Bringing Balance to Life: Resist Worry

My friend is a big worrier. He worries about financial ruin. He has enough to take a three-month trip around the world for twenty years. He worries about his health. His annual physical exam reflects a robust man. He worries about his two children. Both are doing exceptionally well in top colleges. He worries about the weather, the murder rate, the terrorist, the news headlines. 

Worry consumes time that could be used for productive problem solving, ruins a perfectly good day, produces procrastination as in "I'm so worried about passing organic chemistry, I can't study." Worry is negative goal setting. It can generate a self-fulfilling prophesy.  

The French philosopher Montaigne wrote, "My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened." Most of what we dread never occurs and our worries only interfere with our ability to solve problems and enjoy life. Worriers know this, but they still worry. 

Worriers can become productive, happy citizens...and better friends when they work on improving their outlook:

• Write down what you are worried about. If there is something you can do about your worries, do it. If it is a worry over which you have no control, wad the paper and throw it in the trash. Remind yourself that your worries are in the trash. 
• Set aside 30-minutes to worry everyday. Sit in a hardback chair in your least favorite room and worry until your brain scrambles. No other worrying allowed the rest of the day: Remind yourself that you have already worried for 30-minutes or that you have a 30-minute worry time scheduled in a few hours. 
• If you require constant reassurance remember there is no sure thing. Repeated reassurance makes you dependent on others. 
• Become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Embrace doubt by using it to generate positive activity. Just do your best. 
• Understand where your worries come from. Were your parents worriers? Have you had a terrible experience in the past? Sometimes just examining the root cause can help. Sometimes it can be even more helpful when you tell yourself, "Mama was a worrier. I hated that about her. I am not going to be like Mama. No worries for me anymore because I want my family to remember me with a smile."
• Practice your ABCDs to change your response to challenges
• A = Activating event. (I have an interview for a better job.)
• B = Belief about the event. Choose: "I'm terrible at interviews" or "I'm going to enthusiastically learn about this position and how I can contribute in my new job." Which statement will give your the best chance to be hired?
• C = Consequences (feelings) of the belief.  Worry comes from your belief about an event, not the event itself. Change your belief, have positive feelings. 
• D = Doing something about your opportunity. Go for it. Act. Take a risk. Swing for the fences. 
• Analyze your fears. You are afraid of airplanes, huh? There is a 0.00001% chance you will die from an airplane crash or to put it another way there is a 99.99998% chance you will survive your flight. You know this, but you are afraid anyway. Why? Figure out the real source of your fear and work on changing the cause, not changing the fear.
• Be aware of your body. A rapid pulse, shortness of breath, sweating give negative feedback to your brain and your brain worries even more and your heart rate increases to a never ending cycle of fear. Take deep breaths. Relax your muscles. Think soothing thoughts. 
• Be active. Activity cures worry. 
• Listen to relaxing music and relaxing sounds.
• Yoga is a fantastic relaxer.
• Practice meditation or the relaxation response. Look up the techniques.
• Pray daily. Prayer allows you to turn over your worries to a higher power. In my opinion this is the most powerful anxiety fighting technique there is.
• Trust. Trust God. Learn to trust trustworthy people. Turn over some control to others, with caution of course. You have to be comfortable that the other person knows the territory. 
• Read the scriptures. Psalm 62:8, Hebrews 4:16, and Proverbs 3:5-7 are especially good for reducing worry. Look them up. Looking for those verses in the Bible will keep you active and help cure worry. 

When you are worrying too much click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

Bringing Balance to Life: Regret Less

I'm a big worrier. I don't worry much about the future. I worry about the past. I'm a regreter, a negative ruminator---if only I had done this; I should have done that; why didn't I; that was a big mistake. Talk about wasting time---regret is one of the biggest time wasters there is. It also decreases our joy, and leads to doubt, despair, depression.

There are several things we can do about regret:

• Be present in the present
• Where ever you are, be there
• Ignore the futile, plan for the future
• Forget the bad by expecting the good
• Turn worries into prayers
• To regret less, pray more
• Serve, don't stew
• Don't regret, reconcile
• Count blessings, not messes
• Replace self centered thinking with other centered thinking
• Enjoy the natural beauty that blesses our lives
• Work, exercise, stay busy
• Wear a rubber band around the wrist; when negative ruminations appear, stretch the band, and pop the wrist. Do that enough and a hematoma will develop or regret will go away.

I've found the biggest help from repeating scripture:

• Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
• Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever  is lovely, whatever is admirable---if anything is excellent or praiseworthy---think about such things. Philippians 4:8
• Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Hebrews 13:5
• And we pray this so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:10-12
• Let us put our hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Be rich in good deeds, and be generous and willing to share. Timothy 6:17-18

And finally, here's a good song for regretters to sing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLtXdhUXfqU

Bringing Balance to Life: Championship Effort

What makes a champion? David Epstein in this book The Sports Gene wrote that success depended on chromosomes. In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell wrote that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.  Now Bob Rotella in his book, How Champions Think, writes that mental habits and attitudes are central to success.

The preeminent sports psychologist has impressive pupils: LeBron James, Tom Kite, Richard Petty, Greg Maddux, Jimmie Johnson, Jim Furyk; Olympic gold medalists and NCAA champions; successful basketball and baseball teams; and non-sport individuals and companies.

Rotella credits Jordan Speith's mental game as the force behind his runaway 2015 Masters victory. Speith focuses on what he can do not what his competitors are doing; considers his performance more important than his score or his standing; and doesn't force things.

He praises John Wooden, Vince Lombardi and John Calipari for insisting that maximum effort trumps outcome, debunking the "winning is everything" myth. During the 2014-15 Kentucky basketball team's 38-1 season Calipari focused on day-by-day preeminent performance, never mentioned winning or losing. Vince Lombardi taught his players, "that sustaining a commitment to personal excellence over a lifetime would separate them from other people and make them exceptional."

Rotella's advice is good for anyone who wants to be successful in any project:

• Believe in your talent. (I like that phrase. It's better than be optimistic and confident.)
• Do visualization exercises in the same way as you practice your bunker shot or your sales presentation.
• Forget failures. Don't allow yourself to ruminate over defeats and mistakes. Shrug them off. Move on. 
• Commit to hard work. Practice sweat prevents showtime blood. 
• Love the great days more than you hate the good days. Love winning more than you hate losing. Focusing on winning produces endorphins; concentrating on losing produces cortisol, a stress hormone.
• Immerse yourself in the process, not the final goal. Enjoy the journey and you'll have a blessed arrival. 
• Underreact to everything. Anger, frustration, worry and doubt saps energy. 
• Be patient with yourself. Excellence takes time.
• Be impatient with those who set limits on you. Each of us can do more than any of those who doubt us. Double effort drowns doubt. 
• Surround yourself with positive people.
• Luck effects outcome but not effort. Prepare yourself to be lucky. 
• Love what you do and do what you love. Love is forever victorious.  
• Know the why. Don't do something unless you know why you are doing it. Genetics and 10,000 hours of practice are mere ciphers. Why is everything.

For championship inspiration click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY3XiM7oGj0

Bringing Balance to Life: Time Spirits

Lately several people have asked me to define or describe a sense of humor. A couple of other people asked me to discuss the Holy Spirit. These two topics seem to be on opposite ends of a spectrum, but I think I can bring them together. 

There are three types of humor: Sarcastic humor that we should avoid because it is hurtful; belly-laugh humor---joke telling or funny behavior; and the highest form of humor, cosmic humor which is the ability to laugh at ourselves, not take ourselves so seriously, and have child-like play in our daily lives. Cosmic humor is a spirit of joy. 

All of us are like ducks gliding over the visible lake while paddling frenetically in unseen waters. We look good, smell good, and act good on the outside, but deep down, hidden from others, we have concerns, insecurities, worries. That's kind of funny in a cosmic humor sort of way. When we see those who seem almost perfect we can remind ourselves they are just ducks like the rest of us.  

Now to the Holy Spirit. To me Holy Spirit power fires the soul with ardor, zeal, fervency for God's love and animates vigor for fruitful living. And then there is the soft, silent sense of the Holy Spirit's whisper that stimulates us to share God's love and wisdom. No doubt the Holy Spirit speaks to us in our waking and our lying down day-by-day, but we are often tuned to a different channel. 

I think God has a cosmic sense of humor about us from time to time as in, "What foolishness is John up to this time, doesn't he know that won't work out for him, got to love his curiosity for the ridiculous though." 

When we listen to the Holy Spirit's soft suggestions, when we are fired-up for God, he looks at us a different way. God sees us then, I think, as sovereigns of grace traversing through infinite, eternal space. 

To fill your heart with Spirit click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryFQVSP4Egg

Bringing Balance to Life: Why Pray?

In our postmodern world, a world marked by the following:

• Selfish individualism that has led to conflict, family decomposition, riots, and neglect
• Narcissistic hedonism that has produced AIDS, 300,000 babies born each year with their mother's drug addiction, family entertainment filled with raunch and violence, an abortion epidemic, and look-at-me selfies
• Deconstructive morality based on what each individual believes is right or wrong
• Political correctness, a form of coercion, that has depersonalized humans and leads to the loss of human freedom
• Grave doubt that education and social reform will be able to solve all the world's problems

---we need an anchor, a true-north compass, a ruddered ship, a "why" to live a life rich in good deeds.  We need God, a God we can depend on, a God we can pray to.

Why do we pray? To express our trust and reliance on God who desires the best for us and from us. Prayer acknowledges our dependence on God as a loving and wise Father who controls the universe in his unsearchable and inscrutable ways.

Why do we pray? To have fellowship with God, a stable, dependable, caring, and loving friend with whom we can reveal our most intimate fears, concerns, desires, and conflicts without condemnation. God loves and delights in our fellowship with him.

Why do we pray? To express our genuine conviction of God's wisdom, love, goodness, and power.

Why do we pray? To increase our faith, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Why do we pray? To have a firm foundation upon which to build our lives filled with unselfish love and productive work.

Why do we pray? To produce good fruit that advances his kingdom within us and beyond us. Prayer encourages us to contribute to those activities that are eternally important.

Why do we pray? To offer thanks for the blessings bestowed upon us.

If we pray little, we do not believe that prayer changes anything.

Here's a prayer for us all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK5VulNn3so

Bringing Balance to Life: Loving God

How do we love God? We love God by appreciating all we have been given. We love God by loving ourselves, having faith in the power of good, doing our best to help others, and by choosing to cultivate an abundant, joy-filled life.

To increase our love for God we commune with him every day. We study the scriptures. Pray. Meditate on His love. We ask God help us build a relationship with him, to be in his will in all things. We worship God with others.

This unending spiritual journey will contin­ue to bless us with a love for God's unsearchable judg­ments, his inscrutable ways, his tender mercies and his grace.

God fills our hearts with thankfulness: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTpJxPyo3JE

Bringing Balance to Life: Loving Others

A flash of enthusiasm, the excitement of anticipa­tion, a spark of kindness, a hearty laugh---these emotions make us more real to others…and more loving. Believing that we are lovable encourages us to step out in faith, meet other people, take risks, and do something for someone. When we love
others we become loved in return which increases our self-acceptance. Give to others and we give to ourselves. Sow love and we reap love. Altruism provides joy that increases health and well-being.

How can we become more loving?: 

• By bringing encouragement, optimism, and hope to all that we meet. 
• By helping others feel comfortable in our presence. 
• By spreading joy and goodwill. 
• By being concerned about the wishes and desires of others. 
• By understanding, car­ing, accepting, and forgiving. 
• By becoming more con­cerned about helping others and less interested in our individual desires.

Loving others means wishing them well, just as we wish ourselves well. Here are some ways to wish others well:

• Treat others the way you would like to be treated. 
• Instead of criticizing others, remember that you are imperfect, too. 
• Refuse to say anything bad about anyone, even if what you say is true. 
• Decline to participate in gossip. 
• Find something good in everyone. 
• Don't complain about others. 
• Praise honestly and sincerely. 
• Say "Thank you"----a lot. 
• Smile----a lot.
• Become genuinely interested in others. 
• Listen more than you talk. 
• Make the other person feel important, sincerely. 
• Always avoid arguments. 
• Avoid sarcasm or put-down humor. 
• Try to see things from the other's point of view.

Here's to friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSZ3VdiuXpE

Bringing Balance to Life: Loving Ourselves

Gaze affectionately into the mirror and repeat, "You are so beautiful. You are so wonderful. I love you so." Is that self-love? No, that's narcissism and a psychoanalyst will put you on the couch for that. Besides, you know what happened to Narcissus, don't you? The beautiful Greek youth gazed at his refection in a pool, pined away, and was changed into the flower that bears his name. The psychological term, narcissism, describing a neurotic obsession with one's own person is derived from that story.

Healthy self-love has nothing to do with narcissism. Self-love involves developing our talents while, at the same time, humbly accepting our limitations. Healthy self-love is marked by these characteristics:

• When we love ourselves we appreciate our unique­ness.
• We give up the unfulfilling quest for perfection by accepting our limitations.
• We learn something new each day.
• We work on improving our personality and character.
• We allow our feel­ings to sparkle with goodwill.
• We laugh often and loudly.
• We feel the joy of daily experiences.
• We fulfill our need for affection and tenderness and bring delight into rela­tionships.
• We cultivate spiritual awareness of the omniscient, omnipresent God who is the source of all love.

If you have difficulty loving yourself, understand that God loves you anyway. God wants the best for you. There's nothing you can do to escape the compassionate, forgiving and accepting love of God. Studying scriptures regularly will help you understand the heart and mind of God. Comprehending God's incredible love for you will enable you to love yourself.

Let's be thankful that we have life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUGi2pAikrg

Bringing Balance to Life: Choose Today

With each new day, our happiness depends more on our attitude than our circumstances. If an abundant life depends on our choices and it does why not choose happiness now? Why not choose happiness every day? The following ten choices summarize the essence of living life positively:

   1. I choose, this day, to be happy.

    2. I choose, this day, to adjust myself to what comes my way.

    3. I choose, this day, to take care of my body by exercising and eating properly.

    4. I choose, this day, to improve my mind by reading and listening.

    5. I choose, this day, to do something good for someone.

    6. I choose, this day, to praise the good around me.

    7. I choose, this day, to eliminate hurry and indecision from my life.

    8. I choose, this day, to have a quiet half hour all by myself to think of God.

    9. I choose, this day, to love and believe that those I love, love me.
  10.  I choose, this day, to make the choices that will bring a ful­filled life each day.

....And sing out everyday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC3pKGcUUoA