Five years ago today’s guest, Leslie Glass, found herself in a life situation that can best be described as chaotic. Her family moved away far enough to disconnect them from the life they knew, losing the support and closeness to friends and their church fmaily. She left her job of 15 years to begin a season as a stay-at-home mom. Their marriage was struggling. She felt depleted, isolated, and overwhelmed. God knew she was in desperate need of rhythms.

What is rhythm?

Something that repeats itself day after day. It differs from a routine in that it isn’t tied to a place or time or situation. Sometimes (often?)  life throws things at us that cause us to be thrown out of our comfort zone, upsetting our routines. During those times, however, the “heartbeat” of a rhythm beats on, and in that sense, is life-giving. It makes all the difference. 

Life-giving rhythms

There are three characteristics of life-giving rhythms:

1. They keep us grounded.

2. They are simple. They are a baseline for what we can do and provide a respite from the swirling chaos.

3. They’re personal. What may be life-giving to me may not be life-giving to you. What may be life-giving to you now, may not work for you in 6 months...

What we can do in times of chaos

The best approach we can take is to pare things down. For example, we may be used to having an extended quiet time in the morning, before the kids wake up and life roars ahead. But right now one of our children is ill, maybe not sleeping well, robbing us of our own sleep in the process, and requiring extra attention. Paring down in this situation might mean “only” having a sweet 5 minutes of time with the Lord, rather than our usual 30 minutes. We’re still able to make a connection, but we exercise flexibility. We don’t feel totally depleted.

How to establish life-giving rhythms

If you’re just getting started with the concept, this paring-down concept works great. Start small with things that work for you. For example, shoot for five minutes of morning prayer time. Five minutes of quiet before the baby wakes up. Five minutes of energizing fresh air and sunshine in the middle of the day. Small increments allow you to experience the joy in your routine and the success of accomplishment keeps you going!

Then, begin to stack your habits. (A great book to read which describes this process in detail is “Atomic Habits”,by James Clear.) 

The rest of the story

During the rest of our conversation, Leslie shared a bit about her own rhythms, reframes exercise (17:00), talked about the many benefits of rhythm for women (18:00), and spoke to the night-owls among us (21:34). Oh, and her advice on how to reach clarity from clutter is gold! (22:52) 

-> There were lots of practical suggestions to help you craft life-giving rhythms in your life in this episode. Listen to the entire convo below.

-> Get Leslie’s free download “Five Small Shifts to a Life-Giving Morning”

-> Leslie is a Rhythm Coach and can help you in this process of establishing your own rhythms.

Connect with her on her website at lesliecglass.com, and on Instagram