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The challenge: to learn calmness in ALL situations in life

Remaining positive no matter what life throws at you, is hard.  How many times per day are we “attacked” by negative people?  What about negative situations or ones that bring about stress or frustration?  What about with relationships of close people that bring drama and upset to your life ?  We ALL have experienced this, no one is exempt from it.  But what if we could respond to any of these situations with a state of peace and not anger? Where we could walk away from it and not “stew” over the anger inside?  Imagine couples that do not stay angry for days on end.  Families who don’t grow bitter towards one another.  Sometimes sounds to unreal.  But in reality this is feasible with the right approach.

Why make the change:

I think we all know or should know the effects of negative stress in our life.  High stress levels lead to heart disease, depression,  and obesity.  Focusing on the negative thing in our life will only lead us further into a life of despair.  We need to focus on the positive things in our lives.  We also  need to realize that life happens.  Bad things happen.  People are generally unhappy, angry individuals and sometimes you are going to get caught in the cross roads.  Your best bet is to learn to be calm.  Choose to be positive and calm when faced with a negative in life.

 

How to make the change:

How do we go about making the change to calmness in ANY and ALL situations in life?

• Learn to pray.  If we can learn to give away our worries and frustrations to God, that can be the first step to bringing  peace of mind and a better perspective to having calmness in life.
• Learn to detach.  When faced with a negative situation where your first response is anger, detach yourself.  Think about the situation as a whole, instead of just your tiny part that is affecting you.    You look at all of the different facets of the problem and view them as an observer without judgement.
• Take a breather.  If you find yourself getting angry or emotionally upset over an issue, take a step back and take a few breaths.  Sometimes that will mean you have to tell a person, that you need a minute and will be right back.  Get yourself together and come back ready to respond in a positive light.  If it is an email or text, let it sit, take a few moments to breathe and then respond.
• Let things roll off of you.  Realize that people who are angry and rude have bad days.  Their problems do not have to be yours.  If someone is mean, you don’t have to be mean back.  Sometimes the best response is a smile.  The bible talks about “reaping coals of fire” on our enemies.  If we don’t respond negatively to people, but do so in a positive light, it is like reaping coals of fire on someone’s head.
• Get some understanding.  If someone says something mean to you, instead of taking it personally, understand that you are not the center of this person’s world, you just happen to be the target of their frustration.  They could be having a bad day, having marital problems, frustrated in their own walk with God, or maybe even not understanding the issue very well.

People ALWAYS have a reason for anger and rudeness.  If you can understand what is the core of that, it is much easier to deal with.  Be the better person and experience calmness when faced with any situation in your life.

The challenge: to edit your commitments

Could you imagine if we were able to “edit our lives?”  All the things that we would just be able to erase out of them—all the negative people, all of the meaningless time spent doing absolutely nothing, all of those commitments that we signed up for, but are quickly taking over our life by imposing on our time spent with family and those we love.  Taking back all of those things that were once so important to us but have simply just become obsolete in our lives.  Sounds like it would be something worth doing?

 

Why make the change:

Each and every time you make a commitment in your life, it leaves less and less room for doing those things which are important to you.  You need to take inventory of all of your commitments and start edited them.

The reason people don’t cut or “edit their commitments” is because it leads to feelings of guilt.  How are they going to look to friends, co-workers, the church staff,or the school PTA if they decide to “cut” that commitment?  How are others going to count on you and who will they turn to, to do that job?

Trust me, there will ALWAYS be another person willing to fill in the gaps.

First thing you need to do,is not feel guilty.  You need to realize what a HUGE relief NOT having to do that commitment each day or week or month is going to do for you.  It WILL free up much of your time,  even though others may be disappointed, you can’t go through life pleasing EVERYONE else according to their plan, you have to do what works for you and your family.

If you committed to what everyone else wanted ALL of the time, you would never have any time left for ourselves.  Not much of a life to lead.

 

How to make the change:

First start with making a list.  Make a list of ALL of the commitments that you have in your life.  Here are some areas to consider:

• Work, you have many commitments at your employment, list all of them.
• Home, aside from family/children commitments you also have commitments at home to take care of.
• Family, you may be the role of mother, wife, daughter, aunt, etc these all come with many commitments.
• Children, your children may have many activities that they are committed to, list them.
• Home business, you may have a small business at home, list commitments to that.
• Religious/Civic, you may volunteer for different organizations, or be part of church teachings or attending church activities, commitments
• Hobbies–you might have groups for hobbies, like book clubs, fishing groups, etc, these all come with commitments.
• Online, you may have commitments to meet online, list those.

Now that you have your “list,” take a close look at each thing on it.  Now I want you to consider the following:

• Does this give value to my life or my families life?
• How important is this to me?
• Does this line up with my priorities and values?
• How is my life affected if I drop out?
• Does this further the goals I have in life?

Some of these are going to be tough questions to answer, but I hope that if you can eliminate the ones that give you the least amount of return on your invested time and effort, you will be better for it.  If there are any that do not line up with your life goals and priorities, cut them out.

If you are afraid of cutting out things, then I suggest that you do them for a few weeks.  Cut it out, see how your life is without them.  Is it something that you miss?  Something that you are glad to be done with?  Something that you don’t even think about?  This isn’t a for-ever list, you can drop things and add them back as needed.

I guarantee that your family life, your relationship with your husband/wife will be much better when you can learn to say NO to commitments and start enjoying life together as one.