She let go.

I found this today on Elephant Journal and fell in love...http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/02/she-let-go/

I did not write this and give complete credit to the source above and the author noted at the end.  I just felt moved to share this.

 

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

~ Rev. Safire Rose

 

What to do?  I feel off this week...up and down and all around and do not like this feeling.  It's ok because I don't have to like it.

I am trying to make a big choice about a job change.  Why?  Many reasons; my current company has a lot of issues and while I am in a really good place the company overall is not.  The company has a bad image in the community and not really sure it is getting any better.  There needs to be a great deal of change and I am trying to assist with this change but feel perhaps I have reached the end of what I can do or am willing to do.

There is a job open at a company I used to work for.  The job is not really what I love doing but it is certainly familiar to me.  It would allow me to be at the same school as my daughter and take her to school everyday and most likely picking her up in the afternoons.  This is a better company overall with opportunities to move and maybe move up if I wanted to.  I might not want to move up anymore.  Been there and done that and I think the non up jobs are simpler and would allow me more me time and more family time and that is the important thing.  The move if I were offered it and took it feels like a move backwards but does that matter?  Does is matter I won't have as voice in the company or does it matter that I can settle in, do my job and then live my life?  I don't want to be here forever and this company will allow for transfers in the future.  My current company will not- at least not places I would go. 

Leaving feels like a betrayal.   Current company has been good to me but in all fairness I have given back a lot to them as well and again it just sorta feels done, over, as if I have reached my limit on what I can do.  Is this because it is so hard for me to settle and stay in one place?  Current company has been my base company for about 14 years though I have had many, many other jobs during and around that.  However in those years I have changed jobs many times and constantly look to change more.  Why?  Why can I not just be- just settle- just stop the change cycle.  Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance.

Surrender and acceptance- focus on this and all will be ok.

Love and live and be free

Surrender is the word of the day (perhaps year)

Ick is how I feel right now.  Overall this year is so much better than the last few but is (as life is) still full of challenges.  I hate being so impatient and reactive.  There are some things that I am trying to make happen and by the nature of the issues it probably won't be immediate but damn I want it to be.  I try, so very hard to cope with my anxiety and my feelings of impatience and needing to control but some days it gets the best of me.  I am emotional and anxious and don't like it. 

Life in general is good.  My marriage is 110% better, my darling, darling girl is healthy and happy and that is really all that matters yet there is the other "stuff".  The stuff that happens some in my control and some not but I try to make it all in my control.  Bills are piling up and I am the only one working.  This gets frustrating but in other ways it is so nice to have someone take care of me and the sweet girl.  It is nice to have dinner ready and to be able to plan my hours and work when I want to and not around another schedule but then running out of money as soon as I am paid is not nice.  I am trying to sell some real estate that really I should have never gotten but at the time (as always) it seemed like the only choice and it seemed that I should take any drastic measure necessary to get it so as I tend to do...I did it.  It served a great purpose and I love the property but the rest of my family does not and it is too much money for just me so it needs to go.  When I want something I want it done NOW so the process of selling is a pain and makes me irrationally desperate to make it happen NOW.  This is what I do...I get this desperate feeling, this urgency to make things happen because they seem so right.  The reality is this...I can't make anything happen.  I have to surrender this need.  Surrender...I recall reading about shame and the book had an exercise about describing shame with a word...the word surrender immediately popped in my head and the enormity of it made me cry at the time.  Yet that is it....surrender...let go...let it be. 

I keep working at it and it shall happen or it shall improve anyway.  I am breathing more calmly now and don't feel like bursting into tears, it really does help to get it out of my head.  My head is crazy making. My brain takes normal issues and makes them huge and unbearable.  Surrender.  I am sober and I am healthy and those things in addition to my family are all that matter.  This too shall pass.

Surrender

Well finally

Acceptance 2014- in June.  I had such intentions of writing more, tracking my thoughts and moods and progress but alas life got in the way.  So many good things now so I'm ok with that but want to be grateful and careful and not let my flaws get in the way.  Compared to the last few years 2014 is a miracle, a life safer, a pure gift from God, not perfect but oh so much better indeed. 

Relationships are being repaired the main one being my marriage.  That thing that was broken, oh so broken is now more like stained glass.  It is broken but being pieced back together.  It is a miracle.  I give in, he gives in and we meet in the middle.  I don't want to be broken and cut by shards of my life.  Some of these shards I cannot control but others I have limited control over.  Again with my control?  Damn- I need to stop with the control.  I control me and only me, I cannot and do not even deserve the right to make choices for other adults.  The fact is this:  I can agree or disagree with what they do and it doesn't matter.  People do what they do due to who they are at that point in time.  It never was and never will be about me.  Choices sure can impact my life though but it's my job to stop that from happening.

I am happy and so blessed.  I struggle at times to stay positive and to live sober and happy and taking care of only me.  I don't rock at that :)  Something's I totally rock- taking care of me is a work in progress.  So I run, I meditate, I do yoga, I strive to find my passion in things and I work on those.  I still do too much and don't allow myself down time...all me...no one else makes this my reality.  So this means no one else can change it. 

On sobriety- almost 4 years since I have had a drink.  My drug of choice.  Words cannot accurately describe how wonderful that feels.  I have more to work on.  I still over work big time, I still self medicate with better stuff but substances none the less, I must protect my sobriety at all costs, trust the process and things will fall into place.  I want to help people stay sober now but at a loss as to how.  I never completed AA and the steps, never did anything other than stop the drinking  So how to help others?  I'm thinking on that one.  Please help me with ideas?  Please? 

I hope 2014 is the best year ever so far for you.

hugs and kisses and much love

BE BETTER

Imperfectly human

Acceptance 2014-  a dear friend said this to me not even knowing that acceptance is my word/theme of the year.  "Acceptance, not control, is the key to happiness".  Wow so very true and so very fitting for me now. 

I am learning to accept and to listen to me, my mind, my body, what do I want?  It isn't always easy or even possible but oh how I love that I am working on it.  I am working to mend some very special bonds in my life.  It is my hope and prayer that things will work out in the way I would like but if they don't, I will be ok.  The end results depend on change in others and this is something I have no control over.  What will happen will happen and it is not my choice other than my contribution to the situation.  My decisions must be made to identify what is best for me and my darling baby girl and the rest is out of my hands.  This effort to mend the broken bonds comes as a surprise to me, I didn't think that I would go there, but I am and it feels right.  Will my efforts make the entire situation ok?  Nope, but my ability to be open and to accept what is will make it ok no matter the outcome.  Accept that myself and others are human and therefore imperfect.  Perfectly imperfect...forgiveness, acceptance, being open to the possibility of change...all what I need to focus on.

Live, Love and Accept

I can do what I want to

Acceptance 2014

I accept my that some days my grief overwhelms me and it is hard to do anything but breathe and cry.  I accept that some days are better than that and am grateful for those days. 

My baby is healthy and I can clothe, feed and provide shelter for her...that is all that matters but it is tough to remember that some days when the waves of sadness wash over me and threaten to drown me in grief.  Then something reminds me, someone reminds me that it is ok and it will all work out.  I am lucky in so very many ways. 

I am striving to learn that I can do what I want to.  I get to make the choices in my life of who, what, when and where things happen....to some degree anyway.  It is good.  God is good and I am grateful that I can stop and remember that.  I am making some tough choices right now but know that the right ones will find me because God will show me where to go and how to get there but I have to seek those answers and I am.

I asked someone dear to me to start attending church with me.  This could be a very big step in mending some very broken bonds...I pray for the courage to know it will all work out how it should even if it isn't how I want.

Thank you God for hope.

Coffee for Your Heart

“What encouraging words do you want the people you care about to hear as they begin a new year?”

A part of my goal for this year is to step out of my comfort zone and to connect with real people so I am doing that right now.  I'm doing the link up with Holley Gerth who is an amazing cool person and I haven't even met her!  She is a great author and I follow her blog.  So this is the first link up of the year and here I go.

“What encouraging words do you want the people you care about to hear as they begin a new year?”

I want us all to hear you can do it, you are accepted, you are loved, you can make positive changes.  You are enough...live your life with light and love and you will be ok.  Life isn't always easy but it is always beautiful.  Sometimes it a beautiful mess and I want everyone to know that YOU are somewhere in that beautiful mess and YOU are beautiful too.  We are all different and how wonderful is that?  If we were all alike it would be no fun.  You do not have to be "the same" to feel love and give love.   You are love...those are the most important words that I want people to hear as we being this new year.  Thank you Holley Gerth!

Finally 2014

Acceptance 2014-  Funny this is my title and this is the first entry in 2014 :).  To be honest I tried to write a post one evening and couldn't log on and so I gave up.  Here I am again....2014....I waited and waited for this year.   It is here and so am I and nothing is really different.  Of course not, it wasn't like I expected miraculous immediate changes but there is a happy in the calendar actually changing.  Surviving the last year is done and I will never have to do that again.  There will be other trials but those are over.  I watched as my family fell apart in so very many ways.  As soon as I typed those words my eyes filled with tears and one slid down my left cheek because to say that or type it or express it in any way makes my heart break.  It is the truth though, my family of origin watched my father grow very ill and die surrounded by all of us- to have had the experience of watching a death was not something I really ever considered that I would do.  However as my father grew more and more sick I knew I needed to be there.  It is a strange process in which time stands still and yet it is over before you know it.  They give you the books with the signs to watch for and with my father it certainly followed the outline so that on the final day it was pretty apparent that was it.  It was time for him to go.  He is at peace.  My mother who took care of him day in and day out for over a year is trying to get her life back and it appears she is doing ok.  Other family members I worry about much more because of a history of depression, substance abuse and suicide attempts.  This is one of those
"I am learning to let go of" things because I cannot make it ok.  What will happen will happen. 

My marriage- fell apart like broken glass that cuts as it falls.  My fault, his fault, our fault....certainly not our child's fault.  Yet she is the one who has to go back and forth.  This thing I said I would never do, I am doing.  I chose it for various reasons.  I question those on a daily basis, is it, was it the right thing to do? The final straw, the I'm done?  I don't know.  I don't know.  I know it was not ok and I don't think it could have become ok.  The relationship was filled with lies and half truths and not much honesty about how we really felt.   The excuses, the change this, no change that and it will be ok just did not make it ok.  Of course I am at fault and of course he is at fault.   How to proceed?  I don't know.  So it is day by day...one day at a time.  FYI anyone reading this please know that my grammar is terrible and I don't really care.  This is for me and I hope and think it is not attached to my real name but if it is it is because this is all my truth and my story. 

My income and my self esteem is very career based and that has been cut in half.  I struggle with how to handle it.   My instinct says work more but in doing that I am not giving 100% to my child and that is not ok.  So we handle it another way....cuts here and there and save money.  No need to shop for clothes etc, I don't need anything but it hurts to not be able to.  It feels good to be there for my child though.  My esteem needs to be based in ME and who I am not what I do.  This is tough for me because I don't know who the hell I really am.  I am sober and grateful and have committed but not really gotten into working AA and the 12 steps.  Today was my last good "excuse" it's back to school tomorrow so no more "legit" reason to put off the work on me.  Oh how scary that is because what if I don't like me anymore?  What if I put myself out there and other people don't like me?  It matters but it doesn't at the same time.  I matter and I have to do this.  I have time and have to use it to work on me.  Exercise, eat healthy, write, read, express with art and pictures, work the steps with a sponsor...these are the things that I GET to do starting tomorrow.  I have started to some degree...some writing here and in a journal, some photos and a new found passion for Instagram, have been eating pretty good.  Tomorrow is it though.  Up at five for coffee and mediation and no computer.  No computer or email or fb until my child is at school and I have worked out.  This actually JUST came to me.  While less technology has been a consideration it wasn't until just now that this came out and I realized that I need that.  Whoa it will be tough because is it such a habit.  If I wake up in the middle of the night at times I will check my email and FB. Really?  Am I so important that someone must give me info that I must see before daylight or will a message or post on FB be so important that I can't wait?  Of course not it is just habit and it is a habit to break.  So there...I said it and I will do it.  Possibly some exercise before my daughter wakes up, get us ready, get her to school and then exercise for me.  Some things are just going to happen.  New gym in town that I signed up for in December but due to money was not going to follow through with.  I forgot that I apparently signed up and gave my bank info for the auto withdrawal but there it was in my bank account- 3 months.  I guess I need to be there and the women who are starting it are amazing and this will be a good thing for me.  It's paid for got to use it now :)  Then home for some computer time and computer work and I need to get myself to an AA meeting at 12.  That will get me started.  I have to remember the no computer before school and exercise- good way to start my day being present.  Time for some reading now.  Good night all.