Don’t get me wrong, I am passionate about sharing this realized hope and endless possibilities, yet I find I am still guarded-even in my vulnerability. Shame is the root of my detachment. Fear is the root of this shame. The bottom line I see is that where there is fear, there is the absence of love. Somewhere, I must still believe that I am unworthy of Love; or maybe it’s even simpler. I must believe that I am unworthy. The fear of being totally naked, exposed and judged; and it is here that my heart constantly wars and battles against my mind.
It is as exhausting as it is liberating.
I have tried to “think” and I realize that this is where my problems stem from. I find myself vacillating between my mind and the mind within my heart which is the only place where truth, wisdom, faith and willingness reside. Everything else is utter confusion…chaos. In this, there is no peace, the darkness is deep, and the spiral into it comes abruptly and with great force.
Love is the only way that I have learned to break free from the bottomless abyss within the dark recesses of my mind.
Just about the time I believe I know where to begin, I find myself paralyzed with fear of judgment and imperfection. Just so I can set this straight with myself, I know that I am far from perfect. There, I said it. Somehow even saying it doesn’t really reach the depths of where my lifelong shame has always called home. There are still so many places within my heart that I haven’t even been.
It’s still a little scary (ok maybe even a lot) to imagine going somewhere where no path or trail exists and the only light that will ever have shined there is the one I am, the one that is within me and the one that will never know unless I go there myself. Maybe I felt resentful for the fact that I have to make this journey all by myself. Then I remembered, that no matter what it looks like or feels like, I am never alone!
I was always terrified of the dark because I had no idea what was there hiding in the darkness. Even the thought of the dark always made my heart do flip flops and I didn’t like the way that felt. So if something feels icky or painful the most logical thing would be- don’t go there or do that. Right?
It depends. I am learning that sometimes there is a time to push through the pain and there is a time to listen to the warnings that the pain is there to advise you to back off; but it doesn’t mean forever. Discerning between the two is nearly impossible when I was always looking outward for external validation and approval. It seems silly to think that I am expecting anyone else to tell me what I am to do when I am the only one who holds all of the answers and direction to fulfilling my purpose.
I have spent my life trying to be unique while filtering everything I did, desired or did not do through what others were doing. I have spent my entire life trying to be a collage of what seems to be anyone else except me. I never even saw me. I didn’t want to. Because if I were so unique and worthy then why was I always pushed away, rejected, discarded, abandoned and punished for trying to be me?
I’ve spent my life trying to escape the “box” that I refuse to stop crawling back into. No matter how much I have wanted to have an amazing life and be an amazing person, I have always choked. Then I hop right back into the comfortable limitation of familiarity and chaos and then complain about it. I heard a speaker once say that people would rather stay in a known hell than to step into the freedom of the unknown. It sounded a bit to cliché. Until I actually remembered what that really means.
It is here I honestly started to see why my dreams and hopes have always been so grand and opulent. They were always unattainable. I never really believed that those things could become a reality in my life. The dreams became my coffin. My box of delusion. Wow, this is really humbling to admit. But the only way I will ever be able to step out of my ever unattainable ideas, hopes, dreams and aspirations is to first see why I hold onto things as I do and see my truth.
I spent my life hoping to be famous and
be able to change the world, yet as big as those things are, there
were safe. Safe in the respect of knowing that you have a snowballs
chance in hell of either of those ever happening. Yet, now I am
willing to see that the heat of hell could be the “frozen burn”
where snowballs are possible-even in hell! This is one thing that I
created “religiously” throughout my life. My own version of hell.
Desperate for limitlessness while
continuing to tie myself up with the ropes and bondage of unbelief,
self loathing, insecurity, inferiority and past. It’s hard- no, its
impossible to ever escape the nagging images reminding of all of the
past as long as I refused to see what my part was in how things
happened or turned out in my life.
As long as I remained a victim, the truth is that I was never be able to see that I am able to choose something else and therefore get a different result. Expecting everyone else to change first so that I could finally change is a delusion that never disappeared until I became willing to believe that my life has turned into everything it is because of how I reacted and the choices I have made because of the stories I told myself about the things I was busy reacting to. It wasn't really until quite recent that I found out that there is no way to be able to experience life as it really is when you are busy reacting to what you think is happening.
It was a miserable existence to never realize that I have always had the control in my life. If that was true then why in the heck did my life turn out like it has? I was too busy believing that everyone else was responsible for everything that happened in every and any given moment. After all, if you don't have any power in your own life, then there is no possibility of making any changes. That way its easy to justify not rocking the boat in your own life, staying comfortably miserable and miserably numb. Off the hook so to speak from having to find a way out of the never ending nightmare that nobody continued creating except me.
I have spent my life in the rat race of this hamster wheel I have called life. But I am determined to do what I have never done before. I am determined to be the change that I believe is possible. I have finally realized and accepted that I will never know what is possible if I am always waiting, hoping, and even praying for someone else to step up and show me how to do this. So I leap into the blinding light which sometimes is as blinding as the darkness. The difference is that I am learning to trust myself. I fall down sometimes more than I walk and when I do I have realized that I am always there to brush myself off, pick myself up, and start again.
What became even scarier than anything I have ever known was the absolute freedom that comes with choice. There hasn’t been anyone here telling me what to do or not do. I felt for a very long time like I had been totally dropped in the middle of a foreign world called my life and hung out to dry. Dropped smack dab in the middle of a nightmare called freedom and opportunity where I know for the first time in my life that anything is possible and if its not happening in my reality it is because I am not creating it. No pressure or anything.
Good grief!
I exchanged one nightmare drama for another. The only thing is that I finally got exactly what I have spent my whole life begging, praying, believing, hoping, daydreaming about (infinite freedom and possibility), suddenly now I would give anything for someone to tell me what to do. Surely, I can’t be serious! Embarrassing to admit, but I'm willing…it’s true.
My entire life I have had a myriad of endless people telling me what to do. I have also spent my entire life totally opposing and flat out rebelling against authority because I felt like there was no one I could trust. I wasn’t safe. I knew the first thing I did wrong that everything would change and it was only a matter of time before I’d be sent away and dropped into another family. Anyone I trusted always bailed. In turn, as I grew up, I did the bailing and blamed everyone else for why I did.
I didn’t care about starting over
because I spent my life being forced to do that. What I couldn’t do
was screw up and then stay to fix or heal anything that I had done.
Needless to say, I am just beginning to realize and accept that
before now, I really never made a single choice that wasn’t based
on a reaction to something else. Every choice that I set out to make
because it was something I wanted to do I always panicked, second
guessed myself and wound up shrinking back to afraid to push forward.
I still struggle with this, yet I am finding that being courageous in
my life reveals that I am living very bravely. I still come face to
face with the intensity of staring into the unknown, fear, and self
reflection which never fails to remind me of how many times I have
started, failed and had to find some way to get back up and keep
moving when I had no idea how to do that.
Then I force myself to remember all that I have overcome to have gotten to this point in my life and in that brief moment of inspiration, though I may still be shaking and spinning inside from the dizzying memories, I leap.
I think that we give ourselves far less credit for living everyday with the greatest courage and bravery because we think that those words have been reserved for great heroic acts and the miraculous. So I feel like society has put these words upon a pedestal that is unattainable in our everyday lives. I always looked for someone to be my hero and rescue me. I wanted my knight in shining armor and my fairy tale come true. While I still believe that fairy-tales and dreams do come true, I have stopped waiting for someone to rescue me and discovered that it is possible to become your very own hero! I have become mine.
For the very first time in my entire life, I am in a place where I can choose to do absolutely anything. Even more, I have a support system of friends and professionals who back me and believe in me! This has been the most terrifying place I have ever lived. I am also learning for the first time in my life what it is to do something that I want to do without the pressure of force and expectation. This is also terrifying. It’s getting easier believing in myself and being able to trust myself. I continue to be amazed at how I am leaping out of my insecure comfort zones, but I am determined to push every envelop, belief and build this brand new foundation in my life that will not only stand strong, but withstand the tests of time.
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