Tag: reflection

An Invitation To… Reykjavik, Iceland

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As we leave the colder months behind – which I am *so* excited for – I wanted to reflect on my visit to the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik (pronounced rake-ya-vick) with my husband in 2015.

I just can’t say enough good things about the Icelandic culture. The people are beautiful, the natural landscapes are beautiful, but that beauty is not limited to skin or surface. Each person and place we encountered was welcoming, friendly, and exuded peace. Let’s dive in.

Something I learned…

Icelanders learn up to three languages in grade school: Icelandic, English, and Danish

When visiting Iceland, we treated it as a true “stopover” for 3 nights on our way to Ireland. We went on a Super Jeep tour of the Golden Circle, which is easy to do since it’s only 2 to 3 hours outside of the city.

We experienced the gamut of nature, seeing rich green vistas with rivers snaking through, bright white glaciers, overcast skies blanketing an active geyser, followed by afternoon sunshine over massive rushing waterfalls. All in one day! One of my favorite things about our tour was our guide, Ingi. He gave us tidbits of Icelandic history in between stops across the country’s majestic landscape.

Some fun facts we learned:

  • Not only do most Icelanders learn the 3 languages above, they typically do so before the age of 12.
  • Icelanders are purposefully peaceful. Iceland has no military force, and police officers don’t carry guns.
  • Most of Iceland is powered by renewable energy sources, primarily geothermal.
  • There’s no McDonald’s on Iceland.
  • Iceland has a universal healthcare system that is both available and affordable to all.
  • If you dare… you can try unusual (and controversial?) local fare including whale, shark, and puffin.

Something I ate…

Reykjavik is known for its coffee… and hot dogs

Right?! The fabulously gorgeous land of Iceland is known for dirt cheap delicacies? It’s true. I particularly adored the coffee at a quirky, hippy joint called The Laundromat Café. Yep. You can eat and do laundry there. My little Type A heart is swooning at the efficiency of this concept. And we had the BEST hot dogs at a little permanent food truck-ish place called Baejarins Beztu Pylsur.

We also had divine fish and chips, Viking beer, and more delightful snacks on our short trip. Too little time to try it all!

Something I felt…

The holiness of nature

Call it the slow pace of vacation, the fresh air lacking petrol fumes, or the proximity to the ocean… but I really felt sparks in my faith here. No matter where we went, I kept thinking over and over: God is so masterfully creative. In just one country, He picked so many colors, textures, and shapes for us to feast upon with all our senses. Mindfulness naturally came here; I didn’t have to work for it like I normally do.

How do you capture a raging waterfall in a single frame? How do you box up a miles long glacier into one photo? You don’t. But I hope to impart a bit of Iceland’s magnificence with a few of my measly snippets below.

Wrap Up: Peace be with you, every day

Whether you want to visit Iceland or just want to escape your day-to-day, I hope you feel these same feels when in nature. That you may always be in awe of how it catapults you into its endless depth, full of surprises and full of reverence.

If Iceland is it, then I can’t end this post without mentioning a stop to Hallgrimskirkja Church… for the views. Pay a small fee, then go to the top of the steeple where a 360 degree view of Reykjavik awaits. It is a grand experience seeing the mountains and ocean so close to each other, colorful row houses bunched together, and little dots of humans roaming about the city. Absolutely breathtaking.

There’s so much more to tell, but I’ll leave that to you to discover.

What would give you a full mind, belly, and heart in the next city you explore? Follow more of my “invitations to” adventure at the top right of the page: Home > Travel+Bug.

Challenging the Relationship between Trust and Fear

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When prompted with the subject of trust in my women’s writing group, Illuminate Writing, I found myself wondering how fear and trust are related. How the two are intertwined, yet at odds with each other. Turns out after a quick Google search, that many agree: trust and fear are inversely proportional to each other. So, the more fear I have, the less trust I have. And the more trust I have, the less fear I have.

In other words, trust must be far greater than fear to eliminate it. 

Sometimes, I like to go to the Bible when I can’t get my head around words that capture me. Regarding fear, the first verse that popped into my head was this:

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” — 1 John 4:18a

This verse mystifies me. It is simply stated but difficult to practice. On my less confident days, it feels like a standard I’ll never live up to. On my more optimistic days, it feels like an invitation that I can rely on. Fundamentally I believe this verse is a call from God to trust Him with everything in my life. This level of trust has no room for fear to live out the purpose He has placed on my heart—despite rejection, failure, even the fear of silence when I crave specifics. But I also believe it addresses the fear we have in our closest relationships with others, especially in conflict.

When tension arises between me and a loved one, it’s uncomfortable. It often results from one or both of us having some truth within ourselves that we feel we cannot speak aloud. Digging deeper, it seems we fear speaking our truth when there is a lack of trust of how the other will receive it. Our behaviors betray our feelings, resulting in reactions that downright oppose our individual truths.

It can be terrifying to be exposed, seen, and known, unless I have full trust that I will be accepted and loved just the same. Because when I speak my truth without fear, I am actually trusting myself and not relying on the other person’s response. 2020 in particular brought this concept to light for me. How many of us share the same truths across the board on masks, vaccines, AND healthcare response, not to mention the state of the economy and the racial justice movements in our midst? I engaged in more enriching conversations than ever last year by pushing past fears of surface-level acceptance that long held me back.

In essence, I’m learning to accept the risk of an unfavorable outcome. This can range from a simple misunderstanding with quick resolution, to an intense life-changing battle. The paradox is that the bigger the risk, the more I fear what I say and what I do not say in equal measures. If I trust myself, how will my truth land? If I don’t trust myself to speak it aloud, can I survive? What will I sacrifice either way? How does it align with my loved one’s truth?

In the verse, note the phrase “cast out”—which is different from avoiding. To cast out is not to bypass, but to remove it, like a cancerous tumor, before it consumes. How can I access this “perfect love” that holds so much power? The stakes are high when it comes to trusting myself with a spouse, family member, best friend, or lover. At the highest level, I often wonder: is “perfect love” most attainable after surviving one of life’s most gut-wrenching fears—death of a loved one, divorce, trauma, prison, bankruptcy—to find a lesson in love through the worst imaginable pain? Love when fiery anger melts into genuine compassion. Love when it sees past someone’s behavior to their shame and doesn’t turn away, or shame back. Love when it hurts to decide whether to speak or not speak, to stay or leave, to grieve, to forgive.

I won’t fully know what Jesus meant in 1 John 4:18 until my earthly life is over. Until then, I rely on this: I can trust myself. I can trust the pure example of perfect love that I believe Jesus exemplifies. And both levels of trust will help grow my expression of love into a force that banishes fear from existence in my most precious relationships.

This post was inspired by a theme from Illuminate Writing by the editors of The Kindred Voice who share womxn’s powerful stories.

Please check out these amazing writers and their posts on Trust

Trust is Hard to Come By by Mia Sutton
My Superhero in the Sky by Sarah Hartley
Pattern Making in Parenting by Laci Hoyt
In How We Trust by Liz Russell

Original publication date: August 27, 2020

Why I’m Obsessed with Metacognition

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Last summer, I was listening to a podcast that was discussing metacognition – the notion of thinking about what you’re thinking about. Here’s the formal definition for my fellow Webster nerds:

Not sure yet how I feel to admit this, but I haven’t been able to stop analyzing my thoughts since. Not every single thought, of course, just the big ones that make me stop and say: “Wait. Is that really true for me?”. I was probably doing it subconsciously before, but now I have a word for it: metacognition. It helps me shift my perspective when I need a fresh look at a tough or undesirable situation.

Here are a few recent examples of what’s rattled my brain…

First thought: “Holy crap. I can’t believe I have to leave the house for work every day in the middle of a pandemic.”

Next thought: “Wow. I love the quiet time I get in the car driving to work every day. The traffic is manageable, and thank God I haven’t gotten sick this whole time.”

First thought: “I left my blog alone for a month. How on earth will I get back into the groove of writing.”

Next thought: “I left my blog alone for a month because my day job got a lot more interesting, and I’m up for a promotion. I have so many new stories to tell about faith, women in engineering, and self-worth.”

First thought: “Ugh. I only worked out twice this week. I’m behind on my goals and feel exhausted.”

Next thought: “It’s time to reassess my goals this week and back off where I need to. On the plus side, finishing The Glass Castle and a couple Grey’s Anatomy episodes felt AWESOME.”

This week, I also finished the book The Dance of Anger by Harriett Lerner. It has completely changed my perspective on anger. It is going to take a LOT of unlearning, but I am amazed at how differently I see anger already. It’s always felt like such a charged, negative emotion for me. But I learned that anger can be a tool to help tell you what you need to do to take care of yourself. It is possible to look at anger as a neutral emotion, instead of an emotion that beats up my self-worth and makes me feel “wrong” for feeling upset.

The book reminded me that I’m entitled to all my feelings, especially anger. It’s just what I do with it once I feel it that makes all the difference. And after this book, I have so many more options to deal with my anger than my standard go-to’s of over functioning, blaming, and defending. I highly, highly recommend it for women, since it’s written for us specifically. I plan to read it again this year (and, nerd alert, take some notes this time).

Metacognition helps me mind the endless “what if” scenarios that can plague me and overwhelm me. Metacognition is an antidote any time I have self-imposed feelings of self-doubt. Metacognition, guided by two of my favorite allies—grace and gratitude—powerfully tames my coronacoaster thinking, so I can hold onto a realistic yet positive perspective throughout life’s daily curveballs.

My Word for 2021: Heal

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I wasn’t planning to have a “word” this year. I only learned of the practice a few years ago, and I’ve picked maybe one or two annual words since then. It’s typically hard for me to land on just one thing. I don’t want to be disappointed if this one thing, one thought, one feeling doesn’t come through for me. Also, my FOMO kicks in and says, but don’t forget about X, Y, and Z.

Anyway. I just got a couple’s pedicure with my husband, and “heal” came to mind. I loved the symbolism. Heel on feet reminds me of self-care that’s been a large part of my healing, even if I sometimes question if I’m doing it “right”. Heal: something I’ve been trying to do for over a decade now to actually feel closure from past traumas. As I pondered “heal” in the quiet of the spa room, with music gently playing and essential oils lightly diffusing, it resonated deeply.

Trigger warning: I want to heal from childhood traumas that play out internally for me on a daily basis. My dad was an abusive alcoholic who moved away when I was 13 and passed away in a car accident when I was 16.

To shift gears to a less triggering place, I know that everyone has traumas. The more I see my own trauma without judgment, the more I can face it. Some form of childhood trauma affects all of us: not getting picked for a team, the humanity of parents, falling down when we’re sure we can stand up, etc.

I’ve seen 3 therapists since college. One smiled and nodded after I shared my story, then handed me a pamphlet that said, “What it means to grow up in a dysfunctional family.” I experienced a mini trauma from this because no one in my family had used those words before. But deep in the recesses of my mind, it slowly awoke a new awareness.

I described this experience a few years later to the next therapist, and to my relief, she said, “well, that probably felt awkward.” She explained that what he probably meant was that I was an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACOA). She gave me a beautiful quote by Nelson Mandela about being a gift from God. But I still wasn’t ready to fully dive in. After four sessions, I stopped going. I learned more about ACOA, buying several books but finishing few.

I’ve seen my current therapist for over a year. But it took me 8 years to try again. And I’ve done a LOT of work. I’ve learned all about codependency, boundaries, ACOA, feelings, and more. I feel more informed and emotionally stable. But certain memories still haunt me. Certain sounds still trigger me. So, I’m starting EMDR (just Google it). After all the self-work and introspection, trying to rewire my brain to get to my heart feels like the next step.

I believe in God, and He promises healing to those who believe and seek. “‘But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the LORD.” – Jeremiah 30:17. I believe in the power of these words. Feeling them is hard. And I know that His promises look very different in real time vs. hindsight.

After all my efforts over the years, I just want to feel peace. I know there is no way to “perfectly” heal, much to my recovering perfectionist’s disapproval. Maybe peace is really my word. But right now, heal is the only way I feel I can get there.

I picked this word on Sunday. After our nation’s utterly tragic, historic events this week, I can’t think of a better time to focus on healing.

Simple Traditions, Solid Ground

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Thanksgiving traditions remind me, like a recurring dream that suddenly reappears

Through patience in prepping and roasting the turkey

Through cheerful pops of cranberries bursting

Through softening of vegetables in the skillet

Through warmth of a freshly baked pumpkin pie

Through those peaceful seconds just after we say grace

That simple traditions ground me when I feel my grip on life slipping

Helping release my sadness at the losses and turmoil that this year brought

Their familiarity keeps me up, gives me hope, that better days are ahead

Time, Mystical Time… Healin’ Me Fine

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Cue one of my favorite songs on Taylor Swift’s Folklore album, “invisible string”…

These days, I’ve grown more aware of how obsessed I am with time. I’ve known for a while that me and FOMO are good friends. Still, I find myself subconsciously trying to strike a balance among learning from my past, living in the moment, and pondering the future. It’s precarious. It used to feel life-giving, where I’d tenuously balance on the edge of control and freedom. Right now, it feels pretty lifeless to be so consumed by time, when it draws out and stretches out for miles that used to feel like feet due to the pandemic.

This year, I often joke that it’s just another day that ends in Y (and thank one of my clients for giving me such a fitting phrase). If I weren’t chronicling my inner thoughts and daily activities so well with a solid journaling habit and this blog, time may feel even blurrier than it already does.

Anyhoo. Remember when email forwards were a thing (a fun, eventually annoying thing), and someone listed all the ways that fractions of time can change our course and give our entire lives new meaning? Like the difference of 0.01 seconds for Olympic competitors who earn a silver medal. I came up with my own list as sort of a therapeutic process, since time has virtually no meaning for me right now.

1 second: The time it took for my dad’s car and an oncoming car to collide, sending him to the hospital where he passed away two days later when I was 16.

1 minute: The time it took to get dunked underwater and reemerge in a roomful of people, where I shared that Jesus was my source of comfort, strength, and hope. Life has been brighter, richer, and more purposeful for me ever since.

1 hour: The time of a single car ride with my favorite mentor who was kind enough to unexpectedly show me how, when I thought I was hiding what I was feeling, I was actually being very obvious about it. This completely changed my interactions with friends, family, and colleagues for me from that point on.

1 day: Time spent strolling the Freedom Trail in Boston with my then-friend from college, having lunch at the Union Oyster House, and visiting Paul Revere’s house. A few years later, I call this smart, funny, generous man my husband.

1 month: The time I needed to start a consistent journaling habit, which has now bloomed into joining a women’s writing group, starting a blog, and seriously exploring and sharing my creative side.

1 year: The length of time I spent getting my Master’s degree in Civil Engineering, only to find myself with little to no job prospects when the markets tanked and the Great Recession started.

Sigh. OK, time has meaning. I needed that reminder. And yet, I wonder. When will I get to plan a get together larger than 8 people again – in person, inside, without masks? When will we go on our next international getaway, something we enjoy doing with friends to immerse ourselves in and learn from a totally different way of life? What is my next big thing going to be IRL, that’s a far cry from the online worlds of Instagram, Medium, and Google?

These are the questions I ask myself, as I enjoy lazy Saturdays sleeping in, reading, binge watching Nashville, writing, cooking fancy meals with my husband, and walking my dog to my heart’s content. All the things I ever wanted to do but never for this long.

Photo location: Fussen, Germany

10 Things I’ve Learned About Myself After 10 Years of Marriage

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My 10 year wedding anniversary is today. I feel like we blinked, and 2020 showed up. There we are in 2010, in the traditional black and white garb, followed by a colorful honeymoon in Hawaii. In the next blink, it’s a blurry, action-packed ride, and 2020 zoomed on in. The year that many of us want to erase or rewrite almost as soon as it began.

I’ve always been a Learner type – it’s one of my five strengths in the CliftonStrengths themes. I love soaking up knowledge, whether just to “know it”, or to categorize and file it away for future use at some opportune time. When I got married, I knew I’d learn and grow as a wife with the same curiosity and vigor that I had throughout friendships, my career, and other aspects of life.

But what I did not anticipate was how much I would learn about myself. Just me, outside of all the other hats I wear. More so this year than the past 9 years combined, I’ve grown and stretched in ways I never anticipated. I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever knew I could. I’m certain I wouldn’t have had this much personal growth without the gift of marriage, where you link up your life with another: hopes and dreams and vulnerabilities, flaws and struggles and fears, all of it. 

To commentate this major milestone, I want to take a different spin and pause from the “here’s how we did it” angle. That is all good and worth celebrating, don’t get me wrong. But today, I’m reflecting with gratitude on all that I’ve gained from the mid-20s woman I was to the mid-30s woman I am now.

  1. There is no limit to the amount of grace I can show my spouse – especially when they don’t deserve it and especially when I don’t want to. It is really difficult to put this into practice. But, the more I try, the better I get. This goes for relationships beyond my marital one, too.
  2. The illusion that each spouse gives 50/50 to the marriage is irrelevant and inaccurate. Some days I feel like I give 65 and he gives 35, he gives 80 and I give 20, etc. There is no magic formula, and self-awareness goes a long way when assessing where I’m at at any given time. (side note: Brené Brown refers to this concept as the “family gap plan” – highly recommend listening to S1, E4 on her podcast, “Unlocking Us”).
  3. Humor is a nonnegotiable asset; specifically, it is a lifeline in the heat of an argument. I really hate it when my husband makes me laugh when I’m just about to land point #378 of how I’m right. But then again I love it, because I get to laugh with him, and the argument ends sooner. I wish I had countless examples of how often I embraced this, but it’s a regrettable few.
  4. My husband is supportive of my personal ambitions, while at the same time keeping me in check when I stray across the line of overdoing it (marriage has definitely exposed the depths of my intensity). But ultimately, I am the one who gives me final permission to fulfill my goals and passions. They may have evolved or shifted from when we got married to now, but they are still mine to own once I’m start pursuing.
  5. Self-care is an absolute necessity, and a practice that I did not intentionally start until last year. I was fooling myself when I thought I was tough or brave or sacrificial if I didn’t workout or take a long bubble bath once in a while. It did not make me “super-wife” like I hoped it would. My dissatisfaction with myself slowly seeped into other areas of my life, until I made the conscious decision to take better care of myself.
  6. I do not like awkward silence; I’ll be the first to fill the dead air with mindless banter to avoid any real or perceived discomfort. However, I learned the importance of autonomy and letting things just “be” sometimes. Magical things can happen in silence, such as moods shifting, clarity to tough decisions, missing each other, and so much more.
  7. This may sound trite, but I discovered I can host parties by myself. As a kid, I was an only child, and all of my relatives lived out of state, so we didn’t have regular get-togethers. My husband has a knack for whipping the house into shape, gathering people around the kitchen island, and cooking a delicious meal. His skills rubbed off on me, and being able to share quality time with friends and family at our house is one of my all-time favorite activities.
  8. The Fruits of the Spirit are my anchor when I am lost and feel like I’m failing, in life or in marriage: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Who doesn’t want one or more of those?! Sometimes I’ll meditate on just one word for a few minutes to help bring clarity to my angst.
  9. I am a recovering codependent. It basically means that you look to others to fulfill your innermost needs instead of looking within. I am now a self-proclaimed work in progress and have woken up to the reality that the Land of Perfection is a fictional place.
  10. Actively choosing to be the things I want to be – kind, joyful, patient, etc. – is incredibly challenging. But, it is way more effective than just wishing or praying for them. I naively thought these qualities would “just happen” and be bestowed on me by willpower or “should”-ing myself. But once I gravitated toward books, sermons, or podcasts with actionable steps that felt doable, I slowly began to grow and mature in grace.

Marriage has taught me so much, and I know it will continue to as I share life with my best friend. I’m closing with one of my favorite quotes that I want to start off with for the next 10 years. Cheers!

Thoughts on Craving More from My Life

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When I read the word “hunger” (a prompt from my women’s writing group, Illuminate), it dawned on me. I am perpetually in a state of hunger. Hunger to succeed in anything I pursue. Hunger to improve as much as I can. Hunger to love better – myself and others – every day. It’s insatiable. While I’m enjoying the ride, I often want finality to this hunger, to arrive at some sort of destination of fulfillment (that’s the engineer in me, but I digress).

But, it’s a catch-22. If I have less hunger, will that make me complacent? If I have more hunger, will that make me greedy? If I maintain my appetite, have I simply arrived at acceptance… or just the illusion of it?

Hunger encapsulates so many things for me. Physical hunger (craving). Financial hunger (success). Emotional hunger (love). Spiritual hunger (soul). Mental hunger (education). Relational hunger (community). An endless menu of desires to satisfy.

Taking them in all at once, with the pandemic as the cherry on top, I can honestly say my hunger in all states has intensified, subsided, ratcheted WAY up, crashed WAY down, and everything in between. When I originally considered this word, it was 8:30am on a Saturday, and I was uncharacteristically starving for a big breakfast (I calmed down and settled for yogurt and berries). Finances seem somewhat stable for once, since many big purchases have simplified–a wedding gift, clothing splurge, or airplane ticket feel far away from my current reality. Emotionally, I’m begrudgingly getting to spend lots of time with all of my #coronacoaster feelings (feelings aren’t my favorite, but I’m less and less resistant). Spiritual hunger is always there–what did Jesus say again: show love to everyone, especially (not except) those who are different, difficult, and/or despondent? Chasing new things that expand my mind is second nature to me, and this season, I’ve become a lifelong anti-racism student.

My reflection on relational hunger surprised me. Intermittently in the pandemic, I’ve had vivid dreams with faceless people where I’m searching for some sort of undefinable connection that won’t manifest. It feels barely within reach before I wake up. I would be remiss if I didn’t attribute at least some of that to the lack of human connection due to social distancing and face masks. Where hugs feel slightly dangerous. Where handshakes feel inappropriate. Where happy hours feel unclean.

Will I ever not have hunger? I hope not. I can control my appetite, but only for so long. And I know I won’t ever “arrive” at an even-keeled state of maintenance, as much as my achiever side wants to. An internal and/or external force can whack that out of balance at any moment.

We are evolving creatures meant to hunger. For to hunger means to be alive, still wanting, still searching. Destination or not, I absolutely want in on craving more, so I can keep soaking up all that I can in this one glorious life.

Follow #illuminatewriting on Instagram for more inspired writing.