Stepping Off the Crazy Train: Tips for Creating Calm in the Center of Crazy
Life can get a little crazy at times. Sometimes seasons of “crazy” seem to keep hitting over and over again.There may never seem to be a break from the chaos. Now, I say this as a homeschooling mom of five who currently has another family of six living under her roof. If anyone gets crazy, it’s me.
Creating balance and calm in the middle of craziness is a must. It’s an art. I’ve learned to step back and say no to a lot of different things when we have busy seasons. Yet, sometimes that’s not enough.
Today I have a very special guest, Nicole Johnson. We are going to be chatting about her new book, Creating Calm in the Center of Crazy. Like so many of us, Nicole found herself in a vicious cycle of “crazy.” She shares about her turning point in her crazy life that drove her to create more calm in her life. We can’t always control the circumstances in our lives that are causing a little “crazy” in our lives, but we can find ways to create more calm right in the center of our crazy.
On a “Simply” & “Joyful” side note…
Guys! You are in for such a treat today, because this entire podcast with Nicole is about how to she creates calm and how she’s learned to simplify her life!
In This Episode…
Today we’re going to talk about finding joy in the midst of crazy. Parenting. Life. You name it. It’s crazy. Sometimes there are just seasons of crazy–when everything seems to be hitting all at once—and that’s normal. It’s important to create margin.
You may know Nicole Johnson best because of her work with Women of Faith for years. Well, today we’re discussing her new book Creating Calm in the Center of Crazy. I’m excited about this book because the subtitle says it all—making room for your soul in an overcrowded life. Moms are often multitasking, and it’s so hard to get those margins in our life. We have to figure out how to create that calm and joy in the middle of it all.
Nicole Johnson is an accomplished entertainer. She has preformed in churches all over the past 25 years. Also the creator of Seasons Weekend—a spiritual retreat for men and women. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband and two kids and is the author of Fresh Brewed Life, Keeping a Princess Heart, and The Invisible Woman.
Grab your favorite drink and settle in—you are going to LOVE this episode!
Highlights from This Show…
- Nicole shares a little bit about writing and performing dramas (for the last twenty-two years!)—mostly with Women of Faith. She shares a little about working with Women of Faith for fifteen years.
- “My wake up call for how crazy life had gotten was there wasn’t any joy. There wasn’t room to feel. It wasn’t fun. It didn’t have the kind of fun life should have.”- NICOLE JOHNSON
- “When the only way you don’t know if something is working is that it explodes, it’s not right.”- NICOLE JOHNSON
- “Make peace with distraction.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- I ask Nicole to share a little about her crisis (which she also shares in her book) that caused her to stop and look at the crazy in her life.
- “This is the power of a crisis. It focuses your attention. There’s a lot of clarity and a lot of things you can see more clearly when the bottom falls out.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “Women are the worst about trying to taking care of ourselves.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “Heart attacks are the number one killer of women. Not because we have more heart attacks than men, but because ours are more fatal because we ignore our symptoms.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “It’s hard for women to stop and say ‘I’m going down and I need help.’ The big message of this book is “Slow down while you still can. Slow down while you still have something to slow down for.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “Taking care of yourself is so important in order to take care of others.” – KRISTI CLOVER
- I ask Nicole to share how we get past that guilty feeling we get when we take care of ourselves first.
- I mention how Wendy Speake’s episode (Life Creative Starts at Home) is one of my most downloaded episodes. When we talk about her book, Life Creative, we talk about how important it is not to give up on your dreams and talents.
- “I want to show my daughter that her dreams matter because my dreams matter.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “It’s very natural in motherhood to be juggling a lot of balls, you just have to pick and prioritize which balls you are choosing to juggle at one time.” – KRISTI CLOVER
- I ask Nicole to share about the seven letter word that she would like to see eliminated.
- What word does Nicole Johnson want to see eliminated? Listen to find out!
- “I make peace with limping. I can’t have balance—life doesn’t work that way.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “We have this value that says, ‘Jesus is coming. Look busy.’” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “We have substituted busy for meaning.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “As a culture we are addicted to crazy. We are always on the bleeding edge of burn out.” – KRISTI CLOVER
- “When your life is crazy busy for a long time, it’s more about crazy that it is about busy.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- I ask Nicole where on the crazy busy scale she would put the Proverbs 31 woman.
- “We have to look at the long view. We have look at the capacity as well.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “Often times the most joy comes from the simplest, most innocent, most honest things.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- I ask Nicole to share about distractions and the art of being still and ask her to share tips on how busy moms can find a moment of stillness in their day.
- “Making peace with getting still is one of the biggest steps.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “It’s amazing what comes to our mind when we get still.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “Getting still is the best solution I have found to getting calm.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “We need to learn to breathe.” – KRISTI CLOVER
- “Christians have lost their connection with ancient practices that used to be the norm.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “We need to give ourselves permission to down shift into stillness.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- Give yourself permission to shift into stillness. Don’t miss this episode with Nicole Johnson!
- “We’re never going to stop having stress in our life until we’re standing face to face with the creator—but we can reduce it.” – KRISTI CLOVER
- “When we say no, it allows other people to say yes.” – KRISTI CLOVER
- “The only way to build a team is to stop doing everything.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “The ‘no’ that we offer is a ‘yes’ to our families.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- I ask Nicole to share a little more about the rejection, pain, and hurt that we feel from the crisis.
- “Any survival skill can become a way of hurting others if we’re still using it to survive when we don’t need it to survive anymore.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “What isn’t transformed, is transferred.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- Nicole shares a personal story about her daughter having the courage to share about a fear.
- “You have to face your fear or you will always be running.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
- “If we don’t run to Him, we can’t receive His healing.” – KRISTI CLOVER
- “Practice makes perfect. Practice makes habit. Practice makes routine.” – NICOLE JOHNSON
Please Note…
Be sure to grab your FREE copy of my book, Sanity Savers for Moms, by joining our Simply Joyful community. It’s a great way to keep in touch…and get subscriber only freebies like my book. Click HERE to get the book and join!
Connect with Nicole Johnson…
Nicole Johnson is the author of the new book Creating Calm in the Center of Crazy (Zondervan, June), Fresh Brewed Life; Keeping a Princess Heart (in a not-so-fairytale-world), The Invisible Woman and several other bestselling titles. As an accomplished entertainer, she has performed in thousands of churches and venues over the last twenty-five years, including more than a decade of touring with the national conference Women of Faith. She is also the creator of the popular Seasons Weekend, a spiritual retreat for men and women. Johnson lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband and two children. Keep up with Nicole at nicolejohnson.org.
You can check out Nicole’s books HERE on Amazon! Be sure to visit her site as well at www.NicoleJohnson.org.
Thank you, Rend Collective for allowing me to use your incredible song “The Joy of the Lord is My Strength”!
(This podcast is by Kristi Clover. Discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.)