Melissa Clark

I have a bad habit of pushing stuff to the back of the refrigerator.  Take out, leftovers in Tupperware, you name it – it’s been pushed to the back.  As I put new groceries in, the old stuff gets forgotten.  Weeks and sometimes (gross, I know) months can go by without me noticing.  When I gather up the courage and determination to finally clean out the fridge, I’m shocked and confused at what I find.  I find something moldy or fuzzy – what was this? Moments pass and then I remember what the food item used to be in its former edible state. 

I believe emotions are much like this refrigerator.  Feeling emotions is messy and oh, so inconvenient.  With little to no time to process and with little to no emotional resiliency, emotions get pushed back or pushed down.  Patterns of ignoring, denial, numbing, and escaping emerge. 

If emotions are ignored and pushed to the back of your mind, heart, and spirit, a build-up happens. If you wait too long, the emotions become distorted and morphed into something you don’t recognize.  Anger left unresolved can evolve into bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness – all corrosive to the heart. Sadness left unresolved can begin to numb all feelings, making joy and happiness feel out of reach or impossible to attain.  

Feeling emotions is messy and like I said so uncomfortable.  

Personally, I resist it at times.  I don’t want to feel it – it hurts, it feels like at any moment I could become swallowed up by it and this is overwhelming.  But, feeling emotions – although hard allows for a feeling of catharsis or cleaning out to happen.  This feeling is like a spring breeze on a summer day – relieving and refreshing.  When emotions are cleared out, there’s more space for life to happen.  Greater joy, more peace. 

Here are a few ideas of how to feel your feelings:

Be honest with yourself – Denying your feelings may feel optimal, but when left ignored, they wreak havoc on your life.  Simply stop what you’re doing, identify what you feeling (here’s a start – sad, mad, glad, hurt, afraid, embarrassed), and validate what you’re feeling (“that makes sense why I am feeling _____). Honesty with yourself goes a long way in processing emotions.

Journaling – offers a special place to put it all out there.  No censoring – just your raw emotions.  If you’re paranoid and don’t want anyone to read it, write on a word doc and then delete it when you’re finished.  Personally, I love being able to go back and read my journals.  They help give me perspective and help me process current events by seeing how I processed past events.

Talk with a friend – A good friend (and y’all know who you are) is therapy for the soul.  We are not meant to live alone.  Connection is an important part of expressing emotions.  Talking with a trusted friend provides a powerful opportunity to find understanding and compassion. 

Pray and experience the healing power of God’s word – My favorite passage of scripture is this: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

Do something physical with your emotions: This may be the hardest for you – Cry. If you’re sad, allow yourself some time to cry.  If you’re angry, find healthy ways to express your anger. 

Don’t reject your emotions, because if you do, you are rejecting a part of yourself. 

Many don’t like this, but we are all emotional creatures.  Some more than others.  But, we have emotions.  Experiencing the painful ones clears the way to experience the more pleasant ones like joy, peace, and happiness. 

Blessings to you,
Melissa 

PS: Check out this podcast episode to learn more about your emotions: How to Deal with How You Feel by Dr. James Merritt you can also check out my podcast page for more amazing episodes.

Challenge the Status Quo

If you’re like most individuals, you grapple with how to shoo away daily distractions in order to get your stuff done. In fact, according to Psychology Today, “20 percent of people chronically avoid difficult tasks and deliberately look for distractions.”This means one-fifth of people struggle to get their stuff done.

What about you? What’s your daily task you put off? Is it a big report, preparing for a presentation, or even small, necessary things like getting to the grocery store?

Are you tired of avoiding tasks? Are you weary of living in a chaotic cycle where circumstances dictate your behaviors and leave you exhausted and disappointed in yourself?

I was.

I was tired of living the same day over and over again, so I compiled a list that has helped me and the hundreds of clients I counsel.

5 Ways to Fight Distractions and Get Stuff Done:

1. Get to bed earlier.

Get the recommended 7–9 hours of sleep. You’re right: this is super basic. And yet, 40 percent of individuals report getting fewer than seven hours of sleep (Gallup). Missing out on sleep equates to missing out on the vital concentration and focus you need to accomplish tasks. Staying up too late increases the likelihood of becoming easily distracted and impairing your judgment.

This week, take notice if a lack of sleep is a culprit toward increased distractions. Then start with a small goal, like getting to bed fifteen minutes earlier. Increase that amount until you’ve met your targeted amount of sleep.

2. Identify the one thing you want or need to focus on.

Contrary to modern belief, your brain can’t multitask. You may brag about being the best multi-tasker around, but your brain is actually shifting gears continuously. Have you ever driven a manual car? Going from one gear to the next causes exhaustion and damages the car.

Instead of grinding your gears and accomplishing little, find the one thing you want or need to get done. Commit to accomplishing that one thing. If you need to disconnect from the internet, put your phone away or hop off social media for the necessary amount of time. Fix your eyes on that one thing. This will help you create a habit of laser-like focus. What you look at or focus on becomes a beacon for your brain, thereby becoming the primary mission for your brain.

3. Write down the top three things you need to do the night before.

If you went to Vegas to gamble and I directed you to a table that paid out 95 percent of the time, I bet (pun intended) you’d hang out there for the weekend. Writing your goals down is like that. You are 95 percent more likely to achieve your goals when you write them down. Telling a friend intensifies those odds.

I recommend getting these tasks done first, if possible. You’ll feel more confident and determined because you’ve already achieved the most important things for your day. You won’t be using energy in procrastinating, which will provide even more energy to advance in your daily tasks.

4. Identify the deeper issue by asking yourself a few questions:

Is this a pattern? If it is, identify the pattern’s triggers.

Are you afraid of failing?  Or is this something you need help with or more training and education? When you identify the cause of your behavior, you advance a major step forward in tackling the problem.

Ask yourself, “am I setting unrealistic expectations for myself”? We tend to overestimate what we can get accomplished in a day but underestimate what’s achievable in the moment. Challenge yourself to set small, realistic goals.

5. Find times to recalibrate your day.

For instance, use key times like noon, 3 p.m., or 6 p.m. to recenter yourself. Set your phone’s alarm to go off a few times a day as a reminder. This is a great way to start a new habit. Sometimes, we become habituated to distractions, which makes it easier to become distracted. Setting an alarm to remind you to get back on task will cue your brain to create a new habit of staying focused.

Distractions will happen. True confession: I just opened up Chrome to do a little online shopping. Yes, I got distracted. Despite a looming deadline whispering the many things I still need to do, my mind craved a break. Breaks are actually a good thing—as long as they’re accompanied with a few parameters. You may want to set a timer to prompt you to return to your project.

Give yourself permission to do the things you like, from online shopping to social media to chatting with a friend. When you maneuver through the daily distractions and get your stuff done, you’ll find that you actually have more time to do what you love.

Be honest with yourself. Be kind. Set realistic expectations. Don’t be afraid to mix things up and try things a new way. Fewer distractions means getting more done, and getting more done may mean more time to do the things you like—and who wouldn’t want that?

Blessings to you,
Melissa 

I don’t know about you but procrastination has to be one of the most frustrating behavior traits.

Think about it, you go to bed determined to wake up early and exercise.  Only to find yourself hitting the snooze button multiple times leaving you only a few minutes to spare frantically brushing your teeth and throwing on something clean (at least you hope so).

So frustrating.

Or, you promise yourself that you will write that boring report or answer emails taunting you from your inbox.  Only to find yourself surfing on-line sales or grabbing a midday snack.

I love this quote, “procrastination is like a credit card, lots of fun until you get the bill.”

Yassss.  It feels good to avoid dreaded tasks until the task becomes so large, so big that they feel impossible. 

Years go by and the accomplishments you wanted to achieve feel like a distant memory residing in the land of ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda.”

This is the realization I’ve been having.  As days turn into weeks.  And weeks morph into months, I’m disturbed by how quickly time flies.  You too…right?!?  I mean, we are weeks away from the holidays.  (Sorry, about that).

So, what’s a normal, average person to do? We don’t have endless resources or assistants making life easier.  We only have ourselves and the million things to do and those few things that we really want to do, those passions and desires of our heart.

I think I may have a solution.

DTNT

Do the next thing.

You want to run a marathon? Start by running a mile.

You want to go back to school? Enroll in a class.

Determine your end goal, then like a maze work backwards.

Perfectionism and unrealistic expectations produce procrastination.  

Perfectionism and unrealistic expectations is the parents of procrastination. 

Your desire for things to be just right, create a destructive pattern to your dreams, passions, and desires.  Justin and I were married 5 years before we had kids.  Somehow waiting for us to be ready to be parents.  One day we realized that ship was not going to dock.  We had to jump in the choppy, perilous waters of parenting and trust that we could raise a child. 

If you wait for perfect conditions, you will watch your life pass you by.  Instead, do the next thing. Don’t wait for you to be perfect or to be perfect, take a step towards your goals.  Even if you mess up, especially if you mess up.  Failure isn’t to be avoided but procrastination is.

Procrastination is the graveyard of your dreams.

Today, however small or seemingly insignificant do the next thing.

What if you start doing the next thing and then you tell your co-worker about it or a friend. I promise you, you’ll create change not only for yourself but those around you.

Let me know!  How are you doing the next thing? Me? I’m working a little here and there on blogs, speaking engagements, and my book.  Sure, I’d love to have more time, finish everything all at once.  I’m working on thinking differently about the small things.  Instead of minimizing them, I’m doing them.  I admit, this isn’t my nature so it doesn’t come easy or consistently.  But, I’m working on it.  Little by little.  Bit by bit.  

Let’s do the next thing together. 

Blessings to you,
Melissa 

Needing some help pursuing your goals, I can help! Check out my coaching services.

Last night my daughter, Averie encountered someone or something lurking about in her room.  I knew nothing was in her room.  But she believed otherwise.  I don’t know what she saw in those shadows, but to her it might as well have been Freddy Kruger himself. 

I understand my daughter’s fears.  From an early age, I worried constantly.  My fears would be so intense at times, I would have stomach pains, sleepless nights, and dread for the day ahead.  Fears would vary from something happening to my parents to someone breaking into our home to some sort of illness.  Notice the vagueness in these fears, nothing specific.  

About this time last year, I was running in our neighborhood.  As clearly as one can hear God (not really an audible voice, more like an understanding that what I’m feeling isn’t coming from me), I heard him say “Melissa, you cannot go where I want to take you if fear is coming along.”

I thought, wow this is awesome.  God is going to take away all my fears.  Little did, I know that over the course of the next several months I would encounter more valid reasons to be afraid than ever before…enter acute pancreatitis in our life. 

Because I had that phrase from God, I became more intentional and mindful about not having fear take up residence in my heart.  This is really difficult because it requires choice after choice.   Sometimes it seems easier to just let the fear in and worry for a few minutes.  But, in times past I was finding myself letting my imagination run wild turning into a feature length movie.

When I did this, fear corroded my faith and began to distort my thinking.  Have you ever wondered how rust works? It insidiously takes over destroying metal and actually breaking it off.  That’s what fear does, in a sense, breaks our thinking.

Dr. Caroline Leaf states, “thoughts are real, physical things that occupy mental real estate.”  When I dwell on my fears, I am thinking about the worst.  Things that may never happen.  Even if the worst were to happen, dwelling on them does absolutely nothing for me. 

The opposite of fear is faith and truth. No better source for truth, than in God’s Word.  The Bible has about 365 scriptures talking about fear.  Its like God knew that everyday we would have to face some kind of fear.  His word is life and shatters fears.  

Here a few of my favorite scriptures dealing with fear:

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and strong mind.”

Philippians 4:6-7 “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”

I Peter 5:7 “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”

Last night, I told Averie she had choice. A choice, not to let fear in your heart. A choice to let faith and truth into your heart.  With your fears, what will you choose? 

Blessings to you,
Melissa

For years, I didn’t feel good enough because I didn’t look like the celebrities I watched in movies or the models I saw in magazines.  I would actually dread buying groceries because I knew what would taunt me as I unloaded my food items. My skin – not as smooth, clothes – not as stylish, body – not as thin.  All I saw were differences. In my eyes, different meant bad, not good enough, ugly. 

When you don’t value yourself – you don’t take care of yourself.  Think about it, do you protect your garbage? Worry about it, guard it? No, because trash doesn’t possess value.

I saw myself as less than, like trash, junk, a waste. I didn’t value myself, therefore, I didn’t take care of myself.  This led to a dark season in my life.  Shame became my garment of choice. Anger seethed through me. Depression sank over me. Food ruled me.

You might be asking, all this because I didn’t look like a magazine cover? Magazines and television represented only one part of the equation.  I felt enormous pressure to be thin.  Our society values thinness so much that the term thinspiration has been coined. There are tribes of individuals who aspire to the Thin Commandments, such commands include: thou shall not eat food without feeling guilty, what the scale says is the most important thing, and you can never be too thin (lies, lies, and more lies).

My Eating disorder:

I held onto these values.  Gripped so tightly, believing that if I could achieve thinness – then, and only then, would I be good enough. When I couldn’t measure up and keep up (i.e. I would eat food), I felt like a failure.  My identity became rooted in what I ate and how I looked.

Food was no longer something I consumed, food began to consume me. I went from restricting one meal, then two, then days would slip by with eating nothing.  When I would eat, the food felt like bricks in my stomach.  After I ate, my thoughts quickly turned to how could I get the food out of me.

I remember laying on the floor in the bathroom near the toilet in tears.  Curled up in a ball, weeping because I couldn’t get myself to throw-up. Afterward, feeling double the defeat and thinking, I can’t even throw up right…what is wrong with me?

Eating disorders don’t always stem from negative body images.  But, mine did.

I wanted to be thin at any cost.  I didn’t care about my health or mental well-being. Thinness became my obsession.  Morning, noon, and night thoughts of food and losing weight consumed me. I believed that if I could get to a certain weight, that I would then be able to feel good. I did get to my weight goals, but this only spurred on my pursuit for further weight loss. The compliments I received fueled me as much as the hunger pains I felt. In my sad state of mind, the feedback and feelings equated to success. 

How I found Hope:

Recovery didn’t happen for me overnight.  It rarely does.  What I discovered through decades of prayer, hard work, counseling, and self-discovery is that I am worthy.  I am valuable.  I am beautiful (this one is still hard to believe some days).  Not because of my size, or make-up, or any other external thing – I am these qualities because that’s how God made me. Good news, this isn’t just how He made me – This is how he made you too.  As I began to embrace this truth, the obsession became less and less.  Some days the battle still rages, but now I have the tools to deal with the lies.

You are His masterpiece, His craftsmanship, His handiwork.  Don’t be ashamed of how God made you. You may be bigger or smaller, taller or shorter, lighter or darker.  I can assure you, your worth doesn’t hinge on your waist size.  Your worth is deeply rooted in the fact you are made in God’s image.

Celebrate Him today by celebrating you!

Blessings to you,

Melissa

*Eating disorders are a real thing.  In fact, this is the most deadly of all mental disorders.  You don’t have to be emaciated to have an eating disorder.  If you struggle with food, are obsessed with what you eat or how you look, reach out for help.  Don’t go at this alone.  There is hope – recovery is possible.