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Hannah finds herself in an unbroken cycle. 

 

Each year that her husband, Elkanah, takes his family up to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to the Lord, Peninnah, Elkanah’s other wife and Hannah’s rival, provokes Hannah to tears. 

 

And each year that Peninnah reminds Hannah of her closed womb, Hannah responds by allowing it to bring her to a place of such misery that she refuses to eat and refuses to be consoled by their husband Elkanah.

 

We do not know how many years this scene played out for Hannah, except to read that it was the same pattern that happened year after year. And every year Hannah would allow her rival to keep her in her misery.

 

If you find yourself in an unbroken cycle, repeating the same unwise decisions often or wallowing in your pity and defeated circumstances, then it is time to look into why this is happening.

 

God’s heart for each of us is to grow and mature in Him. And in order for us to grow and mature as He desires, we will be taken through the same testings and trials with different scenarios perhaps, over and over again.

 

Whenever I find myself in a very familiar test, instead of coming into agreement with the repetitive story line, I choose to reflect and ask the Lord some much needed questions.

 

I want to know God’s heart for me when He witnesses my unsuccessful attempts at breaking free. I have come around this bend before and I do not want to repeat my same mistakes. 

 

I grapple with self doubt questioning if breaking the cycle is for me. Maybe I deserve to remain in this rut, to continue to suffer repeatedly, and to comfortably choose that this is the life for me.

 

Jesus, however, has told us that He came to give us life and to give it abundantly. So in honoring our free will, the Lord steps aside to see what we will choose to do with His promises He has already given us in His Word. 

 

Will we believe Him? Will we agree to allow Him to break our unending cycles? Or shall we just lower our heads shuffling forward, refusing to catch sight of another way through this terrain? 

 

Breaking unending cycles in our lives is possible. We see evidence of this in the lives of believers in the Bible, we see evidence of others breaking free of their own cycles around us, but why is it so difficult to believe that we are capable of having great faith to break free from our own repetitive patterns?

 

As we read in the first chapter of 1 Samuel, we see how Hannah breaks free of her unending cycle of torment from Peninnah by running to the Lord. Perhaps, that is a step of obedience we can do ourselves.

 

I challenge you to run to the Lord with your life patterns needing interruption and plead with Him to move on your behalf. Listen to what He tells you. He will provide action steps and help along the way, but we need to remain determined to follow through with everything He says.

 

For Hannah her greatest rival happens to live in close proximity to herself, for her rival is Peninnah, the other wife of her husband Elkanah. Hannah’s rival is sadly within her own family.

 

How many of us find ourselves battling a rival within as well? Within the walls of our churches, in our workplaces, or, much like Hannah, within our own families?

 

A rival that close has to be exhausting to put up with. To find the peace and solace that you are looking for seems almost impossible while another individual is set on competing with you. 

 

I can only imagine how Hannah must have felt. None of us who find ourselves dealing with a personality that unceasingly provokes or taunts us, has invited this rival into our lives. And for Hannah, I am pretty certain that she did not want to find herself competing for the affection and love of her husband, but there she was, a victim of another’s jealous behavior.

 

How should we respond to those that behave this way?

 

Rivals are nothing more than bullies. They want to feel significant and do so through exerting power over another person.

 

 

The best way to deal with a bully is to not give them the satisfaction they are looking for. They want to get under your skin and move you to tears. They find a perverse satisfaction in causing harm to feel important.

 

The best way to respond to a rival and bully, is to not give them this sick satisfaction. It is in your best interest to ignore this behavior and see it as it is.

 

If I could talk with Hannah today, I would tell her the same thing. I would tell her to ignore Peninnah’s taunting and to see past the bullying into a heart that bleeds insecurity and a need for significance. 

 

I would encourage Hannah to respond in kindness, love and forgiveness. 

 

I would encourage her to continue to trust and wait on the Lord instead, shifting her focus from the negative attention she is getting to the character and faithfulness of God.

 

When rivals are found within our circles, or even our tight circles, it becomes more challenging to find an escape from the provoking. The constant barrage of mistreatment can weigh us down and discourage us from the hope of it ever stopping. 

 

Although we cannot control the words and actions of others, as much as we would want to, we can control how we respond. Reminding ourselves that we have just as much free will to respond in a righteous way as they do in their choice to sin against us, places the power back into our hands.

 

God has given both the taunter and the victim free will. 

 

Sure the bully hurts and provokes us, but we have the freedom to ignore, to walk away, to forgive, and to not give them the satisfaction of getting to us. If we allow the provoking to anger us, we are playing into their power trip and they win.

 

Rise above the rival’s games. See them as they are. They are revealing their heart to you when they bully you. 

 

Be wise, be discerning, be kind, forgive and walk away. Eventually they will grow tired of you refusing to play their game.

 

If you are struggling more than usual with depression and/or anxiety in this crisis, acknowledge to yourself that there is definitely justification for your struggles.

 Not only are you working hard and putting energy to maintain your mental health challenges, but now you have to put forth energy in dealing with this crisis of this virus.

 Feeling safe is very crucial for us that battle with keeping our thoughts uplifted and our emotions stable. So when something like this crisis comes our way, our sense of safety and stability is threatened for sure.

Do not feel guilty if you need to restructure your day to deal with your new normal and your need to rest more. This is overwhelming for us all, even those that do not battle a mental illness. 

As we put out more energy to deal with this crisis, I encourage you to watch how much sobering news you are feeding your mind. Give yourself healthy mental breaks from the onslaught of news and from scrolling social media. 

If you feel your anxiety increasing, or your mood affected by being online or in front of a television, tell yourself to pull away and put your thoughts on something else.

I have to remind myself often that my brain responds to my thoughts and my thoughts are formed easily by what I feed my brain. Catch those negative thoughts and refuse them entry into your mind.

Instead choose to be thankful. Sit down and make a long list of things you are grateful for and what good things are happening in this chaos. There are good things happening and we need to be thankful for them.

I struggle with depression and anxiety as well. And I have to choose my thoughts every morning I wake up, throughout the day and even in the evening. It is a lot of work to remain mindful of where our thoughts are going, but we have to in order to keep our emotions from being dragged down into a pit.

I tell myself everyday that this season will end. And before we know it, we will all be back to our normal routines and visiting our friends and family. I tell myself that other countries are recovering and we will as well.

People will come out of this crisis changed. My hope is that the change is for the better. People will be more grateful, they will value their relationships more in this life, and they will not take for granted what we do have. That is a good thing.

Use this time to think about what you have learned thus far. Have you made time to process all of this in a healthy way? Have you seen yourself develop more resilience and even surprised yourself with how strong you have been already?

Life is difficult. And if you struggle with a mental illness as a result of this difficult life, know that you still have a choice in how you respond to what is going on. You can choose to give into your fears, or you can choose to work really hard and trust that you will overcome.

And if you have a bad day, that is totally okay. This is a strange and hard time and it is difficult to know what and who to believe in the news anymore. We have to remember that the media feeds off the fears of their audience, because these fears keeps the audience attached to their screens to learn more. That is normally their motives. They are definitely not finding ways to keep us calm and at peace, because then they will lose views and their audience.

We can outsmart those tactics and choose to manage our screen time, and choose to be in peace within this storm. So enjoy a cup of coffee, have a second cookie, pull out that puzzle you wanted to put together, and look for what is good and right in our world to focus on.

We can play “what if..” all day, but that is not healthy for our minds. Fearing the unknown is fearing what could happen, but it does not mean it will happen. Treat those thoughts as unfriendly and as instigators of your fear.

And when it gets overwhelming, repeat to yourself and your brain that you are safe, because you are. And repeat to yourself that there is always an end to a storm, and this will end. 

And if you have faith in the Lord, pray and choose to trust that He is in control and you and your family are in His hands. Nothing in this world separates you from the love of the Lord, and definitely not this virus.

Praying peace over you my friends and fellow overcomers of this crisis. 

If you need help and are struggling with suicidal thoughts please seek help. All we need is to get through those dark moments and the sun will shine again. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Stay safe and healthy!

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

 

Extreme burnout from work and life is a horrible experience to endure and the aftermath and healing can take years to recover. Other times burnout can be a short lived season that with just a career change or rearranged priorities the energy level and mood returns to normal.

I would hope that most of us only experience the latter type of burnout, however, I am finding that undergoing extreme burnout is becoming more prevalent in certain careers because we do not protect ourselves.

I focus on time management a great deal in my life, because I have a strong motivation to protect myself from extreme burnout again. I have experienced it and am still to this day in recovery. My brain will not allow me to push myself with work as hard as I used to. However, this compels me to have to live a more balanced and healthy lifestyle and I am thankful for that.

I have to make sure that I plan out days for rest and fun and vacation. My love for what I do, for work and getting things accomplished can easily push out the times I need for rest and play. I now have to schedule these into my life to protect myself from burnout.

I have to re-evaluate my heart consistently with why I do what I do. This keeps me in check with not having a misplaced motive, or a wrong priority that compels me to be a workaholic. Am I valuing my to-do list over building on relationships? Am I working long hours to avoid pain in my heart I need to deal with? Am I becoming a workaholic again?

I also evaluate my work and life goals. Are they still consistent with what I value in my life? Do they bring me joy and move me towards a life that I want to pursue? Do I need to re-write or eliminate any goal that is putting way too much stress on me or is now irrelevant?

I encourage you to explore why you have possibly burned out in the past. Understanding why will help us learn what not to do in the present to keep us from burning out again. This is a simple “learning from our mistakes”. 

I now know why I fell into extreme burnout. It has taken me a good length of time spent exploring what happened and what mindsets I had in that season that needed to change. For example, I was placing my identity in what I did and in my title, rather than in who I really am. The end result was, after losing my career in that season, I fell a part and had to reform my foundation again and my identity without my career.

Above all remember to take time to care for yourself. Work will always be there, the to-do list will never end, and the house can be cleaned tomorrow. We put too much pressure on ourselves to do more and more. We need to be kinder to ourselves and recognize that we are just a human and humans have limits and needs. Let us choose to live healthily within those boundary lines instead of testing them so often.

 

 

 

I super thrive on being more efficient with my use of time, because I enjoy doing, accomplishing, and being a part of a lot of things. 

 

I have three large projects that I am currently working on and managing. Each project requires a lot of energy and time, and so I have had to weigh the sacrifices I need to make in order to commit to each of them. And I did this carefully.

 

When we make a decision to commit ourselves to something, that will mean that something else we are already a part of or are already doing will need to be eliminated. A swap out if you wish.

 

Our greatest mistake is committing to things without thinking of the time it will take in order for us to do them. We feel that we have extra time to give here and there, however, just like you would not throw your money away, you should also take care with how you use your time. If you have a bank account and begin to spend what is in the bank account, you will eventually have less money in that account and it is the same with your time.

 

We need to treat time the same way we do our money. Both are valuable, but perhaps time is more valuable for most. 

 

We need to realize and picture how committing our time to something is like drawing money from our bank. I don’t know about you, but if I do not know what is in my account I will also think twice before pulling anything out of it.

 

Know what is in your TIME ACCOUNT. Know how much ENERGY is in there as well, because the time you give away will also pull on your energy levels. 

 

I tend to overcommit myself to projects, whether they be other people’s projects or my own. I am also an over achiever who struggles with perfectionism. And I have a strong need to get things accomplished as an individual with an adoring type A personality. (Adoring might be too strong of a word, sorry.)

 

Because of all this I am always looking for ways to better manage my time. I, sadly, am almost obsessed with it actually.   

 

I believe that managing our time well is a huge key with us WORKING SMARTER RATHER THAN HARDER. And if we work smarter then we save ourselves energy from working too hard. Now we can place those saved energy deposits into other things or things that we enjoy doing.

 

One of my greatest temptations with all of this, however, is when I have saved energy and time deposits, from being so proficient with my time, I want to pour those deposits into new projects. This is also not wise, and I am definitely speaking to myself here.

 

It is better for us to take those saved time and energy deposits and spend them on rest and caring for ourselves. We can easily become overworked even with good time management skills. I know this because I am guilty of this the most!

 

I struggle with getting something done quickly and then looking off to the next thing I can tackle and accomplish instead of allowing myself and brain to rest.

 

It is very important for us to work smarter rather than harder. Simply put, we do not want to waste time and energy with doing tasks the hard way. How we set up daily, weekly, and monthly systems in our lives to get our tasks accomplished is important in reserving our time and energy.

 

Let us look at the simple to-do list. There are folks that have to-do lists everywhere, on their mirrors at home, in drawers in their kitchen or workshops, and on the dashboard of their cars for example. Having your to-do list in ten thousand locations is not using your time and energy well. I promise you are spending a lot of your time looking for those lists and the sheer number of them are overwhelming your brain and draining your energy. An easy fix is to consolidate all these lists in a notebook.

 

Sounds easy, but if we evaluate our systems we have adopted over the years, we can be surprised at what I call the loopholes in our systems that equate to us wasting our time. 

 

Take an evening in your week and write out the systems you use to plan your schedule and get things done, and honestly answer if you can tweak them a bit to be more proficient in your time, thus saving you a bit more energy. You might think this is ridiculous, but those small moments saved over time can offer you a free hour or two that you have gained back to go to a movie or plan a visit to the park.

 

You’re welcome!

 

 

Bullies are attracted to nice people. They see them as easy prey and less likely to fight back. The bully wants a punching bag that will not punch back. The bully wants to feel power over another life because they are struggling themselves on the inside.

 

I am a nice person. I have had my share of bullies in my life. I have been tackled to the ground on a playground by another kid. I have had nasty notes written to me put in my locker in middle school. I have been ridiculed for being too nice in social settings as an adult. 

 

And I would not change my niceness for the world. I choose to be nice for a reason.

 

Let me take you back when I used to be a floor supervisor working at a nice Mexican restaurant in Houston. To get that supervisor position I had to convince my General Manager, who I deeply respect, that my niceness would not prevent me from getting my job done, which was to get the wait staff to do what I told them.

 

I could tell he really wanted to put me in that supervisor position. He saw my work ethic and how I interacted graciously with the guests in the restaurant, but when it came to me asking if he would consider promoting me, he had his main objection.

 

Then one day we had another conversation about it and he asked me if I was certain that others would follow my orders as a leader. I assured him that they would. He then asked me if I would get them to follow instructions by becoming strict and firm, like he was. I told him, honestly, that I would get them to follow me as their leader by other means.

 

He did not believe that this was possible, but he decided to promote me anyways. I guess he was interested in seeing how I would do this.

 

This was not my first job I had, nor was it the first time for me to be on a management team, and so I had confidence in how I would lead my staff with my personality and how I engage with people.

 

I got my staff to follow my lead by showing them each a lot of respect. Anytime they did something well, I acknowledged it and I thanked them for their hard work. If any of them called in because they had an emergency, I used my best judgement and discernment to see if they were pulling one over on me. I believed them when they were late to their shift because they needed to rush their pet to the vet, and I awarded others that helped me with taking up extra shifts for me. 

 

I essentially would put myself in their shoes and ask myself how I would want to be treated. And a lot of them worked side by side with me before I was promoted to be their supervisor. 

 

In the end, my General Manager came to me and said that I had the best turnout with staffed shifts and that everyone enjoyed working when I was on the floor supervising. He could not understand how I got them to work so hard for me, and without me changing how I lead and my personality. 

 

I told him that I sincerely cared about each one of them, and that they could see that. And when I was in a tough spot filling up a shift with enough waiters, someone would come through for me because they liked me and wanted to help me. 

 

Nobody on the wait staff was intimidated by me, but they worked hard for me. I still disciplined and corrected wrongs, but I did so as fairly as I could. The staff knew I was nice and they also knew I had a kind heart towards them. 

 

If you are getting through this life thinking that being nice and kind will not benefit you, I encourage you to rethink that. At the heart of it, people want to be respected, they want to be treated well and looked after, and they can see your intentions behind your actions and choices. 

 

I have gotten pushback for being a nice person from people in my life. Some feared that my niceness would prevent me from setting up proper boundaries or be wise with how I interact with others. 

 

And then of course there are those that always want to take advantage of your niceness. I have been hurt by these people, but each time I learn and I am able to better discern motives the next time. 

 

One things for sure, I choose to not allow what others think of my niceness, or even the hurt that sometimes comes with it, to change who I am. I choose to be nice, and not because this world needs a huge dose of niceness, but because being nice to someone goes a whole lot further than being ugly to them. 

 

Try it out for yourself. The next time you interact with a cashier, or someone behind the counter, respond with kindness and patience and see how they respond. When we value people, even strangers, it leaves on them an imprint that can improve their mood, their day, or even their week. Sure, some will not respond in kind, but you can return home, tuck yourself in bed and be proud of yourself for choosing to care for others anyways. 

 

How we treat others, in our families, in our friend circles, and even strangers, reflects who we are on the inside. 

 

 

When putting together a Self Worth series of content, you cannot leave out our ugly friend, rejection. We have all faced rejection in our lives and I have, yet, to meet a soul that has not been dealt a hand of rejection.

 

I woke up this morning with a series of dreams. Each dream had something to do with rejection. It was crazy! I pondered on them for a good few minutes when I realized that this was definitely a needed focal point in my next video and obviously, blog post.

 

So you can say, my dreams are the inspiration of today’s blog post and my video on the same subject.

 

Rejection and abandonment do cause us to battle with our sense of self worth. It does something to us when we are rejected. For one thing, it makes us feel so unloved. Feeling unloved can cause us to think that we are not lovable.

 

Let us look at an image of an abandoned puppy on the side of the road. He is dirty, he is hungry, and he is frightened. Someone has rejected that puppy. Was it his mother? Was it his owner?

 

Then, out of nowhere, a nice human approaches this poor abandoned puppy and decides to take it as its’ own.

 

The human cares for it, feeds it, bathes it, and the puppy begins to appear healthy.

 

What has taken place is quite simple. The puppy’s current dose of love and affection has helped to heal his past rejection. We will never see this puppy appear the same as it did on the streets. Love given to this puppy erased the feelings of being unloved and abandoned.

 

In our lives we will experience rejection. It will come in different ways and sometimes from people we least expect it. We cannot protect ourselves from these moments, but we can overcome the feelings of being unloved and feeling we are unloveable.

 

We can work on our rejected hearts and battle these mindsets that are not healthy nor true.

 

If we are not chosen for a particular job we are being interviewed for, or turned down by a love interest, or our current business idea is not being received well, how can and should we respond?

 

We go back to our truth statements that we chose to believe for ourselves. (see previous blog post, “Dots On My Hand”) We go back to remembering who we are and the value we do have inside of us. We choose to love ourselves in response and be okay with not being chosen back.

 

We make up in our mind a resolute belief that we are worthy of being loved, we are valuable, and we are enough.

 

Honestly, we need to think of ourselves as the puppy that was rescued off the streets and worth being taken in and cared for. True, we have a history full of rejection and sadly, for some of us even abandonment, but just like this puppy who was once rejected, we can allow the truth of our real worth to permeate our minds and become our new belief about ourselves and choose to leave our past behind us.

 

We all want to be received and loved. That’s how we are made. But until we receive and love ourselves for who we really are, it will be difficult for others to believe we are lovable.

 

People that do not love themselves behave in a way that reflects this belief about themselves, that they are unlovable. This behavior can be read by others much like a frightened animal that is wounded. People do not want to come near a wounded individual like this because they are more than likely going to lash out or cause them harm.

 

Hurt people hurt others. This is very true. If we want to not be pushed away as much as we are, then we need to allow our wounds in our hearts and souls to be healed. We focus on our healing and on loving ourselves, and others will discover our worth and value that was already there.

 

Choose today to not allow your rejections in your past to determine who you are today and your future. Choose to heal, choose to accept and love yourself. Believe you are lovable and you will be loved.. and by the right people.

 

 

I cannot tell you where this idea came from, but one day in my morning time with the Lord I picked up a thin marker (in the green color), and I made little dots on my left hand closest to my thumb. I chose a place on my hand that would be easily seen by me as I went through my day doing my work and daily tasks.

 

Each dot that I marked on my hand represents a different truth I want to believe for myself, or I want to reinforce in my thought patterns. Our brains are like sponges! And I have decided to help my brain out by telling it what to believe.

 

Can I say that from day one of doing this I have noticed real change in my thinking and my emotions. I am actually believing these truth statements more and more each time I look down at the dots on my hand and repeat aloud what they represent for me.

 

Every morning I repeat this routine. I grab my green thin marker, place new dots on my hand for the new day and all while at the same time repeating the truth statements I need.

 

 

These are my current “truth” statements I need right now:

 

First Dot:  “I am worthy of love. I am loved. I am lovable. God loves me. Jesus loves me. Holy Spirit loves me. I love me.”

 

Second Dot:  “I am worthy of joy in my life. I am worthy of peace in my life. I am worthy of an abundant life.”

 

Third Dot:  “I am worthy of good health. I am worthy of good brain health. I am worthy of a healthy nervous system. I am worthy of having balanced hormones. I am worthy of being strong, fit and healthy.”

 

Fourth Dot:  “I am worthy of success. I am worthy of having a profitable business. I am worthy of being used by God to impact and love others.”

 

Fifth Dot:  “I am worthy of being safe. I am content and happy where I am in my journey and life right now.”

 

There is definitely power in choosing to believe truth over lies. As we do this we are literally rewiring our brains and forming thought habits that will lead us to make healthier and better choices for ourselves and a life that we should be living.

 

When I struggled with burnout and then was diagnosed with severe depression following that, I began to do research on the brain and how it works. And in my research I found evidence and good teachings that support the importance of this particular simple practice. 

 

I reveal this simple activity I do daily, twice a day or more, to get you thinking about how and if you need to change your bad thought habits, and choose to create healthier ones instead. 

 

If you want to change your life, you must change some things within yourself and a good start is with your thinking. I challenge you to find a way to do this activity that helps you. For me it is simply putting green dots from a thin green marker on my hand every morning to keep myself reminded of having good thoughts and beliefs throughout my day. The simpler the better in order to adapt it to your busy life.

 

I love the simplicity of this, I love the action of it and the habit of verbalizing my new truths I am choosing to believe. I will be doing this as long as I have air in my lungs, meaning for a very long time. 

 

Here is a lady I have learned a lot from about the brain that encouraged me to believe that I could bring my brain into better health:  Caroline Leaf drleaf.com

 

And here is another individual that gave me hope for a healthier brain after my severe depression diagnosis:  Daniel Amen  

 

Both are worth the time to look up! 

 

 

The New Year had just begun, I was working on my usual weekly to-do list task while pondering what this year of 2020 was possibly going to bring my way. (And it is not unusual for me to have wondering thoughts in the middle of doing a mundane task.)

 

That’s when I heard the Lord drop the word, “Worth”, into my heart. I had never chosen a specific word to use as my motivation for growth and reaching a fuller potential for a year before, but here I was rolling around in my head my word for the year.

 

I will be honest, I at first did not fully understand why this word was the word I needed. I mean, I knew that I struggled with having self-worth, but I did not know what the Lord was up to with this.

 

We are now deep into the month of February and now I get it, I get why this is my word for the year. And understanding why has motivated me to embrace this word and allow change in my mind and heart to take place.

 

I have been through some tough stuff in my life, and after a collection of trying and exhausting experiences piled one on top of the other, I have been left with some heart wrenching effects. Losing my self-worth, my identity, my ability to find value in just being who I am was the most life impacting result.

 

We have different negative markers in our lives that we can look back on and pinpoint the time or times we had changed and lost pieces of ourselves. And all because of what happened that was so frightening and devastating for us.

 

For me, it was the summer of 2014. Something happened to me that caught me off guard, as these things always do, but left me traumatized and full of fear and distrust with myself. I can still look back on that evening it happened and point to it and state, “That’s when it happened. That’s when I would never be the same again.”

 

I lost a lot in that one evening, and it would take me years to realize all that I had lost.

 

The most important thing that I lost was my self-worth, which led me down a horrible road of depression, anger, and despair. I could not forgive myself for having allowed myself to be pushed to burnout. I could not forgive myself for the HUGE transition my husband and I had to make to return back to the States because of my newfound issues with mental health.

 

I am here today to share that I have recovered a lot from that event. And now it is time for me to go deeper with my healing and to really work on improving my own self value and worth, beginning with really forgiving myself and letting go of what happened.

 

I have been really diving into how to get not only our self-worth back, but even our confidence. I am learning a lot of things in this growth process and I am thrilled to be sharing with you the things I am learning and applying to my life.

 

I will be sharing more with you on this focus word of mine, but in closing out this blog post I want to encourage you to search out a possible “word” you want to hold onto for this year of 2020 that will bring you what you need to move towards your growth, healing, and transformation. Let me know in the comments below your “word” of choice for this year!

 

 

 

What I am about to share with the reader is something that has just recently been my own experience, very recent in fact. I am working my way back to what I deem as normal for myself, and this has definitely not been my first setback. I have had many.

 

First, I want to define what I mean when I talk about being held back. I am referencing those times when something interrupts our lives and interrupts our natural flow of things; when something happens that invades the race you are running and trips you up in it’s wake.

 

This can be a lot of things, like an interrupting health issue, an unplanned move, a horrible heartbreak, an unneeded job loss, and I can go on and on.

 

Most often these are “out of our control” events that take place in our lives.They can take us by surprise and leave us wounded, shocked, and even not ourselves, or confused with who we thought we were.

 

Events such as these can definitely contribute to us finding ourselves stuck in our lives. I know you are aware of these types of events, but I want to move forward with sharing some things to keep in mind when it is time to pick yourself back up and truly live again.

 

How we get back up again, when life knocks us on our back, depends a whole lot on what actually happened to us and how deeply it affected us. It also depends on other factors too, such as our resilience, if this has been the first or tenth time this has happened to us and if we had trauma in our past and so on.

 

Some of us will need more help than others to get back up, such as external tools provided by a counselor for example, but that never translates that we are less than because we need a different type of help. I want to take all shame out of the decision to get more help for yourself, in fact, it is actually a brave move and speaks of your strong character for reaching out in the first place.

 

With that being said, let us move forward with what you can do in the meantime to pick yourself back up.

 

I am naturally an over achiever and when I get knocked down while running my race, I have to work hard to give myself the time and space I need to find my footing again. I make a choice to show myself compassion and grace as I recover, and take off a whole ton of pressure to be my normal over achiever self.

 

It takes energy to work through difficult things in our lives, energy that we would normally be able to exert in daily tasks, working on relationships, and any work projects or personal hobbies we are used to doing. Now that we are trying to gather ourselves, we need to recognize that our energy level will drop for a time, and that we should be okay with that.

 

When I am in the healing process, I lesson my load where I am able to and can afford to. And since being an over achiever is my normal mode, I definitely have to back away from that tons.

 

Setbacks can happen for a reason and they can happen for no real reason at all. A lot of times we quickly question ourselves of what we did wrong to experience this horrible event. However, if we are reaping the consequences of our own wrong choices, then we will more than likely immediately or soon discover that.

 

 

Other times it gets gray and fuzzy in our minds as we try and understand why such and such happened to us. This alone can drive any of us crazy and create a lot of confusion for ourselves. I take this time to get out of my head and have conversations with trustworthy people in my life to help me gain the right perspective.

 

And if we cannot understand the why, we should be allowed to be okay with not understanding for a time or ever. Life is not always kind and fair. There are people in this world who hurt and attempt to destroy others, and trying to understand them may not be an option for us. More than likely they are hurting inside and have been for a really long time. Or an event took place in our lives that had nothing to do with another person’s choices, but instead was an uninvited illness or accident, or even a natural disaster. These instances can also leave us reeling with questions.

 

We cannot control what did happen to us, but we can control how we respond. We can choose to move towards healing, we can choose to let go and move on, and we can choose to try and learn something in this process of getting back on our feet moving forward (even if it is learning something awfully true about another person or something surprising about ourselves).

 

We can choose to allow this experience to deepen our faith, to strengthen our resilience, and to believe that things will get better, thus having hope.

 

Everyone of us will have setbacks in our lives, and everyone of us has had them already producing different intensities of grief within us. Some people do actually stand back up on their feet again, but sadly, there are those that have remained stuck in their pain and have not moved at all.

I have great compassion on those that are stuck, because a lot of times they are because no one gave them the encouragement, love, and support they needed to stand back up. We cannot save everyone, however, for there are those who refuse to get better, but we can become the comfort we hopefully received and the love we also desperately needed.

 

For some of us, the grief as a result of what happened is so intense, so paralyzing, that one baby step forward is a huge accomplishment and we need to applaud one another when these moments take place. We should never judge anyone for the time it takes for them to grieve something that has happened to them. If it takes them a matter of years to get themselves together and stand back up again, then we applaud them for doing so and rejoice with them that they made it back up.

 

My last word of encouragement with this is to show yourself the grace, compassion, and understanding you would show your best friend if it were them going through such a setback. Watch your thoughts and ask yourself if you would say the same things to your friends, or even your younger self. It is crucial when we are in the season of getting back up, that we are kind to ourselves and show ourselves love. This alone helps in our healing process and strengthens our hearts to continue on. Don’t give up, keep moving!