STOP!

Above photo was taken from Desolation Sound in British Columbia, small little dock with a caretaker family of three.  The five year old little girl (who on this given day was going by the name of Lily the Fairy Princess) and her parents live there year round.  An hour boat ride to the nearest store and much farther to any town of substance.  In summer they have visitors daily but come winter time, barely a sole visits the place.  No roads lead in or out.  Their water supply comes from the falls we hiked too, picture below.  I know many people whose minds race when they are alone for 5 minutes (including me sometimes) so it's a unique individual that can deal with that solitude.

Anyway, I love acronyms, and I just came up with another while talking to a good friend.  This friend's mind runs with thoughts, ideas and anxieties often.  I have been giving him the advice to say, "Stop!"  to himself, and give himself permission to have a break from the hyper active mind. 

Well, I thought, what can we do with this word, "stop". 

S.  Sit and listen.  Often when we are anxiouse or in a panic state, we don't allow ourselves to listen.  To the sounds around us...and to other people.  When wanting to rush into monologues or diatribes, take a breath, and listen to somebody else or to nature.

T.  Take it all in.  Look around, see things, hear things, feel things (pick up a blade of grass and feel the texture, pick up a flower and smell it, eat a piece of fruit and really taste it).  Get your senses focusing outward while your mind races to go inward.

O. Outside.  If at all possible, go outside, being stuck indoors is the worst place to let the mind run wild which oftentimes skews thoughts of reality.

P. Persevere.  Training and controlling the mind takes time.  If years of habitual worrying and over thinking have been taking place, it's a habit, it'll take time to create new habits of positive thinking and peace...persevere!

Well, I may modify this, but I wanted to write it down before it slipped away...when the mind starts racing into overdrive, just say, "Stop!"

Lily the fairies water falls

Feel your way to a better life!

Feelings, nothing more than feelings...

While a classic song about love these key words underplay the truth of the reality we live;  feelings drive most people and often to their demise.  Feel we do and strongly.

That's why after much thought and discussion with my partners Mega Mel and Danny Ray about the plight of Everyman's Insanity; we've created the acronym; F.E.E.L. for dealing with the varying and turbulent emotions life in a broken world brings. 

F - Find it
E - Embrace it
E - Emote it
L - Let it go

In reality we can't change the world or anything else.  That's God's job.  We are only conduits in which God does his work.  But with God's initiation we can partake in dynamic changes within ourselves.  The key word here is within.  The temptation for everyone is to fix people, at least everyone but themselves.  As bares repeating we can't change the world or anything else and that includes other people.  We can only change how we react to people.  And how we react always starts with how we feel in a given situation.

External and internal forces drive us to feel; sadness, anger, rage, frustration, hurt, pain, embarrassment, joy, etc.  The list goes on.  And the first word in our acronym helps us to identify exactly what force is driving our feelings.

F. Find it.

As the saying goes denial is not just a river in Egypt.  Usually our first reaction to feeling is either denial or a misplacement of the cause.  So when we recognize a state of emotion we need to ask ourselves, "Why am I feeling this way?"  It may take repeated "self talk" questions, "What is causing this?", "Who is making me feel this way?"  "Why does that action upset me?", "Why am I feeling this way?"  Come up with your own, do whatever it takes to peel back the onion, to find the true reason for why you are feeling the way you do.

E. Embrace it.

Once you find the one or many reasons for the emotions you are experiencing, embrace them.  Shame, guilt, hurt, grief are some of the hardest to accept; but for some it's praise, responsibility, anger...whatever it is embrace it, own it, feel it.  Not just at a surface level but really allow yourself to go through the emotion.

E. Emote it.

As you are finding and embracing the feelings, emote them!  Write down what you are feeling, shout it out in the shower, tell a friend, cry, rant, laugh!  Youtube it or blog it--you might wait a day or two to post it :)--sing it while you run or ride through the trails or streets of your city.  It is critical in the processing to emote what you are feeling. 

L.  Let it go.

It may take many cycles through the above steps before this final step occurs, so don't rush it.  But whether the emotions and feelings you're having are the highest of highs or the lowest of lows, at some point we must let them go.  Life is full of feelings and feelings are a huge part of getting the most out of this wonderful journey called life.  So let go of the old so you can enjoy the new.

Feelings, we all have them, they drive us and sometimes wreck us...don't run or hide, just F.E.E.L.

Mega Mel, master of the youtube, did a video on this topic over Christmas break while we were out playing disc golf, check it out.

Mega Mel on F.E.E.L.