Are you speaking fear or Faith to yourself?

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Without Faith it’s impossible to please God.

Taking your thoughts to the highest level of Faith is an ongoing process that results in self-acceptance, self- understanding, and self-actualization. When we find that our mind-talk consists of a lot of fear-filled negativity—be it self-criticism or self-aggrandizement—we know it’s time to stop and re-orient our inner notions.

Whenever you find yourself trying to think your way through a particular situation, ask yourself these simple questions—

Is this Faith talking?

Is this fear talking, or true reason?

What fear can I identify here . . . and lay to rest with my Faith?

Is there a way to pull Faith into this situation?

What could I do, right now today, that requires Faith?

Excerpt from From Trouble to High Places: Meditations for Women Who Are So Ready to Cross the Bridges that Lead to Joy! Copyright 2009 Esther Davis-Thompson

Are you ready to leave your fear zone?

Yes, our fears like to boom in our minds in a loud, action-arresting, nasty voice. Fear is definitely an attention-hog, demanding that we drop everything and listen as it warns of the impending disaster and failure and destruction that might happen.

Your fear has the power (that you have given it) to derail every positive train of thought you come up with— stopping you from heeding your growing pains and taking the steps you need to be taking to move your life forward. But you can stop it from taking over if you start to develop awareness about just how often fear has been showing up and reigning in your life. If you’re not sure of your personal fear quotient, ask yourself this: How many decisions has fear made for you lately?

In the last month?

In the last week?

In the last two days?

How about in the last hour?

Understand that the only way to shut down the fear you feel about any situation is to pump up your song of Faith. Drown fear out. Fear’s wrong. Even if the dreaded thing happens. Even if the thing that you so don’t want to have happen . . . happens, it will not be the way fear has been threatening that it will.

And know that the more you depend on Spirit to show you the areas of your life that require spiritual work, the less power fear will have over you.

Remember the “Mother May I?” game? Well, on your life journey, you are both mother (who gives permission) and baby (who takes the steps). And, if mother is a big old scaredy cat—who’s afraid to take risks or venture a thought outside the box—baby’s growth is going to be considerably thwarted.
In some instances, especially where fear is concerned, it may help you to think of yourself as the child, and your spirit-woman as mother—the inner one who fuels your best decisions and weighs the criteria on every situation in your life. Realize that your spirit-woman’s instruction resonates with Divine Wisdom . . . and honor her for choosing to grow you up.

Excerpt from From Trouble to High Places: Meditations for Women Who Are So Ready to Cross the Bridges that lead to Joy! Copyright 2009 Esther Davis-Thompson

Are you sitting still … In Trouble?

Your Trouble is a saga. It has a plot, a conflict and myriad possible resolutions. It also has an identifiable beginning (although you may not know what it is), a middle or peaking point (you probably won’t know this either, until it’s over) . . . and any number of possible endings. Whether your Trouble saga reads like a long poem, a short story, or a really drawn-out novel, what keeps you there is the fear of what-might-happen-if, and all the flamboyant drama that goes along with trying to sidestep that scenario as it plays out in your mind.

Fear is cruelly immobilizing. It strangles our hope and trumps our desires to move forward with an all-encompassing search for new ways to survive successfully in Trouble.

This is Real Life. And many of us are consumed with fear about the business of real-living. Real life is not neat. Real life is radical. It includes the good and the bad. We will experience good health, for ourselves and others, and we will also experience illness. We will experience new life . . . and death and other curious endings. We will lose some battles and win some wars. We will each, at some time, run the gamut of joy, peace, delight, passion and wonder . . . plus, embarrassment, shame, guilt, failure, and grief. Fear of experiencing any one of these stops us from going forward in our lives and leaves us standing still . . . butt-deep in Trouble.

Grounding ourselves in fear won’t lead us to Joy, nor will it protect us from any of the hardships life offers.

Living a life that resonates with Joy can only come from being bold co-creators, with God, of our life-stories.

Getting from where you stand, to where you want to be, will involve some element of risk—doing something differently, trying something new, and mixing a little cour-age with a little hope and a lot of faith. Choosing to override the fears that pop up like weeds in your garden of Self is a prerequisite for moving forward out of your Trouble.

Are you ready to move forward?

Think about the last time you felt strong and productive . . . like you were doing the right things . . . good things. Did you feel full of faith, then?

What would a new, good place to be look like for you, now?
What does the road to that good place of being look like?

What steps would place you on the path to that place?
What first step could you take today?

Excerpt from From Trouble to High Places: Meditations for Women Who Are So Ready to Cross the Bridges that lead to Joy! Copyright 2009 Esther Davis-Thompson

Did You Inherit Your Space in Trouble?

Often, the Trouble we find ourselves in stems from fear-based mindsets that have been passed down through our families for generations.

Our particular approach to dealing with the details and relationships of life is as much a part of our legacy as our family stories and our grandmother’s china. As children, we all tended to pay keen attention to the affairs of adults. We came to know the fear and the faith of our close family members, very well. We were watching as our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters handled the most common life-relationships—with Self, mother, children, money, significant others and friends—and we internalized what we learned, re-dressed it a little, and from it, carefully crafted our own repertoire of how-to-behave/react/act-in-this-situation theories, albeit long before we were old enough to question the validity of our perceptions and our subsequent hypotheses.

Now, as we’re thinking about the ways we have come to deal with certain of the issues that arise in our own lives, we have to ask ourselves: Were my perceptions valid? Am I currently walking out my life according to a set of principles and values that are truly mine? Or am I drawing from a well of responses that are based on the scenarios I witnessed and formed opinions about a long time ago?

Excerpt from From Trouble to High Places: Meditations for Women Who Are So Ready to Cross the Bridges that lead to Joy! Copyright 2009 Esther Davis-Thompson

Are you moving forward… or residing comfortably on Trouble Lane?

Most of us know, or have at some time known, Trouble. Who among us hasn’t dropped our baskets at some time or another? We’ve lost jobs, flunked out of classes, spent the bill money,  limped through relationships that we knew were bad, made foolish decisions . . . or whatever. We’ve all known Trouble, and so Trouble is easy to believe in. However, until we actually believe in the spiritual reality of our High Places, we won’t ever reach the understanding that our Trouble is not supposed to be our permanent dwelling place, and we won’t even bother trying to seek a better life.

Let’s start at the foundation:

If you do not believe in a loving and gracious Creator-God, you will not believe that you will ever be blessed.

You won’t believe that there’s a source of power available to you that isn’t limited by your human capabilities.

You won’t believe that positive change is a possibility for you.

And you won’t truly believe that your tomorrows can be any better than your today.

Living your best life requires you to be your best Self. In order to be your best Self you have to believe high for yourself.

Can you picture yourself in a different state of being than you’re in now?

Can you picture yourself taking one precarious step at a time to build a bridge toward something better?

Know this: change happens always. Positive beliefs lead us into positive actions, and positive actions tend to net positive changes. Yet, sitting still in situations that are not good for us will eventually net just as much change. This hanging-out-in-default-mode kind of change, though, just gets you a new address in Trouble.

So now, think about it. Where will your current beliefs, about yourself and your capabilities, lead you? Are you holding tight to any low beliefs about yourself that could be stopping you from moving forward?

Excerpt from From Trouble to High Places: Meditations for Women Who Are So Ready to Cross the Bridges that lead to Joy! Copyright 2009 Esther Davis-Thompson