Friends, I have exciting news! My new book, No Matter What: 90 Devotions for Experiencing Unexpected Joy in Tough Times, releases soon—on April 1! (And that’s no joke!). And I can’t wait to share with you bite-size shots of joy for your first thing in the morning, before your feet hit the floor, for your last thing at night before your head hits the pillow, or any time during the day when you need a little encouragement from a friend. You can pre-order it on Amazon and get as soon as it comes into the world!
Hey, are you anxious these days? About any old thing? Or a bunch of old things? If you’re anything like me when you’re anxious, you’re like a Tasmanian devil on the inside, whirling around in your head and heart, wanting to DO SOMETHING about something you can’t do anything about.
So what CAN you do to calm your spirit and change the channel in your mind?
My friend, author Kathi Lipp, has a great tool she uses when she’s anxious, and today I want to share it with you: “When I’m anxious,” she says, “I remember CORE”: C-O-R-E. It stands for this:
Create- go create something. Doodle in a notebook, write the start of a story, make a pot of soup.
Order – Order your world. Declutter a drawer, organize a shelf in garage, throw out items in the fridge that are past their prime.
Reach Out – Send a text to a friend that came to mind, make a small donation to an organization that does good in your community, pick up a slice of cake from your grocery store and bring it to your neighbor.
Enjoy – Make French Press coffee instead of drip, take a bath instead of a shower, read instead of watching TV, sauté some onions and mushrooms to put on your sandwich. Take whatever you were already going to do today and just kick up the enjoyment a notch.
Listen in for more (fun, valuable, ridiculous) ways to implement this great tool and calm your insides for a while! Whew.
NOTES:
Bowler, Kate. Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Convergent Books, 20.
Leith, Prue. https://www.instagram.
Lipp, Kathi. https://www.facebook.
January 20, 2025.
Lipp, Kathi. The Clutter Free Home. https://kathilipp.com/
Niequist, Shauna. I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working. Zondervan, 2022.
Tosi, Christina. Dessert Can Save the World: Stories, Secrets and Recipes for a Stubbornly Joyful Existence. Harmony Books, 2022.
