Finding your deep soul thoughts

One way I've created space in my days for reflection is taking a walk through our older neighborhood and listening to a podcast. In the past few months I've read more about the mental benefits of moving our bodies, so I'm not the first person to say this: Moving our bodies has a way of shaking our thoughts loose from the grime that builds up over time in our minds, locking us up. Incorporating simple movement into your day can help you process things happening around and to you, as well as help you organize your thoughts or even create new ones. Running, walking, exercising, biking, or any other avenue of movement you enjoy using can be a form of reflection.

It is the posture of your mind as you enter your reflective space, whatever that may look like, that allows you to move past the daily thoughts of grocery and to-do lists to the deeper ones you hide underneath. Our minds can sometimes get stuck in the mire of daily tasks or repetitive routines of sitting, and the only way to get the wheels turning again is to get up and move. Getting in touch with your deep soul thoughts takes work and intentionality that just doesn't happen when you sit on your couch day after day. Physically moving your body greases the wheels and facilitates motion of thought.

As I said, it's not easy to access your deep soul thoughts. One reason might be that you're simply not allowing yourself to. When I first began walking in the mornings my thoughts took a little bit of time to reign in. They first drifted over the temperature, which was considerably warmer than it earlier in the morning when I let our dog out. My thoughts are always drawn next to the corner of our cove where dirt, leaves, acorns and small tree branches pile on top of one another. I never want to walk through it, but then, I'm pulled back into whichever podcast I happen to be listening to that morning.

Listening to podcasts focuses my mind on their words, or listening. No, the words that filter through my ears are not mine, but they turn my attention inward to the thoughts trying to slip by unnoticed. As many of you know, Ryan and I are moving in just one short week. With this significant upcoming event resting daily at the forefront of my mind, my thoughts are naturally drawn back to the logistics integral to uprooting our lives to a new place.

During my last walk I nostalgically examined each house I went past, knowing I would soon leave this place. I remember when we first looked at our house almost two years ago. Ryan had proposed to me only weeks earlier and all my excitement from hearing those four words in the middle of a sweaty June summer still coursed through my veins.

The first time we looked at our house as brand new home-buyers I knew it was a place we could make home. I didn't love everything about the house itself. I loved the potential it held. Much like the beloved home design guru Joanna Gaines looks at piles of rubbish and sees a dream home, I saw the ways I could shape this place into one I love.

I changed the color of the walls. I sanded down the paneling walls darkening the room we spent so much of our time in. We added light fixtures, wall decorations, clutter and messiness. The whole time I fixed up the house trying to make it something I love I knew I would love it when the changes were finished, not in the middle of trying to make it my own.

Unexpectedly as I didn't love everything about it when I walked in the door the first time, were the feelings rising inside me as we are moving out of the house, selling it to strangers. I began to see all the memories we made here, all the things we hoped for here, all the things we dreamed of here.

Just as sadness about leaving this place wells up inside me over the home Ryan and I created, I think about the place we're going. I think about the house I walked into there; this new, strange place with mountains and hiking and food that's different than ours. The house I didn't have to love for it's potential, one I didn't have to change to love.

I walked through the door, wandered through the rooms, felt the color on the walls, and I imagined our things there, our animals there. I imagined our future children there. I imagined us living in this place that is so different, but also comfortable.

It happened just like that. I took one step inside and saw us there, saw our family growing there, and I knew this was our home. I knew it was the place I wanted to be, and I didn't just feel that way about the house itself. Yes, the house is amazing and I love every room, but this city, this strange, new world is where God led us. I knew it was exactly where he wanted us to be right now, and I knew we would be happy here, that we could make a life here.