Sep 18, 2018
Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.
They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan and they've managed their time, changed habits and experience greater success both at work and at home.
So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose and organization and joy?”
That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…
Welcome back to Balance Redefined, and if you haven't listened to any of my other podcasts on this, I am actually in the middle of an evacuation.
We've been evacuated from our home for the Pole Creek Fire. It is the number one fire concern in the nation. It is, as I understand it, the biggest fire in Utah history and it is right there at my home.
The fires are literally coming up and threatening our homes...
I'm with my neighbors and in our little sweet city and community and to communities.
They're actually, they're being threatened.
But as far as it relates specifically to me in my home and I am podcasting, this actually for my friend's a basement apartment with the little tripod on top of my son's Lego box and I have felt strongly to share some of these thoughts in real time while my kids are playing and they're settled, they're happy to just share some of these thoughts and feelings.
[The fire has burned 70,000 acres. They have about a thousand firefighters there right now and they're doing all they can. They have been incredible. The community has been incredible.
Everybody has organized and put into play these organizational emergency preparedness principles and practices, and I share those in another of the pole creek podcasts.
But it has been incredible what they are doing and how it is, how it is working, even against horrific conditions, red flag conditions and high winds and all of these things that are just so going against what would help us to successfully fight this fire.
And so I am so grateful, but the thing I want to share with you today. I've alluded to it in a couple of the other podcast because it was a separate thing I wanted to share was on this topic of the need for normal and how that specifically affected this reboot event that we were doing for “You Got This,” and there's a couple of other things that I want to put into play here.
But the reason why I'm sharing this as I want you to be able to take what I'm sharing and apply it to your own life. In your own situation. A crisis that you may be facing-health, financial, personal.
Something that may be happening in your neck of the woods, whatever it is, being able to apply these principles because they have been powerful for me. I have done so much learning in the last few days.
I can't even describe it...
I've got my journal in front of me here because that's the main thing I carried with me in my purse. This little tiny gratitude journal and I've been writing notes as it's been coming because I feel like the spiritual and emotional floodgates have just been opening and seeing things with new eyes.
I think a crisis does that…
I think that's why sometimes we have to make these emotional shifts because we do start seeing things in a new way with clarity and with ability to understand those things on a deeper level…
So what I want to talk about, what this normal is, I had a really powerful experience when the siren went off and we left and then it got upgraded to prove accusation and then it got up to the level two mandatory evacuation during all these hours.
Well, especially at the very beginning, I had to make a decision and picking up my kids and being very positive. I'm being happy, but in the back of my mind we have on this very same day, what are the chances? Twice a year we're doing this event, this, “You Got This” event. We did one in spring and as you know, everyone said, “Oh, it's not going to work.”
It was a first time event...
It's an interfaith women's conference to help women deal with life challenges through faith, family and community, and they said, “Eh... you're looking at, you'll have 100 people takes a year to plan this and we only had three months…” and guess what? It was incredibly successful.
Almost 600 women attended. We're still reaping the benefits of that and still getting people sharing with us how powerful that was. So out of that was born, this idea of a smaller sister event of this sort of outgrowth of reboot, meaning halfway through the year.
We can't do a big conference like that twice a year, but we could do a smaller, more connected event, you know, where it's a little more intimate with about 300 women. We could do that. So here's this event on Thursday that is all set and prepared to go and and thinking through this.
Like my first thought is, “Nope my kids and we're evacuating our home. I can't do it.”
But then the other thought comes to me, “This is way down south. This isn't affecting anybody else. Up North isn't affecting anybody else outside of our community in that sense.
They've sacrificed, they've done everything they can to choreograph and get themselves there so they can learn how to deal with a live challenge through faith, family and community…
“Really, I'm just going to drop them like a hot potato? Me and the two other founders…”
What am I going to do? And just say, “Hey, you guys, just whatever. I'm not going to do my part...”
So I said a prayer. I said, “I really want to know what I need to do,” and remember, I believe in God, so insert higher power the universe, whatever is for you, whatever that you define it, but I just said a prayer said, “Heavenly Father, I really need to know what's best to do here,” and you know, the feeling thought I got, “Keep life normal…”
Just keep it as normal as possible in all ways, not just about this event but in everything. Just try to keep it as normal as possible. Do you know what a lifesaver that has been for me in the last 48 hours? It has been everything because that driver has made me stay calm.
Stay clear and come back to that balance point of yeah, but are we keeping it normal? Yes, we are…
That's what we want to do that if you listen to my other podcast, I talk about some things that help that with the routines and things to keep it normal and how, oh my gosh, how vital that is.
So I had to make that decision and interestingly right when we were relieving at the very first to after that siren, even in that moment that thought came to me of doing this and I prayed and got that answer, I literally grabbed the dress that I would was going to wear for that reboot and the shoes and the slip and even the fat tourniquet though I couldn't find it later.
So I was all me hanging out. But I grabbed everything that I needed and the curling iron and even grabbed this podcast tripod.
Can you believe that? I just, I've only done these for a few weeks while I've done them forever my life, but just this new program and I, I put it in. They're not even thinking consciously, oh, I'm going to do a podcast. Just put it in that tub, that immediate tub. And so as I got that, and then I kept getting this reaffirmation, I'd go back to him and say, a prayer, should I do this? Is it okay for me to keep moving forward on this?
I would keep getting the same affirmation, keep life normal. Keep it normal and so I moved forward on that reboot and I have to tell you, my two daughters were down at the house pulling stuff out in a couple of hours that we had when we were able to go back and get stuff out for reals and they were down there doing it and I'm driving up north with my other daughter and my six year old and I'm thinking, “Is this right?”
Is this right? That I should be focused on this reboot? Like everybody else can handle it, you know, I are you sure that I need to be a part of this? And as I'm driving up I feel this sense of peace and calm.
And thankfully I had this reassurance and I didn't push it away.
I get up to the hotel and because we're having the conference at a hotel, I'm right there. I said, I'll just get another room. And embassy suites was so darling. They went ahead and gave me a beautiful rate with the sort of two sweet kind of thing.
So we had a doors that you could walk in and out of between the two rooms. It was incredible, super low rate. They were so kind. They knew about my situation and I was able to get the kids set. They were happy.
They went swimming, they watched movies, but we don't get pop patrol at our house and my six year old got paw patrol and the whole time I'm talking to him about being real.
We needed to leave because there's a lot of smoke and it's going to hurt our lungs if we're there and they're going to do their best to make sure it's all cleared out for us and so we're going to come up here to the hotel.
We're just going to have a vacation. We're going to have a fun little adventure and that's what we did. Keeping it normal, keeping it normal, trusting that he will provide going forth in faith.
I had a piece in this program that I was supposed to practice and rehearse and make sure it went well and I did not do it. I didn't do it in that day and I just thought, heavenly father, I'm trusting.
So as we get to this event, I've got all my kids. There were good. I quickly put on my dress, I was in my pajamas when I got the evacuation siren and so I'm literally curling my hair in like five minutes. I don't have any foundation. I grabbed my bag and it didn't have it, so I'm putting on this cover up thing and I'm trying to just make it work and I put on this dress.
I don't have jewelry. I just put on my shoes. I thought we were just rolling. We're just rolling. My kids will be up here in the hotel room. I'll be down here. My 18 year old was right there with them.
My 15 year old, 13 year old, everybody's happy, they're all settled. I'm like, okay, I'm going to focus on the women right before the reboot starts. I get this text that there has been not just a mandatory evacuation but the fire is dangerous, dangerous and that it's not looking good.
And I get a text from a friend that says our religious leader has asked that we have a united prayer wherever citizens are at 6:30 PM and right now it's 6:22 and Aaliyah rose from the voice.
She is singing her warm up songs, not warmup but the opening songs to the actual conference before we start at 6:30 and at 6:30 we had something else planned to sort of get it started and then we would have our part that the three founders, we would go up and do our thing.
So I walked over to the director and I asked the other founders and I said, “Can we change it? Do you mind if I just go up and the person that's giving the opening prayer, can we start at 6:30? And do you mind if I indulge that? Can we ask these women to join with us in prayer?”
And they said, “Let's do it.”
So I walked up on that stage and here's almost 300 women in this room. And the woman who was giving the opening prayer, her name is Paki Missouri, and she's Hindu, and she is a beautiful spirit filled woman, and I took the microphone and I you know how you want to welcome people to an event.
They sacrificed, they want to be enlightened and uplifted, and I did not want this to be heavy, but I felt in my soul this was a moment, an interfaith women's conference.
What better place to be and what better opportunity for me to ask them to pray for our cities and for our families and our homes?
And so I invoked and asked if they would do that. And he took the microphone and gave this beautiful singing kind of Hindu prayer that was absolutely gorgeous and I could feel her sincerity and her intention.
And throughout the night, those women came up to me and they would say, “I'm praying for you. I'm still praying for you. We're praying for you.” And I knew. I knew that it wasn't just, are you kidding? Why did this happen today?
But that, wow, what a blessing that this happened today. I had access to the spirit filled women who could unite in this strengthening faith, build prayer to help the cities and the families in the homes, and then after that prayer was done, I knew in my soul I needed to assure these women that they did not need to feel guilty about the night they could feel at peace that we had done our part and they could move forward, enjoy and I said a quick little prayer, my soul, and I took the microphone and I said, “Ladies, I want you to know thank you and I'm good…”
“We are good. We have done what we can do and now we're going to enjoy the rest of the evening as intended, supporting and loving one another. I know I will,” and then I handed off the mic to another founder.
I wanted those women to have permission to be able to get filled for the evening and they would take that back to their families and whatever crisis they were facing too, and it worked. It worked.
There was such an electricity and a feel and that evening was. I can't describe the incredibleness of that evening. Every speaker, every panelist we had Baptist, and we had Nondenominational, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and we had the Hindu woman and we had a Sikh woman who did this beautiful seek singing prayer at near the end and incredible diversity of faith and family and community.
It was. It was unreal. It was exactly what I needed...
Had someone said to me, “What is something that you need to get through this experience of this evacuation and not knowing what's going to happen and to help you be able to be buoyed and be able to be with your family?”
That is exactly what I needed…
So the second part of this, of keeping life normal was one that life goes on.
Whatever you have planned in a crisis, whatever, as far as you can do, keep moving forward.
Now, there were other things like there was a meeting I was going to have Friday morning and we were going to touch base with all of the team members and with my company and all of that, and we were gonna do that, and we said, “No, we're just going to postpone that. Of course you can make shifts, shifts and changes.”
Absolutely, but do you see what I'm saying?
Those core pieces that we go, oh, why did this happen right now at this time? Maybe there's a reason and if you pray and get that reassurance, move forward and know that even if you don't know, if you have it within you now that God will provide it in the doing.
As you walk that path, he will open the path. He's prepared the path and you will be able. If you walk that path, you will lead. You will be led to that destination into the thing that you needed to do.
I couldn't have asked for a more amazing experience and of course I was checking with my kids and meanwhile in between talks, I'm getting these updates on the fire and I'm being able to stay calm in a place of peace and my kids are texting me saying, “We're doing great. Just got done swimming…”
It's fantastic and they're having a great time. All was well, so fast forward.
Go to the next day where we go to a friend's house for a couple of hours before we come here to this, this apartment, and so we're kind of in limbo. We're in another displays, kind of a feeling.
It's my daughter's birthday, it's her birthday and in this melee, of course we're not necessarily focusing on that and I felt so badly about that and what we had planned for the day was to go to dinner and then all of us get pedicures at this little cute place that we go to, that they know us and we love them and they're.
I don't know.
I think they're from Vietnam or something, but they're just darling. We just love them. And so that had been the plan to do that and I thought, well I don't know if we should still do that, but there's nothing we can do.
I've been texting, can we go down and help the firefighters so they need food, do they eat whatever? And they are being so taken care of, they have too much and they're telling everyone to stay away. And so I'm like, what do we do? Keep life normal.
That is the feeling that I got again. So we'd go to a dinner that we weren't planning, you know, to go to this place that I really wanted to take her to, that she really wanted to go to, but we went to one that was a nice place, but it was a little bit different, little bit quicker.
And we went there and we thought, “Let's go ahead and do the pedicures. Let's go ahead and celebrate. Let's go ahead and celebrate their birthday. There's nothing else to do.”
We can have some savor, we can have some joy…
We need to lighten up. Let's just go forward, enjoy. And you know how I feel about joy. I am all about joy no matter what and that felt good. So we did dinner and we went to go get pedicures and we were feeling joy.
That is we're sitting there and starting to feel this.
A little bit of heaviness in my heart of, you know, it's about 8:00 at night and I'm thinking about those firefighters and then right then my daughter whose birthday it is sitting next to me and she turns to me so in tune and she says, “I feel guilty.”
“I feel guilty that I'm getting a pedicure and those firefighters are working so hard and that we have a fire that's approaching our home. I feel so guilty now at the time, there no homes that have been been hit and it's just coming toward our mountain and coming up and over and cresting on the nearby mountain…”
That is another city that is our sister kind of right, right next to us anyway, and there's nothing we can do when we feel the helplessness of it…
But she's feeling guilty and so am I that were sitting there doing something that's joyful…
Even though I talk about joy in the trauma, I talk about that and I looked at her and I listened to what she said and I just had this feeling like, “I'm keeping a prayer of my heart,” and I just said to her, “You know what I'm feeling hun? I'm feeling to keep life normal and that we can go ahead and savor and have some joy.
There's nothing more to be done. And it's okay to celebrate you and to celebrate your birthday. It's okay to have the celebration even in the face of something that looks so drastic in such a crisis and it's okay for us to do that.”
And I, after I shared that with her to reassure her and she felt good, I lean back, but I still had a question in my mind was I just telling her that as a mom to make her feel better so she could celebrate her because we wanted her to feel seen it, that it wasn't gonna be skipped.
But was I just telling her that so that she could just feel good? Was that really true? And as I said, a little prayer in my heart, this good man was working as I'm working on my feet and you know, he's doing this pedicure and they're just supposed to do your nails and things like that.
And then they can do a little massage on your legs are a little bit on your feet. Well, I'm noticing that for whatever reason he is taking all this time on my feet and by this time my kids are done because I was going a bit later and my kids are done and they're kind of getting done and walking over to the seating area and I'm kind of by myself and I just, I don't know.
I talk about sacred spaces and I hope you can kind of go with me on this, but it really, this moment became a sacred space for where I'm leaning back in this chair and I closed my eyes and there's been this go of the last 24 hours, over 24 hours and 36.
And the stress and trying to stay calm and the upbeat and positive and all is well and figuring it out in my head three steps ahead and what we're, what we're going to do, and I felt my shoulders just sort of release and as I said this prayer and I just said, “Heavenly Father is this okay?” and the feeling that I got was, “Receive it, Just receive it.” and that's when my shoulders, I just felt them just go down and I leaned back further.
I just sat back into that chair and I felt this man working on my foot, just this pains and out places and all of that...
Just rubbing them out and I literally soaked in that moment and I received that piece and that nurturing and I realized that I had been trying to nurture and care for my children and that this was a gift that he was giving me.
It wasn't something I was just trying to make myself feel better about, that he was giving me this gift and I simply needed to receive it. Don't look any deeper, don't look any harder. Don't try to fight it. Just receive it, and I did.
I felt so good and then I opened my eyes, okay. Of course my tears are streaming down my face and the guys kind of looking at me like, “Okay?,” I'd already written out the receipt earlier for a tip, and so I gave them an extra tip and I said, “okay, you will not know, but this was really meaningful to be.
I really needed this this evening and then when I went to give the main gal a hug goodbye, we had a moment just to chat about that.
We were just evacuating and she gave me the sweetest hug and here, you know, we always each other maybe twice a year or something, but it's been over these last few years and it was just a tender sweet receiving moment and it was keeping things normal.
I went to reboot, and the blessings of that. We kept her birthday celebration and the blessings of that. Everything we did throughout these last 48 hours, we have kept as normal as possible, getting groceries, setting up our home, and I had talked about that in another podcast doing going on as normal until normal can't be done.
We create that normal within a crisis, within the unexpected, and that's where we get the blessings and the bullying is we open ourselves up to that. We move forward in faith, trusting that God will provide, and then when he does receive it, be nurtured by it.
Be nourished by it because phase two is coming, so take it as he gives it and take it and receive it with gratitude. Hopefully you got something good out of this today that you can apply to your life and remember you've got this with balance redefined.
You got it. Thanks for listening and remember to rate and subscribe. And if you are feeling the need for real balance in your life, get your free five step life plan, and get started today! Just go to conniesokol.com/download.