With practice Armageddon happening around me (massive flooding, dams breaking, bridges collapsing) it brings me comfort to know that God knows all, and He won't tempt us beyond what we can bare. We have plans, and God has plans. Whose do you think go through? How do you react when plans don't go your way? How do you realign and find peace again? After collecting water, assessing the propane and power situation, we realized we weren't as prepared as we wanted to be. You can only control these situations so far. Ultimately, what really matters? and are you prepared for that?

Bummer day... I've been training for this IRONMAN since January. Then we get record rain in East Tennessee and the wildest thing happens: I can't leave my property. There are 4 bridges north out of my area. Every one of them was compromised due to flooding. There's one road to go south to Asheville. Asheville is closed and underwater. No way in or out. I'm literally landlocked right now. Trapped in the middle if East TN. I never imagined this could happen. EVERY possible route is closed until the water level goes back down, or the road is rebuilt. Bridges have to be inspected before passable again. What am I going to do? I'm seriously bummed. Borderline depressed. This sucks. You know what sucks more? There are people really struggling because of water damage and I should be grateful that my wife and I are okay. I'll find another race. Maybe IRONMAN company will give me my money back. Maybe I'll do my own and buy the hat anyway (that's what I wanted most anyway). When things aren't in your control, what are you going to do? How much can you be prepared?

Age is just a number; it does not reflect your emotionally maturity. Especially today, you've seen adults behaving like children, and children taking longer and longer to start behaving like adults. In this study, women score much higher in emotional maturity than men do. https://ijip.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/18.01.053.20200801.pdf#:~:text=&%20Maheswari%20(2016)%20conducted%20study%20found%20that,to%20be%20fairly%20more%20expressive%20than%20males%20conducted%20study%20found%20that,to%20be%20fairly%20more%20expressive%20than%20males). How can you improve? How would you rate yourself?

I've been reading multiple sources lately telling me all the great benefits of taking time every day to journal. I really hate journaling. My pen doesn't keep up with my thoughts. It forces me to slow down too much. This is probably the EXACT reason why people benefit from it, but I don't enjoy any aspect of it. I don't go back and read the few entries I've made and kept, nor can I usually read the handwriting. I'd rather type so that I can change a thought mid-sentence, but I can see how it would benefit lots of other people. What are your thoughts? Am I missing out on an important piece?

Emotional pain is likely the easiest to come by. Fortunately, I think it's also the quickest to pass away. Every where we turn, we see emotion. Friends, family, coworkers, and advertisements can be in your face all day. We can become immune to it -that's the boat I feel to be in mostly- or we can become overstimulated. It's good to understand emotional constructs around us. It can enable us to understand people better and elevate our abilities to navigate. I do however, think we could all take a small step back from the daily emotional roller coaster because most of the emotions are not lasting. We are bombarded with emotions all the time, and we want to react. However, with a healthy relationship to our own emotions and how they function, we can learn to let most of them pass us by without giving in to the emotional draw. It can be exhausting to react appropriately to every emotional need thrown our way. How many emotional "emergencies" are you still experiencing from yesterday? How about last week? Last month? As you reflect, you'll notice that the further back you go, the fewer emotional catastrophes were actually as bad as they first seemed. Start practicing this skill. Let the nonsense in your life pass you by so that you have more bandwidth for your family and priorities instead.