How to Train Yourself to Think Differently and Permanently Rewire Your Brain, According to Science Cognitive Restructuring: The Complete Guide to Changing Negative Thinking

Choose Courage Instead of Reacting in Fear

6 Steps to Release Your Fear and Feel Peaceful If the above video won't play click here . 

Face Your Fears Day What is a fear that is a little silly and you could face today? Some fears are good to have as long as you have a respect for them and they don't control your life. Face Your Fear; the Result Might Be Amazing 13 Tips To Face Your Fear and Enjoy the Ride Ada Lovelace Day Ada Lovelace: Founder of Scientific Computing How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’ The Forgotten Female Programmers Who Created Modern Tech Ladies Last: 8 Inventions by Women That Dudes Got Credit For Yorkshire Pudding Day I don't get this food. It's not pudding so much as it is a puffed pancake/pastry of sorts.   It seems it is called pudding because of its ingredients.   You can make your own

Your fear of displeasing people puts you in bondage to them, and they become your primary focus....If pleasing people is your goal, you will be enslaved to them.  People can be harsh taskmasters when you give them this power over you.   Sarah Young, Jesus Calling May 2-3 If you fear other people, you are walking into a dangerous trap; but if you trust in the Eternal, you will be safe. The Holy Bible, The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 29 Verse 25, The Voice Version Today's quote(s) are a topic I am very familiar with.  In fact I call myself a recovering people pleaser and if you have known me for a length of time and are familiar with my story then you know my label is pretty accurate.  Once upon a time I was in bondage to people.  I strived to keep peace at any and all costs, usually to myself.  I worked hard to make sure people viewed me favorably.  I never wanted to rock the boat so I owned blame that wasn't mine to own.  All of this people ple...

Everyone needs someone they can say ANYTHING to without the fear of rejection. BE that someone. Jamie The Very Worst Missionary Are you that someone?  Do you have that someone?  If you aren't that someone, why?  If you don't have that someone, why? To BE that someone you have to be able to speak truth in love .  You have to be willing to be a safe place.  You have to be willing to listen without trying to fix, without passing judgement, and without condemning. To HAVE that someone you have to be willing to hear truth, even when - or especially when - it stings.  You have to be willing to invite someone into your life that you know won't back down from your crappy moods and defensiveness.  You have to be willing to talk and be vulnerable. We need safety in our lives and we need people who will stand up and be that safe place for us and we need to be that safe place for others.  

When you are shaken out of your comfortable routines, grip My [God] hand tightly and look for growth opportunities.  Instead of bemoaning the loss of your comfort, accept the challenge of something new. I [God] lead you on from glory to glory, making you fit for My kingdom.  Say yes to the ways I [God] work in your life.  Trust me and don't be afraid.   Sarah Young, Jesus Calling - April 15 Well if today's quote for the day doesn't fit my life recently I'm not sure what does.  I think the second sentence is the one that really gets me.   "Instead of bemoaning the loss of your comfort, accept the challenge of something new."  Yep.  That's pretty much where I'm at.   It's been hard to leave the comfort of Young Life and the work I do there.  And I've been trying not to bemoan it but I have been.  It's been hard to gather up the energy to leave the comfortable and allow myself to be challenged.  But you know what?  If I...

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.      Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you.      I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:10 NLT I think life is pretty scary.  It asks us to take risks, it asks us to have courage, it asks us to feel things we'd rather not, it asks us to be open to things we may never consider on our own.  Life has joy, sorrow, happiness, fear, and every other emotion you can think of.  Life holds lessons for us, if we are willing to learn.  Life is pretty scary.  And sometimes the scary is good, thrilling even.  But sometimes the scary is bad, isolating at best.   I know a fair number of people.  I watch them all tackle life and I wonder, when the bad scary of life hits, how they do it.  How do they get through loss of any significant kind, tragedy, etc without grasping the hand that created them in the first place?  I...

You can't heal what you refuse to confront.   Unknown If you don't take a long, hard look at what is hurting you then you will not quit hurting.  Yes, it's scary to confront what is hurting you but face your fear to get to healing.  This goes for personal pain, relationships that have brokenness, or anything else that is causing pain and needs healing. As long as you ignore the brokenness you will have brokenness.  The only way healing comes is through confronting the brokenness.  It's a risk you need to take because you will find that the risk pays off.  You will be healed and that's the best pay off.  How do you confront brokenness?  Find healthy people who can help you confront the hurt, be brave enough to honestly assess your participation in the brokenness (if you did participate), and be brave enough to approach the people who caused part or all of the brokenness. Want to be healed?  Then confront the brokenness.

Things of quality have no fear of time.   Unknown I love today's quote.  I love the truth of it.  I love how when I read it for the first time it resonated in my spirit and settled into my mind as truth.   If it is quality then the time it takes to develop and grow won't be feared or despised.  You can apply this truth to anything that has the potential of quality.  I think we should consider it especially in relationships.  If it is a relationship that has the potential of quality then don't fear the time it takes to grow it, embrace the time.   Things rushed are never done very well or with quality.  When we allow fear to drive what we say, do, even believe we then create something sub-par.  If you see, if you sense, and if you know something has the potential of quality then embrace the time it takes to mature it and develop it.  Don't let fear dictate the overall quality of your life.  

Find out what you are afraid of and go live there.   Chuck Palahniuk What are you afraid of?  I don't think Palahniuk means snakes either.  I know I certainly don't!  Go beyond the surface things that immediately come to mind and get deeper.  Are you afraid of...succeeding?  Failing?  Trying a different career?  Living away from family?  Picking up that hobby that has always interested you but is so out of character?  So you see what I mean, and what I think Palahniuk means as well. Go live in the place where your fear lives and conquer it.  Go live there and find it isn't as scary as your mind told you it was.  Go live there and fail in order to succeed, yes they go hand in hand!  Don't let fear define you or your life, go and put it in its rightful place.  Fear has a place in our lives and if we treat it right it will help us grow and develop and do things we never would have thought we could.  And what make...

The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.    Morrie Schwartz Morrie became famous when an old student of his, Mitch Albom, spent Tuesdays with him near the end of his battle with ALS and then recounted the lessons Morrie shared with him in a book.  Morrie was a pretty smart man, if today's quote was his only one * he would still be smart.  Today's quote is spot on.   Once you learn how to die to your self - your selfishness, your need to be right, your entitlements, your pride, your vanity,  your fears, your insecurities, whatever else of yours that holds you back from living life - then you begin to learn how to live.  An abundant, full, satisfied life begins when we die to our very self.  How is that possible?  Because all the things we have to die to hold us back from really living life.  So once you learn how to die to those things your life will begin.   Morrie's wisdom reminds me of age-old wisdom f...

The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be...because of all I may become I will close my eyes and leap!   Mary Anne Radmacher I love the visual this quote from Radmacher (a favorite quote master of mine in case you hadn't noticed) brings up in my mind. In my mind I see myself standing at the edge of a cliff called "You are here" and a mere five or so feet away is the cliff called "Where you want to be" and all I have to do is one giant leap.  Except I've been standing on the edge of cliff "You are here" for a long time, too long really.  I toe it, I've walked along it, I've peered down over the edge of it, I've tested if I have to leap to make it to other side or if I could just stretch myself and make it across, I've even looked around for materials to build a bridge over to the other side.  But there is no way to get over to "Where you want to be" unless I leap. I'm going to have to jump....

Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.   Unknown Recently I had a conversation with my oldest redhead about this very topic.  When we are afraid of the unknown we shrink back, become unwilling to take risks, drag our feet, make excuses, become very very quiet.  And usually what's going on in our head is all the "what ifs" we can think up and create about the unknown.  I've noticed those "what ifs" aren't positive, they always seem to run to the negative and the extreme. But what if. What if we decided to tell the fear of the unknown to take a hike and we decided to be curious about the thing that has us all wound up?  What if we decided to go for it, take a risk, see what happens?  What if it turns out spectacularly?  What if! What if the unknown wasn't as scary as our fear has created it to be? I'm so proud of my oldest.  We talked about this topic.  I gave her some advice that sounded pretty much like this, "You just hav...

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...

Do not be afraid to suffer.... it is from being shaken apart and not being destroyed that one becomes strong and courageous.   Laura Lewis Lanier We shrink from suffering and with good reason, it's painful!  But suffering is the way our character gets built the best.  Suffering comes in all sorts of forms and what is suffering for me may not be for you.  The point is to allow it to weed out what isn't strength and courage in our characters and let true strength and courage be birthed in us. A few years ago I went through a suffering.  Not physical but emotional.  Someone I trusted deeply betrayed me beyond the scope of my imagination.  (It wasn't Lanny!  Quit speculating - haha!)  This betrayal sent me into a tailspin.  Lanny and I were floored, we didn't know what to do or how to go about recovering me from this betrayal.  You could say it shook me apart.  I was laid wide open and all of my fears and insecurities were expos...

Making forward progress on the outside begins with making a leap on the inside.   Lincoln Patz Surface changes don't lead to lasting changes.  When we make changes, or say we are going to, on the surface all we are doing is "spot treatment" rather than address the real problem.  In order for things to change on the surface we must do the work of addressing the root issue(s).  And having the courage to address the root issue(s) is the leap needed if we are ever going to make forward progress. A sure sign of someone attempting surface changes without addressing the root issue(s) are statements that sound like this: "I will work harder" "I will try to change" "I" "I" "I" We are a relational people and we are also rather blind to our own root issue(s) most of the time.  So we need other people to help us address these things.  If we try to do it in "I" then all we will accomplish is surface - spot treatment -...

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.   Desmond Tutu No fence riding allowed.  To say you are in the middle and don't want to get involved involves you on the side of the oppressor.  Choosing indifference means you have chosen oppression.  When it comes to situations of injustice there are so many levels you can jump in on that there is no excuse for neutrality.  Don't let the injustice scare you, don't let it make you so uncomfortable that you join sides with the oppressors unknowingly.  Be brave enough to educate yourself, be brave enough to jump in on some level of assistance.  Be brave enough to get off the fence.  

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 ...

Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.   Francis Chan I love the way this is put.  Failure means at the very least that you went for it.  And that you went for it hard and that it mattered.  Success, or what appears to be success, as you go along the way in the little things that don't truly matter is the cowards way out.  Ouch.  That kind of hurts doesn't it?  Can you think of something that doesn't matter but people strive to succeed at? One that comes to mind immediately is the struggle for power/control.  One might argue with me that it does matter and I would respond with two things:  one, it really doesn't matter in the big picture and two, you have proven to me and others that in your attempts to convince us that power/control does matter you strive to succeed in it.  Oddly enough the people who strive to succeed at power/control are usually very afraid of failu...