Category: Empowerment
Your Smile vs. Your Pain
Its that time of year again when we open our hearts and shine the light of gratitude for what we have and reach out to help others in need. But what happens when your own spirit has lost its shine and your emotions are not where they should be. Feelings of guilt begin to manifest as you realize your obvious moment of selfishness. How can you be thinking of yourself and your own woes during this time of thanksgiving?
What do you do when I’m the outside, you have it all together but on the inside you are broken all the way through?
Understand that this is not something that just happened but rather the result of many days, perhaps weeks, months and/or year that you have neglected to tend to yourself. It just so happened a that it chose to show up at this time. So where do you go from here?
First of all embrace the notion that you need to make yourself a priority in your own life. Your mind, body, and spirit must be nurtured in order for your life to reflect what you truly want.
Secondly, realize that it’s ok to feel a little off balance. This is the acknowledgement that something needs to change. Without being able to tap into those emotions, people tend to remain in a state where there is no forward movement.
Thirdly, you must develop the capacity to open up your spirit to the possibilities. Greatness will come but it may be with great struggle and pain. You must embrace the fact that there is more to your life then what is happening in this current state.
Finally, if you are stuck in a state of unrest, struggle and even feelings of defeat, know that there is a brighter day coming. We may be tossed by the wind and beat down by life experiences, but we can get up again.
Don’t worry, if you find yourself in this state often, feeling not as happy and at peace as you desire, know that this is just a reminder that there is something greater for you. It will depend on you as to when you will truly embrace who you are becoming in spite of your pain.
Find the joy in each day. Change what you need to change. Think about those things that bring you happiness. Do the things that bring you the most peace. In order for your life to reflect love, you must learn to love yourself. You do this by taking special care to make yourself a priority. Then and only then will your outward appearance and your inward emotions be in sync.
©️Kim Seymore -Inspired Serenity by Kim Seymore November 2018
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How Should You Proceed?
Growth can be such a strange thing. Especially when your circumstances makes you wonder if you have grown at all. Let’s face it, we all come to the point every now and then when we feel that we are stuck and can’t seem to find our way out.
If things in your world have got you at a stand still and you are wondering how to proceed. take.note of the following.
The beauty that is in you IS you. It should reflect in everything that you say and do. The hurts, disappointments, frustrations and setbacks should never be aloud to determine your presence in any situation.
Proceed through any uncomfortable or undesirable situation with caution. But do not allow fear to overtake you and certainly do not allow the judgement of others to stifle who you are.
Stay firmly planted in what you believe and stand up for yourself with your morals and values as the foundation. Refuse to conceal your talents, gifts and your contribution to the world.
How you proceed should always reflect the beauty of who you are which is the rue essence of who you were created to be and what you were created to do.
©️Kimberly Seymore June 2018
When It Seems Like Too Much
At some time or another, we may all experience great joy and happiness and also great pain and sadness. While the highs fill our spirits and fuel our hopes, the lows threaten our resolve and accompany that emptiness in the pit of our stomachs that keeps us in a constant state of anxiety.
While one moment you experience a brief calm, the next moment you are overtaken by something so strong that you begin to wonder if you will get through it. You know the pain: the death of a loved one, discord within your relationship, a child gone off course, loss of a job, disappointing news, financial struggles, the list goes on. Whatever your experience, it is an unmistakable feeling that things are not lining up.
Perhaps the most gut wrenching part is that in many cases, you have no answers and seemingly no control over the situation. In the night hours as you cry and pray, wondering what the outcome will be, you allow yourself to become more and more consumed with the problem.
A relative once told me that there is nothing that will come your way that you cannot handle. But in times of struggle, it is difficult to think or even believe that this too shall pass and that the promises of God will prevail.
What I have learned in times of struggle is that regardless of what you do, the hard times will come and they will come with a vengeance without any kind of concern for you, your family, who you are, or where you are trying to go. It just works to destroy, EVERYTHING. Once you come to terms with the fact that things will happen that threaten to take your very breath away., you can begin to prepare yourself.
Below are a few things that I have learned throughout the years as I have gone through struggles of my own:
1. Develop and maintain a strong relationship with God. Study the word and prayer often
2. Some things will only be resolved through fasting and praying
3. Be a light to those around you and an example of Gods word EVERYDAY
4. Make sure that you are communing with other believes
5. Share the word with your children and make sure that everyone in your house is on the same page
6. Silence the noise in your life to hear the voice of God
7. Have Faith and believe
8. Find a few go to scriptures that you can reflect on when the feeling in the pit of your stomach comes
9. Know the promises of God
10. Never give up on what you know to be true through God’s word
©️ May 2018 Kim Seymore
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If You Could Relive
Have you ever looked back and thought about what you would do differently if you could relive a particular time frame in your life? It’s quite interesting to think that if you would have simply made another choice, you would have ultimately experienced a different level of love, peace and joy. The world has offered you that which aligned with the choices that you made. The good, the bad, the ugly; it’s your life and you are living it.
While you may not be able to go back in time and right your wrongs, make different decisions., avoid the pain, escape the hurt, and ignore the wounds, you can start each day anew. It is true that your past can certainly provide the framework for your future. It’s up to you how you want to live it and what direction you chose to go. Yes, we all wish that we could have done something differently, but the fact of the matter is, there are no easy escapes and few opportunities to bow out. We can, however, decide how we want our lives to go from here on out and take the necessary steps to make it happen.
The past is already gone. Our present is our opportunity and the future can be the fruition of our hopes and dreams. So be settled in your mind that you cannot go back, but you can start to pattern your life today around what you desire for your life to be and where you want to go
©️April 2018 Kim Seymore
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Broken
You would think that if you were broken you would know it. You would recognize that you are operating at less than your best and that you are not as you used to be. You could simply determine that something is not quite right and that you have allowed your mind, emotions, and spirit to take a nose dive. With all of these realities, certainly, you would know, right?
The thing about being broken is that you can operate in your everyday life, take care of all of your responsibilities and keep your priorities in check and still be broken.
Brokenness is a state. You can go in and out depending on the situation. All too often, when we are broken, we become used to the emotions and the mindset that is associated with this state that it become normal; so normal that we fail to realize that we are not only broken, but we are standing in our own way of recovery and healing.
As we begin to find the reason for our brokenness, it would seem obvious that it is those things and people around us that have brought such a dark shadow over our lives. The hurt becomes so great and the pain so deep that there has to be an outside force that are at the controls of our deep agony rather than something deep within.
Yes! That tangible thing or person has to be the culprit. Beside, we would not in our right minds inflict this grueling pain on ourselves, would we?
Your brokenness grips you and holds on tight at the most inopportune moments of your life. Yes you can work, yes you can function, yes you can pretend like everything is ok. But deep down within you are not ok.
When you might ask will it get better.
The tides will turn when you come back to the foundation of your relationship with God. You must connect with Him to even get an idea of what this is all about. You have to sacrifice so that you can be more in tune with what He wants to say to you in the midst of your struggle.
You must be open to allow His Spirit to penetrate your soul. This is when the process of healing begins. Regardless of who or what you think may have contributed to the pain that you are feeling, it is you who decides how you will respond. Your pain, your hurt, your brokenness is deeply rooted in how you have chosen to respond to life’s challenges. It is about how you are wired and how you allow life situations to affect you.
You must be prayed up and armed for every fight. Take no fight lightly. When you are not prepared, you walk in blindly and fight without the proper tools. The scripture tells us that in this life we will have troubles (John 16:33), but we don’t have to fight them alone.
The only person that we can change is ourselves and there are many things that go on in our lives that we can not control. But we simply can’t win any fight with the right tools.
It is so important to note that many people go through their everyday lives not even realizing they are in a fight. We go about our daily lives as if everything is the same every day. We treat every person the same and do everything the same. We fail to realize that yesterday was not the same kind of fight that you are in today . Last Tuesday required you to pray a little harder than the Tuesday before, but today has brought in so much turmoil that you must get on the prayer line, fast and stay in your knees praying,
You can’t get complacent in your walk with Christ. He is the only one who can heal your brokenness. The issue is not with the people and things around you. The issue is within you. You must be healed so that you are better able to fight. That true, real healing only comes from God. So when you finally get to the point and you know that you are broken, find your way back to Christ, that is where your healing lies.
©️March 2018 Kim Seymore
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Set the Tone
What makes life such a challenge is that we are not always on target with our goals. Sometimes we move through our days thinking we are working our plan but fail to realize we have fallen short of what we said we were going to do. While we spend our time setting goals and outlining our plan, frustrations run high when we see that we are still in the same place we were before.
How does this happen?
Each day is a new day and regardless of what plan you have put in place, if you do wake up every morning and fail to get things in order in your mind and spirit you may find that you will struggle.
Setting your intentions for each day is essential if you plan to succeed. Each new day brings ups and downs that will threaten your very existence in the environment that you live in. At any given moment you can face a trial, a conflict, or some other unfortunate situation.
Having set your intention for your day helps you to stay focused in spite of what comes your way. What do you want to accomplish in any given day? What tasks do you need to complete? How will you show up in the world?
Basically, you will decide how you will show up in your world each day.
If you do this, when people and things come your way and threaten your peace, you will be prepared because you will have already decided what your day will be like. Once you declare how your day will go, you can choose how to respond to whatever unfolds around you.
So going forward, without hesitation, set the tone for your day and watch your goals get accomplished and the seeds of your dreams take root as you continue to aspire to live the life of your dreams.
©️March 2018 Inspired Serenity by Kim Seymore
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The Peace You Can Control
It is easy to become wrapped up in someone else’s drama. Perhaps the most difficult part is finding your way out of the mess you got yourself in. Your time is no longer your time as you spend the time that you do have on solving someone else’s problems.
All of this can take a toll on your social, emotional, mental and physical state. You have to get to a place where you can separate your life, your hopes, and your dreams from that of the people that you have jumped out in the middle of the ocean without a life jacket to save.
There is the peace that you hope for, which shows up in your mind as you become more and more overwhelmed with your present situation.
Then there is the peace that you can have if you go after it. There will come a time when you will need to separate yourself from those that are not going in the same direction that you are. It’s one thing to lend a helping hand to someone who reaches out to you, but when they don’t do the work to change their own circumstances, they can pull you down with them. This is when your peace is interrupted.
Regain your strength to stand up for what matters in your life. The peace you can control speaks volumes to how well you know yourself and your level of self love and self respect. When you find yourself living in someone else’s drama and your life turns chaotic, set some parameters in place.
Say ‘no’.
Speak up.
Make yourself a priority.
Hold people accountable for their own stuff.
Do more of what you love.
Create the life you have always dreamed of with space to grow.
The peace you can control speaks to your spirit giving you the incomparable feeling of hope love and joy right where you are. Learn how to make more opportunities in your life for these moments. If nothing else, when things become a bit challenging in your life, you will know how to bring yourself to a place of resolve.
©️ February 2018 Kim Seymore Inspired Serenity by Kim Seymore
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The Silent Treatment
If you are like many other women, you may or may not have experienced times when you just flat out refused to talk to someone close to you. Whether it was a spouse, child, sibling, or friend, we learned the art of handing down the punishment of ‘you don’t get to speak to me until I’m ready to speak to you’ (aka silent treatment).
Let’s face it, you took pride in you hard work at getting your point across without a single word. By the way, what was your point? Oh yes, ‘you cannot treat or speak to me just any kind of way’. And how did you communicate thus message, Ahh yes, by being silent.
The oxymoron of the ‘silent treatment’ is that we are actually expecting it to take the place of the communication that is necessary in relationships. The silent treatment is meant to punish the offender. It is the hope of the one giving the silent treatment that their offender would not only notice that the atmosphere has become strained but also to be able to somehow connect it to the infraction that preceded the silence.
Once they have made the connections then, still without a word, the offender must piece it all together accurately to thoroughly understand where they went wrong, what they should have done differently and how they can make sure to never make the same mistake again,
In addition they are to be able to gauge your feelings while at the same time making up for what they did wrong.
The truth of the matter is, while you may feel you have every right to be angry, disappointed, and/or frustrated, silence alone simply cannot communicate everything that needs to be said.
While the silent treatment drives the point home that you are beyond tolerant at that moment, it cannot and will not communicate what you can say with your own words.
This passive aggressive approach to handling an issue does the opposite of what one hopes to accomplish. When you are silent, you literally have no voice. Your thoughts, ideas, and options cannot be heard not understood.
The one who has offended you may takes a very different stance from what you had hoped to accomplish. Your silence may communicate that it is simply okay to continue to perform the action that drove you to this point. It may give them an out; an excuse to continue the behavior. It clouds the atmosphere with misunderstandings about why there is even silence. Finally, you loose respect when you choose not to speak what is necessary.
So the next time that you want to handle a conflict or other situation with silence; think again. Choose to speak your truth so that those around you will have a clear understanding of who you are and what you will and will not accept in your life. There is just something about verbalizing who we truly are that has power. It communicates self love and really makes us feel good about ourselves.
©️2018 Kim Seymore Inspired Serenity by Kim Seymore
How Single Moms Survive
Single moms have had a place in our society for many years. While the challenges remain difficult, many women have found their way and still manage to raise smart, head strong individuals with college degrees and promising careers; but not without a fight.
The first task is to get yourself to a place where you don’t feel sorry for yourself because your husband or boyfriend left you. You can’t spend forever sulking in your hurt, pain and misery. It would not be wise to try to get revenge or think up some plan to ruin his life. You just don’t have that kind of time. While you are contemplating payback, your child or children are growing up and need you to focus on them.
Of course you must work on yourself, find ways to improve your self esteem and self confidence. Remember your worth, know your gifts, remain confident in who you are becoming. What we sometimes forget is that our children are watching. Regardless of their age or their ability to understand what is going on, they are learning from you how to exist in their world. You must set the example of how to handle joy, sadness, disappointment, conflict and any other life issue that comes your way. Model it because one day it will be their life.
Once you get over yourself and become clear that this is not about you, the work begins.
Plan, organize and schedule your day. Include your children’s in school and out of school activities as well as your responsibilities at work, home and any other area in your life. Consider an hour by hour schedule, weekly planner or checklist method; whatever works for you.
Make sure that your children are involved in activities, clubs, sports, something that will not only keep them from idle time but will enrich their experience and teach them things like teamwork, diversity, and self confidence
Attend their events regardless of what you have going on. Go to the games, the performance, the concerts, even the practices. Even if they don’t say it. It will mean the world to them to see mom there.
Put routines and expectations in place at home. Make chores everyone’s responsibility. Set aside a time for homework, games, conversation and even a little tv watching as a family
Don’t underestimate the power of teaching at home. Discuss homework with your child. Read with and to them. Talk about friends and how to handle certain situations. Share relevant and age appropriate personal experiences to let them know they are not alone. If you have teens or pre teens, tackle those rough conversations about sex, drugs, peer pressure, alcohol and every other relevant issue.
Make sure they are aware of where your priorities lie and what you values. You teach children good morals and values by what you model. While I cannot tell you what you should value as you will determine that on your own, you should focus on those things that will help your children to be successful in life. For example, getting a good education and cultivating healthy relationships are extremely important in today’s society.
Depending on your situation you will need to be comfortable talking about their absent parent. If you are co-parenting, make sure that if possible both you and the father are on the same page with how to answer question about what happened and why you are not together. If the father is not in the picture at all, prepare what will you say to your children when they ask. It is absolutely not okay to bash the father in any circumstance. Regardless of how or why you came to be a single parent, your child should not be brought down by your personal opinions and feeling about the other parent. If for some reason, your break up was because it was no longer safe to remain in the relationship, then when the time is appropriate and with additional expert advice from a trust professional, decide when to share that information.
Managing single parenting and work or running a business is a huge challenge and can leave you worn out and exhausted daily. From grocery shopping to cleaning up the house and keeping order in your house to attending every activity for each child, you will certainly feel the pressure and sometimes the pain. Prioritizing and managing your time is the best solution
While I am mentioning this last it is definitely us not least. It is the most important thing that you will do in this process and any other for that matter. Keeping a relationship with God will help you in times of loneliness, frustration, and disappointment. It will help keep you balanced and focused on what is important. It will keep you sane when you feel you are losing your mind. This relationship is the most important relationship of your life as it will set the foundation for all of the others. Involve your children as you continue to grow. They too must understand the relevance of having God in their lives.
So how do single moms do it? One second, one minute, one day at a time. While I cannot promise you a bed a roses, these tips should help you keep your eyes on the goal: raising healthy, responsible and competent adults.
Something important to remember is YOU. While you don’t have the time to feel sorry for yourself for being in this situation, you do need to take care of your self. The most valuable time that you may have in your day outside of spending time with your children is ME TIME. Make sure your nightly routine includes time for yourself. Set a bed time for the children at a decent time so that the house will be totally quiet. Use this time to pray, rejuvenate, breathe, take a warm bath. regroup, reflect, rest and prepare for the next day.
Single moms have been making it happen for years and you can too. So gear up, get ready, and stand up to the challenge. Your children deserve nothing less.
©️ 2018 Inspired Serenity by Kim Seymore
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