3 Boundaries to Have For a Peaceful Life

Without peace, life is a constant battle of struggle. Struggle to feel motivated, feel joy, and...find meaning. 

In this episode, we discuss three boundaries that are important to start having, to maintain the life of peace God designed.

We will be diving into Solomon's poetic and unique wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes. 

Have a beautiful and blessed week! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello! Welcome into the Fruitful Feminine. I am Alexis and I am so excited that you are here. We are talking about three boundaries to live a peaceful life today. I'm really excited to get into this topic because we are talking about Ecclesiastes. This book, everyone says that Proverbs is the book in the Bible that is full of wisdom. I think Ecclesiastes is a very, very close tie with Proverbs. It is full of secrets and wisdom from God. And we're gonna break down three of these secret nuggets of wisdom that will help you feel peace. Especially if you feel numb or disconnected from your body or unmotivated in life, these three boundaries especially will help you release that numbness, get back on fire for life, get back on fire for God, and just live a good quality life, the way that God wants us to live. If this is your first episode, welcome. I'm Alexis, and here we talk all things Jesus in feminine energy. And you do not have to be Christian to be here. I always say that this is a place to learn about building a relationship with God, whether you already know him or not. So welcome, welcome. And my girls who have been here for a while, extra welcome to you. Alright, so Ecclesiastes, this is a book that is in the Old Testament, and it was written by a man named Solomon. Solomon was known as the wisest man to ever live. He was also one of the wealthiest men to ever live. And he writes, I don't know if it's the entire book of Ecclesiastes or part of it, but the part we're reading is written by Solomon. And when you first start reading Ecclesiastes, it may feel a bit despairing. You might think, well, this is kind of depressing. Very normal to think that. The very first, well, the very second line in Ecclesiastes, when it gets into the teaching, it says, everything is meaningless, says the teacher. Completely meaningless. And Solomon goes on and on about how everything in life is meaningless. And what he's saying is not that life is meaningless, but everything of the world is meaningless. And there's three areas specifically that really stand out to me in these first few books of Ecclesiastes that are so clear like avoid this, set boundaries around this, and life won't feel so meaningless and dull and difficult. And so before we get to those three boundaries, we're going to read Ecclesiastes 1.13. And this verse, it says, I this is Solomon speaking. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven. And so Solomon, he's setting out on this quest. This man thinks he is a king. He has all of the resources, he has all of the wealth and the power in the world. And he sets out to do one thing. Discover the meaning of life. Which I love. To be a king, and that's your only job in life. And so he's using all of his time, his resources, his money to figure out what makes me the happiest, like what fills me up the most. And this man, he does fear God. He's still on his journey towards fearing God. But during that process, he's figuring some things out, which he writes in this book. This is uh Ecclesiastes 1, 16 through 18 now. He says, I said to myself, Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them. So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind. The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow. And this is interesting because the whole Bible is filled with this importance on wisdom and how God blesses certain people with wisdom. And now Solomon is coming in and he's saying, Yes, I have this blessing of wisdom, but the more wise you are, the more you realize life is meaningless because he has searched the ends of the earth, and when he has all the knowledge that the earth possesses, and he's still not satisfied, he realizes everything that he thought would bring power and happiness does not do it. There's something else, and we'll talk about what that thing is. I'm sure you already know what it is, and so uh that's how he kind of sets up Ecclesiastes. If we go down to chapter two, starting with verse eight, he gets into a list of things that don't bring pleasure or don't bring meaning. I kind of just spoil the first one. The first one is pleasure. So if we go to two, verse eight, it says, I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire. So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. You'll want to remember that line, that's really important. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors, but as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless, like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness, for who can do this better than I, the king? I thought wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness, for the wise can see where they are going, but fools walk in the dark. Yet I saw that the wise and the foolish share the same fate. Both will die. So I said to myself, Since I will end up the same as the fool, what's the value of all my wisdom? This is all so meaningless. Okay, I promise we're going to get more hopeful than this. What he's saying, and I know some of these sentences, he's saying, like, who can do this better than I? He's not saying this from a place of pride. He's saying this from a place of genuine curiosity and his genuine standing that he had all of the money in the world. And still it did not satisfy him, and still his resources brought him an answer that was unexpected. And I love that he's sharing this with us. It's like God's giving us a blueprint to say, hey, there's a man who had everything that you want wealth, status, pleasure, and he still realized none of it matters. And so, what does Solomon say does not bring meaning? Pleasure. He says he had all the concubines in the world. Like I said, he was still working on his fear towards God, still a human. Uh, he had all the pleasure, he had all of the wonderful singers, he had all the food he could eat, still did not bring meaning. He had all of the wisdom, but still realized, oh, the wise died just like the fools die. They all share the same fate. So even wisdom is meaningless. And it's not that it's not important, but it's it's not a satisfying drink. It's not a satisfying um digestible that he can take and feel good in life. Accomplishments don't bring meaning. His status as a king, the labor and the work that he did, and I think a lot of us who have fallen into the trap of being a workaholic, we think that our work will give us meaning. It's never enough. Wealth, security, status, romance, all these things that Solomon's talking about. It's all meaningless. And what I think is so funny about God is that he designed our flesh to crave worldly things only to realize after tasting them, I'm still hungry. And I think that God intended this to leave us with this unsatisfied hunger to say, okay, this is never going to be filled. What will be? And that's when we start to realize oh, we have three parts of our body. We have the flesh, but we also have the soul and our spirit, which when you accept Jesus into your life, your spirit joins with his spirit. So now you have the Holy Spirit in you. So the soul and the spirit have different desires. They desire a relationship with God, a relationship with Jesus more specifically. They desire that thirst that can only be quenched with him. And I love that God designs our flesh to crave what will leave us hungry. So that when we're starving, we can we can have this new hunger to seek him. We had an episode, I believe it was called Stop Chasing, You're Already Chosen, where we talked about the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well. And he's saying, Go back home to your husband. And she goes, I don't have a husband. And he goes, That's right, you have five husbands. Because back during that time, whoever you sleep with is your husband. And Jesus wasn't doing this to be rude. He was doing this to say, number one, I see you. Number two, I see you, and you're still unsatisfied. And number three, these husbands that you're seeking pleasure in, that you're seeking validation in, will not satisfy you. You will continue to remain thirsty. And then he tells her, I have water that when you drink, you will never be thirsty again. She's like, Okay, I want this water. And he goes, It's a relationship with me. And Jesus is constantly telling us this throughout the Bible. And no wonder why Solomon and in fact everyone in the Old Testament, they're hungry, like they believe that the Messiah is coming, but he's not here yet. So they their mission in life is to build a relationship seeking after God. And there's this hunger and this thirst that remains unsatisfied because they haven't fully experienced Jesus yet. And so, back on this note, how God designed our flesh to crave worldly things, but only so that we could be starved and our soul and our spirit could say, Okay, knock, knock. We're trying to tell you our desire is something completely different. And that's why you feel like life is meaningless. When you discover Jesus, you discover the meaning of life. And God tells us what our purpose is. We'll come back to that at the end. It's kind of like healthy food. So, for example, I used to hate carrot juice. I could not stand it. And I thought it was so boring. I'm like, who would drink carrot juice? I think that's how we are before we truly discover Jesus, is our soul and our spirit are going, we want to stop seeking validation, we want to stop uh chasing after these worldly things, we want to stop desiring to be liked and to have this status and to only chase money. We want to just sit in Jesus' presence and hear his will and be held by him. But years ago, if you would have told me this, I would have been like, yeah, that's nice. Maybe when I'm mature, maybe when I'm an adult, that's the kind of stuff that I'll like. It's just like when we're a kid and we see things like coleslaw. To be honest, I still don't like colesala, but you know those dishes where you're like, yeah, when I'm an adult, I'll like that. A salad, for example. Well, we keep eating the junk food, trying to get that hit of craving, trying to find meaning, and okay, finally I'll have these McDonald's French fries, and I'm satisfied now. And it's never enough. An hour later, in fact, you're you're even more hungry. And so the craving that's hit that's truly going to satisfy you, it's going to be like a whisper. It's going to be very, very quiet. You already know what it is deep down, and there's different ways to start consuming that sort of craving. Now we're going to get into the boundaries of ways that you can do this. So, boundaries that Solomon lays out without saying these are boundaries. Number one, boundaries with your mouth. I love this one so much. We're going to jump to uh Ecclesiastes 5, starting with verse 1. And he says, As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. And this one is pretty savage. Is it evil to make mindless it is evil to make mindless offerings to God. Don't make rash promises and don't be hasty in bringing matters before God. After all, God is in heaven and you are here on earth, so let your words be few. Whew, we could stop right there. Verse three, too much activity gives you restless dreams. Too many words makes you a fool. When you make a promise to God, don't delay in following through, for God takes no pleasure in fools. Keep all the promises you make to him. It is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it. Hello, internal integrity, right? Don't let your mouth make you sin. And don't defend yourself by telling the temple messenger that the promise you made was a mistake. That would make God angry and he might wipe out everything you have achieved. Talk is cheap, like daydreams and other useless activities. Fear God instead. That last part, fear God instead. I love that Solomon says this because he has searched everything that brings satisfaction. And he tells us, This don't do, this don't do, here's what you do instead. Fear God. And we're not going to talk about this on this episode, but if we go back to verse 3, it says, Too much activity gives you restless dreams. Too many words makes you a fool. That first part, too much activities. I heard this quote from Joyce Meyer, and she is an amazing, amazing woman of God. And she had said that anytime you start to feel rushed, it's because that's your flesh moving quicker than the Holy Spirit is moving you. And I thought, yes, that's so true. Anytime we're like, God, why don't I have this in my timeline yet? God, why don't I have kids? Why don't I have this career? Or you're hurting and you're trying to get so much done in the day. God didn't design all those things to be on your to-do list. Oftentimes we design those. And so when He's saying too much activity gives you restless dreams, he's saying you might be anxious because you're doing too much. I love when God tells us you're doing too much. But, anyways, number one boundary is boundaries with your mouth. And God has told me so much this last year and a half, talk less. Or not talk less, say less. And at first I'm like, oh, I don't really know what this means, but okay, God, please just reveal it to me. One way that He has told me to speak less is to be a better listener. You know, sometimes when you're in a conversation and you have a really good point that you want to say, but everyone's talking and you feel, oh my gosh, I don't think my point's gonna get across. There's so many moments like that where I have either interrupted someone or I've I've felt like I spoke when I should have just listened. And always afterwards I'm thinking, it didn't even matter that I brought that point up. 99% of the time, I could have just let it go. And there's something so beautiful that happens when you do this, is when you become a good listener, the people that you are in a relationship with, that relationship deepens because to be loved is to be seen and to be heard. And when you can make people feel heard, they feel so special in your presence. When we talk about charisma on YouTube, this is something that I always say is be a good listener if you want to be charismatic because you make people feel special. One of my favorite compliments is Alexis, I always feel so seen and heard when I'm with you. Thank you for being a good listener. I have had to practice this because I love to talk. We all love to talk. I don't think God is telling us talk less, but I think he's telling us be careful with your words. And your words are not the most important thing. Sometimes listening is more important. God has told me this in my prayer life too. When I prayed, I used to pray for 10 minutes straight, just me talking. God, thank you for this. Can I have this? Can you do this? And one day I was like, I just heard God say, Can I speak? And I was like, Oh my gosh, it's like I zoomed out and saw every time I pray, I'm speaking. What kind of relationship is that? Imagine you had a partner who they're always speaking and you never speak. It's not gonna be your partner for very long. Yet we do this to God, and He's just waiting there, like, if you could just hear what I have to say to you. I already see everything that's happening. You don't always have to tell me. And this is reminding me of one of my favorite verses right now. It's James 1, 5 through 8. And there's a line in here that says, People who worry their prayers are like wind-wipped waves. And this verse, I think I even talked about it last week. It's so powerful because it's talking about how the first part says, if you don't know what you're doing, go to the Father. He loves to help you and you'll get his help. And then it goes on to say, if you worry your prayers, you are like a wind-wipped wave. What does this mean? It means that you're constantly in turmoil going in all these directions. It's like you're caught in a storm when you worry your prayer. To worry your prayer is like, God, did you hear this? I need this. I told you yesterday, but I'm gonna tell you again because nothing has changed. It's like anxiously talking. And I can imagine that that doesn't make God feel good. Because the next part after that, it says, don't think you're going to get anything from the master that way. Adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. And then I started to think about that verse. Okay, so when we worry our prayers, we're keeping our options open. Yes, because when we worry our prayers, it's saying, God, I need you to do this, but also I don't trust that it's being done, so I need to tell you again. I need to worry about it. I need to stress this out in prayer. So listening more than speaking, even in prayer. Another note here is there's no need to defend yourself. Of course, there's times when defending yourself is appropriate, but I'm talking about when someone says something about you, or when um you're taken out of context, or someone someone slanders you, you don't always need to defend yourself. And in fact, it says, do not take revenge, my dear friends. This is Paul writing, but leave room for God's wrath. This is Romans 12, 19. I love that. It says, Don't take revenge. There's so many times God tells us, I will take revenge, I will pay them back. And Paul is reminding us of this. In fact, he says, leave room for God's wrath. What I interpret here is if I fill that space by defending myself, there's no more room for God to come in and do it. And he's a way better defense attorney for me than I am for me. This is really hard for me to do on YouTube, is when I would see comments, or this even happened recently on a video that I made. I was talking about how when disrespected by a man, you need to stand up for yourself and speak up or just leave. And there was a part here that was taken out of context, and I thought, you know what? I'm not even going to explain myself because the ones who get it will get it. And I'm not here to explain every little detail of what I say. I'll never make a video again if this is all that I do. And so, even within my business, with my brand, there's times where God's like, you don't have to explain yourself. Even if other videos are made about me, you don't have to explain yourself, Alexis. Just let it go. I will bring justice, and he always does. And the problem is when we desire control so much, speaking to myself, uh, we take away God's justification and we try to do it ourselves. And that's always rooted in pride to think we can do it better than God. The best way to fear God, as Solomon said, this is how you find meaning. Fear God. How do you fear God? Listen instead of speaking when you want to. So there's no need to explain or justify yourself. And that leads to freedom and self acceptance. That was something that I wasn't expecting, is when God said, You don't need to defend yourself online. Sometimes I see people in the comments, like creators fighting back to hate comments, and I'm like, What are you doing? You have way too much precious time for this. There's a level of self acceptance when you are. Okay, being misunderstood. That when I let go of trying to defend myself and explain and talk and chatter, I just found acceptance in myself. You will not be accepted by everyone. And if you're trying to be accepted by everyone, you're missing out on the opportunity to be accepted by the only one who matters. Something that I notice about people who gossip, they always fear judgment. People who gossip, they're very critical of themselves and they're very fearful of other people being critical of them. I talked about how one time when I was in college, there was a the first time that I ever said this out loud, I don't like to gossip. I had said this to someone that I was in college with who constantly, there was a lot of gossip that would try to be spoken about with me. And one day I'm just like, I'm not available for gossip. And one day after this, she had made a comment and said, Oh, Alexis doesn't gossip in a very like condescending way, and I just let it go. But this woman, I had so much love for her at the same time, too, because she was she had so much insecurity and fear of people judging her. And I could never understand it. I'm like, you are so beautiful, you have such a smart brain. What she was studying in school, this girl was she's just amazing, but she couldn't see it, she couldn't feel that confidence because she was always criticizing other people. And this is why I talk about mother and father wounds so much because that critical voice, it usually begins with our parents first. Heal that voice and you'll stop criticizing others, and then you will stop feeling criticized yourself. Or you could take the short route and just say, I am going to control my tongue, as the Bible says, I'm going to be careful of what comes from my mouth. I'm not going to do anything that God would not want me to do. He tells us, do not gossip, do not speak wrong of other people, and I will feel that no one else is doing this of me. It's something that happens subconsciously. Because how you look at people, that lens that you see, you also believe other people look at you that way. I was watching the funniest episode of New Girl last night. And I know that this show is not Christian, so um, please just keep that in mind if you watch it. Uh side note, I get a lot of questions. Is it okay to watch this show? Is it okay to read this book? Here's what I say: ask God, ask the Holy Spirit to give you discernment. There are some shows where God has told me, turn this off. And I'm like, okay, I trust you, even though part of me wants to watch it. And then there's some worldly shows where I feel it doesn't lead me into uh becoming of the world. So that's another side note. Back to New Girl. So if you know the show, there's two main characters, Nick and Jess, who are roommates. And Jess think of this very bubbly, positive, kind, good-hearted teacher. Nick, think of this more pessimistic, usually lazy, um, not a super, like, doesn't have a lot of motion, motivation for life type of guy. And they're having this argument because they pull into this parking space, Jess and Nick, and at the same time there's this uh older, bigger guy that's in a pickup truck that pulls into the parking space, and they're both there wanting the parking space, fighting from their cars, and Nick is yelling at the other guy, and Jess is going, Why don't we just give him the spot? Come on, and they're fighting. The other guy pulls out a gun, puts it on the steering wheel, and they both start freaking out and getting down. And Jess goes, You know what? You always see the worst in people. You don't even know why he has this gun. Maybe it's to protect himself. And she uh crouches up from where she's hunched down and she's like, Sorry, sir, he's just having a bad day. I'm sure you're wonderful. And the guy he looks at her and he just smiles, puts his gun down, and he goes, You know what?

SPEAKER_01 26:17

You can have this spot, and drives away. And I just thought, oh my gosh, the way that you see the world is exactly how the world treats you back.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

And Mick was just trying to understand this. He's like, not everyone is nice, and she's like, everyone has a good heart. So, anyways, how you look at the world is the same way that the world looks at you back. And I love this because the Bible doesn't say this explicitly, but it will tell us things like control your tongue, don't speak as much. And when you can just listen and lean back and you don't gossip, you don't talk about other people, there's a freedom. You don't defend yourself, there's a freedom. And when you're free, you're at peace. And when you're at peace, the people around you are also at peace. And so one of the one of the boundaries in this episode is to live a peaceful life. Have a boundary with your mouth, have a boundary with your tongue. Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. That's Proverbs 18, 21. Life and death, or actually it's death and life are in the power of the tongue. When I think about that verse, I'm thinking that God didn't just mean like life or death. For example, in a relationship, if you say to your partner, you never go for your dreams. Yeah, that can kill the relationship. But I think even more, God is saying that what you speak will be brought into existence. Meaning, what you speak, life will be created when you speak it. What you speak negatively to, death will come to it. And so if you tell your partner, like you never do anything that you say you're going to do, that is almost killing their dreams. It's killing their motivation. And I think it's so powerful that we have life or death in our tongue. And so a personal boundary that I have, I'm not speaking what I don't brought what I don't want brought into existence. And I have to catch myself if I fall into this. If I don't want to have a bad day, I'm not going to say, oh, today is the worst day ever. If I want to believe that there's good men in the world, I'm not going to say, oh, men are trash. I don't speak what I don't want brought into existence. Another personal boundary that I have is I'm very careful with the language and the word choices that I use. My business students know this one. I don't like to use the words expensive or can't afford. Because, first of all, that's not true. When I see an item, I don't say, this is so expensive. I say this has a lot of value. Or I'll say, okay, I'm gonna make some money so that I can have this. I already can have this. I just need to find the money to be able to purchase it. When there's something that I'm scared to do, I don't say, oh, that's really difficult. I say, that's a great challenge. I say, that's something that I can do, and I can't wait to do the work required for it. I don't say that's impossible or that's hard. It's not hard. There's going to be inner work that's required. Maybe it will feel hard to be disciplined, but I've been disciplined before. I can do it again. That is the way that you speak to yourself to live that life of peace. And so just to recap these points, be a better listener. Listen instead of, not listen instead of, but listen even more than you speak when you're praying and talking with God. I always think, who do I want to hear more from this prayer? Me or Him? That's real easy to answer. There's no need to defend yourself. Remember, God is your best defense attorney. And there's no need to explain or justify yourself. This will lead to freedom and acceptance. And when you gossip, it traps you in this almost invisible cage that judgment is normal. It's not normal. It's only normal if you've been playing that tape in your mind. So throw the tape out, put a boundary around your mouth, literally control your tongue, and remember death and life is in the power of the tongue. Boundary number two. This one is interesting. I've been wanting to talk about this for a long, long time. Number two, how to live a peaceful life is have boundaries with seasons. One of my students the other day asked, Alexis, how do I have balance here? Like I have my job, I'm trying to start my business, my kids, I don't know how to have balance. And I told her, You're not supposed to have balance right now. You are in a season of grinding, and it's beautiful. We're gonna read Ecclesiastes 3, this is verse 1. For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to grieve and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to turn away, a time to search and a time to quit searching, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Ooh, Solomon, so poetic, but also strong. There's so much in there. I want to go back to verse four. It says a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to grieve and a time to dance. I used to be of this mindset. Every day I wanted to feel like Friday. I want to always be like I always want my baseline happiness to be really, really high. Then I realized something. Without contrast, you can never feel a high amount of happiness. I used to have this fear of never wanting to grieve. I was so scared to lose someone, so scared of relationships ending. I just, I feared heartbreak. And I remember even when I was a kid, I would wake up sometimes and I would go to my mom, Mom, I don't want you to die. She'd be like, What? And I would say, one day you might die. And I don't want that to happen. And she was like, Oh, sweetie, that's not gonna happen for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

And I was like, Oh, that doesn't really make me feel better, but thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Uh, I didn't understand back then that there is a season for grief intentionally. I'm not saying grief feels good, but I'm saying that there's something in there that is a seed for another harvest later on that can only come from the pain of grief. And when I feared grief, the problem was I was living in it and it hadn't even happened. So all my life felt like grief because I was always, oh, this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen. Anxiety of living in the future. And so here's what Solomon says instead. Instead of trying to live in every season at once, realize there are seasons, realize God controls the seasons, realize he has put you in a season and be present in that season. Myron Golden, he was saying in one of his recent videos, he goes, This is why God designed planting and harvesting the way that he did, to teach us that there is a such thing as seasons. That there's no true idea of balance. Even my mom would always tell me this. She goes, I don't like this word balance. There's no such thing as balance. And I used to say, Yes, there is, like if you just schedule your time and I had no idea what I was talking about. There is no such thing as balance. There may be seasons where it feels like you have more balance than other seasons. Great. Enjoy those seasons. Summer, we love it. Then there's seasons where it feels like you are preparing for winter or you're preparing for a famine. Hello to last week's episode. Or you're you're planning for and planting for a future that you know is going to take some work now. And then there's seasons where it feels like, God, I can't hear you. Where are you? What is going on? Why do things feel empty? Why are there no leaves on this tree? I'm cold and I'm suffering. What's going on? There's seasons where there's silence because God needed to remove the noise so that we could hear and see something else. And I I was listening to the girls from Girls Gone Bible talk about this. One of them said that she feels God the most when life is great, like when she's happy, things are going good. And the other one said she feels God the most when things are going wrong. And this is personally more where I fall, is I feel the deepest connection with God, and I'm trying to work on this when I feel low, when I feel scared. Like, for example, when the war first broke out here in Dubai, I was so close to God because I thought I don't have a choice. I need him for comfort. And where I need to work on is when things are going good, still going to him and feeling that same closeness. And so here with seasons, why I'm even bringing up seasons is because it's more than just staying present, it's refusing yourself, creating a boundary around not living in a season that has not happened yet, not living in a season that already happened and passed, not living in a season that you can't wait for, but it's not here yet. It's being in the season fully that you're in right now, not coveting another season. It's almost like when it's winter time, how much we miss summer. And recently I've learned this because where my mom lives, it's very, very cold. So for Christmas there were blizzards and it was really cold. But because I always live in Dubai where it's always hot, going back to the winter, I thought this is so nice. It's so cozy. Like you can wear long sleeves again, and you don't have to take two or three showers a day. And I just realized, whoa, what if wherever I'm at, I just enjoyed it, knowing that it could change. And something started to shift in me. I realized I'm just going to start to enjoy the season that I'm in and not wish for it to be summer or winter. And I remember even when winter was ending, when I was there for Christmas, I just remember thinking, do I really like summer more than this? I don't think so. But now that summer's here and I just got back from a trip, I thought, yeah, I for sure love summer the most. And it hit me again. Just be in the season that you're in. But you have to create a boundary around your thoughts so that your thoughts don't start saying, I want this, or why am I doing a lot of work right now? I'm building my business, but I feel burnt out and exhausted, and I don't have time for friends, I don't have time for romance. Uh, I just want to be financially free already. Here's the secret that time of grinding and building the business, I liked that more than the other side where the business was done, and there was freedom of time and money. Because that building, there was something so exciting and thrilling, the work felt good, the uh just progress, like everything about it felt so good and exciting. But when I was in it, I even wasn't present. I just kept thinking, I can't wait till I can travel, I can't wait till I don't have to be on government support anymore. Not knowing that that season was actually going to be one of my favorites in my life that I had ever experienced. We all do this so much. There's times where if you feel you're in a single season and you're thinking, I'm so bored on Valentine's Day, you might never get to do a Galantine's Day with your girlfriends again. You might be thinking, This is a thought that I had. I had a day where I had worked like eight hours and I just felt exhausted. When it's creative work, I need to really limit it to like four to six hours. But I had done about eight hours and I was just burnt out. And I remember just talking to God, like, oh, I feel so overwhelmed mentally. That was a really, really long work day. And I remember him nudging me and saying, You'll miss this when you have kids. And I thought, ooh, okay, let me close my mouth and just enjoy this. And of course, he's not saying, like, I'm not going to enjoy having kids, but he's saying, You will miss that. You had eight hours to even just play in your business and do whatever you wanted to grow it. Something that I love to think about that keeps me present in a season is almost thinking of life as a video game. And it's kind of cute to think about this. If you are a Sims character, like you wake yourself up at a certain time, you get yourself dressed, you cook yourself breakfast, you sit down. If you have a job, you go to that job, you're like typing away all day. If you have a business, you're sitting and thinking, what do I want to come up with today? How cute is that? That your life, it's like a game that you're just picking every next move. That's something that can help you keep that boundary around enjoying the season that you're in. And just like Solomon was saying, when he was, when he had all of the wealth and the money and the and the girls, that season, a lot of men are he even says, he goes, I had everything a man could desire. That's in verse 8. That season still left his life feeling so meaningless. And so, what do you do about this? Accept that you get to go with the flow. Hello, feminine energy. You get to go with the flow of the seasons. And there's four seasons, unless you live somewhere like I do in Dubai, there's one season, but there's little seasons within that season. Enjoy the season and go with the flow. Don't miss winter because you'll get winter later on. Don't long for summer because summer's gonna come and you'll be longing for winter. Like I said earlier, trying to prevent seasons of grief or seasons of struggle. That steals peace because you're living in the future. One of my good friends, she said something that changed my life. We always send each other voice memos back and forth. And she says to me one day, I I think I had told her, like, what inner work are you doing right now? Or what's something that you're changing or growing in your business? And she said to me, I'm not in a season of optimizing my life. I said to her, You just changed my life. This girl, oh, she is just, she's wonderful. She had said, Alexis, I'm always, she goes, I notice I'm always trying to improve myself. I'm always trying to get my dream body. I'm always trying to journal and heal this wound. I'm always trying to make more money in my sleep. She's like, I'm done optimizing. I just want to be. And I said, Oh, that's so freeing. Like it healed me to hear her say that. That's the problem with the world of personal development, is it's always a season of fixing yourself. What happens if you're only in a season of harvesting? You're going to be in a season of famine next, because you didn't spend any time planting things for the harvest later on. Or vice versa, if you're always planting and you're never enjoying the fruit, you're gonna starve to death working out in the field. And that's the thing, we'll come back to this struggle. We sometimes think that God wants us to struggle, but actually it's us wanting ourselves to struggle. When you learn how much God loves you, you also learn how much He wants to bless you. And when you read the Word of God and you see things like uh God says, or Solomon says somewhere here in Ecclesiastes that uh where is it? This is chapter 5, verse 19. It is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. So many people say money is evil, but they've never read the Bible. The love of money is evil, and they've heard that and ran with it. But when you read the word of God, you actually see most of the things that a lot of people talk about, even a lot of people claiming to be Christians, doesn't match with the Word of God. It's one verse taken out of context, it's gone through the game of telephone. If you've played that game, you know. And now it has this completely different meaning that God didn't tell us. That's why He says, Read my word. You will be filled with life when you do. It is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. God blesses his children with wealth, with Health with relationships, not everyone has the same blessings, but there are general blessings again and again that God has said, I want to bless you with this. And wealth is one of the biggest ones that God says. And so when you are always struggling, you don't believe that God wants you to receive wealth. You unconsciously push away money, you push away good health. Nope, I must struggle, I must be tired, I must always be grinding. When God's trying to move you to a different season, sometimes hanging on to a season of struggle will cause you to miss his blessings. And so, anyways, that self-improvement loop, when you are always fixing yourself. I even tell my students this. I'm like, yes, I am an inner work coach. I'm also going to tell you, take a break from inner work. You probably see this on my YouTube channel. I take breaks from even teaching about inner work by doing makeup videos, blog or vlogs, lifestyle. That is because I'm not always wanting my community to fix or change themselves or to learn. Sometimes, even myself, I know when I'm in a period of teaching versus being in a period of being a student again. And that has been really hard at the beginning of being a coach is oh my gosh, uh, how am I a coach and a student? And then I realize, ooh, I have to fully be in the season of being a student and say no to either doing a retreat right now, say no to uh building another course because I'm in a in a season of being a student so that I can come later and actually teach at the most powerful that God wants me to. So it doesn't also when I say have boundaries with seasons, this doesn't mean that you can't sow seeds for the next season. If you're in a season of singleness, absolutely you can be learning how to become an amazing wife. You can be journaling about what you want in your husband, what you want your home and your marriage to feel like. You can read books about how to be the best wife, how to support men, like how to encourage vulnerability, how to make men feel safe, understanding just men and masculine energy in general. It is okay to start planting seeds for a future harvest as long as you're not trying to pull up the seeds while you're also planting them. So trust God's timing with the seasons. And again, this requires having a boundary around your thoughts. Last but not least, boundaries around hoarding. Okay, this one is an interesting one. So we're gonna read this is uh Ecclesiastes 5, 10 through 15. It says, Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness. The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

That is so funny.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

So, what good is wealth, except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers? People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much, but the rich seldom get a good night's sleep. Hmm, that is so true. There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. I just want to go back to this previous line real quick. When we talked in the beginning, when I had said nothing like money or status, fame, none of that brings happiness. I used to be one of those people, I'm like, people who say that are lying. And I think money, it does it brings temporary happiness. It will never bring that full, satisfying quench to your thirst. And when Solomon writes the rich seldom get a good night's sleep, I instantly think of most of the Hollywood stars who talk about being depressed and who have the worst mental health. Money, fame, things of this world, when it's like when you've eaten too much junk food, you can't even sleep good because your body is trying to digest all of the world that you've consumed. And so back to this hoarding riches harms the saver. Money is put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost. In the end, there's nothing left to pass on to one's children. We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can't take our riches with us. So, yes, wealth is a blessing. Hoarding wealth is not. And when I think about why Solomon is saying this, he's the richest man in the world at this point who's speaking. Hoarding money is just going to make you restless, going to make you irritated, going to make you depressed. When you feel there's no meaning to life, that is a definition of depress of depression. And so hoarding, why does it make us low? I think it's because it makes us spiritually heavy. It's like the junk food, being full of the world. If your flesh is full, your spirit is empty, and your spirit is starving. That's why I always talk about fasting because when I starve my flesh and I'm praying instead, I'm not eating, I'm not consuming social media, my spirit is getting filled. It is the most amazing thing. And side note, so many of you have told me that you are loving fasting and praying. I am so proud of you. It is not easy to give up food for a whole day, but the spiritual act that you are doing of saying, God, I want to be filled with you. I trust you to nourish me, I trust you to hold me during this time, it is life-changing. It like someone asked me the other day, what is the most important thing in your relationship with God? Like, what has healed you and lit you on fire for Him the most? And I said, fasting and praying. It has changed my flesh and my spirit. It's changed my appetite, it's changed my confidence, it's changed my nervous system, everything. Maybe we should have a fruitful feminine girls fasting and praying day. Um, girls and guys group fasting and praying day. That would be fun.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

If anyone just clicked off this episode, come back, okay? You don't have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

But there will be a time when your body or your soul rather says, Let's fast and pray. Just try it. Even if it's for half a day. There's a reason why it feels a little bit scary but a little bit exciting. Okay, back to hoarding. So when you're hoarding, you're heavy. Have you ever walked into the into a house of a hoarder? I have one in my family and it's overwhelming. I asked my mom, I'm like, does this feel like, do you feel anxious being here? And she's like, yes. Well, that's because we're not designed to live that way. It literally takes up space in our mind to have too much physical stuff. There's research that talks about how women, when they have messy environments, their brain matches that messy environment and feels scattered. And women can't think straight when they have a messy environment. That's why we're always cleaning and organizing. Hoarders and closed fists cannot receive new deliveries and upgrades. How scary is that to know that when your fist is closed or your house is full, you can't receive new deliveries. You can't receive an upgrade from the current materials that you're that you're holding on to. Materials, partner, beliefs. You have to open your fist, you have to let things go. And Solomon, he's he's even talking about investments. If you put money into an investment, yeah, I'm secure, woo-hoo, everything is fine. Even investments can go bad. That's why, even if God blesses me so much with money, I will never put my full trust or happiness in money. Because money is not a dependable source. Money can quickly become an idol if it does make you feel safe in life. And I trust God more than I trust money. In Ecclesiastes 5, this is 19 through 20 now, Solomon says it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and to accept your lot in life. This is indeed a gift from God. And I love that so much. It's that acceptance, just like we talked about with the seasons. Hoarding can also be rooting on the past. It can be hoarding a memory. Like, nope, I'm not gonna trust men because all men in the past have done me wrong. I'm not going to let go of this money, I'm not going to trust God with my finances, I'm not going to trust Him to start this business. I'm going to hold on to my job instead. Because I'm hoarding onto my memory in the past when money was very scarce and when I felt a lot of fear. I have to work with a lot of my clients who have money blocks to tell them, you are scared of money. That's why you can't have more. Because you're holding on to it so tight that your fist is closed. How could you possibly hold more? And so you must get to the root of your past fears. And you must create boundaries around hoarding. And when I say create a boundary, I mean telling yourself we are not available for this. We're not available to speak death. We're not available to live in a future season when we're having a different one. We're not available to hoard when God is asking us to release, asking us to trust Him, asking us to be available for a new delivery. Last week I had talked about the MU. If you know, you know, the mutual understandings. How is God going to bring you your king when you're holding on to an MU? If you didn't hear that story, I talked about how my hairstylist, she has a teenage daughter who told her, Mom, we don't do situationships anymore. We do MU's, mutual understandings, which means he understands, I understand, we don't want commitment. We're just seeing where this goes. It's an MU. I was like, absolutely not. So don't hang on to an MU when God's waiting to give you your husband. Okay, Ecclesiastes 5, this is verse 16. It says, and this too is a very serious problem. People leave this world no better off than when they came. All their hard work is for nothing. Like working for the wind. Throughout their lives, they live under a cloud, frustrated, discouraged, and angry. Even so, I have noticed one thing at least that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them and to accept their lot in life. So Solomon again, he's saying, Enjoy life. And I think this is something a lot of Christians struggle with, is because God has called us to suffer, but not self-suffer. Suffer in a way that we give up our flesh to let the spirit lead. We let go of trying to appease the world to instead suffer in a way that, okay, the world's going to ridicule us, the world's gonna make fun of me for saying I'm saving my body from my husband, but that's okay. I will take this suffering because what I get, the freedom in God, the relationship instead that will come from that decision, that is better than the suffering in the world that I currently have. Enjoying life is something that God wants us to do. And Solomon is reminding us of this. Yes, you may suffer for things, still enjoy life. You don't need to always put yourself in a season of suffering. And when you live under that cloud of frustration, discouragement, and anger, that's what happens when you live a life that has no meaning. It's what happens when you're full of the world. It's what happens when you don't have boundaries around your mouth, your season, and what you hold on to. I think this is so powerful, even for being in your feminine energy. You must be able to receive from God. You can't receive enjoyment, you can't receive a harvest if you are hoarding. Whether it's past fear, current situationships that you know don't align to God. And so, what is the solution? The solution? Release. When God tells you to release, ask him. Matthew 7, 7, ask, and you will receive. God, what do you want me to release right now that I'm hanging on to that is not from you? So release, be present, be generous. This is the solution to hoarding. Give stuff away. If you don't want money to be an idol, be generous. Because when you are generous, it teaches you that none of this is mine. First of all, I've just been so blessed to have it. And there's more out there. Like, I don't need to, like, if God is saying to you, uh, give this person a hundred dollars or give them your coat or give them a warm meal, but you're saying, Oh, but that's gonna take a lot of time, that's gonna take a lot of my resources, that's my favorite jacket, and instead you just choose generosity. There's a freedom that comes because you realize, oh, I didn't need that to give me meaning. And helping the person instead, when that gives you meaning because you're following your spirit over the flesh, you realize, whoa, I had hunger for the wrong area, and now I'm actually feeling satisfied. Now I'm actually finding meaning. And allow yourself to receive. That is how you can stop hoarding. Ecclesiastes 3, verse 12. It says, so I concluded, and it's gonna sound like Solomon is repeating himself a lot here because he is, but it's important. He says, so I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. I love it. That fruit is a gift from God, and of course it makes sense. The fruits of the Spirit are meant to be enjoyed. Life is meant to be enjoyed, and we can also hoard struggle, like I said, we'd come back to and talk about. We can hoard struggle by thinking life always has to be hard. No, it does not. We can also hoard fear, fear of the world. And when we're so fearful of what if the economy crashes, what if this war breaks out? What if AI takes over? You are hoarding the world. You are eating and being consumed by the world. Choose instead the daily bread of God's word, of scripture, of what's in the Bible, rather than consuming the world. Get close to God, fear him, and allow yourself to be blessed by him. Not fear him as in be scared of him, but fear him as a way of respect. Like I fear what will happen if I don't obey God. Because I trust him so much that God, you know what? I put down my desire because I actually fear what will happen if I don't do what you're going to say. I fear getting to heaven and God going, look what you could have had. Like, this is what I had for you, but you chose this instead. I fear God in that way. It's like an awe, like a respect. So get close to God, build that relationship, invest in that relationship. It is just like a romantic relationship where you must invest time. Invest in that relationship with God, fear him, and allow yourself to be blessed by him. He wants to bless you. And when you start reading the word, you see him say again and again, I want to bless you. So these are the boundaries to live a peaceful life. Have a boundary with your mouth, a boundary with your seasons, and a boundary around hoarding. I hope that this has helped you so much. And I hope that this can just be a seed that gets marinated and produces such a harvest of peace. One of the gifts of the Spirit, when you accept Jesus into your life and the Holy Spirit is living in you, the gift that comes with this is peace. And when I don't feel peace, I know that I'm usually living out of alignment, and it's time to run to God, close my mouth, and ask Him to speak to me instead. I love you all so much. Thank you always for sharing your time and your energy with me and just your feedback, your comments, your questions that you bring to this podcast. I love you so much, and I love having you here. And I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. Bye, everybody. Have a beautiful week.