(Or FTS! Let’s Live!)
It surprised me to read that last post. I didn’t realize I’ve been on this particular path for so long. It’s been good. Really good.
I’m still on that journey. My journey. Figuring out who I am. Making choices. Choosing to make a choice for better or for worse. Letting it play out. Experiencing mistakes. Living in and through the discomfort when things aren’t going the way I want.
Each day it gets a little easier to remember that I have it within me to do the next right thing. Just breathe in, breathe out, let go of all the angsty shoulds, and wait. Listen. Remember who I am. Remember the kind of person I want to be. And then make a choice.
I’m getting to like me. I’m starting to treat myself better. I’ve been a rather emotionally abusive caretaker. My self-talk was hideous. I still struggle with it. I’m most struck by it when dealing with my son. I don’t want to pass this kind of hateful self-talk to him. The older he gets, the more I realize I’ve been practicing “Do as I say, not as I do”. (But doesn’t work). So, for the love of my son as well, I need to put the self-loathing aside.
In a significantly earlier (2011) post on this blog, I said,
“I wish I could live every moment with my mind in peaceful communion with God. But I am human, and I have a whole lot of stuff that drags me out and down. Mostly, my obsession with myself, my own thoughts, my own plans, my own ideas. Me.
I’m so tired of me. I want more.”
Now I know that wasn’t what was making me so tired. I was (and am) tired of fighting to NOT be me. I’m done with the idea that I’m supposed to hate everything about myself, that I need constant forgiveness for existing, for thinking, for breathing. I’m done with the belief that as a human I can be the source of no good. On one hand, we’re supposed to be creatures of such great value that Jesus gave his life, and yet, we are born sinful and no good can come from us? Which is it? You know what? I don’t care. I’m tired of wrestling spaghetti to come up with a straight line.
My best friend wrote a post this week and she had a beautiful analogy of this truth finding process involving a chalkboard. She wrote:
I imagined all the things in my life that I thought were true – whether perceived, learned, absorbed – written on a big chalk board. I then imagined myself erasing everything. Everything. Why? Because if it really IS true, it can’t be really be erased. It would keep appearing on my board. If it didn’t hold water, I didn’t want it. That is truth.
It really is such a relief to let the questions come and not construct an answer I don’t have naturally. That’s the peace I’ve been looking for. The answers I need will come in time. I’m not required to construct them out of nothing and call it faith. I’m going to believe what I believe. I’m going to ask questions when I want to know things. I’m going to rest quietly within and enjoy my life. That’s what I choose.
Lundie's Writings 