Leadership

Truth be told, all He asked was to Follow Him

For the past 2 weeks I have been fighting with God about a prescription I received almost a year ago. It read, “must have Florida Beach time often over the next year perhaps permanently.”  This prescription was given in response to my doctor telling me I needed to see a pulmonary specialist.  I told him it would have to wait 3 weeks seeing we were heading to Florida for family time and a church planting conference. In which he said the Florida air would do my lungs good.

More Florida Beach time

With prescription in hand, we headed to Florida.

That prescription was a catalyst that God used to get our hearts to be thinking of Florida.  I was under the assumption that once I moved to Florida then my asthma type symptoms would magically disappear. Instead for me and my body, (if you have followed any of my story), I don’t fit the mold. So why would I expect this to be any different?

I have been to a walk-in clinic now 3 times since our move to Florida.  I am on the exact same schedule I have been on since 2017.  Every 45-60 days.

I have made every excuse.

I cheated on my diet.

I was in the cold weather.

I was traveling.

For the past 18 months or so I have told doctors and myself.  “God is going to heal me. I just need to work out a few more things with my past. I just need to quit cheating on my dietary restrictions.”

In November, I was told that if I had one more flare up then I would need to see a specialist. Well today I once again found myself in the walk-in clinic.  The Doctor was not so pleasant.  She let me know without a shadow of a doubt I needed to find a primary care doctor sooner than later and get this under control.

So why this blog?

I had to come to grips that even though the prescription is part of our church planting story and why Cape Coral Florida, God knew I would need something that was of benefit to get my mind around moving 823 miles from my grandchildren and children.

Not being on steroids every 45-60 days and living in an area that is by the ocean and beautiful, was a great incentive and plus at that time we could do our job from anywhere. We were traveling for work 30-40 weeks out of the year anyway and it really didn’t matter where we started from.

By the end of February though, we were being called to plant a church, God even gave us handwriting on the wall, an 18-wheeler appearing out of nowhere as I am driving to the doctor because I am once again having an asthma flare up.

Fast forward to the past couple of months.  Nothing I thought would happen when we got here has come through. Everything I had put in motion to make the transition to Florida not feel so lonely, has fallen through.  And to top it off, I have been in the walk-in clinic 3 times since arriving.

I have silently been dealing with rejection and feeling like I was short changed. I have asked God to heal me. I have praised God for healing me. I have worked through more of my past. I have cried. I have laughed. I have screamed. And recently I have questioned.  Why? Why are you not healing me? I have faith. I believe. Why are you not healing me?

Then God gives me a flock of Ibis’s in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  To remind me He did heal me of my PTSD and there is no way I would have been able to move to a new area and plant a church with the anxiety and PTSD I had lived with for many years.

But God why are you not healing me of my asthma symptoms? Why did you bring me down here under false pretenses?

Then I read a book called Prodigal God by Tim Keller.

In the book was a story that went something like this.

Jesus says to pick up a stone and follow me.  You look around and because Jesus didn’t give you any specifications you pick up a small pebble and put it in your pocket.  A few miles down the road Jesus says to take your stone and place it in front of you.  He turns your “stone” into food.  You get very little because your stone is a pebble, others who were carrying bigger stones had much to eat because the food was commensurate to the size of the “stone.” Jesus now asks you to pick up another stone and follow Him. This time because you saw what He did for lunch you pick up the biggest stone you can find. You struggle and struggle. Finally, you get to a lake and Jesus says, “throw your stone in the lake.”   There is no food or any reward for carrying the big rock.  Jesus sees your frustration and He simple says, “All I asked you to do was follow me.”

As I was reading this sobbing, all God asked was, for me to follow Him. He also reminded me that the prescription came from man not God. God used it, but today I really know the meaning of the Proverbs.

In their hearts humans plan their course,
    but the Lord establishes their steps.
Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)

You can make many plans,
    but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.
Proverbs 19:21 (NLT)

 

Church Planters Cape Coral FL

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt if we had not moved we would have been disobedient.  But I am still human and as I was having a pity-party wondering what I had done wrong and why God had not healed me yet of my asthma symptoms, He reminded me that sometimes healing comes in the form of modern medicine I need to be okay with that and praise God for it.  And that the prescription for more Florida beach time was just a “sign” God used to get me ready for the next chapter our book He is writing with our lives.

To follow our church plant click the link  Restoration Christian Church

Should we be looking for the Pink Slime?

I am studying 2 Thessalonians with a group of young women.

In chapter 2 it says: For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work. This is Paul speaking in the 50’s AD.  Here we are in 2018. If Paul was warning the Christians over 1900 years ago to be aware because the secret power of lawlessness was already at work, how much more should we, as Christ followers, be mindful today?

Yet every day the news is filled with fellow human beings fighting each other.

After living in Memphis during the late 80’s early 90’s, we would joke that there had to be a river of pink slime flowing under the city.

(See video from Ghostbusters if you aren’t familiar with the pink slime)

But the longer I live, I am more inclined to think the river is flowing from one end of the country to the next, and is finding every tributary it can, to spread.

This chapter goes on to say that “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”

As I think about these scriptures, and think about all the negativity that has been created in our society. I am saddened that so many Christians have sat down, tired of running the race according to Gods standards and are embracing the worlds standards.

In Romans 1:28, it says that there will be a time when God will give us over to our depraved, (immoral, evil, wicked, corrupt) mind because we don’t think it is worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God.

If Paul felt it was worth the warning over 1900 years ago, how much more should we heed the warning today.

2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 NIV

For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.  And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Romans 1:28-32 NIV

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

 

3 things you need to know to be successful

I asked my dad a few months ago to teach me how to be successful. In reality that was not the question I intended to ask but that is how I framed it.  His answer was quite provoking to the point I have thought, prayed, and journaled quite a bit about it for many months.

His answer was “I can’t teach you to be successful. ”

I was actually quite offended by his answer because he is very successful in business.

“Why can’t you?” is what I wanted to ask as a follow-up question but instead God had me dwell on those words to make me realize “my dad was right”. 

He CANNOT teach me nor anyone else how to be successful.  To be successful in anything starts with a paradigm shift

First, you have to want to change.

Second, you have to see that you are worthy of being or doing something different.

Third, you have to put in the hard work

Turning your life around is not only hard but it is scary.

Why is it scary?

Because change requires effort.

Change also requires responsibility.

The other day I saw a status on Facebook and it was saying that this person was upset because they found out that their life was going to change and the very next thing was “I did not sign up for this.” Let’s just say, you play with fire you will get burned. Maybe not the first time but negative behaviors will result in bad consequences.

So change requires effort.  It requires responsibility, but change also requires that you are no longer the victim in the equation.

When I teach, I tell people that as long as they have breath in their lungs and they are NOT a complete invalid, where someone else is required to care for them 24/7, then they can change.

But there is a challenge when you have never done life without an addiction. An addiction is anything that keeps you enslaved to something or a behavior. Or maybe you have never done life without having a relationship, even when it is toxic (poisonous up to death) and dysfunctional (not operating as it should).

So if you want to have a different tomorrow, it starts today with a choice and tomorrow with the follow through.

It’s your choice

How my past affects my present

As I continue my journey of Renewing my Mind

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

 

and asking God to show me His truth versus the lies I have lived with for many years, today I had another Aha moment.

Fear of Rejection and or Abandonment. 

I realized that another learned behavior of mine is fear.

For this blog I want to talk about the fear of abandonment and rejection.

As I was reading this morning it said that when you  have this fear of abandonment and rejection then you are susceptible to looking for a meaningful identity outside of a true and complete relationship with God.

As I was praying I found God saying, “I need to you to read that in regards to all aspects of your life, not just as words written on a page.”

Immediately I saw how this fear could allow people to get into relationships that are abusive.  My immediate thought was of those who get into domestic abuse situations, but God said, “look beyond.”

As I was pondering this, I was taken to a post I had written earlier called “who are you hitching your cart to?”

It became clear that God wanted me to see that because of a fear of abandonment and rejection, that I was still carrying with me from years ago, I was making business decisions based upon the lens of my past.  You see when you have abandonment and rejection as part of your story, you may put your blinders on not just in personal relationships, but also in business relationships in order to find a meaningful identity.  The red flags may be so obvious that a toddler even knows there is danger, but because of your lens of the past, you push them to the side and run even faster in order to be accepted by someone; anyone.

Just last week I was talking with a friend and recounting how many times I have prayed, no scratch that, I told God what I thought was best and then made the plans to do my plan. I told this young lady that I have learned that sometimes God allows you to have it your way, because He is tired of listening to you whine about it.

Today, I have come to realize that maybe it wasn’t God giving in, it was me looking for a meaningful identity outside of a true and complete relationship with God.

I know I also need to thank God that He did not leave me nor forsake me even in my pursuit of trying to find my identity in something else besides Him.

So as I pray through my “action plan” for 2018, I have a new filter: Does this bring me closer or farther away from my identity in God?

Not just another Sunday Sermon

Today’s sermon was not just another Sunday sermon, but rather an address by Bishop Kendall of the Free Methodist Church and secondly by Brad, the Superintendent of the Eastern Michigan Conference of the Free Methodist to celebrate the 125th birthday of Owosso Free Methodist.

Bishop Kendall told of the history of the Free Methodist Church and how we were FREE to worship in the Spirit but also to make to world free by knowing the One who can make you really FREE.
He also talked about as a people group we need to

  • Understand the story
  • Play our part in the story
  • Contribute to the story so that the story continues.

Superintendent Brad then got up and had us turn to Joshua 1 where you find this passage.

After the death of Moses the LORD’s servant, the LORD spoke to Joshua son of Nun, who had served Moses: “Moses My servant is dead. Now you and all the people prepare to cross over the Jordan to the land I am giving the Israelites. I have given you every place where the sole of your foot treads, just as I promised Moses. Your territory will be from the wilderness and Lebanon to the great Euphrates River–all the land of the Hittites–and west to the Mediterranean Sea. No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. I will be with you, just as I was with Moses. I will not leave you or forsake you.

As we were reading this I realized that this is the promise of the Lord for their obedience. But then it goes on to give us another command.

 “Be strong and courageous, for you will distribute the land I swore to their fathers to give them as an inheritance.  This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to recite it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.  Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

 
This part of Joshua got me thinking about how many times we, ok maybe this is just for me, I  complain when things aren’t going the way I want or maybe I see others receiving blessings when I know (or at least I think I know) I deserve it more than they.  But God, just as God does had me sit here for a moment, so I could check my heart.

Then he had us follow the story into Joshua 3:

Joshua started early the next morning and left the Acacia Grove with all the Israelites. They went as far as the Jordan and stayed there before crossing.  After three days the officers went through the camp and commanded the people: “When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD your God carried by the Levitical priests, you must break camp and follow it.  But keep a distance of about 1,000 yards between yourselves and the ark. Don’t go near it, so that you can see the way to go, for you haven’t traveled this way before.”

Brad went on to talk about the fact that in the Old Testament you had the Ark of the Covenant to show you the way because: “for you haven’t traveled this way before.”   God pricked my heart that today because we don’t have the physical Ark which represented the presence of God, we do have a guide and that is the Holy Spirit.

Superintendent Brad, went on in the Joshua to read:

Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, because the LORD will do wonders among you tomorrow.” Then he said to the priests, “Take the Ark of the Covenant and go on ahead of the people.” So they carried the Ark of the Covenant and went ahead of them. The LORD spoke to Joshua: “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so they will know that I will be with you just as I was with Moses. Command the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant: When you reach the edge of the waters, stand in the Jordan.”

“Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, because the LORD will do wonders among you tomorrow.”

Consecrate yourselves… do we, again do I consecrate myself so that the LORD will do wonders among me tomorrow? Or do I just want God to do His part without the obedience of my part? Because if we go back to Joshua 1 it clearly states that I must:  “This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to recite it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.” 

And I know many will say we live in the New Testament time… and you are correct but God has clearly been reminding me that in Matthew 5, Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.  Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Joshua then goes on to say: “…Command the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant: When you reach the edge of the waters, stand in the Jordan.”

Did you know that LEADERS are to get their feet wet? Now this was not surprise to me, because I know that when leaders lead by example, those who follow will have an easier time doing the same.  Actually my husband Rob (www.RW Kendall.com) wrote a great blog called “Where you lead from the pulpit, people will follow from the pew).

But what I did not realize is that:

“Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest.” Joshua 3:15

I am not sure what you know about water flowing during a “flood stage”, but as someone whose home flooded once and backyard flooded a few times, watching water rushing and knowing if you step foot out of the safe distance zone into the water, the force will sweep you under. And God told the leaders to put their feet in the edge of the water?

Then Superintendent Brad said, “God doesn’t always do things that make sense.”

So what does all this mean to me? Maybe even for you who maybe reading it.

What is God asking you to do for Him?

What excuses are you giving?

 

Sometimes you just need to GIVE-UP and QUIT

For Christmas I was given the opportunity to own a pair of “Designed by me” Oakley Sunglasses.  I was so excited. I designed them to be maize and blue… just like my favorite football team, U of M.

I love how they look and now I would own a pair absolutely free, or were they?

You see, I have to wear glasses full- time.  I need them for distance and I need them to read close up, so this is where the dilemma started.

 

 

How hard can it be to wear contacts?

My husband was encouraging but also said things like “how are you going to put in a contact? You can’t even put drops in your eyes.”

I was determined.  I called and made an appointment for 2 hours later.

I am excited but also nervous.

I get through the appointment and the Doctor is saying things like “we will try, this first.  If this does not work then we will try another route.” Basically he was saying because I have astigmatism in one eye and I wear bifocals, and I need glasses for distance, that we would be in a trial and error stage.

I sit down and watch the cartoon video on the do’s and don’ts of contact wearing and care.

The video finishes, I wash my hands and now the fun begins.  I need to put in and take out my new contacts.

It takes a while, I get frustrated go figure… I am the one who cooks on HI so that it’ll get done faster, forgetting the fact it also burns and does not cook evenly.  I breathe, pray, and finally the contacts are in.

The doctor looks at them, I can see at about 8 feet away, in a small confined room and I can see up close, not great, but I can see.  I keep telling myself that I just need to get used to them.

I leave the office, walk out to the car and we start driving… oh this is not good, everything is blurry.  I just need to get used to them, I keep telling myself.

Friday is a snowstorm so we are in all day, and Saturday I have to sit for a couple of hours through a training.  I am so excited, I get to wear my new sunglasses. Wait a minute, I can’t read the street signs.  Whats going on?  I get to the training and I can’t read the HUGE powerpoint screen… I am talking a screen that you see in a Mission Control room, oh wait, it was in a state of the art command center, and I can’t read the powerpoint. I’ll spare you the details of trying to take them out (it took like 15 minutes).

Monday, comes and I call the doctor they can see me at 2pm.

“Ok, so that is not going to work”, he says.  Lets try these.  I put them in and take them right back out. NOPE.

“Ok so lets try this brand and now your left eye is for up close and your right eye is for distance.”

I said, you think my brain is going to like this?

The doctor said, people do it all the time.

OK, I was saying in my head, you are the doctor.

All the way home I had one hand partially over my right eye, just so I didn’t get sick trying to drive.  I was willing to try this for 48 hours and see if my brain would rewire my eyes so that it would work, because the last resort were contacts for distance only and keep readers with me at all times.

About 5pm, I decided to take out my contacts.  NOPE, not happening.  I tried. I cried. I prayed. I made a pact with God. I was so desperate, that I had my husband even try to get the contacts out.

At 6:30,  my husband and I were driving to the doctor’s office to get my contacts out of my eyes.

This morning as I was getting ready, I started dreading, not the putting in my contacts, but tonight the taking them out.

As I started to get my contacts out of their case, I heard God saying “you said, if I got them out, you would not put them back in.”

I immediately started thinking that I was a failure if I did not put those contacts in and that I let them win.

My word this year is “OVERCOMER” and I felt that if I gave up I was not overcoming.

I realized though, that I was being held hostage by a lie.

The lie was that if I quit, I was a quitter, I was a loser. I would some how be less than.

No, I needed to realize what truth was.

For me why would I continue to put contacts in my eyes, just so I could wear a really cool pair of sunglasses? The contacts, in reality were doing more to frustrate me, they were causing me headaches and according to the Doctor my prescription would never be exactly correct?

So my aha moment came over a pair of sunglasses, and contacts; what is it that you need to walk away from because it’s not healthy but because you are afraid of being labeled a quitter, a loser or thinking you will be thought less than; you continue with that unhealthy choice?

 

 

 

It starts with a THOUGHT

We have entered week 2 of the New Year and most people have either already given up on or at least cheated on their New Years Resolution /Goal.

If you are one of those people, I want you to ask yourself why?

I know my why?  Because the Blue Cheese on the Black and Blue Burger just looked too good.

My thought pattern was this: “I’ll remove most of it.  It will only be a little on each bite.”

By the time I was done, just like the nurse who was sitting across from me said… “if you are allergic, you will have a response within 15 minutes,” I was coughing.

Right then and there, I decided for me that I have a new expectation for 2017. I want to see how long I can go without a breathing treatment for my reactive airway.  It is something I can control with diet, but I have to be willing to follow through, and I am allergic to dairy, but not like a peanut allergy, so I have always felt I could cheat. (See prior blogs: I didn’t cheat that much part one and part two )

I believe if more people would stop talking about New Years Resolutions and Goals and start asking this question: What is my new expectation for myself when it comes to: _________________________________________________, we would actually accomplish things through out the year. 

When I teach on goals we talk about the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. In this book he uses the metaphor of a bus and having the right people on the bus in the right seats.  Well for our analogy, we first say you need to slam on the brakes, open the door and throw off anyone and everyone who is not helping you to become the best person you can become.

You know those are the people who are belittling you, talking about you behind your back, always making excuses for themselves and you.  There is also another group of people that  you need to throw off your bus, they are those who can’t even see themselves becoming successful.  If they can’t see themselves as successful, how are they going to help you become successful?

Now that you have thrown everyone off… pull up to the next stop and let on only a couple of people.  Here is a mistake that people make;  You do NOT need 15 people talking to you.  You need to pick a few people that see in you what you want to accomplish and ask them to hold you accountable.

Here is the next hurdle you have to jump over: YOU!!!!

You need to be willing to hear the hard words of someone who can see the end result you have laid out in a vision, when they tell you to slow down, turn left, go straight or STOP!

 

This commercial is from GE that Ideas are scary.  As I watched this video, I quickly saw it as a learning tool for people who don’t have the right people in their lives, equipping and empowering them to succeed.

Take time to watch this video and ask yourself who is it in my life that I still need to throw off my bus?  What new expectation (IDEA) do I have that I want to go after, even though it is scary?

Who are the right people to be on my bus that will EQUIP and EMPOWER me to go after my new expectation, my IDEA?

 

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How do you see yourself today?

I have been teaching about life transformation for the past 14 years.  I have taught in Jails, Prisons, Halfway houses, Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Low income neighborhoods, and homeless shelters. Every time I teach, I learn something new about myself, which in itself is funny, because I wrote the curriculum I teach.

A question in week 2 of the foundational piece, called New Beginnings, is “In all honesty, how do you see yourself today”.

As a teacher you can usually ask the question and never think about it yourself. That is until God asks you to answer that question.

Last year, after reading the book One Word, my word was “worthy”.

As we are ending 2016 and starting 2017 I want to share my experience into finding myself “worthy” and how God would not let me rest until I worked through the demons of my past.

In every week of the foundational piece of the 180 Curriculum, we have goal sheets.  These goal sheets look like this

Basically, you have a goal that you want to reach.  Then you break it down into bite size pieces, so that you can first celebrate the small accomplishments. Second stay on track. Third, if that goal is going to take longer, you move it to the following week and make more bite sized goals from it.

The reason I came up with this format was because my father started working with computers, when computers only operated when you used a flow chart to get to the end result.  To me, it was like the ‘Aha’ moment, “I can reach my goals, if I just break them down.”

After teaching this for all these years, I realized that I sabotaged my goals and here is why. It was a learned behavior.  Let me explain.

Growing up I wanted to tryout for basketball.  I was so excited. I practiced and the day was finally here. I was ready to stay after school when the call came in, it was from my step-father.  “You had better not stay after,” I was told, “you will not like the consequences.”

A couple of years later, I was so excited.  I was going to try out to be a majorette in the high school marching band. I had my routine all prepared and I was so excited to stay after and try out when… the phone call came in. “You had better not stay after,” I was told, “you will not like the consequences.”

If you take these two major events in my life and couple it with the dysfunction that was going on in the home, I was being told that I would never amount to anything.  I was also told that no one would ever want to hear what I had to say, this was priming me for sabotaging my goals and success.

Even though I left that home and started my own family, those words were a part of my psyche.

Even into my marriage, there was a certain man who would jokingly talk about how I could have done better than my husband. Adding even more to the insecurity of my worthiness.  Unfortunately this person was someone that I saw a lot, and was respected in his position of authority in the Church.

Then came another man  of authority who through his lack of words to me and more by his actions, stated that I should not start a non-profit, that it wouldn’t succeed, and that my husband needed to go back to work and support his family.

It was not until 2016, as I started this journey on my one word “worthy” that I realized how unworthy I really felt, especially when it came to men in authority, especially those in Church authority and that were respected by many, but when it came to how I was treated by them, they added to my feeling of being unworthy.

I am so excited to say that as I have worked through my demons, I have called meetings with men in authority this past quarter and have walked out of those meetings feeling like I do matter and I do have a voice.

God has given me an ability to be an advocate.  To be a woman of God, who will push forth His agenda on teaching transformational living and leadership.

Now, we enter 2017… and my new word is “Overcomer”, and I can’t wait to see what God does with that.

 

 

 

I didn’t cheat that much Part 2

This is how part 1 ended:

This was a conscious choice that I made to cheat on my food allergy diet, it not a medical condition like asthma. It is 100% a choice of  living in denial, that my excuse, “I can cheat just a little, because it doesn’t affect anyone but me.”

Because of my conscious choice of “cheating”, it affected me by being sick even thinking I may not make it through the night.

But it also affected my husband because he took care of me.  It also affected our budget.  We do not have $500 of indispensable income.  It also affected my daughter because today, she wanted me to go shopping with her.  It also affected an out of town visitor and her children, because we were not able to see them again while they were visiting and I had promised her son I would cook and bake with him.

I know that there will be things that I accidently eat (ie while traveling and not getting all the ingredients in the spices or sauces).

But today, I choose not to cheat on purpose.

Today I still have to live with the consequences of cheating since Thanksgiving.

Just today I have spent $270.  Earlier this week I spent almost $100 on a chiropractic appointment and vitamins.  A week and half ago we spent over $100 on other “Natural products”.

So this “choice to cheat” cost almost $500 out of pocket expense…just because I said “it’s not that bad.  I didn’t cheat that much and it will only affect me.”

I am the co-author of a program called The 180 Program. In the foundational piece called New Beginnings  week 4 is on Excuses.  In this week we look at all the people that you make excuses for and all the people that make excuses for you.  We also look at a cycle of what happens when we allow others and ourselves to stay in that cycle of excuse making also known as living in denial.

As we enter 2017, I have a serious question:

Are you ready to get off the cycle of insanity? You have to do it for you! If you do it for anyone else, it will not become a new behavior you are invested in for you and only you.

Are you ready to say NO MORE EXCUSES?

 

 

Feel free to download the sample week 4 and do the work. I would love to hear your feedback.

 

Lessons from the Chimneys

Chimneys

Chimneys

This past week I had the opportunity to hike to the top of the Chimneys, this almost 2 mile hike to an altitude of just over 4600 ft. was a hike I will not soon forget. I guess I didn’t know what to expect, except I was headed to the top of that!

So I layered up because it was chilly, grabbed my camera and a bottle of water.

 

 

The rivers were beautiful. P1050744

 

Icy riverThe snow and ice was amazing.

I was traveling along not really thinking about it, then we hit these steps. P1050776

As I was climbing these steps, all I could think was, it would be much easier to climb if these steps weren’t here.

 

 

So lesson one I learned: sometimes when trying to reach a goal, you may encounter someone who wants to help and has your best interest in mind, but their help may make it harder to achieve your goal.

Hiking along, I am getting tired and I really want to quit, but I really want to finish; and my amazing husband starts asking me if I want to turn around and go back. He even starts asking how’s my face (previous injury from 2011), are you ok? We can stop if we need to.

Lesson two: I realized how many times I quit too early because I am tired and then someone I respect, admire etc… again with my best interest in mind, adds to my self talk that I need to quit.

I stand my ground and start arguing with myself. NO!!!! I am going to finish! I am NOT going to quit.

P1050802We come to this sign that states we haven’t even gone a mile. My inner arguing starts again. “No one will ever know”, ” you did your best”; and I start talking to myself, “I will know, and I want to finish this hike and cross it off my bucket list.”

So we continue on. Slowly and even more slowly, after 2 hours we are at the top. 20151124_140730

This entire hike ended up being, not just a “bucket list” item, but a telling tale of how many times I have had a goal, and allowed my self talk to emerge to the point of “sabotaging my goals.”

Lesson three: I will start to take my goals very serious and accomplish them, maybe slowly and even more slowly….but this hike made me realize that I DO want to reach the top for myself so I can compare my “pictures” to theirs, instead of saying “oh how beautiful, I wish I could have seen it for myself.”

With 2016 just around the corner what are your goals?  And when the sabotaging self talk starts, what defense do you have in place to counteract the negativeness?