Counselor's Corner: How to Get Your Traction Back

A definition of traction is the support or interest that is needed for something to make progress or succeed.

I was making good traction over the last several weeks in my work, in my health, and in my small group I lead with my husband, but then out of what seemed to be nowhere, I lost my traction in all areas of my life. I felt as if I was making great progress but then it seemed as if I was going backwards. No matter what I did, I could not get my traction back. This lose of traction has been going on for a little over a week, so I decided to step back and seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit as to what appears to me going backwards instead of forward.

Key points to why you may lose traction when you are making progress:

1.     You have an enemy, he hates your progress and will use any scheme, person, or parts of your past to derail and sabotage your forward progress.

2.     If you stop and stare to long at what the enemy is showing or speaking to you, it will be a matter of time that you will begin agreeing with those lies, magnifications, and vain imaginations. The enemy is a master of distraction. Distraction causes you to lose traction because you stop and look and get your focus on what the enemy is showing you.

3.     Not feeling physically well can cause you to lose your traction. If you are not physically strong most likely you will not be able to keep going at the rate you were going before you got sick.

4.     Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, fearful or disappointed over circumstances. These can weigh you down and you can lose your motivation to continue making progress.

5.     Reliving past failures or experiences. You may begin to have thoughts like, “That failed before, so it probably won’t work this time either.” This is called stinkin’ thinkin’ and can cause one to completely lose any traction or forward progress in one’s life.

How to gain your traction back and move forward:

1.     Identity what may have caused you to lose your traction: schemes of the enemy, sickness, stinkin’ thinkin’, fear, reliving your past failures.

2.     Recognize that if you are making any attempts to grow in your relationship with God or allowing God to use you in some way, the enemy will try and thwart your progress. Ask God to strengthen you as opposition and resistance have come your way. Don’t agree with any lies, half-truths or vain imaginations the enemy would send your way. Get daily into the Word of God and allow the truth to saturate your thinking.

3.     Take every thought captive into the obedience of Christ. This will take discipline, but choose to take every thought that is contrary to the Word of God and speak life and faith over yourself.

4.     Keep taking steps forward even when you don’t feel like it, eventually you will get your traction back instead of wallowing in your lack of progress.

5.     If you have been battling some sort of illness, take the necessary time to heal and restore. Do not beat yourself up for needing to take some time to recover. When you are better, pick up where you left off. This may mean taking a day, half-day or longer if needed to properly recover.

Don’t quit or give up when you have been knocked off course, identify what may have caused it, and then take the steps that you need to get back on track. Everyone has moments in life that they lose their stem, just don’t allow those moments to cause you to believe that you always be in that state.

Counselor's Corner: Overcoming Life's Challenges

Life can be difficult. There are those times in your life where many challenges come in your path and can overwhelm you. As I was reflecting over the last several months of my life, I realized that I had allowed a series of challenges that came into my life unexpectedly to derail and discourage me. I admit I did not handle the challenges that came my way properly, instead I reacted in anger, frustration and defeat.

Challenge can be defined as something that is difficult to overcome, and if you do not push past the challenge you can remain stuck and defeated.

Not everyone faces the same challenges, and people respond differently to challenges. You cannot compare how you may have responded or reacted to a challenge in your life with how someone else responds to similar situations.

What are some situations that could be challenging?

·        Difficult relationships with loved ones

·        Loss of a significant relationship

·        Work-related conflicts, job loss, or difficult co-workers/boss

·        Any type of loss

·        Health issues

·        Hormonal imbalances

·        Toxic people

·        Unfairness in life

·        Any type of change

·        Divorce

Life is unpredictable and unfair at times, but how can you learn to overcome those challenges without remaining in a state of defeat:

1.     Face the reality. Don’t avoid what is causing you problems. Talk it out, write it out and then let it go and surrender your situations to God.

2.     Embrace your life as it is, not how you fantasize how you want it to be. I can easily slip into the non-reality that I have a loving, strong and supportive family and become quite disappointed when they are not those things. This is not to say you don’t believe and want better but you are not living in the hopes of people or situations but in Christ alone.

3.     Focus on what is right, what is good and what is praiseworthy in your life and decrease thinking and magnifying the challenges in your life.

4.     Speak and declare over your life that you are an overcomer instead of saying or thinking,” I’m so defeated or discouraged about…”

5.     Distance yourself from the drama. Step back from any chaos in your life to gain a better perspective about your challenge. Act from a place of strength and gain clarity.

6.     Learn from your challenges. Your character can be strengthened through the trials in your life.

Everyone will have challenges in their lives, I know I have had more than my fair share; but the key to overcoming challenges is to rise above them. Don’t allow the challenges in your life to steal your peace and joy, there is a time to mourn but there is a time to rejoice as well.

Reflect: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4

Counselor's Corner: Time to Move Forward and Get Unstuck from Your Past

Nothing can hinder you more than staying stuck in the past. You cannot move forward into the new season that God has for you until you make peace with your past. Making peace with your past includes forgiving yourself, forgiving the ones who have hurt you, letting go of false guilt, letting go of how things should be or could have been, and releasing every toxic memory of the past.

Moving forward means fresh start. All the old ways of thinking and doing things that did not work before are left behind. Your past had a purpose, you most likely now are stronger in your faith and commitment to Christ.

Continually bringing up the past, especially repeating memories that are harmful serves no purpose but to decrease your hope and your faith and to increase discouragement and depression. There is a time to go back into your past to heal your broken and wounded hearts, but when that stage of healing is over, you need to move forward so that you do not get stuck in past pain.

The enemy wants you stuck like quicksand in your hurtful past and painful memories? Why? Because you cannot live the life that Christ came to give you fully. Christ wants you living free and also joyfully. Yes, you are to enjoy your life to the fullest. How can you enjoy your life when you are bound to the past, reliving your past to anyone who will hear your sad stories as a way to gain pity. Christ does not want you pitiful but powerful. Stop focusing on the problems of the past, what did not work, who was not there, who you lost, or even why something happened.

Let God heal your brokenness and then begin to live again.

Reflect and ponder: Do you feel stuck in your past problems and old wounds and can’t seem to move forward in your life?

God does not want you to rehash, remember and replay your old wounds and past problems, He wants to heal your heart, set you free, and release you to move forward. Make peace with your past, it happened, and no matter how you wanted things to have turned out differently-they didn’t! Focusing on the past is a surefire way to keep you in bondage. Traumatic memories are very powerful, and they can keep you stuck in pain. Painful memories can throw your physiology out of balance and prevent you from experiencing the peace of the present moment. People who live in the past of painful memories cannot enjoy the present very well because they keep reliving what has hurt them. When you think about the negative aspects of your past, fear, dread, worry, discouragement and even depression can hold you captive. Bad memories have strong negative emotions attached to them, which triggers physical and chemical changes in your body. Every time a bad memory causes a stressful response it takes up to 36 hours for your body to rid the stress hormones. If your mind is constantly replaying bad memories, your body does not get a chance to return to its natural resting state and as a result your body stays geared-up.

Steps to moving forward:

1.      Take the necessary time to grieve. If you have had trauma in your life, you will need to get to the “roots” of your imbedded pain. Allow Jesus to begin to heal the “roots” that get uncovered. Acknowledge what has hurt you, and don’t use anything to numb your pain. When you have not processed your pain or trauma memories, your mind is concerned and will try and relive the memories with the hope of some type of resolution.

2.      Rewire your brain. If you have endured a crisis, a trauma or extended stressors; your brain needs to be rewired. Trauma has a negative impact on the brain, but you can daily start to repeat scriptures and positive truths that reflect the truth in God’s Word over your life. Rewiring your brain is simply replacing the memories of the trauma or wound with God’s Word.

3.      Make new goals, including short-term and long-term goals. Write out your goals.

4.      Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to forgive and to release everyone who has hurt you. Forgiveness is key to being able to move forward. Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. Forgiveness is done on your part, but reconciliation involves both parties with repentance at the core.

5.      Refocus on things that are positive and of a good report and the traumatic memories will eventually be filed away as over. This is where taking every thought captive into the obedience of Christ can be applied (2 Corinthians 10:5). As a painful memory tries to steal your current peace, refocus immediately on something that is positive. Do not dwell on the painful memory and especially don’t go back and try and figure out why something happened. What you are doing by refocusing your thoughts is essentially erasing the harmful memories to make way for positive memories and the ability to get unstuck.

6.      To stay moving forward, release and process painful events immediately. When you don’t release painful emotions regularly, they can get stuck and will eventually cause illness. Release pain as soon as possible in prayer, alone with God, or with a trusted, godly person.

MEDITATE ON THESE SCRIPTURES:

He restores my soul. Psalm 23:3

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness the prisoners. Isiah 61:1

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3