So much has happened in the four months since my last post… I’ve formally opened my bookkeeping business, been working more closely with my three forever coaches and our evolving relationships, continued to reevaluate my political, moral and social justice perspectives and I’ve even been revisiting my abandoned faith. So many opportunities for growth, bonding and love!
It’s been all about letting go of pride and bitterness and the value of opening doors that I’ve closed and even locked. After word went around in January that I’d restarted training with my first coach, I’d often hear friends say how impressed they were with my ability to let go of the past and how they’d never be able to do it. That’s a widely held perspective that we all fall prey to sometimes, but it’s a killer and one that I know could lead to death or destruction.
I love this coach. Even at my most angry, hurt or disappointed, I couldn’t force myself to hate. I could only step away to work through the feelings, heal and hopefully gain a healthy perspective. Healing was vital for my wellbeing and it took effort and time. I somehow knew in my heart that it was possible, just like it has been with all of my most important and troubled relationships… dad, mom, husband and girlfriend, I’ve reopened doors and come to peace with them all.
If I lock the door to my pain and don’t allow myself to feel, grieve and heal, I also close the door to all the joy in the relationships that came before the pain. With this coach it was no longer experiencing his unique insights, brilliance, unbridled passion, selflessness and wonderful playfulness. When I was finally ready to open the door, he was there to meet me half way and I will always treasure that.
I’ve squandered so much time nursing old slights, both real and imagined, that I’m heartsick over the waste. Maybe with closing in on 60, I’m feeling my mortality now because each day above ground has become very precious. Regardless of the cause, I want to live with an urgency, knowing that every day I don’t let myself do what calls to my heart or be with those I love, is another day I’ll never get back.
So I embrace doing the uncomfortable for the sake of relationships, love, growth, and most of all for God. I’d not realized until this morning, just how severely the pain of rejection to my 17 year old self had locked the door to a relationship with God through Christianity. I’ve fiercely guarded that lock ever since, while spending countess hours and resources looking for other paths…. never, ever finding one that touched me deeply enough to hold me.
Last weekend I unlocked another door and walked through the discomfort of preconceived notions and the unknown. I did it again yesterday and I did it again today. I didn’t die. Instead, my heart has opened a little more and the world has become a friendlier place to explore and enjoy. It doesn’t matter how I feel, no matter how awkward, vulnerable or uncomfortable. It only matters that I choose to surround myself with love and community with all its humanity and imperfections, especially my own. So I’m going to keep walking… through one door at a time. ❤️
Side note… I finished listening to Can’t Hurt Me a few weeks ago. The Audible version was dramatically more powerful than the book alone would have been. As I posted last time, I’ve already done the work that David suggested in the challenges, so I just focused on listening to his life stories, remarkable history and perspective. He is incredibly inspiring and I highly recommend listening.