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! 

The first 40 years of my life and the awe of now!

I turned 41 this past May on the 19^th. The first 40 years of my life was a book until itself. From the beginning all the way through the end of the “me I used to be,” epic extremes have led me from one end of the spectrum all the way through to the other, and I have lived to tell my story. So here I am, pouring myself out in a new way. I myself have become an open book for I can honestly say that for the first time in my life I have nothing that I am hiding or trying to evade, run from and hope that nobody ever finds out. All of my secrets and skeletons have all been cleaned out and there are windows in the closets where the walls used to be. The light has exposed everything that once was covered in darkness and love has cleansed all that I once was.

I am free. I am whole. I am a miracle, and I am living proof of just how magnificent the Lord who made me is. For it is only because of His love and mercy that I am here. For this, I am eternally grateful! I am the proof of His passion and just how inexhaustible His vision and plan is for the most wretched kind of misfit. I am living proof that all that is said to be pathological and unchangeable in behavior and nature can be deconstructed, reshaped, and sculpted into someone that is transformed from an impossible mess into the Master’s Message, His one of a kind Masterpiece. I don’t say this because I am so great or I have learned so much. I say this because that is what I was, and because of all that His Love is, this is who I am. I am His and no matter what, I will never stop shouting from the rooftops that He is my everything!

I have done some of the most unimaginable things to myself physically and emotionally because of the inescapable agony that permeated every part of my life and body. All I ever hoped for was just a moment of relief so that I could know what it was to see just a glimpse of what life looks like through eyes that are not jaded and a heart that is not broken. I spent the greater part of my adult life self-medicating just to be able to try and live beyond the tormenting reminders of my past and all of the abuses that used to define my life.

I was an introverted rage-o-haulic. I was desperate to be loved and yet terrified to let anyone close because the second I did, they always ended up going away. I was clingy and smothered anyone who dared to want to be close to me. For the first 40 years of my life I was never able to have a single healthy relationship because I was not well. It is impossible to give anything that you are not.

I was dysfunctional and sick therefore all I knew how to continue creating was variant levels of dysfunction and sickness. Don’t get me wrong, I desired more than anything to be able to have a stable life filled with reason and rationale. I had never been willing to do anything to face myself and learn a new way of living. To be honest, I really didn’t believe I needed to. To do things that way would mean that I didn’t know how to manage my life or that I was incapable of making my life work without having someone else step in and try to micromanage and dictate to me what they deemed to be the “right” way. My ego had grown far too big to ever admit I needed help. I had spent my life growing up having everyone else telling me what I could and couldn’t do and there was no way in hell that as an adult I was going to let anyone tell me what to do.

Needless to say, advice was never something I heeded and if it got into one ear, it most certainly went right out the other. I was stubborn and totally unwilling to budge once I made up my mind. As an adult, I threw my temper tantrums until I got my way and then wondered why nobody really wanted to stay with me. I had become someone who was totally scary to be around because I was moody, I was unpredictable and if something didn’t go my way I was a force to be reckoned with. I was a power hungry ego maniac with a chip on both shoulders and a heart so ready and willing to give all that I was until someone did something I didn’t like or agree with. Then my open heart turned into a rock hard frozen mass that made it impossible for anything to get in or anything good to come out.

I was the girl who wanted everything now and had no patience whatsoever. Time, due diligence, and cultivation was nothing but a waste of time as far as I was concerned. If I wanted something and I couldn’t get it done, I would just go find someone who could and do my best to get it that way. I was a con artist and could come up with a story that would make nearly anything possible. Sadly, this is not what I grew up hoping to become. I don’t think anyone does. I’m pretty sure that there were things I learned along the way that incorporated survival and skills into what became my personality.

However, what I have learned is that none of what I have done or how I have lived was really me at all. Yes, I have done the things I have done but the person I was created to be was really buried underneath all of the behaviors and habits that I acquired along the way.

Instead of being the broken mess that I believed I had become, I found that as all of the things I learned along the way were peeled away layer by layer, I was underneath it all, but instead of being totally crushed and broken, I had really been protected from it all!

The real me has always been right here inside, protected as if I have been securely sealed in the amniotic sac of love. No matter how much I have been affected by everything, nothing was ever strong enough to get inside of the real me. I am the innocence that I thought was gone because of the things that have happened to me and all of the things that I have done wrong. It was never taken from me at all because there is no power in this world that is strong enough to overcome Love, and love is what we were all created by.

I am in awe at how life looks and feels to me now. I think often about how in the Bible Jesus speaks about having to be like little children in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven. I started thinking about what life was like for me when I was a little girl. Life was all about trust, and dreaming and believing. I could hear the most outrageous story and believe it was true. I didn’t need proof. I didn’t need someone to show me how. I trusted that what I was being told was real, and that was good enough for me. Why? Because of my connection to being able to visualize and feel what I was being told. 

Children perceive and they feel. They have strong intuition and communicate nonverbally because they sense, feel and then take action. They do. They play, they invent, they imagine, they explore, they are daring and willing to try things knowing there is no guarantee. Even when they get hurt, they are eager to get back up and do it again.

They believe in themselves and have physical experiences to validate why. Children desire to fix and heal and comfort. Children live to express themselves bigger and better than they did the time before and the time before that. Children love to love and have access to an unceasing flow of boundless enthusiasm. Children believe they can only until they are told over and over again that they can’t. Children love to take the boxes they crawl into and make grand forts out of them, but they always find new ways to invent and reinvent ways to design and arrange the boxes to make their imagined adventure different and more exciting each and every time. 

Children push the envelope, they ask questions and are interested in why things work the way they do. Children love to use every sense they have been given to immerse themselves in each moment and once they taste, touch, feel, smell and experience something, they are unlikely to forget it.

Children love to be around others and know that they feel better when they are playing with other children. To isolate a child is to take away the very spark within their spirit that gives them life. Children by nature are collaborative. Competition is the exception and not the rule because competition is a form of separation, isolating them from the community under the label called “better than” or not good enough.

If a child sees another child has fallen down or is hurting, they will go to them and try to figure out a way to help. It is only when children are pushed away and caused emotional suffering that they begin to put their walls up and distance themselves from the one who is hurting or rejecting them.

Yet as adults, we believe that we know everything and that the children need to learn from us. We are so busy trying to be “grown ups” that we have lost our ability to play, create, and connect to others. Children are the purest examples of what true life looks like. In the lives of children there is joy and kindness, and there are so many things that as adults we have lost sight of that are essential to character and quality of life. The kingdom is not found in how many scriptures we can recite, how many times a week we go to a church service or in how many rules we have been able to follow. The Kingdom is expressed in every moment of awe, in laughter, in reaching out your arms to help someone who has fallen so low that they don’t know how they can make it another moment. We are the Kingdom. We are so busy looking for a place that we are trying to get to that we end up missing all of the incredible moments right here and right now of all that Heaven is here on this earth.

I had something happen in my life that rocked my world and shattered everything I had spent my life believing life was supposed to be. I found myself caught up and entangled in the webs of my own lies, deceptions, and perversions that I was desperate for Jesus to come back and take me to this place I was taught is called Heaven because in Heaven there is no suffering and there are streets of Gold, there is abundance of everything good that you can imagine and people who have died that I love will be there waiting for me as long as they loved Jesus and were “saved.”

In Heaven I get to have a huge mansion and this incredible life where every day for forever is wrapped in the blanket of God’s love and His goodness made in His perfection and beauty so why in the world wouldn’t I want to hurry up and be able to get there?  Here’s the thing though; as long as I was looking for Heaven somewhere else I was missing everything right now. Everything for me was almost like just to pass the time to try and be good enough to please God enough so that I could be allowed into the big white pearly gates.

I went through life going the motions doing things and performing according to what I was taught is pleasing to God and constantly fell on my face because no matter how good I tried to be I always tripped along the way.

I realized that I was living my life trying to please God because I wanted all of the stuff He could provide and give me. I wanted the enormous mansion and everything that I could imagine forever and ever. I didn’t want to hurt anymore and I certainly didn’t want to burn in an everlasting hell where I would be tormented day and night forever separated from Heaven and God! I spent my entire life terrified to live and terrified to die. The fear of the unknown has always done me in. I have never in my life been so sick and tired of all of the rules of what you can do and can’t do in order to please God or be accepted into His Kingdom. 

Then the fear of being kicked out of the Kingdom if I go and screw up as I usually did, and the constant terror of rejection that hadn’t even happened yet was enough to keep me running like I was on a hamster wheel. All I wanted was to be loved and the God I had been taught about who made me and loved me was inconceivable to me, yet I knew I wanted Him more than anything.

It was really impossible for me to see God any different than what I experienced growing up. Our parents are so important because they are the first experience we ever have. They are our gateway to God. How can we ever imagine a God who will be unconditional and love us and forgive us when our own family refuses us, judges us, and punishes us over and over again sometimes unmercifully as we are reminded for ages of what we did wrong or how our choices have impacted them? Why would we ever believe deep inside of our hearts that we could be accepted unconditionally when most of us have never even seen what that looks like?

We all have our own ideas of what Love looks like or how we will know if someone really loves us, but I can honestly say that I never in a million years would have ever believed that what love really is was possible even though I always hoped that it was. I had no idea that Love really has nothing to do with how you feel or what someone else give you. Love is an action word. It is a constant that is ever moving, and ever present. It is always accessible and is the only true cure for all that we label depression, anxiety and mental illness. Love is the only thing I know that when you give it, it fills you inside with equal force that you gave to another. It is the only case where I know for a fact that the more you give the more that you get immediately within. Living love has become my drug of choice!

I spent most of my adult years as a mom and as a woman totally addicted to anything that would give me even a second of pleasure or escape from all of the misery locked for a lifetime deep inside of my heart. I spent nearly 2 decades going in and out of emergency rooms and hospitals creating conditions and inducing episodes of pain that would almost always guarantee I would get at least 30 Vicodin at a time. I suppose I should have become an actress because I was so good at faking illnesses and playing the part when it came to needing medicine. I don’t say this with any kind of pride or to pat myself on the back for being able to con dr’s into supplying me the weapons that singlehandedly controlled and altered my life for many years.

Then something happened to me in 2010/2011. I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and I had ongoing back pain that was horribly excruciating because of a bulging disc in my sacral area of my low back. At one point I was going to the dr. every 10 days and they would refill my Percocet. I did that until I was sent to a pain clinic in November 2010. At the pain clinic they rationed me out 185 of the 7.5/325 strength Percocet a month. I remained on that amount of pain medicine all the way through the beginning of June 2012 when I came to a place where I decided that I had enough and so I stopped taking the medicine altogether. The medicine never totally took the pain away but it masked it enough mentally where I could push past the threshold of what was physically doable for me and keep going in my life without being incapacitated because of the pain.

I never realized just how much of an addict I was throughout my life until I didn’t take narcotics any more. I spent my life in denial about so many things resisting the acceptance that I really was a huge mess that would never be any different unless something drastically changed without the change being traumatically drastic. I truly believe that it was the mind numbing properties that gave me the edge I needed to feel hopeful while I was going through the greatest hell I had ever known. The way I was able to feel close to the Lord in the midst of the pain taught me how to reach for Him in a way I never did before. In that process I began developing new ways of thinking and living, of being and doing that began to dramatically affect the way I was navigating life. 

Do I love God? Absolutely with all that I am. Did I get here today just because I fell head over heels in love with Him on my own. Yes and no…I chose to obey and do the things that I have never done at any other time in my life because I knew that the way I had always done things in my life was not working and if I continued to do anything the same as before I would surely lose and so would my children. I knew I couldn’t live with that. 

The difference was that even when the pain and emotion was so intense for me, somehow the medication I was taking gave me the ability to reason enough with myself and choose to do the thing that was so hard to do. The fact that I had a constant supply of narcotics that I had always had to fight to get before actually diffused my fear of what life would look and feel like for me if I didn’t have them. After spending years and time in and out of medical facilities going through hours and hours of tests and observation just hoping that a doctor would write me a prescription was exhausting, but in order to get the meds I didn’t know of any other way.

So when I developed a real medical issue and had a green light which gave me access to whatever I needed to manage the pain for the first time in my life I felt relief. Not relief from the pain so much, relief from everything I have had to do and put myself and other people through in order to get pain meds through the years. Now all I had to do was go to my pain clinic once a month and they would write the prescriptions and off I’d go. I think it must be a psychological thing about fearing the lack of something that makes you need it and crave it almost obsessively because once I knew I could get more medicine month after month, I noticed that I wasn’t taking them the same. It was almost like knowing I had as much as I needed was changing my addiction to them. I was gaining the control over it and it was losing its hold on me. I have become convinced through this journey that emotional pain causes a plethora of physical pain that is very real and at the same time un-diagnosable.

Addressing the center of all of the emotional and mental realms and trauma’s of my life has made it possible for me to go from being nearly physically incapacitated from the pain to now actually having some days where I forget I have pain at all!  Of course it hasn’t happened overnight, but I have been able to see myself and all of my patterns and habits along the way change, transform, heal and become consistent. This has altered my quality of life in every way, but it has taken my full commitment and cooperation in order for me to get here. I finally realize that I am worth it and that if I ever hoped to know what it is like to live life limitlessly, that I needed to start with a single step. And here I am!

This month it has been 2 full years since I have been on any pain medicine. I don't have any desire for it, I don't think about it and in fact, even when I am in the most excruciating pain, I would rather bear the intense pain and actually feel and experience life as I am, than to put anything into my body that will cloud or desensitize me from being able to feel the fullness of the joy and the pain and I am living life doing ALL things through Jesus who gives me strength! 

Igniting the Flames of Passion

How would you like to wake up every morning with the drive, passion, and determination to conquer everything that stood between you and ultimate success? Can you see yourself defeating every problem, completing every test, resolving every conflict that comes your way within any given moment? Have you forgotten how to dream? What if you knew this passion would give you everything you needed to achieve every dream and goal in this life? How would you go about your life then?

Passion is given to all! It is not reserved for some and not given to others! Passion does not discriminate! The absolute truth is that passion is for everyone, but only some will take the necessary steps to ignite that passion and cause it to soar within their hearts!

Where is the passion that we crave, that burning, unquenchable desire that drives us so completely that we know deep within ourselves that we could conquer the world with it?

Our true passion has always lived within us and far too often as we grow up, it becomes buried deeply underneath all of the things that we are desperately trying to figure out how to become. Rather than drawing from the immeasurable and inexhaustible expanse of our imaginations and the feelings that are inspired within the realm of our forgotten self, we go on doing everything to be successful without ever knowing anything about ourselves. We forget how to play and instead trade in the dreams we once had for piles of baggage, obligations, and things that only drive us further and further away from the true power that we were created with even before our conception. Our true passion is conjoined with something called faith, and without faith, we become devoid of the very passion that we seek! Faith always believes, regardless of what it sees in the circumstances presented to us!

Passion is a boundless enthusiasm, and is a force we can only tap into by believing in something with all that we are. Yet, it is so easy to say we are believing in things and external circumstances all while never really being able to believe in ourselves in the way we hope others will believe in us. I know this personally after a lifetime spent seeking validation from everyone else and yet never really being willing to believe what I was told could possibly be true. As I have cultivated my curiosity I have found myself. There is nothing more amazing than the awe of discovery, and the more I discover myself the more in awe I am at all of the things I never imagined I could do and have found that who I am has nothing to do with what I can do...though the more I know what I can do, the more powerful the affect and impact in my life and the inspiration that envelopes me and so many others within my life. As a reward of having such faith and belief, your passion becomes sparked and then ignites into a raging inferno!

Passion is absolutely vital to our existence for it is out of passion that we were created! But, how many times do we feel overwhelmed in our lives and find ourselves at the brink of giving up only to realize that if we give up now, we may miss the very miracle that we so desperately need in our lives? That miracle is passion!

Whether it is passion for your relationship, family, career, dreams, goals, teaching, building, traveling, art, sports, or any of the other vast array of subjects we could be passionate over, you need to make a decision that you will believe in something that is important to you. Then no matter what comes, make all of your dreams come true through the power of that passion within you. Live fearless, and face fear with the presence of your audacious faith! Release the passion from within you!

Passion is contingent upon how willing you are to believe and have faith in who you are, what you do, how you live, and how you see others. Passion will sometimes feel like it left just as quickly as it came because it is a fire that burns bright within each of us. If you don't work to keep the flame lit by feeding the fire within your heart and soul, then it will diminish or go out entirely! Apart from passion, we fade, become depressed, and our faith becomes atrophied, withering away to the depths of despair and hopelessness.

There are a few key steps for igniting passion into our lives, and if you don't do them "On Purpose" every day, your fire won't continue to rage on. Once you've had a taste of passion in your life, you'll recognize almost immediately if the fire is beginning to diminish or is at risk of going out! Then wake yourself up and do whatever it takes to fan the flame and keep the fire burning brightly!

Step 1: BELIEVE in whatever you do with your whole heart, and VISUALIZE yourself doing it in your mind! This will help you to persevere when things get tough. If you can see yourself doing something with your mind, it won't be awkward or uncomfortable when you get where you are going! If you can see it, you can BE it!

Step 2: Have a clearly articulated vision! Remind yourself and others what you are working toward. You may have started working at an entry level position, but you see yourself as president of the company! Write down what you want in your life and what it is going to take for you to get there! Have a clear plan. Remember that vision attracts vision and dream attracts dream...know what you want so that others can help you to get there!

Step 3: Change the way you think and speak! Keep your thoughts and words positive and don't let the negative thoughts in NO MATTER WHAT other people will say about your efforts or your vision. It is a battle to keep your mind clear of all of the negative things that present themselves to your mind, so train yourself to reject the negative and only embrace the positive. Catch the negative things that you are thinking before they get to your lips and you speak them out! Words are containers filled with power. Say something long enough and you will believe that and those things that you believe will come to pass in your life! Then watch your life begin to transform right before your very eyes!

Step 4: Have Audacious Goals! Your level of ability will only grow to the size of your dreams! Dream bigger than yourself and don't let what you see with your eyes affect your faith and how you believe in what it is that you are going after! Audacious goals will take Audacious faith and Audacious action! Always remind yourself that you can do it, and then get ready, get set, and go...never to look back!

Above all, live in this moment at this time of your life with all that passion is! Ignite that fire within you, and make it your mantra that you will live today and every new day that you are blessed with passionately! Passion leads the way to destiny, and destiny is where our life's purpose and meaning are completely fulfilled.

Each moment of our life is filled with steps that we have taken in the direction toward our destiny, or the steps that have led us away from it instead. Now is the time to change your shoes, and make certain that you are ready to lead the way in this journey through life!

You're journey will lead you to the ultimate destination, but first you will need to know who you are and allow your passion to ignite, as you fan the flame within your heart and soul. I encourage you to be confident, follow the simple steps above, stand firm in your faith, and walk forward with passion into your destiny. Your destiny has been patiently waiting for you, so ask yourself now...What are you waiting for?

Physics, Freedom and Fairy Tales

Our Cat named Dogg :)

Looking in the mirror the reflection is not just me anymore, and the mirror is not one that hangs on a wall for there’s no wall large enough to fit the mirror that illuminates the beauty in the reminders that no longer haunt me when I look at the image shining back at me. For this is the reflection that I’ve never yet seen until now, and it makes me think with wonder…how I have always been created to be this way and even though I have never seen myself this way until now, my creator, the one who made me, has never seen me as anything else than the perfection within His own reflection. For I was created just like Him and He is the one who made me like this!

 

I’ve looked in every mirror as far back as I can remember, always wondering when I would become the me I always dreamed was possible to be. But as far back as I can remember, every moment felt like it took forever. I never even knew that when your dreams are bigger than you are, that you were never created to do it alone … 

 

And as a little girl even though “grownups” told me that fairy tales don’t really come true, I never gave up believing, striving, passionately pursuing, studying, and overcoming every obstacle and opposition of those who tried to convince me that I need to stop living in a fantasy world and come back to reality. 

 

What amazes me is how perception alters reality, and most of the time all the facts just become co-mingled with in the feelings and strangling grip of guilt and shame. And in order to face the world, and ourselves hiding behind the curtain that we call “another day” that self justification taking place within us in order to subdue the emotional agony that imprisons every fiber of our being. 

 

Incapacitated yet whirling deep within the emotional and dizzying spiral into the abyss of hopelessness with every moment that goes by that we choose to stand behind the curtain rather than just step out into the brilliant lights and walk out onto the big breathtaking stage. 

 

It is our survival instinct that kicks in. The fight, flight or total paralyzation like a deer caught in headlights that resorts to primal habit which is accursed from the infinite generations that have preceded us. From our beginning, to be still for even a moment, was certain death, and to be the one responsible for masterminding the “trouble” was even worse. Unsung heroes and misfits just trying to find a way to get to the age where we are finally old enough to take the plunge…the freedom to really call our own shots…take the dare, the one that your heart can hear in the warm summer breeze as it whispers to you that anything is possible! 

 

Within the unexpected there lies the myriad of variables too numerous to have backup and exit plans established so that if we leap and land funny, that we don’t as they say in the industry, “Break a leg”…we’re not blindsided and left open and totally defenseless in a moment where we feel we’re going to die; 

 

Overwhelmed by pain that overloads the motherboard of our human circuitry, we are rendered frozen all over again by the reminder of what feels overwhelmingly more like the agony of traumatic defeat and not just some sort of rejection or question related to personal qualification. 

 

When everything comes to a screeching halt regardless of whether it’s an emotion or physiological sensory malfunction, our brain interprets what has just happened as a life and death situation… And to be perfectly honest, it is! 

 

Because it is within that moment, and what you choose in the next moments that follow that are crucial to the outcome. It may feel like a death is taking place throughout your entire being but there is nothing that you can’t do if you believe that you can, and nothing you can do if you believe that you can’t. Never forget that for it has the power to remind you of exactly how powerful the Master Jehovah, Lord Almighty actually created you to be in every moment including this one right now…not someday! Our internal torment seems to be more related to our deepest knowing that we were created for such a time as this ..right now and instead we look at what we see, and then rationalize and explain away why we have to wait until we all get to "heaven."

 

You see, each moment that I spent just going through the motions, meant that I was totally on autopilot. I found that the more on autopilot I was, the more fear and anxiety I had. Fear became the awareness that I was thinking too much and doing too little. Each moment of my life it didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I knew, or how perfectly I tried to do everything I was told to do. I found that I could never meet anyone’s expectations because I was covertly furious that I had absolutely no idea how to meet my own. 

 

For what seems like forever, this way of thinking and struggling only resulted in immeasurable pain, loss, and the self imposed judgments that never seem to quiet and make everything open to critique. Ultimately the judgment which is always built upon the foundation of doubt and unbelief does have its own “belief systems.”…and if we believe that someone is an idiot or incompetent they have become human weapons of mass annihilation as unbelief will always attempt to shatter the impenetrable power that is only found in unity!

 

The greatest unity is that of wholeness, you in balance with yourself. Once you know who you are and who you were created to be, and become friends with all of the parts of yourself that once seemed better to keep hidden, there is only light and the light of love beaming brilliantly within you, through you, and illuminating the path upon which you stand. The darkness becomes a welcomed ally because it is in accepting the polarity of darkness that the reflection, the clarity, and the breathtaking contrast are made possible!

 

Learning to love all of the pieces of yourself and accepting that you are who you are right now, good and bad, happy and sad, up and down...I have been taught that life is not complete until we accept that it is not " either/or" but life is all about being, "both/and." In the either/ or scenario it is all about having to separate and choose one or the other. When the truth is that by accepting both halves of the whole, the whole is restored and brought to life in a new way that wouldn't be otherwise possible.  

 

When I was trying to be all good and get rid of all of the "bad" things I didn't like about myself, I was still exhausting myself by trying to get rid of something that made  it possible for me to choose to become everything I am now. I am thankful for all of the things that I used to despise about myself and wished that I could forget. Life becomes magical within self acceptance. How can we say we believe we are accepted before the Lord, if we are completely unwilling to accept ourselves? 

 

I have discovered the power and freedom that comes to really experience the fullness of life because I see now just how important it is that I chose all that I have before. Until one knows sorrow there can be no realization of joy. Until you know one you cannot understand the experience of the other. Just as in Physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is that same polarity, and understanding this has been instrumental in changing everything because now that I understand the "both/and" I have finally learned how to choose, and for this I give all of my praise to the Living God, the One who made me and you!

When the ordinary becomes extraordinary!

My painting: Lanai in Kauai

The other day I was watching the movie “As good as it gets” and I paused it for a minute because I needed to get a tissue. Then when I came back into my room I decided that I was going to put my clothes away because they were folded on the end of my bed. 

While I was putting the clothes away I was thinking about some of the things in the movie that happened to be very moving to me. I have seen this movie before but it had been quite a long time. I was so moved by things that I don't think I ever saw before. It is like everything that has ever happened before this in my life holds new and newly realized ideas and most incredible significance to things that I am experiencing in my life right now. 

It seems like my life is actually made up of events that have become like pieces of a puzzle, and it seems the pieces have finally begun to fit into the places in my heart where they are connecting together to form this indescribable masterpiece. It feels like though so many of the realizations are new, they have always been written within the pages of my heart, waiting patiently for me to be open and able to experience them!

I can not even contain the amazing emotion...the beautiful emotion that I feel so powerfully and so completely! I weep over the most silly things that somehow have always been waiting for me to arrive right here in this moment at this time! Everything has been so purposeful and so divinely arranged and inspired. I am certain of this because there is nothing else that could ever have been so interwoven with all of the things that I have been healed from in my past and now reflects upon the diamond bright threads that are every strand interwoven within every fiber of my being. My heart, my mind, my will, my skin, my neurological system....all of it has been shed, and has been rewired...I am not the woman, the girl, the human that I was born into this world, but I am remade and formed from her ashes, her remains that have been burned up and left the brilliant ingredients that have become this new clay, this new material that flows through the crystal waters from the throne within my heart that my beautiful Heavenly Father lives within and lives through...me.

I am so amazed that everything that leaves me so breathless in the awe of all that has brought me into this very moment, has become the beautiful crescendo in this magnificently orchestrated symphony of my life. I am left breathless, and then revived, refilled, and overflow with all that this is...I don't have words that even begin to do justice for all that I am experiencing, but I promise that I will never stop seeking in order to convey the magically divine heart and being of the Living God, our creator, the True Master of all Universes and life!

Things that seem so random have a divine structure. I am willing to pay attention to the leading of what seem to be my hearts thoughts, yet I know and feel that this is the voice of the one who made me.

I find the most incomprehensible moments of awe that make me giggle at the wow factor that reveals just how perfect every moment is, even when everything all around seems to be shifting in ways that I never anticipated or thought I was ready for. It is through the surrender to my Lord, my savior who I know already has mapped out each and every moment and possibility that all fear cannot even invade the force field that is my heart, surrounds my body, and connects me to myself, to you, and to all!

I happened to be putting my clothes away that were laying on my bed. This seems ordinary enough. I have many Bibles and books, especially journals that I have written that I usually keep on the right side of my bed so that I can grab them easier since I sleep on the left side. So once I straightened them a bit (not totally perfect :) I sat down on my bed to resume watching As good as it gets...but before I sat down I grabbed one of my journals that had a magazine sticking out of it as if to mark a page. So I opened it and what I discovered was something that led me to the next step of awesome!

I saw a list of minerals and clay that I had been researching and connecting to some other work I have been doing on our human skin in connection to the materials our earth is made of. I read through the page and then I decided as I found my heart being suddenly re-inspired by the remembrance of when I wrote these things, I turned over to the next page and I saw that I had written about some places in the Middle East like Egypt, the Negev and had written about the materials found in the fault lines in the soil and earth in those regions. Then I flipped the page over and saw I had written a scripture.

So I grabbed one of the Bibles closest to me and looked it up. The verse was in Psalms 126:4...but I didn't just start there, I read from verse 1. When I got to verse 4 I giggled in the awe that the scripture spoke of the Negev region that I had written about before the scripture was listed. It says : Turn to freedom our captivity and restore our fortunes, O Lord, as the streams in the South (the Negev) {are restored by torrents}.

Verse 5: They who sow in tears shall reap in joy and singing!

Just before this, I was putting my clothes away I had been crying because its hard for me to contain the joy and the thankfulness that I feel for all that God continues to do in my life...I was singing a Steven Curtis Chapman song-Remember your chains, before I ever decided to pick up this journal and then open it. I had no intention of reading my journal or writing this at this moment because I was simply going to finish the little bit that was left of the movie when I paused it to go and blow my nose. As I'm writing this it kind of reminds me of a treasure map unfolding each and every step that brings me to the miracles that I could have missed or dismissed because it would have interrupted “my plan.”

I am not sure that this would have had the same effect later or after finishing the movie because I would have already moved through the crying and singing. But because it had just happened, I was more engaged and it totally stopped dead in my tracks to read in these scriptures the very things that I had just been doing moments before!

It made me eager to see what else was there for me to find that would send another wave of the most awesome flood of refreshing. It reminds me just how in sync my Lord who is the love of my life, who is my husband, and my all...we are in real time, we are now, and these are the kinds of things that have changed my entire world. 

These are the moments that make me see and feel the nearness and the love that He feels for me. He is ever whispering into my hearts ears things that will show me just how close he is and has always been. These are the things that I physically feel ignite the flames of passion within me into the raging inferno, the consuming and refining fire that He is within me!

Together, we are a life transforming force in my life and He is the light that shines in and through me, that continues leading me, guiding me, strengthening me, melting me healing me, and redesigning me moment by moment. As I live willing to stop in the middle of what I think is so important to entertain the thought or idea I have, I find that my greatest miracles and moments of liberation are birthed from within my willingness to listen to myself. I take the action and then I always discover the reason, but if I waited to first have understanding of the “why” before I was willing to step and most oftentimes, leap into the places unknown and called delay or insignificance, I would never have discovered just how powerful the voice within that sounds like my own is!

So as it is, I didn't just read Psalms 126. I went on to read 127, 128, and 129! Everything within the few verses of these short chapters was so amazing to me because it was truly the reminders of things that I really needed, but had no idea I did. Everything in each verse brought my heart to life in a new way and reminded me of how far I have come, just how the Lord is guiding me and exactly what is awaiting my arrival. This is the manna, the living bread of all that Heaven is. This is the food that fills my heart and soul. It is the inspiration that is even more powerful because it came to me...though it took my willingness to stop what I was doing to open it and read.

Then as I was going to close my Bible and pick up where I left off in the movie I happened to have a marker in Joshua 3. I have many times written the dates by certain scriptures when they are super significant for me. By verse 7 was the date 3.13.11 and I thought it was interesting how the day I was reading it was exactly 3 years and 10 days ago that I wrote next to it. I read chapter 3 verses 5-17 which is the end of the chapter. To my awe once again, everything in there had a very important meaning for things that I am experiencing right now or working on in my research and life!

I can not even begin to tell you how difficult it is for me to stay in my own skin when these “random” moments happen to turn out to be the moments I had been praying to know about “xyz.” As I was rejoicing and smiling so big that my cheeks began to quiver, I saw on the page to the right of where I was reading that there was a yellow post it note.

I need to preface the rest of the story with the significance of a yellow post it note. About 6 months ago when I moved in with my amazing friends that I have been staying with I started going through the most intense emotions that I have ever experienced in my life.

I found myself looking out at all of the things that were happening and the synchronicity that was taking place in nearly every moment that I was awake. I was totally swept away in “connecting” everything that was happening to discover what it meant so that I knew what direction to go next. There was one point that I had gotten so frustrated and felt like I was hearing and seeing the same things nearly every where that I went and even in conversations that I heard around me or I would have with other people that I found myself terrified of my freedom of choice. It was like I wanted someone to tell me that I was going the right way. So I was rocked and spinning inside wrapped in the inescapable, strangling grip of indecision named “what if.”

So last fall I remember talking to my friends and telling them how frustrated I was that just when I had peace about the direction I was going, everything around me began feeling like I had just made the wrong choice, and how scary that was because I didn't understand why one second everything felt free and in the next it felt like my heart fell through my feet. I had never been in a place where I was facing that level of insecurity because throughout my journey over the past couple of years I have learned that when I make a choice, I follow through and keep my word. If I wasn't sure that I could complete something then I was honest with myself and willing to live with my choice. This was very life changing for me because I finally found the way that all of the shame and guilt and fear melted away...up to that point at least.

If I committed to something, I did it regardless of what I felt like, any problems that might have shown up in the process and I stopped making excuses to try to get out of doing something. I discovered that because I was the one who chose, that there was no more guilt or shame. Plus there was no reason for me to look out anymore and try to find someone or something else to blame if things didn't end up going the way I hoped they would. Whether something turned out or not, I knew there was nobody else to blame for whatever the end result was. I chose. That had become my greatest filter. It let everyone else off the hook and made me accountable to only focusing on me doing my part and completing what I committed to do. 

So in this process I hit some unexpected bumps that spun me into fear. Last fall I had committed to something that I found almost right away wasn't right for me at that time, and because I had become so sold out to keeping my word and being honorable I didn't know how to turn around. I felt that if I changed my mind, especially so fast that it meant I was nothing more than a fraud and that all of the work I had done over the past few years was all a lie.

I knew that couldn't be true, but I was so scared of letting my Heavenly Father down and making Him look bad because I choose to “opt out” of a place I was not ready to go at that point in my process. So I told my friends kind of jokingly and also in desperation that if I am going the wrong way and am to deep in to see that I don't know I am that I was willing to listen and then I jokingly said I would accept smoke signals, yellow post it notes and a few other hilarious ways that I knew would get my attention.

It was a while before I finally allowed myself to accept that there is nothing wrong with changing my mind and discovering that whatever it is may not be right for me. It didn't mean that it was never going to be “right,” it just meant not right now.

I have learned so many things about myself through the greatest moments of delay, the unexpected, tragedy and nightmares that have rocked me to my core along this road. I have also learned that my feelings I was taught need to be overcome and to “do it anyway” no matter how I feel, has been a very destructive force in my life. I have learned that especially in church it is seen as very powerful, and almost warrior like, for you to put your feelings aside and go against whatever you are feeling. It is labeled an attack of the enemy and we are taught to be on guard because the devil uses our feelings as the door to enter into our lives through. I would say that this has been bent in a way that has caused a mass desensitization of our awareness to knowing ourselves and instead we have become more immersed in self preservation to ward off the devastation we are taught comes through the indulgences of giving into our “flesh.”

The resistance throughout my life has been the very thing that has caused me to look out to others for validation and to try to figure out which way to go next. I have learned that the only key that I have ever needed is already inside of my heart. But the only way to access it is to pay attention to my feelings. Nearly 5 years ago I had a single revelation about feelings and emotions that changed everything for me and my life has never been the same!

I don't know about you, but I grew up believing that feelings and emotions are the same. In conversations, I have heard people speak of feelings and emotions as if they are synonymous when in fact nothing could possibly be further from the truth! I had no idea that what I thought I knew was killing me because I didn't know that I didn't know.

I thought that feelings and emotions were just being interchanged grammatically to liven up the conversation or to get the point across in a different or more effective way. Holy wow, I have never been so shocked and amazed in all of my life because when I discovered the truth and the distinction between the two, I was not only set free, but I was filled with understanding and the power that comes with perspective unlike ever before.

I never would have imagined that feelings and emotions really have totally separate purposes and individually are almost polar opposites! But the dynamic power that they have when combined together becomes a force to be reckoned with. I discovered that feelings are actually neutral and have only one sole purpose. Feelings are the physiological impulses and sensations that are responsible to give us information about all that is around us. Feelings are data oriented to help us get the unbiased, objective information to help us effectively navigate from moment to moment through our sensing. It is a purely biological function that relays information to our 5 senses and when developed actually becomes the conduit of what we know as intuition-being able to receive information that is beyond the senses, a real sixth sense. I like to think of it as “The Unification” of all of our senses in connection to the world and people within the world all around us.

Emotions on the other hand are totally different. Emotions are all about our interpretation of the data and information/experiences. Emotions are basically the stories we tell ourselves about the things that we are experiencing, and the stories that we believe about what others are experiencing all around us in our every day lives. While feelings are unbiased and subjective...they relay factual data designed to give you a moment by moment heads up so that you can decide the best way to move through any environment. Feelings are our God designed human internal neurological Guidance Positioning System.

I never really knew that. In fact, I had spent my entire life desensitizing my feelings and dis-empowering my ability to trust myself! I was taught that feelings are the weapon of the enemy and he uses them to sneak in and wipe our lives out if we “listen” to our feelings and “give in” to our “fleshly” desires. This is an extreme that caused me to do the wiping out of my own life until I came face to face with understanding. I had been going against my feelings and taught to resist the long laundry lists of things that are sinful and will send me straight to hell. That fear was enough to keep me striving to do the right things and be a good Christian, but rendered me powerless to change and be delivered from doing all of the “bad” things that I had no idea how to stop doing. Then the guilt and shame that followed came in more like a tsunami than just a flood. I lived my life determined to overcome my flesh and please the Lord, yet never seeing that this overcoming was not that at all.

How can I overcome something that I don't understand. How can I ever want to stop or not like the way something feels even if its just in that moment if I don't really have a reason why. The fear of being sent to hell was not enough to change anything in my heart. It was enough to stop my behaviors for a while or in variant degrees, but the desire and the pulling toward the things I was taught are sinful was stronger than my desire not to. It seemed that the more I tried not to do something, the more it held me and found a way to “tempt” me.

Even as strong as the fear was the lure was stronger. Then afterward, the beating that I gave myself for being a lousy Christian who was weak and unable to obey even though I believed with all of my heart that I really didn't want to do that anymore or again was not only unbearable, it was inescapable.

The more I tried to quiet my thoughts and speak the word of God over my life the louder the reminders became about how much of a failure I was. The feelings coupled with the emotions were the chains that held me hostage and prisoner within my own body for most of my life. I was supposed to be set free because Jesus died in my place for my sins, and yet the very scriptures that were supposed to help me to live free, became the nets that wrapped me tightly in the guilt, fear, inescapable shame and my spiral into the depths of hopelessness, depression, self medicating, and hiding.

It wasn't until I came to a place in my life where the bottom fell out from underneath me and I became my own bottomless pit that I was willing to do anything it would take to be saved and rescued. I was finally willing to listen. I was willing to obey even though I had absolutely no idea how to submit or yield with my heart. I was an independent woman who was not going to be told what to do or controlled by anyone. The truth is that what I believed was “independence” was nothing more than me taking the bull by the horns and doing everything myself because I had been so hurt and broken by others that I was sick and tired of trusting others and then losing every time I turned around.

I was a control fanatic because I believed that if I was doing everything and making everyone do things my way, that I could prevent all of the pain and devastation that I had already experienced from happening again. I was all about I am woman hear me roar. There was no way any man was going to come into my life and tell me what I could or couldn't do. I would never be dominated again and I was determined to be heard. And I am sure that there were many people who heard me and had to put up with me and my ridiculous attitude that made me seem more like a dude than a woman.

I have learned something that continues to change my life. As a woman, God has given us the most incredible abilities and strengths. We never were weak. We just have been given a unique way of experiencing and perceiving life that compliments our counterpart, the man whom the Lord created us to share our life with.

I have found that our true strength is not in being able to go head to head with a man and act all tough to prove that we are strong or can measure up and even out perform him. Our true strength lives within our heart and is found within our femininity. It is in our tenderness and ability to care for, understand, feel, nurse and serve those we love and those around us that heals and creates an impenetrable bond to all we come into contact with. This has been corrupted and twisted into a weapon that annihilates and robs us from the divine relationship that we were always created to enjoy before time ever began. The power of unity and agreement is a power capable of creating anything that can be imagined.

However, the same unity that creates the abundance of well being and beauty is the same unity that can be used to destroy and tear down. The principle of unity and agreement is the same.

The judgment I experienced from people of all walks of life who claimed to love the Lord was overwhelming. My entire life had come crashing down and it felt like everyone in my world had turned against me or blamed me for all of the horrible things that were happening in my life. So many of my friends claimed to be devout Christians because they went to church every time the doors were open and even served in the church. But they were the first to lash out their judgment and opinions about how my children being ripped from my home and everything I was going through was punishment for turning my back on God. That it was in order to teach me a lesson as the fight for my life became a war that I was never prepared for.

I was bitter and felt betrayed because it seemed nobody understood or cared. It seemed like everyone was quick to have an opinion or judgment, but not willing to reach out their hand or heart because suddenly they thought they were better than me. I had my children taken away from me and they still had theirs. It was the most unfathomable nightmare to love my children with everything I am and then find I had gotten twisted up into a life where I desperately wanted to escape and break away, but was too scared. I didn't have a way to leave and start over. I didn't have the ability on my own to provide the basic necessities of life anymore.

Being afraid was the tool that was used against me to rip my heart out and wipe me out. It tried to erase me by making me into the worst kind of person. I have been humiliated and plummeted so deep into the darkness that kept me from being able to see how to break my fall. I know now that in that kind of darkness, in the valley of the shadow of death, the only way you can break your fall or find your way through is to feel, and the only way to feel is through the power of love. I have learned the hard way that the only thing that is strong enough to dissolve the suffocating grip of fear is Love!