Category Archives: Voice

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If Your Dreams Don’t Scare You, They’re Not Big Enough

Dear Friends,

I keep writing and re-writing this post, looking for a clever way to say what I want to say this week. But the truth is, my mind and heart are on a different set of documents on my computer.
IMG_1566They are on the large sheets of paper taped up on my walls filled with ideas, connections, quotes, outlines and chapters.

Friends, I’m writing a book. My head has felt like a pressure cooker of thoughts and feelings growing and flowing around for a very long time. After watching Frozen on November 30th, 2013, I knew I needed to find a way to release everything cooking in my head. It took a year for me to let out my “Frozen Top Ten” (Click here to read). Then after I did, my good friend Debbie sat me down and challenged me to write a book about it. I’ve been dreaming and setting my course in that direction since then.

Each week on this blog I open the top and release a tiny bit from that pressure cooker of a head of mine. I am relishing the opportunity to Let It Go through writing a book.

This book compares the epic journey depicted in Disney’s Frozen with my own dramatic experience searching for a way to authentically express myself while building connections rather than destroying them. I hope to inspire and challenge others to find, refine and release their own voice.  (Read this short post called Your Voice Matters…it really does.)

Your voice – what you say and how you say it – really does matter. If you are interested in helping me get this project off the ground and into the hands and hearts of others, here’s how you can use your voice to help make that happen.

1. Subscribe to my website. Thank YOU to those who already do! If you subscribed prior to July, 2015 you are not subscribed now because I changed my website – I apologize for the inconvenience! If you did not receive an email with this blog post, you are not subscribed.

I will be sending periodic updates and special information and materials to subscribers. Building a robust email list is one of the most important and difficult jobs for authors. Before you read anything else, go to the subscription form on the side or bottom of this post and type in your email address. Your voice matters when you support by subscribing.

2. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. And if you think to yourself, “This post could help someone else,” please consider retweeting or reposting. It sounds minor, but I see the stats. When people interact with posts and share them, they reach thousands more people than I could reach on my own. Your voice matters on social media.

3. Pray. Writing is an exciting creative and introspective adventure. It’s thrilling and frightening and consuming. I have a rigorous, ambitious timeline. If you pray, would you consider praying for me in this process when you see my posts? I long to dig in, share with wisdom and connect deeply with others. Your voice matters to God.

Thank you for all of your support and encouragement. This is just the beginning. There are more exciting things on the horizon that I look forward to sharing with you in the near future!

Deeply,

Andrea Joy

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Not So Great Expectations

How do you deal with others’ expectations?  I know that some people are better at meeting expectations when there is a threat of shame. Not me. I would rather run away. Put pressure on me and I avoid you and your task. Ugh. Not the most healthy option…

So I have to think of other ways to deal with expectations. This week my post is an article I wrote for Her View From Home. In it I explain how I’ve learned to deal with expectations. It’s not about people pleasing and it’s not about running away. I hope you’ll take a minute and click to read more here:

When You Feel Trapped… Andrea Joy Wenburg at Her View From Home

Deeply,

AJ

Photo by Amelia Wenburg

Photo by Amelia Wenburg

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My Birthday Proclamation

How I want to spend my life

Do you ever wonder what your life is really about? I am not talking about your overall beliefs about the meaning of life, necessarily. Rather, when you look at how you actually live, what you actually say and how you actually do what you do…how are you spending your life?

Photo by Jennifer Brungardt

Photo by Jennifer Brungardt

The other day I watched a movie that rocked me to the core and got me feeling what I was already thinking about my life-spending. In Still Alice, the main character is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. I grieved as a brilliant 50-year-old Alice considered her future, forgot her family, grew anxious and lost her ability to interact with others. And I thought…

How much time do I really have left? The next fifty years are not promised to me. I turn 37 this week. What if I had thirteen years left to leave a legacy? How do I want to spend my life?

I can tell you how I don’t want to spend it.

  • I don’t want to spend my life protecting myself. I don’t want to hide or hold back for fear that I may not succeed or that someone might think negatively about me. I don’t want to restrain my love.
    • So I’m going to go for it. I’m going to step out and do something bold and brave. And then I’m going to do it again. I may fail and I may not be everyone’s favorite person, but I plan to learn and grow from it all. Because I want to love boldly.
  • I don’t want spend my life overwhelmed. I don’t want to shuffle stuff around and over-pack our schedule for fear that I might miss out on something or disappoint someone. I don’t want to act like I’m God and can handle it all.
    • So I’m going to simplify. I’m going to cut back on stuff and activities that turn into detours or stumbling blocks between us and our family purpose. I realize it will be a constant balancing act, but there will be less to balance. Because I want to think clearly.
  • I don’t want to spend my life running from feeling. I don’t want to distract myself with meaningless things so I don’t have to feel the intens
    ity of the meaningful things. I don’t want to numb my feelings or carelessly feed my emotions so they grow out of proportion. I don’t want to diminish or exaggerate feeling.

    • So I’m going to explore. I’m going to dig deep to uncover what I’m honestly feeling and why. I’m going to bring those real feelings to God and allow Him to turn them into power with His love. Because I want to live passionately.

That’s it. Those are three things I don’t want to spend my life on, and three things I do. These particular things have been on my mind for a while, but now I want to be clear: I want to love boldly, think clearly and live passionately.

How do you want to spend your life – your actual day-to-day life? What are you willing to do or give up to get there?

Go for it square

 

 

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Underdog!

A loving push toward who you are

Sometimes we just need a good push to become more of who we are.

My childhood backyard was situated on a corner, so my parents surrounded it with a tall privacy fence. That yard was our academy of play. Mom was our teacher and Dad was our coach. My sister and I had all kinds of fun learning and growing in our yard. We grew in strength and accuracy as we played catch. We learned how to live in and celebrate the moment while we ran through and under streams of water from the hose. And we experienced the happy exhilaration of pumping our whole selves in rhythm with external forces (eh-hem…gravity) on the swing.

The swing was my happy-place. Sometimes we faced the house, other times we would face the fence and see if we could swing high enough to peak over the top and at the world outside. And every once in a while Dad would surprise us from behind…

UnderdogUnderdog!

His force of strength thrust us higher and faster than we ever went on our own. Dad’s underdogs were scary and thrilling and they inspired us to find the new swing-beat he set for us, and pump along.

Six months ago I was sitting on a swing in my current stomping grounds, the academy of purpose. There were things inside of my mind and heart that needed to come out, but I wasn’t sure I could let them go. I wasn’t sure I could swing with enough force of strength to do justice to the message I wanted to convey. I tried pumping my legs time after time but I didn’t know which way I wanted to face and I just couldn’t get my legs and body to move in sync. I looked around at others swinging and wondered if I would ever be able to join them – or if my insides would go to waste simply because I couldn’t find the swing-beat of my purpose.

Then out of nowhere…

Underdog!

Finally – clarity! I had words to say and passion with which to say them. I drove to the closest coffee shop, popped on my earphones and typed for two hours without stopping. When I got done, I posted my intimate thoughts on the movie Frozen (Frozen Top Ten), and let the world know.

My body began moving to the rhythm of the new swing-beat and pump, pump, pump…keep pumping! Every time I lost momentum, someone would give me the push I needed by sharing how he or she connected with my message. And somehow, I kept swinging.

Six months later I am a better version of myself. I am more of myself. I am playing in a playground that feels right and good and…like it was made for me. Sometimes I swing just high enough to peek over the fence and get a glimpse of things beyond – and then I settle into my swing-beat and keep pumping, knowing that at some point the rhythm will change again. And I want to be ready.

Are you?

Because my dad gives the best underdogs.

 

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Just ask.

I should just ask.

I love discovering people’s unique contributions to the world and then celebrating them by receiving their offerings with open arms. But when I have a specific need to fill, I often look around aimlessly – wondering who will help me. I don’t ask others for help because I’m afraid I might not get a response. 

Being ignored feels worse than being invisible. Asking is risky.

Recently, I have been feeling the “need” for photos to use here on the blog. Images stick with me in ways words do not. That may sound crazy from someone who writes quite a bit. But it’s true. I’m the gal who prefers the movie over the book – most likely because I never read the book in the first place! (Can I say that?!) My brain imagines everything in diagram, so reading descriptions isn’t nearly as interesting to me as seeing the scene at the theater.

In fact, I remember my own blog post by the picture that accompanies it before I remember the title I gave it! So, finding an image to convey the message that flows out in each blog post is a big deal to me. I get lucky every once in a while with my own camera but I don’t really know what I’m doing. I toyed with the idea of learning more about photography, but I have SO many other things I want to do first.

So, week by week I look in the Creative Commons archives for images that speak what I am trying to say. And week after week I find ZERO joy in posting them.

Because I don’t know the photographer.

I tend to believe in finding jobs for the right people instead of finding the right person for a job. It is an important value I hold. I often make choices based on people I want to connect with rather than qualities I want in an institution or activity. It’s not that qualities don’t matter, it’s that the relationship oftentimes means more.

Empowered by this relational focus one night, I finally said to myself….

I should just ask.

And I did. You passed the word around and three very talented “amateur” photographers blew me away with their response. I couldn’t wait to share them with you!

Linda Liljehorn

Laura Bernero www.laurabernero@wordpress.com

Jennifer Brungardt


I am so grateful to them for opening up their archives to Live & Love Deeply. You will see more of them in the future.

Thanks as well to Christina Klausen Photography for her water image used for the title of this blog and this beautiful image of our daughter, used on my first breakout post about how Frozen changed my life:

www.christinaklausenphotography.com


I feel a deep connection with others when their art and my art dance. Maybe you’ll feel it too.

And maybe next time I’ll remember that people don’t know I need help until I ask. It’s worth the risk.


If you are interested in contributing a photograph or a few to the message of Live & Love Deeply, please email me for more information. Thank you!

awenburg@gmail.com


If you would like more thoughts on living and loving deeply, sign up for email notification of new posts on the right side or bottom of your screen. And as always, you are welcome to share with your friends!

Thank you, Friend!

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A Letter to Readers

Deep One,

Over three months have passed since I began to blog regularly. It’s a blip on the timeline of my life, but it’s been an intense blip, without a doubt. It’s hard to say if it was the reflective writing, strategizing, life or the weather that made for so much internal ebb and flow of angst and release. I suppose it’s probably everything mixed together.

If you read any of my posts, you are part of this. So thank you. It’s kind of odd to think that a blog could offer an opportunity for a relationship, but I hope it does. Because of this “relationship,” I’d like to ask a favorite question of mine: “How are we doing?” (read about the “How Are We Doing” conversation here). I’ll start.

How I’m Doing

Coffee TimeI regularly struggle with self-doubt. It certainly takes courage, trust and some self-confidence to put myself out there, but for every ounce of “I can do this,” there is a pound of “What do I think I’m doing? I’ll never be able to keep this up! I’m not even a real writer. People are going to get tired of me. I can’t even keep my house clean, why would I spend so many hours a week writing without getting paid to do it?!”

Yet there has been just enough feedback to keep me moving forward. Though for years I’ve been willing and able to share the deeper parts of myself with others, I’ve done so in conversations where I can see and hear the people with whom I’m sharing. If I’m an expert -albeit imperfect- at anything, I’m an expert at knowing what to share and what questions to ask in a conversation to invite others to go deeper.

But writing is an entirely different shtick. I don’t see the look in your eyes. I don’t know when you tuck something in your heart. And most of the time, I don’t even know who you are. Nearly all of the relational feedback I usually rely on to know what to say next, is gone.

So I end up looking for digital feedback. This is pretty much ridiculous. You know the Facebook game – it’s an impossible measure of how much something you say or post is “liked” by others. Besides, when you’re writing not to be liked but to make a difference, it’s like measuring weight with a ruler.

Misleading. Confusing. Impossible.

Intentional Friends

I’ve been playing with the concept of intentional friendship for over ten years. If there’s ever been a time when I’ve needed friends to intentionally seek out deeper conversations with me and offer their expertise, it’s now. Without these friends (and family-friends), I am alone and I am not blogging. Without them, I am more of a hot mess than I am usually. I am so grateful for my intentional friends. I hope you have friends like that. I hope you and I can be like that.

How I’m Doing, Really

WorkingBut if I dig a little deeper, the truth is that I love blogging. I love the opportunity to sit at the keyboard and search for what is stirring in me and release it through my fingertips. I love condensing offerings into short snapshots of life-reflected and clicking “Post to Live and Love Deeply.”

I love sharing my life with you.

And the more I write, the more I see my little posts as little works of art. They are bits of me – born out of enough vulnerability to invite you in, veiled in enough ambiguity to invite you to relate.

I hope.

I hope that you will continue to join me here every once in a while. I hope that a few of you will sign up for email updates (at the side or bottom of your screen). I hope a few more will comment and share. I hope that if you are touched by something you read here, you will share deeply with someone. It doesn’t have to be me. But my hope for Live and Love Deeply is that you might find you are not alone and that you have the courage to think and feel deeply so that you can connect and share more deeply in your relationships.

I hope it for both of us.

Miracles

If you pray, would you pray that I would share life and love in ways that help people connect deeply? Would you pray that this message would touch hearts and that we would be open to receive what Love has to offer? I really believe miracles happen. And they are most amazing when they happen in relationships.

How Are You Doing?

Now that I’ve shared how I’m doing, I would like to ask you the same question. I realize you probably do not think about reading this blog as though we have a relationship, but we kinda do. Especially if you respond in some way. There are many people I would love to hear from, but you are the one I want to take to coffee. Seriously. I do. So if you’re in town and want to do that, please let me know. Email and messages are also great. Your comments, likes and shares do make a difference for getting the word out and encouraging me. I really appreciate it. Your voice matters to me (read about that here).

  • How do you want to take risks to love?
  • When do you let your guard down and let others in?
  • What do you want to explore together?
  • Why do you choose to read posts from this blog? What aspects of it keep you coming back?

Thank you for reading. Thank you for your feedback and support. I deeply desire to share my journey with you, that we might impact one another to…

Live & Love Deeply,

Andrea Joy

Find me on…

Facebook: at Andrea Joy Wenburg

Twitter: @andreawenburg

Email: awenburg@gmail.com

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Your Voice Matters

I know what it’s like to choke back the words that rise from my guts – for all kinds of reasons. I know what it’s like to hush myself or BE hushed by someone else. Sometimes I hold back because I assume others will judge me in the same way I judge them. Gut-check! Let’s all agree not to do that, shall we? Let’s strive to look deeper than the surface of what people say to hear what they’re really trying to say.

Your Voice MattersThere are certainly times when holding back is wise, but friend, what you have to say is important.

I ran into some deep friends this weekend who shared various thoughts about what I’ve been writing and their own experiences. Their words stirred passion in me to say what I want to say today and ideas of what I might want to say in the future.

We can do that for each other. We can stir up wonderful things…

If we don’t hush.

Don’t hush my darlin’

It’s OK to cry

The pain throbs deep and doesn’t subside

With silence

Don’t hush my darlin’

It’s OK to leap

The joy flips you over and you only tumble

With silence

Don’t hush my darlin’

It’s OK to think

The curiosity bubbles and hope only fizzles

With silence

Don’t hush my darlin’

It’s OK to preach

The passion is fire and doesn’t inspire

With silence

Don’t hush my darlin’

It’s OK to speak

Justice rolls like a river and is only a trickle

With silence

Don’t hush my darlin’

It’s OK to care

Your love soothes and and moves and is sadly unused

With silence

Speak from your guts. You’ve got them. What do you want to say?

Would you consider signing up for blog updates via email and sharing this blog with your friends? Thank you. You matter here.

Here’s why I say what I say on this blog: About The Blog

Here’s what one of my sweethearts wants you to know: What You Can Do Today

About #heatwave2015: Warmth For Cold Hearts

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Frozen Top Ten

Frozen had a huge impact on me. So much so that it took me a year to work through my feelings and finally get it out.

And I’m not 8 years old.

That’s the beauty of art, isn’t it? It has the potential to transcend age and gender and culture and every other distinguishing barrier between people. Art digs deep into our guts and pulls out our humanity — allowing us to connect with anyone else who has guts too. So friends, are you willing to dig in? I give you my humanity: the top ten (of about 156) reasons Disney’s Frozen changed my life.

10. I love a good surprise. I had NO CLUE this movie would be anything other than a tolerable fluffy children’s movie about a cute snowman and a reindeer, let alone a life-altering inspiration for me. I was shocked as the movie transitioned from Cinderella’s castle to a dark, deep and beautiful land.

9.  Apparently “Do You Want To Build A Snowman” almost didn’t make the last cut. I am incredibly grateful it did. Our son has an internal alarm clock that wakes him hours before mine does. My loss of sleep the first four years of his life made for a lot of physical and emotional pain for me (and thus probably for everyone else in our family). The week Frozen hit theaters, he was waking his sister up at 5:00 in the morning to play and I was beside myself about it. When I saw Anna whisper “do you wanna build a snowman?!” to Elsa, I lost it. The entire song-sequence includes the loss of their friendship the loss of their parents and the quick passing of their childhood. Talk about putting things into perspective! Even as I type this I’m holding back tears (since I’m in a coffee shop!). I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to grasp and then embrace the innocence and beauty and friendship my children share. I still want them to sleep more, but I’m learning to sit and enjoy and appreciate them even when they disrupt my well-laid plans. So thankful for this.

8.  Frozen not only has songs in it, it is a musical of Broadway proportions. When I first heard Idina Menzel belt out “tell the guards to open up the gates,” I started to bawl. It’s one thing to sing out. It’s totally another thing to sing Idina. I grew up singing my heart out – often wondering if I should be quiet since people would sometimes stare or say things that embarrassed me. Most of the time I didn’t want attention, I just wanted to sing what was in me. What was in me was so intense that expressing it often felt too loud – like I was seeking attention. I often held something back. Then through postpartum depression that stretched into a couple of years, I was left without a song in my heart. I didn’t sing spontaneously. I didn’t sing hardly at all for over 4 years. When I first recognized Idina’s voice, I heard another voice say “This movie is a gift to you, Andrea. Receive it.” And so I opened myself to whatever it would bring.

7. Frozen’s emotional, artistic tendrils reached into cold and lonely places of my heart that I had abandoned in order to survive the necessary-mundane. Elsa has a beautiful gift that can enhance and bring joy to others’ lives. But even Elsa has her limits and sometimes using her gift causes big problems and relational strife. The wide range and intensity of her emotional, internal world directly impacts the expression of her gift in her life. She bears a great weight, knowing that her emotions impact others so powerfully. When the people around Elsa don’t know what to do with her, they silence and cover her. In effect they say, “You are too much. Your emotional instability is dangerous to us all.” Despite having an amazing family and support system growing up, I have always felt that I am too much. Like an iceberg, there is this part of me on the surface that I allow people to see and there is way more under the surface that I believe most people can’t or don’t want to handle. I’ve grown a ton in my ability to invite people to see the deeper parts of me in the past 12 years, but there always lingers a fear that if I start to express the intensity of my emotional world, people will shrug me off with “you think too much” and tidy me up with a trite “just give it to God” while never touching or seeing the depths of who I am as a woman. The movie gave me the opportunity to feel – intensely. In some ways it felt like waking up.

6. Oh, Olaf. Even Elsa has within her a certain capacity for innocence and faith and hope and love and sacrifice. She created the snow monster to keep people away, but her creation of Olaf proves that deep down, she most wants to enter into and celebrate the beauty of relationship.

5. “Let It Go” has become a beautiful anthem for self-expression. I love the song and singing it Idina – style has become the kind of goal for me that running a personal record in a marathon is for my racing friends. I still get chills every time I watch Elsa run up the ice stairs she creates as she sings “It’s time to see what I can do….I’m one with the wind and sky…” Sometimes I wonder if I could test the limits and break through. It’s astounding to think that my emotional, internal reality could potentially build an ice castle.

4. On the other hand, I know I can throw ice. I don’t mean to most of the time. Anna pushes Elsa’s emotional limits at the Coronation Ball and later in her ice castle. Elsa warns Anna that she needs to leave – she feels the intensity rising in herself and knows that if the pressure continues to build, she will burst. And burst, she did! And burst, I do. I HATE it. I HATE it when the internal pressure in me builds and then others are around to see the scary ice show. It’s terrifying for me and probably for them. I have been researching emotional sensitivity for the past 4 years and when I saw Frozen, I knew I had finally found the perfect example to explain what goes on inside of me. It was scary to see Elsa erupt in dangerous, icy defense. And it was eye opening for me to see how others experience it. I could genuinely say “I don’t want to hurt others, I want to relate to them in love instead of the fear that comes with the sensitivities I experience. I want more.”

3. Oh how I love Anna. She pursues a relationship with her sister at any cost to herself. Her naiveté is endearing. As someone who identifies so much with Elsa, it is hard for me to understand how Anna could diminish her own value and elevate Elsa’s so much. To me, Elsa is nothing but a hot mess without Anna. Anna is the hero. Anna is the inspiration. Anna is love. Anna’s actual loving sacrifice of self is the key to unlocking Elsa’s real power – love in relationship. I hate to think about where I would be without the Anna’s in my life. It wouldn’t be pretty.

2. For months I’ve wanted to shout this: “Let It Go is only a step in Elsa’s journey – it is not the end goal!” When Elsa tests those limits, she breaks right through them and creates an astonishing ice castle that only ELSA can live in. When Elsa lets it go, she explores her abilities and in the process she isolates herself. It’s cool to visit an ice castle, but where does one sleep? A philosopher/theologian can make amazing connections in her head but if she can’t share them with others, she is quite alone. Fear that others won’t understand – fear that others will run when she says her thoughts out loud – fear that she will offend or hurt others…these fears have kept me mostly quiet for a long time. I’ve learned a lot about tact and honesty and being considerate in my time exploring my own little ice castle, and I am very thankful for that. But there comes a time to come down from the mountain and offer one’s gift to the world with a balance of honesty and love. The world doesn’t need a bunch of ice castles, but ice rinks can be fun. Just ask everyone in Arendelle at the end of the movie. “Are you ready?” says Elsa with a gentle smile and nothing to prove. It is this scene, more than any other, that moves me. I feel called out in that scene. Nothing to prove. Time to share in honesty and love, without demand that others understand or stay or not be hurt.

The gift of ice magic is selfish and demanding when fear rules, but when love overcomes fear, it is a gift that can meet others right where they are and offers whatever it most wants to offer.

1. And so it is time for me to sing my heart out. To throw awesome parties. To write. To teach. To make kids feel special. To offer what I most want to offer without demanding anyone receive it. I had the Frozen soundtrack downloaded by the time we got home from the theater for the first time. I plugged my phone into the kitchen speaker and the kids and I sang and danced our hearts out for what felt like hours. Aaron even joined in when he saw what was happening. I’d never shown my kids such joy mixed with tears and love. Since then they have grown immeasurably in their own self-expression and love for the arts. I finally gave this gift to my kids – my family. Had I held it in, I may have unintentionally hurt them by uninspiring them to hold back.

DSC_0590Photo by Christina Klausen Photography     www.christinaklausenphotography.com

Thanks for hanging with me through my top 10 list. I hope to offer more on these topics in the future, but I need your help. I am inspired by relational connections. You share, I share: send me a message, respond to this post, share it with others. I’m also working hard to build a platform. Your follow on Medium or Twitter and your like of Andrea Joy Wenburg on Facebook can make a huge difference in helping me give others the opportunity to dig deep into their own guts and pull out their humanity — that true love might free them to let it go in relationship like never before.

Thawing,

Andrea

For more on my experience with depression:

When I Should Feel Joy #1: Unprepared