Ready for a Breakthrough

There are a lot of things that can go wrong or derail us during our victory journeys, maybe the biggest being that we don’t have any way of truly knowing everything that will happen from ‘start’ to ‘finish’, because we may hit something so big in the middle that we can’t get to ‘finish’, no matter how clear we’re on wanting to get there or how well we can picture that success. The other day I got one of those “earworms” as they’re called, catchy bits of music that just go through our brains like the spin cycle of the wash. That “earworm” reminded me of one of the reasons why we get stuck in our victory journey that isn’t the place I first look to see if is the issue:

“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me…”

Ouch. Yes, as Taylor Swift sings in “Anti-Hero,” sometimes we’re the reason our victory journeys aren’t moving forward. I think it’s just natural to look to the exterior influences because of course we think we’re doing our best and have this great plan, and often the issues are external. But at the very center of every victory you do is you, so I have to say that more than 50% of your victory journey depends on you. Because it’s your idea, your energy, your passion, your motivation, your time, your resources, your commitment, maybe your team, your future, and of course your life. If you weren’t in the equation it wouldn’t be your victory!

That said, the goal here isn’t to shame you or beat down your self confidence. Instead it’s a reminder that sometimes the issues are close to home and we’re so busy putting energy into checking what’s around us instead of first making sure that we’re not what’s holding things up. After you’ve done a quick survey making sure that the world around you isn’t on fire or something equally catastrophic that’s very obvious, then make sure that it’s not your gut saying that something’s wrong, you make sure you’re not letting fear take over, you make sure you’re not overwhelmed, and you make sure that you’re still committed, then you can move on to taking a deeper look at what’s going on around you and what externally might be holding up the victory you’re still looking forward to achieving. What blocks have you worked through recently?

God: a Light with Us

Sometimes I think we need a reminder from God that it’s OK to need a little helping hand. I was reading the story of Jesus’ baptism and in the version in Matthew 3 John asks Jesus why he is doing the baptizing when Jesus should be the one baptizing him. That would make more sense, right? Jesus’ answer to John is that this is what God wants. As we know John baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River, and to be very clear that this was what God wanted, God even speaks from Heaven as a dove lands on Jesus “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” (Matthew 3:17).

Another familiar example is Matthew 7 where it says “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.” (v7). Yes, of course God can just give us stuff, He sends blessings our way all the time without us asking. But if we’re really in a relationship with God, we have to put effort into it just like we want Him to put effort into it. Sometimes our job is to “wait expectantly” as it says in Psalm 5:3b.

The final example of a helping hand today is about light. In Matthew 5:14 Jesus is speaking to a great crowd of people and He says that we are called to be a light to the world, to let our light shine like on a hilltop. But the only way we can be a light is if God lights that light in us. Psalm 18:28-29 says: “You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness. In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall.”

So as we finish this month, as we head into a new school year, as we head into the last 4 months of this year, I encourage you to remember that you’re on a team with God, along with all the other people who believe in Him. Believe that God will be there to bring back to life the light in you, to give you strength and remind you of the strength He has given you, to hear your requests and to give you answers, and to be your biggest cheerleader to encourage you to be the best person you can be each day.

Reality Reflection: Stick with Simple

I don’t know what teachers told you when you were growing up, but memorization was a big thing in learning then and to an extent it still is. Between math facts and history dates and Bible Verses there was a lot they thought we needed to know and there were so many ways they thought might help us do so. From simple repetition to practice sheets to flash cards to rhymes and songs, every teacher had their preferred method and every student tried to find what worked for them. Of course this was all before the internet was a thing and we certainly didn’t have phones with high speed internet on it in our pockets or at home, so either we carried around a ton of physical books or we visited the library all the time if we didn’t memorize it or we had to learn it by whatever method we could if we wanted to graduate.

But the other day my partner said something about how he remembered one of those things we were told to memorize and while it wasn’t completely accurate was a much easier way of remembering it than all the songs or tricks they tried to teach us. It made me kind of mad because it’s so much easier than the song and while I understand the appeal of the song and why teachers use songs and other methods for teaching (because they usually help engage the students) I don’t understand what’s wrong with the simple way of learning, or life for that matter.

Yes, part of it is as I get older I just don’t have the patience or energy to deal with the complex and complicated, and remembering all the many things I’m supposed to remember doesn’t get easier as you add more things to that list with each passing day. But I think it also has a lot to do with how much more our lives are these days than they used to be. Yes, there have always been challenges, “politics” on many levels to navigate, and plenty of the unexpected, but we didn’t really deal with things on a world level like we do today with all the complications and inputs that we experience daily. So as much as we’re capable of dealing with it all, I have to ask if we really need to? No, we can’t simplify all aspects of our lives and really live today, but I do think we can take a few steps back in many areas and recognize that it’s OK if we don’t let things get as layered and complicated and overbooked and song-and-dance as they can. What areas of your life do you choose to simplify?

Victories with Passion and Enthusiasm

The other day I was watching QVC, something I enjoy doing both for business and pleasure. As I was watching, both the hosts and the brand ambassadors were so excited about the products they were selling they were making up words or adding suffixes to words to try to communicate their many ideas and insights about the products. The hosts and ambassadors are people who have been with QVC for many years and have done many live demonstrations, so they’re not new and not making up words and trying to come up with ideas because they’re so nervous. No, they’re just so excited about the products they’re bringing to the customer and trying to help the customer understand exactly what a truly awesome product they’ll get if they choose to buy it.

This reminded me what a difference enthusiasm and passion can make when we’re on our victory journey. No, enthusiasm and passion don’t usually make up for quality or hard work, but I do think they’ve got a very important role to play, one that is definitely missed if it’s not tapped into. Think about it like going to a fast food restaurant where you choose your food, they hand it to you and you leave, or like before the pandemic you probably visited the grocery store and there were employees giving away samples to try and convince you to add the delicious product to your shopping list and buy it. How excited were they usually about that product? Maybe they had some good information about it or could answer any questions you had about it (like how much salt/sugar it had or if it was Kosher). But compare that to the last time you went to a professional sports game or restaurant where they really put on a show to get the food to you (like Hibachi), it’s a very different experience with people who are passionate about what they’re doing and want you to have a similar experience.

Your passion and enthusiasm can mean the difference between dragging yourself over the finish line just thankful to be done or being ready to celebrate all that you’ve learned and accomplished through that victory journey and having energy to spare. It also has a lot to do with the attitude you approach life. Are you like a kid who finds wonder and magic in every season or are you the grumpy, frumpy adult who gets called “ma’am” or “mister”? I don’t want to call a journey that’s dull and painful a victory journey, I want to embark on victory journeys that will fulfill me on multiple levels and maybe even make my world and the world at large a better place. And don’t worry, your enthusiasm doesn’t have to be over the top, but life with a little excitement and spice is usually more satisfying and makes the challenges and bad days more palatable. When do your passions and enthusiasm come to the forefront?

How Do I See Myself?

“What labels have I used to describe myself? What names do I secretly call myself? In what ways do I criticize or belittle myself? The challenge is to peel back the label and take a fresh look. Can I see myself as Jesus sees me? If we can get past our labels, we might be able to see the beauty in others and in ourselves.” Br. David Vryhof

Wow! I read that quote recently and it caught me off guard because so often we don’t take a fresh look. While I don’t think we think as little of ourselves as we do our shampoo, sometimes it’s the case that we just keep using something, like shampoo, because we always have. It’s just what we use/who we are/what we do. But are we really happy with it? Do we really like the results? Is it easier to not ask those questions and to just accept it? Of course. But things change, needs change, we change, and sometimes we don’t pay attention to the need to change too.

More importantly, what changes are necessary in our lives? Are we the ones that are causing our own struggles and holding ourselves back because we’re really good at beating ourselves down? Other people may know us really well, but we’ve got a front-row seat to our lives and our decisions. Sometimes it’s good to be critical because it helps us grow and we need to recognize when we’ve done wrong so that we can improve the next time. But more often than not we beat ourselves up long after and more than we need to.

Throughout the Bible we do see God encouraging people to recognize their failures and seek forgiveness. We also read some “woe is me” conversations that people have, and God gently (or not) corrects them. But time and again what God goes back to is that we’re to love. Just like it’s not loving to be constantly putting others down, the same holds true for ourselves. God is definitely a ‘build them up’ God. Sometimes that building up starts with tearing down, but any good builder knows that you don’t build something new on an existing foundation if it’s in poor shape, you fix it first.

This week when you catch yourself calling yourself names or continuing to beat yourself up long after you should have forgiven yourself, learned from it and let it go, take a step back and a breath and decide if it’s time to reroute the conversation with yourself into something more productive and positive. See if you can see yourself as the person God knows you can be.

Reality Reflection: Night and Day

One of the things I love about being alive now is how life continues day and night. Thanks to all the modern technologies we have now we’re able to do business with people anywhere at any time. We’re able to restock store shelves overnight or after a store closes instead of while there are customers there. We’re able to sell infinitely more than we ever could during the holiday season because we can use technology to help us create more products and pack those items for shipping long after the sun goes down. Especially for long distances, we’re able to travel during the dark hours so that we can be awake during the light ones. We can have some adult time doing anything (not just bedroom activities) when the kids are sleeping. We can work a dream job or hobby in between and after our job that we’re doing currently to pay the bills. We don’t have to go to a gym or be able to go outside or be able to afford an expensive trainer to workout. We can take night classes to learn more or even make a big change in our life without sacrificing the income we need to do it. We don’t have to pretend to be morning people.

But even with all the ways day and night blur now, the age-old saying “as different as day and night” still applies. The number of cars on the road dramatically decreases between the day and night. When it’s closer to sunset and sunrise it’s easier to cross the road in the crosswalk. Most people still prefer to sleep when it’s dark out and live while it’s light out. No amount of moonlight can replace the benefits the sunlight provides to people and planet. And the differences don’t stop there: some animals like it cold, others like it hot. Some people like spicy food, some like sweet treats. Some people are more mathematically inclined, others are more emotional. Some people like bright bold colors, while others like things softer. Some people love to talk while some people love to think. We need both sleep and living, to eat enough but not too much, the list goes on.

But whether we see the differences or similarities between night and day, I see the change of light as an invitation. Not to do bad/good things but to work to appreciate the many good things in both day and night. Good things and bad things happen in both night and day, that line has blurred too. So rather than limit ourselves to only seeing good in the day time if we open our eyes I know there’s a lot to appreciate about the night too. Maybe it’s not as obvious because it’s dark out, but that makes it all the more special in my eyes. What do you enjoy about day and night?

From Bad Experiences to Victory

Sometimes in order to get to victory you have to work at getting over or through something. For example if you injured yourself doing yoga once after doing it for several years you may be anxious about trying it again even though you really want to do it or know how good it is physically for you to stretch and move like that. Or if you had a really bad relationship (or several) you have to decide if you’re going to try again on a relationship or swear off of that type of person. Or if you had a serious fail while changing a baby’s diaper you might be overly cautious when you change the next few. Or if you had a negative experience where someone yelled at you for something that you’ve done for years you might be concerned about going back to that place again or doing that activity again.

In these experiences sometimes we have lingering trauma that isn’t logical or reasonable yet our minds feel the need to warn us each time because of how traumatic the initial experience was, while other times those anxieties are logical and reasonable and do encourage us to pause for a good reason. When we know that we want to accomplish a victory but we’re facing this trauma or anxiety we have to decide if we’re willing to put in the effort to face it now, if letting some healing happen first will make it more or less likely to be something you can face in the future, or if there’s any way we can still accomplish our victories in a roundabout way avoiding the area that brings up the trauma.

But honestly I think that in many situations we do ourselves a disservice if we don’t try to face it. Maybe it takes weeks or months to slowly work our way up to really doing yoga, having a relationship, changing diapers or going to that place again, but each time you try again, each step forward you take, each time you reassure yourself, each time you encourage yourself, each time you celebrate another successful attempt, the easier it will get to remind yourself that the experience you had is really not the default or not the true reality, but rather is a random, one-in-a-million or unlucky experience.

I’ve been working with someone on a situation like this in recent weeks and each time they take those steps it gets easier and less stressful for them to complete the activity. Each time they try again they are reassured that while what they experienced was traumatic, things have changed and aren’t that way anymore and they can get back to something they really enjoyed with less fear of it always being as it was. It doesn’t mean that the initial experience wasn’t traumatic, because it absolutely was, it just means that the trauma doesn’t have to be your reality forever. What experiences are you working through because you believe in your victory journey?

Going with the Flow

There are two types of drivers out there, one you may know as the independent driver (although you may also have other names for them that aren’t so polite). The independent driver is one who either has or appears to have zero regard for the other drivers on the road. Since it’s not possible to know on regular highways and byways who actually is a race car driver in their life or who is a professional stunt person, and those people are usually few and far between, it’s pretty safe to assume they’re just people who think they were a race car driver or stunt person in a past life or will be in the next (kidding) or wish they could have been, they’re simply crazy or have a death wish, and the possibility also exists that they’re just terrible drivers and protected by a host of God’s angels so that they don’t hurt themselves or others. They’re the people who make you wish you could close your eyes while you’re driving so you don’t have to witness their craziness.

The other type of driver is one who tends to stay with the pack, go with the flow and work with the other cars on the road. It doesn’t mean that everyone is doing the speed limit necessarily, but that everyone is in understanding that you’re all traveling down the road together and the safest and least stressful way to get there is to see the fewest number of brake lights because that means that everyone is moving forward. I’m thankful that most of the drivers on the road tend to go with the flow more than be in it for themselves only.

Going with the flow is an important concept in our overall lives too. Yes, sometimes you have to battle upstream like the salmon do each year, but if that’s all you find yourself doing it’s time to take serious stock of what’s going on in your life because something isn’t right. Even salmon don’t swim upstream for their whole lives, no animals are constantly prey, and the weather isn’t always one thing regardless of where you live, and our lives aren’t any different. There’s also a big difference between the little growing exercises we do on an almost daily basis, because those shouldn’t wipe us out to the extent that the constant upstream battle does.

If you feel like you’re constantly working upstream you aren’t just fighting what’s going on in your life, you’re probably fighting against God too. Again: yes, God will challenge you. Yes, God will sometimes step back a bit and see how you handle something. Yes, we’ll take our eyes off God and stumble occasionally. But none of these are like truly fighting God on something or ignoring/disregarding His direction on something. Because as challenging and difficult as it is to deal with sin and it is to have God trying to mold us into the person He knows we can be, God doesn’t have a goal of struggle for our lives. He has goals of peace, success, loving relationships (earthly and spiritual), and health for us. So if you’re missing out on peace in your life and tired all the time, maybe it’s time to consider how you’ve been driving in your life lately and if it’s time for a change so that you work with God, your resources, your abilities, your timing and your community.

“When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say

It is well, it is well with my soul
It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul”
“It is Well With My Soul” Horatio Spafford

Reality Reflection: does the stage matter?

Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Helen Keller, Elizabeth Blackwell, Michelangelo, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Amelia Earhart, Charles Dickens, Caesar, Jesus, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, DaVinci, Catherine the Great, Florence Nightingale, Rosa Parks, Stephen Hawking. You probably know many of the names on the list, you may even know the basics of their story too. What brings them all together in this list is the fact that they did something great, helpful, powerful, impactful in their time and their actions, their legacy impacted people after (sometimes long after) they died.

Yes, each of them were special in one way or another, but if you think specifically of the story of Rosa Parks, she is really known for her courage. Maybe she was just feeling tired that day on the bus, maybe she was just fed up, maybe she just decided that it couldn’t get much worse so she was going to stand up for herself. Don’t get me wrong it takes a ton of courage to do what she did, but is it really that hard to sit on a bus and get arrested? No, it’s not like designing a rocket ship that will take people to the moon and back alive. It’s a different type of challenge. The same is true for Mother Teresa. She didn’t strategize wars or build pyramids or chart the high seas, but she did care with her whole heart for people who never experienced such care.

What gets me about these people every time is that so many of them have a story that’s very similar to ours, but their life played out on a national/world wide stage. You can write books and impact people. You can work in the medical field and impact people. You can have courage and impact people. You can fly a plane and impact people. You can be artistic and creative and impact people. The question is if you’re willing to do it knowing that you’re probably not going to get the same stage and legacy that they did. Personally, I believe we’re selling ourselves short if we don’t live our whole lives to our full potential even if that means we’re only impacting a fraction of a percentage of people on the planet. So go ahead: be artistic, do your job, write books, heal people, speak up, have courage or whatever it is that you do and make your impact on others. Live your life to its full potential even if that full potential isn’t known by everyone. Because it’s probably not your job to impact everyone, your job is to impact those you are here to impact.

It’s All Connected

Have you ever broken a bone? You may only have broken one bone but lots of other body parts are affected, right? One broken foot means that you might have sore shoulders from using crutches, the other foot overcompensating for the other being broken, your hips may ache because you’re walking differently, you may get more headaches than usual, or there may be some other physical issue that pops up in connection with or because of the one broken foot. Each body part seems separate and different but moments like that remind us exactly how connected all of our body parts are and how we shouldn’t just focus on or care for one body part, but we have to be attentive to all of them.

The connection between body parts is also something that applies to other parts of our lives. We’re connected to this planet, our communities, people who went to the same schools as us, people who worked at the same companies as us, people who do the same type of work as us, people who have similar faith/political/relationship beliefs as us, people who have the same interests/hobbies/passions as us, people who have similar housing experiences as us, people who shop at the same stores as us, and countless other little and big connections we may not realize or usually consider. Sometimes those connections are a good thing because it means we’re not alone. Other times those connections are a bit more challenging because they’re not as healthy as they could be or they’re a lot more work than we initially understood.

During our victory journeys we have to consider all the information available to us to decide if the connections we have and know of are going to help us or hinder us from accomplishing our victories. Maybe we are better doing the journey largely alone, or maybe it is wiser to get as much support as possible, or maybe it’s best to make new connections for this victory journey or just this part of the current journey. The worst thing we can do though is to not take into consideration how connected things are, how things are connected, and consider the pros and cons of all those connections. Because one thing is for certain: everything is connected. One thing leads to another, one thing can benefit you for years to come or hinder your future successes, what you learn from this victory journey may greatly benefit you in another victory journey, your victory today may help someone else accomplish a victory for themselves in the future. As often as possible use and create your connections wisely so that you’ve got them to benefit you in future victory journeys as well as be available in positive ways to support others too.