Live Your Life

The other morning, I woke up a 2:30am with a rapid fire in my mind of horrible harsh thoughts about myself. My chest was heavy and I couldn’t catch a deep breath. I felt like my whole world was going to crash down. THIS WAS NOT FUN! I mustered up enough strength to get out of bed and sit in my “reading chair”. I just sat there and stared at the clock. It was taking ALL my strength not to have a total panic attack! The thoughts going through my head were horrible! I would never say or think these things about anyone else but myself. 

What I wanted to do most in this was pull out my phone and go on Facebook or Instagram. I wanted to check out and distract myself from the awfulness that was going on in my mind! But I had a moment of clarity. I knew I needed to sit still and FEEL those feelings. Ouch! It hurt! I sat there for 5 minutes and just felt all that pain and insecurity. My head and mind were just a mess. I am a huge fan of journaling so I decided I wanted to get the craziness that was in my mind on paper. I wrote out all the thoughts as they were being pelted at me on paper. Oh man it was ugly. SO UGLY. I sat there and stared at that paper for another 5 minutes and had a good old cleansing cry.

My moto for 2018 has been breath in peace-breath out fear. Thankfully I have been working on this so it almost came natural to me in this moment of pain to start doing that. Deep breath in PEACE Deep breath out FEAR! Deep breathing is the BOMB. DO IT IF YOU DON’T ALREADY. I wanted to write the truth or negate all those things on the paper but in my heart, I felt them as truth. Who am I? What do I have to offer this world? I have wasted my life on eating disorders, I have a critical spirit, No one really cares about me, people just pity me…. Breath in peace…Breath out fear.

I am very much an active, visual person. Physically doing things brings much more meaning to me. We are blessed to have a wood stove so I started a big ole fire and burned that piece of paper! I watched that sucker burn. I prayed and prayed for those feelings to go away and for Christ’s truth to infuse my mind.

This is what came to my mind. Sometimes I gag when people talk about us ALL being special. Like, there are billions of us, I can’t be special. But the truth that came to me as I watched that paper shrivel and become ash is WE ARE ALL SPECIAL. I am special. There is ONLY ONE me. ONE, that’s it ONE! No one else is like me! Only one voice I have, one body I get to use, one mind that dreams and creates and ONE LIFE I GET TO LIVE. I realized that all those thoughts came from not feeling like enough or important. WORRYING ABOUT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK. Realizing what a distraction that is from actually giving back to the world. A thief of joy and peace. Destroying the blessing life can be. I want to actually live my life and not spend time beating myself up! That frees me to actually take care of myself in all areas of my life. What foods I put in, what activities I do and creating some pretty awesome smile wrinkles on my face.

Have you ever had a comment from someone that totally changed your day, the way you think about yourself, made you stand a little taller? I have had a few…A simple sentence can change your life…so you matter..your imprint…your words…THEY MATTER! Who cares if you don’t impact thousands of people. Impact ONE. We have the power to do that!

A quote struck me the other day. “I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free…so other people would also be free” ~Rosa Parks. What I love so much about this quote is a person who WANTED to be free. It doesn’t say who IS free, but WANTED to be free. This struck such a cord in my soul. This takes off a TON of pressure. We don’t have to be TOTALLY FREE, we just need to commit to WANT to be. BECOME A FREEDOM FIGHTER. This is a daily thing and this fight brings SO MANY BLESSINGS!

THERE IS ONLY ONE YOU! You have one life to live so LIVE IT. Who cares what other people think (they probably aren’t even thinking what you think they are thinking ). We don’t get a re-do on this life. Live your one crazy beautiful life in the unique way you were MADE TO DO! BE PRESENT. BE REAL. BE IMPERFECT. BE A FREEDOM FIGHTER! FREE PEOPLE FREE PEOPLE. You being awesome enables others to be awesome! Take care of YOU!