Harvest Life Gracefully: Accepting the Higher Power

Harvest Life Gracefully: Accepting the Higher Power

Accepting the higher power as being greater than yourself is the most important aspect to harvest life gracefully!

Take a minute and ponder upon electricity and gravity can you control them? Would you not say that these natural powers are greater than ourselves because nothing in our own power can change or control them. Interesting enough with understanding this comes acceptance.

When I accepted that electricity and gravity is a power greater than myself, then I was able to gain the concept that their is a spiritual power who is greater than myself and the natural spiritual law. With accepting this I learn to put my faith and trust into this power. By doing so I tapped into something that is strong and useful for my internal and external growth.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Communication

Harvest Life Gracefully: Communication by Jane Jonas

Being able to communicate in a positive way is needed, when you harvest life gracefully.

As most of you know I am a survivor of abuse. Abuse has caused me not to trust. The abuse caused negative thinking. When someone said or did something that I did not like, I would think that they were out to get me.

In order for me to calm the fear of "they are out to get me" I needed to learn to express to the person how I felt about what they had said or done, and then I ask for clarification of what was meant by it. I soon realize most people were amazed that I interpreted the words or actions as I did. Then I would realize that my fear was groundless. But how would I know if I didn't express myself? This is a way to build trust.

Lets us remember to ask our higher power for the courage to ask for clarification instead of sitting in our fear. Sitting in fear is not the way to harvest life gracefully.

Harvest Life Gracefully: The opposite of fear is faith

Harvest Life Gracefully: The opposite of fear is faith by Jane Jonas

One of the steps to harvest life gracefully is to examine your life, as I was examining my life I notice whenever I made bad or unhealthy choices in my life the main emotion I was feeling was fear. I am assuming that this is true for most people, would you not agree?

The problem with fear is, it stops us from enjoying life and the people in our lives. Often times I believe we act out of fear because we are afraid that our experiences from the past will recur so we will do things trying to control the future. Allowing to have fear control you is like being weight down with a ball and chain attached to your body. Fear prevents peace of mind and serenity. To harvest life gracefully is learning to replace fear with faith. Remember this faith is action. Lets practice letting go of behaviors and habits that we clung to whenever handling fearful situations.

Harvest Life Gracefully: A prayer

Harvest Life Gracefully: A prayer

I received this prayer today in my email. Meditation and prayer is an excellent way to harvest life gracefully. It keeps us focus on what we need to do and what is important. This prayer says it all! Please pass this prayer on to your friends.

I'm praying for you this day. I know God will bless you more and more each day!!
Relax your mind and humble your heart to focus on Christ. Allow God to be the only person on your mind while you read this prayer. If we can take the time to read long jokes, stories, etc., we should give the same respect to this prayer. Friends, who pray together, stay together.
If you pray this prayer, change the number.


Dear Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning. I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God. You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me. Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you. I ask now for Your forgiveness.

Please keep me safe from all d anger and harm. Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let me make the best of each day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.

Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over. Let me continue to see sin through God's eyes and acknowledge it as evil. And when I sin, let me repent, and confess with my mouth my wrongdoing, and receive the forgiveness of God.

And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus' example -- to slip away and find a quiet place to pray. It's the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits. I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart. Continue to use me to do Your will.

Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others. Keep me strong that I may help the weak.. Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others. I pray for those who are lost and can't find their way. I pray for those who are misjudged and misunderstood. I pray for t hose who don't know You intimately. I pray for those who will delete this without sharing it with others. I pray for those who don't believe But I thank you that I believe.

I believe that God changes people and God changes things. I pray for all my sisters and brothers. For every family member in their households. I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that they are out of debt and all their needs are met.

I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem, circumstance, or situation greater than God. Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight. I pray that these words be received into the hearts of every eye that sees them and every mouth that confesses them willingly..

This is my prayer.
In Jesus' Name,
Amen.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Acceptance

Harvest Life Gracefully: Acceptance by Jane Jonas

To harvest life gracefully does not require you to like everybody but to accept everybody. I don't believe that is is humanly possible to like every single person you meet, because there will always be somebody that will say or do something that we disagree with. I bet I affect some people in the same way. In fact I know I do! The differences in people will make for variety in our life and it would be helpful to welcome and appreciate it. Just like we appreciate the variety of flowers in our gardens.

It is only necessary to accept people who are different than us, we don't have to like them, regardless of our beliefs, race, color or background. The differences in people will spice up the adventure in living if you would only allow it.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Caretaker

Harvest Life Gracefully: Caretaker by Jane Jonas

Does this sound like you? Are you are caretaker? How about this? Would you think that you knew what was best for everyone. If only they would follow your advice then they would be fine. Then when they did not follow you will be become frustrated and angry feeling rejected?
Understand this! In order to harvest life gracefully we must remember that we are not in charge. Do you like it when people try to control you? If you are like me you would probably resent it. So I am sure that people will resent us if we did the same. We are powerless to change anyone but ourselves. I believe that if we are too busy in other people's lives, it is because we are running away from ourself. Would you not agree?

Harvest Life Gracefully: Personal Rights

Harvest Life Gracefully: Personal Rights by Jane Jonas

Practicing your personal rights is a wonderful way to harvest life gracefully.

Yesterday when I was cleaning I ran across this sheet of paper which I had hung onto for years. I remember that I had gotten this from my therapist in my early days of learning how to harvest life gracefully. Listed on this paper was our personal rights, after studying the rights for a while, I then realize exercising these rights shows confidence, high esteem and respect for oneself. Often, people who has been abused especially during childhood will think and feel that they have no rights, because of how they had been violated. Today I decided to share these rights to you.

As a person I have the right to:

Be myself
Refuse requests without feeling selfish.
Be competent and be proud of my accomplishments.
Feel and express anger.
Ask for affection and help ( I may be turned down,but I can ask)
Be treated as a capable person.
Be illogical in making decisions.
Make mistakes - and be responsible for them.
Change my mind.
Say "I don't know."
Say "I don't agree."
Say "I don't understand."
Have my opinions given respect.
Have my needs be as important as the needs of others.
Tell someone what my needs are. (They may not choose to do anything about it.)
Take pride in my body and define attractiveness in my own terms.
Grow, learn and change,and value my age and experience.
And sometimes make demands on others.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Self-Acceptance & Strenghts

Harvest Life Gracefully: Self-Acceptance and Strenghts by Jane Jonas

I discover to harvest life gracefully I need to concentrate and focus on my strenghts.

I believe for those of us who has grown up in a dysfunctional family or who has been abused and bullied usually develop an overwhelming sense of something is wrong with ourselves. If I allow this belief to control who I am then I will become withdrawn, and it will lead to feeling powerless and helpless. To overcome this insanity is self-acceptance. For me, self-acceptance is to honesty recognize my shortcomings and defects as well as all of my good points. Only by accepting and using my positive qualities will I be able to develop the strength to reduce defects in my character.

Have you ever heard this statement?

"What I am is God's gift to me. What I make of myself is my gift to God."

I like it very much because it help me to focus on how I want to grow as a person.

Harvest Life Gracefully: What If?

Harvest Life Gracefully: What If? by Jane Jonas

How often do you waste hours of your time by being wrapped up in your thinking wondering what the people in your life is thinking, what is she/he is doing or be doing next? How often do you ask yourself this question, “What if? What if this happens, or what if he/she does this or if he/she does that? How often do you think about how to solve his or her problem wanting to take responsibly of fixing it to make it better? For me, it only cause undue worry and anxiety. Then I wake up and realize what I been doing and remember it is time to let go and let god and see what will happen. I can not change or force anything about another person. I can not control what another will think or do. My happiness is not depended upon another person. It is depended upon being content with myself. I believe that if I spend time thinking about another person or uncontrollable situation that it is a form of control and I am risking the health of my mental well-being. Therefore my goal is to harvest life gracefully and I won't risk my mental well-being by being wrapped up in other people's business.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Discouragement

Harvest Life Gracefully: Discouragement by Jane Jonas

I am sure that there have been times in our lives that we had felt discouragement, helpless and powerless. What do we do about it? There is no such thing as failure unless we quit. But it seems natural to most of us to throw up our hands in defeat during times of distress. I realize now, that discouragement is actually a indication that something in our life need changing. This is the time to meditate for direction and to keep trying and not to give up. Eventual the answer will come, that is a given, Just think how wonderful and proud you will feel after winning your personal battle. Harvest Life Gracefully, is not giving up, you will win at the end.

Harvest Life Gracefully : Appreciative

Harvest Life Gracefully: Appreciative

To harvest life gracefully is to let our love ones know how well we love and appreciate them. How often do we take the people we love for granted? If you are like me, you would probably agreed that it feels great when our love ones says “you are appreciated. So often mentally we will tell ourselves how fortunate we are to have this or that person in our life. But do we actually let them know that! I think oftentimes we think just because we are in their lives that they should automatically know how well we appreciate them. This includes are spouse, partner, siblings,children, friends and co-workers.. Let us remember this, it is important to let our love ones know how much we appreciate them and love them.
This help to create a happier relationship and positive attitudes among the people in your life. It can boost self-esteem and confidence to the people we love. This also can help a person that may be feeling discouraged, it could make a difference between “giving up or holding on” Harvest Life Gracefully by spreading the attitude of appreciation.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Graditude

As we continue down the road of Harvest Life Gracefully, it is easy to say Thank You to the miracles in our lives. How about the small every day to day gifts? If you look deep enough you will always find something that you can be grateful for. It is important if you want to harvest life gracefully to take time out and appreciate the small things in our lives. By doing so you will gain an attitude of gratitude. Living life with the attitude of gratefulness, will create a positive, happy,and contentment
feeling within yourself. People will notice this change and will want to be your loyal friend.

A good ideal for showing gratitude to the people in your life is: Buy or make thank you cards and set a time limit, two weeks, a month or whatever will work for you use all of the note cards up! Sit back and take in the good feelings from the results. You"ll Love the feeling! This is the way to harvest life gracefully!

Harvest Life Gracefully: No Pain No Growth

In order to harvest life gracefully you need to face your emotional pain,if faced it will lead you to learn more about yourself. Remeber this, everything we experience has its value. If you think about it, exactly how much do we really learn when things are going well. Nothing! we just coast along in life just for the ride. Nobody likes pain, it hurts and we want it to go away, therefore pain causes us to challenge whatever is wrong that needs changing. One may want to look at this as an adventure though our journey in life. With each new emotional pain faced, adds more value and fulfillment to you and this is just another way you can harvest life gracefully.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Comparing

Harvest Life Gracefully- Don't Compare
When we compare our talents against others this is not the way to harvest life gracefully. We are all equally special in our own way. If other people have talents that are different than yours' this does not mean that one is more special or better than the other. It just means that we are different. To harvest life gracefully means that it is our responsibility to develop the talents we have. We need to find the courage to stop comparing ourselves to others and start looking at our own talents because everybody is born with talents that will make your life fulfilling.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Know Thyself Be Honest

Know Thyself Be Honest is a step to harvest life gracefully, we spend so much time thinking and not enough time feeling. Constant thinking will leave you physically tense by the end of the day. This usually will cause for restless nights. This is a sign for you to stop and examine your life. Were you thinking about hurts or guilt's? Maybe you are thinking about unfulfilled needs from childhood. Working on this slogan "Known Thyself Be Honest" will free yourself to harvest life gracefully.
Maybe it is time for you to examine your life, by keeping an journal or talking to a trusted friend.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Love

Love is an attitude and not an emotion. If you want to make progress and harvest life gracefully we need to love others with an attitude of unselfish
concern for others. Love is the opposite of being selfish. Treating others with respect as you expect to be treated, you then, will chose not to harm others, steal from them, or deprive them to satisfy our own selfish desires.
Harvest Life gracefully by asking yourself are you acting in the best interest of others in mind? This is the true meaning to harvest life gracefully.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Honesty

To Harvest Life Gracefully successfully calls for honesty in word and deed. Dishonesty and being a fake will lead to suspicion, mistrust,and hatred, destroying our relationships. To have loyal friends and to have relationships to grow and thrive we need to be honest and tell the truth. This is the real basis of developing trust between people. Therefore when you are in need you can confidently look to others for assistance.

Harvest Life Gracefully: Setting Boundaries

Some of us had the misfortune not to be cared for and nurtured as children, often resulting in being taken advantage of as adults.. Because we have been abandoned, neglected, or violated by people who were supposed to care for us, we have problems with being clear-sighted when its' safe to trust others. Therefore, we often allow others to walk over us, we respond by being a people pleaser so we will be liked. To harvest life gracefully we need help learning to set boundaries to protect us from people who might take advantage of our vulnerability. We need to look for spiritual minded people who will help us to draw healthy boundaries in our life.

Harvest Life Gracefully update:

My dear followers of Harvest Life Gracefully blog,

I have decided that I will be changing what I will be posting. Instead of posting articles. I will be posting about positive living in my own words.
I believe that no matter what we are facing in life, be it, if it's healing from abuse, being a parent, dealing with relationships or whatever it may be, we first need to evaluate,examine and then improve if needed our attitudes,and perceptions about the situations that we are facing. In other words I will be posting food for your thoughts. Please feel free to comment on anything that I post or if you have your own food for thoughts, please do share them. They will be totally welcomed as we all need encouragement in order to harvest life gracefully.

I hope you all will like my new format.

Jane Jonas

Understanding long term effects on students who are being bullied is to harvest life gracefully.

Another way to harvest life gracefully is to understand and educate yourself about the long term effects of being bullied at school. I can understand these effects, base on my own personal expierences. It will cause low self-worth, feeling like a nothing, you will even question why you are alive and be confuse to what your purpose is. It is not unusual to conteplate or even attempt sucide just to escape from the emotional pain. I can't imagine nothing any worse than feeling unloved, unwanted and having no place in this world. These are all thoughts and feelings that I expirenced by being verbally bullied thoughout elementry, middle and high school. I agree with Vickie Britton in her article below, that you can and probably suffer the lasting efects twenty or thirty years later. I have certain triggers that will take my mind back as if it is still happening today. This is not easy for the people I am close to. Beccause they don't always know how to respond. If you get a chance read what I have already posted on my story page in how anxiety sunk in during my high school years and how the anxiety caused even more misery to my life. I hope everyone will take the time to understand and educate themselves on this subject matter. I believe it is also important to understand and educate what causes a bully to be a bully.


The Long-Term Effect on Students Victimized by School Bullies

Apr 10, 2010 Vickie Britton
Students who were bullied in elementary, middle, or high school may suffer lasting effects even twenty or thirty years later.

Most adults have a horror story or two about the school bully. But for some students, the harassment may begin as early as elementary school, escalate during middle school and continue through high school. Years of emotional and physical bullying can cause lasting damage.

Bullying is a form of abuse. One child or a small group may be singled out for harassment, often for little or no reason. Once it becomes a pattern, this form of behavior can spread throughout a classroom or school until a single child or group of "outsiders" is subjected to daily verbal or physical abuse by others.
Types of Bullying Commonly Experienced

For many bullied students, the school years are filled with anxiety and dread. Ex-students recall being singled out for abuse by name-calling, being shunned and ostracized, and even beaten. Students recall being pushed into walls, knocked to the ground, and sustaining cuts and bruises on a daily basis.

Bullying often occurs in contained areas such as school buses or bathrooms. It may also take place in the classroom, school cafeteria, gym locker room, or even in the hallways between classes. Some provide painful testimony of verbal abuse, such as repeated name-calling. Others are jabbed with sharp objects such as pens in the hallway or they're mocked and humiliated in the gym shower or locker room. Many report that teachers and other adults knew what was going on but did nothing to stop the continual bullying.
The Lasting Effects of Bullying

The pain of being bullied in school can be felt years later. Many victims of bullying bear emotional scars that haunt them decades after the abuse has stopped. Many students who had been bullied in middle school or high school report feeling a sense of withdrawal from others, fear of expressing opinions, even fear of closed-in spaces or other places similar to the ones where the bullying occurred. The effects of this trauma are felt for years.

Read more at Suite101: The Long-Term Effect on Students Victimized by School Bullies http://clinical-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/the-long-term-effect-of-students-victimized-by-school-bullies#ixzz0tVhiVPxV