What Are The Spiritual Disciplines?

I added 12 spiritual disciplines that lists 12 disciplines that are created to become closer to God.

Spiritual Discipline is defined as “training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior. Discipline is not part of the sin nature, but it is a natural component of the Christian life. Almost nothing of any significance in our lives is ever accomplished with out it.

Self-disciplines can be described as those behaviors that augment our spiritual growth and enable us to grow to spiritual maturity. This process of spiritual growth and development begins to take place the moment a person encounters the risen Christ and comes to Him for salvation.

The Characteristics Of A Truly Good Person

One usually knows whether a person is good by what they do.

Kind, helpful, understanding, patient, and loving are some of the words that come to mind when asked to list the qualities of a good person. One usually knows a person it good by what they do.

They never remember the angry or holding grudges of anyone. They are always there reaching out to help others. They are the purest souls around us. Never leave them because they deserve to be treasured and loved.

Characteristics Of A Truly Good Person:

They can never stay mad at you. They are truly magical beings and always forgiving other’s mistakes.

They are like a “Fun Booster, in a gloomy or dull situation. Especially when your feeling blue. A hug from then is all you need.

When you succeed, their happiness for you is legitimate. They’ll be the first one to demand a car ride in your new ca or ask for a night out when you get that promotion.

You will never notice a frown on they face. They are always very cheerful. N9 wonder you haven’t noticed crow feet on their face yet.

They have a gentle heart Yet the are so brave. That’s why things never break their hearts. They won’t even confront and go all dramatic instead, just walk away silently. Like nothing ever happened.

They never nag or grumble about their own problems. And that’s what makes them the best company to have.

Helping and caring for others seems like what they were born for. Is the car at the repair shop? Don’t worry, the next thing you know, they’ll be there honking near you place just to give you a lift.

They are warm-hearted people. The value of friendship or relationships they have. And they are not stupid enough to initiate a fight over some negligible issue.

When they’re sad themselves, all you can do is give them a nice hug. And bam! Their cheerful smile will be back once again.

You would think they don’t even have a dark side. It’s extremely hard to tell, you’ll hardly see then yelling, shouting or picking a fight for reason. They are not manipulative and cunning.

They always Emit such positive vibes. Starting from their smile to there body language. They is something so different and positive about them, you’ll always want them as your friend.

Being Tested Throughout Your Life

This last week have been a rough go for me. It’s been almost the entire month of April. It’s gone from a horrible migraine headaches to my sodium level dipping dangerously low and a week in the hospital. To blood work every 4 hours for 3 days. My arms look like black and blue pin cushions. I was diagnosed with brain lesions caused from severe chronic migraines. And while the doctors were doing CT-Scans to MRI’s they found a tumor in my artery in my neck. This artery that my carotid artery is twisted around. The doctor’s want to get a biopsy, but aren’t sure how to go about it. It’s very risky. If they nick my carotid artery I’m as good as dead.

I have been a very strong woman most of my life. But, now I’m not certain I’m going to win this one.

It’s been all I can think about since last week. So there was no use trying to write an article for my blog today.

I completely trust my God, but it’s scary to think that I could be close to death with this surgery.

I know I need to buck up and be strong to get through this once and for all. Before it takes my voice or my sight.

I know I have to get the biopsy done and get this tumor out, and I need to be strong now more than ever.

Why Fear Is A Lie

Discovering the truth behind anxiety and worry, and set yourself free.

If your life is dominated by anxiety and worry fear has been telling you two things.

1. Terrible things are going to happen: You’re going to fail, people won’t like you, your loved ones are In Danger, you will lose your health.

2. You won’t be able to handle it: You’ll be overwhelmed, alone and unable to cope.

I’m writing this because I almost let fear take me over recently. I was diagnosed with a mass in the artery of my neck. It is very close to my carotid artery and is sitting on a bunch of nerves that control my voice box and my sight.

My first fear was that I could go blind or lose the ability to speak. Then to top it off I realized when the remove it, there is a chance they will nick my carotid artery and I could bleed to death.

Scary thoughts, I almost began to cry, but that would change anything.

I know I’ve trusted God on hard trials before. And he has never failed me yet.

In cognitive behavior therapy they call these predictions:

The likeliness estimates the probability that our fear will come true

Severity especially: how bad it will be if it actually happens.

I want to look more closely at each of these forecasts.

Likelihood Estimates

You probably know from experience that fear exaggerates the likelihood of bad things happening. Years ago I was diagnosed with cancer it weighed heavy on my mind, just a few years before my cousin died from the same type of cancer. Not to mention my cancer doctor told me I had 1 year to live. And I’d better start planning my funeral. I was scared already then he told me this. Yes I had a tremendous fear I was going to die.

It was a realization come to me. I saw a whole sequence of tragic events. The diagnosis, the hospital stay, my family holding bedside vigils and the devastating loss of my life.

Mark Twain supposedly said “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

Studies show that about 9 outfoxed 10 worries are false alarms. So 90% of the time, your fear is lying to you about the bad things that will happen.

Interestingly enough I was diagnosed with a clean bladder and no sign of cancer in my body. I tell people God healed me, and I truly believe He did. How else would a woman who was given 1 year to live, have a clean cancer check with no signs the cancer was even there.

As with my mass, yes, there is a concern, but in all actuality, the surgeon will have steady hands or God will take me home. I already know where I’m going. And I’m positive that it’s not my time is still not up.

Sometimes the things we’re worried about actually happen. I once worried my son’s severe rash was a tell, tell sign he was allergic to something. And it actually happened. He was allergic to soy, and eggs and milk. He had to be fed goats milk as a baby.

So would about the severity- when what we’re afraid of materializes, is it as bad as we expect?

Severity Estimates

When you pay close attention to your fears, you’ll probably notice that the predicted outcome is always worse than bad. If your worried about getting sick on vacation, it’s going to be terrible. If your late for a meeting it will be awful. If you lose your job, life will be over. In one way or another you won’t be able to handle what you fear.

The issue is that our imagination doesn’t look far enough into the future. We stop at the point at which our fears come true. It’s as though we’ll meet a cliff, and the bad thing that might happen will be the end of the story.

My example about my son, I stopped at the point where he would be Scarred for life. Not realizing that he would grow out of these, or learn to cope with the rashes and know how to avoid the things he was allergic to.

What Is Fear?

Think about a time when one of your fears came true. You probably were unhappy about it, and then moved into problem-solving mode. With my son I stopped using eggs when I cooked, I bout him goats milk to put in his bottles. I ready the labels on everything. If it had soy we as a family didn’t eat it. It turned out to be a problem I could deal with.

If we keep looking at our fears, we would see ourselves handling what comes our way. No matter what happens, there will always be the next thing we need to do, until the end of life, at which there is nothing left to fear anyway. You’ve already handled countless problems to get to this point in your life and none of them were the end of the story. But, each one of them we’re tasks that needed to be attended to.

This is not to say that none of the problems you run into will be a big deal. Sometimes the bad thing that happens is a very, very big deal. But, it won’t be what your fear is telling you it will be. It will still be in your life. It will still be in your life, doing what you can respond to what has happened.

You’ll also have the love and the support of those who care about you, which your fear leaves out of the picture.

When You Reach A Breaking Point

How many times have you thought or said to yourself- “I can’t take this any longer?”

We have a breaking point from time to time. When enough is enough. No one is immune to continuous stress or anxiety. But learning how to overcome a breaking point is crucial.

We are tested my breaking points. And with courage we can turn them into defining moment for the better.

Each person has a breaking point, no matter how strong their spirit is. Somewhere inside of us, deep inside us a flaw that only a variable of cruelty or fate can find. The earlier we see the it the better.

Denying it can be dangerous. A breaking point is not an isolated incident but the accumulation of a internal process. The tension and stress built over time. Like a pressure cooker and if we deny this over time we will explode.

The fatigue builds up as we continue to push ourselves because we want to stay on course with our lives. We fail to pay attention to our minds telling us to stop until it’s too late.

Some people resist being under pressure and immediately turn off. Others ignore the symptoms as together and let the stress build up until they suddenly explode.

Chronic stress is like hearing dripping faucet. First you notice it, then you get irritated and finally you can’t take anymore. By the time to can’t take it anymore it’s time to fix it.

There are 3 stages that make the breaking point into a make or break situation.

  • You are aware of being under pressure, but still feel centered.
  • Stress clouds your judgment, and a conscious effort not to respond with-anger, anxiety or impatience.
  • You can’t cope any longer and you explode your release the tension momentarily but feel embarrassed and regretful.

Stress is cumulative; don’t miss the signs.

Using I Messages

I learned about this technique when I went to training to become a mental health facilitator I few years back.

We’ve all done it. Lost our cool in the heat of the moment and said something we later regretted. There is a tool to overcome in times like this. It is I messages. It gets the message across about how we feel and what behaviors made you feel that way, all this without sounding like you are blaming them. I messages are a simple way to communicate in any situation. But do not confuse simple with easy. It takes skill and practice.

I-messages provide feedback safely, as they avoid put downs, judgement and assigning blame. There are three types of information when providing effective feedback to someone about their behavior. These are:

  • Describing the behavior
  • The feeling that behavior creates and
  • The effect that the behavior has

A description of the behavior is necessary to inform the person what the problem is. This should always be included in the message otherwise they will not know what behavior to change. Including with of the other types ( how it makes you feel and what the effect is) will normally be sufficient to communicate the problem effectively.

An I message states the behavior and describes the speakers feelings (number 1 and 2 above). The speaker owns their feelings without coming across as judging the person.nit promotes a willingness to exchange information, find a solution and to seek a constructive change in the situation. Rarely does this make matters worse.

For example I messages are delivered by says something like. “I feel angry when I am expecting a ride home and I am forgotten.

Some other examples of I-messages are:

I feel angry when people call me names.

I feel hurt when no one asks me what I want to do.

I feel awful when you tell me I cannot do something and I know I can do it.

You-messages

In you messages, the message contains either you or you’re in it. You make me angry because you forgot to give me a ride home. Using You-messages blames the person for the situation and judges then. It can also hold others responsible for the feelings of the speaker as well as puts them down. It causes feeling in the receiver that can be defensive or start making excuses. All this does is make matters worse.