The Practice Co

Cliché-free devotions for wholehearted and meaningful living. Daily Devotional App, Printed Devotion Books + more 👉http://thepracticeco.com

[thepracticeco]

In confusing times, when the media is saying one hundred different things through all the different channels, and politicians are backtracking and changing and law-making at a breakneck pace, gratitude will re-align your perspective. Alignment is important. Some call it flow, some call it their sweet spot, some call it being in the will of God, some call it grace. To be in alignment is to be in agreeance with life. That doesn't mean that you have to be thankful for EVERYTHING; it means that in everything you can give thanks; that you can agree with being alive and here with what you have and who you are. Which is also what I think about when I think about prayer. Prayer, for me, has become less about making big lists to tell God about what's happening and what I want God to do about it, and more about saying yes to staying open. Paul wrote to his friends and said: Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude.* Prayer is openness, integration, connectivity, wakefulness. Gratitude gets you there. It keeps your eyes open. It helps you see in the dark. Even, and especially, when all you want to do is close them to the pain and the confusion and the heartache and the terror that's going on around you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, keeps you, open, open, open. Gratitude will re-align your perspective about people, situations, politics, relationships, work, even things like your memories and experiences. It brings a softness... not weakness, but more like flexibility so that you will bend and not break at the thought of what previously stiffened your back and heart. Choose gratitude over resentment. When it feels like all hope is gone, find something to be thankful for. Gratitude tells the truth each and every time, and the truth is that hope is not lost. Mindful Prompt: What prayer can you come back to that helps you stay open? Start here: Thank you, and yes. Love ya, Liz xo 💛✨

http://www.pktfuel.com

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

Gratitude is not an exclusive emotion. You can practice gratitude while experiencing a whole range of other thoughts and feelings, too. Being thankful is not the silver bullet to fixing all the other things you're going through. And we are going through some things right now, as a collective, and perhaps you are too individually. No matter how this pandemic has impacted you, I think it's fair to say that it has at least made us all think and evaluate and take stock. But what if you're stuck in the mess? What if you're tangled in it? What if COVID-19 or whatever it is you're going through - has knocked your legs out from underneath you? What if you simply can't fly? What if you're too tired and too sad and too sore? What if it's too dark and you can't see the way forward? There's this sacred Jewish practice: every morning before anything is done, or any words are said, or sheets and quilts are pushed back, and heads are raised off pillows, our Jewish brothers and sisters say a prayer: "I am thankful before You, living and enduring King, for you have mercifully restored my soul within me. Great is Your faithfulness." Its' called the Modeh Ani, and the concept behind is that every night when you fall asleep, your soul experiences a death of sorts and ascends to heaven to rest in the presence of the Divine. In the morning, your soul is returned to your body when you wake up, the gift of life re-granted and renewed. It's a gratitude practice, pulling you back to this moment, what you have, where you are, and the gift that lies within it all… yep, even in the bad stuff. Gratitude has the power to change our hearts, physiology, and psychology. The physical and spiritual are linked, they share the same world and reality; they flow into each other. It changes things. Actually, it changes you. And you have the power to change things. Bring it back to gratitude. Breathe. Dig deep. Find something you can be thankful for. Because things that you can be grateful for? They're like an anchor; they ground you. When things go dark, gratitude lights the way. Love ya, Liz xo 💛✨

http://www.pktfuel.com

[thepracticeco]

Gratitude is not an exclusive emotion. You can practice gratitude while experiencing a whole range of other thoughts and feelings, too. Being thankful is not the silver bullet to fixing all the other things you're going through. And we are going through some things right now, as a collective, and perhaps you are too individually. No matter how this pandemic has impacted you, I think it's fair to say that it has at least made us all think and evaluate and take stock. But what if you're stuck in the mess? What if you're tangled in it? What if COVID-19 or whatever it is you're going through - has knocked your legs out from underneath you? What if you simply can't fly? What if you're too tired and too sad and too sore? What if it's too dark and you can't see the way forward? There's this sacred Jewish practice: every morning before anything is done, or any words are said, or sheets and quilts are pushed back, and heads are raised off pillows, our Jewish brothers and sisters say a prayer: "I am thankful before You, living and enduring King, for you have mercifully restored my soul within me. Great is Your faithfulness." Its' called the Modeh Ani, and the concept behind is that every night when you fall asleep, your soul experiences a death of sorts and ascends to heaven to rest in the presence of the Divine. In the morning, your soul is returned to your body when you wake up, the gift of life re-granted and renewed. It's a gratitude practice, pulling you back to this moment, what you have, where you are, and the gift that lies within it all… yep, even in the bad stuff. Gratitude has the power to change our hearts, physiology, and psychology. The physical and spiritual are linked, they share the same world and reality; they flow into each other. It changes things. Actually, it changes you. And you have the power to change things. Bring it back to gratitude. Breathe. Dig deep. Find something you can be thankful for. Because things that you can be grateful for? They're like an anchor; they ground you. When things go dark, gratitude lights the way. Love ya, Liz xo 💛✨ DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

How do you find hope? As in, how does it work for YOU? Forget what the preachers and the teachers and social media authorities tell you about what hope is and how to find it, and look within yourself to what lights you up, what keeps you going, where does hope hook onto and into you? Hope is not something you can catch or trap or steal or borrow. You can't buy it or acquire it. Hope is a lot like grace in that it comes to you freely, and all you have to do to receive it, is to choose it. Despite how it looks (which probably only looks that way because of who's been controlling the narrative all this time), God doesn't choose some people over other people to do special things, or to be special people, or to experience special emotions. Hope and grace and life and love - all of it - is a gift. It finds you where you are, as you need it, as it knows you need it, and carries you on. The hook isn't about what you can do to be chosen, but about how you can be awake, aware, and alive enough to see that you already are. Emily Dickinson wrote: "Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all." On a recent episode of the Tim Ferris Show, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said: "Faith is the ability to hear the music beneath the noise." Faith and hope are intertwined. Hope brings you to faith, and faith brings you to hope. I'm not talking about the kind of hope and faith that is weighed down with dogmas and doctrines and religious institutions and standards and behaviours and rules and regulations. I'm talking about faith as a function of your living. (Faith, as it is, is the welcoming of the idea that there is more going on than what I can see, and know, and hear at this moment.) There is so much noise right now. It's loud and clamorous. It buzzes and hisses in your ears and in your heart. So much static and chatter and reports and articles and people wanting this and others needing that and in the middle of it all is you and your life and your truth and your needs and wants and ideas ...and hopes. Hope is the bird that rests in your soul, and brings with it music that lights you up, that leads you into presence, that connects you to the something more beyond the definable and explainable. Faith opens your heart to be able to hear it. Sometimes I think we can't find hope because we expect it to look and feel and be something other than what it is; that it should come with a company seal and a set of certainties and guarantees. We want to earn it, find it on our own, achieve it, perform rituals and prayers and sing songs and make loud declarations to give us the illusion of having worked for it. But accept hope? To let it simply fly over and perch in your soul and sing its beautiful song over you, in the midst of tragedy and hardship? Can hope be found even in that? To find hope, you go within, not without. You don't work yourself up for it, you quiet your striving and make peace with it. It may take some time to tune your ear for its song, but once you hear it? You'll be humming it all day long. Continues in the "You Can Find Hope In All The Places You Never Dreamed You Could" series this week! Love ya, Liz xo @lizzy.milani 💛✨

http://www.pktfuel.com

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

So far, you have survived everything you thought you wouldn't. Where to from here? Left foot, right foot, keep on going, just like you always have. Although we're hearing a lot over the airwaves and through the interweb that these are unprecedented times, they really aren't. Humanity has been through some s**t-storms over the last millennia or so, and, you know what? We.are.still.here. You are still here, my friend. The circumstances may be different, but the resilience of the human spirit remains as vibrant and strong as ever. Things may have changed, and maybe for you that change has brought hardship into your life like never before, whether it's to do with your health, your connections, your finances, your spirituality, or maybe a good dose of them of all - but I promise you, even if it feels like it's not true, the courage and resilience of your spirit remains. You can still live your best life in the middle of a global pandemic, economic disaster, ecological crisis, and an unknown future. Our Jewish mothers and fathers didn't believe in the concept of heaven as we do. For them (and for Jesus and his crew), heaven was the idea of the Shalom (peace) of God inhabiting the here and now. Their spirituality was about living the Kingdom of Heaven into reality. Living your best life isn't about being sickly positive about the hardships that you and the world are facing right now. It's not about plastering scriptures and platitudes all over the internet and passively ignoring facing the reality of your situation. It is about owning the moment. 'I'm going to live - give my best, open my eyes, breathe deep, awake, aware, alive - this moment all the way through. Gratitude and grace.' (Side note: you can be grateful and acknowledge that things suck all in the same breath. There's no actual rule against it except for the narrative we tell ourselves. And you have permission to rewrite that narrative.) That's why Jesus wept on the road the day he rode a donkey into Jerusalem the week before his death (Luke 19): he was witnessing a people who declared the best but were unwilling to participate in it. People who didn't know how to own their moment. It's not a judgment of the Jewish faith (not one bit), but a commentary of human nature that's just as valid and challenging today as it was back then. Imagine being Jesus friends, co-workers, fellow travellers, sponsors, and followers... believing him to be the Saviour, the one who would miraculously set them all free. No one imagined that God incarnate would die on a Roman execution device, charged with treason and terrorism and heresy, betrayed by his own people. Not the Son of God. Not for the one that rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as the crowd chanted "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."* Not for the one who had healed them and fed them and accepted them like no other had. Resilience begins when you show up to the mystery - to the what now, what next; to the where to from here. Left foot, right foot, keep on going, like you always have. Because you are still here and there is more life to live. Love ya, Liz xo 💛✨ DOWNLOAD OUR DEVOTIONAL AND WALLPAPER APP → https://ift.tt/2F8LfDE

[thepracticeco]

So far, you have survived everything you thought you wouldn't. Where to from here? Left foot, right foot, keep on going, just like you always have. Although we're hearing a lot over the airwaves and through the interweb that these are unprecedented times, they really aren't. Humanity has been through some s**t-storms over the last millennia or so, and, you know what? We.are.still.here. You are still here, my friend. The circumstances may be different, but the resilience of the human spirit remains as vibrant and strong as ever. Things may have changed, and maybe for you that change has brought hardship into your life like never before, whether it's to do with your health, your connections, your finances, your spirituality, or maybe a good dose of them of all - but I promise you, even if it feels like it's not true, the courage and resilience of your spirit remains. You can still live your best life in the middle of a global pandemic, economic disaster, ecological crisis, and an unknown future. Our Jewish mothers and fathers didn't believe in the concept of heaven as we do. For them (and for Jesus and his crew), heaven was the idea of the Shalom (peace) of God inhabiting the here and now. Their spirituality was about living the Kingdom of Heaven into reality. Living your best life isn't about being sickly positive about the hardships that you and the world are facing right now. It's not about plastering scriptures and platitudes all over the internet and passively ignoring facing the reality of your situation. It is about owning the moment. 'I'm going to live - give my best, open my eyes, breathe deep, awake, aware, alive - this moment all the way through. Gratitude and grace.' (Side note: you can be grateful and acknowledge that things suck all in the same breath. There's no actual rule against it except for the narrative we tell ourselves. And you have permission to rewrite that narrative.) That's why Jesus wept on the road the day he rode a donkey into Jerusalem the week before his death (Luke 19): he was witnessing a people who declared the best but were unwilling to participate in it. People who didn't know how to own their moment. It's not a judgment of the Jewish faith (not one bit), but a commentary of human nature that's just as valid and challenging today as it was back then. Imagine being Jesus friends, co-workers, fellow travellers, sponsors, and followers... believing him to be the Saviour, the one who would miraculously set them all free. No one imagined that God incarnate would die on a Roman execution device, charged with treason and terrorism and heresy, betrayed by his own people. Not the Son of God. Not for the one that rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as the crowd chanted "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."* Not for the one who had healed them and fed them and accepted them like no other had. Resilience begins when you show up to the mystery - to the what now, what next; to the where to from here. Left foot, right foot, keep on going, like you always have. Because you are still here and there is more life to live. Love ya, Liz xo 💛✨

http://www.pktfuel.com

[thepracticeco]

So far, you've survived everything you thought you wouldn't. All the evidence is there to prove to you that whatever comes next, you'll survive, that, too. I won't ever stop telling people that mental illness is not a sin; it does not mean that you are defective, or less than, or more broken. Anxiety, depression, Bi-polar... whatever it is that you may have been diagnosed with, it does not make you a sinner. Also, some people, maybe even you, are extra sensitive (hello friends who are enneagram 4's!!). Perhaps you feel everything. Opening your heart is hard not because of pride or sins or walls, but because of the energy it takes to hold the world that comes rushing in whenever the door is left slightly ajar. And still, it's not a sin. It's not shameful. It doesn't make you defective. Anxiety doesn't make you a sinner, and its absence doesn't make you a saint. Worry has something to tell you: it highlights what you care about, what you love, what your values are. It reveals your fears, which inadvertently reveals your hopes, too. Listen to your anxiety, figure out what it's trying to tell you. Sometimes, the message needs to be heeded. Sometimes, it needs to be wrestled to the ground. And sometimes, it just needs to be heard, and you need to move on from it. But you feeling things? That, my friend, is a gift. Paul wrote to his friends in Philippi and said: "Don't be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God's wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ."* Trying to "not worry" is not as easy as it sounds. You can't pray it away, or drown it out by quoting your favourite scriptures. It's one thing to throw this verse around; it's another to practice it. Because that's what it is: a practice. Not a command, not a platitude, not a dot point list of actions and procedures. A practice. One that takes time and learning and will change and morph with your seasons and situations. You can't turn worry and fear and anxiety, off. There is no switch. But there is practice. There is leaning in and working with what you've got, with an open heart and, eventually, a little gratitude. Brené Brown said that: ”If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief." When you read that word safety, read: to be accepted, approved, and validated. Giving up who you are and living a story that flies in the face of your true self, will only exacerbate your anxiety, and you won't be able to glean the gold from it. Let go of who you think you're supposed to be, and embrace who you are, and who you are becoming. Let your true self be seen. Brené went on to say: "Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it's understanding the necessity of both; it's engaging. It's being all in." When you play tug-o-war with anxiety, or any form of mental illness, believing that you have to have it eradicated before you can be free, you're playing into a dualistic game of winners and losers, of which there really are never really any winners. But when you set yourself free from having to be anything other than who and what you are, you understand the value of what anxiety has to tell you, what your illness brings into your life; when you flip that script, and engage your one wild and precious life with all the spirit and grace you can muster... Well, there isn't a more powerful place you could be. This is what grace looks like in real life. Continues in the "You Are A Sinner And A Saint" series this week! Love ya, Liz xo 💛✨

http://www.pktfuel.com