What can YOU do?

As I sit here marinating in mild depression and loosening my belt, I look back at 2020 and see the silver lining in unlikely places. It was and continues to be a challenging time for so many of us. I remember evaluating all the areas of my life that were out of whack, AKA the Thrive 9 love buckets. Balancing these aspects of life given our collective situation seems impossible. We are isolating ourselves from person-to-person interaction, restricting ourselves from our loved ones, and many of us might not be able to participate in church, races, school, dating, concerts, etc. in a way that truly connects the human spirit. Our collective stress and anxiety levels have been maxed out for a myriad reasons. I don’t have to tell you that this is not normal human behavior. However, it is instinctual to protect ourselves and others from harm like COVID. In these times I understand we’re trying to do what we can do given new information... it just feels a lot less human, among other things.

Adversely, we’re living so much more of our life watching TV and on social media. People mindlessly scrolling, wasting so much time, chipping in on social conversations where it’s easy to be passive aggressive or just plain mean. Relationships have been destroyed over the phone, and by text at that! There has been so much fear-energy shared through these screens, and not a single point or challenging idea has been met with the effort of looking people in the eyes and having a hard conversation to remedy the multitude of issues before us. Humans have existed and evolved to be problem solvers, it is core to our survival, yet so many of us dig in and navigate from a map that allows no exploration or correction. Please hear me when I say, I am not excluded from these observations. I frequently turn the lens inward to evaluate my actions and reactions, and I am by no means perfect.   

What I am though is a doer, for better or worse, and I recognized the need to feel more connected in this challenging time.  More human. I had a small idea, I let it germinate, and by opening it up to my amazing group of Lake Girls the idea bloomed into a beautiful event. All for the benefit of 2 women that needed to be lifted in these hard times.

1. Thought. I know a young woman, wife, mother who is suffering through an extremely difficult situation. What can I do to help? What does she need that I can give her without putting her health at risk? Short answer, money.
2. Continued to think about it. I bet there are other women close to home that need help as well, let me lift this up to my Lake Girls and get their thoughts. This crew elevates because they operate out of love-energy, and I knew we could do great things! For those who could participate, they donated money and could nominate a woman to receive it. What an amazing and tearful zoom meeting that was!
3. A total of $1400 was collected by Lake Girl Alums and extended family and friends. In just 3 weeks these 12 generous women and do-gooders were connected to something bigger, impacting 2 families with the first ever Lake Girl Christmas gift!
4.  At the end of the day, it felt good knowing we did something that made an impact, no matter how big or small. We felt human for a day.

No matter the situation you’re in due to the pandemic, you’re experiencing something that you’ve never experienced before. Unfortunately, it might be showing up in your waistline or wallet (I know it’s showing up there for me!)  Until we can go back to normal, it is important to have grace for your situation and that of others. Focus on what you CAN do... not what you have failed to do.

I, YOU, WE all have the ability to DO something. Do something out of love not fear. Do what you can, it doesn’t have to be money related. Do understand what makes you feel human, evaluate your love buckets. We are not perfect, but we are still worthy. Human.

​