Tag: peace

BTS Week 12: Finals

Donna Joy

We did it!!!!

For the last 12 weeks, we’ve worked our way through our homes and spaces with the goal of heading into the holiday season with more calm, noticing what works, subtracting what doesn’t, and adding tiny habits that make our lives feel gentler. No perfect-home goals here. Just small steps toward calmer spaces and truer reflections of who we are.

As we move into a season that can feel loud and fast, I hope you are heading into it with a little more space to breathe.

So…how are you doing?

I’ll go first: I was doing okay. I was doing the things. Not all the things, not all the time. But I was doing the things.  And then I decided to add one more thing.

Then another.

Then another. 

and before I knew it I had like 57 big giant things on my calendar over the next month. Why do I do this???

It’s easy to feel like a failure and let things slip. But last night I had a bit of a revelation.

Yesterday I saw a contractor my husband had scheduled arrive on our security camera and felt a spike of panic. I didn’t know they were coming. I hadn’t “gotten the house ready.”

Then I realized: the house was fine.

They could walk in and get to what they needed. Yes, a few things had to be moved where they were working, but there was space to move them. There wasn’t an avalanche of shoes at the front door. 

Even in this very busy season, I can feel the difference. I may be exhausted heading to bed, but my clothes are (usually) set out and tomorrow’s coffee is pre-measured. Less last-minute scramble. Less searching. 

Over the last three months we’ve tackled making our beds, setting out our clothes, simplifying mornings, doing the dishes, streamlining pantries, smoothing our entrances and exits, and making space for creativity.

We’re ready for finals.

The Final Exam

For our final exam, we have two images to compare/contrast and two questions to think about. That’s it. Oh, and it’s an open book exam – feel free to look back at any of our notes from this past semester. 

Image One:

(Where’s Waldo crowd scene)

Remember these books? “Where’s Waldo” has entertained thousands simply by hiding one striped character in a chaos of distractions.

Before you get too distracted trying to find Waldo, let’s move on to image two:

Image Two:

(Social distancing Waldo cartoon by Clay Bennett for the Chattanooga Times Free Press)

Now for our questions:
Which Waldo was easier to find?
What made it easier?

Here’s what I’m learning:

So often in life we create that first, harder version for ourselves, because we think the solution to not being able to find something is to add more. We want to find “Waldo” but end up burying him in a crowd.

Some examples that may or may not be personal testimonies:

  • I can’t find matching socks. So I buy a dozen more pairs of socks so I never lose a matched pair of socks again. Then the next time I need a pair of socks, I have to dig through a sock drawer version of “Where’s Waldo” looking for what I want.
  • My kids can’t find a snack they like in the pantry. So I buy 3 kinds of bars, 4 boxes of fruit strips and a Costco variety box of snacks. Now my kids have to swim through a life size Where’s Waldo page to find anything and the fruit expires before they can eat it all.
  • “I want more rest, more creativity, more joy.” So I buy the latest gadgets, tools, and systems promising to make my life easier. Instead, they add to the sea of tiny red-and-white imposters crowding out Waldo.

Adding more didn’t help me find anything. It just made more places to lose stuff.

The key to finding Waldo was never in just adding more.

It’s in less.

Like the socially distanced cartoon of Waldo above, when we simplify and remove the excess, what we are looking for is so much easier to find. 

Rest and creativity aren’t found by piling on more.

They show up when we remove the distractions and create space for them.  

That’s what these last twelve weeks together have been about: bedrooms and pantries, doorways and nightly resets, minimizing and giving tiny gifts to your future self:

Simplify, subtract, create space…and what matters slowly becomes easier to find.

Peace, calm, and joy don’t arrive because we do or buy more.
They show up when we make room.

This is the work  –  and the gift we’ve been giving ourselves for twelve weeks.

Let’s keep going.

Week 10: Thresholds and Doorways – Part Two (Addition)

Donna Joy

Welcome to week 10, where we’re doing the hokey pokey, turning ourselves around, and heading back out the door.

Last week we talked about thresholds and the “doorway effect” – how walking through a doorway sends a signal to our brains to leave behind what’s on the other side. This often means forgetting why we walked into a room, buuuut, we can also use that effect to our advantage, letting go of the stress of the workday, the grocery store, or the commute and leaving it on the other side of the door.

When our entryways are piled with shoes, bags, and a box of cement (just me?), that transition can feel more like a continuation of traffic jam stress than a clean slate.

Last week’s focus was subtraction – clearing out a little clutter each day and noticing how people in your household move through the entryway space.

This week, we’re shifting to addition.

What do we take with us when we leave home?

Sometimes it’s stress – a frantic search for missing keys or that feeling of already being behind.
This week I want to take some small steps to make it something better: the calm of knowing where things are, small confidences of feeling prepared.

I love thinking of that prepared feeling as giving myself a little gift for the future.
When I put my keys in their designated home, it’s a tiny gift to future me.
And the next morning, I get to unwrap that gift – walking out the door just a little more calm, a little more ready.

I love that feeling.
And I want to take more of it with me as I step out each day.

This week: addition through intention

Let’s talk about what we can add this week to give ourselves that confident, prepared feeling as we leave our homes.

When I observed our entryway last week, I noticed that shoes are our main culprit. They’re almost always scattered around, in the way. Since the front door is literally in my dining room, it means that clutter is not just clogging up the entrance to our home,  it’s an uninvited guest at mealtimes and throughout the day, too. My instinct was to fix it immediately. But I know when I jump to solving as soon as I see a problem, it usually involves a “click, add to cart” solution. I want to slow down this week, and see what I can rearrange thoughtfully, with what we already have, instead of rushing to what Amazon tells me will solve all my problems.

Addition doesn’t have to mean more stuff.
It can mean adding thoughtfulness, intention, or a sense of peace to a space.

This week’s assignments:

101: Add one thing that will be a gift to you tomorrow.

  • Designate a spot to hang your keys and practice hanging them there every day.
  • Place a small token, like a photo, or post-it note near your door that reminds you to take a breath and embrace peace, presence, courage, or patience.
  • Maybe it’s simply adjusting something small so your space works better for you. Can you add a basket just for mail, with a recycling bin right below it, so as you bring the mail in the door you can immediately trash the junk? Or add the habit of walking over to an existing garbage/recycling bin with your mail as you walk in the door?

Whatever it is, let it be something that makes leaving your home, and arriving back, feel like a smoother, kinder threshold to cross.

201: Pick one thing to add to your daily routine to make your going out and coming home a little easier. Can you set something out the night before? Or create a small ritual for arrival, like turning on a lamp, lighting a candle, or putting on music?

Reflection:

Instead of getting down on ourselves for things undone, or clutter left out, what would it look like to give yourself gifts for the future? Getting my lunch ready to go the night before is one less thing off the mental to do list playing on repeat in my brain when I try to go to sleep, and having it ready to go each morning means I’m not just feeling more prepared, I’m also more likely to eat a little healthier than grabbing a bar on the way out the door. Which helps create an upward spiral through my day.

Consider this your invitation to do the hokey pokey – turn around, take a deep breath, and step into (or out of) your day with intention.

This week's assignment pad