Do you feel like you can’t move or breathe? Do you just want to curl up in a ball and hide or are you feeling alone or unheard? Depressed and in the dark? Are you tightly gripping metal bars inside your prison of anxiety and panic? Have you lost someone or something dear to you?
I’m sorry. I feel your numbing pain. Some of you suffer quietly, silently so as not to give yourselves away.
Are you stuck somewhere? Caught on something that won’t let you move forward?
For some of us, we may be stuck – because we haven’t grieved. At least that is what a very wise man named Rick Warren put into my brain this past week.
When I hear the word Grief I think of the death of a loved one or a pet. Everyone who knows me knows how much I grieved over my bunnies. I’m sure many people thought I was grieving a tad too much over their lop ears and fluffy tails. But they were a deep loss to me. An unconditional connection. With loss comes grief. I don’t regret the shed of tears that washed over me for weeks.
You can’t have a beginning…without an ending.
You can’t have an ending…without a new Beginning.
That’s how it works.
It sounds so factual…it feels so fractured.
Who knew that there were so many things to grieve over? I didn’t.
Death, the loss of a marriage, a job, a friendship, favorite car, hope of having a child, your dream, moving from a home you love, a career, a childhood trauma, your addictions.
I find myself back in my childhood some days like it’s today.
I am knee deep in cement. Too young to know what was happening.
When it comes to my mistakes in life, I can’t even wiggle my toes. Things I would have done differently in relationships, doing better with my kids etc., those failures spin round and round in my mind. Stuck there.
I’ll admit, I have struggled deeply with rejection issues since the day I was born it seems. Anxiety the guide in my ear. I was so programmed this way and I didn’t even see it. I am adopted and had good parents, but the first 9 months of my life have greatly directed my steps. The years that followed l was the vessel of irrational fears. I wish someone had noticed.
I think I would have found I had wings if they had not chains.
Rejection is inevitable when someone has given you up.
(but…it doesn’t have to hold you hostage, I wish I had known that).
Over the years things have happened to me that were not of my choosing. I’m sure you have been there too? I have many scars. How deep are yours? I tried to heal some in all the wrong places. I hated the thought of not being liked. I didn’t want to be rejected again at any cost.
I know some of you have been there too.
Don’t get me wrong here, I take full responsibility for my choices. I do believe even though I made them in the dark about who I really am and why I was making them, they were still my choices.
Am I a victim? No, I don’t choose that. In fact, there have been people in life that have become victims because of me. Have you grieved the pain you caused others? Sometimes grief requires us to be honest with ourselves.
I have had to choose to get unstuck so to speak. I’m still not completely out of the mud yet on some issues. Are you? Have you lost your energy to fight?
Is any of this tugging at you?
People who care about me push me a little to get my feet on solid ground. They stand by to make sure, when I tip over, they will hold me up! Do you need a little push right now? Or do you need someone to hold you up?
What has your feet so cemented in one place? We all have something or someone.
Feeling so stuck while your entire world is shattering and you can’t move to start picking up all the pieces.
Are you a people pleaser? Are you trying to figure out why something so right went so wrong?
There are some people you can’t please because there is nothing that will ever–ever make them happy.
Stop trying. You’re going to keep feeling like a failure. Do you really want to feel this way for the rest of your life?
Here’s something you probably didn’t know. They don’t want you to succeed.
If you did, they would be back to having to find someone else to try and please them, to fill the holes someone else has dug so deeply in them. They will always be disappointed with your attempts.
It’s time to take your blinders off. The only person that can fill the holes they have–is the person who dug those holes.
I didn’t know this until my 40s! Don’t wait that long. You’ll end up with a lot of holes yourself.
Who are you trying to please? Your husband or wife? Your parents or friends? Your boss?
They need to get themselves unstuck but instead they try to get everyone else “stuck” with them.
Don’t get stuck there please. There’s so much more to you than what they are telling you there is…you are worth so much more.
I’m sorry for your losses, for your pain.
Grieving doesn’t mean that down the road your pain won’t still sting you in the heart.
You aren’t just going to magically get unstuck. You’re going to have to make the choice. Maybe the marriage will end. Maybe you will get a new bunny or a new job or the baby will come a different way then you planned.
There is a God who can take your plans and surpass them in ways you could never imagine. He knows how to move your feet and heal your heart. You don’t have to spend your life trying to win His love by pleasing Him because you already do just by being…YOU
Maybe this isn’t the moment you will “feel” ok. That’s ok too.
(Thank you for telling me you weren’t ready to feel ok, you made me slow down and listen.)
Don’t rush grieving, unfortunately you have to let it do its work. It’s not usually quick.
I know this, you will see some light gradually, you will see some goodness and you will learn things about yourself you didn’t even know existed. Grief and loss have a way of opening doors. I know that may sound crazy but it’s very true.
Talk to someone, when you’re ready I mean.
Grief peels back our layers. You are not alone.
No one has walked in your shoes. We all have our own souls. Your experiences are unique to you but there’s always someone who has walked a very similar path as you and may have good advice to keep you moving your feet.
Today I hope you have a glimpse of hope. Maybe you could even just wiggle those toes.
If you have just had an ending – You are on the brink of a new beginning….
Copyright © 2020 Harper J. Boots
