I AM - Two of the Most Important Words

I was recently introduced to this video of Joel Osteen's famous sermon about changing your "I am" and making sure you are using the right "I AM"s each day.

I absolutely love this sermon and have listened to it every day for the past 4 days, more than once each day. There is so much amazing information in just this half hour sermon. It is so perfect for changing yours or anyone's life. Listen to this sermon, send it to your friends. I am not preaching any form of religion here. I am sharing the underlying message of this sermon. You can go places you've never dreamed of before by simply changing your I AM.

I will admit that over the past few weeks I've been struggling big time. I've been searching for motivation everywhere - books, blogs, videos. Nothing seemed to really work for me. And I'm not trying to make excuses, but I also think Mercury Retrograde had a lot to do with this as well. But I'm ready to move on, find that motivation again, and achieve my dreams and goals. My get up and go really did get up and go a few weeks ago. I have had no motivation, felt extremely exhausted and just want to be alone. For the most part, I'm still lacking the motivation and have the exhaustion and still want to be alone, but this sermon has still changed so much that has been running through my head lately. I am blessed. I am achieving my dreams and goals. I am working hard. I've been working on the negative thoughts running through my head for what seems like ages. Most days they don't get me down, but the past few weeks have been horrible. And this message really pointed that out for me.

There is so much that Joel says in this sermon that really resonates with me. And so much I need to do still with working on myself due to past influences, mainly my parents programming of me. My mom is still going at me every day with her rude comments about how I am basically a failure. And I know this has a lot to do with how I've felt every day for the past few weeks. Every time I start having successes, I get broken down again by one or both of my parents and my path starts getting derailed again. I am done with this from this point forward. I know that I am achieving my dreams and goals, no matter what happens or who wants other things to happen in my life.

Life Joel says in this video, create your list of "I am" sayings that you can and are achieving. I have started to do this and change is already happening again. Nothing is going to derail me this time. I am achieving my dreams and goals. I have also decided to create an I AM vision board. I am going to type up all of my I AM statements and put them on a piece of posterboard. The more I read these over and over each day, the more things will start to change.

Change is something that is really actually easy. It is the thought about changing that takes so long to accept and act on. Making that change is instant as soon as the thought to actually change is accepted.

Change your life. Be a better you. Trust, believe, have faith. Life is amazing and getting better and better every day. But this is where you have to trust, believe and have faith.

Meditation

I personally love to meditate. Whenever stress or something else gets to me, I try to find a place I can go to and meditate for at least 5 minutes. It really helps to relax and calm me and get me back to where I should be. Stress, depression, anger, sadness, none of that is so important that it needs to bring you down and keep you down.

Some say that meditation is hard. They can't stop the voices in their head. They can't sit still for that long. Well, unless you are an absolute pro at meditating, no one can stop the voices in their head. The key is to focus on your breath. Focus on breathing in and out. When a thought comes up, dismiss it and go back to focusing on your breathing. You don't have to sit cross legged on the floor to meditate. Use a chair, a bed, the couch, the possibilities are limitless. I like to lay on my bed to meditate. If you can't sit still, then you can't sit still. It is a not a requirement of meditation. Meditation is meant to help quiet the mind. It helps you focus and release those unneeded thoughts and stresses.

You can also find guided meditations. Youtube has tons of them. Search for a guided meditation on a specific topic that you may be looking for extra help with. These guided meditations can help make things simpler for someone new to meditation. All you have to do is follow along with the words in the meditation. It is guided for exactly what to do.

Another thing you can do is find a picture. Someplace you enjoy going to, the beach, a mountaintop, a waterfall, the possibilities are endless. Then in your mind's eye picture yourself at this place relaxing. When I'm really stressed out from work or others around me, I like to picture myself on the beach, with my toes curled in the sand, just letting all of the stress flow out of me and the serene calmness of the ocean and beach flowing into me.

Share your meditation journeys, I'd love to hear about them. Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest.