Letting Go Of Your Baggage

What do you usually do when facing adversity? Do you muster up all your strength, willpower, and courage? Or do you quickly succumb to your difficulties and retreat back in your comfort zone?

These are two normal responses to seemingly overwhelming odds. We either muster up the strength and courage to move forward or wilt under the pressure.

However, there is a actually a third response that many people don’t know about. And it possibly transcends the other two options. And that is to release and let go.

Tao Te Ching said,

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what a I have, I receive what I need.

So, what does it mean to release and let go? It means surrendering to the present moment. It meaning surrendering yourself to your current circumstances.

Surrendering is, or course not giving up. To give up means to quit and take no action in the direction of your desired outcome. It’s a form of retreat where you move away from something you thought you desperately needed or want.

I lived my life so long holding on to baggage that I was never meant to hold on to. I hide a family secret and I stubbornly refused to let go of my life’s traumas. (my baggage). I was never meant to hold on to. I spent 40 years of my life fighting to hold on to who I thought I was. When the whole time I only had to drop my baggage and begin healing. It was only when I thought I couldn’t fight anymore and had an emotional break. I realized I couldn’t live my life one more minute on my own. I needed help. Once I reached the point of surrender did I truly begin to heal.

Surrendering is very much like stepping back rather than a full retreat. It gives you space to think about your life and circumstances. It gives you space to gather new insights and perspectives. It gives you space to find a better way – to allow for a positive change and transformation.

When you surrender you release All attachment to the past memories of failure and mistakes, to the people that are holding you back (whether alive or not). and the unhelpful thoughts and feelings that often sabotages our progress.

When you release and let go, you’re surrendering to the present moment. You’re surrendering yourself to how things are right now, and this makes space for now opportunities and perspectives.

However, this carefree state of mind doesn’t only apply to moments of friction, change, conflict or discomfort that eats away at the happiness in you’re life. It also applies to the moments when you are chasing your goals.

Whenever we fight and struggle to resist, we get riled up emotionally. And when that happens, our emotions often cloud our judgement. They create a pattern of resistance where we struggle to see things clearly and objectively. And as a result, we make poor choices and get attached to specific outcomes.

When you release and let go, you’re not trying to avoid the consequences of you’re predicament. You don’t forget what has happened or the reality of your circumstances, but instead take the time to clear your mind and gain a clearer perspective of the situation.

Releasing and letting go is about taking responsibility. It’s about taking responsibility for whatever situation you find yourself in. It’s about stepping back and allowing yourself to get overwhelmed by a particular emotion of feeling. In other words it’s letting go all the pain and suffering you’ve been hiding from, and allowing the space to begin positive changes and transformation to take place. To start a new life of blessing and promise.

For instance, releasing and letting go of the fear that is getting the better of you. Releasing and letting go when your consistently making unreasonable compromises. And releasing and letting go when you are overly sacrificing your person values.

Release and let go when you struggle with hurts, regrets, failures, and mistakes. Release and let go when you hold grudges or deny yourself the opportunity for growth and development.

Release and let go when you’re feeling lousy and miserable, when your stuck ins rut, and when you feel you’re moving down the wrong path. You don’t have to wait under your a huge burden and weighed down because it will only bring you misery and despair.

People can spend their entire lives resisting all the crap that life throws their way. The more they resist, the deeper they sink into an abyss of endless regrets.

This abyss is kind of like quicksand. Once you get knee deep in the muck, you feel stuck. But your not, it only appears that way. But you don’t realize it so you keep struggling to resist. And as a result to sink deeper into the muck, and before you know it, your in over your head with no way out.

Getting out of the quicksand is about non-resistance. It’s about stepping back and taking your time to think through your dilemma. It’s about releasing and letting go of the baggage you’ve let weigh you down. It’s about releasing and letting go of your struggles. Stop fighting the quicksand, instead use a tool to help you get unstuck.

When you release and let go you free yourself to gain a proper perspective. You free yourself to see things clearly. You can begin to move forward in a better way.

Releasing and letting go won’t be easy but it will be worth it. Especially when it comes to long- term happiness.

Don’t wait until a emotional break down is at your door. To decide to pull yourself out and surrender to your pain and suffering. I tell you it’s much harder to do when your actually in the throes of completely throwing in the towel of life.

To help you release and let go during those crucial moments, take the time to ask yourself the following questions:

  • What am I currently holding onto that’s starting to make me feel miserable?
  • How exactly does that make me feel?
  • What are the long-term consequences of holding on to this?
  • Why is it important to let this go?
  • What value will I gain by letting this go?
  • How can I begin this process?

These questions are a great starting point. But don’t stop there. You need to begin to explore this four phases:

1. Recognize Moments of Attachment. It’s all about awareness. When you begin to get emotionally attached to things. During these moments you may feel uncomfortable or uncertain. That’s when to recognize that it’s time to let go.

2. Write down your thoughts. Take the time yo write down your thoughts. It helps to keep a journal to write in each day. Write down your concerns, problems, and all the things you struggle to let go of. Dig deep and list everything that makes you feel miserable that particular day. One method that works really well is yo tear up or burn that page you wrote on for that day. This ritual can be very powerful symbol that helps you to release and let go. And once it’s done, move on leave the past in the past and choose to move forward with your life. It’s a simple thing, but it can make a huge difference in the way you feel about your life circumstances.

3. Practice Becoming A Witness. When we share our experiences it requires us to mentally step back from your problems and circumstances and viewing them in a third person’s perspective. Kind of like a outsider looking in on the situation.

This witness doesn’t judge or criticize. They just observe on both the outside and the inside. In other words, they observe what’s going on in the outside world and also what’s happening with your thoughts and feelings.

It’s all about being present and mindful. it’s about being mindful of all your decisions, reactions, and the emotions you experience, but without the judgement. It helps you experience everything in a very detached way. Which makes it easier to let go, because your not emotionally engaged. And you think things through more rationally and objectively.

4. Focus on Moving Forward, Not Backward. The final phase is to train yourself to focus on moving forward.

Life is like a yo-yo of experiences. We continuously move back and forth between our past, present and future. We desire to move forward, however, our regrets, mistakes, failures, all the other baggage pulls us back into the past.

Living in the past holds us back in the present and prevents us from moving forward. It keeps us stuck, and holds us hostage. And it riles up nasty emotions that make it difficult to release and let go. When we are unable to release and let go, we cannot move forward, and this eats at our happiness.

One of the best way to separate ourselves from the past is to spend time visualizing.

Take time each day to visualize for 20 minutes, just visualize releasing and letting go of all the stuff that is weighing upon your shoulders.

With every breath, you release visualize expelling these things out into the universe. And with every breath, you inhale, visualize yourself drawing in positive energy that helps you project more joy, compassion, and love into the world.

Your ideal state of mind is to focus on the presents. And one of the best ways to do this is through gratitude.

Take the time to reflect on the things your grateful for.

Ask yourself:

  • What am I grateful for right now?
  • Why do I appreciate having these things in my life?

Gratitude will help bring you mind to the present. Then from there, you can focus on moving forward, not backward.

There is a Bible verse I read often. That had helps me to stay focused.

Everything is permissible for me, but not all things are beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything. And brought under it peer, allowing it to control me (1 Corinthians 6:12 Amp).

Do not let you baggage that is weighing you down to enslave you.

The Power Of Your Mind

Mind power is one of the strongest and most useful power someone can possess.

This power, together with your imagination, can create success or failure, happiness or unhappiness, opportunities or obstacles. This depends on your mindset.

Out thoughts are the main ingredient of this power, and when we add to them focus and emotions, thoughts become powerful and can affect our reality.

The thoughts that pass through our minds are responsible for almost everything that happens in our life.

But not all thoughts are equal. Stray ones that we think once or twice cannot do much, but our predominant thoughts, the ones we repeat often, influence our behavior and attitude, affect our actions and reactions, and shape our reality.

As your thoughts are, so is your life. Weak thoughts hardly have any effect, but powerful thoughts can create great changes.

The power of your mind is composed of your attention, your mental images and your thoughts.

Thoughts are energy. Though subtle and invisible, they can affect our reality.

Just like the wind,which is invisible, but can be powerful, so are your mind and thoughts.

The Power Of Thoughts Is A Creative Power

Thoughts are like a video that plays on the screen of your mind. What you play there, determines the kind of life you live and the experiences you’ll have.

To make changes in your life, you have to play a different video, one that you like more.

You can train and strength this power. You can use it to make changes in your life, and you can influence other people’s minds.

You mind power plays an important role in creative visualization and the law of attraction.

If you plants seeds, water them, and give them fertilizers, they will grow into healthy and strong plants.

Thoughts are like seeds. They have a natural tendency to grow, get powerful and manifest in your life, if you feed them with your attend allow them to grow.

Your attention, interest and enthusiasm is what makes the powerful. If you Showa lack of interest in a certain thought, it will not gain strength and would not be powerful.

  • Your thoughts affect your subconscious mind, which in turn, influences your actions in accordance with these thoughts.
  • Your thoughts might also pass to other minds, and affect other people.
  • When you focus on your dreams and goals, you will attract people in your life who are in a position to help you with achieving your dreams.
  • Powerful thoughts affect your life and can affect the life of other people. B careful of what you think.

You become what you surround yourself with. Energies are contagious. Choose carefully. Your environment will become you.

This might seem strange and unbelievable. You don’t have to accept this, but if you analyze the kind of thoughts you think, and the kind of life you are living, you will discover interesting things. There is a correlation between one’s thoughts and one’s life conditions.

You are a manifestation of your mind. The power of your mind of the creator of the Universe, which means that your thoughts work together with it.

Th best proof you can have that this works is by using mental methods to make changes in your life.

When Does This Power Manifest?

When you repeat the same thoughts over and over again, this mighty power helps you make your thoughts come true.

How To Use The Power Of Thoughts

  • Use your imagination to visualize a perfect scene of whatever you want to accomplish.
  • Put a lot of detail, color, sound, scent and life into these mental scenes.
  • Repeat this visualization often, with attention and the belief that is going to come true.

Your subconscious mind will accept these mental scenes as real experiences, because it does not distinguish between real and imaginary experiences.

It will make changes in your life and attract opportunities to you, to make your reality match the images in your subconscious mind.

Actions, situations, and objects that you visualize frequently, eventually, manifest on the material plane in a natural way.

This manifestation doesn’t happen over night. It needs time, and depends on how ambitious and earnest you are to get what you are thinking about, and how much time and attention you put into this practice,

You can use this process to change negative habits and build new positive habits or skills.

How To Make This Power Work For You:

  • Pay attention to the thoughts you think
  • Do your best to reject negative thoughts
  • Allow into your mind only thoughts that bring good, happy, and positive results.

Our thoughts can become our reality.

  • Pay attention to your thoughts and how they affect your life.
  • Focus on your dreams and goals, feed them with your attention, and give them prominence in your life.

Have you ever noticed when you are saving money for a desired trip?And you put all your thoughts and attention in your desired trip. You make a plan to put $100 a month away for your trip. In order to reach this goal, you pay attention to what you are spending. “I really like that shirt, but it’s $20, and that’s money I can put away towards my trip.

You are focusing all your thoughts and attention toward that trip, and in no time at all, you are able to go on your desired trip. That’s power of the mind.

Your thoughts and imagination determine whether you fail or achieve success. They determine the events you attract into your life.

You have more control over your life when you know how to control this mental force and how to use it effectively when you focus your attention, and when you can visualize what you want.

Stand Firm In Your Faith

Three Ways

We all know that, as believers, we will be challenged in our faith. We want to be able to stand firm.

Sometimes a challenge comes in the form of temptation. The enemy knows exactly where to target us and when we are at our weakest. And he knows exactly what keeps us most.

Often, the challenge doesn’t come with the worlds way is counter-culture God’s way. We want to be accepted, and it’s difficult to always say or do the right things.

And, of course, we are challenge when we face trials that cut us to the bone, grief, loss, sickness, and disappointment can all lead us to waiver in our belief.

Three Ways To Stand Firm In Our Faith

We’ve all been there, we’ve struggled with trying to stand firm in our faith.

“ if we do not stand firm in our faith, we will not stand at all” (Isaiah 7:9).

So, when faced with challenges to our faith, how does the Bible encourage us to stand firm?

First, we have to know upon what or who we are standing.

I wait patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me up from a slimy pit out of the mud in the mire;He set my feet upon the rock and gave me a firm place to stand

Psalm 40:1-2

When God reached down and saved us, He lifted us out of the pit and set us on the Rock. Jesus is the Rock, and He is a firm place to stand. He is the truth and His words are truth. (John 14:6; John 17:17).

2 Thessalonians 2:15 says, so then, brothers, stand firm and hold onto the teaching we have passed to you, whether by word or by letter.

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of Gods stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

When your face is challenge remember that you can stand on the Rock of Jesus Christ. His word is a firm place to stand. He does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17). He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (hebrews 13:8). Dig your heels in and trust the One who is beneath you.

Second, we will have to resist the devil and his lies.

When we are struggling with our faith, Satan will whisper words contrary to God’s Word. We have to choose to cast down those thoughts (2 Corinthians 10;5).

Be self control and alert. Your enemy the devil Prowse around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing in the firm faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering.

1 Peter 5:8-9)

“Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be men of courage; be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13).

As soon as we recognize thoughts of fear, doubt, discouragement, anxiety, or temptation, we have to choose to guard our minds against the deception of the enemy and choose to think Gods thoughts instead.

God has given us spiritual armor to help us stand. When we feel the challenges to our faith, we can remember to suit up and then take our stand.

Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand

Ephesians 6:13

You know what stands out to me and that burst. After you have Done everything. In other words, we have to do our part. We have to put on the armor and actively cues to protect our mind from wrong thoughts, our hearts from pride, and our gut from lies. Then we have to take up our shield of faith.

We have to be self-controlled and alert and on guard . But when we have done our part, God enables us to stand.

Third, we can not waver between faith and doubt.

We have to know what we believe and why we believe, so that when challenges come, we are firm in our faith. Why have you decided to follow Jesus? Why are you to serve Him? What do you believe about God and His Word?

1 Kings 18:22 says, “Elijah went before the people and said, how long will the waiver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Ball is God, follow him.“

I think sometimes we still waver between wanting to follow God and wanting to follow the world. If that is the case, we will definitely struggle with our faith. The Lord is asking you today, “How long will you waver between two opinions?

If you know that God is God and God is good, then there is no question. Don’t let Satan make you think he has something better to offer you in the world. It’s a lie.

Only God is God and He alone knows what’s best for us. He alone is the path of life, love, and victory.

Consider Abraham and his faith. He was a man, a real person, just like you and me. God gave him a great promise with little evidence that he could actually see.

“Yet he did not waiver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised” (Romans 4:20).

I love that verse. Abraham made mistakes, he wasn’t perfect. But he was “fully persuaded.’ Are you fully persuaded and what God is able to do what He has promised?

Still Struggling To Stand Firm?

If you are still struggling to believe God because of trials, tribulations, or Temptations that you are going through right now, let me encourage you that the Lord of all consent you free. He can lead you out of the miry place of doubt and confusion and give you a firm place to stand.

Trust that He is good and He loves you perfectly. He will make away for you and keep you in His love and in His truth.

Living A Victorious Life

We can achieve a victorious life through living a deep dependence on God. People usually associate victory with success. But those who are successful in their own strength tend to go their own way and forget about God.

It is through problems and failure, weakness and neediness, that we learn to rely on God.

True dependence is not simply asking God to bless what we have decided to do. It is going to God with a open mind and heart, and inviting God to plant his desires within us. We forget that God can infuse a dream that seems far beyond our reach. When we know that we cannot achieve our dreams or goals in life. When we do this it begins our journey of profound reliance in God.

It is a faith walk, taken one step at a time, leaning on Him as much as we can. It is not a path of continual success but of multiple failures. However each failure is followed by a growth spurt, nourished by increased reliance on God.

Nothing becomes victorious if we take an easy path. It’s when we take the difficult paths that we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Strategies To Help Stop Emotional Eating

Don’t let your emotions trigger bad food habits

Maybe you stand at the freezer, steaming over a fight with a family member searching for ice cream to cool your emotions. Or sit on the couch and mindlessly munch through a whole bag of chips after a stressful day.

This is emotional eating. You might have heard it called “stress eating,” Many negative emotions including anger, sadness, and stress can trigger bad eating habits,

Here’s The Problem:

The feel good foods we reach for can actually make you feel worse. Fortunately, there are strategies to help make sure your emotions don’t turn into diet damage in the long term.

I have made a decision this year to work on emotional eating. Not as a new year resolution. But as a goal. I started by writing down simple goals for a month at a time. That way it doesn’t seem so long and drawn out,

I sat down and made a list of goals for this month. My goal for this month is to:

Week 1. Get down to the root cause. While a bad day or a fight with a friend or family member are short-term issues. Emotional eating can stem from bigger issues.

I’ve been reading, and what I’ve found out is that is if chronic stress, long-term anger, depression and other concerns lead to emotional eating, it may benefit me to join a stress management class (whether online or in person) or there are exercises and other techniques that can help. Ultimately nothing can be solved if we don’t know the root cause of any issue you have in life.

Week 2. Ask Why You’re Eating. When I walk to the refrigerator, pantry, or vending machine, pause and ask myself a simple question: “Am I really hungry?”

I’m going to try and rate my hunger on a scale from 1-5, with one being I’m not hungry at all, and five being I’m so hungry that I would eat the food I hate most in the world. (mine would be Tuna Fish).

It’s too easy to just dive into mindless eating, but by asking myself this question, I at least would begin to recognize my motivation behind eating.

If my hunger clock is at a level three or four, I’m going to try eating a healthy balanced snack, instead of reaching for chips or a candy bar. If my physical hunger is lower than that. I will reach for a cup of coffee or a herbal tea,or try going for a walk.

Week 3. Swap Out My Worst Snacks. If I don’t have a pack of mini donuts or a candy bar, I can’t eat them. Eating processed snacks can actually raise levels of the stress hormone cortisol. I’m going to switch sweets treats, with a small bag of popcorn or something that have whole grains, these will boost my immune system and have fewer calories.

Stress eating, anger or sadness can trigger my sweet tooth. So I’ll work on remembering that a sugar high comes a low, which can lead to increased cravings for sugar later,

An alternative for sweet, high calorie foods could be fruit. Actually studies show that having easy access to fruits and veggies when they are easily available,

Week 4. Choose Foods That Fight Stress. Many people drink tea in emotional situations because the steam is smoothing. Tea also has helpful antioxidants. And Green, matcha, or white tea contains an amino acid called L- theanine that may help reduce stress levels.

I have habit of eating late at night, maybe because I’m not a very good sleeper and I get stressed about it, so I hit the refrigerator. But I’ve learned that dark sweet cherries, as not only a sweet treat, they also help increase natural levels of melatonin to help you sleep. Guess what I’m buying on my next trip to the grocery store.

Here’s a list of a few foods I’ve read that help in maintaining a healthy mind:

  • Dark Chocolate – at least 72% cacao
  • Whole grains
  • Nuts
  • Legumes
  • Fruits
  • Vegetables

The key is stocking up on foods that help with stress or emotions, and avoiding processed junk that might make us feel worse after we eat it.

This is my goal for the next month. I’m hoping I can improve my health.

Hope Is A Rope

“Being joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer“ (Romans 12:13). That verse is written to a group of people who live in the midst of chaos, struggle, and persecution. To hope in something or someone means that I’ll live an expectation that something I desire or along for will happen. To hope means I trust that there is something more than I can see, touch, or feel. To hope means I don’t give up, even when I can’t see what’s ahead. To have Hope results in the belief that my life is not worthless, and one’s of the ways I do that is to add meaning and richness to the lives of others.

In English, hope is a somewhat abstract idea of expectation. The word for hoe in Hebrew(Tikvah), however, is more concrete. In Hebrew, the word means expectation, it also means cord or rope, which comes from the root word that means to bind or can you wait for or upon. Tikvah is a rope that we can hold onto when the world seems out of control or when we don’t know how to make it through a difficult season in life, like the promise given to the Israelites in captivity in a foreign land. “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (tikvah) (Jeremiah 29:11). Is it possible that a rope can you give me hope? I can clean to God and cry out with the Psalmist, “ for you are my hope, Lord of God; my confidence from my youth (Psalm 71:5).

Tikvah is used in the biblical account found in the book of Joshua. As Joshua prepared to lead the Israelites into the promised land, he sent out two spies who come to the house of Rahab to turn them over, but instead, she hides them on the roof and deceives the King. Rahab is in a vulnerable place and tells the spies, “ I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you” (Joshua 2:9), This sounds like a hopeless situation.

She asked the spies to swear an oath that when Jericho is conquered, they will let Rahab and her family live. The spies say to Rahab, “We shall be free from this up unless we come into the land, you hide the cord of scarlet thread (Tikvah) in the window you let us down and gather into the house of your father, mother and brothers and all your father’s household” (Joshua 2:17-18). Spice keep their word and spare Rahab and her family. The scarlet cord was used here in a literal sense, but it gives us a picture of what hope looks like. The cord of Rahab’s only guarantee that her household would be spared by the Israelites. Though the physical cord has been tied to the window to ensure their safety, Rehab still had to wait for the realization of the spies’ promise. One of the most difficult thing to remember is that hope is rooted in waiting.

I imagine Rahab walked through the steps laid out in Romans 12:12 – being joyful in the hope that her family would be rescued, patient in the uncertainty, and praying to the one true God that she didn’t even know, but hoped would be her salvation.

How do we cling to hope and keep waiting? How do we keep doubt from overwhelming us? In my experience, the answer is rooted in the vital relationships with God, ourselves, and others. The spies needed Rahab in order to leave a dangerous situation; Rahab needed the spies to follow through with their promise to protect her family; Rahab needed to wait and trust the one true God; and Joshua, the leader of the Israelites needed assurance from God and the people who told him, “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:18:.

I connected relationship with God is like grasping onto a strong rope. We can cling too and depend on Him even when we can’t see the next right step. I need to rest in God, trusting that the issues I’m facing are part of what God is using to transform me. And like rehab in the five, I need to risk allowing other people into my life. God really is in control, and I will relinquish my anxiety over to him. I will find hope and I long for in the midst of chaos.