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Implementing these 6 daily habits will empower you to better cope with stress.

This is Part 2 of steps for coping with stress. Please read the first 5 steps for coping with stress if you missed them by clicking on the link at the beginning of this post. These steps on how to alleviate stress are condensed from Dr. Don Colbert’s book, “The Seven Pillars of Health.”

Guard Your Mental Intake: What enters into your mind affects your health. Many people begin their day listening to national or world news, soap operas, gossipy morning talk shows, or music with negative lyrics. If your day begins by filling your mind with worries about the economy or other people’s problems and/or dysfunctions, you are bound to be stressed before you even get to work! Wisdom from Prov. 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for out of it spring the issues of life.” What you put into your internal being affects every issue of your life. Does your intake create strength and healing? If not, change to positive input.

Breathe Correctly: Proper breathing is one of the best de-stressing techniques and usually the least used. Dr. Colbert tells of asking a paramedic friend what made the different between a trauma patient living or dying. He answered, “I have seen others with significantly less severe injuries die because they simply quit breathing.” Though we are born breathing correctly, abdominal breathing, most of us end up chest and shoulder breathing using short breaths. Our abdomen should rise and fall when we breathe, not our chest and/or shoulders. Abdominal breathing has a calming effect on the brain and nervous system as well as relieving pain, stress, and muscle tension. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Impassioned

In the physical health world, the phrase “No pain, no gain,” is quite familiar. When it comes to emotional health in relationships and boundary setting, “No pain, no gain” is also an applicable phrase.

People who repeatedly allow themselves to be hurt or harmed by others, physically or emotionally, have difficulty setting boundaries. They bring a continual flow of destruction into their lives due to not setting boundaries, or not making clear what is acceptable and what is not acceptable behavior mainly due to a fear of the other person’s response. They fear the other person’s anger or they even fear hurting the other person’s feelings. Often, the boundaryless person fears hurting the other person because of an “over-identification with loss.” He hasn’t dealt with his own personal losses, especially those caused by the harmful relationship, so he has an unrealistic, over-emotional response to the thought of hurting the other person. It is a tragic thing to see destruction rule throughout a person’s whole life when restoration and abundance is attainable-all because he or she fears boundary setting will hurt the other person’s feelings. In such cases, pain is a good thing!

First, realize that it is possible to hurt someone’s feelings by “doing what needs to be done” and being responsible with your gift of life.

Those who follow this blog know that I frequently refer to the Boundaries book by Cloud and Townsend when discussing relationship issues of this type. You do what you need to do though it may hurt the other person’s feelings. This is not a matter of being inconsiderate. You think through and evaluate how the boundary will likely hurt the other person’s feelings; that’s being empathetic and “taking into account” the other person’s feelings. But you still set the boundaries to stop the harm to your life; otherwise, you are being irresponsible to the gift of your own life. The other person will likely insult you, saying that you are cruel or unforgiving. To purposely hurt someone’s feelings without giving any consideration to the fact that the person will hurt would be wrong (Keep in mind this is exactly what the other person is doing to you when violating your boundaries.), but so is not setting the boundaries necessary so that you can fulfill your God-given destiny with the precious gift of your own life!

In boundary setting, we must recognize the clear difference between hurt and harm.

Here is the most wonderfully wise example provided by Cloud and Townsend, pp. 93-94, of the difference between hurt and harm. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Very Impassioned

A misunderstanding of forgiveness can keep you from receiving the desired resolution to the hurts you have suffered.

Some people continue to allow others to harm them because they wrongly believe that, to be loving and forgiving, they must keep giving in to the other person’s demands or lifestyle. Other people avoid forgiveness due to the fear that it requires a lowering their boundaries and allowing the person to hurt them again.

Such misconceptions takes place due to not understanding the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. God is clear that we always need to forgive, but He is also clear that you cannot always reconcile with the person who hurt you. You may recall my mentioning in another post God’s instructions in Matthew 18 on dealing with someone who harms you. In verse 15, He says that we are to confront those who harm us, clearly letting them know how they wronged us so that they will have a definite opportunity to change and make things right. However, in verse 17, God describes that, after a process of varying attempts to allow the harmful person to make a life change, it is spiritually and morally correct to distance yourself from a person who continues to harm you. When you have a clear understanding of this resolution process, and of the definitions of forgiveness and reconciliation, it (1) frees you from the past to move forward and (2) releases you from the guilt one usually feels from breaking off a relationship.

Learning to have a voice and speak of how you were wronged to those you trust as well as to the person who harmed you is an important part of personal growth and establishing boundaries.

Let’s take a slight detour and focus on why you need to be able to express your personal boundaries as well as violations to them. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

As mentioned in a recent post, resentment or bitterness results from you not dealing with past hurts. But what can be done about resentment toward you in the person or persons closest to you?

First of all, remember you can only change yourself.

You cannot make the other person forgive you or reconcile; neither can you make him or her discuss the sources of the resentment, if they are not willing. By being wise and non-confrontational in your approach, hopefully you can create a non-threatening atmosphere that will allow your significant other to be willing to discuss the hurts which bred the resentment. If you are willing to listen to the criticism and accept it in a constructive way, even if the communication toward you is not necessarily in the most pleasant of form, you will have examples to work with to make needed changes on your end. If the person is absolutely unwilling to talk at this time, you have to begin with expressing your sorrow for causing him hurt, and make changes in any areas in which you are already aware that have caused resentment. In other words, begin by not adding to the resentment that already exists, making changes to your habits or personality which you already know are offensive to your loved one.

To more easily identify problem areas, let’s take a look again at what causes resentment.

Not Confronting Boundary Violations – Due to childhood environment, some people have a very difficult time saying, “No,” for a variety of reasons:

-Especially in religious circles, people are often made to feel that they can never say “No;” they are told that a “No” response is always unloving and selfish instead of self-sacrificing. However, in Matthew 18:15 and following, God very specifically says that if someone wrongs you, you are to clearly let the person know so that he can change. Verse 17 also makes it clear that if the person is unwilling to stop the inappropriate behavior or abuse, you should distance yourself from that person. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

Resentment not dealt with is a roadblock to emotional and physical healing.

Resentment usually results from a lack of dealing with conflicts. This doesn’t necessarily mean you must resolve the conflict with the other person; sometimes, that isn’t possible, especially if the person is volatile or hostile. However, you must deal with your feelings toward the past conflict in your own mind. As will be mentioned later in this post, emotional and physical ailments result from not coming to terms with past events and dealing with your resentment.

The first step in ridding yourself of resentment is to own up to your own choices.

As the old saying goes, “It takes two to tangle.” By admitting to the mistakes you made in the situation, it enables you to stop the blame game-to stop your focus of solely blaming the other person for your problems. This does not condone the other person’s harmful behavior toward you. This does not mean that you pretend that such behavior is wrong. However, instead of being focused on solely blaming the other person, you take responsibility for your own poor choices. For example, maybe you chose to get into an abusive relationship by ignoring the warning signs. Or, maybe the conflict arose because you insisted on discussing a difficult topic when you knew the other person was too tired or ill. Or, if you are a compliant dealing with a controlling person, you need to admit that you “allowed” the other person to control you and did something that you later resented when, instead, you should have set boundaries by refusing to do what you knew was not in your best interest. If your resentment stems from being over-giving to loved ones or over-involved in a good cause, again you need to Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Very Impassioned

By the most basic definition, a compliant person melts into the demands and needs of other people to avoid the conflicts that would arise if he stood up for his own needs and desires.

We had a post a few weeks ago in answer to readers’ questions called, “Recognizing a Controlling Person.” Since then, readers have asked for clarification on the opposite personality type/boundary problem called compliant personality/compliance. There are obviously more than 2 personality types in the world, but among family, friends, and acquaintances, these 2 types seem to be very apparent, especially since opposites attract.

A compliant personality often leaves a person feeling defenseless against the demands of others and frustrated by the lack of fulfilling his own desires. A compliant person is unable to say “No” when a controlling person’s demands are unreasonable, against his own conscience, or hindering the progress of his own goals and the fulfillment of his own needs. Controlling people recognize a compliant person and easily manipulate him to conform to whatever the controller’s demands are by the use of guilt, manipulating circumstances, or even verbal or physical abuse.

When a compliant needs to say “No” to someone, a large number of fears typically make him incapable of doing so. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Very Impassioned

How do we recognize controlling people to stop the infringement of personal boundaries?

This is in response to a reader’s question. People with compliant personalities ( basically a personality that feels guilty for standing up for itself) are often “run over” in life by people with controlling personalities. Often the compliant person doesn’t even realize why he, or she, struggles with so much guilt and resentment, guilt for not wanting to do what the controller says and resentment for giving in and doing what is against his own conscience or goals. Since a compliant personality feels compelled by guilt to give in to the aggression or manipulation of the controller, he doesn’t always even realize that the other person is creating these problems. Other times a compliant does realize it, but just doesn’t have the emotional strength to stand up to the person. A compliant person must learn to deal with his or her own weaknesses and the lack of determination to stand up for his boundaries; he must determine to be true to the person that he is and how he wants to live his life, making his own decisions and taking responsibility for them. I needed to give you that background on the compliant personality to understand the relationship between a controller and a compliant. However, since the reader question was on identifying controllers, that will be the focus today. My definitions of the 2 types of controlling people and other illustrations are taken from Cloud and Townsend’s “Boundaries” book, pp. 54-55. Full book information is at the end of the post.

Controllers are people who cannot hear a “No” answer.

The example Cloud and Townsend use is of the phrase common to sales training, “No” means “Maybe” and “Maybe” means “Yes.” This attitude can make an effective salesman, but it is quite harmful to personal relationships. The primary problem of a controller who refuses to accept another person telling him, “No,” is that he is refusing to take responsibility for his own life. He is continually controlling others in various ways to convince them to take care of responsibilities in life that he should be taking care of himself. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

A reader asked, “Define harmful behavior.” There are many ways one can define or recognize the harmful behavior of others in your life, or even behavior of your own that is harmful to others or yourself, but the easiest way is to evaluate the results.

God says that real love does not do harm to another person, so living according to real love causes a person to completely obey all the laws of God due to living a loving lifestyle (Rom. 10:13). Thus, a person who truly loves you will not consistently live a lifestyle that brings harmful results in your life. Granted, we all lose our tempers at time and say or do things that later we have to apologize for, but the key difference is whether or not a person brings more harm than good.

Let’s take a look at how to evaluate behavior by the results. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

A reader recently asked, “How does God desire for us to handle abusive relationships?” I already have some other posts related to this topic such as recognizing real love and how to move forward after getting out of the situation which I will reference below.

Let’s cover now 6 specific steps important for anyone in an abusive relationship or trying to recover after one.

Forgive Yourself- Admit any mistakes you made in the situation. There are always mistakes on both sides. You may need to forgive yourself for getting into that relationship to begin with, especially, if in retrospect, you realize you ignored all the warning signs. Or, you may now see that you should have not waited so long to confront or abandon the relationship. Also, people often feel the need to forgive themselves for the valuable time that was lost while devoted to an unhealthy relationship.

Forget - Leave the past in the past. We all make decisions that we later regret. They cannot be changed, but we can keep from living under their shadow the rest of our lives. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

The first matter to overcome regarding a fear of God’s rejection is a concrete decision to replace feelings with truth.

Negative feelings about God most often stem from harmful relationships with authority figures in one’s past, such as parents, or from improper religious education during childhood. Authority figures may have misused their authority or shown a harsh form of discipline that was lacking in love and security. Or, some religious leaders present God has a harsh, unforgiving, unreachable person due to, not only some distortions regarding the character of God, but a failure to teach the full scope of God’s character. Contrary to such a presentation of God, His love and sense of justice are perfectly balanced. He does discipline us at times, but in ways that lovingly bring about our healing and restoration!

Negative feelings from childhood can be overcome, but accept the fact that it will take consistent effort since usually you are trying to correct decades of negative thought patterns.

When faced with certain situations that spur your desire to seek God, your mind will automatically follow the negative pattern of thoughts, fearing God’s rejection, as it has always done. You will need to be consistent in interrupting those automatic negative thought processes by repeatedly speaking truth to yourself and refusing to allow the emotions that are associated with those old thoughts until your present feelings line up with truth. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

Want physical health? Your emotional hurts may be as much as 85% of the root cause of your physical health problems!

There was an astounding statistic in an article on 12 Tips to Preventing Cancer from Dr. Mercola’s email newsletter which said, “Even the CDC [government's Center for Disease Prevention and Control] states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here…”(1) Those of us who readily acknowledge our need for emotional healing will have little difficulty listing a broad range of physical conditions that are in need of healing as well.

To see physical healing, we must come to terms with the emotional hurts of the past and present.

If you are struggling with past hurts, Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

There are occasionally those times in each of our lives when we are faced with the pain of a broken relationship, whether it be a trusted friend, spouse, or significant other.

The pain is very real and the grieving process is natural and necessary. Yet, there are a couple of easy, helpful ways to daily restore hope and joy to your wounded heart while going through that grieving process. You can choose to restore hope and joy to your heart on a daily basis instead of groveling in (staying focused on) the pain and betrayal. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

People with religious tendencies are often profuse givers. Depending on your personality, the desire to give can be so compelling that it easily gets out of balance, causing feelings of resentment when receivers respond with a lack of gratitude.

Many of us are easily moved with compassion for people in need, desiring to respond with help in whatever way possible. When you are a personality type that is easily compelled to give, it is not uncommon for this desire get out of balance, causing feelings of resentment when receivers respond with a lack of gratitude. These feelings of resentment are compounded when you still feel compelled to give though you yourself have come to a point of being in need, from either stressful and exhausting circumstances or the void that has developed from those you give to rarely giving in return.

Compulsive givers frequently feel guilty when they try to back out of getting involved even though their own exhaustion is necessitating it, or when they allow someone to help them with their own needs. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Impassioned

Please read Recognizing Real Love Part 1 before continuing this post. It contains all the foundational points for the illustration I will be covering below.

It is not God’s desire for any person to come to the end of his/her life having never experienced truly loving relationships on a consistent basis. However, many times religious beliefs or a compliant personality cause many people to endure long-term, emotionally unhealthy relationships because they suffer from an unrealistic guilt about getting help and/or getting away from the abusive relationship.

The abuser frequently tells the submissive person that he/she loves them, but then lives a lifetime of behavior that causes emotional and even physical harm to the other person. For a compliant personality type, the extreme contradiction in words and behavior is not enough to compel them to get help or make a change to bring the necessary healing to their lives.

Again, let me emphasize, infrequent, low-level hurtful behavior does take place in healthy relationships. However, allowing another person to treat you with consistent, immensely hurtful behavior will have lasting effects, deepening harm to one’s emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being the longer it is allowed to continue. If you are having difficulty in dealing with such a relationship in ways that will bring definite healing to your life, finding a reputable counselor is must. As the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior are not always clearly defined in our minds, we utilized a detailed definition of real love in Part One. A good starting place for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, between healthy and destructive relationships in your life, is using Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Impassioned

Recognizing real love can empower you to bring about needed emotional, physical, and spiritual healing. It enables you to distinguish truly harmful behavior in your relationships from typical, daily personality conflicts.

I have several friends and relatives who have gone through repeated, emotionally and physically traumatic experiences due to emotionally unstable family members who either refuse to take medication or are not helped by it. However, we all must, from time to time, handle the type of emotional hardships common to unstable or purposely hurtful people, whether in a situation on the job, in the neighborhood, or with relatives. While talking with a friend about recent stresses with a bipolar spouse, it became apparent that some of the difficulties I have seen myself, friends, and family experience in unhealthy relationships stem from an unclear view of what real love is.

The inability to identify real love causes some people to devote the years and effort of an entire lifetime to relationships that continually bring them harm when they could learn to identify and develop the truly loving, healing relationships in the realm of their existence. It is not God’s desire for any person to come to the end of his/her life having never experienced truly loving relationships on a consistent basis. The more of a clear, definite understanding that one has of real love, the easier it is to know where to draw the line Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »