Off the Bucket List

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish before my life comes to a close, about what’s on my “Bucket List,” and reading what other people say about how to go about getting them off the “Someday” list and into my life right now. Authorities say that our dreams can help form goals, but only if we also acknowledge the difficulties we will likely face in reaching them.

Here are some things they suggest to help commit to realistic goals and let go of those that aren’t:

• Spend some uninterrupted time to identify a wish that is challenging, but possible.
• Imagine the best things about it as a reality. Involve your senses as much as you can.
• Consider obstacles, especially internal barriers, like limiting beliefs, usual unhelpful behaviors, or negative emotions.
• Ask yourself, “What is one action I can take to overcome it?” Try an if-then approach. If I feel anxious when I go to a social event, I’ll introduce myself to one person who’s standing alone.

To increase chances of success, they advise making sure you feel a deep attachment to vividly alive goals, and are convinced that future payoffs are worth whatever it takes to overcome innate tendencies to procrastinate, and making sure those  goals are outside your comfort zone, challenging you to boldness and creativity.

The next step is to select a specific daily activity that will move you to your goal. If my goal is to have a 300-page novel written a year from now, I should cut the time in half and ask myself what I need to accomplish by the end of six months. Write 150 pages in which I introduce my protagonist in her usual world, show what she desperately wants, introduce the antagonist who will thwart her every attempt, and engage them in a to-the-death struggle.

Now cut the time in half again. What do I need to do in three months to be on target for your six-month goal? Write 75 pages, in which I introduce my protagonist in her milieu, explore the reasons for her deepest desires, and set her on the path to achieving them. Introduce the antagonist, and have her throw obstacles of increasing difficulty in the protagonist’s way, to keep her from achieving her goal.

Keep cutting the time frame in half until you’re looking at what you need to do today to be on track for your one-week goal. The answer might be a 3 page dialogue between your protagonist and her mother after Mom finds out she skipped school. That’s a lot less intimidating than writing a 300 page adolescent novel.

Let’s see how I do with this.

Accepted and Loved…Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

I’ve been thinking about my recent assignment, in which I was to ask my friends to tell me what they see as my strengths. The process made me extremely uncomfortable, because it felt like I was fishing for compliments. Upon contemplation, I realized that the cause of that feeling was rooted in my childhood, where I learned to feel the burden of rejection.

On my first day home from the hospital after my birth, my sister, who was nine years my senior, carried me out of the house in a basket to find a neighbor to take me. She was determined I would stop being such an intrusion on her life. My parents were busy people. My father was the “town pastor,” since he had been there longer than any of the town’s other preachers, the townspeople looked to him first. My mother was a teacher, back when a woman working outside the home was the exception rather than the rule. Since I was pretty well-behaved and responsible, it was easy for them to attend to the myriad of other things that were screaming for their attention.

My belief that I didn’t deserve love and attention grew out of that situation. It caused me to search desperately for someone, anyone, to love me, and it caused me to accept any small token of affection as “enough”. The result? My abysmal relationships and marriages.

There have been many times that fear has kept me from trusting my own judgments, deferring to other people’s pronouncements, as I mentioned in the last blog. I’ve finally accepted God’s judgment of me as lovable and acceptable, and declared myself to be no longer under the judgment and condemnation of the religious fearful. (They’re the people who surround themselves with rules and regulations to keep from getting anywhere near to breaking God’s rules. Their motivation may be well-intentioned, the same as was the ancient Israelites’ religious leaders. Both, however, have resulted in traditions becoming more important than God.)

I tend to keep my thoughts and explorations to myself. It seems as scary to me as coming out of the closet must seem to people who have same sex attraction. I suppose I will find a different “tribe” if all the people currently in my life turn their backs on me because of my willingness to find out for myself, rather than depending upon other people’s judgments as to whether or not something is true or valuable.

I know my mother was fearful of my explorations in the spiritual realm. My sister thought they were downright dangerous. She quoted wrath of God scriptures to me when I was initially exploring, as a young woman.

Most recently, as evidence of that proclivity, an acquaintance went on a rant about Sarah Young’s “Jesus Calling,” about how dangerous, deceitful, and evil it is. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to read the book before hearing anyone else’s opinion of its contents. I reject that assessment out of hand. The only thing Sarah Young did was to put scripture into a first person narration, which made it feel much more intimate. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. I never even gave “A Course in Miracles” a chance. I let fear stop me from reading; I just accepted someone else’s determination about it. It’s kind of like the Harry Potter series, too, and all the Christians’ uproar about it, despite never having read a word of it. It’s a story, for heaven’s sake–fiction!

Certainly, my God is big enough to keep me safe and secure. He promised me that in his word. He will not let me go. I am tethered to him forever.

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“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato

Why is Bible reading worth it?

I don’t know about you, but pretty much all my life I’ve thought that it was kind of a cheat to rely on somebody else to tell me what God’s word really said, but I didn’t think I could make my way through all the “thees and thous” and the “begats” sections of the Bible. Granted, I had a surge of hope when the versions newer than the King James were released. At least I didn’t have to try to understand a book in the same English in which Shakespeare wrote his plays!

I still managed to find roadblocks, though. I’d get to about the same place in the dietary laws with its instructions about split hooves and chewing cud, and wonder what that could possibly have to do with my life in modern day America. If I were fortunate enough to get through Deuteronomy and begin cruising through Joshua, only to read about the slaughter and deceit that permeated the stories. I would wonder what I was supposed to take away from those passages. And that would cause me to stop reading. Again.

I found that the same principles that quit smoking programs use to extinguish a bad habit worked pretty well to establish a good habit. It’s a given, for example, that you won’t be successful the first time you try to quit smoking. You have to figure out what went wrong, fix it, and try again. One of the things that can go wrong is that your “why” isn’t strong enough. (Hence the disgusting pictures of diseased lungs in some quit smoking programs.) Figure out for yourself the real reason it’s important for you to quit.

Or maybe you still walk past the store where you buy your cigarettes, and your habit causes you to walk in the door. Try walking a different way to work.

What if you can’t enjoy a cup of coffee without a cigarette? You could try switching to tea (which I found very unsatisfactory), or holding a stick of cinnamon as you would a cigarette while you drink your coffee. (That is what actually worked for me. I carried cinnamon sticks with me all the time, and every time I would have smoked, I held one in my hand or in my mouth instead. I know it looked silly, but it worked for me.)

Changing where you live or work can be a big help, too. I’m not saying you move or change jobs to quit smoking, but if your circumstances change, it’s easier to be more intentional about your habit development.

What does smoking have to do with Bible reading, I’m sure you’re asking. I found it helpful initially to use the same intention and mindfulness that had been helpful in changing my smoking habit, to develop my Bible reading habit. I decided I’d try just to push through. I decided to suspend my questions and to ask God to reveal the answers to me if He wanted me to know. That helped me to get over the first hurdle. I just didn’t allow myself to get bogged down. If I didn’t understand, I just kept reading. I read without understanding, in large part, like a beginning reader just decoding the words.

I changed my morning routine by getting up a few minutes earlier every morning, setting the coffeemaker to start earlier, and going to my favorite chair with my Bible and cup of coffee before I did anything else. I didn’t ask myself to do anything other than to read a chapter a day, every single day, before I did anything else.

I am currently in the process of reading through the Bible for the 19th time. What the Holy Spirit brings to mind in a moment of need is amazing! I’m beginning to grasp what God’s big picture plan is, at least to the extent that we mortals can. I can usually remember enough of the words to be able to find what I’m looking for in the concordance in the back of my Bible, if I’m searching for a particular passage.

We Christians need to know for ourselves what the Bible says, instead of trusting other people to tell us. If we don’t know, we are opening ourselves to deception–either through other people’s ignorance or misinterpretation, or worse, by the tricky enemy of our souls.

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“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book,  and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited!   Every member would be obliged in conscience,  to temperance, frugality,  and industry;  to justice, kindness,  and charity towards his fellow men;  and to piety,  love,  and reverence toward  Almighty  God …  What a Utopia,  what a paradise would this region be!”

John Adams

“We often use the Bible as a source for personal validation and defense, a sidekick and a shield, but these will prove ineffective without first the other part. We must also allow ourselves to be wounded by it. We tend to forget its authority – that it is a double-edged sword. Our decrepit, depraved hearts must be completely ripped out in order to welcome that of God.”
Criss Jami

“We must make a study of our God: what he loves, what he hates, how he speaks and acts. We cannot imitate a God whose features and habits we have never learned. We must make a study of him if we want to become like him. We must seek his face.”
Jen Wilkin (Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds)

“Bible study without Bible experience is pointless. Knowing Psalm 23 is different from knowing the shepherd.”

Kingsley Opuwari Manuel

“For years I viewed my interaction with the Bible as a debit account: I had a need, so I went to the Bible to withdraw an answer. But we do much better to view our interaction with the Bible as a savings account: I stretch my understanding daily, I deposit what I glean, and I patiently wait for it to accumulate in value, knowing that one day I will need to draw on it.”
Jen Wilkin (Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds)

Spiritual Snapshots

This has actually been a less painful process than I anticipated, transitioning from private, unfiltered, spontaneous daily writing, to putting my thoughts on paper “out there” for everyone to see. I just kind of put on my blinders–you know, the ones I wear when I don’t want to see the obvious truth about something–and stumbled blindly ahead. I still don’t know what people think about it, except for the few who have responded positively and given constructive criticism.
It speaks again–very powerfully–to the effectiveness of baby steps in the right direction.
And those blinders? Well, at least I recognize them in the past, at this point. They’re the same ones I wear when I don’t want to look at myself in the mirror and won’t let anyone take a picture of me, for example, because I already know that I am grossly overweight.
They’re the ones I use when I don’t want to see that I have to do something uncomfortable, like protecting my personal boundaries so that people with whom I’m in relationship continue to trample my thoughts, feelings and actions because it suits their need to control and manipulate me.
Clearly, though, there is hope. Since I decided that I want to put a picture of myself on my blog, so that people can see who it is that’s talking to them, I asked a friend to help me by taking a picture. Even though I’ve lost a lot of weight, I was still very uncomfortable with the idea, and pretty much gritted my teeth through the whole process.
The funny thing is, it turns out that I actually like the picture! It has been a terrific encouragement in putting my story out there for all the world to see, and I have been using it as kind of a pep talk to myself when I think about going back to food when I have some difficult emotion to process.
That might be useful in thinking about my Christian walk. Maybe I’ll ask God if He’ll give me a spiritual snapshot!
I’ve always wondered what it means when Scripture says that God sees believers in Christ. It seemed like some kind of hocus-pocus to me, some gibberish without meaning. But maybe He has, instead, my “after” picture to look at, since He is not hampered by residing in the time realm like I am. How encouraging is that!

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The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Thomas Merton

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The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

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It is necessary … for a man to go away by himself … to sit on a rock … and ask, ‘Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?

Carl Sandburg

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Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

Peter Drucker

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By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

Lies I’ve believed about God, myself, and others

In the next step of my discipleship training, I rated statements about who God is, 1 to 10, based how how true the statements felt to me, with 1 being the least and 10 being the most true for me. (The remaining “Common Answers to ‘Who is God?’ Questions” can be found below.) The top, #10, “true feeling” statements for me:

He’s more concerned about what I do than about me personally.
I don’t feel His presence at all.
I feel uneasy because I don’t know what to expect.
I’m left to my own strength to do things He wants.
He allows all sorts of bad things to happen.
He takes his time in changing me or getting things done.
I feel as if He is trying to make things difficult for me.
No matter what I do, it’s not enough.
His opinion of me is based on how well I do or obey.
I feel as if I’m not doing good enough.
I feel as if He is punishing me.
I feel overwhelmed because there’s just too much to deal with.
I’m afraid that He will make me go somewhere I don’t want to go.
I’m afraid that God will put a lot of pain in my life to teach me things.

Once I had finished ranking the page full of items, my counselor, Pat, helped me to understand that my feelings are a product of my beliefs, and that I had been seeing God through the filter of my personal experiences in life. In light of those experiences with family and authority figures, I had come to see God as untrustworthy, distant, unaccepting, unloving, and a stern task master.

The “switch” for me was when I realized I had been using what I knew from circumstances, authorities, other people, my emotions, the church, and misconceptions of myself to figure out who God is, rather than starting with the truth of who God is to interpret life.

If my actions are usually based on my feelings, my feelings are usually based on my thoughts, and my thoughts are based on my heart-level beliefs and past experiences, then it is no wonder that my attempts to control my behavior, feelings, and thoughts–without changing the underlying belief system–had been such dismal failure!

I began replacing those lies that I had believed about God with the truth that I was finding in Scripture. Here are just a few of the truths I learned about God:

* intimate and involved (Psalm 139:1-18)
* leading, holding (Isaiah 41:10)
* accepting, filled with joyful love (Romans 15:7; Zephaniah 3:17)
* warm and affectionate (Isaiah 10:11)
* always with me, and always eager to spend time with me (Hebrews 13:5; Jeremiah 31:20; Ezekial 34:11-16)
* patient and slow to anger (Exodus 34:6; 2 Peter 3:9)
* loving, gentle, protective of me (Jeremiah 31:3; Isaiah 42:3; Psalm 18:2)
* trustworthy and wants to give me a good, perfect, acceptable life (Lamentations 3:22-23; John 10:10; Romans 12:1-2)
* full of grace and mercy, gives me freedom to fail (Hebrews 4:15-16; Luke 15:11-16)
* tender-hearted and forgiving, with open heart and arms toward me (Psalm 130:1-4; Luke 15:17-24)
* committed to my growth; proud of me as His growing child (Romans 8:28-29; Hebrews 12:5-11; 2 Corinthians 7:14)
* I am the apple of his eye! (Deuteronomy 32:9-10)

Little by little, step by step, I began to trust that God actually does love me, accepts me, and has been doing a transforming work in my mind.

When I find myself emotionally triggered, I use it as a signal that I need to look within for a lie in my belief system, and I ask God to shed his light. What am I feeling? When have I felt this before? What is the origin of this feeling? What lies am I believing that feel true about God, myself, or others in this place? What is God’s truth?

I’ve been working with a coach for a few weeks now who has taught me how to put those truths to work in my life in a concrete way.  By recognizing a limiting belief and replacing it with a new belief I have stepped out from my habitual victim role and into place as a king’s kid. Here are a couple of examples of the work:

Limiting Belief: God’s opinion of me is the same as other people’s opinions of me.

New Belief: God’s thoughts and ways are far above those of humankind, and I know that he loves me unconditionally and wants my best and highest good. I relax and live at peace in that reality.

Limiting Belief: I was sent out into the world naive, untrained, and ill-prepared.

New Belief: Life is my chosen path through the swirling chaos of random events, given meaning by faith in a supreme being, common to all humankind. I travel with like-minded companions and we have the skills, tools, and help we need to navigate it successfully; I learn and grow, cradle to grave, and help fellow travelers to do the same.

I write the new beliefs on sticky notes and put them on my bathroom mirror and on my refrigerator, where I can meditate on them throughout the day.

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For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth. Bo Bennett

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Charles Spurgeon

A lie told often enough becomes the truth. Vladimir Lenin

Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth. Menachem Begin

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. Buddha

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Other common answers to “Who is God?” questions:

• I don’t see Him working in my life.
• I feel as if He tells me what to do and then doesn’t help me.
• I feel as if I have to figure out His will. I’m on my own.
• I feel unsure about what He thinks of me, or where I stand with Him.
• He is hard to hear.
• He doesn’t talk to me.
• I feel uneasy because I think that I’m going to get whacked!
• I can’t figure him out.
• I feel as if He doesn’t care about my circumstances.
• I feel as if He doesn’t seek me out or enjoy me.
• He doesn’t care what I feel or think about things.
• He wants to things done now. He’s tired of waiting for me.
• He feels far away, so distant.
• I’m afraid of Him.
• I feel as if I’m insignificant to Him.
• I feel anxious because I don’t know what to expect from Him.
• I feel as if He is uninvolved in my life.
• I feel as if He is sitting and watching for me to mess up.
• I feel as if I will be criticized by Him.
• I’m afraid God will kill someone I love.
• I’m afraid God will never allow me to marry.
• I’m afraid God wants me to marry.

Taking off my Christian mask

I should back up a step. Before we actually began counseling together, Pat Graham–co-founder (with her husband John) of Abundant Grace International–had me take the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis. In every single category I scored in the improvement desirable/improvement needed range, with absolutely nothing in excellent/acceptable areas. My “high scoring” areas: nervous, depressive, quiet, inhibited, sympathetic, subjective, submissive, and impulsive. I hit mid-range in a single area, between hostile and tolerant; that was the closest I got to “normal”. Sadly, none of that was actually news to me. Those traits were what had gotten me into a marriage that was so emotionally devastating in the first place!

Next, Pat and I tackled figuring out what life experiences had contributed to those outcomes. She had me think about and write down messages that I had received from parents, my sister, other people, and God, and what they had led me to think and feel about myself. We talked about how those feelings and beliefs had motivated me to build protective layers around my heart, and what those protections were.

“Nothing twists and deforms the soul more than an unworthy concept of God. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is,” said A.W. Tozer.

Pat and I undertook to learn not what I thought about God, but what I felt about him. I was instructed to complete a series of sentences about the relationship between myself and God on my worst day.

If you really want a true picture of your relationship with the God, sovereign being, try this for yourself.

I completed sentences that began as follows:

*        When I think about God, I feel…

*        When I have to trust God, I feel…

*        When I think about God, I wish…

*        Sometimes I get angry with God when…

*        It frustrates me when God wants me to…

*        The one thing I would change about myself to please God is…

*        When I think about God’s commands, I feel…

*        Sometimes I wish God would…

*        I can really depend on God when…

*        In my relationship with God, I am always sure that He will…

*        The one thing that frightens me about God is…

*        God surprises me when…

*        The one thing I am afraid God will do is…

*        I really enjoy God when…

*        God really enjoys me when…

What I discovered was that I knew the “right answers,” the ones I’d learned in church, but on that bad day, I felt quite differently. That showed me what beliefs I was living out of.

I did not at all enjoy that process, because I felt like God was going to punish me in some way if I admitted how I truly felt, if I dared to give voice to the truth of my relationship with him. But that day was the beginning of the end of my Christian mask.

 

If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. Louis D. Brandeis

When life is good and we have no problems, we can almost let ourselves believe we have no need for God. But in my experience, sometimes the richest blessings come through pain and hard things. Anne Graham Lotz

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder. Mason Cooley

A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things. Herman Melville

The hard things in life, the things you really learn from, happen with a clear mind. Caroline Knapp

Who am I really?

When I began counseling with Pat Graham, co-founder with her husband John of Abundant Grace International (abundantgraceintl.org), I had been steeped in the gospel. If you had told me that I didn’t understand what it meant, I would have laughed at you. What preacher’s kid can’t quote John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son…”? The truth of the matter is that for me–and for many other believers, I suspect–I had head knowledge without heart knowledge.
I had been in counseling several times before, attempting to fix whatever it was that was wrong with me, and giving up time after time because I couldn’t make the changes that were clearly necessary. I felt condemned to a life of intermittent depression, manipulated and controlled by others more powerful than myself. I was a defeated Christian.
Pat helped me step by step to understand that God wanted me to live out of the truth of his word, and to experience the intimacy, power, and freedom of knowing Christ in me as my life. I didn’t know anything about my identity in Christ or my freedom from law through God’s grace. I learned that it is possible for me to walk consistently in God’s rich, abundant grace by taking possession of the truth of the new covenant for myself.
There are three major, life-changing principles in the teaching: As a child of God, I am accepted, I am significant, and I am loved. These are among the most basic of human needs, and are fairly often missing in people’s lives.
I soaked in the teaching, meditated on the Scripture* that reinforced it, and in a relatively short time, came to believe that despite my childhood and subsequent experiences to the contrary, I am indeed accepted, significant, and loved. And that was the beginning of a new, empowered life.

* Accepted (John 1:12; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 1:2; Colossians 2:10; Romans 8:1; Colossians 2:13)
Significant (Ephesians 2:10; Ephesians 1:4; Matthew 13:44-46; Ephesians 2:6; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Psalm 139:13-16)
Loved (1 Thessalonians 1:4; Romans 9:25; John 17:23, 26; John 15:15; Colossians 3:3; Romans 8:37-39)

“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.”
― Bernie S. Siegel
“The most important journey you will take in your life will usually be the one of self transformation. Often, this is the scariest because it requires the greatest changes, in your life.”
― Shannon L. Alder
“If you’re stuck in a puddle, it means there’s higher ground all around you, you just have to step onto it.”
― Emilyann Girdner
“The ego resists change. False pride is an impediment to change.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
“Reading, writing, and personal introspection will not protect us from hardship and suffering, but they might introduce us to critical thinking and expose us to what is good in humankind and beautiful in the world that we share with all of nature. Contemplative thought, especially that supplemented with reading literature and attempting to write our own replies to the echoing voices of writers whom preceded us provide us with the potentiality for change, the possibility of personal illumination that enables us to experience a heightened quality of life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
“Nothing happens until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change”
– Arthur Burt

Yard by hard, life is hard; inch by inch, it’s a cinch

As I mentioned earlier, I have an enormous debt of gratitude to Abundant Grace International (477F Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29607, 864-270-5531). My counselor there helped me to get my understanding of the gospel–the good news about why God sent Jesus to earth–from my head into my heart. That brought enormous peace and freedom to my life. And, it gave me the courage to change things and the conviction that with the help of the Holy Spirit, I could change myself, and as a result, my circumstances.

In addition to good counsel, she gave me a booklet from RBC Ministries (PO Box 2222, Grand Rapids, MI 49501-2222), entitled “God’s Protection of Women: When Abuse is Worse Than Divorce.” That study showed God’s care for me was greater than  any establishment church doctrine, and helped me to move past my misunderstanding of his character. It allowed me to “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8) more fully than I had ever been able to before.

From that place emotionally and spiritually, I was able to begin to take baby steps toward my new life. Basically, I follow a simple step-by-step process:

1. I calm myself, taking deep breaths and relaxing. As an R.N., I had seen the positive physiological benefits of simply breathing deeply. It can decrease blood pressure and anxiety amazingly fast, even if only briefly. It slows down swirling thoughts. Practice renders positive results more long-lasting. For help establishing a regular meditation practice, check out EZ2meditate.com, where you can get a free trial to see if it helps you.
2. I remind myself that I am in the right place, exactly where I am right now. To begin with, I fought against that notion, since I was raised in a home where guilt and shame were the norm, and I had just broken a commitment to stay married to my husband until death parted us. But again, repetition was key. I accepted that I had done the best I could, and that there is a reason for everything. Right here, right now is exactly the right place for me.
3. I write down what I want my results to be. For a while, it was pretty simple. I wanted to be able to sleep through the night, without judgment and condemnation keeping me awake, tossing and turning.
4. I write down everything I can think to do that would move me in that direction. It amounts to a brain dump, and doesn’t have to be practical or in any particular order. Just a random list of things I might do that would lead me in the right direction. I do that for every “result” that I desire (#3 above). For purposes of illustration, my list included losing weight, so that my sleep apnea wouldn’t contribute so significantly to my insomnia.
5. I choose something from the list and do it immediately. Since I generally did this work early in the morning with my first cup of coffee, it was a fairly easy thing for me to stand up, go outside, and walk around the block. It gave me a chance to think through what I had decided to do. And since I had walked, done what I said I would do, it built momentum.
6. I do the next thing, maybe the next day, or later the same day, that pops out of the list to me as the right “next thing.” I figured if I could walk around the block, I could drink a few glasses of water during the day. I did.
7. I just repeat these two steps, adding new actions and ideas as they seem right, and act on as many of the actions and ideas as I am able. What I found was that all I needed to do to get me to my final destination is to keep building this momentum.

There are several things that have improved dramatically as a result of approaching my desires for personal growth and change in this way. I highly recommend it, because it has worked for me, simple as it is. (As an aside, as of this date, I am almost ninety pounds lighter than I was when I started my healing journey.)

A small additional thing: Don’t underestimate the power of sticker charts! I know it sounds corny, but there is something incredibly satisfying about seeing those little stars lined up next to your intended action steps. I was surprised, and I think you will be, too. Try it; you’ll like it!

Friedrich Schlegel
In actual life every great enterprise begins with and takes its first forward step in faith.

Jack Penn 
One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.

Eileen Caddy
When you feel that you have reached the end and that you cannot go one step further, when life seems to be drained of all purpose: what a wonderful opportunity to start all over again, to turn over a new page.

Peter A. Cohen 
There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.

John Wanamaker 
One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

John Pierpont Morgan 
The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

Hasta la vista, self-reliance

 

Have you ever come to a place where you feel completely out of control? Have the choices you’ve made, your reactions to life, ever put you in a place you’re desperate to get out of?

When I found myself there, I knew things had to change, because my life was absolutely joyless and absolutely intolerable. It felt I had two choices: check myself into a mental institution, or commit suicide. In was on the very evening that I was making the decision about which alternative to choose that God provided a third alternative in the form of a childhood friend who “coincidentally” stopped by to visit, took stock of the situation, and listened to me as I poured out my dilemma in desperation and tears.

She came alongside me and helped me find an alternate course. That was my first step: accepting help that was offered.

My home had become a toxic battleground of manipulation and control, so I needed to find an emotionally safe place for me to be. Again, I give thanks to God for his work in the details. In that time of emotional exhaustion, in a place where I could actually think (rather than being bombarded with the negative messages and behavior to which I had become accustomed), I was able to decide that I wanted life to be different, and that decision prompted me to begin thinking about who I am, who God is, and what my place and purpose are in the universe.

To help me in my discovery process, I requested counseling at my new church, and was referred to an organization called Abundant Grace International, where I walked through a discipleship training program out from under the judgment and legalism imposed too often by segments of the Christian church and its fearful adherents. It was there, under the instruction of a wonderfully compassionate woman, that I learned about God’s perfectly combined love and justice.

My first baby step was to admit that I needed help. There’s a saying that applies here: When you need a teacher, a teacher will appear. I have found it to be true. If you are dissatisfied with your life, take that step. Admit you need help. If you could do it by yourself, you would have. Trust in the goodness of the universe, and look for your teacher. It’s well worth that little blow to self-reliance.

 

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”
― Barack Obama

 

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”
― John Holmes

 

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
― Maya Angelou

In it Together

Welcome to my blog! If you’re discouraged, this blog’s for you. If you think it’s too late for you, let me assure you that it isn’t. If you want to hear from someone who’s honest and real, I’m here to give you a listening ear and a kick in the seat of the pants.
Why am I writing this blog? Frankly, I’ve recently learned several essentially important life lessons, like handling my money well and keeping people from mistreating me, to name just a couple. And I’ve cried over all the wasted time, money, opportunities, and on and on, because, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I know that’s supposed to be an encouragement to get some backbone, but for me it was another failure. I labeled myself inferior, and then blamed myself for it, as well.
After yet another failed marriage, I was beating myself up because of my “stupid mistakes”, wallowing in the what-if’s, and being disheartened about how long it had taken me to figure things out that other people seem to do so well without even thinking about it.

 

Through that painful season, God spoke comfort and hope to me, helped me to be intentional and focused, and become confident that I can still make progress. “Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.'” (Isaiah 30:20-21, New International Version)
I invite you to journey with me through the swirling chaos of seemingly random events common to all of us in this life, given meaning by faith in a supreme being. We like-minded companions have the skills, tools, and help we need to navigate successfully, to learn and grow, together. I’ll share what I have learned, and encourage you to do the same. Together, life is easier.