Becoming Bolder.

I took a month – in December – to just quiet my mind. To stop the life of busyness that requires similar patterns of nothingness. To consider what’s important, and to befriend myself again. And I found something.

Treasures. I remembered why I existed. I found rest again. Inner rest. Physical rest too – but that was secondary. I remembered again what made me smile. Where comfort was. And hope, most of all – was renewed.

I also found comfort in encouraging friends. Some who were not doing so well, but others who were. And were practicing gratefulness -(as I was ) and reading up on issues that enlighten and encourage . I also found those friendships to be invaluable. And in my reaching found new friends. With inspiring and positive perspectives. Of course, my husband as friend – and beautiful were the conversations of my friends of accountability, fun and the friends who keep me focused.

I even asked myself: “Where have you been that you became distant, and untouched?” How did you get here? Where and when did the shallowness enter in? I don’t consider myself shallow by any means; yet as I considered the terrain lack of depth – the hard work I had not purposed myself to accomplish recently – I was unsatisfied.

So – I disconnected.

I usually am one who self-evaluates with regularity – however; my life had become so consumed with ‘living’ – I forgot about myself. Life began to fill up with “uncompassionate things” and issues that don’t really matter in the fullness of time. And gosh – fear – it seems to come in waves and tries to gather all the faith I ever built up within my soul – into a ball and this fear – caused me to retreat. So life takes on this form that tends to blend everything together, again.

And the cycles of life continue.

I have to retreat again.

So… I decided to step out and be BOLDER.

I was reading Michelle Obama’s book : “The Light We Carry” – she speaks to our “differentness”… and finds great value in being different. She says there’s essentially a certain kind of strength in differentness: “Your differentness will often precede you in to a room and people see it before they see you.. she continued by saying .. “ you figure out how to guard your energy, to count every step. And at the heart of this lies a head- spinning paradox: Being different conditions you toward cautiousness, even as it demands that you be bold. “

I love being different. So, now, I want to reach for being bold. The older I become, and the more time I spend with myself, the more I find I really like myself. And liking yourself is a good thing.

Take some time to consider why you are here on earth, what’s meaningful, involves connectedness with your purpose. There , you will find center.

I find myself – in centering myself.

Often.

I mean, this world will rattle you. it will shake you off your rocker. If you let it.

Did you know the opposite of the word ‘centered’ – is inhumane? So heck, I am trying to do everything I can to remain centered. And to be in tune with my God, myself, and the life I have been given here on earth. And how I have been positioned to serve.

Michelle’s words rung with me about being “bold”. There’s definitely a demand on my life at this juncture of a new year : enter 2023, … that I be BOLD.

And I have been so afraid to really be bold. Bold in being 55 years of age, bold in noticing my strengths and occupying them fully, bold in trusting my intriguing personality and creativity for all its worth.. I could go on.. but I don’t want to share all that here, cause I’m still discovering…( smile)

But you know what?

I am delighted.

I sincerely feel I am on to something pretty powerful. I have begun to practice principles and habits that energize me; make me happier, help me to smile, and find joy. And it is beginning to resound. And feel good inside. Not like the unraveling uncomfort of not being & feeling centered, of feeling inhumane and uncompassionate.

So finding joy and being bolder is just where my life shall reign in 2023.

And I think I will stay here til a miracle happens. (Or two..)

Selah.

Oh yeah, my word for 2023 is BOLDER.

And my phrase: “I can be bolder, and I will be better.”

I will keep you up on the journey of where the better happens and also the boldness.

Happy New Year. And thank you, 2022, for being you.

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Encourage Yourself.

Wow… when life gets tough, where do YOU turn? Encourage is my word I chose to follow for April of 2022. ( It’s been a long April for me, and it’s only half way there.)

It’s been a tough one , this month, with the war in Ukraine, seeing all its devastation, and the people having to leave their country, I cannot imagine what that’s like – leaving all you have ever known, and having to uproot and move from your family to thrive again. As a contemplator by nature, I have found some of the news from this Ukraine war to be very moving, and at times I struggle trying to understand why someone could be so hard hearted towards a people who have done no wrong. On top of this, and a few other personal concerns during the month of April, have caused me to think about my family, my personhood, and my friendships in such a way that I have not considered before. I have been trying my best to be mindful.

What I keep coming back to, again and again is how mindfulness centers me, when situations in life are chaotic. I am a therapist, by profession, a mental health therapist – who has taken a long break from professional therapy, very intentionally – to do some healing myself. It has been the best decision for me, I am finding. I learned a lot about mindfulness, and I don’t think I have shared very much on this blog, about it. That may change significantly.

I have a very peaceful way of finding sleep, when I am a bit restless at night. I usually begin to imagine myself as a pebble, and I am skipping across a pond. Once I hit the water, (as a pebble), I imagine myself falling… and as I am falling , the waters surrounding me are multi-colored and beautiful , glistening and I just fall, until I find sleep. I am very present to what is happening around me as I fall – the colors, the sounds, and the ambiance. I may have to throw the pebble three or four times, but most often the first time, is the charm…and I am asleep. Just like that. It amazes me every single time how quickly I find sleep. I suggest you try it, if you have the same trouble, sometimes.

Mindfulness is how I stay encouraged, and to be honest, it can be quite the task. It takes time to cultivate, and develop the routine of it. So …I am recommending a really good book that’s helped me this month to stay focused. It’s called The Light Maker’s Manifesto – by Karen Walrond. Karen gives several interviews on the book of people who are activists in their own right – who just have a cause they live for, and they discuss a myriad of ways they remain faithful to their call and use mindful listening even, to stay present to the call. I LOVE THIS. In fact, I love everything about this book. Karen is someone I have been following on her blog ( http://www.chookooloonks.com ) for several years, and I have sincerely gleaned a lot about life, photography and living – for quite a few years.

The Lightmaker’s Manifesto – By Karen Walrond

In one section she speaks of how to maintain rhythm and how to take care of yourself in such a way that you thrive. And since “Rhythm” was my word last month, and I didn’t write about it, I thought I would share.

Essentially, she says five factors exist:

1. Cultivation of spirituality by leading a meaningful lifestyle. (And yes, that’s why I write this blog – to assist everyone that reads , in noticing what’s meaningful in life and sticking to your purpose within.)
2. Taking care of yourself physically, and tapping into the connection between your mind and body – so important. Tapping into the realization & connection between why my body was not aligned with my physicality over this past year – has been so enlightening and freeing for me. ( Mind you – I couldn’t do this alone- it took a bit of counseling to determine what I had to awaken to and acknowledge , in my own soul. )
3. Intentional intellectual stimulation. ( I love this because one of my “strengthfinders” characteristics is “intellectualization”. Sometimes perspective can be so freeing. It’s how we evolve. Grow. I love sharing with others and working on adjusting my mindset and gleaning from others’ mindsets.
4. Nurturing meaningful and constructive relationships within, and with others. I love that she says ‘within’ – so important to love yourself fully before you can love others.
5. And lastly, not being afraid of our emotions. Not denying or suppressing them. It s so interesting how being present in this day and age with so many distractions surrounding us, is what saves us.

So, I am quite thankful for this book, ( & finding resolve through it) after a long bout with Covid, wrestling with myself and my needs as a person in a midlife situation, being in counseling – taking a break from work, being a wife and a spiritual mother to many – and caretaker of my parents. It brought a lot into focus.

Stay encouraged,

Jenn

Did you enjoy this reading? If so, visit my newsletter and get regular updated reading in which you can practice self- actualization exercises. We are located at the Mentor My Sister site, simply click here.

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Shining… But Not Very Brightly.

Hello. October was all about the word Shine. So let me share what the mean it of the word emphasizes. To Shine means: To have significance: (the quality of being worthy of attention); the quality of being important. Synonyms of this special word are: to have heart, sense , understanding, force, or meaning.

I bet when you thought of Shining this wasn’t at the forefront of your mind, huh?

I chose a word that was a bit difficult to practice this month. Not because I couldn’t practice it, it was because I have to receive the word a bit differently. One of the things that caught me off guard was how much it takes to Shine… especially when you are not feeling the best.

Photography by You Are So Beautiful Photography
Me driving to work one morning.

Shining matters within, our personalities and out outer appearance, at times- and also on the outside of our lives: how we cherish moments with the special people in our lives. My momma always told me: “Actions speak louder than words.” The parts of our lives where no one notices – but you, your family and your children. It matters to them, it matters to God. That we let our “lights shine” no matter where we are, no matter what we are doing.

I’ve learned that wherever I am leaving a legacy of truth and discipline, hope, influence, purpose and good communication, those are places where I truly shine I also am shining where I am a positive and showing meaningful leadership. Where I care for others and remain positive, even when other around me, are not.

Where everyone in my life sped things up this weekend, I decided to slow it down. If I cannot hear myself for the sake of moving too fast, then I may need to turn the volume down. Am I taking time for that family member? Am I spending quality time with that loved one? Will this matter in five or ten years? Will it matter later this week? Just another positive way to think about whether “time” is mine, or it truly belongs to someone else.

Having had a birthday this past week, one of the things I am learning is to count the cost of everything… even the ones you miss. Sometimes the moments that matter most, are the ones you missed.

Why not slow it down, decided to do something different, make someone smile by choosing to do the one thing you normally would not have done, and bless them with the gift of time.

I am grateful for this month, because although I wasn’t feeling my best for most of the month, I took advantage of ‘ how I felt’, and instead of complaining , I made the most of it. And that involved shining, being grateful and giving thanks for what I have.

So when you slow it down this month, spend a little time reflecting on the Who, What, Where, Why and When… and even the “How” – ‘cause it all matters. Plan something very intentional, yet not work related. Take a Sabbath day. Change it up. Love on someone … Just because …and it will return unto you.

Share a few places where you’ve been shining lately very intentionally….

I took this on Lake Ontario, in Rochester NY

Did you enjoy this reading? If so, visit my newsletter and get regular updated reading in which you can practice self- actualization exercises. We are located at the Mentor My Sister site, simply click here.

Complacency: Robber of Your Personal Strength

Complacency is the word this month! This was challenging word, because it quite possibly the first word I chose to look at closely that was not a word that was positive. But we will make the experience of communicating the positive- with this word, because it is what can make us change.

So…. what does it mean to be complacent?
It is defined as an often unjustified feeling of being pleased with oneself or with one’s situation or achievements
a momentary complacency that was quickly dispelled by the shock of cold reality.

What I don’t like abut complacency is that it slows you down. it limits your success, and it appears to make us very comfortable and it sneaks up on you and can be quite subtle.

In my head – I lived in a ‘FOG‘ – I was not successful in accomplishing things in my life due to being ‘too comfortable’ in my life. Either with my time, my actions, too much money, people enabling me, or struggling with my own identity – I wouldn’t put the work in… you know, do the things necessary for change. You could say I had a lazy mentality. Yeah, I hate the word lazy. I consider myself quite productive. Yet I was sadly not doing what was required to be whole. And this is where I would falter with complacency. I allowed complacency to become my ‘friend’, instead of my foe. And beause it was so subtle, it made me realize I had more WORK TO DO.

I am going to even venture to say : Complacency was my enemy because I was ‘numbing’ to some of the things in life I didn’t want to see. (…And I will talk more about that in another blog post.)

I am complacent with my energy. That’s my confession today. I tend allow things that are not very important, be quite important, or be more important than they should. And get this: THEY ARENT really very important!!

If I complacent with taking vitamins, eating well, or exercising – I tend to take these things for granted in terms of how I deal with my energy and make time for my health and betterment of myself.

In the space and time of resounding and being strong, I have been complacent with my words and actions. I was too comfortable in spaces, and convinced myself I was, ” comfortable”, but I really wasn’t. I was people pleasing. In those familiar spaces, I sacrificed myself – and when I did this, I was not allowing myself to speak up and speak my truth. All those are moments when I sacrificed myself. Do we want to sacrifice what is precious, what is on the altar of our hearts – this sacred space in our lives? Where “We matter”? If we speak our truth in the moment, we free ourselves. We have to grasp those moments where we tend to freeze or become silent, and we don’t speak – we sacrifice a part of our own identity. We have to say the things that matter.

A few synonyms for complacency: “bighead-edness”, conceitedness, ego, pompousness, pride, self-admiration, self-assumption, self-conceit, smugness, vainglory, vanity.”

Hmmm.. something to think about…

Antonyms for complacency: humbleness, humility, modesty. What a contrast. These are the things that often prevent the gem of ‘humility’ and change to give birth, in our souls.

Humbly submitted.

Nthabiseng AKA JennRene Owens

My Voice… Resounding.

Ever wished you had pushed record on the tape you played about losing your voice?

Well I did, today.
Not literally, but figuratively.
I just kept the recording playing in my mind of how important it is to say what I need to say, and say it firmly enough, that I’m heard.
But not so much to others, really. That I say it firmly enough that “I believe it”, it matters and it cements within my soul .And reverberates. To reverberate means to: reflect repel or ( to resist). Resistance can be a powerful thing of placed in a powerful situation. That’s when it involves permanence. It stays in place. Has impact. Or in other words, it involves making myself “happy”.

Some things in life are meant to be said. And others are not. There are some things when they are said, they resound reverberate . They matter .

Like when someone said after a man died on public television, that Black Lives Matter . And the whole world resounded and reverberated to that vibe , that truth….and responded with marches, and protests and people all over the world saying the same. Black lives matter . Some of them even saying it for the first time, and others really understanding it , for the first time.

When thoughts and feelings and a knowingness becomes alive… that’s when self – love matters, reverberates. for me. When “I matter”… I resound. And I reverberate . And you know, what that looks like is me deciding thatI will say what I feel , what I think , and I will “be what my name means”. So let me talk about my name: My African name. My name is Nthabiseng. Nthabiseng means “Make Me Happy”
I know, for you this may not mean a thing, but for me, this name when given to me, and I was crowned by it- it meant “Life- Change”.
And life- change meant that “I have volition. I may not have know this before , yet i’m here now to use what matters. It meant : “ I have agency.”

Selah. *{pause & calmly think of that}

You know, for women , this is not a topic women often choose to talk about. Words that make us even more complacent, like weak, low self esteem, and “ being silenced “ all come from places where we were ‘not allowed to become .’ Not allowed to be our true selves. Where we have painted our walls with shame – not opened our eyes for opening them would have meant we had to open our mouths too,… & recognizing that ‘speaking up’ may have been too costly in places before , where shame was bred.

Yet now, we are free.
We determine that being strong looks like having confidence using our voices and making use of our own volition, not as a ‘right’ – but as a necessity, a need and as we we evolve – we become women we never even imagined we could be.

And guys this goes for you all, too.

When you speak up, you evolve.
You prosper.
You grow.
You are Successful.
Selah.

my flowers blossoming.

how i harnessed myself through covid.

By You Are So Beautiful Photography.

how i harnessed myself through covid.

Best Friends

So I have have never been ‘the best friend’ nor had many of them since 2nd or third grade. Then , some time around the age of 45, I came across a few friends in a new state and they became my hanging partners and accountability buddies.

Did I need to have them around ? Most definitely. We’re they best friends?

Certainly. I still never thought much about the term again in terms of describing a friend, and as I referred to them, I’d say : “you’re one of my best friends”… and I’d figure they’d know. But I figure in my lifetime if I have friends who have good intention and they have the qualities below- a few of them at least- then they’re a few of my best friends.

I believe friendships should be reciprocal. And if they don’t require we ‘glean’ love on one another and help each other to become better women, then what’s the point?

Here were a few qualities we gathered from our conversations earlier this year on one of our Zooms. if you like to join a zoom talk we have once a month , comment below and let me know. We are always talking about emotional wealth, psychological and self care and emotional resiliency. Join us!

Friendships – Are You Really My Friend Or My Soundbite Buddy?

Lady Victoria & Jennifer

Jennifer: Friendship, is our Focus word for February 2021. I’ve been pondering over an article for the month of February focusing on friendships, & then I realized I had one in my archives!

If you’d like to join our conversation on Friendships this month on Zoom, please connect with me. As a group of women we meet monthly to discuss and share in authentic conversation.

Jennifer: This is a guest post by my long time sister-friend, Lady Victoria Walker, who has been a friend over the course of the past 20 years, or more. She and I both really love friendships and try our best to keep our friendship as connected and authentic as possible. I love and appreciate her for her depth and honesty. A few years ago, she and I had a really good conversation about friendships, and I thought it would be neat for her to write a guest post for my blog!

Friendships – Are You Really My Friend or My Soundbite Buddy?

Earlier this year, I was contacted by a long time friend, Jennifer, to write a blog for her website about the topic of friendship. I thought it would be a simple project…then I discovered, that preparing for the task led me through an interesting discovery process. First, I decided to take a long look at the number of contacts on my phone; and then, I asked myself “huh, it looks like over a couple hundred people are here, but who has contacted me recently?!” So, I decided before writing an article about friendship, let me first find out what’s going on with my own friendships!
I am so glad that the opportunity to complete this writing project literally forced me to reevaluate the people in my life that I considered friends. This journey has led me to take the time to focus on who I have in my life and why they are there. More importantly, how do they really feel about me as a person and how do we treat each other. As a writer, I wanted to gather pertinent data to assess the actual quality of my friendships as opposed to just accepting, at face value, that just because we connect, does that mean we are friends?
Would you believe I developed an actual friendship questionnaire?! And sent it out to my “friends” by email. I explained it was an important matter to me and requested their help by responding honestly to the questions which I had carefully crafted. Let me tell you, that was an eye-opening experience! If you would like to use my survey tool, feel free to ask me. However, you should know I discovered, only a few people actually read my email. I know, I know. Everyone is busy and their email accounts are overloaded with emails. Okay. Then, out of the few that read it, the responses were intriguing, uplifting and some were down right hilarious! One person wrote to me and said: “you are salt and light in a tasteless dark time”; how encouraging! Some people complained that they preferred to discuss their responses with me over the phone instead of answering the many questions. The phone conversations were actually very enlightening. They lead to some discussions about our friendship which would not have occurred unless I asked questions like: “why do you like me as a friend?”
I mean really. When was the last time you asked someone…”why do you hang with me?” Do you really know if your friends actually feel about you, the same way you feel about them? One of my friends who is in her senior years, said to me that when she started asking similar questions of her friends, whom she had known for years, she found out after 30 years that they did not feel the same about their friendship as she did…to her amazement! Apparently, many of her relationships were more one-sided, and she had not picked up on that. It seems learning how to develop and manage good friendships can take a life time.
As I began to have these “assessment” discussions with the other people I know, I discovered that many of them were not taking the time to evaluate who they had in their lives and why. It seems that, today, people are so busy trying to make a living, that as long as they “connect” with others by Facebook, Twitter, forwarded email chain letter or some other social media platform or perhaps by text, those “sound bite” “drive-by” contacts from others are the new way friendships are being managed. Hmmm…
It also became apparent, during this discovery process, that while our phones may have hundreds of contacts, how many of those people actually have contacted you, by phone, this year? It’s now July. Half of the year is over. How many have called just to say hello and to ask “how are you?”. Often when I asked, I discovered, people are not really contacting others to have meaningful dialogues. It makes me wonder about the quality of friendships that people are having these days, are they really developing relationships that are strong, enduring and endearing? Between our daily busyness and social media, how solid are our friendships?
Can people really develop trustworthy and sound friendships without regular meaningful engagement or just depending on soundbite conversations when they log into a social media account? Is everyone so busy that we are not paying attention that fewer people are really reaching out to see how you are “really” doing? More and more I am hearing that people are not really speaking to each other, but may receive a contact by text or social media every now and then.
I don’t know about you, but frankly, while I understand the importance of remaining relevant by keeping up with people using social media platforms, since we can connect with so many at a time… I still enjoy a friendly conversation when I call a friend or they take the time to reach out to me…to let me know that I matter, deserve more than a soundbite and that they care. How about you?
By the way, I cleaned out my phone and email contacts. I am still available if they choose to reach out, but I decided to focus on people, who are the friends, that have chosen to focus on me!

Lady Victoria Walker
Author

: Lady Victoria Walker is a global operations, communications and administrative systems designer, writer, public speaker, professional voice-over talent and productivity enthusiast. She is from Guatemala, Central America, raised in the Bronx, NY and earned her B.S. in management and communications at Syracuse University. She is tri-lingual and tri-cultural, speaking English, Spanish and Garifuna (a Central American language). She currently serves as the Vita Global Operations Director. Lady Victoria’s voice has been broadcast locally in DC, nationally and around the world. Her creative writing has been featured in WAVA FaithTalk Magazine, GoodProspects.com and more. Her background includes extensive experience in organizational, media, project and business management development both in the corporate and non-profit sectors servicing companies such as: Motorola, Atlanta University, Syracuse Community Health Center, SCHC Total Care, Inc., Salem Communications, Inc. – 105.1FM / AM780 WAVA, SRN News and Goodwill Industries International. She lives in the Metro DC area, teaches liturgical dance, is an aspiring vocalist, mentor and photographer. Lady Victoria strives to serve others by connecting her purpose with international productivity.

Connect with her at: LadyVictoriaWalker@gmail.com

4 Reasons Not To Live in Regret.

I lived with regret far too long..

So… I remember a time in my life when I was really  indecisive. I remember I was trying to please others so much, I forgot about myself.  In that process, I  made  a lot of decisions that  didn’t give much regard to my life, or  emotional safety. What I wanted out of life, was on the back burner.  I basically lived for the enjoyment and delight of someone else, because I thought that was how you  show you love  someone. I was so wrong. I had love all confused. And because of that, I had so much inner conflict, insecurity and so much  doubt inside of myself. Discord was often in my relationships  and I just had no peace with anyone, so I stayed away from people, mostly. As long as they were not talking about my life, then I was okay with them. I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do and if they offered without my asking,  then I was ready to run from them, even thoseclose to me, and who mean a lot to me. When you don’t have peace inside, everything you do or don’t do,  feels like a mistake. You second guess yourself all the time, and you cannot trust your instincts. And when you ignore your instincts, man… you are in T-R-O-U-B-L-E!  I operated in this way so often, I didn’t know who I was , or whether I was coming or going. That means I was lost. After a while, I became so hopeless,  I just lost hope altogether. I was just existing. I apologized for everything,   I had many qualms with people  and the places where I was in life. I carried resentments and as a result, I  was  just plain miserable. I was annoyed to the point  that accepting annoyance was how I lived. But I was so blind to this fact, I simply endured it. It became the norm. I was living with regret. When I looked up  the word regret I  found in the thesaurus these words: ”  to prey on the mind…have a weight on the mind; leave an aching void.” That’s what regrets feels like. Sorrow,  pain, hurt – all the time, and  guilt. Growing up in an alcoholic family, I realized this was the norm for me, ( living with annoyances) which is why I didn’t recognize it when it occurred in a daily basis in my life and relationships. (I know, crazy… right?) But we  do this, because we tend to go with what’s familiar and yet become so comfortable with it, we consider it to be  normal? How does this happen? You recognize you were annoyed and miserable, yet every single day you find comfort with it? I think deep down inside I knew I was miserable, but I didn’t want to admit it.  I was living with a denial and a numbness that honestly, felt very good, because if I didn’t have to acknowledge it, then  I thought  it was not bothering me. But then, after 11 years of depression, it finally caught up  with me. I was at my wits end.My mental health took a toll on me and I knew I had to change something. One day my spirit cried out to God, and revealed I was  living with sorrow. I had much so much REGRET about the  situations I found myself in life, the  decisions I had made and  I was suffering from so much sorrow. I was  sad about my life  and I felt trapped. I felt responsible for things I wasn’t even responsible for. The adults in my life blamed me and I took on their issues and their grief to the point, I had no resolve, no contentment and no harmony in my life. It took a lot to admit I was sad. I was really depressed and I had chosen to live like that for  several years. Living in regret. I remember one morning I spent the entire morning with God in prayer on my back porch.  I was angry, bitter and I was hurting. I was also very stubborn and God used a lot of my grief to help me to recognize  some of the things I held on to were because of pride. I remember  crying out to God with so much pain and  telling God I was  ‘fed up’ and I wanted a new life, and new hope, and a new way of being and doing. As I sat there,  I had a vision in my head of the  image of the woman in the  Bible with whom they  cast stones . (John 8)   These people brought her to Jesus to be condemned. Jesus response  to her accusers was to write on the ground. No one knows what Jesus wrote. But her accusers all left after Jesus  wrote on the ground. He then said : “He who is without sin, cast the first stone.”  I envisioned Jesus as I sat on my porch (with my eyes closed);  write in the ground for me.  As He  wrote, He basically wrote some things  that only I saw, of course.  But what he wrote reminded me of what He desired for me to have.His promises.  I saw that He had much greater intention for me to have good, in my life. I believe it was like that with her accusers, as well. What was important was not what He wrote, but what He said and how what he said, made me feel.  I didn’t feel sorrowful any longer, I was no longer troubled, I was no longer hurting and burdened deeply with regret, and  I  became decisive. I knew instantly that I deserved more, I wanted more and  that I could have more; and I made the decision to do it.  John 8:7, 10,11 “But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” NASB Jesus dealt with this woman with such tenderness and grace, that she was in awe.  All the accusers surrounding her also  were also surprised, but they must have understood, because they left too. If we condemn ourselves, with LIVE WITH REGRET.  My relationship with God has taught me I am not worthy of punishment for the  decisions I have made.That’s why he died for us. Once I repent, ask God for help, receive it, then move on. then  comes release. Just like it did for the woman in John 8. This is very important. It’s necessary for living with a clear conscious. That day on my back porch, I contended with Jesus, in my soul . But I learned three things after my wrangling with God: 1. I had to let go of my past. 2., I couldn’t live in the condemnation, because if I did, I would accept the guilt and regret from my past. 3. I learned I had to move on, because  HE didn’t condemn me, and so I had to stop condemning myself. 4. I had to forgive myself. When you cannot forgive yourself, you don’t remember to be kind, nurturing and self-loving. You forget to  forgive yourself. It took years for me to forgive myself for  things in my past, even after I made a decision to live a better life and leave those things behind I knew I was worth more, I knew I deserved more, but it didn’t make me leave the situation or change anything. Here’s what made  the difference: accepting  God’s forgiveness and allowing His love for me to redeem me.  For me, this was what unraveled  the love confusion. I learned that if I  accepted God’s love first  and  allowed this to be my foundation for loving others and BEING LOVED… then I would be alright.  Once I was certain God has forgiven me and wanted more for me, I began to  move towards freedom, and I never looked back. I fond resolve. But I have to give God my regrets.  People are often amazed by how much peace I seem to have.  Let me tell you, I am not perfect. I still struggle, even. And although I have peace , now…  It took a very long time to get here. After I  got through the muck and the mess of my own regrets, I was able to stand again on my own two feet.   Of course,  some of the way, God carried me to be honest. But I made it to the other side. Now that I am here, it ‘s pertinent I tell the story of how I made it here, so others could be set free as well. Amen & Selah.