prayer life – Tru Original

Articles Tagged with: prayer life

Keeping My Focus on LOVE

brene-brown-what-is-love

When I started a series of posts about unhealthy thought patterns some months back, I was really moving away from a long stint with negativity and I felt like I had some tools to share that may help others who were or are struggling in that place of BLAH! I had been hurt and forgotten what LOVE looked like. I love the quote by Brene Brown in the above image about her definition of LOVE. It reminds me of how love is cultivated and how love is destroyed.

I still want to share what worked for me in turning away from hurt and towards love. I hope it helps you move away from the ugly and focus on love, beauty and truth. I think a good place to get started again is from an excerpt from one of my blog post on this series…

I was in this dark place and I was dwelling on negativity, completely unaware of my feelings of hurt and rejection. So how did I get out of that dark hole? I am not an expert on feelings or anything for that matter, but I can tell you about 4 things that are working for me.

Set aside time for prayer and reflection everyday.
Identify my feelings and acknowledge why I’m feeling that way, then release them.
Intentional thinking.
Attitude of gratitude.

Let’s pick up where we left off !

Identify my feelings and acknowledging them is a good start. Most of the time what I’m feeling is a long way off from what is really going on. I know that seems harsh, but it’s true. Being an emotional being means sometimes our feeling are not reality. Brene Brown uses a great line that says, “the story I’m making up in my head is…” I love this because it immediately set the tone for more gentle and realistic self talk. Take this scenario…I am angry with a friend that does not respond to a text or email for several days. After recognizing my anger, I ask my self if anger is the correct response to not texting/ emailing someone back? Well, I’m not feeling anger as much I feel rejected. Why I am feeling rejection? Maybe my friend doesn’t care about me as much as I care about her? Is this a fact or an insecurity? Here is where Brene’s line works! ” The story I’m making up in my head is my friend doesn’t care about me.” Most likely, because she is a friend, the root of my feelings is based in insecurity because I know that my friend loves me, I see her actions towards me. Do I need to stay in this place of anger and insecurity after acknowledging this this is not a fact? No, I’m free to let go of that feeling and replace it with truth which is my friend is probably out of town or busy at work. This enables me to be compassionate towards my friend and move on. This is a powerful exercise and I have even said to my husband “the story I’m making up in my head is…” Even though he laughed, it got us to a place of truth and allowed me to be vulnerable. Hard, but worth it.

Intentional thinking is huge when trying to break the cycle of negativity. I don’t believe that critical, negative people enjoy feeling like a tyrant or victim. I believe they are stuck and this way of living has become that house guest that outstays their welcome. I do not wallow in negative thought patterns any longer. If I feel my thinking get stuck in a place of pitty, anger, negativity then I recognize that I am in that place and intentionally release the darkness ( because that is not the voice of God) and I align my thoughts with goodness and joy. My mind sometimes goes down what I call ‘the rabbit hole’. This happens when I am in that worse plane crash scenario that I wrote about and I get stuck in that. Identifying my thoughts, and moving towards intention is 2 big steps to take towards choosing LOVE.

Last, but maybe most important is to have an Attitude of Gratitude. Sounds so elementary but it’s not always easy to find gratitude in the reality of everyday life. But, gratitude is truly a lifestyle, a way of seeing that sets you on a path of freedom, hope and JOY . “Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and the determined choice to praise God in all things.” Kay Warren. That is gratitude in my opinion. When we can praise God for ALL things, we learn to look at our blessing and come to understand that He is in control. One thing that helps me and my family to focus on GRATITUDE is to keep an ongoing list of things that we’re grateful for. Maybe this can work for you too.

I’m making a choice, I’m choosing love over hate today! How about you?

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Running with the Scissors

Sunshine MW quote with website

This week, I came across this poem from Marianne Williamson and every bit of my heart yelled out “TRUTH”. I read this poem some years ago, but the word TRUTH didn’t come to mind. Maybe the word was bullshit, or lie, or what a load of crap. Regardless, I was not in a place in my life when I could recognize that I had a light and what it would mean if I let it shine.

Even now, when I know that all of us are born with gifts, talents, and “lights”, I sometimes hold back. Why? I could point to many reasons why I hold back…fear that my gifts won’t measure up (to whom I’m not sure), fear that someone will demand something of my gifts and I will be obligated (commitment phob), fear that I will become stifled and unable to produce ( bored and trapped)…ugh! It really doesn’t matter what the fear is telling me because the job of this fear is simply to put out my light. To extinguish the excitement, the courage, the joy, the trust and hold me in a place of stagnation. This fear is the lie that holds us all captive and redirects us from the “Glory of God that is within us”.

So, the image I kept getting in my head all week as I meditated on this poem was a little girl running with scissors. The little girl doesn’t know how dangerous it is to run with scissors, she’s innocent, and she’s not even thinking about the scissors…she’s running ahead to the next paper doll, or snow flake, ready to do what she does…shine.

If you follow me on Facebook or you’re part of my Art and Soul Prompts group, you know that it’s been all about courage and slaying the fear monster this month. You may recognize the above image as our April Soul prompt. if you don’t, be part of the group. I would love to support you along the way.

One last thing, I want to give you a little gift, the above image titled Own Your Light graphic . Print it off and hang it in a place that you will see it first thing in the morning…the mirror, the coffeemaker, the shower door. But don’t just look at it, read the words and believe in Your Light.

Own your light, it’s who you are, a child of God.

Honor the Reflection of Your Journey

In my last post, I shared with you that I had been struggling with negativity and how difficult it was to change my outlook and perspective…in other words, to kick that unwanted house guest in my head right on out the door! When we are struggling with low self esteem, negativity, and/or stress I believe the biggest challenge is to identify and reflect on how and why we are having these feelings, but not go into the rabbit hole of obsessing. Sounds easy, right? It is not easy but it sure is fruitful!

Is it easy to take responsibility for our choices and actions? To take over the plane when we have been flying on auto-pilot for so long. What if we crash? What if we can’t navigate through the storm ahead? What if we let our passengers down? We may not be playing the plane wreak scenarios in our heads, but maybe you’re asking these questions…

What if I fail? What if I’m rejected? What if they see my imperfections?

We all ask these questions! These questions can help us to logically navigate through the storm, right? The concern is when we can’t stop asking these questions after a storm and we are still feeling fear even when the storm has passed, we went down the rabbit hole. What then? Stress, low self esteem, anger, confusion, fear, negativity…you get it and this is where we become stuck on auto pilot again. Better to let that guy handle those things.

It’s easy to not identify or acknowledge our feelings in our world today. We are busy and with all the distractions we can check out on our feelings and check into the TV, internet, work, social media, drinking, eating, etc. and feel like we are accomplishing something. We choose to not honor our feelings and soon our feelings are manifesting themselves in other ways like addictions, overeating, complaining/ negativity, restlessness. obsessiveness, not able to sleep, depression, and fear or lack of peace.

Set aside time for prayer and reflection everyday.
Identify my feelings and acknowledge why I’m feeling that way, then release them.
Intentional thinking.
Attitude of gratitude.

I am going to go into details about these 4 steps in the coming weeks posts. These are steps which you can apply to begin living a life that honors the reflection of your journey. I know that our journeys are hard sometimes, filled with struggles, sorrow, and pain. But know this, we are not defined by our circumstances we are defined by our response to those circumstances and we are defined by God’s love for us. We are ALL precious in the eyes of God, no matter our choices, no matter our mistakes, no matter our circumstances. So let’s honor each and every step on this life journey so that our soul reflects love and truth.

My next post will offer tips on how to make more time for prayer and reflection.

Be gentle on yourself this week!