Episode 03: Rebekah Lyons: Queen of Rhythm!
Transcript
Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer
Andrew: I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.
Patsy: And we’re both a mess, but we’re glad to be here because this is Bridges.
Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations.
Patsy: Our guest today, Rebekah Lyons, is talking about something we all need: some rhythms of renewal. If ever there was a time, this is it. And I love Rebekah. She’s an old soul, and she has a great voice. She really packs a punch with the things she says because she’s bottom-line honest and she’s extremely kind. I love her loving nature, and I like her pen. I think she writes with great ease, and I think she dips her pin inside her heart before she presses it to the page, so it’s going to make an imprint on us.
Andrew: You can hear that great ease all throughout this conversation. She is a lovely guest, and we are celebrating this week, along with her, the release of the companion journal and planner to Rhythms of Renewal. And that is just Rebekah’s way, giving some practical ways to implement and to practice peace.
Patsy: I love bridges. I love that they take us somewhere that we start off on one destination and end up totally somewhere else, and most of the time it’s an adventure and it’s an opportunity. And I don’t know if you know this. Have you been to Walt Disney World?
Andrew: One time, yes. I was 11.
Patsy: And I don’t suppose you visited Cinderella?
Andrew: I did not.
Patsy: I just want to say about Cinderella that I’m crazy about her and the story that goes with it. At the Cinderella castle, there are many bridges over the moat. And you know, moats always kind of give you that feeling that there’s something in the moat that might get you, so you’re grateful for that bridge. But that bridge is taking you somewhere you really want to go — inside the castle to see Cinderella. And I know just recently that our guest had the opportunity to go a long distance to bridge the distance and find joy, and I can’t wait for her to tell us about it. And that’s Rebekah Lyons. Welcome, Rebekah.
Rebekah: Thank you so much. Such a fun day to be with you guys.
Patsy: Well, tell us about Joy.
Rebekah: Oh goodness. Well, she is everything her name. She is a joy bomb that basically exploded in our home. The adoption conversation came after having three kids pretty close together years and year ago. So my kids’ ages are 19, 17, 15, and 7. As you can imagine, we had those first ones pretty close, and Cade, our first born, has a Down syndrome diagnosis. We found that out about six hours after he was born, confirmed with geneticist testing about a week after he was born.
And so because he had an emergency C-section, I just went ahead and did that for No. 2. And then once you’ve done that twice, you have to do that for the third, and so the doctor was like, “You can’t have anymore babies. We’re just gonna go ahead and tie your tubes…” He didn’t tell me; he gave me the option but basically like this is the safest way to go.
And I remember processing that with Gabe, and he said, “Only if you’re open to adoption.” And I’m like, “Well, I love God. I’m open, but what does that actually mean?” Because I felt like I had three kids in diapers. Cade wasn’t fully potty trained until he was 6. He walked at 3. He beat his younger brother by three weeks because he was like, Alright, I’m gonna still have to be the first one.
So I was just a young 26-year-old when I became a mom, overwhelmed with the idea of how do I care for these three littles. And so adoption was just placed far on the shelf, knowing that of course I would never say no to something God made very clear, but it just didn’t seem likely in the foreseeable future.
So we move to New York City when Cade is 9, Pierce was 7, Kennedy was 5, and all of a sudden, that felt like my fourth baby. It was all it took to just sustain a rhythm of motherhood in that place. And in fact, we had a little apartment down in Tribeca where the three kids lined up like three bears in the master bedroom. We had three twin beds there, and then the second room, Gabe and I would just walk in and fall on the bed. It was about 900 square feet, so I was like, Where would we put a fourth child? In the bathtub, I guess.
So again, that was just still tabled, tabled, tabled. So it was like a three-minute conversation every few years, and it was like, Could we? Should we? Maybe? No, I think we’re good. That was kind of how the adoption conversation went.
Andrew: Very easy progression, right.
Rebekah: Yes, all within a few minutes. And so we moved to Nashville six years ago, and our church was putting a focus on foster care and adoption, of course, like God does. I was like, Oh, here we go again. And we had a little more room now that we were not in New York City, and so I remember feeling a tug like, Let’s raise this conversation again. We initially thought foster care, but because my work would require me to be traveling most weekends, you sometimes find out on a Tuesday that you’re getting two or three children on a Friday, and you need to be present for that for however long they’re in your home, and it just didn’t feel like something we could sign up for indefinitely.
So I always knew that if we did want to adopt, we wanted to choose Down syndrome this time around, and Gabe felt the same way. But we just still didn’t feel like an opening. We were full. Life was full. We were open to it, but we weren’t pursuing it.
And so I remember one day in 2016 — we’d been here a couple years — I pulled into my garage, and you know how the kids get out of the minivan after school and they run inside and you just stay in the garage? You just linger. And they’re like, “Mom, are you going to come in?” I’m like, “No, I’m fine. I’m right here. It’s quiet. You guys can just do the snacks yourself.”
Andrew: Whatever you want.
Rebekah: “I’m going to linger out here in the silent minivan in the garage.”
And I just remember telling God, “If you want this to happen, I need you to put her right here and I’ll name her Joy.” And basically I had my hand in front of my face like, “I need you to put her right here in front of me, and I’ll name her Joy.”
And that followed a season of anxiety and depression that began in New York City in 2010 where I would always just whisper that refrain, “Restore to me the joy of my salvation. Restore to me the joy of my salvation.” And then that Psalm 129 where it says, “Those who sow in tears reap with songs of joy, carrying sheaves of the harvest with them.” And so I knew that that was kind of the fruit, joy is the fruit, of an investment, of a sowing of tears.
And so I just kind of held on to that and claimed that promise, but I just gave God that kind of a little ultimatum. And then I go back inside and the snacks are done, and it was like the conversation was over. I mean, I didn’t pursue a single thing. We didn’t move forward on anything. Gabe and I didn’t together have a peace about advancing that beyond surrendering it.
And so two years later, three weeks before our 20th anniversary, I get a text of a little girl from Beijing right on my phone, right in front of my face. And it’s my friend Meredith who’s running a foster care home for kids who need heart surgery in Beijing, and this little girl wasn’t even supposed to be there. She didn’t even have a heart defect, but she had Down syndrome and she kind of tagged along, arrived in the middle of the night on a train ride with an infant that really did need heart surgery. And the orphanage thought, Well, she has a strong chance of getting placed. She’s higher functioning. We’ve got a file started for her. So take her.
And so Meredith text me her photo. I said, “Why are you doing this to me?” Because I just had moved forward. Adoption really was not something we were pursuing whatsoever. And I said, “She’s adorable. What’s her name?” And she said, “Chara.” And I said, “Oh, you mean the Greek word for joy?” And she said, “Yes.” And so I would just say be careful what you tell God in your minivan in the garage.
Andrew: The moral of that boils down to…
Rebekah: Yeah. If you defer snack time to the kids, you might be adopting another child.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: Andrew, I’m so excited that one of our sponsors is Food for the Hungry because I like people who are feeding people. I say let’s get to the basic need that a person has, and let’s build up from there. And when you feed a child, you feed their brain, you feed their disposition, you feed their ability to have strength to do the hard work that oftentimes is involved, even if it’s just their studies. If the synapses aren’t snapping, it’s gonna really be tough, so Food for the Hungry’s got the right idea, and they’re talking chickens.
Andrew: That’s right, Patsy. Bawk-bawk-bawk. You can give a family a chicken or a pair of chickens to help them find the nutrition they need on a daily basis, as well as these chickens are producing eggs all the time. We know that, right? We have friends and neighbors who have chickens now here in the States, and they provide those eggs, which then can be sold at market. So a chicken is this warehouse of opportunity for a family. Now, get this: You can provide one chicken for a family in need for $14. That’s it. That’s the chicken. That chicken lives for eight to 10 years and provides those daily eggs. It’s incredible. You can provide a pair of chickens, because we know chickens multiply fast, to help that family on an even deeper level for $28.
Patsy: Yes. I love the idea you can double the blessing for just $28, and this goes to countries like Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic. So it’s a wide reach, and it’s something that God spoke to us about and that is giving to the poor and offering something that will help their life. Let’s feed the hungry.
Andrew: Go to fh.org/bridges to provide some chickens for families in need today.
Patsy: And every chicken you purchase for our friends across the world, it becomes an entry into our first ever Bridges giveaway.
Andrew: That’s right. One winner and a guest will receive roundtrip airfare, one night’s lodging, and ground transportation for a getaway in our hometown, Patsy, of Franklin, Tennessee. Plus, we’ll take you to dinner and interview you on a special episode of Bridges.
Patsy: The winner will be drawn on March 31, 2021, so get your chicken before then.
Andrew: Take us back into that, sowing the tears, because that’s a beautiful story, and of course, there’s more story to be had with Joy and with all your children. But when you learned of Cade’s diagnosis of Down’s, I was reading an interview from a couple years ago where you were diving into that. That was not a simple thought process, transition. Your heart wasn’t suddenly open, from what I was reading, to, Oh great, this is our life now. There was a true shift. Can you talk about that shift and what that felt like when you received the diagnosis and how you began to process that?
Rebekah: I think all of life requires a constant handing over, a constant release of control, a constant surrender, especially if you want to grow and if you want to be pruned and you want to be purified. Everything in life is costly that asks you to mature and grow.
At 26, I had kind of a picture of what I think a lot of young new moms, pregnant, expecting, you know, their first-born son’s going to look like, be like, act like. My husband’s an athlete, football quarterback, all-state. I was a marching band drum major. I’m like, You’re going to go into music or athletics. Which one? I think we kind of have that idea of I’m a first born, I’m pretty driven. I just kind of thought this is what a son, in my brain, in my finite picturing of what this might be, would look like.
So of course, it was like a very traumatic day, the day he was born, because he only grew to four-and-a-half pounds full term, which was an alarming thing toward the end of that pregnancy. I had to push for it. My doctor didn’t really catch it. So there was almost this a little bit of a mama bear kind of fighting at that point for his life.
His heart rate had dropped in the 60s. We had to do an emergency C-section. He was in the NICU on respirator, on IV for the first week. So then the Down syndrome diagnosis kind of comes in the middle of all that at the same time, and at that point, it’s less about whatever label is attached to him and more about just is he going to live. And so that was wonderful in that it helped me focus on the essentials.
But then the day that we did finally have to go home, because they kicked me out after four nights spending the night there even though they keep my baby. They’re like, “Your insurance is not covering you to live in the NICU.” So I do remember going back the first day of day 6, and that’s when they called right before we got in the car to go see Cade and they said, “We’ve confirmed trisomy 21 nondisjunction,” like the type that he had and all that.
I remember at that point it hitting me like the future is so unknown, and it’s very different than what I imagined. And the truth is — let’s be honest — looking back now, for any parent, the future is very different than what you imagined for every single child. I just think I almost over emphasized that because of a diagnosis, and I think it was less about the diagnosis as it was just the reality of stepping into something unknown, which everyone does everyday. Everyone who adds to their family, everyone who decides to get married, everyone who moves across the country — we’re all stepping into the unknown, and it requires risk and it requires faith.
For me though in that moment, I think the anticipation of something being crazy is often more intense than the reality because the reality allows you to gradually adjust into something. Like I just had a two-hour IEP meeting this morning, now that Cade’s 19, with all the people in this county that are helping him get job placement programs and training for the next three years. Gabe and I driving here were just praying and thanking God for that. I wouldn’t have known all those resources were available 20 years ago when I was like freaking out, but that’s what God does. He sustains for that day and gives you what you need that day. Whatever He begins He is faithful to accomplish and fulfill.
So to me, the surrender has never stopped, and even the decision to adopt Joy was an example of that. Like, Oh wow, we’re going to choose this and we’re going to do this again in our mid-40s? Are we going to be able to care for them? Are we going to still be alive? Those are all the fears, but when God makes it clear that it’s a burden on your heart, He gives you the grace to say yes and He gives you the grace to trust day by day.
“All of life requires a constant handing over, a constant release of control, a constant surrender.”
Patsy: You’re listening to Rebekah Lyons, who is the author of the latest book. How many have you written, Rebekah?
Rebekah: Three.
Patsy: This is your third book, and this is Rhythm of Renewal: Trading Stress and Anxiety for a Life of Peace and Purpose. Could this have come at a better time in history? I don’t think so, because you have delved into the journey through anxiety, and right now, I don’t think there’s a greater need than for someone to speak peace and purpose into the lives of people who are concerned, rightfully so, about so many things. The world is an unknown, and each day we aren’t certain of where it’s going to take us. And while part of it’s an adventure, part of it is very intimidating. We haven’t been here before, and that brings its own levels of anxiety. Talk to us about anxiety, and rhythms. May I say I so resonated with this. I wanted to get you and the two of us sing a song together, I’ve got rhythm.
“Right now, I don’t think there’s a greater need than for someone to speak peace and purpose into the lives of people who are concerned, rightfully so, about so many things.”
Andrew: But don’t.
Patsy: But I’m not known for my singing.
Rebekah: Oh, I’d be happy to do that.
Andrew: Not to disrupt my rhythm.
Rebekah: You can join in, you know?
You know what? So anxiety is a fear of the future and the unknown. It’s almost projected. It’s the outside environment kind of coming in, and it’s us responding to that. So we project. For me, it became my fancy word for fear because it was always like these intentions or decisions or what I assumed, like worst case scenario, kind of like that diagnosis of Cade. The anxiety is all around the unknown that we embellish. We embellish, we create, this narrative that may or may not actually be true, but we’re projecting, our fear is, projecting this idea of the worst case scenario. And so anxiety tends to be our inside response to the outside factors that are coming at us. And so that diagnosis created a response from me, and I think 2020 has created a response from all of us. A year ago, this book initially came out in October, about four months before COVID really hit, and I had to convince people last fall that rhythms were important.
Andrew: Interesting. Why?
Rebekah: I mean, people were still learning to spell the word rhythm.
Andrew: Now that is tricky. I’m gonna give you that one.
Rebekah: And I did make a song for it. I’m going to sing it really quick. It came to me in the middle of the night. It’s a jingle. It’s R-H-Y-T-H-M-S. Once you know the song, you won’t have to guess. That was for free. I woke up one night, and I’m like, No one’s going to be able to find the book because nobody knows how to spell rhythm. They don’t know the H goes in there.
All that to say, quarantine proved that rhythm actually sustains emotional health. Quarantine proved the book to be true. And I had lived that out the last three years because my mental struggle began in 2010 and came through panic disorder in 2011 towards the end, so about 18 months, and then had to put real rhythms in place over the last eight years to be able to sustain not having panic attacks on planes or trains or elevators or subways or crowds, which was everywhere in New York. I had to confront fear, and a lot of times therapists or psychologists will say the only way to confront — whether it’s claustrophobia, agoraphobia, whatever those things are — is through exposure. You actually have to face it head on.
Andrew: Challenge what you are fearing.
Rebekah: You have to get on an elevator, even though you would rather take nine flights of stairs. You actually have to do it. You have to risk. And it grows your endurance and your ability to confront adversity, and it reminds you that your brain is remapping new memories, not just memories of being trapped and claustrophobic and freaking out, because you’re more afraid of your reaction than you are in the environment. But when you start to have a different response, then your brain is also taking those at heart as well.
And so the rhythms is a very… When you feel like you’ve lost control — everyone has lost control this year. We don’t have agency necessarily to make decisions on where we go, when we go, who we see, who we hug, where we frequent, all those things. Rhythms all you to take agency back, say but here’s what you can do. You can take a sunset walk, which releases melatonin for your body to help you sleep well. You can actually hold a hug with the people you aren’t social distancing from for five to 10 seconds, and that will release oxytocin in your brain, which is fueling some connection and belonging, and you need that because everyone’s really lonely and isolated.
So it’s just knowing some of these practical things to sustain our mental health makes rhythms all the more valuable, and that was really the goal of this book was to be the end of my anxiety trilogy and to really just give people very tangible, practical, approachable steps everyday as they’re trying to navigate this year.
Andrew: Patsy, I hear that you have a book club.
Patsy: I do. Books are what God used to help heal me, so it delights me to offer that service to others, that they could sign up, anybody. All y’alls, come on in. We want you to join in the book club, and we will read ourselves silly and sane. We’ll have different selections, one every month with a bonus. You can check it out: patsyclairmont.com. And also on that page, you’ll see that I do cheerleading for people. I coach them in helping them stir up their creativity to tell their story. But here’s what I know: You’re into a different kind of storytelling, and you’ve been set up to win awards for what you’ve done.
Andrew: I love music, and I have new record out called Tune My Heart, and it includes some of my really close friends, some of your friends, like Sandra McCracken and Cindy Morgan and Buddy Greene. And you can find that record anywhere you stream or download, or at andrew-greer.com. You know what else, Patsy?
Patsy: What?
Andrew: I’ve got another podcast. It’s not my favorite podcast, but if you like listening to Bridges, then you might like listening to and viewing Dinner Conversations with our pal Mark Lowry and myself. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Prime, or simply go to dinner-conversations.com.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: “Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lord!” Those are the last two verses of Psalm 27 from the Abide Bible. It is a new bible that has been in my home now for several months, so I’ve had time to work with it and it to work inside of me. It offers beautiful, old art that is associated with verses, so it helps it to become a bigger picture in our mind and our retention is improved. It has places for us to journal on the side as we read. It also has instructions on how to pray this Scripture, how to meditate on it, how to contemplate it so we can sit and soak in God’s Word and allow it to dwell richly within us.
Andrew: What I love about the Abide Bible is that it’s invitational, not just informational. It’s inviting us not to just exercise the Word of God in our head but to really invite it to dwell in our hearts, which to me reminds me of John 15:4: “Abide in me and I in you.” So you can order your copy of the Abide Bible today at bridgesshow.com/abide.
Patsy: I love your clarity. You do that in your speaking as well and your writing. You’re very purposeful about your words, and it always lays out a plan that the rest of us can join you in the journey. Andrew and I both were looking at the book trying to decide, Now, is this my favorite or is this one my favorite? And I picked the one on how to be a friend, or actually, it’s on friendship. The reason is that so many people come up to me with a question, and that is it: I want a friend. I don’t know how to keep a friend. I don’t know how to make a friend. So would you address that please?
Rebekah: Well, the title of that chapter is “Be the Friend You Wish to Have,” and you can apply that to everything. Be the mom you wish to have, the father you wish to have, the mentor you wish to have, the mentee you wish to have. When you put yourself in the shoes of the other person, it helps you really know how to fill that role.
I had to learn that the hard way. I felt like the first couple decades of my adult life, in particular, I was more of a needy friend. And I realized I was operating from a deficit and I was kind of putting a lot of expectations on other people to fix me, and it wasn’t fair to them and it really wasn’t fair to God. But partly I think wounds from old relationships, if they go unresolved, they follow into the new relationships.
I had a couple hard stops — one friend in my 20s, one friend in my 30s — where I felt lost or I felt rejection or I felt like I wasn’t doing it right, and so therefore it just didn’t work out. Because I was so hurt by that, I kind of close up a little bit. I was like, Okay, then I will be the friend that doesn’t need anything. If I’m too needy… All it is is the opposite end of the pendulum. Both ways I’m trying to maintain control. Whether I’m demanding or I’m evasive, I’m still trying to maintain control.
And so what the friend I wish to have though is a friend who’s intimate, vulnerable, where there’s reciprocity, where both parties are showing tenderness, weakness, honesty, an ability to serve and love but also to receive. And I find sometimes in friendships, as long as you’re not receiving, you kind of get to keep the upper hand.
Andrew: Yeah, it seems like an advantage point.
Rebekah: And I don’t like that personally because I’m like, well, I don’t want to always be the needy friend because that takes me back to my 20s where I was always getting counseled by my friends for free. But I also don’t want to be the one who’s always giving advice. I truly know that when vulnerability — and the chapter right after that is all about vulnerability. When we lead with vulnerability in friendship, if it’s met and responded in the same kind, that’s a friend you’re going to keep.
Andrew: Yes. Reciprocity is, I think, extremely important in relationships in general, and I think we feel like we are either one or the other. Either I’m extremely needy and this person has everything to provide and, of course, that exhausts it; or I’m the one always providing and then I’m exhausted.
But I was confronted by my counselor a few years ago about my inability to receive comfort. He said, “I think you’re a very comforting person. I think people are drawn to you for your kind of wide-openness for whatever they have to offer you or whatever they bring to the table. You’re good with it. But when they turn the table on you of sorts to say, ‘Okay, you can bring anything to me too,’ there’s a wall.” And in that, there was some brokenness in relationships that I just could not understand, and it actually ended up festering up into some offenses by the other party that seemed extreme. But when I talked to my counselor, he said, “Well, actually, I think it’s them not understanding how to kind of get through to you because you’re always the holder. You refuse to be held.”
And so I think reciprocity is extremely important, which talk about being held. Of course, my favorite chapter was about hugging, and it’s called “Hugs All Around,” which I can’t get enough of that.
I grew up in a family where my father’s a therapist and was very affectionate. My mom’s an affectionate woman as well but not as affectionate as my dad. In fact, my brothers and I would often kind of hug on her or just be close to her for a while, and she at some point was like, “Cool, enough.”
“Reciprocity is extremely important in relationships.”
Patsy: “Go play.”
Andrew: Yeah, “go play.” But my dad always wanting to hold. And you talk about holding a hug for five to 10 seconds to release that oxytocin. If you think about, next time you hug someone, think about how short we make it, or we pat-pat-pat and done. But to really hold someone in is an extremely powerful initiative.
Rebekah: Yeah, the side hug doesn’t count. But it’s okay. It’s still better than nothing. It is a gesture of embrace, which I appreciate. And you know, in school systems now, you can’t touch, you can’t hug, so these kids aren’t getting held or touched. And really, if the goal for the nuclear family is connection and belonging, then we as parents have to take that seriously. Or if you’re married, you have to take that seriously. It’s not sexual. It’s embrace as well.
I think about my teen kids when they come home. I’m not going to hold a hug for 10 seconds in front of their friends because that would be embarrassing for them. But when they come home, I want a hug, and I want them to know they belong here and they’re safe here. And that’s nonverbal, right. I have two kids that are largely nonverbal, and a hug will just melt Cade like that because the nonverbal is actually really 90 percent of how we really communicate. That gets lost on a screen. That gets lost through digital media. And so again, I think that embrace…
And I love what you said about not being able to receive. I think part of that is a role sometimes that men take on as provider. It’s almost like they can’t really show vulnerability because they’re supposed to be protecting and providing on some level for their people. And Gabe and I’ve had a lot of those conversations as well. But it does connect. I know us as a couple, we’re way more connected when he will risk and share a vulnerability emotionally. I think it’s important in any friendship, any relationship — parents, spouse, friends, whoever it is — to make sure that if you want to be the friend you wish to have, you can lead with vulnerability. If it’s not responded to, I would keep looking because you will find people out there.
I find now that I’ve been in Nashville six years, the friends that I thought I was initially going to be close to maybe year one aren’t really the ones I’m close to. The ones I’m really close to God kind of brought out of the woodwork, and there was no expectation put on it from the beginning. The reciprocity happened so naturally that you’re like, This is easy. There should be an ease and a cadence in friendship over the long haul.
Patsy: A rhythm.
Rebekah: Yep. There you go.
Patsy: We’re back to we’ve got rhythm.
Andrew: We do. I want to ask one follow-up that’s kind of a side note, but I think it’s important culturally today to talk about. You said that physical touch and hugs and embracing, and not just a side hug but a full-on kind of bear hug, that it does not imply something of a sexual nature, or does not have to. We’re in a very sensitive culture and sometimes for very good reasons. I would say to some degree an over-sexualized culture because of media and that area has continued to be more and more pronounced just in general what we intake.
But my dad was telling me, or was suggesting, that really even relationships between the opposite sex require some element of safe physical touch, just for a sense of security, safety, vulnerability, for relationship. What you’re saying. So many nonverbal cues are what really connect us. Do you have something to say about that, from a woman’s perspective especially. I feel like as a man I don’t know where my voice needs to really be heard right now on that. But I think as a woman y’all have a safer place to suggest maybe what’s appropriate and not, and healthy.
Rebekah: Yeah. I think for me personally holding a hug for a long time, like a full hug, that’s probably reserved for my family. Male-female, obviously. Regarding just like a peer, it’s probably gonna be more like a side hug, just out of appropriateness and respect for their relationships with their spouse and their kids and all of that. Because, again, intimacy and connection and belonging, like belonging really is in the home, in the family.
I love a father who’s affectionate. Gabe’s very affectionate with our boys, our daughters, with me, with his parents, his brother. So again, it’s everyone’s safety expression is unique, but in general, I would say the connection and belonging is really… But if I was single and I had other people that were single, I know in this season when we weren’t allowed to hug, it was all the more pronounced. And I have single friends who were just like, “I don’t think I’ve had a hug in like weeks or months.” I’m like, Okay, group hug.
Andrew: You need to come over right now.
Rebekah: Group hug. Gabe, me, everybody. To me, physical touch is so important. It really is so important, and that’s kind of the risk of this year. At some point, what does risking look like? I think we would’ve thought back in March risking meant shaking someone’s hand, and now, risking is meaning a hug.
But everyone who comes in our home — no matter single, married, whoever — we greet them at the door and we hug everyone of them, and we’re all there together and that, of course, is appropriate on every level. I hug all the kids. Joy, she’s short. She tries to hug everybody’s knees. We’re a physical family because I do want all of the people who come through our doors to know their welcome and they belong here.
Patsy: Yeah. We’re in a very different season. I think it’s always appropriate to ask the other person if you’re wanting to extend your heart to them in a physical touch, to say, “Are you comfortable with me giving you a side hug, or me bumping elbows? How exactly are you communicating that in this season?” And meet them where they’re at because people are intimidated at different levels depending a lot on their anxiety.
Rebekah: Yeah, I agree. And I should’ve said that. We certainly when people come by will say, “Are we hugging?”
Andrew: They’re like, Oh, I’m not coming back to the Lyons’.
Rebekah: No, no, no. We’re not gonna just attack you. They’ll go, “Are we hugging?” I’m like, “I am if you are. It’s up to you.” For sure, that always happens.
Andrew: Listen. Our friendship began by me chasing her down for a hug.
Patsy: Why has that left my mind?
Rebekah: She’s blocked it.
Andrew: Healthy. Isn’t it interesting and intriguing and fortuitous and all those things that this book would not have been released in hindsight and that these messages would not have been spoken in hindsight but, without knowing, foresight. It’s so important for us to have resources and to have some context of understanding as we begin to approach all the un-understandables that we are in for now and probably for a little while. Rhythms of Renewal is going to become an important touchpoint.
Patsy: I would recommend it in a heartbeat. After you’ve listened to Rebekah, you know for sure this is a voice who’s speaking out of experience and good content, so it’s going to help our lives and it’s going to steady our emotions and it’s going to cheer us on. I love the combination of all of that.
Rebekah: One thing that we did a study… We didn’t do a study. The study was conducted probably be about six to eight weeks into quarantine of how many people would say their lives have improved — their lifestyle, maybe their habits, have improved — in that particular season. And I believe it was 48 percent said that our lives had improved because they actually had no option but to live in rhythm. They were cooking more. They were getting outside. They were having more time at home. Kids’ anxieties lowered because families were always around, parents were present.
And so one thing that I thought was interesting is that a lot of people don’t want to re-enter life the way they left it, because if you think about like the book talks about almost four out of five, 77 percent, pre-COVID were experiencing physical symptoms of stress. And that’s racing heart, shallow breathing, sleepless nights, all those things. And that was us living the lives we chose. And so if we now get to get a do-over, or maybe we got a nice long timeout and we now get to decide what do we want to bring back, what do we want to carry forward that we learned during this season of quarantine, how do we keep those habits integrated, these rhythms integrated, as we re-enter a faster pace and busier schedule again.
And so I created this 90-day Rhythms for Life Planner and Journal that’ll come out the end of October, and it really allows the reader who’s gone through the book to go, Today, I will…, and you set intentions for what is the one expression of the rhythm that you’ll do that day, whether it’s coffee with a friend or drink extra water or go for a walk. And then it allows you to evaluate it at the end of the week, what worked, what didn’t, what would you tweak for next week. You can do a month review, a weekly review.
A lot of people, I found, reading the book were making their own journal attempts at how do I actually implement this and sustain it. And so we created this resource I’m very excited about. In fact, I have one.
Patsy: This is beautiful. And it’s a significant piece. I’m looking at a Rhythms for Life Planner and Journal that is the companion to the Rhythms of Renewal book. They’re a beautiful set. They’re well coordinated.
Rebekah: It’s going to be offered as a set on Amazon as well.
Patsy: And it’ll be available on Amazon. That’s great.
Andrew: Here is a poem that applies a lot to what you’re speaking of, what your book speaks of, and of course, the new planner is an opportunity to implement this. It’s by a woman named Kitty O’Meara and was shared a lot during this season. You may have heard it, but I’m going to read it out loud for everyone.
And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and they were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed. And, in the absence of the people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and they made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.
Patsy: Whoa. That’s lovely.
Rebekah: Isn’t that incredible? I love it so much.
Andrew: So these choices we’re making now, new choices, it’s a worthwhile decision.
Rebekah: Yeah, it’s not a neutral, like rest is not optional to God. It’s a mandate. And when we lived within the boundaries of rhythm, you know, the circadian rhythm, up till about 100 years ago before the Industrial Revolution, before the Digital Revolution, then all of a sudden, we were no longer constrained. We got to be always on. That idea of always on was for machinery, that it was more efficient to keep machines and factories running than to turn them off and turn them back on.
Then that was implemented to humans. That’s why we’re so stressed out, and we were never made to actually go all the time. We were never made to be always on. We were actually made to live within the boundaries of rhythm so we could flourish, and when we get outside of those and we’re always on and we’re always putting input into our bodies, that’s when we burnout.
And so I’m excited because this is the way of God. This is how He established creation and rhythm by speaking words in rhythm. Like evening and morning were the first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day. You’ve got waves on the beach. You’ve got the planets in orbit. You’ve got the heartbeat, the breathing, labor pains. Everything that is new life is always established in rhythm.
So my goal, my heart, this idea of renewal, is to be made new again and again and again. And I believe every day that we wake is a chance and an invitation to be healed, to walk in a way that gives us our life back, to re-establish what we want our life to be about.
Patsy: And people can learn more about Rebekah Lyons at rebekahlyons.com. And you have been listening to Bridges with…
Andrew: Patsy Clairmont
Patsy: Excuse me, but you are Andrew.
Andrew: Oh, I’m Andrew. Yes, with Andrew Greer.
Patsy: And Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: Thank you, Rebekah, for the rhythms of this conversation. It’s been a delight.
Rebekah: Thank you for having me.
Patsy: Bridges is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself, Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: And our podcast is recorded and mixed by Jesse Phillips at the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee.
Patsy: Remember, don’t forget to leave us a rating, a review, or a comment. It all helps our little show get going.
Andrew: To find out more about my co-host Patsy Clairmont or myself, Andrew Greer, or to read transcripts of our show, simply go to bridgesshow.com.