Episode #16 – Making Ordinary Into Extraordinary

Transcript

hi everybody! Welcome back on another podcast. This is your girl Glennavelle Manarang, Soulish Femme, real talk. In today’s topic is about making ordinary days into something extraordinary. I hope you’re feeling well today and that your life is going smoothly as planned. So, today is about reminding you that you can make your life extraordinary depending on how you approach it. Do you feel as though life seems monotonous and just plain boring that you’re not actually living but existing. But what if life is about learning to exist to live and not just live only to exist. When I speak about existing it is in the habit of mindlessly approaching your day with no purpose or direction. Existing is a person who does not have a clear vision of what she wants to accomplish or how she manages her time to her advantage. So in today’s podcast, I would like to share with you some things you can incorporate into your day to make it feel more extraordinary, but first let’s have another word for extraordinary to bring it more context. The synonyms for this word are remarkable and astonishing.

Doing your task joyfully

So the first point I would like to share is learn to be joyful in doing your task and not grudgingly. Joy is a state of being that you approach it with ease and grace.

As Nitin Namdeo states, “Joy is not something to be discovered but it is something we choose with intent.”

It is not so much about the doing. It is something to do with the intentions behind it. If you only do things because you feel as though you’re obligated but with a grumbling heart. The intention of that action is not coming from love but from this idea that you have to. Yes, you have to do the laundry because you have nothing to wear. You have to care for your children. You have to make a meal. These are the ordinary task that could sometimes bring us so much pressure, however; what if you alter and shift the language from which I choose to or I’m honored to get to. This concept is nothing new but it makes a lot of difference. When we see our daily task in a different light. Choosing to do a simple task with a good intention is a far greater feeling. By shifting your language to I choose to is more remarkable. It comes down to your perspective and how you are able to serve others and able to do things because you have the choice. You don’t have to do these things that you’re not obligated to. This is why it’s important to shift your paradigm.

Philippians 2:14-16, "Do all things withoutcomplaining and disputing that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast the word of life so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ. I have not run in vain or labored in vain." 

So, we are reminded that everything that you do must not coming from grumbling and complaining because God hates people that are always complaining and ungrateful. He wants people to always rejoice and set apart from the world. The world, we usually hear them complaining and grumbling over the little things in life. We, on the other hand must live a different kind of way.

Create a daily or weekly routine

Number two: Making ordinary days into something extraordinary is creating a daily or weekly routine. Incorporate a routine that is best suitable for your lifestyle. No one can give you a definite routine and I would not even bother telling you how you must curate your daily or weekly routine because it depends on the current season of your life. This is why you must create a weekly routine that will invigorate your life such as movement once a day, waking up early, and enjoying the quietness in the morning with no disruptions, journaling so that you can write clearly or spending time outside in the sun to get your vitamin D. Whatever it is that you think contributes to your day whether it is significant or not. The little things you do matter. To live is to be mindful of your time.

A routine is a guide to allocate your time accordingly. It gives you structure to live a more extraordinary life instead of ordinarily living in chaos and disorganization. Perhaps, the reason why you feel stressed out because you do not have a clarity for the day. A few months ago, I spoke about the importance of prioritizing things on your list and working your way down. An extraordinary day can be approached with ease and with a clear focus. If you are not so sure on what you would like to achieve that day, you’re just going to waste your time, doom scrolling or watching reruns on television and you wonder why your life feels meaningless.

Spend Time with Your Family

And number three: Be intentional in how you spend your time with your loved ones, investing quality time with the ones that you love is often overlooked. Especially that we have learned to engage with televisions and our cell phones more than spending time with our family members. You could also spend time with your kids especially when you have little ones. To be intentional of inviting them to play, Uno cards with my family, loved to play Uno cards, board games. My son and I used to play checkers and especially when he was little. We also play a lot of puzzles and that bring your family closer together – movie nights. Perhaps, if you have a little one you can bring them to the park and let them play to ignite their creativity instead of giving them a tablet or their cell phone. My son when he was little I made sure to bring him to the park every time to enjoy the slides and stroll him around the nature to see birds and the trees visit museums and take them bowling. We must not forget how valuable it is to be intentional about engaging with our family through activities that can connect us on a deeper level.

Dress impeccably

And of course, let’s not forget dress impeccably who says that we must only dress up when it is Christmas or on special occasions. I’m not saying to dress in a bowl gown daily but put a little effort on how you represent yourself and not just go out with your slippers on and joggers because you could care less on how you look. I know I often talk aboutyou must not crave validation or approval from others. But I’m not referring to how you dress but it is how you live your life whether you admit it or not you are a walking billboard. And whatever you wear, whatever you wear represents what you are and who you are. How long does it take for you to wear dresses or nice blouses and trousers or cute jeans and apply simple makeup? It doesn’t take that long. There’s a psychological effect when you wear something that you feel good in that instantly elevates your mood. I have noticed this is about myself especially on the days that I feel lousy and the moment I take a shower and get dressed up. I feel uplifted instantly.

I have a funny story to tell you that when I attended school here back in high school or college. I migrated from the Philippines, I had a culture shock where I saw some of my classmates wearing pajamas and flip-flops to school and maybe some of them haven’t even showered or brushed their teeth and just rolled out of bed. I have learned that here in the United States, we have decided not to get an F about how we are being perceived. Maybe because I grew up in a culture where we dressed up appropriately and as a child, I remember, my mother bought us nice clothes even for Sundays. Even though we were not so rich but she manages to buy us a Sunday dresses that everyone around us think we were royalties. When a society is careless about dressing up, it shows the nation is deteriorating to a point where it starts with you. I think and this is my theory, when a society let’s go of one appearance by looking after themselves. It will eventually showing how the society lives and behave and this is why you see a lot of trash throwing outside on the streets and everywhere because you live like bunch of swines. It really starts with you taking care of yourself because if you don’t care about your own appearance and you don’t even care about hygiene and really putting an effort, you’re going to eventually do not care about your environment.

There’s a deeper correlation in how one dresses and how a group of individuals choose to care about their environment. There’s a difference between us and animals. This is why there’s a difference between dogs and people because as a human you have a logic. You can think critically. An animal they don’t have any sense whatsoever. I cannot force you or convince you otherwise to dress nicely. It is your life after all but what do you have to lose anyway. If you just try a little bit.

Invest in yourself

And then of course invest in yourself. The return of prioritizing yourself is insurmountable not in the selfish or narcissistic way. Investing in yourself as I always love to emphasize on my channel is about education is a lifetime process. It is a lifetime of learning. It is far more valuable than anything you acquire in this world. I believe that when you fully invest in yourself, you show up differently and you love fiercely because you know that you have something important to offer in the world. This is much deeper than one meets the eye. It is more than just external beauty. In all you’re getting, get wisdom. Get understanding for this is far greater than rubies. Why do I always emphasize in your learning you, may ask? And the simple answer is because no one can take that away from you. Whatever you acquire through learning about yourself or educating yourself is something no one can really replicate. Maybe they can copy but at the end of the day, you still have the sense of individuality and your authenticity. It is something that no one can really grab that from you or rob that from you because it is entrenched within your soul. Investing in yourself is also nourishing, your body spirit, and soul which is my next point.

Nourish your body

Eat what nourishes your body. Do what nourishes your soul. Think about what nourishes your mind. According to healthychronicles.com. Perhaps, one of the reasons you feel lousy is because you are not connecting with your body and learning about your soul in what it needs. To nourish is being aware of what you need at this moment. Do you need rest? To opt out with junk food and choose healthier choices by eating more vegetables and fruits. I know I am not one of those people who loves to eat vegetables and fruits all the time. I understand how hard it is to eat healthy foods especially when we are constantly bombarded with so unhealthy food advertisements and billboards everywhere that are persuading us to resort with those kind of food because of convenience and affordability. But sometimes if you are not aware these unhealthy choices will ultimately we’re going to pay for the higher price in the future by more visits to the doctors and being hospitalized and taking medications because we are not nourishing our body. And we’re not really aware of how important it is to have healthy choices such as movement, working out, drinking lots of water and eating vegetables and fruits.

And also the constant noise and the stimulation of our brain that can lead us to unfocused and unmotivated. This is why sometimes, it’s important to unplug from your cellphone and to just walk outside, to get some fresh air. Maybe drive around to a lake or somewhere that you can actually think and connect again with your body. I feel as though the more and more I realize today in our generation, we have been disconnected from each other. We think we are more connected than ever before because we have this connection online but we overlook the people that we live with. Sometimes we are just living in one house physically but we’re not emotionally connected with each other. You know sometimes I have to really being aware and bring my family together back into this awareness of communication. Because how important it is that we must learn to connect with each other and not just disconnect from being present.

Heal from your past wounds

So nourishing your body, spirit and soul of course is important by dealing with your inner wounds, as I always like to talk on my channel. You cannot force yourself to live a life extraordinarily when you are still carrying so much baggage that you have not dealt with. A person who is still unhealed will eventually destroy whatever you have in life. You will self-sabotage whether you like it or not. When you’re too broken inside and continually run from your inner demons or past. You cannot possibly create a life that is extraordinary, why you might ask? It is because you are functioning from a defense mechanism. You are in your survival mode and not truly connected within your soul. You know how I know that when a person is still in her survival mode? Because she takes on so many responsibilities for everybody. She neglects her needs and bends backwards for everybody because she is a people pleaser. She doesn’t have a healthy boundary. She cannot say no. She is always in her performative essence. It is a form of avoidance in itself that I used to live several years ago. To a point where you will feel burnt out and exhausted that if not checked you will develop atrophy and become apathetic in life which is the opposite of the hustle culture.

You want to be able to live in a homeostasis state of mind by being mindful of your body. This is why I always like to emphasize: connect with your body, soul, and spirit. When you’re too broken, when you’re too wounded, you are going to highly function as an individual. As I always like to share in my channel, it is important to deal with your mother wounds, your father wounds. Whatever abuse, whatever trauma that you have dealt with in the past because you cannot mask something that has been underlying problem. When I was living in denial for so many years, running away from my past. I was not happy. I was doing all the things, I was running like a mad woman driving here and there focused so much on making money, going to school, having parties on the weekends but deep down inside I was depressed and I had a tendency to just want to harm myself. So because when you are truly wounded and you’re just living out of survival mechanism is that you cannot possibly live an extraordinary life because once you did all of this masking. It is what you call you mask your wounds. You try to run away from your pain, you are not coming from an honest, authenticity because you’re actually just doing those things to avoid looking at your problem and many people like to go down to that route.

They are so uncomfortable sitting with their pain. So, what do they do? They avoid it. They run away from it. They don’t want to sit with their pain. They don’t want to listen to their body’s needs. They cannot even sit comfortably and listening to their inner child who needs to just be cared for and listened to. So, extraordinary is being remarkable. A life that you can truly live from a sense of peace, a sense of authenticity, a sense of truly living from a space that you own the life that you have. Not based on what people tell you or how they want you to live. To live a remarkable and extraordinary life is about assessing what really speaks to you and what makes you alive and happy. It is not something about the trends or what the rest of the world are doing right now because if you’re always trying to compare. You like to just look at people’s of how they’re living their lives and you’re always copying them.

That’s why we have so much influencers, selling the same product and they’re using the same product. Have you just noticed that everybody’s wearing the same outfit, everybody’s wearing the same brand names because we have really just wanting to be look alike. As I have done a video previously or a podcast last week about the proliferation of deception that now we’re embracing this congruency of look alike. We are no longer embracing, you know variety and being different from each other but you cannot be extraordinary when you’re trying to copy everybody else.

You must have your own unique way of dealing life and how you live your life. You cannot just be afraid of standing out. We are so afraid of standing out because we don’t want to look like you know the odd ball in the group or we don’t want to look like we don’t fit in. Because this is the kind of generation we have today who is always emphasizing on fitting in. And it’s so we’re so afraid of standing out and this is why if you want to live an extraordinary life. It’s okay to be misunderstood. It’s okay to have this kind of misfit, you don’t fit in in a group. You’re odd. I’ve always been a misfit actually in my family even in my friendships. I’ve always was the one who’s always shaking the status quo and questioning things. I may not say it out loud but in my head when I feel something is off. I would usually just disengage or remove myself from the group because I rather want some people who’s going to come in fully, owning who they are and not apologetic about it. Because as I said, it’s too boring to be like everybody else, too boring and mundane. To look like everybody else. To just have their own style and copying everybody else. There’s no more originality. It’s becoming so lame. Today, as we look around you there’s no more sense of creativity coming from the outside.

Be You

I mean this is why in the first or second century the people before like Rembrandt you know, Picasso. They were all great painters and artists but they actually paint different things like you know. There was a a sculpture by Michael Angelo they brought something differently. They have the same creativity. They were creating something out of their hands but they actually made it so different and distinct from each other. They didn’t copy each other. They just brought something uniquely to the table and that makes it so what do you call it more remarkable. They are now remembered even to this day. You can havea distinction between the painting of Picasso and Rembrandt. You have the distinction between Van Gogh because they have contributed to the world with a different kind of creativity. They’re were not copying from each other.

Although they were great artists of their days but they were not copying from each other. The same thing with the poets and the philosophers before they thought differently. They had argued they were able to have open-mindedness. They could agree to disagree with different topics not necessarily copying from each other because that’s exactly what they were producing is the embracing of being different, trying to embrace variety, different kinds of thinking and that’s why we must not forget that if you want to be extraordinary and to leave alegacy you have to be okay to be misunderstood. You have to be okay to be a misfit. You have to be okay that you don’t that you’re going to stand out and people might call you awkward or odd. And it’s okay because that what makes you different and that’s going to make you stand out and be remembered for many years and as we see today too.

There are so much people that are trying to get online and whatever the influencer is saying, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t get some inspiration, if really if you want to wear something like that out of the influencer. Go for it, if you really love the brand. Why not? What I’m saying is we’re really going to the point where everybody’s cloning each other and just want to be look like everybody else and we have no more uniqueness that to bring to the table. It’s now becoming just very what do you call this sameness. There’s no more looking at the different kind of view where you can differentiate between this model and that model because everybody looks alike. You know they have the same kind of lips, the structure of their hips or whatever it is.

So, I don’t want to go out of tangent. So, this is why if you would like to make your life or your days extraordinary. You must create it out of your own mind and really think about what you would like to achieve in this world and how you can curate your life. It is your life after all. No one can really tell you how to create your life, the dreams that you want to achieve. It must be coming from your heart. No one can dictate to you of how you must live your life and the things that you would like to do with your life because you are unique in your own ways. God created you differently from the rest of the world. There’s no one like you. No one has the same finger prints like you. No one has the same DNA as you. So this is why you must embrace and cultivate who you are. As a woman, embrace your quirkiness, embrace your differences, embrace being who you are as God created you to be. Because God said, I want you to just be who you are. You are fearfully and wonderfully made in the eyes of God. You may not look like everybody else in the world. You may not act like everybody else in the world and that’s okay and that’s something that I want you to think about be different, be bold, be brave, be courageous and keep your faith. I will see you on my next podcast. I hope you have a wonderful day ahead of you and if you have not done so, please feel free to share and to subscribe on this channel and check my blog every information. All information is linked down below.