One of the hardest things to overcome on this protocol or any diet is the fear of gaining back your weight. I found developing good habits or therapeutic rituals will help you to release some of the anxiety and focus on your health versus your weight and fear. For our Bible study group we use the “God Box” which is a prayer box used to write down prayers and release them.
If you are struggling with fear and anxiety consider making a box. Call your box whatever works for you. For dieting I will call it the “Freedom” box; Freedom from worry and fear. We have been discussing keeping a daily journal in the book club this month while reading Full Filled and one of the things that most of us do is we start something but are not consistent and do not follow through and therefore the method only works for a small percentage of the peeps that actually do the homework. The “Freedom” box is a simple way to deal with your emotions if you are not consistent with a journal.
Everyday write your thoughts and how you would like to feel and place it in the Freedom box and let go of it. Below is the original article where I first learned of the God Box. I have since used this to keep worry and anxiety out of my life. It is also fun to use with the kids. We can make a vacation box, favorite things to do box or more like a wish box. You can customize your box to meet your needs and even your belief system. The therapy is in the letting go of the worry, fear, want, anxiety and placing it in the box. It is easy to do with a post it note and you do not have to spend lots of time on it. Keep your box out in a common area this will help prompt you to use it frequently. It would also be a nice gift for Mother’s Day or for a friend. Click this link and print the information out on the Box and buy a nice box and enjoy!
Rarely has an article in a non secular publication made such an impact on my life as one did this past week in the magazine *Real Simple* If you have the chance please pick up a copy and read the story on page 233 called the *GOD BOX* written by Mary Lou Quinlan.
I personally keep prayer journals but the authors mother Mary Finlayson kept what she called a *GOD BOX*. Mary Lou knew of these boxes as she was growing up, she called them her mothers “one stop problem solver” when it came to coping with the stresses of life. What Mary Lou found when her mother died was a series of trinket boxes which she calls nothing fancy but were filled with requests her mother had made on her behalf, her brother and father. They were scraps of paper – the back of a receipt, a torn paper towel, or anything else handy that she could scribble a prayer request to GOD on and put in the BOX and leave it in Gods hands. The part I especially love is how she would sign the requests “Love, Mary” or just “Thank you”. All of her requests ran the “gamut” from big to small, things she just needed GOD to hear her plea’s for and be done with them, from what I read Mary did as we are called to do, *Let Go and Let GOD*.
GOD has a way of talking to us personally in so many ways and then prompts us to share HIS message and I BELIEVE with all my heart is what he did with this article. It is no secret I BELIEVE in the power of prayer and I like so many know struggle with actually being able to give things over to GOD and letting HIM actually work! I have spent many a Sunday morning at Church at the altar, hours in my prayer chair or long drives to work praying for the needs of my husband, our children and others that’s GOD lays on my heart. I go to HIM asking HIS Will be done, not mine and as soon as I say Amen……I seem pick each of those requests back up and worry about the out come because in my “human nature” I just seem to forget I gave it to GOD.
Tonight I am sure there of hundreds of prayers being scribbled on little pieces of paper everywhere and tucked away signed with thank you’s as they have been given to GOD for good this time. I pray with all my heart that one day after I have gone home to be with Jesus my children and or grandchildren will find comfort in knowing they were being prayed for and the *GOD BOXES* as proof of Christ’s love for them and how HE worked in there lives even before they knew it. And Yes, I have sent a personal Thank you to GOD and to Mary Lou Quinlan as well. I pray she is Blessed by sharing her Mothers story! *GOD BOX* .
