adventuresofmonique

[adventuresofmonique]

It takes courage to be happy in the midst of pain.

I’m going through a case at the moment, and a lot of painful memories flooded back, as I remembered what it was like sitting in a cold police room being interviewed and this triggered in me at that time.

Flash backs of interviews, questioning myself, letting the enemy get into my head. The difference was back then I didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know God. But, this time I have God on my side.  

The morning I was on the train I was asleep and I woke up, the words came out of my mouth - like it wasn’t even me speaking. The words that just said “You’re about to go through a trial but do not worry, for I am with you”. I knew it was God, but I had no real idea what he was talking about.  Until, it happened, I was attacked. 

I was in the middle of my fasting, I didn’t blame God. It’s not God’s fault at all. Jesus actually reminds us, that in this world - we will face trails, hate and hurt. It’s all apart of a free will world. I just looked to God and thanked him I ended up safe, I knew he was there with me. 

Yesterday,   I was so affected and even today. But, as I prayed, I realised I need to stop breathing life into my pain. I want to stop giving it power and turning it into an essential identity that I couldn’t live without.

And choosing happiness wasn’t just an emotion I feel. It is a set of many decisions i have to take, many arduous roads to cross, and many disappointing thoughts to conquer.

It took me so much time to realize that we don’t get to choose one over the other. We don’t get to say “yes” to pain and “no” to joy. God shows us that too.  But, I  can choose to put my faith in Jesus who leads the way. You see, putting my faith in Jesus - it gives me freedom. He not only shows me the way, but shows me that unforgiveness in my heart can cause  more pain and resentment.  I chose that even though I am feeling pain, I won’t let the enemy use it to steal my joy or keep the wound open that will cause more pain. Heal, accept, move on and do not hold unforgiveness in your heart.

Happiness is a choice, and making that choice takes courage. Jesus, shows us this. 

It takes courage to accept our pain, what doesn’t work, and not let it overshadow our faith for what God has for us.  Actually, as I was praying this morning, I came across this verse. 

2 Timothy 1:7 - For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline. 

Joshua 1:9 - This is my command - be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

It takes courage to see the good days that could be ahead of us.

It takes courage to say “yes” to the unknown, to close that chapter, and put all your trust in God. Trust me, it’s been about four years and I am still on the journey. 

God’s showed me that pain is conditional. We always need a trigger to feel a negative or an unwanted emotion. Our pain is almost always dependent on a person, a memory, an event, or a situation. But happiness, love and forgiveness doesn’t need a trigger. 

Unconditional happiness in a world that’s full of sad uncertainties is possible. It literally takes nothing to take a deep breath, pray,  look outside, look around you, look at yourself, declare scripture over yourself, and put all of yourself into God. This will not only make you happier, but trust me - I know God loves me and he has given me so much. So, when I put my trust into God about my situation right now - it calms the storm. He provides peace above all understanding. He heals my heart. He picks me up, lifts my head and places both of my feet on solid ground.  So, I thank my saviour. 

He is the happiness through the pain. He reminds us that we don’t depend on our feelings but we depend on Jesus. Jesus also reminds us that this  first has to be a decision and you need to surrender yourself to God.  Allow him to take over and watch it shine in the midst of darkness.

Lean in, worship, pray, sing. And worship until you can’t feel the pain, worship until you feel the wave of peace. Declare God’s promise over your life until you have it cemented in your heart.  When the enemy comes and makes you overthink, question and  unleashes negative thoughts - declare who God says you are over him and he will flee. 

I know, you and I are both children of the most High. So declare, fight until the dawn comes.  I’m going to keep my happiness, not matter how much the enemy tries to steal my joy and this is how I will do it. 

I encourage you to listen to this below. I love it and it helps  me all the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRF-4dI2HH4&t=25s

[adventuresofmonique]

[adventuresofmonique]

D. J. TRUMP 🤩🤩🤩

[adventuresofmonique]

How I learnt to form boundaries.

God says in Proverbs 4:24; “Protect your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life”. 

I’ve had my fair share of toxic relationships and some of my friends always remind me of this verse. Some relationships constantly made me  think I was the issue and this lead to some serious mental health triggers.  

After many failed relationships, I am finally happy to be single and just be free. To have a strong relationship with God and the biggest gift I think God is trying to teach me now is boundaries.

Ironically, the firmer the boundaries, the more flexible and generous we can be. 

My first every relationship I had was full of trust and the fulfilment of a void inside of me that someone actually liked me. My first boyfriend, I trusted so much but little did I know that he cheated on me repetitively. I was so innocent, so blindsided for the fact I trusted him so much, I didn’t need to look through his phone.  Until one day at university, I was getting some lunch and wondering why he never messaged me for nearly an entire day, I was cool with it though - he could just be busy.  Then the heart-dropping text of one sentence, that made me feel my heart drop to the ground and just shatter. “It’s not going to work out, we need to break up”. No reasoning, just a random break up.  It wasn’t until later I found out about the dating applications, texts etc.  I was hurt.

Fast forward to today.  Many failed relationships later and I can’t trust any guy, I also think I am not good enough for anyone, who would want to be with me? 

I once had a friend in high school who said I would never get a boyfriend, because who could possibly love me (Certainly, wasn’t a friend). But, the opinion of this one person, has followed me since I was 17. The demon of “You’re not good enough”, “you’re not pretty enough”, ‘You’re boring” etc. It took a toll and what was my way of dealing with it?  

The most UNHEALTHIEST way ever!!   I would start up relationships when I wasn’t ready and then end up breaking up over silly, small things or beat them to the chase and break up with them before they had the chance to even try to bruise my heart. I would nit pick the things I didn’t like and blow it up in my head and just leave.  But, hurt people, hurt people. I was hurting people left, right and centre and it was toxic trait of mine.  However, this lead me to relationships that were so toxic, it damaged me. I was in relationships where what I thought was normal, when it really wasn’t. I didn’t realize this until one friend said - “this isn’t normal”. I had one ex-boyfriend hide my keys and wouldn’t let me go, punch holes in the wall when he didn’t get his way. I would get told “Apologise to me for being ugly”, “You’re nothing but a whore”, “You belong on the streets” and it went on for about 5 years I dealt with this.

UNTIL, I found God again. They say he left the 99 to find the 1 and the night I was going to end it all, he showed up and saved me. I felt like the was the 1 he found in the middle of all this mess, he picked me up. (That story is for another time). But, it lead me to escaping toxic relationships and lead me to seek help, to become healed and identify a toxic relationship before even getting into one again.  

Through all of this i learnt, when you don’t establish boundaries, toxic people will continue to push. You can’t just assume that they will think and love like you do and will stop when they have pushed too far. With these types, they will never draw a line to protect/respect you -- YOU MUST draw and YOU MUST  enforce these yourself. 

Establishing boundaries isn’t just second nature and it isn’t always easy. If you are doing certain things that ‘people please’ your friends, parents, partner, colleagues or even your own boss, sorry to be so blunt but then your boundaries are weak as anything. 

I once had a friend who had literally had everything in her car. Her boot was like Mary Poppins bag, you just stick your hand in and you come out with whatever you need.  She did this because if something came up that someone needed, she had it. She even admitted to me one day that she hated carrying her Mary Poppins bag around in her boot but she felt as if she was expected to have something when someone needed it. 

Having a ‘Mary Poppins’ bag/life for the world, putting up with cheating, abuse, bullying, disrespect or going out to a lunch when you would rather not is perhaps not a huge deal at the moment, but overtime the erosion of personal boundaries has various number of effects.

When you say ‘yes’ to things that you don’t want to do, you increase your risk of growing more exhausted and resentful -- this will end up taking a toll on your mental health and then that’s when the enemy comes to steal your happiness. PROTECT YOUR HEART!

If you go into a relationship trying to fit in with society or please everyone, you’re going to loose even more. Caving into marriage or relationships because you feel behind or you’re getting old tends to be the zero-sum game. In order to assert your needs you needs, it will be expected to come across anger or even disappointment of how situations turned out or even your ex at times. No matter how amicable the situation -- that’s okay. 

They are you ex, their happiness is not your problem. 

This saying above, we have all heard so much - no doubt. But, apply this saying to your friends and family too. Some want you to reconcile and others want you to bury this dude 10 feet deep. However, this is your break up/divorce/loss of friendship not theirs. If they are helping you and making you feel better -- GREAT! If not, distance yourself a little -- get help and move forward. It doesn’t end here. Trust me, I’ve had friends that never helped, but i prayed to God for friends that are real and that’s what he gave me. REAL and Authentic friends - that tell you how it is but will never not help you. My God is so good all the time and all the time God is good. 

I like to call it ‘Pruning’, Gods going to remove some people out of your life and it’s going to hurt and be a little rough, but it’s okay to put yourself first. 

Will some people get mad? yep.  Will some people just leave you high and try? also yes. Were they real friends though? no. 

Some people will hate your boundaries. You not having boundaries have probably served some of your ‘friends’ well, they will be irritated that you no longer bought your ‘Mary Poppins’ bag for whatever they needed. Again, not your problem. And if they withdraw from your life the moment you stop allowing them from using you, do you then really care?  I found out I was way better off. 

So, I had two options. I could keep living my life for other people and on a one way street. Or I could live life on my own terms. This was a big battle, but i started to live life on my own terms and when I made this decision, God set me free.  The bars of the prison were open. I was free. 

I don’t know if you heard of Maya Angelo (Look her up, I love her). But, she said: “you teach people how to treat you, and I prefer they treat you really well”. 

I actually recently read this book called “The Art of extreme self-care” by Cheryl Richardson (link at the bottom of this blog).  She, basically goes through exercises she went through to help her break the chain of her people-pleasing habits. She decided for 30 days, she was going to disappoint one person a day and this would help her enforce her boundaries. Although, she says that this massively increased her anxiety, she goes on to tell that she learnt to stop caring about what other people think and to start caring about what she thought about herself. It’s really helpful actually, I’ve picked up a few lessons myself. I honestly, recommend this read. 

I’ve tired this a few ways myself. Examples are when asking if I would like to donate some money towards a charity at the check out you can simply say “no, thanks”, without explaining why without explaining how you normally give heaps to charity already. 

Just    let     go. 

Doing little things like this, I have started to notice my boundaries are slowly expanding. I said no to certain gatherings without having mad anxiety about it for about two days Change it up though, even with some of my good friends - when they ask if I want to go out for lunch and I know I don’t feel the best anxiety wise, I say ‘no’. 

Slowly, God starts to reveal to you that the people who actually love you, love you no matter what, They understand.  Their love is not conditional on me always saying ‘yes’. 

I am still fairly new to practicing boundaries and sometimes I find it is easy to miss the mark by being too forceful.  I relate back to Proverbs 4:24 when starting a chinwag and being friendly etc. Usually, when I do this, it is generally enough. But, when I deal with bullies, disrespect, that can trigger my past and lead to anxiety I have a shield and this shield protects my heart and this shield maybe praying to God and leaving it at the cross (Which I normally always do), asking God to bless them, open to forgiveness and then there’s also these -- warnings, blocking texts or people, walking away -- this demonstrates that I plan to enforce my boundaries - to protect my heart because what comes into my heart also comes out. 

Lately, when I make mistakes, doing uni assignments and learning a new skill (at the moment I am learning guitar lessons -- music has it’s way of helping me defuse my anxiety) I try and not fault myself for missing the mark where I wanted to be at and i learnt by establishing my boundaries, this comes to no difference, 

I make mistakes all the time, I’m human. I come to realise that it’s okay to make mistakes and i practice self-compassion. I let people who support me know that I am trying a new thing. They know I am working on my boundaries and that if I overshoot the mark, I know they tell me with love. 

What I wrote has helped me and I hope what I’ve expressed can also encourage and help you. 

Praying for you always, 

Love mo. x

BOOK: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-art-of-extreme-self-care-cheryl-richardson/book/9781401952488.html?source=pla&gclid=CjwKCAiA4rGCBhAQEiwAelVti9rw-Kp4XvZINbu3G4lNJeqtVE_zDUxkHmZfc8d3AuQfPUHjblwDfBoCWfEQAvD_BwE

[adventuresofmonique]

““God gave them over…” (Rom.1:24) “God gave them over…” (Rom.1:26) “God gave them over…” (Rom.1:28) Lord, have mercy on us.”

— Rudy Cerda

[adventuresofmonique]

There are all these moments you think you won't survive. And then you survive.

David Levithan