The only way out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAdSKK9lUEY&feature=share&list=PLtLO2NaPK96ltyqF6RVMg7mLtlb9htyyy

I made a video yesterday.  My first - because there wasn't one of it on youtube.  It's the song 'Revolutionize Your Soul' that I wrote about prior.  I am a little proud of myself, my very first iMovie.  I am not a movie maker!  Right.  But I set out to do something and actually accomplished it, so what the heck, accolades.  It isn't great, the order of the images isn't right, but they're there.  I love this song.  I'm a soul person.  To the bone.

I had a difficult day yesterday.  I was hit with something I had to digest.  Thus is why I did not write.  I'd like to say that I handled it perfectly, but I did not.  I may have a few answers inside of me, but my circumstances right now are less than perfect.  It was a family matter - what little I have, and it hurt me. There was little that I could do about it, other than I did, and even when I did respond, I got no response.  So I did what I have done in the past, I went shopping.  I know that this is not the answer -- however it was 8 p.m. and I'd been alone all day - two phone calls but no access to people.  I still have few (very few) friends here.  I have colleagues, but not what one would call friends.  My friends live away from here.  An I'm sorry, but even though we can explain our circumstances to others, no one knows our experiences like ourselves.  I'm very aware that I need people.  I just don't know where to get them.  It isn't as if one goes to the store and picks out a few.  If that were the case, I would not be alone.

It's interesting to watch my behavior, to know what I shouldn't do - and do it anyway.  I knew full well when I went into my savings and peeled off that hundred - and headed to shop - that I was trying to fix what had happened today.  I knew it was an attempt to cure the loneliness.  The thing is too, that I know it won't work, not in the long run.  I know that the shopping is a temporary fix.  However, it worked for about two hours.  I wanted to go to a bar.  I knew this was not an option.  So, I picked the lesser of two evils.  I suppose in the long run of what could have transpired, I did the right thing.  I'm still not real happy with myself.

I know from past experience and as a clinician that emotional turmoil needs to be worked through.  The only way out of it, is through.  Now here I sit with a new outfit, and earrings and a mind that knows I could have handled it better.  I went with my lesser mind.  I waited, but I still 'reacted' to my feelings earlier in the day.  I reacted instead of responding to the circumstances.  I know better than this.

Even when we know we don't alway do the right thing.  I wonder if this is what makes us human?  I full well know that I am motivated purely by feelings sometimes.  I have tried and work on staying in control of them daily.  I am tremendously more in control of my feelings than I used to be.  I guess with most things, it is work in progress.  If I'd have had a friend to say, go to a movie with - or even just a cup of coffee - perhaps this wouldn't have happened.  Yet, it isn't the end of the world mind you, and I know it.  I just know that repeating this behavior isn't good for me.  I don't like repeating mistakes yet I do it.  Loneliness is awful. I'm not certain what is the cure.  When I venture outside, I end up shopping. It is, what seems like and endless cycle.

I know that God has plans for me.  I know that things are going to get better an that this circumstance is just temporary.  I have to believe this.  I've had times when people were blowing up my phone, but most just wanted to tell me their problems.  I since stopped this.  I'm not the world's therapist.  When it came time for me to share, no one had time.  I'd rather be alone that hear everyone's problems.  If this sounds harsh, I'm sorry.  Life is just too short.  I'm compassionate, but this is just not how friendship is supposed to work.  I will not just be people's sounding board, people's sponge.  This is not healthy for me.  Then I have to walk around with all of their junk.  I've had to leave behind a few like this.

What I encountered yesterday is a small matter to what I've gotten caught up in before.  I've spent thousands.  I did it then and did not care.  Well, I did, but it didn't matter.  So I know that there is progress.  I was an ill person then.  I was trying to fix a huge emotional wound at that time.  The problem is that I know how to fix this stuff.  I know what I need, it just is not available to me at this time.  I need people.  I don't know if I am supposed to (and I'm really answering my own question here) be leaning more upon God that people - is this the answer?  I suppose it is.  If it is the circumstance, then it is the reality.  Hmmm.  Light bulb moment there.  I need to seek God for the answers.  He is the ultimate authority.

I've known for sometime and have written that nothing from the outside will fix the inside.  God isn't an outside job.  I know that the only way out of emotional turmoil is through it.  I'm still in this identity crisis.  I'm still becoming.  I guess as long as we're breathing, we're becoming.  I had a friend from Minnesota tell me yesterday, "you're not alone", and I believe him.  I know if anyone will be there for me, he will.  Even at that distance.  He was my little saving grace yesterday.  He is so sweet - he is my Mr. fixit.

I've been all over the place this morning - when in all actuality I wanted to write about trusting your process.  I'm not trusting my own.  I suppose this is why I'm so scattered and uncomfortable.  I have days when I'm uncomfortable in my skin.  I think it's shedding.  I'm becoming.  It feels uncomfortable.  It is forcing me to trust what I don't know.  Believe what I cannot see.  The woman that I was, is no more and who I'm becoming isn't clear yet.  It is propelling me to trust God in a entirely new way.  I can do it, I just have to remember to breathe.  I have to remember that it doesn't have to be fixed..... by me.  I'm so independent.  It is almost a curse.  It causes me to force God out at times.  I don't like that part of myself.  I am not sure how to surrender this.  I'm going to have to think, and pray.

Excuse my ponderings.  My blog is usually much more focused.  I am in a flux.  I will arrive.  I do know that I can't buy the ending, I can't eat my way there, I can't sleep my way, nor drive to it.  It is going to have to be derived by the emotional variety - just like everything else.  I've somehow have to let go of 'who' I was, to become all that I can be.  This will include parts of the old me for she is still alive in me.  Her strength, her dignity, her fortitude, her integrity, and her grace.  The confidence is what I'm lacking.  The difficult part for me is where it is going to come from.  This source yet, I do not know.  Inner strength, perhaps.  I just have to get up and keep going, and pray.  Believe it possible.  Envision it.  Propel it into being.  The one thing that I am sure of is that the only way I'm going to get there is through this time.  One day I'll look back and think, 'wow, I remember that', and know I can add it to my arsenal of experiences.  I'll have become, that which I now do not know how.  I will know that the only way out of it was through it.  Through the pain, the struggle, the not knowing.  As my friend says, "more will be revealed."  And as A.A. says, "There is one that has all power, that one is God - may you find Him now."