Anxiety & Stress Are They Stealing Your Joy

Anxiety and stress can have debilitating results. For years I suffered through stress, work-related, home, you name it, I could find a way to stress myself out!

Over the past couple of years now, some fantastic results have passed through my life. Yes, I still stress, but boy can control it been enhanced. I will share with you my daily routine and habits that help.

prayer, faith, hope

First, let me say that if you’re struggling to get help from a licensed health care professional. What I am sharing with you is just daily habits that you can try to see if they help. By no means should you feel this is a cure-al?

Simple daily routine changes can help with stress & anxiety:

  1. Learn to quiet the mind. This is just a simple relaxation method that can help you with a clear mind. When the rhetoric in your head can slow down and quiet. Amazing results begin to appear.
  2. This can be a simple walk around your neighborhood. Or you can join a gym. Working out the tension in your body, getting stronger can help you not get so fatigued that your anxiety just increases.
  3. Take a moment often during the day to just breathe. Sixty seconds to breathe in through the nose and out through your mouth. Nice cleansing breaths.
  4. Regulate your soda, coffee, and high caffeine drinks. For most of us, we don’t need more help to get anxious.
  5. Take the time that’s just for you. Watch a sunrise by yourself. Sit by a creek. Do something that is just for you (retail therapy is a no-no. Credit card debt is a stressor). Go shoot baskets at the park, kick a ball, ride a bike.
  6. Stay connected with people that uplift you. Debbie-downer is not your friend. Choose wisely. Don’t hibernate.
  7. Set boundaries for people that bring stress into your experience. If someone can only talk about negative things. Cut them short (YES YOU CAN) politely excuse yourself from that situation “oh I totally forgot ______” hopefully that person gets a clue. You are not anyone’s sounding board for garbage.
  8. Home or office is a mess. Guess what? That is the state of your noodle. Clean up, organize, and enjoy the environment around you. People often tell me the disorganized desk in the office, “that’s just the way I am.” So, you’re a chaotic malfunctioning human, and we should all get over it? I regularly must organize myself, it’s a habit I highly recommend.
  9. Sit down and prioritize your life. I mean down to the last detail. If you tell me you’re a free spirit, you fly by the seat of your pants. Then I say super if you’re a well-adjusted, NORMAL functioning human being I will shut up. Otherwise, organize based on the importance of what you need to do every day. The reason being, if you have a real sense of accomplishment, wow, is that life-changing! Activity vs. Productivity learns the difference now!
  10. Patience and faith. If you can learn to allow life to unfold (yes you must do the work) knowing full well, you’ll be fine. Even when you can’t see a way, you believe with everything that is you, all will be well. Spiritual connectedness will indeed bring about peace in your life.
  11. Learn to be grateful right where you are. If you want more out of life, you must be thankful where you stand. If you want more from the Universe, why would that occur if you’re miserable where you are (NO, I am not suggesting you be grateful in a situation that is emotionally or physically harmful to you). However, if this is not the case and you’re simply aggravated at your lot in life. Be grateful you have a car that gets you to work, you have a job it may suck, but you have one, a roof over your head, food to eat, your health and clothes to wear.

You can find a million reasons to stay in the crap. I just gave you eleven reasons not too. What’s more, you can do each of these with just a little effort.

The real question now; “What are you prepared to do?” Until you make the decision to change your life, expect the same outcome.

No guarantee this will be easy. Nothing worth having is ever easy. I am going to let you in on a secret. For most of our lives, we’ve been taught to run away from pain. Sounds reasonable.

Ponder this:

When you first go to the gym and workout hard, what happens? Soreness from hell hits you. Can’t brush your teeth, can’t raise your arms high enough. You can quit or go back to the gym and work out a bit more until the soreness subsides.

Coaches will push you beyond your mental and physical breaking points. Why? Your head will quit far sooner than your body or mind can handle. Marathon runners are prime examples. “The wall” as marathon runners will tell you hits about the twenty-mile mark, and your brain says your body it’s time to stop. The physical pain that is causing damage to the point if you don’t stop, you could injure yourself or worse die.

Medical studies have proven this is all in your head. Runners are not hurt, injured, or dying. What is happening is our limiting beliefs take over, and it’s; fight-or-flight.

Before you give up, take one more step. If you took the step, then maybe we can go more. It’s all up to you. The ONLY PERSON ON THIS PLANET THAT CAN SAY YOU CAN OR CANNOT. IS YOU!

Don’t let anxiety and stress take your joy. If you need professional help go, get it. I am putting a resource to help you get started. This is not a paid endorsement, nor an endorsement by me. It’s just a great place to get started.

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National Institute for Mental Health

Always Too Soon To Quit

We all get to a point where tired overcomes our being. Tired of all the enemies shots that come in follies that seem never-ending. One more kick and you’re going down! Today is one of those days for me. Looks like the top of the mountain was in site and now I can’t even see the top anymore.

summit, faith, God

When the clouds clear how close will you be? Never Quit!

I’m finding reasons to quit, aims to stop relationships, reasons to complain about work. All of which are not options to exercise. I know deep down that God is as close as my next prayer. At least now in my life, I recognize when an attack comes and why it comes.

Many times over the past days, I have felt that my soul is slipping away from God. That no matter how hard I try something is always going to kick me in the balls one more time. Dropping into self-pity and depression is too easy. This is where the enemy knows he has you, and he turns up the heat.

So in the heat of the battle of the mind, how do we stay in faith?

For me, it gets moment-to-moment. I literally have to talk to God all the time during my day. When the heat is on, it’s a hotline to God that day! Just let God know that I don’t see a way, I know he has an idea, and I am not losing this time.

Somedays I am emotionally exhausted the point to this is stay in the fight. The minute you give in the enemy has won. Don’t despair if you’re there at this moment. Let God know right now you’re grateful for strength. Pray for what you want, not what you don’t have. Big difference.

This is the best metaphor I can come up with in the battle over our minds.

Climbing a mountain to summit. Zero visibility all you can do is climb up, can’t see a thing. Step after step is pain, unimaginable pain. With the summit know where in sight. You continue to work through the pain. Until you THINK you cannot make another step, you cannot see the summit you collapse. In that moment of defeat, the fog clears, and the summit is a short 20 yards away, you could have made it if you kept going.

We never know how close we were if we stop. Marathon runners have to run through the wall in their mind. Somewhere close to the finish of a marathon, runners hit the wall as it’s called. You can collapse or run through it, choice!

Remember how we choose to deal with life is our choice. Blaming circumstances does not get it done. Perseverance and unwavering faith get it done. If you get knocked down get back up. Keep getting up!

Seasons in our lives are just that seasons. Have you lived somewhere that you can recall a super hot summer or a long cold, snowy winter? It’s a season it comes and goes. Same with our life. Seasons come, and they go. Happiness is closer than you think!

Pray like you’ve never prayed before and this season will pass.

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