Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heeart radio podcast.
This Thursday Therapy, We've got Farah Mason coming on. She's a mother of six children, a spiritual blogger, writer, and host of Soulful seven Conversations podcast. She's the author of two works of fiction. She has a book out called Soulful, a weekly devotional to nourish the mind, body, and spirit. Basically, the breakdown with that is are we truly living the life we want to live? Sometimes but not nearly enough.
Our souls crave authentic experiences, but seeking them is a challenge in our committed world, where often we are more focused on making it through than on making it sacred. We need regular soul wake up calls and holy daily rhythms to live a life that feels good from the inside out, shines with meeting, and radiates joy. So let's get the wonderful Pharah Mason on Thursday Therapy.
Hey, parareh Hi.
I got your devotional book sent to me at the most amazing time because I was about to travel on my book tour and I was having all this anxiety where I almost in cat knows this because I text her was like, I don't think I can travel. I really don't, like, I do not think I can get on this airplane because I was just having so much anxiety and I just had gotten sick from like the kid this kidney infection, and I was like, I don't
think I can do it. I really don't. And I had one of those moments where I was like can someone. I was like, God, can you just like give me a sign? Just a quick sign would be really great for me right now, just to say go do it, like just go, you know, go to New York, do the book tour or some do something really bad that I can't actually go to New York, right, So I'm
like I need a sign left or right? And I was you know, I went to therapy because I was like, all right, I'm gonna go talk to my therapist.
I'm gonna go talk to my doctor.
I'm going to like, I'll let you know after I do X, Y and Z.
Yeah.
Seriously, I was like I literally need like give me a day to just like check it off. And then I come home from both of those places and I have a box waiting for me, and I opened it up and I was like, well shit, and then I read your sweet little card and that cross that you sent me, and I started to cry and I put it in my purse and I texted Catherine. I said I'm going because I was like, I'm not going to
be alone if I take this with me. And it was just like this weird sense of just calm that came over me, and I was like, all right, I'm going. And I traveled with that cross and your book to the New York book tour, so thank you.
Oh well that makes me happy. Yeah, I hope. You know. I was kind of stalking you because I was like, Margaret, just tell her. I'll bring her my muffins, I'll like my healing oils, I'll bring my ebs and salt lavender bath. I'll bring anything if she'll just let me go over and hold that baby.
Oh well, yes you can.
I'll hold that baby. I mean I just miss it. I miss it so much.
Your youngest is six?
Now?
Is that correct?
Seven fin the Grand Finale? Yes, I know. I have bove sections and on the fifth five five?
Are you only supposed to technically have three?
Yeah? I think so it's a fine. I was defiant, I think no. But I on the last one, my sweet ob who I adore. I would have kept having him so I could have just had him deliver them. But he peeked over the little you know screen that they put up, and he was like, and this is it, Like there's just nothing that, Like, the world can be crazy, but if you're sitting at home and you're holding that precious baby, it's like all is right in the world.
Yeah, it's truly, and there's a there's so much that the feeling of just calling like forces you to slow down, right, Like you have to be peopful, you.
Know, you have to just I mean, I'm not really good with sleep deprivation, so I don't miss that part of it. But I feel like as I got older, though, I handled it better. I don't know why. It's like when I was younger, it really really bothered me. And then I think as I got like the last three, I was a little more like this could be the last one, so I'm just gonna enjoy it.
I think there's a deeper appreciation as you go on, though, and you get a little older with it. Like we just had our third five almost six months ago, and actually her tiny toes were reading alongside me this morning.
And it was that calm and that.
Peace, and I just kept thinking, like, I actually got a two hour nap this morning. Bless my husband, because I think it's finally catching up to me. Forty one sleep deprivation for six months is like exhausting. But you do appreciate it differently. I think as we go to like Cat's got three, Jana's got three, Oh my god, we all three.
Yeah, welcome to the club, guys.
Cats are pioneer of the group. So how old is your oldest?
So charge is twenty one? Really really ages me?
But I love that.
But I had my last one when I was forty one too, So you just you do you feel like it's a sacred it's you're more relaxed.
I think, yeah, and despite your biggest efforts, they still get big too fast, because that's where I'm at.
I just settled into that yesterday.
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean everybody says it. You're like, oh, it's going to go buy so fast. And then when you actually I have two out of the house. So Charlie and Belle, you know, are both in college, and so they just came home for Thanksgiving and you just realize it, does it goes by so fast, and then you feel like, you know, when they came home, they let you know, got home from the airport. I was like, and you're not leaving the house. Everybody, we're in lockdown.
Nobody's leaving. We're all together. Everyone's sitting around my table every single meal. We're going to be sitting around the fire. No one's leaving. And of course you know they're in college and they want to go see their friends. And yeah, in that book.
You talk about building a nest, but you don't talk about keeping your eggs hostage. So do you want to talk about what it feels like to constructively build the nest?
Well, yeah, so that that's kind of how the book starts. You know. I I started writing this book when I was sitting actually in the pew of the funeral for one of my dearest friends. She was forty years old, she had three young children, and she was married to her soulmate, and she she you know, fought a really courageous battle against colon cancer. And she kind of like sat with me and kind of you know, literally grabbed me by the collar and just said, fairual Mason, like
you only get to do this once. Make it sacred.
It's like the first part I can't handle at the moment, but it's so true, it's so short, you know.
And so I found myself like, am I living the life I want to live?
You know?
At that time I had all six of them Russia here and there, and you know, working and writing and all those things that are so meaningful and make such a meaningful existence. But I realized, like, am I rushing through and not making it as sacred as it can be? Like what would it look like to really think about?
Because my friend Izzy would do anything to be here, and she was given six months to live, and so that six months, you know, I think everyone that came in front of her, she was like, this is you get this life? You get this one precious life. You know, how are you going to live it? Please? You know, make it intentional, make it meaningful, make it full of joy.
And so I can remember sitting there. I had sat down after saying my little piece in the funeral, and then I sat there and I was like, goodness, gracious, you know, am I living the life I want to live? And the answer in the book is sometime sometimes, but
not enough. And so then the writing started happening like what it look like to live a deep and rich and meaningful and sacred and wildly and perfect because I mean, just imagine what it's like to live in a household of six kids, you know, dealing with teenagers to the seven year old that's trying to learn how to read. I mean, it's it's definitely grand central station over here.
And but how can my life feel a little holier and more sacred so that if I'm given this little set amount of time that I feel good about it. You know, I feel good about the life that I'm leading. And so in the book I talk about that, you know, what does it look like to have a meaningful existence?
And you know, for me, it starts with you know, I always talk about the container of your heart, and you know, you have to balance the sorrows and the challenges and the struggles and the imperfection with genuine beauty and love and a real fullness of life. And so you're constantly in that little container of your heart navigating that.
And and for me personally, this last you know, eight months, there's been a lot of sorrow and a lot of heartbreak, and I mean just living here in Nashville with a covenant tragedy and it being a close friend who lost her child, and you know, and then another dear friend just lost her husband. So it's his constant sense of really investing intentionally and filling your heart with the good
things and feeling no guilt about that. You know, I really believe God wants us to have joy and and so we have to we have to fill that heart with with those things too, which is you know, holding a beautiful baby. I mean, I say, you know, you need an inch of beauty every single day that it'll it'll save you. And so for me, that's like getting
out of nature. I feel like I need to like move and I need to be in nature and that that's where I experience you know, for me, God, peace, beauty, and you know, then I also talk about, you know, when you're building your nest, how important it is, and you really as you get older, you see kind of how important this is when you go through hard things.
Is who are the people that that you're building your meaningful life with, Like we get to choose who those people are that are going to show up for us, and A're gonna and we're going to show up for them, but also these people that bring joy into our life. And and as I get older, I'm more just more aware of I get to choose who I wanted my life.
And so there are people that just you know, maybe aren't going to be and that woven into the fabric because they you know, they they they just they bring me down, you know, and they don't and they don't bring uh meaning and goodness and they don't allow me to be the best version of myself, which I think is what the world needs. My kids need that. And so I'm real intentional about who my people are. You know, who are these people that I'm surrounding myself, my soul,
my family, And so that's super important. And then you know, for me, I need quiet. I really need to pray, and you know, I've had enough hardship to know that I can't do this human life on my own. That I need that which is larger than myself to lean into and so prayer. So I kind of hit that when I'm at Radner Lake here in Nashville, you know, because I can hit the nature of the beauty and God,
all three of them like a one stop shop. And then I'm like sitting here and wish y'all could see it, like if you know, I'm not a decorator, but if a decorator walked into my house and they saw this table. I have this like ginormous table. It's ridiculous. I mean it's like the big you know, you can't even move around in this room because the table is so big.
But it's it's super important to me what happens around the table, you know, food and people and and so you know, we sit around the table a lot here, and that's with my kids. I want them to feel that anchor of how important it is to sit around together, eat a healthy meal, yummy meal, and also you know, keep adding chairs for friends and family and strangers. I'd love for y'all to come over so that part of
its super important you know to me too. And then you know, there's just something it's almost kind of selfish, but there's something really beautiful that happens when you're taking care of other people. You know, when you're trying to give a word of hope to somebody else and encourage them and tell them you know you can do this. Christ.
And remember our therapist she said something about how we were kind of we were thinking a season of both being like, oh, then this is going wrong, this is going and she's like, I think you need to go serve. You know that's true, And especially in the nationaletrol, I think we lose touch sometimes with what can like we're all in the music industry and so you despite our best efforts, I think sometimes we lose the gravity of what is real in our world and what there is
to be upset about. And not that any of us are. I think we're all very emotionally intelligent individuals, but it is hard because we're we're all living in such a really beautiful, full life in so many ways that there's times where it's like our problems are not really problem
even though they but they are still right. It's like there still are But then you go, okay, big picture here, we're so incredibly blessed and this is it could be worse and I know you're not a sloped to measure pain and all those things, but it's still well.
And turning it into a positive.
I think serving no matter what you're going through, can really just change that outlook and it helps you to take the negative that's going on in your life and figure out a way to turn it positive at least I feel like that.
Or again, it's putting yourself outside, like that one guy at that Apple store who basically was blind, and he's like, if you put everyone together in a circle, He's like, I would actually still want my life than anyone else's there, because everyone has their stuff perspective.
Yeah, for sure. Well, and I mean it definitely feels like I mean, my little Rosebud who's in the seventh grade, you know, I could just sense she was feeling kind of anxious, and I mean there's just so much to be anxious about kind of in our world right now. And so I always say, because like I can't go into the Middle East right now, you know, and I get there's there's always say like love Rose, you should just love who and what is right in front of you.
Mm hmm, like that that's the best thing I can tell you. And so you know, it's you love well, really well who and what is right in front of you. It's gonna be a domino effect, right It's gonna they're gonna roll and it's going to touch someone else and and it's going to like increase the goodness, which I think, you know, if we can increase goodness on our little square inch of of earth, that's a that's a beautiful thing.
What's one movement that you'd go, Okay, this is what I would want people to go towards resilience.
M So it's like I even think about your life, you know, you just I think we have a choice. You know, so bad things are going to happen to us. We're gonna get knocked at the knees, We're going to get our heart broken, We're gonna suffer loss, We're gonna we're gonna just really doubt, you know, either ourselves or doubt the world, doubt God. And and so we have this choice. We can either fold or I say, we
can discover our wings. And you know, there's a there's a quote by the psychologist Elizabeth Kbler Ross and she says, beautiful people don't just happen. And and so I, you know, I say my book is an encyclopedia of hope, because I feel like, really that's what soulful living really is about. It's about getting back up. It's about rising when you've
been knocked down. It's about opening your arms and your heart and saying I'm going forward, like I've like really just had my soul crushed, and I'm choosing to still open my arms and my heart to the world. You know, we're getting ready to go in the season of advent in you know, advents about this sense of hope and promise and like coming. And I feel like for me this year, hope is about like almost double downing and saying, you know what, like the world isn't perfect. I know
I'm going to get my heart broken. I've had my heart broken, and I'm going to choose to still see what God has for me next. And one thing I can say in my own experience is God's imagination for my life is so much grander than anything I could have ever dreamed up for myself. And you know, I'm the oldest of six kids, so I'm like a little bit stubborn, like I'm like I can do this. I'm I'm like, I'm a powerhouse. I can make things happen.
And what I realize is that, you know, God has much grander visions for my life that things that I never would have thought of. And so if I can be brave to get back up after I've been knocked down, I don't know, I just think that's a beautiful thing. And those are the people I'm drawn to. I'm drawn to people that, you know, it's like this radiance about them. You know, they've been broken and they're almost more beautiful for having been broken.
You talk about soul wake ups in the book, but can you explain that a little bit.
Well, yeah, I think it's kind of what you said that in our lives we can kind of get not complacent, but we just need these nudges, I think, to want more for our lives. You know, I think we need these wake up calls to say, oh my gosh, like open your eyes, feral, open your heart. I personally believe God is constantly sending us messages, giving us these little nudges through people, through experiences, even when I've like been shut down, the door has been slammed in my face,
Like I feel like it's been a nudge. Well, Pharrell, You're gonna have to go this way. You know. It's this sense of you know, these experiences of beauty. Like I was jogging at Percy Warner Park yesterday and I mean literally there was an owl on the branch. I could have touched him, and I just feel like that's the sense of you know, God is with us, the world is a good place, people are good. It's a very sacred place, and sometimes we just need to be Our soul needs to be woken up to that.
I think that's a really important message, especially right now, because it feels like what inundates us through social media and just the masses is this like negative and unsettled and all of the bad, bad, bad evil, And it's really important, I think, to remember that there is so much good right we forget and it's starting with I think sometimes stay at home moms especially have a lot of those really beautiful souls on Instagram, but they're like, what can I even do? And it's like, but we
are doing. We're doing kingdom work and our own homes and our own raising and our own losing of our own tempers and then the redemption and saying I'm sorry to our kids and explaining the ups and downs. One of the things I really really really love about this devotional and it was actually gifted to me by Cassie Kelly, who is a roundabout fan of you that admires you.
And it's interesting because Jana said she got your book gifted in a season when she needed it most, and Cassie and I are in a really sacred group together in Nashville. And then a few days later I got it and I thought, well, Cassie's just really a good gift giver. She's a pretty intentional person. But as I started reading it, it was the most scene I think
I had felt in probably two years. Just so what you're doing in your kingdom work and intentionality is actually landing in the lapse of women exactly how it should, which is how I know you're on the right track and you have your pulse on the soul wake ups.
But the thing that I really like about it is that it's a weekly devotional, which is pretty special because there's a lot of daily devotionals out there, but you've kind of made this digestible for the full life, right, so it's not like I have to sit every single day. I can revisit. But tell me why you picked to do a week devotional instead of every day.
Well, it's funny because you know, when the book came out, you know, people would send me little messages and a lot of people like read it straight through, like I'm starting at the beginning, I'm just reading it straight through, and then other people have said, you know, I'm really
just savoring it. I'm I'm reading one week, you know, one devotional because how the book is set up is I kind of wanted you to feel like I was nourishing you in the mind and that's how you get the little reflection in the body, because I give you activities. I mean, some of which are recipes, others are like prayers,
and then also the spirit. You know, every single week you get a prayer and the prayers in first person, because I wanted you to feel like, you know, it was you having that conversation, and I mean, we are super busy, and if we can drop a little goodness into our life starting off in your week, I don't know, I just feel like then we meet the world from a better place. Yeah. I talk a lot about finding peace and everything I write in the book I need
to hear myself, like over and over again. And the idea I say somewhere in the book about you know, I try to have these monastery experiences in my Grand Central Station life. And we are in a crazy world where people are people are kind of mean, and I think people have become cynical and a little angry, and the best thing that all of us can do is
to kind of double down and sean brighter. And a lot of that comes from us having the peace on the inside so that when we do meet the world, we give them a peaceful posture.
Yeah, there's someone not in my circle, but someone that is so this person is so angry, and I'm like it, really, I'm almost thankful for this person because it makes me go, that is the last thing I want to be is this And it's not even I would I don't want to say her anger is not justified. But it's like
you don't have to be that angry. Like, yes, that is a bad situation that you went through and it could be worse, but also like you you're walking around so angry at someone, and it's like that's not good for you. It's not good to be the angry and it's like why, Like you're you're wasting all this energy and this to be so angry and mean and and I've obviously distanced myself from this this person just so I'm like, it gives me anxiety to have it. I'm like,
I don't I don't want any to be associated. It's just it's it's I'm like, why are like, why are you so angry?
You know?
And it's just not good.
I don't they want anger to affect the people that they're portraying the anger. Yeah, And I think, like she said, the best thing you can do is double down on love. Yeah, And I do think you have to have boundaries and distance yourself and all of that. But it's like, what is going to frustrate them the most? You being kind? Yeah, I mean you setting up a boundary exactly. So I'm always just like, Okay.
I'm sorry you're angry, but that miss when they're that angry. Yeah.
Well, I think our culture like it almost like champions that right now, you know. I feel like like you see it on the news and on social media and everywhere that it's it's almost like an in our country right now. It's like, I don't know, lifted up is a good thing to be angry and feisty and kind of mean, and and really that is we need a
total reset. And and so you know, I always say, oh gosh, I need to soften my edges because you know, we all are going to have moments where we feel tangled, and we feel anxious, and we feel a little fearful and maybe even feel a little angry, and so then we have to be a little more attention intentional, Like I know, I have to like get outside or read or fix a cup of tea which totally calms me, love my ups and salt baths and you know, ways of just really cultivating that piece within yourself.
What is one of your favorite devotionals in the book that you wrote Love It?
Gosh, that's a great question.
With you the most too.
Oh that that gives you know, I think Eden Finding Eden is probably my favorite. It's the second one because it's, you know, I do this this idea of you know, you're either in or you're out of Eden, and in the ways that I'm in and the ways that I'm out, and and that's going back to that same idea of the piece. But you know, like relationships, you know, when I'm like really struggling to forgive someone, I'm dragging my feet to forgive them, which means that I'm like all
tangled on the inside. I mean, when you're not forgiving someone, it's like a you know, a loop that's going from head to heart head to heart where you're just thinking about it and it's really hard to forgive people, and I struggle with that. But but I'm definitely not in Eden. If I'm dragging my feet to forgive someone, if I'm on social media instead of giving hugs, I'm out of Eden for sure. You know. It's like that face to
face love. You know, nothing compares to that. I think after the Covenant tragedy, I really wrestle with fear and watching my children too go back to school and they wrestle with fear, And that's another way I'm out of Eden is when fear is has more dominion over me than my hope, does you know?
So?
I think the Eden one is it's one that I love because it's one I need to continually reread for myself personally. But I also on a more fun one. I love the one that's titled La bon Fronquette. We spend some time in France and we have friends that are chefs, and we had them over for dinner one night, and I was so nervous about it because I'm always like, yeah,
let's have people for dinner. And then as soon as I said it, David was like, Babe, we have no food, like nothing in the house, and the stores are closed. What in the world are you going to do? And I remember my friend coming over and saying, you know, one is French and the other one's American, and the French one saying, well, what's the lat bone from kat?
And I said, what in the world is that? And he said, well, it's just you know, you open up your cupboards, you open up your refrigerator and then you just start like pulling everything out and you make u smorgas board. You open up the bottle of wine, and it's just about being together. It's not about the pretty set. Yeah, this like you know, linen napkins and the candelabra and all that stuff. It has nothing to do with that. And so I really I really try to live with that.
So it's like you could come to my house and have a glass of wine and a spider.
Man and Fritz Cracker and yeah.
And in that scenario, like we had like leftover cross sants and I put a new tell on them great ridiculous and nobody cared. It was like the most fun evening and we really we had ridiculous food.
We did not hear a lot.
I feel like because we do not here a lot, well, we do like it'll be like a queendom night and we have like a bottle of wine and then we're like, you know, next thing, you know, like we're just eating crackers and having like a really bunny good but we're having like a really good full life, you know, and
memorable moments and cozy and it's so great. I love that you say in bold in the first introduction of your book, and perfect lives can be holy, And I've just anchored to that over the last couple of weeks more so than ever. So I love the idea. It takes away a little pressure of hosting as we come into the holiday. See absolutely, yeah, open up the coverards and take a deep breath. Pharaoh, Where can our listeners find you and everything that you're doing?
Okay? So well, I do a weekly blog called Bread and Honey and that's just like a little goodness to start off your week. And and then Soulful. You can find it.
At all the bookstores and yeah, I thinkyl can we can we go hiking the steps at uh at with center not not right, Percy person.
Oh, I'd love it so much. Bring that baby and I'll just like to me perfect good for hiking the hills holding him next to me.
Okay, I love that. All right, well, I'll get your info from Margaret. But thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it.
Everyone.
Congratulations, like, thank you for the joy going on at your house. So thank you so much. Appreciate it, all right, thank bye girl bye