What if slowing down could help you CONNECT more?
The amazing Robyn Townsend shares beautiful ways of how to make this happen…
Hey y’all. Welcome to More Lovin, the podcast that brings more laughter, light, and love into everyday life. I’m LeAnn Austin, and around here, love isn’t just something we talk about, it’s something we practice through the More Lovin Method: MOVE. CONNECT. LOVE. Three simple choices that can change your day, and over time, your life. Let’s practice a little more lovin. Here we go.
Today’s episode #244: Slowing Down with Robyn Townsend
One of my favorite things is getting to know people who practice the More Lovin Method in their own unique way. It’s inspiring to see how MOVE. CONNECT. LOVE. show up in each person’s story.
We have the incredible Robyn joining us today to share some wisdom, encouragement, and more lovin with us.
All right Robyn, tell us a little bit about you. Well, I am a mom, and a wife, and a dance instructor, and a spiritual director. And actually, LeAnn and I met at a tap class that I do for adults probably seven or eight years ago. Has it been that long? It’s been a minute. I was trying to remember that too. Okay, it’s been a minute. Yeah.
I think when we met, I was about to go into a really hard season, and so you picked up on my energy shift over, you know, over time, and just walked with me through such a dark place. You were one of my people that God sent, just to help me get through a really hard time.
But during that season, I ended up getting trained to be a spiritual director. And so now that’s kind of the bulk of what I’m doing with my days. Pretty much an empty nester. Our baby is a senior this year, so she’ll be gone soon. So time of transition.
I love that so, so, so much, and just the fact that you are an incredible tap dance instructor. Like, how that all worked together that I found you and connected with you and got to do that, because that has been such a fun thing in my life. And then for you to take a difficult situation, well, lots of circumstances, and turn it into becoming a spiritual director is unbelievable. I love that so much. That’s really cool.
I guess it was something somebody had posted the other day, and it said, “I don’t know how you survived that.” And the response was, “I didn’t. I’m a completely different person.” Oh. That stuck with me, ’cause it’s like, yes, you have seen the before-and-after parts of my life, before the trauma and then after, so yeah. So beautiful for sure.
Well, how do you practice the More Lovin Method in your life or your business? So what does MOVE. CONNECT. LOVE. look like in your everyday life?
Well, I am an Enneagram 3, and what that means is I am a doer. I love to dream up fun things to do and create them and make them happen. I love to check boxes. I love to feel successful at the end of the day. And so for me, more love has looked like slowing down and really stopping a lot of the… And I don’t think it’s, like, the actual physical movement, ’cause I’m still very active physically, but more just that inner drive to prove that I’m worthy of love because of all my accomplishments.
Like, that really drove me the first half of life. And now, I think it took, like, having everything stripped away. Everything that I wanted so bad to be successful at ended up just a big mess, and then that kind of brought me to a place where I was able to realize, okay, there’s a lot of things going on inside of me that are really unhealthy, and I’m missing my people, I’m missing connections because I’m so driven to do and perform and produce that people are getting in my, you know, people got in my way.
They were, it was inefficient to connect with somebody. It was slowing me down to really have long, deep conversations. And so I think that I missed a lot in that first half of life. But I’m thankful for the fallout, ’cause I am a different person, literally. My days now are spent having really long, deep conversations with people that are in really dark places.
I love that. You know, when I got the training, I thought, “This is not gonna work. I am gonna, I am gonna be looking at the clock, and I’m gonna be, like, bored.” But I have found that just receiving care from others and receiving empathy from my own spiritual director, I was able to turn around and give that to others, naturally.
Because it was so life-changing for me that it became easy to give to other people, ’cause I realized this is powerful. So I slow down now, and I used to walk so fast that my family would say, “I’m never walking with you.” I used to be like we’re trying to run a race, and now I go for long walks, and I just enjoy every part of it, and I smell every flower, and I stop and look at bugs. And you know, it’s not about accomplishing that workout and getting my heart rate up anymore.
I love that so, so, so much. Just slow down. What a beautiful way to create. I mean, like you said, you’re still moving, but you’re creating more, so much more of that connection and love in your world for doing that. Yeah. Oh, that’s beautiful. And with, God, and yes, with God in me. Yes. You know, I’ve always longed for but just didn’t really understand how to really make space for it. I knew how to read every book and you know, do every Bible study. And I knew what was supposed to be the good little Christian girl things to do, but I really did not know how to connect to myself and to what was going on inside of me emotionally until, you know, the grief and the pain and the darkness was so great that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Yeah. So tender. Thank you for sharing that Robyn. Thank you.
So tell us, what’s something you’ve grown to love and appreciate about yourself and why? So this is really interesting that you asked that because I have just really noticed lately I am so drawn to children, and they are so drawn to me.
Almost… It’s almost laughable. Like, I will get emails from moms, and they’re just like, “My daughter, you know, can’t stop talking about you, and how you make her feel in class, and how seen and loved you have made her feel.” And it just continues to be this theme in my life where children are healing for me, and being around children.
I kind of, I get a little bit frustrated when people rush past them and kind of, don’t let them talk. Like, I almost feel like when I meet a kid, I want the mom to just, “Okay, let me take it from here.” ‘Cause I don’t want the mom to tell me, “This is how she is, and this is what she likes.” I’m just fascinated by this little human being in front of me, and I wanna hear what her thoughts are, and how she’s feeling, and what she did this morning.
I’m just very… I remember what it felt like to be a child. I remember the people that made me feel seen, and, like, really slowed down enough to get to know me. And so I think there’s something that God’s doing with that, and I think, you know, I may end up spending more time with kids in spiritual direction, sitting with children that may be going through, you know, difficult seasons or whatever.
But I do think there’s something about, like really seeing and being present that they can teach us. Oh, 100% yes. And how beautiful for you to be working with kids, and dancing, and all different kinds of things, and then helping them feel safe and loved, and being able to do all of these things, just creating that connection with them. I love that so much. Yeah. Beautiful.
All right, well what helps you create meaningful connection with yourself, with others, and with God? So this one I was thinking about the times in my life when I have felt most connected to others, and myself, and God of course. And I was thinking about camping and hiking. Our family hikes a lot. We backpack, so we hike in with our backpacks and set up camp. And it’s like nobody’s on their phones. We’re all out in nature.
And nature for me is so healing because I can’t control it. There’s this sense that, oh, I’m really not needed. Nothing I do is really gonna change anything here, so I can just be. I can just be me. And yeah, during the harder seasons of life, nature has been extremely healing for my body and my mind. And even now I’ve tried to start going for walks, but we’re, our house backs up to 90 acres of greenbelt, which is a huge reason why we bought it, and there’s trails in our neighborhood that are just beautiful.
And so I have started going on really long, like two-hour walks, and not taking my phone. And just, wow … trying to hear the sounds. And what comes up in those times is childhood memories of… I grew up in the Deep South, South Mississippi. I mean, we never spent time indoors. We played outside sunup to sundown.
And all those sounds, my body is flooded with just core memories of time spent with family and summers at my grandmother’s house, and climbing trees. And so I just wonder a lot of times when I sit with people that are struggling, so many of us are… Anxiety is, you know, so prevalent right now, and I just have wondered if our disconnection from nature is a big part of that.
You know, my mom, we had a garden, like grew our own vegetables, and not many people do that anymore. Even just a riding lawnmower as opposed to a push, it’s just a different… A lot, you know, our lives are so different now, and I just wonder if a lot of our physical and emotional issues, you know, stem from not really having our hands in the dirt and, being around in nature and seeing God and His, you know, the way He cares for the tiniest of creatures. There’s so much of that.
Oh, I think you are 100% spot on. It is that, even just going outside for a few minutes, getting some sunshine, seeing all the beautiful things and the little whatever scurrying around and all of that. I love that that has been such an integral part of your life and has created connections with everything. That’s beautiful. That’s awesome.
There’s a story I have about a meaningful connection. When I was getting the training for spiritual direction, one of the girls in our tap class was managing a bed and breakfast not far from here. And so she had asked me did I wanna come help her, you know, kind of an assistant manage. And that was in the middle of all of the trauma that I was living through. And I immediately was like, “Please, I need to do something. I have too much time on my hands. I’m not sleeping well at night.” So I went and cleaned and cooked and managed that 10-room inn with her.
And during that time, God came to me through those guests in crazy ways. And it became almost for me, I mean, that if my husband would say, “Well, who’d you meet today?” You know, “What, what happened today?” But one of those cases, one of those instances, I answered the phone and it was a young lady, and I could tell she had a baby in her lap or something, and she, her voice was kind of shaky and she said, “Do you have any rooms available?”
And immediately my first thought was, “Oh, this is a young mom, and she is about to lose her mind. She needs a night away.” And so, I mean, that was just what I thought. And so I told her what we had available, and she ended up booking. And then shortly after, her sister called and said, “I’m Julia’s sister, and I need to have flowers delivered to her room.”
And so my wheels are turning. I’m like, something’s up with this girl. And so that night all the guests had checked in. I was waiting to go home. I was waiting for her to check in, and she shows up, and she walks in the door, and she just really quietly walks over and I said, “You’re Julia.” And she said, “Yes.”
And she’s, big crocodile tears. She said, “Today is my one-year anniversary, and my husband died of COVID three months after we got married, and I had no idea what to do with this day.” And so that was not her child. It was her nephew, come to find out, that she was, you know, had in her hands. But she stayed there that night.
I got her situated. And I don’t remember. I think I actually stood up, went around the desk and just embraced her. And we just had a moment. Did not know this girl. And so that night, I go sit on my front porch and I just cannot get her off of my mind. And I would give the guests my cellphone in case they needed anything, ’cause nobody stayed there at night. It was just the guests.
And so, I just texted her and I sent her, I think it was like a liturgy for missing someone, and she immediately sent back, “This was just exactly what I needed to read,” and, “Thank you so much.” And then I just sat there for a minute and I just heard in my spirit, “Tell me about him.”
And I remember hitting send and thinking, “This could go one of two ways. This could go really well, or she could be like, ‘You’re weird,’ and, ‘What in the world?'” And she immediately texted back this really long text about who he was and what he loved and just the kind of man he was.
And we just started talking about her husband. And so I just said, “Hey, I’m doing this spiritual direction program. I would love to sit with you in your pain if you’re open to that. I need practicum hours.” And she ended up coming to the house shortly after, and we sat on my porch swing and cried, and it was beautiful.
And just last weekend, I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. What? She was getting trained to be a spiritual director. Her first husband was a pastor, and so she went through the program, got trained to be a spiritual director. We are best friends. Like, she is half Jewish and just, we’re so close now.
But she always says, “You were who God was sent to step into that darkness with me.” And so many people were, they didn’t know what to say, and it made them nervous. I love that you were willing to do that. And we’re super close now, and she’s remarried, and just a beautiful story. But all of that to say, I think, and I tell her, I would not have been able to do that had I not lived through the hell and darkness that I have lived through. I probably couldn’t have been brave enough to go there with her.
And so that to me is just how God takes our woundedness and our darkness and uses it to help others heal. Oh, 100%. And I love how you… ‘Cause a lot of people, especially when death is involved, are like, “I don’t know what to say,” so they pull back, and they don’t talk to, you know, whoever. They avoid them. And so you being willing, and I’m sure this is a beautiful example of you being willing to talk to her and being inspired to ask and to share things, totally life changing. I love that Robyn.
Yeah. Well, you did that for me too. Well, you know, sort of, “How are you?” And I knew you didn’t just want a pat answer. You really wanted to know. Yeah. And that can mean so much to somebody in pain. Yes, really getting to talk about things. It’s gonna make me cry, instead of just surface level stuff. It’s like, no, let’s get into the heart of what’s going on here. That’s so tender. Yeah. Awesome.
All right, so tell me what’s your favorite quote about love and how it has shaped your life and your relationships? So this is a psychotherapist turned spiritual director who actually was mentored by Thomas Merton, so James Finley. And he says, “In the process of healing, in a moment where a person risks sharing what hurts the most in the presence of someone who will not invade them or abandon them, they unexpectedly come upon within themselves the pearl of great price. That is, they experience the preciousness of themselves in their fragility. This experience is a very profound experience that in the very brokenness that one is trying to get past, we unexpectedly come upon the already precious nature of ourself in our brokenness.”
I love that quote so much, and I’ve seen it happen in my own life, and I’ve seen it happen with so many of my directees. We tend to operate in a place of shame. The things that have happened to us, even if it wasn’t our fault, it’s clearly nothing we did. It’s still, that shame is such a strong voice. And if someone can sit with you in that and open that locked door, and open that door of that thing that you have exiled inside of yourself and said, “I’m not going there, it’s too painful, it’s too dark. I cannot open that door.” If you have someone who can open that door with you and walk in and lead the way in moving toward that wounded place inside of you with absolute grace, absolute love, perfect love, no shame, no judgment, no trying to fix, together that place can be healed and touched. And then you begin to see how precious that part of you is in its woundedness.
Oh yes. It is creating that compassion, that safety, all of that. I love that you are doing this now Robyn. That is so, so, so cool. Thank you. It’s extremely… I am in awe every day. I’m in awe of who God brings to me. I’m in awe of the ways that he ministers to people and touches people through me.
It’s, you know, I think before the horrible thing, capital H, capital T, in my own life, I think that I didn’t know how to really see him. I didn’t know how. I had experienced him, but once that thing happened, I couldn’t feel him. You know, a lot of my struggle was I was mad. I was like, “I didn’t go anywhere. I’m still here. You’ve left me.” And it really felt like he’d abandoned me in this dark place, but he continually sent people to me.
And when I began to see it, like this person sitting in front of me is actually Jesus in the flesh to me right now. That changed everything. Yeah, it’s amazing when we open our eyes up to the little tender mercies, the little tiny miracles that are happening because sometimes we just don’t see them ’cause too much crap is going on.
But when we’re just a tiny bit open to it, then we start to see, wait a second, yes, God is in all the details and Jesus is walking with us and all of that. Yeah, for sure. I love it. But the better you get at it, it’s like a practice. Where is he today? Yes. When, the quote, I can’t think of who said it, but ishe said, “God comes to us in the form of our lives.” So it’s like all the little ways that he’s coming to me.
So now I wake up… I mean, there were days where I can remember long stretches where I would wake up and think, “I don’t wanna be here. I just don’t wanna be here.” And I wasn’t suicidal. I just didn’t want to be in this world. It was so dark and painful.
And then slowly, as he began to show me those tiny ways he was coming to me. It turned into I woke up with this expectation, and it’d be like I couldn’t get up soon enough. Like how early can I get up? I’m ready to see, like how is he gonna come to me today? In what million little ways is he gonna show up. And show me He loves me. So that was a huge, huge shift.
Yes. And I love that you said it’s a practice. It’s practicing that. It’s intentionally looking for Him in the details, like you said. I love that. All right, so when you hear the words MOVE. CONNECT. LOVE. which one are you leaning into most in this season of your life, and why?
It’s funny because I really definitely connect. Like, I feel like that’s the one, that people will reach out. I mean, my calendar, I sit down on Sunday night, there’s nothing on the calendar for the next week, and then Monday morning the texts start coming in. “Can we go for a walk?” “Can we have coffee?” “My world just fell apart. I need to talk to you.” And it’s like, I love that. I love the surprise of that. I love the wonder, I love the unexpectedness.
Every day I’m like, “Who’s gonna reach out? Or who am I gonna sense, you know, I need to reach out to?” And so just having the space to do that is such a gift. Like, I can say yes to every one of those. Almost every time I can say, “Yeah, let’s do it.” And what’s so interesting is that the more healed I become and the more whole I am becoming, more people are drawn to me. And I’ve been surprised by that.
Even in my classes there’s a different energy now, and I think it’s because I’m not performing, I’m not trying to manipulate people to like me anymore. I’m just being fully who God’s created me to be, and there’s something refreshing about that. And so I think, you know, with the classes, it’s like movement is happening, which is so healing and so therapeutic and so good for anxiety and nervous system regulation and all of that, but connection is happening at a deeper level.
You know, we’re now, we’ve got our little text stream. All the ladies adult tap class, we’re texting each other and celebrating all the life moments. Somebody just had a baby and somebody’s getting married now. And it’s just been fascinating to watch the intertwining of those, the connection, the movement, the love, all of it.
Yeah. I love that. And I think when, as you’ve explained everything, like, when we have that love and compassion for ourselves, it’s so much easier to share that with everyone else. Yes. Yes. So all right, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you’d love to share, and where can our listeners connect with you and learn more about what you do?
Okay. So this is something to think about. I love how you always say, “Hmm, something to think about.” I love that. I just read about a study that was done in the 1930s, Department of Defense. If you could look it up, it’s called the Einstein-Ropalski study or whatever. They took two complete strangers and they put ’em in a room together, and they had ’em connect to, you know, just get to know each other for a minute.
And then they separated ’em, and they put ’em each in a Faraday cage. And a Faraday cage blocks out any kind of energy, so no radio frequencies can get through, no electromagnetic. You know, it’s a blockage of all that. And then they hooked them each up to an EEG. And then they shined a penlight on one of their pupils.
One person got a penlight in their eyes. The EEG registered the same electromagnetic activity in their brains, and the other person that did not have the penlight shone in their eyes, their pupils dilated at the same. So they kept doing this until they were 50 miles apart, and this continued to happen So what that tells me is that we are more connected than we have ever imagined, and now science is proving it.
And in the past, it would’ve been seen as, like, mystical, you know, paranormal. The mom is in New York, the baby’s at home in LA, and the mom wakes up out of a dead sleep and calls home, and the baby’s head is stuck in the slats of the… You know, it’s like those kind of stories used to be paranormal, and now we’re seeing there’s actually a science behind it, and we are more connected than we’ve ever realized.
And so my healing will affect my people. And that, to me, you know, when so many things were going wrong in my family and there was nothing I could do to help anybody, that brought me so much peace because what I’m doing to heal my inner wounds and my own wholeness, it’s going to affect everybody that I’m connected to, everybody I’ve ever spoken to.
So that, to me, just feels like magic. Yeah. Like, okay, this is a beautiful thing, and I can do this work because it’s for the healing of the world. Yes I just love that whole idea. And it makes me pray differently. Now it’s more like, you know, I want to remember love and light and goodness, and hold that in my body. And I believe my people are gonna feel it in that moment. Hmm, yeah.
My healing will affect my people. Hmmm, something to think about and practice. I love that, Robyn. And I’ll put in the show notes as well links to your things as well. Is there anything you want to say about that? Listen, companioningcenter.org as a spiritual director in the southeast, so they have their directors listed according to region, so you can find me there and book a 30-minute consultation and see if it’s something you want to do.
Ah. I love it. And if you live close to Georgia and you want to do tap dancing, Robyn is the best. Come join us. Yes, I love it. Well, I hope today’s conversation reminds you that there’s no one right way to practice the More Lovin Method. We each get to live it in our own unique way. Thank you Robyn, for spending time with us and sharing your heart today. So grateful.
Before we go, grab one thing from today’s conversation and remember the More Lovin Method: MOVE. CONNECT. LOVE. Here’s to a little more slowing down and a whole lot more lovin. You got this!
Thanks for spending part of your day with me. If you’re ready to put the More Lovin Method into practice and create more of what matters most in your life, I’d love to help you through one-on-one coaching. You can learn more at leannaustin.com.
Because around here, more lovin isn’t just something we talk about, it’s something we practice. Have a good one y’all.