Remember when I talked about Balance Athletica's Elevate U Challenge and said that "two of the habits I found surprisingly pleasant and beneficial"? One of them was the morning routine, and the other is "10 minutes of stretching before bed."
At first, this was the habit I completely forgot about or ignored, for a few reasons.
1) My entire nighttime routine didn't take 10 whole minutes; no way was I adding in something that long.
2) I didn't think stretching cold muscles could possibly have any effect.
3) 10 minutes sounded so long and boring.
But one night I decided to try it.
I started with my neck and shoulders, moved to arms, to lotsssss of legs and hips, then back up through everything, ending with neck and shoulders.
The first three minutes felt like an eternity. The last seven went by surprisingly quickly. I found that if I took my time, breathed deeply, and stretch thoroughly, I could easily use up 10 minutes.
I felt fresh and relaxed when I laid down and went to sleep. I might've slept better.
I discovered that 10 minutes of stretching didn't feel like "too long" at all. I liked the way it centered me. And then one day, I discovered a shocking change:
I'm getting more flexible.
To be honest, I'd assumed that I had maxed out my flexibility. As a dancer, I'd always been flexible, and I'd kept that by teaching dance and stretching after workouts. I wasn't trying to get any more flexible.
But one night, I breathed in, breathed out, and reached...and kept reaching...and was shocked at how comfortable I felt in the position I landed in.
Now, I don't stretch every night. For whatever reason it stopped relaxing me the way it did in the beginning, and in an effort to be kind, I don't force myself to keep up a nightly stretching streak. I still do it often though, and am so interested and encouraged by the increasing flexibility.
If you have trouble relaxing, want to grow in flexibility, or have joint pain/tightness, try stretching for 10 minutes before bed. It took me a couple of weeks to feel a difference, but I think it was a worthy experiment :)
~Stephanie
[Aside from this paragraph I'm typing right now, this post is, in fact, unedited from October 10th. I've re-read it and there are lots of things I would add/change/expand, but in the interest of keeping the title accurate, I'm not. I do plan to expand later.]
I don't know why I never saw it before. But maybe that's why I could never write it before?
The Fire Fairy Story is full of Christian imagery. Light. A master who is not perfect. Slavery.
The concept of perfection, of perfect being the only way to life.
We serve a God who knows we cannot be perfect, we cannot even get close. And instead of condemning us to death, he died in our place, as the only perfect being.
Christians are freed from the slavery of perfection. We have grace.
The Fire Fairy Story is what our lives without Christ are like. Fear. Slaving for a master (sin) we cannot satisfy, that may bring us pride or temporary happiness, but will only ever, EVER lead to death.
As Christians we serve this incredibly gracious and forgiving master, one who sees our IMPERFECTIONS and says "I love you anyway and I will help you."
God does not enslave us. He is recklessly committed to our true freedom. He is tearing down walls, lighting up shadows FOR US.
I always thought the Fire Fair Story didn't have a clear Christian moral. I always thought there wasn't a way for it to glorify God. That is one reason I never felt right about writing it. (Of course, had I been able to push through the writer's block in my own strength, I absolutely would've ignored this feeling and written it anyway. But for some reason I've never been able.)
As I texted Melissa, I told her that I was a little embarrassed that I was still on this fire fairy thing, thirteen years after its conception. Why could I not let this story go?
She said that it must be a story that needs to be told, and maybe the reason I've never been able to in the past is because I needed something first that I hadn't gotten yet or didn't know yet.
I cannot help but wonder if this is "it." God needed to have an absolute GRIP on my heart and mind first. I needed HIM first. Before anything else. First and most and biggest.
Maybe God DOES want me to tell this story, he just needed me to know why. And I've never listened before.
~Stephanie
I have an extreme/addictive/all-or-nothing personality. It's a blessing and a curse.
Blessing: When I love things, I love them. I can derive a level of joy from stuffed animals/words/fandoms/dancing/etc. that borders on concerning.
Curse: When I do things, my instinct is to do them 100% (or 0%).
Unfortunately, this doesn't translate to "doing lots of research" or something constructive like that. It translates to "If I get into the occult, I'll likely become a witch,"* "If I drink alcohol, I'll likely become an alcoholic," and "If I do NaNoWriMo, I'll likely shirk all other duties."
What is NaNoWriMo? It's short for National Novel Writing Month. Every year, millions of hopeful authors commit to writing 50,000 words in thirty days, from November 1 to November 30. I did this and "won" my senior year of high school (2011). I haven't tried since.
Until now. As I type this, it's lunch break on November 1 and I've written about 200 words of The Fire Fairy Story.** Given my personality, I know that it's important for me to set boundaries for myself that will help me win (*fingers crossed*) NaNo in a healthy, God-honoring way.
1) No writing until I've had genuine, non-rushed quiet time with God.
What does he want my day to look like? How can he fill me with the fruits of the spirit? How can I honor him? Can I take the time to pray and listen? Can I view the day as an opportunity to give him my best, or only as an opportunity to write 1,667 words?
In a way, this rule feels slightly...creepy, pedantic, and prosperity-gospel-ish. Am I using quiet time and my relationship with God to write a "good" novel? I know that my work is better when I'm rooted in God, so is my quest for relationship with him actually selfish? If I thought that remaining close to God would make me write worse, would I still desire it?
I'm wrestling with this. I am definitely concerned that I'm just leveraging my relationship with God.
However, in the end, spending time with God can only ever bring true good. If "good" is a bad novel or writer's block, I have committed myself to soldiering on with quiet time anyway. At the end of the month, if I don't have 50,000 words, I will at least have a stronger relationship with my heavenly father.
2) No writing during 9–5.
I work from home, so it would be very easy and very tempting to sneak in some writing during the day. Some days I don't even have a full eight hours of work; I could do six perfectly honorably and write for the other two. But how likely am I to be able to make that call responsibly, knowing my personality? By taking daytime writing off the table, I'm helping myself to work at my job "as unto the Lord." Plus, who knows, maybe giving myself a smaller writing window will concentrate the inspiration?
Anyway, I don't know how this month is going to go. I can genuinely see it goings lots of ways.
- I write 50,000 words. They're great, and I'm happier, healthier, and closer to God than I've ever been.
- I crank out 50,000 words and they're total crap. I never read them over or use them in whatever version of The FF Story ends up being final. My relationship with God is resentful and I've developed a check-the-box mentality.
- My relationship with God takes over my life. I don't write nearly 50,000 words, but I don't care because I'm so on fire for Christ.
- My relationship with God is healthy and strong. I only write about 30,000 words because I'm an adult now and I have things to do besides one hour of homework and write write write write.
- Some combination of the above.
I'm super nervous. I hate to fail, which is why I usually only try if I'm sure I'll succeed. I do not know if I will succeed with NaNo this year. But apparently I'm trying, because I'm putting it out on the internet, and if there's one thing I hate more than fizzling out privately, it's fizzling out publicly.
Whether I succeed or fail, it's official: I AM trying NaNoWriMo this year.
~Stephanie
* I believe that God is stronger than my sinful nature and that I have been saved by grace, so on some level, this isn't a huge fear of mine. I know I would come back to the truth (God) and I know that God is for me. Still, the way I'd pursue occult knowledge and power would feel dangerous, wrong, and gross to me.
** Post scheduled for Monday, November 11th.
Like most kids, I loved the idea of magic. Like some kids, I wasn't allowed to get very into it.
Things that were off limits included Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dragon Tales, That's So Raven (sometimes), and Avatar: The Last Airbender (this might've been because we didn't have cable and it didn't come up much), and Harry Potter. I also never believed in Santa et al, though those weren't "bad" or "dangerous"; my dad just felt strongly about being honest there.
I have mixed feelings about the principle of forbidding/restricting "magic" for children. On one hand, it was really sad and annoying not to be able to participate in pop culture, especially when, to me, the rational was weak and fear-based at best. I think possibly, on principle, I disagree with characterizing all magic as Satanic and wrong.
On the other hand, my parents might've—almost by complete accident—been right about me in particular.
Unlike most kids, I never fully grew out of the "magic" stage. We'll never know whether that's because I didn't get to have that stage as a child, or because it's just the way I am. My guess is that it's just the way I am, because I know lots of people raised the way I was who don't seem to struggle.
Or it could be Door #3: what I wrestle with now is actually independent from my attraction to magic as a child. What I wrestle with now is more what I'd call "mysticism": moon phases, the power of stones, chakras, astrology, that kind of thing.
It's not like I fell into the occult for a while and now have to watch myself; I've never fallen into the occult. But that's not by accident. I have to be careful.
If you know me well, you know I can always tell you when the next full moon is. I'm fascinated by the way full moons seem to affect human behavior. Emergency rooms boom during full moons. When I was in middle school, I noticed that the class days around—or especially ON—a full moon were wildly more talkative, funnier, stranger. (You probably noticed this, but we had a Friday the Thirteenth that coincided with a full moon in September.)
I'm fascinated by the alleged properties of different stones. Amethyst is supposed to promote relaxation and insight. Peridot is supposed to help you let go of negative emotions. Onyx is supposed to yield confidence and protection.
I'm fascinated by chakras and I barely know anything about them at all.
I'm fascinated by people's signs and seeing how their astrological profile matches or describes them, myself included. I've only ever dated Leos. Coincidence?
Actually YES. This stuff isn't real. (Although, y'all, the moon thing. What is that about?)
And then if it isn't real, why is it dangerous? What's the big deal?
Confusingly enough, I'm not here to make a case for or against mysticism. I'm here to admit a place where I struggle. I'm here to say that I would love to get a moon phase tattoo, but that feels like glorifying something other than God, so I don't. I would love to buy and wear stones that correspond to something I think I need, but I don't, because God is everything I need. I would love to analyze my and everyone else's signs and dig into what they mean, but I don't, because the stars have nothing to do with who we are.
I've mostly avoided researching chakras because I don't know where that would lead my mind. That sounds silly, but I know myself. I know how deeply I love and desire "magic" in an ungodly sense.
Are these things actually Satanic or wrong? I don't know. Maybe rocks are just rocks and chakras are made up, but I know things CAN be dangerous if you follow the dark side of the path long enough. I know spiritual warfare is real. Satan and demons are real, and they are more happy to let you choose the door through which they enter.
I'm inclined to think that this level of mysticism is "gateway magic" the same way marijuana is demonized as a "gateway drug": Not all marijuana smokers become drug addicts, but most drug addicts started with marijuana. Not all people who play with gems and astrology become dark magicians, but most dark magicians started with the "silly" stuff.
Knowing myself, I think it's better that I grow faith in what I truly believe before I allow myself to explore anything mystical, even from the standpoint of curiosity. I hope that one day I can safely investigate this in a way that honors God.
~Stephanie
For context and part one, I would highly recommend reading "'That Hurt My Feelings' Part 1." If you don't have time for that, here's what happened in a nutshell: This podcast about songs written for the Enneagram types blew my mind with the revelation that my whole life I've just been "open" when I thought I was being "vulnerable."
I'm an Enneagram type Eight: passionate, assertive, dedicated to justice, and terrified of betrayal. The second podcast quote/concept that brought me up short was this:
2) "This word 'vulnerability' comes from the Latin word for 'wound,' and to be vulnerable means to be 'wound-able'..."
Somewhere in the podcast—or maybe it's just implied, because I can't find it right now—Chris talks about how difficult it is for Eights to confess when they've been hurt, to say the words, "Hey, that hurt my feelings."
My actual reaction:
Wait, I thought, feeling slightly panicked. Do other people actually TELL PEOPLE when they've been hurt?! Do other people say, "Hey, that hurt my feelings?!" Past the age of, like, five?
I don't do that. I do NOT do that. The concept is foreign, uncomfortable, and slightly ridiculous to me. Why would someone do that? Why would you walk up to the Indians* and say, "Hey, here are some guns, and by the way I don't wear armor on my back."
I vividly remember the handful of times people have come to me and said, "Hey, when you did X, it really hurt my feelings."
I feel like they've just pulled their pants down in the middle of the mall. I feel like asking them if they know they said that out loud. I feel like they've just handed me an endangered aquatic animal and I'm holding it, dripping, out in the air, afraid it might die at any second but, like, there's not an ocean around, so what am I supposed to do with it?
To my memory, I have only ever told one person that he hurt my feelings, and it was Gabe, and it was in the past six months, and I remember it feeling really, really weird.
[I feel like I need to add that I genuinely don't get hurt very often. It is very hard to offend me personally. I was an English major, and we basically major in putting ourselves out there and having someone (constructively) criticize us. I am all about "breaking bones til they're better." But...apparently this isn't because I'm good at being vulnerable; it's because my collection of vulnerabilities is guarded deeper and better than most.]
Yesterday at regular small group, the concept of vulnerability came up AGAIN, and that coupled with the Sleeping At Last podcast had Gabe, Cassidy, and me talking about this revelation on the way home.
I told them about my revelation of openness versus vulnerability, and told them that I wanted to work on this, but that I didn't know how. I've always thought I was being vulnerable, but it turns out I've just been open. So what IS vulnerability, and how do I do it?
They said some things, and gave examples, but I was all like, "Yeah, I don't mind sharing that at all. That must not be vulnerable for me?"
Gabe suggested, "It would be like—and this is just a really concrete example—going up to someone and saying, 'Hey, here are some things that would make me really sad or really bother me. Just so you know.'"
"Okay..." I said slowly, fighting back the inner screams of WHY WOULD SOMEONE EVER DO THAT?
"It would be things you don't want people to know," Cassidy said. "Like weaknesses or fears."
"Okay..." Some very specific thoughts and ideas came to mind. "Okay, I'm starting to get some. And...maybe I'm not ready to vulnerable because I definitely don't want to say them."
As a Four and a Nine, they didn't push.
This post does not end in my being vulnerable. Not today. Today you just get some more openness. But I'm aware of the difference now, and I'm beginning to approach it.
Actually, here's something that feels a little vulnerable, because I have not wanted to tell you: If you want to know me on a level I'm not entirely comfortable sharing, I'd suggest listening to the Sleeping At Last podcast on the song "Eight."
~Stephanie
* Don't come at me with the PC police. I'm just going off the idiom of "selling guns to the Indians."
