28 Days: Day 7, Meaning

I arrived at the T Bar M Ranch last night. Mind full of racing thoughts from work and home and the leadership conference ahead of me.

I mentioned, I’m speaking about meaning.

Well, that’s an easy topic to tackle… (Insert sarcastic face here.)

I’m also talking about relationships. That topic I know. I’ve had discussions in large and small groups about the key relationships you need to have and I love this topic. Probably because I love relationships.

But meaning, well that’s a whole other thing.

When I arrived, I dropped my bags and joined their cocktail reception. Several of the steering committee members I’ve now known for years, and they’ve become good friends. We talked and talked and talked and the topics ranged from funny kid dilemmas and how you met your partner to tough hard life challenges.

There are some things we women do regularly. We form deep connections and share our stories, but we also tend to hide what’s really happening behind a layer of mascara and smiling, Fine.

Shauna Niequist says, If the life you’ve crafted for yourself is too heavy, then it’s too heavy, no matter if the people on either side of you are carrying more or less.

It’s hard to living meaningfully when you’re hanging on by a thread.

When you look at how you want to live, and what you want to leave behind, what are you doing to further that goal.

Where are you spending yourself? And to what end?

I’ve given more of myself to strangers and people who stand in line after events that I have to my neighbors, my friends, my family. I come home weary and self-protective, pulled into a shell of exhaustion and depleted emotions. Present over Perfect, Chapter on Legacy

Insert more of myself to work and leading and speaking and I get that exact sentiment. It’s why I’ve been in the process of stripping so much away and digging into what really matters.

For me, those things are: Jesus, Bray, my incredible triplets, and my best friends. Am I deeply investing in them? If the answer is yes, and I’m not utterly depleted, then I can keep giving to others. But when those on the outside are getting more of me than those on the inside, something needs to change.

So I’m heading over to speak. And hear other’s stories. And share some of my own. But then I go home. And pour into the people there. It will be messy and chaotic and rewarding and upsetting and funny and all of the things.

Most of all, it will be worth it.