Got Morpha?

Morpha is the Greek word, which means “something that doesn’t change. It’s a solid form. It’s always the same.”

This word got me thinking about the things in my life that I could actually say have been morpha-fied. As I wrecked my mind the only two things I identified was my love for learning & my desire to witness others change the course of their life. My love for my husband has to change and deepen DAILY, or our relationship couldn't endure the test of time & life circumstances. My work ethic would always have to be tweaked to remain ahead of my counterparts & competitive.
My relationship with my bonus children would always have to be updated so that they knew I listened & cared about what matters most to them.

The thing is many things in life rarely remain the same. We are a trophy on display in need of inner GPS tracking systems. Although this sounds weird, it’s an accurate approach to track the course of our lives. Without regular updates, our trophies will look dated, listless & pretty flabby.

We cannot ever stop getting ourselves together. We cannot ever stop learning and applying what we learn. Without being sober, alert & intimate about every aspect of our lives, we are destined to failure at best & life without meaning at the very worst.

If you’re like me, there are areas of your lives that seem perfect & other areas that seem to tear at the seams due to life’s circumstances. Most of these circumstances you find yourself in began with “I’ll never….,” "Oh I don't have to worry about _____ because I did _____ or planned...," or “I don’t understand how …..found themselves in this circumstance.”
The reality is that life always places us in unique situations, especially those which DURING THE ORDEAL feel eternal, yet are really “schemas.”

Schema means a temporary image. It’s these temporary circumstances, left unchallenged which become the permanent stories, which shape our lives. These temporary situations tend to color every aspect of our lives in the same way a horror flick seems to terrify the entire unsuspecting town.

Once something so horrific overtakes our lives, how can we change?

We need to prepare for WAR in times of peace. We need to strategize our way of escape so we can lessen the blow to our lives. There’s something about each of us that’s rare. It’s that rare commodity which we WILL need to use to change the prognosis of our life CIRCUMSTANCE or at the very least ourselves while dealing with whatever occurs.

I so desperately wanted to believe everything I typed to share in this blog….however the harassment of the IRS, mounting student loans, & relationship trouble were all SMACK DAB in my face.

So after some reflection, prayer & exercise, I renewed my mind and started crafting my YADA solution.

“This is how humans are: we question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question.” ~ Orson Scott Card

Yada means a very intimate experience.

I knew I needed this experience, because all of the things facing me were zapping my power to think strategically & behave in alignment with my desired goal: to have peace in the midst of ALL this life transition.
This shift in mindset was IMPERATIVE because, neither I, nor you will EVER experience power in our lives without intimacy with life purpose itself.

The marching orders of my plan....

1. Establish boundaries for myself. This included my staying away (or at least significantly minimizing my contact) from people, places, circumstances that tempt me to sabotage my goal(s).
2. When I began thinking about what I didn’t want, I immediately thought about something else. I literally stopped spending endless hours re-living what had already happened, what I didn’t want anymore of & beating myself up.
3. Daily, I would think about my current life circumstance & keep factoring in future plans. I make future planning a top priority. When I get tempted to give up I ponder motivational speaker/trainer John Maxwell’s famous words “ if you want to change something in your life, you have to change something daily.”
4. I practice strict adherence. I make it my priority to remain disciplined. By pre-planning many of my moments, reactions & outline for my intended goals, I more easily remain self-motivated.
5. I regularly listen to encouraging things i.e. cd’s, radio, et al.
6. I regularly declare under my voice the desired result. For instance, when I start feeling like things will never change I might tell myself “Thanks for sharing. Things will change. In fact they already are because I’m thinking about my life differently. The perfect solution is en route to me as I speak;” “God thank you for the promise that you will fulfill all of my plans and inmost hearts desires.”

So now that you get the picture, it’s your turn to create your method of escape. You can do anything that you set your mind, will and emotions to.

To your best life,

Tatum

Identify Distorted Thought Patterns...

The kindest form of life management is to recognize the truth about yourself. It's the discovery of self which enables meaningful interactions with others. At first glance this statement seems pretty easy to accept until we are forced to apply it to an area of our lives that's at some sort of standstill.

The standstills are in fact places where recovery is desperately needed. They also happen to be the places where resistance is subconsciously or consciously stronger than ever.

Why is this?

It's incredibly revealing, painful, disturbing and regretful to look at the totality of our lives. To make matters worse, not many of us were raised to "do endings well" so rather than face the possibility of confrontation, we learn to internalize what's wrong, & second guess ourselves. This leads to mistrust of self and the world around us & a lifetime supply of ego and pride which provides a false satisfaction that keeps us UNdelightfully STUCK!

So we go through life with a limp that diminishes our courage to fight our battles alone.

After getting past the negative self talk & the ramblings of my ego which rationalized the counterproductive behavior, I came to the realization that I tend to internalize things. After I identified my need, the next step was to identify the last several times I did things differently, leaving my thoughts and inner voices intact. These were the discoveries:

1) I didn't internalize the situation when I spoke up for myself.
2) I didn't internalize the thoughts as long when I quickly shifted my thought toward something else.
3) I didn't internalize the situation and thoughts when I read affirming thoughts previously created by myself when the world seemed a o.k.
4) I didn't internalize when I spent time with people who were affirming, yet honest with me. Essentially when I felt they had my best interest at heart, I was free to share more of myself authentically.
5) I didn't internalize information when I would read, memorize & meditate upon scriptures.

Now its your turn to identify an area of need & list the discoveries when you noticed life was somehow different. Even in the midst of the storm, or biggest setback, you noticed calm waters.

So with my list in hand, I played the movie in my mind by recalling the three areas of my life, most in need of this sort of change. They were professionally, emotionally and relationally.

Since these three areas were going in 3 different directions, synergy was required if recovery was my ultimate goal. Synergy occurs when two or more things are working together (muscles or drugs for example) to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.

The tools I had in my possession could assure change as long as I became increasingly mindful of the ways I people please, exercising the choice to say no as well as share "what's true for me" without second guessing myself. Although setbacks and mistakes were certain, now I could endure past the past and anticipate the result: reclaiming the free-spirit nature I never knew.

This is a journey that I've discovered is life long, meandering and is getting a little easier on some days, less easier on others, yet all the while well worth it. I also have noticed that I'm better at expressing my viewpoint, than I was even weeks ago.
Literally, every day in every way, I am getting better and better.

And so can you! Share your journey to inspire me and countless others.