a world of difference.

 

"Keep life simple so we are able to live in harmony and
 alignment with soul's purpose."