ClydeStyle

Tag: Change

  • Tell your anxiety to get in line

    Living in Western civilization means to live with anxiety and to have something to constantly worry about. It seems that most of what we worry about has to do with things we cannot control. That tends to drive us crazy. We lose time, sleep, energy and creative time worrying.

    With such busy schedules I discovered this life hack that tends to work well for me. It seems so simple but for me it was really effective. I scheduled my time to worry. I mean I literally had it on my calendar. Once it’s scheduled I direct my brain to stop worrying until that time. When you focus on this you actually stop worrying. What this allows you to do is focus on solutions and be productive in other areas that you do control.

    Pretty neat, huh? Then you literally get a natural high from all the things you accomplished when you focus. And here is the best part — when your scheduled time to worry comes up, you will be hard pressed to find something to worry about. Most of the time the problem takes care of itself. If not, all you have to do is reschedule your worry time.

    Now with every accomplishment you have to give yourself credit for it. Celebrate a successful day in some creative way. There is nothing wrong with slowing your pace to congratulate yourself. You mind will conform to this if you focus. This idea works because all we are really trying to do is be productive. We want to be able to do meaningful things that allow us to grow and develop a sense of pride in our living. Successful people have learned how to manage their anxiety and you can to.

    Make sure you focus on what matters most and then you make sure you are physically able to hand your load and then give yourself a fighting chance. Get plenty of sleep, eat healthy, enjoy daily exercise and drink plenty of water. You will feel that stress melt away. Trust.

  • A parable of abortion

    Abortion is like unto a woman who had a horrible back itch. She tried very hard to scratch that itch for years without success. Many people saw that she needed assistance but did nothing to help her. Embarrassed, she went in the quiet and continued to try and scratch her itch but to no avail.

    Then one day someone from among the people came to her with a huge knife and starting at the base of her back he stuck in the long sharp knife and begin to gut her like a fish. The knife went in, traveled up almost to her neck and stopped. The gentleman walked away without taking it out. The woman collapsed.

    So much blood came out and she continued to bleed for decades. She bled for so long that she began to embrace the blood and appreciate the knife because although it cause a whole lot of other problems spiritually, emotionally and mentally, her back never itches anymore.

    Through those nearly 5 decades with the knife, the wound would begin to close somewhat. Somewhat because it did not heal properly. It healed simply to survive. The people never stopped arguing about the knife. No one ever talked about her itch. It was like the itch never happened and every solution that came up through group discussions all centered around the knife. There were some who thought the knife should be ripped out while others wanted to do the little things that would assist the knife in it’s purpose. Still neither side had even a conversation about the itching.

    Then suddenly after almost 5 decades in her back, the side that wanted to rip out that knife since day one got their wish and in a blink of an eye the knife was snatched out of the woman’s body and celebrated in the streets. Protest began as well and the whole process of taking sides started again.

    As you can imagine the arguments and the scenarios never changed and the true problem stayed the same. All opinions. No solutions. And the poor woman’s back starting itching far worse than it did in the beginning.

    Abortion was never the problem, it was a symptom of the problem but when symptoms are treated as problems it just creates more symptoms and no problem is solved. Likewise, when principles are given without application they make for good slogans and wonderful sayings, but help no one. And while all this is happening in a capitalistic society, someone is off to the side and in the corners profiting from another person’s misery.

    God bless America!

  • Our mass shootings are home grown

    Every time there is a mass shooting eventual the conversation turns to something being done about mental health. But nobody is really talking about making meaningful mental health legislation no more than a person who hits themselves in the head and says, “I could have had a V8?” — they didn’t mean that either!

    You see, America has always needed to take mental health serious. The founding father weren’t smart enough to consider the effects life would have on people through just living it. Our country was birthed after the Revolutionary War. Before the flag could get used to flying in the sky, it was layer more across caskets. We tried to morn but the puritanical concepts we labored under would encourage you to be strong as defined by keeping a “stiff upper lip!” No time for weeping, crying was a sign of weakness and to carry on with grief beyond the funeral did not fit the societal norm.

    As a result we kept things to ourselves and turned our anger inward. This caused a great silent depression in the US. Our solution: Medication! We tried to take pills for everything. Fast forward to today and we now have an extremely angry, entitled, spoiled, immature nation who uses privileges so prideful that will can kill without remorse. And the killers aren’t old people, retired vets, abused middle aged folks — it’s kids! They haven’t even been here long enough to be so angry — yet they are.

    Our society creates these characters. I know I always thought that America was invincible because we spend much money on defense to protect the outside of us. We never invest on the inside so that’s where our cancer grows.

    Our country will never starve itself to death. Nor be wiped out by a disease. We won’t lack water or any other resource — we will just neglect ourselves to death. America is the largest ocean, but it’s citizenship lives in aquariums.

  • Let’s make freedom for all … for once

    This Independence Day I thought we could quickly discuss one of the longest living forms of abuse — corporal punishment! Whenever this subject comes up some one quickly says, “Well, I was spanked when I was growing up and I turned out fine.” So the premise is that spankings did no damage to the receiver back in the day so it’s fine for today. Or it means that because of spankings we now have many fine citizens who had loving parents that carried out their Christian duty of “not sparing the rod as to not spoil the child.”

    Many believe that the bible teaches the benefits of spanking kids. Does it? More on that in a moment. The earliest I could research the use of corporal punishment came around 1800 B.C. during Babylonian captivity. The Babylons utilized the death penalty for violation of 25 particular laws.

    Of course we know that this was a learned behavior from England that followed immigrants here during revolutionary times. Slaves were beaten for violating the slave code. This became the dominant understanding and use of corporal punishment. It was used in schools and homes throughout America.

    According to a study conducted by the Harvard School of Education, spanking is not an effective way to discipline a child whether be it at home or at school. The worse part of spankings physically and mentally was when it was done to embarrass, out of anger, out of frustration or to intimate a child. Were you spanked for any of these reasons?

    Further, the bible does not teach us to abuse our children by spanking them. Proverbs 13:24 has been taken completely out of context and interpreted by western standards. The rod in the text is equal to the rod of a shepherd who would use it to teach and guide the sheep with it, not ever to be used as a weapon. This is why Psalms 23 says, “thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

    In addition, for me knowing that spankings were associated with slavery was enough for me not to introduce it to my children. Moreover, I was definitely more important for my kids to love me than fear me. I could come up with far more practical means of consistently convening my point to me children without subjecting them to a violent attack from the one who is responsible for protecting the home.

    So, it’s Independence Day and we are celebrating freedom. Let’s give our kids the freedom to be loved, guided and encouraged instead of adding violence to our dysfunction and giving them a license to carry this barbaric behavior to our future generations.

  • Enough is enough: To live by the sword is to die by the sword

    You know, I wasn’t going to say anything about the mass shootings. I was hoping that lawmakers would develop a conscience and do the right thing for the people — atleast that’s what Democracy is supposed to be about. A system of government that is by the people and for the people.

    Clearly everyone sees this as a problem. We have had well over 200 mass shootings this year. Mass shooting is defined by the number of people killed. Somewhere, someone came up with the idea that if atleast 4 people get shot, they don’t have to die, it constitute a mass shooting. And we specialize in them.

    Congress has the task of representing “we the people” and sadly the interest of the people is not the interest of Congress. This is not a new problem as lobbying groups and corporate special interest tend to rule our country with the almighty dollar. Part of congress believes that a good guy with a gun trumps a bad guy with a gun. Clearly that’s not the case.

    There were 19 small town officers in Uvalde at the school harassing parents. They must have been afraid to go in so chances are more kids were killed than should have been. There have been copycat shooters in other states while Congress tries to figure out what to do. Our system is failing.

    Meanwhile, Canada is strengthening it’s gun laws because it is the right thing to do. Some countries, like Japan, decided that they had outgrew handguns and following a mass shooting in 1989, the country decided to band guns from their society.

    If America was not so greedy we could solve the gun problem. We have become masters at making money off the suffering of others. A statement needs to be made at the voting polls. What are you prepared to do?

  • The big Break up

    The Stylistics made the song “Break up to make up” famous! Saying, “First you love me, then you hate me, that’s a game for fools.” Probably the worst thing about breaking up is that in the beginning it leaves you so empty. There is a brand new void that needs to be filled. Some embrace the void as pain that quickly leads to depression. Others look to fill the void immediately often dragging someone new into the picture which isn’t fair to the newcomer.

    What makes relationships so hard is that we all have somewhat of a hidden complex about ourselves. Things like personal quirks that we feel we can’t be honest about. We have feelings we can’t share for fear of being judged. We don’t want anyone to know we’re insecure. Then there are people that are so afraid of being hurt again that they can’t be transparent in a new relationship. There are so many dynamics, but with most of them good communication and honesty fixes most of them.

    Assumptions are another great relationship killer. And mind you these things hurt over time. The first 40 assumptions aren’t enough to kill a relationship. It’s the next 200 of them that does it. Then you start factoring in all the wasted time. All your fears about breaking up come to light and that space you don’t enjoy — the emptiness is surrounding you again.

    Well, if you have ended a relationship recently let’s try to pick up the pieces. First, if you think it’s all your fault — it is! Not ALL because it takes 2 people for a relationship. You definitely need to own a percentage of the break up. But who’s fault it is doesn’t matter now because it’s over … right???

    What matters now is that we learn from what happened and own our dysfunction. Some people enter a relationship still broken from a previous one. You can not give yourself wholly to a person when you are broken. You must heal first. Some people just don’t like to be alone. They jump around from person to person when they really need to get a dog — or some other pet and heal.

    There are also areas that need improvement. All improvements must be made for only one reason — because you want to make them for yourself. If you were informed in a previous relationship that you were selfish, you have to decide if you believe that to be true. Any changes you make has to be because you want it. If not, it will not be genuine.

    Slowing the dating process waaaaaay down is also a must as you must give things time to develop. When you meet a new person you are instantly in discovery mode. Give it time. Before you start making new commitments you must heal from the past and know what characteristics you like before you meet someone and don’t compromise them.

    If you are really looking for a long- term committed relationship, you need to seek spiritual guidance for this is the highest point of mankind’s intellect. Glorify God in every aspect of the relationship and if it ends, you will land on your feet! Now, make sure you take care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally in order to recover from the break up. Give it time. You will get better!

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