mental freedom – 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

blog posts.

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