The other side of COMPLAINING.

It’s a choice….

What’s not going right with you at the moment?

Have you noticed how natural it is to always see the negative in every situation? I didn’t really realize how bad it was until a few months ago when I actually ‘heard’ myself one whole day at work. As I drove home that day, I was just amazed at all the things I complained about. This person didn’t do this……this person didn’t do that…..my boss doesn’t keep up with stuff……how did I get assigned to do this?……it is so hot outside…….it is so cold in the office…..blah blah blah.

I mean, it seemed like I had dedicated the whole day to complaining.

We complain about what’s going wrong in our life and our relationships. About our spouse and our children, our family and friends. Our job, our bodies. And some of us have a constant gripe about things that we have experienced in the past, seeing the whole world through the speckled glasses of that complaint. Not to minimize any grievance, but no one is worth years of committing ourselves to a negative mindset.

If we took a day, just to listen to ourselves, at our choice of words, which in turn shows our choice of perspective, we will be amazed at how our attitude is hindering our altitude.

About 2 months ago, I started a gratitude journal that I journal in every day. My prayer was that God helped me to make gratitude my default setting. I had to force myself to go against that natural grain of seeing the negative and finding that spark of positivity in every single thing. I asked God to help me get to the other side of complaining. To see the positive and hear the positive. To choose to live in a state of gratitude, that’s the other side of complaining.

Give every situation a second look and find the gratitude spot!

My prayer for you today is that in the midst of any disappointment and delay, remember that “no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly”. That God is faithful even when we are not. That gratitude turns what we have into enough.

Blessings always

JC

 

When has the past had enough of your attention?

 

Do you find yourself dwelling on the past?

Thinking about it…….

Talking about it……

Dwelling on it…..

Stewing about it…..?

Whatever we give attention to, we are giving energy to. We are giving past situations, past hurts, past feelings, past failures, past disappointments, and past grudges, life.

We regurgitate it: throw it up and then eat it again…..over and over again. We won’t let it die, we won’t let ourselves get over it. And most times when we do this it is when we believe we are right. And we may be right, BUT, we retard our progress when we cannot move beyond what happened.

Can I say that this sneaks up on us sometimes? Our lives are going in the direction we are looking and we don’t realize which way we are looking (past or future), until we start monitoring what we are saying. After all, our mouths speak out of the abundance of our hearts.

Listen to what you talk about, what you rage about, what you complain about!

About two weeks ago, I actually went home from work and realized that I complained about everything that day. I have been waiting for my work assignment to change and because it is taking way longer than is typical, it impacted my attitude. I said to myself “uh no ma’am, you need to pull this together!”. So I got out a journal and wrote a whole page of gratitude. I immediately felt better. I decided that I would do it for 30 days, or longer, and challenged myself to not complain about ANYTHING. About traffic, the weather, food, work, people, family, church……NOTHING!

I realized how easy or natural it is for us to slip into that negative space, that negative place in our heads unless we have something intentionally in place to point us to ALL that we have to be THANKFUL for.

So monitor your thoughts and words and see in which direction they are driving you……..

Have a blessed week!

Blessings always..

JC

 

 

 

 

5 things my son taught me!

baby Jason

It’s been a while 😉

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few months now….continually shuffling it around on my ‘to do’ list. Right now it is about 3 am and I have been up for about two hours now. Sleep is elusive.

I went to my spot and sat there talking to God. Asking Him why I haven’t been consistent with some of my responsibilities and why keeping up the momentum to keep on being productive is so hard? I even shed a few tears. God simply said “You already have the tools.”

Don’t you just love Him? You don’t get anything else until you complete that last thing.

So, I wiped my face, virtual pen in hand and now listening to the taps of my key board while my people are sleeping. Determined to cross this off the list.

On June 17th we welcomed to our family the sweetest baby boy 🙂 He came promptly on his due date, which just happened to be my mother’s birthday (wonderful gift 🙂 ) and he is my father’s name sake. There is a 13 year gap between him and his sister so this felt like a new and not merely different experience.

 

just a few hours old with big sister…

one day old

 

Here are 5 things I’ve learned from his birth and since….