Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Five Inspiring Posts

My Dear Loyal Reader:
Thank you for following this post so faithfully.  You are appreciated more than my meager words can express.  I am taking a much needed break for the next two weeks.  Please enjoy revisiting these popular posts from the past. 

Michael Biggs

I Saw Love Today

Let's Go Invent Tomorrow

A Broken Spirit

What Handicap

The Past Is Past

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Seeing Self

It seems that I write on this subject a lot, and every time these posts generate an above average number of clicks and comments.  And well it should, for this is a critical piece in the continuing development of every human being. 

My friend Jesse is a minister.  His father is a retired minister.  In a phone conversation recently Jesse told me that his father prepares a fresh sermon every week.  When Jesse questioned why, his father replied, “Well, Son, you never know when I may be asked to preach and I want to be ready.”

He saw himself still in the pulpit sharing the good news.  He still holds onto hope that he can bring hope to some weary soul.

Seeing self in the middle of your dream is important.  If you can put yourself into the picture when you visualize your dream, then you are in a better position of making the dream come to life.

I don’t think of myself as one who occasionally has typos when he writes.  I see one who is creative and has a good outflow of material and ideas.  You see, I’m a writer.

What do you see when you think about self?  What are you really?  Where are you?  What are you accomplishing?  What have you accomplished?

I love the picture at the top of this page.  I think this kind of mindset gives one a real hope on which to hold.  Perhaps this lady is living a fantasy life, and that is okay.  If it brings her joy and remembrances of days gone by, then well and good.

I think too many of us have forgotten how to dream.  Even in old age our dreams could extend our years.  Perhaps we have to adapt them in small or large ways to accommodate an aging body, and so we adapt.

And we keep on dreaming and remembering and we hold onto hope.

WE HOLD ONTO HOPE!

Twenty something’s

Forty something’s

Fifty and sixty something’s

And eighty-something’s dream and hope and see a glowing world in their future.


P Michael Biggs
Offering Hope
Encouragement Inspiration
One Word at a Time


Thursday, March 17, 2016

What Are You Thinking

The caption really says it all for us today.  The mind is such a critical player on our team, and what we feed it and what we allow it to feed us is HUGE in predicting and affecting our outcome.

If I had my life to live all over again, I think I would have pursued sports psychology, for in that field they deal with mind conditioning almost exclusively.

Are you a winner?
Can you reach your high and lofty goal?
Can you do more tomorrow than you did today?

Do you want success more than anything?
Will you learn from your mistakes?

Those are the probes that go on in daily conversation with people who achieve top levels of performance in their chosen field.

I am more focused on writing and being an encourager now more than ever before and I continually ask myself questions along these lines.  I’m always looking for the next great idea about which I can write.

I’m always searching for the next insightful book or article to read that I can turn into words of hope and encouragement. 

Thoughts on being an effective encourager consume a large portion of my thought processes every day. 

I read and reread my words.  I analyze past posts and ask why one performs well another performs average.

I love giving thought to this part of life.

I am retirement age, yet not ready to retire.  I still have enough writing projects and encouragement ideas to last another forty years.
 g 
You see, I’m thinking  about what I might possibly say that would encourage your life. 

What are you thinking?


P Michael Biggs
Offering Hope
Encouragement Inspiration
One Word at a Time


Thursday, March 10, 2016

Good Chapters - Bad Chapters

The picture really tells it all, if we believe. 

Ah – belief again. 

Hm

I’ve had some bad chapters in my life.  In my moments of alone time, if I happen to reflect on one of those bad chapters, I often end up chuckling about the experience, or I shake my head and wonder how in the world I ever found myself in that predicament. 

Listen up - One bad chapter does not mean the end of the book.  One misstep, or mistake, or falter, does not end the world. 

Every time I write about this topic it seems I hit a nerve.  I get comments and clicks.  I think people want to know there is life after a bad chapter, a bad experience, and a great fall.

And my friend – there is life after these experiences. 

My favorite quote along these lines is this …

Can you hold that thought for just a short time?  Really hold it?
Absorb it is really what I want us, you and me, to do.  Let it become such a part of our inner being that it goes deeply inside of us.  Then perhaps we will really remember this bit of philosophy. 

We are not our failures.

Bad chapters do not rule my life.

The good ones do!



P Michael Biggs
Offering Hope
Encouragement Inspiration
One Word at a Time


Thursday, March 3, 2016

Feelings about Self

I want to write a bit about feelings – Feelings about ourselves and self image and self-concepts. 

These are important thoughts that we hold toward self, and we need to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt more often than not.

The opening quote sums up the whole idea of self-talk and self-thoughts. 

Self image and self confidence are twins inside our minds.  They feed off each other in strong and profound ways.  We all carry inside of our minds a self image that we have created along the way.  We form these opinions mostly from how we interpret what others feel about us. 

If we were laughed at as children for some clumsiness or some inability, then most children have a tendency to internalize this response and interpret it as if something is dreadfully wrong with us.  Once we do that, we doom our self image and lock it with a vise grip lock that seemingly never lets go and thus we are attached to that lousy self-image for the rest of our lives.

What a tragedy.  We are saddled with thoughts and feelings about ourselves simply because we accepted other’s responses, rightly or wrongly, as a negative response at a moment in time in our lives.  We have played those tapes over in our minds until they became ingrained doctrine and we gave them worth about our own self-worth. 

Many of these feelings have to do with body image.  Ever since my junior year in college I have struggled with a weight issue.  I began putting on the pounds, my activity level slowed down, my appetite skyrocketed, and I gained weight. 

I felt horrible about myself.  I felt insecure, isolated, and felt I somehow did not fully measure up to my skinny friends. 

I was what we call ‘not comfortable in my own skin.’

I had plenty of friends, don’t get me wrong.  I was well-liked as it turned out, yet the inner feelings of inadequacy never fully left me.

I constantly compared myself to my skinny and popular friends and tried every way I could to be them.  Somehow I was never enough. 

And it all had to do with this image thing. 

Thankfully some great books came my way and some wise counsel that helped me begin the journey toward a more balanced and healthier mental attitude about self.  I began reading a lot of self-development books – books that planted the seeds for a better vision of self.  And coupled with those thoughts were some biblical verses that gave me a good dose of self confidence. 

I first had to understand that I was loved as I was, not as I should be. 

Did you catch that?  I was loved as I was, not as I should be.  That was a hard one to get my mind around. 

My peak weight reached 273 pounds in 1973 when I moved from Orlando to Albuquerque.  I remember stopping to see a friend in Oklahoma City on the drive to Albuquerque and while sitting around their dinner table I was so self-conscious of how my shirt pulled tightly across my stomach.  I was a large man and my clothes didn’t fit properly.  What a lousy feeling.

When I looked in the mirror and was honest with myself, I saw a large, fat and overweight jolly man.  I laughed easily.  I made friends easily.  People liked me and accepted me, yet I was not accepting of myself.  I felt inadequate, un-loveable, tolerated and afraid

At some point in my life, and I can’t remember the details as to when, where or how, I began to accept the whole premise of this post. 

I reconciled with myself that I was a large framed man.  I would probably struggle with my weight for the rest of my life.  I started working out on a fairly regular basis at some point and I did lose weight.  That has helped my psyche in large ways, but I was still a large man with more than a few extra pounds that I wanted to shed.

The transformation has been slow to come, and I think I am on good footing now – perhaps better than I’ve ever been.  I now know that my feelings about myself - my self-love and self-care - far outweigh how I may look on the outside.

Tomorrow morning our alarm will ring at 6:15.  My feet will hit the floor shortly thereafter and I’ll put on my gym uniform, lace up my tennis shoes and go exercise for my allotted twenty minutes.  I’m doing this for me.  FOR ME.  Not for you, not for my kids, or siblings – for ME! 

You probably will not notice any changes in my body since I started this new and steady routine, but I know the differences.  I know inside the difference this is making for me. 

I’m still more round in the mid section, and I now have a right knee that gives me a small amount of pain when climbing steps, and I huff and puff some when walking, and that is okay.  I’m an older version of myself and I accept the age thing that has been creeping up on me, but it hasn’t overtaken me.  I still have choices to make.  I still decide the attitude with which I will greet each day.

I like myself.  I like my attitude.  I like my choices and I like my determination. 

I even like the speed at which I spin the treadmill.  It is my speed and it works for me.

I feel terrific about this stage in my life.  I don’t look like I did at 16, or 36 or 56, but I surely like where my mind is headed.

This is a long post.  If you have hung in there with me, bless you.  My prayer is that you might find your own way in whatever pursuits you chase also.

Above all, hold forth good and wholesome
thoughts about self regardless of what the outside looks like.



P Michael Biggs
Offering Hope
Encouragement Inspiration
One Word at a Time