Living Letters...Writing life well

When I was a little girl I always wanted to write the way my mom did. She had the most beautiful writing and when she wrote or signed her name it was nothing short of a work of art. From the time I began learning to write in cursive I can't even tell you how many countless hours I spent trying to learn my mom's writing. I always wanted to be just like her and I felt like if I could just master my writing so that it could be just as beautiful as hers, I would be that much closer to being just like my mommy.

What I didn't know until I was about 37 years old is that your handwriting actually shapes your personality. By working so hard to copy my mom's writing, I was becoming more like her than I ever would have thought possible. I always believed that my writing had to be perfect. Writing for me was a very slow process because each letter had to be the “right” way. Which meant that if I was in the middle of the page and made a mistake I would start all over again. In the beginning, I would write in pencil first and then go over it with pen to make sure that everything was what I considered to be perfect.

Over the years, my writing style remained the same. Slow and methodical. That was about the only thing that was ever slow and methodical for me. Inside, my world was constantly spinning at what felt like warp speed and trying to slow everything down when I wrote made it even more difficult to have a steady hand.

When I was 37  living in the midst of my greatest nightmare something began to change and I didn't even realize at the time what was happening. My writing began to change. I didn't purposely set out to alter my penmanship, but I was able to see the connection between the way I was writing and the impact it was having on my attitude, coping, processing, and choices. I never would have believed that something like handwriting could ultimately rewire your physiological processing and responses, but I am living this proof.

In July 2009 I was beginning to tap into my heart in a way that I had never been able to do before. In the process of facing myself and learning how to take responsibility for the things that I had spent my life thinking, being, doing, planning, giving and taking, I began to experience the power of creating space. By owning the things I had done throughout my life acknowledging to myself and then others was nothing short of shining a light powered by the sun into the darkest rooms within my heart that had been shut so long that cobwebs covered the doors and the hinges had rusted the doors shut.

The light of truth and love greater than the sun burned up all of the old without destroying the structure within. What was left was an emptied room that was clean and had lots of space. As space was created, I began to experience liberation from the things that once owned me. Addictions began to dissolve, insatiable habits began to fade out and I began learning to dance the dance of love. Depression and despair began transforming into joy and laughter. It has been nothing short of extraordinary!

In the process, I began to realize things were changing my life at the speed of thought. I began to write as fast as I could in order to keep up with how fast all of the information was pouring into every place that had been so dark and stagnate for pretty much all of my life. It became a flood of ecstasy and awe unlike I have ever known. I was the one writing, but I know that the things that were pouring out of me were so amazing and life changing that I can still read things I have written to this day and become completely swept away at what the containers called words are filled with!

It wasn't until mid 2010 that I ran into a course that I was going to purchase called, "Change your handwriting, change your life." I never bought it, but it hit me in the moment that I read the title that changing your handwriting really could change your life. I thought over the times when my life had really began changing in very monumental ways when I began writing differently. 

The speed with which I was writing didn't allow me to write slow and methodically anymore. In order to get out the things that were more revelation than just realization, I had to write so fast that sometimes when it came time for me to transcribe them and type my notes onto the computer, it was really difficult to read what I had written. That was frustrating for me because I had always held a great deal of pride in how beautiful I felt my handwriting had become, and now it appears that writing with my heart rather than my mind has actually been instrumental in writing my insecurity and need for validation away!

After while, I was more concerned with being able to express everything that I was finally learning to understand than I was with how pretty my writing looked. I was growing and changing but it wasn't until I realized that I wasn't doing certain things anymore that I saw for the first time that there is a tipping point for change. 

Change never feels like change while in the process of changing. In fact, during times of greatest change and transformation it feels like anything but! It has even felt like I was going backwards and was never going to "get it" during periods of the greatest growth. It wasn't until I looked back and realized that I don't do "xyz" anymore that I finally saw I really had changed. What amazed me even more is that as my handwriting changed, I was becoming less and less like all of the dysfunction that had ruled my life since as far back as I can remember. Who knew that something that seems so insignificant has the power to change your personality, your thoughts, your ability to think and even alter the course of what we call destiny!

I'm not saying that it is only because of my handwriting that I have become who I am today, but what I am saying is that as my handwriting changed, so did I. I began to see things differently and had an edge to choose things in a way I never had at any other time in my life. It was almost like both hemispheres of my brain were in sync with each other and because of the speed with which I was pouring out what was in my heart filled emotions through ideas and thoughts, my brain didn't have any time to think and therefore all that was happening in my life was the equivalent of Lightning and Thunder. 

Lightning in the form of thought, idea, and seeking, rode upon every neural fiber and internal network with the precision of a laser as I emotionally engaged to pour out what I was experiencing. Inside I was lighting up like the Christmas tree in Times Square and I have never been so alive!

As I opened my emotions I realized that this is where all creativity is born before it is delivered into the body; which goes on to write, construct, sculpt, sing, voice, paint and express in whatever the inspired medium of choice is. Creating through the emotional conduit and power of Love has become my drug of choice! The more I create, the more I am given to create with. The more I am willing to push every envelope, the more envelopes I am given to push!

I am certain that we are powerful beyond any measure that we have ever known or been allowed to believe because God said that we have all been made in His image and His likeness...we have the strength, courage, tenacity, and strategy of a man AND the tenderness, nurture, gentleness and powerful design to create and develop something out of nothing as woman. We are only imbalanced when we war against the duality that we are. We have been created both male and female, and it is only when we stop believing that we are one or the other just because of the body we live in that we become unified within ourselves which then restores us and makes us whole.

In this process I went from being an overly dominant, “I am woman hear me roar” to understanding that as a woman my greatest strength is not in proving that I am as capable as any man. My greatest strength is my heart which is where the Lord of my life has made his home. I always joke about how I am a recovering dude, now that I have discovered what it is to be a woman who holds the greatest power that we have been given from the beginning of creation. I have been given the strength of a man and the strength of a woman. We all have. Though both strengths are powerful, they are different and a complete compliment to each other. Its amazing to me that the greatest things in my life have been realized because I was willing to be open to the possibility that things greater than we can dream, fathom, hope for, and are far beyond our wildest imaginations are possible in this life right now.

I also knew that everything I had spent my life doing and fighting against was only going to keep me from ever knowing what is possible because my way was not working. I knew that I needed to choose another way. Not just any way, but the way of the only one who made me and knows everything I dream of and desire because He is the one who made my heart and gave me the ability to dream and hope. For hope is not only an attribute of all that His Love is, it is the greatest expression of Love in action!

I am certain that the only true life that exists is not found in anything we can obtain or experience from the outside...it is from being able to dive deeply into the infinite spring inside of our heart that we pour out into our own lives and allow the overflow to pour into everything else that we do until we color the world around us with the original signature of our heart!

Imagine that if something like handwriting holds such power, imagine what else you can do if you are willing to open your heart. Let yourself feel again and remember the time when you believed anything was possible before you bought into everyone else's ideas of what (im)possible looks like. The way we feel is so powerful because it forms our beliefs and shapes all that we think that life is supposed to be about. Be open to believing again. You know, like you did when you were a child~Give yourself permission to close your eyes and remember the feelings that were once larger than life!

Along the way I have been called insane, told to come down into “reality” and how I am supposed to live life if I ever want to “be something.” Well the truth is, that I already am something because I am the daughter of the Most High God and He loves me just as I am! It is His love that continues to guide me, heal me, shape me, and inspire me to create as I never have before. I will never stop dreaming and believing. I know I am not like anyone else and I don't ever expect anyone else to be like me or do what I do because “my way is the right way.” 

I have learned lifetimes worth of lessons in my 41 years of life and the road has been paved the hard way, but it has brought me here. And here is the greatest gift I have ever been given so I live every moment excellently and to the fullest giving all I can along the way and making the differences I can make as we build this legacy together!

Truthfully, I am insane because I am living out of my mind...instead, I choose to live from my heart and along the way I found that every moment is magical...even in the pain for I am here, I am me and I wouldn't ever want it any other way! So I am not trying to become anything anymore and I am not out to compete to prove I am better than anyone else. However, I am here living with all of my heart, giving everything I am to be excellent in all I do and think, and I am walking every step of my life with everyone whether I have met them yet or not. 

I am here to uplift and let my life be the living letter of what is possible if you only believe. One of my favorite movies is One Night With the King and it is about the story of Queen Esther. In the movie she is going to go before the King without being invited, which was a death sentence. One of her servants begged her not to do it and she told him about King David and how before he was King that he did not win because he fought well, but because he believed well.

This life has become all about achieving, and from the time we are little we are made to believe that we have to grow up and become something. Instead, I challenge you to see that you are acceptable and have nothing to prove...only cultivate. Instead of trying to become something or get more so you can do whatever it is that you desire to do more than anything, I encourage you to look at what is already within you and begin to pour yourself out so that you can make space for all of the things you would like to do and experience to fill you up from inside so you can share your unique, precious and priceless treasures with the world in only the way you can do it for you are the only one like you in all of creation! I believe in you and I know that the best is yet to come!

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!