When being Strong becomes your Weakness.

Sometimes I go back in time. I think back to the dark years of my life. I think of what I have overcome and compare it to now.
I was thinking about the nasty places I used to live. The shady people that would come around. The substances that were like a candy bowl left out on the beat up coffee table.
I started laughing reminiscing, as a teenager I would crawl under our trailer with a blow dryer to unthaw the frozen pipes.
Everything was "A Thing". Drama was in my design. I could no more get away from the dysfunction any more than the sun could rid itself of heat.

What was in my make up that said "I am stronger than this?"

Strength isn't birthed from just adversity. I have met some very strong people that lived a functionally healthy upbringing.

I don't even believe that Strength is just overcoming struggles.

• Strength comes from overcoming Ourselves.
• Strength comes from overcoming the pressures of this world, the pressures of our peers, the pressures of our mistakes.
• Strength is tenacity, power, stability and I believe beauty.

Strength comes 2 Fold.
As a hair stylist, I have learned that the hair can have too much strength. When our hair gets damaged we try to condition it. If we add too much protein to the hair in attempts to condition the damaged hair, it becomes brittle. If we add too much moisture to the hair, it becomes wimpy, limpy. BUT, if we have the perfect balance we find our hair healthy again.
Much like conditioning our hair, we can over strengthen ourselves. We think we have to be strong, tough, we think "No one will walk over me." or "I will let them know what I think." We over condition ourselves and become bitter. We become mean in the process. We are so concerned with ourselves we turn many issues into a battle. We end up with a chip on our shoulder, always offened and tough as nails.
But if we are too soft we get walked on, we get taken advantage of and often times to scared to speak up for ourselves.

* We have to be STRONG enough to still be Soft.
This means LOVE. LOVE people where they are, not where YOU WANT them to be.
*Love ourselves enough to be teachable.

Claudia, one of my running partners says "Don't make it a THING." We have deep conversations while running.
When we make it "A thing" it becomes a THING. We get angry, embittered and controlling trying to prove points or over think things. Then they control us. We are actually so STRONG we become WEAK.
We are held hostage to ourselves and our stinking thinking.

In this season of life, I find myself stronger as a person than ever. It isn't about the obstacles in my life that I am overcoming. It is my thoughts, my ideas, my heart.

"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline."

2 Timothy 1:7

• Learning to be STRONG enough to conquer your own voices.
•  Quit allowing your Strength to come from yourself. That's man made Strength.
• Seek Gods Strength, that is powerful and never ending.
• Don't allow your Strength to fool you: you are not strong for not forgiving someone who hurt you, you are strong because you DID forgive them. (Or whatever issue your struggling with.)
• LET GO, Let go of the weights that are holding you down from being the person you were set out to be. (PRIDE)
• LOVE: This is the best exercise for building the perfect balance of Strength, Love allows you to conquer all things and yet still be soft enough to be inviting, welcoming and a light to those who need a little Strength themselves.  

RUNDOWN:
Thursdays I have been doing a summer running club with our XC kids. We had 9 kids today at Indian Springs.
I had kids that took off to run the 5 miles at a 7:30 pace and I had runners trailing behind at a 9:30 pace.
I did my best to run between the kids. I had a hard time catching up to our front runners. What I found worked  was just pacing myself.
I found that if I could pace myself, I could run a fartlek up to the next group to check on them, catch my breath and have enough energy to do it again. I was able to check in all the kids at one point or another.

PACING

1. Pick your GOAL distance before you run. Different distances require different paces.  
2. Warm up so your body is adjusted. Sometimes if we start out too fast we can not figure out why we bottomed out. A warm up allows your body to get prepared.
3. Turn off your music. Listen and feel what your body is telling you at certain paces.
4. Easy up so you can always have a strong FINISH! 

Banana Bread: I made a new recipe, this is AMAZING..NOT HEALTHY, but I think you could tweak it. Here is the LINK. Sour Cream Banana Bread. This recipe makes 4 loaves. I made 9 mini loaves, one of I gave to Claudia who text me #notsharing!

 

My Food for the week is POPCORN. 2 of my favorite snacks are Chocolate and POPCORN.

Serving size 3 cups! 5g of fat, 100mg of sodium, 18gcarbs, 2g protein Purchased this at Target. Krogers has an Organic Popcorn that I love also. It is the Simple Truth Brand, low sodium as well. I can eat a WHOLE bag! ONLY one problem with this bag of popcorn...it is empty!

1. ARE YOU GOOD AT PACING? WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU ADD?
2. HOW DO YOU DEFINE STRENGTH???

Anita~