I wasn't sure I'd write a “Win Wednesday” message this week. It felt a bit... trite.
During the night on Monday and early Tuesday morning, parts of the city of Nashville and Middle Tennessee were completely destroyed by an F4 Tornado. Besides roof damage and the resulting water damage inside of my house, my daughter and I are fine. Many others are not so fortunate.
One young family couldn't find their four-year-old daughter in the wreckage, so we hoped and prayed all day yesterday that she would be found alive... only to get the devastating news that this little girl is now alive in heaven. So far, more than 30 deaths have been reported across the state and the death toll keeps rising.
The traumatic losses of so many have been weighing heavily on me. So it was hard for me to find words for this week's “Win Wednesday” message. Three years ago, I started writing these weekly #winchats just one year after losing my own brother. “Win Wednesday” was birthed from an intentional place of looking for wins in the middle of a deep sea of grief and loneliness.
“Win Wednesday” is not about being competitive. It's not about coming out ahead of other people. It's not about any of that. “Win Wednesday” is about developing a different type of winning mindset — the type that looks for the good and holds on to it. It's the type of winning mindset that understands the importance of surrender instead of seeking to control. It's the type of winning mindset that seeks to operate from a place of abundance instead of jealousy and lack.
Today’s message is very similar to the "Get rid of your trash" message that I shared a couple of weeks ago. It’s centered around the idea of creating margin in our lives to attract abundance. It’s about making space for opportunities. It’s about making space for wins.
Make Space for Your Wins
Two weeks ago I helped my daughter make room for some new wins in her life. She had been getting really emotional and overwhelmed throughout the month of February. She was struggling at school for the first time all year. She was behind on her homework for the first time in her life. There had been drama amongst her classmates that was really stressing her out.
The usual positive affirmations and heart to heart talks didn't seem to make a difference, so I was getting frustrated. I didn't know how to help her. It felt like we were entering a downward spiral and I felt this feeling of panic that I was losing her. I felt like a failure as a mom.
There's one thing that you've probably figured out about me by now — I don't accept defeat. Sometimes this means that I push too hard until I ruin a relationship. Sometimes this means that I don't lean back and let go when I should. Sometimes I take things too far because I am relentless. I refuse to lose. When I’m fighting for what’s right, this is my greatest strength. When I’m letting my ego get in the way, I bite the dirt.
Now I wasn’t about to give up on parenting. I wasn’t about to accept defeat in connecting with my daughter. Instead of shrugging and chalking it up to the normal "pre-teen struggle", I felt like there was a way I could help my girl. Instead of taking her frustrations personal, I sought to understand why she was feeling so overwhelmed.
Since I had been reading about the benefits of de-cluttering, I had an idea. Maybe her cluttered room was affecting her negatively. Neither one of us are organized by nature, so we tend to let things get cluttered. I'm working on doing better in this area, but it's hard for me to help her do better. I find myself nagging her instead of equipping her in practical ways.
Since any given moment is the best moment to do better, I decided to do just that. It was time to do better. I decided to try a new approach. It was already late in the afternoon, but it wasn’t too late to do the right thing.
"Hey, let's go clean your room." I said to her.
"No!" was the emphatic answer, followed by a new flood of tears.
I didn't argue with her or chide her. I just knew what had to be done. I grabbed two empty laundry baskets and several trash bags and went to her room.
After two hours of organizing and cleaning, my daughter had a new room and a new mindset. I watched her stand up taller as we bagged up clothing that was too small and books that we could donate. I watched her visibly relax with a calm sense of peace as we looked through photos of her childhood and sorted through her legos. We laughed and danced to the music.
My girl needed quality time with me. She needed me to be firm with gentle kindness. She needed intentional, patient guidance. She needed the safety and freedom to express all of her emotions. She needed to feel like I was partnering with her, not pushing her around.
She also needed to realize that her big, overwhelming hard struggles weren’t as impossible to tackle as they looked. Shoot, she needed to feel too big for her britches! She needed to feel empowered so that she could fully own her life again. And my gosh, did she ever step up and own it!
She walked into school the next day with her sass back in her step. I watched her with her chin held high and I thought, that’s my girl! I checked in with her teacher, just to be proactive and supportive. Then I just sat back and watched my girl win.
By the end of the week, she caught up on her homework. When I asked her about her classmates, she glowed and told me that there hadn't been any drama that week. Her aunt paid her to do a job for her, so she had some money in her pocket. She even got her favorite German gummy candy to enjoy at school. She felt like she was on top of the world again.
Maybe it sounds crazy, but it seems like we made room in her life for wins by decluttering her room. Often, it works that way in life. When we declutter our physical spaces, we declutter our mindsets. When we create space for self-care, our businesses get more successful. When we say no to the things that are draining our energy, we get to say yes to the things that make us feel alive.
Nashville always finds a way to win.
A lot of people in my city aren’t feeling like winners right now. But I’ve learned one thing about Nashville — she always finds a way to win.
Nashville is a city that refuses to lose. Nashvillians are creative people who get back up after rejection and try a new route. Nashville has been through worse natural disasters than this and started over again. Overcoming the challenges of this storm will be faced the same way that Nashville always does everything else — with a tenacity that turns hard things into a source of inspiration and beauty.
Jason Kempin/Getty
Today, as I grieve with the city of Nashville over the losses that so many are experiencing, I grieve with hope in my heart. Having walked through multiple losses of my own, I won’t be trifle and say that these things happen for a reason. I don’t have any answers that justify a tragedy like this. But I do know that the pain of a storm always brings about a clarity to its survivors about what truly matters in life. The deep pain of a loss causes us to take greater care in the relationships we have, treasuring precious moments with those who are closest to us.
It's overwhelming to see the devastation all around us. It won't be easy to start over. As we start over and rebuild together, I know that we will create something even better than what existed before. As we clean up and declutter our streets, I know we will be making room for new wins in our city and our communities.
