Authentic Living and Spiritual Practices

 you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. – Psalm 139:13-14

Mooooomeeeee, I can’t find my Strawberry Shortcake doll! 

I was devastated. My beloved, fruit-fragranced friend had disappeared. I looked everywhere. I even tried to pry the baseboards from the wall with my tiny fingers. Maybe she had somehow gotten smooshed between there and the wall. No space was left unturned, including as far as my arms could reach into the heat vents.

Have you ever felt like you lost something so dear to you? 

Get Rooted for Authentic Living

I love helping people discover their most authentic connection to Christ and how to live that out in the world around them. After identifying their spiritual gifts and personality, we look to spiritual practices that align best with how each person has been uniquely created. 

Many of the people I work with as a coach are moms whose children are entering the teenage years. They often find they have identified with motherhood so much that its become an idol. But what happens when that idol slips away? In this case, what happens when the teen becomes more independent and no longer needs the same type of mothering she has been giving them? 

If you feel like you’ve lost something that brought you deep-seated joy, even in the midst of trials and chaos, you’re not alone. The good news is you don’t need to wander and search aimlessly to find your footing.

Chaos abounds

We live in a chaotic world. It’s easy to get lost in all the distractions that come at us from every angle; at home, at work, and especially in our daily news feed. While we can’t completely avoid the barrage, we can become well-rooted enough to withstand it. 

When our roots anchor us, the barrage is less distracting, and our focus becomes clearer. We can weed through the distractions and stay locked onto that which feeds our souls and allows us, in turn, to pour into others. 

I never did find my Strawberry Shortcake doll. As a mom who often had to rotate toys and allow some to find their way to new homes, I now understand what happened to her. 

But what I eventually did find was me again. I was that mom who idolized motherhood after battling infertility for several years. I had clung to the banner of motherhood with white knuckles, determined to be the best mom I could be. 

I’m learning that becoming the best us we can be sometimes means taking a step back, to stop doing all the things to maintain some ill-conceived notion of balance. It’s vital to connect with the why of our pursuits, but also with ourselves or we will lose sight of who and Whose we are along the way.

That’s how we grow our roots

This can be hard in a world that often places accomplishment and success on a pedestal so high that no one can reach it. Yet in our feeble attempts, we spin the gears of busyness, adding task upon task to what we do in vain attempts to scale the height.

But what truly is success? 

Authentic Living Through Aligned Spiritual Practices

If we neglect the proper maintenance of our spinning gears, it can lead to a cascading effect of negative consequences. Increased wear and tear leads to a reduction of efficiency, increased energy consumption, jerky movements, difficulty shifting, and eventually loss of control. When the gears fail, the downtime is costly.

Gear maintenance requires regular inspections, proper lubrication, and timely repairs. This helps maximize the lifespan, efficiency, and safety of the system. 

Do you take time to regularly inspect the rhythm of your days, weeks, and months? The next time you pick up your phone to scroll through the news or your social media, how about instead thinking through your day or the past week? What things have you done that feed your soul? What things drain you that you could delegate or eliminate? 

Gears need proper lubrication on a regular basis

When thinking about the things you do to feed your soul, do they feel natural to you, or do you just feel like you’re checking off a box on your to-do list? Perhaps it’s time to inspect your spiritual practices to see if they are in alignment with you’re unique design.

It’s never too late to repair any damage. If it’s been a long time since you sat down with a journal to write out your reflections or prayers, maybe it’s because that practice isn’t in alignment with how you’ve been created. A possible alternative could be to go on a prayer walk with your notes app open as you reflect. 

Find a way to connect with God

Many of us think spiritual practices are limited to a few when, in fact, there are many ways to connect with God. It’s all about finding the practices that will help you authentically align with our Creator.

And there, joy can be found.

I like the sound of success in this kind of accomplishment.

Authentic Living Leads to Joy

When my teens started to become more independent, I lost a big part of what I had based my identity upon. I saw what it meant to be in midlife crisis. I feared the outcome of what that could look like worse than I feared trying to continue to do the same thing because it was comfortable. 

Insanity

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. I was headed down a road of insanity if I didn’t do something different. I needed to figure out who I was beyond motherhood. 

I’m so grateful I did. Instead of seeing their mother cling to a version of motherhood that no longer served either of us and would only hold them back, my teens got to learn about themselves and their independence while I was on a parallel journey to rediscover who I was and Whose I was.

It didn’t dawn on me at the time that I was modeling healthy self-discovery.

I might have stumbled some along the way, but that only taught me grace and humility. Even though they rolled their eyes, I had many aha moments. I molded pursuit with a godly confidence and dedicated myself to working toward my goals. I felt optimistic and hopeful as new opportunities came, even though they looked different than I expected.  

Change happens

I’m not the same person I was as a mom of young children. I’m certainly not the same person I was before that time either. But I found joy along the way, and that kept me rooted during the turbulent times of teenage hormones. It also brought me a level of healing I didn’t know I needed.  

I recently turned 50. I’m honestly quite excited about that. Part of this mindset comes from determining, at 40, to become the most authentic version of myself I could. While there have been ups and downs, I’ve maintained my gears and kept my joy. I wish I had embraced this mindset before then but I’m just grateful I figured it out when I did. 

Toy Theology

Apparently, when you turn 50, in addition to AARP, I became eligible to receive toys as presents again! I received toys from each of my now adult kids. Each of these gifts honors my authenticity (and show me they were listening after all).

One thing I let go of was my feeble attempts at keeping a garden alive. Well, any plants, for that matter. It was a fruitless and vegetable-less pursuit. I don’t have the energy or the green thumb. I’m geared better to other pursuits. I love to spend time doing things with my family.

I must have done something right

Opening my birthday gifts that day blessed my soul.

My son has always loved Legos. Yes, the bane of every parent’s midnight-trip-to-the-bathroom existence, but thankfully, we’re past that phase. He gave me a new Lego flower garden. Plants that I can’t kill! But the real gift was spending time with my son doing something he has always loved to do. Plus, I now have a beautiful reminder of our time together; plants I can’t kill that I get to enjoy every day. 

He saw my authentic self.

My daughter must have seen it too. Many years before, I had mentioned my Strawberry Shortcake heartbreak. When this beloved toy returned to popularity, my daughter found the closest version to the original Strawberry Shortcake she could and gifted it to me for my birthday. 

And isn’t that what authenticity is – the pursuit of finding our closest version of our original design?

What role in your life has become so consuming that you need to rediscover who you are beyond that role?

Tap into the source and rediscover your true, authentic self.

How? Learn about your unique divine design. Explore your spiritual gifts and personality. Once you understand how you’ve been uniquely created, you can explore spiritual practices that support a rhythm of maintenance, keeping your gears running smoothly so you can live your most authentic life.