Are You Exhausted From Trying To Be Stronger Than You Feel?

I saw a quote that said, I’m exhausted from trying to be stronger than I feel. And it really hit me. We live in a world that teaches things like fake it until you make it and love heals all wounds, but those little quotes don’t work for me. Pretending I was fine when people have wounded me did not work. People telling me to get over it, stop making such a big deal out of it. Didn’t help the pain I was in. It wasn’t until I realized what love really is that I was able to understand how love could heal my wounds. It wasn’t until I acknowledged where the exhaustion came from and how the wounds got there in the first place that I found my healing.

I was exhausted too. I was exhausted from trying to be happy and trying to be grateful for a life that seemed to be getting harder and harder. I was exhausted from being who other people wanted and expected me to be. I was exhausted from always trying harder and exhausted because nothing ever seemed to be enough.

I was exhausted because nobody heard me and because nobody cared that I was exhausted.

I just could not understand it. I believed that I might be the only person in the world that didn’t know how to make gratitude work for me. Even though I was practicing gratitude it wasn’t working. I felt defeated. I felt stifled. I felt oppressed. I was weary and just plain tired to the bone.

I had nothing to feel unhappy about and I felt guilty and ashamed of myself. I believed I was living the dream: a good husband, two amazing children, living in a big house, the best dog in the world.

But I wasn’t happy I was exhausted. At 35 years old I was heading to major depression. I was doing my best to keep my family happy, raising my children to be successful adults. I was getting outside every day. I was reading self-help books but I kept falling down and getting back up.

I had been trying to be stronger than I felt most of my life. Trying to be grateful, trying to let go and move on, trying to live and let live, trying to be me.

Trying to forgive and forget people that denied they had ever done anything wrong. Trying to accept the blame for things that we’re never my fault, never my responsibility or my doing.

I was completely exhausted from trying.

Today I live with peace and harmony. I haven’t been depressed in over 15 years. I am excited to get up in the morning to see what God has planned for me, and the blessings I will have.

My children are adults and successful in their lives. I belong to some great organizations, and able to bless someone every day. Helping people makes me happy. I enjoy seeing others happy and full of life.

So what happened? How did I get from being exhausted to excited? I build the missing bridge with God’s help.

I had to build my self-esteem, I had to learn to let go and move forward. I had to burn the roots to my brokenness. I had to look at the cold truth defined by my actions and the inactions of others.

I realized that I had been objected to a very small age and what had been communicated to me through the careless action and inactions of people. And that I had a purpose in life to help others be the best they could be, to be there for them to help strengthen them and pray, for them. To serve the needs of others. My actual needs we’re invalidated. I was brainwashed to see myself as not enough, now worthy, no lovable because seeing myself that way was enabling people to control and manipulate me to get what they wanted from me. I was exhausted because I was taught what to do what everyone else wanted and not what I wanted. I kept trying harder and harder and it was never enough. I was exhausted from trying to prove that I was worthy and I was a good person. I felt like my heart was misunderstood, I was brainwashed to also believe that something was wrong with me.

I found a way to look what happened to me. How did the depression start? My depression was a way to shut down. My way of coping. After years of my way of coping. I ran out of energy to keep trying. I gave up on the fact that I didn’t believe there was anyway to achieve anything in my life.

But there is a way. There is hope, and I found success. I found a new way to see myself. I found a new way to see my struggles and finally said: no wonder I was depressed. No wonder I was sinking. No wonder I felt like I was losing the fight.

As long as I saw myself the way that I’d been brainwashed to see myself, I was losing the fight. I saw through the grid of the truth about me was when I came to believe that I was not enough, something was wrong with me, I was powerless and had no choice.

We are all worthy and we are all enough.

I took my power back. I took my life back and got me back.

I have the energy to spare today and I am free of the oppression that held me back for so very long.

Spirituality

Spirituality does not come from Religion it comes from your soul. We must stop confusing religion and spirituality. Religion is a set of rules, regulations, and rituals created by humans that were supposed to help people spiritually, due to human imperfection. Religion has become corrupt, politically divisive, and a tool for power struggles. Spirituality is not theology or ideology. It is simply a way of life. Pure and original as given by the God of the universe, and each other.

One More Passing Show

There is a strategy I have adopted in my life. It’s a subtle reminder that everything- the good and bad, pleasure and pain, approval and disapproval, achievements and mistakes, fame and shame they all come and go. Everything has a beginning and an ending and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Every experience you have ever had in your life is over. Every thought you’ve ever had started and finished. Every emotion and mood you’ve experienced has been replaced by another. You’ve been happy, sad, jealous, depressed, angry, in love, shamed, proud, and every other conceivable human feeling. Where did all that go? The answer is no one ever really knows. All we know is that, eventually, everything disappears into nothingness. Welcoming this truth into your life is the beginning of a liberating adventure.

Our disappointment comes about in essentially two ways. When we are experiencing pleasure we want it to last forever. It never does. Or, when we’re experiencing pain, we want it to go away-Now. It usually doesn’t. Unhappiness is the result of struggling against the natural flow of experience.

It’s enormously helpful to experience the awareness that life is just one thing after another. One moment is followed by another. When something is happening that we enjoy, know that while it’s wonderful to experience the happiness it brings, it will eventually be replaced by something else, a different type of moment. If that’s okay with you, you’ll feel peace even when the moment changes. And if you’re experiencing some type of pain or displeasure, know that this too will pass. Keeping this awareness close to your heart is a wonderful way to maintain your pleasure, even in the face of adversity. It’s not always easy, but it is usually helpful.

What Do We Need To Know About God?

God loves us and wants a personal relationship with Him.

God loves us even if we haven’t loved him.

In this love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us.

1 John 4:10

God wants us to know Him. The Bible says God is at work in everyone’s life. So that they should seem the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:27)

What is Wrong With Us?

Our relationship with God has been broken by sin.

We have all made choices showing we are inclined to be passively indifferent to God.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

Or actively opposed to God

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light unless his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:29-20)

The result of our choices to resist or ignore God results in spiritual death ( separation from God).

We are dead in trespasses and sins. (Ephesians 2:1)

And this death spreads to all men because all sinned. (Romans 5:12)

What Did God Do For Us?

God had provided a solution for our lost relationship.

Jesus came to do what we could not do for ourselves.

For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life through me. (John 3:16)

He came. Into the world to bring us to his Father.

Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

I’ve died in our place to pay the penalty for our sin.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the spirit. (1 Peter 3:18)

He rose from the dead to show that his claims were true.

For I delivered to you first all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he was buried, and that He rose again the third day.

What Do We Need To Do?

We must each personally trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

Our own efforts to earn God’s acceptance are inadequate.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:5)

We must admit our need for forgiveness. For all, have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

And the tax collector, standing far off, would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying God be merciful to me a sinner. ( Luke 18:13)

We must receive Christ and his offer of salvation as a gift.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave us the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His Name. (John 1:12)

For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Give all Glory to God. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Where Do We Begin?

You can begin your personal relationship with God by putting your faith in Jesus as your Savior and Lord. You may find it helpful to express your new faith in words similar to these:

Dear God, I know that my son has separated me from You. Thank You for sending Your Son to die in my place. I now trust Jesus to forgive my sins. I invite Him into my life as my Savior and Lord: Thank You for receiving me into Your eternal family. In Jesus Name, Amen.

What’s Next?

Your trust in Jesus begins everlasting relationship with God.

God promises to never leave you or forsake you. ( Hebrews 13:5)

God has given you His Spirit to enable you to live in a way that pleases Him. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25)

Deception Through Lies

How many of us have fell for lies someone has told us. I don’t know about you but, I heard a million lies in my life.

Lies, Legalism and superstition, and curses all work to bind us into certain behaviors and keep us from the liberation keeps us trapped and keeps us from God. Each of these work against your thinking process. The minute you receive them as truth, even though they are a lie, you have been captured by a demon force. All of us can be demonized. Even if your the most honest person on earth.

Even people following God. The lies that people are receiving perverts their ability to think or receive truth in their minds. It calls good evil and evil good.

If a person ever begins to believe a lie, the lie will go into their mind and end up in the heart. Proverbs 4:23 says above all else, guard your heart, for it is the issues of life. A lie will go down into the issues of life that are in his or her heart and try to prevent the life process that he or she has been sent into this world to accomplish. Whatever we believe a lie. It actually interrupts the life cycle.

Instead of flowing through your blood, here come the lying words and that actually starts flowing through the veins of our body. As the lies start flowing through the blood pumping through our heart (which is accepted the lie), it begins to darken our conscience. Satan knows that control your conscience that is darkened enough to trap you. So as this flows through your body it begins a stronghold and a wall to keep the truth from coming to you.

Every lie we receive in our minds works like an anesthetic to deaden us. In the Bible, it is called a spirit of slumber. How it works is to go to sleep at the right time to attach into the unbelieving, mocking, blasphemous spirit so that you can’t see the truth and be liberated. It will make you go to sleep at the right time to keep you from hearing the truth. Satan will try to use false arguments and philosophy to begin to exalt himself in your mind above the knowledge of God. So we are to cast down these things.

A Guide To Lighten Your Life

When we are Immersed in day-to-day life, busy with work, kids, obligations, and routine, things tend to build up around us. The clutter creeps in, the days rush by, and we get used to putting off, and getting by.

Then when something unordinary happens that requires more of our time, space, or energy, we wonder what we will have to give. Life often calls for a reset.

These ideas might help

Times are tough

You feel overwhelmed

The seasons changing

Your experiencing a big change

After you complete a big project

When you need more time, space and energy

Our external surroundings have a big effect on our internal feelings and well-being. When you work from a place, it might be more challenging to put your thoughts together and stay focused. Finding a moment of peace and quiet can be challenging.

While much of our life is not completely within our control, we can take steps to create a lighter atmosphere so we can better handle the heavy stuff.

You don’t have to let go yet, but give yourself a chance to live in a clutter-free home or at least a clutter-free room where you spend the most time. Walk through your home with a box or two or three and fill it with anything you not using. Tape up the boxes and put them out of sight. Now that you are starting with nearly a blank slate, you can decide what you can add, if anything to lighten the space.

Live in your new space for 30 days and then decide if you want to bring any of the stuff you deemed useless back if you don’t miss it, or don’t remember what’s in the boxes, let it go.

Create a Space for Your Daily Luggage

If you come home and throw your purse, keys, or briefcase on the kitchen table or couch, create a dedicated space for each. A charging station for phones, or electronics in another room hooks in the closet or a drawer just for stuff that has no place, will help with the transition from the chaotic outside world to the inside of your clean peaceful home.

Add Light

Look around your home and identity opportunities to add light or better light. Open the blinds, light candles, replace dingy lights with soft white lights. Adding light to your home will add lightness to your mood and attitude.

Trade The Evening News For Some Soft Music.

Play your own music, or create a playlist on Pandora or somewhere else that free. The news may be to keep you informed, but it’s also heavy with doom and gloom. If you must catch up on the news with a quick recap mid-day and avoid breaking news drama. It only makes to depressed and worried about something that you can do nothing about.

Declare Phone-free Zones or Times

Ban phones from your bedroom or computers after dinner, and especially during dinner. Spend time talking and doing things with your family, find a time that works well for everyone. If a whole night seems impossible to agree on, start with an hour, or space where everyone agrees to show up without their devices.

Take A Little Walk

It doesn’t need to be to burn calories. Walk to meet your neighbors, be seen as part of your community. Next time to finish dinner before rushing to get the dishes done, or get the kids ready for bed, or finish your work, tale a walk and really see who’s living around you.

These ideas are a reminder that things don’t have to be so heavy, and you can choose how to view your life and the world. Lighten up your life.

The Most important Question Of Your Life

Everyone wants to feel good. Everyone wants to live a life that is carefree, happy, and easy. To fall in love and have an amazing relationship, to look perfect and make money.

Everyone would like that- it’s easy to want that.

What do you want out of your life? You’d probably say to be happy and have great family and friends and a job I like. It’s obvious that it doesn’t mean a thing.

The most interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.

Everyone wants to have an amazing job and financial independence- but not everyone wants to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, tons of paperwork. People want to be rich without the risk, without the sacrifice, without delayed gratification necessary to accumulate death.

Everyone wants to have an awesome relationship but not everyone is willing to go through tough conversations, the awkward silence, the hurt feelings, and the emotional drama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder, What If? For years and years until the question is was that it?

Happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come back into your life.

A positive experience is easy to handle. It’s the negative experiences that we all struggle with. Therefore, what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we’re will g and able to sustain to get us to those good feelings.

People want to have a great body. But don’t end up with one unless you appreciate the pain the physical stress that comes along with it. Including enjoy being at the gym for hours, calculated calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out of small plate-sized portions.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But, you don’t end up a successful business owner unless you find away to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures and working insane hours no idea whether you will be successful or not.

People want a partner. But you don’t end up attracting someone amazing without appreciating the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It’s part of the game of love. You can’t win if you don’t play.

What determines your success isn’t what you want to enjoy? The question is what pain do you want to sustain? The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experienced. To get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

If you want the benefits of something in your life, you have to also want what it costs. If you want a beach body, to have to want so sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pains. If you want a yacht you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moved and the possibility of angering a person or ten thousand.

If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come close to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization an image and a false promise. Maybe what you want isn’t what you want, you just enjoy wanting. Maybe you don’t actually want it at all.

How do you want to suffer? You have to choose something. You can’t have a pain free life. It can’t be all rainbows and roses.

Being In The Eye Of The Storm

The eye of the storm is that one specific place in the center of a twister, or tornado that is calm, almost isolated from the frenzy of activity. Everything around the center is violent and turbulent, but the center remains peaceful. How nice would it be if we too could be calm and serene in the midst of chaos.

It’s surprisingly much easier than you can imagine being in the eye of a human storm. What it takes is intention and practice. Suppose, for example, that you are going to a family gathering that is going to be chaotic. You can tell yourself that you are going to use the experience as an opportunity to remain calm. You can say I’m the one who is going to be the one that has peace. You can practice breathing. You can practice listening. You can let others be right and enjoy their glory. The point is, you can do it if you set your mind to it.

By starting with harmless scenarios like family gatherings, cocktails parties, birthday parties for children, you can build a record and enjoy some success. You’ll notice that by being in the eye of the storm, you will be more in the present moment. You can enjoy yourself like never before.

Once you can master harmless circumstances like these, you can practice in difficult areas in life. Dealing with conflict, hardship, or grief. If you start slowly, have some success and keep practicing, soon you’ll know how to live in the eye of the storm.