Reinvent means to remake or make over, as in a different form. In the last four years, we’ve made our lives what they are today, and it’s a completely different than before.

What we were then and what we are now is a dimmer switch that has gone from producing light to full illumination. (I mean there was nothing really WRONG before, except that we didn’t know MORE was available…and now we know and are living it.)

I want to share with you how our little family is REinventing life…..because it’s nothing like it used to be. Now we are:

ü  Aware of our purpose and what we’re born to do

ü  Free from the expectations of this hectic world

ü  Empowered to live an abundant life

So, how did this happen? I will write volumes on this subject, but let’s just start with three keys to our REinvention. I hope that by inviting you to peek through the keyhole of our life you will be inspired to REinvent as well!

1. Our REinvention began by going back. I mean WAY back. We quite simply discovered (and then returned to) the original design for our lives.

We started to believe – for the first time – that there was, in fact a Technicolor plan for our lives that far outshone the safe, predictable, black and white existence most folks are living.

We began to understand that each of us has a unique design and that we were actually built – our whole family, and for that matter, the human family – and sent to solve this world’s problems.

We started looking around. It was what I call a “gopher hole moment” where we popped our head above ground – after a lifetime of subterranean living – and we scanned the scene in the land of the living.

Everything began to change in our minds once we became empowered with the truth of who we really are and what we’re here to do.

Progressively, as our minds expanded to perceive our original design, we began to see how there was a better – original – design for literally every area of life! Everything from the food we were eating to the way we were parenting to the financial choices began to be challenged. The apple cart was tipping and there was no collecting the runaway fruit.


As we began to see that what we had been living with was less than what we were destined for, we
began to get hungry for what that original plan really was – for our business, our household, our children and their education, our finances, our health, and our marriage. And the more we surrendered to this challenging new way of thinking and living, the more we came alive. This new life was the oxygen our lungs were built to breathe.

I can’t even begin to condense the last few years of radical change in this article, but I can tell you that there is MORE than you may have ever dreamed…just waiting for you on the other side of reason…which is why I have to share with you this second key to REinvention…..

2. We also agreed (one critical choice at a time) that we were no longer going to do business as usual. We weren’t going to serve systems or expectations. 

If you want to live your dream life, you are going to have to make some sacrifices. One of our sacrifices started a little over 6 years ago when our first son Nash was born. Trevor was led to leave his employment as a journeyman electrician and stay home with our children. I was the one who was nervous about this whole proposition. After all, this left me as the breadwinner and us without insurance and a “safety net.”

We made the plunge anyway and broke away from the familiar, the double paychecks, and traditional roles. It took a few years for each of us to get in our groove with our unconventional arrangement, but this one decision (and the struggles we went through to protect this decision) has opened the floodgates of blessing in our lives. Our boys spend their days digging in the garden, building bows and arrows with Dad, and learning about motors, hard work, and character.

We also started freeing ourselves up to break out of the familiar, the “mold.” Now that we had released our dependence on a steady income, we actually became freer to take on new kinds of assignments. Instead of putting our head down and running faster on the hamster wheel of production (fearing that we now had “less”) we consciously chose to believe we had and are MORE.

We started allowing ourselves to say “yes” to opportunities that aligned with our purpose. I started teaching an entrepreneurship course because it had been the gateway to our REinvention, and I felt led to share it with others. Also, after a decade of being asked and refusing, I finally said “yes” to mentoring people that were presented to me.

I never could have planned on these two emerging new activities. They were not part of my former “marketing plan” for Restoring Order. But when we freed ourselves from servitude, we actually opened up possibilities that have expanded our reach and impact. I promise you: if you have ever felt enslaved to “the way things are” – you, too, can REinvent your life by releasing your hold on what’s “safe.”

And the third key of REinvention…it’s really about letting go and living whole….

3. We began embracing an integrated life.

We make our home and our business at Dream Acres, our farm here in Sherwood, Oregon. We call it Dream Acres because it’s a dream-come-true. Four years ago we moved into this property, which I had admired for 12 years and we miraculously acquired it alongside my parents, who bought the adjoining property. Now my little boys get to grow up across the orchard from Nana and Papa.

 

From team meetings in our conference room to the latest photo or remodeling project, to hosting tea parties, potlucks, and barn events, Dream Acres is truly “Grand Central Station.” It’s a gathering place, a farm, a homeschool (I’ll have to share that will you later in some other missive), a launching pad, and an equipping center. From the tree swing to the chicken coop to the garden, we have returned to what real life is all about.

We’ve finally given ourselves permission to live a blended life.

 

We’ve let go of “his jobs” and “her jobs.” We partner in life, business, ministry, parenting, and hospitality. He cooks, I clean. If it weren’t for Trevor, I would starve. He knows just how I like my tea. I handle all the mail, all the paperwork, all the bills.

(Want to see more about our integrated life? Watch Vicki Norris’ Dream Life on our YouTube Channel!)

We have allowed the expectations that the world puts on us to fall, one by one, until we’ve come into a wide open meadow of abundant living.

To REinvent your life, allow the exacting separations of the various areas of your life to dissolve. Choose instead an integrated life where you create time for family, dreaming, nature, and nurture.

Begin to seek what the original plan was for your life…and hunt it down! This plan is key to your integration.

When you step past the unspoken, stifling “rules” of modern-day living, you will find that you were never meant to live in the boxes that we allow to define us. You were never meant to be labeled and dichotomized.

You are a witty invention – a divine creation – that is just waiting to be discovered and unleashed. And once you begin to live out your design, it will flow into every area of your life and breach all false walls.

Come on, isn’t it time to REinvent yourself, your family, your life? Begin with these three keys I’ve shared and “stay tuned to this channel” for more inspiration on living a restored life!! We are going to start sharing Primer to Living the Dream Life blog posts to help you REinvent your own life.  

Writing to you from the other side of “reason” (and loving it!)

~Vicki Norris

 

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