IN MY DARKEST HOUR
People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, andGod wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body---but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act -the dress rehearsal.
God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, lifeisn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go intoanother one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife getting cancer. I used to think that life was hillsand valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all timesyou have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain. But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers, people, God was not going to heal my wife or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a task of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit onthe side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're calledhuman beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD.
A REPRINT FROM DR. PHIL REQUESTED BY A CLIENT
Minimal Effective Response
Do you still carry around bitterness and anger from being bullied in high school? Or perhaps you're consumed with vengeance and hatred for someone who wronged you? In order to find emotional closure on some event in your life, Dr. Phil recommends that you identify and execute your Minimal Effective Response (MER). Notice that MER includes the word "minimal." Your MER is the least thing that you can do that allows you to get emotional closure. The concept of MER seeks to satisfy your need for resolution without creating a whole new set of problems. It aims to conserve your resources.
An example of what MER is not is when you hear people who are in pain plotting major events to embarrass someone, when all it would take for them to feel some emotional resolve was an explanation and apology.
Getting emotional closure means that you can "close the book" on your situation and its associated pain. You can put that book of pain on the shelf and you will no longer have to take it down and read from it on a daily basis.
In thinking about your MER, analyze your alternatives for action using this four-part test:
1. What action can you take to resolve this pain?
2. If you were successful and achieved this action, how would you feel?
3. Does the feeling you will have match the feeling you want to have?
4. Remember the word "minimal": Could there be some other, more emotionally or behaviorally economical action that would give you the emotional resolve you want to feel?
For example, let's look at the story of Rhonda, a woman in her early 30s, who, starting at the tender age of 12, had been beaten, raped and sexually exploited by her biological father. Once this heinous behavior had begun, Rhonda's sense of self-worth — all of her hope, optimism and esteem — was shattered. Through her father's actions, she had been assigned and browbeaten into a role, and with a broken spirit she accepted that fictional self-concept and the painful life script that came with it.
As if to add insult to injury, her father had recently passed away. As a result, Rhonda was a caldron of emotions. On the one hand, she was relieved that this evil man no longer walked this earth; on the other, she felt guilty that she wasn't sorry. Also bubbling around her emotional pot was a sense of rage and frustration that he had died without ever having been held accountable for his actions.Rhonda could consider her possible MERs by asking herself, "What is the least thing I can do in order to feel vindicated, to feel justice, feel liberated from this emotional prison that I'm living in?"
Her father had died, but maybe she knows the whereabouts of one of his "buddies" — who had also raped her. Maybe Rhonda's MER is to go see that person and look him in the eye and say, "Don't you think for a minute I don't know what you did to me and I want to be heard. You need to know the pain you caused me. You need to know what it's done to my life and my marriage and my relationship with my children, you no-good, rat-bastard son of a bitch."Maybe that's her MER. Maybe she needs the cathartic effect of getting that heard. Or maybe Rhonda needs to take advantage of the fact that there is no statute of limitations on molestation and go to the authorities, file a complaint, and have this SOB arrested and put in jail.
As you consider your own triggering event and the nature and degree of the suffering you've endured, what is your MER? Maybe you don't feel the need or have the courage right now to do either one of the kinds of things that were contemplated for Rhonda. Maybe what you need to do is write a letter and write down all your thoughts and all your feelings. Maybe that does it for you. Maybe you even need to mail the letter, if your event involves another person. Perhaps, like Rhonda, if you can't mail the letter, then you might need to go to the offender's grave and read it to him or her in the cemetery.
Whatever your MER is, you need to identify it and you need to do it. You need to emit that response until such time as you can say, "OK, that's it. That's enough. My lens is clean. My emotional business is finished and I am free to go back to being that person that I now know that I am." Forgiveness is also often a part of a successful MER. It can be a difficult step, but one that may be essential to you getting emotional closure. Without forgiveness, you are almost inevitably destined to a life marred by anger, bitterness and hatred. Those emotions only compound the tragedy. You are the only one who pays the price by carrying the negative emotions with you, allowing them to contaminate every element of your current life. Forgiveness is not a feeling that you must passively wait to wash over you. Forgiveness is a choice, a choice that you can make to free yourself from the emotional prison of anger, hatred and bitterness. The choice to forgive is not an easy one, but a necessary one.
Don't even think about using spell check!!!!!!!!
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be
in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.
ISN’T THAT AMAZING ! ! !
TRY THIS ONE ON YOUR FRIENDS & FAMILY! !
ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!
TO ACHIEVE GOALS AND ASPIRATIONS, WE MUST HAVE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE AND OUTLOOK ON LIFE THAT CAN LEAD TO POSITIVE THOUGHTS, BELIEFS, FEELINGS, BEHAVIORS AND CREATE SUCCESS. MOTIVATION’S BEST FRIEND IS ATTITUDE.
STAY FOCUSED, MOTIVATED, PURPOSEFUL AND ACCOUNTABLE ON FUTURE AND DESIRED OUTCOMES.
DESIRE WITHIN, MUST WANT TO DO IT FOR YOURSELF! MUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF !
DETERMINE WHAT YOU WANT TO CHANGE! ACCOMPLISH AND SET GOALS.
IDENTIFY OBSTACLES AND WAYS TO ADDRESS OBSTACLES (NEGATIVE HABITS ETC. - HABIT CHANGES - STRESS, ADDICTION, PROCRASTINATION)
CREATE STRATEGIES TO STAY ON TRACK (STRUCTURE, SUPPORT)
DETAILED CREATIVE ACTION PLAN TO TAKE ACTION TOWARD ACHIEVING GOALS.
STEPS INTO PREFERRED FUTURE YOU WANT.
JEALOUSY IS NOT GOOD OR BAD. IN ALL RELATIONSHIPS, EVEN IN OPEN ONES AND MATURE ONES, THERE IS JEALOUSY. AN UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP IS TO DOMINATE YOUR PARTNER. EXTREME JEALOUSY IS DESTRUCTIVE. POSSESSIVE JEALOUSY IS PERHAPS THE MOST RAGING AND WRATHFUL FORM OF JEALOUSY LEADING TO ACTS OF CRUEL VENGEANCE AND EVEN MURDER.
JEALOUSY OCCURS WHEN THERE IS A THREAT TO PERSONAL SECURITY AND TO THE WELL BEING OF AN IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP. DOUBTS ABOUT THE COMMITMENT OF THE OTHER BREEDS INSECURITY, FEAR OF LOSING SOMEONE SPECIAL AND FEAR OF BEING REJECTED.
PERSONAL INSECURITY AND WEAKNESS IN THE RELATIONSHIP IS A THREAT TO SUCCESSFUL INTIMATE PARTNERSHIP. IDENTIFY AND CLEARLY EXPRESS FEELINGS TO YOUR PARTNER TO DISCOVER WHAT YOU ARE AFRAID OF THAT IS TRIGGERING JEALOUS BEHAVIOR IN ORDER TO EFFECTIVELY SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
SOME ASPECTS OF THE RELATIONSHIP NEED TO BE CLARIFIED AND WORKED OUT MORE THOROUGHLY: EXPLICIT COMMUNICATION IN EXPRESSING NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS OF EACH OTHER. THEN RESPECT WHAT EACH FINDS IMPORTANT. CLARIFICATION OF INDIVIDUAL BOUNDARIES AND BOUNDARIES AS A COUPLE. NEGOTIATION OF RULES AND LIMITS ON OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS. EXAMINE BELIEFS AND ASSUMPTIONS ONE HAS REGARDING LIMITS OF ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR.
MANAGEMENT OF JEALOUSY
EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS, UNRESOLVED THOUGHTS, FEELINGS AND BELIEFS TO ALLOW VENTILATION OF JEALOUS FEELINGS.
EXPLORATION INTO THE NATURE OF THE RELATIONSHIPS: ILLUMINATE FEARS AND INSECURITIES TO PROVIDE AWARENESS INTO ITS CAUSES AND EFFECTS AND BUILD SECURITY AND TRUST IN THE ABILITY OF THE RELATIONSHIP TO COPE WITH THREAT.
YOU HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF POSSIBLE REACTIONS AND YOU HAVE CONSIDERABLE CHOICE IN TAKING RATIONAL OR IRRATIONAL PATHWAYS. RATIONAL JEALOUSY IS RATIONAL OR SENSIBLE SET OF BELIEFS. IRRATIONAL JEALOUSY IS IRRATIONAL OR NONSENSE SET OF BELIEFS.
DEEPLY INGRAINED MEANINGS CHANGE VERY SLOWLY. EVEN IN THE MOST MATURE INDIVIDUALS AND RELATIONSHIPS, JEALOUSY DOES NOT DISAPPEAR ALTOGETHER AND WILL APPEAR FROM TIME TO TIME.
PLEASE NOTE
Feel free to print out any material on this sight that you might need to help you find a therapist who you will feel comfortable and secure with. Again thank you for visiting our site. Please click on the “Contact us” tab for a map to locate our office. Be sure to e-mail me at rchaffeeg@aol.com or call 909-824-1343.
Rosalie
