Welcome to 2024! Blog Post 20

Written and Typed 03/01/2024

Photos of Sydney Harbour & Bridge Midnight [New Year's Eve/Day]

It's time to embrace something new! Try something different! Experiment, test or examine!

Be a new person or practice a new quality trait!

Let's embrace this new year and face our challenges head on!

Some of you may have only just survived 2023. Endured suffering with no exit to the dark tunnel ahead. But there is an end, there is light. Seek the gospel for something eternal. Try to embrace something spiritual instead of earthly and material.

Be creative! Be inspired! Be artistic or try a new project! Let's do more than just survive 2024.

Let's embrace a new mindset for this year ahead! Practice positivity and assertiveness!

If you struggle to be inspired, reach out to people. Help someone in need or do volunteer work. Every day can be a fresh start! A healthy mindset will set the stage for how life can be for you this year.

I know life is tough. There are challenges and heartbreak. We will hurt others unintentionally and be hurt ourselves. But learning to forgive sets you free. Not just for you but others too!

Be your best self. Or at least have that as a goal. Have you learnt something through your suffering? Determined to see yourself grow, mature, build character, strength and perseverance!

Let's not make the past mistakes we did the year before. Why be a sad miserable person when you can seek a different mindset and be well?!

2024 is yours! You can set the direction and pace of your life.

Yes, we have to do things we don't want to do. Yeah, we might have work, children to look after, and life might not change for you.

Let's look at 2024 as a clean slate. Let's do and be someone we can be proud of at the end of this year. To look back at the last 12 months and see what you have achieved with your life.

Document daily the good things that have happened to you or you have been blessed with.

Or dot point the good things you have seen or heard recently.

Make a list of the things you have to do. Tick off those gruesome or mundane tasks you have completed that day and be proud of your small achievements. At the end of the day, see what you have done and move the things you haven't done to tomorrow's to do list.

Set the tone for the year on a good note! Try and be excited about the year ahead. And dismiss those thoughts that would derail you onto a path of negativity. Tell yourself life is not about you, but the people around me today I can support. Visit friends and Family. Take photos of places you have been and create good memories to report back on in a few months' time.

This post is inspired by a friend of mine who is experiencing tremendous suffering.

It can be debilitating and affect the quality of your life!

Acknowledging your limitations and knowing what you can and can't do is a good thing.

If that is you, I'm not trying to tell you to ignore, reject or dismiss your pain. Sometimes life is full of grief and suffering. Every season of life has it's challenges. Even if your body is wasting away, we can renew our minds, embrace a positive mindset. Keep your mental health afloat. Don't take your own life! Don't let the devil destroy you. Fight, endure, persevere, do everything you can to protect your soul!

I know from experience that mental health can be our worst enemy, when we hold onto negativity and allow depression to settle in. I am not saying that I understand your suffering. Sometimes I can relate, but like every human who has gone through seasons of suffering, every experience is different, and we don't always understand what someone is going through! But we can empathise. Sometimes people don't tolerate sympathy, pity or a clingy person through their tough times, but to be acknowledged and support can be empowering if you embrace it! Counselling has taught me: our attitudes do affect how we feel. If we tell ourselves something false often enough, we can learn to believe it.

Every thought pattern can be learnt and unlearnt. We can control our thoughts, or we can let them control us. Even if a thought or feeling is true, we can still decide how we are going to let it affect us. I've always been told not to live by my feelings because sometimes there is no evidence to back them up.

I have suffered extensively in the past, wondering if life was ever going to improve. And even when at times it hasn't, we can still choose to be negative or positive.

Since the end of 2022, I have chosen to be happy despite my circumstances even if I don't always feel it. But it is amazing if you practice something often enough, it starts to come naturally. Whether it's my physiotherapy exercises to strengthen my body from injury relapse, practice my counselling homework or choosing to see the good out of the bad. To wake up every day and tell myself: it is going to be a good day! Even if you know what your day holds and you know it is going to be tedious, you can still be assertive with yourself and support your mental health. An experience I found myself laughing through was talking to myself that my mental health was my best friend. I started to nurture it, help it and even coddle it! We have to be our own best friend! How can we expect others to like us, if we don't like ourselves! How much nicer is it for everyone else, if we are a bubbly positive person! People do notice! I have received more positive feedback and comments. Even if I don't believe it, hear it often enough and it wears you down. LOL! I also decided to talk to God instead of myself. I'm like - why not! Embrace your weird side. Make yourself laugh. I have heard it is good for you and has health benefits.

If you look around you close enough, there is always someone more worse off than us. You just have to turn on the news and see the suffering, sin and natural disasters in the world to realise how fortunate we are to live in Australia. We have our fair share of natural disasters! But our lives are not violently threatened. Another country hasn't invaded us. We are not a dictatorship. Yes, not everyone agrees with the Governments we have, but compared to other countries, we are a democracy. We have free choice, and we live in an age where everyone can choose their own partners, male or female. Unlike in the past where that wasn't an option and not internationally approved until recently. No doubt our suffering can be extreme, but we don't have to live in despair, and in a hopeless state of being.

Remember, you have people who love and care for you. Who need you to be well and functioning. Especially if you have small children. Even more so if your children have disability! Self-care is so important! For you, your kids and your extended family! Sometimes we don't realise how many people our actions can affect if not regularly checked!

People want you to succeed and be your best self. You can make a life for yourself than just survive another year! Love yourself enough to care for you, because each soul is precious to God!

A quote by Vickie M Worsham. "Remember what is most important: It is not having everything go right; it is facing whatever goes wrong. It's not being without fear. It's having the determination to go on in spite of it. Remember that every day ends and brings a new tomorrow. Love what you do. Do the best you can, and always remember how much you are loved!"

• Know that God is for you! Romans 8 verse 31.

• He wants the best for you! Romans 8 verse 28.

• He has purpose and plans for us! Jeremiah 29 verse 11.

• We are to leave behind the past and look towards the future. Philippians 3 verses 13 and 14. And Isaiah 43 verses 18 and 19.

We can't change what has happened to us in the past, but we can let go of last year and move forward for our future! Make this year a better year!

• We are to run the race with perseverance!

1 Corinthians 9 verses 24 to 27. • Look to our saviour who promises us salvation if we believe Him and what Jesus has done for us on the Cross at Calvary! John 5 verse 24. 1 John 2 verse 25 and 1 John 5 verse 13.

Wishing you the best for the year ahead and I hope 2024 has a lot of good things for you to be thankful for! Much love and care,

Sarah Louise Clarke