How to Stay Present in the Here & Now with Jeanne Stevens. Episode 211

Today I’m joined by my friend Jeanne Stevens — speaker, leader, writer, and all‑around powerhouse. And yes, I jumped right in and asked her everything about her trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro. Mt. Kilimanjaro! It’s just as incredible as you’re imagining.

Jeanne shared the hilarious moments, the hard ones, and the deeply personal ways God met her on that mountain. She even wonders if her book, What’s Here Now?, first began taking shape during that climb. The message is so good: stop rehashing the past, stop rehearsing the future, and start receiving the present.

This conversation is a beautiful reminder that God is at work right where we are. Jeanne shows us how staying present can change everything.

Jeanne is the founding and co‑lead pastor of Soul City Church in Chicago and previously served at Willow Creek and North Point. She’s passionate about helping people wake up to their purpose and live with wholehearted freedom. She and her husband, Jarrett, live in Chicago with their two kids.

Listen in to learn more about:

• Valuable questions to ask ourselves as a way to come into our “now” moments often throughout the day, 
• How the present is where God lives, and it is where God invites us to live with Him.
• The differences between our automatic self and our authentic self.

Listen now:

Click here to listen on: iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify.

Favorite quotes:

When things don’t go the way you believe they should go, it is packed with all the very best learning.

It was such a great inner teacher for me to not make it to the top and to unwind all of what that meant in my life.

We are so inclined to think about what happened, to go to the ‘what was, the what ifs and all I had was what IS’ ,this present moment – here on the mountain. And the thing to do each day was to put one foot in front of the other and to be present with that.

I was doing the work of God but the work of God was deteriorating in me.

What I began to realize and recognize in my own life  was that the places  where I was most hanging out were in the past and in my future. I was all about rehashing things that already happened or rehearsing things that had not yet happened and I wasn’t allowing myself to be present to this NOW moment.

I need to locate myself to this location and check into this present moment.

In this episode, I answered this question:

1. How can I calm myself down when I am feeling stressed so often? (44:17)

Links to great things we discussed:

• Mindjogger – App
• Jeanne Stevens – Website
• Jeanne Stevens – Instagram
•  Holy Spirit Come Song – Patrick Mayberry
• Inventing Anna – TV Series
• The Dropout – TV Series
•  I guess I haven’t learnt that yet – Shauna Niequist Book 
• Amazon – Ziploc bag organizer
• Amazon – Milk Frother

Hope you loved this episode! Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and slap some stars on a review! 🙂 

xo,

Alli