I love alone time, just sitting by myself, having time to think through the things I am facing. Slowing down and being by myself takes time and is sometimes very hard work. It’s good work, because it grows me so that I may grow through whatever life happens to throw my way.

I’ve noticed that every now and then, life throws me a curve and no matter how many positive practices I’ve put into place, sometimes it all just tends to get to me. Those negative emotions begin to flow in and start taking up space in my head, heart and life.

The negative emotions of sadness, shame, guilt anger, fear, regret and hate come flooding in and battle for control. When the negativity begns to overwhelm me and I find that my mind by itself is not strong enough to overcome and give me my freedom, then I have to resort to other discipliines.

I can analize my depression all day long and if I am not careful, I will just dig the hole even deeper. Sometimes I need more than positive affirmations, encouraging words and “attaboys” to pick myself up off the floor and get back to this thing called life.

Sometimes I need God to pick me up, dust me off, hold me close and wisper in my ear that everything is going to be okay. I need God to brush my hair out of my eyes, wipe away my tears and breathe His courage and strength into me.

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” -Isaiah 41:10

While I do my best to avoid these times of negativity, there are days that they cannot be avoided. They just have to be lived through faced, learned from and dealt with. I have discovered a few disciplines that assist me in getting my life into alignment with God’s Spirit and help me recover, learn and grow at a greater pace.

1. Take And Make Time To Write! When I write, I think through things, I look at things from different perspectives and I work my way through to the best place. Writing is release! Sometimes I write, draw, paint, craft or plant. All of these are forms of self expression which help me to get in touch with who and what I am. Release is a powerful and beautiful thing, but it does not happen my accident.

2. Serve Others! When I do something for someone else, it helps me to take my eyes off of myself, which actually helps me to see things from a much clearer perspective, which helps me to get real with myself and others. It may be writing a hand written note of encouragement, giving something special to someone to let them know I am thinking about them or just lending a helping hand…

3. Practice Gratitude! This one tends to end up on every list, because it really is a great big difference maker. Take time to make a list of all the things that you have to be grateful for. If you do this right, then you will have a very big list, because even when life is though, we are still a very blessed people. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves of how blessed we are…

You have a greater power than you realize and when life gets tough, you just have to take the steps to remind yourself of just how powerful you are. You’ve got this, because He’s got you…