Action not words

If you want to make a change in  your life you have got to make a change in your life. Lingering in the contemplation or preparation stages of change will not do you any good. If I could have back the time that I spent in contemplating change I would have years. It's really important to do the work that you can do at the time. Reading about solutions, researching resources, and planning are essential components of change. But at some point, you have to step out onto the water. This takes faith. Faith in the solutions, faith in the resources, faith in your plan, and faith in your endurance. I hate it when people say the opposite of faith is fear. That's ridiculous. Faith and fear are often times partners while your go through challenges. "There's no way to do this unafraid" were words I heard frequently from my counselor when I was making huge changes in my life. I wanted to wait until my fear was gone, thinking that there was some crucial step in the planning that I was missing, that once I figured it out fear would go away. I waited for two years while I twisted and turned over my choices and wrestled with my fear. In the end, I did it afraid. Terrified is more like it, but I had faith that it would get better, and it DID.

If you are miserable and clinging to a behavior that you are somehow unwilling to let go off because somewhere in the back of your mind you are terrified to live without it? Take action. Struggling with an addiction to alcohol? Make an appointment to go to a counselor, go to an open AA meeting, make an appointment to see your doctor, tell a trusted friend, research what alcohol does TO you instead of FOR you at Alcohologist.com  . Pick one of these and do it today.  Are you in a bad habit of eating ice cream every night and you are sad because it's showing on your waistline? Take action. Throw away what's in your freezer, join weight watchers, switch to low-fat yogurt, go for a walk, dance to your favorite music for 10 minutes, tell a trusted friend, Pick one of these and do it today! Are you stuck in a relationship that is draining you? Make an appointment to go see a counselor (with or without that person), take an honest inventory of your behaviors, read a book about boundaries, pray for that person. Pick one of these actions and do it! 

Taking bits of action at a time add up to change. Changes may happen slowly or quickly. If you are tired of being stuck, the only way out is through action. And when you take action, you show yourself that you aren't powerless. And that is going to make you feel a whole lot better. God bless!

 Photo by Minervastock, used with permission

Listen to the voice within

Listen to the voice within. It's that voice that is nudging you awake at night with anxiety. It might approach you as a fear of something bad coming for you, but you don't know what it is. It may be a constant underlying feeling of discomfort or discontent. We all have experienced that voice at one time or another in our lives. Each of us has our own ways of trying to quiet that voice or turn it down or off. My favorite way to turn that voice off was alcohol. Sometimes food or shopping. Whatever I tried to use to quiet it never kept it silenced for long. Nowcovery truly begins when you start listening to that voice. You say to yourself "something is wrong, I am not sure what it is. But I am going to find out." That takes courage.

The voice may sound like your own voice. But it's not. It's the voice of your creator. Each of us were created by design. We are not the way we are by accident. We were created to fulfill a particular purpose. And the even more wonderful news is when we are living IN our purpose, or ON purpose we are HAPPY. Even more than that we are fulfilled.

As we begin to make choices in life that take us out of our design our creator starts trying to get our attention. He starts allowing things to happen that are difficult situations for us to handle. Some of these things are painful. They cause us great emotional turmoil. The more we ignore the voice the more difficult the consequences become. This isn't out of hate from our creator, he is not a terrorist. He knows we will truly be our happiest when we are living the life we were created to live. He is redirecting.

So, If you have been having these experiences it means you are being presented with an opportunity. Truly everything that you want is on the other side of two things, Fear and surrender. Are you willing to start considering a possibility of living a different way? If so, you are on the brink of nowcovery. I encourage you to take a deep breath and open up the door to true freedom.

Tracy Kiesler
Freedom 2B