Think Like a Queen

by desing | Faith & Purpose

How you feel (your emotions) are always tied to what you are thinking about. And did you know that thinking toxic thoughts can actually change the physical structure of your brain and influence the DNA that you pass down to the generations to come?

I started reading Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book, Switch On Your Brain and your thoughts are the most crucial key to your success. It’s time to be a thinking queen who is switches your thoughts to work for you and not against you. When you think positive thoughts, it produces positive components in your brain; your brain increases the quality of your thinking and vice versa for negative thoughts.

This scientific fact is proven in the proverb, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Whatever you’re thinking about is directing how you act and feel which will impact your character and lead you into your destiny.

You don’t have to be a victim to your thoughts because the greatest battlefield in your life is the battlefield of your mind. Fear, worry and doubt all begin in how you think and so does success, prosperity and change. You can’t choose what happens to you but you can choose how you respond to it with the power of your thoughts.

Your past hurts don’t have to define you; you can choose to think like a victim or a victor. Before you can become a millionaire, you have to think like one and you have to believe that you will become a millionaire. Before you become a wife, you have to embrace the thoughts of a wife. Before you have a prosperous career, you must expect to get that promotion and believe that you have the power inside of you to become successful at anything you do.

Your environment and your thoughts are directly associated with various diseases. You have to take control over what you’re choosing to think about. What you’re exposing yourself to also has a direct impact on how you think.

If you can’t see it in your mind, you can’t have it in your hand. Therefore, you have to think thoughts of love, power and of a sound mind because you were not created to fear. The opposite of fear is love. When you focus on being love and God’s eternal love for you, your fear will be crushed. Love is far more powerful than fear!

I want you to become a thinking queen and I want to challenge your thinking capacity. First off, as much as we love social media, take some time off of social media or at least decrease the amount of time you’re spending on it daily. You want to be able to think your own clear thoughts and social media is definitely affecting your ability to think your own powerful thoughts.

Second, filter what you watch and read. You cannot expect to become successful and have God’s favor on your side if you only expose yourself to nonsense that has nothing to do with what you want to achieve. Make it your mission to watch and read things that are going to grow you in character, vision and success.

Finally, take 5-15 minutes every day to have a “thinking like a queen” session. Direct your thoughts to focus on your hopes, dreams and desires manifesting. Turn off all distractions, sit in silence and make your vision real in your mind. I like to focus on God’s promises while I do this so that I don’t limit my thoughts. God is able to do infinitely more than I can imagine and I know that my faith is a key to unlock his power, therefore, I’m learning to go into my “thinking like a queen” sessions without any limits on my thoughts. If you’re sick, focus on being healed. If you’re broke, focus on being in abundance, if you’re lonely, focus on being with someone you love.

You’ll begin to feel differently in your body and your mind when you start to apply these principles. When you wake up in the morning, focus your thoughts on having something good happening to you and then start to declare that for your day. Speak out loud what you want to see, ask God for His favor and expect it to happen!

Hopeful thoughts lead to having an attitude of expectancy. You’re not going to get the job if you don’t expect it, you’re not going to have more than enough money if you don’t expect it, and you’re not going win if you expect to lose.

Being a queen starts with thinking like one.

XOXO,

Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy 

How to Let Your Faith Rule

by desing | Faith & Purpose

What is it that guides your emotions, thoughts and actions? Are they easily swayed by what you see or anything that comes your way? Well, I’m telling you to let that type of attitude go and tell it to never come back because it’s part of what’s been holding you back!

Anyone can start anything. Anyone can start going back to school, enroll in the nearby gym, writing that book, or working on that business but only the committed will stay focused no matter what challenges may come your way and remain focused to see your goal through until the end.

If achieving success were easy, everyone would be doing it and we’d have a happier world. But because it’s so challenging to build a life that you desire most people settle into a mediocre life. I would love to tell you that pursuing your success is going to be easy but I would be lying to you. Everything good in this world is going to be met with opposition. You’re going to have to fight for what is rightfully yours, which includes your dreams, your family, your future and your success.

Along with perseverance and persistence, you must allow faith to rule your heart because that is where your power comes from. Whatever is in your heart will impact your thoughts and will be the words you choose to speak out of your mouth – which will influence what you attract into your life. When you truly have faith, you’re supposed to use it to work for you. Faith is your servant and it will do as you tell it to.

However, if you allow doubt, setbacks and the negative opinions of others to influence your heart, your faith will be frustrated. The goal of the opposition that you face is to steal your faith because without faith, you cannot receive the abundance of unlimited favor and success that has been laid out for you. If the opposition can steal your faith, it can steal everything else from you.

In spite of what you may see in front of you, remember that your creative power is in your heart, thoughts and most importantly your words. Stop claiming defeat, lack and failure. It’s time to let faith rule in your heart, your mind, your words and in your actions. Faith is not faith if it’s not working for you.

You must do and say everything in faith. Not in some “magical power type of attitude” but trusting that if God is for you then who can be against you. Trusting that God has the best for you and you can have confident trust in Him to work on your behalf. Instead of working overtime at hustling for your dreams, try working your faith overtime to bring to you what you’re hoping for!

Faith is the confidence and assurance that what you’re hoping for will happen but sometimes we must endure the test of faith to receive the very thing that we hope for. That happens because your faith is being perfected and if you don’t pass this test of faith, how will you pass the bigger tests of faith that life will inevitably throw your way?

Faith is a muscle and it must be exercised! It’s not something that you pull out in a motivating quote on social media; it’s a daily way of thinking, feeling and deciding. Both faith and fear are essentially the same thing, believing that something that hasn’t happen will happen but one believes what you hope for and the other believes the opposite. But you have the decision to choose which one will rule your life.

Let go of what has happened to you in the past, release anyone who has hurt you because lack of faith is often rooted in bitterness and make a decision to let faith rule your life. I guarantee that when you do, you will see the glory that has been promised to you!

Let faith rule!

XOXO,

Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy

What Breaks Your Heart?

by desing | Faith & Purpose

Happy New Year to you!! I know you’re probably thinking about the rest of 2016 in hopeful anticipation of favor, increase and blessings – which I know you will experience!

Blessings, favor and success are fantastic – but do you think that you’re living in your purpose? Or are you waiting year after year for something new to happen to you?

Everyone desires to be happy and we can get so caught up in ourselves that we forget what being successful truly means. It’s not about you, your success is tied to your purpose and if you’re not living in your purpose then you’re not succeeding. As you’ve probably heard me say before, your purpose is when you are using your natural gifts, talents and abilities to serve a human need.

Your purpose is waiting to be discovered by you and it’s not some sort of event. I challenge you to think about how you can grow in your purpose this year. A great way to start is to ask yourself this question which I heard from Pastor Andy Stanley – what breaks your heart?

What do you see on television or maybe hear on the news or see in your community or read about on social media that breaks your heart? You want to do something and you keep thinking about it but you feel like you can’t do much so you go back to your normal life. Someone else in this world is waiting for you to get up off your butt and use the gifts that you have to serve them.

Don’t confuse what I’m saying and think that you have to become the millennial Mother Teresa. You may hate seeing women feel less beautiful because of their skin troubles and you have the gift of make-up artistry, well part of your purpose may be to start using your expertise to make women feel beautiful and overcome low self-esteem. I hate seeing people allow fears and limited thinking to hold them back from achieving their dreams which is why I teach faith and success principles through my gift of communication.

Instead of complaining about the world around you, how are you going to be a catalyst of change in your life and in the lives of others around you? Who are you going to be a blessing to this year? Who are you going to open a door of opportunity to this year? How are you going to grow in your quality of loving others, your work ethic and your way of thinking in order to successfully achieve your pre-destined purpose?

Essentially, what are you going to do that you have the power to do to successfully live in your purpose?

This year is indeed a year of incredible blessing for you but you have to be willing to give in order to receive. One of the traps of success is that we focus so much on the destination that we forget to grow in our character and purpose during the process.

If you begin to think of yourself as a servant to others with your gifts, you will be led into what your purpose is. Your purpose is not to get up, go to work, check your social media, answer some texts, eat, drink, sleep and do it again. This is your year to get out of the rat race and start to pursue your purpose!

The way you can begin to do that is to take the focus off of yourself for a minute and ask yourself, what am I good at and how can I use it to help the need of someone else? This will empower you to live in your purpose and that’s the essence of your legacy. Your legacy is the impact of your contributions to this world while you are here and it how it outlives you after you are long gone.

Truthfully, you don’t know how much time you have left. You can make a commitment to live in the legacy you want to leave now or you can allow the frustrations of life to continue to stop from entering the destiny that you deserve.

Will you be committed to be a woman of purpose in 2016? You better because it’s time to you don’t have time to waste!

XOXO,

Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy