Applications For The Week Of December 5, 2012

Three applications to work with this week — each one targeting a different layer of the inner life. Work with them one at a time, or notice how they connect. All three point toward the same thing: greater awareness of what is happening inside you, and a deeper relationship with your Creator.

1. Look for Destructive Thinking

This week, watch for the moments when you are finding fault with yourself — tearing yourself down from the inside. This voice is quiet, fast, and often disguised as honest self-assessment. But there is a difference between honest self-reflection and destructive self-talk. The destructive voice does not help you grow; it simply diminishes you.

Remember: you can talk with God and be with God at the same time as any other activity. You do not need silence or a special moment to be in connection. That means at the exact moment the destructive voice rises, you can bring God into it. Ask Him to replace the distorted image with the truth of who you actually are. Balanced thoughts come from walking with your Creator — not from trying harder to think positively on your own.

2. Find the Ways Your Soul Is Taken Without Your Consent

Watch for the subtle things this week that drain your peace without you noticing. The person who gives you the cold shoulder. The passive-aggressive remark. The environment that slowly pulls you down. The internal habits — the seven deadly sins in their everyday, invisible forms — that chip away at your sense of self and connection.

Your soul can be taken from you in moments so quiet you almost miss them. But once you develop awareness of it, you begin to notice the energy shift. Something felt different after that interaction. Something inside went flat after that thought. That awareness is the beginning of protecting what is yours.

3. Ask Your Creator to Help You Listen Deeply

Ask your Creator to make you as willing to listen as the dying can be. That phrase is powerful — it means a quality of listening that has dropped all agenda, all defense, all need to be right. Listening as if what you are about to hear might save your life.

A practical key to deeper listening: pay attention to the beginning and end of what someone is saying. The P’s at the start of the sentence and the S’s at the end. What comes first and last often contains what is most essential — with the core of the message living in between. When you learn to catch those bookends, you start to hear everything in the middle that you were missing before.