Yesterday morning, I accidentally clicked onto a phone Bible app and found myself reading the words, Guided Prayer. It felt rude to refuse the invitation laid out before me, so I continued: I started to pray. A few minutes into the prayer session, I was asked to imagine Jesus before me. What did I want to say to Him? What did I want to ask Him?
My first thought was to whine, “I’m lost! I no longer know what to do with my life. Tell me!”
And then I wondered: if Jesus was sitting across the table from me in my kitchen, would He just spell it out for me? Would He tell me exactly what He wants me to do? Would I listen carefully, perhaps taking notes? I don’t think so. (That approach is never the right one when I’m trying to help my kids.)
I think Jesus would smile gently and ask, “What brings you joy? What desires have I implanted in your heart? What do you love doing?”
I imagined us chatting together, my thoughts guided by Jesus’ questions, and then saying, “I want to share good things. Tell people about unconditional love. Encourage others. And I love telling stories.”
And then before the prayer session ended, I had an unexpected thought: I suddenly wanted to make a podcast, share some stories, tell everyone about a storytelling book I’m reading, and encourage my listeners to keep living this radical life of unconditional love.
So, I set up my mic and, although it had been months since I recorded my last episode, I felt comfortable. I was in a familiar place. I started speaking.
Podcast Episode 192
In episode 192 of my Stories of an Unschooling Family podcast, I talked about:
- Homework for Life
- Generating writing ideas
- Creating second brains
- Homeschool records, including strewing and planning notebooks and family journals
- Social media and other online distractions
Also:
- I shared Matthew Dicks’ book, Storyworthy and Tiago Forte’s book, Building a Second Brain.
- I told two stories of my life, one about a kangaroo and the other about trees topped with a bright green fuzz of new leaves.
- I read my blog post, The Writing Game: No Shortage of Writing Ideas.
- And I discussed the note-taking apps, Apple Notes, Evernote and Notion.
Some Resources
-
Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential, a book by Tiago Forte
- Building a Second Brain: Website and online course by Tiago Forte, a productivity expert and proponent of the second brain concept
- Your Resource Guide to Building a Second Brain
- How to Organise Your Life, Building a Second Brain: Video by YouTuber Ali Abdaal
- Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Story: The book itself, available for purchase on Amazon
- Matthew Dicks’ website: The author’s website, with information about the book, upcoming events, and more
- Homework for Life, TEDX talk by Matthew Dicks
- The Moth: Nonprofit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling, with live events, podcasts, and more
- My Unschool Unplanning Strewing Notebook
- Unplanning Notebooks for Strewing and Unschool Record Keeping
- Challenge 16: Create a Strewing and Planning Notebook, from the book, The Unschool Challenge
My Homework for Life Story
When you’ve listened to this week’s podcast, you’ll understand what Homework for Life is and why we should do it. I took five minutes to do it last night. I looked back at my day, searching for a story, something that made the day different from the previous ones. Then I jotted down a few words that would remind me of that story.
This morning, I wrote the story properly. It’s about a Bible app, an unexpected podcast episode, and how we learn and make sense of everything that happens to us by pondering the stories of our lives.
I’ve learnt something: we don’t have to know the big answer to what we’re supposed to be doing. We shouldn’t agonise to the point where we become stuck, incapable of doing anything at all. It’s enough for us to know what we should be doing today. Everything else will follow in its own time.
Photos
The bush close to my home where many of the stories of my life happen.
Will you listen?
I made a podcast episode because that felt like the right thing for me to do. Now the big question is: will you listen? And will you stop by to share your thoughts?
