Focus on Others and Find Your Sanctuary

It is so easy to get caught up on ourselves and the things that keep us running like chickens and things that put us in tears and things that make us lash out at those around us and things that keep us distracted.

Do me a favor...think about your day...how many times during your day do you use the word "I" ??..How many times in the day do you get caught up in the things that are hard for YOU to get through instead of thinking about the people around you and what is hard for them? I am the first to stand up and say that I have been very selfish lately. I know that I go through phases, I know that I claim to be about others but how often am I really about others?

It is a known fact that birth moms think about themselves and their sorrows ALL THE TIME. It is hard to go through such a life changing experience, and there is certainly a time that you are allowed to think and ponder and mourn what you need to...but when do you "Forget yourself and get to work"?.

I think that there are things that happen that act as a sign that it is time to get over yourself...notice that I didn't say move on and forget!!!....I said get over yourself. Please don't take this the wrong way...I am not thinking in any way that you are being selfish or that you don't deserve to take care of yourself...TRUST me I was there for YEARS!!!!...but I am also here to testify that focusing on yourself never helped with the healing process...the more you focus on yourself and continue to think about the pain and the events of the experience the worse you feel, the more regret that you have, and the more useless you become.

I spent years being depressed, drinking, using, having casual relationships, alienating myself from friends and family because my focus was on ME and my PAIN and what happened to ME! It is amazing what happened when I shifted that focus...I got married to the love of my life, had a beautiful daughter of my own, quit using and drinking, gained an incredible testimony, started BIB and have an amazing relationship with my family!...you don't get to do those things when you only focus on you.....

Please know that I AM NOT BRAGGING, and I am NOT promising that all these things are going to magically come to you if you change your focus...but it can't hurt.

Lets talk about the difference between ignoring yourself and focusing on others and focusing on others and still finding sanctuary.

#1-Ignoring Yourself and Focusing on Others: This can be very dangerous. By ignoring your needs and what you are feeling and only looking to others you are setting yourself to forgetting who you are, becoming void of love and passion, and you also open yourself up to be taken advantage of by others around you...yes people, even the best of people will do that if there is no boundry.

#2- Focusing on Others and finding your own Sanctuary. I LOVE the very clever and real Thomas Fiffer who writes one of my favorite blogs called TOM APLOMB. I am going to share a bit of his blog about Sanctuary...it was wonderful:

"There are times in our life when we need sanctuary.

Safety.

Refuge.

Protection.

From others and from ourselves.

We need sanctuary when we are hurt, when we are weak, when we are fallen, when we are grieving.

A closed place with an open-ended commitment to revelation and healing

The hardest times in life are when the place that has been our sanctuary, the person whose embrace has sheltered us, no longer serves. These changes may be temporary or permanent, and at first, it can be hard to tell. Stress can render a person unable to provide what he once did, and calm has the potential to restore the ability to give. But people also change, or put another way, they crack, and we may discover when they hit their fault lines that they are not entirely who we believed and wanted them to be. And of course, death can take a person's physical presence, though it cannot steal the sanctuary a special person gave us while here.

When you need your sanctuary, you will find it. Or it will find you, perhaps unexpectedly.

It can be frightening to enter at first. The self shrinks a little, as you are overcome with gratitude, as you feel the higher purpose taking over. And then you remember, "I have been here before." You may not be in the same place, the same embrace, but yes, yes, you have been there before. The place on your map you can find with your eyes closed...." READ MORE


Think about your life and how beautiful it would be if you woke up every morning ready to serve others, focus on others, pray for others and then at the right time and place slipped into your sanctuary to grieve, pray, find peace, reflect, grow, and challenge yourself...all in the safe walls that you create for yourself!

Find your Sanctuary...set up that "Secret Garden" and make it your own...and then forget about yourself and get to work! Go out and serve, make use of your day, don't let yourself get the best of you....and then come home to your "garden" and find the peace to get ready for your next day!

It is time to stand, to be strong, we have so much to give to others. I would rather spend my days serving others than spend my days thinking about me and only me....it would be a very lonely, unfullfilling life!

I love you all Big Tough Girls! This is a hard time, but a time that will define who you are and what you want to become...