And even if you’ve been listening to our podcast, if you listen to all of our episodes or many of them, some of this is going to sound familiar or maybe you’ve heard it before, but it’s always nice to kind of have a refresher, to think about things again, to think about it differently. And that’s what I’m hoping to do in this episode. It is amazing how easy it is for us to be kind of going through life and then we just find ourselves stuck. And it’s crazy because the thoughts that have this power to literally stop us in our tracks, they seem so innocent, so just normal everyday type thoughts, and yet they’re incredibly powerful. And if we can have awareness around them, if we can see them, not just like, oh, these are just happen to be just innocent, simple little thoughts, but really these major thoughts that keep us stuck and keep us from taking action or doing things or moving forward, then we actually can take power over them. And that’s what I hope to give to us today. So let’s do this. Rapid fire thoughts and better ones that we can have instead.

All right, my first one and this one specifically, I have done a full episode about, but I want to kick off with it and the thought is simply this, I can’t do this. Four words, I can’t do this either. I can’t do this. I don’t know how to do this. This is too hard. I can’t do it. Simple thought. And this is also one that is so important for us as parents, as mothers, to really be aware of, because I have watched this thought in particular stop my children in their tracks as well for my family.

My kids know that swear words are not acceptable in our home. We don’t use bad words. There’s certainly a number of phrases that we would never use in our home and our kids are aware of that. But this phrase, I can’t do this, is almost equivalent to like a swear word in our home. And my kids know that. They know that if they’re around me and they say I can’t do this or this is too hard or I don’t know what to do or I don’t know how to do this, they know that instantly I’m going to challenge them to think differently. And we’ve talked through it a number of times. This is the deal.

Our brain believes everything we tell it, pretty much. And so the moment we say I can’t do this, our brain believes it. And it’s like, oh, we can’t do this. So let’s not exert any more effort in trying to do something that we believe or know or feel that we can’t do. Because even though our brain believes what we tell it, it also wants to be efficient and it doesn’t want to just do things that we’ve already told it we’re not capable of doing. So it just stops. Just stops us in our tracks and it just stops working. It starts looking for solutions or other options or other ways of doing things the moment we say I can’t do this, and so what’s a better option? Well, one of the things that I’ve shared with my children and it’s even something that I use quite a bit is this.

Usually when we believe or feel that we can’t do something, it’s because we perceive it as being too difficult or too challenging. And so we maybe try something, whether it’s for our kids, maybe it’s a subject in school or homework or an assignment or some sort of task or for us as adults, maybe it is some sort of task as well, or something we’re trying to get done. And we run into challenges and it feels too daunting sometimes we say this when it comes to things like losing weight or trying to overcome a personal struggle or an addiction or things like that, we feel like we’ve tried a lot of things and we still are struggling with a sin or just whatever it happens to be. And we will find ourselves saying, I can’t do this, I can’t lose weight. I can’t overcome this struggle. I can’t deal with this adversity. I can’t do it. And so we just want to, first of all, have awareness around it, recognize when we say it and when we think it.

Because a lot of times that’s the first challenge. We may not even be aware when we’re saying it or thinking it. So once we have awareness that we’re saying it, then we can go, oh, that’s that thought Lorissa told us about. That’s the one that’s going to just keep me stuck and not moving forward in any positive way. So the thought that I like to use instead is I know this is challenging, but I can figure it out. The moment we shift into that, you can see that just the thought alone is an actionable thought. Like, okay, yes, I understand that this is challenging, but I know I can figure this out. I know that I can find some way to do this.

I know I can figure out some way to ask for help or to try something new or experiment or learn or go on YouTube and watch a video or whatever it happens to be. I know I can figure this out. And the moment we think that thought, again, our brain believes it, and it starts looking for answers. It starts looking for solutions. Our brain is magnificent, and it loves to figure things out and to learn and to try new things and to problem solve. And so the moment we change that phrase from I can’t do this, which is just kind of like a defeated end of story period, I can’t do this, to, hey, I do know that I can do this. I know it’s challenging, but I believe I can do it. I believe I can figure it out.

All of a sudden, you start moving forward. You start moving in a direction that leads you towards solutions or discovery or asking for help or your brain just coming up with options for you that you had never thought about before. And when I practice this with my kids, when I have them say it, and then we start exploring how they might be able to do something that at one point they thought they couldn’t, it’s remarkable how quickly this little tiny shift can have such a significant outcome in your result. And I just love it. So that’s my first one. I can’t do this. Let’s remove that phrase from our vocabulary, from our thoughts, as much as we possibly can. That is one that it’s a pointless thought that really doesn’t serve us in any capacity.

All right, the next thought is this I don’t know. It’s kind of similar to I can’t do this, but it’s amazing how many times we will find ourselves saying, I don’t know. I don’t know how to do that, or I don’t know what to do in this situation. The thought, I don’t know. The reason it keeps us stuck and not moving forward is because it keeps us spinning in confusion. And when our brain spins into confusion, then we kind of are almost paralyzed. We’re certainly stuck, and we don’t really know which direction to go or what to do. A lot of times as women, we find ourselves in maybe a difficult, challenging situation with a relationship, a friendship, miscommunication, misunderstanding, and especially for those of us that tend to be more sensitive, we’re more empathetic.

This is a thought that comes up quite a bit like, I don’t know, we’ll find ourselves in a challenging situation. We’re just like, I don’t know what to do. And a lot of times it’s because we care so much and we don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. And so we want to analyze every possible scenario and play it out in our brain. And then we second guess it and we spin and spin into confusion and it just, oh my gosh, this thought, I don’t know. It wastes so much of our time and energy and it just leaves us certainly stuck, paralyzed and not taking any sort of good action. What I want to offer to you, and I will offer this question a lot in coaching. Like if I have a client or I’m coaching women and we’re working through a situation and they use the phrase I don’t know, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say in this situation, my question back to them is, but what if you did know? What if you didn’t know the best way to handle this situation? What if you did know the best thing to do in this relationship? And when we just ask ourself that question again, it switches us from confusion and spinning in that to this possibility that we actually might already know what to do, that there might be something deeper within us intuitively.

Or if we were to get to that deeper part within us of what we think most likely could be the best scenario, what if we knew? What if we could trust ourselves? What if we actually have a pretty good idea of how we want to respond to whatever struggle we happen to be going through? And that’s where we want to get to as quickly as possible. And we want to have clarity around that deeper place of conscientiousness within us, that deeper place of our intuition. And we want to lean into that. And so we also know that people that tend to be fairly successful in their lives, fairly moving in the direction that they want to move in, and creating the lives that they want to create and live, they tend to be better at making decisions. And the thing that I’ve discovered is that some people are maybe just born with the skill of decision making. But for most of us, it’s a skill set that we develop. And we do it by practicing, listening to our intuition, praying, trusting that little voice inside of us, the Holy Spirit, our Lord, speaking to us and then taking action and starting to move in that direction. The thought or the phrase I don’t know, leaves us, in a way, feeling very helpless, insecure and confused.

That’s it. That’s why it keeps us stuck. So the next time you find yourself saying that, or your kids or somebody you love and care about that you’re talking to, switch it. Ask the question, but what if I did know? And then sit with it for a moment. You might be like, well, what if I did know? What could be the best answer at this moment and see what comes up. You might have to wait a few seconds or 30 seconds, but you’re going to experience it, I promise you this. If you try it, you’re going to experience some clarity around this. You’re going to experience your brain and your heart connecting in a way that’s going to show you probably the very best solution in moving forward.

And then we lean into that and we start taking action in that way and we see pretty clearly and very quickly, hey, I think this was probably the right thing to do. So that’s my second thought that we can switch out of, I don’t know, never really serves us. It’s another one to just be aware of. All right, my next one is this. And I can say with absolute confidence that what I’m about to dive into, this thought that keeps us stuck is one that could easily be an entire podcast episode. And it’s actually one that I am wanting to do a full podcast episode on. And it is that I’m not enough. Some sort of variation of I’m not enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not capable enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not skinny enough, pretty enough, all of the enough, right? And honestly, the reason why I want to do a full podcast episode on this at some point is because I think there’s some deeply theological roots to that phrase.

I think that take us back to Adam and Eve and original sin and concupiscence and deeply rooted theological undertones with that thought that I would love to explore and research and dive into and go into great depths on. But I can say this. As a woman who has struggled with this thought for so many years and has grappled with all the reasons why I’m not enough or good enough, as well as coaching now, hundreds of women over the last few years I can easily say with confidence that my guess is that 80% of the emotional suffering that we experience in our lives, especially as women, and a lot of that emotional suffering, I think, is unnecessary. But I think that 80% of it. If I were to pick a number roots back or loops back somehow to that thought somehow of I’m not good enough in some capacity. And when we’re coaching and working with our members and masters and we’re dealing with a scenario and we start pulling back the layers, oftentimes we get to the root of it. And it is around this thought somehow, of not being good enough. And the crazy thing about this is that I believe this is one of the most powerful thoughts that just literally stops us in our tracks.

It’s hard for us to take any positive forward movement when we’re entertaining this thought that I’m not good enough. And so that’s been my experience in my own life. It’s what I’ve witnessed in the lives of others and I think it is one of the most toxic thoughts we can think and practice. I also think it is one that the enemy absolutely loves to use against us. And I also think that the moment we entertain, it is the moment we have. Maybe we’re going about our day and we mess up, we make a mistake, we sin, we do whatever it is that we do and our brain goes like oh, there you are, see you’re not good enough. Or maybe it’s even like we perceive that somebody else like we’ve let somebody else down or somebody else is upset with us, our brain so easily goes to oh yes, you’re not good enough. And the moment we entertain that thought, our brain instantly starts looking for the proof of why that thought is true in some capacity.

So not only do we feel bad about ourselves in the moment based on that situation or circumstance, but then our brain starts digging up all sorts of memories from the past of when we felt like we weren’t good enough or pretty enough or smart enough or skinny enough or whatever. And all the times in the past that we messed up. And so it creates this mirage of self loathing. And again, when we’re in that place of beating ourselves up and tearing ourselves down and reminding ourselves of why we’re not good enough and entertaining all of those thoughts and memories, man, it’s hard to do a whole lot of good in any other capacity because we’re just so focused in words on all the ways that we fall short. And again, I think there’s a lot of things that we can dive into and explore with all of this. But on today’s Rapid Fire podcast episode, I just want to touch on it because I want all of us to be so aware of this thought and why and how it keeps us stuck and how it doesn’t benefit us in any way. Even if we make mistakes, even if we fall short, even if we let somebody down, that thought doesn’t serve us, it doesn’t help us fix things, it doesn’t help us reconcile with someone that maybe we’ve had a difficult relationship with or maybe we’ve hurt somebody. That thought just doesn’t benefit us.

And so a better option when we find ourselves kind of down on ourselves that I’ve discovered, at least for myself, is that I am not perfect, but I’m trying to do my best. So that’s more of an intentional thought, at least for me, that really helps me because usually the moment that I’m struggling with I’m not enough or that aversion of that is when somehow my inadequacies are being magnified in my brain and it’s usually around somehow falling short in some capacity in my mind. And so reminding myself that I’m not perfect is something that I can believe and understand. Like yeah, I’m not perfect, I make mistakes, I fall short, I’m human, I’m a human being, but I’m trying my best or I’m trying to do the best that I can or I want to do the best that I can, or I want to do better, or I believe that I am still a good person. And that’s the key phrase. It’s that word. But there, like, I’m not perfect, but I’m trying, but I’m still a good person, but I still have good qualities. There’s good things that I can look for and see in myself.

And the moment we switch into that mindset, the self loathing stops and the self compassion, the self love, the self acceptance, the part of us that can see that, yeah, we’re not perfect. We make mistakes. Yes, that’s true. But it’s also true that there’s still goodness in us. There’s still that person within us that still gets up every day and tries and falls short, but keeps going. And this, my sisters in Christ, we can look throughout history. This is what separated the saints from people, is that not that the saints were perfect. The saints were not perfect.

We know that. But the saints were willing to make mistakes and then get back up and continue on their path towards striving for holiness. Walking with Christ, knowing their self worth, knowing their dignity, knowing that they had gifts and talents and ways in which God was calling them to share their lives and to serve others and to show up and to give of themselves. The moment we start entertaining any version of I’m not good enough. And I believe the reason the devil loves this phrase for us so much is because the moment we entertain it, it forces us to turn inward and to pull away from other people and from living at our best. It just makes us shut down. It makes us turn inward. It makes us want to just tear ourselves down and beat ourselves up.

And when we’re in that state of mind, we’re not really capable of doing a whole lot of good. We’re just basically being mean to ourselves and not benefiting in any way from it. So let’s shift it. Let’s move to, yes, I made a mistake. Yes, I’m not perfect, but I still have a lot that I have to offer. I am still trying my best. I still can do good things. I can make this situation better.

I can fix things, whatever it happens to be, because then it takes us from focusing inward to focusing outward and seeing the ways that we can use our gifts and our talents, our skills, our heart, all the things that God created us to be and to use them for his glory. And when we’re in that place, it creates momentum. It creates forward movement. It creates growing in holiness. It creates repairing relationships and reconciling and seeking forgiveness. All of those things are positive momentum, action, forward thinking thoughts that lead us in that direction. And that is why I wanted to cover it today. That is a much better way of thinking.

Even in those times where we’re not perfect and none of us are. None of us are perfect. None of us ever go through an entire day without making some sort of mistakes or falling short in some way. That’s who we are. And yet we’re still made in the image and likeness of God. We’re still human beings with dignity and so much to offer. Let’s focus on that. That is how we get unstuck and that is how we become saints.

So that’s my thoughts about that one. The next thought that often keeps us stuck is a version of they don’t like me, or he doesn’t like me, she doesn’t like me, they don’t like me, whatever it happens to be. And this is one that a lot of us as adults struggle with. A lot of teenagers struggle with this. Children struggle with this. And it is simply like a thought of that person doesn’t like me, they don’t like me. And what’s crazy about this thought is a lot of times we’re assuming this is an assuming thought where maybe we just assume that somebody doesn’t like us, or maybe we read people’s body language or we see how maybe somebody treats us and we just assume, like, oh, they just don’t like me. And the reason why this keeps us stuck is because it keeps us stuck in that relationship with whoever it is, and it doesn’t help us at all.

I mean, really, unless somebody walks up to you, to your face and looks you in the eye and says, I don’t like you and I don’t want to have anything to do with you, then you should never entertain this thought. But we do it all the time. We as human beings, we just do it. We assume it. And this is the crazy thing that happens when we tell ourselves, for whatever reason, whether it’s an insecurity or a perception or assumption, that someone doesn’t like us. How does that make us feel? Like, when I think to myself about somebody I happen to know, maybe like a neighbor, I’m going to use that as an example. Let’s say there’s a neighbor and maybe they’re just not super friendly. They’re not very outgoing or friendly.

And maybe I’ve tried talking to them and they’re pretty not talkative, not super friendly. And then I have this thought he or she probably doesn’t like me. How does that make me feel if we were to put this into a model? Well, it certainly doesn’t feel good to have that thought, oh, they probably don’t like me. But really like, if I was to do a model on this, it would probably make me feel insecure or subconscious about something. Or it would take me to that other thought, why? Am I not good enough? Am I not good enough for them? I would start entertaining those thoughts and it would just make me feel terrible. Also, when we think that thought, when we think someone doesn’t like me and we feel self conscious or insecure about it. Our action line usually happens to be that we mirror what we’re feeling. So like, if I think to myself, oh, they don’t like me and I feel insecure, well, then I start having feelings and emotions towards them like, well, I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t like them.

I start putting up walls, I become distant, I’m not super friendly, I don’t smile at them, I don’t go out of my way to be friendly to them. And my end result in this usually looks like I don’t feel good about myself and I’m not actually being very nice to them. And they’re probably perceiving that I don’t like them. And it mirrors our thoughts. So really what I’ve come to discover in my own life around this thought is whenever I’ve had that thought, I don’t think they like me or he likes me or she likes me, usually I will notice how that thought really just pushes me away from any sort of forward, positive relationship with them. I put up walls and do all the things I just mentioned and it usually ends up creating that result. Of course, if somebody puts up walls and isn’t friendly and doesn’t smile at you and doesn’t go out of their way to talk to you, then chances are you’re probably not going to like them. So I have noticed that I’ve actually created that result.

With that thought. If I think they don’t like me, I end up creating a result where they don’t like me and I don’t really like them. And it just stops any sort of potential relationship in its track. And a lot of times we think of this thought as a way to protect ourselves from being hurt by somebody, but it just doesn’t help us. It doesn’t help our children, it doesn’t help our teenagers and their relationships and friendships. Just doesn’t help with coworkers, with people, at church, with family members. This thought never serves us and it never leads to a better relationship. So what could be a different thought instead? Well, one that I actually like to practice is if I see someone like I’m going to use my neighbor, for example.

If I feel like maybe they’re not super friendly, instead of having a thought like they don’t like me or just jumping to that conclusion that they don’t like me for some reason and that I’m not good enough for them, then my new thought is, okay, maybe my neighbor is not very talkative, but I would love to get to know them better. I bet they’re really nice people and I’m going to just continue being friendly towards them or whatever version of that you want to use. But for me, whatever version I want to focus on is something around instead of them not like me. It just helps me to think to myself, I bet they’re a pretty nice person and I want to like them. I want to get to know them better. I bet we could be really good friends if I gave them a chance. I like them. I’m a nice person.

I bet if they got to know me, they would like me too. Things like that. Because then that opens up your brain and your attitude to maybe getting through some initially awkward moments. Or maybe if you don’t hit it off at first but you want to still maybe pursue some sort of relationship in some sort of capacity, then you’re going to be so much better off continuing to act friendly towards that person and maybe break down some of those walls. Or maybe they have insecurities. Who knows? They might, in their mind, just be thinking that you don’t like them or that they’re not good enough for you. We just don’t know. But I’ve had to do this.

I’ve noticed this even in the past with teenagers that I’ve worked with. Maybe I meet some teenagers and maybe they’ve been closed off or not very friendly. And the moment I think to myself, oh, they don’t like me, I just know that it’s probably not going to lead to anything beneficial. But when I think to myself, oh, there’s a teenager that’s in my ministry, that I’m working with in my classroom, and instead of thinking they don’t like me, my thought is, you know what? I bet that young person is a really cool person, and I can’t wait to get to know them better. And I bet in two weeks from now, we’re going to be friends in some capacity. And the moment I open myself up to that possibility, that is the thought that always ends up coming true, because I end up showing up so much more friendly, so much more open, so much more genuine and caring and loving and people like that. People want to be around someone like that. So with that thought, they don’t like me.

It’s another one. Don’t entertain it. Most likely it’s not true 99% of the time, that’s never a true thought, and it never will benefit you. So switch it around and say, I want to like that person. I want to get to know them. I want to have a relationship with them and see how that changes your attitude, your demeanor, your presence, your persona around them, and how that breaks down massive walls and barriers. It’s so incredibly cool. I love it, and it’s a fun challenge to dive into.

It’s really cool. All right, my last thought for this episode is this. This is a thought that keeps us stuck. Three words, this isn’t fair. Something happens and we think to ourselves, this isn’t fair. That’s it. That is a thought that happens and it feels true, like something might happen and you could look at it and say, yeah, it’s not fair. I was treated in a way that wasn’t fair or my child was not.

Treated fairly or this situation isn’t fair or whatever. There’s so many scenarios where things aren’t fair. And of course we as adults when kids come to us and say oh that wasn’t fair. My sibling got something and I didn’t get it. It’s not fair. What is one of our first responses? Right? As parents we often say well sweetheart, life isn’t fair and that’s true and that’s a great thing to say because it switches us into this mindset reality of yeah this isn’t fair and life isn’t fair. And if we go around thinking that everything is always going to be fair or expecting that everything is going to be fair then we’re oftentimes going to be disappointed.

But that’s not the only reason why this thought like this isn’t fair keeps us stuck when we think that. And I’ve heard parents say this to their kids like maybe they don’t get chosen for a team or they don’t get to play in a game. I mean there’s a lot of parents that their children don’t get picked for something or have enough playing time or whatever it happens to be. They tell their kids well that’s not fair. That coach isn’t fair, that teacher wasn’t fair. That grade they gave you wasn’t fair. And it’s very easy for us to say things like that or will say things like in a job or a situation I wasn’t treated fairly or that wasn’t fair. And it is very true, it is very likely that that could be the case that it’s not fair.

But that thought and entertaining that thought and practicing that thought just totally keeps us stuck in a victim mentality. That is all it is. And that is why it is not a good thought to ever think about. Because all of a sudden the moment we believe something that has happened to us or to our kids or to anybody we love or care about and we say it isn’t fair, we or they or whoever it is becomes the victim and we feel like the circumstances are outside of our control and it feels very helpless. The phrase this isn’t fair, that isn’t fair feels helpless. It keeps us stuck, it keeps us playing small and it doesn’t benefit us, doesn’t benefit our kids, it doesn’t benefit us in any capacity. So what is a better option? Now we can acknowledge that things happen and we can be frustrated about it. If there is an unjust situation we may be spurred into action to report something or to write a letter or to talk to somebody in management.

I’m not saying not to do those types of things to move towards action that might possibly change the circumstance but just sitting in a place and pouring over and over and over like this isn’t fair, that just doesn’t help us at all. And so a different thought that could actually help get us unstuck when we’re in a difficult situation that we feel maybe isn’t fair or isn’t the best situation is to look at it and have some awareness of the possibility of how whatever has happened to us, how could that be happening for us? So the question could be, how might this be happening for me and my sisters in Christ? This is a really difficult question to ask. It is a very difficult question for us to try to get our children to ask. But if we’re brave enough to ask this question, then we often see a scenario that leads us to a completely different outcome. That thought and exploring that question, exploring the possibility of how something might be happening for us versus to us, moves us out of victim mode and moves us to looking at things from a different perspective and finding some way that we can grow in and through it. And so often another thing that I will tell myself is, why might God be allowing this right now? Not that I believe that God is causing it or he’s causing this unjust or unfair circumstance to happen, but he may be allowing it to happen because he wants to bring about a greater good from it. And the moment we switch from victim mode to exploring what possible good things might be able to come from it, oh my gosh, we take all of our power back and we get to start moving in a positive direction. I want to share an experience of this that was really powerful in my own family.

Back when my son was in the 9th grade, he was starting his 9th grade year, and he was playing football. Prior to that, he had been playing football and he was primarily a receiver. That was his main position. But he had also started to learn kicking, like how to be a kicker. And so he was kind of playing those two positions in middle school and then moving into high school. He was still doing that, but really focusing on being a receiver. And yet he actually I remember one night telling us he didn’t love being tackled. That wasn’t something that he really enjoyed, was being tackled a lot.

And so anyways, we had some conversations around that. But then shortly at the very beginning of his freshman season, it was after practice one day, and some of his buddies were all hanging out together after practice, and they were kind of messing around. They were squirting each other with water bottles and just goofing off like teenage boys do. And one of my son’s buddies picked him up, threw my son over his shoulder, and then accidentally dropped my son onto this concrete or whatever. And my son reached down with his right hand to block the fall, and he broke his wrist pretty significantly. He broke his wrist at the beginning of his football season, freshman year of high school. And it was devastating for my son. I mean, we took him to the doctor.

He didn’t have to have surgery, thankfully, but he was going to be in a hard cast for a good two to three months. And basically the coach said to him, your football season is over this year. You cannot play football. You can’t be in a position that you could in any way be tackled or fall down or anything like that. And so of course my son was devastated and of course there was that phrase like, mom, this isn’t fair. This kid picked me up and I fell and it was this accident, but it’s not fair. Why do I have to give up my football season because of this? And he was crushed and devastated. And yet the amazing thing that happened is that he did get waived to be able to focus on kicking.

So even though he couldn’t really play most of the time, he certainly couldn’t play as a receiver. The doctor said that he could if he wanted to kick, like field goals and stuff in the game because there’s really not any contact, much contact in that. And so my son decided that he was going to go all in and focus the whole season just on kicking. And that’s what he did. He really couldn’t practice with the other players, with his team. But during the football practices, every day for 2 hours a day, he would go onto a different field and he would just practice kicking over and over and over and over again. Because he still wanted to be on the team, he still wanted to be part of the season, and he still wanted to contribute in some way. And what that did that season is a number of things.

One, he got really good at kicking and two, he started to love it. He realized, Mom, I don’t want to be a receiver anymore. I want to be a kicker. This is what I want to focus on. And that’s what he ended up doing. And we ended up getting him some private coaching and he worked and worked throughout high school as a kicker. He kept getting better and just went all in on that. And now he was offered a position on a football team at Boise State and he is kicking in college, which was his total dream was to someday play college football.

And there have been so many times that we’ve talked over the years about truly what a blessing it was that his friend dropped him and that he broke his wrist that season. That was a turning point for him. That was a moment when God directed his path and helped him to focus on that direction in his life, which turned out to be a great blessing. In fact, we ran into that family of the young man. That young man ended up going to a different school, transferring to a different school. And then we ran into him a couple of months ago when we were just talking about life and how things are, and my son said to him, he said, I just want to tell you it’s so funny how things are, but I’m not mad at you for dropping me. I’m not mad about what happened to my wrist. I just actually want to thank you.

It ended up turning out to really be a blessing in my life. And it was just kind of funny how all of that played out. And so when we can look at circumstances, even really difficult ones, sometimes we look at an injury or a diagnosis or something that’s really hard, and we instantly want to go to this isn’t fair. But if we find ourselves going to that thought, I just want all of us to be aware that that thought is just going to make us feel worse. It’s going to make us feel helpless, it’s going to help make us feel like a victim. It’s going to make us feel like we don’t have any hope or that there’s nothing, like we don’t see any good in the situation. And again, it doesn’t benefit us. So if we can flip it, how could this be working out for me? How could this be for me? How could God be working in this situation? What good might come from it? What might I be able to learn? How might I grow from it? Then we open up so many possibilities, we take our power back.

If we look at pretty much any great story throughout history, through scripture, through the saints, through athletes, through extraordinary people that have had great success, you can look at their lives, at their moments in their lives, where they were faced with extraordinary adversity. And in those moments of adversity, they could have either caved in and just said, this isn’t fair, and I’m going to be the victim, and I’m going to complain, and I’m going to stay small, and I’m going to just focus on all the reasons why this isn’t fair and why this has happened to me and why I can justify being angry and upset. Or those people that overcome adversity, they see that adversity as an opportunity to grow, to become stronger, to become better, to learn and to move forward. Because maybe, just maybe, in that adversity, something better can come from it. And that is the place. That’s what we want to practice in our own lives. That’s what we want to model, that’s what we want our children to learn. And when we can all be working in that place instead of saying, it’s not fair, but how can I grow from this boom? That is the magic, that is the powerful mindset shift that propels us forward, helps us to overcome difficult things, helps us to be better, and helps us to find the blessings even in the really difficult moments.

And that, again, is an opportunity to grow in holiness to walk this path of sainthood. That is never easy. It’s never easy and it’s never fair. It really isn’t. You cannot look at any life of a saint and think, oh, yeah, they had a really fair life. No, most of them had a very unfair life, and they rose to the challenge and they kept walking towards Christ. And my sisters in Christ, that is the same thing that we’re invited to do. And so this is it.

These are my five thoughts that keep us stuck and other options that we can use. And I hope that this has been helpful for you today. I can’t wait for you to practice these and have awareness around them. And let’s just keep moving forward together. Our thoughts are more powerful than we realize. And when we intentionally choose thoughts that are going to keep us moving in the right direction, it changes the course of our life in extraordinary ways. And this, my sisters in Christ, this is what it means to be like, to realize that we’re not made for comfort, we’re made for greatness. And we want to keep holding on to that belief.

I hope you have an amazing week. Can’t wait to talk to you soon. God bless.