In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:1-5
Too often, I think, we see the “darkness” as the world around us – wars, greed, poverty, world leaders, etc etc and we pray that “they” will change. Yes those things are darkness things. But I think too often we forget the darkness within each one of us, the darkness that makes us fearful, anxious, worrying, not able to give freely, not able to fully lean on God and trust them, that makes us always need answers rather than to live in the mystery.
For me this video from Instagram says much clearer what we can be like when we let the darkness take over and also how we can be. [Do try to watch it all because it helps make this post make better sense if you watch all of it]
So are we willing to do the work, to let Jesus, who is the light of the world, shine into our own dark places? Are we willing to surrender our dark places to a God we cannot see, often cannot understand, and who sometimes seems to do things we rather they didn’t do?
But if we are willing to do that via whatever means that change the thoughts that are so deeply imprinted in our minds then we can be like the guy on the video – at peace and appreciating what is around us.
Early morning beach walk photographed by myself January 2025
Of course part two is “Jesus is the Truth” but what does that mean in our post modern world?
Again ask different Christian groups, especially on subjects like same sex relationships, sex outside marriage, abortion, even how much and how to tithe, what is the truth that Jesus want for us in these areas, and each group would give different answers.
My friend was telling me the other day how her 11 year old niece is now idenitfying as a boy. That is the truth, they say, about themselves.
In the Alpha booklet it says about intellectual truth [head knowledge] and experiential truth [heart knowledge]. I think even that is open to interpretation since learning all these things through Gabor Mate [Body Keeps The Score], other doctors exploring that field, and through what I’ve learned about myself through QEC and writing my story. Both our intellectual truth and our experiential truth are faulty. They are open to interpretation depending on how we have remember situations, how we’ve dealt with things, what has been hooked on to our DNA, who we are trying to please.
So what does Jesus mean by this?
I think firstly we do need to do work on our own hearts and our own ways of looking at life. I was with a group of people the other day and at one point I took a breath because I realised we were all trying to put our truth forward and our truth, even our truth about how we see Christianity worked out, was all to do with how we had reacted to certain things because of the traumas and worldviews we all had.
An example comes to mind of how, many years ago, at a large charismatic Christian event the speaker said something along the lines of “I can see Jesus wanting to enfold you in his arms”. Well the person I was with walked out. Turned out she’d been abused and the idea of Jesus just randomly coming up and wrapping arms around her frightened her. Now if someone had said Jesus wanted to come and have a gentle chat with her she would have been up for that. I’m sure the speaker would have been very upset to know they had upset someone like that. So again one person’s heart truth is not the same as another’s.
Do I have a rounding-off final paragraph for “what is it Jesus means when he says “I am the truth”?” No I don’t. But what I do think is that we all need to take our hurts and our traumas to God, to Jesus, and be willing to let them take our traumas, etc. We need to let got of our idea of what is truth and what is right because we don’t know because we have all been hurt. And I think once we are ready to do that then we might get close to know what Jesus means when he said “I am the Truth”.
Cute picture of my dog and cat being inactive – photographed by myself Dec 2024
James says “faith without works is dead” [James 2:26]
After yesterday’s Upper Room gathering and rehearsing with the young people for the Nativity play, I realised God works this way too – sharing deeds to help our faith. Probably if one looks properly all those things we say the Bible says God wants us to do God’s doing them anyway.
In the Upper Room we got into talking about ways we had really seen God show up – a nurse suddenly appearing to suggest a treatment which saved a dying mother, a head on crash being diverted by the car suddenly being in a lay-by, a vision of a car which slowed the driver down and stopped her being hit, etc, etc, etc. We all had some story or another. But I also wonder how many more things had happen to us that were God’s intervention but we didn’t see because we weren’t being observant enough?
When we are fully present in the moment we see the things God has for us, I believe. Then instead of worrying about our circumstances we can be in that place of openness, observation and deep joy. But we do need to be in that place.
With the QEC work I do our practitioner talks a lot about keeping one’s autonomic nervous system in a place of calm which we learn to do by saying things like “I’m safe, your safe, we’re safe” or “my ANS in a calm and stasis” or for me spending time free writing and letting my heart seep out of my pen then adding in some different beliefs.
So where am I going with this? Well for me I like QEC because not only do I see it work in myself but I see it working with my practitioner. She isn’t just talking the talk she’s walking the walk. [Faith and deeds]
The reason I like God [and struggle with much of organised religions] is that I see things that align with what is being talked. Like with the stories from the Upper Room community – God in action.
So back to the Christmas story. The other day I said that people believed Mary because they had faith and trust in her; that she was the only human who really knew how she got pregnant. But actually if one reads the Christmas story then there is more to it than that.
Firstly we have to let go of all we have been preached and also all of modern life. Jewish communities did NOT have a stable on the edge of town where Jesus would be born away from prying eyes. He would have been born in the town. Even if there were people who did not believe Mary’s story about how she got pregnant they would still have taken her and Joseph into their home because there was no where else to go.
Jesus was born into a home not away from everyone though much of what we hear preached and are encouraged to believe now is that Jesus was born on the outside. As I read recently [but have lost where] religion, and so ourselves, likes the idea of Jesus being born in a stable on the edge of town where we can go and visit him rather than being in our homes where we are stuck with him all the time.
Next angels appear to shepherds. It says “the brightness of the Lord’s glory flashed around them” [Luke 2:9 CEV] So you’ve got shepherds on a hill above the town. Close enough to run into the town to see the baby. It wasn’t like we are now with light pollution and whatever. The place was in pitch darkness so even a small fire would be seen for miles and miles. Suddenly, up on a hill, there is light. Someone in the town would have seen it.
Then these shepherds hurry down from the hill to see Jesus. It doesn’t say they wait till daylight. So they’ve got torches and all sorts and I suspect they weren’t being quiet.
Also remember now we’ve got Mary, Joseph and Jesus in someone’s house not in a stable on the edge of town. I’m suspecting those shepherds didn’t get the right house the first time. I suspect they knocked on a few doors before they found the right one. But also I am suspecting because of the light and noise of the angels that people in the town were up.
This was no secret on the edge of town birth. This was big. This was noticeable.
God asked for faith and then gave deeds to help with that faith.
As I’ve pondered it this year I would love to think of Joseph and all his relatives in Bethlehem thinking that they would love to believe Mary because she is such a sweet person and so reliable and trustworthy, but then God comes along and does the deeds thing and they go from that small seed of faith to that tree of full blown belief.
Maybe too it is how those of us who accepted Jesus by faith have been able to hanging in there during the tough times because God gave us something more tangible too?
Faith without deeds is dead – and because God knows our fragile hearts they are able to give us deeds to help us with our faith.
Peaceful Christmas to everyone who reads this. And keep your eyes wide open to see what really is going on around you.
My hallway with and without extra lights – December 2024
This dog totally believe he is good, where he is is good and life is just good, especially if I am with him. Photographed by myself at Newborough beach, Anglesey October 2024
Renly believes that wherever I am is good and that he is good and that life is good. Did you know God is omnipresent which means God is with us all the time? So surely we could then at least believe that we are good – very good.
So Genesis 1:31 says God made humankind and said humankind is good; very satisfactory, our best, pleasant, interesting, better than anything else we’ve made. [paraphrase]
very satisfactory, pleasant, interesting, better, best
But do we believe it? Do we even get taught it in many of the churches we’ve been to? Too often we get taught that we are sinful, that unless we accept Jesus [whatever that might really means] we are condemned to eternal damnation, and need to repent.
I will go back to the whole idea that sin is just missing God’s mark, which we all do, but isn’t about not being made good.
Sometimes, I think, good can appear a bit of a weak word. A bit like nice. A word that is used more when things are not bad but not great, which is why I’ve added in the Cambridge Dictionary definition.
I think God looks at us and when they say good they mean more on the amazing side of ok than the “just got through” side. How about if we looked at that verse and realised that when God says good it means that we are pleasant, interesting, very satisfactory, the best for the Creator of The Universe to want to hang out with. And not just when God first made Adam and Eve but when God made each and every one of us!
But too often we get caught with the things we’ve done wrong, the hurts we’ve endured, the traumas we’ve picked up, the intergenerational stuff that hasn’t been cleared, and we look at ourselves through all this hard outer shell stuff and we forget that we were made good.
I also think it is this hard outer shell that can make us do horrid hurtful things to ourselves and to others.
I think the amazing thing about healing and learning to trust and hang out with God – whether this is through QEC, Sozo, Freedom in Christ, other trauma healing stuff from wherever, hanging out with friends who see through our hard shell and enjoy being with us, or even a phrase or sentence that slides into our hearts and chips away at that shell – is that we do see that shell for what it is; something that kept us safe from stuff that was going on around us but it is not us. And we will be safer without it.
So as we see the shell for what it is and even get to chip away at it we learn to see ourselves as was originally intended; without the “good/bad” judgements we and others place on us; without those epigenetic tags our ancestors and ourselves picked up; without the mistakes we have made. We start to see ourselves as good, very satisfactory, interesting, pleasant to be with, the best.
And I for one think that if the Creator of the Universe thinks I am good then who am I to argue????
‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
Numbers 14:18
Until Friday I’ve struggled with this verse. How could God be forgiving and abounding in steadfast love yet still visit the sins of the fathers on their children? Friday, whilst doing some QEC with a small group around inter-generational trauma beliefs it dawned on me what it all meant.
Sins is always a word we get hung up on. Too often it is seen as “wrong things” we have done and then someone decides what is wrong and what isn’t. Like gossiping and even covering over misdemeanors is alright but fancying someone of the same sex or sleeping with someone you aren’t married to are “sins”.
Years ago I heard a sermon saying sin was just missing God’s mark and God’s mark is to put God in the centre of all things all the time. That’s how the apostle Paul can say “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” [Romans 3:23]. Since hearing that this has always been my way of looking at “sin” and I will read it that way, even pray the “Lords Prayer” that way –
Forgive me when I don’t make God’s mark and do as God would for myself, others and the world, as I forgive those who hurt me by not hitting God’s mark for me
[forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us]
So what are the sins of the fathers? I think it should read “sins of our ancestors”. These are those traumas that stay in families and become norms. But they are inherent traumas that effect our mind, body and also our DNA. This can be anything from the belief that “all my family die in their early 70s”, “all my family have arthritis/diabetes/are anxious/don’t do birthdays/add your own” to saying “this is what we’re like as a family”, “it is in my DNA/my make up” as if that is it.
Did you know that there have been studies around genetics and when mice [whose DNA is really similar to humans] experience traumas epigentics tags are added to their DNA which then get passed on to their babies and grandbabies. Do use this Wiki link to read more and use the references to go further Epigentics Ir is totally amazing and for someone like myself who’s been exploring and noticing this sort of thing for a while it makes so much sense.
So back to Numbers 14:18 whether we actually know our ancestors or not, just looking at our recent history shows the traumas that have been faced; The Great Depression, two World Wars, the Cold War, fear of nuclear attack, plus racial abuse or fear of being “over-run” by “others”, fear of lack, of not having “enough”, the education system of having to get good grades, hospital waiting lists, etc and we’ve all experienced untimely deaths and fears of untimely death. So take all those in the last 100+ years and that is a lot of shit that’s happened which, of course, has led to lots of trauma, real and imagined, which has led to one’s DNA adding these epigentic tags to keep us safe.
These, I believe, are the “sins of the fathers”. But, from doing QEC and other inner healing things I know I can get rid of these tags, can be free to be who I am intended to be.
And also forgive those in my past, whether I knew them or not, for accepting those traumas and not being healed from them, and forgive myself for passing those traumas on the my children.
Then I can truly live out the New Creation [2 Corinthians 5:17] God promised I’d be, but I do have to do a bit of work to get there!
We’ve got our Upper Room house group tonight and I’ve been pondering what I’d like to share when this verse came to me. So as I walked the dog this morning I got to pondering about what that “yoke of slavery” really was.
Whilst away I’ve see a lot of people who are trapped, many of whom are Christians, trapped by many things; by holding on to hurts and hates from many years ago and having to regurgitate them; trapped by issues in their upbringing which makes them repeatedly behave in a certain way and where their response is to say “it must be my/our upbringing” even though actually they don’t like those characteristics both in themselves and in others; trapped by diagnoses of mental health or behavioral ways again with this “this is just what I’m like”. When challenged on all these things from the regurgitating hurts to the characteristics, etc the response can be quite aggressive and almost a “so you don’t love and accept me as I am”.
Now I believe totally that God loves us unconditionally just as we are [and from that we are to love others unconditionally] but I also think God wants us to be freed from the “yoke of slavery” that is the often the “this is just what I am, I can’t help it” especially if it holds us back from being content with ourselves and with our lives – good, not so good, bad and downright horrible.
I believe to be in the freedom that is talked about here is NOT determined by circumstance, situation, or survival [which I think is a lot of what brings on these “I can’t help it” responses]. I believe this freedom comes from showing ourselves totally to God and to ourselves as we are, warts, traumas and all, and allowing God to set us free in whatever way they see best; counseling, QEC, therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous type group, or just that touch of God without any human intervention.
As with the joy, peace and love, I believe Freedom is a gift from God that is set before us waiting for us to take hold of. This doesn’t mean we will always be safe from falling back into that slavery of comparing, of judging, of fear, of feeling inadequate unless …, but it gives us a rock, a safe place, to crawl back on to, a place to remember that we are not bound by the slavery of being pitched by the waves of thoughts and feelings and situations. But we are totally free.
I had a few times over the past week where I could feel myself sliding back into old patterns of behaviour which came from fear, from survival, from old habits, but I either reached to God or asked others to pray from me and that put me back on that rock of freedom away from those “yokes of slavery” that would have dragged me back into old patterns of behaviour which were not wholesome either to myself or to those I was with.
Even today I had to stand on this rock because instead of the regular 10-12 people coming to our Upper Room evening there are only 6, 2 of which are myself and my husband! I heard the “old me”, the “enslaved me” saying things about how it wasn’t worth preparing for, how we ought to have invited more people to allow for there always to be a “crowd” coming, and fear of how it might not work out. Because I had already had to deal with these thoughts in regard to my writing groups – where I used to cancel if only 2 people were coming but now happily run them even if only 1 person is there, so long as that one person is happy about it – I was able to bonk these thoughts on the head very quickly. Or as the Bible says “take these thoughts captive”, which seemed to release this blog and so bless many more than those who will turn up tonight.
I’m reading article after article about beaches and roads in my area being rammed full of people and cars to the point where things are gridlocked – both on the roads and on the beaches with no-one wanting to give up their space and their “right to be there”.
The day the above photo was taken we came back to the tiny car park where we’d part to find a fleet of about 10 cars had arrived and were trying to get into the space which was already at capacity. They were blocking people in and blocking the road. When it was suggested they go to the car park down the road which was bigger and may have spaces I was told by one lady she “wouldn’t walk anywhere.” Yes it did turn out that they were scattering an aunt’s ashes but it was a hot Sunday afternoon and other people were wanting to be out. But they wanted to do it then and so they felt they should be able to do it then. The same as with all these people who go to the beaches – they want to do it that day because it is nice and so they should be entitle to go where they want.
My daughter works in hospitality and she says, along with many others that I know in the hospitality industry, that people are getting ruder. They come in at busy times and demand a table and get angry if there isn’t one available, or if they are told the establishment is closing in half an hour. They want to eat in this place now and so feel entitle to do it as and when they want. She also says there are less people who say please and thank you, more small children allow to run about in busy restaurant with no heed for the safety of the child or the staff.
I remember many years ago someone allowing their child to run around the cinema during the film shouting. When I spoke to the parent I was told that if that was what he wanted to do he should be allowed to do it. I am told this sort of things has increased since lockdown, that sense that if they want to do that they should be able to no matter how it effects others.
As always I want to know where this sense of entitlement comes from. I’m told it has increased since we had those 18-24 months of lockdowns where we were restricted in what we did. But why?
Did Covid give us a fear of death? A fear of our own mortality? But then why should that make so many more behave individualistically and feel like they should be able to do what they want when they want? Wouldn’t/shouldn’t fear of death, of our own mortality, make us want to care for our fellow humans more, care for our planet more, just care more? But this doesn’t seem to be the case with a lot of people.
From reading various books about trauma and the research around it I think I might understand why a wee bit why people are reacting as they are. When one is scared one’s polyvagal nerve is out of sync and one’s autonomic nervous system is on high “meerkat”
[I’ve been using the concept of meerkat for being on high alter since I heard a talk by Jane Evans about 15+ years ago where she talked of the brain being like three animals – the meerkat which is primordial part of our brains which reacts to things and is on high alert and sends the adrenaline coursing through our bodies and would at one time have stopped us being eaten by a tiger, the elephant part which remembers everything even if it can’t remember why it should remember that – for instance as a baby a door slamming meant parent was in a bad mood so the quieter baby was the more chance of not being shouted at, who then as an adult goes quiet whenever any noise like a door banging happens because of that unconsciously remembered trauma, and then there is the monkey that is our conscious acting out life part which lives in the present but takes all its cues from the meerkat and elephant (be careful because some books call the meerkat the Chimp so that can be confusing!!)]
So I think that the reason so many people are feeling like they should be allow a table at a restaurant or pub whenever or to be able to go to the beach or for the whole family to turn up in different cars to scatter aunty’s ashes without cause of how busy things were or whatever when they want to is because they are living within that fear that covid and lockdown imposed on us. I am suspecting that lockdown triggered something else, some childhood trauma, some embedded generational trauma, and they are reacting, because reacting is what we do when our meerkat is running the show. Unless we know how to give those things to some higher power, to God, to The Universe, and bring our autonomic nervous system back into alignment and release the fears and trauma, then we will think and truly feel like we are entitle to things – whatever our “thing” is.
But – now here’s the scary part – unless one is aware of this, aware that one is reacting not acting, then there is no way of being able to unplug, to stop feeling like one ought to be allow on this beach, to have this table in this restaurant, to do as one wants when one wants. One probably doesn’t even know one is living with a sense of entitlement.
So whether it is the riots we’ve been experiencing, the queues to instagramable beaches, the bad mouthing when a meal out isn’t as we’d have wanted, the grumbling about our health and care services, our education system, etc nothing will change until people become more aware that they are reacting not acting.
Conwy Mountain August 2024 photographed by myself
Going back to the incident on Sunday I noticed, because I have been doing work on myself with QEC, that yes I did ask for the cars to be moved because we wanted to get out, and did say that I felt they were being unfair on other people, but I noticed I did not lose my temper [even when the man in the car next to us swore at us for not moving as quickly as he would have liked] and I didn’t have that horrid feeling in my stomach for ages after. It happened. I said what I needed to say and then I let it go. I acted but did not react.
Dog on a train to Cardiff as always giving me all control – photographed by myself July 2024
I said I was going to come back from Cardiff and start on a series around the Aramaic version of the Lord’s Prayer but …. that was me making a plan and trying to be in control. Nothing is coming and if I wrote it would be dull without life. So I’m not doing it.
This, and a recent incident, got me thinking about control – controlling others, controlling outcomes, keeping control of ourselves.
Whenever I think of control the Gossip’s Standing in the way of Control song slides through my mind. Lots of crashing guitars, angsty singing over mega meaningful lyrics.
But what does standing in the way of control look like in my life?
Well, I had a recent incident where I had come up with a plan to make everyone happy on a family weekend then one part of the team refused to submit to my plan. Yes that’s now how I see it. They would not submit and say what a great plan it was. I know them well enough that I could have used all those old techniques to manipulate and guilt trip them into my way of control. Instead, because I am walking through this healing journey, which includes letting go of controlling situations and controlling others and stopping letting old patterns and ways control me, I had to accept this person’s decision, lovingly release my plan, and actual stand in the way of my control.
Ok so it wasn’t easy and I had to a lot of realigning and regulating my autonomic nervous system so all the adrenaline was not pushing me to my usual defensive “safe” positions. Of course the old patterns did try to peek out but I have let go of so much through QEC and talking with God that I knew they had been beaten and were just those old pathways not the new green pathways I was now free to walk.
If I am a whole person, loved unconditionally by God/The Universe, and can make my own decisions by listening to my heart, then I have to trust that others can also make their own decisions whether I like them or not.
Interestingly even though there is a little sadness in my heart I feel at total peace about the coming event. There is no angst within me at all. And, from what I remember, when I have had a tightly controlled plan for a family type event I have felt tense because I then need to coordinate it all. Letting go of control means that I can now just be and let all those I love who will be there just be themselves around me.
I have stood in the way of my own control and it is good. It is freedom. Perhaps it is also another thing to add to the True Freedom post 🙂
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”!
Single focus dog. Photographed by myself Cardiff April 2024
This week I have been distracted by many things. I’ve got 3 workshops I am running with funding from Creu Conwy which seemed to have taken ages to finalise but now are imminent. The first two are next week! Also they are in the evening – one from 5-7pm and the other from 6-8pm, times when I am usually in that downward curve energy-wise and just want to mooch about and watch TV. Though I have had a few nights where I have been functioning after my 6pm deadline – once with a new churchy-style group that we’ve started in my house and a couple of trips to the cinema with hubby. But I’m panicking about these workshops because I will have to be the one who is fully alert.
It has amazed me how quickly I get distracted. I’m also doing an online writing course which is great but again is making me worry about that old adage of “not having enough time”. How many times have I written about not having enough. Perhaps I need to be reading my writings not just writing them??
But it also means that, even though I have been reading my Bible meditations and thinking I’ve not been thinking deeply. Not letting things penetrate into my heart.
This week’s Henri Nouwen thoughts are about Celebrating and how one needs to be in that moment to really celebrate, how lots of what and when we celebrate is a going through the motions rather than actually celebrating. So the event is something that sits between the stress of planning and the anticlimax after the event, but that celebration should be a lifestyle thing. I need to remember that I am to enjoy running these workshops and not just caught up in the preparation and then the feedback.
So once again I am like Martha [Luke 10:38-42] where Jesus says “Martha you are worried about many thing but the better thing is to sit at my feetlike your sister“.
I was worrying about things. Ok not little things. These things are quite big – running these writing workshops, not being too exhausted because of the time I am doing them, getting the work handed in for the writing workshop I have paid for, and the having enough sleep, time, ability!
Interestingly the other night I was awake worrying about, of all things, having enough energy and enough time, exasperated by being awake from 3.30-5.30am. I had a full day in front of me and a long list of planning not just for the workshop but other things that I had to do. But, as you’ve probably already guessed, I got everything that needed to be done on the list completed and even managed to stay up till 10pm with my husband watching TV as well has having walked my 10,000+ steps. It was as if God was saying “look you can do it. All will be well”.
Also I do know I have the ability to run these workshops. I do an amazing job every Tuesday fortnight with my regular group and can pull things from the depths of my brain when needed. I know I can do it but I get distracted and once I get distracted I move away from God and also move away from celebrating the joys of being alive.
As I’ve said before though, there is an order for how this comes about. To really be able to feel I have enough I need to be at Peace. From that place of Peace comes a deep Joy and only then do I believe I have Enough. And what has gone on this week is that I had to realign my autonomic nervous system back to a place of peace – which does just take a few moments of breathing and looking at the window, of remembering what I have to be grateful for, and forgiving myself and others. For me going through the Lord’s Prayer but an Aramaic translation, helps me.
Only then do I start to remember that deeper joy that is a bedrock not a happy feeling. And it is then that I feel like I have enough. Today it means I can say “I have enough time to do a blog post – with many pictures – before going away for the weekend even though my first workshop is Tuesday”.
My whole thoughts have been consumed by these workshops to the point where a friend asked me for coffee and I said I was too busy!!! And also nearly didn’t go south with my husband to see his Mum which has now turned out to be a trip to see my Mum too. Goodness me! Fancy me thinking I don’t have enough time to see family or friends! As well as the Lord’s Prayer I did have to have a chat with my covid-bird to be reminded that friends and cups of tea are important.
Aspirational Adventures 