437. Why Does Everyone Else's Summer Feel Better Than Mine? 4 Steps to Stop Summer FOMO and Actually Enjoy Your Season.

How's your summer going? Do you feel present and content and full of life, or are you busy feeling like you are missing out on something, feeling like you're not measuring up, feeling like you're not having a great enough summer? If this is you, I know you're not alone, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. How to stop summer fomo and actually live present? Let's go. Something inside you knows there is supposed to be more than this. More than going through the motions, more than the patterns you keep repeating no matter how hard you try. Hey, you're not broken. There's a root beneath it all, and there's a path through it. Welcome to the Made Whole podcast where biblical wisdom and psychology meet to finally get you unstuck. Hi, I'm Brittany, a former therapist and someone who is sat in the same place you're sitting right now. You don't have to stay there. This is where you're made whole. The broken place has become beautiful and you finally come alive. Hey, friend. I'm excited to continue our whole living series with you today, and this episode is inspired because I was writing you an email thinking, you know, trying to get our Monday emails going back again. And I was thinking of what I wanted to say to you and really thinking, "Okay, I want to do kind of a check-in that we're mid-summer, and want to see where people are at, and also reflecting on the tensions in my own life of what I was thinking through." So I wrote you an email about this, and then I was so excited about it. I was like, "This has to be a whole podcast episode." So we're going to be diving today into how to be present in your own life and specifically orienting this with summer, because I think that's the season if you're listening live time that we're in right now, and there's just so much pressure on summer, especially if you're a mom, but even if you're not, there's just this idea about how you should live your summer, and how to make the most of it, and there's a lot of opinions and a lot of things out there, and so I just realized it would be so challenging to actually stay present in your summer, and not get caught up in all of the feeling like you're missing out, being anxious about it, feeling like you have to do it a certain way, and so that's what we're going to be diving into today, because as we talk about living in a way that's whole, and moving towards wholeness in our life, this is one of the things that I believe can steal a whole life from us the most, even, and that we're not being present in our own life, where God has us. And I think it's so easy in our day and age, where we are so consumed with what other people do, right? Social media has made this really hard to miss, and so whether it's our friends or strangers online, I just think there's just so much pressure to live a certain way, to craft our days a certain way, to craft our houses a certain way, and we focus on how other people spend their time, their money, where they go, what their bucket lists are, I know there's this whole thing about the analog summer right now, I don't know, anytime I like hop on Instagram for a second to check for DMs, I see a poster too before I log off, and I just keep seeing all this stuff about an analog summer, and basically it's like trying to disconnect from all the devices I believe, which is beautiful, and I obviously believe in that. And I think we can almost do it backwards, where we feel like that's the trend, and so we've got to live that way, and instead of doing it from a place of peace, and wanting something more for our lives, and wanting to just be present in our own place, we just keep comparing our life to all of these things around us. Now, as I will always say, social media is not inherently wrong, we can draw great inspiration from others, okay, so whether it's social media or friendships, because this isn't just social media, I think this can also happen in our friendships, as we hear about other people going on trips, and other people living a certain way, especially now not always, but especially maybe we're not on social media, but our friends are, and so they're kind of living influenced by what they're staying online and trying to live in that way, and then we're kind of getting like a secondary influence. We're hearing, they're living these grand lives, or trying to live these grand lives, and we're kind of hearing that from them kind of second hand, and so, but wherever we're at, I believe we can all be influenced by this, and the thing is, this happened before or social media as well. And this is not a new problem, that's why God said, you know, one of the 10 commandments is do not envy, do not covet, right, do not want what someone else has, because this is just a sin problem as at its base, this is a human problem, I do believe social media amplified this problem, but it is inherently a human problem. And again, going back to the fact that we can draw inspiration from others, so this is part of what we've been talking about, if you listen to the episode about creating vision for your life, and what does this whole life look like for you specifically, and I talked about how I've drawn inspiration on the vision I've created, or that God has led me to create for where I want to go and where he's taking me and my family, and I've built that partly on what I've heard others talk about through books primarily, sometimes through podcasts, different things have influenced that. And so that has helped me expand my vision of what's possible, and without those books and influences, I wouldn't be able, I wouldn't even be aiming at what I'm aiming at right now, and so I'm grateful for that. And so being influenced and inspired by others isn't inherently bad, just like we've been talking about everything, most things are not necessarily black or white, it's all about the heart and what's underneath it, okay? And so we can be inspired by things on social media, or inspired by our friends and the people around us. But what I find so often in myself and in others is that we often start to feel not just inspired by their lives, but we feel this pressure to live their lives, to live the way they're living. We instantly measure our worthiness based on how our life compares to their life, right? And again, whether this be an influencer on social media or one of our friends at church, if there's someone that is doing all these cool things, we instantly begin to compare how we are living to what they are doing. We begin to use their happenings and their goings and comings as a giant checklist for what we need to do in order to be a good fill in the blank, a good mom, a good wife, just a good human, right? Like living intentionally and amazing, and I've seen this so many times, even I'm not on social media a lot, but I have friends that are, and they will talk about these different accounts that are all about travel and about how to do this. Or if I am on social media for a second, I pick up just a glimpse of how someone is parenting on a farm, or maybe I have a friend that just loves to travel again with her kids or is doing a certain chores and different things in order in their home, and I just all of a sudden feel like I have to do everything that I hear about. Now, I've kind of grown to get used to not listening to that voice, because I'm easily susceptible to it, and that's why I don't go on social media a lot, because I tend towards perfectionism, I'm a recovering perfectionist, and so if I allow all of those voices into my life, then I instantly feel not good enough, and I all of a sudden feel overwhelmed, and I add all of these things, and I just know it's a deep dark rabbit hole, I don't want to go down, and so I've grown to have a filter for that, but I can feel that tendency. As soon as someone tells me about doing this thing with their kids, I instantly start to think, well, have I done that? Should I do that? It all of a sudden just feels like it gets added to my to-do list, and so the trouble is that especially if we are on social media, that list just keeps growing and growing and growing, right? Not only that, but we aren't just talking about, well, yeah, like I'm saying, we're not just talking about the people in our real world, we are talking about people online, right? The masses, the hundreds, and thousands of people sharing their tips, and their trips, and all the cool things they're doing, as a mom, as a wife, as a human, all of the, you know, whatnot, and so, and then not only that, but those people that we're seeing are amazing. Being are also likely being influenced by hundreds of people, and so it just all compounds, and we are suddenly comparing our little life with the cumulative life of millions. Now, don't go and check my math, I don't know if that's accurate, but I bet you it is, if you did do that math, so maybe you should check it, all of you mathematicians out there, but it compounds, right? It's people influencing us that are being influenced from people that are being influenced, right? And you just keep going back and back and bigger and bigger and bigger. And again, it's the highlight reel of all of these different people that we're keeping together into this giant to-do list, this giant assumption of this is what we need to do in order to be good enough, in order to have a good life, in order to be good enough, XYZ, this is what we need to do. And again, it's not just one person we're learning from, it's hundreds and thousands and millions of people, and this is why we often feel so awful about ourselves. In comparison to the millions of people that were lumping all their lives together and defining success by, we will never, never measure up, right? Never. When you love them, all of those people together. Let's say even maybe they don't even go to the millions. If you lump two people's lives together and take two people's highlight reels and lump them into one and you compare yourself to those two people, can you ever measure up to that? No, right? That's two people. You're one person, okay? And we're gonna get to another part of this too. But just first and foremost, just think about it simply that way. If you just compare your life to two people and you say to be good enough, I need to do what both of these people are doing. You will never measure up. Those are two different people with two different sets of strengths, two different lives, two different ways of doing things and seasons of life and you're suddenly comparing yourself to that, okay? So and then not only that, but it's not just usually two people, right? That maybe two friends in your life, okay? But then he'd been all of the other acquaintances and social media contacts and whatever Pinterest boards we could go on and on. So there's that. Here's the second part. We aren't supposed to live anyone else's life. We aren't supposed to measure up to someone else's life because it's not our life. So even if we're comparing ourselves to one other person, we are not supposed to meet the criteria of that one other person because God has called you to a specific region, a specific season where you have specific gifts, you have a specific area of influence, specific things that you're called to do and so anytime we compare ourselves to anyone, one person, two people, millions of people, we will fall short, we will feel not good enough, we will feel like we're failing at our lives. This is why our summers feel more like a overwhelming to do this than a moment of enjoyment and peace and joyful delight. And not only this, okay? Keep adding on to this. But we also have ourselves to compare to. I talked about this a little in the last episode but as most of you have probably heard at this point, we have a newborn foster baby who has just joined our family two weeks ago and we are madly in love with her. And as I find myself looking at this summer and realizing it's almost mid-July, I like kind of in my mind just automatically comparing this summer to what the summers were like years ago. The summer is when we had no newborn, the summer is when we had less kids, the summer is when I wasn't working, the summers you know in the very beginning of my motherhood and sometimes I feel like that is what this summer needs to look like. And I feel this pressure to have it be like that summer. But just like we're not called to someone else's life, we aren't called to the summer or the life of our past self either. We are only called to today. That season before was different. There was different things I was carrying. There was a different season for our family. You know, there's different limitations and I'm going to give you some practicals at the end of this to help you figure out how to be present in your life and think through a different lens when we look at the limitations of our life. But the limitations look different. Everything looked different. And if I were to go back I wouldn't trade it because I love our life that we're creating today and it's the life that God has called us to today. And so we've got to stop the comparison. My pastor always says comparison is the root of all inferiority. And I love that because that is so true. Anytime we compare ourselves, it's going to lead us to a place of feeling inferior because we aren't meant to compare. Okay. Again, let's be inspired by each other. Let's get ideas. Let's grow iron sharpening iron from each other. You know, and maybe if you, you know, for example, one of my, some of my friends travel a lot more than we do. I just don't love traveling with kids or just in general. I kind of just love my routines and being at home. And I used to love traveling more. But I don't know. I just love my routines now. So I've kind of steered away from that. And but some of my friends do it more. And so it's kind of made me think, well, maybe I should try that. Maybe I should do it a little bit more. And so we're trying to press into that a little bit. Not to the extent that the other people do it because that's not for us. But hey, this, if I press into this a little bit and have some experiences that kind of expand us in the world, a little bit more flexible and we're a little bit more ready to go with the flow and, you know, kind of go for these kind of opportunities, then that's great. Now, I don't want to overhaul my life and do that all the time. And I'm not, I'm not telling myself, I have to do this in order to be good enough. I'm saying, huh, maybe this could be an area for growth. Maybe this is something that we could, we could grow in and that could benefit us. And so we can be inspired by others. But it's just such a fine line to make sure that we're not comparing ourselves to those others. So when I talk about how to make the most and live intentionally with today, because really today is all we have, right? We're not promised tomorrow. We can't change yesterday. All we have is today. Now we can dream for the future and plan for the future. And we need to do those things. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about that. But we only have today. We're not called to be like the past season. We're not called to be like anyone else's season. It's just our life today. Okay. So here's what we're going to do. I have four steps for you. Yeah, four. Okay. So number one, we're going to identify what season you're in. Okay. So we kind of already mentioned this. But I want you to think about that for yourself right now. I want you to sit down and maybe you journal about this and write it down but think through what's the season that you're in? What are the challenges? What are the limitations? And what are the benefits? What are the cool parts about this season? What's unique about the season for you and your family? And I want you to spend some time really kind of reflecting on the current season that you're in. Okay. And that can look like a lot of things, right? Can be based on where you're living. It can be based on the age of your kids. It can be based on if you're married. It can be based on your job. And what your job looks like in this season. It can be based on if you're moving or if you're expecting some kind of change rate. There's so many, so many factors that go into this. You know, for a minute, our family was feeling like things had gotten easy. Our kids were seven, five and three, three and a half. And it was like, whoa, this is so much easier than it used to be. This is wild. Like our kids are so independent. And they play by themselves. And they can do all of these things. And we don't have to help as much. And so it was just wild thinking about that. And we were able to do more. And we started dreaming about what that could look like. What, what could we change in order to really soak up the current season and make the most of it? Now, that obviously has changed again. And now we don't just have a seven, five and three year old. We have seven, five, three and one month old. And so it looks different. Okay. But whether it's a limitation or a benefit or something unique, we need to look at all of those to make them most of the season. Okay. So remember, with the limits, those are real. And it's good to acknowledge them. Now, we don't need to just have these strong, inflexible boundaries with the limitations. That's actually something I'm growing in a lot. I, you know, I'm, I'm a parent that loves to schedule. I'm like all about the scheduling of the babies and the feedings and all the things that I love it. I thrive in that. I really need that. And especially in the prior babies, especially because I was breastfeeding, I would, I was just a lot more inflexible and I would do a lot less. And I was fine with that. We still did fun things and we still had fun. And, you know, life was great. But I'm in this season when I can't breastfeed because it's a foster baby. And I am bottle feeding. And it's my fourth child. So I've just really kind of gotten the flow of things. I'm realizing that the, the limitations of having a newborn are there, but it doesn't have to define everything. Like on the 4th of July, we went, we hosted a barbecue, then we went to a party, then we went to fireworks, like we didn't stop. We went to like a fair thing. We did all of these things with a newborn. And I'm so proud of us that we were able to, to just roll with it. And so don't, don't be inflexible with the limitations, but acknowledge them. So I'm not being hard and fast with we have a newborn. And so we're not going to do anything. But I'm also acknowledging wow, this summer might look a little different because I have to make sure that this baby drinks a bottle every two to three hours. You know, and so there might just be some more tiredness with that. There might be less motivations just go and be gone all day long. We'll do that sometimes. But maybe not as much as we would have done if we didn't have a newborn or maybe we won't do as many trips as we would have done if we didn't have a newborn. So don't look at it like a hard and fast rule, but acknowledge it to make sure that you're not comparing yourself to a reality that is no longer in existence, right? And remember to the limitations will not always be this way. This is a season, okay? It's okay that things look different. It's not going to be forever. And maybe it's something that's not as positive like a new baby. Maybe it's finances that it's really, really tight right now. And that is a limitation you have. Maybe it's a sickness that you guys are walking through. And that is a limitation and that's really challenging. And so we need to acknowledge those and not pretend like those aren't there. Also knowing that things will change. And I can attest to that more than I ever can because we had this three and a half year gap with no newborns, which is the longest we've ever gone. And so I have such even more perspective now. I'm like, wow, things really did change. It won't always be this way. But it's okay that you can't do what someone else is doing or what you did before. But the question I have for you under number one is what does thriving look like in this season? Okay? What does thriving look like in this season? And depending on all the factors that you're facing, it's going to look different for every single one of you. And thriving in a different season, maybe like if you compared the two, which because we're not supposed to, right? Maybe would this season of thriving would look nothing like that? That would have been so much greater. Or maybe the opposite. You know, maybe you're in a new season and thriving looks amazing compared to the old seasons. But in this season, what does thriving look like? And now if you have a lot of limitations with this season, how my question is how can you get creative with what you have? Okay? So we're not just going to look at limitations again as these hard and fast boundaries and things that are going to ruin our life. But how do we get creative? How do we make the most of it? If if maybe you are facing a sickness and something that's really causing, you know, a lot of time to be gone, a lot of energy to be zapped. Okay, how could we make the most of that? What kind of cool craft projects could you do around the house, you know, that you could have the kids doing? One example of this is every year for Christmas for the past, I don't know, six years probably. We go to Target and we get those big cardboard house things that you color. They have them in the like the arts and crafts section and we buy one every year and it happens that this is always correlated most years every other year, I guess, with having a new baby and so that's helped too because I get some new markers and so the kids love coloring. It's like giant, like you can go into it houses just made of cardboard and so the color it color it color it we put it together in the end and so it's been nice when I have a newborn in prior seasons when I'm busy with the newborn and the kids have a project that can work on or I have a quick thing I can sit down with them to do and I don't have to come up with something and so it's been nice and I just happen to see the other day that they have them for summer. We got one that's like a car wash and so we started doing that one and the kids just love it and so how can you get creative with what you have if you have to be at home because of sickness what could you do in a very simple ways to make that the best season you can make it okay. Another question what works best with the season you are in okay so thinking through in the season what would work best for you guys not what works best for someone else not what used to work best but in the season what works best okay. Number two this is one I think is obvious and I share probably way too much about it but it's to get off social media okay so if you're one that is being influenced by all of the influencers I would say it's time to get off okay maybe you take a fast for the summer and again it's the trend anyways to have an analog summer so don't just have analog for the kids have analog for you like get off social media take a break from it and just refresh your mind and stop being influenced by all of these myriad of things that just make you feel like you're not enough. Stopping yourself from looking at what everyone else is doing is going to help you so immensely to be present with where you're at today so instead of looking at whatever else is doing just look at your feet where your feet planted where are you today and this also might help you stop recording every second of what you're doing just to share with others. I know I've heard this and actually I've in the past when I've thought about going on social media I saw this immediately begin to happen and right now it's not as much of a thing because this only social media that we're doing is just based on what I share in the podcast so far but the second I was going to plan posts for social media I started looking at my day-to-day life as an opportunity of what could I share trying to track oh I want to share this with others instead of just enjoying it and recording it or taking a picture for myself or for our family albums thinking of what could I share with others and so I think that's a propensity many of us have when we're on social media that we start looking through the wrong lens at our daily life and so if you take a fast from social media this summer then that's just going to help you be more present and do things not for someone else's benefit but just for your own family's benefit okay we want to just be where you are and then it doesn't matter if the PJ bottoms match the top or if the house is destroyed behind you our PJs never match her on here although my daughter is pretty good at matching PJs I'll say that my three-year-old not so much and he's got like hand me down hand me downs but I would just encourage you if social media has an influence on any of this area then even if you don't want to do a full fast put some harsh limits on this because this is really going to help you keep your feet planted and not have that foam over the summer and it's going to be your best summer because you're not looking all around you just looking at where you're at okay number three this is one I think I shared earlier this summer and I'm shared many times before but you need to set your own bucket list okay so I just love this now let me just color this a little bit this is our favorite thing to do we did this every year but this is not inspired okay it can be inspired but this is not let me say this is not a checklist of what you see other people doing okay that other people told you you should do or you feel like they would tell you you should do it but it's inspired by what you love which can be inspired by you know ideas you've seen other people doing as long as it's truly what you love and not what would look good or what you think you should be doing but what you love what your family loves what lights you up what works for you guys okay so that's what the bucket list is full of it's not like oh my gosh look at this family that travels the world we're going to be just like them or look at this you know influencer mom that makes matching popsicles with the matching hair ribbons and matching outfits and then they you know do I don't know it's not about that it's about you guys and what lights you guys up so we keep it so simple on our bucket list every year there's a bunch of random things but every year on it it makes we have like make homemade popsicles and by this I mean we put some frozen fruit in the blender and make popsicles out of it okay we have go to the beach we have go to the pool right we have spend time with our best friends we've spent time with the grandparents see fireworks have a water fight right basic things that are going to automatically happen but when you write them down on a list I don't at least for me it just makes me feel more productive it makes me feel more focused it makes me feel like I'm moving towards something bigger and then if we ever have a day where we don't know what to do we just look at the list we're like is there anything that we can add today you know like I have go to the aquarium on there and so there's there's some extra bigger things on there as well or I'm like oh you know we haven't crossed off go to the beach yet we need to make it to the beach have we not done that yet and so we just try and keep it so simple this is not like and and I just write it with a marker on a white piece of paper like not pretty one one color whatever I pick whatever I can find that's not dried out right on a piece of paper hang in the kitchen like we're not talking Pinterest worthy kind of things here so keep it simple don't pull a curated bucket list you can be inspired by that if you need a little help with inspiration but this is something we all create together we throw out ideas and we don't get to all of it most of the time but we just put it all there and it feels inspiring and exciting okay so that is number three and then number four is this to celebrate the beauty of the season that you're in okay so whatever your season that you're in whether it's a limiting one or open one an expansive one celebrate it okay so some of these are easier said than done but for you know baby right new one season that one's a little easier what a blessing so I'm going to celebrate that we are in this season of something we've prayed for for so long we get to be in this beautiful girl's life and we all get to be a part of this and so instead of looking at what we're not doing and the limitations I'm going to celebrate this and celebrate what we have and what we're doing with it okay for finances if you're limited with finances this is a little bit less easy to celebrate it feels less exciting but it means that you get to get creative right it means that you get to slow down and figure out how can we make this the best summer that we can with what we have and I do want to just tell you if you are walking through this I'm not saying it's not challenging you know there can be a lot of stress that comes with it but I do want to tell you that not having unlimited finances is actually so much bigger of a blessing to your kids than you'll ever realize having them understand a budget and understand limitations is going to be a gift to them for the rest of their life I know when I grew up we were not in poverty by any means and so I know that can create a whole other set of issues but we had less than some of the people around us and I remember as a kid feeling like wait why did they get to do that but now it's one of the things I'm most proud of it makes me so much more frugal it makes me see life differently I don't feel like I have to keep up with all these things and buy these expensive things and like even target sometimes feels too expensive you know and so I love that about myself and so it's actually a blessing to your kids and so I know it can be a burden on you but just know for your kids it's actually a beautiful blessing especially when you teach them to get creative with it right because that's a beautiful creative thing you guys can solve together sickness okay so if you're facing sickness obviously that's not like a yay sickness but but remember God is a redeeming God he takes all things and turns them for good for those that love him according to his purpose and so God in the midst of this is forming something in you through this trial he is doing something beautiful that you can't see so walk in obedience and figure out how you can make the most of this celebrate what you do have celebrate that you have each other right now celebrate that you have a home to to stay healthy in right celebrate what is there if it's work trying to remember what you're building towards is something that you feel called to what is God building in you and knowing that it's a season and making sure that you're submitted to God and not not working out of compulsion but but working from a place of worth and knowing that you're doing just what you're called to do and that there's again ways to be creative but how to be present in this season and make this the best summer ever okay so get your eyes off of everyone else look to what you have and celebrate it get creative with it have some fun with it and know that doesn't have to look like anyone else it's not supposed to. Let me pray for you. God, I just thank you for the gift of summer and I just thank you, Lord, for just these beautiful lives, God, that we get to live. And I just pray God for each one of us, Lord, and you would just help us to live with intention. God not looking around at everyone else, not needing to be like them, but just being faithful with what you've given us in this season, Lord, and would you just bless it, God, get help us to get creative and just live these amazing summers, God on fire for you, God. We love you, only praise you and Jesus and we pray. Amen. Love you. Hey, friend. I hope that God used today's episode to speak to you or encourage you in some way. And if you did, don't leave it just with you. There is someone else in your life that needs to hear the encouragement that you heard today. So be sure to share it. And maybe you're still feeling stuck and you're realizing that you're in the same place day after day, and nothing is changing, and you need to take it a step deeper. If that's you, then the unstuck workshop is your next step. You can finish the whole thing in a day and begin getting unstuck. You can find out all the details at madeholdpath.com. Lastly, if the show has meant something to you, I can't tell you how helpful it is for me if you leave a review. I am deeply encouraged and it also helps other women find the hope and tools that you found. I'm so very grateful for you, friend. I can't say it enough and I can't wait to see all that God has in store for you.