Panic! No. Just kidding. Life goes up and life goes down. There are no straight lines in the universe. This is a wiggly wobbly ride you are on, my friend. The key is to just relax into the down times. Cut expenses, examine all of your promises and eliminate guilt and obligation. Stop doing things that feel bad. Take more naps. Go for more walks. Meditate. Pray. Go within. When you do that, the answers come, the energy returns and the surge of new energy begins again. What goes up, must come down. And in life cycles, if you practice the techniques I give you, what does down will come back up again.
In the Inspired Action Coaching process we advise our clients that breakdown is the beginning of breakthrough. The key is to celebrate that the bad stretch is the beginning of a new good stretch. It’s hard to get that when you are in the middle of it. But when you think about your life as a whole you will see that you have gone up and down countless times. That the down time leads to an up time.
Success is a series of well-managed breakdowns. Success is not a destination. Success is a process of managing the destruction that new ideas create in your life. Sometimes the bad stretch that people go through is the result of your life adjusting to the new ideas, thoughts, process and creates you are putting into place. Just relax and know that all will work out. Just keep moving forward one day at a time, taking life as it comes.
3 Comments
This is a very good comment. There is nothing here which is not in the Bible.
Read James 1:2-3
“consider it all joy my brothers when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance”
The result of our adversities is endurance, or in our words “a stronger mindset”, which we cannot develop without facing challenges.
Zechariah 13:9 “I will bring the one third through fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and I will test them as gold is tested”
God refines us like silver is refined: with fire. By putting us through very difficult situations and braking us down (funny you use that word “breakdown”) so he can shape us to His likeness. No jewelerer can work gold in cold state, to shape it first gold has to be put to fire, then is malleable…so are we, we are more malleable when we are broken down, humbled. Our greates enemy is ourselves, our own pride and ego; that has to be broken down.
I like your phrase “the key is to celebrate that the bad stretch is the beginning of the good stretch” that is a rephrase of James 1:2 above.
At the end when you call to “not worry”, refer to Matthew 6:25-34 (too long to write here, but only 1 minute to read in the Bible. In short it says do not worry, God loves you, He knows your needs (not your desires) and will meet your needs.)
You finish by saying “Just keep moving forward one day at the time taking life as it comes”
you are paraphrasing Jesus on Matthew 9:23 “Then He said to all: if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and pickp up his cross daily and follow me”
Jesus does not ask of us to think of how we are to follow Him 5 years from now, but instead to take one day at the time.
In short, there is nothing good and true that God has not already spoken about. To test if what someone has said is worth hearing, put it to the test of scripture: if it can be supported by biblical scripture then is worth listening to. Acts 17:11 “…for they received the word with all willingness ans examined the scriptures daily to determine whether these things were so…”
Your words Matthew Ferry in this particular article are worth listening to.
The question is If you did not get this knowledge from the Bible…but instead from self-superation books, how much more wisdom is there (in the Bible) that you may not know about and therefore may not be tapping into, it is after all the word of He who created us all.
Dear Matthew:
Unfortunately our economy is the result of a herd mentality and the majority of the herd is very ignorant of the process of group perception that led to the great depression. It was people panicking and losing faith in the system that led to the run on the banks and the populous opinion that it was all over. We are about to witness a similar response as the population of the USA realizes that the stimulus packages and bailouts are not working and everything they have worked for their entire life is disintegrating before them.
We are in for rough times because of the consequences, unintended, by well meaning politicians that were attempting to open up home ownership and the American dream for American citizens. Unfortunately, many of these citizens were not financially capable of affording the homes they were enticed to purchase. Predatory and greedy mortgage bankers taking advantage of the Government change in regulations exacerbated the process by presenting candidates for mortgages that would fall below normal lending guidelines.
I think that we are not getting it that the Economy has been severely damaged and like your body responds to mistreatment, is about to respond with negative feedback that will be setting us back for years. Our Economy is in a tailspin created by the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market and this will have ramifications that will reverberate throughout our economy that our grandchildren will be talking about decades from now.
Check out the economic factors on my web site and think about ways to protect yourself because we are at the mercy of the herd instinct and this terrible economic storm is unfortunately our reality until we turn it around. I explain it that way because we are all responsible for the economic outcome. I have faith in the American people and our system and we will turn it around by working together.
Let’s get on with it without recrimination…
Warm regards from,
Bill Hultquist
http://www.enterprisemanagementconsulting.com
Thanks!