Choices that energise

This morning I am excited, I have just finalised my trip to Perth! I will have 5 full glorious days in the city for the wedding of one of my oldest and dearest friends, actually she is more like my sister than my friend. I am excited for her, for our friendship, for the wedding itself but also for me. I feel like I have lived 3 years already this year and it is only September so it will be really nice to take 5 days to escape and just relax..

If I am honest I feel like I have spent this year growing into me, I've been working on my spirit and removing all the toxic stuff and I feel strong again. Strong in who I am and ready to give back. I think this Perth trip will be the bridge between finding my feet in who I am and living that out. Does that make sense? I feel like so far this year I've been very self focused, the time and energy I have been investing has been into me, my healing, my family, my home, my friendships, my passions, being at home in a new but old city and now I feel like I am ready to give back. To invest in others, to contribute to my community and to move forward with my purpose.

I'm not saying that I have my life together or that I'm going to stop working on me or my relationships but more that I feel like I have been stretched and that those things are flowing quite naturally so now I have space and capacity to take on more. I also feel like I know me enough that I can make wise choices about what to take on. I know what energises me, I know what ignites my spirit and where my passion lies which means I know what to pick up, what to say no to and what to put down (I don't always make choices that reflect that knowledge but I'm working on it). I think as people we have amazing capacity and potential and that if we chose wisely most of us could do more than what we do. I think the problem is not how much we try to fit into our lives but what we try to fit. We try to fit things because we "should" not because we feel a "need' in our spirit. When we choose to fill our lives with things that speak to our spirit we have time and energy and it sparks up a different life inside.

I feel like this is a lesson I am in the process of learning. When I look back over the last 7 weeks, my world somewhat fell apart at the exact same time as I decided to facilitate at evening college. Now generally it would be wise when facing such a season to put down things rather than pick something new up but I'm just not cut that way so that's not what I did. Facilitating was something I was excited about doing and after the first night I knew that it was exactly what I needed in this season.

It didn't matter what had gone on in my week or my day or how tired I was when I was because as soon as I was in that room leading my small group I was alive! Being there fed me and it sparked a spirit for life that flowed over and into other areas of my life. I got stuff done when I got home at 9.30 pm, I slept better, I felt peaceful and energised, I looked forward to Wednesday. In spite of everything going on in the rest of my world or the fact that I was giving my time and energy and bearing my soul to the people in that room I was still being me and it was the breath of life I needed. The experience has inspired me to try to choose like that more often. I want to try to choose to put down and say no to the stuff that drains and to pick up the stuff that breeds life.

As we approach the spring/summer season of bbq's, Christmas parties and end of year celebrations, I pray that we can take a moment to listen to our spirit and to put down the things we should do and pick up the things we need to do xo