No Critics Allowed (Part 2)

Continued...

4. The Manipulator

Watch out for manipulators, or bullies, who try to use their negativity to intimidate and manipulate your thoughts. If you study them from a distance, you will realize that these people are overly self-focused. In other words, the people around them (YOU) fit into their plan simply based on how they can be used or manipulated for their own personal gain.

These people routinely prioritize their own feelings and needs over and above everyone else's. They will demand that you bend over backward to help them, but if, you ever need help, they will not be around.

The bottom line:  Some people will say and do anything, thoughtlessly, to get others to do what they want them to do. Do not accept this behavior as normal. When someone tries to bully you, stand up for yourself and say, "Not on my watch! This is out of order!"  And if they refuse to reason with you, walk away without a fight.

5. The Actor

Sometimes, you will have to deal with people who insist that you should be someone else. But, in the long run, it's always better to be disrespected for who you ARE than respected for who you ARE NOT.  in fact, the only relationships that work well are the ones that make you a better person without changing you into someone other than yourself, and without preventing you from outgrowing the person you used to be.

In life, you will change.  Sometimes your family and friends will fail to recognize this and continue to label you in an unfair way based on who you used to be; and it's easy to end up CONFORMING to these labels because you remember when they were true. 

What's important to remember is that you're the only person in the world who knows what's happening inside your head right now.  People who don't know you well may assume you're someone else entirely. And people who think they know you well may have pigeonholed you - but you know there's more to you than what they see!

When you IGNORE their opinions and decide to be who you are, instead of who they want you to be, you open yourself up to real love, real happiness, and real success.  There is no need to put on a mask. There is no need to pretend to be someone you're not.

You don't have control over what others think about you, but you do have control over how you decide to internalize their opinions. Leave them to their own judgments. Don't feel threatened and don't conform just to please them. Let people love you for who you are, and not for who they want you to be. Or let them walk away if they choose. They can't harm you either way; it's their understanding that is faulty, not yours.

More to come...

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No Critics Allowed (Part 1)

On the wall in the gym I attend is a sign that says “No Critics!”  Every time I see it, I’m reminded that, in life, criticism is just par for the course.  Obviously all criticism isn’t bad.  In fact, we need the right kind of criticism in our life in order to grow.  Even a battery operates on positive & negative.

However, some people are so focused in seeing the negative side of things that they leave zero room for positive things to grow. People like this are entwined in our families, work environments and social circles. It can be emotionally draining just being around them, and you must be careful because their negative attitudes and opinions are venomous and contagious. 

Negativity perpetuates itself, breeds dissatisfaction and clutters the mind.  And when the mind is cluttered with negativity, happiness is hard to come by.

What do you do?  You ignore these people and move on from them when you must. 

Seriously, you have to be strong and know when enough is enough!  Letting go of negative people doesn’t mean you hate them, or that you wish them harm; it just means you care about your own well-being.  Because every time you subtract negative from your life, you make room for more positive.

What kind of people do you need to distance yourself from?

1. Drama Queens

Some people love to stir up controversy and drama for no apparent reason.  Don’t buy in to their hoop-la.  Stay out of other people’s drama and don’t needlessly create your own.

• Don’t spew hostile words at someone who spews them at you. 
• Keep your composure and replace the stink of confrontation with the fragrance of resolution.  The louder the opposition wants to yell, and the more drama they want to stir, the calmer and more confidently you need to think and speak. 
• Don’t let them get to you.
• Be an example of a pure existence; ignore their outlandish antics and focus on kindness.
• Communicate and express yourself from a place of peace, from a place of love, with the best intentions. 
• Use your voice for good – to inspire, to encourage, to educate, and to spread the notions of compassion and understanding. When someone insists on imposing their hostility and drama on you, ignore them and walk away. 

2. Hard To Please People

Some people are impossible to please; you will not be able to break through to them no matter what you do.  Accept this reality.

Throughout your lifetime some people will discredit you, disrespect you and treat you poorly for no apparent reason at all.  Don’t consume yourself with trying to change them or win their approval and don’t make any space in your heart to hate them.  Simply walk away and leave it in God’s hands.  Realize that bit of time you spend on them will be wasted, and any bit of hate and aggravation in your heart will only hurt you.  

3.  Dream Killers

Stop giving credit to those who discredit your dreams.  These people are punishing your potential by slowly extinguishing your inner flame with their watered down vision of what you are capable of achieving.

If you give in and let their negativity convince you of who you are, their madness will wither you away.  You will convert into who they say you are, rather than living honestly as yourself.  In this way, these people will steal your life from you.  You will lose track of where their opinion ends and your reality begins.  Their fiction will become your life’s story.

What you’re capable of is not a function of what others think is possible for you.  So look beyond their presumptions and mental limitations, and connect with your own best vision of what YOU are capable of and how YOUR life can be.  Life, after all, is an open-ended journey, and 99% what you achieve comes directly from what you work to achieve on a daily basis.

God has big plans for you...keep dreaming lofty dreams!

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The Dirty of Discipleship

1. Say YES to Discipleship!

Programs don't disciple people, people disciple people.

2. Say YES to Relationship!

What if we made sure our structures disciple people? We need to create places for people to encourage relational discipleship.

3. Say YES to making People Matter!

Disciples are made...when they know that they matter to somebody, when they know that they have a place to belong.

4. Say YES to Gratitude!

You need a Romans 16 list...the people that invested in you, walked beside you along the way.  Who's list is your name going to show up on?  We have the ability to control who's list we're on.

5. Say YES to Affirmation!

We need to name people's potential!  Drawing out of them the person that Jesus created them to be. Our words matter so make them big! Call them up to a higher level. You have to be a little crazy to be a disciple maker...You have to see things in people that no one else sees.

6. Say YES to the Mess!
Say YES to the inevitable mess that they will either create or find themselves in. Mess transforms people's lives.  We say YES to mess beginning with diapers and drool; it doesn't stay that clean! You're dealing with the bad choices that they make. If we want to say YES to the next generation, we have to say YES to the mess. We've got to speak life into the messy places. We need to remind people that their mess is not final fate...it may be the incubator for miracles in their life.

7. Say YES to Inconvenience!
YES to hard conversations and shifting our priorities. Tell them a story that is larger than their own. We need to find ways to make people experience grace that is unmistakable. It's one thing to give people a list of statements and say believe it or give them a list of rules and say follow it...we're not going to win the next generation by making statements AT them.

It's not RULES to live by but a CALLING to live for!

Who are we leaving in our wake?

Who's going to be on their Romans 16 list?

We can make sure that those we've been entrusted with experience grace in the fullness of truth and the fullness of truth in the experience of grace. We've got to tell the story over and over again!

We cannot let Jesus' LAST command become our LEAST concern!  We must invite them into a story that's bigger than our own.

We must reach the next generation!  We must say YES!

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You Are Stronger Than You Think

He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound]. [II Cor. 12:9.] (Isaiah 40:29 AMP)

At some point, you will come to realize that living the good life involves some amount of necessary PAIN, and that there are more flavors of pain than ice cream and coffee combined…

There’s the little empty pain of leaving something behind ‒ graduating, taking the next step, walking out of a familiar, safe situation and into the excitement of the unknown. There’s the giant, whirling pain of life upsetting all of your big plans and expectations. There’s the little sharp pains of making a mistake, and the more obscure aches of success, when it doesn’t make you feel as good as you thought it would. There are the vicious, backstabbing pains of betrayal. The sweet little pains of finding others who are worthy of your time, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn. There’s the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them face their problems.

And on the best of days, there are the subtle, tingling pains you feel throughout your body when you realize that you’re standing in a moment of sweet perfection, an instant of great achievement, or happiness, or laughter, which at the same time cannot possibly last ‒ and yet will remain with you for the rest of your life.

Everyone is down on pain, and when we experience it we usually say we’re having a bad day, because we forget something important about what we’re going through: Pain is for the living – for those of us who still have the chance of a lifetime. Only the dead don’t feel it, because their time is already up.

My friend...GOD BELIEVES IN YOU! He has given you the STRENGTH you need to not only survive the hurt, pain, betrayal and junk that may have happened to you but to THRIVE in the face of it!