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I was reminded today of a quote that clearly describes the Fatherly comfort God desires to bring us.

Visualize the level of comfort that a fearful child receives from being held in the arms of a loving father. Visualize the comfort a grieving person receives in the arms of a loving friend or spouse. Now visualize the comfort that a newborn baby receives when placed in the arms of its mother so that he can hear her heartbeat and know that safety and loving nurturing is still there.

This is the same visual picture God gives of Himself in His relationship with us.

Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him. The one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders. (Deut.33:12)

Where is your source of comfort and what is its depth?

God desires that we receive whatever comfort possible from our human relationships, but whether that is available to you or not, nothing can compare to the comfort you can receive from resting in the arms of your loving Father God, resting between His shoulders-a level of closeness in which you can “hear His heartbeat” Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

Joy is usually defined as a lasting contentment or fulfillment in life. It is something we all want. The question is, where do we find it?

Most people would agree that joy must be a matter of the spirit.

Happiness is usually defined as short term enjoyment that comes from positive, surrounding events. This is in contrast to joy, which is considered lasting because it is not derived from circumstances but from your inner self, your spirit. The meaning of the common Greek word for joy–chara-consists of calm delight and exceedingly joyful. The Greek word for complete-pleroo-is usually combined with the term for joy; it literally means to “cram full a net,” or figuratively to “satisfy, fill up, fulfill, supply.” This gives us the visual picture that joy is lasting like a calm delight, yet excessive, like an overflowing fishing net, bringing complete satisfaction and fulfillment to our lives. It supplies completely what we desire most in life, yet it comes from within.

You can find your spirit’s source of joy.

Your spirit, the eternal part of you, comes from the eternal Spirit of God. Since your spirit was created by God, did God intend for your spirit to exist in a state of joy? Absolutely. God describes His desire for your joy this way:

I say these things…so that My joy made be made full and complete and perfect in you and you may experience My delight fulfilled in you, that My enjoyment may be perfected in your own soul, and you may have My gladness within you filling your heart. Jn. 17:13

What is significant in this quote is that God states that He desires the source of our joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness to be derived from His joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness.

What aspects of your spiritual existence are the source of joy?

This is in no way a complete list, but it should give you several points to ponder. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

Lessen stress during the holidays with a few practical decisions.

Many people are overwhelmed by all the extra time and work that are invested into family traditions and added special events this time of year. An article by Elaine Ambrose provided a collection of good advice to show that a few wise decisions will lessen your stress.

Delegate - Choose which chores or errands you need to do and which ones family members can handle. If necessary, make a simple calendar and mark which days tasks need to be done, such as vacuuming, pet care, or folding laundry, and which family member chose it.

Make Meals Easier - Occasionally during this month get something from the freezer section for the main dish and add healthy items to it. Also, when you do cook, double the recipe and freeze the other meal to use over the next couple weeks.

Budget Your Money - Overspending is a main holiday stressor. Decide on your budget for family traditions and activities and stick to it. Some families draw names and decide a set a dollar amount for the gifts. This also makes it easier time-wise as each person only has to shop for 1 gift and already knows the exact price they should spend. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

This is Part 3 in the series. If you missed Part 1 and 2, please click the above links to read first.

Dr. Carver states that Stockholm Syndrome develops involuntarily-the victim does not purposely develop these feelings and responses. They are done to survive a threatening and controlling environment and relationship.

The victim’s self-worth and emotional health is so tied to the relationship that they believe that they would mentally collapse if the relationship ended. The more dysfunctional the situation, the more dysfunctional the victim’s adaptation to survive and make the relationship work. When the victim reaches the point of realizing that the relationship doesn’t work and can’t be fixed, they will need to loving support of family and friends to return to a healthy, positive lifestyle.

While each situation is different, Dr. Carver provides these guidelines for friends and family:

-Your contacts with your loved one may be met with anger and resentment. This is because each contact may prompt the abuser to attack them verbally or emotionally.

-It’s often best to establish predictable, scheduled contacts. Calling every Wednesday evening, just for a status report or to go over current events, is less threatening than random calls during the week. Random calls are always viewed as “checking up on us” calls. While you may encounter an answering machine, leave a polite and loving message.

-Remember that there are many channels of communication. It’s important that we keep a channel open if at all possible. Communication channels might include phone calls, letters, cards, and e-mail.

-Importantly, don’t discuss the relationship (the controller may be listening!) unless the victim brings it up. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

A reader asked about how to move beyond an abusive relationship when you still feel love for that person.

This is actually a common feeling from people in abusive, or even just very controlling relationships. A prominent pastor’s wife in Atlanta filed for divorce when a relationship involving much emotional abuse evolved into a physical attack. She said that she still felt love toward him but decided to “take her love with her and leave” for her own welfare. A loved one of ours, after having decided some time ago to leave an abusive relationship is now feeling that he loves the other person in spite of the fact that his health, career, and family life have all been destroyed by the other person.

An initial step is to realize the difference between love and concern.

A friend in a bad relationship once had another friend tell him, “You care about her well-being, but it doesn’t sound like you really love her.” There is a major difference between love and concern. It is unlikely that you will feel completely devoid of concern over the person’s well being if you have shared a major part of your life or major events in your life with him or her. However, concern over his or her well being is not proof of the existence of a loving relationship.

People in emotionally or physically abusive situations often suffer from Stockholm syndrome, not just people in hostage situations.

In Stockholm Syndrome, the person in an abusive or controlling situation begins to experience a psychological response of defending the “captor” and showing loyalty to the abuser. (1) Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

A reader asked what to do about harmful friends?

The question itself is almost an oxymoron-opposite terms. You usually do not think of calling someone a “friend” who is harmful to you. However, depending on one’s personality, some people tend to repeatedly choose relationships with people who are harmful to them — emotionally or physically. Other times, it may simply be an idiosyncrasy in the friend’s personality that needs to be discussed.
Let’s take a look at how to determine if the relationship is harmful, why you chose the relationship, and when to change friends.

A few simple questions can help you determine if the friendship is healthy for you or not.

Answer each of the following questions either (1) most of the time, (2) about half the time, or (3) rarely.

1. Does the relationship with your friend lessen your self-esteem?

2. Does the relationship hinder you from achieving short and/or long term goals?

3. Does the relationship create various stress-related physical health problems, such as headaches, stomachaches, nervousness, or lack of sleep?

4. Does the relationship cause emotional health issues, such as fear, worry, or intimidation?

If your answers were in the 1 or 2 range, the friendship is showing signs of harmful behavior which is negatively affecting the well-being of your life in significant amounts.

If the friendship is affecting your life mainly in negative ways, ask yourself why you became involved in that relationship.

If you repeatedly choose to be in relationships with people who are not good for you and your life, you need to ask yourself why? Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

A specific plan of action can help energize your thinking to better self-esteem.

I came across this article a few years back. I’ll post the link below to the website it was supposed to be from, though I couldn’t find the article or an author for it on their site this week. If someone knows the author, please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll gladly give credit where it is due.

Twelve Days to a Higher Self-Esteem:

Day 1 – Get a journal and write about you in it every night. Write at least 10 things that you did that makes you smile.

Day 2 – Live your life today like you want to live it. Do not base your decisions on other’s wants and desires.

Day 3 – Take care of your needs first. Find what gives you lasting pleasure, not just instant quick fixes. To respect your needs is a great way to lift your self-worth.

Day 4 – Share more of you with others! You may feel vulnerable, but making others feel good creates a feeling of value. A feeling of value will send your self-esteem soaring.

Day 5 – Spend time with positive people! Positive people send positive vibes.

Day 6 – Stay away from the “I want” syndrome, such as, “I want to look like that, I want to be thin, I want to be perfect. These negative thoughts work against your positive self-esteem. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

You can identify the typical stress patterns you experience when facing life’s struggles and follow a clear plan to leave them behind.

Fellow SelfGrowth.com expert, Jeanie Marshall, Personal Development expert, has written a helpful article to teach you to release the various stress reactions that occur in your body when facing life’s struggles. It begins with helping you identify the reactions that take place in your body so you can train yourself to be aware of when you are beginning to struggle with something. She then gives a couple of creative ideas for permanently releasing old hurts that are adding to your current struggles.

Here is an excerpt from Jeanie Marshalls’ article with a link to the full article below:

Struggle is a common expectation in our society. We tend to plan for it, anticipate it, and invite it into our lives. It has become so familiar that we often push away joy or peace or harmony, declaring such experiences to be unreal or temporary or frivolous.

Select something real in your life that you struggle against, just to give yourself a laboratory. Practicing on something real but not overwhelming will give you courage to explore something you consider a major struggle. Bring this idea or subject into your mind and feel the feelings. You may find it helpful to close your eyes to stay focused on the task. What does the struggle feel like? What sensations do you feel in your body and where do you feel them? What emotions do you feel and how do you feel them? Hear what you say about this subject to yourself. What does the resistance/struggle sound like? What color is the struggle? How big or small is the struggle?

Identify all the reactions, signals, sensations, feelings, and emotions that you can. Try not to ignore anything that comes into your awareness as you read this. How does your neck feel? Your shoulders? Your stomach? Do you feel agitated or impatient? Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

One part of conflict resolution is knowing which battles to fight.

There are times when you need to defend or protect yourself over a certain right that is being violated, especially if it is repeatedly by the same individual. If the violation is actually something harmful to your life or a hindrance to your goals, it is probably worth being addressed. However, there are so many irritations or offenses that take place in a day or a week which are isolated instances that do not have any long term affect on your life. Often, it is more to your benefit to overlook these type of offenses than make an issue to “resolve” them or fight for your rights.

When it comes to offenses or irritations that are better overlooked, the ability to choose to overlook the offense can increase your character and bring great satisfaction.

Proverbs 19:11 says, “It is to a man’s glory to overlook an offense.” In other words, it proves you have a higher level of character when you are strong enough to choose to ignore an isolated offense of limited impact, realizing that it is not worth your time and energy to “fight” in that situation.

I did a word study of this quote in 2 different English translations as well as in the original Hebrew. The additional definitions provide extra clarity to the “glory” of overlooking an offense. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

Learning to make stress, trials, and problems work for your benefit can often be a matter of choice.

If you are going through an extreme situation right now, you may think, “That is not possible.” However, contemplate all the people who have found out that they had various types of cancer or other serious diseases, and became well-known role models because they chose to find personal benefit in the midst of traumatic situations. It can be done. Some of them even credit this personal mindset as the reason they overcame non-curable illnesses.

Chose a perspective in which you can learn to benefit from it in some way, rather than be defeated by it.

Start looking for ways this particular pressure can work for you. This is actually a scriptural principle. Look at this quote:

For our light and momentary troubles, which are for the moment, works for us [or achieves for us] eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:17,18)
Amplified v. 17- For our light and momentary affliction, this distress of the passing hour, is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving in us an everlasting glory.

Troubles can work for you. They can prepare and produce and achieve some good for and in you. The good it can work for you or achieve in you may not be something that is physically seen. The personal growth and accomplishment spoken of by the famous people referred to above, who are going through or have been through serious illness, are not things they themselves, or anyone else, can physically see, but no one would deny the existence of their achievements.

Here are 2 illustrations to assist you in mentally and emotionally grasping hold of this concept so you can put it into action during your times of trouble, stress, or trauma. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

3 natural ways to treat depression were discussed by Dr. Mercola in one of his recent newsletter articles.

The link at the end of this post is to the full article as well as to a video clip of his interview with Dr. Gordon, a rare physician who encourages people with depression to take control of their health by incorporating key natural therapies into a treatment program.

Here are excerpts of the 3 natural treatments for depression from Dr. Mercola’s article. Again, the link to read the full article on his site is below.

1. Optimize Your Diet

One of the best ways to beat depression is with nutritional approaches. This includes taking high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats daily. Omega-3 fats such as those in krill oil have been found to work just as well as antidepressants in preventing the signs of depression, but without any of the side effects. In fact, throughout my years of medical practice I’ve had large numbers of patients be able to stop their antidepressants once they started taking omega-3 fats…Next, you’ll want to Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Some simple daily exercises for health and restoration are beneficial in the realization of your goals.

After talking with a loved one who was going through a breakdown of the family structure, finances, and emotional state, I began to visualize seeing him as he desires his life to be–happy, healthy, trim, and successful. When one’s dreams for his or her life have come crashing down around them, it is rather difficult, and seemingly absurd to visualize one’s self and life in a state of near perfection. However, in recent years I have been studying people in both the secular world and religious world who have used the principle of faith to bring restoration after every aspect of their lives had been completely destroyed, and all of them say, “You must see where you want to be in your mind; you must visualize it for it to come to pass.” As a main key to being successful is learning how others achieved it, the concepts of visualizing and speaking restoration into existence should be taken hold of by anyone in need of life restoration.

Let’s look at two daily exercises to evoke health and life restoration. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Leisurely

How you deal with crises or tragedies affect the length of your life as well as the daily quality.

I once heard a report on the news about a study done with people over 100 years of age. They were expecting to discover a common health link, something those seniors did or did not eat, or some type of exercise routine. Much to the astonishment of those doing the study, there did not appear to be any common denominators in health habits. Obviously, health habits will affect the quality of one’s physical life, especially as you get older. However, the sole common denominator in these seniors who lived to be over 100 years of age was how they dealt with crises or tragedies; they had a commitment to move forward or move past the tragedy and continue to find enjoyment in life. In their view, it was worth living just to be alive, regardless of the events they experienced.

A perspective that sees value solely in being alive will benefit one’s daily life as well.

Though it wasn’t discussed in the part of the report I heard, I would imagine that people who outlived their peers due to a commitment to move beyond tragedy had also lived their daily lives with the same perspective-”This too shall pass,” “Life goes on…,” or whatever applicable saying you have heard. If one has a view to be able to enjoy life just because he or she is still alive, regardless of even facing tragedies, imagine how much less 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: Leisurely

Recent events in the US Open were a good illustration of the harm that quickly comes to people on both ends of a conversation through a careless moment with one’s words.

It made headlines the last few days of the US Open (tennis) when a few careless words in an attempt to joke brought great offense to another athlete, visibly hindering his play in the quarters and semifinals. We began following the sport a few years ago when we watched Wimbledon with a visiting friend. Commentators mentioned that medical staff for the players avoid giving many details on injuries; this seems logical as it would give an advantage to the opponent. When Andy Roddick was asked in an interview about his strategy for an upcoming match with Novak Djokovic’, he made a careless remark implying that Djokokvic’ had so many injuries that he would be easy to beat. We, ourselves, were startled at the words, as one of the things we’ve appreciated about the sport is an apparent higher level of conduct than in most sports; in pre and post games interviews that we’ve seen, it is standard that the athletes always compliment their opponents. Though Roddick later stated that the remark was only a joke, the offense soon made international headline news.

Most of us are fortunate enough that are words are not publicized by the press, but the results of such a remark paint a clear portrait for us. It was an opportunity in which immense character could have been displayed by the offender.

Djokovic’ and his family were deeply offended by the remark and his normal, fighting spirit was no where to be found in his last match of the Open; one could see a visible oppression on his spirit. We all fail, at times, with our words. Scripture says that, otherwise, we would be perfect people–meaning if we were so disciplined as to perfectly control our words, we would be perfect in all other areas of our lives as well. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »