Now more than ever we need to support our bodies and learn to live a healthier lifestyle. I’ve shared before about Young Living and now I’d like to invite you to my first Virtual Zoom Essential Oils 101 Class where you will learn WHY these oils are so important, HOW we use them, WHAT benefitis you can expect to receive and what body systems they support. You will also learn WHERE you can get your hands on one of these Premium Starter Kits!
I urge you to Accept this Invite. There are so many ways you can become a member and start to take control of your wellness!
I feel so blessed to be able to say, “I love what I do!”. God has blessed me more than I thought possible. I remember the day, I prayed and asked him to give me a business where I could do His Will and eventually be able to make enough money to where I could leave my day job. Well, I’m not there yet and it may still take me a few more years, but I know I’m on the right track! You see two weeks after that prayer, I was introduced to Young Living. The Premium Starter Kit I purchased slowly transformed my life by allowing me to experience testimony after testimony of just how wonderful these essential oils are. My first testimony was Stress Away. After my heart attack, I gravitated to all of the emotional oils for support and Stress Away literally melted the stress off of my shoulders!
When you find something that you love, it’s natural to want to share it. Just like a really good movie or a new restaurant. Well, now that my life has settled down a bit after my separation, I’m finding my way back into my business and feel stronger than ever! I may not be where I wanted to be at this time in my business, but my oils are paid for every month, and I spend between $300-$500 a month because I have adopted the transfer buying attitude where instead of buying products I normally would have bought at Walmart or Target, I buy from my company and receive 25% back on my purchases, plus free bonus products and points towards free products. You can’t get that from Walmart!
Now that YL is making it so much easier to offer our family and friends more affordable options to becoming a member or even starting their own business themselves, I am finding that my business is growing faster and faster! Kinda like your 401K the more you have, the faster it grows! Well, this year, my goal is to double my YL Income and YL is investing in me to do so! I’m so excited to have the opportunity to work with some of the best leaders, even directly with YL Corporate Leader (Leon Atcitty). Everyone wants you to succeed and everyone helps you to make sure you hit your goals. Not like any other networking company I have ever worked with – and there have been many.
2020 is going to be an amazing year for my business. The new partnership of YL and Nature’s Ultra and our new line of CBD products, is going to allow all of us to soar beyond our wildest dreams! I already have my first testimony with CBD oil where it is helping my digestive issues. Anyway, this new drive and passion has had me pretty busy lately loving on my business and gearing up for what is going to be a game changing year! I now have a new Website, new business cards, and a new mindset! Young Living is making it easier and easier for us to share what we love and love what do! More importantly, they are making it easier for everyone to fall in love with their products by meeting people where they are and with a kit that fits their needs! Whether that need is essential oils, supplements, make-up, antioxidant support, household cleaning, weight management, and now even CBD, etc…..
So much has changed in the last 3.5 years, I can’t even imagine what my business will look like in another few years! I have a feeling my lifestyle will certainly change! When you love what you do, and are determined to succeed, you don’t stop until you do! You don’t give up! You simply keep moving forward! Every day is not easy, but it’s nice to know I can roll on some oil to keep motivated, boost my energy, and believe that God has a plan and it is good!
Check out my new website and the New Welcome Home Kit you can get for only $125! Plus the adorable diffuser I will give you when you personally enroll with me as a thank you for believing in me! If any of this resonates with you and you’d like to get in on the ground floor too, let’s lock arms today!
When you finally come out of the dark clouds and can see the sun shining brightly, your heart feels light and you begin to walk with a bounce in your step. Everything seems to be going your way and then you start to recognize how all of the puzzle pieces are coming together and it all starts to make sense. Everything you went through was for a reason.
For me, I am a much stronger person than I was three years ago. I have learned so much more about myself, my wants, my desires, and my needs. I have learned that I deserve more and that I am enough. God loves me unconditionally, and that’s the most important thing. He wants the best for all of us. Find a way to develop and grow your relationship with God. That means starting your day with Him. Be still in the quiet time and open your heart. Listen for that small soft voice in your head as the Holy Spirit guides you through your day. It doesn’t happen overnight, just keep talking with Him and trust that He is holding you in by the palm of your right hand.
The Faith that I have in Him and our relationship has grown so strong; it’s what gets me through every day and helps me when I do have doubts and concerns determining His Will for me. Right now, I feel like I am swinging on a high and God keeps pushing me higher and higher. So follow those signs He is leaving for you. Turn to Him when you are struggling. Don’t be afraid to pray big prayers. Ask and you shall receive. Trust in His timing and believe that everything you want is coming your way!
Coming out on the other side of those dark clouds is not an easy path. It is full of it’s up and downs and confusing paths that all seem to go in different directions. These paths sometimes lead you outside of your comfort zone. They may test your tenancity. You may also learn who your true friends are and those who are not. Just remember that only God knows what you’ve been through.
Only God knows the walk you’ve taken and the lessons you’ve learned. God knows your every move before you ever make it, and He knows the true story! Don’t let what other people think get you down! He sees and knows everything! People will judge you, people will talk. It’s normal and it’s to be expected because we are all sinners. Just be true to yourself. Ask for His forgiveness, and bless those who trespass against you. Love them despite their actions, just as God loves each one of us! Just as they do not know your walk, you do not know their walk either. Everyone has a story to tell. Many people hide their emotions by stuffing them deep inside themselves. The problem is that you can only stuff so much until it starts to overflow. When that happens, it starts to get raw.
When I was a kid, I always heard, “it will get worse before it gets better”, or “it will be better before you get married’, “every dark cloud, has a silver lining’….. Just hold on because it will get better! God has your back. Hold on because when you have your faith – you have everything! The best is yet to come! Just keep moving forward one day at a time! Hold your head high knowing the only love you need, is the love and respect of God!
After that agonizing decision has been made and you feel totally at peace with it, do not turn back! It took a lot of work to get you to the point where you are now. Why would you want to go back only to start all over again?
I realize that this may not be a fix-all solution and everyone is different and every situation is different, but there is something to be said for your tenacity. Once you come to the realization that there is no turning back, you will feel like you can tackle anything! I so believe in signs from God and if you are reading this post, maybe this is just the sign He wanted you to see.
Remember my post last month when I asked God if that was all He could do for me when I asked to receive a heart shaped rock as a sign? When He put in my path that next rock, I was in awe! Literally breathless. All I could do was shake my head, smile, and thank Him! Only God can do something like that!
God can move mountains and He will make a way when you think there is none. We just have to trust and believe in Him. His way might not seem perfect to you, but none of us have an all-knowing gift of knowledge. We are not mind readers and we can not predict the future. What I do know though, is that God directs our steps and we need to trust Him with our walk. He’s brought us this far, so if you are having doubts, take a deep breath and ask God to calm your anxiety and guide you.
We can only see what we see and know to be true. God though, He knows everything. He knows our thoughts before we think them. He knows our steps before we take our next. He is the only one that has the crystal ball. That crystal ball is the gateway to happiness and living an abundant life. The key thing to remember though, is that it is not always just about us. You see our life touches many other people and there is a ripple effect. Every action we take creates a chain reaction and God knows the ending and where the next wave will crash. So we have to learn to always look for the good in any situation and try to look past our immediate needs and suffering. Look for the good that may have come to someone else as a result of your discomfort. Do not fear though, God will give you something even better in return. Even if you are unsure of what will happen next. Relying on God to direct our steps is the only sure way to get to our next destination – God’s plan for us.
How many times have you made a decision, acted on it, and then started doubting your decision and yourself all together? Making some of our biggest life-changing decisions are very hard to do; painstaking in fact! We overthink about it. We cry about it. We talk to others and gain advice. We talk to God. We get counseling. We make our list of pros and cons. Despite all of the steps we take and the support we gain, we still doubt our decision. We wonder and question ourselves over and over as to whether this was God’s plan for us. Why would God let us go through such pain?
It’s the lessons we learn as we walk through these tough times that make us stronger. He is making us stronger and better individuals all the time. He tests our abilities and our weaknesses and then builds us up. What I’ve learned through this entire decision making process is simply to trust God. Yes, I’ve had my doubts; and yes, I’ve cried many tears. Through it all though, I did learn to trust God and listen for His small soft voice in my head. The hardest part was learning how to decipher His voice, your thoughts, and the devil that is always trying to bully us and gain our attention. It took me a while, but I learned that if my decision does not bring me a feeling of peace and certainty, then it is not the right decision. You see, God gives us peace!
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” ~ John 16:33
In my circumstance, I had to give it yet one more try. Despite the many attempts in the past, broken promises, and yes, even lies, I had to give it one more try in order to feel at peace with my decision. Did that delay my progress? Yes, maybe a little but it left me feeling confident in what had to be done next. It allowed me to make my list of to-do’s and start crossing them off one by one and feeling proud of my accomplishments and confident in my decision.
I must say though, even after the dust settled, I still started doubting myself again. It’s a constant battle that we all must fight. When you are feeling that self-doubt, I encourage you to turn to God and He will help you get your heart back in alignment with His Plan and the peace He has in store for you will come. However you talk with God, whether it be silently in your thoughts, journaling, or spoken prayer, His hand is right there for the taking. You just have to reach out! Ask for His guidance, His strength, His love, His courage, His healing, His forgiveness; ask and believe it is yours!
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” ~ Mark 11:24
Traveling the road alone is not an easy task. In fact, it’s quite lonely. The road ahead is full of uncertainty, twists and turns, fog, and lots of pot holes. You tend to second doubt yourself all the time. Did I make the right decision? Am I crazy? What was I thinking?
I went from having that hug I needed, to having no one to hug. Someone to talk to, to echos in an empty house. I never really lived alone before and this was definitely taking its toll on me.
What did I do? Well, I dove into my church and made some of my own friends. I started holding more events for Young Living and built those relationships up even more as well. I then realized that some of those puzzle pieces were fitting into place and I was able to realize why God brought Young Living into my life. I met so many amazing friends. Friends which have and still help get me through the mud puddles of life. He knew what He was doing and I am so grateful for these relationships. In fact the woman behind this lens, is one of those ladies that I was able to share my complete story with and has inspired me to document my story.
You see, when we are in the moment, the road ahead doesn’t always show itself but we have to continue to move forward in faith and hope knowing that God’s light is just around the corner. When we look back, the path seems much clearer as those puzzle pieces have come together. It’s like you dropped the bread crumbs that you can look back on. Though you have no idea where you will be dropping the next piece of bread until you get there.
I realized that I was never really alone because I had God with me the whole time. Our relationship keeps growing stronger and stronger and I am so thankful for His presence. He has given me many signs throughout this time in my life. Be open to recognizing the signs He gives you as they come in many different forms. I’ll share some of those I received in my next blog….
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ~ Proverbs 3:5-6
When times get tough and I need to clear my head, I love to jump in the car and just drive. I play my spiritual playlist pretty loudly, and have been known to bang on the steering wheel a lot! I’m always looking for signs from God while I’m driving too. Heart shaped clouds and crosses show up pretty often. Even when they don’t though, God is with me always.
I remember not too long ago making one of the toughest decisions of my life. I wasn’t quite to a place of peace with this decision, and I think that is why it was so difficult. I had planned to take the road that many of us married couples take when things aren’t working out and decide to walk away. I had been at this point in my mind before many times, but never acted on it because of how badly I wanted it to work out. I didn’t believe my husband would make the change that he needed to make for his health and our marriage, but he did give it a try so I felt I owed it to both of us to give it yet one more try. Yet, I had heard before that this time would be different. I was so torn apart. Driving down the road talking with God and doubting this decision and trying to hear God’s voice telling me what to do. I wasn’t hearing anything, so I decided I was going to end it once and for all.
It was at that point that God’s voice spoke up! He told me to give it one more try. He also told me how to present this opportunity in conversation. God gave me the words to say. God gave me the strength to speak His Words. God gave me Hope. God gave us a second chance. God gave us a second chance.
Unfortunately, despite the desire and the attempt, it didn’t last two weeks. This confused me even more. After all, if this was God’s plan and He spoke the words to me to give it one more try. Why then did it not work out? I’m sure many of you run into situations like this yourself. Those unanswered prayers. Why God? Why did you have me take this road if you knew it wasn’t going to work?
Many people give up on God at times like this. I was able to look for the good. There is always good in everything that God has planned. Yes, sometimes, even the unanswered prayers are God’s greatest gift. I love that song by Garth Brooks! In my situation, God gave us the opportunity to realize that no matter how hard we try, somethings we can not change or are willing to change. God gave us the ability to know in our hearts that we gave it our all. Had we not taken that one last chance to make it right, we would have wondered what would have happened if we had tried.
God gave us Peace!
Then the struggle became real and God was there too giving us both strength to get through the storm that tore us apart. Behind every cloud though, there are blue skies. In life we will always have tough decisions we have to make. I urge you to turn to God always in Faith that He will make the path clear. Ask for His guidance and His Will to be done! Listen for that small soft voice in your head and follow His lead! With God you can’t go wrong!
Learning to deal with my stress after the heart attack was no easy task. Before I was even able to get out of the house to talk to a therapist, I first had to learn how to manage my medicine and my blood pressure without getting stressed out. That was no easy task. Any little twinge or extra beat I felt would send me over the edge. Every extra beat would increase my stress, then the blood pressure went up, and that created anxiety. It was a snowball effect. I was checking my blood pressure every 5 minutes and that just made it worse. I didn’t want to be left alone, and I had my cardiologists number on speed dial. Luckily for me, he provided me with his number. We had to play with my prescription strength a little, and I learned to listen to some meditative music and just Be Still.
It wasn’t long into my recovery when my daughter sent me some essential oils and a diffuser off of Amazon. At that point, I didn’t really know what essential oils were or how to use and why would I. So I started diffusing since I received a diffuser with the gift. Since then, I have learned just how important essential oils are when you are using a reputable company that you can trust to provide pure therapeutic grade oils without the toxins and chemicals most smaller companies produce to make their oils cheaper for distribution. If you are interested you can check out my site because now I share as much as I can how these oils and Young Living has helped change my life and my stress levels. (www.believeinessentials.com)
Here are some steps I took to help with my stress & anxiety, and suggest you give it a try:
Talk with God. I now journal to God every day! My relationship with God has become much stronger and closer. I am now able to recognize His signs and soft small voice. He has told me time and time again that He has a plan for me. I just need to ‘Be Still’ and trust in Him.
Listen to Meditative Music – Give Yoga a Try!
Talk with a Therapist – sometimes just hearing yourself talk it out can help you come to terms with your triggers.
Find your triggers and respond immediately. (Refer back to Part IV for recognizing your triggers)
Invest in some grade A essential oils and do your research! These oils have helped to keep me grounded emotionally and spiritually. They have helped me sleep, given me courage, and helped me release the negative, accept what is, and to forgive. I diffuse the oils, I apply to my body, and I can even ingest oils from Young Living! It is now the first things I grab when I’m feeling stressed!
Look around you and focus on finding the below. This is called grounding. It can help you when you feel like you have lost all control of your surroundings.
Find five things you can see
Find four things you can touch
Find three things you can hear
Find two things you can smell
and one thing you can taste
One of the biggest things my therapist helped me with was having those difficult conversations with the ones you love that are hurting you and probably don’t even know it. That seems easy right, but I learned that the way I was having these conversations was not productive and only made matters worse. What I learned though is a technique that involved sandwiching the information together and not making them feel so defensive right out of the gate. Instead of finger pointing, or raising your voice and telling them they need to do this or that, etc. You calmly ask to talk to them as a friend. Tell them you don’t want them to get defensive because that’s not how you want the conversation to go. You simply want to let them know how it makes you ‘feel’ when they do xyz. Odds are, they do not want you to feel that way and they didn’t even realize. It opens up the conversation for some much needed dialogue and compromising without all the finger pointing and rants that you might be used to that only led to nowhere in the past. Give it a try – you won’t be sorry!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11
As you can imagine, hearing the nurse call for the paddles and being in the hospital for 10 nights was pretty traumatic. I wasn’t home for long before my doctor recommended I find someone to talk with to help me sort through my stress and anxiety. The first thing she wanted me to come to terms with was recognizing my trigger points. I didn’t know what a trigger point was until much later, but once I learned the meaning behind it, I quickly knew what my trigger was. The way it was explained to me is that it is the first feeling you have of anxiety. For example, you are sitting quietly in the living room reading a book and someone in the kitchen drops a frying pan or shatters a glass. It’s that feeling right then and there that you feel. What is it for you? Where do you feel it? Do you feel a tightness in your chest? Or is it a sinking feeling in your stomach. How do you react? What do you do? Think about it for a second and the next time that happens pay close attention and you will learn with your trigger is.
For me, I feel a tightness in my chest and when I am really stressed I then find myself rubbing my hand over my chest to help calm myself. I do this sometimes without even realizing it. When I do, I do eventual realize I am now able to recognize this as my trigger and a sign of anxiety that I need to deal with immediately. I then just start breathing deeply and talk to myself and God to get reassurance from Him that everything will be okay. Positive words and prayers of affirmation is the first thing I do. I close my eyes and quiet the room and try to feel the presence of God’s embrace. God has told me repeatedly to ‘Be Still’. I’ve taken this to simply mean, to Be Still in his presence, to stop striving for my will, and start embracing His Will and plan for my life. For Only God knows our next move and what is best for us! He wants us to live an abundant life.
“Be still and know that I am God,” ~ Psalm 46:10
As time has gone by, this practice is all I really need to follow in order to calm myself and quiet my anxieties, but there was a time when this was not enough. There are other ways to handle our stress and I’ll be sharing next several ways I learned to deal with mine and hope that it will help you!
During my recovery in the hospital, I also learned that God is not the only one watching over me from above. When I was in and out of sleep after my heart attack, I went into a dream state where I saw three individuals sitting on a bench much like this one. Except, the bench was just above my bed sitting in the clouds and I could see many silhouettes of people, whom I believed to be angels in the distance. I could see the sides of the first two gentleman closest to me as they were sitting there just waiting. I recognized right away the first man was my father. He looked exactly like he did back in the 70’s with his long sideburns, yet he could not look down at me. The second man, a bit taller than my dad, was my stepfather. He was looking over my dad and down on me with such a loving, yet concerned, look. The third man, I could not see, but somehow I just knew in my heart it was my grandfather. That surprised me more than anything, because for so long I thought my grandmother was one of my guardian angels. Oh, I’m sure she’s still looking down and watching, but this would be the second time now that my grandfather has come to me in a dream just like this and the only time I have dreamed about him since his death.
There is something to be said about the power of three and this holds true for me as well. Three has always been my lucky number and a number I gravitate to. I love to give three kisses good night or goodbye – one is never enough! One night when I was so stressed out, I felt the presence of someone sitting on my bed behind me three times. It was as if one person sat down and got up, and then another, and then yet another. I swore someone was there; but every time I looked, there was no one. I was awake and it kinda freaked me out a little. Eventually, I just brushed it aside and thought it must be my grandmother checking in on me. After this dream in the hospital though, I now know it was my three guardian angels blessing me and letting me know everything was going to be alright.
Do you know who your guardian angels are? How do they show up to you? Some leave dimes, some show up as butterflies, feathers, hearts. Our loved ones find many ways to show us they are still among us and with us. Never fear for they are still very near! This dream I had in the hospital, it was very real and I no longer have fear of dying. I know my loved ones will be with me one day and we will all meet on the other side – the never ending journey with God!