Category: Soul training

ways of training our souls

Soul Growth, Soul training

shades of grace

 

Shades of Grace

    always unmerited, never earned, given for different reasons:

 

 

photo – danielle bergen

 

Grace for redemption, before we knew we even needed it, He chose us.

         Grace for forgiveness…

                   Grace lavished on us for His glory                                          Ephesians 1:4-12

                                Grace for salvation & good works                              Ephesians 2:8-10

 

God’s overtures toward us are always undeserved.  Yet he stoops and longs to involve us (after awakening us by grace) in the receiving and use of his grace.

 

Grace to the humble …opposed to the proud,  grace to the humble…           1 Peter 5:5

           Grace for instruction …teaches us to deny ungodliness, worldly passions, to live                                 self-controlled in the present age.                                             Titus 2:11, 12

                    Grace to empower us to live as His servants in difficulty.

(Don’t receive it in vain…)                                2 Corinthians 6:1

                               Grace for growth …Don’t be carried away by error…but grow in grace

                                                                                                                                                   2 Peter 3:18

                                             Grace for a purpose … to shun evil and walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4,19

                                                        Grace to steward … given to me for careful use

                                                                                                                           1 Peter 4:10

                                                                    Grace to build up and strengthen   

                                                                                                  Acts 20:32; Hebrews 13:9

“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” Dallas Willard

for pdf:  ShadesofGrace

                                                                                                                            jscott 2022 

https://www.soulfit.us/blog/

#spiritualgrowth #grace #discipleship #spiritualformation

Difficulty to opportunity, Soul Growth

Beauty in the Broken

Beauty in the Broken

A meander through the book of Jeremiah for group or personal retreat

 

  • You need some reflection time before heading into the next season!
  • Take a guided, thoughtful, life-giving plunge to realign & restore yourself.
  • Beauty in the Broken is a gentle retreat guide for personal or group space.

Reconnect with God as you delve into the book of Jeremiah to discover ancient messages for you! Soak in the soul-stirring photography of Anna Fraser.

By Jacqueline Scott & Anna Fraser

 

Paperback – $15.95

E-book – $7.95

Order now

Difficulty to opportunity

Soul Heritage

I’m praying for the Ukrainian nation where last century’s atrocities want to barge into this century. I pray we learn from history!  In honor of my Ukrainian roots, I’m sharing a small tribute I wrote a few years ago to my paternal grandmother who fled from Ukraine over a hundred years ago as a 16 year-old!

“There is no success without sacrifice. If you succeed without sacrifice it is because someone has suffered before you. If you sacrifice without success it is because someone will succeed after.”

Adoniram Judson

 With the arrival of our first grandchild in the year of 2019, I’m being drawn to the past and to the future.  I’m zooming out to take a look at this phenomenon called life.  My little part, my story, is a drop in a huge generational wave of people who have gone before, of whose lives I am somehow a benefactor. What do we need to learn from the vast humanity that went before us?  Who do we need to “meet” from our pasts?  Will those who come after us, learn from us?  Will they realize how we struggled to find our way and prayed for them to find the Way?

I’m intrigued with my grandparents and how little I know of them.  It was a different and distant world they occupied compared to now.  I’m especially drawn to my paternal grandmother, Baba, we called her, for the fleeting moments we knew her.  So young she took on a new world, a new identity, an incredible adventure along with the certain hardship and suffering of an immigrant.

Having lived most of my adult life on the side of the world she came from, I gasp in relief that she left when she did, seeing now the aftermath of the soul-draining and humanity-stripping life brought about by communism.  I live among them in the leftovers and rubble of an ideology gone bad.

This is a small tribute to Mary Hutsko who came to the USA from the Ukraine in 1911 at the age of sixteen.

“In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, mass emigration was also taking place from western Ukraine to the Americas. Rural overpopulation, poverty, malnutrition, a high mortality rate, and unemployment were among the factors that precipitated outmigration at that time. Also, at work were pull factors, including stories of great economic opportunities in the West – often exaggerated by the shipping agents who recruited immigrants, primarily for work in Pennsylvania’s coal mines.”

 “The emigrants, predominantly poor peasants and young single people, hoped to earn enough money to pay for the voyage and all their existing debts, and to save enough to return to Ukraine, buy land, and establish themselves as farmers. Later, most emigrants expected to settle permanently in the United States…

Meanwhile, the immigration policies of the host countries at that time were liberal since labor was in great demand for industry in the United States.”  “Even in their own homeland they fought hard to preserve their native language, religious beliefs, customs and traditions that were constantly being threatened by foreign domination.”

Ukrainian immigration: A Study in EthnicSurvival* Ann Lencyk Pawliczko United Nations Population Division

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.2050-411X.1994.tb00104.x

I imagine her

with the fascination of a young girl, along with the terror of heading across an ocean she knew nothing about, arriving at the port, stepping tremblingly aboard the crowded steerage of the ship with who-knows-what kind of provisions. Fleeing demise, dreaming of dignity, perhaps she was full of hope and fearful courage, at the same time carrying the disillusionment of life as it was. She had no idea the sacrifice and battering that life would bring; the grind and seeming futility.

“Before World War I, 98 percent of Ukrainians settled in the northeastern states, with 70 percent in Pennsylvania.”  Read more: https://www.everyculture.com/multi/Sr-Z/Ukrainian-Americans.html#ixzz5lvXegwkM

Landing at the inspection station of Ellis Island, as exhilarating as it might have been, surely had its cold stares and strange languages to face.  Some were sent back upon arrival.  I wonder how long she had to wait, what kind of welcome she had, what prejudices and anxieties she had to push through.

I’m told she worked as a nanny for a while, then married.  Life was grueling, and work for my grandfather in the coal mine was abusive.  My father, the tenth child, doesn’t remember a conversation with his father who died young of black lung disease.  He worked twelve hours a day in the mines of Eastern Pennsylvania and smoked a pipe after work at night.   Their lives were completely poured out for the next generation.

Although my grandparents were distant and mystery to me, I want to thank them.  Though is seems trite, I want to tell them it was worth it.  Surely, they had hopes and dreams and capabilities.  They certainly accomplished much having inaugurated life in a new land; having unobtrusively survived the Great Depression. But the seeds of their personal aspirations were regretfully buried in the soil of the future, watered with unseen tears.  Look at what they started! Look at what has become because they braved the voyage into the luring and looming unknown!  A diverse wave of Ukrainian and half-Ukrainian descendants. Those seeds cracking, bursting, sprouting and fruitful in their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  But they didn’t get to see it.

Atrocities and hidden history still peek out of fragmented lives here in the post-Soviet rubble; betraying underlying thought patterns amid floundering newfound freedoms. I’m sure there was silent suffering in our grandparents. The past stays with us for a long time.  It’s in our bones and our DNA, but it will soon be a distant memory.  I wish I knew more. What will my grandchildren know of me in 100 years?!

When I asked some relatives what her life might have been like, my cousin replied “What do you think it was like?!  She had 10 kids!?”  🙂  I’m told she loved to cook and garden and I understand church was a big part of their community life.  How much we have gained from these unknowing valiant ones! They paved a way for us to live our lives as they wished they could have lived theirs. Let’s not forget that.

Jackie (Hutsko) Scott

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”

Neil Postman

Soul training

Soul members

Those moments in the conversation when you recognize another conversation going on inside you saying, “How do I get to be among such multi-faceted, well-read, broadly studied and stunningly thoughtful people?”

Maybe because quarantine has brought out the beauty of what we miss…or the reality of what we forget.  We are created to be

members of one another.

graphic source – https://dribbble.com

Then there are those other moments when you think, “I’ve had enough of these clueless, unreasonable people…”

A young acquaintance of mine has aptly shared his draw to community after feeling the lure to leave his fellowship because of hassle, imperfection, immaturity and, well…humanity.  We can easily think of ourselves too highly than we ought (Romans 12:3) instead of agreeing to disagree on disputable matters (Romans 14:1) and working toward unity on the main things.

“The church on top of Mount Nebo was destroyed by an earthquake and subsequently ransacked multiple times. Do you know what the guardians of that holy land did? They rebuilt it. They beautified it. They made it a place of worship and praise. Is that our response to believers when their life is shaken and crumbled and pillaged and taken advantage of?  

            Admittedly, I have wanted to disconnect from the local Body several times because of petty infighting, slothfulness and such. I’ve joked before that if I was Moses leading the people out of Israel, all of the elderly, young and aloof would have lagged behind and died as I trail blazed ahead. However, I don’t think I would do that actually, because of Holy Spirit. The X Factor. The Game Changer. He constrains me. Grabs me. Enraptures me. Impassions me with the love of Christ that has no bias, discrimination, nor holds record of wrong. The Holy Spirit causes us to see life, the meaning of holiness, and people differently. It is no longer an option to disregard any individual, give them the cold shoulder, when I know that our Savior died to make them holy. Jesus has a raging jealousy for that individual. He wants them to know His love that makes them holy and a completely new creation. His interest is to restore, rebuild, and to beautify.” Nick A

 

What is something you are learning during quarantine about the connection of your soul with community?

 

“…we are all members of one another.”

Ephesians 4:25 (BSB)

Difficulty to opportunity, Soul Warning

Soul “Not Enough”

A very popular and effective taunt to our souls is, “You’re not enough.”  Not enough for your own responsibilities, for those you’re responsible for; for your job, for your personal life, for anything.  So much lack, so much need, so much pressure, so many limitations.

 

 

 

I’ve stayed there too long at times.  It’s quite convincing. Because I am so inadequate.

I think that’s the point.  We are in utter need of so many things.

“Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God who has made us adequate…” (!) 2 Cor. 3:4-6

 

Ok so we’re inadequate yet He makes us adequate.  How does that happen and why don’t I feel adequate?

 

I wonder how the little boy who brought his lunch felt when he offered it to feed the thousands of people.  I wonder if he felt adequate.  I doubt it!  It’s ludicrous to think it would make a difference.  How often am I there thinking, “how are you ever going to make a difference in this sea of need?”

 

What good would it do? What I have is nothing or very little in contrast to the need.  That’s exactly what Jesus wants us to bring to him.  The bit that we have.  Our “nothing”! We offer and He multiplies.  When we need to give and we don’t have much, we bring our little lunch, and let Him take it and do something with it.    I don’t have to be adequate but with Him, I’m made adequate. 

It’s quite freeing.

So, although what I bring to a situation, to a conversation, to a crisis, to a job, to a person, is and always will be inadequate, next to Him we’re in it together.  And He’s the focus.  I show up with my “I don’t know if this is anything, but here…”  I offer, I watch, I engage with Him.  I wait. I expect His work.  It may not look at all like I thought, but he receives what we bring and expands it.

 

Actually, the boy may not have had the guts to bring it at all.  The disciples just mention it as almost nothing.  But Jesus received it.

“One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”  John 6:8, 9

 

So what you have in your hand, the experience, time, talent, skills, trials or goods, may seem like next to nothing.  It may be inadequate for what your day may need.  But we bring it and rely on Him for what He wants to make of it.

 

So my inadequacy is actually a great reminder to me of where to turn to make me adequate!

 

Flip the switch:  When the overwhelming comes your way, telling you you’re inadequate, you can give thanks for the reminder and turn to the All Adequate One.

 

As Saint Benedict put it, “Always we begin again.”

Soul training

Soul Thanks

I was utterly moved by Ann Voskamp’s post yesterday

 

http://annvoskamp.com/2017/11/how-to-live-through-anything-these-holidays-when-youre-finding-it-hard-to-even-breathe/

 

describing despairing and crumbling people she’s met who have been transformed by a change of understanding through giving thanks.   When we think we’re being slighted or missing out, or reeling with shame or we can’t figure out why a certain thing is happening to us or to a loved one, we’ve got to wake up.

 

How painful and piercing are God’s words to His people in Malachi 1:2

 

“I have loved you,” says the LORD.”

 

And imagine the insolence and smugness when they answer:

 

“How have you loved us?” 

 

I’m afraid I can get into that mode. But we don’t have to stay there.

 

Take in these quotes from her post:

 

“What you think you can’t handle — might actually be God handing you a gift.”

“…giving thanks isn’t a pollyanna game — but a powerhouse game-changer”

“God asks us to give thanks in everything — because this is the way you live through anything.”

 

“Giving thanks is life giving.”                              “…barren places can break with bloom.”

 

Isn’t that so comforting? I’m thankful God shows me what’s really going on in my heart. How I can saunter in an entitled attitudinal haze. I’m thankful that he can change my heart to be thankful!

 

Thankfulness is a great weapon against small mindedness.  “Give thanks in all things…” 1 Thes. 5:18

 

How could you practice thankfulness today?

Soul training

Soul Trying

Guest post by Bradley J. Scott

Trying or Training?

Inspired by John Ortberg’s The Life You’ve Always Wanted

 

“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.”

1 Cor. 9:25

 

Lord, I am on the verge of a breakthrough of understanding the difference between a “trying” mentality and a “training” mentality with respect to my spiritual growth. The eye opener came when I looked at my training for the “Ragin Games CrossFit Competition”. Ariana and I have gone all in. We’ve transformed our eating habits: zero processed food, no HFCS, no msg, almost no sugar… the list goes on. And it has taken a lot of research and deliberation to change these things.

 

But I realized, for the first time in my life, I’m not even tempted to get Oreos and Doritos.I don’t even want to eat the free doughnut at church, and I have a sweet tooth. Why? What changed? I’m training. I have a goal. I’m focusing everything in my control on bettering my performance. Training, eating, sleeping… I want to be the best version of Brad I can be; to see how well I can perform in competition when I’m dedicated to it. Doing a competition halfway is pointless and would just become frustrating again.

 

First off, I noticed I became more disciplined in my faith at the same time. More consistent devotion times, more victory in taking thoughts captive against temptation, I was developing a desire for discipline. A life unmarked by surrendered discipline is a life without purpose.

What I’ve now realized, after fighting temptation hard again for a few days, trying to confide in some accountability partners, and trying not to sin, is this: I’m still trying. I’m not training. I still want the oreos.

 

Now, I need to define my terms here or we’ll get confused. With regard to fitness training I would still “like” (taste, yummy…) to eat Oreos; I’ll call this “flesh want”. BUT, I do not desire to eat Oreos because there is so much more cost than gain with respect to my goals (my deepest desires). I’ll call this “soul desire”. It’s far deeper, and is based on a perspective that considers the long-term (eternal) reward/cost instead of the momentary flesh want.

 

SO, I have a goal for my performance; I change my life habits, eating and training (get it in the schedule, do what it takes) because my soul desire overpowers my flesh want. Mind-set change: I’m not trying any more; I’m training. I’m putting myself under the influence of the Spirit.

“…but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” Romans 8:5

 

I also have a goal spiritually – to glorify God and grow and be conformed into His image until the day I die.

“…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,  for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” Phil 2:12, 13

 

This is a much deeper goal than physical training. A goal that is far more important to me. (To be clear, only the Holy Spirit in us can reorient a flesh want to a soul desire. Otherwise we’re just trading in one flesh want for another!) Yet I have not been able to completely switch into a training mindset spiritually. I don’t feel all in, but I desire/long to be so.

 

I can desire and long to be fit all day long… while I eat pizza, but I will never be fit until I get knowledgeable, create a training plan, and make it happen – attack one issue at a time, figure out a solution for each, and execute. True training takes a lot of testing, trial and error, to see what works. Some things that seem good won’t work – scheduling, types of foods, energy levels…etc. But I continue to refine my plan and push through, because it’s not a new year’s resolution; I’m not looking for immediate results, I’m looking for long term transformation through His Spirit working in me and me obeying. (Character change via habit development)

 

“Longing transforms obedience.” CS Lewis

 

The parallels from body to soul are plain.

Do I want victory or not? Yes? Then start training.

Create a plan – change one thing at a time.

 

My current plan:

(We are all in different places and situations in our lives; this is just a sample for where I am right now.)

Start Training: (One thing at a time.)

  • Get a good hour of devotion time with the Lord – (preferably first thing in the morning)
  • Prayer alone with God (should be before bed ideally to cast off all my concerns from the day and refocus on the Lord)
  • Review Bible verses – Eph. 6:17 This is my ammunition for war prayer.

 

Thank you Jesus for this Breakthrough: “Training” has a goal and a plan and gets after it. “Trying” has an undefined goal and no plan.

 

“I discipline my body and make it my slave,” 1 Cor 9:27

 

“… train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things” 1 Tim. 4:7,8

What’s your next step in training for godliness?

Difficulty to opportunity

Soul Fear

“The fear of God is the beginning…”
Proverbs 1:7

Our little family had just moved to a foreign country that had recently experienced devastating loss. My husband was venturing to start a business to help people learn how to do that honorably in a place where it had been considered immoral. We hired services to help us register the business, later to find out they were corrupt.

 

Our first clue was when they came to deliver the registration papers at the cold, leftover Soviet apartment that we used for an office. Oleg brought Tajir along with him. He was a Genghis Khan-looking fellow, the power lifter type with close-cropped hair. Oleg sat down and went through the papers then gargled, “I want you to meet Tajir. He’ll be your guard.” Immediately Dan suspected what was going on and said, “I don’t think we’ll need him.”

“Well,” he threatened “bad things can happen…”

Taken aback and scrambling to fathom this new culture Dan asked,

“If we were to hire him what would we pay?”

“We’ll come to an agreement…a percentage.”

“A percentage of what?! We’re just trying to get off the ground. We’re in the red!” Not given easily to intimidation, Dan continued, “If we need a guard, I’ll let you know and he’ll work for us.”

 

Some days later, the office door squeaked open and there was Tajir. He began to show up unannounced, making a habit of presumptuously walking into the office without knocking. Dan would greet him, tell him business was slow, practice his Russian, offer him tea, and ask him if he wanted to study the Bible. Tajir had a hard time keeping his smile under wraps. He was really a teddy bear caught in this mafia mix. After a few weeks Oleg showed up and asked Dan why he wasn’t paying Tajir. Dan said, “If we want him, we will hire him.”

 

He began to threaten. “Well, you have a wife and children…” he retorted. Of course this took it to another level. Dan showed them to the door scarcely able to disguise his anger. In the post Soviet power vacuum these types found ways of dealing with foreigners that clashed with our ideas of how to do ethical business. Dan asked him to leave.

 

Fear. It came closer to me the day I heard about this! I recognized it, felt its power. I knew I had to make a choice. We had been warned that living here would be difficult and dangerous. As I wrestled, I had to lean on the rock bottom belief that God is over all. I threw this fear like a hot potato to the God who wanted to show himself in this forsaken land. I had been working on taking my fears to Him rather than denying or just bottling them as I had done over the years. I felt its talons wanting to work into my mind and heart and had to deal with it for days. I didn’t want to live in fear and knew the paralysis of it to keep us in ruts. I hated ruts but often found myself in them.

 

Our local business partner began to worry greatly about not accommodating Oleg and the day she brought it up, Dan happened to be wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Fear Not’! But since it was winter and the city heat hadn’t been turned on yet, he had his winter coat on as he huddled over his desk. As he saw fear grasp *Cvyeta’s face, Dan remembered what he was wearing and yanked off his coat to show her the verse written on his shirt, a take-off of the then popular ‘No Fear’ logo.   Isaiah 41:10 “Fear not for I am with you… “     She was given an ear-full about this God who was over all; much greater than this wanna-be mafia thug, and though she strained to listen, she still felt we needed to appease. Being new in the culture, Dan decided to let her call the shots on this one. She called Oleg’s office and made a plan to meet them to see what needed to be done. A meeting date was set.

 

The day came for the meeting and two local tour guides, inquiring about our new company, happened to come in for a consultation. Time got away as they discussed business. The phone rang. Sofia, answering the phone, looked worried and mouthed to Dan, “We’re supposed to be at Oleg’s office!” Dan asked her to reschedule, because we had unexpected clients arrive.

 

After this, Tajir inexplicably stopped showing up and we didn’t hear from Oleg for weeks. Another co-worker came in one day having seen the secretary who worked in Oleg’s office. Remembering that the dreaded meeting hadn’t yet happened, he asked her about Oleg, and she said abruptly, “Oleg’s dead”!

“What?! …what happened?

“He had a heart attack.” She announced. His partner was running a pyramid scheme and fled the country with $25,000 and the police arrested Oleg saying he was responsible for the money. He had a heart attack on the spot and died. Wow.

 

A year or so later Dan ran into Tajir. He asked him how it was going. Dan said, “Business is still slow…” Tajir smiled and waved.

 

God deals strongly with those who mess with his own! Sometimes a lot sooner than we expect!

 

If I grapple with a fear yet realize that there’s something much greater than it, then I can work through small fears that keep me from real life. Sometimes we don’t even know what those fears are, but not identifying them keeps us in ruts and builds walls. So I have to stop and identify the fear that’s grabbing me and admit it and begin taking it to the One we should fear above all.

~

What do you think you are most afraid of? Why? What are the fears behind those fears?

Think it through, if what you fear happens, then what? Can we go with God to our worst fears and talk them through?

 

If so, with time, perhaps we can break the inertia they bring and not give in to them or let them control us.

“The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him….”

Psalm 33:18

 

*name changed

Soul training

Soul Faceoff

(Faceoff – to be in or come into opposition or competition;

fighting to gain control or possession)

 

My nephew, Scotty Brown, (pictured) junior at Palm Beach Atlantic U is a faceoff specialist and the reigning SELC Specialty Player of the Year for his exemplary faceoff work, earning 1st Team All-American and 1st Team All-SELC honors.

 

I remember visiting when he was heading into high school and learning how to faceoff. He’d be in the back yard figuring out positioning, maneuvering, speed and skill. He took lessons, he worked out, he sought coaching. He went after it. And he is good. He’d be the first one to tell you it takes hard work. Now, given, he has extraordinary genes, muscular physique and good looks, 🙂 but none of that alone would have gotten him where he is. He had to want it, work at it and pursue it.

 

Is it taking it too far to say we have faceoffs in our souls? Where our old ways, our old self wants to dictate and rule, where sin and the enemy taunt us into deceitful allure and how often we’re caught unguarded, without a helmet, with no stick?

 

Could part of soul facing off be:

  • Getting in position (standing in the fact that we are saved & can be freed from earthy pulls though they may be strong)
  • Being ready with strength and a stick (“strengthened with all power”, “the sword of the Word”, “the fullness of the Spirit”, “the shield of faith”)
  • Speedy to recognize the opponent’s moves and bluffs (symptoms of fear, anger, frustration or anxiety can be great indicators we need to turn from our old self, renew our minds and put on our new self. Ephe. 4:22-24)

 

Opposition is a given…it’s granted to us…expected…yet we are surprised when it hits us; surprised at the fiery ordeal among us, within and without. How can we be more ready?

 

How’s your soul training going? Are you ready for your next soul faceoff?

“For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

Col. 1:29

Soul training

Growing Soul

logo

“Coaching focuses on growing intentionally with purpose and passion …”

Keith Webb

I’ve come across a great resource for soul growth: Taking Out Your Emotional Trash, by Georgia Shaffer

 

Her website also offers some free resources like the “Dump Your Junk Self Assessment” – you might want to take a look.  www.GeorgiaShaffer.com

 

Taking Out Your Emotional Trash

georgias

 

Feeling Tired? Overwhelmed? Unhappy?
Do you want more energy, more peace, more happiness? Christian psychologist Georgia Shaffer offers a proven “toss and recycle” program to help you evaluate your emotions, keep the life-affirming ones, and discard the ones that hinder healthy relationships. Step-by-step you’ll discover how to

  • reduce destructive anxiety, fear, guilt, and shame eliminate persistent, toxic emotions
  • experience greater intimacy in relationships
  • handle life’s ups and downs more easily
  • introduce more hope and joy into your life

Through real-life stories, insightful questions, and wisdom from God’s Word, you’ll discover transforming truths that will help you be free to be who you are—loved, talented, valued, and forgiven.

 

Georgia Shaffer is a PA licensed psychologist, life coach, and the author of Taking Out Your Emotional Trash: Face Your Feelings and Build Healthy Relationships. She writes and speaks frequently on the subjects of relationships, growing emotionally and spiritually, dating, grief, and rebuilding after loss. Her book for singles is entitled How Not to Date a Loser: A Guide to Making Smart Choices. Georgia has 19 years experience helping people identify: “What needs to grow? What needs to go?” For more information, visit: www.GeorgiaShaffer.com