Tag: purpose

Week #9 – Forgiving and Healing

Post author By Mark Joseph
Post date July 1, 2020

This is the 9th of our 14-week program, where we provide Lesson #9, Forgiving and Healing. It’s interesting…no matter who I talk to, it seems this is a critical part to their journey. Some questions to consider as we kick this lesson off:

What is eating at you? What bothers you on a regular basis?
Are there things that you regret that took place in your life? By you? By someone else?
What feelings do these circumstances create within you?

In past lessons, we’ve discussed how tragedies occur in our lives, a universal truth. We also talked about how we’re sometimes hurt by others. Both create wounds.

An important part of our spiritual journey is healing from those wounds. Often much easier said than done, it takes time. And although it’s said that time heals all wounds, I needed to bring intentionality to it…it wasn’t going to happen on its own.

My Experience of Forgiving

My experience would indicate that healing has much to do with forgiving. Interestingly, for me to forgive others, I first needed to forgive myself. WHAT? Yea, for me to forgive other people, I first needed to go through the process, albeit painful, of forgiving myself. Once I did, I was able to own up to my role in the circumstances, not gratuitously but substantively. With that “power”, from a position of strength, I could now genuinely forgive.

BTW, forgiving doesn’t mean condoning the behavior of others. Although we are called to be charitable and compassionate, we can’t own others’ faults and failings. We can find in Scripture why we are called to forgive, which we’ll discuss in this Friday’s video.

Sometimes It’s Not Our Fault

Be clear, I am aware that some tragedies, some hurts are NO fault of ours’. Although reflection of self is always part of the process, healing from these things involves additional principles. Sorry, but we unfortunately don’t have the time here to discuss the healing required for “no fault” healing. If you’d like more information, please reach out to me.

The truth is….there is no way to live a life of peace, joy, and fulfillment without healing from the wounds created from our tragedies and hurts.

Suggested Actions

How do we heal from our wounds? How do we forgive?

Think about doing the following things:
- Bringing someone along side you, i.e. therapist, Priest or other Religious, mentor, friend (very much helps if the person has experience and can be objective)
- Spending dedicated time thinking/praying:
  - Look at it from the other person’s perspective
  - Try to find the positive in what transpired, including lessons learned
During your morning prayer routine this week:
- Try to be in a place of gratitude, thanking God for everything that’s taken place in your life. What positive thing from that tragedy would not be present in your life today?
Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #10 when we talk about our Becoming the Best Possible You. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at Mark@MarkJosephMinistries.com.

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Mark Joseph

Week #1 – Being Overwhelmed
Week #2 – Earning the love of others
Week #3 – Lack of self-love
Week #4 – Fear
Week #5 – False gods, False happiness
Week #6 – Life’s Tragedies
Week #7 – Wounds, Resentments

Week #8 – Discovering God’s Love
Week #9 – Forgiveness and healing
Week #10 – Becoming the best Possible You
Week #11 – Path to Peace
Week #12 – Finding your Purpose
Week #13 – You were made for Greatness
Week #14 – True Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment

Tags balance, catholic, Challenges, companionship, Conflict, Family, forgiveness, Friends, healing, Mark Joseph, Overcome, prayer, purpose, Relationships

Weekly Blog

Week #8 – Discovering God’s Love

Post author By Mark Joseph
Post date June 24, 2020

This is the 8th of our 14-week program, where we provide Lesson #8, Discovering God’s Love. This is where everything changes…where you begin transforming the challenges of life into true Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment. It all starts here.

The first 7 of these 14 lessons, much like the first half of my book, covered the challenges we have in life and how they overwhelm us…from growing up believing that we have to earn the love of others to that manifesting itself in us having lack of self-love, and living out of our fears. We’re wounded by others hurting us, in addition to the tragedies we experience, often creating resentments. We end up looking for happiness in the wrong places, creating false gods along the way.

In the past 7 lessons, I’ve made recommendations as to how you can overcome each of the above. While each of the things I’ve suggested have worked for me, each is rooted in the following truth…

God loves you more than you’ll ever know, no matter what you’ve ever done.

Let that sink in.

God loves you more than you’ll ever know,
No matter what you’ve ever done

Knowing this, internalizing it, changes everything in your life. It’s not that you need to be worthy…you’re wanted. You’re chosen. God our Father loves you unconditionally; He forgives you unconditionally.

God’s love is so great, that He gave His only begotten Son to die for your sins. Jesus Christ, our Savior, innocent of all, willingly allowed Himself to be killed on the Cross for you. In fact, Jesus loves you so much, that if you were the only person on this earth, He would have still endured that same tortious crucifixion just for you.

There’s only one way we come to understand this very true reality…and that’s through conversion. My conversion changed my life forever. I got there through the tragedy I endured. Others get there in other ways. Regardless of the path, here are the lessons learned.

In understanding and internalizing the unconditional love and forgiveness of God, you know that:

The unimaginable is achievable
You can live Heaven here on earth
There is a very specific path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment

My greatest prayer, the thing I take to our Lord every single day, it that EVERYONE comes to a place of understanding and internalizing the unconditional love of God. As stated above, it changes everything.

Suggested Actions

So, how do you come to know the love of Christ? How do you achieve conversion? Again, there are no “quick” fixes to anything in life. Going from overwhelmed to peace, joy, and fulfillment, which is the purpose of this program and my book, can’t happen overnight. It’s a process that is much more than simply flipping a switch. With that, the process all starts with conversion. I suggest:

Do what speaks to you below (all of which can be found on page 71 of my book):
- Pray for your conversion on a regular basis. It is a gift from God, and he wants to give it more than you want to receive it.
- Remind yourself often of the unconditional love of God for you. Even if you don’t feel it, tell yourself, “God loves me unconditionally.” Let yourself believe it (there is nothing more true).
- Pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to lead you to conversion.
- If you are Catholic, participate in the sacraments, especially confession and the Mass. I also suggest praying in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
- Engage with a spiritual mentor, such as a priest, religious sister, deacon, pastor, or another wise person in your life who can work and pray with you.
- Find a friend who is on the journey, who is willing to come along side you, to love you, coach you, and share with you.
- Read Scripture and do other spiritual reading, especially on conversion and the love of God for us.
- Seek out and participate in a vibrant Christian community; attend religious events and retreats.
- Listen to inspiring talks and beautiful, uplifting music

During your morning prayer routine this week:
- Visualize and meditate on Jesus on the Cross. Pray through the love that took from our Savior. Pray on the fact that love exists for you today
Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #9 when we talk about FORGIVENESS AND HEALING, both critical to our journeys forward. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at Mark@MarkJosephMinistries.com.

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!
Mark Joseph

Tags balance, cross, Crucifix, evangelize, forgiveness, God, Jesus, Joy, Love, Overcome, prayer, purpose, Relationships, sin

Weekly Blog

Week 4# – Fear

Post author By Mark Joseph
Post date May 27, 2020

This is the 4^th of our 14-week program, where we provide Lesson #4, on Fear. So, here are some questions to consider:

Separate from your phobias, i.e. snakes, spiders, heights, what are your fears? Examples are right below.
What has the impact been on your life? What have these fears prevented you from doing?

Depending on the resources you look to, the list of most common fears can vary. When writing my book, Overwhelming Pursuit: Stop Chasing Your Life and Live, the list that rang most true to me included:

Ridicule
Rejection
Conflict or Confrontation
Unknown (Uncertainty)
Loneliness

Having recited the above when giving talks, I always ask the audience which of the most prevalent fears is not among the list. Someone invariably answers….FAILURE.
Why are we so fearful of failure?

Being rejected
Not being liked, being loved
Not being good enough
Failure itself – what it says about us

Fear impedes progress in our lives. Think about it. Because of fear, you don’t do things or do them differently than you otherwise would. Therefore, the results you achieve, both good and bad, are different than if you didn’t have the fear. Without the fear, your lessons learned, your progress would be different, arguably better.

I have a plaque on my desk that reads, “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” Think about that for a minute. How would your life be different? I know mine would. How about yours’?

The irony here is that our true friends and those in our family who truly love us will support us no matter what. So will God the Father, who loves us unconditionally, and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, dare I say our faults and our failings.

It says 365 times in Scripture some derivative of “be not afraid”. God clearly doesn’t want us to live in fear. Yet most of us live with fears, including the list above, and especially (in most cases) the fear of failure. It used to be true in my life. I thank God for the journey He took me on, which will be shared as we move through these lessons.

Suggested Actions

Acknowledging that there are no “quick” fixes to anything in life, I’m going to give you a couple things that helped me with this idea of fear:

I would suggest

Think about the following questions. Take them to prayer. We can only understand an issue if we identify it. Ponder (think/pray) the following:
- Make a list of the top three factors in your life that cause you the most fear.
- Looking at your list, where do these fears come from? Are they rooted in reality?
- If not (which is most often the case), what’s the truth in each of these situations?
- Start to speak that truth in your life, whether that’s through writing something down and sticking it on your bathroom mirror or developing a mantra you can repeat to yourself throughout the day.

Sometimes the only way to overcome a fear is by performing the opposite action. Is there a fear you can face down by doing (even if in a very small way) the very thing you’re afraid of? See how you perform…you’ll probably be surprised.
During your morning prayer routine this week, offer your fears up to the Lord (discard them, give them to Him), basking in His love and internalizing your true worth. Replace those fears with phrases like “be not afraid” and “I can do all things through Christ”, both from Scripture.
Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #5 when we talk about false gods and false happiness. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at Mark@MarkJosephMinistries.com.

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Mark Joseph

Tags catholic, Challenges, fear, Hope, Jesus, Love, Mark Joseph, prayer, purpose, Relationships

Weekly Blog

Week #3 – Lack of Self-Love

Post author By Mark Joseph
Post date May 20, 2020

This is the 3^rd of our 14-week program, where we provide Lesson #3, Lack of Self-Love. This is a tough issue, which requires honest (and vulnerable) self-assessment. So, here are some questions to consider:

After you’ve done something, i.e. an interaction, project, performance (sports, speech, etc.) of some kind, do you find yourself second-guessing yourself?
Given the above, do you beat yourself up, which turns into not liking yourself…not loving yourself?
What is the impact on your life? During your day? Over the course of your week?

When writing my book, I wanted to vet the concepts with my therapist. I said to her something like, “70-75% of people suffer from lack of self-love”. She scoffed at me, laughing. I’ll never forget it. I said, “what do you mean?” She then said that based on her experience and research, that “lack of self-love afflicts more than 95% of us”.

Think about it in your life…

You do something where you believe you’ve not performed well or not met the expectations of others.
You believe that they didn’t like what/how you did it (true or not), then inferring that they don’t like you. You become hyper-critical of your actions.
It being a constant source of concentration, you beat yourself up, not like yourself, not believing you deserve to be loved, then not loving yourself.

Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels

If we’re honest, the above resonates.

Same Was True for Me
That was certainly the case for me. Born mostly out of the conditional love (needing to earn the love of others) we talked about last week (Lesson #2), I was beating myself up on a regular basis. According to that same therapist, it was stealing the energy from me to live a happy and fulfilled life.

From the outside, I was this confident guy, who had it all together…nice family, good business, nice things, and I was crumbling inside. It wasn’t just her theory. It was real….I had no peace or joy in my life. I was on that hamster wheel (Lesson #1) and I was exhausted, deflated, frustrated….overwhelmed.

Here’s the Truth About the Situation
Those closest to you, who truly love you, family and friends, could care less how you perform. They’re going to love you anyhow.

No one judges you as harshly as you judge yourself. You, like so many others, hold yourself to unrealistic standards. Yet your worth, your value as a person, has nothing to do with how you perform.

God loves you more than you’ll ever know, no matter what you’ve ever done.

Suggested Actions
So what do we do about it? As indicated, there are no “quick” fixes to anything in life, including LACK OF SELF-LOVE. In future lessons, I’m going to provide guidance on a more comprehensive fix that we can’t get to until covering more material. In the interim, I would suggest:

Think about the following questions. Take them to prayer. We can only understand an issue if we identify it. Ponder (think/pray) the following:
- When was the last time you beat yourself up?
- Think through what actually occurred in the situation. Looking at it as objectively as you can, how did you perform? Did the job get done? Were the goals primarily met?
- Understanding that the answers to the above are typically “yes”, how did you allow the circumstance impact you…your day, that evening, even the balance of the week?
- Imagine what things would have felt like that day or week if you didn’t have this self-doubt.
During your morning prayer routine this week:
- Offer your negative thoughts up to the Lord (discard them, give them to Him), basking in His love and internalizing your true worth. Replace those thoughts with words like “I am loved” and “my value doesn’t lie in what I do”.
- Try to concentrate on the positive. What are the good things in your life? The occurrences? Relationships? Job? Health? It would help to jot them down.
Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #4 when we talk about FEAR. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at Mark@MarkJosephMinistries.com.

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Mark Joseph

Tags Challenges, Hope, Jesus, Joy, Love, Mark Joseph, prayer, purpose, Relationships, self-love