What is a Healthy Relationship? 10 Truths to Keep Your Relationship Healthy Conscious Choices We Need to Make to Attract Healthy Relationships

I was thinking earlier today about choices.  I'm grateful for choices, although sometimes I think we have too many.  I was thinking today about the choices I have, that any of who live in a developed country have.  I think most of the time instead of being grateful for the choices I have I take them for granted, I forget that others in this world don't have the choices I have.  Today, however, I felt myself reflecting on all the choices I had even just today - choices in creamer flavors, music, TV shows, foods, the list goes on and on.  I'm grateful for choices and I'm trying to be mindful of not taking them for granted and pursuing ways to see other people have choices as well.

Think very carefully about your choices.  You have planted a large crop, but your harvest is small. You have food to eat, but it is never enough to satisfy. You have something to drink, but you are never filled. You have clothes to wear, but they are not enough to keep you warm. You earn a salary, but the money runs out quickly, as if there are holes in your pocket .  Haggai 1:5-6, The Voice I've been chewing on today's quote for a couple of days.  I can't quite find my way to what is teasing my brain about it so I thought, why not?  I'll just put it out there and see if whatever is teasing me comes out through the keyboard.  :) I feel like initially what struck me about today's quote is that a lot of busy work is described here but not much productivity.  (And look for that quote at some point in the near future because I've got one sitting in my queue.)  So a large crop is planted but the harvest is small.  That tells me that a lot of bu...

Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf.    Jonatan Martensson Feelings are a natural and normal part of our lives.  We experience them every day.  We have a choice about how to let them impact us every day.  Feelings play a big part in how we behave, how we speak, and what our  attitude  is.  Here's the thing about feelings.  Like Martensson aptly points out in  today's  quote, we have a choice.  When we see the wave of hurt feelings coming at us we can choose to either jump on it and ride it out or we can let it pass.  When we see a wave of anger headed straight toward us we can either ride that all the way to shore or we can hang back and let it pass. When we see a wave of happiness swell up we also have the choice to either take the wave or let it pass.  There's the waves of gratitude that come at us as well, usually at times when we aren't feeling so grate...

Forget all the reasons why it won't work and believe the one reason why it will.   Unknown Usually the one reason why something will work is the only thing we need to focus on but we tend to allow the negatives, i.e. the reasons why it possibly won't work, to be our focus. I think about this in regards to being healthy and weight loss. (As one example - it can apply to, well, anything!)  I focus on all the reasons why I don't think my efforts/attempts to get healthy will work instead of focusing on the one (or in this case maybe two!) reasons why it will.  I make a choice to believe the negatives rather than the positives.  Again we see it comes down to choice - we have a choice to make and we have to make the choice daily.  Sometimes within a day we have to make the choice hourly!  When it comes to being healthy, for me, it is an hourly kind of choice I am faced with.  Each time I have something presented to me that goes in my mouth and lands on my...

Your attitude is your choice. It always is. We live in an age that has developed the art of shifting blame to very high levels, and sometimes we get caught up in that same tendency.  "Well, if you had my job you wouldn't be so positive."  "If you had my kids, you wouldn't feel so good."  "If only my boss were different, I could be a positive person."  In other words, "My bad attitude is not my fault!" The truth is, however, your attitude and mine are always our choice. No matter how bad things are, no one can force you to have a bad attitude if you don't want to. Now that should come as really good news because it says our attitudes don't have to be victims of our circumstances or of other people. We choose our responses.   Mary Whelchel I don't need to expound.  How good - and true! - is this statement?!  I don't need to expound but of course I will a little bit.  :)  It all comes down to choice do...

When you have to start compromising yourself or your morals for the people around you, it's probably time to change the people around you.   Unknown 'Nuf said.  *grin* (Ha, you know me better than that!) For years I morphed myself into other people.  Whoever I was with or wanted to please I would morph into their personality and take on their morals (to a certain point).  UGH.  Who wants to be around that?  They didn't even want to be around me when it came right down to it!  Eventually I got a grip and started treating my relationships in healthy ways.  I started drawing some boundaries, learned to say no, figured out that people pleasing dishonored the One who created me, and stood up for myself in right ways.  I am a much better person to be around these days (trust me I am) and I'm still learning!  I'm still figuring out who I need to be careful around and who I can just be with.  For me it's a tightrope walk ...

Integrity is choosing your thoughts and actions based on values rather than personal gain.  Unknown Today's quote is a foreign concept to most anyone who walks in their human nature with nothing else prompting them to defeat their human nature and live in their potential.  (No human nature isn't our potential.  It is wicked and deceitful.  Click here for that proof text.) Integrity is a conscious choice to sacrifice our entitlements and our justifications.  Who says our ways aren't right?  Sometimes they are but let me pose a situation of integrity before you and you will quickly see what I mean.  This is a simple one that almost everyone can relate to at some point in their life. You've got sick days at work and vacation days.  You're out of vacation days but are taking a vacation and you book your flight a day earlier than you vacation really starts and say "I'll just call in sick."  You have sick days so you'll take one...

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.   Johann von Goethe Ever run into someone who has decided, consciously or unconsciously, to stay a certain way - whether that's an age, behavior, mindset, etc?  It's painful isn't it?  It's painful to have to live with this person - whether that is literally or in a setting like work, etc.  Not allowing change because of desire to "fit in" with the age group you wish you could be forever, or because of laziness about taking on life responsibilities, or because of fill in the blank is one of the most detrimental things we can do to ourselves.  And it is OUR choice.  Nobody else can own that.  People may try to control it or own it but we always have a choice.   What happens when we choose not to change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves?  We become hard in all the places being hard is damaging.  We become hard of heart, we become hard in relationships, we bec...

Four Things You Can't Recover: 1) The stone after the throw 2) The word after it's said 3) The occasion after it's missed 4) The time after it's gone Deanna Wadsworth Sad but true.  Read the list again without the "But..." in your head.  Wishing to recover any of those things is not going to actually make them be recovered.  The opportunity is gone and in it's place may be some regret but another opportunity will present itself.  What will you do with the new opportunity? I like word pictures.  I like them even though I'm not great at painting them.  So forgive my weak attempt and try to follow along. The stone was thrown, the gash (wound) inflicted.  (Think in mental/emotional terms on this one will ya?)  What's the new opportunity?  Help clean the gash, apply the antibiotic ointment, and place the band-aid.  Do whatever the one you wounded will allow you to do to make up for the throw.  And remember what happene...

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.   Lou Holtz, Charles Swindoll The older I get the more I experience the truth of today's featured quote.  Life.  It happens and we have a choice in our response to it.  We can either moan our way through circumstances or make lemonade from them.  What happens to us is  minuscule  compared to what happens after.