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Chase the Butterflies and Slay Dragons!
By Tuff Harris
What makes you nervous to think about? In other words, what gives you butterflies? For me, it’s public speaking, asking for help or explaining myself in front of people. This process use to torture me! In school, it was the speech I had to give in front of the class. In leadership, it was the talk I was asked to give to some younger students. In relationships, it was the girl that I wanted to ask out. In my job, it was the sermon I had to deliver or the motivational speech I was asked to give. In life, it was the help I needed from someone I had to ask. All of these things had the same dreadful feelings of butterflies in my stomach that made me sick; not to mention the sleepless nights, the outburst of anger from stress and the deep feeling of pain that led to procrastination.
Another example was trying something new, like changing my style of clothing. It went something like this: I would go to the department store to try on a few things and thought, “I look good in this and love this style”. I even managed to talk myself into buying that item even if it was a little bit expensive. I knew it would be worth it because of how good I felt in it. And then the morning came when I tried it on and the butterflies showed up. All those feelings of loving how it looked suddenly left. I’d tell myself, “I can’t wear this, it’s not me, it’s out of character, it will be noticed by everyone that I’m trying to look and feel good. I’ll have to explain myself to people”. So what did I do? I decided I’d only wear it for special occasions, but it never left my closet. Other times I took it right back to the store where I bought it or gave it to someone else who would wear it.
I used to let the butterflies keep me from living. I would talk to the same people, wear the same clothes and rarely accept an invitation to speak in front of people in any way. I would also rarely try anything that would require me to put myself out there, the real me! The fear and dread of “what will they think” kept me from living the life I wanted. The reality is that people don’t really care about these things, at least not these things about you. If you are confident in all these areas people will only love you for them. Ok, maybe some will be jealous and mean but it doesn’t matter. If you are not confident people have this broken tendency to try to help you by pointing it out or making fun of it.
So how do we get confidence? You have to chase the butterflies!
Here’s how:
First, recognize that the butterflies are there to serve a purpose. The purpose is not to keep you from danger or pain rather they are there to give you something. When you press into these feelings you will start the ignition to getting the life you want to live. The things that make us most nervous in life have the greatest rewards if you choose to walk in that direction. Whatever is common or easy rarely gives us satisfaction and accomplishment. The payoff is on the other side of the butterflies.
Second, verbalize everything you are feeling, first to yourself and then to a person you trust. If you don’t get the truth of how you feel out it can cause negative symptoms later. Some of these symptoms are anger, denial, procrastination, or creative excuses. We can tap into our creative bank to come up with every excuse as to why we should not follow through on our original agreement to get what we want. By verbalizing our feelings we lower stress and we are able to continue on the path to completion.
Third, visualize the best version of yourself and how you want it to play out. Before a football game I used to visualize how I was going to play the game. Every catch and every tackle was thought through before I stepped onto the field. What really accelerated the result I wanted was to visualize how I was going to respond when it didn’t go the way I wanted. I would visualize what I would do if I dropped the catch or missed the tackle. This helped me respond powerfully by developing my character when things didn’t go my way. Part of the visualization process is verbalizing positive phrases when things are getting stressful. You need to predetermine what phrase will help you through the pain. Referring to the stress I would repeat “You want this!” And when the actual moment came, I would repeat the phrase that I said many times before. Sometimes the phrase can be a single word like “courage” or “power”! Trust me, it works. Its better to visualize and say simple phrases then to get stuck in the alternative (anger, denial, procrastination, etc.).
Lastly, practice! It doesn’t rhyme with visualize or verbalize but it is vital to getting what you actually want. Find every area of your life that you want something different or something more. Change is hard but you want it. We don’t want to get stuck in clothes fashion that has been left behind decades ago. You don’t want to live with regret because you never tried. You don’t want miss out on life because the butterflies kept you from the most exciting, adventurous and best version of yourself.
Make the commitment today to stop talking yourself out of things and start talking yourself into things. When you choose to go places and do things that confront your fears you inspire all the onlookers. Tell the scaredy cat version of you that things are going to change because you are now chasing butterflies and slaying dragons!
-Tuff Harris | Executive Director
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“Hoʻi i ka māpunapuna: Returning to the Source”
by Serena Nalani Nakanaiʻaekuʻiikaleināki Michel
Hoʻi ka ʻoʻopu ʻai lehua i ka māpunapuna.
The lehua-eating ʻoʻopu has gone back to the spring.
Said of one who has gone back to the source.—ʻŌlelo Noʻeau (Hawaiian saying) #1034
ʻOʻopu nākea are very special fish in our home of Hawaiʻi. They lay their eggs in mountain stream beds, and once hatched, the larvae are swept down to the ocean with the surges of freshwater due to heavy rains. After spending a few months at sea, the young ʻoʻopu migrate back upstream toward the mountain to spend the rest of their adult lives. ʻOʻopu are known for their ability to make this journey upstream, using their strong suction cup mouths to cling to rocks. “ʻOʻopu ʻai lehua” is a “poetic description of ʻoʻopu found in upland streams where lehua flowers drop into the water” (manomano.io). ʻOʻopu always return back to the springs from which they hatched.
At the beginning of 2019, a year before I came to One Heart, I spent two weeks grieving over the possibility of being pregnant by a young man who did not love for me. I remember the pounding in my chest and the nausea in my stomach going to buy a pregnancy test and hiding from my parents, who are senior pastors of our church. I was so scared. I had no vision for my life at that point, and my thought was, “Well, I have no plan, so I guess this is going to be my new reality.” I was so indifferent that I did not care, and I was full of shame. I could not look at anybody in their eyes for those two weeks.
By the grace of God, I was not pregnant.
A month later, I met our partners with One Heart, Pastors Yaseer and Monique Handall of Arise Ministries, who took me in and discipled me, beginning the transformation of my life that would flourish in One Heart under Tuff and Mary Harris at the beginning of this year. Today, I am not only free from the bondage of shame, but I also have grown in my ability to take my lustful thoughts captive and give them in obedience to the Lord. I continue to daily be transformed by the renewal of my mind in His Word.
As I write this post, I am sitting in my house with a beautiful view of our mountains at the back of the verdant valley of Mānoa, lush with various shades of green, heavy with humidity due to the rain that always passes through it, and the harmonies of birdsong all around. I have not returned here for almost a year, and it is surreal to be in this place again at the end of an intense and unexpected year.
I decided one day to go on a walk through Mānoa. I planned for it to be short, but the Holy Spirit kept telling me to keep going in a direction that was leading to my former college, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, which resides at the beginning of the valley. I wondered where the Spirit was leading me, and all of a sudden, I saw a vision of the head source of water that feeds the taro patches at a place on the university’s campus called Ka Papa Loʻi o Kānewai (Ka Pa-pa Lō-ee oh Kah-neh-vaee). This place is where I met the young man who could have been the father of our child; the source of where it all began. I knew the Lord wanted me to make the journey there to restore that space and redeem it for Him.
When I reached the entrance to the taro patches, I noticed that there was a hala, or pandanus, tree. The word hala in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language) is used for the word “sin,” and the tree, specifically its fruit that is used to make lei (wreaths for the neck or head), symbolically marks transitions in life where there is a death of something and a passage into a new thing. This cultural aspect is why such lei are only given at graduations and funerals. I knew the Lord was telling me that what would take place there between us would mark the death of my former life before truly following Him, certainly including the unhealthy, sexual relationship with that young man, and the new life into which I have transitioned.
As I passed through the taro patches and made my journey upstream, I felt the weight of my former sins committed in the dorms which border the stream. My feet clung to the rocks along the path as I stepped over them so as not to fall. I, too, noticed the lāʻī (ti leaves) that lined the path, a symbol of protection in Hawaiian culture, and for me, especially in that moment, the presence of my Protector with me. When I reached the poʻowai (head source of water), I sat on one of the rocks gently and let my tears flow like the stream. I prayed to the Lord, confessed my sins that I had committed, asked Him for forgiveness, and with the authority He has given me, declared the space as one redeemed for His glory. When I finished praying, I felt the weight on my heart lifted and the sun’s rays shined brighter through the trees as the clouds moved above. And then I made the journey back to my home at the base of the mountains of Mānoa.
Like the ʻoʻopu nākea, I physically went upstream back to the source—the source of where my sin began, and now the new source of God’s redemption. Spiritually, however, I went back upstream to the life-giving spring of God’s unconditional love, grace, and forgiveness, and I intend to remain here for the rest of my life.
What sources do you need to return to for the redemption and healing of our amazing, beautiful Father? They can be physical spaces and/or spiritual places in your heart, mind, and soul. This year has definitely had its challenges and tragedies. But because of our Father’s great Love, we are not consumed. His steadfast Love never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness! (Lamentations 3:22–23). I redeem this year in Jesus’s Name for you who read this. AMEN.
One Heart Warrior Training Program Graduation 2020
Congratulations on graduating One Heart Warriors’ Training Center. Couldn’t be more proud of this group! Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate.
One Heart Warriors Camping Retreat
One Heart 10K
Celebrating the first day of summer with a 10K! Thanks to Aspinwall for the incredible prizes. Great looking T-shirts and Hats were awarded to the winners. Great job everyone!
#OneHeartWarriors #OHW #10k #Aspinwall #Run #Summer #FirstDayofSummer #Yay #Runners
Day of Service in Pryor
Incredible day in Pryor. Billings Family Service donated palettes and palettes of food this afternoon. While we helped, it was really the Pryor High School Staff that received and distributed the load. They had such great attitudes even when it started pouring rain. Looking forward to being with y’all again!
Welcome Darci – new Community Relations Developer
Hey everyone! Please welcome the newest member to Team One Heart Warriors. We have hired Darci Rykowski to be our Community Relations Developer. She will help us grow our reach and connection within the Native communities. For those of you who missed hearing about this year’s Christmas Store in Pryor, let me tell you, it was a big win! Not only did we build better relationships with some of the leaders in Pryor, but we also served many families in the community with fun and exciting Christmas presents. Darci was the brains behind the operation and she did an excellent job organizing and fundraising for that particular event. In addition, she has also proven to be passionate about building bridges and honoring the Native cultures, while also providing the love and hope of Jesus in tangible ways.
Darci is hoping to grow her team of like-minded people who have a heart to develop stronger relationships with the Native communities across our state. If you would like to become involved in a more tangible way, she’s the person to contact at (406)690-7249 or by email at darcidrykowski@gmail.com.
Tuff’s Journey to the Football Hall of Fame
The legend of “Tuff” has grown quite literally since the day Chester David Harris was born in Crow Agency, Montana in the winter of 1983. Harris’s father was of Crow and Cheyenne decent while his mother was Bulgarian; but, she had grown up on a reservation all her life. Tuff says, “My upbringing was great even if a little unusual, in that Crows and Cheyennes did not always get along and I was both.
Harris earned the nickname Tuff by beating the odds and surviving a bout with childhood pneumonia that nearly cost him his life as a newborn. By the time he was a fifth grader, he decided he would someday play in the NFL, a notion his peers scoffed, yet a vision Harris always kept close to his heart.
“My friends laughed at me and thought I was crazy,” Harris told the Glasgow Courier in 2010. “I was from the reservation. I couldn’t play in the NFL.”
And he did it. 5 years with a professional football career in the NFL – named “Team Player of the Year” multiple times.
Read Full Article Here: https://www.mtfootballhof.com/tuff-harris
