Emotional Health

Don’t Be Easily Broken: Develop an Indomitable Spirit

Image result for A Black Woman Crying

Although everyone experiences challenges and problems, one has to decide whether he or she will allow those challenges and problems to defeat her or him. Life will continue to present one challenge, one problem, after another; this is an unavoidable fact of life. Understanding this reality, it’s unacceptable to perceive every challenge or problem that emerges as a crisis.

You can talk about “you don’t know my story” and “you don’t know the things I’ve gone through,” but, at some point, you must be frank with yourself: These statements have become self-defeating crutches. I’m not lacking empathy and undervaluing “your story” and the “things you’ve gone through.”

Here’s my question, though: When are you going to stop using your past in ways that inhibit your growth? And I mean true growth.

Growth is not waking up one morning with optimism and the next with pessimism; optimism the following morning and pessimism the next—a depressing vicious cycle. Real growth begins when you truly start holding yourself accountable for your part in why you’re not progressing and breaking or broken.

Stop focusing on what others are and aren’t doing to and for you. Just concentrate on what you need to heal and grow. In fact, authentic self-care commences when one discontinues investing time in critiquing others and invests more time in developing an indomitable spirit.

How are you engaging in authentic self-care when you’re worried about everyone else? Worried about what everyone else is or isn’t doing to and for you. That’s not self-care—that’s being undisciplined.  

You’re on a path to developing an indomitable spirit when you no longer feel it necessary to concern yourself with how others have mistreated and are mistreating you. One gives himself or herself a chance to operate with an indomitable spirit when he or she takes ownership of what is necessary to own, and when he or she focuses on what is essential to be the best version of himself or herself and what is essential to achieve one’s dreams and aspirations.

If everything defeats you, if every challenge or problem overwhelms you, then you will face a harsh truth: You will maintain a defeated spirit until you’ve truly had enough of it.                

Overcoming a defeated spirit begins with acknowledging it. Next, start living a life of real gratitude. Living a life of true gratitude involves appreciating every moment and finding the goodness in every moment.

An indomitable spirit is rooted in gratitude.

When certain thoughts arise and when you make certain comments, ask yourself a critical question: Are these thoughts and comments rooted in gratitude?

Liberate yourself from a defeated spirit by resolving to live a life centered on gratitude. When you’re intentional about living a life centered on gratitude, you’re well on your way to an indomitable spirit.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Say Goodbye to Regret by Bob Santos: A Book Review

Say Goodbye to Regret Bob Santos

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

In Say Goodbye to Regret: Discovering the Secret to a Blessed Life, Bob Santos offers readers powerful advice and inspiration to help them liberate themselves from the prison of their past and poor decisions. Emphasizing that making mistakes is a part of what makes us human, Santos advocates for people to use their past and poor decisions as tools for learning and progress. The book is a reminder of the bible’s practical relevance and significance to our everyday lives. For Santos, a stronger investment in God’s Word, reading it, studying it, and meditating on it, yields better decision-making, decision-making informed by the wisdom of the Word.

Say Goodbye to Regret: Discovering the Secret to a Blessed Life aids readers in understanding how aligning their lives, their ways and thoughts with God’s ways and thoughts empowers them to experience victory over regret. A spirit of regret seeks to incarcerate you, dominate you—inevitably enslaving you to the darkness of depression and despondency. To defeat the spirit of regret, Bob Santos recommends accessing and using God’s love to conquer this deflating spirit.

The author asks readers to answer two valuable questions: “Think back to a regretful decision. What factors led to your poor choice? How might you have done things differently?” (p. 29). Too often we fail to think critically about why we made the decisions we did—whether favorable or unfavorable decisions. Without serious reflection on the decisions we make, we will never grow, never advance to the type of humans we long to be. Critical reflection, therefore, is crucial to breaking free from the bondage of regret and the frustrating web of deception that accompanies it.

In short, I highly recommend this book. As a minister and life coach, I deeply understand the the importance of spiritual health. When a person is not well spiritually, it affects every dimension of his or her being. The spirit of regret is so enslaving that it can completely overtake an individual. This work, however, enables a person struggling with regret to comprehend how to employ the Word of God to defeat the vise-grip and stranglehold of regret. The Word of God is always the answer but one needs to know how to use it triumph over the pain regret inflicts and desires to continue to inflict.

To facilitate the penning of this honest review, Book Crash supplied a copy of this work.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

10 Tips to Improve Your Self-Esteem

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(Photo Credit: The Telegraph)

Numerous people can benefit from a significant improvement in their self-esteem. When you have low self-esteem or unsatisfactory self-esteem, don’t be ashamed; take steps to boost it. You possess the authority necessary to take control of your life. A healthy self-esteem is essential for a healthy life to materialize. Recognizing how important a strong self-esteem is to a productive and fulfilling life, this piece offers ten tips to aid you in strengthening your self-esteem.

1. Take Charge of Your Own Life. This is your life—choose what you want it to do for you. Make life submit to you; don’t allow it to dominate you.

2. Accept the Notion that You Are Responsible for You. When you claim responsibility for your life and are able to own your failures and celebrate your successes, you place yourself on the path to a healthier self-esteem.

3. Reject Those Committed to Destroying You. Surround yourself with people committed to building you up and advancing you. Disconnect from those who consistently attempt to undermine and attack you. Refuse to allow your friends and family to destroy you with their words and actions. If necessary, separate yourself from them.

4. Speak Positive Words to Yourself. People with an unproductive self-esteem constantly speak negative words to themselves. Their thought-life is consumed with self-defeating thoughts and images.

5. Take Calculated Risks. If you’re going to reach your full potential, comfort zones must be eradicated. Comfort zones kill dreams; comfort zones extinguish passions; comfort zones limit possibilities. Never permit the fear of failure to prevent you from tackling a challenge.

6. Discontinue Comparing Yourself to Others. Focus on yourself. Become the best version of yourself possible.

7. Love Yourself. You will never experience true happiness and joy when you fail to love yourself.

8. Be Trustworthy and Loyal. Let your words and actions prove you to be trustworthy and loyal.

9. Win with Grace, Lose with Class. Be a great winner and lose honorably.

10. Be a Giver. Being an authentic giver fills you with joy and dismantles the elements that compose low self-esteem.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison    

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New Beginnings, New Opportunities

Happy Black Woman

(Photo Credit: Mommy Noire)

Sometimes you have to allow yourself to move away from stagnant, declining and decaying spaces to offer yourself new opportunities to reach your highest potential. Too often people’s talents aren’t able to be used or are being wasted in unproductive spaces. Embracing the status quo and/or being overtaken by a spirit of complacency leads people to develop a false consciousness that they’re truly at “home” in these restrictive spaces. When you feel like you’re not growing and aren’t able to maximize your potential, it can be quite useful to consider the spaces you’re occupying.  Are you really happy where you are in life right now?  If you’re not, you may want to contemplate the impact the spaces you frequent or dwell in are having on your ability to experience happiness.

Don’t simply stay in a place to make the people around you happy.  Why would you want to live a miserable life just to make other people happy? Does not your own happiness matter too?  If you’re going to be truly happy and successful, you must have a willingness to take risks.  Find a successful person who never took a risk.  Let me save you some time: you won’t find one.

When you depart from spaces you have frequented or inhabited for a long time, it’s natural to experience some separation anxiety as a result of leaving people you love. Take the necessary time to deal with the impact of this separation anxiety, but don’t lose sight of the true happiness and prosperity you desire to materialize.  At some point, you’re going to have to learn the importance of keeping your emotions in check. Successful people don’t give their emotions the power to rule them; they rule their emotions.  If you allow your emotions to run you, then you will make many emotional decisions; emotional decisions are often poor and damaging decisions.

You may have to try or learn some new things to make room for new beginnings and new opportunities.  Don’t get frustrated with the new thing you have to learn.  You have to understand that the new thing you have to learn is a part of the process of getting to the life you long to live. The path to success is not going to be easy and it’s not going to come without some struggle.  When you muster the courage to pursue new beginnings and new opportunities, you have to develop a resolute mindset to meet your aspirations.  You have to be determined to accomplish your goals no matter what comes your way.

Recognize that there will be people who will attempt to discourage you from pursuing new beginnings and new opportunities, but you must view them as only hindrances.  Don’t permit a single hindrance to stifle your progress in any way.  Keep pushing forward, even if you have to push your hindrances literally out of the way.

Be excited about pursuing new beginnings and new opportunities.  One of the amazing things about life is you never know what great opportunity will come your way.  It’s up to you, however, to engender an environment where new beginnings and new opportunities run to you instead of run away from you.

Life becomes sweeter and sweeter when we’re open to change.  Change can be good for you.  Go ahead and give yourself a chance to be a better you!

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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