Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / Stop Letting Your Phone Disciple You & Try This Instead (with Sarah Middlestead!)

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Stop Letting Your Phone Disciple You & Try This Instead (with Sarah Middlestead!) · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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Speaker: Actually, as the more I think about the alignment cards, the more
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I'm realizing everywhere something is vying to be a- to align us.
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Mm.
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And so it has to be, we have to be really particular and strategic
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about what we choose to have in front of our faces, what we choose
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to have running through our heads.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Christian homemaking podcast, Simply Convivial.
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I'm Misty Winkler, homemaker, homeschooling mom of five,
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grandma, and author of the book Home is for Hospitality: Why
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Your Home and Homemaking Matter.
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Convivial means living together with joy, and that's the kind of home atmosphere
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that we want to create in our homes.
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That's why I run Convivial Circle, a community helping women to excel at
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homemaking and do life cheerfully.
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And today I'm joined by a member of Convivial Circle, Sarah Middlestead.
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Sarah has been married to her husband, Andy, for 23 years.
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They met at the local church in their college town, and ended up staying there
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to grow in faith and raise their children.
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Their home school has graduated one student, and currently
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has two more enrolled.
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Sarah truly enjoys homemaking and loves reading, growing flowers,
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learning, teaching, and talking shop, which is what we're gonna do today.
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Thank you, Sarah.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Thank you, Misty.
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Speaker 2: Well, this is Organize October, and we're talking all about alignment
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cards and organizing our attitudes.
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And you have quite a few alignment cards, and they're kind of unconventional.
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Some of them are a little unconventional.
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And so I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about what
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you have going on right now for that, and how they've been helping.
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Speaker: Yes.
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So I love to write alignment cards, to put them on my
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favorite colors of sticky notes.
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Um, I've not been as great at actually reading the alignment
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cards, which turns out- â¦ that really is the most important part.
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So I find that when I'm teaching something to my kids or if someone
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asks you to come on a podcast to talk about alignment cards- Yeah
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all of a sudden you really start working hard at learning what you need to teach-
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â¦ or looking at your alignment cards.
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So that's what I've been trying to do, and lo and behold, it has
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been a really helpful thing for me.
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I brought with me my current alignment cards.
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We'll see.
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Iâ¦
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This may pop up backwards on your screen, but at least these are the actual
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ones that I pulled from above my sink.
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And I even note, like, there's mistakes on them, and I'm battling
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perfectionism one sticky note at a time, so I didn't fix them.
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This is what they look like.
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Um, I'll start with the unconventional one.
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So I have this little, it's a window cling- Of Peter Rabbit and his mother.
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And I found this book at a thrift store, and it had window clings of
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the Beatrix Potter illustrations.
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And I just love this little illustration so much.
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Mother looks nurturing.
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She's taking care of Peter.
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And so I have that over the sink, over our kitchen sink, as a
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reminder to be like Mother Rabbit and be nurturing to my children.
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Um, another one I have here, it says, "God was with the boy."
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I listen every day to Jackie Hill Perry read the ESV Bible.
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It's a Crossway podcast.
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And there was one morning I was listening, and I heard her
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say, "God was with the boy."
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And I remember that was a time, it was shortly after my son had left for
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either going to his summer camp or going back to school, I'm not sure.
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But it was just such an encouragement to me that, yes, my son has left
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our home, uh, but God is with him.
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So that's another one that I keep above my window as a reminder
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that God is with the boy.
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Um, the man.
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He's a man now.
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Um, let's see.
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Would you like me to keep reading them?
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Yeah.
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I have two.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Um, so I have one.
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We've been talking inside Convivial Circle about excuses, and so one of my
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alignment cards is a quote from Benjamin Franklin that you gave us, Misty.
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"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."
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So that's one that I have up.
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And also, when you When you go on a podcast to talk about alignment
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cards and God's kindness, he gives you a chance to use them really well.
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So this fourth alignment card that I have hanging over my sink is from
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Ephesians 4:20, and it says, "With all humility and gentleness, with patience,
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bearing with one another in love."
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Now, I have a little bit of a bougie habit that when I make my coffee in the
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morning, I like it to go in a hot cup.
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So I have to warm the water up, and I've been trying to, when I'm standing at the
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sink warming my water up that I'm going to use then to heat my coffee cup up,
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I've been reading my alignment cards.
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So this morning, we had, we had a busy weekend, full weekend of good
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things, but we were tired this morning, and I found myself just
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being really short with my husband.
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And so then I'm heating up my coffee, my- I'm heating the water to heat up
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my coffee cup, and I read this verse, and it aligns me to what is true.
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So I was remembering, and I even texted my 20-year-old son this morning, there was
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a time in our youth fellowship at church, it probably was five or six years ago, and
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I like to ask our kids, "What's something that you want to remember from teaching?"
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that they hear.
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And my, my young teenage son had said that the teacher that night at our
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youth fellowship had said, I'm gonna actually, I have to read it from my
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paper here, that, "A crooked stick will always look crooked when you
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hold it up to something straight."
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And so as I was thinking about that this morning, thinking about alignment cards,
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I thought- I don't look so bad when I hold myself up to something that's crooked.
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Speaker 2: Mm.
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Speaker: But when I held myself up this morning to Ephesians 4:2, "With
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all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in
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love," I, I look crooked because I am.
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The word of God is straight.
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And so I think that's one thing that alignment cards do is when we
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pick something that's straight, we see more clearly what is crooked
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when we compare it next to that.
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Yeah.
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So, um, that, yeah, that was a good morning, and I, I did go
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to my husband and apologize.
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He's probably around the corner listening right now.
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Um, but I think that that is what alignment cards do isâ¦
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In fact, I looked up the word alignment, and it means to put
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yourself in line with something.
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So, which is probably why you chose the name alignment card.
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Um, and so when we pick something that is good and true and beautiful, something
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that is straight to compare ourselves against, and we put ourselves in line
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with that, we're c- we're taking our thoughts captive in an active way.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Oh, that's such a good picture, too.
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Yeah.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And we were talking inside Convivial Circle a little
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bit earlier today on the possibility of having a fake alignment card.
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Speaker: Ah.
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Speaker 2: You have-
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Yes.
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I, I mean, I think that everywhere we go something is trying to align us.
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Mm-hmm.
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Um, it's kind of like we go read the Westminster and the
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Heidelberg Catechism with our kids and we're trying to indoctrinate
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them, but we're choosing- Yes.
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what we're going to indoctrinate them with.
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So your kids are going to be indoctrinated.
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We are going to be aligned by something and so we should choose
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really carefully what that is.
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Uh, I think in particular social media is going to align us, um,
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in probably not in a way that we would want to actually be aligned.
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And it becomesâ¦
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It's sneaky.
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I think we don't always notice what is, what we are being aligned to, what
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we're putting ourselves in line with.
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Uh, that makes me think our pastor often says from the pulpit that when
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a ship is sailing if you get off by just one degree or two degrees you
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end up in a really different place than you set out in the beginning.
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Mm-hmm.
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And so alignment cards are going to keep us in line so that we're not
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getting off one degree, two degree because those add up and all of a
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sudden you find yourself someplace you did not think you were going to go.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's the inputs.
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Like, the inputs matter.
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Yeah.
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Who you're hanging out with- Yeah
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what thoughts you're having on repeat make a big difference.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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So I think with social media it is aligning us and not all of us should
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get off of, off of social media, but some of us probably should.
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Um, and I am one of those people just because I have an obsessive personality.
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I can't handle social media.
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Um, I don't have the self-discipline so I just don't do it.
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Um, and I, I'm thankful for that because I think it really does align.
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It's sending us messages that we align ourselves to whether we know it or not.
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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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So do you find it's just time on screen or time reading other people's things
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or is it the messages that are there?
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Would you say that something like Convivial Circle is
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social media in that same way?
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Speaker: I would say it's interesting that you bring that up because I do
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have to be careful with Convivial Circle to not be on it all the time.
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Yeah.
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Like, it still does require a discipline.
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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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Speaker: But it, there is with Convivial Circle though, the messaging is different.
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So I think it is a two-part.
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There is the time, um, if I were to be neglecting my duties around the home in
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order to post more on Convivial Circle, that would be, that would be a problem.
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Um, but the messaging is good messaging.
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Does that, does that work?
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Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Yeah.
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I don't know, that just popped into myâ¦
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Iâ¦
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'Cause yeah, like, what's the, the differencing, differences there?
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's aâ¦
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And it's a goodâ¦
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I think that it is two-part, yeah.
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Mm-hmm.
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Being careful of time, ob- obsessively checking, compulsively checking- Right
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â¦ which are ditches that I fall into- Yes â¦ and have to be on the lookout for.
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I
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Speaker 2: mean, there is- Yeah
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there is an element where just seeing the bright colored lights on the screen
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is itself, you know, that affects our minds, um, and is a cer- particular kind
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of distraction no matter what it is.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And then there's, you know, on, say, Facebook, Instagram,
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YouTube, any of them, there's an algorithm there- uh, exaggerating
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that tendency in the screen- Yeah
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and, um, keeping you there that can reveal Circle doesn't have an algorithm.
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So there's that at least.
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Speaker: Yes.
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I appreciate that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And that algorithm, that's aligning us.
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Right.
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That is trying to put us in line with something.
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Actually, as the more I think about the alignment cards, the more I'm
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realizing everywhere something is vying to be a- to align us.
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Mm.
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And so it has to be, we have to be really particular and strategic
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about what we choose to have in front of our faces, what we choose
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to have running through our heads.
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Um, and I think alignment cards do that.
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It helps me to take these little pockets of time when I have my
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coffee in the microwave for 30 seconds or I'm washing out a dish.
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I've been really trying to, okay, I'm actually gonna read the alignment
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cards, and I do find it helpful.
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Um, another kind of unorthodox one I've done is I realized that when
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I put sticky notes on my window over the sink, I actually couldn't
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really see the writing really because the sun was shining through.
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And so I have a few where I've taken, um, mask- like, painter's tape, and
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I have that on the molding and have written on that, and that I really like.
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Um, so I have written on a piece of tape, um, " Quick to hear,
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slow to speak, slow to anger."
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And so th- that is something that I need on repeat to see.
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Speaker 2: I haven't seen that before.
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I like that, just write, right on the tape.
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Yeah.
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And that, that tape is gonna be safe on the paint.
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Yeah.
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And it's color.
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Yeah.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Awesome.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I have found that to be more successful in actually noticing
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it, um, for those particularâ¦
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Those are less words, so it works better on the tape-
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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm
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â¦ Speaker: than a full quote or a full verse.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Right.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: See that.
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Speaker: Inside Convivial Circle someone had said that they put alignment, uh,
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alignment cards on their computer.
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And I just thought that that was genius.
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And so I did takeâ¦
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So I have rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.
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Those are cards on the computer that myself and my girls use.
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And so, and I al- I do, I choose my favorite colors.
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I choose, you have your purples, I have my blues and my greens.
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Those are the colors that I like.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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And it draws your attention and you're like, "Oh, this is me."
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Yeah.
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Speaker: Yep.
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Speaker 2: So, like, just on the, like, the perimeter of the monitor on your-
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Speaker: Yeah, just on the perimeter.
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Yep.
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Speaker 2: Nice.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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And then because I am always battling perfectionism I never
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know what to do with the old cards.
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It seems really sad to throw them away, so I have a file folder of alignment cards.
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I don't know, someday when I'm dead and gone my children
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will have to go through them.
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They'll be all stuck together and splattered with spaghetti sauce andâ¦
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Faded from the sun, but they'll, there'll be a folder for them.
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Mm-hmm.
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Speaker 2: That's whatâ¦
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How often do you change them out?
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Or does there, is there a particular thing that prompts you to change them out?
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Speaker: Yeah.
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I, I have enjoyed inside Convivial Circle for the last couple months
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I have used the ones that you have put on the brain dump papers.
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And so I have liked doing that.
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Um, I don't really know.
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I just find quotes that I really, really like, and then I keep them up for a while.
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But when I start to not even notice them at all, that's when I've been taking
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them down and putting up a different color, um, trying the tape, trying
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putting something on our computer because I'm just, I'm getting used to
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seeing them where I always see them.
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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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Yeah.
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That's great.
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Speaker: What do you do with your old alignment cards?
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Speaker 2: I throw them away.
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Speaker: I knew it.
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I knew it.
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Okay, but do you have, do you have something where you
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keep your favorite quotes?
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Speaker: Okay.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I have a document on my computer that, where I keep, like, you know, it's a
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commonplace that's searchable basically.
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Speaker: Oh, yes.
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Yeah.
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Very nice.
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' Speaker 2: Cause I have to find all those quotes for the texts every day.
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Speaker: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So
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Speaker: I love those.
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I, I love those too, I never delete the text thread because I might
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need that one, that one quote.
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I keep them all.
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I've never deleted a text message from you.
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If you wanna know more about what this whole alignment card
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business is, then you need to join us for all of Organize October.
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When you sign up to get the daily Organize October emails with a new episode and
16:52
encouragement every day in October, you'll also, you'll also get the instant
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replay for the kickoff workshop that we did at the, on October 1st, all about
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alignment cards, what they are, why they work, and how to get set up quickly
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and easily This month, I wanna help you notice what your attitude really is,
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notice what story is playing in your mind, and align it, get it straightened
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out with scripture and God's truth
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So stay tuned for all of Organize October and get the extra bonus material by
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signing up at simplyconvivial.com/october,
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simplyconvivial.com/october.
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You can also find that link and extra resources in the show
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notes in the episode description
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Remember to repent, rejoice, repeat