Starting Over
Starting over, the one thing that I never even imagined would be something I would be doing in my life, let alone at 40 years old. Starting over, looking around to survey the damage you thing what just happened here. I had given up my job, my career, had given away my power, and had spent years performing trying to measure up to what they told me I needed to be. I found myself sitting there wondering, what the heck is next, now what.
Four years later and I once again find myself faced with the reality of starting over, but this time it is different. This time it is starting over in an entirely new location, a new state. A place where nothing is familiar, nothing is recognizable, everything is new. I find the depression over this move, the reality of having to let go of my old life overwhelming. How do you start over again? How do you let go and move beyond the comfortable, familiar life you finally had built? A life that you loved, a house that was your home, friends you cherish. I had restarted only to find myself in the place of having to restart all over again.
At first, I simply keep myself busy, there was so much to do in getting a new home around. I was hoping that the business would push the depression away but those things catch up with you eventually, usually in the still moments when you aren’t doing. I realized that trying to push it aside was not going to allow me to work through what needed to be dealt with and I was only prolonging the inevitable. I needed to allow myself permission to grieve the life that I had given up and left behind. I needed to allow myself the time and be OK with this starting over no matter how it looked and how long it took.
Difficult feelings are something that I do not enjoy, I mean who really wants to feel those things? Starting over is lonely. Starting over makes you look at your life and really evaluate what is important, what you value and what you cherish.
This move has caused me to purge many things in my life, and not just the items that we had collected over the years. I have found myself reexamining thoughts, beliefs, and unhealthy mindsets. I’ve taken time to explore my relationship with Spirit, my inner guide, my intuition. I have used this time of being alone to not just set up our new home but to also allow myself time to set up the attitude of being open and willing to receive whatever Spirit has next for me. Whatever that looks like. I am not rushing into friendships, I am not rushing into decisions I am waiting and expecting. This has been a huge experiment in trust for me trusting myself and my inner guidance.
When everything crumbled and I was trying to figure out what pieces I still believed trust became an issue. Fear lead me to a place where I didn’t know what to trust anymore and even trusting my own gut was questionable. In this time, I can see Spirit opening me up again to trusting myself and the wisdom that lies inside of me. I’m becoming more open to the fact that there is a greater power that wants nothing but the very best for me. I still do not like to use the name God only because that word has so many negative connotations for me still based on my past experience of who man wanted me to believe he was so I prefer to use Abba or presence at this point. I don’t get caught up on the terminology her as He is who He is and He knows. I think the many names he goes by varies because we each experience Him in our own unique ways. The name we use is exactly what we need to allow us to connect with this source of Love that has always been.
I’ve long since grown past the need of convincing others or defending my beliefs, I am no longer concerned with what others judgements about me are, I am simply content to just be who I am and know that where I am and what I believe is exactly where I need to be. I can find love in recognizing that we are each unique and different and my journey will not look like anyone else’s. Many may not understand where I am at and many may judge me in their own perceptions as being lost, misguided, or fallen away but what I know in the depths of my soul is I am loved, I am deeply connected to a source that is so much more than me that I feel it wash over me in those moments of raw honesty. Even now I feel this presence of love urging me on to share my truth, to share my heart, to share my journey so that others like me know that they are not alone.
So many have been ostracized by the “church” so many have been deemed “wrong, less than, offended, insubordinate,” by men who have made it their place to be judge and jury. So many have experienced the dark side of religion only to walk away and realize that in Love there is no darkness. I invite you to this place, this piece of heaven, where there is no judgement, no jury, only Love. I say to you, you are safe here, you are exactly where you need to be and you are exactly who God created you to be.
There is nothing wrong with you, you are not less than, lacking, or defective. Hear me when I say, I am deeply sorry for the hurts you have experienced in the name of “God.” I pray that you would find peace in this place, I pray that you would connect to the source of this deep love here and allow it to show you just how loved and accepted you truly are. I pray that man’s past words and perceptions of you that sliced you like a knife would evaporate in this presence of love and you could fully embrace the only truth about who you are, the truth that Love alone can reveal. Only Love knows you, and only in it will you experience all that you need.
