There are 4 spaces in life, 3 we can do something about. We spend too much time and energy focusing on the one that we cannot and ought not try to manage.

1/

1. Space inside me. What is going on in me? How do I know when I am anxious? We all carry a bubbling collective of pressure, pain, assumptions, inner critic etc that can block our awareness of God and distort reality.

2/
2. Space between people. This can be space between me and you or space between others. Ever walked into a room with people and you felt off? You might be picking up the space between others.

Anxiety is contagious and often the most anxious person has the most power.

3/
3. Space between me and God. It is disturbing how often I forget God With Us.

Chronic anxiety seeps through us like that foam insulation. It finds the nooks and crannies and squeezes out our awareness of God.

But it can be quickly displaced with some tools.

4/
4. The space inside them.

This is the space we spend too much time and energy worrying about. If you've ever thought, 'what were they thinking? Why did they do that, Why wouldn't they _____' you're fixated on the one space you cannot manage.

5/
A guaranteed source of anxiety: when you fixate on space #4.

But Paul reminds us that one evidence of the Spirit's work in our life is SELF control. But we spend so much energy on THEM control.

That's a big fat nope.

6/
But the space between you and them? There is much you can do.

So often we blame, rather than looking at the dynamic between me and them. We tend to cast out our responsibility rather than ask the harder question, 'What am I doing that it making the dynamic worse?'

7/
And the space inside me? That is the space where I begin. SO often I am operating under my own steam, white knuckling, applying 'try harder' and 'more of the same' to what isn't working.

Pause, breathe. Practice radical self kindness.

8/
Tell your Inner Critic to get as tape measure and check the length from east to west.

and most importantly, remember the God who is kind, loving, patient. Immanuel. Not just a Christmas God.

9/
The 4 spaces. It has helped me clarify and focus.

2021 can be different than 2020, but only if you are different. 2020 didn't cause your soul condition, it exposed it.

You may need to dig deeper this year, but I assure you, God is waiting for you there.

10/10

More from Steve Cuss

More from Life

It doesn't happen because you want it to happen.

It doesn't happen because you made it happen.

It happens because you allow it to happen.

https://t.co/j5hPyw9m9m
THREAD: 12 Things Everyone Should Know About IQ

1. IQ is one of the most heritable psychological traits – that is, individual differences in IQ are strongly associated with individual differences in genes (at least in fairly typical modern environments). https://t.co/3XxzW9bxLE


2. The heritability of IQ *increases* from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile, the effect of the shared environment largely fades away. In other words, when it comes to IQ, nature becomes more important as we get older, nurture less.
https://t.co/UqtS1lpw3n


3. IQ scores have been increasing for the last century or so, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. https://t.co/sCZvCst3hw (N ≈ 4 million)

(Note that the Flynn effect shows that IQ isn't 100% genetic; it doesn't show that it's 100% environmental.)


4. IQ predicts many important real world outcomes.

For example, though far from perfect, IQ is the single-best predictor of job performance we have – much better than Emotional Intelligence, the Big Five, Grit, etc. https://t.co/rKUgKDAAVx https://t.co/DWbVI8QSU3


5. Higher IQ is associated with a lower risk of death from most causes, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, most forms of cancer, homicide, suicide, and accident. https://t.co/PJjGNyeQRA (N = 728,160)

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This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.

In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)