48 hours and counting

These past 48 hours have been nearly unbearable and I am using everything I've got to remain connected within myself instead of disconnecting because of the intensity of blindsiding emotional pain that I am feeling right now. I find myself struggling with so many emotions and feelings that are doing their best to hurl me from one end of my life to the other. I have learned many skills that are imperative for me to use right now...for this is where it counts. And no matter how much I have learned, it is in the heart pounding, blood rushing, earth shaking flood of the unknown that I find it absolutely exhausting to just ward off the agony of whats happening.

These are the moments where I am able to see just how flawed I feel and to choose that no matter how bad I feel right now I know that this too shall pass. I know that this is just another opportunity to surrender to the refining process that is leading me into higher places within my own life. But just because I am aware of this doesn't mean it doesn't suck in the most painful ways. Pain for me whether physical, emotional or both has always been a really dangerous place for me to be. Pain usually triggers all kinds of reminders of the past and how what I am going through in any given moment relates to all of the other things I have experienced throughout my life.

Right now, inside I am feeling so sad and what's even worse than the sadness is knowing that regardless of how I feel the only thing I have any power to control is me. I have learned after a lifetime of instability and chaos that my responses, thoughts, and choices are the only thing that I ever have the ability to control. No matter how much I want someone else to do something or stop something, trying to force or withhold or micromanage is absolutely counterproductive, and only causes incredibly unnecessary delays that somehow wind up bringing their own sets of challenges in addition to all of the crap that is already almost too much to bear.

Love has led me here to this place in my life. I continue learning how to choose to live this love in the moments where it would be so much easier to pull back, retaliate, demand understanding, and sink into the negativity screaming at me from deep within. Nothing is worth that! I know that road all too well and I know exactly where it ends up every time! No thank you!

I can feel the battle inside raging between who I once was (former behaviors, reactions and habitual self defeating impulses) and who I am today. Yet, I know that love is the only power strong enough to extinguish the flaming emotions that start from a single spark and all too quickly can become a raging inferno.

I know for certain that I have not gotten here to where I am by accident. I have chosen to choose instead of react and then make choices that are fueled because of my responses. I am co-creating within my life one conscious choice at a time. As a result, my entire world continues expanding through the love that is deeply rooted inside every fiber of my being.

So for the past 48 hours I have been hit with emotions that I am working to allow rather than fight or shut them down. They are showing me things about myself that under normal circumstances would be undetectable. I am faced once again with choosing to live through the reactions of trauma and fear or to acknowledge the fear and re-frame what I am experiencing right now through the eyes and heart of all that love has demonstrated is possible. Either way, a choice is being made and it is up to me how this turns out.

I'm amazed at how strongly I can feel the resistance inside doing everything possible to darken the light that always burns so hot and shines so brightly inside of me. The magnitude of joy that resides inside of me feels the overwhelming heaviness of this feeling of sadness that I am having right now. But I know that it is possible to experience heaven in the middle of hell and I have been through things that are so much worse than this. It is only because of the grace and awesome inexhaustible love of GOD that I have risen from their ashes. I keep remembering how Jesus said that in this world we are going to experience pain, the unexpected and tribulation, but He said to take heart, because He has overcome the world!

It is in times like this that I am so thankful for all of the other times in my life where I have gone through a living hell being traumatized beyond belief and I have the visible evidence from every experience to remind me of all that is possible because I believe. No matter how many times I have been knocked down I choose to reach for the arms of my Heavenly Father and get back up again because I know that I can do all things through Jesus who gives me His strength!

Having said that, the pain of loss is excruciating. The self inflicted torment of rumination is totally destructive and you'd think knowing that would be enough in itself to shift my thoughts because every thought releases the chemicals that create physiological responses.

Honestly, I am tripped up over this right now. I am struggling to stop replaying everything. I'm trying to make sense of something that I never saw coming. I have no way of knowing why this happened and I have no idea if I ever will. But I guess that this is where I cling to remember that there is no such thing as trust without unanswered questions. If I knew everything there would be no need for faith right?!

The reason I am tripped up right now is that I know for a fact that I have the power to change my mood and the way I physically feel. Usually the emotional turnaround time from sad and heaviness to peace and joy happens at the speed of thought. Just as quickly as I can plummet into the dizzying spiral of fear's dark abyss, I can be released from the grips of loss, end, negativity and am restored through the peace that can be found within perspective. It is like a tug of war inside of me and honestly it feels crummy.

At this moment I am working through emotions that I thought were gone from things that happened way back in my life over 20 years ago. I have had extreme abandonment issues because of how I grew up. My parents vanished when I was 14 after I told that my dad was sexually abusing me and I became an orphan. I went from foster home to foster home and the only thing I could think about was finding my mom.

Then when I got married to my first husband we had such a dysfunctional relationship that there were times we seemed to be getting along just fine and he would bring me to go tanning and drop me off and never come back to get me. Usually because there was some other woman involved. Then when I finally did get to go home I would find that he had packed his stuff and was gone. Devastation after devastation fueled my taking the bull by the horns to make sure that I had all the control in my life so that I could make sure that nobody would ever be able to hurt me like that again. I was always on guard and hyper-vigilant to assess people, environment and cues that would give me the heads up detecting if my life was about to be shattered again.

It has been a nearly full time job through this journey to learn how to slow down and not read into things. I refuse to live with a guard up trying to protect myself from getting hurt because that would also keep me from being able to experience life with others in a truly meaningful, connected and authentic way. So my heart is wide open first and completely to the Lord who made me because without the direct umbilical cord of His love and His heart there is no way that I would ever know how to love others the way He loves me. Living open and with all of my heart is the adventure of eternal lifetimes and it is the most magical way of life that I have ever known. This is who I am.

However, this is the first time ever in my life that I have lived to love in the fullness and the unconditional nature of all that love is. Its amazing to me because when love fills your heart its like all of the things that are normally so hard or take conscious effort to do flood your will and the desire to give becomes your nature. Things don't rock me the way they used to and I have been able to develop oodles of skills through this journey that have taught me how to cope and how to plan ahead to prepare how I am going to handle things if I find myself in a situation where I am triggered by past events or with people who are negative, totally dysfunctional and in unhealthy environments.

Love has shown me how to trust with all of my heart even when someone has hurt me. This has shown me how to be able to see them through the eyes of my heart filled with love and not hold myself back from them because I am afraid that they will do something again that will hurt me. Forgiveness has been the greatest gift I have ever been given and I know that only love holds the power of forgiveness. So just as I have been forgiven I live to see beyond the wrongs that have been done to me and remain connected in the intensity of the pain, knowing that it will pass and that it doesn't matter what someone else does or doesn't do, it only matters what I choose and the attitude I choose to do it with.

This has become my life. Letting everyone else off of the hook and only holding myself accountable to myself and my Lord has changed everything! At first it felt like “letting someone off the hook” was like giving them a pass like everything they did was ok. In my own life the things that I have done would be considered by people to be totally unforgivable and yet, because of all that Jesus gave in my place I am forgiven and made brand new.

How in the world am I supposed to withhold forgiveness from anyone else when no matter what they have ever done to me could never even come close to being as heinous as things that I have done? So being forgiven and to have another opportunity to live life free from all that I once was in the light of understanding, wisdom, compassion and empathy is the greatest gift I have ever known. Sharing all that God does and has done within me, all I am and everything that has been entrusted to me is why I have been created. It is the greatest honor and for this I am so thankful!

So I guess that this is called mastery. It doesn't make any of this easier especially when everything happening feels so much like so many other things that I have gone through and wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. But I do know that I have already been hit with my worst nightmare a little more than 5 years ago and I can honestly say that once that happens, no matter how big or how devastating anything else is that comes, nothing can ever touch the magnitude of that life shattering nightmare. I may wobble when I get hit with something abrupt and completely unexpected, but I know that the Lord I serve is faithful and He is working all of this out for my good and working out cracks and weak spot. Thank you Lord for all things that enter and exit my life. I thank you for all that is breathtakingly amazing AND the devastating things that take my breath away! I love you with all that I am and I know that you are right here with me, doing this with me and I praise you that in my weakness you are glorified!