Sally Hanan's Blog, page 12

Should You Give Up on Life?

Should you give up on life?

It’s quite possible that shutting down, avoiding, and dissociation are what got you to the point you’re at now, and if so, ask yourself this:

Have any of those behaviors given you any happiness?

Let’s assume the answer is no. And that’s because in order to really live, you have to experience life in all its moments. Once you’ve got in to the habit of shutting down, it’s nigh impossible to come alive when life is good. You’ve set your default switch to barely present.

How can you possibly enjoy life when you’re living in a nonexistent state?

My suggestion is to learn how to actually live by doing some or all of the following things each day:

Be fully aware in every moment.
Be willing to process fear or pain in every moment it arises.
Quit anything that stops you from feeling—alcohol, weed, TV shows—anything that pulls you out of having to interact with life.
Make a point of being thankful for every single little thing of beauty—a cloud, laughter, a warm bed, hot food.
See other people’s hearts rather than their facial and physical reactions.
See your own heart rather than your facial and physical reactions and start enjoying your unique way of being you.
Thank people all the time—phone support people, cashiers, friends, family. Tell people they’re amazing when they help. Thank them when they’re kind. Point out every good thing you see in them.

When you’ve done that for a few months, you’ll find that your new perspective will have changed your life rather than allowing what you see of life to change you. And that’s when you get to truly start living.

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Self-Forgiveness

Self-forgiveness of something that makes you ashamed and regretful every time you think of it

is harder than forgiveness of others

sometimes,

especially if you let it define you,

when the truth is that’s not who you are at all.

 

It’s not like you got up that morning and said, Yup, today I’m going to be a horrible person.

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How to Be Seated in Heavenly Places

We talk a lot about heaven and earth and how we can be either spaced out in heaven enjoying worship or digging into the realities of daily life on earth. We wonder how to stay living in two worlds–how to be seated in heavenly places, be in the world but not of it,

and yet be all of Jesus in it.

The kingdom of God is in you. You are a piece of heaven on earth, so you can be in two places at once. It’s like having two monitors open. You’re working on the main one while constantly seeing what’s showing on the other screen and applying it as needed. One is showing you a constant view of heaven’s truth, love, creativity, and direction; and you get to pull it into everything as you go, thereby fulfilling the verse “on earth as it is in heaven.”

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Receiving Graciously

Giving love graciously is easier in many ways;

receiving graciously,

on the other hand,

requires both humility and acceptance,

love of oneself.

 

We all feel joy when we give to others, especially our friends.

Don’t deprive others of that joy when you’re in need, just because you find it difficult to receive.

 

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What Women Should Be

I’m excited about seeing how much culture is changing re the perception of what women “should” be — what they should wear, how they should speak, how confident they should be in company, how intelligent they should reveal they are in conversation, what jobs they should take, what roles they should be limited to…

I think that the more women are proud of who they are, what they are, how they are, and why they are, the faster this will shift culture for the better.

And regarding women and emotions – seriously, people are far worse off when they stuff them. We’re actually the strong ones.

#ownit #bethebadassyouare #rarr #doyourthing #potstirring

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Hitting the Rock a Second Time

The story of Moses hitting the rock a second time for water shows us that you can still mess up big time after spending hours in God’s presence – when you let the screaming fear and anger of people make you lash out too. Moses hit the rock. Thing is, the Rock was only meant to be struck once and the water of life flowed. After that, the Word of life was what would bring forth more living water.

Speak to your rock with the Word of life.

All your lashing out because of what others around you are saying about you, and blaming you for, could cause you to miss anything good that can be found in your circumstances.

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What Keeps Me Going

It’s not inspirational words that keep me going, it’s the spirit and heart shining through the words.

There is no match to sitting with a trusted friend and processing as you speak, and having that person share a different perspective of hope and possibility.

Words, inspirational statements, inspirational conversations — they all come from people who are in a different head space to the one I’m struggling with, and their words form a ribbon of hope and light that I can pull on to get myself out of any mental darkness I step into.

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Stoopid

Hey you, yes … YOU!

You know that stoopid thing you said today, or that stoopid thing you did yesterday, or that opportunity you were stoopid to miss last week, or those persistent creepy thoughts you have from time to time?

You know what it all means, right?

Yes.

It’s true.

You’re …

NORMAL!

Seriously, every single person in this world goes through the same stuff on a very regular basis.

So stick your chest out and move forward in your amazeballs personhood as the amazing but NORMAL person you are, because none of this NORMALness is anything to fret over. And if you let yourself fret over it, it will stop your amazeballness from shining brightly.

Life’s too short to start getting upset over being a real human being, so start being one and just be you. Seriously, laugh at your flawed self and move on.

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Taking Heaven by Force

If someone posted a craigslist ad about a huge mansion throwing its doors open to the public because the owner had died, and you could take whatever you wanted, hundreds of thousands would show up and go crazy in the grabbing. They’d rent U- Hauls so they could take as much as possible.

When Matthew 11:12 talks about the violent taking heaven by force, it actually means to ransack heaven.

Which begs the question of ourselves–are we ransacking heaven every day, clearing the shelves, grabbing all we can find and assimilating it so we can serve it up to our fellow man?

Fervor and zeal don’t have to mean being loud and monopolizing conversations. It can be about being so passionate about being one with heaven that you can’t imagine functioning without all God has ready to give, so you go after it with determined focus all the time.

It’s ours for the taking.

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Forgiveness Is No Once-Off Event

People talk about forgiveness as if it’s a once-off event. I prefer the term living forgiveness. The thing with pain is that once the shock and raw pain subsides, it starts to only hurt when you’re triggered to remember it. Each time that happens, I forgive the person who hurt me again. And again. And again.

What I do every time fresh pain hits an old nerve is picture myself pushing the person back into Jesus. He knows that person far better than I do. He knows the heart, the motives, the reasoning. I don’t. I only know what went down from my perspective.

What pushing the person into Jesus does for me is that rather than picking up those ties of pain again, I keep them severed. It’s not my job to fix those people. It’s not my job to set them straight.

It’s theirs.

Which is why I repeatedly keep sending them back to the one place where I know they can be fixed and set straight, if they let him.

And then I step back into his heart again myself so I can soak in his comfort until the pain subsides.

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