Tips for Attitude Change (with Virginia Lee)

Virginia Lee: Yes, yes.

Mystie: So, one of the ones I’m going to share is there’s a post for it in the series, but sometimes just sharing those specific instances – these are all things we need to hear over and over again. So, do you have any go-to attitude organization strategies?

Virginia Lee: Well, many of mine are similar to what you’re writing about. But, I guess the biggest go-to attitude organization strategy for me is … and it’s not going to be anything new … is just to stop and pray. If things are out of whack, if the bubble has burst, I have to stop everything and pray right then. It doesn’t matter if we get behind, it doesn’t matter if something doesn’t get done, because I am an extrovert and I have multiple extroverted children I have found that it is incredibly helpful to just stop all of them in their tracks, too, and pray together. To just let them know, you know what, my attitude is not the way it needs to be and I need help from the Lord and I would love the help from them as well, so we can just pray for each other. And, it’s great to hear your children praying for you, too. So, that is really my number one biggest thing and there are some days where we stop 10 times. And, there are others where we’re just all not listening to ourselves more than we’re listening to the spirit and we fly through and those are the days that at the end, you’re like, “Yay, Lord – that’ll get me through four more weeks.” But, that is really my biggest one is to just to stop. I’ve learned that if the spirit prompts you that you should be praying about something don’t say I’ll do this later, I’ll do this when [this] calms down. Just do it right then.

Mystie: That is so good.

Virginia Lee: So, that’s my biggest one.

Mystie: That’s a great one. You can’t argue that, because who can change a sinner’s heart but the Holy Spirit alone. That’s where we have to go when we need heart change.

Virginia Lee: And, because we’re the ones during the day leading our families and we’re all around each other I just want my kids to see that I need that heart change as much as they do. I need that attitude re-organization as much as they do, and so, I have always tried to communicate with them as well, not just keep it inside that I’m doing that, but just let them know, “This is happening with Mom right now, too.” What about you?

Mystie: Mine’s really similar, maybe it’s the introverted version. In the Humble Habits Program that I worked through with a bunch of other ladies, one of the habits that we worked on, the very first one was prayer, and having a Scripture verse that you were going to pray, posted somewhere. So, to just have a go-to prayer to pray, it was good because we were stopping to pray at that time, when we saw that card. It was a prompt to pray, but then also in practicing praying it, it became more normal and natural to just have that go-to. Like, I can stop right here and I have a prayer in my heart, in my head, right now. So, do you have another one?

Virginia Lee: So, I have a Notes app in my phone and maybe this isn’t the best place but I should probably switch to your Index Card so that I don’t have to get on my phone, but I keep four or five Bible verses in that Note app, depending on if there’s a struggle, or a season, or something that I know is a continuous thing that I’m working on that will affect my attitude (if that makes sense) and I keep those four or five verses in there so that when I’m feeling stubborn about it and I don’t want to reorganize my attitude I need the actual Word right then because I can have a really stubborn heart, so I pull up that Notes app and I just read through those four or five verses, because sometimes in those situations I feel that stubbornness and I feel that stronghold of not wanting to let go or to put my attitude where it needs to be, I need to go back through and read the Word itself, because even my prayer is going to be a little more like “Ah, I don’t wanna.” It’s really more of a prayer that needs to be like, “OK, Lord, I’m going to read Your Word right now because … “ but I can’t necessarily sit down and open the Bible and get into quiet time right at that moment. When I have my quiet times and I have those verses that pop out to me, those are the ones I keep in my phone and I just go back to during that really “I don’t want to re-organize my attitude right now” and …

Mystie: I love that.

Virginia Lee: … so, that’s what I do. I just go through and I just re-read those three or four verses. This works really well when you’re pregnant; when you’re tired and you’re weary and you have the stubbornness combined with the “I’m pregnant right now” …

Mystie: Distraction.

Virginia Lee: Yes, it really does. And, it really just helps you to focus on the joy to come and not the … no matter what it is, I seem to need those four or five, and sometimes one is not enough, I really do need I think the different parts of Scripture how they all relate together but compare and contrast with each other and that whole science of relations, that really helps me to just, “OK, here’s the Word,” and it’s a powerful tool. You know, like they say in 2 Timothy, “it is useful for teaching, correcting and training in righteousness…” I’ve got to have that.

Mystie: And that’s removing the barriers.

Virginia Lee: There’s often a time where we know we need to switch our attitudes back to where it needs to be, or we have the desire to do that, and we can. But, then there’s times when it’s just not there. We don’t have the desire for it, and that’s when God’s Word changes our hearts.

Mystie: That is where to go for sure.

Virginia Lee: So, what about you? Do you have another one?

Mystie: So, I have a perhaps less spiritual one to end with but my cure-all is to drink water.

Virginia Lee: Oh, actually that is so important and seriously, you laugh less spiritual, but I actually know a mom who went for four days without drinking water and had to go be in the hospital to be rehydrated.

Mystie: Oh my. And, I find it’s a quick physical re-set button. It’s one of those ways to stop and I think some of it is the actual hydration and some of it is the just the act of stopping and doing something different. Still, it’s a good freeing thing, but I need to re-set now is chocolate or a vacation … we get all these things, you know what would make me feel better right now… no, I’m just going to go get a drink of water.

Virginia Lee: You’re right, it just makes us slow down some.

Mystie: I’ve been trying to do this more this last week because I realized I was going to … well, what I need is another cup of coffee.

Virginia Lee: Hey, I’m not going to say you don’t need that. I’m not willing to put that on air.

Mystie: But, if it’s cup number 5 or 6, well, then not only do I need more water then, the water might actually help my body function better than the coffee.

Virginia Lee: Well, it really does. And I think we can get so busy in our heads and in our physical daily lives, water is really important.

Mystie: It functions on multiple levels so I think just stopping, having a glass of water, it is amazing how much it helps.

Dump all those swirling thoughts out of your head.

Yes, simply writing it all down will help to

• Reduce stress by getting your thoughts onto paper
• Reduce frustration by assigning homes to stuff, tangible & intangible
• Reduce anxiety by knowing what you have on your plate

Declutter your head.