What Productivity Really Looks Like in Hard Seasons [My Miscarriage Story] | 129

(Note: This is a formatted and slightly edited, AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through. Please excuse any spelling, grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

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I really want this episode to be one that helps change your perspective in some ways of what productivity means, what it means to be productive, especially if you’re going through a hard time.

Are you tired of competing priorities, a messy task list, and constantly feeling behind? Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, and I help overwhelmed solopreneurs embrace faith-led productivity through simple systems for life, home, and business. So if you’re ready to clarify your priorities, honor your energy, and feel accomplished every single day, welcome to the Cheers to Better Systems podcast.

Hey, hey, welcome. I am back. If this is your first time listening and tuning into me, you might be like, “What? I didn’t even know you were gone.” So if that is you, just go ahead and subscribe, and that way you’ll know next time I drop a new episode. but if you have been following me for a while, then you know that I have been on a pretty consistent streak since rebranding, since relaunching the episodes or the podcast, and I was very excited to keep that momentum going.

But life had other plans. I got some bad news that was not expected, and so it became this whole thing. And so I am feeling called to share about my story, what happened, and how I took care of myself during that time because I think that there are so many times when we go through things, maybe it’s not the same thing that I experienced, but some other hardship in our lives, whether that’s losing a loved one, having to care for, um, a sick child, having emergency visits.

Um, just there’s just so many different things that happen that are not just like a one-day thing, and it’s not a small thing, and we still try to push through. We still try to do all the same things that we do before. We feel guilty. And So I really just wanna come on and share my story. I’m going to, you know, I’m gonna pause here and kind of throw out there that trigger warning.

Um, you may have seen it in the title, but just in case you missed it, I will be talking about miscarriage in this episode. So if that’s not something that you want to hear, then now is the time to go back and listen to another, another episode. Go back to the last one. That is still a really good one. but I’m not gonna be sharing, like, the gory, nasty details, but I will be sharing the timeline of events and how that relates to, you know, what I really wanna talk about, which is what productivity really looks like in hard seasons.

I really want this episode to be one that helps change your perspective in some ways of what productivity means, what it means to be productive, especially if you’re going through a hard time. So with that being said, I’m just gonna go ahead and get into it. Um, so me and my husband, um, have been trying now to have a child, and it happened very fast.

So we were very, very excited, um, to the point where we had already shared with our friends and family, our close friends and family. We had taken some pictures to announce the pregnancy. We had gotten shirts done. Uh, we had done all the things, right? Only to go to our first appointment, um, and be told that I was diagnosed with a blighted ovum, which means that the baby had not developed.

The sac was there. My symptoms were there. Everything was there except a baby. And It was, we were far along enough to where there should have been a baby, and that was devastating. Um, we went through so much, so many thoughts in our head, right? Um, you can imagine, just the why’s, the how’s, the was this my fault, was this me?

did we accidentally, not receive the, the baby, you know, because we were hoping for a boy, but maybe it was gonna be a girl. Like, we had all of these different thoughts going on in our head, you know? It was very devastating. Um, the doctor did tell us at that point that, you know, she couldn’t make an official analysis or a confirmation or whatever they call it until the next ultrasound, so that way she can have a comparison.

So we were scheduled to go back one week later. you know, she did let us know after kind of letting, talking with her, that she wasn’t… That based on all our dates, that there should be a baby there. So you know, there’s, there’s still a chance, but just letting us know that was what she saw. Um, so we were confused.

We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what to think. We didn’t know whether to, believe that a baby was going to form in the next week. that maybe the baby just had gone and missed. You know, maybe it was hidden somewhere and they just didn’t find it for whatever reason. Maybe my dates were off.

Or did we accept that there was no baby? And so that was… I, I don’t know, it was, like, on a Tuesday, I believe. And it was the hardest Tuesday ever. obviously devastated. I’m crying, thinking we’re gonna have good news and be celebrating, to not have those good news. through a lot of prayer, um, my friends, you know, they’re encouraging me.

I had my best friend specifically, who at some point then reminded me to go read the Bible. She said, “Go read the Bible. Go find some words of encouragement in there. Maybe you’ll find a message to help you with where you are at right now.” And I am so grateful for that because that is exactly what I needed.

Um, I opened up the Bible app. I didn’t have the energy to open up my actual physical Bible, but I opened up my Bible app, and I don’t remember what exactly I searched or how I got to it, but, And I don’t remember where it was, but it was a specific verse that stood out to me that said that we do not give up.

We do not give up hope. And that was, as soon as I read that, my, my favorite song, my favorite hype song, it’s called, I Won’t Give Up by Austin something. Um, it’s a very hype Christian song, and I play that song and I’m listening to the lyrics and I’m crying because it’s really talking about not giving up hope and, you know, we’re getting knocked down and we’re getting picked back up and I’m gonna walk through it even though I’m crying and, and it was just, like, a reminder to myself in that moment that no matter what, we are not to give up hope.

Like, we’re going to hope that we’re going to receive better news, and at the same time we’re going to trust that- Whatever happens is for our own good. It’s part of God’s plan for us. We may not like it, but we trust him, but that we are never to lose hope. So that is what I told my husband. I said, “I don’t want us to lose hope.

I have decided I don’t want us to lose hope. I want us to approach this next week as if we are going to have better- receive better news at our next appointment.” So that is the commitment we had made. So this is all still on that Tuesday. And, um, I’m gonna pause here real quick and say I, like, I don’t have my talking points like I usually do for episodes, so I really don’t know what direction this is gonna go in.

but as you can tell, like, this is very going … This is very much gonna be a faith-centric episode because that is truly what got me through all of this, and it’s, it’s the message that I feel like I’m being called to share even though it is not entirely related to the podcast. I will bring it back to it, I promise.

I will definitely tie it back to it. but yeah, I do feel like sharing these extra details is important, um, and that it will reach someone somewhere at some point because this episode will live on, right? So I just felt like I needed to throw that out there because I feel like someone might be like, “How is this related to productivity?

Like, am I just listening to an update on your life?” Like, yeah, that kind of is what you’re doing. But at the end, like, there is a kind of a point to this that is bigger than just … Not bigger, but it’s more than just the faith aspect of it. But anyway, so from that Tuesday to the next week was very challenging for me because I- Did not have hope.

I said I was going to have hope, but I did not have hope. So this is, I guess, where now the, the productivity part comes in. I guess it’s coming in sooner than what I expected. But um, that next week was very challenging because I didn’t n- I didn’t just have hope. It wasn’t just something that I felt inside of me.

I didn’t just, like, go straight from being devastated and crying to believing that there is now a baby forming in there. Like, I was struggling so much with, like, what to believe. Do I believe that God is gonna put a baby in there? Do I believe that the baby was missed and it was just hidden? Do I believe that w- um, the doctor made a mistake, that the machine was broken?

Like, what do we believe, right? Um, so that week was… I had plans. I had plans with the business. I had… I was already planning, like, a launch for my community. I was- I’m doing a premium tier in there, and I was ready to go. I was- that was gonna be what I was gonna be working on that week. But with this news, it completely threw me off my loop because now I’m going from knowing that I’m pregnant and feeling pregnant and having this thought in my mind for several weeks.

At the point of- at the doctor’s appointment, I was somewhere between seven to nine weeks. We found out pretty early on, like at four weeks or less. so several weeks of now shifting my business plans in a direction where I’m like, “Okay, I’m pregnant. That means I’m gonna have a baby in a few months.” So I’m planning things in my business to where it can support me through my pregnancy and through the early months of my, having my baby, and I’m making the changes, the subtle changes on the back end, right?

I’m moving things in that direction, to now receiving the news of, “We might not be pregnant anymore,” and just kind of feeling like, well, what the f- what does that mean for my business? Like, I had no idea. I was entirely stuck. I didn’t want to move forward because moving forward was doing the things that I was…

you know, that was probably gonna be setting up for my business, and then not moving forward was, like, not acting in hope. So it was a very, very confusing week, and in the end, ultimately what felt Productive for me that week is not what you would typically see as productive. And I have a whole nother episode where I talk about productivity.

I have an episode, episode 126, where it’s what to do when you have no motivation to get stuff done. and that one talks a little bit about what to do in those situations. And in this one, it was like, “What, what can I do for myself? What is gonna be a productive way to take care of me, Lucy? I just received this news.

I wanna stay hopeful. I want to work on my business, but I actually can’t. I don’t have motivation to do so. What do I do?” So this first week was very much a week of me taking a step back from the business. That was the first week where I officially took a step back from the business unexpectedly. I did not plan for anything.

Whatever I had going out up until that point was going out. I think there was still an episode, um, that aired with the scheduled emails. Like, whatever I had already scheduled up until that point still went out while I was able to take this break, unexpected break. but yeah. So I took a lot of time to just rest.

I took a lot of time to be in the Bible, to pray, to talk to God. I spent a lot of time on TikTok, like, Godtok. I don’t know if that’s a thing, but, like, all of the, the things. You know, I spent a lot of time looking up success stories, so that is what I did a lot of. Like, I looked up so many Blighted Ovum success stories until it started working.

At some point within that week, I started really getting hopeful, and really getting excited, and being like, “No, it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. I have faith, I have hope,” and just really getting my excitement back up. Um, you know, I still had to take care of my kids during this time, and, I shared with my son at that point what was going on, but my daughter still didn’t know.

and just kind of moving forward. We got to a point where we were able to move forward during that week as if we hadn’t received bad news in the first place Come to the second appointment um, we were devastated once again once we learned that there was still no baby. In fact, the sac had stopped growing, and it had started to collapse already.

So there was like no way a baby was coming, and that was hard. That was a hard reality to accept. You know, I had done a lot of work this past week to really work on my, staying hopeful. And at the same time we had said, “You know, no matter what happens, we trust you, God. We trust you, we trust you, we trust you.”

It is still hard. It is still hard, okay? It is still sad. It is still devastating. Both things can be true at the same time. We can be hopeful and be disappointed. We can trust God and we can be sad. both things can be true. Um, so that was the situation, so we talked about the options. Um, after discussing the options, we, um, decided to induce the miscarriage at home through the pill. it felt safe enough, and I did not want to do the surgery. I’ve never had surgery before. And, and it just felt like, you know, it’s already collapsing. The body’s already starting to, you know, recognize it.

It’s already a missed miscarriage is what they labeled it. bec- but it was still not to the point where it was happening naturally, and we didn’t want to just continue just waiting. So this is not medical advice. This is what happened with me, the decisions that I made by discussing it with my doctor, you know, with my circumstances.

So this is not at all a discussion of what works best or what didn’t work or what someone else should do in this situation. This is just what we decided and what ultimately happened with me, with my body. so that, later that week, you know, it was hard. It was hard, and so once again, I’m not working. I’m, like, not working.

I’m very thankful and grateful that my husband has his own business as well, and he is the primary provider for our family, so we don’t rely on my business for the home, and that is good. And I know that that is not the situation of many people, so I do want to throw that out there, so that way you know the full story.

Because I was able to step away, and I know for so many people that’s not the case. So many people listening to this podcast also have a day job while trying to manage the side, the side business. So I just want to say if that’s you, there are still ways for you to take care of yourself and to do less than your normal.

Even if you can’t completely step away from everything, I would still very much encourage you to find a way to do less and not act and move as if nothing is happening. during this time it was very, very important for me to take care of myself and my mental health, my emotional, uh, my emotions, my spirituality.

Like, it was very important for me to stay in tune with that, um, because it’s what helped me get through. It’s what helped me get through, So yeah, so that next week was then very devastating as well, very sad to have that official confirmation. I In a way, it was less painful, but then it was more confusing because for those next few days, like I wasn’t planning on inducing the miscarriage for a few days because, it’s supposed to take like a few, it can take a few days.

We don’t know how it’s gonna go. Um, and I had plans that weekend. I had my best friend’s baby shower, and I was not about to miss that. So I decided to just hold off a few days before actually doing it. So that period was very, very confusing for me because my body’s pregnant, I’m still pregnant, I still feel pregnant, but there’s no baby.

So it was a very, very confusing time for me, which again, I was not able to work on the business. At that point, I think every, some of the more real-time things had ended, and it was just my evergreen automations that were working on the back end. Um, so some people didn’t even know that I was out, which is really nice when you have systems and automations in place.

but I’m, you know, I’m, I’m this place where I’m trying to just be like accepting of the situation, but it was more confusing. And then I got exciting, you know, it was my best friend’s baby shower, got excited, went to the baby shower, and then afterwards is when we induced it. Everything was going well.

This is where I’m gonna leave out some of the, the nasty details. until, so we started the process. At some point in the process, I started losing too much blood, and I fainted, and so we had to go to the emergency room. thankfully, we have so much family that lives close to us, so we were able to just drop off the kids on my parents within a few minutes, and we took off to the ER.

I was not feeling good. Get to the ER, and we’re there for several hours. They’re doing several different things to try to get me back into a healthy state, and nothing was working. So after several hours, the doctor came in, the OBGYN came in and said that they had to perform the D&C surgery, and I was terrified because I’ve never had surgery before.

Um, so at this point, at the hospital, I’m freaking out. Um, she starts going over all of the worst-case scenarios, and I’m just scared. I’m scared. I’m crying. I’m worried, and my husband’s on the side. He is trying to, you know, calm me down. He’s praying over me. He’s reciting Bible verses. He’s just doing all of the things that he can to try to help me not be fearful.

He was You know, super supportive the whole time. I’m getting text messages from my friends and family, words of encouragement, but I was so devastated. at some point though, I did start calming down, especially when the doc- after I had signed the consent forms and then the doctor comes back and starts being positive about like, “Okay, you know, all goes well, I’ll let you go later this night.”

And then she started saying that more and more until I started getting more confident. And, you know, I have ‘faith over fear’ tattooed on my arm, so I’m like really looking at it, I’m really staring at it, and then so I start reciting Bible verses. You know, like, “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be discouraged.

I am your God.” You know, I’m, I’m, “I will strengthen you, I will hold you up.” Like, I’m reciting these verses, and I started saying affirmations. I’m, you know, “I trust you, God. I trust you, I trust you, I trust you. I will not fear. I will not fear. I trust you. I’m gonna be okay. Everythings will be fine.

Everything will be fine.” And I’m also like, mm, no worst-case scenarios. Like like, we have big desires, we have big plans. Like, God, you put these desires in my heart, so there’s no way these bad things are gonna happen so anyways, fast-forward and everything goes well, super good. Surgery is great, and they do release me that night.

So that was great. very, very blessed, very thankful that everything went great. coming back to the topic, right, of the, what productivity really looks like in hard season. So coming back I had to… Uh, she pretty much put me on bed rest for another week. So now at this point in the timeline we’re three weeks, out of the business.

and for this one week it was rough. Like, it was very rough because now I’m not just emotionally recovering, but now I’m physically recovering as well, on bed rest. I have several family and, yeah, several family members come visit and support me through, during this time. and this week is the week where I really started to process things, where I was like, “Okay, um, it’s over.

It’s done with. You know, I’m no longer pregnant. Um, so what does my life look like?” And it was still challenging because I, I’m not pregnant anymore. Two days ago I was pregnant. I’m not pregnant now, but I am still not recovered enough to where I can get back to normal or back to my old pregnancy self. So it was still a very confusing week because of that sense.

It’s like, “Okay, I’m not pregnant. I wanna get back to my normal. I wanna get back to, um, going on my walks. I wanna… You know, maybe I should get skinny.” Like, you know, like I, and I couldn’t. I needed to keep up with my vitamins, and I was low on irons. I needed to take that. I needed to still eat. And so it was like, “What is my normal right now?”

Like, what does that even look like? So at this point we know all routines, all habits, everything that I’ve done has gone out the window, right? And I have another episode where I talk about the different seasons of life that we’re in where this happens. It happens often. unfortunately it’s not as easy as having- Or setting up a habit or routine that just lasts forever and ever and ever.

Like, that is not how it works. There’s different seasons where in this season, everything was out the window and I was like, “Well, I’m confined to this bed and I don’t know what to do with my life.” Like, nothing that I’ve known… Like, this is the first time I’ve ever been in this situation because I’ve never had surgery before.

I’d never gone through a miscarriage before. you know, it’s those things where, like, you know it happens, but you don’t kn- know, you don’t think it’s gonna happen to you, and then only to find out that miscarriages affect one in four women. Like, that is crazy. And not really knowing that it can happen to me.

So definitely feel like I wasn’t mentally prepared for that. I didn’t think it was gonna happen to me. so anyways, that is partially also why I’m recording this episode, is I want this to reach someone who is going through that specifically. And hopefully something can come out of what I’m sharing. but anyway, so this week ev- it was a day by day thing.

So every single day looked very different. Day one, I was full-blown in recovery, was still feeling very weak, was 100% just sleeping. Like, most of my day was just sleeping or eating in bed. The next day I’m starting to feel a little bit physically better, and I think that day is when I’m now able to process what has happened.

So my emotions were through the roof that day. I’m just so emotional. I’m very devastated. I’m still sad. And so I spent a lot of that day in prayer, in the Bible, on TikTok looking at motivational speeches, and a little bit of TV. And that is what felt productive for me that day because that is what I needed.

That is what I needed. Me resting in bed is productive because that is what my body needed. Productivity doesn’t always look like doing things. It doesn’t always look like working or producing output or making sure that I can check off all my habits and routines, because I definitely lost my streaks on my habit app that, like those few weeks.

Like, that happened, and that’s okay. Productivity for me in these moments looked so different than they look now that I’m back And that is what I really want to, like, share. I don’t know that people are thinking, you know, like, “Oh, how do I be productive when I just had a miscarriage?” Like, I don’t think that is the case, but I think that subconsciously we still try to do things and produce output, and we still aim to be productive.

Even though that’s not the thoughts that we’re thinking, we’re still acting as if that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re still trying to push through all of the struggles and all of the situations that are happening in our lives, despite being emotionally drained, despite feeling like our faith has dripped a little bit or losing hope, despite just anything.

And we still try to push through, and we don’t take time to take care of ourselves, and I don’t want that to happen. We have to be able to let go of the worldly things, let go of the things that the world says are important, and really focus on what is. Every situation, every struggle, every hardship, every hard season, like, there is something different, um, that’s going to be important.

And for me in this situation, it was I need to recover emotionally before I let myself fall into depression. I’m not going to let that happen. So I spent intentional time with God, a lot of it. I allowed my body to rest. I took a lot of naps, a lot. I allowed myself that time, and I didn’t worry about the business.

I… My son was cooking dinner, so he already… We’ve been… I- we’ve been teaching him over the summer. He’s been cooking, like, once a week, and it’s crazy how things work out because I didn’t know that it would come in handy this week, where he ended up, I think, he cooked twice this week or last week. simple meals, but it was still him.

My husband did it another day. so it’s just crazy how, like, the timing of all of that works out. So I allowed myself to be taken care of, which is hard because I have always been a strong, independent woman. It was hard when I had to let go or when we made the decision for me to quit my corporate job and go all into my business.

And, you know, it’s, it’s not natural, so it was hard. As I know it’s hard for so many other women out there specifically, and men too. It can be hard to let yourself be taken care of because you feel like you should be able to handle it yourself, or you should be able to do it. and you, you just, you need to.

You need to take care of yourself. Um, so that’s what I did. You know, so I think then What was it? Wednesday, I’m starting to feel better. I’m starting to, like, think a little bit more about the things. So I think it was, like, two days of really… Besides my first full day of, like, rest, the next two days were very much still me doing just a lot of spiritual work, honestly.

That was mostly what I was doing. And then by Thursday, I bed rotted. I was feeling physically better. I was spiritually better once again. And I was like, “You know what? Technically, I think I could go work. However, I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I just went through this rough situation. I… Yes, I’ve done a lot of work these past few days, like, in bed spiritually and emotionally, and technically, yeah, I do feel physically better, but I don’t want to.”

So I literally had an intentional bed rotting day, where all I did all day was watch TV. Like, that’s all I did. I think I maybe did, like, two things on, on the laptop or on my phone, which was, like, I needed to up- update our electricity plan, so I had done that through my phone. And then there was, like, one other thing that I did through my phone just…

But that was it. Like, that was my version of, like, working. I was like, “Great, I took care of these two things, did them from my phone, took a few minutes. That is still productive.” And even though maybe bed rotting was not the most productive thing, it’s what I felt I needed before kind of getting back into, like, a new normal, and so that’s what I did.

That’s what I did. And again, I know that so many people, if you have a day job, if you have tiny ones and they’re not, like, at school or childcare or something, that that is not feasible. But finding something that is, and allowing yourself to be okay with doing less. Again, I know I’ve already said that, but I feel like I need to say it again.

Allow yourself to do less. Whatever that version looks like for you, allow yourself to do less, okay? And then the next day I went out with my best friend. I almost canceled on her, not gonna lie, because she is pregnant, and I knew that it was potentially going to be triggering for me to see her and to talk to her.

and I am so happy for her. It’s her first child, and I am so grateful, but I knew that in that moment it would be a little triggering for me. And in the Bible it says that we need to go through our darkest valleys and know that tr- that God is with us. And so I felt it in my heart that I needed to go through that Even if I felt like I was going to be triggered, I felt that the only way for me to heal, fully heal, was for me to go through that experience.

And sure enough, everywhere we went, you know, she’s I think six months, seven months pregnant now, so everywhere we went she has this cute little bump. “Oh my gosh, you’re pregnant. Oh, is it a boy or a girl? Oh.” You know, like, a- and we went to quite a few places, and those first few times I definitely cried. I got teary-eyed.

I was trying to hold it in, you know, then did let my friend know what was going on and how I was feeling. Um, but you know, she’s my best friend so she gets it. But it did help. It did help, and so I feel like that’s another message that I’m feeling like I needed to share, is sometimes we avoid things because they’re going to be hard to do, but the only way to actually get better from it or heal from it is to go through it, and that is very, very hard to do.

And this message here is true for so many instances. It is true for dealing with traumas, for breaking generational curses, for any feelings. Like, sometimes the hard part is the emotions that you will feel. You don’t want to feel. You don’t want to go back to a time where you feel so hurt And so you avoid it.

But honestly, I, I’m so happy that I did that and I went out with my friend. We had a great time. The more places we went to, the less it started to affect me whenever someone would call her out on her pregnancy. And I then was able to start feel that joy again, that… Like, when she first told me she was pregnant, I, like, cried for her.

I was ecstatic for her. And that week I was very sad because I didn’t feel that joy. I knew in my heart that I was joyful, but I didn’t feel it. And so that’s why I wanted to cancel what we had already planned, like, m- weeks ago for that, that date for us to go out. And I’m so glad that I didn’t cancel because, yes, it was hard in the beginning, but the more we did it, the more…

The less it s- it started to hurt, and the more I started feeling that joy for her again, that joy that I knew was always there. I just… It was a little tucked behind again. And then that kind of kickstarted the weekend, which this past weekend, was amazing. It was a reset to everything. it was a weekend that was, like, back to normal.

Like, I was feeling, um, not 100%, I was maybe, like, 90% by the weekend. But I told my husband, “I feel like I need to go out just with you. I just want to be with you. I don’t want to be with the kids. I just want… I want us to go on a date night, but I don’t want it to be, like, a super fun, crazy, like, eventful date night.

Like, I just, I just wanna be with you and not worry about the kids.” So his mom came over, and we went out, and it was so fun. It was so great, um, just spending that time with him alone in a setting where it’s, like, you know, our love, and being able to now talk about what the future looks like. We’re, we’re now past the situation.

Where do we go from here? What have we learned from this situation? Because something that we do know as well is we know that struggles and hardships happen because- Well, not that they happen because, but that there’s always something that we can learn from them. There’s ways that we can approach them.

There’s things that we can take from them. Like, we know that God uses everything for His glory, and So there was a lot. There is a lot that came out of this miscarriage, which it’s crazy to say, but in a way I am grateful, that it happened. It definitely shined the light at some things that… You know, like I ha- like I said, when I was pregnant, I started moving differently, right?

Because I’m pregnant. I’m making changes in my business. I’m setting things up in my business. Same thing with my husband. We’re making plans, we’re doing all these things, and then when we weren’t pregnant anymore, I was really reflecting and I was like, ” Why should… Like, there’s no need to stop. We already started moving in this direction.

We know we’re gonna try to get pregnant again. We know these are all things that need to happen anyways, so let’s keep moving forward. Like, let’s keep moving forward.” And so there is so much that came out of this experience for us, where it shined a light on things that need to be done. Um, and, and they’re not bad things.

They’re not, like, bad things. It’s not like things were broken. But it, it did shine the light on, like, the future plans and how much we still have left to do to reach these future plans. Like, just so many things. And so when we choose to look at our struggles in a way where it’s more from a non-emotional standpoint, which I had to heal, right?

I had to heal emotionally first because if I didn’t heal emotionally, I wouldn’t be able to think about the situation logically or spiritually. But once I went through the processes… And this is why this was all so productive because it all led us to a point where we could then look back and be like, “Okay, what can we do moving forward?

We know what we want. We know the direction that we were going in for certain things. What have we done? What have we not done? What can we do better at?” You know, there was a lot of prayers of like, “Lord, help us understand what we can… how we can use the situation for our own good. Lord, help us see what you want us to see from the situation.

Help us understand what we can learn from this experience and how we can apply it into our lives and our businesses.” And so much came out from those prayers. so yeah. So this, the weekend was great. Back to normal, and now I’m back. I’m officially back. I have done a lot of reflecting. There’s a lot of things that are gonna be happening with the business.

Um, there’s things that are… I’m just gonna continue moving forward, some things that I haven’t, like, made announcements for because they’re more on the back end. Um, there is new clarity that I w- I received, um, for other parts, so and one thing that I feel very strongly about now is I’ve been talking about this.

I’ve been… If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve, you’ve been noticing the changes. You’ve been noticing the shifts of me talking about my faith more and And s- and how, uh, much more it’s been incorporated into my business. And now I am just feeling so much more inclined to just fully integrate it into everything that I do.

Because truly, my faith is what has helped me with everything, including things like this, right? Where it’s like productivity doesn’t look like the way that the world explains it to be. And when you tie the meaning of productivity, the world definition of productivity, to what we read in the Bible, it contradicts each other.

And that is what I really want to help others with, is to understand the contradictions and to unbelieve some of the things that you learned growing up from experience or from just knowing or thinking what, what productivity means. systems is not going away. Like nothing that I’ve been teaching is going away.

But faith is definitely going to be so much more integrated into everything because truly there is just a different lens that I have been seeing everything through, and it has made all of the things so much easier. And so I am at a point where I cannot not share about all of the new learnings and all of the new findings and everything.

Um, reading the Bible is relatively new to me. I have not read the whole Bible yet, but I’ve been… You know, I’ve, I grew up very faith-centered, so faith has always been part of me. Like that, it has always been part of me. You’ve been just seeing a little bit more of it into my business, but now it’s like I’m just gonna go all in boldly and integrate it because I truly believe that this is what’s going to be the best path forward of how I can help you reach the best life that you can and have the most success with the business that you’re trying to grow.

So that is kind of like an update on what’s happening. But yeah, I really hope that this… This is a much longer episode than I will probably ever record as like a solo episode. but I really just hope that this message reached you in some way and helped you open your mind or your thoughts. I just hope that you received a message from this.

and Really just see productivity in a different way and how it doesn’t have to look the way that the world says it needs to look, especially when you’re going through hard times. And when you’re going through hard times, you know, don’t just push through. You know, take time to take care of yourself.

Taking care of yourself is good. And in the Bible it does say that God wants us to live good lives. Like, he wants us to enjoy the fruits of our labor. He doesn’t want us to just be working all the time. And so we have to take care of ourselves. We have to enjoy life, but we also have to, I believe, we have to make time and prioritize God and our faith above everything else.

And so that is definitely gonna be a new lens that is coming with everything else that I teach. Um, so yeah, I just hope that this gave you permission or hope or inspiration for a hard season that you might be in right now, or even if it’s not, like, a hard season, but, like, a medium hard season, you know?

Like I don’t know what would be less than a hard season, but, like, a slightly below season. but like, no matter what season you in, I just hope that this gave you something that you can take with you. so yeah, if you want to stay connected with me, if you want to see more of this faith integration with productivity and systems, then you will absolutely want to join my free community.

It’s currently called Cheers to Productivity Lounge, but there is going to be a rebrand, a new name coming soon. And, but you can go ahead and join us by checking out the link in the show notes. I would absolutely love to see you there. That is where I hang out every single day. There’s always something on my mind that I’m sharing about.

Um, there’s gonna be new weekly devotionals that are coming out for the free community, and there is a premium tier that is coming as well. So come join us. Let me know how this resonated. Go ahead and leave a comment, and I, I love you guys. I’m so excited that you’re, that you’ve stuck around here, and I will come back in the next episode where I will probably talk about, the systems that kept my business running on the background while I had this unexpected break.

I felt like, you know, maybe I’ll let them know what specific systems and automations actually worked while I just completely stepped away. So if that’s something that you want to hear, then let me know as well. So be sure you’re subscribed so you can come back and know once the next episode is released.

All right, thank you so much for tuning in. I’ll talk to you in the next one.

If this episode inspired you, challenged you, or gave you a fresh perspective, I want to encourage you to take one small action today. And if you want to go deeper and connect with other solopreneurs on a similar journey, come hang out with us inside of our free community. It’s where we keep the conversation going. And be sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss what’s next. Talk soon, and cheers to more peace, faithful steps, and steady progress, one system at a time.