January 2025 – Sarah Faith

distractions

January 23, 2025 by Sarah Faith

christian, christian blog, christian life, how to live a peaceful life, mental freedom, mental health, mental health blog, mental health for women, mental peace strategies, mindset, overcoming distractions, self care, self-care for women

squirrel!

you too, right? i can’t be the only one.

i’ll fess up. i’m the queen. i’ll be on a task and next thing i know, my phone is in my hand, and i’m looking at all kinds of things that have nothing to do with my original task. and that thing on my to-do list now takes me twice as long because my brain is in too many unhelpful, non-productive directions.

i’m distracted by things. i’m distracted by thoughts. i’m distracted by people. i’m distracted by things that on the surface look like good things, but ultimately are not THE thing, which makes them just another in a long like of distractions.

i’ve been on a journey my whole life really — we all have — to find a sense of purpose. i’ve thought i was right so many times only to be redirected some time later. and the re-directs are never without growth and lessons… take my first marriage for example. lots of growth and redirection happened there, packed with lessons i didn’t really want to learn. if i look back on all the times i’ve changed course, i can’t help but feel like i’ve just been so distracted.

it’s in these moments that i’m so thankful for the times my life has seemingly been uprooted in catastrophic ways, because i’ve been forced to get quiet, turn inward, and separate the truth from the noise. and the truth is… no matter how many distractions there are, they never win. they may temporarily win a battle here or there, but they’ll never win the war. if you’re truly committed to learning the lessons being presented to you, the distractions don’t have a permanent hold on you.

for me, distractions are nothing more than a feeble attempt at knocking me off course. if there’s no chance of changing my mind on the path i’m on, then maybe throwing a few distractions my way will delay the progress. but just like anything, you get better and better with practice. better at cutting down the distraction time, better at getting over them, better at identifying them before they even take a second of your time. it’s like reps in the gym… always adding one more, always becoming stronger, able to handle more weight.

distractions are annoying. i’m not even going to sugarcoat it at all – they’re so. dang. annoying. but the more you know about where you’re headed, the less power any of them have over you. i’m so crystal clear and dead set on where i’m going, it doesn’t matter who says or does what — i know what i heard and that’s where i’m going. no second guessing, no time to deliberate over “this or that,” and no time for all that rinky dink chatter in my thoughts trying to convince me otherwise.

i’m not trying to act like i’ve cracked the code or have it all figured out. i’m not immune. i think that only comes with more and more practice. and social media is a cruel beast sometimes, right? i can get so distracted by all the perfection, all the things people “say,” and trying to figure out if it’s true or not. but honestly… what i’ve come to realize is that it’s really none of my business. i was allowing these things to have too much power over my thoughts, and it was all just one big distraction, none of it having anything to do with what i’m trying to accomplish.

it’s like when i ask the kids to put away their laundry or brush their teeth and they end up in toy land, tinkering with anything else besides clothes or toothbrushes. what about those toys has anything to do with brushing teeth…? nothing. they got distracted. and now i’m annoyed because this is taking forever.

i do the same thing. and i’m grateful for these continued examples and lessons, because if i’m going to fuss over how much time i don’t have during the day, i definitely don’t have time for distractions.

some of the best things i’ve ever done in this department have been to put my blinders on, set some social media boundaries for myself, or just boundaries in general, and get really, really clear on the reason i began in the first place. do these distracted, sometimes comparative, sometimes negative, sometimes just not useful or helpful thoughts get me any closer to where i want to go? no? purge. it’s gotta go.

whatever it is or whoever it is and whatever it says or whatever they said — it doesn’t hold a candle to the mission you’re on. remember that. it’s not worth your peace, it’s not worth your time, and the work you have to do is far too important to allow the doubts, fears, and anxieties to have any power over your direction.

let those words sink in. think about them this week. i wrote them, but i believe they were given to me for you – i’m simply the conduit. i’m just the one that typed them into this space and hit “send.”

math

January 16, 2025 by Sarah Faith

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christian, christian blog, christian life, claiming your power, coming to terms with life, finding your strength, how to live a peaceful life, living in freedom, mental freedom, mental health, mental peace strategies, mindset, recovery, redemption, self care, self-care for women

at the time of writing this, i’m currently sitting at a local Starbucks with my husband. i’ve already finished my drink – drank every last drop of it, it was so delicious. doing some work tasks, people watching, brainstorming, etc.

as per usual, i didn’t know what i was going to write before opening this page to write it, but i asked Holy Spirit what He wanted me to write about and this idea came to mind almost instantly. math.

it was weird to me initially, too, but it took about three seconds for me to understand what i’m supposed to write about math. stay with me.

i don’t know how many of these blogs you’ve read. i don’t know how much of my story you’re aware of. but. for lack of dragging you through all the details, let’s just say that there have been more than a handful of occasions when the math did not math, okay? it didn’t quite add up. didn’t quite make sense. didn’t seem too probable. wasn’t looking too hot. you get the picture.

the revelation that i am continuing to learn — which is VERY hard for me because i am a math mind… i love math. i love logic. i love reasoning. i love patterns. i love things that make sense. my mind doesn’t comprehend behavior patterns that are completely destructive and nonsensical because it doesn’t math. i don’t get doing the same things over and over expecting different results because 2 and 2 will always be 4 until the ends of the earth and beyond. there are just certain things that truly are black and white, for as much of this world that’s grey.

but life? man. sometimes, that thing does not math at ALL. the chain of events prior to the moment i’m currently sitting in, if you and me sat down and ran through the whole chronology of it… no one has time for that. and i’m guessing there’s parts of your life that feel much the same. it just doesn’t add up. the equation is all jacked, and there’s just not a rule or a box that it fits into.

it’s not supposed to.

the more i try to figure it out, the more confused i get. the more i love math and try to apply laws of reason to life, the further away from the answers i seem to get. and i think i’m just going to have to accept that life and math are not meant to coincide. they’re not meant to agree. they don’t exist in the same neighborhood or zip code. and for those that live their life in such an organized fashion that it does, i’d love to politely suggest that there’s a chance there’s a good amount of things being missed in the efforts to evade chaos at all costs.

the chaos is where the growth is. opportunity lies in chaos. some of the coolest things in my life are the result of chaos. take my marriage and family for example. i’m previously divorced. i was only married for three years the first time around. there’s a lot of things about that divorce that make ZERO sense to me to this very day, but i quit trying to figure it out because my current reality feels like a dream and it was completely 100% born out of all of that nonsensical chaos. the math doesn’t math. the logic doesn’t follow. but there’s no sense in trying to make it fit into a box, because if it did, it would love all of its goodness.

let’s talk business for just one second. i’m currently a musician but i’m also in direct sales. i’ve got two college degrees, experience in like 47 fields, but i chose ((read: felt very led by God)) to step away from the live performance aspect of the very dream that i came to Nashville to chase five years ago. the dream i left Michigan for, a place i had spent my entire life. i was going to come to Nashville and be a musician. period. end of story. that in and of itself didn’t “math” to a lot of people, but it made sense to me. five years later, i’m hanging up the live performing ((for now…?)) and adding a direct sales opportunity to my plate. one that maybe on paper doesn’t make sense to some, but dang it, you know what, i’m giving up my need for things to make sense. things no longer have to make sense to me to work. it’s not a credential or qualification.

it doesn’t make sense to you that someone chasing music would slow that down and sell shampoo on the internet? ok, well i’m not saying it makes sense to me either, but what i do know for a fact is you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, avoiding the judgments of others and the possibility for failure will only get you so far, and you’ll really never know what truly is possible unless you get the heck out there and give it a shot.

so. math. that’s why i felt led to write this. because there are too many people i see, meet, and talk with that hold on so tightly to this need for it to make sense BEFORE you try it. why? what do you gain by clinging so hard to safety? i know that we have an innate need in our brains to avoid things trying to kill us, but i’m afraid some of us are taking that bit too far. opportunities are oftentimes not trying to kill you. they’re trying to help you. they’re giving you a way out, another route, offering you another perspective that the one you’re sold on right now that’s leaving you miserable.

pro tip – if your current view on life isn’t giving… if it’s not enjoyable… if there’s no joy in it whatsoever… try getting a different viewpoint. shake things up a bit. try something new. change your scenery. try a different direction. consider the possibility that you’re quite possibly made for more than you’re currently doing… and the vessel that shows up in might be unexpected. but that doesn’t mean it’s worth avoiding, shutting down, or ignoring without trying. that weird thing might just change your life.

quit applying laws, rules, and logic to things that are so often completely illogical… because i can tell you for a fact, it’s never going to add up.

♥, SF

whether they agree or not

January 9, 2025 by Sarah Faith

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christian, christian blog, christian life, do hard things, following the inner nudge, how to change your life, how to find purpose in your life, how to live a peaceful life, how to show up, mental health, mental peace strategies, mindset, purpose driven, purpose driven life, self care, self-care for women

i’d say it’s about once a week that someone mentions something related to me “quitting” music… they ask me why, they ask about my business, why i’m doing that instead of music, mention how sad it is that i’m not performing music anymore, etc. etc. trust me. i feel it, too. i grieve it, too. ((shameless plug, did you know that i am actually still creating music…? i put a brand new song out in November called “saved by the blood – go check it out if you haven’t!)) ((i’ve decided the new direction / genre is called “swamp gospel” — i hope you can dig it!!))

and i guess i don’t really ever feel the need to explain, however, i do wonder if maybe there’s a chance to relate to you through this path i’ve been taking.

i don’t know if you’ve ever been doing something, only to find that maybe it wasn’t what it seemed like it was going to be on the surface when you started. or maybe you started going in a direction, it was good for a while, even great sometimes, but then something inside you just started tugging you another way. things change. if you’re from a place where seasons exist, you know that seasons change… and sometimes things need to be let go that you otherwise in a hundred years wouldn’t have dreamed of letting go of.

there’s also this crazy, silly analogy my husband uses about penguins. you have penguins and you have an island. you have an island full of penguins. at a certain point, the laws of math and geometry are going to kick in and there’s truly only room for so many penguins on said island. the others are left to either jump off willingly and go to their own island, or fall off… either way, all the penguins aren’t staying on that island. it’s just not possible.

for me, in this stage of life, i’ve only got room for so many penguins on my island. and maybe you’re in a season right now too where the stress level is really high, and what you really need is a long sit in a quiet room to ask yourself if all these penguins on this island really belong here… do they? do they all need to stay? or would you feel better, lighter, more purposeful if you let go of some of the penguins?

if possible, try to temporarily let go of all the feelings of failure and inadequacy you might experience in the “rehoming” of these penguins… maybe some are going to need to be permanently rehomed, while others are temporary! you don’t have to have it all figured out right this minute, but you do deserve to experience a higher level of peace… especially if you’re causing your own unrest by simply refusing to put something down.

music is a good thing. performing music is a good thing. being a musician is something i am so grateful for, it’s such a great thing. i love writing music, making music, performing music, sharing music… but i love so many other things that have been gifted to me by God’s grace, mercy, and kindness, and i’m on a mission to make sure i’m stewarding my time and my resources well. and we’re not all called in the same direction — that’s something i’ve had to come to terms with, too. it does me no good to compare what others are doing to what i’m being called to — they’re apples to oranges.

here’s another angle of perspective for you — if you’re feeling nudged to give something up that feels really big, and heavy, and weighty, and important… wouldn’t it make sense that whatever you’re being asked to give it up FOR is Bigger, Heavier, Weightier, and More Important? for a while, nothing seemed more important to me than making a career or myself in music… and my eyes opened wider, and something inside shifted… at first i didn’t quite know what to do with it… but as i took steps in fear, it became clearer and clearer. i don’t think i have the full spectrum of the picture, even still, but i do know that i’m in the right place, doing the right things.

i’ve got the same goals as before — love people, make things for people, help people… whether it’s through a song, a blog, a social media post, or a bottle of shampoo, i’m still doing it. and i’m so grateful to do so. i’m equally if not more grateful for the family i get to be a part of while i’m doing all of those things. nothing matters more to me on this earth than God, my husband, and my kids… and if there’s some version of necessary shift in me that’s required in the name of any of those three avenues, the benefits far outweigh the costs.

whatever situation you find yourself in, whatever compromise you’re feeling like you have to make… you’re going to make the right choice. you’re going to make the hard choice. and you’re going to realize that you made exactly the right choice. choices like this aren’t meant to be easy – if it was easy, there’d be no growth opportunity tied to it. things that are hard are the things that are calling you higher. i’d encourage you to lean into that.

and hey. i’m super serious about sitting alone for a long time in a quiet room. that step is not optional.

i celebrate the difficult decisions you’re making — there’s joy and freedom on the other side.

♥, SF

new year, better me

i saw this saying the other day somewhere in social media land and it resonated with me a whole lot. it’s not a new me. it’s a better me. a stronger me, a me with better habits, a more faithful me, a more grounded me, a more surrendered me… a clearer vision, more boldness, more prayer, and more action.

what does a new year do for you? does it make you anxious? excited? does it spring you into action or hold you in place? does it pump you up or grieve you? do you find yourself looking forward or backward?

pro tip – as much as it’s possible, try not to look back. you’re not headed there. you have to find a way to get a forward-oriented direction.

this year, God gave me the word “go” as my 2025 “theme” so to speak. i had it on my to-do list to make a vision board. honestly, i made one for the first time last year and i’m not sure i’ll do it again. i do have a master plan i will be creating that guides me monthly and quarterly, but i’m not sure about the vision board concept. i know that might sound weird – i know they say visualization is key. we’ll see if i create one or not — check back with me in a week or so and ask me if i ever ended up doing it. haha

i was on a call with my mastermind group and we were talking about words for the year — when it came to be my turn, i honestly didn’t feel like i had a word at first, but i was encouraged to just let the first word the came to mind, come forward and have weight. it was “go.” when i said it out loud, my mentor said, “yes, Sarah. the word i felt and heard for you was ‘execute’.” that’s what “go” means for me this year – this is the year i take bold action, bolder than before, more grounded, steadfast, rooted action. this is the year that i move, create, and trust that i’ve got everything i need to create the visions and dreams placed inside of me. i’m lacking nothing. i need no permission, special skills, or special abilities. i’ve got what i need and it’s time to go.

if it serves you to think that a new year must mean a new you, then by all means, go with that, but i would also love to encourage you to not feel the need to buy into that. you don’t have to be a new you. maybe you just need to be a more focused you, a more disciplined you, a you with better habits than last year, a you that doesn’t listen to fear or that inner critic as much. a you that gives up the excuses and does the dang thing. a you that doesn’t listen to the judgments and nay-saying of others as much. a you that doesn’t put stock in your limiting beliefs and those thoughts that keep holding you back. maybe you just need a better morning routine. maybe you just need better friends. maybe it’s better boundaries. nothing inherently new – just better. don’t put so much pressure on yourself to be this new shiny creation – you were fearfully and wonderfully made. no need to reinvent the wheel. maybe just a couple improvements here or there is all that’s in your way.

i don’t know if that helps you at all today, but i hope it does. i don’t know who it’s for… maybe it’s you. maybe you just need permission to shed the weight of the expectations, whether outer or inner, and just be free to still be you, and maybe your 2.0 version isn’t as heavy as you’re making it. maybe what actually needs to happen is less… less expectations, less self-judgment, less demand to live up to this proverbial hype… and permission to just be. be exactly what and who you were created to be, not what you think will satisfy some undefined standard this world told you to try and live up to.

i wish you the best in everything. happiness, love, life, family, fulfillment… and oftentimes we think that means we need more, when really, we actually need less. maybe less is more is truly what makes more better.

♥

Monthly Archives: January 2025

distractions

math

whether they agree or not

new year, better me