Why? Because
anyone looking at my life would think I’ve got it made. I have my health, an
amazing son, great family and friends, a beautiful home, money in the bank, and
a robust dose of skills and talent. But these are all external influences.
How do we give
ourselves permission to sort through the yuck when our soul hurts and when we
feel profoundly wronged and lack clarity and purpose? How do we move past the fear of feeling we’re
forfeiting our faith, perspective and gratitude for the emotional fragility
we’re facing?
As a woman of
faith, I struggled with the raw emotion I was experiencing through my
circumstances. Not only was I confronting a job loss, but agonizing isolation.
My support systems are thousands of miles away. I live in total day to day
seclusion that, at times, crushes me. Intrinsically, I knew God had his hand
over me and would guide me through this difficult period; however, boiling
inside of me was a cornucopia of emotion that needed to be confronted.
One morning I
sat in silence and wrote out the ugly I was feeling. I gave myself permission
to have an honest dialogue, without guilt, over what I was experiencing.
And this is what I wrote…
I am angry. I am
frustrated. I am confused. I am afraid. I feel painfully isolated. I feel lost.
My heart hurts. I am weary from crying. I feel irrelevant. I feel lack of
clarity. I am exhausted from the continual dialogue and replay in my head.
I am drained from fighting to be strong. I feel like a fraud for appearing to
be strong when I’m crumbling inside. I feel humiliated. I feel taken advantage
of. I feel as if I give more than I get. I feel grief for the time I’ve lost. I
despise this and those who brought these circumstances into my life. I don’t
want to feel like this anymore!
I spoke these
words over and over until I could read them without wanting to cry. Until I
could fully give them over to God to dispose of. Until I no longer felt a pang
in my heart. Until I owned them and obliterated their power over me. It was
intensely cathartic and freeing. I was no longer running from the complex
matrix of emotions that chased me morning, noon and night, but rather, I had
driven a stake into its putrefied heart snuffing out any ability for it to beat
further. By doing so, I was able to eradicate the mountain of ill my soul was
feeling and replace it with grace and peace, and have clarity of vision and
purpose again.
It’s ironic that
when we strip ourselves to such humbled vulnerability, we become fiercely
empowered. By authentically owning what we’re experiencing and facing it head
on, we become stronger than the storm raging in us. We now own the storm and
have the power to bring the howling winds of all the negative emotions we were
feeling to a silence. Once in the silence, we can look out from the docks edge,
take in the tranquility and beauty of the new horizon, whisper a prayer of
gratitude for the strength to have conquered yet another storm, and then set
our compass in the direction of our next journey.
