Are You Too Distracted to Hear God?

What if the clutter stressing you out isn’t in your house… but in your head?

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, scattered, or spiritually distracted, this episode gets right to the heart of it. We explore what it really means to “declutter your inner life”  and why clearing mental and spiritual noise may be the reset your soul has been craving.

Building on their recent conversation about organizing the home with declutter specialist Deanna Yates, they turn the focus inward. Because sometimes the mess isn’t in the closet… it’s in our thoughts.

In this honest and hope-filled conversation, Lanée and Sandy share:

• A simple “power tidy” for your soul
• Short daily truths and scriptures that anchor your mind when emotions spiral
• Intentional breathing practices that calm your body and refocus your spirit
• Practical ways to challenge old thought patterns, false beliefs, and negative self-talk
• How to guard your mental inflow from social media overload and everyday negativity

With personal stories, favorite scriptures, and doable exercises, they unpack how to remove what’s weighing you down  and intentionally replace it with gratitude, truth, and reminders of God’s steady love.

This episode isn’t about perfection. It’s about margin. It’s about creating space to hear God speak in the middle of real life.

If you’re craving clarity, peace, and a deeper connection with God — start here.

🎧 Listen now, then share this episode with a friend who could use a little less noise and a little more hope.

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"Imagine Yourself" is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach—two dynamic voices with a passion for inspiring and uplifting others. Lanée, a TV writer, producer, motivational speaker, and podcaster, brings powerful storytelling and insight. Sandy, a radio personality, voiceover artist, and podcaster, delivers warmth and wisdom with every conversation. Broadcasting from the Detroit Metro area, they welcome guests from around the world to share valuable perspectives on health, career growth, faith, and personal transformation. Tune in and imagine the possibilities for your life!

Transcript

Lanée Blaise [00:00:00]:
Hello everyone, this is Lanee here with Sandy, and today we have an episode that, like, Sandy and I were already talking about it. We're like, this is going to help people, this is going to help us. It's very simple. We're basing it on the previous episode that we just had that was all about, like, 7 simple ideas to get organized. And we were talking about getting organized in your home, and Deanna Yates is a declutter specialist, and we wanted to only focus today's episode on how to declutter your inner life, declutter your mind. We wanted to just take that whole idea and turn it inwards, because you can have a perfectly tidy house and still feel completely scattered on the inside. So today we just want to say, imagine yourself decluttering your inner life. And creating some margin for God and for your soul to breathe and work with clarity.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:05]:
So I wanted to use one of the tips that Deanna Yates used for the house. She called it the power tidy.

Sandy Kovach [00:01:11]:
Oh, this is exciting. The power tidy.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:13]:
Remember? Yeah. The power tidy.

Sandy Kovach [00:01:15]:
So talk about— first, talk about the power tidy as you see it in your house.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:20]:
So in the power tidy, Deanna Yates and her family, They just go through— in this case, it's before bedtime— and they go through and they pick up all the little stray blankets, stray things on the floor, just get everything kind of smooth so that they can just feel that sense of peace before they retire for the night or before they decide to get their little dessert or whatever it is. And that concept on its very basic level is what I'm trying to get to with the power tidy for your soul. This is not an overhaul. This is not a deep clean. This is just a few intentional minutes. And like the Yates— sometimes people like to do that at the end of their day. Some people like to do it at the beginning, the start of their day. There's no right time, but just taking the time to do it.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:14]:
My advice for these power tidy steps within your soul Number 1, we always talk about it and it's undervalued, but breathe. Slow your body down, slow your respiratory system down before you quiet your mind. Take a deep breath or, you know, do a— and then let it out slowly. But breathe for just a second. Because remember, this is just going to be quick power tidy. Second thing is to please focus on short simple truths. Not long paragraphs, not sermons. We're not having you read a whole devotional or anything like this.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:57]:
Just some very short absolute truths. Try 3 words only. For example, after you're doing your breathing and you get yourself centered and focused for this power tidy, focus in on 3 words such as thank you, God, or help me, God, you know, or give me grace, or God loves me, or God loves us. Because sometimes, you know, you're thinking about this world, or you think about this family— God loves us. I'm not trying to make it sound like affirmations per se. I'm really trying to get it where in this power tidy, the goal is to train your brain to default to truth, to short truths. When life goes crazy left, just off the rails, and you feel very vulnerable, you will already know how to do your default settings and reset yourself by just very briefly saying, "Help me, God." And you're so used to saying it 'cause you do it daily. You know, this is something— a power tidy that's meant to be daily.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:23]:
You don't wait until life gets chaotic to hold on to a truth. You have been doing this on a daily basis. And you just reset yourself. Thank you, God. Help me, God. Give me grace. Give me strength. God loves us.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:45]:
Yeah. And so, that is my little first tip on, you know, how to do the, the power tidy for the soul.

Sandy Kovach [00:04:52]:
And I'm thinking one thing that I might add to that list is something like, especially in these chaotic times, is, God is good. God has a purpose. Trust God. Things like that. I think it's probably customizable. I love the ones you— I would probably go with all of those and then some. But yes, yeah, I mean, because we're not going to understand things that are going on in our personal lives many times, things are going on in the world, and we can just get crazy with that. So that is one thing I have been pretty good at getting deep down in my soul is, "I trust God." Romans 8:28, I'm always quoting that.

Sandy Kovach [00:05:36]:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God are called according to his purpose. And Linae was pointing out we don't need a whole scripture, but if you meditate on scripture, that is also a good thing, and maybe a separate way or together. What about, like, if you're driving? Let's say you're driving to work. Is it something you can do there if you don't have time sitting in

Lanée Blaise [00:05:58]:
your bed, or— especially with the three words component, "I love God." You can say it once, or you can say it multiple times, but these are just foundational things that you are setting up as the bedrock of your day, of your thoughts. You know, "I trust God." It can be any time, like— and that's the good part too, because it's so simple, it could be any time. And I do like the idea— I'm Oh, honey, can you imagine yourself, like, waking up in the morning to thank you, God, for, you know, or, you know, or I love you, God.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:35]:
Yeah, easy breezy. I got to figure out how to put that on. Like, when you pick up your phone, it says thank you, God. Well, I guess you could make that your screensaver. Screensaver? What is this, the '90s? You know what I mean? Like your wallpaper on your phone?

Lanée Blaise [00:06:50]:
Yes. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:51]:
So speaking of phones, This is something that I also got from Diana, and that is getting rid of things that no longer serve you. I find myself, and I'm gonna suggest that there are probably a few other people, that when they pick up their phone, they get really distracted by something else that's on there. Like, I pick up my phone to look at a text and, well, isn't that nice? There's Facebook there. I, I think, well, I haven't checked it in— 15 or 20 minutes. Let me see if maybe Lene posted. I better look. And the weather, you know, what's going on with the weather? So what I did, some people take the apps off their phone and they find that that's less screen time for them. I was— that was a bridge too far for me.

Sandy Kovach [00:07:36]:
'Cause if you take the apps off your phone and then you have to sign in the internet, you gotta put your password in again. And it's just like, no thank you. So I don't know how it is on Google phones, but on iPhones you can just, you can move everything off if you want off of your home screen and then just have the list. And then you can just look at your alphabetical list when you need to go to a particular app, and then it— you don't have anything on your screen. So yeah, it's like the cluttered— like if you have a cluttered desktop, or if your desktop computer is cluttered with icons and folders and documents. So all these things drive you crazy and overwhelm you and distract you. So that was one little thing I did. I— all I did was just move things to either folder, or, you know, I deleted not deleted the app, but just deleted them from the home screen.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:22]:
To me, this still relates back to, like, Diana Yates, the declutter queen, as far as, like, would you want to go into your kitchen and you have all the spoons and all the forks and all that just sitting out on the table or on the counter? No, you want them to all be placed, like, in a quote-unquote folder or a drawer.

Sandy Kovach [00:08:41]:
Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:41]:
And put away. And then when you need them, you can go to them, but you're not distracted by it. You're not cluttered by it. You're not overwhelmed by it. Because the whole purpose, again, is is to just lessen the overwhelm, lessen the distraction, lessen the clutter, and get to what's really important. And you look at your phone, you need to see what time it is, and you need to see if somebody's calling you or whatever. And then, yeah, the other stuff, go in there. I like this idea.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:08]:
I might give this a try.

Sandy Kovach [00:09:10]:
Yeah, it's not hard at all. And it's really— it saved me a lot of time. I am interested now to look at the statistics, you know, that they give you with the screen time statistics on— oh yeah, how time I spend on my phone now? It's gotta be less.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:26]:
And even like, um, cuz I was noticing— I never really paid attention to it, but like it's tracking the screen time component is tracking like how often I pick up my phone and what's the first app I open when I pick up my phone. And not that I wanna like go in a rabbit hole, you know, being too focused on that either. But I bet money as far as the statistics of it, like you said, all that stuff will go down and you'll be more mindful and more intentional about what you're picking your phone up for. It gives you so much more time in your day also.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:00]:
Yes, it's practical minimalism, as Diana would call it. We were— she was talking about minimalism as, you know, some people only have one plate and one fork. Well, I guess if they lived alone, and that's extreme, but— Yes. We— but minimalism, practical minimalism, she was pointing out, is just getting rid of things that don't serve you. And there is an example right there of things that not only don't serve you, but things that are causing you to go into rabbit holes and wasting your time.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:31]:
Yeah, it's so interesting that you mentioned that practical minimalism component to getting rid of things that don't serve you. So, you know, Sandy, you know that we were about to do this episode today, but it's very interesting. My mom just happened to send me an email and she didn't know we were going to do this. At all, this episode. I don't even think she necessarily is on top of what our last episode was. But the email started off, it says, "Make space for what you really want." By Jodi Cohen. And I'm like, "Okay, Mom." And, you know, she was like, "I just wanted to let you, you know, read this because I know you're always so busy and you always feel overwhelmed." And some of the things that— I don't even know exactly who Jodi Cohen is, but Making space for what you really want. And she meant in your mind, in your spirit, not in your home.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:19]:
But she was talking about— well, actually she did, she did talk about physical clutter, but she talked about getting rid of old thought patterns that no longer serve you. Mm-hmm. Outgrown beliefs and habits. Get rid of emotional heaviness and grief that you might already be past that. That stage now. Get rid of versions of yourself that no longer feel true. Ooh, that was my favorite one, you know. And then it says anything else that no longer fits.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:53]:
And I know, like, when you have clothes that don't fit and you have mindsets that don't fit and you have versions of yourself that no longer fit, get rid of it to make space for what you do want.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:06]:
Yeah. If you're really gonna dig into this, you probably need, need somebody trained. But I mean, you just, you and I, or, you know, anyone can go in and say, you know, I have these periods of time where I get overdramatic and I start acting like Sandy from high school. Well, my parents used to call me, and this is way back in the day, there was this old actress and her name was Sarah Bernhardt. I was about to say Sandra Bernhardt. She's a comedian.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:32]:
Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:33]:
I was the queen of all the drama.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:37]:
But see, if you start framing it like, yes, okay, that was high school Sandy. And every once in a while she pokes her head up, but that's not the essence of who you are anymore, you know? Yeah. And you don't wear that outfit anymore unless you want to.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:54]:
Yeah. I don't think anybody that would know me now would necessarily say I was a drama queen.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:58]:
I wouldn't say that. Yeah. I would never— That wouldn't have crossed my mind, but that shows how powerful some of these former beliefs are, even sometimes about illness. You know how, like, uh, they'll say that people have phantom pain? Like, even— this is a really sad one, but if you— even if people who had maybe a leg amputated, they'll say that they still feel pain in that leg even though it is physically not there anymore. And I just want to make sure that we don't carry stigmas pain, things that aren't really there anymore. They literally are not there anymore. And maybe we can face it and say, okay, I definitely did used to struggle with A, B, and C, or I used to have that, but that's not been my life for several years now. And I am ready to officially cross over the threshold into— now I am you know, more of this, you know, drama-free.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:58]:
Drama-free.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:00]:
I'm drama-free Sandy. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:14:04]:
And remember who you are in Christ. That's one of the reasons I'm not drama Sandy anymore is because, you know, of my relationship with the Lord. And yet instead of thinking of who the world might call you or who you might call you, just remember, you know, you're a new creature.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:20]:
So— and what God calls you.

Sandy Kovach [00:14:22]:
And what God calls you. Yes, absolutely.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:25]:
So what you call yourself, what you call things, what you say out loud, what you say in your brain is so important. The language that you have— this is not exactly about the decluttering part, but there are even— if you think about it, there are words that didn't exist before to describe situations. Like even, I don't know, Sandy, when we were younger, I don't even think the word anxiety was used very often. Not that it didn't exist. But people now can say that they're experiencing anxiety in a certain point. Once they name it and recognize it, it helps them to deal with it, face it, and then begin to hopefully break that down and push it back out so that you're not consumed with anxiety. But this one, I want to talk about language because Deanna talked about the language that you use when you're going through decluttering your home. And In this case, I only want to talk about it as far as the mental clutter, the words that are constantly running through your mind that might be quietly hurting you.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:37]:
And some of these things, we say them and we're kind of laughing about it. Oh, I'm sick and tired of— I don't know, this person or that thing. But when you say, I'm sick and tired of— I'm not going to sit up here and say that that means like the next day you're going to wake up and you're going to have some kind of illness or disease. But, you know, but it's not In my opinion, it is not a healthy thing to say on any kind of a regular basis. There's also— you don't want to have a tape running your mind that says the world is hopeless, uh, or that says I don't care anymore, or that says I look terrible. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I look terrible. Like, what in the world? No, I want us to This is an exercise.

Sandy Kovach [00:16:25]:
I really hope— I like your exercise. Yeah, yeah, I like these little exercises.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:31]:
Yes. But now this one's not daily. I don't want anybody doing this daily. I want— yeah, I don't know, maybe once a week or something like that. But get a timer for at least 5 minutes. Get something that you can— like a journal, something you can write down, or a voice recorder or something to kind of document Instead of like going through your house and picking up trash and stray Coca-Cola cans or whatever, I want you to go through your mind, walk through your mind, and pick up any stray trash that's lingering there. You know, I always get sick in winter, and I want you to take that language and that sentence, and I want you to throw it in the garbage. And not only— you know, and I want you to write it down in the notepad, but I want you to replace it with, "This year, I am going to take extra vitamins, get extra rest, drink extra soup or tea or juice to make sure that I stay healthy in the winter season." So I want you to collect trash, throw it out, and I want you to replace it with something else instead of, I always look horrible in the morning.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:46]:
I want you to replace it with: in the morning, I wake up and I am willing to do different little routines to get my face perky and my body snapped and my blood rush— you know, get a little exercise, get some blood rushing through my body to make me feel more comfortable about the way I look and feel. Instead of the world is hopeless, I want you to take that trash, pluck it, and say, God is working. This world has troubles, but I am watching and looking and searching and seeking for God's help. Everybody sucks. I want you to take that trash out, and I want you to say, there are still good, loving people in this world. I know them. I am one of them. I have friends who are— instead of "I can't ever do anything right." Trash that.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:43]:
I'm proud of myself for taking the stairs today. I'm proud of myself for doing this 5-minute exercise of taking out the trash. I'm proud of myself for brushing my teeth enough that my dentist said, "You know, you're looking pretty good on your teeth this checkup." You know? [Speaker] Yeah. [Speaker] It just— I really want to stress that. I was watching Mel Robbins on her podcast the other day, and she was talking about Wake up every morning and name one thing that you are proud of yourself for. And if you think of more than one, that's great also. But she said that when you do that, your brain starts to get used to looking for evidence to prove that that is true. Ooh.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:27]:
So your brain will start to look for evidence of things like that I am doing way better than I thought I was. You know, because she said, "Oh, I'm so proud." 'Yesterday I took the stairs instead of the elevator.' That's one thing. And then the next day, 'I'm so proud that I spent one minute when I sat in my car before I drove off to my appointment or to my job to pray to God.' And then your brain starts to look for evidence, like, 'Wow, this chick really does some pretty cool things on a daily basis.' I love that evidence. As opposed to the opposite— you don't want your brain finding evidence that you

Sandy Kovach [00:20:06]:
suck and that everybody sucks, but you You know, everybody is a mixture of good and bad, and we know that. But why concentrate on the bad, which is our default, isn't it? If we don't do that, if we're

Lanée Blaise [00:20:18]:
not careful— and it is maybe a societal thing, not sure, maybe it's human nature, but it can be overturned with practice. And like I said, this is a way to have evidence to prove to your brain and to yourself that you are doing better than you thought, that God is doing better than you give God credit for, that many humans are still great. And you can— I mean, we still be honest now. We still say like, yeah, there's a lot of people out here that suck. And, you know, that's— I don't know if that's trash or anything like that, but, but you want to balance it. Yes, there's a lot of people out here who are doing horrible things. That is true. Jesus said there's going to be troubles in this world.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:00]:
So yes, there's some horrible things going on. There's some terrible people doing horrible things. However, I do not stop believing that God is on the throne. I do not stop believing that there are so many people full of good and light and hope that it's worth it. We have to say those things. We're not pretending everything's fine. We're not being fake. We're not being disgustingly positive, but we are replacing the junk with truth that carries hope.

Sandy Kovach [00:21:37]:
God is still on the throne. I love that. That's like, trust God, trust his plan. God's allowing this for whatever reason. His purpose is greater than my purpose. I lean on the Lord. I'm just saying that to yourself, especially when hurtful things can come into your mind, the negative stuff, not just the people suck thing, but like sometimes whether it's something in your life or you just— something you saw on the news and it just really hurts. You know, allow yourself to feel that emotion and don't deny it.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:05]:
But at the same time, God is still on the throne. I love that. God is sovereign. Yeah, all of that. That's beautiful.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:13]:
And I, and I love that, you know, we have to balance truth also, that when you say— because this is not junk, this is truth— like, that hurts. It hurts me. It hurt me that that person did that to me or said that to me. Or it hurts me to see these people in this world or in a certain country or a certain situation suffering. And, you know, you want to make sure that you keep that hope. Okay, because here's another one. Okay, Trevor Noah just said the other day— I think it might have been on a podcast also— he said that it's very interesting when you have religious people who are really strong in faith the ways that they not only keep hope, but they think in revolutionary ways to change some of the bad things. Like, what am I getting at? Like, for example, Martin Luther King Jr.— let's, let's just say him for just a second— back in the '50s, and the civil rights movement hadn't really gotten going yet, he saw so many things that were, uh, discriminatory against Black people.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:22]:
But his faith in God and his ability to think in a revolutionary way, where it's like, we are going to go out here in droves and have protests and have nonviolence be at the center of it, and we are going to turn things around. We're going to believe that God is going to help us as we do it, because we are going to use action and faith and prayer and God and use it hand in hand to move mountains in this society. I really want people who are of faith to start tapping into that power and realizing prayer is strong. And once you get really quiet and you pray to God, God might drop some ideas that will turn things around. It's not that you're passive, it's not that you're not doing anything, but it should be the opposite. You begin to do things that nobody ever thought of. Yeah, to create change, to make differences happen.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:32]:
And you can do them without the fear that you would normally have if you were not a person of faith. I'm not saying you don't have some fear, but the amount of fear that the Lord can get rid of— the peace that passes all understanding— when you feel like you're walking in his will

Lanée Blaise [00:24:47]:
Yeah, it's just been, um— I don't know. I'm— this episode really made me kind of dig in deep because it's— to be fair, I have definitely heard my brain saying, "This world sucks. It feels hopeless. It's all going down the trash." Or like my daughter was like, "This world's cooked." You know, it's just like— I'm like, "So, okay, we say there are so many terrible things going on in this world right now." That is factual. However, we are listening and having gateways from God to start making these changes. Things are being exposed so that we can deal with them, so that we can change them. I don't know, this didn't feel as

Sandy Kovach [00:25:30]:
much like declutter, but, uh, we're decluttering the world now.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:35]:
Yes, we're decluttering. Oh yes, say it, say it, declutter that world. Yes.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:40]:
Yeah, God is working behind the scenes. We cannot imagine what's going on in the big picture. Maybe this is a good time to talk about my dog, Max.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:51]:
Yes.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:52]:
I was telling Lynnae earlier before we started recording that my dog Max, you know, he had to have his teeth cleaned. He was adopted and he wasn't necessarily taken care of very well. Not that having your dog's teeth cleaned mean anything, you know, is you're doing something wrong, but his was particularly bad and he had to have a tooth extracted and he was in pain. They gave him some medication, but that was making him feel funky and he just did not understand what was going on. So he would just sit there and stare into space and kind of yelp and, and cry and just shake a little bit. We didn't want to put him on the bed where we were. It was at night because he could jump off, right? So he was on the floor and he was— we were like, okay, maybe he just has to work it out. We fed him, we gave him soft food, we gave him the medication, we did all the things.

Sandy Kovach [00:26:40]:
But nothing was working. So I just got down there on the floor with him and just laid there next to him and just put my head up against his head and snuggled him a little bit. And eventually he calmed down enough to go to sleep. Pain medication allowed him to go to sleep after he was calm. And I was thinking, you know what, that's kind of how it can be with God sometimes. With all the stuff going on in the world, or maybe it's something that's going on in your personal life, there could be 100 things that you don't understand. But all you can do is sit there and stare into space and, um, maybe cry out. Maybe you're crying out to God, and God is the person that goes and snuggles up to you and puts his face against your face and calms you down.

Sandy Kovach [00:27:24]:
So I guess after all this talk about dealing with things in the world and things in our lives, that's a good reminder that God is there, and cry out to him, even if all you can do is sit on the floor and stare into space. Taste like my dog Max, who's, by the way, doing better now.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:41]:
That's his little heart. That's, that's the part. And that's when those— from what we said earlier too— those words like "thank you, God" or "help me, God," you know, from that power tidy, just start to kick in when you, you have no capacity to really do anything else but just cry or stare out in space, or you feel almost numb And that's when you start saying, "Help me, God." That's when God comes and cuddles up to you. You know, like you said, like you would, you know, like the, the perfect parent, the perfect father. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:28:16]:
Yeah, he is. And I hadn't had to do anything like that since, you know, my son was very young. When they're little guys and they're little girls, they— and they don't know. And that's kind of how we compare in God's eyes. We're his children. And he's here for all of us. And he loves all of us. And maybe pray for God to be cuddling up to some people who are hurting right now.

Sandy Kovach [00:28:35]:
You know, Lord, yeah, please cuddle up to my friend so-and-so.

Lanée Blaise [00:28:40]:
Yeah, this seems to be the perfect opportunity and segue to move into the last little component that we wanted to touch on today. And it was something that I had never heard before from a declutter person or a professional organizer, but Deanna Yates said pay attention to the inflow. And she meant kind of like clutter will sometimes sneak into your homes. You buy a whole bunch of stuff on Amazon, or you, you know, come back from the store and you start just dropping stuff everywhere, or, you know, your kids come home with papers and you just stick them somewhere. So clutter can sneak into our homes, but clutter can also sneak into our minds. And we want to make sure that we are very conscious of and that we're paying attention to the inflow and that we are willing to put a boundary up, a wall up to stop certain things from entering. Just start asking yourself a few little gentle questions. Who or what is influencing your thoughts? Why are you fixated on some of the things that you are— kind of spiraling on.

Lanée Blaise [00:29:54]:
Where did that fear come from? Now, the answer to the most of these might end up being dang ol' social media or the news, you know, because like, we definitely want to stay informed, but we have to be super careful, especially when you're tired or you're already vulnerable. Those things can seep in and leech in like a parasite and live in your brain, in your heart, in your mind, and end up affecting you in a negative way that being informed is a good thing, but being informed to the point where you're overwhelmed and you're— you get stuck in a— the abyss is not helping anyone. So make sure that you don't let yourself get caught in this. There's a scripture verse, Proverbs 4:23: Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. And so again, Always: pay attention to the inflow. Please stop all that scrolling before bedtime or doomscrolling before bedtime, because then your dreams will be, you know, affect— you know what I mean? You know, Sandy, you laughing and I'm laughing because we know that sometimes we do it. Yeah, it's just like, you know, a habit. Pick up the phone and just look at a few things before bed.

Lanée Blaise [00:31:11]:
Maybe a book. I don't know if you— if you pick up a book instead, it's, it's more predictable. Not a thriller book, but like maybe a devotional book, something to help you ease into your bedtime, ease into your dreams, ease into a nice restorative sleep. Not doom scrolling before bed. Please make sure you don't have long conversations with folks who love gossip and negativity. You know, I don't know about— I don't know what you got to say, where you, where you got to go, but I gotta— oh, okay, well, 'You take care, and I'm so sorry that— that you telling me all this, but I gotta go.' Yeah, all this again, it's not blessing me, it's not blessing them, it's not serving anyone. It is just gossip, it's just busybodiness. Protect your calendar.

Lanée Blaise [00:32:02]:
Time is precious. Make sure that you are really monitoring your time, your space, your brains, your thoughts. Again, if we are not careful and we are only consuming the problems, the evil, the negative, then we will not have capacity for the solutions, for the hope, for the movement forward, for the way that God has for us. We won't have strength left for the purpose that God has us for. God did not ask us to save the whole world. That is his job. And when we start trying to save everybody and everything, and, and we look at all the issues that are facing the entire world and we try to worry about them and solve them, we are trying to put ourselves in the place of God, and we are missing on— God placed us somewhere specific, and God wanted us to bring light and wisdom and solutions there. And we missed our assignment because we were too busy trying to do his job.

Sandy Kovach [00:33:07]:
Oh, and the way to fight hate is love. I mean, we've heard that a lot. It's biblical. Not stirring the pot. And I know there are some folks that not only like to post on social media, but comment and get into arguments. And I guess if you like to do that, but you know what, you're not going to change anybody's mind. You're just going to upset yourself and stir the pot some more and open up for people to say stupid things to you. And some of them might be actually so insulting that they could really affect you.

Sandy Kovach [00:33:45]:
I mean, do you wanna get into all that? People on social media? Because there are people that just— I know it's nobody that listens to this podcast, but they're— they just sit there and wait for something to argue about.

Lanée Blaise [00:33:58]:
I don't know, they need to go to law school and become a lawyer.

Sandy Kovach [00:34:00]:
There you go.

Lanée Blaise [00:34:02]:
Advocate for, for those who can't advocate for themselves and learn all the proper terms and procedures to argue well and make— yeah, to be fair, this is that thing like high school Lanay. High school Lanay loved to debate anybody any day of the week till I was blue in the face. And my mother was like, don't you get tired of just picking fights and arguing with, like, us in the family too. Like, we're here at home trying to have dinner and you just ruin the dinner by arguing. So that was old Lynnae. This Lynnae does not like that. It actually gives me angst and frustration to do all that arguing. And it's not like I won't argue, but if I catch myself, I, I try to pull it back.

Lanée Blaise [00:34:45]:
I'm like, okay, let's not be high school Lynnae. And lots of times it makes people— I'm going to say this too— it makes the other person double down even more on their dumb argument.

Sandy Kovach [00:34:55]:
That's right. That's right. Because they don't want to be wrong. And if that's most of what's going in on— and when you learn debates, and I'm terrible debater, but my husband's a really good debater. We used to get in these arguments. I'm like, you're just playing debate games. I'm walking out of here. But when you learn debate, and I'm going to assume that you— did you study debate?

Lanée Blaise [00:35:13]:
I took it in high school. Okay.

Sandy Kovach [00:35:15]:
Yep. You have to learn to argue both sides of that. Is that not correct? Yes. So, it doesn't really matter what you're even saying. It's just how to convince somebody.

Lanée Blaise [00:35:23]:
Just back and forth. That was always baffling to me in debate too. Yeah. So, I've spent all this research and this is the way I feel about the point. But now I have to go back also and argue the other side for the sake of knowledge and learning. And then you also have to— for rebuttal, you have to be able to take in new information that you learned and argue that. So like I said, the courtroom is a place for that.

Sandy Kovach [00:35:47]:
Yeah. Or, you know, be a commentator, uh, or we could start a debate podcast,

Lanée Blaise [00:35:53]:
but let's— yes, but let's not, because I don't want that in my inflow.

Sandy Kovach [00:35:58]:
Yeah, me neither.

Lanée Blaise [00:35:59]:
I don't want that in my inflow. I don't want it in my inbox. I want peace. That's, that's something we didn't necessarily say in this episode, but the purpose of this episode is peace. We want peace. We want clarity. We want God to have enough room and margin to be able to nudge us, speak to us, communicate to us, lead us, without God having to wade through all the clutter and the muck and the angst that we have allowed to flow in. I want more of God to flow in and less junk to flow in, and I want the junk to flow out.

Sandy Kovach [00:36:42]:
That's right. Fill yourself up with things like scripture and praise music, gospel music, or whatever kind of music you like to listen to, instrumental music. But mostly what you're saying is give yourself the margin by removing the clutter and the negativity, and you will be able to focus more on what God has for you and how God is speaking.

Lanée Blaise [00:37:03]:
All these things lead us back to— I want us to imagine ourselves waking up in the morning with calmer thoughts, going to bed at night with the ability to hear God's gentle, soft, calm whisper voice telling us to be stronger, to be faith-filled, to be more loving, to be full of truth instead of junk. God has invited us into a life of abundance, savoring and living that life.. And it all starts with little small intentional steps. And it just needs a clear, uncluttered mind to thrive.

Sandy Kovach [00:37:48]:
Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't listened to 7 Simple Ideas to Help You Get Organized, that's the one that we were referring to a lot and kind of thinking about decluttering our mind. In this case, organizer Deanna Yates really helped us with organizing our homes and schedules. So if that's something that you wanna check out, it's the episode right before this. Hopefully you'll visit us online at imagineyourselfpodcast.com and connect with us on social media. We also would love it if you could subscribe and share, make a comment, all the things. We love hearing from you. All the links are in the show notes.