Slay… scratch that… Abide in the Present : S2 E4

This podcast began because helping humans live their best life and become the best version of themselves is what Desireé’s life is all about. Join Desireé in Episode 4 of Season 2, as she uses her trips around the sun to throw encouragement around like confetti!

In Episode 4, Desireé continues the journey to living your best life by talking about what to do in the present moment. *Spoiler Alert* It’s not slay it! Small disclaimer, if you love nerding-out on words, you are going to LOVE this episode.

Topics include:

• Why we shouldn’t-really-ever slay anything (1:44)
• Mind. Blown. 🤯  (3:47)
• A statistic on loneliness that will change everything (5:26)
• When it all comes together (10:01)

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Transcript

Desireé Melfi Bozzo: 0:06

Ciao and welcome to Life out loud. I am your host Desiree Melfi Bozzo. we are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting, unshakable unwavering unmessable-with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement, a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life. Ciao friends, welcome to episode four of season two of the life out loud podcast. I am your host Desiree Melfi Bozzo. Thank you once again for joining me in this space. For those of you who are first time listeners Hello and welcome. I'm truly glad you're here. For my returning listeners. Thank you, thank you for coming back. Thank you for trusting, trusting me and trusting the space. And I hope that what we do today is fruitful. We have been laying out a plan this season for living a really great unwavering, unshakable unmessable-with life. We started off talking about leadership preparing to lead and more than more than just preparing. But preparing to lead well. we talked about healing the past, we talked about the power of words, because they matter. We've laid the foundation, and my friends, now it's time to start the building. Today we're learning how to abide in the present. Now, I want to be completely open and completely probably too honest for a moment. When I first outlined the season, I actually called this episode, slay the present. It was a powerful phrase in my head. And if I can be really honest, it kind of makes me sound way cooler than I actually am. As I was doing my research, it dawned on me that I don't actually want to slay anything, like ever. I mean, maybe besides like slay my sin, and in that case, slay all day. But if you listen to the last episode, I talked about the real tangible power of our words, and words have a lasting impact and the words synonymous with slay are kill, slaughter and massacre. And I don't know about your proclivities, but I don't want to do any of those things to the present moment. I actually want to embrace it, and live it to its fullest and thrive. Anyone else out there with me on this? Okay. So, being intentional about living fully got me thinking about what successful and effective humans do, and then how we achieve that. For the most enriched human experience, we must stay present, we must remain in the moment, we must be where our feet are, in words in thoughts and actions. Friends, to be successful and effective living our very best life, we must in every moment, abide in the present. And it's here that I want to nerd out on words again for a minute. To truly get to the root of the word I usually head back to the Hebrew meaning because that's one of the original languages in the Bible, and it's just something I do. So the Hebrew word for abide is yashab. While it's defined the same as an English to remain to stay to dwell. Here's where my mind really gets blown, right? The Hebrew word for abide? Also, are you ready? Includes notions of interpersonal relationships. The Hebrew definition of abiding literally refers to personal connection. What is this all even mean? Why am I nerding out on words? Here's why. To be successful, and effective in the present moment, to live our best life with the most enriched human experience, we must stay present and in relationship with people, yashab. When I say it, I kind of breathe out a little peace and something in my soul just feels right. For a long time, those of you who have known me way, way, way before this podcast, I have lived by the idea that we weren't meant to do life alone. People need people. People so desperately need people Life is hard sometimes, and going through the hard stuff alone compounds the weight of it. I know friends, because I've lived it. When we feel alone, we begin to lose hope and purpose. And when that happens, we begin looking in all the wrong places to find hope and purpose again, which draws us further and further away from center. And it compounds the loneliness. We live in a world where we are the most connected than we have ever been in human existence. Yet the feeling of loneliness is more prevalent than ever. I want to give you a visual, I want you to think of every 18 to 25 year old, you know, if you don't know any, think of your favorite college or university. Okay, got it? Now, keep them in mind. I want you to think of every mom with young kids that you know, do you have them in mind? Can you see their faces, their names, who they are to you. Now I'm going to give you have a statistic that just might break you, although don't let it break you. But it might just know that before warned, your heart is going to be heavy. A Harvard study shows that a staggering 61 I said six and a one 61% of 18 to 25 year olds, and over half, 51% of moms with young kids feels and I'm going to quote“miserable degrees of loneliness.” Friends, I didn't just say kind of lonely in need of a taco Tuesday night out. I said miserable degrees of loneliness. These numbers are astronomical and frankly, terrifying people our people our humans that we do life with our hurting. So what do we do? In the face of statistics that kind of rattle us? How do we fight back? How do we fight against the loneliness? I'm going to be super transparent about something that I normally wouldn't tell because I'm a recovering type A and I'm also a solid one on the Enneagram which means I'm a perfectionist. I got to this point in my show notes. I read these statistics, I got present to the loneliness that the people in this world the people around me are feeling and it for lack of a better word, slayed me. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to fix the problem of loneliness. Like how do you even begin to fix this? I uncovered this ugly thing that I couldn't unsee. But now what would I do with it? Like what do we do with this thing? So I did what I do when I don't know the answer. I went and I sat in my closet. Now, let me unpack that for a second. In my closet, I have a little prayer corner I set up a long time ago. It's a cozy little bolster and it has some pillows and there's this cute bench and you can sit on it or kneel on it or whatever your some days you just sit on it and cry. That's let's be honest here. But there's a board there with the scriptures and prayers and there's sticky notes all over it and just things that are heavy on my heart that I have to get off my heart. So I write them down and I stick them on that wall and I just go in that room and I pray and it's my very own war room of sorts. It's where I go to battle. I went in there and I close the door and I brought loneliness to the foot of the cross. As I was putting notes together for this episode I came here so excited wanting to talk about slave the present and live your best life but the Lord had different plans for this episode. The word I kept feeling like pulling at the God of my soul was ABIDE and I didn't I didn't get it so I like brushed it aside I'm like no that's not going to work here. And I would pray like god No you don't. Clearly you don't get it I need to teach them to slay the present crush the moment like do it bad go bigger go home right but the Lord kept prompting and when I said slay the spirit kept prompting ABIDE and then I changed my tune a little bit because that's what we do is human and so I I prayed what what if what if we aren't slaying to succeed? What if you're just we're just gonna you know slay the loneliness God come on help me here like help me because I'm stuck right and the Spirit just kept prompting abide Friends after longer, longer than I care to admit, it clicked- to truly succeed, we must abide. John 15:4 Abide in me, as I also abide in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. In this moment, all I can do is shake my head

because when I turn to John 15: 10:34

4 and my Bible, can I tell one on myself here in the safe space? Friends, it's not even underlined. I know his word so well, I think. And yet the scripture that directly relates to success with relationship, a holy abiding, the thing that will combat loneliness abiding. I've never even underlined it. Have a deeply personal relationship with God, and He will have a deeply personal relationship with you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. We can't do it alone. We must remain abiding in him. Not in other people, not in our jobs, not in the world. But in him. We cannot bear good fruit apart from our God. To live really great, unwavering, unshakable unmessable-with lives I was so certain that it had to do with powering through the present, really slang those tasks those to-dos. The only slang that happened was my heart. When we abide in Him, He fills our lonely places. In a world that promises to fill us at every pass, I promise you it can't. This. I know because I've tried. Trust me. I've tried. So to quote my favorite song by elevation worship. I've searched the world, but it couldn't fill me. Man's empty praise and treasures that fade are never enough. And now I get it. We combat loneliness and bear good fruit when we abide in the present when we abide in His presence. Friends, I hope this episode was fruitful. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope that it broke your heart wide open and showed you something that you've never seen. Or maybe affirmed something that you've always known. Send me a message. I love hearing your thoughts. Come back next time we'll throw more encouragement around like confetti, but be careful if you get too close. You just might get some on you. And remember friends, there is always always always something to be grateful for. Ciao. Thank you for joining me Desiree Melfi Bozzo for this episode of Life out loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment. Tell me what topics you want to talk about and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link share it on social media. Or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, be-bop over to my webpage life out loud.me and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time sweet listeners.