Grace Over Grind: Build Wellness Toolbox for Spiritual & Social Growth to Reduce Stress & Improve Work-Life Balance

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll address the importance of holistic wellness to reduce stress and improve work life balance, focusing on spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle. To open in prayer today, Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today.

[00:00:23] Please help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies, and tactics to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. As we talk about spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle today, may they find ways to boost satisfaction so that career or overwork can be less of an idol in their life and stress less of a burden.

[00:00:46] I pray all is well with every listener, healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit. May they know your will and love as they grow greater in Christian character. In Jesus name, amen. God designed us as holistic beings, body, mind, and spirit. As Christians with the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, we are called to become more Christ like.

[00:01:12] A life where career has gained primacy at the expense of health and relationships? That's not what God intended for us. Looking at modern life, the noise and pressure and the focus on more, being more, doing more, striving for more, you need that next shiny object in front of you. They have twisted a natural inclination to work and to support our loved ones into overwork.

[00:01:39] Stress filled, hectic 55 plus hour work weeks squeeze out time for meaningful connections and drain energy for other important areas of life. Today, I'll cover how you can reduce stress and improve work life harmony by focusing on increasing satisfaction in spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle.

[00:02:01] Through this series, we'll be covering other dimensions of lifestyle over the next several weeks. I'll close with a simple self assessment tool and journal exercise for you to work through so that you can more clearly identify what changes can be most impactful to you. You'll notice that I ask a lot of questions and you don't lay out step by step instructions.

[00:02:22] I strongly believe that you are uniquely bio individual. From your DNA, to your mind, and to your spirit, you are unique. There is only one creation that God made like you. And as a result of that, only you and God know how to heal your stress. I can come alongside to support and encourage you, share a few strategies and tools to help you with mindset, lifestyle, and diet changes.

[00:02:51] As a stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes you desire in your life. Getting into today's topic. So the spiritual dimension of lifestyle represents personal beliefs, values, and involves having meaning, purpose, and a sense of balance and peace.

[00:03:16] And this goes for no matter what your faith is. As Christians though, this is all about our relationship with Jesus, God, and Holy Spirit. This area of lifestyle can be broken down further into beliefs and values, involvement, and personal time with God. To define the social dimension of lifestyle, that all involves having relationships with friends, family, and the community.

[00:03:43] It's about having an interest in and concern for others and not being tied up into just selfish needs. This area of lifestyle can be broken down further into family, community, safe and supportive people, and social time. So as you take a look at these two dimensions of lifestyle, What is your current level of wellness or satisfaction in these areas of your life?

[00:04:10] Are these areas that as you imagine what a more balanced work life looks like, that you seek to grow or strengthen, or are you satisfied with them as they are? If you're somebody that's seeking to being able to make some changes, how can investing time and energy in these areas of your life help you reduce your stress and energize you more?

[00:04:34] On first pass, what are some of your initial thoughts on activities you long to have time or energy for? Feel free to pause the video to jot down some notes or to think about this. Because I ask so many questions as I go through, I do encourage you to hit pause anytime that you feel the need for it. In my opinion, change is most effective, though, when it starts with acknowledging your real identity, which is more than your job title and your family relationships.

[00:05:06] You want to recognize what God's plans are for you. As a Christian, it all begins with your identity in Christ. I don't know you yet, so can't infer. As you read through the Bible and the teachings that are there, what resonates most with you as your identity? Are you sought after? Precious in his sight? A new creation in Christ?

[00:05:29] Forgiven? Loved? Accepted? There's so many ways that the Bible describes the relationship and who we are as believers. So what identity statement from the Bible resounds with you most? In my example, as someone who has struggled with worth, I have selected Precious Child of God, as it helps me see the truth through any of the lies I may tell myself.

[00:05:58] Whether they're limiting beliefs or negative thoughts, it helps me to capture and challenge them, and to be able to see God's truth. Someone else who struggles with relationships may feel that loved and accepted by God is the most powerful identity for them to being able to look towards and to being able to move themselves towards to be more Christ like.

[00:06:21] Another person struggling with guilt may choose forgiven and renewed in Christ. I think you get the point. You want to pick the, identity statement that resounds the most with you to being able to help lead you and guide you to grow in your Christian character. So as you pray and meditate on what that identity statement means to you, how does that interpret into how you can thrive and flourish?

[00:06:49] What does it mean for work life harmony and having less stress? As you think through this identity statement, what does it tell you about your spiritual gifts? As you look at your life, how can you use these gifts to being able to grow or into that identity, into your Christian identity? What has been revealed to you of your purpose?

[00:07:13] And how are you acting on these? Who are you called to be? These are all things that are tied up with your Christian identity. And so, as you take a step back into the topic for today, with that perspective, what goals then do you have that God's downloading into you related to spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle?

[00:07:35] Like I said, maybe you're content and there are other dimensions of lifestyle that you're more focused on to improve wellness, harmony, and reduce stress and imbalance. Or are you feeling called to being able to work more into these two areas of your lifestyle? Did you look in your wellness toolbox at the spiritual tools that you have at your disposal?

[00:07:57] What spiritual disciplines are you being called to develop more and to practice? Or maybe you're not being called to develop the spiritual disciplines, but to explore more different ways to worship God and to celebrate your faith. There's so many different ways that you can end up adding to your spiritual toolbox that end up having the right things at your disposal anytime that you're in periods of high stress so that you can end up being able to soothe and to being able to get back into that right frame of mind.

[00:08:33] On to the social section of your wellness toolbox. So there are so many different roles and responsibilities that we play with. Family, friends, community, our co workers. So as you take a look at what's going on in these social aspects of your life, what do you need to develop? Are there tools? Are there skills?

[00:08:57] Are there activities that you want to be involved in? As you think about what your identity statement is or what the Bible says about family relationships, how can you become more godly in the fulfillment of that, of those roles? And currently, you may not have much time or energy for anything outside of your immediate loved ones.

[00:09:21] And maybe that's what's pressing on you and just making you feel like you're missing something in life. With This exercise dig in and figure out what skills, what behaviors, what activities do you need to develop to being able to have that fulfilled life and to being able to act in accordance with that Christian identity statement that we just talked about.

[00:09:46] So just take a look at the Bible and see what inspiration you can find for your spiritual and social areas of your lifestyle. So now that we've kind of gotten through the inspiration section of recognizing to the best of your understanding what God's plan is for you and what he's asking for you to transform and to grow into, the next step is to really to examine and test your ways by a point of comparison on your worst day to what you just defined as being Christ like in character for you.

[00:10:25] How does that compare on your best day? How close are you? What skills and capabilities do you have that you need to figure out how to leverage on those that worst day I'm sure you have a lot of existing behaviors, habits, routines to support you acting with the best aspects of your Christian character.

[00:10:46] It's just when the strain and the pressure of stress and too much work going on, it kind of creates that separation and takes you away from that. So we want to recognize your strengths to being able to build upon those. And to take a look, maybe there's some things in your routine that deter you, that create more separation, that end up weighing you down more so that there's more work to be done to being able to grow towards that Christian character and to be able to act that way consistently.

[00:11:16] And so as you think about this too, behaviors are rewarding. So maybe there are some cycles of behavior that you've gotten into, or Satan's deception has ended up influencing you to adapt. So you want to find out what is rewarding certain behaviors that you have. The good ones that you want to encourage.

[00:11:38] How do they bring you calm, joy, creativity, inspiration, any of these things that you find that lighten your soul versus rewards that just more feed the flesh and the material nature. These give you some guides in terms of where do you need to be able to make additional changes. So as we get into today's exercise, it's all about on identifying more specifically, kind of where you are on that spectrum, where are your behaviors on that worst day, on an okay day, on a good day, and then on your idealized, if you were consistently behaving with Christ like character, according to your identity statement.

[00:12:24] So, as you think about your worst day, when you've got this stress and like it's a really long work day, you're really feeling the weight of the imbalance. What behaviors do you demonstrate toward God and your loved ones? Since today we're focused on the spiritual and social dimensions, we're just going to focus on that area, just God and your loved one.

[00:12:48] And then when you take a look at your behaviors on that okay day. A good day, or a day when you're behaving in alignment with Christ like character. How do those behaviors change? What's different? So as you go through each of these different columns and call out your behaviors on each of these different types of days, it's really to end up clarifying your understanding of God's plan for you.

[00:13:18] And it gives you a chance to examine and test your ways. How are you behaving to what he expects of us? How are you missing the mark and needs being able to make some changes and improvement? Where can you ask him to inspire and to strengthen you? If you have any questions on this exercise, email them to Sharon@whisperingfieldwellness.com.

[00:13:42] I'm here to support you in your transformation. So in closing today. Change begins when you have a view of the opportunity of what can be different. Truly understanding to the best of your ability what God's plan is for you, and examining and testing your ways to understand how you are behaving now, versus what He wants from you.

[00:14:06] It calls out where those opportunities are. True transformation begins when you acknowledge your weakness, Have the humility to let God restore you and you surrender your life and will to God's care. He'll give you strength, courage, and lead you to being able to have the life that he's planned for you.

[00:14:29] In the next episode, I'll discuss how to build habits based upon your awareness of where the most impactful changes can be to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. We're going to take all the work that you do in today's exercise and then turn it into actionable habits, things that even though you are tired and exhausted and feel that you don't have any time, that you can fit this your life and take those small steps to be able to grow.

[00:14:58] In the way that you want to transform in the way that you want. So if you want to jump right in, click the download link for my habit building guide that can let you get started today. And we'll just go into more depth over next week and in the upcoming weeks, being able to develop out your plan more fully.

 [00:15:18] If this makes you think about wanting to work with me and to explore stress recovery, coaching, and more depth, Click the services link below. I'll see you next episode. Have a blessed day!