A Time To Explain and Turning It Over

A Time To Explain...

When I was younger I had a picture in my head of what my life would become.

I made lists and plans and more lists and more plans.

I was a major planner and along with it, a map of my own making.

I never thought about the fact that maybe the decisions I was making, while all of the planning was taking place, might not be the best one's at the time.

If the decision seemed to fit the plan than I took that road instead of another one that might lead into unplanned land.

I was far from adventurous. 

I was "safe".

I chose the path that made the most "sense".

I chose the path that I could control, although I was certainly wrong about that as I would learn much later.

Truthfully, control is overrated and honestly, all it does is suck precious energy that could be used in better ways.

Control may seem like it is working for awhile, but what one's begins to learn is that it is just a game and I HATE games.

Fast forward, to the end of 2011, as my world and my plans were unravelling before my eyes and I am fighting desperately for control and failing miserably.

I needed to make a decision and for the first time the map was blank.

No plans, no decisions already made, no path to follow, only the complete unknown.

This was mentally, emotionally, and physically draining for me. 

I needed to decide, but for the first time I would have to go off course. 

I would have to "rough" it and I knew that meant there would be a significant amount of pain and I HATE pain.

The decision came from digging deep inside myself. 

I have no idea why I never dig deep until I am so desperate that I cannot even think. 

When I have run out of thoughts and ideas is usually when the digging begins.

(I am working on figuring out a solution for this as we speak.)

The answer that was discovered was more painful than anything that, I decided, I would have to face.

The answer was that I had been living in pain for years upon years and ironically, over the most of that time I had been in physical pain as well.

If I had been ignoring my inner monologue my body wasn't.

Interestingly enough after I made the decision to accept the pain that would be caused to end my marriage, some of the physical pain was alleviated. 

Emotional pain replaced the physical pain though, but unlike fighting it in the past I let it roll over me like waves.

I have always been a spiritual person, but not religious. 

I have always been uncomfortable in church and would prefer to do my honoring of the Holy Spirit in the privacy of my own space.

I have always kept my spirituality to myself. 

I count my relationship with God as one of the closets relationships that I have, but if you asked anyone close to me they wouldn't be able to tell you this.

I am not one to flaunt it.

(Well, until now that I am sharing it with the world on the internet.)

The concept of turning it over wasn't foreign to me, but letting go in the process was.

I let go of the control and ...

When the pain became too overwhelming I started turning it over to God.

When decisions seemed too overwhelming I turned it over to God.

When I didn't want to wake up some mornings or even function enough to do what I needed to do during the day, I turned it over to God.

Every path I have followed  in the last 5 months has been directed by turning it over to God.

Here is where giving up control and turning it over has taken me...

Currently I have no plans.

Currently I have no map.

Currently my future is a blank book.

Turning it over is my new plan.

Currently I am more at peace than I have been all of my life.

When my new plan became turning it over to God, and allowing myself to finally listen to my inner and physical dialogue, the pain slowly subsided.

The process has been rocky especially when I feel out of control and fall back on old habits.

It is a constant factor of being aware of what is going on and turning it over to God.

So thank you kind readers for your emails and comments throughout this rocky process. We are moving towards the end so I felt that you deserved to know why I had made the decisions that I have made the last few months. For all of your who asked me how I was managing to get through it, turning it over and giving up control was the only solution (and a hell of a lot of counseling). Thank you so much for sticking with me and for the new friends that I have met through this process, thank you so much for keeping me going with your kind words.

Sincerely,

Julie