104. Thriving

0:00 Hey, what’s up everyone is Jennie Dildine, the LDS mission coach and you are listening to the LDS mission Podcast, episode number 104. thriving. Hey, I’m Jennie, the LDS mission coach. And whether you’re preparing to serve a mission, currently serving a returned missionary or a missionary mama like me, I created this podcast just for you. Are you searching for epic confidence? Ready to love yourself and to learn the how of doing hard things? Then let’s go. I will help you step powerfully into your potential and never question your purpose. Again. It’s time to embrace yourself. Embrace your mission, embrace your life, and embrace what’s next. Hey, everybody, welcome. Welcome to the podcast, my friends. Thanks so much for being here. Happy Summer to you. One thing that’s been crazy that’s been going on here. And I don’t know if this is normal for where you are at in the world. But here, it’s not super normal. We’ve been having tons and tons of thunderstorms, and lightning over and over and over again. Last night, all of my kids at different points ended up in our room to just double check with us that everything was gonna be okay. Just because it was so wild, like the lightning was going on and on and on. And then that thunder, you know, so summer storms, I’m all about it. But we usually don’t get this money. So I’m not sure what that’s about. But it’s been fun. I actually like summer storms. We had a great weekend. Last weekend, I went to visit my mom for her birthday, she turned seven days. So shout out to my mom, I love you so much. And a lot of who I am is because of her and the things that she has taught me. So I’m so grateful for her. Today, we’re actually going to be talking about thriving. And one of the things that precipitated this podcast was I was talking to a client, she’s an RM client that I had worked with a while ago. And then she circled back around and said, Hey, I’d love to work together again. So we had been working together the last little while. And she hopped on a call one day, and she says to me, she said, I’m not really sure if I’m thriving. And I was like really? What do you mean by that? Tell me more? What do you What does thriving mean to you? And she said, Well, actually, if I’m thinking about it even more, I kind of think I’m I kind of think I might be thriving. But my mom, she does not think I’m thriving. And so I just thought that was interesting. And so I wanted to dive into today, what is thriving, and why it might be useful for us to strive towards thriving, why it might not be useful for us to strive for thriving. And my all of it’s just totally fine. So we’re just going to kind of dive into a few things today that maybe you want to consider. So first, we should start by saying that thriving might just be a state of being that we could have anywhere, wherever we are. So it could be on the mission, it could be in our current job, it can be in our current dating relationship. It could be on you know, maybe as we’re preparing to go on the mission, as we’re wrapping up high school, it can be a lot of different places. So as we share examples here, maybe just kind of consider which area you’re in which aspect of this life experience you’re in. And then we can sort of apply some of these concepts to that. So I did look up the definition of what it means to thrive. And it said that thrive is to prosper, be fortunate, or successful and to grow or develop vigorously. It’s not a fun word, or to flourish. So a cinnamon synonym might be to bloom. And when I read flourish or a synonym to bloom, I started thinking about the plants that are outside in my yard right now. And I just love this time of year where everything is fully green. We’re sort of we’re not into this super hot part of the summer. And so everything’s really green. Nothing’s really died yet. And the bushes are just super full and there’s flowers blooming all over the place. But as I walked around my yard this morning, when I take my dog out, what I did notice is there’s this one particular Bush, it’s called a clematis, and it’s a climbing flower that grows up, you can either put twine on it or it can grow, you know, a trellis or something like that. And I know that I’ve talked about this clematis on the podcast before a while ago. But what I noticed today, is I have two pots on either side of a column, and one pot. On one side, the clematis is thriving, like it’s growing, it’s climbing, the flowers are blooming, it’s really just taking off, it’s flourishing, as this definition said, and then the other pot is not doing as well, it, I’m pretty sure if I was to explore it further, that the sprinkler that’s tied to that part, right there isn’t working. And in fact, I’m almost sure that that’s what’s going on. And I just haven’t gotten around to fixing it. But that side is not thriving, it’s not flourishing. And so it’s kind of interesting to think of this concept of thriving as kind of like we see plants do that they prosper and that they grow. And sometimes they’re not growing as well. But here’s the interesting thing, is I sort of think that we believe that thriving means that everything is going well, all of the time. Maybe you’ve heard people say, and we like to say this in our family, like you’re living your best life. And we tend to think of thriving as like I never, I’m not never feeling down. I’m never feeling sad. I’m never feeling overwhelmed, I’m never feeling stressed. Like, we think of thriving as just only flourishing as just only being prosperous, and fortunate and successful. But I’ll tell you, what I’m already starting to kind of dread is the winter. And when we think of a true life cycle of these plants that are in my yard, they don’t flourish, and prosper, and bloom all year round. For sure, let’s see maybe six months from now, seven months from now, I’m going to be looking outside, and all of the things that are currently flourishing and blooming will not will at that point be dead, to some extent, not actually dead, because we know they’re going to come back, but they will go through a dormant period. One fun fact. Or funny fact is that around here, sometimes there’s a cornfield, and I’ll watch that little corn, shoot, like little tiny corn plant start really small. And then as it gets taller and taller, I tell my family like oh boy, we’re going into the winter, here comes the fall. And the truth is, is that maybe thriving isn’t the absence of overwhelm, or frustration of discouragement. Maybe thriving, is learning how to be okay with the fall and winter, and learn how to really take care of yourself in the process. Because here’s what’s so interesting about this is that many of the plants in my yard if there were no winter, there would be no thriving in the summer, spring and summer. So many plants actually need that dormant stage to continue to thrive. So I did read a blog post from someone who talked about thriving more from a mental and emotional space. And their opinion was that thriving could be considered someone who is resilient, who is adaptable, who’s creative, who’s self aware, and who understands their strengths. Now, one thing I want us to notice about this is that thriving back to this example of my client, and her mom, thriving is not always observable from the outside.

9:49 But it’s something that happens on the inside. So let’s say come fall and winter. If you were to walk around my yard, you’d be like that one’s dead. That one’s dead. one’s dead. But there’s something going on inside, there’s a change and transformation and like it’s drawing energy from the earth, or it’s conserving energy or whatever it’s doing it saving up all that energy. So then when it gets to the thrive and flourish stage, it’s ready to go. It’s all stored in there, and then it can take off. So here’s some things that we need to be aware of when it comes to this idea of thriving is sometimes let me give you three sometimes, number one, we use it against ourselves. Number two, we create an ideal in our mind, that’s not a reality. And number three, we don’t acknowledge the cyclic, cyclical nature of thriving. So number one, again, sometimes we can really use this idea of thriving against ourselves, let’s say we’re in a more dormant phase, or we’re in a more tired phase, or we’re in a more emotional phase or not as productive phase, or whatever that is, we can look at it kind of like this mom was doing with her daughter and say, Oh, that’s bad. You’re not thriving, that’s bad, and something’s wrong. So we should be aware of that. Number two, create, when we’re creating an ideal in our mind, that is not reality. So what I mean by this is, again, back to this sort of idea that maybe we’ve created that we always have to be living our best life, we always have to be happy and content and productive and flourishing. But that’s not reality, you guys, that’s not how life works. And in fact, we need those falls and winters in order to, like rest. And for that to propel us in into the future into the thriving that’s meant next. Which brings us to the third thing is we have to be were aware of not acknowledging the cyclical nature of thriving. So, again, this is just us believing that it should always be spring, and it should always be summer. And believe me, I kind of wish it was like that. I really do. And maybe if you’ve listened to this podcast and have you know that that’s the case for me, that I do kind of wish it was a perpetual spring or summer. But when we don’t surrender to the process, to the process of not thriving, and then thriving, and then not thriving, and then thriving, then we’re sort of resistance, it resistant to ourselves, and actually resistant to growth and change. I was sort of thinking, what is the opposite of thriving, and what I came up with was suffering. And when we kind of buy into these three things that we need to be aware of using it against ourselves, creating an ideal in our mind, that’s not real. And we don’t acknowledge the cyclical nature. When we do those things. When we use it against ourselves. That is what creates suffering. So the fall and winter all by itself don’t create suffering. They do create, maybe some periods in our life where we are frustrated, where we are feeling down where we are feeling tired, or overwhelmed, or stressed. But that alone by itself doesn’t create suffering. It’s the resistance to the fallen winter, that creates the suffering. But ironically, when we surrender to the fall and winter, and to those dormant times, where maybe we’re not showing up the way that we want to, maybe we’re not feeling the way that we want to maybe we’re not even thinking the way that we want to. When we surrender to that as part of the process as part of the cyclical nature of being human. Then that creates thriving, that’s where we become resilient, and adaptable and creative and self aware. And we start to understand our strengths. When I was in high school, I mentioned this, I’m sure on the podcast before I was the lead in my high school musical is a very small musical, it was called The Fantasticks. And I played Louisa, in The Fantasticks, and one of the lines from that script always has kind of stuck with me and rang true to me over the years. And it says, There is a curious paradox that no one can explain who understands the secret of the Reaping of the grain, who understands why spring is born out of wind tours laboring pain, or why we must all die a bit, before we grow again, then this character says, I do not know the answer, I merely know it’s true. So you might be in a period that feels hard. That feels like it’s dormant that feels like it’s your fall or your winter, you might even feel like you’re not flourishing. You might be feeling like you’re, you’re not prospering or fortunate or successful. And that’s okay. Because if you learn how to be adaptable, and creative and self aware, and understand your strengths, and be resilient and kind and compassionate for yourself, and take care of yourself all the way through. That is when thriving happens. On the other side. So thriving, is not the absence of any sort of struggle. It’s not being devoid of any sort of winter, or fall or dormant period. It’s just being able to take those times not use them against ourselves, and use them for our good. It is meant to be cyclical you guys. And then when you’re thriving, and it’s summer, and your life feels good, and full and green, and there’s blooms all around amazing. But when you’re in the dormant period, don’t make that mean that something’s wrong. You’re just on your way to your next season of thriving. Okay, I hope you all have the most amazing week. Happy Summer happy, thriving, happy blooming, and we will talk to you next time. Serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can present a unique set of challenges, and many of those challenges you might not even see coming. So you’re gonna want a unique set of solutions. It’s easier than you think to overcome worry and anxiety, serve the successful mission you’ve always dreamed up and navigate your post mission experience with confidence. That is why I created some amazing free goodies that I’m sharing in my show notes. Maybe you’ll want to grab the free training for preparing missionaries, my video course for RMS or maybe you and I should hop on a free strategy call. If you’re ready to take your preparedness to serve or your preparedness to come home to the next level. Then go grab one of those freebies. And in the meantime, no matter which part of the mission experience you are involved in. Just know that Jenny, the LDS mission coach is thinking about you every single day