Tag: depression

What are you waiting for?

by Souls Full Filled, posted in Guidance, Inspire, spirituality, Uncategorized

Are you waiting for something? A fulfillment of a dream or goal? A new relationship or financial opportunity? A solution to a difficult problem or help for challenging circumstances? Are you waiting for things to change to give you something you do not have in your life or free you from something you do not want in your life? What do you do while you are waiting?


Waiting is usually not a pleasant activity for people. We hate waiting in lines, in offices and airports, in traffic, for a needed package to arrive. We often get aggravated, impatient, sometimes worried or even depressed. While waiting we usually have less control, or at least it seems that way. When things are moving, we feel action taking us towards a goal, moving towards something we want or need or to the experience of something better than where we are or have been.

Our culture wants us to keep moving, take the next step, achieve the next goal. Waiting seems to be counterproductive and an obstacle to success and prosperity. I always feel better when things are moving. I have the perception of getting somewhere, anywhere. The times I have had to wait have been brutal. Having chronic illness for almost 3 decades kept me waiting in doctors’ offices a lot and waiting for the next alternative approach to diminish my symptoms, to give me relief from unbearable pain, fatigue and limiting immobility. While my health deteriorated I grew weary of waiting for some improvement or just not to get worse. During difficult times while alone I grew depressed waiting for a phone call or text from busy friends who had lot of things to keep moving towards. I found myself homebound alone for months waiting for something to change. It became almost unbearable. 

I had practiced acceptance for many years to improve the experience of having chronic illness. I learned to focus on gratitude for the things I had instead of focusing on my pain and immobility. When total isolation set in, it moved to another level more difficult than anything I had known. Death seemed welcomed, even attractive, like the early days of my diagnoses that told me I had no hope for anything but deterioration of my condition and worsening intolerable symptoms. 

Fortunately I was in a study of the books of the bible written by Moses about the struggling of the Israelites for 40 years in the desert waiting to get to the land promised for their nation which had been set free from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. They struggled along the way grumbling and complaining about what they wanted that they did not have. All their needs were met but not their wants. There were stories of death from rebellion and stories of mercy and healing, even abundance of food and fresh flowing water, with clothing and shoes that never wore out. They followed a cloud by day and a fire by night representing the presence of God leading them to start, move, stop and wait. Today we have the opportunity to have the presence of God through the Holy Spirit within us similarly leading us to start, move, stop and wait. 

Over many years of waiting, I had learned how to listen to God while studying the bible. It works for innumerable people around the world since the times of ancient rabbis practicing meditating on the Word of God. Meditation is reflection, reading, praying for inspiration and listening in the mind, heart and spirit. There was a part of my study where God revealed the Israelites were being prepared to learn to follow and have faith in God to prepare them to conquer the Canaanites and take possession of the land they were promised. They could not do it on their own. They needed to listen and follow God’s wisdom, direction, timing and power. Otherwise they would have been destroyed in their first battle. 

 I heard God speaking to me  from that passage. I had always been self or other directed, but not directed by God. I believed in God, loved God and wanted to obey God in morals but not in leading me day by day through my life. For many reasons I did not think it God’s job to lead me or that I could follow if He did, or that I did not want to go wherever God might be leading me. I only surrendered when I was in crisis with no other options like I was at the time I was all alone with my condition worsening. I turned it over completely without complaining or any expectations of what the result might be and God lifted me out with a miracle as had happened several times before in my life, enough to make me believe more than ever that God could and would lead me to good things.

Through this revelation from my bible study, I found acceptance of circumstances I judged unfair, oppressive, beyond my tolerance. Since that time, I have been learning to follow God more closely like the Israelites had to do every day, accepting all things that I cannot change and praying for wisdom through prayer, quiet time with God and meditation and study of the Bible, letting the Holy Spirit guide me like the cloud by day and the fire by night. My life has slowly improved, picking up speed as my faith grows and my ability to keep following and trusting in God’s love and goodness towards me when I am waiting. 

My life took a big turn the last few months as I moved ahead more rapidly with health improvement, mobility and healing. I loved the pace I was moving at. I started this blog and website to share everything I have learned along the long journey I have traveled to a life of much peace, joy and fulfillment, even if things are not going the way I would want or circumstances get painful or challenging. 

The last few days I was hit with some unexpected painful experiences. I wanted to bounce back right away and keep moving. But God had me waiting and I had nothing to write on my blog. I am still learning to wait when I need to and do the things that I think are not as rewarding or as important in my mind as writing this blog. But along the way I see I am still in ‘training’ to be victorious in whatever battles I might face and to help others to face their own challenges and battles while following and trusting God to lead when and how to move.

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What Are You Thinking – Part 2

by Souls Full Filled, posted in Guidance, Healing, spirituality, Transformation

In my post yesterday I discussed how our thinking impacts our body, emotions, health and even our future. It has been known for a long time that what we think sets up parameters in our minds to be open to find and experience what we expect, good or bad, based on our thinking (self fulfilled prophecies). Practicing what I mentioned in my post yesterday with bible study over many years has had a dramatic impact on my life. It did not take very long for me to start seeing the changes which seemed amazing to me after trying so many other avenues. At first I had no clue how my thoughts were impacting my emotions, health or life choices and experiences. I was not even aware of the beliefs that had formed through repeated thinking patterns and how this impacted my perceptions, overall emotions and reactions to every day events. I would wake up with certain emotional states and not even question why. Even if I figured out the connections, I could not break free. 


Now I know I can investigate the thoughts behind the feelings with divine help. I ask God to show me. The answer might not come immediately while different types of thoughts need to be cleared away before getting to a core belief and its underlying cause. It is like a necklace chain that is tied up in little knots you cannot untangle. Trying to untangle the wrong area of the chain in the wrong sequence makes the knots tighter. Or like a maze, you can feel like you are getting somewhere but end up hitting a dead end and needing to retrace your steps.


The process can be painful if old events, especially trauma, are involved. It helps to share this with a trusted friend or counselor who understands the process, especially if they have similar beliefs about God and Christ. I was in therapy for many years before discovering the power of relying on the Great Physician to help me with this process with the loving support of a Christian counselor. Many counsellors are outcome oriented and I found it is helpful to be process oriented, leaving the direction of the process to be guided by our selves as we are directed by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit that resides in us. Having goals and strategies can help if we know the right ones to choose, but that can keep us going in circles if we do not unlock the right doors first. It goes back to my first blog post 090516 about direction. The last few years I have supported others through this process and they share they have success not found with previous alternatives. And I know many who have experienced this process with bible study learning to listen to the Spirit speaking within. Having taken many (paid) years of study with several theology and bible schools I have found the best free international bible study resource that may have a class near you is Bible Study Fellowship which can be found on Facebook or on the web at:  
https://www.bsfinternational.org/locate-a-class1

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in and rely confidently on the Lord with all your heart And do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know and acknowledge and recognize Him, And He will make your paths straight and smooth, removing obstacles that block your way. ”
James 1:5-7 “If any of you lacks wisdom to guide you through a decision or circumstance, you are to ask of our benevolent God, who gives to everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and it will be given to you. But you must ask for wisdom in faith, without doubting God’s willingness to help, for the one who doubts is like a billowing surge of the sea that is blown about and tossed by the wind.”

If you find this helpful, please like and share. I appreciate any feedback on what is helpful or not clear. If you have a specific topic you would like addressed here please ask. You can leave a comment or send a request confidentially on my contact page.

What Are You Thinking?

by Souls Full Filled, posted in Guidance, Healing, Inspire, peace, spirituality, Transformation, Uncategorized

One of the major influences on our experience of life impacting our emotions, perceptions and even what we might experience in the future, is our thoughts. It has been shown that thoughts impact our brain in ways we previously had not understood. Thoughts can create chemicals and enzymes in the brain depending on their nature. Repeated patterns of thinking are shown to grow physical structures in the brain that can limit the kind of thinking we tend towards every day. Some of these chemicals and enzymes impact various parts of the neurological and immune systems and there is still much unknown about what other systems or diseases in the body and brain might be affected. There is a lot of research that stress is a major factor leading to many killer diseases and the link between stress and our thinking is obvious.

Do you think about what you are thinking? Many of us, as I had in the past, believe we have no real control over our thoughts, which seem to fall into our heads and in reaction to various situations and events. As I started learning to change the way I was thinking, my reactions to situations, events and stress changed and I found I was filled with more peace and calm despite challenging circumstances. I used to believe I had no control over my emotions either until I started changing the way I was thinking and my emotions and emotional reactions to situations changed. 

I became aware of my thinking and unconscious thoughts through the practice of contemplative meditation whereby a person sits in silence and observes what thoughts arise. Have you ever noticed getting great ideas in the shower or while relaxing on a beach? The brain naturally uses quiet time to bring up unresolved issues, problems and events in an effort to solve and resolve what has not been released. Even during sleep the brain uses dreams to do the same thing. But the brain also needs to rest. Contemplative meditation helped me learn to let go of needing to resolve these thoughts temporarily in order to rest the brain and the body.

Recent research shows that thinking patterns form, blocking our ability to change how we think by ‘hard coding’ these patterns with chemicals and enzymes. Trauma releases even more substances that reinforce this process, creating triggers that start the thinking patterns to repeat like programmed loops in our brains. There are ways to disrupt this with affirmations and finding contradictory thoughts to fight the patterns we want to change. But even with that, I had some resistant thoughts stemming from early childhood experiences that had been repeated continually over my lifetime and were hard to release. 

Then I discovered the power of using bible truths to release those thoughts and patterns. Somehow, mysteriously, the truth we learn through studying the bible seems to have more power than any other words we might use. I had heard this belief and doubted, but trying it, it actually has worked. The mystery is that there is another force behind the words that comes from God through Christ and the Holy Spirit, who knows just the right order to address these thoughts to untangle the many systems tied up together like knots in the brain. Sounds like divine brain surgery to me. But it works, not by my might or intelligence or analysis, but by listening to what God is speaking to me while I study the bible as frequently as I can.

Now I ask God every day to watch over my thoughts and point out to me the ones that need changing, like putting my streams of conscious and unconscious (hidden) thoughts through a kind of security check to see what should be contraband and not allowed to continue journeying through my life, like a TSA check point at the airport. No unwanted or hidden contraband thoughts are allowed to continue the journey of my life, thanks to the nudging and growing awareness provided through my relationship with God in Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, given us to lead us into all truth and remind us of what we have learned when we need. 

John 14:26, 16:13 “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will guide you into all the truth, (&) will teach you all things. He will help you remember everything taught to you.”