Tag Archives: overwhelming feelings

Health, Spiritual

Focus on the Present

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3 clocks at 5 minutes til noon
Thank you for letting me use this image, Alexa from Pixabay.
“Focus on the Present” by Joan Y. Edwards
Perhaps you are like me. You may have many experiences that overwhelm you and put you in the worry mode. Troubled and puzzled about how to handle problems with family members or friends, problems with your dwelling, your health, your finances, your car, your job, etc.). You may not be able to put your thoughts and emotions at peace within your body, mind, and spirit. You may become very anxious, full of fear and not feeling comfortable at all because you aren’t able to figure them out. Your mind moves from the present to the past or the future. You can’t seem to just focus on the present time.
Perhaps it is like you are at the Supermarket and all of these troubling experiences are in the check out line waiting to be charged and put into an appropriate sized bag in your cart (your body, mind, and spirit). However, your old ways of handling things no longer work.  Old Used-ta is no longer in service. The Goldilocks time. when everything went “just right” has disappeared.
It is like watching a movie of your life.  You keep on rewinding it to different past hurtful events in your life that were similar to the ones you are having at the present time. However, your old ways  of handling these emotional things don’t work any more. They don’t put you at peace. You need new ways. New awareness. New points of view.
At times like this, perhaps your inner critic enters the scene and tells you that you are not doing it right. The way to tame your inner critic is to prove him wrong by bolstering your self-confidence and building stronger coping techniques that put your mind, body, and spirit at peace. Your inner critic wants to protect you. God will help you tame your inner critic. I believe that if you are constantly hearing negative voices inside your head that the devil may be tempting you. He wants you to believe all the bad stuff about yourself. He wants you to doubt yourself. Doubt your goodness and mercy. God will help you tame him and shut him up. I asked God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to live within me and help me.
God helped me do a retreat at home. I prayed, searched for sources online, and talked with family and friends. Doing your own personal retreat may help you gain your self-confidence back, give you awareness, wisdom, and understanding. God will help you put a stop to the painful memories and worries about the future outcome of your choices and experiences.
Sometimes you and I hand things to God and then worry about them anyway. We give it to God with our right hands, and take it back with our left.  Being human is tricky at times. Inner peace is God within us. Ask him to build more of it in you.
After I did this self-retreat and began focusing on the present rather than the past or on the future. Things were better inside me. I went on an adventure. I went to Georgia for a baby shower. A wonderful occasion. Thank you, God for blessing us with new life. We went for a boat ride on Blue Ridge Lake: my two daughters, my youngest granddaughter, my niece and her friend who was the captain of the motor boat.
At one point everyone except me decided to swim in the lake. They all had on their swimming suits and life vests. I walked to the back of the boat to take pictures of them.
All of a sudden, my older daughter says, “Momma, you’re going farther away.” I looked around and noticed that was true. I was definitely going away from them. So I said as I waved, “Bon Voyage! Bon Voyage!”
I said, “I’ll call 911.”
My older daughter said, “Momma, there’s no cell service here on the lake.”
I said, “I’ll call any way.”
They were all laughing so much that if they didn’t have on their life vests, they might have drowned from laughing so hard.
The man who was captain of the boat swam to the boat and threw out a different anchor. He said the one he had used before was too short and didn’t take hold in the bottom of the lake. Hence, my “Bon Voyage.”
I hope this story makes you laugh. It had a happy ending. All of us safe on shore later.
I put links to the most helpful YouTube videos that God led me to and that helped me during my self-retreat.  I hope if you watch any of them that they help you build inner confidence and faith that you and God have got this. That God is not going to desert you or abandon your cry for help.
Philippians 4:7 “And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ, Jesus.”
Please leave me a comment. If you have  scriptures or other resources that have helped you when you feel anxious, worried about the past. present, or the future, I would really like to hear from you in the comment area.
Never Give  Up
Joan Y.  Edwards
Copyright 2025
Resources
1. 4 Powerful Things To Tell Yourself Every Morning | Shi Heng Yi Best Speech
https://youtu.be/et4JI6fA0Hs?si=vY7ysCFZuDbiEhst
2. Radical Acceptance  Radical acceptance is acknowledging a situation, emotion, or circumstance without judgment or resistance, even if it’s painful or unwanted.–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrjo2bFOQyk
3. Listen to one night and don’t panic affirmations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKu3jzt25aQ
4. LET THEM  The ONE Trick You Need to Master to Live a Peaceful and Fulfilled Life |…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4z5C8G32AY
5. Positive Affirmations for Peace and Calm | Reduce Stress & Anxiety by Lavendaire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS6KlpzDNS0
6. Self affirmation By Lavendaire You are enough my favorite saying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS6KlpzDNS0
7. 33 Positive Affirmations to Change Your Life by Lavendaire
htps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efZFARmGyMs
8.Positive Affirmations to Manifest Your Dream Life By Lavendaire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CtiouwHOxw
9. Gratitude Affirmations ✨ Daily Affirmations to Attract Positivity & Abun…By Lavendaire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhuhLc69hF0
10. Radical Acceptance of things out of your control by K. Wackett
https://youtu.be/XdslLgx1Qn4?si=bhXBc4VQsLmWYIcZ
Health, Spiritual

Oh No! Your Spiritual Plumbing Is Clogged

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gutter drain
Thank you Clker-Free-Vector-Images and Pixabay for letting me use this image in my blog.

 

“Oh No! Your Spiritual Plumbing Is Clogged” by Joan Y. Edwards

I have French drains at the bottom of gutter in the back of my house which takes the water from the downspout into the French drain and goes underground at the side of my house to the street. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

WHAT? You tell me that French Drains need to be cleaned out every year.  UH OH. I didn’t know that. I’ve had these drains for 19 years. I found out a few days ago that the one on the right side at the back of my house is stopped up. It has water coming out of the sides of the gutter spout.

French drain attached to downspout
Black plastic French drain attached to downspout.

My lawn man checked it out for me. It was filled with dirt, lots of dirt, and a few leaves. You say, “How can that be?” Leaves go down the gutter. According to what I read online, it can take one to three years for a leaf to become dirt. So because I hadn’t kept good watch on these French drains and had them cleaned out every year, they got stopped up with leaves which then turned to dirt which stopped up my drain.

Leaves and debris that went down the downspout created dirt that stopped up the black plastic French drain.

Today I got fine-meshed metal gutter screens to go over my gutters so that leaves and debris will not get through to clog the downspouts and the French Drains. Yippsee Doodles! I am excited.

Like my French drain being stopped up, sometimes the plumbing in us human beings gets stopped up, too.

Blood doesn’t circulate properly; the intestines don’t empty properly; Indigestion may keep us from digesting foods properly. We may get headaches. We may not even breathe!

Things clog your body. mind, and spirit. What are these things?

During the last year, perhaps like me,  you have collected fear, disillusionment, anger, impatience, unrealistic expectations of yourself and others. Things around the house need repairs or replacement: refrigerator, heating/air conditioner, gutters, downspouts, fraud problems, etc. When things, events, people, emotions, thoughts, memories aren’t processed and taken care of when they happen, they all get mixed together in overload, OVERWHELMING all the circuits in your body, mind, and spirit. If you are not able to let go of these stress builders, your body, mind, and spirit will show you signs.

High blood pressure, eating too much or too little, not taking time to relax, not able to sleep at night, not having confidence in your decisions, believing you will not have enough, believing you are not enough, not being able to forgive yourself and others, being frozen in place.  Sort of like dirt packed into a drain. Stopped up, Jam-packed, Stuffed, Clogged.

Perhaps it is time to talk with God. Trust that if you take one step at a time, take care of one thing at a time, that God is there with you now and he will be there with you through every minute of every day. He will help you tackle these problems one at a time.

When I was caring for my Mother the saying “Take one day at a time” was popular. It worked for a long time. Some days I had to invent a new saying, “Take one minute at a time.” So what new saying are you going to use for your mantra for today and tomorrow to help unstop your inner drains?

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Be thankful for everyone and everything you have in your life
2. Take a walk.
3. Pull at least 3 weeds from your yard.
4. Drink 8 ounces of water in your favorite glass, cup, or container.
5. Wash a load of clothes.
6. Dry a load of clothes.
7. Sort, fold or hang clothes and put them away.
8. Sort things in the kitchen, bathroom, or office that seem to be out of place.
9. Write a letter to a family member or a friend and send it through the postal service, rather than email.
10. Give clothing you haven’t worn in a year or two to Goodwill, Kidney Foundation, or other charity.
11. Visit a church or a spot where you can enjoy quiet solitude with nature (backyard, park, pond, lake, river, ocean).
12. Take a long bath. When the water goes down the drain, pretend that God is taking all the pain away from what is bothering you. When you dry off with the towel. pretend it is God telling you he is taking the problems away from you. He will say, “Ask me to help. Trust me and I will give you wisdom, understanding, and the resources to heal you and help you. I will unstop the clogged drains of your body, mind. and spirit. I will show you the way to take care of with problems that appear in your finances, home, job, and relationships.

The Lord’s Prayer is one of my favorite prayers that helps calm me.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our Daily Bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. But lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

I ask God right now to fill you with peace and fill you with the confidence you need to get you, your body, mind, spirit and all the things you’ve been worrying about that may seem to have clogged your drains!
Please leave me a comment. It makes me smile.

Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards, Author
Copyright © 2009-2025 Joan Y. Edwards

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