Starving The Stress Monster
Do you know someone who struggles under the weight of stress? This may help…
Sometimes I picture my emotional stress as a voracious animal. He’s fed by my thoughts. When I mull over regrets and guilt from the past or dwell on imagined fears of the unknown out in the future, this evil beast not only survives, but thrives.
Do you know what I’ve discovered starves and shuts down my stress monster? Shifting my thoughts from the past or the future to the right now, the present moment.
Engaging my hands in art- coloring, painting, drawing- helps move my mind to the present. Just think about it: we cannot paint in the past or the future, but only in the present.
While engaging my hands in art, I’ve learned to engage my mind in meditating on Scripture to give that old stress monster a one/two knockout punch that disarms his power over me.
Psalm 119:105 says: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
I’m so grateful for the gift of Scripture to light my way through not only the daily decisions I have to make, but also out of the deep, dark cave of emotional stress!
Here’s a link to a short interview that aired recently on our local ABC and FOX affiliate about my Soul Soothing Scriptures coloring book that’s designed to help people use coloring to meditate on Scripture and ease stress in the process.
(Click on the image below if you want to see the short segment.)
Blessings,
Debbie
P.S. The lovely page below from my Soul Soothing Scriptures coloring book was colored by Lindsey, an amazing young mom in Houston. She wrote on Instagram, “After a sleepless night of scratching and screaming, B (her precious little boy) is finally napping. Worship music playing, and meditating on the One who gives rest! #myhappyplace ”
Didn’t Lindsey do an amazing job? I love it!