Anxious? Do You Have 5 Minutes For This Powerful Pause?

Can you take 5 minutes for yourself today for this compassionate, powerful pause?

Yesterday I pushed myself to mental state that I have begun to understand is a red flag. Design time is always tough, and I seem to find a new way to make it tougher each year by trying something new. This year it was the ambitious project to code a program that would spit out dates to avoid the date mistakes of last year. That’s cool and all, but it also means designing a program to design what’s in my head, and it would have been so much easier just to design it in a normal program like I do every year, using tools I have been familiar with since college. I couldn’t get one part working and I was so frustrated! Despair and anxiety also began to add their brilliant ideas and thoughts at the same time, their voices all joining together to create a chorus of cacophony in my brain.

I had, however, also been filling my head with positive affirmations and faith-thoughts not from my own thinking. (The written word is so powerful!).

So I paused.

And I went outside, thinking about what I was striving for and whether it lined up with purpose, destiny, calling, values.

And I laid on my swing and hung my head back and visualized. 

I visualized everything the universe already holds for me. 

The future is already yours; it just hasn’t happened yet. 

I visualized and let the images pour in. Beautiful things I couldn’t quite build that day. Incredible, professional photography of my products, a website that is where a river flows, a river of people. People who need what is on my heart to build. I don’t know how long I was out there. Maybe 20 minutes. I imagined much more, too. About my family, my writing, everything falling into place without me trying so darn hard.

How beautiful is it to imagine that the things you most deeply dream of doing are already out there, waiting for you.

Somewhere on Instagram I read, “your dreams are not just dreams. They are your future self calling to you,” and I loved that, too.

Then I finally went back inside and picked up the hammer. It was time to go back to building.

But it was different after this pause. The pause had more power than the whole previous hour of work.

Do you relate to my anxiety? Can you take a few minutes for this powerful pause?

Can you close your eyes and open your arms to receive everything God already has for you? 

Success in finances or business. Connection in relationships. Healing in every broken part of your life. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? Let the images pour into your fingers while your palms are open and your eyes are closed. 

Extra credit: open your journal and write about what you saw and felt.

Then index it on the first or last page of your bullet journal so you can come back to it when you’re feeling stressed.

The things that truly belong to you—they will find you.

The most important things to your core being, your destiny—they are yours.

Goodness and mercy will pursue you.

Open your heart and mind to receive them.

I’ve learned that the materials I use when I journal matter. While not everyone has the same needs, this is what works for me.

• A Platinum Preppy 02 Fountain Pen, so I can write in the super small lines I like, with Carbon Black Ink, so I can highlight over it.
• Nice highlighters like Mildliners for the highlighting.
• A planner journal hybrid, like the one I created for the ultimate blend of freedom and structure.