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Dealing With Disapointments

Every day  a minefield of potential disappointments needs to be navigated. They range in scope, complexity and depth of pain. In the last couple of months I have walked with people through a number of disappointments. For example:

  • A young man processing a freshly broken heart.
  • A marriage that ended after years of counseling and struggle.
  • Another life taken by the devastation of cancer.
  • Multiple people who lost jobs and dreams.
  • Stressed out couples looking foreclosure in the face.
  • One woman who has faced over 70 surgeries that haven’t worked.
  • A hard conversation that didn’t end as the person had hoped.

Disappointments happen, but they don’t have to define you. Too often people who experience disappointments begin to create an identity out of them which leads to a victim mindset and actually perpetuates a deadly cycle.

Disappointments happen when our expectations and considerations are not aligned with reality. Current studies are revealing that a person who lives with a sense of constant disappointment is at a higher risk for health issues such as chronic stress, headaches, and gastrointestinal problems just to name a few.

How To Deal With Disappointments

1.  Own Your Feelings

I have worked with people who employed many different methods of coping with disappointments. Perhaps the most used method, and also the most destructive one, is taking a long cruise on that big ol’ river in Egypt… Denial. Denial comes in many forms. There is the classic minimizer who seems optimistic by minimizing the current situation, but truth-be-told, it is just another form of denial. Full blown denial simply chooses to not embrace or admit the emotional toll that a disappointment has created.

Comments like, “It’s no big deal” “I’m fine with it” “It really didn’t matter to me anyway” or even “It doesn’t affect me” reveal that we are not in touch with our emotions.  If we don’t own how a disappointment has affected us, the emotional pain will drive down deep and eventually leak out in destructive ways onto other people.

So the first step in dealing with disappointments is to be honest, admit how you feel, acknowledge the emotions that are churning inside you and grieve what was lost. This brings your emotional reality into the light where it can be dealt with and healed instead of of being pent up and eventually combusting.

2.  Change Your Perspective

While you may not be able to choose what events happen in your life, you do have the ability to choose how to respond in a given situation. If you have dealt with the truth about how a situation has made you feel, then you are better able to respond instead of react.

If you haven’t dealt with your emotions and the reality of a situation, more than likely you will either moves towards  denial or depression.  If you have dealt honestly with how you are feeling, you can make a choice to look at the circumstances differently. Most people that I know seem to be professional worriers, so their thoughts swirl around the negative and keep the disappointment alive. Instead of dwelling on the disappointment you need to choose different thoughts, different data to center on.

Perspective Changing Questions:  Ask yourself some question that will help you change your thinking. “I wonder what God is up to in this?” This question reminds me that there is a bigger picture and a higher reality at work all the time, and that God is always working in my life through the good, bad and ugly. While God may not be the cause of every situation I face, His promise is to be with me through all of life’s circumstances. This gives me hope and I remember that as long as I am breathing, God is still at work in me.

The second question I ask is “How should I respond in a way that has integrity and vision” To respond with integrity means that I have choices that will grow my soul or shrink it. When I react, my soul shrinks and I become less human. When I pause, evaluate and respond, I have the opportunity to grow, be light and get a higher view of the situation.

To think vision means that I believe there is a preferred future that this disappointment can shape me for. I have found in my own life that it has been the disappointments and the dark nights that have grown my soul and not the mountain top experiences. Every life experience is a soul-forge, changing your perspective from disappointment to vision unleashes potential.

3.  Move Your Body

This might sound strange at first, but doing something physical makes a big difference in moving from disappointment towards hope. Staying on the couch asking “why” questions over and over will keep you stuck in a rut. Get up, get out and do something. There is a direct correlation between physical exercise and emotional and spiritual health. They are all integrated. Here are a few things to consider doing to help you change your perspective:

* Hit the gym. When you go to the gym to work out you can tale your iPod with you and listen to good music, great teaching and all kinds of positive reinforcement. you can listen to my messages by going here or on iTunes by simply putting my name in the search bar.

* Go for a walk or a hike.  Get outside and breathe in some fresh air and immerse yourself in God’s creation.

* Time to pray. Prayer can also be physical  by incorporating them on your walk, run or treadmill. Talk to God, ask some soul questions as you go, you’ll not only get some air into your lugs and blood moving through your soul, but you’ll also connect with God while you do it.

* Become a MMA cage fighter. Just kidding, but ongoing involvement with a Karate class or Tai Chi are great ways to keep your body moving, help you focus, and integrate a healthier lifestyle. I have found that when I am balancing the three areas that are me (Body, Soul and Spirit) I am better at handling the disappointments that come my way.

Questions to consider:

+ where do my thoughts go, and what do I dwell on when I get depressed or am disappointed?

+ how can I look at a situation with integrity and vision?

+ who is in my life that I can call to help me with my perspective?

+ what small step can I take towards getting physical activity in my life?

Give me your thoughts and leave a comment!

~Monty

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The Power of Education

Poverty is an ever present evil all around the planet. You would think that by now we would have a handle on the great divide between those who have nothing and those who have an abundance, yet the truth remains that the chasm perpetuates.

Poverty is complex. There is not one single issue that needs to be addressed in order to reduce it. Rather there are cultural, global, spiritual, philosophical, economic, and even governmental issues (to name a few) involved in the global poverty crisis.

While it’s not -the- fix, education is perhaps one of the most important ways that we can wage a war on poverty.  When speaking of education I am including not only traditional educational systems, but also education on a moral, economic, spiritual and even technical and agrarian levels. As we invest in education,  there is a natural empowerment that happens. An empowered person knows how to find and utilize resources and create a new reality.

In a 2009 letter to G8 leaders, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus noted:

“Education is the key to unlocking inter-generational deprivation, as it offers the knowledge people need to live healthy, happy lives…By investing in education, the G8 can leverage huge returns in women’s and children’s health, nation- and peace-building, and global economic development now and in the future.”

Education is essential if we are going to eliminate poverty, empower individuals and communities, and create sustainable solutions to the challenges we face globally such as HIV/Aids, inequity, violence, and life degradation.

There is currently more than 67 million primary-aged children who are deprived of basic education around the world. On one of my trips into Uganda I noted that the majority of the children who did attend primary education would not reach the secondary level due to family financial needs.

This truly broke my heart as I remember asking the kids, “So, what do you want to do with your life?” and the answer was just like the answers I hear from US kids.  “I want to be the President if Uganda” said one girl. “I want to be a doctor” said a young boy. “I want to be a teacher” said another young student. How heart breaking to think most of those dreams will not find fruition because of the stranglehold poverty has on our worlds children.

Global statistics tell us that over 250 billion primary aged children will not move into secondary or high school education…over 796 million adults and youth are illiterate today. This designation absolutely limits their potential and their life choices which makes them highly vulnerable and destined to remain stuck in a poverty straitjacket.

It’s time to look at how we can take a bigger role in eliminating poverty. I would encourage you to check out my non-profit  Planet Changer by going to http://www.planetchanger.org and invest in the elimination of poverty as well as help us look at how we can address increasing global education through our efforts at Planet Changer!

To help you ruminate further, here are some great quotes about education….

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”  ~Mahatma Gandhi

“Educate a boy, and you educate an individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community.
African proverb via Greg Mortensen”   ~ Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
~William Butler Yeats

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”   ~Plato

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”   ~ Nelson Mandela

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”   ~Margaret Mead

“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.”  ~ Aristotle

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”   ~ Aristotle

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”   ~ Malcolm X

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”   ~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”   ~T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“When you know better you do better.”   ~ Maya Angelou

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”   ~ Walter Cronkite

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”   ~Victor Hugo

“Children deprived of words become school dropouts; dropouts deprived of hope behave delinquently. Amateur censors blame delinquency on reading immoral books and magazines, when in fact, the inability to read anything is the basic trouble.”   ~ Peter S. Jennison

“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”   ~ George Washington

“Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”  ~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.”   ~ Confucius

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand.”  ~Native American Saying

 

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Attitude: how high will you soar?

On many occasions I have asked people what they believe is the most important factor in moving towards success, reaching goals, and accomplishments.  I have received many answers like, “luck…money…training…knowing the right people…and even God.” Those are all great answers, but in my experience there is one thing that is commonly found in the men and women who achieve much and that is the state of their “attitude.”

Thomas Jefferson noted:

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

I agree with Jefferson. A persons attitude greatly affects his beliefs, choices, and the way he/she see themselves and the world. I have often said, “Give me a person with a positive attitude and a strong purpose and passion and I can give them the tools to do anything…but if you give me a person who has all the education and tools but lacks passion, purpose and a positive attitude, there is not much I can do.”

Bad attitudes sink teams…Good attitudes encourage teams…
Bad attitudes destroy hope…Good attitudes believe in something bigger…
Bad attitudes never see the potential…Good attitudes see the invisible…
Bad attitudes major in sarcasm…Good attitudes major in faith…
Bad attitudes keep people stuck…Good attitudes free people from limitations…

One of the problems facing us today is how our culture honors, elevates and seems to worship sarcasm and the negative. Most of the sitcoms and young adult shows center around curmudgeonly characters who view all things from a negative lens…merely watch the plethora of reality Tv options and you will experience a steady diet of self centered negativity. This is the primary programming language infusing the current and next generation, and that is worrisome.

If you struggle with the “gift” of sarcasm, or a negative filter…there are some things you can begin doing to reclaim the way you think.

1. Infuse your mind with the positive: This is so critical. Most of the data that people fill their minds with is negative. The news, TV shows, etc. Choosing to fill our minds and souls with good stuff is crucial. Read inspiring stories, faith stories, positive and spiritual quotes. Choose to watch media that is positive and limit the negative media assaults. Pray, meditate, ruminate, read sacred Scripture and books that elevate your soul. In short, become aware of the data that you are feeding your mind and soul with. You will become like the data you fuel yourself with.

2. Choose to be positive: This is where self-awareness is necessary. Most people are not very self aware of their emotions, attitudes or thoughts. Slowing down enough by practicing some regular times of solitude and silence will greatly help you become more self aware. As you become self aware, you will find that you have the option to make a choice about what you are thinking. When I find my mind in a negative or pessimistic state, I always stop and ask God to help me release those thoughts to Him as well as reinfuse my thoughts with positive ones that flow from who He is. In my mind and heart I say, “I choose to think positive God-thoughts.” This helps me identify the negative thought patterns and acknowledge that I don’t want them in my mind.

3. Practice Gratitude daily: This is so powerful! If you don’t have a cheap spiral notebook go out and get one today! It will be the best .79 cents you have ever spent. Once you have it, find a spot in your day to stop and simply write even one thing that you are grateful for. Even the fact that you have a notebook and a pen and are able to write is something to be thankful for!  The more you invest in looking for the things to be grateful for and writing them down, the more you will experience a growing sense of thankfulness for life.

4. Limit the time you spend with negative people: This one is a bit harder because some of the negative people in your life are probably family and friends. If that is the case for you, note how much time you spend with those who are negative, and then invest more time to be around people who have a positive attitude and will expand your soul. The adage that you become like the people you hang out with is true. So pay attention to the thoughts, beliefs and things people say. As you become aware of the attitudes of the people around you, the better you will be able to make decisions about the time you spend with them.

5.  Choose to smile: This might seem trivial but it really isn’t. Right now, right where you are at, stop….take a deep breath in and out and then plant a big ol’ smile on your face! Come on just do it…can you feel how it begins to change how you feel and see things…it is really hard to be mad, angry, bitter or negative when you are sporting a big smile. Throughout your day as you practice self-awareness, make the choice to smile big…it will flood your soul with better feelings and thoughts which will help with your attitude.

Here are some great quotes on attitude to start reprogramming your thought life with!

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.  ~Maya Angelou

When you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him.  ~Norman Vincent Peale

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.  ~Viktor E. Frankl

We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.  ~Charles R. Swindoll

Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.  ~Zig Ziglar

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.  ~Khalil Gibran

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.  ~William James

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.  ~Victor Hugo

The remarkable thing is, we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  ~Charles R. Swindoll

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.  ~Voltaire

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.  You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.  ~Roald Dahl

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.  ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Philippians 2:5

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Ready To Lead?

It has been said that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” This is true, but how do you know if you are ready to lead. Perhaps if more people were aware of the state of their soul before attempting to lead, there would be fewer wounds and war stories.

I have noticed that some people have too low an opinion of their leadership. They don’t feel ready, equipped or gifted for the task at hand, when in reality, they are ready and have enough humility to lead well. Others, conversely, believe they have been endowed with the abilities of superman. They quickly jump at, and taker over, leadership initiatives when they would do well to slow down and grow in some key areas before attempting to lead others.

So that leaves the question, “How Do I Know When I Am Ready To lead?”

In 2 Corinthian 4:7-12 there are some powerful thoughts about leadership:

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

Notice that leadership is not without trial, struggle, or pain. Even having a great cause does not mean that everyone will like you or agree with what you are saying. The health of a leader is crucial in order to navigate the ideologies and opinions of the day. In Paul’s life I notice the following areas to reflect upon concerning leadership readiness.

1. Are you self-aware and honest with yourself? In other-words, do you know that you are not perfect, that you have areas of deficiency and brokeness that need to be addressed, worked through and healed. One will never be a great leader if they are not ruthlessly honest with themselves about themselves. Not only is it the portal to leading, it is the first step towards healing. If the broken areas are not addressed, those hurts, habits and hangups will be transferred to those you lead, creating a seriously dysfunctional team. A leader with no self-awareness will hurt those they are trying to lead.

2. Are you connected to others in community? Being in community and accountability with others provides the safe environment where people you trust can reveal your blind spots…the wake you leave behind you relationally, vocationally and spiritually. Most people have many acquaintances, but few deep friendships. A healthy living community is one where you laugh, play and serve together being committed to helping each other become the best they can be. A leader that is not in community will not see how their wake affects the people they lead.

3. Are you willing to decrease so others can increase? One of my favorite leadership quotes comes from Lao Tzu where he states:

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

Are you ready to take on a role or responsibility that isn’t “up-front” and highly “visible?” A great leader helps others towards self-epiphanies. Not that all roles are “unseen” but are you willing to decrease so others can increase. The best leaders surround themselves with men and women who are great at what they do, and they facilitate them to do even better, even if they don’t get the strokes for it. A leader who is not willing to decrease will use others to serve them and not the mission.

4. Are you consistent in the small things? Jesus said that “If you have been faithful in little, then you will be made master of much.” Are you willing to do the small tasks that you have now, and are you doing them well? As a leaders proves faithful with the part she has, then more will be given. If you have an attitude that the “small stuff” doesn’t matter, then it’s time to go back to question number 1. A leader who isn’t faithful in the small stuff will not be faithful in the big stuff.

5. Are You Liquid.  Effective leadership for the 21st century is not rigid, but liquid. We live in a time where fluidity in the norm and flexibility is crucial. Gracefully and patiently moving with and alongside those you lead reveals the calmness of your soul, how attached you are to “things” and how will you will deal with things when coloring inside the lines doesn’t work. Flexibility does not mean the removal of expectations of vision, rather it is harnessing the power of the river to forge new ways that flow best in the surrounding atmosphere. A rigid leader might have some obedience, but he will never have all the creativity and potential that comes with fluidity. A leader who isn’t liquid will frustrate and limit the potential of the people they lead.

Spend some time reflecting on these questions concerning your leadership. As you reflect you are actually practicing question #1 which is the gateway to the rest!

Monty