Cold Turkey

I drove home with a mind bursting like an over-sized belly pushing out between shirt buttons on Thanksgiving. No music. No phone calls. Just me and thoughts spilling out of my ears. It’s easy to devour introspective-feel-sorry-for-myself-thoughts but it’s better to take a healthy serving of reality. I decided that I’m going cold turkey with stress. It’s not really working out for me anymore.
5 truisms about my stress:
  1. I have to get to a place where overwhelmed doesn’t threaten me, everyday.
  2. I can get through anything if I know it’s only a period of time.
  3. Ironically, saying ‘I’m stressed’ doesn’t help with the stress.
  4. Good friends are good.
  5. There are no excuses to loose my sense of humor. Don’t stop laughing.

On the Road to Vacation

As I entered the mind battle of unplugging from work, I looked out the window across the corn rows at the tiny flickers made by lightning bugs (a bug on my ‘acceptable’ bug list). Looking over the field I wondered: is life simpler out here or just different.

I felt like I was driving through a new narrative to my life.
The glimmers of light across the dark country felt peaceful. I was no longer the overwhelmed underling working to convince the world that I could do it. Country air or not, my head was still full but less frantic. Frantic was subsiding.
My thoughts rolled in like the cool layer of night air- So this is why people take vacations…

On the Road to Vacation

As I entered the mind battle of unplugging from work, I looked out the window across the corn rows at the tiny flickers made by lightning bugs (a bug on my ‘acceptable’ bug list). Looking over the field I wondered: is life simpler out here or just different.

I felt like I was driving through a new narrative to my life.
The glimmers of light across the dark country felt peaceful. I was no longer the overwhelmed underling working to convince the world that I could do it. Country air or not, my head was still full but less frantic. Frantic was subsiding.
My thoughts rolled in like the cool layer of night air- So this is why people take vacations…

A Product Of

When I said, “we are just a product of our environment,” I wanted to crumble the words up and swallow them down as if they were never spoken. Time travel machine be invented sooner.

If you want to make big change, you have to start small.
Jessica Jackley (co-founder of KIVA.org)
My deepest fear is that I will loose the sparkle of who I am as I adapt to the culture I’m in. When I studied in Mexico, I was so cognizant of how much I stuck out- no matter how desperate I wanted to assimilate to the majority. I tried, but once a mid-West white girl, always a mid-West white girl. In Mexico, I craved identification with the hispanic culture but in this new place, I crave change without being consumed.
Do the little changes we make add up to something more than romantic dreams of a utopian workplace? When I look back over 2 years, will I see the small ripples of change compounded over time?
As I grow, I see, in full 20/20 vision, that change also starts with yourself. I can only be out of who I am. Big change starts with self.

A Product Of

When I said, “we are just a product of our environment,” I wanted to crumble the words up and swallow them down as if they were never spoken. Time travel machine be invented sooner.

If you want to make big change, you have to start small.
Jessica Jackley (co-founder of KIVA.org)
My deepest fear is that I will loose the sparkle of who I am as I adapt to the culture I’m in. When I studied in Mexico, I was so cognizant of how much I stuck out- no matter how desperate I wanted to assimilate to the majority. I tried, but once a mid-West white girl, always a mid-West white girl. In Mexico, I craved identification with the hispanic culture but in this new place, I crave change without being consumed.
Do the little changes we make add up to something more than romantic dreams of a utopian workplace? When I look back over 2 years, will I see the small ripples of change compounded over time?
As I grow, I see, in full 20/20 vision, that change also starts with yourself. I can only be out of who I am. Big change starts with self.

Roses In Roses Out

As part of my graduate studies for professional counseling each student was required to attend a number of group counseling sessions. After finding an Al-Anon group that fit into my schedule, I couldn’t think of an excuse that would leave me guilt free so integrity talked me into my first Al-Anon group.

I found a lot of people who had been broken by life and were making it through one day at a time. But I was in church work (still am- sort of) and was familiar with doing life with broken people (self included).

Here’s the thing that struck me- on my first session, a woman who resembled an older worn out version of Marisa Tomei captivated the room. As she shared about her husband’s journey towards sobriety it was clear that he had found another woman and was ready to leave the marriage. Her words came from an empty place and I wondered how much longer her waterproof mascara would hold up.

When she started talking about anger, her gaze went to the floor and she described a bad root growing in her. It’s a little melodramatic, I know, but I think we’ve all been there. When the anger takes hold deep in your gut and you know it shouldn’t be there but still it grips you and all of the fruit that you give out is rotten.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” Philo of Alexandria

It’s a pretty simple concept: Roses in, roses out. Rotten in, rotten out. I don’t think I need to reflect on this tonight but I do think each of us needs to take care of the inside self enough that we reflect life and vitality to the world, and more importantly, to each other.

Love,
Hanna

Roses In Roses Out



As part of my graduate studies for professional counseling each student was required to attend a number of group counseling sessions. After finding an Al-Anon group that fit into my schedule, I couldn’t think of an excuse that would leave me guilt free so integrity talked me into my first Al-Anon group.

I found a lot of people who had been broken by life and were making it through one day at a time. But I was in church work (still am- sort of) and was familiar with doing life with broken people (self included).

Here’s the thing that struck me- on my first session, a woman who resembled an older worn out version of Marisa Tomei captivated the room. As she shared about her husband’s journey towards sobriety it was clear that he had found another woman and was ready to leave the marriage. Her words came from an empty place and I wondered how much longer her waterproof mascara would hold up.

When she started talking about anger, her gaze went to the floor and she described a bad root growing in her. It’s a little melodramatic, I know, but I think we’ve all been there. When the anger takes hold deep in your gut and you know it shouldn’t be there but still it grips you and all of the fruit that you give out is rotten.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” Philo of Alexandria


It’s a pretty simple concept: Roses in, roses out. Rotten in, rotten out. I don’t think I need to reflect on this tonight but I do think each of us needs to take care of the inside self enough that we reflect life and vitality to the world, and more importantly, to each other.

Love,
Hanna

The Art of Growing


In my childhood I was a real life version of the awkward girl in teen movies complete with glasses (my eyes were not the same prescription, so one eye was more magnified than the other regardless of how much I squinted), clothes from my great aunt who wore flamingo pink lipstick and loved garage sales, and…wait for it… head gear for my braces. I collected rocks in the alley behind our house, which I think were just chunks of asphalt and dull pieces of broken glass. I freed my brothers pet turtle so I could live out “saving the planet” like the back of my Hardrock Café t-shirt commanded. My go-to food was grits with American cheese and I was afraid of ghosts.
Looking at my life through a philosophical lens, one might say I was a flower waiting to bloom. I think I was just growing into me. I’m still awkward but I have found that confidence can do a lot to mask nerdy blemishes.
Although my childhood was spent blossoming and discovering who I was, only one word comes to mind for my 20s: pruning. Pruning, like the shriveled up dried plum that I would pack for lunches (not making that up).

John 15:2 (The Message)
He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more.

So how is it that I actually allow for pruning to take place? How does a person let their guard down enough to ‘let go, and let God’?
It takes a different discipline to bloom and grow than to step back and prune. I’m not even sure what should be pruned right now but I can’t deny the need for it. At the end of the day, I know I’m not the person I’m going to become, yet.
Happy trimming.

Photo courtesy of Wes Legg

The Art of Growing

In my childhood I was a real life version of the awkward girl in teen movies complete with glasses (my eyes were not the same prescription, so one eye was more magnified than the other regardless of how much I squinted), clothes from my great aunt who wore flamingo pink lipstick and loved garage sales, and…wait for it… head gear for my braces. I collected rocks in the alley behind our house, which I think were just chunks of asphalt and dull pieces of broken glass. I freed my brothers pet turtle so I could live out “saving the planet” like the back of my Hardrock Café t-shirt commanded. My go-to food was grits with American cheese and I was afraid of ghosts.


Looking at my life through a philosophical lens, one might say I was a flower waiting to bloom. I think I was just growing into me. I’m still awkward but I have found that confidence can do a lot to mask nerdy blemishes.


Although my childhood was spent blossoming and discovering who I was, only one word comes to mind for my 20s: pruning. Pruning, like the shriveled up dried plum that I would pack for lunches (not making that up).

John 15:2 (The Message)
He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more.

So how is it that I actually allow for pruning to take place? How does a person let their guard down enough to ‘let go, and let God’?


It takes a different discipline to bloom and grow than to step back and prune. I’m not even sure what should be pruned right now but I can’t deny the need for it. At the end of the day, I know I’m not the person I’m going to become, yet.


Happy trimming.



Photo courtesy of Wes Legg


Choose Friends Wisely


 I believe that at each person’s core we are meant for relationship. Even the people that don’t like people need relationship. Sorry people haters. Despite the fact that forced relationships are work, I have come to realize that life happens with other people.
Although I can sustain through my introverted self, I’m enjoying relationships that draw me out of myself, challenge me, calm me, and cause excessive laughter (the one coping skill I refuse to let go). In the middle of what I think is a difficult time in my life the people around me have picked me up from dark places more times than I realize.
Would I be the same person without these significant relationships in my life? Are we only as good as the people that surround us? If that’s the case, choose friends wisely.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival” -C.S. Lewis