On the race we are taught about this thing called the Project Mood Curve. This is a concept that helps you kind of understand the emotions of your life. It shows the highs and lows and how to get from one to the other. Every year, season and even day you could break down into a mood curve. The mood curve is broken down into zones: A ZONE, There is energy and optimism about the task itself and our ability to accomplish it. B ZONE, The realities are setting in and the initial glamour is wearing off. C ZONE, We have spent time addressing challenges, communicating clearly, and we are committed to perseverance. To show you a how this works, I will show you where my mood curve was in Nicaragua.
We were in Nicaragua from March 6 to April 10, so a little over a month. Coming into Nicaragua there was a lot of excitement. It was really hard to leave Ethiopia, my home for three months that I loved beyond deeply. However, we had a lot to look forward to, a completely new and exciting culture, a layover in Canada, an awakening (when multiple world race groups come together and have a conference), and getting to see our parents in a week.
The transition from the unbelievably tragic goodbye in Ethiopia to Nicaragua was really easy with all the exciting things to keep us busy. My A ZONE of this season was probably the travel days, which is kinda funny to think I came crashing down to the B ZONE so quickly. These travel days where so full of excitement and new things, thats why it brought so much optimism. I was becoming really close with a couple people and it was a lot of fun. Canada was full of boujee experience with fun people. The awakening was full of new opportunities with a ton of new faces. I got to plan worships there and that was challenging but fun.
All this A ZONE excitement came crashing down when I asked one simple question. I asked one of my friends if my friends and I looked like a click. It was a very strong yes with evidence to back it up. I got a couple other opinions and they were all strong yes. This wrecked me and shot me right down to the B ZONE. I started to be very consumed by this feedback that I received and was talking and thinking about it non-stop. Hearing about how my actions had deeply effected a big group of people really hurt me. Then when we got to our ministry things got a little worse because my team was at an all time low. People were very hurt and mad and didn’t feel loved, which hurt me deeply.
Climbing out of this B ZONE took quite a bit of work. It took lots of healing in relationships and learning a lot about myself. During this B ZONE I was still able to love ministry and enjoy the people around me but with that I suppressed a lot of the things that was happening to make myself feel better. Getting to the C ZONE looked like a lot of conversations with people to fix our relationships and a lot of time with Jesus to show why things weren’t changing.
This C ZONE is a really cool one because it didn’t happen when all the problems I had resolved but there is still so much growth in this zone. One thing that is really cool about Project Mood Curve is that after a C ZONE your next A ZONE will be even higher then that. That means we are always going up and always becoming healthier and healthier.
