Gratitude

Since cutting off my cable, coming upon my 27th birthday, and watching the 20th anniversary of Oprah’s show (I have it on DVD……LOL), I came across a segment that featured “Gratitude” and how she started a gratitude journal. These pass couple of months (well actually this pass year) a lot of things has happen to me and I see myself changing in ways I never imagined. I have always been the type of person who looked at the negative instead of the positive. Things are happening to people around me that I need to be more thankful for the life I have.

So for those reasons on Sunday I started a “gratitude journal”. EVERYDAY (well at least I am going to try to do it everyday) I plan to write FIVE THINGS I am grateful for. (Not on the blog of course, I want this to be very personal and use this to build up my spirituality)

That's all folks........

Quote of the day

"If you are going to worry, why pray. If you are going to pray, why worry."

Complainer

Day 36 of 40

You know how there are some people in the world that you hate to see coming because they ALWAYS complaining about something? I hate to say it, but I think that person is me. Okay…….I know that person is me. LOL! I complain entirely too much, and it is sad when you yourself is the one who realize it.

It always starts off innocently, I could be talking about something and I will find the negative in it. Complaining is a part of most my daily exchanges. I even use complaints as icebreakers.

However even though I have a lot of stuff to work on in my life, compared to others (especially in this recession and holiday period) I am doing pretty good.

I am healthy and able bodied.
I have a warm and safe place to sleep at night.
I have family and a few friends I can depend on.
I have a reliable car that can take me from A to B.
I have a job that provides income to live off of and to take care of necessary expenses.
I have food to eat.

After realizing that I needed to stop surrounding myself around negative people and/or individuals who are not trying to better themselves, I had to take a look at myself. I thought, “What is it about me that makes me want to be around these people or why do they want to be around me?” “How can I bring more positive people in my life?”

Well it starts with me!

Sunday at church, the preacher made it quite clear. If it is one thing that God does not like, it is a complainer. He can tolerate/forgive you when He sees you TRYING, but if you are just giving up and complaining about the situation without doing anything about it, well that is just UNACCEPTABLE.

How can I complain about my living situation when some people do not know where they will lay their head tomorrow or if they will even have a home?

How can I complain about being lonely because I am not in a relationship when I have friends and family who I KNOW I can trust 100% and they will never let me down?

How can I complain about my job and boss when over a million people have lost their jobs and do not know where the next meal will come from?

I am starting to wonder how many things have I missed out on in life because of my complaining.

Instead of looking at the each negative point in your life, take the time to look at it in a positive light.

I NEED TO BE MORE GRATEFUL.

God created each and every one of us with free will. That means that we choose our thoughts and I (and you) do not have to accept every negative thought/image that comes to mind.

So starting today, I am making a conscious effort to not complain (and whine because I am good at that also). It will be an extremely hard task for me, but it is an important step to take in my quest for spiritual and mental growth!

FOUR MORE DAYS AND THE DETOX WILL BE COMPLETE!!!

I have so much to share.

Detox for the mind, body, and soul - PART ONE

Day 6 of 40

Since turning 26, I've found myself becoming much more reflective and serious about my life. Not that I wasn’t before, but now in a much lucid perspective. Nor am I taking myself too seriously, but I’m starting to notice how much more aware I am of myself, my thoughts, relationships with others, career, path and purpose. I feel that I am sort of grieving and putting away my young self. Nevertheless I am extremely excited and deathly afraid of what is in store.

I am always searching out for women older than me to get their perspective on life and ask did they go through the same things at this age and stage. When I hear all these amazing stories of women truly finding themselves in their 40’s and 50’s, I am like, “Dang! Am I going to be crazy for another 15 years?!”

So here I am trying to gain some knowledge to get me through these twenties, and all they can say is, “Girl your 20’s are going to be some of the best and worst times of your life.” The majority of them felt that their 20’s were so hard for them and life gets so much better in your 30’s and up.

Last week as I was getting dress for work, I looked in the mirror and thought, I’m grown!

I finally believe that I am coming into my own. Meaning I know what makes me happy and I want to try and find ways to achieve those things NOW so that I can become a truly happy and content woman.

My passion for history, writing (regardless if I think I am good or not) and entrepreneurship has been weighing heavy on me that I feel like I am suffocating from it. How can I turn my passions into some kind of reality? I have ton of ideas, but currently I am living in a reality where I am extremely in debt, living with a relative and wanting my own place, working a job that does not appreciate my skills and experience with crappy pay, wanting a man-but knowing I do not NEED a man in my life right now, and most importantly trying to achieve a goal that I know deep down inside is not a dream I dream for myself anymore. AHHHHHH!!!!!

With all of this going on in my head, I came to the conclusion that I need to detoxify my mind, body, and soul.

On Monday, November 10, 2008, I started my 40 day detox. The reason I picked the number 40 was because in the bible it means completion/perfect. Instead of starting January first, I decided to start as soon as possible. In my opinion the number 40 represents a proficiency of time that is long enough or large enough to remove doubt; long enough and large enough to prove God's point.

I just want a greater sense of well being, break some bad habits, let go of past failures and regrets. I know that I will not find all my answers in this period, but I would love to start a new year off at a different place.

I keep/kept fighting myself about taking this route. Nevertheless I knew that I had to do something because I am not happy with anything these days. I have this constant state of anxiousness and fear. I am unsatisfied with my looks (these damn 15 pounds UGHHH), I always feel bloated (because of the horrible foods that I consume), I cannot sleep or I am sleeping my days away, and I am always tired and restless to the point of not wanting to do anything, much less read, work on my business, and/or blog. I cannot keep focus or concentrate on anything except the damn television. Basically I just feel “blah” 24/7.

Someone told me that if I want optimum performance, I will need to put optimum nourishment in my mind, body and soul.

The following things are being eliminated while on the detox:

Limited or no TV

No cold drinks (soda to you city folks) - basically Coca-cola because I drink it like water.

Fried foods

McDonalds (10 piece nugget meal)

Dairy products and sugar

Processed food

Meat (Lord help us all! LOL)

Sex/masturbation

The following things are being included in my life permanently:

Walking at least 5 days a week for 30 minutes

Doing YOGA

Water!!!! - This will be hard because I HATE water.

Meditation

I started off slow. The first week was basically getting a new routine for sleeping. Trying to obtain 8 hours of sleep. Instead of my usually 4-6 weekdays/10-12 weekends. Last week I also started drinking a bottle of smart water a day. Slowly trying to move away from Cokes.

This week is my FIVE day major food detox. Meaning nothing but water, fruits and veggies, maybe some grill fish, limited TV (2-3 days), meditation, yoga, and walking all five days. Today is day one and I miss coke and television sooo much!!!! However it is for the better good.

I will keep you all posted.

Spiritual Sunday -- Praying for my future husband

This is not one of those, “Please God send me a man!” prayers. I am not ASKING for a man, more of me praying for the man I KNOW is coming into my life. I have faith that God is going to bring my “Godly Man” to me, but I just want to pray for him. God completely knows my future husband already. He knows his thoughts, struggles, triumphs, fears, and failures. So if I am praying daily for myself to become a better child of God, I feel that it only right for me to do this for my future mate. By praying for him, I am seeing that things can change for me. I see myself trying to become a better person, and a better child of God. I want to obtain a purer heart, all this in preparation for him, my future husband. For that reason, I will be making this a daily commitment.

It’s the least I can do (pray for him) because the person God has chosen for me is probably facing struggles just like me. So I will pray that God bless him and his family, order his day, encourage him in the Lord (want him to love God more than me), and in some way know that his future mate (me of course! LOL) is out there getting herself ready for him.

For example:
“God please watch over him today, bless his family and true friends.” God I ask that you give him strength to live each day to the fullest and continue to strive to be a better child to You. Please provide him with the strength to be able to resist worldly desires so that he can live in THIS world, but not OF it.”

I also pray for a Godly understanding of what a real relationship/marriage is suppose to be. For someone who I can be better with and we can help each other grow spiritually. I want me and my mate to be equally yoke. Meaning I want him to be on the level I am or above. Meaning all the superficial things I used to ask for is going out the window. God knows what I am attractive to and I trust that whomever God put in my life I will be attractive to him. So why must we ask for physical features when we are asking God for a mate? With me offering my thoughts and prayers to God, I want to set my heart and mind on a completely different track. Instead of being upset/depress about not having a mate, I want to be excited/have anticipation about my “relationship”. Because even though it does not exist at the moment, I KNOW that it’s going to happen (again at His perfect timing), and I KNOW that it will be worth the wait!!

I also made a list of things that were important to me, things I considered important characteristics/qualities for my future mate to have. I placed it in my Bible and handed it over to God. If God does not bring this man I described on paper to me, it will be okay. I will be happy with whatever God wills me in this life time. When you give yourself, along with your problems and concerns to God, and also honor Him, He will give back to you one-hundred fold!! So I am going to pray for your future mate and his intentions, then just wait for God to bring this individual into my life.

Spiritual Sunday -- Organized religion versus Spirituality

1. Love God with all my heart, body, and soul. Place no other person, place, and/or thing before Him.
2. Treat and love my neighbor as I would want to be treated and/or love.
3. Know that and truly believe that Jesus died for our sins.
4. Abide by the law of the land provided by the local and federal government.

If I am doing all these things, aren’t I living a “saved Christian” life? Where does “organized religion” fit in? Am I more of a spiritual person rather than a religious person? In my opinion, SPIRITUALITY is born in a person and develops in the person (of course by God). We all have it, whether we know or practice it. It’s really simple: We want to be happy and live a "good" life, and we want to be "good" and do the right things. True spirituality is something that is found deep within oneself. It is your way of loving, accepting and relating to the world and people around you. However this does not mean that it can not be found in church. I myself have join and became very active in a wonderful church. See I found spirituality by religion and by revelation. As Oprah says, I had my “AH HA moment” lately.

So how does organized religion come into play (especially for me personally)? Well in my opinion, we develop questions that we feel and learned that as humans we to turn to an authority to tell us answers. So this was supposed to be the purpose and origin of religion. Organized Religion (in my opinion) is a man made, culture based set of guidelines that guides its people in the practice of spirituality. Organized Religion is a good thing that in some cases has had bad consequences on some individual’s spirituality (especially me). Meaning I do not think religion is bad, but that it is being applied in a bad way. With organized religion, I often take from it at times judgment, fear, gossip, trying to see what individuals have on, who came to church with someone, and a bunch of rules and rituals. However with spirituality, I get love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, and this brings about happiness to me. It is basically specifically explaining number one and two above. Also this is mainly what “worldly people” come and try to seek at church.

I believe it is correct to say that what some organized religion teaches and practice today is not what God has instructed us to do. I feel this way because they have adopted their own beliefs to fit their own agenda. This had me confuse and I started to lack faith. I started to understand how some individuals lose faith and give up God, quitting Him because of hypocrisy and the sinful nature of man/church. This is why it’s so critical to have a personal relationship with Christ and not follow a religion. God will never let hold of you and He never quits on us. The choice is ours. He gives us free will. He created each one of us to worship Him, and Him alone.

For many of those brought up in traditional religions, we have walls around our true selves that need to be knocked down, sometimes brick by brick, before we can see that the bricks are only an illusion keeping us separate from each other and from Spirit. Most religions, while they contain many truths, are fear-based. By being this way, they limit the amount of love we can give to ourselves, and therefore naturally, the love that we can give each other. Instead, we judge, we fear, we hold back - and we don’t even recognize that we are doing so. Once we can realize with our logical mind that religions were originally created to help mankind deal with the great fear of death and dying. It will be easier to move on to a higher expression of love and divine connection.

There are still things that I need to pray about and get wisdom about. I am no longer completely and greatly frighten of death and the unknown. A lot of things I feared are no longer there. I am developing contentment in myself because I am learning my place and purpose here on earth. However I have learned that I can be a spiritual person and attend an organized religion establishment without being religious. It sounds strange, but this is my path. I truly believe and know that I am bless to have found a church that has a preacher that is divine and provides me with the spiritual nourishment and knowledge I need to have in order to continue to develop and strength my relationship with God. Do I feel that this is the path for everyone? No, but for me it is. I am on this quest to have a fulfilling intimate relationship with God and I have been blessed to find a man of God who provides me with the growth in establishing that relationship. As for the church as a whole, I do not get caught up in the whole politics of it. I attend Sunday service and Wednesday bible study to get the daily nourishment I need, I attend classes that are God-based and critical yet does not have an one sided view on things, and most importantly it helps me develop relationships with like minded individuals that God put on my heart to meet. Not because they are the most popular in church or because they can do something for me.

LSAT Results

Think about the worst score you can make, well I did worse than that!! You may ask how do I feel about it.

Well......

Can you be at peace about it and still cry? Because that is what happened to me. However just when I was about to sit here and write a "woe is me" post (AGAIN -- seems that is all I do lately), I came across this you tube clip. It put everything in prospective and at the end of the day I know everything is going to be okay.

John Legend sung it calmly and lets you focus on the message and not necessarily how well he can sang! Inspirational vitamin of the day.

Greetings Everyone!!!!!

Since my last blog entry, God has truly reminded me that it is in Him I MUST live and move. through. Putting my trust into anything or anyone other than Him proves to be unacceptable. I have also realized that in order to truly have a new reality, I have to have a change in outlook. '

By not seeking revenge last weekend and truly ignoring the situation, I gain power over the situation. That was my “revenge” so to speak. I killed them with kindness. I just let it go and concentrated on me and my happiness.

I feel my biggest challenge is not picturing my future, but becoming comfortable with the “right now” and seeing it the way God does. I am trying to look past my circumstances and know that God’s has the finish plan.

With preparing for the LSAT, trying to start a business, and the UNNECESSARY drama, my life was filled with chaos and anxiety. However as of Monday (right after I finished taking the LSAT) I am choosing to visualize my today and future as calm, stimulating and fulfilling.

Determing how I feel and why

So I wrote this last Wednesday and seriously debated posting it because I thought maybe it was to "BLUE" and did not want to write depressing crap. However this is what I felt at the time and this is my journal so to speak. I am feeling particularly down these days (not as bad as that particular day) for no reason at all. I am currently trying to come to terms with why I am feeling this way and do something about it.

Hello all……..

Feel like hearing about my situation? Well here goes:

Today for some strange reason I get to work and start feeling extremely down. I have no reason to feel like this, nothing in particular has happen or is going to happen. So I start wondering, “Why am I sad?” and thinking about reasons gets me more down. Compared to the next guy, you can say I have a pretty good life. Nevertheless there is always someone who is doing worse than you so I cannot really go by that.

At lunch I call my mom to whine and cry to her about it. I express that I am sad and do not know why and I begin to cry. She goes to say that I always get like this and that I should go see someone because I may have a chemical imbalance (I disagree).

Now here I am after work sitting in my church parking lot waiting for Bible Study (in 2 hours) to start (I live 20 mins away and if I were to go home and then come back—I would not come back). I am starting to get my materials out to start working on some practice problems dealing with the LSAT when I come across the notes I took the last time I came to Bible Study.

“Your test/trial will always come at your spiritual promotion”

Ah ha!! So I seat and ponder on that particular statement.

In earlier days where I tried to do better by God, what got me the most were my actions. There were things I just could not shake. However as I grow older, wiser, and closer to God, I see myself not even having a desire to do certain things and not caring what others (such as family, close friends and/or peers) think about it. I had a situation to occur this weekend where (though very painful) I have come to the conclusion that I may have to eliminate someone out of my life because I feel like they are keeping me back from something greater. I have always been the type that if my friend girls were trying to better themselves and wanted to eliminate something from their life, I would respect that and just not go to certain places or do certain things with them. However this particular friend (actually a family member) is not respecting that there are some places and things that I no longer want to be involve in. Its not like I am trying to do it because I know it is not pleasing to Him, literally the desire to go to those places and do those things are not on my heart. For her to not understand that (or care) hurts extremely.

With that being said, I feel that since the devil (and/or evil forces) cannot play on my weakness that way, he is trying to play with my mind!!!! LOL (no seriously). I am developing spiritually and the devil cannot stand it. Nevertheless I am going to continue to pray and give thanks for the many blessings (and I do mean MANY) God has provided me with.

I have came to the conclusion that I may suffer from depression (or this maybe what some people who are going through quarter life crisis go through). Nevertheless I feel that it is a very small form of it.

My question is how does this go with my spirituality? So I am currently trying to figure out:

spiritual growth and depression

having faith vs. depression

I would love to have you guys view/opinion of this.