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#47

Tina: [00:00:00] Hey, there you are listening to the In Kinship Podcast, a podcast for those who crave a joy filled, vibrant life on their own terms. and I’m your host, Tina Vandenberg. . Thanks for being here. So I don’t know about you, but.

It’s sunny out today, which means that life is infinitely better. Alright? I don’t hate cloudy days. In fact, they’re quite delightful. And honestly, the sun is kind of annoying when I’m trying to work on my computer and I can hardly see with my aging eyes. I can’t believe I just said that on the podcast, but it’s true.

It’s quite evident that I need to get a new. Prescription in my glasses and the sun darkening my screen does not help with that, not one little bit. And so while I have found a way to be annoyed with the sun today, for the most part is making me feel alive. I’m guessing you might feel the same way.

The sunshine is so powerful that way, and some of [00:01:00] you might live in a climate that is way sunnier than what I experience. I live in Northern. Uh, lower Michigan, right at the tip of the mit, as they say. And so until the big lake and by Big Lake, I mean Lake Michigan, until it freezes over far enough, we have cloudy winter days, lots of lake effects, snow, and lots of cloudiness.

But once this lake is more frozen. It allows the cloud cover to shift in a different way and we have a little more sunshine, but is delightful. So then what happens is, you know, I love winter. I love to cross country ski. I love to sled with my sun. I kind of like to shovel the path even. I know that’s really strange to say.

But I do kind of like it. I like the energy of it. I like the tending of the pathway. I love it how welcoming it feels when your path is shoveled to get down to the house. ’cause my house is a little lower than my driveway and so, Hmm.

[00:02:00] Interesting. I think it’s a tending, right? I think everyone can have their own desires for tending. I’m not sure why it’s shoveling his mind. Certainly like. Washing laundry is not. Whereas in my mom, if she could wash her laundry for you, she would be able to show you on a deep level how much she loves you.

And I think that is a beautiful thing. It’s like such a tending and such a caring for the people we love. Right. So anyway, for me, apparently it’s shoveling, so I love winter, but once it gets above freezing and things start to melt and the sun comes out, I’m like, alright, bring on spring, I’m ready for that.

We’re the daffodils. And to be clear, we have like two feet of snow still on the ground, so there’s no daffodils pushing through that just yet. But I can see how it’s gonna happen. And like the challenge in that right, is to be patient. Whew. To let ourselves be at the end of this in bulk season, or rather late [00:03:00] winter, as we’re moving into early spring, it’s

that mindfulness that comes from. Not rushing to where you want to be, right? And being appreciative of where you are and enjoying where you are. And so we’re still in the energy of planting our seeds. They’re just beginning to star beneath the surface where just looking at things might begin to break ground.

Maybe where you are, they have already, which is delightful. Oh, and I wonder how you are taking care of yourself. I am still embracing and loving winter. We did a winter camp this past weekend where we camp in the woods for two nights and do cross country skiing and cook on the fire, and it’s really a delightful time and challenging, right?

Like I think that’s probably part of the appeal is that the whole [00:04:00] endeavor allows you to. Just sort of see what you’re made of, I suppose, because it’s a bit uncomfortable. The nights can be cold. It was not this past weekend because it was above freezing, which made the skiing sort of terrible.

But the whole endeavor is something I’m really glad that we do. are you doing? What are you working on? Are you making anything? I haven’t been sewing or making nearly as much as I would like to. I have been creating things in my business, and so I suppose that’s where my creative energy is going to.

And also, we’ve been working on some furniture building, some bookshelves and desks, a desk rather, things like that for the addition. Of my house. And so I suppose the grace in there is that you cannot create all the things at all times. That you have to allow things [00:05:00] to, take their turn, I suppose. And then I actually have a lot of fun things happening this spring.

Next weekend, my little boy and I and my villa. Are heading out to a rustic state park cabin in Sheboygan, Michigan, right on Lake Huron. And so we will ski in a mile and a half with our sleds full of our gear, and we’ll stay in a rustic cabin that has a wood stove, an outhouse, and a pitcher pump outside.

And I’ve not stayed at one of these cabins for a very long time. And the last time I did was with my women’s group and we would go and do making weekends there. So we would all bring our making. There was a yarn or a wool spinner. There are people who would paint, I would often bring knitting or sewing projects, and we would hike the beach, frozen [00:06:00] beach there is this beautiful glassed in porch that is heated by the wood stove and allows for so much sunlight to come in. And it’s just such a delightful time. And so this is the first time I’ve brought my son out there and he’s 10 years old

and so it will be really interesting to see how this feels. I of course, have 75 things planned to bring with me to make next weekend. And thinking about like what to suggest for my son to bring. He’s been doing a little bit of carving and

he loves to draw and write and he’s been learning how to play the ukulele, which is really fun. So that probably is enough in my head. He needs like six or seven more things, which if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably a maker as well, and you understand that desire to have. 90% more than you can actually accomplish with you at all times.

But really we have to haul it in a mile and a half. Maybe it doesn’t need to be quite the excess. So I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been thinking about planning for that. I don’t know about you, but I love to plan. I love to come up with list. [00:07:00] I’ve been thinking about the meals we’re gonna bring out.

Probably gonna make a chili and some other dish and pre-make them so we can bring them out and just heat them up, keep it simple while we’re at the cabin. It’s really exciting. Like I said, I haven’t done it in probably nine or 10 years and this last fall, I was looking at all the ways that is challenging as a parent who would like to protect my son from as much technology as possible, all while also allowing him to be part of the world as it is and to not fall behind.

Right. Is. Tension, this balance, and as somebody who loves working with my hands and working with sort of ancient techniques, I suppose, as far as like knitting goes and sewing clothing by hand, I also thoroughly enjoy. The beautiful things that technology bring into my life. I love that. I work from home, I work remotely.

I’m able to have an [00:08:00] online business, right? All of that is not lost on me, that that is due to technology and due to our connection to it. And so I want him to have a balance around that. So this last fall, I was watching the struggle that I have with trying to limit screen time and how much joy he gets from gaming because it’s the truth.

He does get so much joy from it, but I also want there to be a balance. And so I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated and I thought, that’s it. We’re going out into the woods for the weekend, but there’s no technology. And so I looked up the cabins that I hadn’t been to in almost a decade, and I thought, this is where we’re gonna go.

So that’s what we’re doing next weekend. I dunno that he knows yet that there’ll be no technology out there. And granted, he’s not so caught up in it that he can’t exist without technology. He certainly can, but I just want to continue to cultivate the balance of it and the [00:09:00] presence that comes from having a life balance that allows for all the things that you really enjoy and doesn’t let any one of them become so great that it pushes everything else out.

Because the truth of the matter is, is there is only so much time in our day and we have to choose what we’re gonna spend our time on and what we’re gonna shut the door on, because we cannot have all the things at one time. You can have all the things just not at one time. And I am at a place in my life where there are a million textile arts that I would love to dabble in.

Yeah, but at the same time, I know the things I want to go really deep in. And so some of those beautiful textile arts that I love to dabble in, I just have to let go. I bet you can understand that. Whew. The other thing I’ve been doing is I’m working on a [00:10:00] presentation that I’m doing in March to a wellness retreat on Embodied Joy and bringing the sacred into your everyday life.

So I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple weeks working on a workbook that has its basis in my Vibrant Life Work workbook that you can get through the podcast. If you go to the podcast website@kinshiphandwork.com and click on podcasts, you’ll see the workbook there. That is an earlier iteration and I’ve spent a lot of time fleshing that out into something.

Uh, just more, I suppose. And that’s been a really exciting and beautiful project. And

it reminds me of the fact that creating. A sacredness to our lives is as simple as giving our attention to what we’re doing, right? I know you’ve all heard the idea of when you’re doing the dishes, do the dishes, rather than maybe [00:11:00] worrying about the next day or thinking about what happened a week and a half ago, or what happened 40 years ago, or whatever that might be.

Noticing your attention and giving it grace and letting it be in the moment. And I know that you probably have the same experience, but when I’m making something, when I’m creating, that’s part of the massive draw for that for me, is that when I’m in the flow of making something.

I am typically very present, and in the moment of that thing, I’m not thinking about 17 other things. I’m just here now. That’s probably the number one way that I can bring sacred practices into my life. But some of the other ones are , and I know you’ve heard me talk about my morning routine, which is so vital for my existence.

The ironic thing is I’ve been noticing is that sometimes. Like I love my morning routine so much and I work from home that sometimes I could let it go for hours. [00:12:00] I mean, I don’t, ’cause I have to work, but I could. Right? So now where we’re talking about that life balance aspect where I have to really determine what actually feels the best, what feels like expansive and beautiful and a beautiful start to the day.

And also like not too much, right? Because. The last couple of weeks I’ve noticed that I’ve gone over and then I don’t feel great when I’m getting ready to do my work. ’cause now I’ve gotta work late to make up for the fact that I went over in the morning beyond what I wanted to. And it’s probably more to do with my own expectations around the container that I set for myself, right?

I have this idea that work is gonna start at a certain time and if I don’t start my work at that certain time. I feel like I’ve let myself down, so there’s definitely some room in there for me to fine tune this, but that’s the way of life. There’s always fine tuning to be head. So, you know, I love starting out with a morning routine.

Ritual [00:13:00] is probably a better word, and I almost always will light a candle and pull an Oracle card or do a meditation. And then I’ve been working through Julia Cameron’s book The Artist Way.

It’s been around for a very long time. The morning pages have been transformative and. As somebody who owned the Artist’s Way book for over a decade and didn’t do it, I knew the concept of morning pages and I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds great, but really like I already journaled a bit. I already do this and that.

Like, how is that any different than what I’m already doing? But I finally sat down and decided to commit to working my way through the entire workbook last December, I suppose, and there was an idea in the actual book that I hadn’t considered.

This is like this, as a side note, is the advantage of being curious and open-minded, right? When you are going into something like, I thought I already knew this. I thought I had already researched [00:14:00] this a bit. I understood what she was going to say, but when I read it, the concept of letting the morning pages be completely.

Disposable was so freeing to me, right? I’m not writing anything that I think my kid or my grandchildren might find someday and be able to tie into who I am. I’m not writing something for posterity. I’m not writing something for it to become a book or to become an idea. I’m simply writing whatever’s in my head.

It’s like this therapeutic. Dump, if you will, of all the things that I’m thinking about, all the things that are going on, and sometimes my morning pages. So for those of you who aren’t familiar, you do three handwritten pages every morning. It takes me about 30 minutes to do my morning pages, and I don’t do them every single day, but I do them probably five outta seven, and they’ve been.

Therapeutic is the only word I have for it. It’s just been amazing because I have no [00:15:00] pressure around it whatsoever. I’m never even gonna reread it. I have no preciousness around it. In fact, my plan is, is once my notebook is full, I’m gonna burn it in some celebratory fire and just keep going because I don’t want it to ever have the grip over me of having to become something or having to be.

Interpreted a certain way by myself or anybody else in the future, I want it to simply be this beautiful conversation that I have with myself or with my guides, or with my God, however you wanna look at that in the pages. So if you have any interest, you should pick up Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way. But ultimately I have found, well, lemme say I am probably on week eight.

I’ve been taking it slow. As far as the weeks go, and I worked through all of the exercises, which has been a lot of fun. I also did the artist date when I can think of it, which feels like a nice, beautiful piece of self-care, especially as we’re in the late winter, early spring season. Right. [00:16:00] But the morning pages have been transformative and like I said, I love that there’s no preciousness around it for me.

And I don’t intend to ever reread any of it. I don’t worry. I did it first, but I don’t anymore worry that what I’m writing is gonna be some kind of gold that if I don’t rewrite it or reread it someday and pull it into some book I might do someday or pull it into my journal that I do want my son to have that I’m gonna miss out.

I no longer worry about that. I truly let this be a container where I simply pull out and let flow whatever is inside of me. And sometimes that’s a really beautiful, poetic way of looking at the bird feeder outside. And some days it’s about. All the terrible things that somebody said to me the day before that I need to work through only to realize that maybe I misunderstood or maybe [00:17:00] I overreacted, right?

So it’s all of those and it has no preciousness, it has no control that way, and I can just let it go. It is really a beautiful thing and I think as makers and as creators, the ability to let something be. Truly a draft, or not even a draft, but just let it be its own entity knowing that you’re not losing anything and having let it be complete in its incompleteness ’cause when you’re ready to create something that you are proud of or that you want to share with the universe, or that you wanna wear in your body, or that you want to gift to somebody, all of that work is gonna create such a beautiful foundation.

It was ironic too. For a long time when I was writing, I felt like I was using up all of my creative writing, energy, writing my morning pages and that I didn’t have much else to say outside of it. And I just continued with faith and it came to be, [00:18:00] as you might suspect, that that was just a short lived feeling .

But once I moved past that, now what I create, what I’ve been writing like for this workbook that I just mentioned to you for the embodied joy or letters to my email list, have felt more ease filled and. I can more quickly get into my deeper voice that I like to write from rather than sort of surface energy until I can go deeper.

Like I’m already in that deep space, if that makes any sense. But I think that relates not just to writing, but any kinda making whatsoever. I think there’s so much beauty in giving herself a practice. That is completely throw away. Like maybe if you’re looking at this or how does it relate to sewing something or making quilts or whatever it might be.

Maybe you practice every week, you decide you’re gonna make some random quilt square and let it be wonky and let it [00:19:00] exist without having to become anything. Create it just for the act of creating. And that could be, maybe you work on some kind of a style element for a boas, but you only do a small little sample of it, a small little portion to see what it looks like to see what you wanna bring into your next final finished product.

I love that idea. So I want you to take that and let me know if you do anything with it. So thinking about the sacred, there’s that morning routine that I mentioned once I’m done writing my morning pages. I try to move, it’s either walking, which has been challenging lately because my, all the roads are incredibly snow covered and walking has not been simple or safe.

But when the weather’s cooperating, I can ski out the backyard, which is really beautiful. But if I don’t do either of those things, ’cause sometimes that can feel like a major hurdle, right? To get all bundled up and get outside. Although I have never. Once regretted actually [00:20:00] doing it, if I don’t do those things because maybe it feels too stormy or it feels too cold or whatnot, I have committed to putting on a playlist and dancing with a abandon for at least three songs, and it feels really doable and it feels amazing, and it loosens my body up in the most beautiful way and.

I think those small practices and the ways in which you commit to yourself that are not huge commitments, they’re small little pieces, like committing to dancing to three songs every morning is not insurmountable. Anyone could fit that into their life, I would argue, and so add those little sacred bits into your life.

End your evening with a quick little list of the things you’re grateful for or before you eat your meal, say [00:21:00] thanks for the nourishment that’s in your body. Thank you to the people that are at the table with you. These little ways of connecting ourselves to what?

It matters on a deeper level, I think is the pathway to joy.

So

thanks for being here. I hope you have the most wonderful day. Until next time.

Hey, before you go, I have a new offering I would love to share with you. It’s called Embodied Joy.

A monthly container for bringing joy and integrity into your everyday life. Delivered as A private audio that you get once a month. It offers guided meditations, journaling prompts, practical tools for nervous system regulation, and working with a seasonal energy, ways in which you can stop just wishing for life full of joy and start living it.

It isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about creating sacred space to return to yourself. Honor where you are, and choose [00:22:00] joy right here, right now. Each audio is gonna be between 20 and 30 minutes long and i’m gonna fill the audios with, the tools I use to

have a life I love . And I want us to do it together. And so if you have an interest in joining Embodied Joy, you can check out all the details on the website@kinshiphandwork.com slash embodied Joy. You can also get that link in the show notes. 

I hope you join me ’cause it’s going to be so much fun.