What is the Best Recipe to Lighten Your Daily Load?

Who doesn't want a lighter load in life? Maybe it's just me. But I'm willing to bet these three ingredients will sweeten your day and shed some burdens.

1. Sit down for ten minutes and do something you love.

I double dog dare you. Are we still daring in our thirties? 

Maybe you grab a great book, one you are reading just for pleasure. Maybe you simply look out the window. Maybe you knit or do a puzzle (kill me) or you draw or write or nap. Whatever. But you are not moving, you have quieted your soul, and you are not tracking results or checking boxes. It’s a time where your soul gets to wander and this brings you life. You show nothing for it but a lighter soul. Yay soul! Ten could turn into more, but start somewhere. 

2. Get outside.

Chin up, friend. Take a walk. This is all about your senses and your perspective. Look at what God is doing; things are so much bigger than us. I am always telling my children to look up and see how God is painting the evening sky—now they’ve started to squeal and call me to soak in the colors at sunset. It’s the sweetest. Feel the grass or hold the snow. Smell whatever season you are in. Listen to the rain or the birds. Take a break from technology and get outside. Look outside at living and wild things; leave inside the phones and dishes. 

3. Confess and apologize.

We just got deep, folks. But it’s good, you got this. Take a heart assessment. Don’t make it hard. Whatever God brings up pretty quickly. Confess this to Him. Apologize to Him and then apologize to whatever human you have wronged today. Your children or your spouse or your coworker or your dearest friend. And then lean into God’s grace and forgiveness. Believe you are forgiven. Breathe deep. Move on. You are done. And you are lighter.

Sometimes these are all combined in one step. Or not. However it works. Maybe you pencil in “take a walk” in your calendar each day. Maybe your ten minutes is your treat after you’ve eaten the vegetables of your day. Maybe right now you have remembered who you need to apologize to and you're about to do so. 

All of these will get easier the more you make space; all of these will lighten your soul.

Chin up, friend. Give it a go. 

I dare you.