Archives For Self care

Personal growth and refreshment

February 28, 2011 — 3 Comments

Two things that are extremely important to me are personal growth and personal refreshment. I want to be an ongoing learner and one great way to do this is through attending conferences.  I also recognize my limits and I know if I don’t take care of myself physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally I am not going to be in a good place.

So, when I get an opportunity to do both at the same time I take advantage of the opportunity.  Today, my wife and I are beginning the second leg of our journey to attend Catalyst West in Irvine, California.  After church yesterday, we drove from Port Hardy to Victoria (it was a nasty drive with lots of snow and heavy rain).  This afternoon we are getting on a plane and flying from Victoria, BC  to Santa Anna, CA.

I am really excited about this conference.  There is such a huge line up of great speakers.  A few that I am looking forward to are:

If you are going to be at Catalyst West I would love to connect with you! Look for the guy in the red Canada jacket. :)

While we are in California we will be able to enjoy some time of personal refreshment too.   We are are going to be staying with Lauren’s sister, husband and new baby.  It is always great to connect with family.

Of course, you can’t go to Southern California without visiting Mickey Mouse. And to top the trip off we are going to watch the Vancouver Canucks play the Anahiem Ducks (this was my birthday present from my wonderful wife:)

We are so blessed to be able to enjoy these incredible opportunities for personal growth and refreshment.

While I am away I have a few guest blogger’s lined up.  These are blogger’s that I highly respect.  They have definitely been catalysts in my life and ministry and a source of personal refreshment too.  Please show them some love on their days!

Tuesday: Jason from Connecting to Impact

Wednesday: Michael from Untitled

Friday: Scott from Serving Strong

What do you do for personal growth and refreshment?

In Leadership, Self care
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One year later . . .

May 15, 2008 — 1 Comment

It is hard for me to believe, but it was one year ago today that I was told by the doctor that I NEEDED to take a medical leave. I remember the events that led up to that moment very vividly. Back in February of 2007, after many months of not sleeping well and feeling run down, I finally (after much convincing from my wife) went to the doctor. It was at this initial meeting that the doctor diagnosed me with very high blood pressure. That initial meeting led to many more in the following months until the doctor finally put me on medical leave.

In reality, my high blood pressure was just a symptom of what was going on internally in me at the time. I was taking on more than I needed to (mentally, emotionally and spiritually) in my ministry and in my personal life and it was affecting every aspect of my life. As I look back to the state that I was in a year ago, I recognize that I was a very UNHEALTHY individual in many ways. I am not going to go into those again as I have discussed them in previous posts .

I am very thankful for where I am today. I know that I have a LOT more growing and maturing to do but I can look back and see that I am not the same person I was a year ago. The last couple of years have definitely been the hardest and most painful years of my life BUT I am thankful that God has used these hard and painful times to bring about the changes that were needed in my life!

In Leadership, Personal growth, Self care
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A Sabbath day

May 8, 2008 — Leave a comment

About 6 months ago I started taking two days off a week. Shortly after doing this I began to practice a Sabbath day. This has been going GREAT for me! It has definitely helped me feel more rested and refreshed each week. My usual Sabbath day has been Friday. This week I switched from Friday to today. I realized that tomorrow was not going to be a good Sabbath day for me because I had some other commitments and I have been fighting an ongoing headache all week. I needed to take a break to try to recover from that.

Some people have asked me what I include or don’t include in my Sabbath day. So here’s what I do. First, here are some of things that I include:

  • Rest: This is a big part of my Sabbath day. Today I took a two hour nap. :) It is nice to take the time to just stop and rest. I know that this has been difficult for me in the past.
  • Enjoyment: We do things that bring joy to our lives. This can be different things every week. One of these things is going for a walk. Today on our walk we stopped at the park. At the park, we spent some time watching the eagles. It was incredible today. I have never seen so many eagles at one time. There had to have been at least 25 eagles flying around. It was so awesome! It was like God was saying: “Enjoy!”

Here are some of the things that I don’t include:

  • Work: The whole point of this day is to take time off from work. This would include house work and church work. I do my best to not do anything work related. We try to have everything done around the house the day before and I am usually all done at the church by the time I come on Thursdays.
  • Errands: I leave these for my second day off. Sometimes this isn’t totally possible to do but I try my hardest.

I am still trying to refine my Sabbath day. It is a work in process. Do you take a Sabbath day? If so, what do you include in yours?

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In Personal growth, Self care
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I feel GOOD!

March 6, 2008 — 5 Comments

In the words of James Brown “I FEEL GOOD!!” I went to the doctor yesterday and I was able to drop one more of my blood pressure medications. I am now down to just one and within two months (if I can continue to maintain my blood pressure) I will be completely off ALL blood pressure medication! I am very excited about this. I know that the biggest reason for my decrease in blood pressure is my weight loss. Since January 1st I have lost 18 pounds!! Buying the treadmill was by far the BEST investment I have ever made. I have been able to discipline myself to walking/running on it for about 2 miles a day. My goal is to lose 40 pounds so I am almost half way there.

I am also feeling good emotionally as well – probably the best I have felt all my life. Becoming more emotionally healthy has been an incredible journey for me and I know that I still have a LONG way to go. I have started to read Peter Scazzero’s other book on becoming emotionally healthy called “The Emotionally Healthy Church.” It is very similar to “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” but its focus is different.

Today, in my reading, I came across an inventory of emotional maturity. The inventory measures emotional maturity in 7 different areas: general formation and discipleship, looking beneath the surface, breaking the power of the past, living in brokenness and vulnerability, accepting the gift of limits, embracing grieving and loss and making incarnation your model for loving well. At the end of the inventory you can see whether you are an emotional infant, an emotional child, an emotional adolescent or an emotional adult in these areas.

In the spirit of becoming more emotionally healthy, here are my results. General formation and discipleship – about half way up the scale of an emotional adult; Looking beneath the surface – at the bottom of the scale of an emotional adolescent; Breaking the power of the past - in the middle of the scale of an emotional adolescent; Living in brokenness and vulnerability- in the middle of the scale of an emotional adolescent; Accepting the gift of limits – right at the border of an emotional adolescent and an emotional child; Embracing grieving and loss - in the middle of the scale of an emotional child; and making incarnation your model for loving well – in the middle of the scale of an emotional adolescent. I wasn’t too surprised with my results but I do know that if I took the test a year ago I would have been an emotional infant in most if not all of the categories. You can do the inventory for yourself here.

Anyone out there willing to share their results from the inventory? :)

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In Books, Personal growth, Self care
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