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Setting your life's priorities in the proper order is key to living a life of significance, and purpose. If you are feeling burnt out, out of breath, and you find yourself having a hard time saying no to other people's request well then you have a priority issue. If other individual's urgencies all of a sudden become your priorities I can guarantee that you feel unaccomplished and dead. The Life Hack Series is a series of short episodes that will make YOU the main focus. The Life Hack Series' goal is to help you get from point A to point B in your life.

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Life is all about the decisions and choices we make. One simple decision can catapult you into a completely different destination. A simple change in your decision making process can create a different outcome. It's easiest to blame the world for our greatest demise however at the end of the day we can only blame ourselves. You need to get to a point in your life in which you stop blaming your biology and genealogy for the crap in your life and start accepting that it's your psychology that needs to be renewed. 

Believe it or not, studies show that those who consume pornography more frequently have brains that are less connected, less active, and even smaller in some areas. 

To be fair, the studies only show that there’s a correlation between porn consumption and smaller, less active brains, but they raise the question: Can porn literally change your brain?

Scientists used to believe that once you finished childhood, your brain lost the ability to grow. They thought that nothing except illness or injury could physically alter an adult brain. Now we know that the brain goes on changing throughout life, constantly rewiring itself and laying down new nerve connections, and that this is particularly true in our youth.

See, the brain is made up of about 100 billion special nerves called neurons, that carry electrical signals back and forth between parts of the brain and out to the rest of the body. Imagine you’re learning to play an E chord on the guitar: your brain sends a signal to your hand telling it what to do. As that signal zips along from neuron to neuron, those activated nerve cells start to form connections because “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Those newly-connected neurons form what’s called a “neuronal pathway.”

Think of a neuronal pathway like a trail in the woods. Every time someone uses the trail, it gets a little wider and more permanent. Similarly, every time a message travels down a neuronal pathway, the pathway gets stronger. With enough repetitions, your neuronal pathway will get so strong you’ll be strumming that E chord without even thinking about it. That process of building better, faster neuronal pathways is how we learn any new skill, whether it’s memorizing math formulas or driving a car. Practice makes perfect.

How Porn Changes The Brain

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What does the Bible say about pornography?

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So what exactly is persuasion? In The Dynamics of Persuasion, Perloff defines persuasion as "...a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviors regarding an issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice."

Key Elements

• Persuasion involves a deliberate attempt to influence others

Cialdini's 6 principles of persuasion are: reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. 

How to avoid indoctrination: 

2. Study The Opposing View

3. Be Mindful of Persuasion By Repetition

4. Be Mindful Of Appeals To Popularity 

5. Develop A Biblical WorldView

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• Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the United States—starting with children at age 10 all the way up to adults at age 33.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US for all ages. (CDC)

Every day, approximately 123 Americans die by suicide. (CDC)

There is one death by suicide in the US every 12 minutes. (CDC)

Depression affects 20-25% of Americans ages 18+ in a given year. (CDC)

Suicide takes the lives of over 48,300 Americans every year. (CDC)

Only half of all Americans experiencing an episode of major depression receive treatment. (NAMI)

80% -90% of people that seek treatment for depression are treated successfully using therapy and/or medication. (TADS study)

An estimated quarter million people each year become suicide survivors (AAS).

There is one suicide for every estimated 25 suicide attempts. (CDC)

There is one suicide for every estimated 4 suicide attempts in the elderly. (CDC)

Children and adolescents thinking about suicide may make openly suicidal statements or comments such as, "I wish I was dead," or "I won't be a problem for you much longer." Other warning signs associated with suicide can include:

• changes in eating or sleeping habits

Young people who are thinking about suicide may also stop planning for or talking about the future. They may begin to give away important possessions.

A teen’s risk for suicide varies with age, gender, and cultural and social influences. Risk factors may change over time. They are:

One or more mental or substance abuse problems

Impulsive behaviors

Undesirable life events such as being bullied or recent losses, such as the death of a parent

Family history of mental or substance abuse problems

Family history of suicide

Family violence, including physical, sexual, or verbal or emotional abuse

Past suicide attempt

Gun in the home

Imprisonment

Exposure to the suicidal behavior of others, such as from family or peers, in the news, or in fiction stories

Call your teen’s healthcare provider right away if your teen:

Feels extreme depression, fear, anxiety, or anger toward him or herself or others

Feels out of control

Hears voices that others don’t hear

Sees things that others don’t see

Can’t sleep or eat for 3 days in a row

Shows behavior that concerns friends, family, or teachers, and others express concern about this behavior and ask you to seek help

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Perfectionism by definition: perfectionism is an outward expression of an inward lack of peace.

Perfectionism is driven primarily by internal pressures, such as the desire to avoid failure or harsh judgment. There is likely a social component as well, because perfectionistic tendencies have increased substantially among young people over the past 30 years, regardless of gender or culture. Greater academic and professional competition is thought to play a role, along with the pervasive presence of social media and the harmful social comparisons it elicits.

Perfection manifests itself in three domains. Self-oriented perfectionism is imposing an unrealistic desire to be perfect on oneself. Other-oriented perfectionism means imposing unrealistic standards of perfection on others. Socially-prescribed perfectionism involves perceiving unrealistic expectations of perfection from others.

Perfectionists are:

• All or nothing mindset

FREEDOM from perfectionistic tendencies:

Fulfill your God given call to live under grace and not the law.

Release your burden and guilt to God

Eliminate your need to please others and seek to please God alone

Enlarge your time for rest, recreation, and communion with God

Decide to acknowledge your personal feelings honestly and release all resentment

Obey Jesus's mandate to live under the law of love rather than fear

Maintain your sense of significance and satisfy your need for security by finding your identity in Christ

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 What exactly is a DYSFUNCTIONAL family?

The McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of modern Medicine defines the term 'dysfunctional family' as "a family with multiple 'internal' conflicts, e.g. sibling rivalries, parent-child conflicts, domestic violence, mental illness, single parenthood, or 'external' conflicts, e.g. alcohol or drug abuse, extramarital affairs, gambling, unemployment-influences that affect the basic needs of the family unit."

People tend to learn their parenting styles from their parents or other caregivers. If their parents abused them, they may abuse their children. Or, they may go overboard the other direction, being unnecessarily lenient. They may manipulate each other and their children as their parents did. They may not truly understand how to teach their children in healthy ways.

The good news for people who grew up in a dysfunctional family is that they can learn better ways of parenting. They can deal with the issues they still carry as adults and learn how to love, appreciate, respect, and deal with each other in a less emotional, erratic way. All they need is the willingness to do the work it takes to overcome those issues and find someone to teach them better ways to parent.

It’s important to disclaim that the idea of a perfect parent/family is a myth. Parents are human, flawed and experiencing their own concerns. Most children can deal with an occasional angry outburst, as long as there is love and understanding to counter it. In “functional” families, parents strive to create an environment in which everyone feels safe, heard, loved and respected. Households are often characterized by low conflict, high levels of support and open communication (Shaw, 2014). This helps children navigate physical, emotional and social difficulties when they are young, and has lasting impacts as they transition into adulthood.

During their younger years, children form certain beliefs and carry them, unchallenged, into adulthood. These beliefs are influenced by their parents’ actions and statements and are often internalized, for instance, “children should respect their parents no matter what,” “it’s my way or no way” or “children should be seen, not heard.” This forms the soil from which toxic behavior grows and may be communicated directly or disguised as words of advice, expressed in terms of “shoulds”, “oughts” and “supposed tos.”

The term “ACEs” is an acronym for Adverse Childhood Experiences. It originated in a groundbreaking study conducted in 1995 by the Centers for Disease Control and the Kaiser Permanente health care organization in California. In that study, “ACEs” referred to three specific kinds of adversity children faced in the home environment—various forms of physical and emotional abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. The key findings of dozens of studies using the original ACEs data are: (1) ACEs are quite common, even among a middle-class population: more than two-thirds of the population report experiencing one ACE, and nearly a quarter have experienced three or more. (2) There is a powerful, persistent correlation between the more ACEs experienced and the greater the chance of poor outcomes later in life, including dramatically increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression, substance abuse, smoking, poor academic achievement, time out of work, and early death.

Examples of ACEs include enduring or being exposed to abuse or neglect, familial violence, mental illness, parental separation, divorce or substance abuse.

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Victim mentality is a psychological term that refers to a type of dysfunctional mindset which seeks to feel persecuted in order to gain attention or avoid self-responsibility. People who struggle with the victim mentality are convinced that life is not only beyond their control, but is out to deliberately hurt them. This belief results in constant blame, finger-pointing, and pity parties that are fueled by pessimism, fear, and anger. The victim mentality is an acquired personality trait, meaning that it is the result of early life conditioning and coping mechanisms.

Why do some individual's like playing the victim? In their minds being a victim has its benefits, for instance:

• Not having to take responsibility for anything

Playing the victim actually gives them a lot of power: power to avoid responsibility, power to feel “righteously” sad and persecuted, power to avoid uncomfortable emotions, and power to manipulate other people.

How to stop being the victim?

1. Start by replacing "you" with "I"

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References

Sol, M. (2020, March 28). 23 Signs You’re Suffering From a Victim Mentality ⋆. LonerWolf. https://lonerwolf.com/victim-mentality/

The reason some of people are faltering and failing right now is that they have a visualization of themselves that does not coincide with the Word of God. And what you visualize in your spirit will happen in your life.

Vision is a powerful thing!

Thats why the enemy of our souls works diligently to abort you from having a visualization of seeing yourself any better off than you are. He does not want you to see yourself

• Progressing

He would rather give you visions of

• you falling

Progression

Thoughts become words, words influence our emotions

our emotions affect our decisions, our decisions affect our actions

our actions become habits, our habits shape our character

and our character leads us to our final destination in life… and it all started with a thought!!!

If you truly want to experience God’s best for your life, the life that overflows then you have to line up your thoughts with the Word of God. Vertical alignment NOT  a horizontal one!!!

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