Summer Takeaways !!!!
- Bailee Chavez
- Aug 20, 2023
- 6 min read
This week’s blog is officially the last blog before my fall semester starts at TAMU. Crazy !! Summer went by fast, but it also went by slow. The days were long, but the MONTHS were short haha.
Am I ready to go back? I would say so. I feel like I have milked summer in ETX of just about everything it could offer. My favorite summer shows are ending, the tennis court where Bre and I spent a lot of our leisure time is now being overcome by highschoolers, and I feel a new season of life beginning to make itself available to me.
To wrap up summer, I thought it would be fun to take a few minutes to pause and reflect on a few key lessons that I have either learned or been made more aware of this summer.
1. If you channel the energy you use to worry into making the world a more beautiful place, your life is bound to improve.
Using my negative energy to instead craft, podcast, blog, read, write, clean, laugh, etc. has been so beneficial for me.
Energy is a gift, but where you choose to invest it determines the quality of your life.
2. Presence is a present from God.
When experiencing moments of fear, anxiety, and overwhelm this summer, I felt an urge to look around me and become very present with my surroundings. If I could just be where my feet were and get out of my head, the anxiety lessened. As I began to reflect on what I was doing, I realized I was essentially completing a grounding technique that my mom encouraged me to try as a young girl when I was feeling anxious.
3. You don’t have to disprove your negative thoughts or even try to get rid of them.
Although it is easy to believe that the best thing to do to fix negative thinking is replacing negative thoughts with good ones, this can actually be counterproductive since it involves emphasis on the negative. The Bible tells us to take every thought captive, but it also tells us to keep our eyes on Jesus lest we begin to sink. I think there is a time and place to work on deconstructing negative thoughts and replacing them with the truth AND a time to move on from toxic thought patterns without giving them much energy. You honestly can’t outthink your way out of worrying.
To avoid mental spiraling, I have implemented what is called “radical acceptance.”
"At its most basic, radical acceptance is a practice that involves accepting emotions, thoughts and circumstances that are unchangeable and out of your control. To radically accept means to completely recognize and accept the reality you’re in—even when that reality includes pain or discomfort. Regularly practicing radical acceptance can help us cope with painful emotions so we can move on or even come up with a plan to make an uncomfortable situation better."
You can't wait to be happy until you never have an anxious/negative thought or never feel the physical sensation of anxiety. So the way forward is to radically accept their presence & move on. In my experience, trying to disprove a negative thought can lead to double mindedness. Furthermore, sometimes you just have what I like to call “sticky brain days” or days where your nervous system is off.
“I get frustrated with my anxiety when heavy and/or unwanted thoughts keep circling right back up to the forefront of my brain. Calling that “my sticky brain” is a helpful way for me to add a degree of separation. Which often allows me to reflect vs. react, which is typically beneficial for me.”
By accepting that some days are harder than others and that my brain sometimes likes to hold onto negative thoughts because they seem scary and urgent & still choosing to move forward, I have the opportunity to literally allow the Lord to lead me to a rock that is higher than I.
"There's no complex technique that you need to overthink and figure out. You have to let go. Scared or not. It will work out just as it's supposed to just like everything else does. God's got this. He doesn't need your help. He needs your surrender."
- my mom !!!
4. Labels Limit You
Recently, I encountered someone who greeted my sister and I by saying something along the lines of “Hey, it’s the smartest girls from Harmony Class of 2021.” This was a sweet compliment but also a funny reminder of the past. High school seems like it was so long ago, but it also feels like it was just yesterday all at the same time. I oftentimes forget how most everyone viewed Bre and I during high school. We had quite the reputation for being the “smart” girls.
I still try to my best in everything I do, but personally I have stopped completely making “smart” my entire personality. In doing so, I realized I have more to offer the world besides my perfect grades. That’s not to say I don’t still care deeply about trying my best- I just have a more broad perspective. If I still demanded that I only be known as the “smart” girl, my life would be quite small. In addition to being smart, it is perfectly okay to also be known for your faith, creativity, passion, kindness, etc.
5. You cannot live your life based on what other people say and do.
People will always have opinions about what you do and don’t do. Even the best people can give faulty, unwarranted, or hurtful opinions. I have learned that if I lived my life completely based on what others approved of or didn't approve of, chaos would abound. Well, I actually have tried to do this, and chaos did abound.
I have had people praise me for being a “healthy eater,” while others have said I eat like a rabbit.
I have had people dog on my choice to order a salad at a restaurant, while others comment on how “huge” it was.
I have had some insult my dedication to academics, while scholarship committees still say I didn’t quite make the cut .
I have had some insult my love of writing, while others say they really enjoy these blogs.
That’s not to say I am the only one who has experienced such a dichotomy in people’s opinions. Everyone faces circumstances like this.
Some people will love what you do, some people will hate it, some people won’t have an opnion about it.
This is why having a relationship with God & being able to discern the Holy Spirit’s promptings is so beneficial!
6. Healing is a choice, not a destination
Our mind and bodies will not be perfectly healed until we are in Heaven. So we must carry heavenly hope within us to make it in this world. When I am frustrated with why things aren’t perfect here on Earth, I have to remind myself that if here were perfect, we wouldn’t have Heaven to long for.
We will always have struggles. The Bible tells us this. And these struggles will come in different forms.
In my 20 years of life, I have learned that the form of the struggle often doesn’t matter because fear, in whatever form it may manifest, is very real to people.
In certain seasons of life, it is tempting to wish we were dealt a different hand of cards.
The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
- Jawaharlal Nehru
Some people wish they could struggle with something “easier” like an eating disorder, other mental illness, academic pressures, etc.
But the truth is that I don’t think there is an “easier” struggle. There is only a greater God. As you face trials of many kinds & your faith grows, you are able to handle things better because of the work God has done within you.
In the church service I attended today, the pastor made the following point:
“We love by sharing God’s message and our lives.”
I love this because it’s a mission I can do forever. God’s word never changes, and God never stops working in my life.
And so I don’t think someone should necessarily have a goal of healing. Instead of having an end goal for our bodies, brains, or lives as a whole, we can set a goal to keep going, to push ourselves, to learn something new each day, and to love the process of walking with Jesus in all of life’s eras !! Life won't be the best it can be until Jesus is what makes life the best.
Well I gotta go get ready for my first day of class tomorrow!!! Talk to you next week!
love,
Bailee
So many truths ! 🙏💗 Your Nana loves you and always amazed how you can see the “real” and embrace it through God’s word and His gifts.