Did you know that there is an invisible enemy within that needs to be acknowledged before it can be defeated?

Nobody is immune. The effects of it show up in everyone’s life. It keeps things as they always were. It creates fear of the unknown. It allows ignorance to thrive.

It’s called stasis.

Stasis—that force that keeps everything as it was before.

The dictionary says it’s a state of stability, in which all forces are equal and opposing, therefore they cancel out each other. In life, it doesn't want us to rock the boat, prevents us from changing too much. Even when we don’t like what we have, we don’t change it because at least we understand where we are. We know the pitfalls. We know how to survive in what is familiar.

Stasis is so prevalent that it’s almost miraculous when we evolve and stay evolved.

And yet!

Recently I watched a stunningly beautiful new rendition by the band, Disturbed. The power of the song demanded that I pay attention to the message. After hearing this song for years, I finally realized it spoke of two kinds of silences. The silence of quiet. The silence of no words. The silence as a grace. The silence we strive for in meditation. The silence where we exist as one. But there is another side of silence. The silence of being silenced. The silence of being afraid to speak the words that need to be spoken.

We all know we see what we believe. It’s not the other way around. Although we usually live as if it was.

So here’s the question. If we want to live the fullest life possible and express the highest idea of ourselves, is it possible to do so by holding on to a past belief about ourselves?

No, it’s not.

The Bible tells us that every day is the Lord’s day. Spirit’s day. Soul’s day. Every day is a new day.

Science tells us that we renew continually. Skin regenerates every twenty-seven days. Most of our body renews every seven to ten years.

In this season of renewal, it is the perfect time to ask ourselves this question. If renewal is a fact of life, why is every day, in so many ways, a repeat of the day before, and can we change that?

The answer is, yes.

In the past few years, I have learned something, which I knew, but didn’t appreciate as much as I do now. In fact, I am pretty sure that I haven’t fully appreciated it yet, but I am on the road to opening my eyes to the fact that I can’t see what I am looking at. Neither can you. None of us can. We all approach everything with perception bias - intentional or unintentional. It’s the way it works. It takes many eyes, ears, hands, and hearts. And that, my friends, is fantastic, it truly is the gift of living. Get some eyes on what you are doing to shift the story; it might surprise you how powerful and soul-satisfying that can be.

Theology. It’s good for you. Gary is church historian by trade. His writing, speaking, and teaching explores the Christian past to equip today's disciples. Gary suggests that we all claim the riches we didn't know was ours. He says the more you know about your own family history, the wiser you can be about growing up and thriving. Same goes for your knowledge of your Christian heritage. Follow the good examples. Avoid repeating past mistakes. Find some wisdom in a world of confusion.

Del and I have been watching the Netflix series called the Crown. It’s so interesting to see the story of Queen Elizabeth’s life. As I watch it my admiration for QE has grown tremendously . I suppose I was like other people in America, barely registering that there is a Queen, wondering how old is she anyway, and perhaps thinking that the phrase, It’s good to be queen is actually true.

Now I know it’s not.

The life of being a queen wasn’t one that Elizabeth chose. She was born to it.

Imagine a life planned for you. There is no choice. You will be queen. You will become an Institution more than a person.

What if you wanted to be a dancer, or an artist, or back pack through Europe and sleep on friends couches. What if you wanted to live in a tiny house, be a musician, disappear from the world? None of that would be possible.

Instead Queen Elizabeth lives and governs bound by rules set up for centuries, and by mostly men.

Within the confines of a life chosen for her, we can see she lives by intention. The intention to be both a good queen, and a good woman.

And that’s what I want to talk about in this mini shift the story podcast.

Intents. Intention. The power of intention.

Legend has it, Megan was born with a book in her hands. When she was a kid, her mom would ground her from reading in order to get her to do her chores. Megan's dad — also an avid reader — introduced her to Tolkien in her late elementary years, and she never looked back. Megan loves escaping to worlds where magic and monsters are real, especially stories with kick-butt heroines and dangerously attractive heroes.

Nowadays, Megan is a stay-at-home-mom who prefers a good story over doing the dishes. She live in Southern California with her wonderfully supportive husband, two daughters, and a ridiculously energetic dog. You’ll find Megan squinting at her computer screen late at night, spinning her own fantasy adventures in those precious few hours when the house is quiet.

Megan is the author of the Amazon Best Selling series, The Sanyare Chronicles, and Program Director for O.C. Writers, A Network of Published and Aspiring Authors.

In this podcast Megan shares why and how she started writing, how she built the world she writes about, and how she sets her priorities.

The conference was over, and I was standing in line waiting for lunch. I was in a hotel/casino in Las Vegas. In Vegas, gambling is the product. They want you to gamble. They need you to gamble.

There is almost nowhere you can go where there are not flashing lights, smoke, noise and lever pulling with people sitting on stools in front of the machines in the semi dark. Looking for a little luck.

It was a strange juxtaposition between the two groups of people I saw each day. The conference attendees and the people at the machines.

They had something in common, and at the same time were at the opposite ends of the pole.

You have heard the definition of luck as preparation meets opportunity. Well, both groups of people had prepared. We writers had all prepared to come to the same physical location to determine if we could expand our lives. The gamblers had done the same thing. In both groups, people traveled. Some from far away.

Both groups had to believe that what they were about to do would be successful. Both groups had to do work to make it happen.

And that is the beginning of what makes these two groups of people poles apart.

LISTEN to learn more ...

When I looked at my iPhone screen, I saw the little red circle on the App Store icon that alerted me that a few apps needed to be updated. It showed the number as three, but when I opened the App Store, there were thirty-eight apps that had to be updated. I did the obvious. I pressed the update all button and promptly forgot about it.

But, when I looked again, the alert hadn’t gone away. Checking I found that none of the thirty-eight apps had updated. The update buttons just spun around and around.

For the next few days, I would check, and they would still be spinning. I tried leaving the App Store open. But, hours later the update buttons were still spinning. I closed the App Store and and reopened it. Still spinning.

Finally, I turned the phone completely off, and then re opened my phone. This time, the App Icons had stopped spinning, but I still had thirty-eight apps that needed to be updated. But, since they were no longer spinning and their update buttons were visible I did what I should have done in the first place, I updated them one at a time.

So what did I learn?

I bet that it is so obvious you already know, but just in case you would like to hear my version of it, listen to the podcast...

I heard a story a few weeks ago that I can’t stop thinking about. Not because it is about potato chips, but because of what happens to them so that we can all get a perfect chip.

After hearing the story, in my imagination, I turned the potato chips into thoughts.

What if we did the same things to thoughts that are done to potato chips. We could end up with really yummy thoughts, and we all know that what we think is what we experience. Right?

Stick with me, and I’ll tell you how this circular thinking about potato chips and thoughts just might help shift a story or two.

If you like these short Just Beca podcasts – here are more!

Show Notes – Episode #105

The Four Essential Questions

NPR – Tell Me Something I Don’t Know – Potato Chip Story

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