Anxiety never leaves a Ransom Note

Affirmation: I choose to be self-compassionate. I value myself.

Wholehearted Guidepost 10: Laughter, Song and Dance. Let go of being cool. (Brené Brown) 

Make laughter, song and dance a habit in your life, not just one week out of every 10 weeks when it shows up on the cdd as the calendar. 

The gremlin that holds us back from laughter, song, and dance is the desire to be seen as cool and always in control.

Playing it cool is how the ego tries to protect itself. The subconscious thought is that “If I don’t play it cool, people will judge me. They’ll think I’m immature, stupid, foolish, uncool, …”

(Just go for it! That’s what is really 😎 cool!)

 

This is a favorite among our younger grandchildren: Baby Shark! Laugh and sing and dance!

https://youtu.be/XqZsoesa55w

 Mastering the 7 Decisions, by Andy Andrews

The Responsible Decision 

The Buck Stops Here!

Each of you must be responsible to do your creative best with your life. Gal. 6:4

If decisions are choices…and our thinking dictates our decisions—then I am where I am because of my thinking.

The Responsible Decision for Personal Success represents the beginning. Taking responsibility for your past will segue you into an extraordinary future of your choosing.

My thoughts will be constructive---NEVER destructive.

Responsibility is about HOPE and Control. Make better choices.

This is a Hallmark quote😍: Just because the water is calm, doesn’t mean there aren’t crocodiles. 

ANXIETY NEVER LEAVES A RANSOM NOTE WHEN IT STEALS OUR LIVES. 

I have a friend who started an organization to help people struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide. He’s a compassionate guy and sees the hurt and need underneath the surface of people pretending they have it together. He’s a great example to me. And he reminds me that there’s this myth going around that if you believe in Jesus, feeling joy should be your default position.

But the Bible talks a lot about sadness too—it doesn’t try to minimize it or sweep it away with saccharine phrases. The book of Psalms should come with Kleenex.

What I’m getting at is that you don’t have to feel bad for feeling sad if you’re a Christian. Even Jesus was racked with sadness at times in the Bible. But God also says His mercies are new every morning—even the ones when you don’t want to get out of bed. With every sunrise, God gives us another blank sheet of paper and invites us to fill it up with things that make us come alive.

All of us experience negative emotions from time to time, and some of us were born with an extra dose of them because of our genes.

Don’t perpetuate the stigmas hovering around people already. Let people be sad if they need to be. Go ahead and be sad yourself if you need to. Then find your way back to hope. If you’ve lost your way, find someone who is safe and who you can trust.

Find someone who will reach out to you the way God reaches out to all of us—fiercely and without stopping until He’s got us wrapped in a hug.

If you know someone trapped by their hurts, go to them. Don’t make a list; make a call. And if you’re the one hurting, be sad, but don’t get stuck.

Find someone to travel the path with you. You’ll know you’ve found the right person if they don’t try to fix you—they’ll just want to be with you the way Jesus was with us.

Who do you know who is grieving something right now? 

How can you bring God’s message of love and hope to them?

A psalm of David, regarding the time he pretended to be insane in front of Abimilech, who sent him away.
“The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles.”‭‭Psalms‬ ‭34:17‬ ‭NLT‬‬https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.34.17.

Prayer from Psalm 116“I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath! Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave overtook me. I saw only trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “Please, Lord, save me!” How kind the Lord is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! The Lord protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me. Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me. He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. And so I walk in the Lord’s presence as I live here on earth! I believed in you, so I said, “I am deeply troubled, Lord.” In my anxiety I cried out to you, “These people are all liars!””‭‭Psalms‬ ‭116:1-11‬ ‭NLT‬‬https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.116.1-11.NLT