How to Talk to Yourself. When most of us hear about communication workshops and the like, we immediately think of how to relate to others peacefully and effectively.  Would you believe that is actually the end point of communication, not the beginning?  Two critical steps come before speaking with others.  Without these two parts of the foundation, relating to others will only be so effective for so long.  These two essential ingredients are listening to the Lord and talking to ourselves with the same compassion He has toward us.

God is love and is all-good.  He loves us with a tenderness that is beyond our ability to fathom.  Yet, all too often, we agree with this truth intellectually but completely disregard it in practical application.  Remember that in the Scriptures, Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves.  That means that loving ourselves is key.  Yet, to have any true and healthy idea of what love is, we have to look to Jesus, who is the image of the Invisible God.  I’m called to imitate Him in His compassion, patience, and understanding, even as I relate to myself.

Sadly, there was a time many, many years ago when spiritual writers would use the term ‘self-love’ to mean selfishness.  That was really unfortunate because there is a leftover attitude that it makes sense for Jesus to love me, but then I should go beat myself up in my thoughts and deeds toward myself.  Then, we expect to be able to love our neighbor well because somehow that is holier than being loving toward me.  It simply doesn’t work or requires an extraordinary amount of effort to make the constant mental shift from a negative, condemning voice that beats me up if I forget something but is patient with another person if they forget something or struggles in some way.

To believe that God loves me, I have to be living as though I love me.  Love doesn’t mean entertaining my every whim or desire.  We know the Lord doesn’t relate to us in that way, either.   It does mean that I can’t make a perfect performance, some sort of golden calf that I have to be a slave to to earn love.  If I do relate to myself in that way, the chances are I’ll relate to others the same way and may even begin to believe that is what God’s love is like.  That could not be farther from the truth.  His love is unearned and unchanging.  The power and strength of being loved give us the freedom and ability to hit the mark a little closer each time.

So, be compassionate when you’re going about your day and commenting to yourself on what you’ve done or how you’ve done it.  As you examine your conscience at the end of the day, don’t forget to affirm yourself for the effort you showed and how you responded to the Lord’s grace.  That isn’t pride; that is being loved to you as the Lord commands you.

May the Lord give you peace!

Margaret

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I grew up in the Deep South and learned to drive a stick shift when I was eight years old; for those under 50, some cars had manual transmissions, meaning that the driver had to change the gears.  In most cars nowadays, that happens automatically.  It was on old, unmarked dirt roads.  Driving underage and without a license isn’t something for which I’m advocating, but it was a great experience.  I loved everything about it.  Learning a new skill was fun, but in particular, there was something about the challenge itself that was exciting.

Fast forward to my experience of trying to teach adults to drive sticks.  It’s been surprisingly different.  Any adult I’ve ever taught has been apprehensive and has frozen when they stalled out.  Stalling out is common when learning to drive a stick.  The car doesn’t explode.  You don’t get ejected from the driver’s seat.  Aliens don’t take you to another planet.  You simply put the car in neutral and start it back up.  I began paying attention to a common difference in how we handle challenges as kids and how we do as adults.  It seems as though, as adults, we tend to have unrealistic expectations of ourselves that we should already know and be proficient at whatever the skill or knowledge is.  Many of us learning new things significantly trail off or stop completely when we age.

I realized I’d been doing the same thing a few weeks ago.  I lift weights and consistently avoid single-leg exercises because my balance isn’t great.  I couldn’t do those exercises without a struggle, and so I realized I wasn’t doing them at all.  We tend not to like doing or even attempting things we haven’t mastered.  The problem is that growth in virtue and breaking patterns of sin can require struggle.  If we avoid struggle in the physical realm, why would it be any different in the spiritual dimension?  I know the same applies to mental challenges.  Compare the number of kids who learn musical instruments or languages to the number of adults who do.  It can be a little more challenging since our brains prune parts we aren’t using.  At the same time, the brain is highly adaptive.

So, I started doing the single leg exercises, and boy, do I ride the struggle bus on these.  No doubt.  I’m doing them in front of others, too.  However, after embracing the struggle as a spiritual and physical exercise, I’ve come to – dare I say it! – enjoy them!!!  I can only do micromovements – approximations of the exercise I’m attempting.  I can already tell it’s creating some muscle memory, though, and I can feel in my legs that muscles are being worked in a way I hadn’t been able to tax them before.

To sum it up, the process of struggling can have many benefits.

If you feel like the struggle is real, embrace it!  Be compassionate with yourself, and enjoy the process!

May the Lord give you peace!

Margaret

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Having a Ministry Mindset. In Genesis, God put a man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it.  That was not a result of the fall of man.  It was laboring that resulted from man’s transgression.  God worked for 6 days as He created for six days, contrasting with Him resting on the seventh day.  Work is not a bad, but a beautiful thing in and of itself.  It can even be a glorious thing when we do it in collaboration with the Lord.  Along this same line is the motto of the Benedictines, “ora et labor,” that is, “prayer and work.”  Both are seen as essential and redemptive.

The fact of our lives is that most of us must work either for ourselves or someone else.  This is not to be a contrast but an extension or an expression of our life of faith. We are God’s hands and feet in this world, and it is through us that He seeks to build up the Kingdom at hand.  It is through us that He seeks to restore the Body of Christ.  We are sent out to do this as the apostles and disciples were.

Too often, as laity, we can look to clergy and religious to do that while we go to our jobs.  That’s not how it’s meant to be.  While they may have a more specifically religious flavor to their mission, our work is supposed to be every bit as much of a ministry, but ministry in the marketplace, perhaps.

Some factors that distinguish work from ministry:

Perhaps the most fundamental difference in a work and ministry mindset might be starting from a place of love rather than fear.  When we start from being deeply, passionately loved by the Lord and loving ourselves as He loves us, we go out into the world carried by the waves of His love, which flow through us to others.  If, however, we start from a mindset of fearing not being able to pay the bills or fearing our lack of inherent value, we look for what we can get through a job rather than what we can give.

This day, may the Lord sear into the depths of your soul the knowledge of His infinite and never-failing love for you.  In that strength, may you minister to His people in whatever task you do, and may the Lord give you His peace.

Margaret

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Does Anyone Get It? I want to share with you a devotion that I didn’t come to easily.  Because of my own relationship with my mother, I didn’t want a mother.  And I certainly didn’t want a sorrowful one!  Yet, that was this title of Our Blessed Mother I was forced to grapple with after having been in a religious community named for her.  In digging into the history of that title, I found that title was first entered in the Roman Missal as Our Lady of Compassion.  That got my attention.  That was distinctly different from my broken experience of having a mother.  So, it opened the steel door I had slammed shut.

I didn’t want to come to this devotion for all the amazing promises associated with it.  That felt disingenuous, inauthentic, and self-serving.  However, I noticed that it was often a better fit for time constraints or where the bandwidth of my brain was.  I might not be able to pay attention to a whole Rosary, but seven Hail Marys and meditations seemed easier to focus on.

Over the years of praying this devotion, I’ve found my heart filled with compassion for her passion/suffering at the Lord’s Passion and the depths of her suffering convinced me of her compassion.  I began to trust her and see that no matter how alone, isolated, misunderstood, wavering in faith, and surrounded by darkness I might feel, she’s felt it all.  She knows the intricacies of emotional and mental suffering like no other human who was not divine.

When we are on our own crosses, we can have that assurance that someone DOES get it.  Not just anyone, but the most perfect and compassionate mother we could ever imagine.  How good the Lord is to know how much we would need that, how much we would need her.  So, we can trust that He gave her a maternal heart like none we could imagine.  Please pray these with me knowing she gets it.  You can trust her.  She is with you on your crosses in this life.

May the Lord give you peace.

Margaret

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Interventions to Cope with Stress. At one time or another, we all experience stress in our lives.  Whether from anxiety and apprehension about the future or pain over hurtful things from the past, we can feel like our emotions hijack our brain and our ability to maintain that gift of the Lord’s peace. Despite knowing the truth and trusting in God’s goodness, we can feel nervousness in our bodies, making it difficult to concentrate, think straight, and focus.  Why is this, and what can we do about it?

This can happen because the emotional part of the brain can become stirred up and cause the brain’s right hemisphere to exert itself more than usual.  That’s because, with the right hemisphere of the brain, we experience all time like it’s now.  That means that the past hurts or future worries can vie for our ability to be in the present moment with the Lord, who is right here, knowing and loving us.

So, the first thing to do is remind yourself that what you are experiencing is biological.  Understanding that can help us realize that what we feel isn’t necessarily true just because it feels so big.  Those are emotions you are experiencing.  They are not who you are.  There is still a ‘you’ that knows God is in charge, is all good for you, and will use all things for your good.

The next thing to do would be to engage the left hemisphere of the brain or the five senses.  Below are some strategies to do just that.  Knowing these things can be like having a page out of the User’s Manual of your brain.  I’ll never understand why we don’t get taught these things in school.

Strategies:

E.g., Swimming, biking, walking, jogging.

E.g., Smelling perfume or essential oils, sucking on a mint, chewing gum, holding an ice pack, the feel of Rosary beads, noting what one is seeing or hearing.

These simple tools can give us a way to collaborate with the Lord’s gift of peace.

May He give His peace to you this day and always!

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Greater Peace, Joy, and freedom! Below is a Self-Evaluation regarding the pillars of connection.  I share this tool with you to help you find the areas where the Lord may have even more profound peace, joy, and freedom for you.  This is not a weapon to use to beat yourself up, but is meant to be an aid for you to know better how to focus your prayer in a way to remove the blocks from receiving God’s love.

Human & Spiritual Integration Self-Evaluation

Chosen:

Known:

Valued:

Boundaries:

Openness:

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Why does discipleship conjure up such a beautiful sentiment for most of us, but discipline not so much?  If you’re like me, you might feel like discipline is about how you are not good enough, that something more is going to be required from you, and you already feel like you’re at your limit. By contrast, discipleship can make us think of sharing intimately with the Lord and participating in His mission.

In the book of Hebrews, we are told that the Lord disciplines us because we are His children.  Discipline is because we are deeply and dearly loved.  It’s how He aligns more closely with Himself and fine-tunes us to His voice.  Only when we are submitted to the Lord’s discipline are we ready to be commissioned for more intimate service.  Put another way, only when we follow the Lord’s footsteps closely are we prepared to lead safely.

When the archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary, she did not say “yes” because he did not ask her a question.  He told her what was going to happen.  She submitted to the Lord’s way.  The same is true of us.  The Lord does not ask our permission.  Loved ones are taken, we get ill, things don’t go as it seems they ought to, all without the Lord asking if that’s ok.  However, we are called to submit our mission to the Lord’s mission.  We submit, that is, we put our plan under (sub) His and leave it to Him to order things rightly according to His infinite wisdom and goodness.

Sometimes, stretching in charity or generosity will not feel very natural at all.  That does not mean we are being inauthentic.  The truth is that we have a concept of ourselves based on where we are and how we are feeling today.  Only the Lord knows who He made us to be and what He is fashioning us into.  He is the Potter.  We are the clay.

Let’s submit ourselves to discipline in our lives so that we may be aligned more closely to the Lord and get under the spout where the glory comes out!

May the Lord give you His peace!

Margaret

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Finding Healing for Holiness and Healthy Relationships. We all share a call to holiness, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out, and the Scriptural basis for this comes from Ephesians 1:4, where we hear that we were chosen in Jesus by the Father before the world even came to be.  That means we are set apart for Him. We are made for a profound union with Him body, mind, and spirit for all eternity.  Even as intimate as marriage is, it only symbolizes the union we will have with God forever.  In Heaven, those who are married in this life will no longer be married to a human spouse.  Yet, the espousal relationship with the Lord will remain for eternity.  Connection is our most basic human need.  When we experience it, we flourish and suffer when we are lacking in that way.  No connection will ever be so profound and complete as what we are called to with the Lord.

What comprises connection?  It’s being chosen, known as an individual who is very good, value inherently, not based on what we do, and being safe with our boundaries being respected.  God supplies for these connection needs superabundantly beyond what we could ever hope for or imagine.  We have a God-sized whole within us because we were made for Him, and only He can satisfy these needs.  Sadly, parents or early caregivers often modeled something for us that was less than a good image of God, so it became difficult for us to believe that He relates to us in these ways.  So, how we relate to ourselves became flawed as we began to relate to ourselves in the way we were related.

Yet, these must be chosen, known, valued, protected, and provided for to remain as central as ever.  Much of the disappointment, frustration, and conflict we see in our world is because people are trying to get other people to fill those needs.  However, it’s only in receiving the Lord’s deep satisfaction of these needs that will allow us to live lives of profound freedom, joy, and peace.

Let’s take these areas of pain and hurt to the Lord and allow Him to show us the truth of who we are in Him.  Receive your Eternal Bridegroom into your heart this day.  Give yourself to the One who left Heaven to purchase you at the price of His Precious Blood and loves you personally and intimately beyond your wildest hopes or imaginings.

May the Lord give you peace.

Margaret

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Parenting as God Parents. Parenting is a tall order.  Not only does it mean forming little minds and souls while keeping little bodies protected and provided for but parents image God.  How we relate to little people as parents or in roles of authority becomes how they perceive the Lord.  Because they perceive us as all-knowing and all-powerful (even though we are NOT), how we interact with them becomes how they perceive He Who is really all-knowing and all-powerful.  This can be done in a beautifully good way, as St. Therese of Lisieux’s parents imaged God for her.  Through her autobiography, Story of a Soul, the reader can see how she so naturally transitioned from being related to in a loving way that she came to understand that she is lovable and then could so easily perceive God as loving her deeply.  It was the reception of that love that filled her and strengthened her interior life. So, when it was lacking externally from uncharitable experiences from her religious sisters, she could maintain her peace.

In psychologist Madeline Levine’s article, Raising Successful Children, she explains that being overly protective and controlling of children does them no favors.  It can cripple them emotionally.  It’s the sweet spot of setting high expectations, being available, and attentive but letting go that is most beneficial.  When we focus on controlling the external results, a child loses motivation, comes to see themselves as incapable, and can become fearful of trying because of possible failure.

On the contrary, when we foster the internal development of the child – focusing on the development of character rather than external results, a child develops a self, an interior sense of who they are as someone who can struggle through obstacles and so is capable to handle the challenges that life might put in front of them.

I know this can be easier said than done if we were neglected in some way as children.  We can want to catch them before they fall.  Also, if we see their achievements as a reflection of who we are, we can try to live vicariously through them.  Let’s consider, though, how God parents us.  He has set high expectations of us by calling us to love Him, ourselves, and one another.  He is always available to us and yet respects the free will He has given us, and He doesn’t interfere with that.  As we choose the good it is not just the good result that is good, the choosing itself is good.  It’s the exercise of virtue and freedom when we had the ability and option of doing otherwise that is so precious.  It’s not just winning the good fight that is good.  The choosing to fight the good fight is where the victory begins.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t be persons.  We would be robots.

If you struggle to allow your child the good struggle that will allow him or her to develop interiorly, ask the Lord to show you what fear might lurk behind that.  Good Father, please give us the grace to parent as you do and so endow the children you entrust to us with truly free wills that are capable of choosing the good, especially You who are the greatest good.

May the Lord give you peace.

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Tips for Connection. Following are some very practical ways you can approach parenting to give both you and your child a sense of predictability and peace.  Know that if you are a new parent, these will be easier than if you have not been parenting in this way and make the switch to them.  It is normal and natural for a child to test boundaries that are set for them.  It’s part of how we learn.  Eventually, a child will learn that the boundaries you set will hold (if you stick to them) and there will be less and less testing, just as we only drop things intentionally when we are very little.  Once we see that when dropped an object will fall to the ground, we know that the law of gravity pertains to us and we don’t wonder what will happen if we drop something.

Parenting Tips

Know that unaddressed trauma – even traumas that happened in the womb or as an infant can cause many confounding emotional and behavioral problems.  If a child is consistently in crisis, even behaviorally, that may indicate a need for trauma therapy.

Parenting is so important.  Consider that you are imaging God for your child.  How you represent the Lord far more than what you say about Him will come to be how he or she understands God.  It’s a noble calling and crucial to the forming of a world of peace.  May God bless your efforts with His own grace and strength, He who is Father of us all.

May the Lord give you peace.

Margaret

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