February 2018 – The Princess Guide

Posted on February 28, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

Comprehensive advice on the 8 Week/No Contact Rule

I’ve mentioned it before … I love analytics. It must be the researcher in me, but looking closely at the data helps me better serve my readers.

I first blogged about the 8 Week/No Contact Rule four years ago in 2014. I’ve written three posts on this over the years, and every single day this is the most read topic … It went from 24 views in the first year to more than 8,400 total to date. (And as of the day I’m writing this post, it’s been read by 20 people today alone, and the day isn’t over!)

I wanted to make sure people had the most comprehensive information on this topic since I’ve seen it misused and misinterpreted all over the Internet. So, I am reposting an excerpt from the First Edition of my book The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart. (I’m currently working on the Second Edition which will include updated information and the guided journal.) I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion about the No Contact Rule.

I want to say that I do not believe that cutting off communication is a good idea for any relationship. Sometimes, you are forced into that situation by the actions of the other person. If this happens and they will not allow the lines of communication to be open, then if you’re a feminine-energy woman, you may need to detach in love. (If you’re a man, the No Contact Rule won’t work on a woman. It may work on a masculine-energy man in a homosexual relationship, but I have heard of no actual incidents of this happening.)

If you do decide to use this method, I want you to be prepared that the man may not come back to you. The woman who invented this method has examples of men coming back ready to commit to a marriage relationship. However, I have not personally seen or heard of this happening to anyone. Let’s go deeper on this topic …

I wasn’t going to talk about this topic in this book, but every time I looked at my blog statistics at The Princess Guide to Relationships and Recovery, the two posts in which I wrote about the 8 Week/No Contact Rule were the top read posts every day—more than three and four years after I first published them online. I also received e-mails from readers asking questions about this topic. I realized this could be a great benefit to any woman healing from a broken heart. It was instrumental in helping me heal my broken heart from a dating relationship several years ago.

I went through a breakup with a man I had known since I was a little girl but had only dated for about three months. He said he wanted to marry me and had even asked what size ring I wore. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t the right one for me with several red flags being waved. A girlfriend shared this secret with me. I tried it, and trust me, it worked, but not at all how I thought it would.

In her book, Getting to ‘I DO,’ Dr. Patricia Allen explains the most important information every woman needs to know about men and relationships. She begins by warning women against having sex with a man before a commitment has been formalized. Why? Because the chemical oxytocin is released in a woman’s brain making her bond to a man (very much like the Soul Ties I talk about in Chapter 4).

Unfortunately, men don’t bond in this way. “It can take up to TWO YEARS to break this kind of addiction (oxytocin bonding), so I strongly suggest that for physical, mental, and emotional well-being, you be very careful whom you ‘let in’ to your body, and under what conditions,” she wrote. “If you haven’t negotiated a commitment before you make love, you’re probably not going to afterward. Left-lobe-oriented masculine men do not bond through sex. They bond through the commitments they make and keep.”

If you find yourself in a breakup (whether you’ve had sex or not) you have to keep your distance for 8 weeks. Here’s why, according to Dr. Patricia Allen, and how it works:

“It takes approximately 8 weeks for a man to process a decision.
1 to 4 weeks: He can function, at least superficially, dating, working, and living.—His left-lobed logic says, ‘Who needs her? I’ll decide how things go between us. No woman controls me!’
If he’s in love and didn’t know it, he will call and ask to be “friends”—DON’T DO IT! It will rekindle your oxytocin bonding.
- Don’t listen to his voicemail messages.
- Change your outgoing voicemail recording—Have someone else record your message in his or her voice so he can’t get a voice fix off you and stay away longer.
- (Change your social media photos to something that isn’t you. I used coffee mugs and writing utensils during my 8-week period.)
- Don’t taste, touch, smell, see or hear him—You will lose that tension-building separation anxiety.
- Don’t call him for any reason.

6 to 8 weeks: If you don’t call he will realize what he’s feeling and will call to tell you he’s in love with you and wants a commitment.
If he doesn’t call by 8 weeks, IT’S OVER!
- Start duty dating. Dress up, get out, read self-help books and get on with your life as a single woman.
- If it was a long-term relationship, it might take as long as two years to get over him. Don’t sit around. A new love will take you away from him.”

No Contact

Did my guy call in 8 weeks? No, but you know the funny thing was that I went into it fully believing that by doing what Dr. Patricia Allen said it would cause him to call. What I found was at the end of 8 weeks I was so mad that he didn’t call that I realized I didn’t want him in my life after all! I was so much stronger at the end of 8 weeks. It didn’t change him, it CHANGED ME! All my friends commented on how different I was. Years later, I haven’t spoken to or seen him, and I have absolutely no desire to.

The key is to remember that you deserve to be treated right. A little pain at first by not having contact with him is worth it. In the first week of the process, the guy I was dating started calling and asking to be friends. I said NO and meant it. Now, I’m so glad I didn’t end up with him. You must know that you deserve peace of mind and to feel like you can make your own decisions based on how you want to live your life.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This method only applies to someone you have dated. If you’re married and separated, this doesn’t apply since you have a spiritual covenant, shared bills, children, family, and responsibilities. You can’t go without communicating.

Almost a year after I first blogged about the 8 Week Rule (also called the No Contact Rule), a reader contacted me asking, “What do you do if your ex is a friend on social media?” I told her, “You unfriend him. Any contact, him seeing your photos, or hearing your voice will give him the ‘fix’ he wants and will cause him to stay away longer. He has to earn being in your life or your social media circles. You take him off, lock down your account so even mutual friends can’t access your information (because he doesn’t need to know anything that’s going on in your life), and change your profile photos to objects. (Mine was a coffee cup for Facebook and a writing pen for Twitter.) Also, change your voicemail greeting to the robot standard or have a friend record your greeting. You deserve to be treated right, and it may take totally losing you for this person to realize it. Give it 8 weeks, and let me know how it goes.”

After giving her this advice, I did some investigating, and I have to say there were a lot of so called “relationship experts” (mostly men with no education or experience in Psychology, Couples Therapy or Family Studies) who have written e-books and blog posts on the subject who admit they don’t know where the 8 Week/No Contact Rule originated. That should be a red flag to anyone seeking advice on the topic. I do know where this concept came from.

Dr. Patricia Allen, a couples’ therapist and relationship expert from Los Angeles, explained in her book that this method should only be used by feminine-energy women on masculine-energy males to help them open their hearts and realize when they actually love a woman and want to commit to a marriage relationship.

Do you know what happens when a man uses this method on a woman? (Dr. Patricia Allen didn’t cover this, but I’ll tell you from experience and countless conversations with women in this situation.) From the first day of no contact her mind starts racing through all the things he might be doing (most things on the list are negative). By the time she’s gone through every possible negative scenario and a man is ready to call her in 6 to 8 weeks, she’s past being sad and lonely and is downright MAD! And actually, this is where the magic comes in for women who have gone through a breakup with a man who had no intention of being in her life … By the time she realizes he isn’t coming back, she’s so mad that she has the confidence she needs to move on rather than wasting her life waiting for him.

It is my firm belief that feminine-energy women were created to be cherished, protected, and provided for by their men. When we don’t receive this treatment, it causes some of us to build up walls, others to become untrusting, and still others to be bitter. When we were going through the pre-marriage class at our church, the church counselor came and spoke to the class about his own marriage. He said at one point, he and his wife were on the brink of divorce, then he realized that the husband is the protector of the relationship. I recently read a blog post that reiterated this point.

“It’s a heart issue,” wrote J.T. Waresak for Focus on the Family. “As men, we will protect what matters most to us. If we don’t take the action needed to protect something, we really don’t care too much about it.” As women, deep down we all know this is true, and it deeply hurts us to be dismissed, ignored, and abandoned. Men have the power to make any relationship not just work but be great. It’s important that whatever he says is true, and that he is ready to follow up his words and declarations with action and show you that he is the protector of the relationship. This takes time to observe, so close your ears and open your eyes to watch his actions.

Are you ready to jump start your healing process? Get your free chapter from “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart.”

Posted on February 23, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

How to love yourself this Valentines (season and all year long)

It’s still love month, and we’re focusing on loving yourself here at The Princess Guide. This post from three years ago is appropriate for today’s Flashback Friday …

February can be one of the hardest months if you’re single. It seems like everyone around you and everyone on social media is being celebrated and loved.

how to love yourself, loving yourself,

I dated a couple of guys who disappeared around Thanksgiving and didn’t reappear until the flowers began blooming. Make no mistake … They disappeared so they wouldn’t have to do anything for me during Christmas and Valentines. It made me feel terrible and less than important. I began making one of the qualifying questions to get a date with me, “Do you celebrate holidays and look for ways to make it special for the woman you’re dating?”

Being in a long-term relationship with someone who chooses not to do things for you can make you feel even worse.

In my Lifecycles class (in graduate school), we learned that women who are highly educated and professionals have a higher rate of divorce. My instructor said it has something to do with women having more choices today with increased income. (Previous generations of women got married to have an income.) While being married appears to be the goal for many women, some find that staying married is a lot more work than anyone will tell you about.

“We see Christian young women who love the Lord, get confused about their role in marriage or whether marriage is even worth it to start with. And you take that into sexuality, they’re very confused about sexuality and how to express that in a way that honors the Lord,” author Juli Slattery told Focus on the Family.

So, what can you do to honor yourself if you’re all alone this Valentines Day (season or any time during the year)? Relationship expert Dr. Margaret Paul gave the Huffington Post these suggestions:

Listen within to your own feelings. Many people easily tune into others’ feelings yet have no idea what they feel. If you ignore a child’s feelings, that child will feel unloved. Ignoring your own feelings has the same result — your inner child feels rejected, abandoned and unloved by you.
Be compassionate with your feelings. If you judge your feelings, telling yourself you are wrong for having them, your inner child will feel rejected and abandoned by you. If you are kind, gentle, tender, understanding and accepting of your feelings, your inner child will feel loved by you.
Be open to learning about what your feelings are telling you. Just as an actual child feels loved when you are compassionately interested in why he or she is hurting, your inner child will feel loved when you explore what your feelings are telling you. All feelings are informational. Just as physical pain alerts you to a problem that needs attention, so does emotional pain. Painful feelings are telling you that you are abandoning yourself, or that someone is being unloving to you, or to themselves or to others, or that a situation is not good for you. Compassionately attending to your feelings, learning what they are telling you, and then taking action to remedy the situation, will make you feel loved.
Create a solid connection with a spiritual source of love, wisdom and comfort. Love is not a feeling we generate from our mind. It comes from the heart when our heart is open to our source of love. When you open to learning with your higher power about loving yourself and others, love flows into your heart and you feel loved.
Choose to be around loving people. We don’t always have a choice — such as in work relationships — but when we do have a choice — such as in personal relationships — choosing to be around caring, supportive and accepting people will make you feel loved. If, when you have a choice, you consistently engage with unkind, judgmental or abusive people, the message you are sending to yourself is that you are not worth loving.
Take loving actions for yourself around others. When you are around someone who is being unkind, speak up for yourself, letting the person know that you don’t like being treated that way, and then either open to learning about what is going on, or lovingly disengage from the interaction. Allowing others to treat you badly sends a message to your inner child that he or she is not worth loving.
Take care of your body, your time, your space and your finances. You will feel loved and lovable when you feed yourself healthy food, and get exercise and sleep. When you ignore your health, you are giving yourself the message that you are not worth loving. When you respect your own and others’ time and space, you are letting yourself know that you are worth it. When you overspend, putting yourself in unnecessary debt, you are not taking loving care of yourself, and your inner child will feel scared, alone and unloved. Just as an actual child needs to feel safe regarding the necessities of life, your inner child needs to feel the same way.
Find work you love. Since work takes up a big part of your day, finding or creating work that fulfills you is vitally important. If you continue to force yourself to stay at jobs you hate, the message to yourself is that you are not worth doing whatever it is you need to do to create a fulfilling work life.
Create balance. We need balance in our life to feel loved and lovable. We need time to work and time to rest and rejuvenate. We also need time to nurture our body and soul through activities that bring us joy.

Loving yourself and practicing those loving actions will not only help you get healthy self-esteem that no one can take away from you, but it will also give you the skills you need to love others when the right relationship comes into your life.

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday. If you want to know more how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

Posted on February 21, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

Learning to love yourself first

Loving yourself is, in my personal and professional opinion, the most important key to happiness in life and relationships. I know what it’s like to have people in your life tell you through their words and actions that you have no worth and are not lovable. But I also know what it’s like to break out of that programming and no longer allow them to control your thinking and life …

Let me say this upfront—There is nothing wrong with wanting to be loved. I believe we were created to love and be loved. The problem occurs when we give that power of love to another person outside of ourselves—when the love from another person is more important than how we feel about and love ourselves. If given to the wrong people, they can and will use it to control, dominate, and hurt us. I’ve seen it time and time again and experienced it personally.

The answer to this problem is to love yourself first. That way, no one can take love away from you when the main source of it comes from within yourself. A few months after publishing The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart where I devoted a chapter to this topic, I read Christian Mickelsen’s book Abundance Unleashed where he seems to share my opinion.

“The more attachments you have to being loved, the more neediness, the more you’re going to be searching for that love out in the world, and it’s always going to be elusive,” he wrote.

When you’ve had your heart broken—especially if it’s happened more than once or the situation was very traumatic—it’s easy to blame yourself and let the other person off the hook. While I don’t want you to plot revenge nor look for ways to get even, I do want you to give credit where credit is due and place responsibility where responsibility is due. If you are the person responsible for the demise of the relationship, then you need to own it, repent, and change your behavior.

If you’re anything like me, you wouldn’t go anywhere in the vicinity of a snake, even if it’s behind a glass wall. So, why do we end up letting them (in human form) into our precious lives and sacred beds? Because they come disguised as handsome men or beautiful women promising us everything of which we’ve ever dreamed. By the time we realize they’re actually snakes, it’s too late—we’re already head-over-heels in love and/or engaged.

When someone leaves you—a severe form of rejection, in my personal and professional opinion—you’re put in a tough spot. It feels more like being stuck than anything else because the love you have for that person—if it’s genuine love—doesn’t go away just because he or she did. If you’re a person of faith you believe in the impossible, no matter how “crazy” it may seem or feel. (NOTE: It’s been drilled into me from graduate school studying psychotherapy that “crazy” isn’t a clinical term, but it can be a genuine feeling nonetheless.) But you’re still left all alone—waiting for love to come back to you either from the person who left or someone new. I’m just going to say what you’re not supposed to say—What about YOU? What do you do during the in-between time?

I would dare to suggest that you take all that love, concern, and obsession you’ve freely given to the other person and give it all back to yourself. “We often forget that the ultimate source of love is within us,” Mickelsen wrote. “The more love you feel for yourself, the more other people will naturally love you and gravitate toward you.”

Now, let me be very clear—I am in no way talking about nor condoning the self-love that researchers have found leads to inflated egos and Narcissism. What I am suggesting is learning to love and nurture yourself in a way that uplifts your emotional state and increases your confidence which, in turn, will increase your confidence in all areas of your life and project a positive frequency to the outside world.

It’s incredible how we can often desperately want love and acceptance from the very people who have hurt us the most. Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” I will go further to say that the person who hurt you cannot heal you—only you (through the help and power of God) can heal you!

If someone hurt you, they need Jesus and obviously don’t know Him and aren’t following Him—“Where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Freedom cannot exist when confusion, torment, hurt, and pain are dominant. We must forgive them and focus on getting healing and wholeness for ourselves while letting God do whatever He wants to do in the life of the other person. We don’t get to decide if they will straighten up and treat us right, but we can let go of our obsession of them and focus on loving and appreciating ourselves.

As defined by the clinical term of Dependency—aka Co-dependency or Self Love Deficit Disorder—some people are afraid to be alone because that means they have to be responsible for their own financial, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. Counting on another person to provide for these things or even your own happiness is very dangerous. What another person gives to you, they can take away. If you give something to yourself, however, it’s yours as along as you exist.

www.ThePrincessGuide.com

A key to loving yourself is actually liking yourself. You can only like a person if you spend time getting to know them. We can often be bombarded by our own thoughts and become used to our ways of talking and reacting, that we don’t even know that we are funny, charming, the life of the party, beautiful, etc. It helps when other people point these things out to get our attention, but even that isn’t necessary. Treating ourselves like we’re getting to know a new person is all it really takes.

“Be alone. Eat alone. Take yourself on dates. You will learn about yourself. You will grow. You will figure out what inspires you. You will curate your own dreams, your own beliefs, your own stunning clarity. And when you do meet the person who makes your cells dance, you will be sure of it because you will be sure of yourself,” instructed an Instagram meme attributed to Bianca Sparacino.

Stella had to go to Jamaica to get her groove back in the book How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Not all of us can afford such an extravagant trip, but you don’t need an island vacation nor a younger man to get your confidence back. In fact, those things are actually detrimental to the long-term survival of your confidence because they are outside things—real, lasting confidence is totally an inside job. Like the song says, “The world didn’t give it to me, and the world can’t take it away.” If you do the hard, internal work yourself, then no one can take the credit or take the confidence away.

People may come and go out of your life, but your core will not be destroyed because you will know without a shadow of a doubt that you are precious, worthy, and lovable. You will know that if you have been loved once, it can happen again and be even better than before!

You must also remember that you are deeply loved and cherished by the lover of your soul, Jesus. “It is a fact that many believers feel overwhelmed by the situations they face in life. In fact, they often feel so confused and weighed down that they wonder if God is still near to them. This is precisely why Paul adds (in Romans 8:38-39) that even life cannot separate a believer from the love of Jesus Christ,” wrote Rick Renner in Sparkling Gems from the Greek. Let’s take a look at how much you’re worth.

Do you want to get started on this (self) love train? This is just the introduction, but you can get the full e-book downloaded instantly to read on Kindle or any PDF reader.

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. If you want to know how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

Posted on February 19, 2018February 15, 2018 by seneeseale

Upcoming Events & News: Ladies, what do you wish men knew about winning and keeping a woman’s heart?

I’m in the process of writing a new book for men, and I’m giving you ladies the opportunity to contribute to this effort by giving your input on this important question:

What one or two things do you wish men knew most about winning and keeping a woman’s heart?

You can leave your comments below or send a private message. If I use your words, I’ll only identify you by first names or initials.

Posted on February 16, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

Why Christians shouldn’t drink alcohol

I love — I mean LOVE — analytics. I guess it’s the researcher in me, but I love looking at the data and seeing what is resonating with readers. I’ve been a little surprised that this post has been getting read over the last few weeks. I guess I’m surprised because when I wrote it four years ago, I expected it to be controversial, but do you know what happened? I didn’t get one negative comment from readers … It was some of the Christian people I personally knew who jumped all over me for writing about this topic.

Since we just entered into lent and you may be still deciding what you’re going to give up or fast this season, I thought it was a good time to dust this post off for Flashback Friday. I am providing information, which is what I have done for decades as a journalist. Keep an open mind, and if you don’t agree with what you read, that’s fine. There’s no need to contact me or leave negative comments. Take whatever resonates with you and use it to improve your life. If you feel convicted, talk to God about it and ask Him and yourself if there are changes that you need to make in your life. There are plenty of people who will be willing to help you make those positive changes …

I was raised in a Christian home by my grandparents who taught us drinking was bad for us physically as well as spiritually. We had numerous family examples of how drinking could ruin your life with some jailed repeatedly and all not living full lives happy, joyous and free.

As an adult, I’ve been perplexed by the number of people I know who claim to be devout Christians but who drink alcohol regularly.

In the past, there were times when I drank alcohol, but never did I pretend I was close to God in those moments. In fact, I felt very far from God during those times. I was self-medicating and taking my problems into my own hands instead of giving them to God (Step 3 of a 12 step program). It didn’t work out well for me, by the way.

Most people drink because they are in pain, stressed out, want to escape reality or “relax.” The Bible says, “I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me.” So I don’t understand how a Christian can have their minds on God while consuming alcohol.

“Each and every day someone dictates to me how ‘they choose’ to serve the Lord … They decide whether they adopt Christ’s lifestyle or not,” wrote Rev. Mark T. Barclay in his book How to Survive a Betrayal. “You see, they call Jesus ‘Lord,’ but the spirit of Cain on them demands that they do it their way.”

I hear Christians say often that drinking alcohol is alright because Jesus drank, and the Bible only says not to get drunk. When I say that the water was contaminated in those days, and the wine they drank was actually grape juice, most of them argue with me and say I’m wrong.

In his 2002 article, “Seven Good Reasons Christians Should Not Drink” Pastor David L. Brown, Ph.D. offers these things to ponder (these are directly from his article with my comments in italics):

Drinking leads to drunkenness. (Isaiah 5:11) In the April 24, 1965 issue of Christianity Today, the article on page 25 says, “People must be informed that the use of alcohol is not unlike Russian roulette: every tenth person becomes automatically hooked. The only solution is total abstinence.” These statistics are supported by the American Medical Association. Like the commercials say, “Buzz driving is drunk driving.” So too, just getting a buzz is also being drunk.
2. The Bible condemns strong drink. (Proverbs 20:1) Distillation was not discovered until about 1,500 A.D. Strong drink and unmixed wine in Bible times was from 3 percent to 11 percent alcohol. Dr. John MacArthur says ” … since anybody in biblical times who drank unmixed wine (9-11 percent alcohol) was definitely considered a barbarian, then we don’t even need to discuss whether a Christian should drink hard liquor — that is apparent.” Since wine has 9 to 11 percent alcohol and one brand 20 percent alcohol, you should not drink that. Brandy contains 15 to 20 percent alcohol, so that’s out. Hard liquor has 40 to 50 percent alcohol (80 to 100 proof), and that is obviously excluded. Someone will say, “since beer is only 4 percent alcohol, ITS OK FOR A BELIEVER TO DRINK BEER, RIGHT?” The answer is NO! Here’s why…
3. In Biblical tines what Christians drank was sub-alcoholic, basically purified water. (1 Timothy 3:3 & 8) Norman Geisler, former Dean of Liberty Center for Christian Scholarship, Liberty University, has written: “Many wine drinking Christians today mistakenly assume that what the New Testament meant by wine is identical to wine used today. This, however, is false. In fact, what the Bible frequently meant by wine was basically purified water,” purified by adding some alcoholic wine. The Holman Bible dictionary says, wine was also used as a medicine and disinfectant. Geisler goes on to say, “Therefore, Christians ought not to drink wine, beer or other alcoholic beverages for they are actually strong drink forbidden in Scripture. Even ancient pagans did not drink what some Christians drink today.”
4. It will cause others to stumble. (Romans 14:21) Drinking causes some to stumble, others to be offended and many to be weakened. Studies support my statement. According to a survey done by The Daily Journal newspaper, October 26, 1988, one of the top five reasons teenagers drink is because their parents drink … Parents, you must remember that whatever you do in moderation your child will likely do in excess. The Bible clearly defines drinking as an activity that is to be foregone because it causes others to stumble and makes them weak (fall into sin).
5. It harms our bodies which are the Lord’s. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, etc.) Dr. Robert Haas, M.D., former president of the American College of Sports Nutrition said, “Beer, wine and hard liquor form toxic substances called aldehydes that can destroy the liver, kidney and brain cells. Aldehydes serve a useful function in preserving or pickling dead animal tissue, but they serve no beneficial purpose in people. Alcohol dehydrates (robs) your body of its precious water supply, and along with the water go vital nutrients such as B Vitamins, calcium, magnesium and potassium.” “The most drastic and noticed effect of alcohol is the brain. It depresses brain centers, progressively produces uncoordination, confusion, disorientation, stupor, anesthesia, coma, death. Alcohol kills brain cells, and brain damage is permanent,” from the Office of Highway Safety in Madison, Wisc.
6. Alcohol is addictive. 1 Corinthians 6:12 tells us that we are not to “be brought under the power” or to be controlled by anything. The only exception is the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18). Alcohol is clearly a powerful substance (Proverbs 23:35). Because alcohol is addictive, we should choose not to drink alcoholic beverages.
7. Believers are kings and priests separated unto God. “The prophets, the kings, the Nazarites, the leaders — those who were special in the plan of God were total abstainers” says Dr. Paul Dixon. Kings and public officials were not to drink (Proverbs 31:4-5). Further, Dr. Dixon says, “The priests of the Old Testament were to abstain totally.” The Aaronic priests were not to drink because they ministered in the tabernacle before the Lord (Leviticus 10:9). Believers are a “royal” or kingly priesthood (I Peter 2:9). We are the temple of God (I Peter 2:5). We are God’s special children and should choose total abstinence.

My biggest concern, in addition to the physical and psychological damage it does to people, is how a Christian’s behavior modeling of drinking alcohol will influence others to drink. I’ve heard many stories of people who said they started drinking or smoking cigarettes because they saw an adult they admired do it.

A 2004 study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family conducted by Grace M. Barnes, Alan S. Reifman, Michael P. Farrell and Barbara A. Dintcheff confirmed my theory finding that parents who support and monitor their children drinking alcohol have adolescents who increase their alcohol use and misuse. They concluded that parents are the primary force in preventing teen alcohol use.

My other concern is how this behavior will ruin a Christian’s credibility. Who wants to take advice from a drunk, especially if they’re telling them about God?

You don’t have to agree with me, but I’d like you to use this information as food for thought.

Posted on February 14, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

How to show your love for someone

As I wrote about last week, I haven’t really been in the mood for Valentine’s Day this year, but I’m always thinking (and writing) about love and relationships.

We show our love to people by the words we speak and gifts we give. These things are very important and shouldn’t be neglected or avoided — when we refuse to give people gifts they like or affirm them by our words, we tell them by our actions that they don’t matter to us.

Just as important are the things we DO. Our actions are what will be remembered most.

My best friend’s dad passed away unexpectedly recently. When I told her I would do anything she needed, I meant it. When she asked if I would read his favorite poem at his funeral, I immediately said yes, even though I have vision issues and haven’t read anything out loud to another person (much less a chapel full of people) in years.

I would have felt more comfortable singing or speaking than reading, but that’s what I was asked to do. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way! The family was pleased and said it made them cry. I just wanted to show my love by honoring them and not embarrassing them.

How do we know the difference between real love and the fake stuff? Real love is selfless and unconditional … It doesn’t look for something in return.

My grandpa was really great at modeling real love daily. I was riding my bike one day when I was about 12. I was standing up on the peddles, and my back wheel hit a pothole. The seat hit me in the behind, and I was instantly in pain and bruised. (I later found out I had broken my tail bone.) The next thing I knew, my Pa-Paw was down the street in 105 degrees filling up that pothole. He said he didn’t want me to be hurt again–Now, that’s real love!

“Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” -Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG

How can you step out of your comfort zone this week to show your love to someone?

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. If you want to know more about the healing and transformation process, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

Posted on February 9, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

You want to know what love’s about?

In 2014, I spent much of February writing about love. Here’s one of those Flashback Friday posts …

* * *

There’s a line in the song Spotlight by the band Leagues that says, “Romantic love’s a fickle friend. You want to know what love’s about? Give it when you feel none.”

This reminds me of the advice my Addicted Family Therapy professor would often give me when I was having a meltdown. After asking me when was the last time I had been to an Al-Anon meeting she would say, “You sure have some high class problems living in that high rise in the nice part of town, Senée. You need to go find someone you can help.”

Dr. Wayne Dyer often says that we have to want IT more for others than we want it for ourselves. That IT could be a happy marriage, a baby, a new job, healing, financial security or anything. More often than not, that IT is typically peace of mind …

About four years ago, shortly after I started studying Substance Abuse Counseling, I woke up one day with total and complete peace about not having children at that time in my life. It was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever experienced which allowed me to be in a relationship with a man who had a vasectomy during the time we were dating without me totally freaking out. (I now realize that was because I knew deep down that he wasn’t the one for me.) But it also alarmed me because I thought if I didn’t want it bad enough I wouldn’t get it …

I’m realizing the same 12 Steps that help us cope with being in relationships with substance users can also help restore our sanity when we want things that are out of our control.

Step study teaches us that when we admit we’re powerless over the situation and our lives have become unmanageable (Step 1), and we come to believe that God [the power greater than ourselves] can restore us to sanity (Step 2), then we’re ready to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him (Step 3). There’s obviously more to it, but this is the start.

And don’t get me wrong … It isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially if you have great attachments to those things you’re trying to turn over to God. Even the most religious people will admit to taking things back they have previously given to God in an attempt to speed up the process, but that never works.

So while you’re waiting for God to change you, you can want it more for others than you want it for yourself and go look for someone to help. I’ve been crocheting baby blankets for all my close friends who were recently blessed with little ones (and I’m praying for those babies with every stitch).

What are you dealing with, and how are you “wanting it more for others than you want it for yourself?”

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday. If you want to know more about the healing and transformation process, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

Posted on February 7, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

How to heal a Valentine’s Day broken heart

I was grocery shopping the other day, and I was slapped in the face with Valentine’s Day items when I walked in every store … OK, so I wasn’t literally hit with the items, but it sure felt like it emotionally. My first thought (as I quickly got away from all of it) was, “Can’t we just skip Valentines this year?” Have you ever felt like that?

Now, I’m not as bad as the group of friends in the movie Valentine’s Day who gathered for the anti-Valentines party getting all their aggression and hurt feelings out by pounding a heart-shaped pinata with a baseball bat. I actually like celebrating the holiday, but the only time I’ve actually gotten to celebrate was when I was married. Seriously, when I was in the dating scene, guys would literally disappear during Christmas and Valentines then magically reappear like nothing ever happened. Something happened alright — my worth was attacked! By their actions, I was told that I wasn’t worth buying flowers or dinner for.

The truth is this: at some point in your life you have to learn to love yourself and do the things for yourself that you wish others would do for you.

If you have a Valentine’s Day broken heart, or are just alone and trying to figure out what you could do differently to have healthier relationships, now is the perfect time to learn new behaviors and make positive changes. The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart is a great tool to help you do just that. Whether you’ve been heart from romantic relationships, family relationships, friend relationships, etc., this book can help you transform and heal yourself.

I discovered some really insightful things when researching and writing this book, the first one is that being alone is not a death sentence, nor is it something of which to fear.

In a 2016 New York Times OpEd piece on why people marry the wrong person, Book Author Alain de Botton gave some profound insight into loneliness and how it can cause us to make wrong decisions. “We make mistakes, too, because we are so lonely,” she explained. “No one can be in an optimal frame of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky; otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate.”

Another insight I gained during my research was that you really have to learn how to love yourself. I know some people who it seems to come naturally for them. I credit that to good parenting, but not all of us are so lucky. We have to work daily on knowing and loving ourselves. If we aren’t our biggest cheerleader and promoter, who else is going to be?

Let’s face it, people are human beings and they don’t always treat us the way they should. We have no control over their actions, but we can love and support ourselves first, then allow our significant others to be the icing on top.

If you’re having trouble getting started on the self-love thing, here are some ideas from The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart:

One way to change your focus is to use affirmations. Reading these every day will begin to reprogram your brain and replace the negative tapes with positive ones. Life Coach Che Garman offers these suggestions to focus on daily:

“I allow love to find me easily and effortlessly.

I am cherished and valued.

I am loving and compassionate to myself and others.

I am surrounded by people who love me.

I am totally lovable, just the way I am.

I am willing to love myself unconditionally.

I am worthy of love, just as everyone else is.

I love the negative people in my life, and let them go on their way.

I radiate love and happiness wherever I go.

I receive all the love I need to feel cherished and appreciated.

Love and peace surrounds my life at all times.

My love life just keeps getting better and better.

My thoughts are always loving and truthful.

My true love is on his way to me.”

While reading these statements may feel strange, and it may even feel “wrong” to say these things out loud, you need to speak them into the atmosphere so that your ears can hear them and your brain can process them. The Bible tells us to call those things that are not as though they are (Romans 4:17). While it may feel like a lie or fake at first, the more you practice saying these things out loud to yourself, the sooner your heart and mind will change.

My hope for you is that you feel the love you long for. I believe that if you begin giving it to yourself first, you will attract it from others and you will be able to fully receive it and reciprocate it.

Posted on February 2, 2018February 25, 2018 by seneeseale

The victory begins in your head: How Olympians win gold

Eight years ago during the 2010 Winter Olympics, I found out something about myself — I love watching the half pipe snowboarding competition (guys and girls). I could never do what they do … I’m too accident prone and a total chicken, but I get such a rush watching them swoosh back and fourth and doing flips and stunts.

The way many of them succeed is by winning the game inside their heads first. The same holds true for weight loss and fitness. I first wrote about it in 2014, and since this publication I have lost 70 pounds and gotten my health in check.

I began the journey of healthy living the Monday after Thanksgiving 2015 to restore my vision holistically. The vision is still a work in progress, but the weight loss and improved health are evident. Just two months in, two ladies I had class with the semester before in grad school came up to me after class one night and told me how great I looked and they could see how much weight I had lost. Then they asked me what I was eating … After giving them the short list of what I was (and currently am) eating and the long list of what I’m not, they decided they didn’t want to lose weight all that bad!

Change is not easy, but transformation is absolutely possible in any situation if you don’t give up! Let’s flashback and revisit this topic …

* * *

(After) watching back stories on some of the American Olympic athletes the other night, the thing that struck me wasn’t all the hours they put into practicing their sport but that they all believed they were winners BEFORE they ever competed in an event — even the girl with no legs saw herself as a winner!

I’ve heard a lot about Sports Psychology and how successful athletes rehearse in their minds what they will do and how it will feel to win before ever competing.

Since the death of my birth father last month, I’ve started wondering if my battle with weight has anything to do with his rejection of me and how I’ve felt about myself as a result. (It’s important to note that I have never been athletic other than a stint at playing basketball in junior high and dancing throughout high school as a drill team officer.) The last time I talked with my birth father on the phone before inviting him to our wedding 7 years later, he said to me, “I saw photos of you at your sister’s wedding. I always knew you’d be the fat one!” At the time of my sister’s wedding, I was a size 14. At the time we spoke I was wearing sizes 4 and 2, but he wasn’t aware of this.

I carried around a wedding dress for 13 years hoping one day to meet the right man and wear it in our wedding. I did wear the dress, but it was quite snug. I must admit I had a total breakdown after getting the dress on standing there in that beautiful bridal room in front of the mirrors. I just couldn’t lose any weight before my wedding! Who does that?!? A woman’s wedding day is typically the number one motivator for losing weight, but I couldn’t do it. And there I was standing in front of those mirrors in front of my bridesmaids, the wedding coordinator, my future mother-in-law and my best friend’s mother crying as I said, “I’m the fat bride!” It was a real low moment …

Getting words stuck in your head that subconsciously work against your body isn’t abnormal. In his book I Can Make You Thin, Paul McKenna wrote, “I am continually surprised at the number of women (and occasionally men) I work with who realize that their initial weight gain coincided with a traumatic incident from the past, ranging from episodes of sexual abuse to seemingly innocuous teasing leading to embarrassment in front of their peers.”

My initial weight gain occurred about a year after that conversation with my birth father, and I’ve yet to fit into a size 4.

As you might expect, age and gender are determining factors in even getting started at being active. A 2002 study published in American Health Foundation and Elsevier Science found that competition was the most important perceived benefit for young men, while young women focused on health. The perceived barriers to participation in physical activity for older women and men were health concerns.

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle author and fitness trainer Tom Venuto wrote about mindset on his Burn the Fat website. “The secret to change lies in your ability to intentionally program your unconscious mind, and when you understand this, change becomes as natural as driving a car or riding a bike,” he wrote. “Your life is the outward expression of the self-image that you hold of yourself, and you’ll always live up or down to it. If you’ve struggled to change in the past it is because you never really believed that you could be ‘that’ person. Permanent change happens from the inside out. Your beliefs, thoughts, and self-talk change and your body follows.”

So if “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he” as it says in the Bible, what can we do to change our thinking about weight and physical activity? Professional Weight Loss and Life Coach Irina Koles, MD offers the following advice on reprogramming your mind:

Awareness/recognition — Before you even plan any actions, you need to be AWARE of your current situation, your extra weight, and health problems related to it.
Admitting the situation — Admitting means that you are not only aware about your situation, but you’re taking responsibility for that; now you know where you are and are ready to take action.
Focusing on values vs. results and the process — Focusing on dieting and avoiding fattening foods makes you think about the problem, not the solution. This is negative thinking because you are focusing on what you DON’T want – losing the food you have always liked. This will not take you far. Instead, focus on what you WANT, on your NEW desire, new behavior, and on your new CHOICE. Here you need a real REASON, a DESIRE which drives you to do that.
Setting a clear goal — Setting goals correctly helps us to focus and to keep the commitment. They also keep us motivated and influence our success-oriented behavior. Your real goal should be: clear, specific and measurable, challenging but realistic and achievable, and stated in a present tense rather than in a future tense.
Using imagination and feelings vs. willpower — Imagine yourself already DOING (your goal), and experiencing the feelings associated with it. Experience it completely, as if it has already happened. Live the life of your dreams NOW. Visualize yourself being a smaller size and feeling elegant and attractive. Imagine how you FEEL buying new clothes. FEEL how they touch your elegant body. Imagine choosing new styles and colors. Imagine how other people are looking at you, and enjoy it! Remember these feelings and let them inspire you.

Tom Venuto also recommends writing down your goals on a note card and carrying it around with you so you can look at it often. The Bible endorses this recommendation in Habakkuk 2:2 where it states, “And the LORD answered me: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.'”

Are you looking to approach weight loss and fitness differently? What’s your plan? Share your goals with us.

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