wisdom

Proverbs Great Place to Begin

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

Proverbs 1 King James Version (KJV)

1 The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.

2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding.

3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity.

4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Bible, Proverbs, Christian

When I learned about Proverbs for the first time and then began to study this book of the Bible. Everything in our lives that needs understanding can be found in the book of Proverbs.

Reading self-help books, all the information in these books can be found in Proverbs. When you read the book, you will correlate much of what you learn to books you have already read.

Reading the book of Proverbs will amaze you when your first read this book. Many versus you will have heard in some shape or form that you did not realize was a part of this fabulous book.

King Solomon wrote this as an amazing man. It’s been said that in today’s terms, he would be hundreds of times wealthier than today’s billionaires. The money let’s be clear Solomon always prayed for wisdom. Hence the book.

With knowledge comes power. Responsibly used and King Solomon even to this day is unmatched. He was a good man and a good King.

If you find yourself as I did a novice at understanding the Bible. Reading Proverbs opens a world that is filled with hope. When we understand life, we have the wisdom to progress our lives. Bounties begin to manifest in your life.

This was Solomon’s key to success in every aspect of life. Wisdom! Knowledge is power, this statement rings so true.

When you have the wisdom to withstand life adversity. You will plow through anything life throws at you. Understanding that challenges are seasons of learning, “this to shall pass.” We’ve all heard this saying.

If I could recommend any place to start in the Bible. My first choice would be Proverbs. The Bible is an excellent read.

A couple of suggestions, I enjoy the Message Bible and The Passion translation. For me, much easier to read than say the King James Version. Written more in today’s language, I was able to not have to stop and look up words while reading.

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Life Detox

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

This is the first chapter of Life Detox. How we can cleanse, mind, body, and soul. Sometimes it’s just time to rip off the bandaid and be done with it! Choose to begin anew!

Chapter 1 

Why 

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”—Michael Jordan

Perfection is not the goal; persistence is our focus. 

You’ve all heard you need to find your way. True but, in this scenario, the why needs to be you’re sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired! Enough is enough. Well, I can tell you that over a year ago, that is where I found myself. 

(Get a pad of paper to do some writing) To make any lasting change, grab the paper! 

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself:

 

  • Is your life where you hoped it would be right now?

 

  • Are you depressed most of the time?
  • Are you merely going through the paces of daily life with no real direction, work, go home, that’s about all?
  • Are you unhappy? Why?
  • If money, time, education, depression were not the problem. What would fulfill your life?

 

 

Please take the time to put some real thought into the questions. If you follow along this way, we can save you a great deal of time. 

You must get very clear on what you would like to see your life become. One of the biggest epiphanies I’ve experienced don’t worry about the HOW, set your sail to the horizon of where you want your life. 

Imagine getting on a boat for a long journey. You set sail, and off you go. Along the way, you most assuredly will face rough seas. When you begin the rough journey seas, severe weather is not part of the equation when you decided to set sail. 

The end destination is more important than how we get there! If you had a chance to visit some beautiful faraway island, once in a lifetime opportunity. Would you not go because you MIGHT run into bad weather? Did you not go because you thought the how was more difficult — focusing on the “what if’s” instead of the outcome? 

Logic would suggest you have a plan that includes how. So how do you plot this course change in life without knowing how you’re going to traverse the course to a destination. When you set out on any journey let’s say a storm comes up, do you sail directly through it? No, you may have to recalibrate a new route. 

My point is you don’t know all the “how’s” that will change your course unexpectedly. However, if you worry yourself before you set sail, you’ll stifle any chance of real change! 

I can hear you! “How do you not worry about how?” These are bullet points that will explain: 

 

  • Have a clear definition of the result. Know what you want clearly! 

 

  • Learn to meditate on the result you desire, see it in your mind’s eye. Feel in every part of your being what it would feel like to have achieved that which you want most. 
  • Have unwavering faith it will happen. A prayer might sound like “God you know what I desire in my heart, I have faith you will provide everything I need for that, what you put in my heart to achieve. I don’t know how we will do this; I trust you have the way.
  • Pray for wisdom and guidance.
  • Set realistic expectations. Reach to be sure.

 

 

How to turn from wishful thinking to ACTION:

 

  • What is one step you can take right now to begin your journey? Forget the words significant steps, little steps. Every step forward creates forward momentum. 

 

  • Learn the difference between activity vs. productivity. 
  • Learn to plan your day for production — set reminders for tasks that produce results. Stay on task!
  • Take time to research and put into action what you learn to achieve your desire. Fill yourself as though you’re filling a pitcher with knowledge.
  • When self-doubt and the like hit your noodle, remember this, whatever negative thoughts you’re having it’s temporary. Work through it even when you think you cannot.

 

 

The how will come to you. Take steps every day, and you will begin to gain momentum. 

“When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it does no good! It serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.”–Joyce Meyer

A struggle for everyone.  When everything in your life is overwhelmingly worrisome. So how do we get through that?

When you begin to realize that no matter what you’re going through in life, it’s temporary. If you get flustered stifling any sort of progress the situation stalls or gets worse.

Begin to look at trials and tribulations as a coaching exercise. Learn to realize God is coaching you to become a world-class you! What do coaches do? They train you to go beyond what you believe you can do. Stretch yourself beyond your limiting beliefs.

Life is changing for me. I don’t look at difficulties as a problem, but a learning experience is preparing me to handle anything life can throw at me. Yes, at times, you can feel alone, lost, and defeated. At this moment I think of myself as running dead last in a race. I can choose to fail, or I can run my heart out and win.

God is merely working all of us out. He is training us to handle anything the enemy can throw to disrupt our life. Why can’t God fix my life? He is trying by letting you work through the pain to strengthen your resolve.

It hurts I can’t do it! God never puts more on our plate than we can handle. Hard to understand, but here is the skinny. Get through this because on the other side of pain is your destiny. Bigger and brighter than you can imagine.

Change the way you look at problems. They’re not happening at you they’re happing for you!

Here are some exercises you can do to change your state-of-mind: Crank up some music that gets you dancing. Music can immediately improve your state and put a smile on your face. 

 

  • Breathe. Take 60 seconds or so and breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, beautiful and relaxing. 

 

  • Pray — nothing like a good prayer. You can hand God the garbage he is ready to be a blessing to you and carry it out. 
  • Meditate. Find the right place to meditate and relax your mind and body.

 

 

Take a walk. Get outdoors and walk to help relieve muscle stress. Throw on some headphones and good music. Change your state-of-mind, and you will change your life. 

Time outdoors can be incredibly cathartic to the soul. Taking in nature, walking by a river, standing on the beach, anywhere that God has touched the landscape. You can look up and happily say to God, “show off.” Smiling in awe of the world around you. 

When you can take these moments to find clarity in your head, good thoughts, new ideas, and fresh perspectives will become the norm. 

One thing that I did put up a bird-feeder. Birds are incredibly funny and beautiful to watch. I have found myself sitting for long periods just enjoying my birds and clearing my head when I’m not trying — just enjoying the moment.

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Choice, Decide Already!

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

Choice

If I asked you to make a choice right now to be happy, but you’re suffering through a terrible divorce. Could you be satisfied just by making that choice? The short answer is yes! Before you hit the refund, button hears me out.

What stops you from choosing to be happy in a moment is you. I should say years of conditioning yourself that you can’t just simply change. Why can’t you? Should be the real question.

Let’s take our divorce scenario to a little higher level. If divorce is imminent even though you don’t want a divorce.

Two options:

Option A:

  • Stay bitter, sad, emotionally done, not having any thought as to a new future.

Option B:

  • “Choose” to be happy. Yes, the person whom your life revolved around is gone. The Universe, in its infinite wisdom, is taking you down a new path. Presuppose for a moment that this new life if given a chance, has more love, joy, happiness, and fulfillment than you ever thought possible.

If you choose to be happy, “Option B” certainly has more promise. The simple act of choosing one from another is incredibly powerful.

Over a year ago someone that I am proud to call a friend explained away my own pain from divorce like this: “If you could have your wife back today and go right back to the way things were, OR, you could have the relationship you never thought possible. Which would you choose?”

That’s when I knew that I had to make a choice for myself. If something in your life is meant to be, then it shall.

The real rub is that for years-and-years, we conditioned our minds towards limiting beliefs. We end up saying:

  • If I just change, she will come back.
  • If I learn to keep my mouth shut.
  • If I lose twenty pounds.

The problem is NOT you, it’s the paradigm that is so entrenched in your head you can’t shake it off. Using the divorce analogy just scrapes the surface of this problem. This book is not a “how to get over divorce” book. NO, far from it.

How to change limiting beliefs, the unknowing lies we tell ourselves every day. What our journey well reveals to us, we can make a choice and move on, NOW!

Prayer, self improvement, society

Choice do you really want me to pick?

Yes, friends easier said than done. However, very doable. With some guided practice, you can learn to decide, stick with it, no regrets, and blaze a trail for others to follow. Pardon the cliché!

How do you we make these changes you ask? Training our minds to a new healthy reality. Who says you can’t do something; you need only look in the mirror? That’s who!

Part 1:

How many years have you heard phrases like?

  • You/I don’t have that kind of luck.
  • No education, you can’t do that.
  • You’re too fat.
  • You’re too skinny.
  • You’re not part of that social group.
  • Oh, honey, why don’t you lower your sights to something more realistic.

From as many years ago as you’re able to remember we’ve all heard the limiting phrases getting stuffed into our mind.

What is being communicated to you is, “If I can’t do you surely cannot.” By well-meaning parents, family, friends, and other well-wishers. So, if these lovely people are telling me this, it must be true. NO, not only NO; HELL NO!

The only person on this planet that knows whether YOU can do anything is YOU! It does not matter what your Mom, Dad, Grandmother, Friend, Boss, has to say about what you can do. The ONLY person that knows is your period!

People close to you will naturally want you to play it safe. None of us want to see a friend hurt. Who the heck says you must hurt? I’m not shouting at the top of my lungs “oh God, don’t write the first Novel you failed English literature.”

Again, I go back to the systematic brainwashing society shoves down our brain. How many folks have completed Marathons in wheelchairs or with lost limbs? Hundreds if not thousands. Why Choice! The choice NOT to allow something horrific to bring them down.

Mediocrity is a disease of the mind. It’s a cure; “Choice!”

Part 2:

How to break free, so Choice comes at will.

  1. Meditation / Prayer: see yourself through this practice as free of limitation. That my life, my choice to see it through as a vessel of the Universe. Not some, “I don’t have this or that mentality.”
  2. Put the affirmation “Choice” Refrigerator, bathroom mirror, reminders on your phone daily.
  3. Learn to believe in yourself. Take the training wheels off your life. When you feel you can’t do something learn to ask yourself; who said! With enough training and knowledge, you can bloody well do anything you want!
  4. Practice, Practice, Practice! Do not give up or in at the first sign of difficulty. This is something you must want as much as air. We’ve all heard the businessman who asked a guru “how do I become successful,” the Guru replied, “meet me at the beach at 6:00 AM and don’t be late.” The next morning the businessman is on time, and the Guru takes him out into the water up to there chest. The Guru grabs the man and holds his head down in the water until the man was in great distress. Lifting the man out of the water, the businessman screams, “Why did you do that?” The Guru calmly replies, “When you want success as-bad-as, you wanted to breathe, then you will find success!”
  5. Gain knowledge. The reason people quit is insufficient knowledge. If people aren’t saying to you, “Wow, I have no idea you could do that.” If the wow factor is not WOW, then gain more knowledge. Become a voracious reader.

Nothing on God’s good earth prevents you from achieving anything. If you set your mind to something, trust that God will give you the knowledge, and move the Universe into alignment for you. Believe that as much as you want to breathe (like our Guru analogy).

All it takes is a choice. Your choice to stay status quo or your choice to live a life most would only dream about.

“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.”–Bradley Whitford

Questions or Comments:

 

 

Prayer it just Might be all you Have in the Moment

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

“It doesn’t matter how you pray. Just pray. All religions are beautiful, and they all have one common belief. There’s something bigger and greater than us that can give us and take from us life. It is better than the here and now.”–Mattie Stepanek  

Prayer often times all we have in our darkest moments. My belief when we have nothing but prayer to hang onto. This is God giving us his private number to call.

At this moment, don’t beg for what you need, don’t need something for you. What you need is God’s favor upon your life. We must learn gratitude in the face of total ruin. If you learn from the quote, take a moment to learn about Mattie Stepanek.

spiritual, pray, Jesus

This little boy died in 2004, but before this amazing lads final day, he left the world a much better place than he found it.

From Mattie’s website:

Mattie J.T. Stepanek, a well-respected poet, and award-winning peace activist lived a life that was brief in length but powerfully blessed with depth. Born on July 17, 1990, Mattie began creating and sharing Heartsongs at the young age of 3. He explained that Heartsongs are “gifts that reflect each person’s unique reason for being.”

Mattie ultimately published six collections of his Heartsongs poetry books and one collection of Just Peace essays and e-mail correspondence with Former President Jimmy Carter. All seven of Mattie’s books became New York Times Bestsellers and touched millions of lives around the world.

He died on June 22, 2004, due to complications of Dysautonomic Mitochondrial Myopathy. Visit Mattie’s website: http://www.mattieonline.com/

My point to all this is. No matter what life throws at you, and for this beautiful child, it was a lot. You can choose life, or you can roll up and die. No matter the circumstance in our own lives, we can go to God in prayer.

God knows what you need, so just tell him to thank you for bringing it to you. Be grateful. Yes, I can hear many of you saying this child Mattie died where God was in that? Beyond our comprehension, it was Mattie’s destiny (hugely painful loss) to go home. We will never understand the reason but will need to accept that while he was here, he touched many souls. His gifts live on in his books.

This child if anything taught us that no matter what this life throws at you; choose to live or want to die. It is a choice. This precious child decided to live.

Our stewardship of his legacy is that we follow our hearts in prayer just as Mattie spoke. As he said, “Just Pray!”

Just as Mattie died from a disease, we will never comprehend. You too may be suffering through something in your life beyond comprehension. Makes no sense and seems terribly unfair. On some level, it might be. The choice is ours how we choose to live. When we go to God in prayer, life will open up in ways, none of us expected. In a good idea!

Life can throw at us losses we will never comprehend. It’s our obligation to that loss, to live. It might hurt from time-to-time but live we must!

If you’re in pain, I pray that God gives you the wisdom, strength, and hope to see your way clear of the rocky shoals ahead. Once you clear them, you a free to navigate the seas open up for the next adventure.

God bless.

Are you Ready for a Good Life

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind, he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”–Buddha  

When you can focus your mind on the positive outcome of life. Then you have mastered the power of change! Don’t worry about the how-to focus that which you desire is already here. Feel it, see it in your mind’s eye and know that feeling. The how will come!

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