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Meditate On
Jesus is the apple of God’s eye. He is God’s darling Son, His infinite joy and delight.
Yet, God gave Jesus up for you. That’s how much God loves you. Just think about it: If you knew you could save a dying person by giving up something precious to you, would you go as far as to give up your only child whom you dearly love for that person? Yet, that is exactly what God did to save you. Jesus, His beloved Son, died on the cross to cleanse you, heal you and redeem you—spirit, soul and body! That is how precious you are to God! Today, meditate on this truth and let God’s amazing love wash over you. It will drive out every fear, put strength and boldness in your heart, and cause you to walk in His provision, protection and peace. | ||||||||||||||||||
Friday, March 4, 2016
Meditate On This
Joel & Victoria's Blog
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Happiness Habit: The Power of Grateful Prayers
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How to Overcome Adversity
Tips for Overcoming Adversity
Whether we like it or not, adversity is
part of life.
Overcoming adversity is one of the biggest
hurdles we face. As Havelock Ellis wrote, "Pain and death are part of life. To reject them is to reject life itself." Problems, large and small, present themselves to us throughout our whole existence.
Regardless of how sharp, clever, or happy-go-lucky we are, we will encounter struggle, challenges, difficulties and at times, heart wrenching moments. Is this meant to be a negative, cynical assessment of what we have to look forward to?
Not at all!
In fact, thank goodness for adversity! Learning to deal with and overcoming adversity is what builds character and resilience. Every challenge and every difficulty we successfully confront in life serves to strengthen our will, confidence and ability to conquer future obstacles. Herodotus, the Greek philosopher, said, "Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have lain dormant in its absence."
When you respond positively and constructively to your biggest challenges the qualities of strength, courage, character and perseverance emerge from deep inside of you.
Of course, since we are human, it is very easy to get caught up in the self pity, unfairness of life, or 'why me?' traps. When we do, we fail to recognize the opportunities for wisdom and growth that accompany adversity. However, as soon we allow ourselves to think more clearly, we are able to let go of self-defeating and unproductive thoughts and get down to the business of dealing with what's before us.
The Tips For Overcoming Adversity
1. Be aware of, and accept that adversity is inevitable in life. As has already been pointed out, adversity is part of life. To avoid or resist it will only make it persist. Everywhere you look in the world there is unmistakable struggle. There are floods, tsunamis, wars, and calamities of all types. Even within your own circle of family and friends there is death, loss and tragedy. Although pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. So what do you do?2. Build your internal resources. Before adversity hits, work on cultivating emotional strength, courage and discipline. When you make yourself aware that certain difficulties are inevitable, you can prepare yourself mentally for confronting adversity head-on. It would be no different than a warrior going to battle. He (or she) prepares himself physically and mentally for any possibility. He knows it could be ugly, daunting, and grueling, but he is equipped. More often than not, when you're prepared for the worst, the worst never happens, or it's much less severe than anticipated. Another invaluable inner resource is faith. Faith that everything will work out; faith that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and faith that "this too shall pass." Everything in life has its place and purpose.
3. Build your external resources. Build a support system of family and friends. When the going gets tough, we all need encouragement and support. We need someone to talk to; someone to help ease the burden. You would be surprised to discover how often a friend has had a similar experience and can help guide you through the difficult time. Even just knowing a friend is there when you need them can be most comforting.
4. That which does not kill you doesn't always make stronger. Sorry Nietzsche! While I agree with Nietzsche, in principle that - "that what does not kill you will make you stronger", I do not necessarily agree with him in practice. For instance, if you do not have enough built-up resilience or experience in dealing with difficulty, adversity can crush you. On the other hand, if do you have sufficient resilience, then indeed it will make you stronger. How so, you ask? Resilience like any muscle is built up gradually and exponentially with repeated exposure to obstacles. If you lack practice in confronting obstacles (as when you choose to avoid them), one traumatic event can take you down.
To underscore this point, developmental research has shown that traumatized children are more, rather than less, likely to be traumatized again. Likewise, those who grow up in tough neighborhoods become weaker, not stronger, and are more likely to struggle in life.
5. Take inspiration and learn from others who have dealt successfully with adversity. There are many inspiring stories of people who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds. They triumphed over their adversities to live successful, productive lives instead of surrendering to it.
Here are some
examples:
Helen
Keller:
Lost her sight
and hearing due to a mysterious fever when she was only 18 months old.
She overcame her deafness and blindness to become a strong, educated
woman who spoke about, and promoted, women's rights.
Winston Churchill: Overcame a stuttering problem and poor performance in school to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and one of the most influential political leaders of the twentieth century. He was also known for his powerful and rousing speeches.
Wilma Rudolph: The Olympian born prematurely, the 20th of 22 children. She overcame double pneumonia, scarlet fever and polio to become winner of three Gold medals in track at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games.
Winston Churchill: Overcame a stuttering problem and poor performance in school to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and one of the most influential political leaders of the twentieth century. He was also known for his powerful and rousing speeches.
Wilma Rudolph: The Olympian born prematurely, the 20th of 22 children. She overcame double pneumonia, scarlet fever and polio to become winner of three Gold medals in track at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games.
Lance Armstrong:
Overcame
testicular cancer which spread to the brain and lungs (he
was told
he had only a 40% chance of survival) to come back and win the Tour de
France seven more times!
***
Lance has since admitted to taking steroids during his cycling career,
however, he did still battle cancer and overcame immense odds. It's
unfortunate that his career was not as exemplary as his will to
overcome adversity.
J.K. Rowling: Born to a poor family; left a bad marriage with a young baby to live on government assistance; wrote her first Harry Potter book and was turned down by most publishers until Bloomsbury Publishing picked it up. Need I say more?
Determination, resilience,
and persistence enabled all of these
great people to push past their adversities and
prevail. If they could do it, surely the rest of us can summon the
strength and courage to do overcome our adversities!***
Lance has since admitted to taking steroids during his cycling career,
however, he did still battle cancer and overcame immense odds. It's
unfortunate that his career was not as exemplary as his will to
overcome adversity.
J.K. Rowling: Born to a poor family; left a bad marriage with a young baby to live on government assistance; wrote her first Harry Potter book and was turned down by most publishers until Bloomsbury Publishing picked it up. Need I say more?
Points to Consider
- The difficult times in life help us appreciate when things are going smoothly.
- Look for the learning opportunities in every adverse situation.
- Decide whether you will allow your experience to make, or break you. Depending upon how you choose to perceive it, it could go either way.
- Be prepared to accept the worst, should it occur. When you have prepared yourself mentally for the worst, it rarely ever happens, and if it does, it seems less so because you are better equipped to handle it.
- Cultivate faith, courage and resilience. The more of these qualities with which you are armed, the lesser the impact of the adversity.
- Remind yourself that adversity is part of life. Accepting adversity, helps you overcome it.
Do You Have Self-Love?
No woman would tell her daughters or any other woman or girl, “Hey you, don’t love yourself, that’s selfish.” Chances are that if asked, “Do you love yourself?” most women would say, “Yes, of course I do,” when in fact the majority don’t really have a clue what self-love actually means, or requires.
This lack of understanding about self-love isn’t surprising when you consider that the current definition of self-love on dictionary.com is ‘conceit, vanity and narcissism’ (no kidding!) Or when you look at the pressures today’s woman faces knowing she can do anything, but is exhausted by her attempts to do and be everything.
So how do you know if you really love yourself?
First you need to know a few facts about self-love:1. Self-love isn’t something you have, self-love is something you choose in every moment of every day. In your daily choices and thoughts, you can either choose fear, guilt, shame, stress and criticism for and towards yourself, or you can choose to give yourself love, such as compassion, care, respect, and acceptance. And that can be hard to do.
2. The challenge is not in knowing what you should do to love yourself, but in giving yourself permission to take the loving act. Most of us know what the self-loving things are we should do – like take good care of ourselves, only have respectful relationships, believe in ourselves and go for our dreams to name a few – but we let guilt, fear and shame deter us from making the self-loving choices.
3. Self-esteem is not the same thing as self-love. You can have self-esteem and still not really love yourself. Self-esteem is a part of self-love – 1/10th to be exact! You need all ten areas of self-love strong and growing. Because even with high self esteem, without self-compassion, self-care, self-respect and more, you will still make unloving choices for yourself, things like over-giving/over-doing/over-working, staying in bad relationships, or settling for less.
After studying self-love now for over a decade – living it and teaching it – what I’ve noticed is “Do you love yourself?” is not a yes/no question.
It’s not either you love yourself or you don’t love yourself. But instead there are ways that you really love yourself well. Ways in which you totally show up for yourself, areas in your life when you easily choose the loving act or thought over fear, blame, shame, guilt, pressure, stress and criticism. And, there are other ways in which you sell yourself short, put your needs last or don’t honor them at all, and don’t accept yourself. These are the places where it is hard for you to give yourself permission to do what a best friend would tell you to do.Our power – and your happiness – comes in knowing where you are weak in self-love and where you are strong, and then making conscious choices and taking simple but mighty actions to grow that area of self-love that most needs your attention. What you focus on grows.
The 10 Branches of Self-Love: Take a Self-Love Pulse Check
Sometimes self-love can feel so vast and esoteric, too big to even know where to begin. But self-love can be broken down into eleven distinct parts, that give you clues and specifics as to where to focus your attention and growth (I call these the branches of self-love, which I wrote lots about in Madly in Love with ME, a self-love guidebook. Think of self-love like a tree, where you need all branches and the roots to be strong to be healthy and vibrant.)Every person has some area where they need to strengthen their ability to make loving choices for themselves.
For you maybe it’s self-compassion, being compassionate with yourself when you fail, so instead of berating yourself you console yourself.
Or for you perhaps you are a rockstar at work, lots of self-esteem, but a disaster in romantic relationships, lacking self-respect and self-honor.
Or maybe you play small, live life repressed instead of fully expressed, or look to other people for answers, not trusting your own Inner Wisdom, lacking self-empowerment, self-expression and self-trust.
Or maybe you over give, over work, over do, exhausting yourself, suffering from weak self-care, self-pleasure and self-worth.
The question to ask yourself is “What branch of self-love most needs my attention, love and focus this year, so that I can grow stronger in my ability to take the self-loving acts that supports me to create the life my heart and soul desire?
As a starting point, you can take this short self-love pulse check and see which branches of self-love feel the weakest or like it needs the most attention? Ask yourself on a scale of one to five, with five being strong and one weak, how you rate in each area of self-love:
- Self-awareness & honesty: You know who you truly are and who you are not, and you have an unwavering commitment to truth about how your actions, thoughts and choices affect your reality and the people around you.
- Self-acceptance: You like who you are, and you don’t compare yourself to others, or wish you could be someone else, including a younger version of yourself. You adore and appreciate who you are, including your body. You acknowledge yourself, often.
- Self-care: You make sure you get what you need everyday on all levels – emotional, physical, spiritual – every day, without guilt, sacrifice or needing to be a martyr. You don’t over-work, over-give or over-do.
- Self-compassion & self-forgiveness: You open your heart to be a loving witness to yourself, without judgment, by sending yourself waves of kindness, understanding and forgiveness that touch, heal and transform your imperfections and humanness through the presence of your unconditional love. You don’t have a constant criticism or perfectionism machine running in your mind.
- Self-trust: You listen to and follow the guidance of your inner voice, believing that you know what is right for you even when other people think or say otherwise. You trust your inner wisdom over conventional wisdom.
- Self-esteem: You have a strong belief in and regard for yourself, a strong confidence in your ability to do and be anything and you believe your gifts are valuable.
- Self-expression : You let the world see you, fully, truthfully and without apology or holding back. Full, free expression of your heart and soul.
- Self-empowerment: You take charge of and responsibility for your life by acting to create the life you really desire, without apology or requiring approval from others.
- Self-respect & self-honor: You only make choices that respect and honor the sacred soul that you are, especially in relationships. You only have loving, respectful relationships.
- Self-pleasure: You consistently create, receive and experience joy, no matter how much work there is to do, ensuring always that your soul is fully fed and nourished.
- Self-worth: You value yourself immensely based on who you are inside, not on what you achieve, amass or what other people say. You know what motivates and drives you, and you are not motivated for a need for outside validation, recognition, approval, affection, etc. You live your life by your internal value systems not those of society or other people.
Self love is one of the foundations of everything in our lives – our relationships with others, our health, our career, our finances, everything.
Focus on the foundation and the rest of your life gets stronger. @ChristineArylo
(Click to Tweet!)
To reveal where you are strong in self love and where you can love yourself even more, go here to take the Self Love Quiz: www.selflovequiz.com.Christine Arylo, m.b.a., is an inspirational catalyst, transformational teacher and best-selling self-love author who teaches people how to put their most important partnership first, the one with themselves, so that they can create the life their souls crave. The popular author of the go-to book on relationships Choosing ME before WE and the self-love handbook, Madly in Love with ME, the Daring Adventure to Becoming Your Own Best Friend, and her newest Reform Your Inner Mean Girl. She’s affectionately known as the “Queen of Self-Love” for her groundbreaking work in self-love, including founding the international day of self-love on Feb 13th. Arylo is the co-founder of the self-love and empowerment school for women, Inner Mean Girl Reform School. You can follow here on Twitter, FB or visit her sites here & here.
Meditate & Believe Right
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Meditate On
The greatest miracle that Peter experienced happened one night when
he stepped out of his boat in the middle of a storm at Jesus’ word. That
night, the winds were wild and the waves, boisterous. But as long as
Peter kept his eyes on Jesus, he did the impossible—he walked on water.
Jesus was walking on the water and when Peter looked at Jesus, he became like Jesus and did the supernatural. God’s Word declares that “we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Beloved, when you keep your focus on Jesus, you are transformed into His image from glory to glory. You are transformed by beholding, not by working. When you see that Jesus is above the storms of your life, you will effortlessly rise above those storms. So instead of looking at how insurmountable your circumstances and challenges are, turn away from them and keep your eyes on Jesus. While it may sound impractical, it is the most powerful thing you can do, and Jesus will cause you to reign over every storm in your life! | ||||||||||||||||||
Today's word with Joel & Victoria
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