Affirming Out of Overwhelm Prayerfully

As I breathe I step through and out of each piece of work, responsibility, project, desire, doubt, pain, sickness, resistance, and tension through a prayerful, centered, grounded, relaxed, energized and mindful attitude. Thoughts of procrastination, hesitation, unconfidence, and most importantly fear are distant memories as I hold hands with God and let him lead the way.

A daily affirmation - Serving out of Gratitude

I am calm and confident because I am a saved child of God. I serve out of gratitude for my Lord's gift of forgiveness for me and serve in the confidence that I have eternal life through him.

Response to project anxiety

Stop, do not worry, you are God's child. Rejoice in being here and able to work and be happy for the challenge of a difficult project. Look forward to the harder projects, it means you are worthy and it means you can do it. You would not have been chosen to do a project you are incapable of.
Stop worrying, stop second guessing and stop asking for validation.
I am great!
I am am confident!
and I can do it!

Smile big

Remember to smile big and smile often when people are there and when they are not. Smile at God and rejoice in the smile you get back from him all the time.

Prayerful affirmation for a more loving prayerful day

I am God's child and the people I interact with are also God's children. Love them by listening to them and making that moment about them. Stay with God in prayer and live your day trusting God's glorious will!

Some tools from my Daily routine

Over the last few years there are a number of techniques I have implemented into my daily routine that have helped me with anxiety, productivity, and overall sanity. I keep track of these in Microsoft Outlook and maintain them mostly every day.

Daily Devotional

I want to fill my life with the Lord’s word and stay in it but I find it very hard to keep a Bible on me and when I do I find myself going numb to having it and not making the time to read it. My solution, I added a daily task in outlook to read a daily devotion http://www.lhm.org/dailydevotions.asp and to read a daily bible verse at http://www.biblegateway.com
This has helped me stay active in the word and helps me to make it a part of my life.

Daily reminder

This is simply a task with a list of things to be cognizant about all the time. The items are simple:

• Remember to smile
• Remember to affirm your day (you have an affirmation note category)
• Remember, God's grace is enough and you don't have to worry about this world, just love the people in it.
• Remember, you can always go somewhere else to work for a while if you can't concentrate.

I also have items specific to work, twitter, etc. I read this daily so I try to keep it down to about 4 or 5 items and I update it every day adding new reminders and removing things that have already become habits. This list becomes useful to keep me centered and give me inspiration for Twitter and the Blog.

Gratitude Journal

Every day I write 5 things I am grateful for. This was a practice suggested by my good friend (and big Sis in Christ) Tara Rodden Robinson. This helps me to stay positive, focus on God’s will for me, and it has helped me to remember that even things that have seemed unpleasant in the past have always resulted in good for me.

Daily Affirmation

Every day I write a few words in a note in Outlook affirming what wild success for the day would look like. I close my eyes and imagine myself at the end of the day and I write about how wonderful it is to have experienced what ever joyful thing I envision at the time. I don’t believe for a second that positive thoughts like this make anything happen but I do believe that it keeps me focused, outcome based, and helps me to think in terms of present action towards future goals.

Do you live for the days when your ketchup flows freely?

At lunch today I had some french fries and poured my ketchup and thought, "Wow, this sure poured out easy today, I didn't have to do anything to the bottle to force the ketchup to pour any faster than a perfect, steady, free pour". And I got to thinking how this compares to how a lot of us view life.

Are we disappointed when life doesn't flow freely? When we turn the ketchup bottle and it doesn't come on it's own and it needs to be shaken, hit, or helped with a knife to free the ultimate companion to french fries? I digress, life can be tough. Sometimes life requires hard work and it isn't easy. There will always be goals and projects that we have to work hard to get through it. Anything worth working for is 80% negative gain and 20% positive gain. But that 20% gain is 100% gratifying. So I choose to live for the days that life isn't easy, that I have to grab it and shake it and work to get it moving in the direction I want.

I live for the days that I have to work to get what I want out of life and I am thankful for the days it flows freely.

Taking the world in with good humor

Today for my daily affirmation I am visualizing myself as quiet and confident and taking the world in with good humor.

In my minds eye I am smiling, my breath is traveling deeply, slowly and gradually and as I breath I am moving through my work without haste, without stress but with a sense of urgency based on my values. I am quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, and quick to smile. I am living for God, not for people and I am showing it in my actions; it feels sublime.

Even after writing this affirmation I feel lighter and I feel enthusiastic about the day. I feel as if anything can happen and I will smile and relax because I know God is in charge.

More of a prayer

After reading my daily devotion this morning I spoke the prayer from the devotion.

Dear Lord Jesus, may I do all I can to help people avoid the devil's tourist trap of hell. Make me Your witness. In Your Name. Amen.

After praying I thought this isn't enough! When I have opportunities to witness I:

1. Don't see them
2. Chicken out
3. Decide to talk about something else
4. Don't want to and decide not to

What i realized is, when I pray these kinds of prayers to do the lord's will I don't really want what I am praying for. This prayer is a prayer that I think the Lord wants to hear so I pray it.

Here is the Holy Spirit inspired prayer I followed up with:

Dear Lord, please do more than that, please help to kindle a desire in my heart to be a witness, help rewrite the filter of my mind to see witnessing opportunities. Help me to have greater understanding to what witnessing is help me to want it and to live it. Dear Lord I love you and confess that I am sinful and want for this world, not you. Please lord fill me with a fire to do your will, help me to live in prayer and stay focused on your word, your will, what you want! Help me to want what you want, be who you want, and stay that way! Thank you for filling me with your spirit Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

Being ok with being overwhelmed.

The free online dictionary defines overwhelm as :

1. To surge over and submerge; engulf: waves overwhelming the rocky shoreline.
2.
a. To defeat completely and decisively: Our team overwhelmed the visitors by 40 points.
b. To affect deeply in mind or emotion: Despair overwhelmed me.
3. To present with an excessive amount: They overwhelmed us with expensive gifts.
4. To turn over; upset: The small craft was overwhelmed by the enormous waves.

As I read this I can definitely relate. With a large amount of work, relationship, family, and other pressures of responsiblities I often have felt like I am burried, drowning, or upset or turned over. The big part of this definition that jumps out as me is:

2b. - To affect deeply in mind or emotion.

Being overwhelmed tends to be viewed with negative connotation but let's view it from this definition. If I am affected deeply in mine or emotion is this neccesarily bad? Bad news could affect me deeply but I could view this as a gift. If I have a lot coming at me and feel that I am getting too much too fast this is the time to step back and if I am affected deeply I will definitely notice that nudge.

Here is an activity I find helps when feeling overwhelmed:

1. I stop - I stop what I am doing, I give myself permission to completely stop, I let go of trying to think, do, or act on anything. Just for a moment, if I do this for 1-5 minutes it will be worth it and I have won.
2. I focus on my breath - I do this gently and simply notice how my breath feels, if my attention is taken from my breath I bring it back to it by simply noticing what my attention to and noticing if i am breathing in or out in the cycle.
3. After 5 or so breaths I start to simply notice the physical feelings of my body. I notice my tensions, my pains, and anything else inside. I treat it like a mental body scan from the top of my head to my toes. I don't try to do anything about these ailments. I just notice them.
4. I slow my breath and focus on long deep breaths, I imagine all the energy that all my ailments in my body are taking up letting go with each breath. I don't try to let go of the ailments, just the energy.
5. I say a prayer and ask for God's will in my life in this matter.

Does this always work completely? yes in that it gives me a cornerstone on perspective. I wouldn't say it is a miracle cure for all anxiety in my life but it is a good tool for dealing with the things that overwhelm me.

Natural planning model - another tool for fighting resistance

I was walking through my daily checklist today and noticed for the past few days I have been going numb to my gratitude journal and my daily affirmation. I was getting to the point where I looked at those items and went "ugh, I am fine, I don't really need to do these, I am grateful, my days are going well, I don't need them." I shot an e-mail to @tararodden who suggested I mix things up a bit, maybe reword my affirmations as questions, switch to a different model for the gratitude journal (Thanks for the help Tara, you really helped me, you are an awesome coach!) and that triggered my BFO!

I wasn't present I was caught up in working on my lists and not focused on the original purpose of my daily items. I needed to re-enter the basic building blocks of what I was trying to do in the first place. So I delved into the natural planning model.

I questioned:

What are the purpose and principles of the daily task in question?
I stated what the original purpose was; for example I started the daily gratitude journal to help keep me present and aware of the blessings in my life.
I then stated what purposes it formed as I practiced it:
It kept me in perspective as I was brought to focus on things I formerly thought as negative in my life but now would never change. It has helped me to stay prayerful which ties into my current purpose statement bingo, value. No longer numb!

I quickly came up withe a new desired outcome followed by some fast brainstorming, organization and I now know how to reorganize my tasks to keep them vibrant.

My advice here is if going numb to any process in GTD, your system, your projects, etc, try reviewing it with the natural planning model, you can fall upon breakthroughs in your projects and get more creative, creating even better work.

Thanks for the idea of rewording my affirmations as questions Tara, I am implementing that into my daily affirmation.

Twitter – is there value in it?

About a month ago I decided to sign up for a twitter account (1/26 to be exact after reading about it on @TaraRodden’s blog) and it has been enlightening. I had resisted Twitter for a long time because I thought it would be a waste of time. After reading Tara’s Post which showed examples of how twitter can bring you more in touch with your friends and lead to more mindful working, I figured I would give it a trial run. After signing up, it searched my Gmail address book and told me that several people I already knew were on it and following their conversations lead me to even more people. I then needed a way to post from my Blackberry and to link twitter to my Facebook account; after a quick google search I found Twitterberry and Facebook Twitter.

What do post on twitter?

• What I am doing (When it is appropriate)
• How I am doing (Prayer, energy level)
• What I want (Affirmations)

What do I read on twitter?

• The last few posts when I feel like looking at them (I do not have a built in agreement to check all updates all the time so Twitter has not become an IN (Thanks for the advice @gtdguy).
• Replies to me (This has become an IN)
• DM’s to me (This has become an IN as well)
• Sometimes I check http://search.twitter.com/ for #hashtags of my interests #GTD, #Photography, #prayer, #meditation

What value do I get out of twitter?

• It keeps me in touch with my friends
• It keeps me in touch with people I have wanted to form friendships but time, busyness, etc had gotten in the way.
• It helped my blog by keeping my short observations and ideas on twitter leaving deeper and more meaningful topics to the blog
• It helps keep me accountable and encourages me to be better

How does twitter help keep me accountable?

This is something I just stumbled onto. I noticed that a lot of my friends were posting what they were working on, where they were in GTD, prayers, etc so I started to do the same. I immediately started getting massive amounts of encouragement back from my friends. This was amazing! I would get a real boost out of the support and comments from my existing friends and new friends who stumbled up the given tweet somehow.

If I posted I was struggling with something immediately I would get advice and encouragement back. If I posted a blog that I wasn’t really excited about someone would get excited about it and post me something on twitter. This has been amazing for my motivation and helps me feel accountable for my writing, photography, and personal growth; my friends want me to succeed and I don’t want to let them down!

Where do I see twitter going?

I believe twitter will continue to do what it has been doing and I am happy with that. It will continue to:

• Bring me into contact with new people
• Keep me in touch with my friends and potential friends
• Encourage my writing and personal growth
• Surprising me

I just want to end this with a big thank you to my new big sister Tara for introducing me to Twitter, you posted that at just the right time! Twitter is an awesome tool that if used correctly can result in great networking, great friendships, true interdependance.

Surrendering exercise

Breathe in to fill your lower abdomen, then your chest, fill your entire body with energy. Focus on stretching the energy all the way to your fingertips. Close your eyes and purse your lips and blow silently. Blow gently and silently like you are trying to push an invisible bubble, visualize it moving as you breath all the air out, bow your back and pull inward into a stretch as you keep going and draw your abdomen in and get it all. Then close your mouth and let go surrender to your body and let it breath in when it wants to, when you breath in, stretch out your arms, look up, arch your back and breath out your mouth in a long hard sigh.

Obsessive thoughts - an affirmation

Let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, letting it go, it's gone.



p.s. when obsessing, try not to obsess over obsessing.

Dealing with Mistakes

I googled dealing with mistakes this morning and found a lovely article by Rick Brenner at ChocoCanyon.com. I did this as a next action to my project "Learn to accept my mistakes" and while reading came across a wonderful bit of wisdom:

Converting rules to more forgiving guidelines is very helpful. A more reasonable guideline might be something like "I do my best not to make mistakes, and I'm human."

And it helps to reframe mistakes. In many ways, mistakes can actually be gifts in disguise. Here are a few gifts that sometimes come along with mistakes:

• If you realize that you've made a mistake, it wasn't fatal.
• Every mistake is an opportunity to practice owning up to mistakes.
• The earlier you find out about a mistake, the more time you have to do something about it.
• Your mistakes are a service to your community — everyone around you feels better about their own fallibility.
• What you were actually trying to do might have been even worse than the mistake you made.

I do My Best not to make mistakes and I am human! This is my affirmation for the day! I have been so burdened to try to be ok with mistakes but I don't necessarily have to be ok about them, just be ok with being someone who can make them. I was fighting the wrong monster!

A content affirmation

I have sat here through wonderful things and smile and thank the Lord, I love my life and am thankful for it. I love everything good and bad and am thankful for it because nothing is bad it is all good.

Embracing Annoyances

Embrace what is annoying me, maybe it is exactly what I am supposed to be paying attention to and the annoyance is just resistance trying to trick me.

Don't let the jack asses win

I was just chatting with my good buddy Matt about being open and trusting with people and how people aren’t always open for fear of getting hurt. His words:

“If you are not open to the nice people the jackasses win and I am too stubborn to let the jackasses win”

I am going to take his example and risk getting hurt a bit and be more trusting, let’s not let the jackasses win. 

Annoynances

Let go of the things that annoy me, I have been choosing to have them annoy me, let's choose to be entertained by them instead.

Leave it with God

Don't be annoyed or anxious…let go…leave it in God's hands. Do I trust God? Yes, he has never let me down before and has come through for me numerous times in miraculous ways. Leave it in God's hands, you trust God, rest in him.