Is there a Giant in your pocket?

Is there a person, a habit, a problem, or maybe a situation in your life, that seems bigger than you? Stronger than you? More powerful than you? Overwhelming to you?

Do you really believe that it’s your lot in life to have a giant sitting on you, settling itself right dead center in your life . . . controlling you and your world with fear?

And just what would you do with your life if you were free of this giant?

Would you, maybe, go and find another giant to take its place?

Is having this giant in your life actually serving you in some, albeit negative, way?

Has having this giant in your life kept you from developing some aspect of your Self?

Have you been hiding behind your giant? (Note that I’m calling this your giant.)

You do realize that this is your giant—right?

The strengths that we assign to our giants are a reflection of our own perceived incapabilities and weaknesses. The power that we perceive our giants have over us correlates directly with the lack of powerlessness we perceive in ourselves.

Did, perhaps, your giant seek you out because you seemed to need it to define your life for you?

Or did you, maybe, seek out your giant as something/someone you could hide behind while shying away from the daunting work of growing up and moving forward?

Do you think, if you were to begin to exhibit certain different behaviors, your giant would begin to lose its power over its area of your life?

Do you think things would change if you began to shift your focus from your giant’s strengths to your own capabilities? Reckoning with, not your giant’s power, but your own perceived lack of power?

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

Gaining Awareness About Your MotherSpace Notions

Think back to your girlhood…

What kind of girl were you?

What did you like to do?

What did you hate to do?

Take this time to

become re-acquainted with the little girl you once were (who still lives inside you). Why? Because she represents your most authentic Self. She remembers where you’ve been emotionally. She knows who you really are.  She is the dreamer in you. And, she i

s your most potential Self . . .

As a girl did you have many friends, or usually just one friend? Were you a leader, or a follower?

Who was your favorite girlfriend? What did you like about her? What made her so much fun to be around? Did you want to be like her?

Who were your favorite women? Who did you most want to be like?

What woman made you feel best about yourself? What woman made you feel special? Which of your qualities did they seem to most want to foster in you?

When you were

a girl, who did you most want to please? How did you go about trying to please this person?

As a child, which actions or personal behaviors of yours increased your feelings of personal worth? What actions or personal behaviors caused you to feel bad about yourself?

What were som

e of the things you were afraid of when you were a child?

Who were you afraid of when you were a child? What about this person frightened you?

Who did you most respect? Who did you look up to as being the person who seemed to know everything? Did fear seem to be a part of this respect?

What made you sad when you were a child? What made you angry when you were a child?

What kinds of things excited you when you were a child? What made you happy?

Who did you love when you were a child? Who did you most want to love you when you were a child?

What did you believe in when you were a child? Did you believe some fictional characters to be real, such as Santa Claus? The Easter Bunny? The Tooth Fairy? Did you ever place God in this same category?

What did you believe about God when you were a child? Who taught you about God? Did you believe that God was primarily a rewarder of good behavior, or a punisher of bad behavior?

Did you believe that God watched over you to protect and guide you, or to spy on you and punish you for your wrong doings?

What do you believe about God today? Do you still see God as you saw God when you were a child?

What were your childhood concepts of Good and Evil?

Who did you believe was responsible for making you be good?

Did you think that you were intrinsically good?

Did you think that you were intrinsically bad?

Were there people in your life that made you feel as if you were the best little girl . . . or not the best little girl?

Did you think that your mother was good or bad?

Did you think that your father was good or bad?

Did you have any understanding of people being a mixture of characteristics?

Can you remember exactly when you began to see your mother differently than how you saw her as a child?

Can you remember exactly when you began to see your father differently than how you saw him as a child?

How did you view the other women in your life?

How did you view the other men in your life?

Who seemed to be in charge . . . the men or the women?

Who provided the finances for your life when you were a child? Were you aware of where the “bread and butter” came from? As you were growing up, did that factor influence the levels of respect that you held for the adults in your life?

What was the climate of your home-life like? Calm? Boisterous? Fun? Solemn? Peaceful? Joyful? What were your home spaces like? Orderly? Regimented? Chaotic?

What conditions made you feel secure?

What conditions made you feel insecure?

What conditions made you feel happy? What condi-tions made you feel unsettled? . . . Sad?

What was your relationship to each of your parents?

What was your relationship to each of your siblings?

What was your relationship to each of the others who lived in your home with you?

In your childhood did you ever feel as if you weren’t going to have enough of the basics like food, clothing, shelter, money? Or did you think that abundance was a given?

When you were young what did you think mothers were supposed to do? Did your mother always do those things?

How did you think mothers were supposed to feel? Did your mother seem to feel that way?

How did you think mothers were supposed to be?

Is that how your mother was?

What did you think about fathers?

What did you think fathers were supposed to do? How did you think fathers were supposed to feel? Did your father always do those things?

How did you think fathers were supposed to be?

Is that how your father was?

Where did you get those notions?

Did you think it was easier to be a mother or a father?

When you were a child did you have the under-standing that there is no such thing as a perfect person, a perfect situation, a perfect circumstance, or a black or white reason for anything to be as it is/was?

As you ponder all of these questions, can you see the many ways you have pulled the threads of your child-hood notions, judgments and perceptions of your experiences through your life andwoven them into your own rendition of motherhood?

Has your sense of wonder been revived about your Self and your childhood? And maybe even about your Mother and her childhood?

It is good to remember how we came to be who we are and how we came to have some of the notions that we have.

Can you see how your heightened self-awareness and self-understanding could go a long way toward helping you to offer the best of yourself to your children?

Excerpt from Re-Inventing Your MotherSpace: Creating A Good and Blessed Future for Our Children, Copyright 2009 Esther Davis-Thompson

Believing High

Sometimes when something is wrong in our life, there is no other way to make our crooked places straight than to start walking right into the middle of the mess. Stop focusing on all the things that went wrong before now and start looking forward . . . walking forward . . . toward the way that we want things to be.

How often do we stop ourselves from taking steps in the direction of our good because we have this image in our minds of what people walking toward their good look like? Are you stopping yourself from taking a step forward because you’re afraid you’ll bomb out? Because you think you don’t have the right clothes?  Because someone might find out that you live in the wrong part of town? Because you doubt your ability to take step C after you have taken steps A and B? How often do we think up reasons why we can’t leave trouble and head for our High Places?

Some of us are living in situations so precarious that we’re hanging on to our sanity by a thin string of insanity! So, how do you get out of an insane situation? By using insane Faith! Faith that makes no logical sense at all. By believing so High that it makes no sense at all. By believing that what you need will appear because you believe you are doing what God would like to see you doing. By stepping out with foot in mid-air to do the thing that’s in your heart to do, that which you’ve been waiting and wishing and hoping and praying to do . . . one day.

 Decide that today you have just run out of excuses not to take the first step toward it. And start believing.

The money you need to do the thing you need to do will come. Believe.

The help you need will come. Believe it.

Start believing that you are not a pitiful child of God waiting for a miracle but a Queen in the Spirit standing up and doing what needs to be done to walk forward, heading for your High Places.

Excerpt from Raising Up Queens: Loving Our Daughters Loud and Strong, Innisfree Press, Inc., 2000. Copyright Esther Davis-Thompson.

Arise from the depths of yourself . . .

At times life can become such an unhappy place to be that we can’t bear up anymore. A weary brand of sadness attaches itself to our being. We feel depressed. Forced down hard by every little thing we’ve been trying to handle, trying to do right, trying, trying, trying to control. Depression makes us realize that our life must be re-balanced if we are to ever be glad to be alive again. And today is the day we have to begin because depression says to us that there is no more time. That we are, right now, in danger of imploding, falling down and apart inside ourselves . . . of becoming a walking wound and no longer the vibrant woman we were created to be.

When depression claims us, it can be a blessing. All of the energy that we were using to run full speed in the wrong direction—away from our Highest Self and away from our Greatest Good—is cut off, and we are forced to stop and just sit. Our Inner Woman becomes so fed up with the way we’ve been treating ourselves that she pulls rank: ‘Sit down now.’

And you have no choice but to listen to what she has been trying and trying and trying to make you know. Now she can tell you that all this giving and giving and giving pieces of yourself that you’ve been doing is not good if you are not taking care of yourself. Giving to daughters, giving to sons, giving to jobs, giving to church, giving to husband-lover-mate, giving . . .

Now she’s going to tell you what you’ve been trying not to know: that you DO have limits . . . that you cannot continue to scale mountains and leap rivers if you are not taking sufficient time to sit in God’s Spirit and drink and be fed and be nourished and strengthened. If you are not sloughing off the stuff of daily life to be renewed and give thanks. Now your Inner Woman can stop you from going deeper into trouble. As you quiet yourself to listen, your Inner Woman can explain some important things to you.

Now, my Sister, that your Inner Woman—who is, by the way, the one who first hears God’s Holy Spirit—has your attention, your healing can begin!

 Excerpt from Raising Up Queens: Loving Our Daughters Loud and Strong, Innisfree Press, Inc., 2009. Copyright Esther Davis-Thompson.

Are you going in the same direction as your journey-partner?

If you are unequally yoked with someone close to you, you will know it. The more you begin to consider a High Places life as a viable option, the more you will become aware of the true intentions of your partner, and of the vast amount of energy it takes to keep walking at crossed-purposes with someone close to you. Before too long the rope that ties the two of you together will probably start to feel like a noose.

Many of our relationships in Trouble are like this— unbalanced, draining, and restrictive.
While occasional bouts of tug-of-war in our relationships can make us grow in good ways, we need to keep in mind that constantly feeling out of sync with the people closest to us often leads to our feeling defensive . . . and out of sync with Self. If you are in a relationship where you always seem to feel uneasy—not just by the other person’s responses and actions toward you, but even by the person’s just being in your soul-space—it’s time to really question whether this relationship could be keeping you from moving forward emotionally and spiritually.

Our relationships are an integral part of the fabric of our lives and they play a huge role in determining the climate and quality of our journey. As difficult as it may be to accept, any relationship that doesn’t offer encouragement and support, for the changes you’re trying to bring about, has to be seen for the hindrance that it is—whether you choose to stay in it or not.