How to Use Your 2016 Lessons to Increase Your 2017 Blessings

Happy New Year!

Okay, let’s be real here! You have made your New Year’s Resolutions year after year, as you did for this New Year, but they seem to be recycled from one year to the next. I am sure that you are wondering why you seem no farther ahead at the start of 2017, than you did at the start of 2016, or the preceding years. But, have you ever taken the time to just stop in the midst of your years, at least every three months and ask yourself a few questions? What are you trying to resolve and/or accomplish during the year, that you did not resolve and/or accomplish during the previous yeas? What kept you from resolving and/or accomplishing what you set out to resolve and/or accomplish in previous years? Do these year after year promises involve a romantic or plutonic situation, employment, a move, finances, negative habits of procrastination, or any other negative habits that you have been trying to break for quite sometime? As a matter of fact, where are you trying to go and how do you plan to get there in 2017, that is different from where you were trying to go and where you where trying to get to in 2016 and other years?

Yes, I’ve given you quite a few questions for you to not only ask yourself, but to answer for yourself. Your past lack of accomplishments regarding your previous New Year’s resolutions probably occurred for many reasons. One of the major reasons for your lack of accomplishments in attaining the milestones that you set for yourself year after year, as each year winds down, has been because you have constantly overlooked your current position in life, moving on your own trajectory, and not the trajectory which has been established for you by a higher power. You have ignored the red flags that signaled for you to stop, closed your eyes and your mind to the yellow flags of caution, waived white flags of surrender when you should have continued moving forward on your journey, and your life’s realities were based on the life perspectives of others.

Somehow, each year you focused more on your failures, your setbacks, and what they took out of you or from you, rather than the messages to you and for you, as well as what you could get and take away from each year. And believe me, there were many messages and much for you to take away from each and every experience, each and every year.

Each year of your life has included let downs, setbacks, set asides, setups, pick-ups, and opportunities for you to get up, straighten up, and look up. However, too often, you have ignored the information afforded you through your life experiences, life circumstances, and life situations. With each of your life experiences, each life circumstance, and each life situation, whether good or bad, positive or negative, there is and has been a message. And with each message, there is and has been a lesson. But, if you didn’t look, if you didn’t listen to or hear the message, you most likely missed the lesson.  Hence, you learned absolutely little or nothing, and you wonder why you seem to be stuck in the same hole, with the same people, making he same amount of money, living in the same house, going in the same direction, on the same path to nowhere!

Lessons are for you to learn and grow, in order for you to successfully conquer your now situation (today) in preparation for your later position (tomorrow). Lessons are designed to help you to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. In other words, lessons are gifts granted to you through God, so that you will surrender your membership in the insanity club. The people you deal with, the circumstances you face, and the situations you find yourself in might bring about some tough messages, but it is God who helps you to learn the lessons so that your next time won’t be a recycled time of the same experiences, while you expect different results.

But, if you have not learned from your letdowns, setbacks, and set asides, you will not see and be prepared for the setup being put in place for your great come back! What you thought would take you out and do you in in 2016 and previous years only strengthened you to stand tall and walk in your destiny in 2017. Instead of looking at what you didn’t accomplish in 2016 and past years as defeats, you can consider them a retreat, a part of the master plan to catapult you to the heights you are destined to achieve.

It is not so much that you have fallen, faltered, or failed; it’s what you learned about your fall, your falter, and your failure. It is also how you get back up or if you get back up. It’s imperative that in 2017, you finally recognize that for every lesson, there is a silver lining for a blessing for you. As it is what you do with the falls, falters, and failures of life that determine how and when your life gets on track or back on track, it is the same with the lessons shown to you each year. What you do with them has a profound impact on your current and future life directions.

You can make as many New Year’s Resolutions as you desire. Your resolutions are basically promises that you have made to yourself. However, promises without plans, directions, and steps to reach them are empty. It is time for you to make your resolutions or self-promises based on plans related to the lessons you have gathered and learned each previous year.

Your 2017 can and will be a much better year if you are willing to revisit the journey you took during 2016, in order to gather the lessons you learned, as well as the meaning of each lesson. Once you have documented your learned lessons, as well as the meanings for you, it is imperative that you devise a plan for you to let your 2016 lessons become and increase your 2017 blessings!    

The New Year is a time for you to:

·      Take the time to understand who you are

·      Finally accept who you are

·      Keep a daily journal, chronicling the lessons presented to you and before you…large and small

·      Accept where you’ve been (failures, frailties, successes)

·      Identify the lessons provided to and for you in 2016, that will move you forward in 2017; assess the assets & liabilities, using them accordingly

·      Recognize the difference between WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU & WHAT HAPPENED FOR YOU—Focus on WHAT HAPPENED FOR YOU!

·      Decide where you are going based on the lessons learned

·      Decide where you want to be based on the lessons learned

·      Decide to forgive yourself

·      Decide to love you unconditionally (including your falls, falters & failures)

·      Charge or recharge your spiritual connection or reconnect

·      Search & define the meaning of your life & the meaning for your life, for today and in the future

·      Decide to identify & walk in your destiny

·      Recognize that 2016 was but another chapter in your life; take what you need from it, glance at it every now & then, but move out of it & move into your 2017 chapter of life, with open eyes

·      Swallow your pride & recognize that everyone CANNOT & SHOULD NOT go with you into your 2017 next chapter of your life. Sort the people who are assets from those who are liabilities

·      Remember, the measure of who you are & where you are going, has to be determined by YOU & your own yardstick…not someone else’s yardstick

·      Develop new ideas

·      Develop new life directions (goals, with timelines & action steps)

·      Develop a NEW attitude—A WINNING ATTITUDE, moved by inner love, inner success, self-respect, and self-direction

·      Always remember to PRAY!

·      Don’t sweat the small stuff!

·      USE YOUR 2016 LESSONS TO INCREASE YOUR 2017 BLESSINGS!

©2016 J. Morley Productions, Inc.; P.O. Box 1745, Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com

How to Keep Loving in the Midst of Hate

As you engage in the holiday season, you can’t help but to stop and reflect upon the past year. It is a time for family, friends, and focusing, not only on the past, but also dreaming about the future. The holiday season brings memories of great times, as well as memories of times that weren’t so great, signifying an end to another year. Whatever the memories you hold and focus on during the holidays, it is always great to know that you still have today; which means you still have choices, a voice, and control of your life’s direction!

I know that sometimes you wonder whether you have been living in a parallel universe, a time warp, or in a bad dream that seems to conflict with what you see as your reality. And you probably don’t know whether you want to remain asleep or to wake up and face what you have dreaded for sometime…our country is seemingly on the brink of self-collapse. Normality has been out of the question for far too long and so-called leaders from the far left are out of control, out of sync with the rest of the country, and they brazenly espouse their negativity, hatred, anger, and isms onto the poor, the weak, and those different from themselves. Many of these people are gravely misdirected, out of control, and filled with hate.

 Although the holidays are a time for taking your sharing and caring to heightened levels with family and friends, the reality of the past year still looms heavily over many of you, your families, your friends, your neighbors, and your coworkers. Not only has this year seemed as if it was a never-ending dream or nightmare, it also seemed as if it was an endless reality show. It has been one of the most difficult years for many of you, especially politically. It has been a time like no other, fraught with unpredictable changes, uncertainty, difficulties, disappointments, sadness, fear, and feelings of bitterness for many of you.

I have heard many of you express your feelings about the seeming dark cloud hanging over your heads. There has been a an ugliness of hatred encouraged against people who are different in their color, their race, their national origin, their sex, their sexual orientation, and their social status. The great thing is that because of the love deep within your hearts and your souls, many of you have become brave souls, unwilling to participate in the discrimination, racism, sexism, and classism espoused by too many of the misdirected within our country.

Although you have love in your hearts and souls, many of you are fearful of the repercussions associated with the outcome of the presidential election. And for many more, these fears have become your reality, bringing about a multitude of individuals who are bold, bodacious, ignorant, self-serving, selfish, controlling, racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic, wreaking havoc on the lives of innocent children, individuals, and families.

I, too, have recently experienced the hatred and racism, in my family, when a white man driving recklessly on the highway sideswiped the car of my son-in-law. When my son-in-law pulled behind the man after he pulled over, thinking they would have a man-to—man respectful conversation, exchanging license and insurance information. However, the man pulled a gun on my son-in-law, using expletives and other negative words, threatening to blow his m*****f****** rains out! Thank God my son-in-law had presence of mind to remain on the line with 911, as he remembered the car tag number and make and model of the car, after it sped off. And who is this man of hatred and racism? He is a high school teacher, and a coach in one of the public schools in our country. And this is just a drop in the bucket of the hatred being put forth in our schools by the Great Game Player and Manipulator.

These haters have taken off their white robes and pointed hats, as they walk around in Brooks Brothers, Michael Kors, and Armani Exchange suits, or their red bottom shoes, and Gucci purses. They are coming out in massive proportions, given permission to hate, lie, cheat, and disrespect others, by the Great Game Player and Manipulator, whose name I choose not to give power to by mentioning it here.

It is imperative during the holiday season for you to begin to take an introspective look at your reality and how it fits with the reality of what is taking place in our country. It is hard to keep loving and showing love when thee is a pervasive acceptance of and proliferation of hate by many of those in power, in the media, and in other positions of influence, especially the newly designated Great Game Player and Manipulator.

These people tend to spread hate, instead of love, often because they are empty souls walking in the midst of you, your families, and me. The holiday season is a time for you to decide to live, forgive, and let go. No matter what is going on around you and outside of you, you are ultimately in control of what goes on within you. If you allow the hate of those empty souls to destroy your self-love and your love for others, you are then destroyed as an individual. You relinquish your power and control to fools. You CANNOT allow this to happen.  God has already designated your purpose and your destiny.

The holiday season can also help you begin to see the love that can exist in the midst of the hatred being spewed throughout the country and the world. You can then come to realize that no matter how these people see you, what they think about you, no matter what negative names they call you, no matter who leads the country, no matter what you have or don’t have, everything starts and ends with you. There is always an opportunity for you to rise above your disappointments, the hate, the anger, and all of the other negative things that come your way. You have one of the greatest weapons within you that CAN and WILL combat all of the mess that is thrown your way. That weapon is called LOVE!

The holidays are supposed to be a time of peace within and throughout, as well as a time for you to increase your offering of goodwill to all. However, the reality is that peace is evasive on many levels, all because the Great Game Player and Manipulator has declared war, fueled by hatred, discrimination, racism, and sexism. If there is any time that you must pull out your weapon of love, it is now! As they denigrate you, try to decimate you, try to destroy your will and your way, castigate you, you must continue to stand on the solid foundation of love; love for yourself and for others. 

And no matter how people treat you, your inner love and inner peace will not allow you to succumb to the mess and the stress associated with hate, bigotry, discrimination, racism, sexism, classism, and all of the other isms. As a matter of fact, you are a soldier in the army of love, wishing only the best for those who hate you, despise you, as well as those who wish ill toward you. This holiday season is your season of inner and outer peace; peace that you will share with others in order to combat the negativity that seems to have a hold on many in our country. Your love and your peace CANNOT be taken from you unless you compromise them or give them away!

Yes, I know it’s hard to keep loving in the midst of the hate that you experience each and every day of your life, especially if you are a person of color, a female, a person of a different sexual orientation, are an immigrant, or you have different religious beliefs. But you CAN and you MUST stay on the path of love! There is hope! And if there was a way in, there MUST be a way out! All hope is not lost. Exodus 3:7-9:

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And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

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And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

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Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.

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Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

I am sure you are wondering how you can “Keep Loving In the Midst of Hate,” as well as what you can do until you and your family and loved ones are delivered out of the hands of the Great Game Player and Manipulator. Here are some steps to help you:

1.     Recognize that there is spiritual warfare going on.

2.     Don’t be afraid to talk about the situation, your reality, and your feelings with family, loved ones, and other TRUSTED souls.

3.     Pray each day without ceasing for guidance, direction, protection, meaning, and understanding.

4.     Meditate daily in order to grow deeper in your spirituality.

5.     Pray and use oral positive self-talk to remove FEAR…False, Evidence, Appearing, REAL. FEAR manifests into a sense of hopelessness, which then manifests into a sense of helplessness. When you are hopeless and helpless, you become POWERLESS, unable to see and think clearly, truly being defeated!

6.     Manage your emotions, especially your anger! Anger also clouds your thinking, bringing about irrational thoughts and misdirection. President Barack Obama was one of the greatest models of anger management in the midst of hate.

7.     Demand a ZERO TOLERANCE policy when it comes to discrimination, bigotry, racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious intolerance, and other forms of isms and hatred.

8.     Pray and meditate each day for discernment and revelation so that you will be able to recognize those serving in the army of the Great Game Player and Manipulator.

9.     Engage in daily journaling in order for you to behold the patterns of your thoughts and your feelings. This process will also provide an outlet for you to release some of the pain associated with the consistent hatred, maltreatment, and mistreatment that you, your family members, or other loved ones are experiencing on a daily basis.

10.  Pray for the Great Game Player and Manipulator, as well as his followers, for God to deliver you, your family, and your loved ones out of their hands, exposing them and bringing them down.

11.  Forgive and let go of your ill feelings, because they will cause you to either implode or explode. Let go and let God.

12.  Decide how you will positively become involved in a cause and/or movement that will bring awareness to others and help them to proactively deal with the hatred being espoused in this country.

13.  KEEP THE FAITH, KEEP BELIEVING, and KEEP TRUSTING IN GOD, RECOGNIZING THAT GOD HAS THE LAST WORD!!!

I challenge you to take a stand and a stance of LOVE, demanding and receiving peace in the midst of turmoil. You CAN and you WILL move forward! The love in you CAN and WILL allow you to move forward. Hold on and hang in there; there IS a light at the end of the tunnel; it is in the form of PEACE and LOVE!!  Love WILL win over hate! YOU ARE LOVE; YOU ARE THE LIGHT!

©2016; J.Morley Productions, Inc.; P.O. Box 1745, Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com

There is No Victory Without Your Vote

Many of you are probably suffering from campaign fear, campaign anxiety, and campaign trauma, as a result of the negative, mud slinging, and probably because of one of the most unconventional presidential campaigns in the history of our country. This presidential campaign has been fraught with disrespect for race, women, children, families, religious groups, immigrants, and others. Here is your greatest opportunity to take a stand to weed out the mess and choose the best. Either you stand for something, or you will fall for ANYTHING!!!

As an American citizen, you are charged with making major decisions as to who will hold political positions at the local, state, and national levels, including selecting the next president of the United States. The office of the president is the most powerful position in the free world! The power and the authority of serving as the president of the United States takes a strong, stable, solid, balanced, directed, people-focused, respectful, nonracist, nonsexist, thought-provoking, intelligent, unselfish, caring, family-oriented, individual, who has a handle on the needs of the people of the United States and the world, without interference from foreign countries. This person must listen, be proactive and not reactive, and must be disciplined in words and actions.

Isn’t it great to know that you have been charged with the important task of choosing the persons that will represent you and your family in issues pertaining to the economy, education, housing, healthcare, retirement, etc.? Outgoing President Barack Obama can give the full scope of his resiliency, which allowed him to be a successful president, serving ALL people. Not only is Mr. Obama the 44^th president, he was also the 43^rd president…setting a history making precedence as the first African-American president of the United States.

It is past time to stop placing people in political positions, when they do not care about you or anyone but themselves. Thee don’t have a clue about you, your culture, or the needs of your community and families. They basically don’t have your best interest or the best interest of anyone else in mind. These people have contributed to and stood for no one but themselves, their causes, their own families, and they have no record or history of standing for the economic, political, social, and emotional growth, development and empowerment of others; especially the poor, the middle class, and the disenfranchised. Basically, what they have done is climbed to the top of the proverbial ladder at the expense of others, including the poor, children, people of color, single parents, and the middle class, while disenfranchising the rights and opportunities of these groups to recognize, attain, and live out the American dream.

It is also important that you do not allow others to reframe your reality by making you feel defeated or feel bad about who you are, where you live, what you have, and what you don’t have. How do you allow someone, who has never been in your neighborhood, has never crossed the threshold of your door, let alone the door of the schools in your community, tell you that your children and the children in your neighborhoods are attending FAILING SCHOOLS? There is NO SUCH THING AS A FAILING SCHOOL. To accept the rhetoric being spewed by candidates and government officials who don’t give a damn about you, your children, your family, and your neighborhood, is to walk around with a target on your forehead, giving them permission to annihilate you and your loved ones, whenever they choose.

To accept the demeaning implications associated with “failing schools” means that you buy into the premise that every child, every teacher, every parent, and everyone associated with those so-called “failing schools” are failures. The phrases they use are ploys to make you and others feel fearful, helpless, and hopeless, as they move to take over your community schools, control the federal, state, and local tax dollars, as well as make profits on the backs of your children and children in your neighborhoods.

How can someone or some organization run your community schools from another state? THEY CAN’T! Don’t accept this! You must claim the victory by getting out and vote!  Further, how do you allow someone to spew rhetoric about “taking America back” and “making America great again?” America has always been great for some people, but not for all people! Why would you want someone to turn back the hands of America, when slavery was the mainstay, and women were disrespected and not recognized? How do you allow someone to make you promises and take you down a thorny path that will only line their pockets and benefit no one but their families? How do you allow someone to tell you that you live in “inner cities,” when you live in the suburbs? How do you allow someone to tell you that your race, sex, sexual orientation, and religion don’t matter, and that you are being “shot down every day?” What?? You must VOTE for the VICTORY or you will be accepting a mosaic of mess created by someone else!

Yes, you might be thinking (as many others have thought) that your vote does not matter. But just ask Al Gore, who lost a presidential election by a little more than five hundred votes in 2000. YOUR VOTE DOES COUNT!! You cannot allow yourself, your mate, your children, your grandchildren, your friends, relatives, and others, especially the millenniums and the elderly, to be denied the opportunity to exercise their constitutional right to vote, which was afforded them by the Fifteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which was ratified on February 3, 1870.

You…yes YOU, will and should decide and choose who is the BEST and MOST QUALIFIED candidate for each position on your ballot. You cannot vote based on sensationalism, popularity, negative rhetoric, theatrics, scare tactics, and other messages of helplessness, hopelessness, and nonsense. Either you vote and vote ‘right,’ or you; your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, your neighbors, your friends, and all other families will pay dearly later!

It is imperative for you to recognize that not all citizens within our country have been afforded the opportunity to vote. It is well known that African-Americans, women, poor people, and many others have been denied their right to vote. Sadly, there are still some people in present day 2016, who are still trying to prevent these groups of people from voting with lies and bullying tactics. Men and women have fought, bled, and died to ensure that the right to vote is afforded to ALL American Citizens.

The Voting Rights Amendments of 1965 and 2015 have had to be enacted to ensure that African-Americans, who were supposed to have the right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment, but were still being denied that right, are protected in their right to vote. And don’t forget about the Women’s Suffrage Movement or the Women’s Right to Vote Movement, which took place in 1920. Women, too, have been denied their right to vote. This could fit with the fear that many have about having a woman to serve as president of the United States. There was a fight against an African-American president who was disrespected at the highest level during his entire eight years as president. There seems to be an even greater fear about a female president. Even though all of us have or had a mother serve as the leader in our lives, too many are fighting against a woman leading our nation   Hence, it is of utmost importance that YOU exercise YOUR right to vote and not allow yourself to fall for the psychological babble, divisive strategies, lies, name-calling, scare tactics, blatant disrespect, and diversionary tactics being used to discourage you from voting, along with the efforts to minimize how important YOU are in the political process. It is also important that you develop strategies to effectively deal with the negative emotional and psychological impact that has resulted from this 2016 presidential election. Daily prayer, affirmations, meditations, breathing exercises, and remaining hopeful will help you to combat the emotional, psychological, and spiritual weights you have been experiencing.

The decisions made through your vote will make a difference, whether negative or positive, not only in your life, but in the lives of your loved ones. Think about it; your vote will decide and dictate the present and the future of your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren. Your vote will also dictate whether your problems erode or your problems being recognized and solved. Yes, taking on the task of voting is a tremendous charge, and it’s in your hands! It’s time to use what’s in your hands by exercising your right to vote! Without your vote, there is no victory!

When teachers cannot use aspects of the presidential campaign and presidential political process to infuse into their daily lesson plans of their civics, history, and government classes, due to the X-Rated language and X-Rated behaviors being put forth by some candidates, something is terribly wrong. The students within these classes are being cheated out of receiving a quality education on current events, as well as understanding the political process. Further, the subliminal messages, along with the overt and overt messages and behaviors being conveyed by candidates have had devastating emotional, psychological, spiritual, political, economical, and health implications on you, your children, your mates, your family, and other loved ones.

In a democratic society where you matter and your vote matters, coming to grips with the reality that your vote carries great weight, gives you permission to exercise the power and the authority that comes with your vote. It is important for you to understand the impact of voting, but even more so, the impact of you NOT voting! Remember, your VOTE is YOUR POWERT! YOU MUST USE IT!  

When are you going to hold your mate, your children, your family members, your friends, other loved ones, your colleagues, and especially your political representative accountable for not only their racist, sexist, and other discriminatory behaviors, but also for them not standing up with their votes, and not speaking up and out, through their votes?

I challenge you to not allow anyone to reframe your reality. I also challenge you to accept people for who they are and for who they say they are. Remember, as Maya Angelou once stated, ‘when people tell you who they are, believe them!’ A leopard never changes his spots and a zebra never changes its stripes. PEOPLE DON’T CHANGE!

Remember, if you don’t vote, you shouldn’t complain! As a matter of fact, if you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to complain. However, you have the right to vote. Without your vote, there is no victory for you or anyone else!! Look at your sons, your daughters, your grandchildren, and others you love. When you see them, see their futures and make a conscious decision as to who it is you want to be a role model for them in the political arena and whom you want to lead you and to lead them, now and in the future! Please VOTE AND VOTE RIGHT!!! YOUR VOTE IS YOUR VICTORY!!

©2016 J. Morley Productions, Inc; P.O. Box 1745, Decatur, GA 30031; www.doctorjoyce.coml 770-808-6570