Tag: power

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Spiritual Health Uncategorized

Embrace the Space: Why the G.A.P Method Works!

GAP

I have characterized the majority of my life as feeling like a solid B+ student wishing she were an A.  Across the board, I have felt this lacking and longing that I could be just a little better than I was.  In my looks, my body,  my intellect, my athletic capability, even my Faith! 

There always feels like there is this space between where I am and where I want to be.  Do you know the feeling? 

I feel this space also in my relationships!  You can feel the tension and the gap between where I am coming from and where, say, my husband is coming from on any conversation or subject. 

These gaps in our life can leave us feeling completely inadequate and lacking in various ways.  Like the dangling carrot on a stick in front of our nose,  we will never quite get there.  For some, it may make them want to just give up and quit!  For others, it will become a perpetual obsessive cycle to become “enough.” 

But, what I have come to learn, that these gaps in our life are the greatest gifts we can ever receive and a brilliant design by God. 

So, not only am I going to explain why you should say a prayer of thanks for your gaps in your life today, but I will give you a great tool to remind you of their magnitude to store in your heart for your next moment of inadequacy!

When we study God’s word and reflect on His nature and character sewn throughout, we can see what an act of love our own insufficiency can be.  Because, without our own GAPS in life, we would not have enough room and space for God.

God designed us to need Him and wholly depend on Him for our entire life.  Without these great spaces in our lives, we would not have that longing for Him.  Nor would we have the chance for Him to bless us in such astonishing and over-the-top ways.

He blesses us in spite of us.  Paul reminds us in Romans 3:23 NIV “for all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.” 

So whether you are the Pope or Mother Theresa, you too fall short of the Glory of God. 

If life were a literal race and we were all running from coast to coast, there will be some that will be better than others, sure.  But in the end, no man is able to run non-stop all the way to the finish line.  We ALL will fall short.   

There is a GAP between where we are in our sin and where God is in His Holy throne.  We cannot get there while on this Earth. 

The Good News….

BUT,  BUUUUUUUUUUTTTTT, God is Good, ALL THE TIME and He takes these blessed GAPS in our life and transforms them into exactly what we need!  How?  By bridging the G.A.P and filling that space.

You can use this acronym to remind you of exactly what your GAPs in your life really represent!

G:  Grace

The space between REAL you and PERFECT you will be filled with God’s Grace.  It is with Grace that God sent His son Jesus down to live and die as a sacrifice for our sins we are committing now. 

This Grace is what fills up this universe sized space between our sinful nature and God’s nature. 

When we feel insufficient, we are reminded by God that, “My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

He takes our insufficiency and transforms it with His Grace.  We are sufficient and purposeful because we fall short.

The best part is, that God’s grace is FREE.  You cannot earn it or buy it!  All you have to do is believe to receive. 

So if you have not yet received God in your heart and are ready to unload this burden of trying to be perfect all on your own, it is time that you give your heart a break and choose to believe in Christ today.  Your Faith does not have to be perfect to trust and believe, it just has to be from the heart.

You can do it right now and say in your heart,  “God, I choose to believe that you love me and sent your son to die for me.  I ask for your presence and guidance in my life, to be my Lord and save me.  Amen.”

God will take care of growing your Faith and all of the questions that you have.  You don’t have to prove Him to yourself, He will handle it.  Just believe and you will receive.

A:  Abundance

 The second reminder is that when we feel like we are lacking in qualities, outcomes, characteristics, and even Faith, God is our ABUNDANCE. 

One of the greatest gifts you can have is to think with an abundance mindset.  To know that no matter what, there is always more where that came from. 

If someone stole your great invention, there will be an even greater invention down the line. 

If you didn’t get the great job promotion that you worked so hard for, there will be an even better opportunity coming shortly. 

All of dreams that seem impossible with your current circumstances, are POSSIBLE with God. “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

Having that GAP in between the reality and your expectation, leaves room for the Great HOPE for tomorrow that only God can provide.  God gives us Hope with His Abundant nature.

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,”  (Ephesians 3:20 NLT)

P:  Power

These very spaces of inadequacy and gaps in our alignment become the areas where we gain our greatest courage, strength and POWER. 

Going back to the verse in Romans, not only do we see that God’s grace is our sufficiency, but is also our POWER because God’s Power becomes our Power.

“My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

When we are weak, He is STRONG. 

When we feel afraid, He is our COURAGE.

When we want to act out in anger, He is our LOVE.

All of these attributes become our very power within us to withstand every circumstance and failure in life. 

Whatever we are lacking, God exceeds and it is in HIS Might that we are so capable. 

The next time you feel the weight of the space between you and your goals, expectations, and progress, remember your GAP is your Guide.  

It is easy to keep putting more pressure on yourself to try harder or to give up rather than give IN to the God that created you, but I assure you, seeing these spaces as the Grace, Abundance and Power that you need to excel will quickly show you how incredibly rewarding our Faith can be!

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Fitness & Training Spiritual Health

Feeling Pain? How’s your Alignment?

Balanced Body

Frustration was an understatement to what I was feeling when I heard the news. I was in a state of “worry” and obsession about my body and my eating (which was my standard operating procedure in my life at this time). It was compounded by the fact that I had put ON some weight (necessarily) after doing a Bikini Competition the previous June but more worrisome to me was the wedding I was planning for that upcoming October. I wanted to lose some weight and lean up again, but I was afraid of taking things too far in the wrong direction, like I did for the Bikini Competition. It was at this time that I decided it was time to start cranking up my weight training again when I could and try to chill out on my food.

But then the pain started. I thought it was just muscle pain cause by too tight of glutes, but then the excessive pain traveled down my leg giving me horrible sciatica. I finally had to go see a Sports Doctor and found out the injury was pretty bad. A friend of mine did tell me about an alternative way to help pain relief which is now my favorite kratom sellers.

I had a 10mm bulging disc between my L5 and L6 lower lumbar. I was in serious pain and the doctor’s worried that surgery would be my only viable solution.

Needless to say, that idea didn’t really work for me. So instead, I started a marathon of treatments to help the disc including a Spinal Decompression machine 3-4x/week, Corticosteroids, Acupuncture AND what would become a game-changer for me– Egoscue Alignment Exercises.

Pete Egoscue started this clinic in Del Mar, CA but they now have satellite offices all around the nation. His exercises and principles are all based on aligning out joints to help solve and prevent pain. In perfect alignment your ear should be perfectly over your shoulder, your shoulder perfect over your hip, your hip perfectly over your knee, and your knee perfectly over your ankle. Your hips should be aligned and your shoulders too.

Alignment

My body looked like a jagged saw when I first took the 4 poses and they drew the lines on me. But as I committed to doing the non-intensive, but oddly difficult exercises to get my small muscles functioning to allow proper joint alignment, sure enough my alignment started to straighten out and my pain started to go away. I was very lucky that after only 3 months of intensive treatment, my bulging disc ceased hurting and I was considered healed well enough to do some weight training again, but I would always have to be careful and couldn’t do a lot of the things I used to do. It was also recommended to me that I should consider getting a new mattress that could help with any potential pain that I feel in my back or hips. Getting a new mattress can really help ease back pain was what I was told by someone I know, and that I should definitely consider looking into it so that I have a better chance of being pain-free for as long as possible. It may also quicken up the process of me being able to continue doing the things that I once was able to.

The Egoscue Tower
Here I am at Egoscue Clinic in Del Mar, CA doing the “Tower” treatment which helps release the tightness of the psosas (hip flexor) caused by excessive sitting! Game-changer for your hips and back pain!

Well, since I believe in preventative measures to be sure that the bulging disc does not come back, I got into a pretty could ritual of doing my 20-minute menu every morning. About 8 weeks ago, I was able to go in for some pictures and my alignment was drastically improved!

{DISCLAIMER: Please consult your doctor before attempting any of the treatments for your pain or injuries. I am not a doctor and am not qualified to give medial or procedural advice. This was simply my body’s experience.}

I think that news got me a little cocky however, because then as we were traveling a lot I fell out of my morning routine and sure enough, when I went back and got pictures done last week, I was misaligned again! My body could FEEL it too.

Isn’t that the truth that just when we think we have everything aligned and are pain free, we cease doing the daily rituals that help us stay that way and sure enough, pain comes back up to bite us again.

This alignment issue is true for ALL areas of our True Health. Anytime your health is out of alignment with your True Self (a.k.a Kingdom Version), the person God designed you to be, you will experience pain.

Think about it….

MINDSET HEALTH: whenever we get our thoughts out of alignment with the Truth of God, we experience emotional pain and anguish. If our thoughts prey to the devil’s work, we start to believe the lies he tries to tell us like we are not “worthy enough” for God, that God doesn’t care for us, or that we have to do everything on our “own.” It’s painful.

SPIRITUAL HEALTH: Along the same vein, once our thoughts misalign with the Truth of God’s love for us, our Spiritual life suffers and we pull back from God or do what I call the “run and numb” method of numbing our feelings with a whole host of “busy” tactics and addictive habits. As we do this, we start to embody the “worldly” values and characteristics as a non-believer. We lose hope and Faith.

POWER OF ALIGNMENT 2

The SOLUTION!

Just as it was with my body’s alignment, the solution is to do a little bit of work every day to get your mindset and spiritual life back in alignment of which you were designed and called to be.

This is why my #1 LOVE these days is the power of HABITS and RITUALS! “You are what you repeatedly do,” so if you want to get out of the pain you are in, you have to simply set up small habits and rituals for all the areas of your health that you commit to.

Just a reminder for anyone new and not privy to my #RITUALS obsession quite yet, but the difference between habits and rituals are as follows:

–>Habit: A habit is a new repeated behavior pattern that you insert into your life in exchange for a “bad” habit you want to replace. I believe in having purposeful body habits, mindset habits and spiritual habits for a balance of True Health!

–>Ritual: A RITUAL is the little part of *you* that makes that habit more personally rewarding and fun for you to do. Taking the time to set up your new habits in a fun and unique way for you makes you more inclined to truly implement that new habit into your life. Example) Finding that special chair that you sit in, with a fuzzy blanket and favorite mug of coffee to get you to read your Bible every morning is a very useful ritual I enjoy.

So, if you want to get your body, mind and spirit back in alignment with the amazing woman/man that God created you to be here’s some ideas for your game plan!

  1. List 1-2 new habits for your Body, Mind and Spirit you want to replace some old habits with.
  2. Think about how you can #RITUALIZE the above habits in your own unique way.
  3. Write down your Specific Action Plan in how your are going to implement each new Alignment Ritual.

For example) I will do my 20-minute alignment exercise menu every morning while I am reading my morning devotional book. I will reward myself with a cup of coffee right after and I will commit to doing this 4x/week.

Or) I will do buy a Bible Study book and make a goal to do it 3x/week instead of watching the news in the morning. I will sit in the chair facing the window and get a notebook and pen I like while I enjoy my favorite tea.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU GOING!

  • BODY:
    –Alignment Exercises, Stretching, Yoga, Meditation, Deep Breathing Exercises, Tai Chi, Functional Training
  • MIND:
    -Prayer Journal, Lesson Journal (writing the lessons you learn on a given day), Calls with Friends, Therapy/Counseling, Reading Self Help/Educational Books, listening to podcasts etc.
  • SOUL:
    -Daily quiet time with God, prayer, online sermons/podcasts, other Spiritual reading, Prayer Partner, Bible Study

Sitting at a desk for a long time, or being sedentary dulls your inspiration and own energy levels too. If you are feeling uninspired, you can inspire action, clarity of thought and your creative expression by doing a few movements, such as the Taoist twisting technique below, often used as a warm-up before t’ ai chi, chi kung, or other martial arts. Among many other healing benefits, it wakes up both body and brain.

Additionally, if you are looking for a way to help ease the symptoms you feel from muscle pains (or dolores musculares for our Spanish readers), knowing that there are topical treatments that help with inflammation could be beneficial and potentially something worth looking into.

Alternatively, nourish both your body and being with a few yoga asanas. Yoga is the ideal antidote to creative block, with the added benefit of banishing any resistance to the process on the yoga mat. It can be difficult to learn the contortion moves that you need to do yoga and can be very uncomfortable for any tight muscles. This is all apart of the learning process but you may be more comfortable learning with the true experts. I’m not saying to find the best yoga instructor course in india (though you’re bound to learn super quickly if you did and get quality instructing) but you could learn online such as Youtube. This is just one of the many ways of becoming realigned but is certainly one of the best!

As your True Health gets realigned, you will find that at the center of your balanced life is this state of contentment and true POWER. This is your God Space, where you operate as the person you were designed to be. This is a fleeting moment, but the daily practices will help ensure we seek this alignment more and more!

Categories
Goal Development Health Coaching

What’s the (W)RIGHT Question When Facing Life’s Challenges?

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As I am in the business of helping others cultivate lasting change in their lives, I have written and truly believe that if we solely rely on will power to manifest any changes in our life, we soon recognize that our WILL POWER quickly becomes our WON’T POWER because we are relying on such small, finite power within ourselves. 

 

To find our GREATER POWER we must seek and find our GOD POWER which is limitless and infinite.  We find our GOD POWER when we engage and learn from a relationship with GOD and can focus and harness from His Spirit within us.  He always provides what we need in that moment we need it.

Will Power = Wont Power

 

I have learned this 1000-fold from first hand experience, but, God did not design us to have to learn everything from our own trials.  God gives us each other to learn from too. 

As I have built A. Wright Fit as a way to share my own faults and flaws in an effort to teach others as I “Find A Wright Fit” on my path to True (read: balanced) Health, I have found God has also provided me the gift of being on the receiving end of learning through other people’s lives as well. 

Such is the case of a story I want to share with you today.   I was talking with a new friend and new potential client we’ll call “K” about some recent exciting changes she’s been going through. 

I first met K just a few months ago as she was beginning life under a new boss and an exciting new promotion at her big corporate job.  She was so honored and encouraged by her upward movement with a company she loves.  Now with her new job and new boss, she was working harder than she had ever worked before, but work that feels so rewarding. 

Corporate ladder

But, in our last encounter, I saw a less enthusiastic K.  The problem is that as she has been working her tail off, other people in her company, at her same level and position no less, are doing what many flawed people do best—lots of gossip, jealousy, disparaging and waiting for her to fail so they could be “right” about their cynicism. 

work gossip image

She came to me needing to vent.  “I feel so lucky and can’t believe it’s all happening and yet I am so overwhelmed by all this negativity and criticism around me.  “They” are so mean and I am constantly thinking about what “they” are saying about me.  I break down all the time.”

Then she said it…..


“I know I just need to be STRONGER…..”

Scrrrrrrrrrcccccch.  (Record Stops)   My ears perk up.   

What K is experiencing is something I have experienced personally and what I see ALL THE TIME from friends, family and clients. 

When we get so caught up worrying about the CIRCUMSTANCE and the NAYSAYERS, we fail to see the BIG PICTURE and the power we have in these very moments.

  • K has been looking at her situation as “luck” that she found herself under her new boss at work and up for a promotion.  God sees this as His design for her, a step so worthy of her.
  • K thinks she needs more “strength” herself.  God has been patiently waiting for her to finally use HIS power within her. 
  • K thinks this is all about her “job” and being “strong enough.” God sees this as the prime opportunity to finally build the relationship He’s been seeking with her!  This is one of just a million ways He’s been trying to get her attention.

K has been trying to face her problems at work with WILL POWER, but she has quickly realized that her new position alone is maxing out all the will power she has!  New changes and our careers can quickly monopolize every ounce of will power we have.  

And, just as I mentioned at the beginning, when we solely rely on will power, it quickly becomes WON’T POWER.  It just won’t work for the long haul.   We’ll be miserable!

Here’s the Problem with Will Power:

If she is maxing out all her will power just at her job, the other areas of her life—her health, her relationships, her Faith— are all going to suffer from not getting enough attention and balance. 

She is seeing that she isn’t able to sustain the will power to do her job really well ANNNNNDD the will power to combat the naysayers.   On top that, she also wants to date and find a healthy relationship and get married one day.  On tippy top of that, she has also come to me expressing a real desire to getting healthier and less “skinny fat” as she puts it. 🙂 

We all want it all right?!  This IS what God wants for us too. But He wants us to do it His way, not our way.  

So, as much as I love new clients, I told her honestly that I can see she’s not in a place where she can focus on health changes too as I right away recognized that her will power tank is running on empty.  Adding more things on her “to do” list DOES NOT HELP when you are already feeling overwhelmed! 

If K doesn’t find more POWER within her, she is going to continue to struggle at her new position and struggle with attempts to do all the other things she wants to do in life.  Because, in all likelihood, the constant gossip, criticism and annoying comments aren’t going to go away….this is corporate America we’re talking about! 

But, even if they do, other problems are just going to replace them until K learns the Greater Lesson she is meant to learn from God.

I wanted to share K’s story, not only because it was tremendously helpful and insightful for me to learn from but I also know that many of you have felt these exact sentiments and could empathize from your own circumstances.

  • Perhaps you are running on emotional “empty” as well?  Perhaps you have maxed out all your will power to just one area of YOUR life and here has come another problem you can’t seem to handle? 
  • Perhaps you too have dreams of having more to your life than just  the _____________ (area) but can’t imagine how you’re going to find the will power, time OR the energy!?
  • Perhaps you have recently thought that exact same phrase as K and myself, “If I were just STRONGER…..”


Don’t. Fall. For. The Trap.

The devil with prey on our challenging circumstances and cause you to think of them as a “bad sign” or proof that you are indeed “unworthy” of the life you have dreamed for yourself.  He’ll want to persuade you to give up and play small by focusing on all the wrong things. 

But what you may be needing, just like K is needing, is not a newfound ANSWER but rather A NEW QUESTION.

You see, when you experience pain, when you are going through trouble and trauma and uncertain times, you must focus on the (W)RIGHT QUESTION to get the (W)RIGHT ANSWER   (and then “You’ve Got the (W)Right stuff….baby”)

You've Got the Wright Stuff....
Couldn’t resist…..

THE (W)RIGHT QUESTION:

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO LEARN HERE GOD?

I love what Rick Warren says about our problems.  He says, “God is not interested in your circumstances as much as He is interested in your CHARACTER.”

In other words, what character values are you cultivating as you harness your energy for your problems? Where are you putting all of your hope and faith?   

Is it in yourself and all that you are able to do (i.e. your WILL POWER)? 

OR are you praying and seeking God’s power through God’s wisdom?

Refocusing your mind and thoughts on what GOD might be wanting you to learn through prayer and reading the Word of God,  will provide you with the REAL answer and your GREATER POWER which is your GOD POWER. 

Then you’ll find, even if your circumstances don’t change, your perspective of them will, and that will make ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

God allows everything to enter into our life to teach us and be used for Good by cultivating the necessary character changes you need.  This includes bad decisions we make, bad things that other people say or do to us, and the havoc that the devil and evil will cause for us too.  ALL can be made RIGHT with God and will serve our Greater Purpose. 

So keep the Faith and keep asking God the (W)Right Question to get the (W)Right Answer!  Remember, in order to HEAR God, you must spend time in PRAYER and in His WORD (i.e. reading the Bible) and it will be revealed!

 

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (Romans 8:28 NLT)

  

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Spiritual Health Uncategorized

The Two Most Powerful Words…

I am

I recently came across a beautiful quote that said, “I Am. The two most powerful words.  For what you put after them shapes your reality.”

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These words, “I Am” are incredibly powerful.  Their meaning has so pervasive into my soul that it has taken on truer depths of meaning as I have thought of them, heard them in passing, and have seen them in written form too.

For those that took part in my 7-Steps to SURREND’her Goal Development Program or have read my ebook on the 7-Steps HERE, know that I drew emphasis on the power of our words in Step # 4 Visualize & Affirm It!

In this step, I stress the importance of using verbal affirmations because of the power that our words have over our subconscious mind!  Since neuro scientists have revealed that our subconscious mind is responsible for 95% of our behavior, I argue that anything we can do to re-wire our subconscious minds in the direction we want to go is the best practice! 

While, I think far too many people, including myself, ‘forget’ that this has been proven, and instead tend to repeat the old phrases in our heads.  The lies that we’ve always believed.

Such was the case from the last blog I wrote the other day.  I was in a world of turmoil for reasons I could not quite determine and I was just spiritually exhausted.  In prayer, I called out to God and asked how I was supposed to manage all of my new roles and callings when “I Am so insecure.”

Those words, “I am” shaped that reality and were a main reason for my turmoil. 

They were another LIE from the devil planted in my head, for who knows how long, that had taken root and was causing destruction in my ability to move forward with my Greater Purpose and calling. 

Do I have remorse for saying those words?  Absolutely not.  Because by saying them to God, HE was able to set me right again and speak the truth into me. 

He told me,  “My Beloved, you are not insecure.  You have just been believing the lie that you are insecure.”

God revealed to me what my truth is. 

“I am empowered.  I am strong.  I am standing.” 

BUT LET’S UNWRAP IT A BIT MORE…..

These words, “I am” will always remind me of God speaking to Moses in Exodus. 

“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.” (Exodus 3: 14)

For years and years, I have not been able to wrap my head around the sentence, “I AM has sent me to you.”

It has been a philosophical puzzle that I knew I was supposed to understand, but it wasn’t quite sinking to that depth yet….until one day.

Coincidentally, this was during a time where I was practicing the other part of the “Step #4 Visualize & Affirm It!” by doing a self visualization with my prayer.

There are times in my prayer that I get crystal clear on this woman that I picture myself to be.  My ‘future self’ that is living out her Greater Purpose and calling.  I imagine “her”, meaning me of course, in the course of a typical day. 

{This “her” is actually what I hope to inspire all women to focus on becoming and is the “her” I refer to in “STRONG’her, WISE’her and SURREND’her”}

For me, my visualization prayer takes me to this certain place. 

I visualize myself in 20+ years first in the outward appearance:  I visualize what I’m wearing, my body and shape, the type of chair I’m sitting in, the type of food Im snacking on etc. 

Then I visualize the feelings of this future version of myself: her aura and energy, the joy expressed in her face, the calm and peaceful way she talks— she is strong in grace. 

One day, as I was finishing up this visualization prayer, I began thanking God for this vision and for this future version of me.    

Instead of asking Him to guide me to be like her, I did the opposite, I thanked Him for already making it happen.  I am that confident that I will be this woman I envision, that I don’t actually have to ask God to become that woman anymore, I can start thanking God for what I already know will be. 

But as I started to thank Him, I found myself saying these words instead, “Thank you God for the woman that I will beco…(starting to say “become”), for the woman that “I AM.”

And that’s where it hit me.  “I AM”

There is no “future me”, there is just me.  It’s already been done.   Just like there is no future God…He’s already there too.

All the difficulties I will face between now and that woman I envision is already done.  The trials, the difficulties, the sorrows, the pains….already done and already solved.  The joy, the love, the peace and the grace are all already given to me at maximum levels too. 

I AM is now.   

I AM all of those things I dream of being one day, right now. 

The reason why this is true, is because God is in me and God IS ALL THESE THINGS. 

God does not live in space and time.  God is omnipotent. 

God is both the sorrow and the joy. 

God is both the pain and the peace.

He is ALL things because ALL things have their purpose, His Purpose. 

When I was crying on the ground and said the words, “I am insecure,”  God is that TOO.  God is the LIE only because He must be the LIE in order to be the TRUTH.   You cannot have the truth without also having the lie.

This is not to say that God is the cause of all of these things.  I recently heard a sermon by Pastor Rick Warren where He distinguished that our circumstances (including the bad times) can be caused by 4 different sources:

1. God
2. The Devil
3. Ourselves
4. Other People

So while we can sometimes determine if we’ve caused our own pain or if other people have, we often don’t know if our suffering is from God or the Devil. 

But the truth is that it doesn’t matter.  What matters is not the source of the PAIN, but rather how we are going to use it for our Greater Purpose.  Having a relationship with God means that we allow God to use all things to develop our Purpose and Character. 

The truth is, our times of trouble and the difficult times will have a far greater impact on us that the good and happy times.  The LIES we believe have their purpose in their pain.

So while I believe that the devil will continue to plant in my head the lies like, “I am insecure” that I will unknowingly believe for any course of time, I KNOW that God will give purpose and blessing to those lies.   

There is POWER in setting those lies straight.  There is POWER in discovering our TRUTH.

Jesus, who said, “I AM the way, the truth and the light” (John 14:6) will give us our TRUTH as long as we have ears that are open to hear it.

So I encourage you today, to stop, breathe and pray for greater awareness of who you really ARE.  Pray that all lies will be made true again. 

Shape the TRUTH of who you are by using the words, “I AM _______” and start repeating it to yourself every day, several times a day.  Shaping this TRUTH can be just another way that God will be revealed in you. 

“I AM sent me to you.” 

Categories
Fitness & Training Health Coaching Spiritual Health Uncategorized

The Competitive Mind Trap

Girls Compete

The other day I shared a video on my Facebook business page, A.Wright Fit, of an interview of one of my favorite actors, Will Smith, going into a pretty in depth explanation on his work ethic, motivation and ultimate success in his life and in the movie making industry. To see the video and to see what I posted, click HERE.

You can see by watching the video he is deeply inspired and seems to be rooted in a very strong competitive mindset about who he is and what he can do.

As I explained on my Facebook page, because I like Will Smith so much, I wanted so badly to be inspired by this great actor, but I realized in the last couple of weeks since first seeing this interview, that I was not inspired by it at all. In fact, I disagree with the source of his motivation and mindset toward success.

Specifically, when Will Smith says of himself and his success, “The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me, is that I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked. You might be smarter than me. You might have more talent than me. You might be sexier than me [

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Uncategorized

Breaking-Up is Powerful To Do

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

The other day I gave a little snippet of how my husband and I met. It was some good ol’ self-deprecating humor about how my husband was actually attracted to the very assets (no pun intended) that I had perceived as my worst flaws (i.e. my big ol’ booty).

I told the story about how we first met and gave the rather evasive ellipses and the cliche of “the rest is history!”

Well, ha! That history was anything but just 3 small dots . . .

Actually if each of those dots represented the number of times we would break-up, then yes, that is quite accurate! But it would be a tumultuous 6-years of dating on-and-off before we would be engaged and then married on lucky year #7. In fact, we married on the exact date that we met at the restaurant I told you about in my last blog.

It was anything but “first comes love, then comes marriage” il_340x270.468855362_s7edin your typical RomCom (Romantic Comedies). You could liken it much more to the yo-yo dating a la Carrie and “Mr. Big” of Sex and the City.

Each break-up was excruciatingly painful for me. Howard had been trapped in his own mental battle of “lies” that had convinced him that he wasn’t capable of successfully being married. A product of both his childhood history, his own divorce, and the dozens of divorces he witnessed of many of his closest friends. Some of them even found that their spouse was having an affair using reverse phone lookup.

That being said, even if things did not work out in the end, a divorce is nowhere near as traumatic or as stigmatized as it used to be. For instance, I know plenty of couples that have managed to split amicably. Most arguments during divorce proceedings tend to focus on the division of assets. However, most of my friends that have been divorced have always used a prenuptial agreement to ensure that their assets were divided fairly. One thing I will say though is that if you are considering getting a prenuptial agreement before marriage, it is vital that you contact a team of prenup lawyers first to make sure that your prenup is accurate and valid.

As for my now-husband though, he had a very fear-based way of living and looking at relationships. His viewpoint, sadly, is actually very common in America. It’s not just America who feels this way, there are many people around the world who feel this way about marriage, for example in the United Kingdom, where the divorce rate is around 40%, there are some couples who look to law firms that are in the Specialist Divorce business in order to end their marriages. There are others who believe that marriage isn’t needed to maintain a happy relationship with their partner.

But, being the hopeless optimist that I have always been, I saw so much more in him and knew what we had was special.

Even so, I was caught in my own “fear-based” mindset, constantly worrying about our relationship too. Thinking about him non-stop and wondering where it was all “going” and if he “really loved me” or not.
I always worried that I was never enough for him and never enough to save our relationship.

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Call these fears of intuition or more likely a self-fulfilling prophecy, but after about 6-months of things going seemingly fine for us, I would start to panic and squeeze tighter just as Howard would start to panic and pull-away. Causing us to break-up.

These break-ups felt like my heart was shattering.

But what was so surprising, was that I quickly came to realize that I was not indeed shattered or broken. I think myself lucky that unlike some people I didn’t jump straight into marriage and have to use Colorado Springs Process Server to issue my partner with divorce papers each time.

In a beautiful irony is that in those moments of feeling so heart-broken, my heart was actually being healed and remolded into a better way.

It was during these periods of heart break that I (slightly at first) began to lean on God as well as learn more about myself!

God tremendously blessed these times for me.

I found some of my best friends and grew much closer with my family;
I found my body’s strength and my passion for fitness;
I found some necessary wisdom from seeking a therapist for over 3-years to figure out my own fear-based and insecure mind;
I found out a lot about myself through the various jobs and “life searching” I was doing.

What was happening in these breaks of our relationship are what I now call “LIFE!”

I learned things that I would not have necessarily learned had I still been so mentally consumed by my relationship with Howard.

It was easy for me say that Howard’s commitment phobia was the issue, but I began to realize that was not true.

I was just as responsible for the relationship not working out (yet). I had my own fear-based issues that clearly needed some Divine Molding to turn me into “wife” worthy.

As I was learning this, I must admit it was very easy to get ahead of myself too. To think that just a few months of “soul searching” would fix both him and I. So each time we would get back together, I would think, “Ok God, we did all the work we needed to do! This time this is it!”

But nope…..we would fall back into our old fear-based habits. Howard would pull-away. I would worry and obsess. We’d break-up. Yo-Yo dating.

Finally, after our 3rd break-up, feeling shame from the “fool me twice” adage, I reached my breaking point. I was done. It was at this moment of feeling “done” that I found my word SURRENDER and I was finally learning to live it too.

I started to attend a new church in my home town of Greeley, Coloraod – Christ Community Church, and began to experience some remarkable spiritual revelations and God Winkmiracles. The Pastor of the Church, Alan Kraft would somehow preach sermons that were exactly what I needed to hear at that day. This is something I’ve heard called a “God Wink”, where you feel as though God has just blessed you with a little coincidence or miracle with a “wink” ;-).

It was at this time , that I was finally entering into a personal, deep relationship with God. Where I learned to SURREND’her my heart for GOD to fill, instead of waiting for some man to come and do it. I finally let down enough guards around my heart making God truly able to heal me.

I would find that God was doing the same for Howard.

A series of big events for Howard along with years of counseling, allowed him to finally realized I was “the one.” God enabled him to break himself free from the lies he’d convinced himself of for so long and gave him the courage to fly out to Denver and beg me to be his wife.

When he found me again, he found a new me. I was not the same “fear-based” woman I had been. God had truly changed all that. While I certainly needed several weeks to pray and contemplate whether I could really forgive Howard and accept some new developments in our life as well as commit to the biggest decision of my life and become his wife, having the fulfillment of God’s love in my heart made all of those decisions possible.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.”

-2 Corinthians 1:20

The time apart had allowed a beautiful release of the expectation that he or any man had previously been expected to fill. Because I was filled to the brim with God’s love I was able to release Howard from the role of having to fill those empty holes and neediness I had before.

As much as my heart bursts from the amount of love I receive from my husband now, it does not compare to the love and fulfillment I feel from God’s love.

Which makes sense, because God IS love. Cup Runneth OverAny love that I give and receive from Howard just makes my “cup runneth over.”

You might be wondering, ok Mandi, that is a pretty great love story and all, but what does this have to do with HEALTH?

Well, a lot actually!

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow as I expand further on the Power of the Break-Up in LOTS or areas of our life!!