Verbally Processing

We hear a lot of voices every day. Social media, opinions of friends, family, and even strangers, business coaches and courses, and even ourselves. Sometimes it’s so confusing and frustrating and we don’t know which voice to listen to!!

People like to tell me what I SHOULD do. They tell me I should coach swimming, teach piano, do this business idea or that business idea. Sometimes all the voices are equally loud and I don’t know what to do.

I think it’s true that you have to listen to yourself or you will feel frustrated. But what if your voice isn’t reliable? What if you’ve been so swayed by all the other voices that you don’t even know where you stand?

I recently spent two months at home, and today on the Verbally Processing Podcast I'm sharing the lessons I learned during my time home.

Have you ever been through something when what God sends you doesn’t make sense?

What makes a scar story so relatable? And why do we share scar stories as kids but not adults? 

In today's episode, I dive head first into the topic of scars, vulnerability, insecurity, weakness, and shame. 

Today I share the amusing (or sad, depending on how you look at it) story of how I got the scar on my chin. I've had it since I was almost 13, and I don't think about it in my day to day. It's become a part of me. 

I'm telling the story today because it's something I'm sure people have wondered, and it's a story I love to tell from my childhood. It brings back a lot of fun memories telling it. 

It also sparked my interest because 2 years ago I wrote a blog post telling the story and it got the most engagement out of any post I've ever posted. Come back next Tuesday to hear me share why I think it connects with people and also why we tend to shy away from telling stories about our scars, physical and emotional, as adults. It'll be a deep topic you won't want to miss. 

If you enjoyed today's episode, feel free to leave a rating and a review. 

Every time I arrange my callings, my business ends up at the bottom of the list, and my own personal entertainment isn't even on the list at all. But without fail, time and again I end up putting my entertainment at the top, my business second, and everything else afterwards. How can I reorient my callings and put my priorities in their place? Listen in for more.

The comparison game. We've all played, we all hate it. Today I break down some of my thoughts when I compare myself to others and talk about how I've found freedom. 

I think a lot about my personality. The good, the bad, the ugly, the Enneagram, the Meyers-Briggs, and what God has to say about it all. Today I'm processing the idea that I am not a slave to my personality. Read more at https://christijohnsoncreative.com/personality

Yep, it’s another coronavirus episode. There are so many events, stats, feelings to process. And that’s what I do here on this podcast. I process and I try to find hope through it all.

So, the first two weeks of “shelter in place” I was actually feeling super good. Then last week things started to feel not so good. I’ve felt a range of emotions from sad, to irritable, to frustrated, then sometimes to content, happy, grateful. It’s A LOT to process in a short amount of time, and I’m sure many of you feel the same way.

One thing that’s contributing to the feelings is that there is so much noise in our world right now! So many posts about what to do, how to do it, what you should be doing, how you should be thinking and feeling. On top of that there are SO. MANY. ZOOM CALLS. I actually feel like I am talking to people more than normal. There are also so many interesting things to do or watch. Museum tours, drawing lessons, reading hours, etc. At first it felt exciting to me, now I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do with it all.

How many closed chapters do you have in your life? Maybe it was a job, a summer program, school, or a season with a sports team. We all have a lot of them, that’s for sure. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I experience sadness when I think about the closed chapters in my life.

We have another layer of closed chapters in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. So many chapters were closed without people even having time to prepare for them to close. 

I have a lot of closed chapters. I absolutely love where I am now. But sometimes it makes me sad that I can’t do it all, or that some chapters of my life are over and I’ll never experience them again to the same extent that I did when I was in them.

How can we find comfort during these situations? Here are my suggestions:

1. Recognize that God has you right where he wants you
   
2. Recognize that God is sovereign over all things, even your mistakes
   
3. Recognize that your calling is the path right in front of you
   
4. Recognize that all of your experiences are what make you you, and God prepared you every step of the way.

God is the great weaver, and he's weaving the threads of our lives into a perfect tapestry. 

There will be a lot of closed chapters. C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters writes, “He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time, which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity or with the Present--either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

God cares about our sorrows. He cares about every part of us. Let’s stay the course. Let’s do the next right thing. And let’s keep our minds fixed on Jesus.

Today, I'm putting a different perspective on COVID-19. Everything seems terrible right now. People are suffering, losing their jobs, weddings are being canceled, work is being canceled, and maybe you're not sure how you will make it. Everything seems terrible right now. People are suffering, losing their jobs, weddings are being canceled, work is being canceled, and maybe they’re not sure how they will make it.

Today I’m speaking to all the moms out there that are unexpectedly homeschooling their kids. I’m talking to all the people that are now working from home or have even been laid off. I’m talking to everyone whose wedding has just been postponed, whose next project has just been put on hold, or had to cancel an event they were working really hard on. I’m talking to photographers, business owners, and creative entrepreneurs.

Could God be using this as a gift in your life? For my full blog post on this episode, visit https://www.christijohnsoncreative.com/covid19gift

Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/christijohnsoncreative

I experience an overwhelming desire to talk about things. To get them out in the open. But talking about it doesn't seem to be enough. I don't feel settled until I share it with someone. When I moved to California last year, I realized that I'm a verbal processor! I hadn't put it into words because I always had so many friends to talk about things with, so I didn't realize anything was missing until I moved to California and didn't have any friends around me. One night, at 3AM, I had a revelation that it was time for me to start a podcast. I wrote down 80 episode ideas. I was on a roll! 

But then, I started to doubt myself. I started to feel afraid, weak, scared. I thought, "who am I to share all these things to the world? What do I know? What do I even believe?" You see, so much of what I knew was changing. I wasn't even sure of my identity anymore. I spent my whole life hiding behind the things I did: photography, piano teaching, music ensembles, swim coaching. Then, when I got married and let go of a lot of that, I put my identity in my friends and family. But moving to a new place shook me up. I realized I didn't know who I was anymore. What I found in that dark hole was a lot of pride, anger, frustration, anxiety, worry, and fear. 

In that place of fear I lost joy. I became depressed, lazy, unmotivated, and irritable. I started to distract myself with entertainment and media. I felt so weak. But when the COVID-19 pandemic started, and I lost all my work and I was forced to live with the quiet, I realized God has been trying to get my attention all along. He was saying to me, "wake up Christi!!! Stop being so afraid!! Let me strengthen you!!" 

Something has awakened in me and I realized that I do have something to say. I do believe in something. Maybe my overwhelming desire to share things just means I was meant to create and share. And I'm ready to share with the world what God is doing in my life. My hope with this podcast is that the things I say will be relatable, they'll be honest, they'll be encouraging, and they'll point you to Jesus. 

Visit my website at www.christijohnsoncreative.com
Follow me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/christijohnsoncreative