Friday, March 26, 2010

Listening in the Chaos of the Storm


Changing old patterns of behavior can be tough. It can be hard, difficult, feel unamanagable and in general this process can simply...suck.

It's that place where we stand in that fork in the road and feel totally naked, stripped of all common sense, shaking and shivering in the elements very similar to standing at the top of that mountain in a snowstorm.

We are afraid. Our teeth may be chattering, our limbs feel weak as we try to see through the blizzard, that place of chaos in our minds.

And we are not sure what to do about this mess that is our lives.

Well meaning folk-friends, doctors, therapists and so on, are telling us what to do and how to "fix" it. Suggestions are coming freely but solutions are beyond our reach.

And at some point as we stand in the storm, we choose. We choose to take our own action, find our own solutions, and find our peace at whatever the price may be.

And we step off the edge of the mountain, we lean forward into the winds of change....and we trust.

We begin to calm the noise all around us as we focus not so much on the pain of the past anymore but on the vision and hope of the future that lies at our feet waiting to be had.

And we listen.

We calm the storm within ourselves, we step away quietly from the chaos that has become our lives...and we listen, really listen to our "self".

We stand at that mountain top and calm the noise in our heads, the pain in our hearts, the raveged soul waiting to be set free.

And we listen. And in the calm we will find that which is holding us back, preventing our freedom.

And we let go.

And begin to trust the process of healing; to begin to grieve that which was....and that which will never be.

Sometimes in the beginning, the quiet is short lived and the noise and busyness of avoiding this grief takes over once again.

But in time, with practice, we find that when we are able to follow the grief into the wind that this is where we find freedom.

Because we listen. And we trust. Ourselves, the process.

And we begin to soar.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Susan, I love the way you write. There are a lot of blogs out there but few written by people with your flair for words.

I love this piece on trusting one's self. That was so hard for me. I'd been told all of my life how untrustworthy I was. I was too small, too sick, too weak, too emotional, I just couldn't be trusted. However, when I stopped listening to those desrtuctive voices and began to trust God and me only, my began to change. I became an adult, finally, and I needed no one to give me the answers, they were in me all along. I can trust me and doing so has changed my life.

Pam

Unknown said...

Hi Pam! This was one of those skills that came with connecting with myself. Like you I'd had plenty of folks telling me but not many supporting me. Learning to trust myself is how I learned to fly...and write:)

Thank you; your note warms me from the inside out:)