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logging off

IMG_8668Over the weekend and this last week I have been quite sick with the flu. I spent time away with some of my dearest friends just one night and it was medicine like no other.

We went to the most stunning house in South West of Australia, spent time eating lovely food and enjoying one another’s company.

Saturday morning was my favourite. Sea, salt, best friends and non stop conversation.

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Even though I had the flu, I just relaxed and turned my phone and internet off on purpose.

Therefore no posts from me.

Sometimes we just need to log off and enjoy the ones we are with.

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When was the last time you logged off?

This Easter, I want to set a challenge, when we are a little bored, when we have more time than usual, when we sit in church services, when we hang out with friends and family, leave your phone behind.

Log off.

When we take time to create space, dreams and beauty arise.

I promise.

Speak tomorrow

Amanda

 

 

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the velveteen rabbit

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velveteen

My son Maximus has a little ruggie, that he loves to pieces. I never really understood the power of a ruggie, until I had a child.

Yesterday was a sad day for many of my friends, a father of two young children lost his life tragically and it is at times like this, that I linger a little longer in the morning with my son as he drags his ruggie from his room into ours.

Life is way to short for shallow conversations.

Life is way to fleeting to live inauthentic lives, trying to please people you never will.

The people who will love you no matter what are the ones who see you with your ruggie and they don’t mind.

A day of reflection here for my family, I ate my eggs on toast a little slower this morning, I intentionally left my phone at home and walked the beach with my husband and son. I sat back in my rocking chair and I watched them playing cars and planes together.

I let the washing slide, I left the toast on the bench and allowed it to go cold, I visited my mum for no reason but to walk in the house I grew up in.

I savoured those who I can be real with.

I love this story from the velveteen rabbit, it describes everything I am feeling with much more eloquence.

the velveteen rabbitBe real.

Leave anything fake behind.

Shed that which is not bringing beauty to your world.

Honest, real, hair has been loved off genuine relationship.

Life is way to short for anything else.

Amanda

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Nostalgia

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One of the greatest hindrances to progressive leadership is nostalgia.

We find something that works and then flog that dead horse till we are dragging it up the mountain.

I am a great believer in tradition.

I am a great fan in reflection and learning lessons from my past but I am also realising that this can easily turn into nostalgia.

It is a liar. It is a selective thinker. It is easily convinced that everything was perfect, when it was far from it.

Nostalgia helps you remember the beautiful, lovely moments of success and forget the pain, stretch and chaos it took to get you there.

If you want to be a leader that brings change and leans into the new, you need to flush nostalgia out of your system.

Traditions are brilliant, lessons we have learnt from the past necessary, but doing the same thing you have always done will always get the same results.

If you are using the same systems as you were 10 years ago everything has changed, (in the last 10 years, facebook, twitter and instagram have completely changed the way the world communicates). Social media has brought new words, new customs, new problems in with it. Therefore systems and processes must change with the crazy changing landscape of society.

If you are singing the same songs from 5 years ago, in a leadership context, you are stuck in a moment.

If you are reading the same books,

Writing the same sermons, with the same jokes and the same themes,

Speaking the same language,

Wearing the same clothes, from the same shop, that you bought 5 pairs on sale a few years ago,

Sitting in the same seat, in the same cafe, drinking the same coffee…

I would guess some of your leadership outlook and strategy is stuck in a nostalgic moment.

I love routine, I love drinking tea and lighting a candle and pursuing truth but I need to continue to remind myself what CS Lewis wrote

‘There are far better things ahead, than those we leave behind.’

Are you stuck in a moment?

Then innovate something.

Today.

Speak soon

Amanda

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your unique

brene brown

I started an online creativity course with Brene Brown this week. One of our exercises was to write down three things that we would like to learn or get better at throughout this course. Three creative things that we would actively allow ourselves to practise, no matter the outcome.

One of my three was photography.

This last Christmas my husband bought me a great camera, but so often I stop myself from using it, because one it’s easier to just pick up my phone and two because I have so many friends who are amazing photographers and I kind of feel like a try hard. (vulnerable moment right here)

One main reason why I endorse and love creativity so much is because it always brings out our unique.

There is a way that we see the world, that no one else does.

No one else has the same eyes, the same perspective, the same story and therefore everything we produce is unique.

Even if we have gotten the idea from somewhere our reproduction is always different.

Yesterday I jumped in the deep end. My mum runs a home for women who find themselves pregnant and in a place of vulnerability.

It is a beautiful home, that Max and I often visit to just hang with these brand new Mums, who are staying there finding a place to plant themselves and their new little family has some support to thrive.

Every time I hang there I find great perspective.

Strength, hope, potential, struggle…The stories the walls of that home holds.

Back to my story, one of the new Mums asked me to take some photos. (It’s funny when you make a private decision about something, opportunities quickly arise).

With permission from the beautiful Mum, here are a few of my favourites from yesterday.

I am learning that even when we just have a go, our unique comes to the fore.

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mummy and jasmine

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What’s your unique?

Make a decision to explore it this week.

Speak tomorrow

Amanda

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Others opinions

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How easy is it to judge others?

How easy is it to think you know better and know what’s going on in their worlds?

I think social media makes it easier than ever before to judge, criticise and blame others.

You know what I find so difficult? Is that Christians are often the worst.

We find ourselves on high pedestals and often fall harder because of this pious place that we locate ourselves. Thinking we are living a good, productive, holy life.

I am not immune, I have sinned and fallen short.

7 1-5 “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbour. Matthew 7: 1-5 Message.

Oh wow.

What can I say after this?

Personally, one of the biggest downfalls of judgement in my life, is that I fall prey to worrying and being consumed with others opinions.

When I have heaps of opinions about other people, I fall prey to the reaping of this thought pattern in my own world.

The more I worry about what other people think, the more I judge what others are doing.

It goes the other way as well.

The more I judge people, the more I worry about others opinions.

It is a Ferris wheel of emotion and guilt. It is a terrible place that I feel stuck and want to get off the ride as soon as I can.

I found this quote this week and it is everything that I want my life to be about these days…

‘I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.’

Amy Poehler

This means for awkward conversations, when you say ‘Sorry I don’t want to talk or be like this’. It means for stricter blocking and unfollowing on social media, it means for shorter coffee catch ups with some people.

I don’t like politics

I don’t like gossip covered in the honey of ‘debriefing’

and I am far from innocent.

I want move mountains, I want to see people set free, I want to make a difference.

None of these are possible when I spend my days judging others and hiding in the shadow of worrying what other people think of me.

Tomorrow.

Smile

Amanda

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