Change Your World

by BetsyFaith, LifePosted on No Comments

As someone who has wrestled to master my thoughts all of my life, I constantly come back to the drawing board to find a better way to keep my focus on the glass being half full. In other words, I attempt to consciously choose optimism. This is a perpetual struggle for me; I’m always warring with some form of reverse psychology on myself. I shy away from hoping for the best to avoid some strange power of “jinxing” the outcome, which is ironic because I don’t believe that really happens. I would tell someone else that that isn’t a real possibility, so look on the bright side, but then I find myself not listening to my own advice. 

“Change your thoughts, and you will change your world.”

When I was a kid, my mother had several children’s tapes with songs about faith: Patch the Pirate, Psalty the Singing Songbook, etc. We listened to them all the time at home and in the car. One of the songs has surfaced in my mind multiple times over the years. I’m not sure if this was its actual title or not, but the main repeated line was, “Change your thoughts, and you will change your world.” As a youngster, I believed in my childlike mind that it was a simple mantra that everybody must be following. As I got older, I began to realize that the decision to change one’s thoughts became increasingly difficult as more complications and trials of life interfered. 

“Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil; but to the counsellors of peace is joy.”

Because I believe that I will one day answer for my decisions in this life, I take my free will very seriously. When I choose to let my thoughts plummet into the pit of pessimism, I struggle to change that trajectory and focus on being grateful, although I feel that this is the first step to changing that pattern. Some days, I find it extremely difficult to make that choice, and I know that this is something I will most likely wrestle with all my days. People often focus on changing the world by supporting major causes like eradicating hunger and anti-human-trafficking initiatives, which are great causes, of course. I can’t help but wonder if we as individuals were to change our personal “worlds” of thought…how much of an impact that would have. I have to pray for power over my own unruly mind much of the time, but I believe it will become easier to overhaul my thoughts over time. Proverbs 12:20 says, “Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil; but to the counsellors of peace is joy.” I am striving toward the peace and joy. 

But what if I can fly…

by BetsyFaithPosted on No Comments

I really don’t like how moods affect my outlook. Sometimes it seems like I can accomplish anything, and other days, I ask myself when it became so difficult to get out of bed. I have tried on occasion to take a mental inventory of where I am in those great moments of optimism and strength, attempting to “bottle” it in my mind for later. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Inevitably, I end up again in the land of pessimism with an empty bottle and no recollection of what was in it.

When my son was younger, I took pride in the fact that I could participate in activities with him. Prevailing against my own fears and concerns for my aging physique, I shrieked my way down water slides and hiked mountains that left me aching for days. One water slide was called the Stealth V. It looked intimidating to me, and my son was even visibly shaken after experiencing it, which shook my resolve even further. He came running up to me, dripping from the drain pool at the bottom, and said, “Mom, you’ve got to try this! I might go again.”

…the higher I climbed, the more I regretted my accursed “no regrets” approach.

The fact that he was having second thoughts about going again was a red flag, but I have this thinking process where I convince myself I can try anything once. At least I know I gave it a shot. No regrets. I ascended the five stories of steps with a tube to ride down on, and the higher I climbed, the more I regretted my accursed “no regrets” approach. I watched as the riders in front of me disappeared over the edge of the giant V-shaped abyss, where they would cascade down one side of the V and up the other, until they came to a stop in the drain pool many yards below.

I wanted to scream, but felt the air had been sucked out of my body.

I noticed that they were basically all young people, which of course made me question my reasoning in trying this thrill ride. But it was too late. I was next. I flopped my tube on the narrow platform next to the attendant and climbed on top. The young man instructed me to hold on to both handles, and then shoved my tube over the edge. It seemed that the V dropped off at a 90-degree angle, which it really didn’t, but it felt that way to my empty lungs as I tried to inhale amidst the absence of air. I wanted to scream, but felt the air had been sucked out of my body. In that instant, I had split-second visions of my tube rolling down the side of the V, my bones cracking as I rolled with it. But somehow I stayed upright, facing downward at my fate until gravity spun my tube and I found myself staring back at the point of origin disappearing in the distance. By the time my tube began to ascend the opposite side of the V, I found my breath and let out a pitiful “Woohoo!” This was mostly out of relief that I was almost back on ground level and the knowledge that I would not put myself through that ordeal again. Yeah, I did it once. That’s all I needed.

…it’s easy to focus on the empty bottle where the optimism once was…

It’s hard to believe my Stealth V experience was about seven years ago now. Recently, I was presented with the opportunity to go urban sightseeing on an electric scooter. Having broken a few bones over the course of my life, I was slightly hesitant to try it, but after a little practice, I became somewhat comfortable balancing on it and rode for over an hour. I applied the same principle as before. I had to try it, or I would regret that I didn’t. I didn’t want the regret. The old saying that people regret more what they didn’t do in life than what they did do seems to be embedded in my psyche. When I get stuck in those valleys of depression and pessimism, it’s easy to focus on the empty bottle where the optimism once was and think, “I better not try this; what if I fall?” There is one drop left in that bottle, however, and it whispers, “But what if I can fly?”

I’ll keep stepping out in faith, believing that if God leads me to it, He’ll lead me through it.

Appropriately, those scooters are called Birds, and I did “fly.” I’ll keep stepping out in faith, believing that if God leads me to it, He’ll lead me through it. Not just the entertaining aspects of life, but anything life presents. The principle is the same, even when it doesn’t turn out how I think it should, or when it takes my breath away in the process. No regrets.