Thursday, August 04, 2011

Winning Victory Over Your Most Challenged Day

I recently wrote a post on "Tenacity". When I wrote this post, I had a huge breakthrough of my attitude towards life and how to replace haunting bad thoughts to powerful thoughts of victory. From that day forward, in spite of any odds, I have felt like a super hero knocking down every strong hold that I faced.

The ultimate test came just a few days ago. I will tell you that what happened to me knocked me down. I felt like I had been in the ring with my component and the referee was counting down as I was dead off my feet. In spite of the blow, somehow, I refused to let this situation take over my thoughts. Defeat, discouragement and anger was among the many emotions I was facing. This huge blow just did not allow my brain to stop rehearsing over and over the event that brought me down. In spite of trying to force myself to not allow this to take over me, I will say, it was nearly impossible.

Then, the thing that really was out right aggravating is to think how THIS event would STEAL my victory. I refused to go to bed that night without getting some resolution to my situation. I began to google things like, overcoming negative thinking, what to do when you have been wronged, were some among many. Then, wow, I ran across a super powerful article full of scriptures and written by a doctor that gave me my answer. Here is an excerpt of that article:

Practice Mindfulness: This is the concept of letting go of any thought that is unrelated to the present moment and finding something to enjoy in the present moment. Most people do not live well in the present moment; they are always wishing for a different moment in the past when things were happier or simpler, or wishing for a moment in the future when they think they can be happy, such as by getting a promotion, getting out of debt, or buying a new house. Find something enjoyable to focus on in the immediate moment all throughout the day, such as the warmth of the sun, the breeze, music. During breaks at work, don’t think about goals or projects; enjoy your cup of coffee or a magazine. If a stressful thought comes to mind, choose to move on to a thought that is related to what you are presently seeing, hearing, smelling, or feeling that is pleasant. Instead of complaining about what you don’t have, be grateful for what you do have, air conditioning in your house or a car to get to work. Dr. Colbert suggests that his patients go for a walk or go to the zoo to practice focusing on all that can be enjoyed in a moment.

In 2 Cor. 10:5, “Pull down imaginations …and carry every thought away into captivity and make it obedient to Christ.” In other words, do not allow your thoughts to control you. Control them by putting out of your mind ones that are not beneficial to your mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual health. God then instructs us to replace negative thoughts with good ones, “Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy, think of these things (Phil. 4:8).”

Bottom line, "live in the moment". Haven't you heard of that one? Number one: we become so focused on the past, or in my case, what just happened. Secondly, we are focusing on the future, training our minds to visualize what we want. These two things prevents us to live in the present.

When I began to think in that moment, of all I had all around me, and be grateful for THAT moment, my spirit began to lift out of the pits that had been pulling me down. What an amazing experience I had when I realized the power of living in the moment.