mental health

Why can't I just get past this already?

Why can't I just get past this already?
It's been quite a painful week for my body! 

First: After off and on foot pain after stepping wrong on my treadmill a while back, I went to the foot doctor because it started to hurt more again. 

Second: Turns out, it had been healing but since it wasn't fully healed, it rebroke when I did too much walking recently. 

Third: To follow doctor's orders, I was careful with my now known to be broken foot as I was gently walking with my dog while coming back from getting the mail from our mailbox yesterday.  However, he suddenly a different direction than I was and tripped me.  I slammed down to the ground (really hard!) on my knee, and bruised my other foot! 

Fourth: This all jarred my already strained neck muscles from an injury last week.

Conclusion: If it weren't for the fact that I know this is not the norm in my life and that I have a great chiropractor, I may have just ordered a ton of bubble wrap off of Amazon and wrapped myself up in it to keep me safe and sound and resolved to never move or put myself out there to do anything physical again...because of the fear that this could be possible again.

That's what trauma is like.  We have experiences that hurt, and we try to protect ourselves from ever putting ourselves at risk of that happening again.

Unfortunately, healing and really living and enjoying life can't take place if we let the pain and its effects affect us more than the healing experiences being able to shape our actions.

To heal my body, I need blood flow, rest, strengthening exercises, and therapeutic care for my bones and muscles.

To heal from mental and emotional traumas, we need safety, support, compassion, and new experiences. 

So, hopefully, your body had an easier week than mine did, but if your mental and emotional wounds could use some care, you might want to listen to this week's podcast episode: Why can't I just get past this already? by clicking here.

It's not preventing ourselves from getting hurt in life that matters as much as knowing that we can get help and heal
when we've been wounded.

How Can I Turn Negative into Positive?

How Can I Turn Negative into Positive?
Not to be morbid, but in the past week and a half, I've received some really difficult news...not just one time, but like seven times!  

It started with three elderly relatives with physical difficulties, one of them, ending up in the hospital, then rehab, then the ICU, and then back to the regular hospital, then the rehab facility, again. Fortunately, he is on the mend now. The other two elderly relatives, a husband and a wife, delightful people, each passed away within days of each other.

Not only did I care about each one of these people, but one of my cousins more in the middle-age range than the elderly, passed away after a long illness.  

Just the other day, I came across an obituary for my best friend from middle school. Now that one, the youngest of them all was the shocker.

I hadn't talked to her in 35 years because we had a falling out in high school and lost touch, the fact that she passed away, actually died, at a relatively young age and unexpectedly, is jarring.

There are positives that can be grasped out of these pieces of seemingly bad news...three people are no longer suffering with debilitating health issues and pain, a husband and wife didn't have to be separated by death for very long before they were reunited in heaven, we still have more time with one of our cherished relatives on this side of heaven, and we know that as Christians, death has lost its sting because it's really just a transition to a better place.

No matter how you look at it, all of our days on Earth are numbered. Whether old or young or somewhere in the middle, there comes an expiration date.

Some don't like to think about it or talk about it, and some people actually obsess over it because they want to get to heaven so badly and to escape from the hardships of this world.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I want to live each moment to the fullest. I want to live and love well. I want to steward what God's given me to steward, and I want to use it to bring His healing to help people.

There really is no time but the present. We are not guaranteed tomorrow on this planet, but, if you are reading this, you have right now, today.

Each who passed recently had really cool experiences and contributed much while they were here.

What do you want to leave behind when it's your turn to transition to Heaven?

How are you doing with that?  

Are you intentionally moving forward, or are you trying to minimize and ignore the uncomfortable fact that our days on earth are not unlimited?

My encouragement to you is to make a choice to live boldly and unapologetically for the Lord now, so you can leave a legacy of good things to touch others lives when it's your turn to transition home.  

That's basically the whole point of life, isn't it?

If you could use some help and encouragement along the way, you might want to learn about a new program, SHINE, I have developed to help make the "shoulds" in life more like easier "did thats."

Let's live well now so we can live always without regrets. Check out this week's podcast here. Click here to learn more about SHINE.

There is no time like the present to live really well.

 
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