The Reset + Slow Living
Hello Lovely,
Discovering oneself, can indeed be hard when there are so many other entities you’re living for. In the last few months of 2022 I had to unlearn and learn some things, some ways, some habits, some thought patterns. Learn how to live for God + myself, not my family, not the church, not my friends or even social media. That for one was difficult.
How do you live for yourself after so long pursuing for others?
The weirdest thing about it all, usually when you’re living for everything other than yourself you don’t even realise it. It took me to experience some foundation shifting moments in my life to choose myself, after so long living in a state of people pleasing unknowingly. I found that some things I desire to do with my life go against the norm of the environment I was brought up in and that for one is okay. Not everything you do or step you decide to take will make sense to those that you desire for it to, but you need to learn how to live for the author of your life and not a character in your story. Characters are not always people that play a part in our stories either, they can also be feelings, they can be things, they can even be our deepest reflections.
Fear for example can be a character that you are living for instead of yourself, making every decision, taking every step with fear in mind. You don’t decide to take that leap of faith, or implement that new idea due to your inability to see the beauty in the outcome but instead the potential failure (or as I like to class it, lesson) on the other side.
Slow Living, and all of the in-between..
Slow Living
Slow living is a mindset whereby you curate a more meaningful and conscious lifestyle that’s in line with what you value most in life.Recently I have been practising a life of slow living, what really matters for Tia? For my brand. Serenity Interiors & Co is something that I have tried to live by, a state that I have been making it a necessity to live in recently is peace, I have spent so many years trying to live happy, uplifted, unfathomed but these are all temporary states, those of which can be altered when circumstances are thrown at them. Peace is something that is established throughout the storms, it is something that is kept, the perfect example for this is Christ. Sleeping as storms were raging.
Mark 4:38-40
38 Jesus was inside the boat, sleeping with his head on a pillow. The followers went and woke him. They said, “Teacher, don’t you care about us? We are going to drown!”
39 Jesus stood up and gave a command to the wind and the water. He said, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind stopped, and the lake became calm.
40 He said to his followers, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
The kind of peace to be able to sleep in the midst of a storm is what I desire; trusting in the Creator of my story with whatever is thrown my way is something I will simultaneously work towards. Slow living has helped me put a lot into perspective, really investing into the facets of my life that bring fulfilment, that remind me of the why I was planted here in the first place. Looping it back to the start of this entry, slow living has helped me develop an awareness in regard to what and who I was living for within the different arenas of my life. Really taking the time to slow down and be intentional with almost every decision throughout the day has made me realise which decisions I have made due to an increase of pressure, lack of time, fear of various entities, or simply the absence of thought.
Starting to take my time with even the decisions deemed as insignificant throughout the course of each day has in fact caused an epiphany, I came to the gradual realisation that the big decisions previously made prior to living at a slower, more intentional pace were not true to me or what I believe God wants to do in + through me. The choices I made were out of fear, fear of judgement, fear of the outcome + fear of people. Living from a place of people pleasing instead of what is pleasing for ABBA + myself.
What if it doesn't make sense to them? What if I fail? What if they don't support me?The questions are ongoing. The choices made were never sound due to the basis of the decisions that were made. Majority of the decisions made were on the viewpoints or potential opinions of other people, the reason this is already a faulty way of being is because
No matter what you do, where you go, or how you choose to live your life, somebody is going to say or think something contrary or not in favour of what it is you decide to pursue and
Which I believe is very significant and freeing is that, in case we forgot, people are human, we all bleed the same blood. We are all different, we have been created eccentric for a reason.
Meaning that what I bring to the table somebody else cannot and there are some things I am unable to dish out that others may be able to do with their eyes pinned shut. Yet coming to the realisation of the fact that people have been created by the same Creator, for the same Creator, to do whatever unique purpose they have been put on earth to do; as well as the truth that this life I have been put here to live is for so much more than me and the fears I possess, does not shift the fear that comes when standing in the midst of a cross road. Manoeuvring out of an unhealthy way of thinking into a way that serves the depths of you + assists growth is a process. This is something that in all honesty I am still working through and will continue to work on as the year progresses.
I’ll leave you with this.
With a new page turning, there always tends to be pressure for something to be done, planned + prepared for the next part. That is something I won’t do here as it doesn’t serve everyone, but I will ask What is it that assists in your fulfilment in Christ? What serves peace in your life? Whatever it is, however it looks, water that, so it can bloom! + if that is something unreachable right now + you’re yet to grasp what fulfils you, spend some time searching, diving into Him + I pray that in that ABBA will help you find it.
Love From, Tia-Taomi x
