Sally Hanan's Blog, page 4

Have you let the vision for your life blur? Ask yourself when the last times were that you felt fully alive and see what the commonalities are in those moments. For some, it’s time with friends. For others, it’s travel, and for others, a good book.

We all need moments to inspire us and steep us in joy. Life isn’t about the things we do as much as the moments in which we fully live.

Write down everything you think others expect of you. If you feel like you can talk to them honestly, ask them to go over the list with you to see where you might have been off. You’ll most likely find that all they really want is for you to feel fulfilled and loved, and to be honest, we should live our own lives, not the lives we think our friends want.
What kind of life do you want to create for yourself? Who do you want to include in it?
Feeling stuck is good because it gives you a yearning to get out of the rut. Life always moves forward, and no one wants to stay on the same mountaintop for years anyway. There are many other mountains with equally gorgeous views waiting to be seen.

In summary, life sometimes feels dead when we overthink it. Moments of my own life story are created every day when I know what I’m passionate about and I look for ways to serve that up to those around me. You have a lot to give in your very unique way, so think about everyone you know and ask yourself the same questions:

What do I love to do and what can I do well, and how can I serve that up to enhance other people’s lives?

The post Have You Let the Vision for Your Life Blur? appeared first on Pick Your Life.

Have you thought about giving up on life?

It’s quite possible that shutting down, avoiding, and dissociation are what got you to the point you’re at now, and if so, ask yourself this: Have any of those behaviors given you any happiness?

Let’s assume the answer is no.

And that’s because in order to really live, you have to experience life in all its moments.

Once you’ve got in to the habit of shutting down, it’s nigh impossible to come alive when life is good. You’ve set your default switch to barely present. How can you possibly enjoy life when you’re living in a nonexistent state?

My suggestion is to learn how to actually live by doing some or all of the following things each day:

Be fully aware in every moment.
Be willing to process fear or pain in every moment it arises.
Quit anything that stops you from feeling—alcohol, weed, TV shows—anything that pulls you out of having to interact with life.
Make a point of being thankful for every single little thing of beauty—a cloud, laughter, a warm bed, hot food.
See other people’s hearts rather than their facial and physical reactions.
See your own heart rather than your facial and physical reactions and start enjoying your unique way of being you.
Thank people all the time—phone support people, cashiers, friends, family. Tell people they’re amazing when they help. Thank them when they’re kind. Point out every good thing you see in them.

When you’ve done that for a few months, you’ll find that your new perspective will have changed your life rather than allowing what you see of life to change you.

And that’s when you get to truly start living.

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A woman I know in a very friend-of-a-friend way shared an encounter she had at the age of fifteen, and I imagined it played out like this:

I was sprawled across the sheets, all the stringy arms and legs of a fifteen-year-old who thought she was fat, and could feel it in the air. Some thing was in my room. I let my eyeballs move to my right while I kept my body rigid, straight as the backs of the chairs in Sunday school, and felt my lungs swoosh in the cold room‘s air. Hairs sprang up on the tops of my arms, standing to attention in stiff formation.

I was looking at a being filled with light that reached the ceiling. Hair the color of sunflowers. A long dress sequined in gold that radiated internal light rather than outer, and a cape that rushed from her shoulders to the floor in satin-like waves. A face with soft lines. Eyes that looked at me and through every cell I was made up of and saw everything.

An angel. In my room.

Her cape touched the covers on my bed and instantly I felt a charge of power radiate down and then back up my body—so filled with fire I thought I was going to die. I closed my eyes so tightly, I could swear I was cutting off their blood supply.

 

Our Father,

Who art in heaven,

Hallowed be they name…

 

It was the only prayer I had ever memorized. The only words that could make it to my lips that I thought would save me.

And then I opened one eye very slowly. The angel was gone. My bedroom was back to normal.

Yet it never was again.

The post An Encounter She Had appeared first on Pick Your Life.

If you can’t hear God’s response on something that’s important to you — and no matter what anyone says, you still want solid confirmation that you should move forward or stay safe (an illusion, if ever there was one) — the closest thing you’ll get to hearing God is hearing him speak through your inner circle of friends. That’s where you will always find massive amounts of peace, love, joy, wisdom and creativity — because Jesus is alive in them and they will speak creative life into you.

I’d make sure, though, that you pick your Spirit-filled advisory team from each personality type and not just people who think like you. Have at least

one engineer—a never-do-anything-without-a-detailed-plan introvert;
one excited, take-a-risk-at-all-times extrovert;
one sensitive please-don’t-ever-ask-me-my-opinion introvert; and
one bossy here’s-what-you-should-do-and-you-have-to-do-it-right-NOW extrovert.

That way you are guaranteed to get almost every question and answer, every pro and con, and every facet of God presented for you to peruse.

When my husband and I were debating moving to the US, we asked a room full of trusted friends about it, and they all agreed that it was God’s idea. His Spirit in them confirmed what we weren’t sure we were hearing. And here we are. 

The post Indecision – Finding Wisdom appeared first on Pick Your Life.

God’s main gift to us is not our personal happiness; it’s that we get to be an integral part of the bigger plan—to give life and give it abundantly. That includes what we learn by pushing past our fears and tasting all life has to give. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

It’s the same with moving forward and climbing out of the slough you’re in. Either way, it’s time to move.

You don’t have to grow everything at once. It took Jesus three years to give his disciples some wisdom and understanding. It took Boaz years to find a good wife, and even then, God had to practically push her in his face to get him to notice her. Accomplish small things that move you further along the road toward realizing a fuller, more life-filled life. Just get on with it and forget about a timeline unless God’s given you a specific one.

God believes in you. I believe in you. Now get cracking!

The post God’s Main Gift to Us appeared first on Pick Your Life.

If it’s time to make a decision and everyone around you is telling you it’s not such a great idea, but all you do if fire back all the reasons why it is, it usually means it’s a terrible idea.

If it’s time to make a decision and you know deep in your heart that it’s a bad idea but it all makes perfect sense in your head, it’s still a terrible idea.

If it’s time to make a decision that will make someone you love happy but you know it’s not a good decision, it’s probably a terrible idea.

Summary: Avoid choosing the terrible idea. 

Some thoughts for people who are overweight :

If you think you look like a beached whale, you might be over-exaggerating just a tad…

If people keep asking you if you’re pregnant, be thankful that all that delicious food went straight to your belly and not more practical things like your hands or feet. That’d be like trying to eat a chocolate meringue with boxing gloves on.

If you don’t love your body now, you won’t love it when you’re thin either.

A bigger belly usually just means you like sugar more than the average bear, which makes you extra sweet.

The post For People Who Are Overweight appeared first on Pick Your Life.

Fix Yourself: In Jesus Reviewed By Vincent Dublado for Readers’ Favorite

Sally Hanan makes emotional and spiritual healing readily accessible in her self-help book, Fix Yourself: In Jesus.

This counseling guide does not simply make you read up on your path to healing. It doubles as a ‘fill in the blanks’ workbook that requires nothing but your honest, straightforward answers in order for you to come up with an objective self-evaluation.

This is an all-round self-help toolset that serves as your personal guide to improving your self-esteem, overcoming obstacles, and strengthening your relationship with God. Personal testimonies and scripture passages are provided as references to reinforce and inspire you in the counseling process. From the title itself, Christ serves as your mentor in facing those hard-knock issues and helps you gain a deeper understanding of why specific adversities are given to you.

You have probably read a couple of self-help books and have been searching for the Holy Grail that will give you a much-needed lift in this game called life. It can be frustrating, and it makes you even more vulnerable to false promises. Fix Yourself: In Jesus offers practical advice with a spiritual bent that puts emphasis on the thought that everything can be overcome as long as you put in the effort. Reading this self-help manual feels like Jesus is telling you: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Magic does not happen here.

What takes place is the miracle of lightening your burdens as you unlock your potential by gaining wisdom – not just by reading and answering this book but by living it.

Sally Hanan shares her precious, authentic life experience, which adds to the credibility of this self-help workbook. This is a must-read guide that will meet and maybe exceed your expectations.

The post Reader’s Favorite Review of Fix Yourself appeared first on Pick Your Life.

Imagine you’ve worked incredibly hard to get to where you are.

You’ve written more than ten books.

You’ve taken every class on speaking you could find, and you’ve taught for free wherever they’d have you.

You’ve spent decades working on your artistic skills.

You’ve served in every position you could find that would teach you more about how to start and lead a company well.

You’ve spent decades improving your acting skills, and you’ve kept working every job imaginable to fund the dream.

You’ve done all that and you’re still not famous. Are you okay with being one of the 9,999 in every 10,000 people who will never be famous? Are you okay with being you, with your heavenly mix of everything God gave you? Are you okay with giving that to the world as a gift? Because you are God’s gift to the world. Not some day. Today. Tomorrow. Yesterday you were too. God gave you life and filled you with gifts that made you feel that life. He’s given you the ability to bring heaven to earth. He told you to do everything you can to connect people with his heart and make them whole. Do you need to be famous to do that? Your life purpose is to be lived out every day in every moment. It’s all the little things. It’s all those interactions with people. It’s all your skill going into doing each thing well. No matter where you are or how many big bodacious dreams you have, know that simply because you have it in your heart to love people, your heart will be in the right place to maximize their blessings if and when those dreams materialize. And that’s the best place for your heart to be.

If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don’t hoard it. Don’t dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke. –Brendan Francis

The post Still not Famous appeared first on Pick Your Life.

I’ve been thinking about engagements and marriage lately, why people choose the ones they choose, and how all that played out in real life over the years once married.

I have no regrets, but when I think of the standards I had for a future spouse back in my early 20s, I think they’d be very different now. Back then I just wanted a man who was funny and short and who loved God. Twenty-five years later, I know that’s it’s not so much about who I want to SPEND the rest of my life with, it’s about who I want to DO life with.

Marriage is not easy. We can hurt each other, stop giving, and nurse offenses.

It’s also wonderful. We laugh together, we comfort each other, we pour everything we are into our kids and watch them turn into great adults, we build our future together.

For me, the best parts were definitely when we joined our unique strengths and passions and worked as one. So looking back, how would your list of qualities in a potential spouse have changed, were you to make a new list?

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