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.

Can You See Yourself on Your High Places?

There are several things that can keep us in a larva state of never becoming who we are really capable of being. Major on that list are the relationships that tie us to our old ways of being.

By far, the most life-altering relationship we’ll ever have is the relationship we have with Self. Yet, in Trouble we tend to stop loving and accepting ourselves for who we really are. We stop supporting our real emotions and our real truths, and we put all our energy into crafting constantly evolving tactics to enable ourselves to survive our stay in Trouble.

Trouble is an ugly mirror that rarely offers us a glimpse of our true-Self. Every self-image we form in Trouble is reflected back to us distorted. Our Trouble self-images can make us look so bad to ourselves that, if we aren’t careful, we can venture into a realm of self-loathing.

Now, know this: Who you were in Trouble is not who you really are. Whereas in Trouble you were, mainly, a reactive being, you are different as your pro-active, High-Places Self.

Today, begin to build a new relationship with your Self. Imagine yourself on your High Places—separated and far away from the elements of your Trouble. On your High Places you are truly yourself. With your mind made up and your confidence in place . . . with your beliefs set high and your spirit leading the way . . . with your mind focused and your passion following your wonder . . . you are indeed quite different, I assure you!

Who Do You Think You Are?

You are who you think you are. 

You are as worthy of receiving good love as you think you are. 

You are as capable of creating, developing and actualizing your visions as you think you are.

So, who have you been thinking you are? Ms. Hopeful? Ms. Capable? Ms. Pitiful? Ms. Sad? Ms. Fearful? Ms. Doubtful? Ms. Faithful? Ms. Courage?

And, what is it that you want?

New health?

New strength?

New love?

New peace?

New faith?

A new home?

A new job?

A new life?

You’ve probably been thinking that the Trouble in your life was caused by the choices you’ve made or the family you have. Or maybe you think you’re in Trouble because of a certain relationship, or your weight, your looks, your money situation, your responsibilities, your job, or some past experience. But the truth is, what keeps you bound to your address in Trouble is whatever thoughts you’ve been having about these issues.

Whenever you find yourself residing in Trouble, you can believe that your low beliefs about yourself are what’s to blame. Changing those beliefs will unlock the doors you’ve been pounding on.

When we believe High we seek differently. When we believe High we ask differently, and we find ourselves listening more to the mysteries of Spirit than to the din of daily life—we are divinely enabled to see obscure and improbable possibilities. When we believe High, our minds go off seeking hidden things and, astonishingly, discover treasures lurking in the oddest of places . . . and in the most unlikely people.

From Trouble to High Places: Meditations For women Who Are So Ready to Cross the Bridges That Lead to Joy! Copyright 2010 Esther Davis-Thompson

What Have You Been Believing About Yourself and Your Life?

As you go about trying to straighten out your life, you might be surprised to find that the culprit responsible for blocking your goals, upsetting your apple-carts and, generally, sabotaging all your efforts is . . . You. Wielding a plethora of low-belief thoughts, swinging them around recklessly like double-edged swords, we effectively slash through all of our best hopes and rip our dreams to shreds. High Places lives aren’t born of low-belief thinking. And the best thing that could happen is for us to actually catch ourselves in the act . . .
Today, examine your self-talk. What do you say to yourself all day? What kinds of thoughts run through your mind like a river of living waters, feeding your perceptions and determining your actions? Have you formulated a laundry-list of reasons why you’re stuck in Trouble? And another corresponding list of reasons why you need to stay in Trouble? Reasons like—“I’m too old to make changes in my life . . . I’m in too much debt to go back to school . . . I’ve invested too much in this bad situation to jump ship now . . . I’m needed here, so I can’t move forward . . . or . . . God won’t do this for me”—will continue to hold us hostage until we start making conscious decisions to believe higher for ourselves.

Today, see how many times you can catch yourself thinking negative thoughts about yourself. CHOOSE to believe higher about yourself and your possibilities. DECIDE that you will leave your Trouble . . . for your High Places . . . and you will miraculously be shown a way to go.

There is this thing that happens. This thing that happens in the psyche and moves all through the psycho-emotional centers of a woman. It is the transient movement of all that we believe coursing through us, throughout all of our physical, spiritual and emotional paths of Self. Throughout the very blood and cells of us. Coloring us and defining us and telling us who we are and what we will do in any given situation.

Journeying toward your High Places requires you to begin to inhabit your Highest Self. Once you have identified yourself as living in Trouble, you will have to choose to meet God on the path toward your High Places. 

You will have to begin choosing to adopt the mindsets you will need to live more as your Higher Self than as your lower, troubled, Self.

You will have to choose to defy the gravity of Troubled-life, as you have known it. 

You will have to choose to allow faith, not fear, to rule your steps. 

You will have to choose to allow your forgiving spirit to rule your mind and your relationships. 

You will have to choose to believe that your Creator-God is mindful of you, will be your strength, and will empower you to walk upon your High Places.

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