As a transformational healer, I know that my gift is divinely expressed through transcendental pathways. That means that my ability to heal mentally and spiritually is only possible through a source greater than my physical being.
It is beyond anything that can be easily explained but it is uniquely experienced. This form of healing is not something that I take lightly as it is a great responsibility and is activated by faith. Now faith is one of those principles that you either have or you don’t. It is a complete mindset shift from woe to WOW!
Let’s take a moment to talk about mindset…the way that you think. This has a lot to do with your life experiences, interactions with others, self-talk, media exposure and other forms of information and communication. Your mindset is a direct result of your mental, emotional and psychological beliefs about who you are and what you are capable of.
What does this have to do with faith? Well I’ll tell you, mindset and faith are intertwined. It is the ability to look beyond the flurry of mental messages and trust a higher source for your total well-being.
While meditating I thought of various mindset barriers that can be shifted by increasing faith to combat stress. I decided to create a faith list and make it a part of my daily practice to keep my stress levels in check. A sample faith list might look like this…
- Procrastination into productivity
- Fear into faith
- Anger into affection
- Pandemonium into peace
- Cowardice into confidence
- Poverty into prosperity
- Loneliness into liveliness
- Pessimism into praise
- Depression into delight
- Anxiety into assurance
- Stress into strength
To begin building your faith list, consider these three things:
- What negative characteristics does your stress evoke?
- What is the positive alternative that you would like to achieve?
- What actions are you willing to take to exercise your faith?
So first let us consider negative characteristics that may evoke a stress reaction. Looking over my faith list you will notice that the first word in each pair is something that has the potential to cause a stress reaction.
Procrastination, for example, triggers a whole chain of events that affect us both mentally and physiologically. Mentally we engage in self talk to help us get through the situation so we might say things like, “I do my best work under pressure” or “I don’t know why I waited so long to get this done!”
Physiologically we cause our internal systems to work harder, our heart beats faster, our breathing may be more labored, we get an adrenaline rush and we may even feel panicky or overwhelmingly tired.
The key is to be aware of your stress triggers while they are still manageable then you can implement positive alternatives.
Again looking over my faith list you will notice that the second word in each pair is something motivational that has the potential to reduce stress. For example, productivity equates to efficiency, creativity, fruitfulness, constructive output and a whole list of positive attributes.
These qualities also trigger a mental and physiological response such as mental clarity, organization, confidence, a sense of accomplishment and internal peace (normal heart beat, relaxed breathing and maintaining a calm center of balance). So how can you operate more fully in the positive alternative of your stress trigger? By exercising your faith of course!
Now that you are aware of your stress triggers and you have a goal to turn things around before they become overwhelming, make an action plan on how to accomplish your positive alternatives. That’s what building your faith list is really about, challenging those negatives by doing something positive.
In order to turn procrastination into productivity I know that I need to make decisions and implement them right away rather than putting them off until a later time.
When you operate in faith, you know that things can and will produce bigger and better results which in turn minimizes the stress reaction allowing you to enjoy life to the fullest. Until next time…Express your stress, Improve your health and Increase your success!
Angela M Grayson, PhD is CEO and Chief Clinician of Good Fruit Expressive Arts Counseling and Psychotherapy LLC. She is a sought after Transformational Healer, Speaker, Author, Stress Management Coach, Educator, Creative Arts Psychotherapist and Corporate Consultant. Dr. Angela specializes in helping management level professionals, as well as, corporate and healthcare organizations address work-related stress so that they can maximize their potential, increase productivity and avoid burnout. Register for your FREE consultation TODAY! To learn more visit www.goodfruitexpressivearts.com.
