5 Tip5 Tips on How to Heal and Feel Better NOW.

Hey there!

I realize from my own journey recently and just from simply living life in this world, that we want to hurry up and rush our healing process.  The reality is we can’t really rush, but I am certain that with the help of the Holy Spirit, if you cooperate, be open and willing in the process (i.e.,. don’t resist by running or numbing) that it will be accelerated naturally.  If you have been feeling some kind of way emotionally lately due to your personal situation, here is a process that you can take yourself through right now to feel better and move forward:

1. Sit down. Leave the phone alone. Scripture: Be still, and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10)

We don’t know how to be still.  I still struggle with this from time to time. It requires intentionality and discipline.  When we get quiet, we hear God more clearly.  We like the noise and distraction of our smartphones and TVs.  Let go of the remote. Put down the iPhone or Android device.  Go where you will not be distracted.

• Ask God to help you discern the source of the sad feeling your chest. Scripture: If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking (James 1:5)

Sometimes you already know why, at other times sometimes you may not be quite sure or unable to put your finger on why you are feeling low.  In some situations, it could be a mix of several things causing you to feel “some kind of way” or sad. Oftentimes, you may be picking up someone else’s feelings and it is a call to pray, especially if you are an intercessor or someone who is naturally very sensitive to the feelings of other people.

• Receive the answer/conclusion/revelation. Scripture: For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Matt. 7:8)

The revealed answer may surprise you. You may realize that it is unresolved grief about losing a loved one, grief about any kind of significant loss such as job or other endings) feeling alone/lonely, being misunderstood or rejected by someone, loneliness, worry or anxiety about a a variety of situations, disappointment and dashed hopes and dreams,  financial struggles, and of course what is going on in our country and the world at large.

• Cry if you feel like it.  Get in the shower.  Cry some more.  This works.  You can get a good cry in this way.  Scripture: Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep.( 1 Samuel 30:4)

Not to mention the fact that Jesus wept, Hezekiah wept bitterly, Job wept, Mordecai wept, and Jeremiah wept and many others in the Bible cried and wept very dramatically. All powerful prophets and kings in the bible, who had no problem crying and sometimes quite publicly when they needed too.  At least you are crying privately. ou are WORTHY of your tears.  Thank God he created us with the capacity to cry.  According to Psychology Today, “It is good to cry. It is healthy to cry. This helps to emotionally clear sadness and stress. Crying is also essential to resolve grief when waves of tears periodically come over us after we experience a loss. Tears help us process the loss so we can keep living with open hearts… Let your tears flow to purify stress and negativity.” CATCH that.  The longer you don’t process stuff and allow yourself to cry (especially the hidden things that you have blocked out), the harder your heart becomes, less compassionate, and more bitter and calloused.  There are many people who cannot cry at all and have become so disconnected on the inside that they cannot cry even though they want too.  Let that not be you Beloved!

• Get a journal and write out question to God and to yourself about the situation and the answers as they come– -this can be hard.  Scripture: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. – Matt 7:7

Hand write out a couple of scriptures that speak to your heart.  And pray. Aloud. Not in your head all silent.  Get it out of your head and heart and onto a piece of paper. You only need 2 or 3.  Writing memorializes.  Writing the Word and speaking it regularly and wires it into your heart.  Writing helps to creates order from chaos.  Documentation leads to revelation. 

When asking questions, don’t stay at the surface.  Go a little deeper.  Good prompts include:

1. Lord how do you see this situation? 
   1. Be neutral and ask how would someone from outside see this?  (this can be hard, because it requires you to see where you might have been wrong)
   1. Why am I looking for approval?  How am I numbing my feelings?
   1. What am I in 100% control of TODAY?

If you are serious about feeling better right now, then I highly encourage you to do this.  This is a critical component of real self-care.  Not scrolling social media, watching the news, drinking a lot of wine, having sex, other drugs, snacking and eating when not really that hungry, binge watching Netflix, being busy, shopping, doing ministry, and the list of numbing and avoiding goes on and on.  Now, more than ever we must walk healed and whole!

Live Masterclass

Join me for a one-night masterclass on Friday 11/20/20 7PM EST where I will take a deep dive into ways you can remain serene and stable in times of confusion and chaos.  This is for you:

• If you your nerves and emotions are on the edge,
• You have endured or currently in some type of crisis, disruption or transition (job loss family, relationship, etc.),
• You are overwhelmed and feeling out of sorts, inadequate and stuck
• Disconnected from self and others and lack peace.

You will learn tools and language to help you navigate your new season with grace and clarity.  I’ll be sharing what God has shown that is helping me in my time of transition, with open Q&A Coaching session

This is a name your own price/give as you are led. Click below to sign up and invest what you can no matter the amount!

https://mailchi.mp/tonikabreeden/stableandserene

You are still Loved, Even When You Struggle.

Yes, even when you feel like you have messed up….again.

You are still deeply loved and accepted even when you feel like your mind is all over the place and instead of thinking on things that true, noble, just, pure, lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8) you find yourself thinking about the opposite – all of your problems, issues, hurts, worries and other people.

You are still loved when you say and do the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Even when you start your day off good — you had quiet time, you prayed, you read the Bible or some other devotional book and you set your intentions and goals for the day…only to fall off the wagon within a couple of hours. God is not beating you up over the head.  You are still loved.

For example, If you are a parent or grandparent, you enjoy watching your little ones grow and develop as they learn to walk.  You didn’t go off the deep end and chastise them because they kept stumbling and falling down as they were learning to walk.  You encouraged them, helped them and loved watching their process because you love them.

God is no different with you my brother or sister!

He embraces the process of transforming you from one degree of glory to the other.  He loves watching you develop as you practice, learn, make mistakes and in spite of it all, you still keep reaching towards Him.

God is patient with you.  He is more patient with you than you are with yourself. He simply delights to be a part of your life.  Remember, He CHOSE you before the foundations of the world.  He went through all the trouble of redeeming and reconciling you to Himself by  Christ just to be in a close heart relationship.

With. YOU.

It is truly the voice of religion, our flesh and the enemy that brings the guilt, shame condemnation and the nagging voice. It is not God.  For all of the tough and painful situations you have come through, it takes the pace of grace, God’s timing and trusting in His process and it is not an overnight thing.

He watches over His word to perform it in your life. Stop striving and struggling and let Him perform His Word in you.  Be at peace and remain at rest.

Remember you are HIS workmanship (not your own) created for good works which He has preordained for you.  Let Him do His work in you and stop fighting against yourself by resisting, self-sabotaging and creating more pain because you feel bad about your mistakes!  He took care of that on the cross.  Respect His sacrifice for what He has already done.

As we start this week, know that His grace is sufficient. His strength is made perfect in your weakness.  Ask God to open your heart to receive His grace and strength this week.

Live Masterclass

Join me for a one-night masterclass on Friday 11/20/20 7PM EST where I will take a deep dive into ways you can remain serene and stable in times of confusion and chaos.  This is for you:

• If you your nerves and emotions are on the edge,
• You have endured or currently in some type of crisis, disruption or transition (job loss family, relationship, etc.),
• You are overwhelmed and feeling out of sorts, inadequate and stuck
• Disconnected from self and others and lack peace.

You will learn tools and language to help you navigate your new season with grace and clarity.  I’ll be sharing what God has shown that is helping me in my time of transition, with open Q&A Coaching session

This is a name your own price/give as you are led. Click HERE to sign up and invest what you can no matter the amount!

p.s. don’t forget to follow me on Periscope or YouTube and turn on notifications to catch me when I go live!

Keep Reaching. You Are Loved Always!!

What Your New Season REALLY Means

If God is doing a new thing now in your life that you have prayed for, then it means new ways of acting, speaking and behaving.  It means new thoughts.

It means a new way of showing up in the world.

It means a new wineskin and not the old wineskin of old conditioning, old trauma responses, old misbeliefs and faulty perceptions, judgments, grudges and the old stories of what happened.

A new wineskin for the new wine he will put in you.

So the problem is that God transitions us to the new thing we are praying for by allowing us to tribulate until the old falls away.

We either voluntarily release or relinquish the old but more often than not, the old way is so deeply ingrained in us that it takes a shaking, testing or trial to expose it so that it will be done with.

Then , we are fit for the new.

Our internal newness for our new season comes two ways:

1. Initiated by the prompting of the Holy spirit and we actually obey Him , begin to repent (simply means to change mind/turn course) and then renew mind and heal in that area. OR;
2. Initiated by harsh or painful external circumstances that have reached a tipping point due to failure to obey that force us to face the truth and accept new or remain stuck.

We want the new, but the pressure and pain of unresolved feelings, trauma and the familiarity of it (remember we can be chemically addicted to our negative anxious emotions and thoughts)  create resistances.  We resist the very change we are praying for!  So we sabotage it.  Yet because we still pray and seek God, in His love, he is patient and allows the circumstances to force truth to reveal the way. 

What are you going to do?

Are you going to allow things to get so bad before you make the shift?

Will you stay stuck in the trauma story (ies) of the past (what happened, how they hurt you, the mistakes you made) or will you surrender to the bigger story of your life that God has for you? 

I had to remind myself in my recent situation, that the entire situation is a very small story in the bigger story of the life that God has for me.  Then I had to ask myself, Am I going to let the small story be bigger than God in my life? Am I going hide out stuck in the story and let the story dictate? 

I realized that it is safer for me to surrender to God and no longer struggle with Him hanging on to my pain and my story.  It is safer for me to surrender to God and agree with Him, than to keep fighting to stay small. 

I believe that in surrendering to God’s call and no longer using my trauma stories and mistakes as being a reason to say small actually puts me in alignment for God’s very best – true abundance and significance in every area of life.

It is not fear of failure that keeps us bound.  We know what is like already to fail. We’ve all failed plenty of times. It is the requirement and the responsibility that it would take to show up fully into our new that keeps us bound.

It is also a deep fear of other things such as:

• The opinions and words of people — our family, our friends, our church, our ex’s, social media and other connections. 
• What would happen if we REALLY said yes to God. 
• That something awful and bad will happen if we gave God a surrendered yes. 
• The delusion that we are losing something when we let Go and say yes to God.

I encourage you to seek God and ask Him to help you and  give you peace, understanding and a vision of your new life.  You know, the hidden vision of your life that you know God whispered in your heart.  Yes, that one.  The other scary part is that the new life, likely does not have the current set of people that you are involved with now.  Embrace that also.

We can depend on Him to give us vision on how our lives will look and feel in the new season, so that we can feel safe to embrace it.  It’s super easy to stay stuck because the new is simply so big and scary. The old way of living, being, doing and thinking – even though it causes pain, at least it is familiar.

Just know this one thing here —- it’s costing you more than you know to stay stuck. You are paying for it one way or the other. In your body – the anxiety, frustrations, boredom, lack of satisfaction, the knowing in the back of your mind that you are doing what God put in your heart, the extra pounds, the stress, the distraction, little addictions,  unease and lack of peace. 

So the question is which way do you want to pay?  Do you want to pay on the front end by facing the discomfort of the new with courage and grace or do you want to face it on the back end, i.e., the slow painful way by staying the same?

I encourage you this morning, to spend time with God this and really think about these things and ASK HIM how doe your new life Look and FEEL.  How it FEELS is very important, because that is how you will feel safe in your body  (your nerves and emotions) as you embrace the new.

Stay tuned and connected and be sure to catch me on YouTube or Periscipe as I go live over the next few weeks. Check out my recent video – The Anointed Perception of You!

As always, live loved!