Flourish in a World Full of People

By Marnie Spencelayh

Spending time with toxic people, rehashing old conflicts, and gossiping like we're back on the school yard are traps we can easily fall into from time to time.  These habits get in the way of our ability to live peaceful, abundant lives. 

Flourish in a World Full of People is the gentle guide to navigate the most significant relationships in your life: your family, your colleagues and the relationship with yourself. Filled with simple life lessons, Flourish in a World Full of People hands you the ideas and tools to live in harmony with others while creating your own life.

Flourish in a World Full of People encourages readers to:

-Complete practical exercises proven to help you communicate clearly and set boundaries to live peacefully, even with the most difficult people.
-Explore the strength in forgiveness and uncover the power it presents for your life.
-The vital steps to take during our most painful challenges and how to let go of the hurt.
Flourish in a World Full of People creates a loving path to live the dream life you want backed by science and lessons of faith. Stop drifting and choose the life you'd like to start living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springboard Active Learning
• Release date: Jun 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999564513

Book preview

Lessons in

Rocky Places

Relationships with other people in your life can be, to say the least, rocky.

They are probably the most challenging part of your life.

Every time you begin to feel good about yourself, someone snatches that feeling. Your kids, best friends, co-workers, extended family, the loud guy on his cell phone, the crazy driver, neighbors, people in line and (no surprise) your significant other.

Every day you deal with situations that range from annoying to downright confrontational. With each frustration, the next one is magnified until the smallest bother can set us off. Suddenly, we’re grouchy, detached, annoyed, impatient, and frustrated.

For thirty years many of my days started like this:

Mrs. Spencelayh, the high school kids are having a shaving cream fight in the classroom!

Marnie, Jenny’s mom is here wondering if her daughter can skip every Wednesday and if you can make that happen now.

A bear has been seen in the forest. A parent has already told all the children to stay inside.

Marnie, the kids in my class are crying because they are scared about a bear.

Marnie, the school board chairman needs your principal’s report this morning.

Ma’am, I don’t care what the guy told you, the driveway needs blacktop and it will cost $4,000.

Mrs. Spencelayh, the boys are spitting water… in the girl’s washroom.

I would be a better principal than you!

You’re the best principal, ever!

I thought, Is it really only 9:00 a.m.? I need a coffee!

Dealing with the decisions, yelling, fun, indignities, unfairness and hilarity evolved over the years into methods that gave me reassurance that I could flourish every day, no matter the person or situation.

Use my experiences to help you to improve your relationships and bring you more peace no matter what your circumstances are. Follow these simple suggestions and you can flourish like a flower that grows up in the middle of a rocky place.

I created and ran a couple of independent schools for almost 30 years. These were some of the most rewarding as well as challenging days of my life. I dealt with annoyances and confrontations constantly, but I loved being a principal. The hardest times changed me the most and usually involved relationships with other people.

The reason I founded these schools was partly because I wanted to be able to find more exciting ways of educating children. While school was sometimes challenging for me, becoming a teacher became my heart’s desire when I was about five years old.

Overseeing something bigger than my life also appealed to my adventure-seeking personality. I loved organizing fund raisers, musicals, field trips, and even staff meetings.

It wasn’t long before I learned that being the principal was as much about building relationships as it was about teaching kids. Parents didn’t always know what their children needed, and it was up to me, and the teachers that I hired, to draw out the strengths and challenge the weaknesses in our students. Helping parents and teachers to work together, teaching children to play and work in groups, and becoming a leader that encouraged everyone was my goal.

Of course, I didn’t know this or do it on purpose at the beginning. Living life day by day forced me to solve problems. I discovered I needed to better understand and deal with people if I was going to have the kind of life we all dream of, one filled with peace, fulfillment, and a joy that comes from inside ourselves and not from our circumstances.

The more I worked on finding solutions, the better my life became. My frustrations with little annoyances lasted for a shorter time. When conflicts arose, I began to see why they happened and how to deal with them.

I’m not a psychologist. I’m just an observer of relationships, including my own. The lessons in this book are directed toward individuals who are unhappy with at least one of their relationships and want to make a change but don’t know how.

One important purpose of this book is for you to experience shalom, which is the Hebrew word for peace. According to Welsh author Roy Godwin in The Way of Blessing, shalom has multiple meanings, including ideas around peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare, and tranquility.

I am learning to live well and find shalom in a world full of people and my greatest wish is for you to learn with me.

For some of us, school is almost a bad word! Your memories of those days might be painful. If you are someone who loved school, you sometimes may wish your life could be simple again like it was then. Either way, we’re in school for our whole lives.

We have so much to learn about ourselves, other people, and what it means to be alive. You already know a lot about living, but I encourage you to keep learning, to take responsibility for your choices, and to continue to become better. Be more peaceful, more fulfilled, and more of the person you were created to be.

Elementary, My Dear Watson

Let’s go back to where most of us received our first hard lessons in getting along with others—elementary school. We learned many things there that helped to make us who we are now.

You can’t get through schoolyard days without emotionally bumping into others. She hogs the swing all recess. They won’t let me play. I want to be first! These are the kinds of complaints we heard every day at school.

Is being an adult any different?

The swing being hogged could be the TV remote. I always hated watching Saturday night hockey games chosen by my dad and brothers. Of course, back then there was no remote, just legs!

That left out feeling doesn’t go away when you leave school. You might feel irritated when you don’t get an invitation to your friend’s wedding. Maybe you get angry enough to stop talking to her.

Now that I’m an adult, it’s still exciting to be at the front of the line. I try to find the shortest line onto the ferry or through the store checkout. The person who gets in front of me causes me a few moments of irritation. I want to be first!

Back to the playground. I’ve heard people talk about the terrible feeling of waiting while two captains picked their teams for the lunchtime ball game. We all knew someone would be picked last but no one wanted to be that person.

If you were consistently picked last, you had a few choices. You could practice the sport until your muscles ached. You could accept that you were bad at sports but go out to play anyway. You could choose not to participate and find something else to do.

Of course, if you were the one who got to be first captain, second pick, you were the king of the schoolyard!

In the elementary grades, girls often have popularity contests with each other. We all want to be loved and having a best friend is essential for that.

The new girl in the class disrupts the status quo just by being there. She wants to fit in, and the others may feel their place is threatened.

I had two girlfriends when I was about 10 years old, and three is never a good number with girls! Two of us were always mad at the third. It felt to me as if I was more often out than in. They probably felt the same way.

Recently, a young woman told me she was sorry for the trouble she and another girl caused when she was a student at my school. They frequently landed in my office because they both wanted to control the social scene in their group. They are now best friends.

Those experiences shaped all of us in ways we might never have considered. Maybe it’s time to pay attention to how recess still affects you.

Middle School Blues

When students begin to get the freedom that usually comes in the middle grades, the stakes get higher. Their desire for acceptance can lead to them making bad choices about friendships.

We had a closed campus to keep our students safe by not allowing them to wander unsupervised in the neighborhood. One time, someone saw a few of our kids walking back onto the property after lunch. One of the boys said he hadn’t gone with them, but he often seemed to be with the group who were breaking the rules. He insisted he had just met them as they came back. He always told me that he didn’t do whatever it was that concerned me. He just happened to be there.

When someone made little baggies of Italian spices to sell to other kids as marijuana, he was adamant that he didn’t do anything wrong. When I asked if he knew about it, he confessed that he did but insisted, Honest, Mrs. Spencelayh, I didn’t make them or sell any!

I think he felt that he needed to do disobedient things to be accepted by the group.

Is your desire to be included still driving you to make wrong choices for your life?

A friend once told me that she was a poor picker but a good sticker as she told me how long she had been in a bad marriage with her second husband. Some of us end up in one unfulfilling relationship after another. Why do we keep choosing to spend time with people who make us feel inadequate?

That drive to be accepted can cause us to say yes to everything people ask us to do, even when we really don’t want to.

The parent with the full-time job who serves on every committee, drives neighborhood kids around, and teaches Sunday school might wonder why she feels overwhelmed and burnt out.

It can be hard to say no. Keep reading, and I’ll give you some suggestions later that might help.

High School Independence

During the high school years, students begin to stand up for themselves. They might wear a hat or signature clothing to show their individuality.

My daughter had some difficulties with friends when she was