What do you do when things get tough? Do you retreat into the toughness and wallow there waiting for someone to lift you out? or do you see where life is going to take? Do you go with the currents of life and trust that “all will be well and all will be and all manner of things will be well” – Julian of Norwich
I’m sharing the picture above to encourage you to sign up to my friend, Rossie’s newsletter which you can find on her website if you click the link above. Here is a young woman who has walked through tragedy, sadness and defeat, but has found a way to journey through it. She isn’t one to wallow.
Many people, whether Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, other religions or none, choose between sliding into a pit of despair when something happens – big or small – that doesn’t reach their expectations, or rising above it and accepting it as life. This can the tragic loss of someone too young and too soon, or it can be a dream that didn’t come to fruition, a relationship that they didn’t want to end that ended painfully, an exam not passed, a job not got, etc. And I’m not saying these things are not horrendous. But some people choose to stay there and wallow, almost waiting for someone to pick them up and out of it – but it can often seem that no matter what is suggested they will find a way to stay where they are.
For each of us though there is a way up and out of it.
For Rossie it is her painting, amongst other things, – which she has now bravely gone and turned into her profession. For myself it is my writing – especially the free writing – but also chatting with people. I also love to help others find that freedom and release via writing. My writing groups are not “writing for well-being” per se but they are also not for people who really want to get a book published. They are for people to explore life, the universe, their feelings, etc, via the power of creative writing!
One of my biggies too is to be outside, especially by the sea, but my local park does the same. Just to walk and enjoy the simplicity of the natural world and all its wonders helps me to get outside my own troubles, issues, and disappointments.
Prayer and connecting with God is also another amazing way. But I do think to do that one has to want to trust God to be there, not to sort things out but to hold, to love, and to listen, for prayer to turn one’s heart around. Not the situation, but one’s heart. Too often, I think, there is a disappointment with God because he doesn’t sort things as the person praying would like – doesn’t heal, bring back from the dead, restore the relationship, make the dream work out as one hoped.
Healing via QEC is another one for me. I know others who’ve found a sense of healing through Sozo, talking therapies, and many other ways. But these things must be used as a place to be freed not to prolong things. The same is true is prayer. There is no point keep mithering at God that things didn’t work out as you wanted but, like with the above therapies, it has to be a way to be healed and to move on.
My point from this post is to say that my friend could have wallowed in her grief and despair, even whilst doing her painting, but she chose not to. [check out her photo on her website] But I know of many others who choose to stay in that place. And for some I think they stay, not because they like it, but because they believe the world is a scary place and so it is better to stay in their fear, anxiety, sorrow and loss, than to step out and get slammed all over again.
There is always a choice – to stay and wallow or to find a way out of that place.
If you check out my earlier blog – Diane’s Daily Thoughts – you’ll see I am talking from experience. And this blog from March 2012 only shows a snapshot of my journey through disappointment, loss and other shit. When someone read my Day of The Dead post they said “I didn’t realise you had dealt with so much loss”!
too. I don’t do the “watching music” normally – in fact I don’t often listen to music. In the car maybe but not just to sit down and listen to. I have to be doing something else. But someone from one of the writing groups that I run suggested we watch her. I have not been able to get her out of my head since. Then, as things generally do, I met with a friend for coffee and she was talking about similar things to the things Kate was singing about. Last night when I watched I also took notes of the things that had stood out to me the night before. The title of this blog is one of the lines and it is the line that fits in most with what my friend and I were talking about – “what we going to do to wake up?”
recompense, humility and most importantly to realise that we are connected and to live with unconditional love for each other.
what caused those young men to drive a van into people they didn’t know and then go on a killing rampage, what causes the person in the town next to me to want to stab his wife, what causes builders to put cheap inflammable materials into a building and authority figures to turn a blind eye, what causes suicides, murders, the need to buy sweatshop made clothes, to drink, etc etc.
there, stopped blaming them and started seeing how we can LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY. Perhaps we can only do that when we realise we are all connected, all loved and all have something to contribute?
Matthew 25 tells a parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. In the tale all ten of them are waiting for the bridegroom to turn up. It seems that this bridegroom doesn’t come at the time expected. In fact he is very late. Five of them had come without anything extra just in case and others had come with more oil just in case. When he did finally arrive the ones who had only got enough oil had run out but the others had enough left, though were reluctant to share. What struck me today was that all ten had come prepared but some were more prepared than others.
and see my daughter. Even though it was great fun it was still a very long day. Then on the Sunday I went to help out on Gwrych Castle open day, which again was enormous fun but tiring. Then in the week I had a meeting, a workshop every evening and every day, and a couple of other things going on. A very full diary. This weekend thankfully it has been calm and quiet, and last night husband was away and I had no guests staying. I am almost recovering. When I was in my 20s and 30s I could have breezed through this, but now it has taken a whole week to recover and I still feel a bit exhausted. I had enough but nothing left over.
churches I’ve been to there has been much preached on making sure you always have that extra oil. Yes I totally understand that, but I need to know what I now need to cut out so that I have oil left over.
asked to do. All valid reasons.
know what I think? I think he would have been on both sides. Yes both sides. Both sides are hurting and in pain – ok the refugees and those with green cards, etc stuck in airports have a noticeable need but the side behind the wall also have a need.
the news about the fences and walls being built across Europe to stop the refugees entering the UK. Yes this includes those fences that have now been torn down in Calais.
blessings from God.
Aspirational Adventures 