Isn’t it a blessing that life has seasons, ups and downs, curves and straight shots? What other way would we be able to truly recognize and honor one from the other? Without the hard times, the prickly bits, the heavy loads, we would inevitably take our blessed and joyful moments for granted.

The good periods of life give us the time to recoup and train for the bad. Sadly, most of us do not take this opportunity. However, without the gritty precedent, how would we even know what and how to train for exactly? God, he’s a masterful one, is he not? Of course he is! Look at this complicated and yet, utterly simple system we were given to be a part of. What is so simple about it? ….Well, everything we need to be happy, content, and peaceful is wrapped up nicely right there inside of each us. Plus the roller coaster of life gives us opportunities to learn and grow at every stage of life.

Still not convinced it may be simple for you to be whole and peaceful, even during hardship? Then you haven’t sit and digest your thoughts and emotions, which you have been programming within yourself from birth. Do you believe every thought and feeling is a mirror to who you truly are? Are you aware that more than half of those messages are unavoidably false or firing from survival mode? You. You get to chose your thoughts and reactions. You don’t have to settle for every random or conditioned pop-up. Simply stay true to your course and weed out the bodily messages that don’t serve you.

We can break out of our destructive circles of life if we can only start monitoring our reactions to our thoughts and emotions. Is the thought valid? Useful? True to your course? No? Scrap it. Yes? React to it with understanding, respect, and gratitude. We must notice when we are at our weakest. Notice how we got there. Start with one decision at a time. For instance, do I really want that beer? Or am I numbing myself because of harmful thoughts? Pain? Fatigue? Unprocessed stressful information? If I am truly just wanting a beer for the enjoyment of that beer then “cheers!”, but if not that right there would be the time to decide to dive off that carousel of doom and gloom.

We are in the middle of unprecedented times. Our lives are full of deadlines, expectations, material blindness, and greed. We condition ourselves to thrive off of stress instead of peace. If we don’t have stress then we create more. In return our bodies use our protective program fueld by past experiences to gauge rather or not we are in danger. And because we blow everything out of proportion in our anxious brains, the body starts to believe we are in fact in danger and sends thoughts and emotions, as well messages throughout the body that it feels is necessary for survival. Hence, anxiety, depression, and disease. As with start reevaluating our thoughts and start to deprogram our survival mode and replace it with joy and gratitude, we will see a huge improvement in our mental and physical health. When someone says “it is just in your head”, know that they are exactly right.

We are powerful beings. We have the power within us to heal and bring freedom to ourselves. As a Christian, I will say I believe the power comes from our Heavenly Father and that healing and freedom are his graceful blessings. With faith we can move mountains. Faith in God and faith in ourselves empower each of us to stay our course while willfully choosing our thoughts and emotions to serve us, not the other way around.

Hints for change: prayer, meditation, sitting in stillness, notice which of your thoughts are yours or random/programmed, realize your power, our bodies and minds are truly a gift from God, meditative work or motion, clear your thoughts. Most importantly, try, try, and try again. Repetition absolutely is the key.

Start actually living, get out of your toxic patterns, and find that wholeness you are being called to!