Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Claiming freedom




I wrote this post more than two years ago. I thought it'd be fun to re-visit it...

Sept 16, 2012
In January, I declared this year would be about freedom...freedom from fear of any kind. As some of you know, I ended up in the hospital right after I made my brave declaration. At first I was terrified. But on the third day I had a profound spiritual experience. I still can't articulate what happened, but I can tell you that I went from feeling terror to a state of pure bliss. Here I was lying in a hospital bed being tested, poked, and prodded, yet feeling completely content and peaceful to be there.

Since then, I've had many more opportunities to face fear. A couple of weeks ago I overcame my fear of public speaking. I had lugged this one around since I was 13.

 This morning I decided I'm ready to work on my fear of road trips. Having FMS, I get uncomfortable being in a car for periods of time. And because stress can make me sick for weeks, I have avoided traveling. Now I'm ready to face it. I'm making some plans...

I also discovered I had fear concerning love. My daughter's death rocked my trust in love for a long time in deep, unexplainable ways. Because my heart became so fragile, I wanted to protect it. But to protect it meant to be guarded. It was hard to see myself as guarded because grief had also softened my heart and had given me more compassion. I've been working on this. I can feel a big shift...changes...not feeling so afraid anymore.

This has been the most amazing, transforming, challenging, awesome year. But my work isn't done. I have more hurdles to jump, but fear no longer has me in it's clenches. I am freer than I ever have been. It's made a huge difference in how I interact in the world. 

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