
Consequences of Stress

Consequences of Stress

The ding on her cell phone startled her. Puzzled, Beth wondered why she was getting a reminder. Reading the short text, her heart sank. She’d completely forgotten about the meeting. She’d agreed to help Kathy weeks ago but only because she felt guilty. Beth didn’t really want to go to the meeting, let alone stay and help Kathy clean up. This was going to put her seriously behind. Tonight was the night she was supposed to catch up on all the things she hadn’t done over the weekend, like laundry and buying that baby gift.

One small ding and Beth felt close to tears. There was too much going on, too much she had to do. She never caught a break, never got caught up. Beth prided herself on being the go-to person, someone people could rely on, which is why so many people asked her to do things. Didn’t they understand how much pressure she was under? Now all she wanted to do was run and hide. Lately, she wasn’t motivated to do anything, which is why last weekend came and went without the laundry getting done and the baby gift being purchased.

Beth had thought she would have time tonight to find some breathing room. Now time had run out—all because of this stupid meeting. She resented losing her evening and resented Kathy for having pressured her into saying yes in the first place. Checking the time, Beth started planning how to get out of the crisis. Forget the laundry; she’d make do.

Tomorrow was the baby shower and Beth had desperately wanted to find the perfect gift. Well, so much for the perfect gift; that would take time she didn’t have. If she shopped through lunch, maybe, just maybe, she could find something acceptable to pop in a gift bag. Janice would just have to be happy with whatever she got; after all, it was a gift. Beth figured she’d put a gift receipt in the bag and if Janice didn’t like the gift, she could just take her own time to go back to the store and get something better.

Time always seemed to be running out and Beth always seemed to be running after it. When, she wondered, was she ever going to get caught up?

Stress is not the ideal environment to make the best decisions. Stress skews your priorities and downsizes goals. Desperate, you make short-term decisions that have long-term consequences. Pressure starts to poison even the best of intentions. However, knowing what your priorities are and the goals you want to work to achieve allows you to take control of your time.

A stress-filled life can cause us to careen from activity to activity or distraction to distraction with little time to stop and think about what we are doing. We are so consumed with the what in our lives that we fail to recognize the why. Take time to stop and consider all of the whats in your life—what you are doing on a regular basis.

On a piece of paper, make two columns.  On the left column, write down all the what’s.  Next, assign each what a why, and write the why in the right column. Then, consider how your life would be if you stopped doing that what. As much as possible, be truthful and realistic about those consequences.

I hope that through this exercise, you can begin to identify the truly important and necessary things in your life and begin to make choices about what to continue, what to modify (or ask for help accomplishing), and what to end.

I encourage you to recognize how much control you have over your choices. Stress has a way of creating its own urgency through manufactured crises. Once you take back control of the priorities in your life, you can begin to reduce your stress level.

Without the false urgency of stress, you’ll be able to evaluate when to say yes and when to say no. When each yes or no is in line with the truly important, you’ll feel better about and energized by your choices. Life will become less about what you have to do and more about what you want to do.

When you are actively engaged in doing the things that give you purpose and meaning, your life has moments of joy. Saying no to the wrong things and yes to the right things becomes easier. Filled with these moments, stress has less room to maneuver in your life.





Journaling Your Story Has Great Power

Journaling Your Story Has Great Power









What Haunts You From The Past?

What Haunts You From The Past?









God Intended Food to Fuel Your Body

God Intended Food to Fuel Your Body

God always intended food to be fuel for the body.  He also meant for it to be a source of pleasure; that’s why He made food to taste good.  As usual, the good God intended has been corrupted by the practice of people.  This happened from the very beginning.  In the garden, Eve looked at the fruit she knew she wasn’t supposed to eat and saw that it looked good, was good for food, and made one wise (Genesis 3:6).  The first two were legitimate food reasons.  The third was a nonfood reason.  All of these reasons, of course, were trumped by God’s declaring this tree and its fruit off-limits.

Food today isn’t forbidden by God, but that doesn’t stop people from choosing food for nonfood reasons.  Now, people don’t necessarily eat to become wise, but they eat for comfort, to relieve stress, to temporarily overcome boredom, because it’s pleasurable, as a form of rebellion, and in the name of convenience.  The more nonfood reasons people have to eat, the more they eat.  The more they eat, the larger they become.  The larger they become, the more dissatisfied they are and the harder it is to experience and maintain a sense of personal happiness.

I encourage readers to utilize an easy-to-find tool in order to eat more healthfully.   This tool is the U.S. government’s food pyramid found at  The pyramid is a dietary guideline for all ages and activity levels.  It also outlines the daily recommended amounts you should consume in different food categories.  You can print up a daily meal planner sheet that helps you track what and how much you’re eating.

The bottom line for healthier eating, which you’ll find in my books or through the pyramid, is to eat more grains (with whole grains being the best), more fruits and vegetables (with darker vegetables being best – just think peppers and broccoli as opposed to celery), more lean sources of dairy and protein, and less oils and fats (with more of the good sources of fat like olive oil and flaxseed oil and less of the saturated and partially hydrogenated fats).  With all of the healthy eating going on, there isn’t much room left for things like processed foods, packaged convenience or snack foods, junk food, or “discretionary calories” like cookies, cakes, pies and the like.  Having these items occasionally is realistic.  Eating them consistently, daily, is not realistic for healthy living.

God designed your body to use the food you eat as fuel to power your body’s functions.  If you consistently put lousy gas in the tank of your car, it wouldn’t run properly.  it may still get you down the road, but you’ll experience pings, burps, smoke, hesitations, and lack of power.  It will gum up your engine parts and increase the amount of pollution in the air.  Do this long enough, and you could find yourself calling a town truck on the side of the road.  It’s the same way with your body.  An occasional treat is not going to cause you problems, but if you live on a diet of high-calorie, high-caffeine, low-nutrient foods, your ability to physically perform will be compromised.

I’ve just gone over to the tip of the iceberg (or the pyramid) of healthy eating.   I encourage you to pick up a copy of one of my books that contain information on healthy eating (The Body God Designed).  Each of these books takes you on a journey of discovery for healthier living and gives you the tools you need to make better choices.  Right now, I want to acknowledge what you really know to be true, that you need to commit to eating more healthfully.  It really does make a difference in how you feel.


Owning Up To Your Pessimism

Owning Up To Your Pessimism









Practicing Self-Care During the Holiday Season

Practicing Self-Care During the Holiday Season




Tips to practicing self-care during the holiday season












