“Life’s challenges strengthen us mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, just like a good workout strengthens us physically.” -Jody Moore
Life includes days, weeks, and sometimes years with challenges.
What if we stopping thinking “something isn’t right?” What if it was always meant to be this way?
My kids are getting older, in fact 4 of them are teenagers. When they were young they all wanted to help mom make cookies, have a movie night, or go to the park or on vacation (all of us-together-all the time).
I remember when my oldest started having a different opinion…
“I don’t want to watch that movie; I’d rather play a video game.”
I was hurt! “Wait! You don’t want to be with us anymore? You don’t love us like you used to?”
My brain was screaming, “you’re going to lose him!”
Didn’t he know we were supposed to be his number one priority forever and that we’d always have a great time? –lol
For many years, I had to practice calming down my panicked brain and tell it a new story.
“I wasn’t losing my son; he was growing up and doing what teenagers do…focusing on relationships with his friends more than his siblings.”
My brain still doesn’t love this… and I have 4 teenagers doing this now.
See, the brain resists when things don’t go the way we planned, or someone doesn’t react the way we thought they should.
It wants things to happen in predictable ways that have been planned…
But sometimes life doesn’t turn out that way… (especially if you have teenagers who make their own plans without consulting your plans –lol)
And the brain RESISTS!
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Resistance is NOT not liking one idea so you search for a new idea.
Resistance IS when we refuse to acknowledge reality.
We “get bossy and tell it like it is”, we try to control, we get mad and manipulate others, we ignore and pretend it’s not happening, we delay…
Our brain thinks this is useful and that we can somehow prevent it by resisting…
But it doesn’t.
Resistance doesn’t prevent challenges, it just creates more negative emotion around the negative emotion we already have (which often creates more challenges for us).
It slows us down and causes us to feel even more burdened or hurt (my most recent example of this coming up).
I know it feels useful, but it actually blocks our ability to move forward.
Resisting that I have 4 teenagers who like to do their own things instead of hang out with their cool mom, doesn’t make me feel better. They still do their own thing and I feel hurt, because they choose friends over me.
This causes emotional suffering for me.
Thankfully, I eventually remember the solution…
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This is what resistance looked like in my life recently…
This month I delayed writing this month’s posts to the last possible moment-lol.
I knew it was going to challenge my brain (it always does)…
And I resisted writing.
I kept telling myself, “I’ll do it next week,” then, “tomorrow,” until there were no more tomorrows.
This caused me to feel an excessive amount of overwhelm and stress for two weeks.
I prioritized other “important” things before writing.
I schedule in a time to write, and ignored that scheduled time.
I ate foods that wouldn’t support my brains extra thinking power, and guess what?
Got a mild stomach flu for a few days (yes, this can even effect your physical health).
I knew I would write these posts, it’s one of my goals.
But resisting seemed like a better option for a while.
When I finally embraced that it would take me the better part of two days to write this month’s set of posts…
I mourned the time I wanted to spend doing other things.
I locked myself in my room so I wouldn’t get distracted.
I wore a red shirt, on purpose, to help me stay grounded and keep me focused.
I reminded myself of my goals that I love…
And how I love helping you all learn how to think more consciously.
I took a deep breath and started writing…
Sometimes when I write, the Lord gives me challenges like this to teach me the very principle I am trying to write about. I don’t always love it, but I can still see His hand in the journey and I know He’s helping me. When it’s all done, I look back and what I’ve learned and my relationship with Him has grown and I love that!
