That Very Small Place

Are you stuck?

Do you ever feel sick, angry, depressed, frustrated, rejected, anxious, in debt, fill-in-the-blank, TIRED of whatever it is that keeps raising its annoying head and stopping you in your tracks and making you feel like some nebulous “something” is just WRONG in your life???

If you feel stuck (or any of the above-listed things), I have a thought for you. AND for me:

You may be feeling that way because you are NOT WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE in some area of your life.

You’re keeping yourself in a space where you don’t belong. Maybe even a literal place.

You’ve gotten yourself wedged in a tight spot NOT MEANT FOR YOU and those spots hurt for a reason:

TO COMPEL YOU — through PAIN — to get you to MOVE from where you ARE to where you actually BELONG!!!

I don’t know the medical terminology for the phenomenon of funny bones (laughing & crying at the same time for the intensity of pain triggered when certain nerves are struck) or knee-jerk reactions, but those are protective measures Nature has in place that, ultimately protects us from experiencing worse pain…for instance, knee-jerk nerves kick in (literally) to keep us UPright when our body perceives that a fall is imminent. The jerk is our nervous systems emergency response to the sensation of falling and it violently yanks us in an opposite direction so as to defy gravity & force us to stand instead of fall.

Unfortunately, it often backfires and the energetic output makes us fall even harder.

Sometimes.

If you are in this stuck place — possibly even chronically, there is someone here for you that is going to completely and violently and gloriously CHANGE. YOUR. LIFE. !!!

Like the knee-jerk reaction our nervous system enacts when a certain nerve is triggered in our bodies, there is a resounding “snap!” of energy meant to catapult us into a state of “staying upright” when a crisis happens (be it an actual — like a car accident, or emotional — like anxiety, or spiritual — like depression, or physical — like chronic illness crisis) and our entire being reacts in some negative fashion that, instead, brings us toppling down some proverbial (or real) flight of stairs to land in a heap at the bottom saying, literally, “What the HELL??? AGAIN???!!!”

You are experiencing “pain” because your very BODY is reacting violently to SAVE YOU from STAYING where you DON’T FIT.

You may have fit there once, but now it’s time to move on; to get back into an upright position; to extricate yourself from the small tunnel you are IN and move into the expansive spaces of BEING where you actually BElong.

You do not belong “there.” That’s why it hurts to stay. Stuck.

The Universe conspires NOT “against” you…rather, it conspires FOR you to get out and get out NOW. To save your very life.

So what do we DO in our Stuckness? We feed. And get Stucker. And tell ourselves it’s “God’s Will” or “Our thorn in the flesh” or “Karma” or whatever…so that we can smile doggedly (and sometimes pridefully — been there, laid on that beach, got the t-shirt & tan lines to prove it) and bear up under our personal trial HOPING that, in the end, we will be purified somehow if we just stay there and…well…muddle on. Like Pooh. Eating honey. Stuck. And getting stucker.

We hire therapists. Or join “like-minded” groups. Or sign up for Bible studies. Or call friends & family who “support” us.

It feels good to be amongst people who care. Right???

But being around “people who care” may feel great for awhile, but if we don’t DO something to get ourselves out of the Very Small Place we are not meant for, we begin to get more and more anxious about even our “support” systems because our very CELLS cry out — I mean, literally at a cellular level our bodies REACT! — to “escape before it’s too late!!!”

There are signs and wonders and symptoms and various levels of emergency alerts.

Everyone’s emergency alert is slightly different and individual because these alerts are uniquely suited to get YOU and your unique I AM to take notice and, literally, MOVE. Move to a bigger space where you DO belong; where you can FUNCTION FREELY to not only live in a fully healed space, but to also be a catalyst to HEAL YOUR WORLD in a way that you — and only you — were perfectly equipped to do.

Friends and support are good. But don’t expect that to get you unstuck. You and ONLY you can make that choice.

When you get uncomfortable enough. When you’ve HAD enough. Or you die.

All the well-meaning professionals, advisors, lovers and friends can rally to our side to “help,” but in the end, salvation (or not) is our own choice.

And it is based upon one thing: realizing that we are in a space that is too small for us. Then doing whatever it takes (come hell or high water — and they WILL come…don’t burn or drown there when you are meant to be mobile and FREE!!!) to back up, track UP, and move into the amazingly spacious places meant for you.

 HOW DO WE DO THAT???

How do YOU do that???

How do you get UNstuck and into FREEDOM and PRODUCTIVITY???

You say “Yes.” I’m not kidding. It’s happening to me right this second and it’s miraculous, this little 3-letter word.

Some people like bullet points, direction, and Steps. So. Here ya go:

1.You stop trying to find your answer where you are. Just look at yourself honestly and realize you’re stuck.

2.You ponder where it is that you’ve always dreamed you COULD be; SHOULD be. Your “calling,” your “hopes and dreams,” that thing that makes you wince and cry every time you hear that quote that goes something like “the worst thing that can happen to you isn’t dying. The worst thing that can happen to you is dying with all of your songs (or visions, or talents, or dreams) still trapped inside of you.”

3.You let go of every excuse you’ve ever had about “Why I can’t do that” whether it be affordability, training, location, connections, confidence, education, associations (be they friend, family, foe, or both)…you name it. You’ve got excuses. I know. I’ve got THAT t-shirt, too. And it was hella expensive, let me tell you!

4.Then you look squarely in the eyes of your dreams and you say one word. One simple and amazingly innocuous-seeming word: YES. Just yes. Say it like this: “YES!!!!!!”

You’ve been waiting a long, long time to hear yourself say that. Your dreams have been waiting even longer to hear it.

And the whole freaking Universe is listening — poised and waiting — and catapulted into ACTION for the first time because you said it.

5. Now you REST. You’re done. DONE. No kidding.

Please hear me. This is life altering and your world will begin to change in that same moment you do this.

Even the way complete strangers look at you will change. Because saying Yes! to your calling brings your Destiny into alignment with where you ARE and everything changes.

And here’s the ultimate kicker:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE ANYTHING HAPPEN.

All you have to do is accept your assignment (the one that you’ve known for DECADES is “yours” but you’ve not been able to figure out how to make it happen).

YOU don’t make it happen. You just accept that it’s YOURS by saying Yes! to it.

The Universe is set into motion immediately because Creator has fashioned everything in creation to conspire together to help us expand and HEAL OUR WORLD.

I’m done for now. Something incredible is happening. And it’s not just to me.

I let go of “HOW???”, said my “Yes!!!”, then rested in knowing my “striving & worrying & longing & hoping” — that “work” was complete…and all heaven is breaking loose in my life.

This is that thing you read about in memes that says “your true work should have you getting up in the morning EXCITED to get back at it every day!” Not that it isn’t WORK…but the “work” that we are created for will energize us, not deplete us, IF it is within the sphere of our true calling.

Do the world a favor: Just say Yes! Today.

Church Lady Choco Delight

During a leisurely moment yesterday I had a brief blast from the nomadic past.

The Past: back when I was like-minded, Patriocentric, submitted, Quiverfull and perfect.

I WAS.  Really.

For this memory my family was in a crowded church basement enjoying an “afterglow pot blessing” luncheon after church one Sunday.  I was threading through the 57 feasters, heading back to my seat with yet another helping of tator tot casserole – for the kids, you know.  My hyper-organic body was reeling under the influence of three…count ‘em, THREE…different tator tot casserole offerings when –

Oh, wait.  Geez, my taste buds are exploding at the memory so just allow me to pause within the dream of a dream to recall that my second helping was even better than my first because, unlike the first tator tot casserole (which was made with Velveeta and not much else), TTC Number Two contained cream of mushroom soup, dehydrated onions and sour cream – a nice touch, considering.  Considering what?  Considering the fresh, heirloom, raw and organic backyard produce I regularly consumed, I suppose!  And the third tator tot casserole?  The THIRD tator tot casserole was topped with freshly crumbled bacon, diced parsley and French fried onions.  Oh, come to MOMMA and be still my little cheese and dairy hormone-starved heart!  But I digress –

I was planning my return assault upon the table of blessing with visions of chocolate-layered pudding dessert on butter crust (I think its proper name is “Mandatory Potluck Church Lady Chocolate Delight) alongside strawberry pretzel salad topped with Cool Whip when, “Splash!  Wham!  Bam!” my like-minded, almost-8-children-endowed friend’s hubby dropped his industrial-sized iced tea onto the cement floor behind my metal chair.  Bless his li’l temporarily-without-a-wife (she was home getting ready for the birth of Baby Smith Numero Ocho) tea-splattered suit pants, but he froze in his tracks confusedly staring straight ahead, tea dripping from every surface within a five-mile radius.  He just stood there!  Did I mention dripping?  Like a July Bomb Pop…in Phoenix.  Arizona.

I knew just what to do with that hapless, helpless Patrio Pater:  I grabbed forty-seven napkins from the near vicinity, got on my hands and knees, and — starting with his shoes — wiped that man off!  Yes, I did.  And he THANKED me!  He took it as a matter of course that some properly-submissive woman was going to pick up his now-empty bucket of a cup, mop off his shoes (maybe I should have licked them, but hey…I screwed up. It happens.  Hindsight), his pant legs, and swipe at his dripping hands.  By the time he sat back down I had retrieved a new flagon of fresh iced tea for him, “Two sugars, please” and placed it next to his plate just the way I knew his wife would have done.  When I returned to my own kids and casserole(s) and hubby, said hubby:

“You’re a good wife.”

Fade lights.  Curtain falls.  Let the ovations begin.

True story.  Well.  MOSTLY true.  (I may have exaggerated on the number of helpings.)

It’s good to be free.

I think I might Google “tator tot casserole with bacon and French fried onions” just to see if it’s there.  Then I might look up the recipe for Church Lady Chocolate Delight.  You know…just to see…if it’s there.

True character is exposed in simple interactions.

 

Today i received my second pithy indictment of human nature in as many days.  I wonder how often my true character — in seemingly innocuous interactions — is exposed to others who are observant and cognizant of the other humans around them?  It is a bit disconcerting to think about.  I tend to be annoyingly observant of sight, smell and sound and wish I could turn it off sometimes.  But I can’t.  And now you get to read about it.   Count it all joy.   🙂

Here’s the scoop:

Yesterday while waiting at a traffic light, a young man with a leashed dog was crossing the street in front of us.  The young man was dressed in the modern style of “pants on the ground” but seemed clean and handsome and his beard well-maintained.

I’m a mom.  I notice these things.

My only other thoughts were of how sweet it would be to see my own son right now and treat him for lunch.  Then the boy-man and his beautiful dog paused on the other side of the intersection before crossing the perpendicular street.  Some slight movement on the part of the young man caused the dog to flinch violently then literally hit the ground in a full-out cower before looking up to ascertain that blows were not about to rain down upon her head.

He never even glanced at her.  He proceeded to cross the perpendicular street and she got up quickly, wagging her tail, eyes glued upon his face.  She was clearly a breed-bitch and, just as clearly (to me, anyway), regularly abused.  By him.

I’ve known parents whose children reacted similarly.  Abusive parenting, exposed.  Without one spoken word.

My daughter beside me exclaimed “Whoa.  Mom!  Did you SEE that?  He beats that dog!”  And suddenly I saw a scruffy, abusive, common hoodlum; the type of guy who transforms a beautiful breed — like Pitbull, for example — into a “known” societal menace who is eternally snarling and searching for the next neck to latch onto.  A small entity who survives on a little food (hopefully), water and the hoped-for approval of his perceived master.  Can you see where this is going?

Dog owners determine their dogs’ view of the world surrounding them.  This dog looked to that boy as his god and master no matter how he treated his dog.  That boy consistently trained this dog in that belief.

Dogma.

I’m not being funny.  Not on purpose.  Not today.

Seriously.  What is the difference between this and some people’s practice of religion?

For decades I lived to please my dad, knowing that my pleasing him somehow would make me right with God.  It seemed to work, for the most part.  Oh, there were countless times when I failed — then cowered, froze and stared at his face waiting for some signal that scripturally-based “blows” were not forthcoming — but the whole paradigm of pleasing a god was being neatly walked out.  On a leash.  Attached to a collar. If you will.  Because when I became a teenager I had absorbed the “truth” that now I was to transfer that loyalty to whatever religious leaders we, as a family, were “submitting” to.  Then, as I began to date I already knew the drill:  “Good Christian girls become excellent Godly wives who submit to a like-minded man who will gently rule her in the ways of Godly Manhood & be her Covering until death (Human Christian Husbandry 101).”

Not all religious people believe this way.  This is only my perception of my own story.  But it is mine, and so it is real.

I learned — or chose — very early to look at people outside my belief system and outside my church or denomination as suspicious…to be avoided…on the wrong track…to be corrected, converted, judged and/or rejected.  Suspect.  If I had any doubt, I quickly referenced my authority figures for corrective measure to my possibly-flawed thinking:  parents, pastors or husband.  Usually in that order.  As a woman, I trained myself in this method.  Sometimes blows in the form of rebuke, “correction,” scriptures, counsel or dogma rained down upon my cowering head.  Other times just a firm but gentle reminder of what God’s Word says was enough to get my theology leash back online and my Dogma collar back in place.

If any friend noticed the strangeness of this lifestyle, I told them that it was MY choice and that I joyfully accepted my life as God’s Will and He was blessing me abundantly for it.

Enter children.  And knee-jerk parenting.  I couldn’t do it to them.  I tried and succeeded, to some degree, in recreating a similar dogma in my own children but found myself often saying things like “Never take ANYone’s word for ANYthing, not even mine.  Prove everything for yourself.  Believe nothing unless you have made it your own through research and conviction.  Your own.  Not someone else’s.”  As I schooled them in this, I had to realize the hypocrisy of my own lifestyle of believing others…those to whom I was “submitted.”  And I realized, once again, that I was cowering.

Only this time I was cowering from my own judgement blows.  Why was I teaching individualized thinking to my kids, but didn’t practice it myself?  I was a hypocrite.  Children don’t become what we SAY, they tend more to emulate who we ARE.  I was a religious freak zealous only to please my perceived God through pleasing the men to whom I submitted — parent, pastor, husband.  My children were hearing my words but learning my lifestyle.  And I witnessed family after family of “like-minded” folk living the same way raising children who winced and cowered at odd moments to imperceptible signals from their parents that they had somehow done something wrong.

I couldn’t do this any more.  I chose to stop living what others said, no matter what scriptures they might quote to attach to their attempts to control those around them.  I chose instead to closely observe some things in my life.  Things like peace and joy and happiness became more important to me than submission to man or book or god.  I began to measure my own success by the peace and joy displayed in the daily lives of my children.  I started to see the true fruit of loving myself FIRST (the way the Bible says, by the way) and only then attempting to love others in healthy — not expectational or religiously-required — ways.  It meant learning how to define and SAY the word “No.”  A lot.  I became happier and more at peace.  My children became happier and more at peace.

My parents, pastors and husband became confused and conflicted and — at varying levels — tried to tweak me back to the way I had been before.  Submitted.  But it was too late.  The leash was broken, the collar was off, and the itch was satiated for the first time.

I had tasted of the true Liberty that sets one free:  Truth. That mysterious “I Am” inside every one of us.  I Am full of life and light.  I Am a part of a vast tapestry of souls and my value as such is immeasurable.  I Am equipped with gifts and knowledge and skills and desires and abilities that contribute light and life and healing to my world; my corner of this tapestry.  Knowing and living this truth makes people free and I wasn’t about to assume the cowering position ever again.  My own and my children’s futures depended upon my upright posture.

It was not easy or simple.  It was messy and ugly and sometimes loud, this process of getting up off the ground.  I barked and I snarled and I sometimes had to bite back…only this time it wasn’t against so-called Unbelievers; it was against my handlers.  The ones who truly loved me stayed and chose to honor my new boundaries.  The ones who only wished to control me are gone.  For good.

It may be too late to erase some of the damage dogmatic lifestyle has done to my children.   But they have their own lives to live; their own choices to make; their own fights to fight and leashes to escape.  Just.  Like.  Me.

But, for better or for worse, I have shown them what it looks like to break the cycle and make their own choices of faith.   And I applaud their discoveries and rejoice in their explorations of this wonderful life we live.  A life of faith, yes, and belief in a loving Creator who seems to pour out tangible blessing daily upon us.  But don’t try to pigeonhole or define or denominationalize me because I’m still in process and likely always will be.   And that’s good.  So very good.

Dogma broke me, and then I broke the leash.  Took a while for me to figure out the latches on the collar, but I think I’m conquering those as well.

The only thing I try to be dogmatic about now is love and light and life.  I used to preach at my little ones (mostly tongue-in-cheek) that “It remains to be seen whether your time on this earth will be a blessing to the Universe…or not.” and I have seen their sweet lights spreading out into their little corners of the world bringing healing and joy to others.  I hope they don’t have dogmatic religious views or a solid set of judgement tools toward others except to serve and love as needed…judgement excepted.  I hope.  It isn’t what I lived 10 years ago with them, but it is what I strive for now.

And they never, ever cower and stare at my face waiting for the next corrective blow.  Ever.  Sometimes I miss the seeming-ease of those days of unquestioning submission, but NO.  I love having them choose to walk by my side without the leash to control them.  And, God forbid, I should ever raise a hand in correction I hope they growl and snarl and bare their teeth to remind me of how I’ve taught them more recently:  No leashes.  No control.  Only good fellowship and honoring one another and companionship, acceptance and love.

Companionship.  I like that.  And God (and dog) said “It is good.”

~CaveMomRising