With Pain Comes Great Strength

We all fear pain. Pain comes in many forms and sometimes threatens to overwhelm our emotions and/or our bodies. Sometimes we mask it and find ways to make ourselves numb si that we can no long feel it’s affects. But this does nothing more that create further harm, further hurt. And further grief. We have to stop masking the pain and allow ourselves to feel, and begin to find strength. Pain can be a gift if we truly allow ourselves to feel it, to embrace it. I know this sounds crazy. I masked my pain with medicine that my doctors we’re oh so ready to oblige in. I was on pain medicine and anxiety pills for years and years. That only led me to more problems.

Rejoice in the pain, for you are finally strong enough to feel again.

I’m sure all of you have heard the phrase: When you hit rock bottom everything will change. The truth is that when some people hit rock bottom and just can’t take anymore they will turn to suicide which is very sad, when people think this is the only way out. It’s not. We all have the choice the change. Change our attitudes, or thoughts, of change lives.

I always tell people that come to me telling me what they have been thinking: there is no rule in life’s handbook saying you can’t change your thoughts. If you don’t like what your thinking change it to something better. Don’t sit and dwell on your negative thoughts.

In my struggles during my life, I have tried to commit suicide many times but then remembered what I was leaving behind, my father was my only strength in my life. I would often tell him, ’I can do this anymore’ he would tell me you can’t die because what would I do without you. We would try to convince me, but give me a reason to stick around a little longer. While my husband would tell me what would the kids do without, I couldn’t raise them on my own. There is always a reason to not commit suicide. And not many reasons too, change your thoughts.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Anonymous

I all think of the quote just when I get frustrated and want to quit. I tell myself I’m not going to let satan win. And I push through it.

If you have a disease yes, take care of yourself, take the medicine the doctor prescribed. Take care of yourself. Eat well, exercise when and how you can. But don’t let them give you an expiration date. Only God can bring you into this world and out of this world.

When I was diagnosed with cancer the doctor told me in one year I would be dead. Yes, of course I was upset for a few day. Then I decided I was not excepting his time for my death. I was not going to let satan win, not this time or ever.

Have the strength to change your thoughts, and decide to live a better life than ever before. When your only goal is to be a better person today than you were yesterday. Things begin to be better. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.

I so hope these things I write are an inspiration to you. May God bless you everyone.

The Importance Of Building Resilience

We all experience points in our life where we face trials, difficulties, and issues. Often we are good by friends, Be strong, you’ll get through this, you need become more resilient, but what does this mean, and how can we achieve it in a practical sense?

In essence, being resilient means being able to adapt and bounce back when something difficult happens in our lives. It is the ability to once again pick ourselves up after a trauma or painful experience.

The one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell.

Roy T. Bennett

I found this to be to be true in my life. I am a firm believer of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I feel I have had hard times in my life but I decided to not let satan win. I chose to make to let my trials make me into a hurt, sad, adult. But let it make me stronger.

Our levels of resiliency will change and develop throughout our lives, and at times, we may find out we will not cope like anyone else, as well as surprising ourselves when we manage a difficult situation. Resilience is a psychological tool we implement to get back to feeling normal again.

As we all know, when we are in a weakened position where we feel things are going from bad to worse, it can be very difficult to do d balance, or go against the tide, or recover and regain a stable place.

Resilience is important for several reasons; it enables us to develop mechanisms for protection against experiences that can be overwhelming. It helps us maintain balance in our lives during tough times or stressful situations and it also helps protect us from some mental disabilities.

There are some benefits I’m listing:

Improved learning and academic achievement.

Lower absences from work and the things we enjoy due to sickness.

Reduced use of risk-taking behaviors such as excessive drinking, smoking, and use of drugs.

Increased involvement in your community and family activities.

A lower rate of mortality and increased physical health.

There are different types of resilience.

Emotional resilience may be one you have heard before. It is a simple term which refers to how able we are to manage the emotional impact of stresses, difficulties and trauma in our lives. From experience, I can tell you don’t try building a wall up to every situation that happens to you. It will take the joy out of your life.

There are types of resilience which we develop and need throughout times of our lives.

Inherent resilience, this is natural resilience that we are born with. This resilience protects us and informs how we discover and explore the world; learn to play, learn and to take risks. This form of resilience happens a great deal with children under the age about seven. This happens provided their development is not disrupted and they experience any sort of trauma. Like me I had a deep fryer full of oil spilled on me a d burned 45% of my body, luckily I have few scars. I was also put in the hospital for malnutrition at the age of seven for three months this I interrupted my inherent resilience.

Adapted resilience, this type of resilience happens at different times in our lives and is usually brought about through difficult or challenging experiences. We need to find strength in these times and rebuild our sense of confidence to once again to do new things. Adaptive resilience needs to be learned on the stop and can give us the ability to manage stresses and pain.

Learned resilience, this is built over time, we need to activate it through difficult experiences from our past. We learn to know when to draw on it, and use it during difficult trials, and stressful times. It is through this resilience, which we learn and grow and develop mechanisms for managing, and finding ways to draw strength we did not know we had in times when we need it most.

There are several ways that we can develop more resilience in difficult and stressful events in our lives.

Below are some examples:

Making lifestyle changes, practice being more straightforward and assertive with others. Tell them how you feel remember they don’t know if don’t to say anything. If you feel people are making unreasonable demands on you, and trying to get you to do things against your values be prepared to tell them how you feel and say no. Use relaxation tips, and take time to do the things that calm you down, whether it is taking a bath, going for a walk or listening to music. The most calming thing I do is going for a drive with my favorite music playing. Sometimes I feel more at peace in my car than anywhere else.

Develop interests and hobbies, and make time for them. I used to volunteer at an artists studio and she let me use her pottery burner to make some casts I got to keep. I’ve donated my time I go into nursing homes in the area and talk, or pray to the clients there it was a rewarding experience. Do be afraid to try new things.

Make time to spend with your family and friends. The best gift you can give someone is your time. Make sure you use a support network around you. Friends or family members that are willing to listen and won’t judge you. Access the sense of balance in your life, if one area is taking up all your time, then make some space for other things.

I can not stress this enough take care of your physical health. Get a good night’s sleep, develop sleeping patterns. I admit I struggle with this one. I sometimes can go on three or four hours of sleep, but after about three days, I crash and sleep for two days. This is not healthy physically or mentally. I’m working on this to regulate my sleep patterns.

Try to be more physically active and exercise regularly. I know this is difficult because all the gyms are shut down. Try a workout on u-tube, go hiking if you can. The more we are physically active and eat balanced meals the more you will be able to deal with stressful situations.

Don’t be so hard on yourself, find time to praise for your achievements a d reward yourself for what you have done. Most of all forgive yourself if you do not achieve what you wanted or you feel you have made a mistake, ease up on punishing yourself and try to remember that no one is perfect.

Going forward, there will be times in our lives when pressures mount or we experience pain and trauma during these times we will struggle to cope. However, through learning about ourselves a d realizing what we can and cannot manage, we will be able to develop strategies which allow us to become resilient, to these difficulties in our walk, and to feel confident in our abilities to manage. This is a process and does not just happen. But in each of us there is strength and courage we did not know we had.

Do You Feel Safe?

Feeling safe is a prerequisite to happiness, health d wholeness, and to normal physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual development. The emotions associated with feeling safe begin in our mother’s womb and follow us throughout our lives.

The element of safety allows us to take risks, conscious choices, where we evaluate the risk and the reward, lead to stable, mature mental and emotional development and opportunities for creativity.

I used to have horrible nightmares as a child. I would dream I was inside a huge worm and it warm pushing me the end to poop me out. It was a terrifying nightmare. I would always wake up when I was getting pushed out screaming and crying and I would vomit. On top ofMy mother would come in screaming the dip my pajamas off of me and take the blankets. I would have to lay there cold crying. I never understood what the dream was about. But with my nightmares and then mother. I felt overly frightened. The dreams went on for months and then finally stopped. But I grew up feeling like I was not safe, or loved. I took a great toll on my emotional system. I always felt like I needed to beware so I wasn’t attacked.

Today we see a repetition of violent events the media is one silent silent factor of provocation. Watching a frightening event causes our stress hormones to rise. Repeatedly watching or listening to stressful events or forecasts send a signal to a person’s cells, indicating that they are under attack.

Human beings are complex, adaptive interconnected, self-organizing networks. We adapt when presented with stressors, whether it’s outside environments or inside ourselves, such as inflammation or pathogens-the organism will transform, or self-organize, through a larger stress response network of nervousness, endocrine, immune, and metabolic pathways.

In the face of continued, prolonged threats, whether perceived or real, the human adaption system. Can become overloaded and unable to mount a proper defense. In this case we become vulnerable to emergence of chronic disease.

Physical chronic diseases result from ruminating on threatening past events or anticipating future attacks. Rumination causes inflammation, which causes diseases such as heart attack, strokes, cancer, diabetes, and a range of autoimmune diseases. Chronic disease may also present on the menak plane of anxiety, sleep disorders, irritability, PTSD, deterioration of social, relationships in work and at home, and focus and concentration problems.

When I learned this I absolutely knew that is what was happening in my life. When you know the answers to what is happening in your life then you can work on the solutions effectively. As I read over this I can there are many things named in this that has happened to me.

Those who are vulnerable to maladaptive responses to threats and security and typically previously exposed in childhood trauma or threatening experience in any phase of life. A child sense of safety is at risk when they are constantly exposed to physical and emotional violence.

Verbal abuse is all so a threat to safety. The recent political envy, where candidate verbally ausr and threaten one another, may provoke ones that have PTSD, and it sows the seeds of disease in others.

In the face of such behavior, we must create skillet, strategies to counter the ill effects of these stressors to encourage healthy adaptation.

Set aside times to be still, detach from the news or media. Encourage family or partner time that focuses on activities in nature such as walking swimming, biking, hiking and picnics.

Develop practices that you enjoy doing like reading, listening to relaxing music acts of kindness and consideration for others. I try to bless someone every day. A few flowers, a little gift. (It doesn’t have to be expensive.). A poem, or card that tells them you care.

Reflect on something bigger than yourself.

Create pockets of positively, moments, and experiences that generate positive feelings, especially feeling of safety.

Stay focused on the present moment. Be present only to what is happening in the reality of each moment. Allow nothing else into your experience- no yesterday, no tomorrow, no judgment. This is called mindful meditation.

Develop behaviors for healthy adaptation this will yield upward spirals of resilience. Safety will become an instinct experience that will carry regardless of the challenges you face.

Do We Possess Our Possessions Or Do They Possess Us?

Humans have a particularly strong and at times irrational obsession with possessions. Every year, car owners are killed or seriously, in their attempts to stop the theft of their vehicles- a choice that few would make in the light of day. It’s as if there is a demon in our minds that compels in the pursuit material wealth. Sometimes I think we are possessed.

Of course, materialism and the acquisition of wealth is a powerful incentive. Peter in the Bible says I have beer rich and I have been poor- believe me rich is better. But there comes a point when we have achieved a comfortable standard of living and yet we continue to strive for more and more stuff.

I personally I have a difficult time going to some businesses that sell clothing. Because I think I have to have a new shirt. I have to remind myself I have plenty of shirts. It used to be my go to when I felt worthless and someone hurt my feelings. Now that I know better ways to cope I’m better but sometimes I sneak in and I buy the things that I have plenty of.

It is unremarkable that we like to show off our wealth in the form of possessions. In 1899, an economist Thorstein Veblen observed that silver spoons we’re markers of elite social position. He coined the term ’conspicuous consumption’ to describe the willin of people to buy most expensive goods over cheaper, yes functionally equivalent, good in order to sign of status.

Today we have the opportunity to own many possessions. We have loans, credit cards, and more that gives us opportunities to look rich when we are not. The fact is the more we buy and the more we want. And the more we want to deeper in debt we get. Sadly, most of us will go to our grave paying all the debts we have acquired.

Most of that have also acquired a lot of stress also. And feel like they have to work all the time to pay their debts. Which in turn causes the family to fall apart.

It’s a vicious circle that we are in. Causing pain and loneliness in the family. Because a parent is always out working.

Today we have both parents at working and children being ignored by their parents. Then when a parent is at home the child is allowed to play video games and have cells phones and hurts the relationship of the family.

It used to be that families would eat together, and do activities together to build closeness and respect for each other. It’s turning our children into disrespectful adults, that think the world owes them everything.