LOVE THYSELF

Surrender: What you do to give up control! So with starting my new business I have had to practice my surrendering.....AGAIN!!! I have decided that no part of life is worth trying to control. As we tense up we actually become less flexible in our body. As we let go in a yoga pose we are able to actually able to become more flexible and have more movement. It is the same with our spirits. Surrender to God and then an energy is available to us mere mortals on earth that allows Him to work in our lives. We find greater joy because we are not resisting the movements.

I love this quote:
"The easy path leads to the hard life, but the hard path leads to the easy life" Rilke (poet)

In this journey through life, are we wondering if we will survive if we step our of our comfort zone? I wonder if I was going to SURVIVE IN MY COMFORT ZONE!

After a life of Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Control, Eating Disorders, Pain, Heartache, Victimization of self, Persecution of Self and others, Rescuing others thinking I was being "Christ-like", and Poor Self-Care, I have NO DESIRE to got back any more.

A year ago I would have said to you....NOT POSSIBLE. After 20 years of trying to be something different and FAILING, I would have never thought I would sit here and say there is HOPE for EVERYONE. All those years I periodically asked "WHY"? Why does God let me suffer? Why the Pain? He speaks of his Power, His Grace, His Joy, His Love, and the list goes on. BUT the way is NOT the list above. The way is NOT a check-off list that I thought HE taught. Obedience is good but what motivates is more, a change of heart is more important. Now I see THAT doctrine is the philosophy of Man mingled with scripture. So is the Doctrine of Perfection by Guilt (also called shame) to others and self.

HIS DOCTRINE IS LOVE!!!

I have learned my whole life that we should love God first and then our neighbor but something VERY IMPORTANT WAS LOST in translation. Not translation to English but translation from English to HUMAN.
The lost DOCTRINE: love thy neighbour as thyself.

I miss something that has to come before you can love others. You can love God and not love yourself but it is impossible to love someone else if you do not love yourself first. It is very clear in this scripture that loving thyself must come FIRST even though is is said in an afterthought. How I wished I had know how to love myself. I can't ever go back and I have learned so much that now I want to share this joy in my heart with others. It really should say:
1. Love God
2. Love Thyself
3. Love your Neighbor

It is easy to love others when you love yourself. We can fake it pretty good. I know I could do a pretty good acting job. I didn't even get any professional training....lol. 

So how do we get out of our comfort Zones and begin this process? 

I suggest MEDITATION as a starting point (if not a good therapist). 12 step programs don't teach this very well because we can't SEE. We need Others who are healthy to be our guardian angels. 

Meditation as a tool help us with our thinking. To just sit and be in the present with yourself. So often we live in the past or Wishing for the future and our present is never there. To be just where you are and be OK with yourself. To be NON-Judgemental without any thoughts you have. To focus on the breath starting with just 5 minutes.When your mind travels away from the breath for sounds, bodily sensations, or thoughts, we just notice with awareness and come back to the breath. The breath is so perfect because you can't make-up for past breathing or breathe for the future. you can only breathe for the present. That is how we live our lives. In this moment. Where we are. With No judgement. Then change can happen. So we can come to awareness or continue to numb ourselves and live in some future moment that is always far off and never attainable. Step into the darkness with hope of a small light in the distance by just starting the first step but never ALONE!

LIFTING

Dear God in Heaven,

Father. Please let these words reach beyond this paper (screen) and reach toward Thee as I write. I send a prayer for strength. My faith and heart has been needing some uplifting. I reach toward heaven for my lift. I read about growing up in faith and I hear that growing up is building my OWN relationship with God and My Savior, Jesus Christ. I trust that there is something greater than me and everything so temporal that surrounds me constantly. My life has been full of lifting experiences but the trials and challenges weaken my remembering. So I need further lifting. How does one find a lift to a soul, a heart, a mind, a spirit, a body? It is not so easy to just wish it done. How does one overcome the negative and seek the positive? One moment at a time...

I floated to the ICU yesterday and I had a wonderful day. I like to see them lifted in the spirits. I had a patient who said probably 50 times. The nurse during the night had only been a nurse for 3 months. She was good but you could see her newness. (She was young, timid, and insecure but had an amazing caring heart. Knowledge can be learned but that caring heart is hard to find.) She worked hard and was amazing but you know so much. You are smart. I have been around lots of nurses and you get it. You have been a nurse a long time and you know your stuff. I trust you. I know you care.....and on and on. He liked to talk (and talk and talk and talk) and because I went out of the "typical" nursing duties, he was lifted and spoke it many times. I was then lifted. So I see that when we lift others, we are also lifted. Thanks for blessing me Father in Heaven with a lifted day at work. 

Family....So much harder. Patients are embracing you and loving you. Children are not so easily affected. Or are they. What about spouses? Maybe they are to. You just have to go beyond the "typical". How does one do that God with so little time? When they resist? I love my 5 year old. He loves me and I feel the love he has for me. He hugs me easily. These kids grow up and they distance themselves from Mom. They seek their love elsewhere. They don't easily reach for mom. They seek it in friends, a screen (games, tv, phones, etc), and rarely mom.

 I have to stand back an watch them "grow-up". How does one do that and not emotionally cut yourself off from them.The son who is a porn-addict. Who wants to stop but for my own health I have had to distance myself from his recovery and not let it ruin me and my ability to be happy. Let others step in...bishop at church, sponsor, husband, counselor, and God. I have to trust God is in my life and therefore watching over my son. After 7 years of battling, is there a way out for him. I can only hope. I see the fruits of those working in his life and the lift they give to him. Mom does not have that ability as kids grow up. I guess that is the way it is suppose to be. As my oldest, and as they let me leave the hospital without a training manual, I learned the hard way. I didn't understand many things about children. I have learned alot this year. 

I sat in my daughters 1st grate class mother's day celebration. A mom said to another mom, "I love your son. I could just take him home with me. He has a heart of gold." The mother minimized the compliment....You should see him at home. Glad he he that way at school. He is a handful. That is the reason I have only two children, he is the youngest." I felt bad for that little boy who listened to his mother say those things in response to a compliment. She should have said, "I am glad you think that way but I we would never let him go. You should see him at home. He is a good person. Glad he is that way at school to. As the youngest of my two children, I am so glad he interacts so well with kids at school." I wish this was the end of the negativity. We were making flowers. She said "We are not doing very well", "Ours didn't turn out good", and while they were making those mother's day flowers he could do much right....stop acting that way or you are not going to have your sleep over. No I am not checking you out of school early.... 

My heart was crushed for that little boy. I sat next to my daughter and I embraced my new heart. My positive heart. My new heart. My heart that longs to be positive and know that negative thinking and speaking is not how God wants me to be. That is not how He works. I thought for years that I needed to teach by correcting. I had my own personal style. Fear of failure gripped my mothering heart. I was going to do better than my parents but fear was my guiding tool. Love was hard for me. I loved my kids but I lived with a wall around my heart. Would I have said those same things? Not like that but differently. I had my own style of crushing my kids spirits. Not because I didn't care but because I was afraid. Afraid of what? failure as a mother raising children to want to love, serve, be kind, etc. So by my fear I was breeding the same negativity in the hearts of my children. 

Now I see it is teaching and letting them governing themselves and praising the positive actions and using rewards, encouragement, and praise to reinforce the good. Overlooking most the negative (1 to 5 ratio is optimal). Is this hard? Hardest thing I have done in my life. Hardest thing I am still doing in my life. Letting go of the fear. Letting them make mistakes....so hard. Encouraging them that as they make mistakes and teaching them they have a Savior who prepared a way for repentance. Loving them even as they are not "perfect". Letting go of the fear driven control....I will MAKE them do good. Satan's plan!!! I didn't even realize I had embraced Satan's plan by my fear. 

My heart is still in transition. It is new to me still. I struggle and feel weak. I feel like that new nurse who is trying but your kids can feel your newness and your fumbling. That is OK. One day I will be more confident like that nurse I was yesterday at work (and feel most days at work). Confident because I am not alone. I rarely work in the ICU but that patient didn't know that. I knew that if issues came up I had somewhere to turn. I had ICU nurses, hospital policies, websites available for the hospital nurse, charge nurses, doctors, and my own intuition. Yes that is how we succeed. We practice, practice, practice and use all the resources at our disposal. We then become more confident because we know how to use the resources. We have more ability and more knowledge. It is more natural to be positive than negative. Yes I feel much hope that change is possible. Growth is possible. We can lift others and when we need to be lifted God will open the way if we turn to Him. 

Thanks God! I am grateful for you being in my life. I am grateful perfection is not required to come unto Thee. I am grateful perfection is not required in this life. I am grateful I don't have to beat myself up when I fall or make mistakes. We just have to keep practicing. Just as a pianist who is learning a song does not beat herself up when she makes a mistake. Instead she focuses on that area. Plays that measure over and over until it improves. Asks for help from her teacher, studies areas that she may not understand. Then that song can be played perfectly at times but God will give us a harder piece of music to play. This will stretch us and help us grow but as we struggle with the next piece there is never room for self-loathing, shame, negativity, or giving up on practicing. 

I love you Father in Heaven. I love my Savior Jesus Christ who suffered for my sins (all those mistakes we make when practicing our piece of music) and overcame all if we but come unto Him. We do not have to suffer...He did. That is the miracle. Thanks again for lifting me this morning as I wrote these words. I feel strengthened. Just as I am finishing. My little son runs downstairs and come and gives me a great big hug and in the next breath says "I'm Hungry". Thanks again!!!

Love,
Sue from Texas