Positive relationships involve honesty, trust, respect and open communication between people and they take effort and compromise from both people. There is no imbalance of power.
Partners respect each other’s independence, and each can make their own decisions without fear of retribution or retaliation, and share in decision-making.
The characteristics of healthy relationships include
Respect for privacy and space.
Your partner encourages you to spend time with friends and family without them and to participate in activities that you enjoy.
You feel comfortable expressing your opinions and concerns with each other,
You feel physically safe and they don’t force anything on you or do things that make you comfortable
Your partner respects your wishes and feelings and you can compromise and negotiate when there are disagreements or conflicts.
Every relationship must have boundaries, communication, trust, and consent.
The difference between a “good mistake” and a “bad mistake” is how you respond to them. It helps to consider what might be fixable and what we cannot change.
There are strategies that can help us learn from our mistakes including mindful awareness, self -compassion, and self-exploration which leads to greater balance in our lives.
Whether we take the wrong path, or say the wrong words, it’s sometimes difficult to get the old stories out of our heads that lead us astray. We wish we could have a do over.
Of course, many situations do not allow a do over. As human beings, we can learn to live with the “what ifs,” wondering how things might have been different if we had made another choice. There’s always going to be fill-in-the-blank moments of “I wish I hadn’t——-”
Self-inquiry can offer to explore how we experience this “what if” discomfort and how we might enable our past missteps to illuminate our lives in ways that light our days forward, rather than staying stuck in the dark hallway of the “what ifs.”
Good mistakes teach us valuable lessons and bad mistakes as the ones we hide from in shame and regret. The bad ones are the ones we can repent of and ask God to forgive us and move on from. They both inspire greater awareness, learning, and inner liberation -a way forward that shifts change in our lives.
I think as long as we strive to be a better version of ourselves and live authentically, stay true to our values, and do what brings a sense of purpose, happiness, and meaning to our lives we are on the right track.
Ephesians 4: 22-24 tells us,
“Put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man that grows corrupt after the lists of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.”
With this verse we can be encouraged to shed our old ways and strive to live a life that reflects God’s character, essentially becoming a better version of ourselves through spiritual growth and transformation.
What does it mean to think like Jesus? 1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us after we accept Jesus into our lives we have the mind of Jesus.
You may be thinking that sounds great , but if I have the mind of Christ Jesus why am I still battling negative, fearful, or sinful thoughts.
After all Jesus’s brain was calm, mines chaotic. Jesus was responsive, not reactive. He focused on others and we often focus on ourselves. Jesus was purposeful mine tends to be on the procrastination side.
We have to understand Jesus was always obedient.
“I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me had commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know His commands lead to eternal life, so I say whatever the Father tells me to say” – John 12:49-50
Jesus was humble, so we try and be humble. Jesus was gentle so we try to be gentle. We make the mistake of trying to copy His behaviors. But if we really want to be like Jesus, we must first learn to think like Jesus.
It’s important to remember that everything begins in the mind. I’ve not only about trying to be like Jesus, but thinking like Him also.
Nowhere in the Bible does God say He will take over our out-of-control thoughts, but He did give us specific instructions on how we can.
We have been given the “mind of Christ,” but it is the Holy Spirit who saturates it with Godly wisdom. If Jesus didn’t do it alone, what makes us think we can? Jesus tells us in John 5:19,
“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He does only what He sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son does.”
Just like Jesus, we need a partner. Jesus assures us that He is sending us a partner-helper. Our guide is the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit who will lead and guide out thoughts if we let Him. We must partner with Him in order to retrain our brains to think like Jesus.
Most people have years’ worth of gunk and junk polluting our minds. From vile images to negative thought patterns. Simply telling ourselves to stop thinking a certain way doesn’t work. If it did then all we would have to do is tell ourselves to stop eating sugar and the diet industry wouldn’t be a multi-billion dollar industry.
The truth is we cannot do anything on our own. We need our partner. The one who has the power to renew our minds. The Holy Spirit needs to be our partner on this journey called life to help us reach of destiny.
Our minds are ours to think however we wish. And we have the power and authority to set it in whatever direction we want.
The Bible tells us in Philippians 4:8, how to accomplish this.
“…Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”
We can get bombarded with thoughts with such ferocity that our minds feel invaded. It’s just one way Satan gets us to think that we have to pick up what is being put down.
We have the power to set our minds to think how we want. Society likes to tell us what and how to think. If we want to think like Jesus we need to think of the things above.
I love how Jesus told his parents after He was “lost” in Luke 2:43-51 He told His parents “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?”
If you’re like most people when you wash a dirty bowl full of junk. You allow the water to first run through it until the junk runs over and out. That’s what God’s Word does for us. We’re filled with junk from this world, old experiences, toxic thoughts, anger, bitterness, and lust but God’s Word cleans us up.
Ephesians 5:26 reminds us that we are “washed in the word.” I don’t know about you but my old self needed to be cleansed. Not with a little dab of water, or a sprinkle with a hose, I need to be continually washed and fully immersed in His Word until every ounce of the old stuff runs over and out.
Jesus came to this earth to give of knowledge of God’s Word. He knew His walk on earth had to be to teach us to fill our minds with His Father’s Words. He knew we couldn’t do it on our own.
We can’t always trust the thoughts our minds think that’s why 2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us,
“Throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
You wouldn’t just open the door and allow whatever whoever to walk into your house and do whatever they want in your home. Why would you allow it in your mind? Instead, we need to be diligent with challenging thoughts as we are who let in our home. Find out what the intention of the thought is. Is it there to give you life or destroy you?
Was it sent by God or Satan?
It’s your mind, don’t let any thought be given free rein.
We must be able to test and approve what God’s will is -his good pleasing and perfect will. The Bible tells us,
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” -Romans 12:2
Never did we see Jesus tolerating, giving in, sugar-coating, or “fitting in.” His mind was set apart from this world. He lived in it but He was not of it. And neither should we. If we resist the ways of the world and fix our minds on how God calls us to live then we will be transformed into His image.
If you started a sports team, what would the colors and mascot be?
If I began a sports team, I would be a girls baseball little league team I would call it “Bats and Boujee” their colors would be dark purple and blue. Their mascot would be a fox.
Baseball is a way to teach ideals of sportsmanship, fair play and teamwork.
Have we forgotten to use our instinct and intuition? We prioritize logic and external validation over our gut feelings, which leads us to overlooking important internal signals and our decision-making.
This is more than likely due to societal pressures to be rational, looking at past experiences where intuition has led us stray, or simply not being taught to actively listen to our inner voice.
Modern Society, often, prioritizes, logical reasoning, and data analysis, sometimes leading us to dismiss our gut feelings as unreliable.
Many people are actively paying attention to their bodily sensations or emotional cues that my signal intuition.
Along with the feeling of being wrong. Past experiences were intuition has led to poor decisions can make us hesitate to trust our gut feelings again.
Certain environments often discourage expressing intuitive feelings that lead us to suppress them.
So how do we reengage with our intuition and start listening to our gut?
A mindfulness practice paying close attention to our physical sensations and emotions when making decisions. What is my gut saying? Am I am at peace with what I am about to do? I
know, when I am about ready to make a decision, if I focus on my gut and whether I feel uneasy or not, usually helps me make the correct decision. Along with a prayer and asking God to guide me.
Trust your gut feeling when faced with a choice, consider what you’re initial is, even if it seems counterintuitive.
We often don’t hear our intuition because we are so used to hearing from external sources. We hold ourselves accountable to impossible standards. That voice seems to drown out the more subtle tones of our intuition. 
The fact is that neuroscience has found that when decisions are complex, intuition is not just a hunch, but a reliable guide.
Intuition is an instinct that powers us, and is designed to guide us and can even save our lives.
We are wired for intuition.
The military has been studying intuition or got feelings for decades to maximize human performance. Military scientists are researching intuition because of a number of service members who came back from combat reporting having said their lives or lives of others thanks to their gut feelings that enabled them to avoid roadside bombs or other attacks.
We should always think our decisions through carefully and consult our intuitions. When we do, this will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
I believe we have blocked our intuition by having selective perspective. Our habit or unconscious blockages often restrict us from the kind of information we receive. To build up our intuition, we must overcome things like perceptual distortion and biases, and artificial constraints that lead us do you think inside the box, rather than outside the box.
You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?
My reading and writing nook would be a space by a window so I could watch nature. With a comfortable chair with a fuzzy rug underneath and a side table for writing material and my coffee. Adding a good reading lamp. That should do it,
I would have a small bookshelf nearby for the books that I’m planning on reading. And plenty of extra writing material.
A nook for claiming my mind which creates a sense of stillness. My perfect space for slipping away when I’m feeling stressed or anxious by life struggles.
Putting action to your faith is living following your beliefs. It’s allowing your belief in God’s kingdom to motivate you to act.
The Bible says that faith is truly living when it is shown through action. It says in James 2 “Without works (evidence) your faith is dead. What we do will not save us, but it is evidence to those around us that you mean what you say.
The emphasis of true faith isn’t just about believing in something, but actively demonstrating that belief through actions.
Jesus consistently shows in the Bible by demonstrating His faith through acts of compassion, healing, and service to others. His faith was put into action.
How many people do their “weekly duty” of going to church and then going home and doing nothing for others until the next church service?
While good works will not save us, it is actions put to our faith and those actions will save us. It’s our faith that saves us. And faith is reflected in everything we do.
Faith is an attitude that we must display through our actions. We must be doers of the word not only hearers of the word. When we put our faith into action we do things that line up with our current level of faith.
Belief is a key part of faith, but it’s not the whole part. Faith is confidence, assurance, and certainty in God and His Word. Faith believes even when you cannot see any evidence in the natural.
Hebrews 11:1 tell us what faith is:
“The substance of things hopes for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Hope, when coupled with faith has substance, and substance is something rather than nothing. Faith also provides evidence for things which are not visible. Faith is not blind, it’s far from being blind, it is both far-sighted and sharp-sighted. Its evidence rests not on speculation but on confidence in a God who sees what we cannot see. It rests on trust in the reability of every promise that is spoken by God.
It is one thing to believe in God. But it is quite another to believe God. Abraham believed God when He said He would show him a better country. He believed God again later when God dramatized His covenant promise in Genesis 15, and buggers faith, Abraham was counted righteous. He was justified by his faith.
Abraham’s faith was genuine because he obeyed God by faith. True faith is always obedient faith. Abraham obeyed the call of God on his life, he demonstrated this obedience -His faith issued action.
Automobiles -sure don’t make them how they used to. This 1979 Pickup truck could be worked and fixed in people’s driveways. It wasn’t unusual to see a father and son bonding while working and fixing them up a home.
No longer is that possible. The new truck now requires you to take to an automobile shop and pay $1000 of dollars to get it fixed.
Along with the price tag this truck usually costs $20,000 to 30,000 to buy at a dealership. Now a new truck bought at the dealership costs anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000. And you definitely can’t fix them at home if they break down.
America is supposed to be about bigger and better. This is not bigger and better. It’s almost criminal what they have done. All for the love of control and the mighty dollar.
Fear is an emotion that sneaks into our lives, causing us to pause, doubt, and sometimes even retreat. But we can change our relationship with fear. Instead of letting it control us, we can transform it into a source of hope and courage.
Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way to embrace fear. Changing my perspective that will empower me to face fear head on and find strength and its presence. Ive made mistakes along the way. But it’s always been a growing and learning experience.
Fear is like an unwanted visitor knocking at the door of our minds. But rather than pushing it away, we need to open the door. “Hello fear. I see you.” When we acknowledge our first steps with understanding, we learn to recognize the fear inside of us, then we can begin to unravel its grips on our emotions. Take a moment to breathe and simply observe how fear manifest in our bodies and thoughts.
It’s like the old analogy “always run towards the roar.” You must do the opposite of what seems normal and confront what provokes your fear. Facing the situation and fighting for survival will get you further than avoiding it.
We are more resilient than we often give ourselves credit for. We have all faced challenges in our lives and come out stronger. Those times hold the key to unlocking your inner strength. When fear arises remind yourself of those past triumphs. Envision that version of yourself that tackled obstacles and overcame them. Reflecting on your capacity for growth can shift your perspective from vulnerability to empowerment.
Imagine fear and hope having a conversation with each other. Fear personifies the unresolved problem, while hope emerges as a beacon of potential solutions. By choosing to lead with hope, we have the power to rewrite our narrative from “I can’t” to “I can find a way.” This shift in thinking holds a transformative ability to turn fear from an overwhelming obstacle into a conquerable challenge.
As you conquer your fears, always remember that hope stands nearby as a steadfast ally, guiding you toward a brighter and more promising outcome.
As you face your fears it’s important to nurture your inner strength through self-care. Do something you like doing every day. Because you’re worth it. It’s a power boost, a reminder of your resilience and unstoppable potential.
We have arrived at the season where many gather together to for Christmas.
There is the pagan tradition, the stories based without context on the Gospels, and the world’s version. A tradition where people become stressed as they try to meet earthly expectations and forget the true reason for the season.
A time when families come together not in the true spirit of unity but the external tradition of the Christmas get together. Then in the stress of the preparation comes to the surfaces of unsolved family issues.
But there’s a the true message of Christmas:
“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (God with us) -Isaiah 7:14 ESV
Jesus is the greatest gift we’ve ever had, yet many ignore Him.
Christmas is a truly wonderful celebration of our first messenger. For approximately 36 years this messenger walked the earth. And He still is our greatest messenger throughout the world.
To embrace the true beauty of the celebration of Jesus’s birth we must recognize that we must come away from the mess of what the world and family expects of us. We must then embrace the message of Christmas in its true form. The message is a sign given to us by God and conceived by supernatural means.
Many will conceive their preoccupied pagan traditions of Christmas. Doing what the world and families expect of them. That I have no control of, but I choose to focus on the true meaning of Christmas -The greatest Gift ever given -The reason for the season.
Isn’t it about time we leave the Mess of pagan beliefs and embrace the true meaning of Christmas, His birth, and what it means in our lives?
I think in order to be open to creativity one must have the capacity for constructive solitude. Once one can overcome the fear of being alone they are more open to becoming creative.
Creativity flourishes in solitude. When we are quiet we can hear our thoughts, we are able to reach deep within ourselves and focus.
In having time for our thoughts we get to know ourselves and can face our giants and deal with them. Creativity requires time to unwind and find peace with ourselves which gives us time to reflect on what we’ve done and leave from it. Isolation from the influences of others helps us hear our own voice. And allows us to appreciate the smaller things that get lost in the roar.
From Pity to Praise 