Hello everyone! Welcome back to Hear and Now Podcast, my name’s Sophia. In this week’s episode I want to continue with a motivating and inspiring podcast, following last week’s episode. If you haven’t listened to that already, it’s called Speaking Life and Finding Yourself. Also, make sure to subscribe to the show, follow me on instagram at sophialebano and follow our facebook page. Link to the transcript is in the show notes or at sophialebano.com/podcast.
If you didn’t notice, I changed my podcast cover art! Or at least I think I did. It’s weird it only shows up in some places but not others, so I’m not sure haha.
Before I jump into the episode I wanted to ask you guys about a few new segment ideas I have. Some ideas would be like current favorites, high/lows of the week, prayer intentions, goals of the week, challenges, and motivational quote(s) of the week. I’m not quite sure what direction I want to take this show in, so leave a review or rating or comment on my instagram! It’s hard to do solo podcasts because there is no one to bounce off of. I’m going to plan to interview some people in the near future to break up the solo episodes and give you some new content!
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Anyone who uses my code send me a DM on instagram to be entered to win!
Even though I am recording this ahead of time, when I post this, it will be October 1! Thats so crazy to me, because September always felt so slow when I was in elementary school. But anyway, a new month means a fresh start. I love fall because it is so cozy and warm, a new season. My mom wrote a great blog post on it the other day. Goal of the week- there is this little girl who is also my prayer intention. she was riding on a golf cart and hit her head. She ended up in a coma and has been unconscious since. On October 2 and 3 her parents asked people to share and do a fast, which is abstaining or refraining from doing something as a sacrifice. It doesn’t have to be from food. I encourage you to do the same, I’m praying for you and this girl. She’s maybe 6, 7, 8, or 9. Please keep her in your prayers. Another prayer intention for this week, it is a fresh start!
Here is a quote from my mom’s blog, @houseofloveandlaughterblog or houseofloveandlaughter.com –
“Sometimes, things just FALL into place all on their own, outside of our plan.
When they do, they look simply beautiful in ways you never imagined. I encourage you to let go of the plan and let them FALL into place. God knows better than we do the plans He has for us. He knows the best version we can offer to embrace/hug our neighbors (those in and outside our home). Tell me about a time when you let go, and things fell in to place better than you could imagine? And did you give someone an unexpected embrace along the way?”
Props to my mom for writing such good words all the time. Go check her out!
To preface this a little bit, if you listened to my last episode, I talked about speaking life into yourself and others. On Saturday September 21st I went to something known as Abbeyfest, which is basically this huge faith and musical festival for christians and catholics. I’ve been going for three years, and every year I go I have new perspective and feel changed because of my time there. Each time I leave feeling closer to God. They have vendors and tents and one particular tent was K-Love Radio. K-Love’s mission is “to create compelling media that inspires and encourages you to have a meaningful relationship with Christ.” They had this little sign that said “say yes to encouraging someone today!” I immediately signed up for their text alerts and downloaded their 30 day encouragement challenge. I forgot about it until the other day, when I was feeling super fulfilled because of the encouragement of my podcast community. Little comments and things like that make my day!
Anyway, during September I encouraged you all to participate in the deaf awareness month campaign. This month, I want to start my own encouragement campaign, with inspiration from K-Love, which you should go listen to, by the way! I always struggle with naming things, so I stupidly went on google and typed in motivating words that start with o, to go with October. I’m so dumb but whatever. Buried in the list was “open-heart” and I loved it. October will be known as Open-Hearts October. Be open-hearted to a stranger on the street, be open-hearted to your sister, even if they said something to hurt you, be open-hearted to God, even if you can’t feel Him near you. Since it might be hard to remember 31 things to do this month and I only post once a week, I’m going to link in the show notes an info-graphic I made for you to download. I’ll post it in different sizes for mobile and desktop!
Here are some examples of what you can do to be a part of openheartsoctober!
- Buy a cup of coffee for someone in line
- Hold the door for someone
- Leave an encouraging sticky note on someone’s car
- Buy flowers and send a nice note with them
- Do something unexpected for a loved one
- Leave a bottle of water for your mailman
- Smile and wave at 5 strangers
- Give someone a compliment
- Hide encouraging notes for strangers to find
- Forgive someone even if it is really hard
- Leave a note in a book for someone to read
- Tell two people how much they mean to you
Like I said, I made an info graphic that you can download and save wherever you’ll be able to see it.
I love just doing random acts of kindness for strangers, and I love reading stories on buzzfeed or otherwise of things people have done for others and it always makes me so happy. I remember when one of my friends passed away we picked some sunflowers from our garden and left them on her doorstep. I feel like a certain level of being anonymous makes it even better and special! So, do things like that! Continue to spread kindness and love to the world, and it will love you right back. You never know how much you impact someone’s life.
It is so hard to follow God, but through our struggle, thats exactly where we find hope. I started this podcast to share hope with others. It’s not about me, its about what I went through and showing others there is hope. It is just part of the journey, and life. There is never a straight line from point A to point B, it is always a crazy line.
I’m trying to fill my time. I could never talk for an hour by myself! If you’ve every seen the Office, there’s a scene where Michael said “I start saying something and hope it goes in the right direction.” I hope you are inspired to come back and listen to more, maybe I’ll do another hearing loss episode.
Chase the things that make you want to be a better person, chase the things that inspire to live creatively and joyfully, chase the things that reinforce in your soul that you can make a difference, chase the things that make you want to transform your hearts from selfish to selfless. I think I am done rambling for this episode. To sum it up, use #openheartsoctober. I can’t wait to see you guys do this challenge. That is it for this week’s episode, use my pura Vida code and let me know to be entered to win a prize. See you next week, happy October!