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Hitting the Wall...full integration of our pain.

In The Cry of the Soul, Dan Allender explain why awareness of our feelings is so important to our relationship with God.

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God... Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice. However, we often turn a deaf ear - through emotional denial, distortion, orb disengagement. In neglecting our emotions we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.

Everyone of us at some point will HIT THE WALL on our journey in life. A place in which we feel STUCK (emotionally, spiritually, physically, and even financially). A place where we continually repeat unhealthy patterns. In return, those patterns give us the same negative, unhealthy outcomes and result...so we continually HIT THE WALL.!

There will be a season in each of our lives where we will be confronted with the brutal facts of our reality. A time in which we can't walk, run, or hide from our pain anymore. Some of us feel so tired, knocked down, beat up, and have been tottering on emotional craziness...why? Because, we've been ignoring the emotional life (what's really hurting us within).

A good starting question to ask ourselves is, "What is your pain?" And then, exploring and engaging the "why" behind that pain.

The challenge is to find integration between our emotional life  with a profound contemplative life with God.  

Quit the denial...get honest, get open, and get help! Start the journey!

Do I love God or my own accomplishments?

My fiend Scott Hodge, sent me this meditation, it was written by a man named Richard (adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations).  The meditation impacted me about keeping life spiritual, simple, and emotionally healthy.  Here it is:

The ego wants to ensure us that the things we do are all significant and worthy of our attention, that this event will make me important.  Our activities become attempts at self validation and little life merit badges.  We all enjoy putting another check o our life resume, or even on our spiritual resume.

Much religion uses God to bolster one’s own self-image, I am afraid.  True religion would not be attached to self-image at all, but only to God.  In fact, the closer you actually get to the Light, the more of your own shadow you see.  Maybe that is why a lot of people do not persevere on the journey toward the Lover.

Christian life has little to do with me doing anything right.  It has everything to do with falling in love with a Lover who always does everything right.  What I love is that Lover and not my own accomplishments; nor am I surprised or unduly humiliated by my own failures.  We must come to know who is always the Lover and who is always the beloved.

Killing Me Softly...

Doubt and unbelief have a way of killing you softly.  I'm learning to be a student of possibilities. Jesus teaches us to be open to possibilities and continuous learning. My struggle has been in my attitude and belief system...they limit me. I've been confronting my internal representation lately– my attitude and belief about what is possible.  

I am in the process of uncovering and changing my limiting beliefs in my life.  Answering questions like, "Why I doubt?" - "Why I limit myself?" - "Why do I procrastinate?" The work goes on...

Who told you to sit still?

Do you remember being told to "sit still" as a kid.  It's funny how many of us still find ourselves "sitting still" as adults.  We have dreams, visions, and goals we desire to see fulfilled, but for some reason we still hear that voice to "sit still."  Some of us are in companies, churches, and organizations that enable complacency to be the norm, and yet we find ourselves again "sitting still." Of all the things any of us should fear, complacency ought to head the list.  

What enables good leaders to initiate? 

• Leaders know something is in their hearts that prompts them to move and act with passion.
• Leaders know what they want.  Desire is the starting point to all achievement.
• Leaders know that people-pleasing causes them to "sit still." 
• Leaders take risks, and push themselves to act. 
• Leaders know they will make mistakes along the way, but still act anyhow.
• Leaders go with their gut.  You don't need to know everything, but know enough to act.

People Skills 101: What's up with your ATTITUDE?

What is an Attitude?    An attitude is an outward expression of an inward feeling.

How Does Attitude Impact An Individual?
Attitude Truths:
Attitude Truth #1:
Our attitude determines our approach to life.
Attitude Truth #2:
Our attitude determines our relationships with people.
Attitude Truth #3:
Often our attitude is the only difference between success and failure.
Attitude Truth #4:
Our attitude at the beginning of a task will affect its outcome more than anything else.

Attitude Truth #5:  Our attitude can turn our problems into blessings.

Attitude Truth #6:  Our attitude can give us an uncommonly positive perspective.

Attitude Truth #7: Just because your a Christian doesn't mean you have a good attitude

Focusing Everything

     

    Have you ever wondered what would happen if you gave yourself over to ABSOLUTE FOCUS.  I mean, what would happen in our lives if we had a willingness to let go of some of the "nice things" in our lives that didn't really matter.  Maybe at the very least we would gain some sanity, but we also might see our lives change for the better. 

           What does it take to gain the focus required to become a truly effective leader?  There are two keys are priorities and concentration.  And there is lies the problem.  Too many leaders struggle with priorities and concentration. Focus is the most difficult element to implement in leaders lives.  Focus is the element that gives power and energy to our vision and dreams.  

            Many leaders of organizations have created too much clutter, both, in the organization and in their personal lives.  The result? Instead of uniting (resources, energy) they divide focus. 

Here's how it works:

1. A leader who knows his priorities but lacks concentration knows what to do, but never gets it done.
2. A leader with concentration but no priorities has excellence without progress. 
3. But the leader who knows both, they gain the potential to achieve great things.

If determining a life purpose were that easy, everyone would be doing it

 It's the new year and everyone is out to make changes.  Observe closely and you can see people attempting to make changes everywhere. Just go to your: local health club, Barnes & Noble self-help section, and even your local church will seem to be a little more crowded.  

Why all this fuss and energy to bring change in our lives? Well, I believe its because people are really searching to find more purpose and meaning in their lives.  

Reggie McNeal, in his book, Get a Life! said, 

"Let's face it: if determining a life purpose were that easy, everyone would be doing it...We do not invent our life mission; we discover it.  When you adept this perspective, live becomes a journey of discovery, an adventure into the meaning and mission of your life...you will discover God right in the middle of it." 

How true Reggie! There are many clues and challenges to discovering your life purpose.  

Here are a four clues and four challenges that might help you in discovering your life purpose (outlined and given by Reggie McNeal):

Clues to discovering your life purpose:

1. PASSION: Passion distiguishes people from the pack. What captures your attention? What brings you energy? What makes your heart catch on fire?  What are you passionately committed to in life?

2. TALENT: Pay attention to what your talented at. What do you think you are good at? What do other people say you are good at?

3. PERSONALITY: Your personalty is your perferred way of engaging in the world around you.

4. EXPEREINCES: Your life is not a collection of random encounters, chance happenings, or disconnected events.

Challenges to discovering your life purpose:

1. DISTRACTIONS: We sometimes fail to grasp our life mission because we are too distracted with too many things.  

Question: Is there anything distracting you right now from pursuing your life's mission?  

2. TEMPTATIONS:  Many of us have no idea how customized are personal temptations are (bad habits)? Temptations are designed to keep us away from our life purpose.

Question: What temptations do you seem to battle most often?  What keeps you away from        following God?

3. INADEQUATE EXPOSURE: Sometimes people are limited in their life's mission by inadequate exposure    to opportunity and/or challenge.

4. INADEQUATE FEEDBACK: Good feedback helps us identify our talents, tells us when we are communicating energy and passion to others, as well as how we are performing in certain tasks and roles.

 

Why Change Is Like a Slinky

 When most of us enter into the new year we can't help but think about the word, "CHANGE."  I read an article recently by Hans Finzel, it was entitled, "Why Change Is Like a Slinky."  (Remember the SLINKY TOY - - sing w/ me: "SLINKY, SLINKY, SLINKY, it's fun and a wonderful toy, it's SLINKY, it's SLINKY...it's fun for a boy and girl...").

Why Change Is Like a Slinky:

1. You have to take it out of the box and have fun with it.

2. It comes with many styles and colors.

3. Somebody has to launch it on its way.

4. The course it takes once it begins is entirely unpredictable.

5. It routinely gets stuck halfway down the stairs and has to be relaunched.  Repeat as necessary.

6. It is messy, noisy, and chaotic.

7. Before it is launched, it has stored potential energy.  When launched, that energy force becomes kinetic energy.

8. You don't really control it once it begins its journey.

9. It rarely lands where you predict.

Important Note:

"When it comes to change, there are three seasons of timing: People change when they hurt enough that they have to, when they learn enough that they want to, and when they receive enough that they are able to." - John Maxwell