What does it mean to live slowly? Join us as we welcome Jodi H. Grubbs, author of "Live Slowly: A Gentle Invitation to Exhale," who shares how her formative experiences by the sea on a Caribbean island shaped her understanding of solitude and spiritual growth. In Part 1, Jodi opens her heart about her first husband's tragic accident and recovery journey, which ultimately led to his very unexpected death—all within the first two years of their marriage.
Discover the importance of recognizing personal capacity to avoid burnout and live a fulfilling life. We also explore the fear of slowing down and the importance of community and solitude in this journey. Drawing parallels to the transformation of sea glass, Jodi eloquently speaks on how hardship can lead to a beautiful renewal. This enriching conversation is a gentle reminder to embrace slow living and find stillness, even amid life's challenges.
What does it mean to live slowly? Join us as we welcome Jodi H. Grubbs, author of "Live Slowly: A Gentle Invitation to Exhale," who shares how her formative experiences by the sea on a Caribbean island shaped her understanding of solitude and spiritual growth. In Part 1, Jodi opens her heart about her first husband's tragic accident and recovery journey, which ultimately led to his very unexpected death—all within the first two years of their marriage.
Discover the importance of recognizing personal capacity to avoid burnout and live a fulfilling life. We also explore the fear of slowing down and the importance of community and solitude in this journey. Drawing parallels to the transformation of sea glass, Jodi eloquently speaks on how hardship can lead to a beautiful renewal. This enriching conversation is a gentle reminder to embrace slow living and find stillness, even amid life's challenges.
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Speaker 1:
A reading from Live Slowly A Gentle Invitation to Exhale, by author Jody H Grubbs. We all need a sanctuary. When I was a teenager, our house on the south end of the island was perched on a small cliff overlooking the white sand and the turquoise waters. The sea was so clear that you could see the reef from the house. Often, when I wanted to be alone, I would throw on my floral swimsuit, walk through the dusty backyard and head backward down the old, rusty steel ladder anchored into the cliff. As my feet hit the hot sand, little crabs would scurry and my heart would swell with the knowledge that I would soon be transported to a different world, never mind the fact that I was already on a desolate little island in the Caribbean. I would swim out to a bright yellow circular raft that our neighbor Tex from Las Vegas had anchored in the sandy bottom outside of the reef. I would hoist myself up onto this raft, sometimes like a mermaid, but usually like a seal. Naturally, the rhythm of the lapping water and the sun-warmed plastic on my skin lulled me into a slower pace, letting all the water droplets keep me cool. I would stretch out to relax on that yellow piece of plastic paradise, with my face toward the horizon. As far as my eyes could take me, there was only the sea. We were 50 miles north of the Venezuelan coast. When the horizon goes on forever, you feel like a lonely little dot in the world. At least that's what I would have been if I'd zoomed out on Google Maps Some days while reef lounging, I would just close my eyes and wonder, wonder what the rest of the world was up to.
Speaker 1:
People in other countries, other communities, other islands, on other trips to the Yellow Raft, my eyes would follow the rainbow-colored parrotfish swimming underneath me. The coral shapes were intriguing. I would both taste and smell the salty air. I would hear the swishing of the lone palm tree or banana tree up in the yard above banana tree, up in the yard above. I didn't even realize that this time, alone with my thoughts and alone with God, was the beginning of my own journey of spiritual formation, practicing solitude, stillness and listening. In fact, I didn't even understand the word spiritual formation until a few years ago.
Speaker 1:
But we have a steadfast God who is gracious to pursue us our entire lives and to walk alongside us in this journey of learning, learning what it's like to be more like Christ. Many of us don't take advantage of the beauty of stillness in creation to ease anxiety, but desire for it is woven into the very fabric of our being. It's tangible and meant for our enjoyment. It's ours for the taking, with our five senses. We are all looking for a deeper experience with God. Whether we know it or not, these experiences we have meeting with God in a quiet place are foundational and formational. They aren't meant to be only experienced once. Once they help shape who we are, our attachment to God and how we share that experience with others in our life.
Speaker 1:
Personally, I am so grateful to go back in time and pull a memory back out, just as I am thankful to create a new safe memory in a new place. New safe memory in a new place. Hello and welcome to today's Heart Lift. I am sitting with a slow living coach. Her beautiful name is Jodi H Grubbs. She's the author of Live Slowly A Gentle Invitation to Exhale, so I am taking on an island time tone of voice.
Speaker 2:
Hi Jodi, hi Janelle, thank you so much. I feel right at home, feel right at home.
Speaker 1:
I just want a raft. That's what I want, my beautiful. I live very close to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so Rodanthe down to Hatteras is our jam Going in a couple weekends, and that's where I exhale, that's where I inhale, that's where I do island time, it's where.
Speaker 1:
I just thought I might settle and live the latter part of life. One never knows. But your gentle invitation to exhale. As I've just poured over your work, jodi, I felt several exhales, like just reading the beautiful words you write. I read them a while ago before we started, as part of the intro, and it just I felt calm, washed from my head to my toes like a meditation. So this book is, it's just jam-packed Well, and it starts with a very difficult story, and so I do invite you. I do think readers need to get the book. I have it on Kindle. I've ordered it on paperback because I do want to take it with me to the Outer Banks and read it slowly and take it in. You had a real hard story in the beginning about your husband Brian. If you would just perhaps give us a little bit of that, Sure, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:
when I was 27 years old, my husband, brian, was in a very traumatic accident. He should not have lived, but he did, and when that happens just a lot, there's a lot of complications with that. So nine months in the hospital. Four of those months in a shock trauma ICU. He had to learn a lot of things over again, to walk, to, eat a lot of things, but made a full recovery and then two and a half years later, passed away just very unexpectedly after he had almost made a full recovery.
Speaker 2:
So my world was turned upside down, I was with him when he died.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yeah, so it was like a double trauma the accident and then the death, and a million in between, absolutely A million in between when you reflect back, because you just shared with me that was the accident was 97 and he passed in 99. So it's been a minute. How did you walk through that? And nothing prepares you for that, nothing. You were 27. Yeah, baby.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And you've been married. How long we had been married for two years, oh so, brand new marriage, everything. No children yet, or, yes, children no children. Okay.
Speaker 2:
Yep, and we never had he and I never had children. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, half of our marriage was from the accident on, basically.
Speaker 1:
A lot of us, and some of us have lived long enough to have already walked through these unexpected, trauma filled journeys and, as you say so wisely in the book, we think we're writing our story because you say God, he really does write our stories, so he's writing this unbelievable story for you. I'm just curious, if you look back in reflection and I know that you have done this already what pearls you can offer to someone perhaps who is sitting in a trauma ICU.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I saw some really hard things in there, not just what happened to Brian. You know you're privy to everything, so I've had to work through a lot of PTSD, of things in real time, but I've learned that we are truly held during that time.
Speaker 2:
We may not feel like it, even physically. I've learned to let people hold me, let people swoop in. There are times you're in shock and grief and you might not. My mom told me a story the other day. I didn't remember this person helping me. I must have just been in so much shock and so I'm grateful. You know, just letting others come alongside. This isn't the time to wonder. If there's a lesson to be learned, you know, it's just. We have to be so gentle and tender with ourselves, and a friend of mine told me she used to be a grief counselor and she said there's this I won't say the phrase exactly right, but it's when we're in such deep grief and trauma we don't have to fully understand, so we don't have to be understanding either. So you know we can be off the hook of that. We might not be as clear thinking emotionally or mentally as we would have been. So just letting others love on us. You know slowing down is chosen for us in these seasons, so yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we may find you write that slowing down is sometimes chosen for us and I thought, holy moly, what a sentence, what a chapter, what a thought. Where were you when you got that thought? Sometimes slowing down is chosen for us. I love to know, like when the aha came. I love to know where were you? Were you on a yellow raft, floating in like you?
Speaker 2:
were. I was sitting in my sunroom and I had just had my knee replaced in my early 40s and I was so upset that it seemed like everyone was just passing me by in life. And here I was so upset that it seemed like everyone was just passing me by in life and here I was not mobile. I quickly became mobile, but that was with lots of PT and work, and the stillness and the solitude you know really shaped my view of this whole. Slowing down is chosen for us Because, as a slow living person, I can always say, well, I'm choosing to slow down this week, but what happens when it's chosen for us? It's never the time that we would have designated for it, never, never, never, right.
Speaker 1:
And don't people say that this is just not a good time for this, and I'm like well, what on earth does that even mean anymore?
Speaker 2:
I?
Speaker 1:
just have lived long enough to understand Kronos time and Kairos time and understand the difference and go. Well, I guess it's time. I just guess it's time. But I would definitely personally feel like I am in a season that was chosen for me as well, to slow down Again. I've had significant ones in my life. Let's go back to that beautiful principle of being held, because it's right here. I said please tell me more about truly being held.
Speaker 1:
The name of that chapter is Resting in the Belief. I shortened it because I couldn't fit it on my paper. Resting in the Belief we are truly held. I think that's pivotal. I think that's called, in my world of therapy and mental health work, secure attachment. Mental health work, secure attachment when we really, really know, when it is in our bones, when we have fully embodied to use another therapeutic word, thematic word when we have embodied this principle of secure attachment. We're supposed to be born with it, that's our inherent right, but you know it's. Statistics say 45% of us are not. And so when we are truly held, does that make sense? Does that resonate that there's just this secure attachment, that you know God sees you in that room and that I see he knows what happened to you. He hears you, you belong right there with him. You don't belong anywhere else, even though everyone in the world's passing you by and it doesn't seem convenient. And you know you're loved, deeply loved. Is that safe to say?
Speaker 2:
safe to say yeah, that's pure safety, because I realized that. So it took me years to understand that I loved God, I believed in God, I was following God, but I didn't truly trust God because I thought, well, this was not out of his control, why did he let it happen? And so I had to wrestle with that for many, many years after Brian died. The fact that wow.
Speaker 2:
I can be God's child and so really it's also been a lesson. In the last few years A friend of mine, summer Gross, has helped me understand secure attachment, and just a few weeks ago we were in a very small retreat and it just opened my eyes to more how God is. You know, his permanent residency is within us and that makes all the difference, and so it just took me years and years to understand that, and so it just took me years and years to understand that.
Speaker 1:
I know it does. It just does. Were you born into secure attachment? I don't want to pass by that. I want to ask you. I mean, when you read that you lived in Bonaire, a Dutch Caribbean island, and your back door, your backyard was white, a reef and blue waters, hello, please inform us that. Maybe that helped you have a position, a understanding of that secure attachment.
Speaker 2:
I think so. I was very close to my parents. My parents worked in ministry, but they always chose us, and so that decision wasn't always popular, probably, but it set a foundation for me and I've thanked them over the years for that. Wow.
Speaker 1:
Is that what puts you there? They were in ministry in Dutch Caribbean. Yes, how do I get that job? No, I know it always sounds storybooky, but it's not so. Yes, it's ministry.
Speaker 2:
Okay, that's how you ended there. I was born there a year after they moved there, and how did they choose you?
Speaker 1:
What did that look like? When you say they chose you, let's just lean in here, heartlifters. This is a lean in moment for me. I believe it will, because we have to make choices every day. We do as parents. Now me as a grandparent how did they what that look like? That they chose you over? You said ministry, but maybe it's choosing you over success, or what we think success looks like, or a bigger house, or you know? Fill in the blank.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, I can think of two situations. So we would come back to the U? S for a furlough every three to four years. It was home to them, but not to me, right? And so if my dad would be speaking, um, maybe they'd expect the family to come on a Sunday night and my mom would sense it's just not going to happen, you know, and I would appreciate how she would just stay home with us and we didn't have to go, and it would be because they chose us.
Speaker 1:
That's big.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I would say when I was almost 16, our family made the decision instead of me going off to boarding school or family in the US and Michigan, living with them. There's a lot of choices. Not all of them are bad, but some weren't good for our family dynamics and our family chose to stay together and all moved to the US so I could be in an American school. I was in a Dutch language school my whole.
Speaker 1:
Heartlifter, jodi and I are talking about a subject that is so near and dear to this community's heart secure attachment and I love how Jodi's story just symbolizes secure attachment, with her floating on that raft, totally feeling safe, secure, seen, heard, known and loved inside of her family. Would you be so kind to contribute to Heart Lift International and help support the cause, the mission of what we're doing here in this community helping men and women create safe, secure, sound, stable home environments in which children can thrive and their families can flourish. Learn more how you can make a tax deductible donation to Heart Lift International, my educational nonprofit committed to making home and family the safest, most secure place to be. Just go to heartliftcentralcom, look up to the top and you'll see the donate button. Take a look around. Get to know Heart Lift International.
Speaker 1:
If you have any questions, email me. I will be glad to answer any of your questions. I believe wholeheartedly that we can change the world. One heart lift and one home at a time. Now back to Jodi, just going back to your mom making that decision. Knowing missionaries, you don't do that Like you take the whole family. You dress them pretty. At least you did in the back of the day.
Speaker 1:
So she was really making a very, very counter-cultural decision and choice. She must've been something. She must've had a very strong sense of security herself. I think so. I really, I really think. I think that's a big deal because I just remember, I remember the expectation that our little church put on those types of things. Okay, so you shifted and came to the States after living on the island, started this journey of your wow, hold on, what have I?
Speaker 2:
what have I left behind?
Speaker 1:
I left behind slow.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, people, yeah people would say, oh, wow, like how, you know, how did that land? Well, we moved to New Jersey for two years, and so I had to get my driver's license on the turnpike and we didn't even have a traffic light on the island. So that was a culture shock for me.
Speaker 2:
Um but, they were good years. They were good years mainly, I think, cause our, our family was together, you know, um, and then we moved to North Carolina and so, and then I, yeah, I went to college and I married Brian, um, I got remarried a few years after he passed and we had a little girl, and so I was just doing all the things I started just, you know, living life and living the American life.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:
Oh, absolutely. And so when our daughter was maybe four or five, we I started just doing all the things the play dates and the museums in the park and she and I would both get tired, like we would enjoy it, and then it'd be like, oh, this is too much. So I learned I didn't have to do all these things. That seemed to be what everybody was doing. But my doctor was the one that said Jodi, you've got to back off your health, is telling you, so I would get pneumonia bronchitis strep. Oh, wow, is telling you, so I would get pneumonia bronchitis strep every. Because my body just got to a point where it was like, wait, wait, this isn't. We don't remember this.
Speaker 1:
Right, we have no, there's no, uh, hello, no, what's the word? A foundation of understanding this rush thing? Yeah, that's really amazing. How old are you when the doctor told you that? I think that's really amazing. How old were you when the doctor?
Speaker 2:
told you that. Let's see, I was probably maybe 39.
Speaker 1:
Okay, had a lot happen. All right, did the rush happen? Slowly, subtly, like you just adapted? I think that's the word I'm looking for. I think I adapted.
Speaker 2:
I didn't even realize there was no white space on my calendar. At home. We were doing everything from church to social to kids groups. I don't even know what happened, how, how that happened. You know, sometimes we say yes to so much and then we think, what in the world, how, how did I?
Speaker 1:
get here. I bet there's many, many that are feeling that way right now, like what the heck? Like I just said to someone this morning, it's June 6th. Where on earth did it go? Like spring is gone. Okay, I'm not really sure. You talk about another word that's very near and dear to my heart in chapter five, the word capacity. And I am just really so curious why you put understanding capacity in this book. I'm so curious.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, it's because I had to learn that I had capacity for certain things and not others. So I had to, you know, forget the FOMO, the fear of missing out, of not being like everybody else. And whether that's just my personality, whether it's the way I'm made, whether it's from being on an island, I'm not real sure. I think a lot of this can yeah, can identify.
Speaker 2:
But I had to just step back and say, okay, Jodi, visualize something like how, how do you have? So you know, for instance, in my book I give a little picture of you know, a little scallop shell or a half of a coconut. And's like how much capacity do you have? Oh, and if we don't address that and name it, we just are not able to go forward. And so if someone asks you to do something pretty big this week, if you have nothing on your calendar and a lot of energy, sure, you probably have the capacity of a beach pail, but if you are under so much stress and you've obligated yourself to so many things and you feel like my capacity can only fit in a little scallop right now, oh, that's so good that's just right there, yeah oh good, because I've studied capacity inside and out and it just means the maximum amount something or someone can hold.
Speaker 1:
It's got the whole word in it held, I mean it's good, I know, and so and I'm a shell girl, I am a beachcomber my whole backyard is just filled with shells instead of mulch. So when you do hold a little oyster shell, a mussel shell, I have moon shells. Moon shells are my favorite and they're just teeny, teeny, tiny. They're so tiny and they're rare and I just ooh and ah every time. And you know, or a conch shell, like if you go all the way down to Hatteras Island and it's been a storm, you go the next morning, you're going to get these huge conchs and it's just like a treasure hunt. I love that exercise so, so much. Yes, I do so.
Speaker 1:
Heartlifters, I paused here to ask Jodi if she would permit me to create a special 15-minute podcast meditation based on the exercise in her book Live Slowly, a Gentle Invitation to Exhale, and she said yes. So after listening here, stay tuned over on Substack. If you are not yet a subscriber, do so. Heartliftcentralcom. Go to the top and you'll see subscribe. Okay, back to Jodi. Jodi, you also write this question and it's piercing me to the depths of my heart and I don't cry easily anymore. But what are you afraid will happen if you do slow down? And you were just nodding away for those who don't see us on YouTube. You know this. This is a question near and dear to your heart, so talk to us. Please, help us.
Speaker 2:
Gosh, this is really the heart of it all is fear, which is why, we have to know we are held by, by God, right?
Speaker 2:
So when people ask me well, what are your biggest things with? You know, slow living, why, why is it hard? I used to say, oh, fomo, fear of missing out. I don't want to miss out going to dinner with girlfriends or a trip or something and those are true, that is real, we are social beings. But the big one was I didn't want to slow down to talk about the hard things with God or with somebody else. I think that's kind of where the heart of it is. That's it.
Speaker 1:
That's it. We're so afraid of our own mind. Yeah, and you know I'm a repressor. Heartlifters know that. My husband, we were both raised in repression. When you have to sit and be quiet, the mind just explodes. How did you, how did you do that? Do you have some wisdom? Be a wisdom mirror. Here is one of my clients says I need a wisdom mirror, I need to talk to you. I'm like I love that I'm a wisdom mirror. That's so fun.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, a couple of things. One is the presence of others. You know, when you have safe people who know you and will listen to you. I have a spiritual director. She's able to you know, convey back to me what I've just said and ask you know, god to intervene, and my therapist as well.
Speaker 2:
She listens and affirms yes, you're not crazy, that's very difficult, and also some really close girlfriends that will just sit in and listen, and I try and do the same for them. So that's the first thing. I think you know we need people who face us.
Speaker 1:
Ooh, ooh, that just stopped my heart a little bit Say that again.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we need people who face us, because the world has so much that turns away from our pain and our questions. And so one of the hardest things is if I slow down, what will I find? And we can't do it alone. Right, we need God, but he has put community in the midst of that. The other thing that goes hand in hand with that is solitude. And I say in my book you know, if you've had a time where you're alone but you're not lonely, that's solitude.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's so good, say it again. I'm going to make you say it again. That is such a great definition of solitude.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, if you're alone, but you're not lonely. That's solitude, that is refreshment, and I think our minds and our hearts and our bodies can start quieting down and saying okay, I'm ready, I'm ready. What do you, what do we need to talk about?
Speaker 1:
Heartlifter, this is what we call a Selah moment, as in the Psalms, when we need to just stop, pause and reflect. I want to read from chapter three in Jodi's you're driving or walking, maybe come back to this when you can sit in a quiet place, preferably outside, like our heartlifter, Jan, who shared with me this week that she has created a beautiful little space on her side porch. A beautiful little space on her side porch where she is practicing stillness, silence and solitude, Something that's not easy for her Way to go. Jan Couldn't be more proud. Thank you for sharing. Put some headphones in, because somehow meditations, just meditations, just they hit a little softer when you close out the outside noise.
Speaker 1:
This is called a sea glass transformation. Being outside in 80 degree weather all year gave me occasion to play in a large cove full of sea glass as a girl. Jodi continues the thousands of cobalt, ruby, emerald and amber hues, magnified under the crystal clear water, looked like gems to me. I can still hear the gentle back and forth swishing of the glass, sand and pebbles. That was almost hypnotic in that cove, Not to mention the burst of light shining through, creating a piece of sparkling art resembling the stained glass church windows that I now love to gaze at as an adult. When the sun's rays shift and hit sea glass, the glass piece sparkles, Regardless of whether it's still a newly broken shard or a smooth, tumbled and weathered piece of art.
Speaker 1:
Just as sea glass can be tossed about and then transformed into something beautiful from the effects of rough sand, salty water and time, our broken lives can also be transformed through hardship. Sometimes life invites us to pause, reflect and move forward in a new, transformed way. Move forward in a new, transformed way. Sometimes life invites us to pause, reflect and move forward in a new, transformed way. Mary Beth Buke, author and world-renowned sea glass expert, writes Like us, sea glass has been on a tumultuous journey. It's been broken first of all, then subsequently discarded into the sea or body of water. It has endured a wild journey and has been pummeled by storms, tossed by waves and tide, and with the washing of briny, salt water is always wonderfully renewed.
Speaker 1:
The journey of sea glass becoming transformed is a story of both and much like our daily journey, the sea glass had an original purpose, most likely as a bottle. Sea glass had an original purpose, most likely as a bottle. At some point it was thrown away, either into a trash dump at the water's edge or from people sailing through the area. What may have started out as a fun three-hour tour, the glass bottle floating on the sparkling sea, most likely ended with this same bottle being thrown against the rocks and cliffs by incoming waves, shattering the smooth silhouette into sharp pieces. These shards tumble through the vast sea, get dragged around by currents along the sandy bottom and bounce off rocks, shells and coral, sometimes for years. When we pick up a smooth piece of sea glass on a beach walk, turning it over in our hand, we are holding a piece whose jagged edges have been ground down by time and the elements. Treasure hunters and collectors have always seemed to see the beauty in the broken. I attended a sea glass festival a few years ago to learn about this thriving, exciting industry. To say I was memorized would be an understatement.
Speaker 1:
The older I get, the more I am drawn to repurposed beauty, especially when natural light illuminates it. When I come across stained glass windows, I find myself drawn into the story of the pictures and those pains. I've pulled into a small church parking lot more than once to get a closer look, especially when the sun, hitting the image just right, has caught my eye. I'm intrigued by the story that is in front of me, made up of a rainbow of colors. Jodi invites us to this slow living shift.
Speaker 1:
One of the best things we can do is to hold space for ourselves and those around us as we move through both joys and sorrows. But to do this well, we must slow down. This invitation to hold space for the bumpy legs of the journey, for the broken parts of us, for the smooth and shiny days when the light hits just right, comes to all of us. We are given a daily opportunity to slow down and reflect, to pause and invite God to be present in the broken parts, to really see beauty and pain, making a place for it. Heartlifter, make a place and a space to sit and perhaps examine a part of you that needs some time and space to heal. You know, in this community we hold joy and sorrow at the same time, and if we don't hold sorrow we lose a capacity to hold joy. So we have to be able to hold our griefs and our sorrows and process through them. Our heart lifting method takes us into our past to bring it into right now, in the present. Look at it, pray over it, talk to someone about it, make peace with it and make sense with it in order to move forward into our future freedom. That is our journey here, and I just love how Jodi expresses the journey of a piece of sea glass and makes it applicable to our own journey.
Speaker 1:
So take some time, take some space. Like Jan, create a space outside, outside. She sent me a picture. I will include it over on our sub stack, heart lift central for you to see very simple, beautiful space to just breathe, to inhale and to exhale, and as you exhale sorrow, grief, pain, make sense and make meaning with it. Oh, the reward joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. And then when others come along your life, just like a beachcomber would be on the beach looking for sea glass, and when they find a piece, it's such a treasure. You, my dear heartlifter, are a treasure to those who come along your path. What a beautiful way to close out this conversation. I can't wait to do part two with you, but until that time, remember restoration takes time. Create the time, energy and space for it, and always remember you have value, worth and dignity, Just like a stunning piece of sea glass. Until next time.