A House with Four Rooms

Another post inspired by one of Gretchen Rubin’s recent blog posts.  She posted this quote:

“There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.”

–Rumer Godden, A House with Four Rooms

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2013/05/everyone-is-a-house-with-four-rooms-a-physical-a-mental-an-emotional-and-a-spiritual/

Often times I read her blog and immediately think of ways I should improve an aspect of my life.  This was a nice reprieve since I feel like this is something I am currently doing well.  While I may not enter all four room every day, I do have a least one activity each week that focuses on each of these areas. 

• Physical – working out and focusing on healthier eating (multiple times a week)
• Mental – challenging myself at work, reading, blogging, etc.
• Emotional – I often discover a lot about my emotional state in conversations with my closest friends and family (my husband, best friend, parents, etc.).  I have made it a point to make time for these conversations on a weekly basis.
• Spiritual – church service, mentoring the student youth group, prayer

Confronting Contradictions

I regularly read the Happiness Project blog by Gretchen Rubin.  I loved her book The Happiness Project and so I’ve started following her blog entries.  She recently posted about contradictions she has encountered in her study of happiness. 

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2013/05/do-you-embrace-these-contradictions-theyre-important-for-happiness/

I found several of them very though provoking so I am posting them here with a few of my own thoughts based on my experiences.

1. Accept myself, and expect more of myself.

· I am much better at the second part – I am most content when I set a goal and achieve it and do not feel as at ease in a steady state.  I think that comes from my fear that time passes so quickly that if I’m not moving forward that I’m moving backwards. 

2. Use my time efficiently, yet make time to play, to wander, to read at whim, to fail.

· I have gotten increasingly better at this one once I finally embraced that I am more introverted than I ever thought I was.  I love to be around others and master my task lists but if I do not take time to recharge then my productivity decreases exponentially.  I can always tell when I’m taking on too much because I reach a point where my mind just wants to close everything out.  Usually a quiet evening at home reading and relaxing fixes my attitude almost immediately. 

3. Take myself less seriously—and take myself more seriously.

· I take myself entirely too seriously.  I get so wrapped up in my own thoughts that it can be maddening.  It is part of why I sleep so poorly at night.  I am not sure but I’ve got to find a way to improve at taking myself less seriously.  My husband does a great job balancing these two, maybe he can teach me. 

4. Someplace, keep an empty shelf, and someplace, keep a junk drawer.

· In the literal sense I am not great at keeping empty shelves.  In the mental sense I am vastly improving at this.  I have learned that if I don’t leave a little spare time/mental capacity in my life I will not have room for new things I want to tackle.  In the past couple of years my mental empty shelf has made room for learning to make sushi, craft nights, trying aerial dancing, painting, poetry writing, blogging, etc.  If you fill your life to the brim with things you already know and are comfortable with then you leave no room for new adventures.  My 30 before 30 challenge has helped me a great deal in pushing myself to make room for new things in my life.  I do love lists after all!

5. Think about myself so I can forget myself.

· To me this means taking inventory of where you are in life.  This allows you to course correct any issues you see as you go.  Once you know where you are and feel comfortable with your state of being you can focus more energy on the people and activities in your life.  I have found this activity of self-discovery and course correcting has to be revisited periodically but in doing so it prevents me from obsessing over it all the time. 

6. Paying close attention to something sometimes helps me to ignore it.

· I have not found this to be the case for me personally.  I am great at fixating on things but in doing so I have not found that it helps me ignore anything.  Example – I regularly track my food diary, calories, and exercise.  This does help me reach my health and fitness goals!  It does not however make me miss chocolate and ice cream.  It reminds me why I should not consume those things but it doesn’t make the craving go away for me.  I have found the longer I go without those things the less frequent my cravings become. 

7. Often it takes discipline to take pleasure.

· I agree, especially with things like exercise and cooking.  One truth about me is that I generally have to feel like I’m good at something before I can fully enjoy it.  The more I practice things like exercise and cooking, the more competent I feel in my abilities, and the more I can enjoy those things.  I have always found it takes discipline to manage my schedule in a way that leaves time for leisure activities that I enjoy.  If I’m not using my time wisely then I don’t have enough time for things I love like reading and blogging.

8. If I want to keep going, I must allow myself to stop.

· My thoughts on question 2 are extremely relevant here as well.  As an introvert I have to take time to recharge or I become miserable to be around.  Just ask Kyle!

9. The days are long, but the years are short.

· So true!  Personally I think this is true because while I feel some unhappiness due to stress and daily activities, my overall happiness and contentment with my life is very high.  This means the stress of daily activities feel longer and more agonizing at times but overall the weeks and months seem to melt together.  Increasingly so since entering my career since there is a routine/cycle to my schedule.

Getting Ready for BigStuf

This will be my fifth year taking this trip down to PCB with the Ignition students.  I’m praying for all the students as we prepare for the trip that God will move in their lives and that they will experience God’s truth and love while at camp.  I also pray that they will be able to apply the knowledge and experiences from camp to their lives when they return home.  I’m so excited to see the transformation for these kids during this week and thankful that I get to be a part of it!

May the Fourth be With You

I love my nerdy friend group!  On May Fourth a bunch of us met for dinner and then went a friend’s house to watch Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back.  I am admittedly not much of a Star Wars fan but the rest of the group was so it was fun to see everyone revel in one of their favorite movies.  It was also fun to say “May the Fourth be with you” all day.

New Mattress

Buying a new mattress was one of those very grown up purchases that we just kept pushing further and further down the priority list.  We moved into our house about five and half years ago.  In the process of buying furniture and moving in we obviously couldn’t afford to tackle everything we wanted to so we opted to take my parents offer and take two extra twin beds they had to push together to make a king sized bed.  This was really intended to be a short term plan.  We quickly found out as homeowners there is always something on the list to do next.  We found tackling the $50 or $100 items to be much more palatable so that is what we did. 

Finally this year we decided was the year of the new mattress.  We planned to make it a joint Christmas gift since it is such a large purchase but a fundraising opportunity for Kyle’s school came up and we decided to go ahead and bite the bullet.  Best. Decision. Ever!

After only a few nights on the new mattress it’s hard to imagine we spent so much time living with the mediocrity of our old twin mattresses.  It is always so wonderful not to have a bed butt crack!  Sometimes being a grown up is stressful but sometimes it’s wonderful, the new mattress definitely goes in the winning column!

Luzern

We debated a couple of options of where to spend our last day in Switzerland.  We considered Sion, Luzern, and Zurich.  Due to the lengthy train ride we ruled out Zurich.  Ultimately Luzern won out because of recommendations from friends who had been and raved about the famous Lion monument.  We arrived and were delighted that the sun was peeking out of the clouds.  We began our walk along Lake Luzern.  We admired the covered chapel bridge and the water tower which were both destroyed in a major fire but were quickly and masterfully rebuilt.  The city had a very charming old town which was full of delightful surprises like murals on the sides of building and intricate fountains.

 

After strolling through the old town we stopped for a quick lunch and then made our way to the Lion monument.  It did not disappoint.  A friend had said they were moved to tears when they first aw the statue.  I can completely understand why now.  The combination of the magnitude of the size of the carving and the mournfulness on the face of the lion is very moving.   The monument commemorates a group of soldiers who were ordered to protect the king in a hopeless battle and most of which lost their lives.  The statue is meant to pay tribute to the loyalty and commitment of those soldiers but also to the sadness of the loss of their lives in such a hopeless effort.  We spent a while just sitting on a bench admiring it and reflecting on how it made us feel. 

We finished out our visit to Luzern but walking to the top of the city and weaving our way back down on the city wall which surrounds half of the city.  The views were spectacular.  You can see several mountains and the picturesque town by the lake.  Also to my delight as we walked down we passed a small pasture with several wooly cows.  This excited me more than I should probably admit.  I think these cows are such cool animals; they look like a mix between a traditional cow and a yak.  I had been telling Kyle about them during our trip and I don’t think he really believed they existed until he saw them for himself.  After a small wooly cow photo shoot we made our way back to the train station so we could spend our last night with Anthony and Kim.  Luzern had a little bit of all of our favorite parts of the other cities we had visited.  There was water, mountains, history, charming cobblestone streets, and Swiss wildlife (swans, chicken ducks, and wooly cows)! 

That night we went to a lovely Italian pizzeria and gorged ourselves on salad, pizza, and gelato.  It was a perfect end to the trip.  It also confirmed our sentiment that we really want to try and go back to explore more of the country!

Geneva

This was one of the cities that I was the most excited about as we planned for the trip.  It was on the must visit list for me.  I was a little disappointed that the weather was a bit gloomy but we still enjoyed a wonderful day in the city.  Geneva is the international business hub in Switzerland and is home to some of the most acclaimed Swiss watchmaking companies.  It is also known for very high end shopping so we knew to plan for window shopping rather than actual shopping. 

After arriving we strolled along the lake and admired the Jet d’Eau, it’s a fountain that shoots 140m into the air and can be seen from up to 10 miles away.  It was an interesting twist on the more traditional fountains we had seen throughout other cities on our trip. 

Then we arrived at the famous flower clock which was beautiful and larger than I expected!  The area around the flower clock also had lots of beautiful statues and monuments to admire during our walk.  Our next stop was the Reformation Wall which is a very large and long wall commemorating the reformation movement.  In the center of the wall are statues of John Calvin, William Farel, Theodore Beza, and John Knox.  Along each side are inscriptions.  The whole piece is very beautiful and so unexpected to be in the center of such a metropolitan city.  The Wall is located on the grounds of the University of Geneva.  The four statues at the center were the men God used to establish biblical churches which in turn changed the world through the right preaching of the Gospel with all its implications by applying the Word of God to every aspect of life. (http://reformation.edu/colleges/pages/ref-wall.htm)

My favorite part of Geneva was the Patek Philippe museum.    My dad is a gemologist and I grew up hearing a lot about jewelry and watchmaking.  My dad has always admired the craftsmanship of Patek Philippe watches and the museum did not disappoint.  It walked through the history of Swiss watchmaking and had several hundred timepieces from the 1500’s through the 1800’s.  Then there was a whole floor dedicated to Patek Philippe pieces.  Their work is very detailed and takes about a year from start to finish for each piece.  The more complex creations took several years and were on the cutting edge of advancements in horology. 

We also enjoyed a lovely lunch at a café and strolled through the contemporary arts museum.  Geneva is also where Kyle picked up his Swiss army knife from the Victorinox store.  He was thrilled that he found one for such a great price and they even etched his name into the blade so it is a keepsake he will enjoy for a long time to come.  Geneva perhaps did not live up to the anticipation I had but we greatly enjoyed some of the attractions the city had to offer.