What's Holding You Back?

Occasionally, I get in ruts. I think we all do. I used to bury myself up to my neck in my rut and just mope around in it. Now, I dangerously asking myself - what's holding you back?

A rut is just that. You get stuck in one way of doing something. A habit. A belief. An acceptance of "the way it is, is the way it always will be."

So this weekend, after an awesome message on being Fully Alive at Innovate Church, I asked myself what was holding me back from being Fully Alive. I won't lie, lately I've been tired, stressed out, battling chronic headaches, and fighting what seems like my own personal dark cloud. Here are the things I immediately identified as holding me back:

Caffeine - If you're addicted to caffeine, you can probably sympathize with me on this one. I was to the point where if I didn't have the equivalent of an IV drip of coffee in my veins at all times, I would get terribly painful headaches. Also, my caffeine always came in the form of a super sugary soda or coffee- with loads of cream and sugar. Not exactly healthy.

Going out to eat - Again, not healthy. But also, TERRIBLY expensive! We had gotten in a really bad habit in March and April from how busy we were to just go grab something to eat for dinner. At work, I was buying my lunch almost every day because it was convenient and it was a way to "splurge" when I was having a stressful day.

Facebook - Yup, I love Facebook. I love the way it keeps me connected with acquaintances new and old, I love to document Blakely's firsts and post pictures... but I didn't love how much time it was consuming. I didn't love that sometimes I was picking it over spending time doing things with the people I love. And while it seemed like a great option for "vegging" I actually realized that some of the things I read on there were actually causing me more stress!

So what did I do?

I went cold turkey. ON ALL THREE OF THEM. In a weird way it helped because the nauseating and distracting headache from cutting caffeine made me considerably less inclined to miss getting on Facebook or going out to eat. I guess you could call it fasting. For me, I needed to reset, and the easiest way for me to do that was to totally cut myself off. The caffeine withdrawals are pretty much done. I haven't bought food outside our house for a couple weeks. And because I didn't even think about signing onto Facebook tonight during Nate's worship practice, Blakely and I read books, played with toys, watched some cartoons, and took a bath tonight, without any interruptions.

What's holding you back, and what are you going to do about it?