Living life while keeping perspective and focus, yet dealing with life’s trials and tribulations as

The seeds of discipline and self-control inside of us have already been placed by the Lord Himself, they simply need watered to grow. Life grows when life is focused, dedicated, and disciplined! If we want our lives to GROW, we simply have to figure out how to keep it ‘focused’ and then dedicate ourselves to that focus by staying disciplined. We have been ‘equipped’ to be able to do and handle life when it comes at us fast and with difficulties, but so many times we can lose ourselves in those difficulties and not know how to bring ourselves back to focus and perspective!

We, as humans, have coping mechanisms in place that we use, regardless of where they come from. The question is ‘is that working out for you’, that we must be honest within ourselves in answering inside ourselves. If what we, individualistically, are doing isn’t working out effectively for us, perhaps all we need is a new methodology to be shown to us that we can then identify with. Once we find something we can identify with, we can then find the steps and implement those into our lives to improve our lives.

Keeping our head about ourselves isn’t always so easy. We as humans can experience both good and bad things in life that cause us to reach a point of either ‘happy grieving’ or ‘sad grieving’. Think about it, we experience sad grieving when we lose a loved one to death, divorce, and tragedies in life, or we come upon financial hurdles that set us back(i.e., loss of a job, material objects such as homes-cars-etc.), and we come upon ‘happy grieving’ in situations like the gaining of a new spouse, new home, new friends, new automobile, or new job. Incredibly the type of grieving isn’t so much as important, as coming to terms with the fact that we do actually grieve. So then what is happy grieving and sad grieving? Let’s begin by understanding grieve means to be afflicted by something. Being afflicted then means in a format of obsolete as if to say something has been replaced with something newer or better. Either which way we look at grieving, it can be either a negative or positive experience in our lives and can have an impact for the worse or the better. Let’s face it, no one as humans likes to go through painful things and the emotions involved, yet you meet no one who would complain about going through the gaining of a new job, new friend, or new home, yet there’s a whole myriad of emotions that can come into play with what I call positive grieving. Emotions are something we as humans have to be cautious of, for when we follow them, they can stunt us or prevent us from reaching higher heights in life, whether they are happy emotions or sad emotions regardless. Life can be especially difficult when we don’t have self-control over ourself, no matter the situation or type of grieving and emotions involved.

Keeping perspective in life is key to accomplishing tasks, regardless of the task at hand, when it comes to emotions of excitement(happy grieving) and emotions of sadness(sad grieving). Keeping our head about ourselves is key and learning how to stop giving control to other people and things in our lives. It begins with first identifying when things in our lives have given leadway into holding a control over us, as we may not even realize this is occurring. Getting to the bottom of that, digging it out and bringing it to the surface level so that we are aware of it so changes can be made is the beginning. Afterall, you can’t make a change on something you aren’t even aware of. So, to begin with, I’ll share some real life examples of grieving and some classic end-results. See if you can identify with these:

SCENARIO:

I got a new job and I’m so excited as I really wanted this!Thus, I am going to celebrate by:having a party/dinner, going shopping until I drop, telling everyone all about it(sharing the good news).Suddenly life has changed for you, fast-forward to the beginning of the job and a couple of months into it.You have now this new life it’d seem, with this new job, and suddenly it’s brought to your attention that somewhere in the matrix of this change, you somehow some-way forgot something of importance.You forgot to call one of your closest friend’s to check in on her like you used to do when you’d see her at work on Fridays, afterall you don’t work together anymore, and you learn she’s laying up in the hospital.Suddenly your world stops, because although it’s important to you to check in on her, you simply forgot.How did I do that you wonder?It’s simplistic, truly, the obsoleting of that old job having been replaced by the new job and somewhere along the matrix of happy grieving involved and emotions involved, perspective was lost to complete a simple task of checking in on a friend.Suddenly you find yourself a whole new host of what was happy grieving to now also involve sad grieving for you didn’t intend it to go that way and now your friend is dying.Suddenly you find yourself thinking wow how short life is and how important it was to check in on that friend and if only you had one more chance to do it again, you’d been sure to check in on her.Sadly, it’s too late for that now, so now what?Now you have a BLEND MATRIX of both happy and sad grieving going on.So for the next several days, it becomes just a process of steps to get up and go to work to that new job and also at the same time, continue checking in on that friend that’s in the hospital.A week later your friend dies.

Somewhere in that timeline, you forgot that you had an appt. at the shop for your car because it was making a weird noise.So now onto Day 9 and you go out to start your car to go to that wonderful new job you got and there’s smoke coming from the engine, the car spits-sputters and dies.You think oh no everything is going so bad in my life right and nothing is going right, so this then leads you to call off of work because that car was your primary mode of transportation to work!Your work then tells you hey look we gave you 2 days off for your close friend that died, but now you need another day or two for this car and we just aren’t sure how we are going to handle this because you JUST BEGAN this job 2 months ago and you aren’t yet through your 90-days of probation and this is the second time you have to miss work.You then think to yourself well I couldn’t help it, things happened and so now in your grieving matrix, you had another sad grieving to add in because now you are facing the possibility of losing your new wonderful job that caused your old job to become obsolete to you.So your work may say something like, well we will give you one more chance.Two weeks later you are stricken and knocked down by a virus, it’s the flu bug.Now what?Now you can’t lift your head off the pillow, much less go to work so you find yourself calling off work again, but this time your work says hey we’re sorry you are sick, but we must replace you because now you have become unreliable.So the next couple of days you lay in bed recooperating and suddenly you remember that there was a free flu clinic you had planned to go to way back the second week of your new job and you didn’t go because you forgot!To make matters worse, now that you’ve been sick, you have also forgot that your car payment was due last Friday and so now the bank is blowing up your phone.But wait, it doesn’t stop there, the house you live in sprung a leak in the upstairs inside of one of the closets and you didn’t notice it because in the last 2 months you never did get to that closet, though you had intended on it to do some cleaning.You think, with the new job and all, I was going to do it some-time but life has come at me fast and I just didn’t have ‘time’.Now, you have to call a maintenance person out and as it turns out, it’s something so simple as the gutters needing cleaned out, so you are relieved it wasn’t major.However, you now must pay him for his time, all while paying the auto repair bill, all while now being jobless-not knowing for sure how or when you will receive a paycheck again.Good thing, you had $10K in the bank for that loan you took out during your ‘happy moments’ of gaining this new job, for most certainly you KNEW BUT KNEW you’d be able to pay it back during your plateau of emotional glory and happy grieving.Sadly, it takes you 3 months to find a new job and the savings become depleted completely for the cost of living eats it up!!Finally, you are on your way you have a new job, but during the matrix of everything that has now occurred, you didn’t realize in the fine print of your loan where it said you could defer a payment and just send in the coupon and you prepare it to send it in, you forgot stamps!Stamps you say to yourself, STAMPS!Are you kidding me?Sure thing, surely not kidding, because in the happy grieving of getting the new job, you didn’t pay attention to something so simple to be done and now it’s Saturday 12pm.Post office is closed, but there’s a mail run going out at 5pm and you can get this in in time, but it can’t wait as it must be postmarked TODAY!Even if it could wait, you’d not make it to post office Monday because on Monday you have work at 8am.

That’s how life rolls. It’s a cycle. We can go through a whole huge webbing or happy and sad grieving and forget the simplistic in life. Sometimes the things we thing are simplistic hold the ‘key’ to keeping everything together. Something so simple as forgetting to buy a stamp can prevent us from sending something important in the mail that has a deadline to be postmarked by, that can bring us into further sad grieving. Could it had been prevented, we may find ourselves asking? We could tear this scenario completely apart and wonder if any one of the things could avoided. There is no perfect ‘how-to-manual’ for life and dealing with it day-in/day-out and perfect steps, but today I hope to give some insight you may find useful and helpful that you could apply to your own life.

As a single mom having raised 2 sons to adulthood and with one turning 18 in just a couple of days and another turning 16 in a few weeks, I’ve put all of my children through sports throughout their school years, myself through college while having worked 1-2-and 3 jobs at the same time, yet found time to be social at times and even have a dating life avail. How does a person do all of that and avoid situations like in this scenario? Simply put, not allow people or circumstances to control me. To learn how to prioritize and a way to remember things that I may forget! Structure and organization in life while leaving flexibility for ‘changes’ and room for ‘errors’ is something that has ‘become me’. Being adventurous and spontaneous within that structure keeps things interesting, too! Someone once said to me when I was in my younger days: ‘where there is a will, there is a way’ as if to lean into saying: If you are determined enough yet humble and open enough, you can find a way to accomplish tasks. That person was right and I learned it after going through circumstances involving a whole streamline of events, such as some of what I’ve shared the scenario encompassing.

Emotional/Mental Preparation:

Steps:

1. Know WHO and HOW you are!! Get comfortable with some things in your mind as to what ‘realistic expectations are’ that you could set of yourself!(i.e., are you a procrastinator or are you someone who is always changing things around or are you someone who likes spontaneity, etc.)

2. Know that while you can set a goal and aspire towards it, God needs to carry you on that path, the path of doing what is right. When we set steps to accomplish goals and things come to interfere with it, we need to also have clear discernment as to the importance it weighs-as to the offset it may cause.(i.e., put off until tomorrow what isn’t necessary to do, yet what IS necessary today-GET’ER-DONE!)

3. Know that calmness and stillness are still going to be required, even if you find the ‘method’ to work for you!(i.e., NOTHING in life is worth losing your physical life/health over, meaning high blood pressure and stress)

4. Know that life is meant to be lived and you should enjoy the roses, take the time to ‘smell’ them.(i.e., life is a blessing, remember that counting your blessings and giving them the attention they deserve keeps life much more fruitful instead of it becoming bland and mundane)

5. Know that YOU determine your own success in accomplishing tasks.(i.e., no one can control you that you don’t allow to control you and NO THING can do that either)

HOW-TO:

1. Make to-do lists. Start off with the TODAY to do on one post-it note or sheet of paper or whatever mechanism you’d like to do us that is convenient and easy for you. I’d suggest something easy to carry around. When I first began this, I began with 3 little palm-sized steno pad notebooks that I could fit into my pocket-that small. I suggest you get one for ‘today to-do’, ‘next week-to-do’, and ‘free-flowing to-do’.

2. Prioritize your to-do list so you can discern which list to put things on. You can write them in pencil if you want so you can erase. Whatever works for you!

EXAMPLES:

TODAY-TO DO:

*Go to store

*Rerun Budget

*Clean car

*Hospital visit

*Homework

*Filing

*Class @ 2pm

*Kids to ball game @ 6pm

*Make dinner

*Take a nap

*Work @ 10pm

Phone calls:

*bank

*geico

*grandma re: grocery shopping—set-up time

In this example, I leave myself with flexibility as I automatically know in my mind the store must be visited today-we are out of milk, the budget needs done and is important but not nearly as important as being in class @ 2pm and doing homework is. The hospital visit is necessary. Filing, well let's just say I put that off as long as I have to, for it's something that I may not get to for a week or two(haha)! As for the phone calls, same processing occurs in my mind!

UPCOMING TO DO:

*Don't forget-car for oil change Monday October 9th @ 1pm

*Don't forget-restructure to-do lists/shopping lists

*Don't forget-ministry related things

*Don't forget-check out job market for RN prospective positions

*Don't forget-November-Doctor appt is coming

*Don't forget-work on summer 2018 vacation

*Don't forget-Kids' birthdays are coming!

GET DONE:

*Find best deal on paint

*Find new dentist/eye doctor for me and kids

*Make a note for my boss re: schedule change by October 15th

*Need to get a flu shot by end of October

SHOPPING LIST - Walmart:

*Fresh salad mix

*Ranch dressing

*Chipotle-ranch dressing

*milk, water, eggs, pop, meat

SHOPPING LIST - Dollar General:

*Tide(pods and liquid)

*Bleach

*Cereal

*TP/paper-towels

*Soap

SHOPPING LIST - Ink Depot

*GET INK!

SHOPPING LIST - Dollar Tree

*Dog treats

*Decorations

*Car freshener, glass & leather wipes/cleaner

SCHOOL TO DO

*In the lab:

-Print: weekly printouts for NSG and Mico(lab only)

also print chart 50-3

*STUDY:

-Complete study guide for lab practical - micro

-Read chapters 11, 12, and 13 - micro

-Read chapters 56, 63, 13, 29, and 34 - NSG

-Study for test in NSG upcoming tuesday 10/3/2017

-Review materials and youtube vids for Sims Lab coming up on thursday 10/5/2017

No matter what comes at me day-in/day-out I always look over these to-do lists and shopping lists. I keep them inside of a 3x5 notebook that has paper in it for me to make revised lists or add-ons and I use post-it notes. I leave this by my computer and take it with me wherever I go. When I stop at the store for example, I just pull out my lists for the store. I leave myself flexibility as I'll take all store lists in with me and i'll be sure to get what I intended to get at that particular store, but if I find a good deal on something I meant to get somewhere else, I may just get it there. My to-do lists are never set in stone, unless I make a note of a time frame or perhaps I may write in paranthesis (It MUST be done today). I always leave room for flexibility. I begin each and every day in prayer/meditation and by reading at least one scripture from God's word. The second thing I do is look at my to-do lists!!! when something in life arises and interferes with my 'to-do' such as my mom going into the hospital, this makes it much easier so that my emotions don't cloud me so much so that I 'forget' something I had that 'had to be done' on a particular day!!!(i.e., appts, hw, studying for tests, etc.)

Remember 1 Corinthians 14: 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.

We, as humans, may confuse things and get disorder going on because we lack structure or organization at times. It's totally possible to live a life or order, self-control, structure and organization yet also have adventure and spontaneity in life, as I'm living it! I'm really bad sometimes at procrastinating and that's why I do more then one to-do-list, to be honest and also, I get 'side-tracked' by 'adventure and spontaneity', thus all the more of importance it is to have to-do and to-shop lists for me!!! I can't count how many times I've set out to go to walmart for example and run into someone I know that's then led into changes of plans for me. When my mom went into the hospital I thought 'now how in the world am I going to do all of this with what little time I have' or how about when I helped with benefit related things for the death of a close friend of my son's? I didn't think i had the 'time' to put into it, but by my lists I was able to pull through. I had emotions involved in both scenarios, yet I made sure to accomplish what was necessary. Of course I put off what I could and added them on the new to-do lists. Generally speaking, I do daily, weekly and 'futuristic' to do lists, but I read them daily and weekly and I rewrite them as needed!! Also, I'm a woman so when i shop I do get things 'not on the lists', which brings all the more importance of lists, so I don't forget something I needed for home. Especially when I decide to stop at another store and just leisurely shop(haha)! I hope this helps you and inspires you. Remember, flexibility in life is important but also staying on task is too! life comes at us fast and it can be full of trials and tribulations. God doesn't care so much about your circumstances as he does about how you deal with them!!!