Gaining perspective and 'finding yourself' are both fantastic and necessary but don't automatically help you to actually get your shit back under control. That still takes effort and daily habit changes. In other words, it takes putting your big kid pants on and making decisions about what you want to take risks on. I have been so passive in trying to figure out what I want to do next, in part because I have so many things that I am choosing between, but also because I am afraid that I will pick a direction and then realize that it's the wrong one. I am scared of spending money and time on something that won't work out the way that I think it will... So instead I do nothing.
I am scared to spend time in quiet with my own thoughts, or in prayer, because I am afraid of what I will find. I'm not ready to deal with the issues that have been weighing so heavily on my soul. My first step is going to have to be to just get myself to sit still for a few minutes in the quiet without any intention of having a conversation about my difficult stuff. That's my version of a baby step into self-awareness and into giving my life back into the control of the Power that is greater than myself.
I did learn two big things about myself during my journey abroad. The first is that I am genuinely and insatiably happy. My heart is so full of joy and love that it's almost overwhelming to think about. The normalcy of my regular life here at home had me so busy that I didn't even realize how happy I really am, but when I was all by myself in a completely different culture I could feel the vibrations of that love and passion for life seeping out of my skin. I couldn't stop smiling because I love living and experiencing everything that I can! Life is oh-so-good!!
The second thing that I realized is that my heart is not ok right now. How those two revelations occurred at the same time is a strange phenomenon, but it's what happened. The two situations are both existing inside of me simultaneously. Maybe the overwhelming happiness helped to hide the issue for as long as it's been hidden. I am the biggest example of an avoider that I've ever known. I push my pain into this dark hidden corner of myself and then continue with my life for a long time before I am able to deal with it. I know that it's not healthy, and I am reminded of that often, but it is the only way that things process for me. My world was rocked a little while back and my heart was shattered in the process, but it took my adventure to get me to realize that I had been holding all of the pieces of my heart in place really tightly just hoping that they would miraculously stick back together eventually, and that has actually been incredibly draining. I had the space away from the people that really know me to release my grasp, see how bad the damage really is, and let it fall apart a little bit... only a little bit though because the hardcore emotional avoider in me is hard to shake.
So, goals 1-3 set back in the last blog post have turned around a little bit based on this new perspective.
1. My emotional self-care has been lacking because I don't want to go to that vulnerable place that you have to climb into when you look into your soul. I just wanted to avoid the pain of dealing with my current heartache. Goal 1: Spend three nights this week in silence for at least 15 minutes. At this point there is no intention of a prayer or a revelation, only stillness in my soul.
2. My desire to find a satisfying career change, or a way to make money and simultaneously follow my passions is going to require a lot of sacrifices and the great possibility of failure. I think I was hoping for the perfect thing to fall into my lap, but that's just not always how it works. I might have to do some things that I don't really want to do in order to get to the things that I really want to do. Goal 2: Just pick a path and do it. Take the risk of deciding later on that it wasn't everything that I thought it would be.
3. With the completion of goals 1 and 2, my other issue of thinking that I am not doing enough with my life is probably going to take care of itself. This was more of a symptom of the other two issues than it was a diagnosis in itself. However, Goal 3: Be active and alert about crushing any self-doubting words going on in my head. This life only comes around this one time, and at the end of it I just want to say that I was happy and that maybe it was contagious to some of the people around me.
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