BEAUTY TIP #38 – CHOOSE…and Your Feelings Will Follow
Posted: March 26, 2011
We are obsessed with knowledge. Then why, to recapture an old phrase, are we “going to hell in a hand basket?” I won’t list all the statistics and atrocities; but you know from your own area of influence what I’m talking about. We seem to be getting smarter but yet insensible. The answer is really quite simple. Knowledge without action = zero. When we come to an intersection in life that begs action, simply knowing the right answer but not doing anything about it perpetuates more pain, rejection, disappointment, anger, and resentment. As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
You can talk about writing a book year after year, but if you don’t hit the SEND button on your computer, you will never know if you will be a published author. You can speak endlessly about being a better mother, but if you don’t take one small step to change your routine, everything will always be the same. Your husband or boyfriend’s pornography is tearing you apart with betrayal and anger, but if you don’t confront it or walk away, it will continue.
When I was in my early thirties, I was a raving perfectionist. One day I looked in the mirror and saw the darkness of my soul yearning to receive love by earning it through perfection. If I had stayed in that posture, I would be an explosive perfectionist today. But I’m not and I believe I have made radical progress.
HOW DO I START?
You start the “change process “by imagining you are stepping into a dark cave. It’s scary and threatening because you don’t know what it’s like in there. This is an unknown-you’ve never experienced or visualized before. Or perhaps you have; and you remember how horrible it was. But you must because your soul’s well being is at stake.
1. You have been deeply hurt. Your husband/wife walked out on you, someone killed your child, your family has abandoned you or a business partner betrayed you. Until you actually take the first small step and say the words out loud, “I FORGIVE YOU!”…nothing will change.
2. You can’t stop condemning yourself. You carry shame from something that happened to you, or something you did or was done to you. Until you take that first small step to walk into that dark cave and confront that “thing”, you will carry the shame for the rest of your life. Look at it, and give it to God who will then carry it for you. After all, Jesus died for that shame.
3. You are disgusted with yourself. You have been told “you are God’s Masterpiece” but you look in the mirror and you can’t stand the sight of you. Take one small to see what it is that disgusts you and make one deliberate choice to change or stop it.
4. Ask someone to help you if you can’t do it yourself.
You get the idea. It takes one small step into the unknown, and a deliberate choice to make ONE SMALL CHANGE AT A TIME. Walk into your pain (intersection, frustration or unknown future) and your feelings will eventually follow.
Jesus died so that we could live a full, abundant, fulfilling, joyful life. This life is available to everyone; not just a chosen few. But it takes bold choices along the journey to bring about the future you desire.
KNOWLEDGE + A BOLD CHOICE = TRANSFORMATION. Like NIKE says; “go and do it.”
