God-Given Tools For Stress

We have to have some stress in our lives to keep going forward. However, when we have too many negatives in too short a period of time, our stress level greatly increases! I have been watching how I react to major changes in my life. First, I hold myself together to take care of and help others. I encourage others, love others, and help others. When I was in my early 30’s, my mother died. I did great helping my Dad until I left Oklahoma City and started home. While driving, I became so sick that I had to stop in New Mexico for two hours at a relatives’ home before meeting Don and our children in Ruidoso. When I arrived, he took me straight to the hospital to get a shot to help me. I slept over twenty-four hours. I was 38 when Don died. I already had taken off six weeks to help him while he died. The funeral was over, and I felt pressure to get back to work. After all, Dawn and Johnny had to go to school, and I was now the sole supporter. Two years later came a five-year negative marriage and divorce. With the divorce over and still not believing that I made such a mistake, I went to bed and did not awaken for over 24 hours! Now Pearce died, the brother that we helped out of diabetic reactions in the middle of the night, in the daytime, anywhere that we discovered him “out.” It was non-stop until the funeral and stayed non-stop with all that had to be done following the funeral. Again, I was forced to look back to myself and take care of myself, because after two weeks of non-stop, I had problems! Between John’s eye surgery on June 10th, which was stressful enough, and then his brother’s unexpected death on June 11th, I held myself together again for two weeks before becoming ill. With too much stress, our immune system suffers. How could I be sick?

I had to drive John to many appointments! I knew what I had to do. I encouraged others to do this in seminars for years. First, balance me every morning by doing prayer and at least ten minutes of meditation or by reading something inspirational for ten minutes, then pay attention to what I was putting in my mouth. Was it junk food that we are all tempted to use when stressed or healthy snacks? I needed to force myself to go toward health, lessen my caffeine intake, regain more balance in my life, and allow God to take over how to do some things rather than me. In other words. Later in the day, I would sit down and make prayers rather than running all over, I could get out of God’s way, and God/Spirit/Angels could help us with all we still had to do. Eventually, I went to see my doctor and followed the doctor’s orders. It has now been two weeks of being sick, and I am finally better since I got the crud. I feel like me again

Since I strongly believe in the “power of prayer,” so I easily turned to prayer. I pray every day for everyone else. Suddenly realizing John and I were at the bottom of my prayers, I moved John and myself to the top of the list for healing his eye and getting rid of my nasty, nasty cough. I also consciously watched every word being said in my prayers for the two of us and others. There is power in every word we say and every thought we have, so I also became more focused on positive, healing thoughts, words, and visual pictures when praying for us and everyone else. These are only a few of the God-given tools I used. I watched for signs as to what to do to help my Self.

We had so much to do, and we had stopped watching movies in the evening and relaxing. The television had not been turned on “at all” for three weeks. Finally, we picked out a movie we knew nothing about to watch. Would it be good? Who knows! The messages in it were great! There was no coincidence that this movie is what we picked, but what was my sign? Was I to be more grateful? Was I to release negativity? The movie we watched was titled “The Dreamseller” on Netflix. There was one line in it that movie John and I both loved. It is “The first to benefit from forgiveness is the one who forgives. Not the forgiven.” That immediately took me into our past and into some of the healing ceremonies that we attended. The person requesting the healing was always asked, “Is there anyone that you need to forgive or anyone you still resent?” If the answer was yes, the medicine person said that he would reschedule the remainder of the healing until the person receiving the healing took the time to take care of “his or her forgiveness and resentment of the person mentioned.” “When you let that go, releasing the negativity in you, we will complete this healing.” I always returned to watch the healing be complete and the miracles following the healing. Others not willing to let go of resentment or forgive sometimes improved, but I did not see the complete healing like took place with those who went to work on releasing negativity. John and I loved that movie so much that we watched it completely again the following night to stop feeling resentment within. If you decide to watch, listen to the words carefully and read the subtitles. It does have subtitles, but it is so worth watching!

How can one release the resentment towards someone that hurt them badly with their words and what they did in your life? When I was hurt and felt some resentment towards a person, I had a mentor suggest to me, “Get on your knees every day and pray for that person that hurt you and that you resent. Ask every morning first thing for what you want for you that day, only ask it for the person you are angry with that hurt you, not you.” I put the shoes I was to wear under my bed, so I would have to get on my knees in the morning. (Today, I use a chair rather than get on my knees.) I could hardly get the words out initially, praying for someone that hurt me so badly. A short time went by. I began to feel different. Slowly, every muscle in my body changed when I said my prayer, and I eventually felt peace within, which later brought peace without. At the end of thirty days, I put her in the God Box. All negativity was gone, and I could wait to see the results. I watched the change in her! Today, we are great friends. I had practice, especially with that bad marriage. Now I do it when need be.

I also knew that I needed to re-energize to keep going because there is still so much to do. Sometimes we have to step back and re-energize. We have a perfect example of prayer and stepping back in the Bible with Jesus. How could I do this? Before getting sick, I went into every meeting with John everywhere he wanted to go. I answered the phone and talked on the phone all day sometimes. That takes energy also! For the last two weeks, except for one of his doctor’s appointments, I remained in the car and did nothing while he took care of his business. A great time to pray! I created positive thoughts for both of us and prayed for us and others. For instance, I visualized a strong tree? Do you know that you can go to a tree when you get frustrated or angry, place your hand on its bark, and give the tree your anger? Think about it being “The Giving Tree.”

Visualize moving the negativity within you out, through the tree, on up to the top, and disperse for those in Heaven to help you heal. I have done that at several gatherings. I also have done it before some talks. Some find me strange! Ha! Focusing on nature, season changes, etc., which we often follow without paying attention, I realized that today we are all in the heat of summer, halfway through the year. This is a good time to work on relationships close to you or changes to make when the leaves fall off the trees. It is a great time to think about “Are there any beliefs that are no longer working in my life that has been passed down to me? “Are there any perspectives about life I need to change? What irritates me that I can release? What fears do I have that I need to let go of? Do I need to reduce the time I spend on my iPad or watch television or video games instead of relationships in person? I can do all the things I know to increase faith in my life (meditate, personal prayer life, use my God Box more, make prayer ties). Perhaps this will give me the courage to be true to myself at all times and pay more attention to what I value in life.

Remember what I said in an earlier blog. With every loss, my faith became stronger due to what I learned. The spiritual part of Self increased. Each loss taught me so much! I learned more about flowing and waiting to see what God/Spirit brought next. I have been with money in my past and without money, feeling like I had many friends and then feeling alone in life. I have had life turn upside down on me and then put into divine order. I used everything I could to help me remain positive about possibilities that will come in the future. This helped me stop pushing against the stream and taught me to flow more through life rather than forcing it, trying to control it, or meet everyone else’s expectations of me. Instead, I could still set goals and allow everything to happen in its own time. I learned more about how to flow, giving God and Spirit time to create and do the work while I did my part to gently and carefully step forward!

Life today is amazing. John and I started life over again together. My life with John is fantastic. We have amazing friends. Our children are wonderful. We love our relatives, all of them. All of this came after those stepping stones of loss taught me so much, and I finally spent the time to “look within” for peace so that I could bring “peace without” for me and hopefully be a guide for others. Our security is within, not without. Our treasure from Heaven is also within, not without. It is not money. We each have it within! When found, one can be happy with or without and can go through a negative in a new way!

LESSON: Learn to appreciate the negative and the positive! Take steps to release what is negative. Watch for “your” signs. The more you listen and spend time gaining inspiration from what you, yourself, hear through others and dreams or a Holy Book, or through an amazing thought that comes to you. Listen for God/Jesus/Spirit. You may get a “literal sign” on a highway that speaks to a thought you have been thinking. Pay attention is the lesson! Watch what happens in your life as the season changes, as a loss takes place. Watch it all! Soon you will appreciate the negative as well as the positive, and all will be well again.

GIFTS:

I received major reminders that I “must” go back to the basics of what I have done to relieve stress.

I got well, and John is slowly getting better. He does not have Chron’s disease. Prayers we all have said works. Thank you! Those many prayers were a huge gift! Please keep those prayers up. He is still the one-eyed John and cannot yet see out of the eye he had surgery on!

My gift was a surprise that so many people commented on the blog about “it”! Amazing that so many are now reading my blog. I heard from relatives, friends, and people that I did not know! My prayer has been from the beginning that my grandchildren will eventually read my blog and that this blog will perhaps touch someone’s life.

Grateful for my life and for yours!