ReceiveHealing.com

Reading Level: Gratifying

Whether a criticism is intended to be harmful or helpful, you can still choose to be in control of how it affects you.

Criticism is similar to many other events in our lives in that we can choose both the extent to which it affects us, as well as the type of outcome it has upon us. Most of us remember the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Yet, many people carry hurt their entire lives as a result of critical words spoken to them during childhood. While there is some truth to the old saying, the error in it is that words can “never” hurt; yes, they can hurt if we are unaware of the fact that we can choose not to allow them to harm us. This is especially the case during childhood when we are supposed to be in a loving, nurturing environment in which we shouldn’t need to protect ourselves and, hence, haven’t learned how to do so. Once we begin growing and stepping out of our protected environment, we must learn to evaluate critical statements as to whether they have any value and use the situation as an opportunity for personal growth.

A reader asked specifically about dealing with unfounded criticism, so we will also cover that in the process of this post.

First of all, consider the source of the criticism and what you perceive the person’s intent to be.

Did the criticism come from someone that is usually a harmful person by nature? If that is the case, it is most likely something that needs to be discarded. Also, if the person is harmful by nature, realize that the hostility of the words they spoke also needs to be discarded from your thought life. Their words only have power over you if you continue to think on them. Whatever you think on will alter your emotions and influence your decisions. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

Depression is the result of external pressure getting inside and weighing down your thoughts/emotions.

There is a depression that has its root in physical causes, such as a deficiency of certain naturally occurring chemicals in the brain, the 3 main ones being serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. Sometimes, in mild cases, these chemicals can be replaced by protein drinks with tyrosine and phenalylanine. I read that the late Dr. Atkins has such a diet available. If you suspect you’re your depression is physically related rather than from circumstancial pressures, you may want to see your doctor for a blood test to determine a proper course of treatment. Probably the most common form of depression, however, is due to allowing the pressure of circumstances to conform one’s thoughts. I’ve mentioned this quote before, “Above all else, guard your heart [mind and will], for it is the wellspring of life (Prov. 4:23).” We must admit to the absolute necessity of controlling our thoughts for the wellbeing of our lives. Another passage says, “For as the thoughts of man’s heart are, so is he (Prov. 23:7).”

Thoughts form our emotions.

The other week I referred you to a new book out, called “Eight Steps to Create the Life You Want.” I quoted the premise for the chapters in this book of how the whole course of one’s life starts with the positive or negative words we speak; those words form our thoughts; our thoughts create emotions, etc. I’ll reference the post below if you still need to read it. The eight steps in this book illustrate how the whole direction of one’s life is altered by words, thoughts, and emotions. I listened to a talk today on depression by the author of that book, Creflo Dollar. He used to be a professional therapist in a ward for suicidal teens before becoming a pastor.

Here are the 4 steps Dr. Dollar mentioned for recovery from depression due to external circumstances: 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: Gratifying

This is the fifth article in our series in answer to Readers’ Questions.

First, since God is the source of love, focus on demonstrating His characteristics to those in crisis.

For some of us this will be easier than others, depending on your knowledge of God’s character. If you grew up in a religious culture of misinformation that portrayed God as unforgiving, unkind, basically inhumane, you may not have as much knowledge in that area to draw from. You may want to read through or listen to some of my previous posts on that topic, such as, “Healing by an Understanding of God’s Love” and “A Love that Isn’t Earned.” God describes Himself as compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, having mercy (undeserved favor) that is everlasting, forgiving, patient, comforting, encouraging, protective; this is just a partial list. These characteristics of God are all traits that each of us need in our lives. We were created with the need to receive these emotional, spiritual, relational exchanges with God. In the same way, we were also created with the need to share or live out these character traits with each other. Usually, life is so busy that pouring these traits of God into each other’s lives gets set aside. It is worth mentioning that most all of us need to restructure our lives so as to have the time to consistently invest in this valuable and necessary exchange with each other, but we most certainly must focus on expressing God’s loving aspects with those who are in crisis. If you are already in the habit of living this way, it will be easier, but if your life has been too busy and you’ve neglected fine tuning these traits, God will still help you and honor your efforts to bless the person in crisis by living out His loving characteristics to them in their time of need. 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

When facing extended trying circumstances, it is necessary to belligerently believe that hope still exists even when no visible signs of hope are evident. “Hope that is seen is not hope at all (Rom. 8:24).” If you did not yet read the explanation of this principle in Part 1 of The Best Hope is Not Seen, please read it first as that is the full discussion. This section, Part 2, is taking apart one of the main quotes in that post, giving the definitions from the original Greek language.

We are going to dissect the following quote from its original language as it is very beautiful, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our faith without wavering, for He who promised is faithful Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

A lack of change in trying circumstances over an extended length of time often creates a feeling of hopelessness.

I have recently talked to a couple of different loved ones who are going through situations that are creating severe emotional struggles and feelings of hopelessness. Various difficult situations in each person’s life have gone on unchanged for so long that there is no visible sign of hope, no discernable way out of their trying circumstances. We have talked in previous posts about the necessity of positive thinking and speaking in an attitude of faith over one’s life; this is especially beneficial when one speaks the promises of God over one’s life. Scripture speaks of holding fast to what you confess in faith “without wavering (Heb. 10:23).” (The meaning in the Greek of this verse is wonderful. I’ll do a follow-up post on it.) The popular philosophy of Law of Attraction also promotes speaking out the positive changes in your life in an unwavering manner until you see them come to reality.

It takes a level of belligerence to hold on to hope.

I recall hearing a study on the news some years ago on people who lived to be over 100 years old. The sole factor they had in common was not any particular health habits but a decision to 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: 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 »

Reading Level: Leisurely

I have never been one for being interested in “TV preachers.” However, I have in the recent months developed a good deal of respect for Joel Osteen, pastor of the US’s largest church, with over 30,000 in attendance. Two things I appreciate. First, his preaching is atypical. Second, he is the only pastor I have ever heard that speaks every message, even ones on hardship, failure, correction, etc. in a positive manner. It is an obvious gifting. Surprisingly, or maybe not, he consistently draws a great deal of criticism for being positive. I heard part of an interview with him once where he spoke of all the criticism he had received for not being like his dad (now deceased), a former pastor and healing evangelist. Joel believes his personal calling in life is to give a message of hope and encouragement to the world; I respect that he chose to go against the grain, to be himself, and follow his bliss.

In a message called, “Don’t Allow Criticism to Steal Your Dream,” the following quote released healing for me.

“Your destiny is not tied to what other people say about you. It does not change what God has put in your heart. Let God take care of those who hurt you. Stay focused on the future. Don’t let hurt become the central focus of your life.”

Though his examples, if I recall, were of people who allowed certain hurts to totally destroy them with bitterness or defeat, I realized how much a recent hurt had become the central focus of my life. It was repeatedly coming to my mind throughout the day. The moment the thought came, I could feel it deplete energy from my body. It was diminishing my ability to focus on my work, not to mention stealing the level of joy at which I usually function. I had to take control of this hurt. Though it was not a typical life-altering crisis–there were some of those last year–it had still become the center focus of my life without my realizing it. I had to re-focus on my destiny. I have always been a dreamer, a visionary. I had to re-focus on the joy that is mine because I am a person of destiny! I know there are divine plans for my life that will not be altered just because others don’t believe in them.

You are alive! You are a person of destiny! If there is a hurt that is staying the central focus of every day, draining the energy and focus from your life, re-focus today on the dreams and visions that you know are yours! Focus on the truth you know in your heart!

(The message referred to above is video #337 at www.joelosteen.com . You can push the scroll bar about half way through to get past the music to the 30 minute sermon.)

Reading Level: Very Impassioned

One of the first issues worthy of discussion on this site is, “Do you really believe that you deserve to be well?”

This sounds like a ludicrous question, but medical science has proven that it is not. Our mental perspective, what we think about ourselves and God, has a great effect on our physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

For the purpose of example, there is a particular area in the medical field in which the procedure actually brings back to one’s mind past emotional hurts that are causing current physical health problems. Brief, physical treatments are then done which actually remove the pent up emotion from that bad emotional experience which has been stored in the body. During the physical treatment, you are asked to state out loud phrases along the lines of, “I deserve to be healthy. I deserve to be free from allergies” etc. People are then cured of various recurring physical ailments once that stored negative emotion from a past experience was removed from the body.

Believing that you deserve to be well is just as necessary a perspective in the area of faith and the spiritual realm.

In Matthew 9:29, while bringing healing to people, Jesus said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” The Amplified Version (expanded from the Greek) says, “According to your faith and trust and reliance on the power invested in Me be it done to you.” Most anyone you talk to, regardless of their religious beliefs or the lack of them, believes that Jesus healed people. Yet even Jesus said that people’s healing was dependent on whether or not people believed that they would be healed or, one may say, whether or not they believed that God desired to heal them. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »