Category: Philosophy

13 Drug-free Ways to Conquer Depression Using The Mind-Body Experience: Part I

If you suffer from or know anyone who suffers from depression, you know how debilitating it can be. Suicidal tendencies, sleep disturbances, nutrition problems, weight changes, and substance abuse are only some of its side effects. The financial toll it takes on society is huge. The toll it takes on people physically and and spiritually is immeasurable.

And an astounding statistics about depression? A Medscape report noted that between 15 and 20 percent of people are affected by this mental illness.

 

But depression is complicated. It’s often difficult to get a handle on its root causes. You might have genetic vulnerability, a significant life stressor, be taking a depression-triggering medication, experienced a serious and debilitating illness, or an injury. Depression can be a surgery side effect. And it can occur as a side effect of painkiller or drug dependence, or be caused by the use of these substances.

Do you know that it can cause long-term damage to both the brain and body?

 

What is the brain connection to depression?

Numerous conditions can affect your brain and its mood-regulating process. Grief after the loss of a loved one or a major life-changing event—moving, changing jobs, having a child—can start the depression ball rolling. If not addressed quickly, it can roll out of control.

 An August 2019 Bridges to Recovery article covered how major depression affects the brain and body. The article covers the memory decline and sleep-disturbance link between the hormone cortisol (which is released when you’re under stress); the disturbing findings that long-term depression sufferers have 30 percent more brain inflammation than their mentally healthy peers; and the link between hypoxia, or reduced oxygen, and depression.

Those are staggering statistics that have tremendous health consequences.

How can we better deal with, overcome and prevent this threatening illness?

Treating depression—

The toll depression can take on your body is significant. But there are alternatives to taking anti-depressants, which can also have their own negative consequences.

Powerful, effective drug-free alternatives exist that you might want to explore, or use with your prescribed medication to enhance results.

These alternatives are listed under a treatment category referred to as mind-body medicine.

 

Depression and Mind-Body Medicine—

Mind-Body Medicine is becoming more popular and mainstream, and you may have heard the term and been wondering exactly what it is and what it could do for you or a loved one.

In a nutshell, Mind-Body Medicine is integrative medicine—medicine that takes the whole person and her lifestyle into account—it helps you control your physical and emotional responses to the world around you.

The Center for Mind Body Medicine defines it as medicine that “focuses on the interactions between mind and body and the powerful ways in which emotional. mental, social and spiritual factors can directly affect health.”

It cannot be emphasized enough that the brain is connected to the body, and vice versa. So if we want to have overall, optimal health we must strive to be whole body connected.

A question you might want to take time to ponder is:

“You might be taking care of your body but what about your mind?”

 

Maybe you’ve recently noticed that you aren’t taking care of your mind, or paying much attention to it outside of knowing what you’re thinking or worrying about at any given moment. Many of us know it’s up there, somewhere above our shoulders, but some of us don’t know what to do with it. Instead of trying to exert control over it, we’re more likely to let it control us. The results can be rapid heart rate, sweaty palms, anger, frustration, fear, and depression.

Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Amit Sood has pointed out that

 

“Impressive advances in neuroscience research have brought to our attention a startling and exciting discovery—the mind can change the brain.”

 

Thankfully, after decades of research, scientists have discovered that our amazing brains do have what they call plasticity— the ability to change throughout our lives. Our brain can be soothed and coerced into being more completely engaged. We can become more resilient, happier, more thoughtful, purposeful or intentional.

Many of the techniques I’m going to give you I learned as an undergraduate and grad student. I’ve tried them, applied them, and researched them. They can work, when you practice them properly and faithfully.

I’m going to address 13 activities. With so many, I’ll be breaking them into three posts, so let’s get started today on the first five:

Biofeedback, Guided Imagery, Meditation, Muscle Relaxation, and Music Therapy.

 At the end of each section, I’ve provided YouTube video of the activity for you to learn more, participate in or practice.

Biofeedback for Depression—

Physical therapists, athletic trainers, coaches and psychiatrists have used this technique for years. But what exactly is this technique that’s been effective in 150 medical conditions?

Biofeedback is used to help your mind control your body.

But just what in your body are you trying to control?

You’re trying to control involuntary (reflexive) responses. Bodily functions you don’t typically have control over, like blood pressure, muscle tension and heart rate. And a lot of tension can translate into a lot of muscle and joint pain.

 

How does biofeedback work?

Electrical sensors are placed on different body parts/areas. These sensors then give you audio or visual feedback on your heart rate or how much muscular tension you have in that particular body part.

Then you’re taught how to focus on and “feel” the tension, cause the tension to occur (through voluntary contractions), and then release the tension by deliberately allowing, or causing, the muscle to relax. Patients can lower their breath rate, heart rate and blood pressure using this technique.

You also learn to recognize exactly where you “hold” tension in your body.

When you become more sensitive to your triggers and body tension areas, you are more able to control and overcome the tension when you encounter stressful or stress-triggering situations.

If you’re interested in giving this a try, find a trained biofeedback therapist in your area. You shouldn’t go at this alone, unless you want to snag a book at your local library and try it without the feedback machine bells and whistles. You won’t do any harm trying it this way.

 

Guided Imagery for Depression—

What makes you relax and smile? Where’s your happy place? A walk in the park? A stroll along the beach? A forest hike?

Guided imagery involves thinking of a personally pleasing scene, vision, or pleasant memory. Then imagine yourself plunked down in the middle of it, with all 5 senses engaged to “experience” this intentional daydream. This relaxation technique is called guided imagery, or visualization.

Try laughing or smiling during your visualization exercise and notice the relaxed, happy (or happier), and contented feeling you’re experiencing. That’s those happy hormones (endorphins) being released into your body, just like they’re released during exercise or crying. Mayo Clinic calls it “an important tool in treating a variety of health problems.” (If you want to give the smiling or laughing affect a try, go ahead and smile or laugh right now, as you’re reading this, and see what kind of feelings that result.)

This is what else Mayo Clinic has to say about it:

 

“Researchers using positron emission tomography (PET) scanning have found that the same parts of the brain are activated when people are imaging something as when they’re actually experiencing it…Vivid imagery sends messages from the cerebral cortex to the lower brain, including the emotional control center of the brain. From there the message is relayed to the endocrine and the autonomic nervous systems, which affect a wide range of bodily functions, including heart, expiration rates, and blood pressure.”

 

The endocrine system is a collection of hormone-producing glands. Some of the body systems these hormones control are metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, mood, sexual function, and reproduction.

The autonomic system is the part of our nervous system that regulates the control of our internal organs and some muscle function.

 

 How’s Is Guided Imagery Done?

First: Relax.

It’s important that you have no distractions, so leave your cell phone in another room and put an “I’m Visualizing Right Now” sign on your closed door!

Put on loose, comfortable clothing and sit or lie in a comfortable, quiet spot. Start with deep, slow breaths in and out through your nose.

 Second: Breathe.

Now really concentrate on your breathing. Slowly fill up your lungs and pay attention to the stress leaving your body when you exhale. Think of exhaling your stress away. Don’t allow random, distracting or negative thoughts to permeate your mind or interfere. (This will undoubtedly occur, but it will get better or easier to control with each session.) When you’re done dispelling thoughts, return to focusing on your breathing.

 Next: Visualize.

Now comes the fun part! Intentionally choose a desired image and focus on it. It could be an event, location or person. If your mind wanders, bring your focus back with a slow, deep breath. (If you have difficulty conjuring up a scene, choose a pleasing photograph or picture to look at.)

 Finally: Affirm.

Select a positive word or phrase to connect to your vision. This will serve to create a positive image that will be stored by your brain, easily recalled later, and provide your brain and emotions with positive thoughts and feelings. Some practitioners think that attaching a word to your feelings helps to engage both sides of your brain.

 

One of my favorite places to visualize is Waikiki Beach, hearing the waves crash onto the beach, envisioning the moonlight on the water, holding my husband’s hand as we stroll along the beach at night.

If you’re suffering from grief due to the loss of a loved one, it may help to envision a happy time you spent with them.

If you have a moment right now, even if you’re sitting in a chair to read this, stop reading and give guided imagery a try. It doesn’t have to take more than five minutes, and you may be surprised to feel your breathing slowing down.

 

Meditation for Depression—

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “to meditate” as: “to spend time in quiet thought for religious purposes or relaxation.”

Other definitions include: to engage in contemplation or reflection; to engage in mental exercise (as concentration on one’s breathing or repetition of a mantra) for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness; to focus one’s thoughts on, to reflect or ponder over; to plan or project in the mind.

One of mediation’s many synonyms is “to chew over” which is what its definition is in the Bible. When we’re told to meditate on God’s word, we’re being told to chew on it, like an animal chewing its cud, regurgitating it over and over; or to work on it like a lion shredding its prey so we can possess it, understand it, be changed by it.

Recent research indicates that the most beneficial part of meditating can be the breathing techniques associated with it. It’s also one of th easiest and most portable activities that can be done just about anywhere.

So whether you’re meditating to clear your mind, or meditating to really concentrate on something, you’ll find benefits.

 

How To Start

Like Guided Imagery, meditation begins with a quiet place, controlled breathing, and dispelling distracting thoughts. Then choose a word or verse on which to concentrate.

When I’m sitting on the floor of the small sitting area off my bedroom, in front of a lighted candle that emits a subtle scent of hyacinth, my favorite thing to concentrate on is a person.

When I repeat the name, “Jesus,” and think of all of His beautiful attributes, my heart, body and mind are filled with joy, peace and love. (A mind-and-body-transforming, heavenly love.) I’m brought to a state of physical relaxation, mental calmness, alertness, (yes, you can simultaneously be calm, relaxed and alert!), and psychological balance. These are all benefits of meditation. (Concentrating on and repeating a word or verse from Scripture also gives me the same effect.)

So, when people tell you that in meditation you need to first “empty your mind,” that’s not necessarily true. You need to first lay aside distractions and banish those from sneaking in your mind’s door, then intentionally choose what you will allow to enter in to that delicate, impressionable space.

While your goal is to empty your mind of the stress and concerns, you don’t want to just empty your mind and allow any old thought to come in. You want to think deliberately, try to gain control over your thoughts.

But don’t judge yourself harshly when negative or distracting thoughts rush in, as they so often do. Just acknowledge them and then discard them. Don’t dwell on them. You can transform yourself by renewing your mind.

 

Meditation benefits—

Meditation has received rave reviews by researchers because it’s been shown to reduce anxiety, reduce blood pressure, improve attention, improve sleep, decrease chronic pain, improve blood sugar level control, and decrease job burnout. It can even help you achieve sleep at bedtime. At the very least, it helps you manage a hectic, stressful life!

 

If you desire a meditation training aid, like directions or music-to-meditate-by, go to www.mayoclinic.com and search for “mediation.” Or simply Google, Mayo Clinic Meditation, which will lead you to videos, tablet and smart phone apps.

 

 

Progressive Relaxation Therapy for Depression—

I love this one! It’s easy, quick and helps reduce depression, anxiety, muscle tension, stress, panic disorder, and high blood pressure and improves concentration.

 

 Getting Started

First, remove your glasses or contacts and loosen any tight clothing and choose a chair or floor in a quiet place. Remove your shoes.

Starting with your feet, deliberately tense your feet muscles and hold the tension for 5 seconds. Then slowly relax the muscles and keep them relaxed for 30 seconds. Feel the tension leave the muscles as you relax.

Repeat this tense-and-hold one more time with your feet and then move up to the legs (calf area). Repeat the 5 seconds of tensing and follow with the 30 seconds of relaxation two times, as you did with your feet. Then move up to the thighs, pelvis, abdomen, chest, hands, forearms, arms, neck, face and head, following the same 5-second tense and 30-second relaxation structure.

At first, don’t be surprised if you have some difficulty isolating the specific muscle groups. But keep trying! You’ll find success soon enough and reap the benefits.

Aim for a 10-minute session. Muscle Relaxation can be done anywhere. It helps reduce stress and relax the mind in seconds! It’s also often used in conjunction with Biofeedback.

 

 

MUSIC THERAPY for Depression—

 Do you like to listen to music? It turns out that music has one of the most powerful effects on the mind for memory and people and event association.

But how can it be used for therapy?

Music therapy was first recognized as a bonafide treatment back in 1945 when musicians treated injured United States military personnel. It’s now used in a variety of ways to improve mental and physical health. Patients may listen to a particular piece of music and then discuss how it affects them. It can also be used to achieve a state of relaxation.

Studies have shown that music therapy improves students’ sleep quality and reduces pre-exam anxiety.

 Your choice of music can relax your overactive mind and help you concentrate on the subject at hand, or energize you. You can select the genre and tempo based on your mood or activity, or the mood you wish to achieve.

 

Music therapy can revive your spirit, get you up and moving, and, for some people, actually reduce pain and suffering. Ever undergo an MRI? The music you can select to have piped in through head phones they place over your ears to drown out the horrid noise can settle your nerves and queasy stomach and make it seem as though the exam is shorter than it really is.

So don’t forget about music as an important part of your healing process. It can be combined with other treatments, like visualization, to optimize and enhance results.

It can improve mood, reduce heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety. And some anti-depressant medications actually work better with music therapy!

 

 

Wrap-up—

I think you’ll be pleased with the positive effects you’ll receive from these mind-body exercises, and they’ll become an integral part of your stress and depression-fighting medicine toolbox. If you have any questions about them or difficulty performing them, please don’t hesitate to respond in the reply box or send me an email at: andreaarthurowan@gmail.com.

Or let us know how these techniques have benefitted you!

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 NEXT TIME: Fighting depression with Pilates, Relaxed Breathing, Tai Chi, and Yoga.

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Until then,

don’t give in or give up, and fight the good fight against this debilitating illness!

Andrea

 
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and an award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

(Some information and quotes for this post were taken from Mayo Clinic Guide to Alternative Medicine, published by Time Home Entertainment.)

How to Start Your Year Right, With a Personal Retreat

Are you feeling a little post holiday-letdown melancholy? Today I’ll give you a tip on how to combat it.

I was feeling a whole lot of letdown. Because we’d been remodeling our home, the decorations and tree went up just days before Christmas, and then it all seemed to be over so soon. And I was trying to extend the festivities. The emotional, feeling part of them.

 

Our holidays were unexpectedly full and joyous, and I was still trying to live on the happy fumes. The house became eerily quiet after our kids and their wives and sweethearts departed. My heart ached over the feeling of loss, and I didn’t want to let go of their happy, energetic presence. Their spirits still lingered in the house.

But the outside world was busy moving forward and trying to drag me (and other reluctant earthlings) along with it. Even when I found myself out grocery shopping January 2, I was in a happy, festive mood. Everyone else in the store, though, seemed anxious and grumpy. The store was packed with edgy people, all getting in one another’s way. Couples were yelling at each other about taking too long to find a particular food.

When I arrived at the checkout counter, the young woman and I struck up a conversation. The topic of the stressed out and angry clientele came up. “I know,” she said. “It’s awful. I don’t like it. Everyone seems upset.” She went on to say how happy and relaxed she felt and the customers were chipping away at that.

And that was on January 2, the second day of the New Year!

The second grocery store I wound up shopping in was already hawking Valentine’s Day chocolates, not too far from their deeply-discounted Christmas ware. Home improvement stores were already displaying their spring and summer items.

But I’m determined to ease into 2020 a bit more slowly and intentionally divest myself of the holiday trappings.

So last week, I took some action.

While some of our decorations were beginning to disappear from our shelves and walls, the Christmas tree was still full. And I decided to use it to my advantage last Thursday.

 

My intentional retreat day—

I had planned a full-day retreat, a day to seek God’s direction. To read, pray, sing, praise and zero in on life and where I was headed—or should be. Not just for this year, but potentially for the next five to seven years, or entire decade (since we just started a new one).

I originally had a grandiose idea of going to a local botanical garden, to wander along their winding desert paths and sit on a bench to read and write in my journal. I thought the peaceful surroundings would give me just the jolt and inspiration I needed to receive a word from the Lord.

But my budget and unexpected cold, cloudy and windy weather disrupted those plans. So I enjoyed a warm-up sojourn around our hilly neighborhood and then settled down in our library with my Shetland sheepdog, Dolly, in front of our library fireplace.

And I turned on the Christmas tree lights to add an atmosphere of joy and promise.

The results—

After a day of reading voraciously, praying, and filling pages of my journal, I finally felt ready to bid adieu to the holidays, tuck the precious memory of them into my hart, box up the tree and ornaments, and step firmly into the new year, and decade.

 

What a retreat day can do for you—

Taking that time helped me focus and open myself up to possibilities and hope. It helps you slow down, extract yourself from the world and its incessant, tiresome demands, and focus on the important stuff. I would highly recommend to everyone that they take a retreat day before we get too much further into the year and other demands or allow well-meaning people take you in directions you hadn’t planned on, or shouldn’t be going.

The time leaves you refreshed and excited. Content. More focused, purposeful and intentional. And that gives you a feeling of control, something so important to our emotional well-being.

Now my husband is trying to figure out when he can take his own personal retreat day, something that always recharges his emotional, spiritual and physical batteries.

 

Planning and taking your own personal retreat—
  • Try to block out an entire day. But if you don’t have the luxury of a full day, then block out a 4-hour time period in the morning or afternoon.
  • Turn off your smart phone and stash it someplace where it won’t be a distraction or temptation. Turn off your computer and any other electronic devices.
  • Make sure you’re by yourself and won’t have to endure interruptions. If you have babies at home, hire a babysitter and head out to a favorite place to enjoy your retreat, preferably someplace quiet. Ask your spouse to take care of the kids for a day. If you’re choosing a Saturday, have your husband/wife take the kids to the zoo, the movies, or a kids’ museum so you can retreat uninterrupted. You need to be able to focus on what God’s saying to you without worrying about distractions.
  • Grab your Bible, journal (or notebook/paper), and a pen, prayer beads, and anything else that will help you focus on God, your relationship with Him, and the direction he wants you to take this year.
  • Write down the activities that make you happy, the ones that really recharge and satisfy you. Make a mental note of doing more of those this year. Pencil them into your calendar for January to get a kick-start.
  • Identify your strengths and weaknesses, and brainstorm how you can utilize your strengths and dilute your weaknesses.
  • Make some notes on the tremendous blessings in your life, including people, events, work, etc. Thank God for those.
  • Identify the things in your life that are time-wasters and energy-drainers. What are you doing just because someone else wants you to do it, or because you feel guilty if you don’t. If you must do them for a good reason—like maintaining the family finances or health—ask God to give you a heart for them. Otherwise, make a point of releasing yourself from these wheel-spinning activities.
  • Identify what areas of your life you could change in order to give yourself more freedom and joy. Does your home need a thorough run-through, to throw out old clothes, unread and will-never-read books, and dust-gathering knickknacks that don’t fall into the family heirloom category. How can you simplify your life, and what can you do to achieve that goal?
  • Identify those people in your life that you’d like to spend more time with and develop a plan on how to achieve that goal. What individuals or groups do you want to nurture friendships with?
  • Choose any area of your life and pray about how you might make it more enjoyable or prosperous.
  • Identify areas God wants you to expend your energies. Remember that His yoke is easy and His burden is light!
  • Pick out some Bible verses to pray, personalize, and write down, and post in conspicuous places in order to remind you of your focus.

 

Will all of your plans come to fruition by December 31? Probably not, but as God reminds us, people perish without a vision.

 

Our (my husband and my) year will be focused on getting out of all debt, gaining freedom and preparing for retirement in the next five to seven years. For us, that means we have to forgo our coveted travel (even to the Northwest to visit our boys and daughter-in-law).

Since travel is one of our high-priority activities, it’s going to be tough. But we’re already looking forward to the possibilities and rewards, and are experiencing a new sense of freedom and control. It’s triggering ideas for alternative, scaled-down, budget-friendly activities. And it’s a great place to be in a marriage.

Now it’s your turn. You’ve got 18 days left in January. Pick out a day and get refreshed through a retreat! Face this year with joy, promise and expectation.

Until next week,

May your new year, and decade, get off to a great and promising start!

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro, and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

 

How to Cope With Grief During the Holidays—Part 1

The holiday season is fast approaching. I can’t believe we’re already into November, and the close of the year is just a squeak over seven weeks away. I’m not ready for it mentally. But at least I’m looking forward to the potential joy and peace of it. Feelings many, if not most people, don’t enjoy during the holiday season.

 

While many of us look forward to the holidays with joy, too many look forward to them with dread and heavy hearts. Many of us anticipate fun days full of children and grandchildren laughter and squeals of delight, silent nights and flickering candles shared with church family and friends. Roasted turkey in the middle of a table surrounded by grateful loved ones.

 

But what about the couple whose cancer-stricken child won’t be seated at the table with them this year, or ever again?

What about the despondent mother whose husband has just walked out the door, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to provide any kind of holiday for her two shell-shocked children?

What about the older widow who will have to spend the day alone because her children live a couple thousand miles away, and no one in her tiny sphere has thought of inviting her to join their family for festivities?

Or the aged man confined to a memory care facility, without family members or friends.

 

Coping with grief (and thriving) at this time of year—

It seems like a morbid subject to discuss during this otherwise festive (market and product-driven) time of year, but that’s the subject I’ll be covering for this month and most of December—

How to make it through the grief that can overwhelm us at this time of year, and help others around us slog through it too.

Aside from recent pain, holidays can open up old wounds. Melancholy and depression can be overwhelming. Just how can we help ourselves, and those around us, get through this time of year with a modicum—or more—of joy and look forward to a new year full of hope and promise?

 

Our goal won’t be too forget our pain—the circumstances or the people it swirls around—but to work through it. To use it to our advantage, to gain strength and hope from it.

To resist the forces that would bury our hearts alive.

Preparing our hearts for the holidays—

We’ll formally begin this process next Monday. But until then, I want to give you something that will encourage your heart.

Remember that God is for you, not against you, no matter what others insinuate or what your broken and disillusioned and shocked heart may tell you. Or what the evil one may whisper in your ear.

God stands ready, willing and able to hold you close, carry, or walk you through it.

 

And for those of you who look forward to the holidays with rejoicing, be on the lookout for people who need comfort and a tender, encouraging word.

 

And maybe a place at your celebration table.

Until then,

Prepare to dig and go deep, with yourself and others.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

What does Painting a Block Wall Have to Do With Life?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the difficulties of life and besetting sins lately, particularly while I’m straining to paint my entry wall, the L-O-N-G and H-I-G-H block wall that runs along our LONG driveway. (Are you getting the impression that I think it’s tediously long?)

I love the wall, but not when I have to paint it.

I know. I should crack open my piggy bank and buy a paint sprayer, but I’m too cheap, am watching my home improvement budget like an eagle eyeballs prey, and I keep telling myself that all of this back breaking labor is good for my health.

Ah, exercise. Lots of it.

 

The main problem—

The problem with my block wall is that it’s not smooth. Block is formed concrete, and that concrete has plenty of little pockmarks and pits. Sometimes air pockets formed during curing causes holes. Big ones. And fifty-one years of blistering sun and monsoon rains have caused even more pitting.

And that means that even if I use the fluffiest, puffiest roller cover made especially for the roughest surfaces, I can’t make the paint ooze nicely into those cracks, pits and holes. I need to lean and press while I’m rolling, really put my back into it.

And apply more paint to the roller and go over it again. And dip a thick brush into the paint and use that to coax paint into the cracks, pits and holes.

 

And it’s the same thing with those pesky, besetting sins I seem to continuously struggle with, the ones I either have difficulty giving up, or the ones I—if I’m honest—am not so motivated to relinquish.

Like the cracks in the wall, I need to keep working to erase them and cover them, to allow the Spirit of God to reshape, mold, and fashion me into the vision He has for me. The vision that is the most pleasing; the best vision for me. If I don’t do the best job I can on painting that wall, the weather will quickly undo what I’ve done, and the wall will look ugly.

After the paint dries, I need to walk back outside to the wall and observe it from both a distance and close-up, to better identify areas I’ve missed. Areas where the paint was applied thinner than it should have been to properly cover the wall.

And so I get the roller and brush loaded up with paint again, touch up, and re-observe again. I might have to do that several times.

It’s exhausting and often frustrating that I can’t get it all done—easily—the first time.

Once again, the same is true for my trespasses. I need to work on them, stand back and observe them, see where they need work and correction. Understand how I need to submit to and work with the Master Painter to work out my salvation and be rid of those trespasses once and for all.

 

I know I’ll never reach perfection while still planted on this orb. Like Paul, I know what I should do and still don’t do it; and I do what I know I shouldn’t be doing. Part of being a fallible human being.

But it’s worth the work.

 

My wall looks stunning. And it’s going to raise my property value.

And when I work on my sins, cooperate with God in shedding them, keep taking stock of them and working on cleaning them up and discarding them, I look better—to God, me, and everyone else.

 

I know it’s kind of weird to be thinking about sin while I’m painting a wall, but it’s a long, tedious process; and my mind usually wanders off into esoteric thoughts like that when I’m doing otherwise mindless, repetitive activities.

It could also have something to do with the fact that I’m taking a fabulous Priscilla Shirer Bible study every Tuesday morning at my church.

 

I’ll tell you a little about it next week. It’s already having a profound effect on my life.

Gathering with other like-minded Christian women is also a plus!

Until next week,

 

What activities remind you of the sin in your life, and how do you work on them?

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

How I Achieved True Emotional Freedom

Something happened to me the other day that allowed the chains of bondage to guilt, fear, anger, frustration, regret and worry to be demolished. And there are no words to describe the sense of freedom and joy I have experienced from the shedding of that weighty burden.

 

In the past, I have shared a little with you about the poor relationship I’ve had for years with my mother. It seems that I could do nearly nothing right in her eyes, and she harbors resentment and anger that frequently show up in her biting words and volatile reactions. She seems to look for ways I’ve failed or disappointed her.

She’s been like this most of the time I’ve known her, and I’ve heard stories about her behavior before I arrived on the scene.

She’s inferred to my husband that her problems stem from me—things I’ve said, things I’ve done wrong, things I haven’t done, ways I haven’t behaved quite like she wanted me to behave.

 

The history—

But I know the anger didn’t start with me. It was forged 97 years ago when she was born into a family riddled with anger and backbiting, volatile tendencies. A family destined to yell, fight, retaliate, hold grudges and physically punish offenses.

My mother was definitely not born into a family of peace. And she acknowledged that one day when I pointed it out. “No, I sure wasn’t,” she responded.

Learning that helped a little in not accepting the burdens she tried to lay on me, but it was still difficult to keep them from hurting my heart.

 

What changed on October 2 rocked my world, for the better.

 

My day of chain-breaking freedom—

My husband and I had just taken my mother to her audiologist to have her hearing aids checked, cleaned and re-set for additional hearing loss. Her moderate dementia has only complicated matters, but I’m dealing with that and cutting her slack on almost everything she says or asks me to do for her.

But that morning, on the way back to her memory care home, she wanted to know if we could stop at a drugstore to buy her some candy.

 

Now, normally that wouldn’t be a problem, except for two issues:

1) We had honored her request a couple of months earlier and purchased two bags of peppermints and a bag of chocolates for her. She ended up consuming the entire bag of chocolates in one afternoon without anyone at the home knowing it (she was hiding it) and got VERY sick. Sick enough that the nurse practitioner needed to be called, and I had to run to the nearest Walgreens to get the medicine and deliver it to her nurses.

2) My husband had left his car at her care home and needed to get back to it so he could go to work.

 

When I told her we couldn’t stop, she pinched her lips together, and the fuming started. Then the biting comments followed. My husband was nearly seething when we pulled up to her home and helped her out of the car and into the house. I didn’t hear the conversation, but he asked her what she was so mad about.

Surprise!

She was mad at me, for having and exercising so much control over her.

After he left for work, my mom got settled into her chair, and we chatted for several minutes. Then I leaned over to hug and kiss her goodbye.

She kept her arms glued to her sides as she often does when she’s upset with me. She wants me to pay for my actions. Let me know she’s unhappy with me.

I stood up again and said, “So you don’t want to give me a hug?”

Her response? “I don’t feel like it right now.”

 

And that’s when the light bulb went off and the burden fell from my heart.

That’s how my mom has always tried to make me pay for my misbehavior.

With tantrums.

And shaming.

Years and years of giving love and withdrawing it. Trying to keep me on my toes and performing to her standards.

Withdrawing her love when I didn’t measure up. Giving it when I was making her happy.

 

Something I can’t imagine doing to my children, and may God discipline me if I ever do it.

And I realized in that instant that she probably never really learned how to love unconditionally, the way a parent should love a child.

 

The way God loves us.

 

My mother never received that kind of love, never felt that kind of love, and, consequently, never could show and give it to me.

And in one split second moment, it all made sense.

 

My revelation released her of an expectation I always had for her; and it released me of any guilt, fear, or worry about having done wrong or about doing wrong in the future.

 

Obviously it doesn’t let me off the hook for being kind, attentive, friendly and loving toward her, just as God is toward me and wants me to be to others.

But it lowered my expectations from receiving anything from her to zero.

And that freed my heart to love unconditionally; the way God intends his children to display love.

Just like Him.

My mom can’t give something she’s never possessed, so I’m a fool when I do expect. It only ends up hurting me.

 

The Result—

I look forward to our visits with joy and without stress or agitation, since I’m no longer wrapped up in or swayed by her ever-shifting moods.

And she seems to be happier too. Our visits are good. She looks forward to them, thanks me profusely for them, and tells me how much they mean to her. We rarely argue or disagree. I’m no longer communicating defensively with her, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop—with a shield of protection encased around my heart.

 

And finally, when God decides it’s her time to go, I won’t be left with remorse, bitterness or regrets.

 

My husband, younger son and I have our suspicions that that’s the reason He’s kept her on earth all of these tough, extra years—so I can let her go with a free and joyful heart.

And not be burdened with years of unresolved pain and regret.

 

After years and years and years of heartache, frustration, tears, and beseeching prayers, I think I’ve finally learned what He’s been trying to teach me and was probably too weak and stubborn to figure out.

I am giddy with gratefulness.

My life has totally changed.

How about you?

Are you expecting something from someone that they can’t possibly give you?

How could acknowledging that rock your world?

 

Until next week, when we’ll be talking painting over deep cracks.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.