Taking control: Do you know the contributing factors of your stress?

Stress is the manifestation of your body’s reaction to unpleasant external and internal pressures in the form of negative emotions or physical pains. It is a clear response to your environment that shout for remedial actions.

When stress is frequent it means you have to give it your attention which could be challenging if you engage in denial of the issue at hand.  Do remember that you cannot change what you have not identified as undesirable.  When you consider the following pointers, it is beneficial that you look at the possible factors objectively so that you can take decisive actions:

1.    Where does stress come from?  Please note that it is important to rewind the incidences until you recall the issue that caused your negative emotional reaction. Sometimes you may have a series of negative incidents and get mixed up.  There is always the starting point which attracted others that followed.

2.    Do you have control over the issue?  What I mean here depends on what you are stressed about! For an example, if you have been dumped and you are on denial about the fact; you will delay your recovery process.  If you try to find the reason or analyze the reason you have to be ready to endure pain longer because the reason might not make sense to you.

3.    Shift your focus! Review your goals and focus on your strengths.  Make a conscious effort to follow your daily tasks towards your goals and increase your efficiency as you undertake the daily designated tasks.  Your body will respond to the positive direction and the stress will gradually decrease!

4.    Find and study new concepts that contribute to your goals! All of us are being awaken to the revelation of the complexity of our emotions and their impact in achieving our goals. There are video on YOUTUBE that will open your mind and heart to your blissful power within you!  

5.    Give yourself a break! Learn to balance your time and improve your skill in managing it! I know there are people who get motivation from external world; you may have to pin-point those who suck your energy and walk away from them. You are not helping yourself when you hang-out with people who dwell on your situation and make you rewind on your issues.

6.    Learn to be quite and hear your spirit man!  You discover yourself when you cut the noise in your life.  The revelation of the root cause of your problem will come to your consciousness when you go in your spiritual self.  There you will also find a direction which could be seeking professional help or improving on your lifestyle.

7.    Listen to your intuition! Do you trust your friends over your intuition? This is the time to find out how much you trust yourself; the quiet voice in you that will never judge you and is always followed by a deep sense of peace!

Be happy when you get stressed, because you must pause and re-evaluate whether you are on course of running in the wrong lane! It could be that you have contributed to your stress.  Do not be shocked if so, mistakes are stepping stones! They enable you to adjust your coordinates so that you reach your destination!

    

Taking control: You are ready for a relationship when you have accepted yourself!

Accepting yourself means you have undertaken a conscious self-study and acknowledged your weaknesses and strengths.  It means you are not delusional about what you are wired to achieve and therefore has a potential to be when you decide to establish your goals.  

Knowing who you are is very important foundational subjects which will enable you to avoid running in a wrong lane and end up feeling like you are a failure. Have you wondered why you are attracting wrong people? Well; it could be that you really do not know yourself! What must you do if several people you regard as not fitting the type of people you would like to associate with seek your friendship? Shocking as it might be, it could be your opportunity to take stock of who you really are!  It would not hurt to take personality tests and be truthful when answering the questions. 

Focusing on your strengths is a key. The principle is this: As a man thinks, so is he. The implication is that if you are shocked by the people you are attracting, it could mean that you are focusing on your weaknesses. Focusing on your strengths will usher you in an ideal place of growth.  For an example; if you know you have screened yourself on Seven Intelligence Centers and you are intrapersonal (have deep sense of self and are self-motivated) you will not try to be okay hanging out with a rowdy group every weekend; you will be miserable! Allow yourself to be a quiet person you are and you will indeed attract someone who admires you as you are.

The danger of not knowing yourself is faking joy when you are bored to tears! Believe me, I know because I tried to be a happy-go-merry person and failed myself.  I have since learned to enjoy who I am and am indeed blissfully happy! Imagine if you married a person who ticked hiking as your hobby because you pretended to like it. Would it be fair when you reveal the true you? Not at all! So who did you bring to the relationship? A total stranger, who has not only breached a cardinal rule of trust, but has also made the partner feel trapped!  You have actually shattered the dream of romantic hiking in his entertainment plans! That would be a serious relationship blemish to compensate for with other activities!

 Accepting yourself will allow you to understand your ego defense mechanism, which seeks to covers your weaknesses with premeditated false behavior.  When you are aware of the desire to cover up the true you, you will deny this and maintain your integrity. Admitting the periodic temptation to project the false behavior denotes your maturity and self-confidence. It means you have taken control of yourself and have started over a new authentic life!

Taking control: How well do you know yourself?

It is ironic that we seek to know about other people we admire because they have achieved something that affect us.  Today I want to encourage you to pause and focus on discovering your temperament, and character traits! When you are done you will know that you are indeed a unique being!

When you know your make-up, the idea of knowing about others will benefit you because you will match their achievement to your potential.  In other words, you will not seek to be a music star when you are not naturally configured to operate in this field. Yes you may enjoy music, but it does not mean you can sing for the enjoyment of others. Let me list the categories you may wish to explore:

Four Temperaments: The choleric, the sanguine, the melancholic and the phlegmatic. Each has the bright and the dark side. Learn their compatibility; you would have discovered the potential relationships challenges.  

Extravert and Introvert: Extravert is out-going, impulsive and needs people to interact with. If you are an extravert you are optimistic by nature and changeable. An introvert is reserved and cautious. If you are an introvert you tend to rely on books and non-social sources for stimulation. You are unchangeable, passive, pessimistic, peaceful, controlled and reliable.

Seven Intelligence Centres:  Logical or mathematical, Musical, Kinesthetic or physical, Visual, Spatial, Intrapersonal (introspective and ability to know oneself), Interpersonal (ability to relate with others) and Linguistic. These are important for your career development.  For an example, you could be wired with logical intelligence which means you are good in mathematics but have not excel because your teacher punished you and have since developed dislike of this subject.

Learning Styles:

·        Haptic learner - learns best when they are involved – experimenting and experiencing, hence are referred to kinesthetic learners.

·        Visual learner – learns best when they can see pictures of what they are studying. They learn by reading more than listening.

·        Auditory learners – learns best through sound such as lectures and music. They are good listeners and tend to be challenged by reading assignments.

Internal and External locus of control: It is about controlling influence of your behavior. If you are stimulated by external factors such as enjoying being in the company of people, you operate on external locus of control. If you enjoy being alone and working by yourself and have a deep sense of your inner self, you operate on internal locus of control. This will help you to apply for the suitable job.

Blood Type: There are four types - O, A, B and AB. It is your blue print that determines your ideal diet and potential health issues. Your blood type will educate you on lifestyle diseases because you are what you eat.  In other words when you know your blood type you will know which foods your system do not digest well and therefore contribute to your weight problem and arthritis and the host of ailments.

When you take this list to represent the components of your make-up, you will realize that you really do not know yourself.  This will encourage you to explore areas that you have not yet developed. Go for it; and know your strengths! I regard this as being responsible in taking control of your life!   

Taking control: When you forgive, you cut your social and spiritual chains!

Forgiveness is a conscious release of positive emotions that neutralize the negative ones and causes a person to experience spiritual and psychological relief.  It heals emotional pains and offers a considerable degree of general social well-being.

As a spiritual being you are inclined to experience a discomfort when you do not forgive others.  Let me explain: Your Creator is Love and you come out of Him. Unlike other living things that were created with the word from His mouth, you were created with His hands from the soil and He gave you His breath and you became a living being.  You are part of Him and you cannot function effectively outside love. This is why God had to forgive you in order to maintain this co-existence. It is this distinct degree of attention to your make-up that makes you to be a loving being with an authority over other inhabitants of the earth.  Mankind is therefore the physical revelation of God and could only be well when is aligned to His nature.

Look around and notice how mankind reacts to social injustice! Why is it that we have some degree of respect for others even in the most uncultured societies?  Why would somebody who has provided for his family care about others in far places and feels obliged to share his wealth? It is because love is ingrained in us and is a core of our being and livelihood. Let me highlight spiritual and social issues caused by not forgiving others:

1.    Spiritual chains: If you do not forgive you will lose your anointing; the delegated spiritual power that is intended to minister to others to attain acceptable and sustainable spiritual health. Your realization of the lack of wellness starts within you because you are a spirit being which normally compels you to seek help from the Creator who is Higher source of life for all creation. For an unbeliever this need is likely to cause one to find and participate in less desirable forms of spiritual activities.  Such state would manifest in crime and general inhuman behavior which the social justice systems deal with by keeping the perpetrators in prisons or rehabilitation centers.

2.    Social chains: A person who is not able to forgive others is neither likable nor lovable and experience challenges in relationships. Consider this: Life is about relationships! For an example, if your parents spoke blasphemous words over you because you did something they consider socially bad, they have cursed you! Words are powerful and parents must be aware of this fact and chose their words when they reprimand their children.  Consequently, if you do not forgive those who cursed you, you remain in bondage too.  Why is this important? It is because it violates the principle of love; which says love does not keep record of wrongs and does not delight in negative emotions.

The Creator demands that we bear with one another because practically nobody is immune to offending others even those confessed to be loved.  When you decide to take control of your life, you must let go of the wrongs and forgive unconditionally. Only then can you really start over a new chapter of your life – free to experience the joy of aligning with your Creator!

Taking control: Be not afraid; only believe!

Believing is accepting something to be true using your mind because you are convinced logically; or using your heart (spirit) because you discern the truth in the spiritual realm. When you seek spiritual enlightenment, you have to shelf your intellect system and engage the pure you, the spiritual self.

 The first experience of your spirituality starts with believing that you are related with God in a very overwhelming way which you will recognize is not from figuring it out; but comes from within the spiritual domain.  My native language has a saying that you have two hearts; meaning two sources from where you obtain knowledge.  This knowing could only be defined as a revelation of who you are and connection with your Creator; whose presence clearly reveals your unclean nature versus His and therefore gently ushers you into repentance.  This spiritual encounter will enable you to know that you cannot understand the Creator through your little mind.  You can only discern Him in your spiritual self where He transforms you as it was the case when Jesus was conceived by the Virgin Mary.  The revelation will bring awareness of the great power within you which in ordinary language could be termed fear; yet it is not scary.  It could therefore only be defined as a reverence; an amazing admiration and respect that prompt you to engage in adulation.

The second principle of spiritual enlightenment is entrusted in believing. You cannot connect with your Creator without faith. In fact, without faith it is impossible to please Him. This deep conviction is then decoded and expressed through your intellect faculty by confessing with your mouth that which is happening in your spirit self.  This is how we are created to operate: The spirit self should dictates to the mind what we ought to do and not the other way round. Let me explain! Fear comes when your mind cannot decipher logical response to the matter at hand, thus causing conflict.  It is for this reason that the word of assurance in the Bible is not to fear because the presence of God and communication with Him happens in your spirit. Although it does not condemn, it reveals the ugliness of sinful nature in you and becomes a form of guidance into the godliness.

Fear is also the opposite of faith and this is why it is a basic pointer of knowing who is speaking in your spirit self.  God is a Spirit of light and connects with your spirit self and knock through hearing His Word until you get a revelation of who He is.  When you respond positively, you get this overwhelming love to Him, which manifests in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  These are new attributes of a new nature you acquire when you allow Him in your heart and are intended to enable you to love other people. You see; this is important because you cannot have a relationship with God when you have negative emotions regarding other people.  This is an on-going spiritual growth in your journey of salvation.

You could be one of successful people in this world, having abundance of material wealth.  What I have just explained above is one chapter you must pay attention to. It is one that matters because without the revelation of your Creator, you are poor and it is likely that you are trying to fill the emptiness in your life with lots of entertainment. You will have rest when you seek Him! He is loving and will never judge you regardless of what you have done! Do not be afraid to seek Him; only believe that he loves you unconditionally! Remember, you are the cherry on top of all His creation! 

Taking control: How to identify a skewed compromise in contract relationship!

Compromise is finding a middle ground where both parties in a contract relationship feel that their respective views are represented. It is a means through which a couple sustains a newly formed and agreeable environment.

A contract relationship refers to a marriage because both parties have agreed to a life-time relationship regardless of any conditions that may occur in their lives.  That is a serious contract!  This denotes that two strangers have considered a list of factors and agreed with most of them.  It also means they have discussed those that were not simple to understand and consciously regarded them as tolerable.  However, a person in love tends to tick most of unclear factors as tolerable until the hype wanes off and the reality sets in. 

Societal norms are sustained through informal education. Social roles are those chores that you have been socialized to do as a male or female person.  Traditionally, a male child would be encouraged to play outside with his toys which in most cases are cars and guns. In the case of female child, it would be toy-babies.  A male adolescent would hang-out with his father to look after the animals and plant food at the fields or garden.  A female adolescent would be indoors with the mother learning the housework including cooking.  Modernization has bridged the gap; both must learn how to clean the house and cook as soon as they prepare to leave home to join institutions of higher learning.  Strangely, males would do this until they get married.  Immediately they tie the knot, a man becomes the master of the newly formed homestead and the woman continues with all that has been taught! Why?  Join me to draw the pointers of skewed compromise in small matters:

1.    Were social roles included in the list of important subjects? I doubt if they were considered important.  They would come into play when both have full time jobs and arrive home at different times.  This matter would soon be the cause of a somber mood, silent resentment and then boom! A full and bitter war of words would be ignited! In Christian marriage, a woman would remember to submit under the husband and restrain from any expressed bitterness.  She would also remember that she must not let the sun go down with her anger! At this stage, the issue of social roles would revert to tradition. The woman would have to do her social chores hundred percent regardless of her career schedule and attending to her husband’s needs!

2.    Did we clarify the dress code? The answer is no!  Such matters were not important.  Discussions centered on having certain number of children, and how they would be raised if you are a Christian couple. If not, you did not agree on the church you would go to and whether you would allow your children to freely roam about and experience anything that is considered cool. The matter would surface when your teenager show up with a tattoos and a ring on the nose.  I wonder which party would compromise in the name of peace!

3.    Did we explain accountability? Hurriedly! In few words you were made to understand the importance of communication during counseling and have never really discussed what you would do with your income. So now that you want to build a house, you need to budget and account for all expenses. Such change of financial freedom would likely stir the romance!

Compromise is skewed when it applies to one party under the banner of submission.  Compromise may hide the controlling spirit which usually steals the joy in one party; then creep into the relationship to destroy the Creator equation which says man must love his wife and she must submit.  Ultimately compromise could kill the marriage and destroy that which was meant to transcend the grave.  Do consider these matters and talk about them; you would rather delay tying the knot than overlooking the issues of skewed compromise! 

Taking control: Consider your partner’s intuition type before you tie the knot!

Intuition is a knowing which avails information without verifiable means. It enables a person through other domains of acquisition of information to be convinced beyond the mind processes; thus making it a true power behind your decisions in any situation.

There are four types of intuition which I will highlight and could call your attention to some experiences which might have contributed to challenging aspects in your relationships.  Perhaps you know about this personal way of acquiring information and knowing the right and wrongs. You might not have regarded intuition as important when considering your future life partner’s personal attributes. Consider the following types and establish where you fall and do some research so that you can tap into this resource for your own benefit:

Mental intuitive: Denotes people who are thinkers.  They operate on logic and therefore would demand airtight facts.  They have a third eye to understand the matter at hand. This means they see loopholes and are good in investigation such as research work or security settings.

Emotional intuitive (known as an empath):  If you are an empath you tend to be drawn to the energies of others hence often experience whatever the other person you empathized with is experiencing. For an example, if you experience pain when you are in hospital or deep grief from the funeral, you fall under this type of intuition.  Unlike the mental intuitive, emotional intuitive person operates with the heart.  You cannot fake joy in the presence of an emotional intuitive partner.  Nor can you successfully cut corners because he or she will pick the strange energy from you.  It is ideal to know your type and include this in the list of things to learn about your life partner. 

Physical intuitive: Is highly connected to animals and the earth. If you have strong connection with issues of environment and care about animals’ welfare, you fall under this type.  Imagine if you are like me and cannot share my couch or bed with a pet!  That alone will kill the romance out of the relationship.

Spiritual intuitive: Spiritual intuitives live this life in a spiritual realm so to speak. They just leave you and migrate to spiritual state of consciousness often and enjoy this because it is who they are.  They do well as spiritual leaders because they spend most of their time learning and preparing spiritual presentations and sermons.  I cannot visualize this type having fun with a life partner who is physical intuitive because spiritual intuitive is in touch with spirituality and intangible nature of the universe.  Those who are gifted in this form of intuition may have visions. Visions are astrophysical; that is, discerning and accessing spiritual truths which normally challenge those who are not. You have to differentiate the day-dreaming stuff from discerning the spirituality of the experience. 

You may wonder why I am drawing your attention to this interesting subject! It is because like most people, you may not think seriously about sharing every minute of your life with another person until you are caught in a complex life relationship.  It is ideal therefore to discover who you are so that you can decide whom you bring into the relationship!

Taking control: Could intuition help you to walk away from ailing relationship?

A marriage relationship is a bond of positive energy between two parties who consciously responded to this energy and decided to share their resources and themselves without reservations.  It is a connection which is designed by the Creator to unite two people and is intended to transcend the grave.

I do not know if you have ever tried to understand why two highly educated people who have acquired complex knowledge in their fields of expertise fail decimally to rescue their relationship! I considered two factors: How each perceives the world – introversion and extraversion; and sensing and intuition both of which are critical for effective communication. 

Extraversion and Introversion: Generally you respond from both internal and external motivation but one way is predominant and therefore defines your common known way of response to the environment.  When you are more responsive to outside environment you are an extravert; and when you internalize most of the experience and converse with yourself more than express your response, you are an introvert.  An introvert is able to analyze information and encode background meanings and therefore thinks through the problem more comprehensively. An extravert is more spontaneous and thinks after the action in most instances. For an example, consider a couple passing a scene of an accident. An introvert will wonder how it happened internally while an extravert will ask rhetorical questions which are likely to sound silly because the other person cannot answer them.  Would you agree with me that this way of responding to the world could negatively affect the relationship? 

Sensing and Intuition: This refers to the way you gather data and make decisions. When you gather data through the five senses and decode it literally like scientists, you are applying your senses.  We all have basic intuition which is a form of protection mechanism when data is not enough for decision-making.  You are intuitive if you generate abstract faculties beyond the five senses to gather and decode information. Now let us apply this to a relationship setting: An intuitive party would feel the degree of deteriorating affection regardless of efforts to maintain the expected behavior.  In other words, five senses cannot decipher ailing relationship compared to the power of intuition. Consider the following:  

1.    An intuitive partner may try to apply remedial measures as soon as things start cooling off by coming up with a new and exciting way of doing things.  The greatest challenge of intuition is that it is a personal knowing which may not have enough reasons to convince anybody except the person experiencing it.   As a result the other party may not appreciate change when things that define normal environment are present.

2.    Planning for the future could be a challenging exercise when the couple thinks differently. Imagine the couple trying to draw a will and allocating resources to two children. It would be ideal to do so considering all factors which would include intuitive approach. The point here is that logic is not always enough in the decision-making equation. Intuition overrides senses and helps in seeing the big picture.

The pull and push pattern may sever the relationship to the point of despair for an intuitive party who is also an introvert.  The feeling that the relationship is not working may be felt by one party.  The challenge is that, the reason for walking away from such ailing relationship may not be convincing to the other party including the legal system. As I explore the four types of intuition, you will realize why relationships are complex. Intuition is critical to affirm your decision to walk away from the ailing relationship.  It will say yes to your decision to start over and take control of your life.

Taking control: Forgive and it shall be well with you!

Forgiveness is a release of positive energy towards the other person to override the negative effects of an offense. It is a conscious decision to not allow negative energy to dwell in you regardless of whether the offender is aware or willing to show remorse for the inflicted emotional pain.

Forgiveness is one of the basic principles of seeking and attaining spiritual enlightenment.  All humans offend their loved ones regardless of professed love. The Creator showed mankind the importance of forgiveness in both the Old and New Covenants.  Animals were sacrificed for covering the sin and the New Testament came into effect when the Perfect Man willingly died on the cross for remission of sin.  He died once for those who will believe in the Creator’s salvation plan which is intended to enable mankind to access the everlasting life.  It follows therefore that as you read this article, you must reflect and evaluate whether you are familiar to the consequences of not forgiving others. Here is the glimpse of the  importance of forgiveness:

The Creator demands it: Whichever way you look at forgiveness, it is clearly an expressed condition by your Creator for your faults to be forgiven and to listen to your requests.  Requesting forgiveness from Him is part of your daily opening sentence of your prayer because you are naturally a sinner and need to acknowledge this flaw when you talk to your Creator. Ignorance of the law is no excuse; and so it is from the spiritual principle. This means it constitutes your livelihood and it is not wise to ignore its impact on your life.

Emotional health: Forgiveness demonstrates spiritual and social stability and maturity.  It releases love to others; thus promoting the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, kindness, happiness and self-control.  This ideal emotional environment is sustained when:

1.    You maintain good thoughts because your actions reveal what you are thinking about.

2.    You speak well about others because it demonstrates that you understand the law of love. Life and death are conceived in your mind and are birthed in your spoken words. If you have nothing good to say about a person or situation, remain silent. By doing so, you are choosing life!

3.    You listen or watch positive news because whatever you allow in your mind will eventually manifest.  Good and bad energy cannot share your mind; one will prevail.

4.    You maintain your power to keep your inner space clean. This means you do not allow an offender to continue hurting you by thinking about the offense. Remember a negative energy causes the body to produce harmful juices which contribute to many diseases including ulcers and ultimately cancer.

5.    You forgive yourself when time from time weakness kicks in, and you indulge in negative emotions like anger or self-pity. Forgiveness is a skill which you learn throughout your live. Start today!

Learn about the power of forgiveness because it is central to the law of success. It is decided in your heart because it can only be real from this realm. Let me explain. The ego likes recording wrongs and provides momentum to sustain the negative situation. It is therefore your conscious decision to let go any hurt and choose to free yourself from the bondage of non-forgiveness.  When you achieve this truth and know how to reach inside you and disregard the outside world of unconsciousness, you would have attained the core principle of love that is revealed in forgiveness.

Taking control: How much confidence do you have?

Confidence is an ability to believe in your thoughts and actions. It is a characteristic that result in a positive attitude and helps to maintain momentum of ideal behavioral success even during the challenging period of your life. It constitutes important factors necessary for all those who seek social and financial prosperity.

Confidence is an ideal attribute resulting from the process of shaping the behavior through informal, non-formal and formal education in different developmental stages.  You become confident because those who came into your life during the formative years imparted balanced approach to parenting.  It is a product of encouraging freedom to explore environment and applying restraint when it was necessary.  This is a tricky part of socialization which most parents miss because they often tend to be over protective, thus interfering with the child’s ability to learn from their mistakes and to make decision.

If you have not been adequately exposed to overcoming the fear of failure due to being overly reprimanded and punished in your childhood, you would tend to avoid confrontation.  You would be challenged to be an effective leader and would therefore rather be a follower. This fearfulness would become pronounced when engaging in decisions that affect other people. Alternatively, your low self-esteem would manifest as over-confidence which means covering your fear with false display of much fluffing of your feathers.   Confidence helps in various situations:

1.    Relationships: As a young adult you need to be able to handle an opposite sex and be assertive in expressing yourself on matters that contravene your principles and values.  For an example, in this era of short-cuts when it comes to dating rules, you need to stand your ground if you are a girl who wants to make informed decisions about ideal steps of conduct in sexual relationships.   Confidence will enable you to handle pressure even in marriage when submission to your spouse is abused. 

2.    Career: Women still feel shaky in political position because politics have been regarded as male territory with regard to necessary assertiveness during tough campaigning.  Confidence will deliver you from competition because it will enable you will use your unique prowess to stand out. It will enable you to follow your heart.

3.    Entrepreneurship: Confidence will enable you to use all your potential natural gifts. For an example, you will be employed to get exposure in your professional field and to be equipped to start your own business.  Being employed for the rest of your life can never allow you to utilize all that you have because you will always be restricted to operate within the specific parameters of your job position.

4.    Life situations: Confidence will enable you to get over your emotional hurts faster than someone who is fixated in the past failures.  For an example, you will not feel condemned and intimidated by malicious attacks on your person by those who fail to point their views positively; instead, you will look at such attitudes with compassion.

Confidence is an important equation of success. You can be a genius, but you need guts to face the tough world and be counted. It is an essential ingredient when seeking to take control of your life.  

Taking control: Say yes to the spiritual gift of the New Dispensation!

The New Dispensation was enforced through the sacrificial death of the Son of Man who was not born from the seed of man but of Creator Himself.  This is the spiritual gift that you have to know about and say yes to for you to qualify for the eternal life.

In order to say yes, you need to know that the earth was created for mankind and was so designed to have all that mankind will ever need.  In other words, all that you need has already been given; this is why the Creator says mankind perishes for lack of knowledge. The New spiritual Dispensation came into effect about two thousand years ago. It is your sole responsibility to seek what redemption plan contains, so that you can make decision while you can:

1.    Redemption: Originally man was to live forever. He contravened the terms and sin came to be.  The penalty was spiritual death which resulted in the physical death. One sinless Man who died paid for your sins and your responsibility is to know about this condition so that you can receive this unmerited favor to be restored to spiritual original condition. The Creator has made an offer so that those who say yes would be freed from the bondage and ruler-ship of Satan.

2.    Remission: Through the death of sinless Man, the Creator has availed freedom and pardon for those who will acknowledge this sacrificial death willingly thus accepting His offer of the eternal spiritual life.

3.    Regeneration: It is a spiritual birth. Those who accept the sacrificial death as a ransom paid for their salvation will receive the power to live without guilt and be free from sinful lifestyle. It is an ability to immediately notice sin and consciously ask for pardon, thus enabling you to love the Creator and other people.

4.    Relationship: Redemption opens doors to be adopted son (refers to male and females - in God eyes we are all sons) hence heirs with the One Man who became a ransom for your freedom. In this state the Creator writes your name in His book and you shall be part of His impending everlasting Kingdom on earth.

5.    Righteousness: It is a gift of right standing by appointment to acquire the attributes of the Creator that enables you to live in His presence by His grace and enjoy spiritual eternity now.

6.    Restoration: Is a place of favor which existed in the original paradise. It enables you to overcome the enemy whose role is to steal, destroy and kill you. It denotes access to that which the Creator has provided in this life and the next.

7.    Ruler-ship: The Creator is orderly and it follows that when you say yes, He adopts you and reveals His purpose through His written word.  Historically He interacted with mankind through Patriarchs, Judges, and Kings. The last One is called Jesus, who had to be a sacrificial Lamb that brought the New Dispensation.  Ruler-ship denotes the spiritual legacy that Jesus left and is being carried out through the church.  Then Son will come to judge those who rejected his death which is the salvation message in the gospel.   

This is the core of the spiritual enlightenment which you will surely have to respond to when you leave this planet to meet your Creator.  It is a message that reveals that love connects all laws – spiritual, social, prosperity and the natural laws.   

Taking control: How to evaluate your listening skill!

Listening is ability to hear with your ears and understand the meaning of each expressed word. It is hearing with your heart to discern the underlying feelings of the motivating factor behind each word, unsaid thoughts, and experiencing the totality of what the message encompasses.

Listening is the most underrated attribute of effective communication and learning; hence is not fully developed.  From infancy you learned your mother tongue and discern cultural norms behind words. As you grew up you tended to stop to encompass other relevant senses in communicating with others:

1.    Hearing with your ears: It is an ability to receive the wave length of transmitted message. When you have heard all words, you are able to apply non-physical mechanism to decode the message accurately; hence acquire knowledge when you relate such message with existing information.  This process will enable you to respond accordingly to the requirements of the message.

2.    Hearing with your heart: It is discerning the motivation behind the choice of each word which will elicit non-verbal response to the message.  For an example people hear or read one message differently hence will respond according to how they encoded the message.  This internal process triggers responses such as chills when the unsaid or expressed words are perceived negatively; or joy when such message carries positive energy. At this realm, hearing is assisted by other internal cognitive processes, which reveal the unsaid thoughts and are decoded through feelings.  

Listening is important to make decisions. King Solomon was able to judge a sensitive case of two mothers of male infants who were sleeping in one room. One mother had rolled over her child, thus killing it.  She replaced her child with the life one.  The mother of the life child pleaded her case that the dead child was not hers. The king brought the life child and the soldier with a sword to divide the life child. The real mother pleated that the child not be killed. That reaction enabled the King to know the real mother and judged accordingly.  Listening skills enables effective interaction and in similar cases, enforcement of justice.

It is through listening that we influence change.  Before the era of television, politicians and other social change agents communicated their ideas through radios and newspapers.  Likewise, you too are listening to me and establishing authenticity of the motivating factor behind the key message of starting over. In the context of taking control, listening denotes your rational hearing of what is it you need to change.  It refers to reviewing your actions and listening to your own heart or making choices whether you are equipped to find solution or you must seek professional assistance.

Listening enable us to be heard and to hear others.  You could be one of those who were denied opportunity to express your feelings in childhood and are therefore fixated in the area of not being able to connect with other people.  In my culture there is a saying that children may be seen and not heard.  It means raising children who are condemned to the world of silence; who would miraculously learn to live in the world of adults equipped to lead and influence others through communication. This is a paradox of socialization which I urge those who relate to this situation to shout from the mountain tops to advocate intensified efforts to learn to listen.